Papers by Marianne Wifstrand Schiebe
Hellenika Tidskrift för Svenska Atheninstitutets Vänner, 2024
This article (in Swedish) deals with the huge Epicurean inscription at Oioanda in Lycia, describi... more This article (in Swedish) deals with the huge Epicurean inscription at Oioanda in Lycia, describing its finding history, its present state and its contents.
Why we Sing. Music, Word and Liturgy in Early Christianity. Essays in Honour of Anders Ekenberg's 75th Birthday. Ed. by Carl Johan Berglund, Barbara Crostini & James A. Kelhoffer. Brill's (Vigiliae Christianae Supplements), 2023
This contribution examines certain key passages in Lactantius’s Divinae institutiones book 1 and ... more This contribution examines certain key passages in Lactantius’s Divinae institutiones book 1 and book 6 that have often been adduced to show that Lactantius paved the way for the formal Latin Christian poetry emerging in the 4th c., taking a more positive view to pagan poetry and to poetry in general than Christian authors before him. A close examination of the passages from the 6th book in context rather points to the opposite. Moreover, the idea of ’the poet’s duty’ (officium poetae) to enhance and embellish his subject matter with figurative language presented in inst. 1.11.24 turns out to be an apologetic device introduced by Lactantius at that point to lend support to his radical claim about method and sense of the pagan mythological narrative. Christian authors before L. had claimed that pagan mythology indicates that the pagan gods had once been men. Lactantius for his part goes much further. He invents the notion of the officium poetae as a means for arguing that the mythological narrative actually proves they were men. Thus the notion does not apply to the songs in praise of God enjoined on Christians in inst. 6.21.9 and 6.25.7.
Unpublished, 2009
In this paper, I present a theory on how ancient philosophers may have imagined that the false id... more In this paper, I present a theory on how ancient philosophers may have imagined that the false idea of anthropomophic gods had arisen. For a more detailed argument see my monograph Das anthropomorphe Gottesbild. Berechtigung und Ursprung des anthropomorphen Gottesbildes, Steiner 2020, ch. 3.1.
Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 137, 1994
In div. inst. 1,13,8, Varro is said by Lactantius to have been one of many authors who have claim... more In div. inst. 1,13,8, Varro is said by Lactantius to have been one of many authors who have claimed that Saturn had once been a human being and a king of Latium. Agahd argued in 1898 that this cannot be right since it is safely attested through Augustine’s Civitas dei that Varro included Saturn among the primary gods as the seminal force of the cosmos. As I show in the article, there is much more information about Varro’s view of Saturn to find in the Civitas dei, especially from Augustine’s personal comments on the passages he quotes from Varro. Lactantius for his part took the list of authors in 1,13,8 from his predecessors Tertullianus and Minucius but added Varro himself without support in any Varronian text but taking for granted that the story of Saturn king in Latium after having escaped Jupiter—in reality an invention by Vergil—was an old and well attested tradition.
Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1999
The article deals with a Greek oracle mentioned in Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1,21,7 and q... more The article deals with a Greek oracle mentioned in Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1,21,7 and quoted more fully by Macrobius, Saturnalia 1,7,29. Lactantius links the oracle to the Argei ritus, the custom of throwing straw dolls into the Tiber, whereas in Macrobius, it is used as an aition to the Saturnalia and certain rites connected with that festival. Both authors refer to Varro for their respective version. It is demonstrated that Lactantius must be wrong, and a tentative answer to the question how he came to associate the oracle with the Argei is given. In addition, some light is shed on ancient authors’ guesswork as regards the origins of that ritus which already to them was as enigmatic as to modern scholars.
Mnemosyne , 2021
Abstract: A number of ancient texts ascribe to the well-kown sophist Prodicus a theory concernin... more Abstract: A number of ancient texts ascribe to the well-kown sophist Prodicus a theory concerning the rise of religion according to which early men came to regard and worship as gods all kinds of things useful to life. Modern scholars often claim that Prodicus also envisaged a second stage during which inventors of useful things came to be considered divine. The evidence adduced is a passage from Philodemus’ On Piety, which is then, more or less explicitly, considered superior to the other testimonies. The Stoic philosopher Persaeus is here reported to have briefly sketched and endorsed Prodicus’ theory in one of his works. However, a thorough syntactical analysis of the passage reveals that it confirms the rest of the evidence. The second stage obviously alluded to in the damaged text of the papyrus is without doubt ascribed to Persaeus himself.
Key words: Prodicus, origin of religion, Philodemus, Persaeus.
Read Publication https://link.growkudos.com/1pdsm429k3k The Presocratic thinker Prodicus (5th c. BC) explains how men came to believe in gods What is it about? Prodicus claimed that primitive men venerated as gods things they found useful to life (such as the sun, the rivers and springs). It is a controversial issue whether he also claimed a second stage, during which inventors of other useful things (like bread and wine etc.) came to be regarded as gods. This paper approaches the problem by carefully analysing the syntax of the text normally adduced as support for the second stage. The papershows that Prodicus's theory did not comprise such a second stage.
Vergilius 32, 1986
In this 1986 article, the various ways in which Saturn is presented in Vergil’s work were highlig... more In this 1986 article, the various ways in which Saturn is presented in Vergil’s work were highlighted. On the basis of a thorough examination of a number of so far unobserved features I argued in opposition to general opinion that Vergil’s final version, in Aeneid 8, is an innovation of his own. Saturn’s role in earlier tradition and in Vergil’s own poetry are at the center of the discussion, including, inter alia, his role and his chronology as a king of the Golden Age or as a king of Italy, his relation to Janus, the history and significance of the name Saturnia for Italy or for a citadel or town at the site of Rome.
For a much more extensive investigation of the subject, I refer to my monograph Vergil und die Tradition von den römischen Urkönigen (Stuttgart, Steiner 1997). There, I also dealt at greater length with the reception of the Aeneid’s Saturn. The discussion includes the problems following the historization of Saturn, e.g. how to turn a god into an historical king, how to solve the fact that Saturn and Janus are virtually doubles as culture heroes, and how the genealogy of Latinus in Aen. 7,47‒49 relates to an earlier version.
(Uploaded from Jstor, with the permission of the editor of Vergilius)
Sinn und Wahrheitsgehalt der Kultbilder aus der Sicht der antiken Philosophie. Zur antiken Debatte an Hand des Beispiels Marcus Terentius Varro
Συγχάρματα. Studies in Honour of Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, 2006
In the last book of his Divine Antiquities, Marcus Terentius Varro claimed that the images of the... more In the last book of his Divine Antiquities, Marcus Terentius Varro claimed that the images of the gods had once been introduced in order to lead on to true knowledge of the divine. Earlier in that very same work, he had taken a negative stance to such representation of the gods. As far as we can tell, Varro was the first to accept the anthropomorphic representation of the gods as (an indirect but) true method of conveying theological insight. This is strikingly late in view of the fact that the mythological narrative dealing with the anthropomorphic gods had been accepted by philosophers as cryptophilosophical discourse centuries earlier.
This article provides a close reading of Varro’s positions, clarifying the ideological presuppositions of both attitudes. Behind the change there must lie a new understanding of how and why the gods once came to be represented in human shape.
The article explores ancient thinkers's views on how the anthropomorphic image of the divine, a c... more The article explores ancient thinkers's views on how the anthropomorphic image of the divine, a concept most of them held to be wrong, could have arisen. These views are to be strictly distinguished from attitudes to the myths about the anthropomorphic gods. The article presents a number of models that can be reconstructed from our texts. Of these, the dominant one claims that the idea of gods in human shape was a deplorable result of linguistic misunderstanding, an original metaphorical discourse about the divine having been wrongly taken in a literal sense. Other models present the anthropomorphic image of the divine as having been invented intentionally, either by shrewd politicians as a means to control the uneducated many, or by wise men who sought for a convenient method to symbolically refer to the unrepresentable, unspeakable Supreme Being. This latter theory, with its acceptance of the anthropomorphic representation of the gods (although of course not literally), is attested only very late, and there are good reasons for believing that this is not mere chance.
Finally, the article touches upon the logically most attractive model, the theory put forth by Euhemerus, according to which the gods are presented in human form simply because they had once been human beings. The scholarly debate on Euhemerism is in need of thorough revision.
In course of his career, Annius came to claim an ever older founding history of his home town Vit... more In course of his career, Annius came to claim an ever older founding history of his home town Viterbo. For that reason, his earliest writings on the topic became uncomfortable to him, and he thus chose, not to mention them in his Antiquitates, the great collection of partly forged classical texts, printed in 1498.
At the end of Aeneid 2, Creusa appears to Aeneas in the midst of burning Troy, predicting his wan... more At the end of Aeneid 2, Creusa appears to Aeneas in the midst of burning Troy, predicting his wanderings and his final destination. However, in book 3, no account is taken of this information. From Servius on, scholars have wondered about Aeneas's forgetfulness. Yet the real problem has been overlooked: because Aeneid 2--3 is an embedded first person narrative the discrepancy is carried over to the intradiegetic level, resulting in an impossible conflict with normal rules of disourse.
Scholars tend to situate Euhemerus' Sacred History in the context of ruler cult. Thus, many schol... more Scholars tend to situate Euhemerus' Sacred History in the context of ruler cult. Thus, many scholars think the SH was written to somehow provide arguments or support for the cult of living rulers, although it is seldom exactly argued how this is supposed to have worked. The article argues that the aim of the SH was to explain why traditional religion presented the gods in anthropomorphic shape.
Aevum, 1993
In course of his career, Annius came to claim an ever older founding history of his home town Vit... more In course of his career, Annius came to claim an ever older founding history of his home town Viterbo. For that reason, his earliest writings on the topic became uncomfortable to him, and he thus chose, not to mention them in his Antiquitates, the great collection of partly forged classical texts, printed in 1498.
SIND DIE EPIKUREISCHEN GÖTTER 'THOUGHT-CONSTRUCTS?
Mnemosyne, 2003
An Undiscovered Error in Varro, Res Rust. I 2, 2
Mnemosyne, 1986
Vergil und die Tradition von den Romischen Urkonigen
The Journal of Roman Studies, 1998
In der recht lebhaften wissenschaftlichen Debatte zu Umfang und Charakter stoischer Allegorese, d... more In der recht lebhaften wissenschaftlichen Debatte zu Umfang und Charakter stoischer Allegorese, die sich im Anschluß an Beiträge von u. a. Steinmetz, Most und Long in den letzten Jahrzehnten entfaltet hat, kommt gelegentlich ein gewisses Gemälde zur Sprache, welches Chrysippos im Sinne der stoischen Physik ausgelegt haben soll. Es handelt sich um eine Darstellung von Zeus und Hera in obszöner Pose (Hera treibt mit Zeus Oralsex); Chrysippos soll das Motiv im Sinne der Interaktion der beiden stoischen kosmogonischen Prinzipien Zeus/Gott und Hera/ Materie gedeutet haben. Long, der mit seinem Artikel Stoic Readings of Homer (zuerst 1992) der Debatte eine entscheidende Wendung gab, indem er jede allegorische Textdeutung von Seiten der Stoiker bestreiten wollte, hat den Fall dort kurz erwähnt; es scheint dabei, als wollte er den Umstand, daß wir es hier nicht mit Textdeutung zu tun haben, als Stütze für seinen eigenen Standpunkt nehmen.1 ) Sonst wird der Fall jedoch entweder als selbstverständliches Beispiel stoischer allegorischer Auslegung betrachtet,2 ) oder es wird ausdrücklich gegen Long für diese Entscheidung argumentiert.3 ) Es besteht sichtbar eine Gefahr, daß aus diesem Fall unversehens und ohne eingehendere Diskussion ein Musterbeispiel stoischer Allegorese konstruiert wird.4 ) Ein Leser der wissenschaftlichen Literatur, der nicht selbst die Evidenz überprüft, * ) Dieser Artikel ist Teil meines vom Schwedischen Forschungsrat (Vetenskapsrådet) fijinanzierten Forschungsprojekts Die Frage nach Berechtigung und Ursprung der anthropomorphen Gottesvorstellung im antiken Denken.-Dem anonymen Referenten von Mnemosyne danke ich für wertvolle Anregungen. 1 ) Long 1992, 58 = 2001, 75 f. Allerdings könnte eine ausweichende parenthetische Bemerkung, mit der er die Interpretation des Chrysippos kommentiert, darauf deuten, daß ihm die Sache doch problematisch erscheint: "(Do we know he was utterly serious in doing so?)", ibid. Offfensichtlich hat ihm nicht vorgeschwebt, daß der Fall sich durchaus im Einklang mit seiner eigenen These deuten läßt. S. dazu unten a. E. 2 ) Meijer 2008, 104; desgleichen Struck (2004, 280), der hier insofern ein Stück weiter geht, als er auch noch die Frage stellt, ob die Deutung des Chrysippos der Intention des Künstlers gerecht werde, mit anderen Worten, ob das Gemälde schon als Allegorie geschafffen worden sei (ibid.). 3 ) Bes. Goulet 2005, 114 f. 4 ) Vgl. Meijer, bei dem unser Fall als "an example of his (d. h. des Chrysippos) allegorical interpretations of degrading scenes who depict the gods in shocking circumstances" beschrieben wird (2008, 104).
Books by Marianne Wifstrand Schiebe
B. R. Suchla (ed.), Von Homer bis Landino. Beiträge zur Antike und Spätantike sowie zu deren Rezeptions- und Wirkungsgeschichte. Festgabe für Antonie Wlosok zum 80. Geburtstag, 2011
A small treatise on Vergil´s Eclogues by a 12th c. Augustinian prior, Hughes of Fouilloy (Hugo d... more A small treatise on Vergil´s Eclogues by a 12th c. Augustinian prior, Hughes of Fouilloy (Hugo de Folieto), better known for his once widespread Aviarium, a moral and spiritual interpretation of birds, turns out to give sensational new knowledge concerning the Christian reception and adaptation of Vergil. Hughes claims that passages from the Eclogues other than the Fourth, especially from the First Eclogue, but also from the Ninth, the Seventh and the Third, testify to Vergil's profound prophetic knowledge of the Christian god, of Christ's coming, his passion and eventual return. He supports his message by an extensive and idiosyncratic use of certain parts of Lactantius' Divinae institutiones.
Dais Philesistephanos: Studies in Honour of Professor Staffan Fogelmark, Presented on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, 12 April 2004
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Papers by Marianne Wifstrand Schiebe
Key words: Prodicus, origin of religion, Philodemus, Persaeus.
Read Publication https://link.growkudos.com/1pdsm429k3k The Presocratic thinker Prodicus (5th c. BC) explains how men came to believe in gods What is it about? Prodicus claimed that primitive men venerated as gods things they found useful to life (such as the sun, the rivers and springs). It is a controversial issue whether he also claimed a second stage, during which inventors of other useful things (like bread and wine etc.) came to be regarded as gods. This paper approaches the problem by carefully analysing the syntax of the text normally adduced as support for the second stage. The papershows that Prodicus's theory did not comprise such a second stage.
For a much more extensive investigation of the subject, I refer to my monograph Vergil und die Tradition von den römischen Urkönigen (Stuttgart, Steiner 1997). There, I also dealt at greater length with the reception of the Aeneid’s Saturn. The discussion includes the problems following the historization of Saturn, e.g. how to turn a god into an historical king, how to solve the fact that Saturn and Janus are virtually doubles as culture heroes, and how the genealogy of Latinus in Aen. 7,47‒49 relates to an earlier version.
(Uploaded from Jstor, with the permission of the editor of Vergilius)
This article provides a close reading of Varro’s positions, clarifying the ideological presuppositions of both attitudes. Behind the change there must lie a new understanding of how and why the gods once came to be represented in human shape.
Finally, the article touches upon the logically most attractive model, the theory put forth by Euhemerus, according to which the gods are presented in human form simply because they had once been human beings. The scholarly debate on Euhemerism is in need of thorough revision.
Books by Marianne Wifstrand Schiebe
Key words: Prodicus, origin of religion, Philodemus, Persaeus.
Read Publication https://link.growkudos.com/1pdsm429k3k The Presocratic thinker Prodicus (5th c. BC) explains how men came to believe in gods What is it about? Prodicus claimed that primitive men venerated as gods things they found useful to life (such as the sun, the rivers and springs). It is a controversial issue whether he also claimed a second stage, during which inventors of other useful things (like bread and wine etc.) came to be regarded as gods. This paper approaches the problem by carefully analysing the syntax of the text normally adduced as support for the second stage. The papershows that Prodicus's theory did not comprise such a second stage.
For a much more extensive investigation of the subject, I refer to my monograph Vergil und die Tradition von den römischen Urkönigen (Stuttgart, Steiner 1997). There, I also dealt at greater length with the reception of the Aeneid’s Saturn. The discussion includes the problems following the historization of Saturn, e.g. how to turn a god into an historical king, how to solve the fact that Saturn and Janus are virtually doubles as culture heroes, and how the genealogy of Latinus in Aen. 7,47‒49 relates to an earlier version.
(Uploaded from Jstor, with the permission of the editor of Vergilius)
This article provides a close reading of Varro’s positions, clarifying the ideological presuppositions of both attitudes. Behind the change there must lie a new understanding of how and why the gods once came to be represented in human shape.
Finally, the article touches upon the logically most attractive model, the theory put forth by Euhemerus, according to which the gods are presented in human form simply because they had once been human beings. The scholarly debate on Euhemerism is in need of thorough revision.