Publikationen

The manuscript tradition of pre-modern texts poses a specific problem for scholars in the field of Digital Humanities: before printing made the production of standardized editions of texts feasible, copying texts by hand (and often by different people) was inherently an error-prone process, which not only led to differences in wording but also in spelling—across multiple transmitted variants. This applies especially to ancient texts, where the temporal distances to the archetypes tend to be fairly large. In computerized research, especially in the case of text matching within the field of citation research and text mining, these differences in wording and spelling—however small they might be—may prevent a successful matching of texts. This case study presents a solution for the problem of textual differences arising from (non-)assimilated prefixes in Latin, a feature where modern editions mostly differ from author to author, but sometimes even between two editions of the same text. With regard to the letters of the church father Jerome as well as Virgil’s Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, two approaches are compared in terms of error rate and efficiency for a given set of prefixes: (1) performing and (2) reversing corpus-wide assimilation. Moreover, the broader implications of the (in-)accessibility of text-critical data in digital editions are discussed. Finally, general desiderata regarding text-critical data for computerized research on classical texts are elaborated.

Late Latin literature is characterized by numerous references to classical texts and authors. For Jerome of Stridon in particular, manual-hermeneutic research has revealed various intertextuality phenomena usually published in encyclopaedic collections of quotations. In this paper, we present a digital-hermeneutic analysis toolkit primarily designed to detect short text-text congruencies that have a high chance of being evaluated as an intentional quotation. We favour a mixed-methods approach, which is based on findings from manual-hermeneutic research. Our aim is to focus on Jerome's citation technique: Based on hermeneutic analysis of confirmed quotations, we formulate differentiated criteria that lead to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of quoting and thus also have the potential to optimize our toolkit.

Using the example of Epistula 3 Jerome’s citation technique is analyzed in detail. For this purpose, a comprehensive classification grid of intertextual references is introduced for the first time, which allows a systematization of the narrative examination of citations and allusions. Thus, not only differences in the use of Bible verses and quotations of classics can be highlighted transparently but also a (radical) syntactic, structural, and semantic incorporation of biblical and classic pre-texts by Jerome’s text can be substantiated. In stark contrast to former, rather negative verdicts on Jerome’s “cento style” and semantic incoherences in his writing, this approach is capable of showing a high functionality and authority in Jerome’s strategy of referencing, which shapes the narrative of the friendship letter not only aesthetically but also significantly helps to constitute its semantics.

Der Beitrag untersucht die metapoetischen (Selbst-)Reflexionen über christliche Autorschaft in den Rahmungspassagen von Hieronymus’ Epistula 1. Dabei zeigt sich, dass dieser Debuttext, in dem explizite Unvermögensbekundungen von der Brillanz der Textform konterkariert werden, eine literarische Visitenkarte des Hieronymus darstellt, der die Irrelevanz von Ästhetik bei christlichen Inhalten verneint. Insbesondere die Analyse der Klassikerzitationen verdeutlicht, dass Hieronymus zwar grundsätzlich christliches Schreiben über christliche Inhalte und Glaubensmotivation definiert, zugleich aber an den ästhetischen Normen der klassischen Antike festhält und sich so mittels rhetorischer elegantia einem literarisch gebildeten und anspruchsvollen Publikum empfiehlt. Hieronymus will sich in einer Zeit, die den durch Patronage und Remuneration geförderten professionellen Dichtertypus der klassischen Zeit eigentlich nicht mehr vorsieht, geradezu als ein christlicher Prosa-Vergil etablieren.

Epistula 46 is an invitation, written under the name of Paula and Eustochium, for Marcella to go to Bethlehem, by all means with the aim to stimulate positive interest in the Holy Land for a wider public and to inspire the urge to travel and sojourn. The narrative defines pilgrimage not only through biblical references but also familiarizes it through references to ancient pagan practices and pagan literature and makes it compatible with the lifestyle of Rome’s urban elites. While biblical references predominantly propagate Palestine’s spiritual appeal as a site of centuries-long salvation events, references to the classics – often combined with the expression or the stimulation of emotions – put the region’s social and intellectual appeal to the fore. The use of pagan literature, in which the traditions of educational travel of a cosmopolitan elite, the social utopia of aristocratic recessus, and not least the pleasure of otium aestheticised through literature are prefigurated, shapes Palestine in particular fashion as a place of longing. Especially the appeal of Bethlehem thus only forms through the combination of spiritual-intellectual visio and emotionally attractive social utopia, through conjunction of spelunca Christi and bucolic idyll.

dc.title:

dc.title:

“A letter of recommendation from Giovanni Battista de Rossi for Johann Peter Kirsch” – The present article offers the edition of a letter of recommendation penned by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in January 1890 in order to give support to one of his most promising international students at Rome, Johann Peter Kirsch, soon-to-be professor at the newly established University of Fribourg and future founding director of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology. Thus not only of interest on the occasion of de Rossi’s jubilee in 2022, the document in question is made accessible to a wider circle of scholars allowing to further contour the ramifications of a certain academic lineage which has proved influential well beyond the Commendatore’s death.

dc.title:

dc.title:

Self-sacrifice and the search for death as an example in antiquity and Christianity“ – Since Jesus’ questioning by Pilate the reactions of the pagans in view of the non-violent steadfastness of persecuted Christians were marketpd by incomprehension. While such behaviour seemed to the Roman authorities to be nothing more than obstinate, it is well known that Tertullian can speak of the seed of the martyrs’ blood burgeoning in the expanding church. But how, intellectually, was the ground prepared for this process, or which views stood in the way of its unfolding? Starting from remarks on the profane concept of μάρτυς/ μαρτύριον, the contribution traces the question under which premises the Christian willingness to suffer could be interpreted on the pagan side with particular emphasis on the accusation of suicide. Reciprocally to this it is discussed whether and, if so, in which way pagan ideas and figures offered points of contact for a specific Christian theology of martyrdom or could serve as a contrasting foil against the background of which corresponding ideas could be profiled in late antiquity. In this double perspective, so the basic assumption, one challenges not only the application of conventional derivation models to Christian martyrdom, thus keeping its proprium recognizable, but also better measures its radius of action in the midst of a non-Christian environment.

Unfriendly modes of communication are integral parts of theological controversy in the Early Church. As some of the most notorious examples in this regard, the works written by Jerome of Stridon offer plentiful features of polemic ranging from relatively subtle forms of unfriendliness to open invective. Particularly well suited for a comparative reading is a group of three letters from Jerome’s pen dating to a time when the Jovinian controversy had reached yet another climactic point. Closely related to one another, since both their recipients count among Jerome’s supporters in Rome, these letters (48, 49, and 50 Hilberg) serve as case studies of epistolary polemic in Late Antiquity inviting comparison with other patristic authors, as well.

dc.title: