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Longinus (First
Century A.D.)
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 Backgrounds
of Early Christianity
by Everett Ferguson
This revision of a popular textbook provides an
analytical and systematic introdution to the Roman, Greek, and Jewish
political, social, literary, and religious backgrounds necessary for a
historical understanding of the New Testament and the early church.
"This isn't the easiest reading book in the
world. But it is a wonderful bird's eye view of the cultural, political,
religious, and social world in which Christianity came into being. You
learn about the Romans, the Greeks, the Jewish people, and a myriad of
other peoples who populated the Roman empire. This book is essential
toward an understanding of the backgrounds of early Christianity."
-- Rev. Marc Axelrod
 Click
here for more Information on this Book
Click
here for more books by and about Longinus
Click
here for 20th Century Philosophy Books
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The text of Roberts' translation of On the Sublime
was scanned and edited by RSBoyes for Peitho's Web. It is intended for
personal and educational use, but no liability for errors etc. is
accepted.
Excerpt:
You will remember, my dear Postumius Terentianus, that
when we examined together the treatise of Caecilius on the Sublime, we
found that it fell below the dignity of the whole subject, while it
failed signally to grasp the essential points, and conveyed to its
readers but little of that practical help which it should be a writer's
principal aim to give. In every systematic treatise two things are
required. The first is a statement of the subject; the other, which
although second in order ranks higher in importance, is an indication of
the methods by which we may attain our end. Now Caecilius seeks to show
the nature of the sublime by countless instances as though our ignorance
demanded it, but the consideration of the means whereby we may succeed
in raising our own capacities to a certain pitch of elevation he has,
strangely enough, omitted as unnecessary...
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By Matthew Schneider
Excerpt:
Almost from its very beginnings mimetology has looked to
ancient Greece for its proof texts. For both René Girard's hypotheses
surrounding the ethical and ethnological implications of mimetic desire
and Eric Gans's identification of the part played by mimetic resentment
in cultural evolution, the texts of Homer and the tragedians have served
(in the words of Walter Burkert) as "a mirror in which the basic
orders of life, lying far behind us, become visible with an almost
classical clarity" (xxiii).
For Burkert, this mirror's clarity is the product of
ancient Greece's serendipitous "union of antiquity and
sophistication" (xxiii). While mimetic theory has dwelt on the
significances of Greek literary and religious traditions, the culture's
sophistication--especially in matters critical and philosophical-- have
received relatively scant notice. In light of the historical priority of
the aesthetic over the theoretical, such inattention is understandable.
This essay, however, will demonstrate how the writings of three of the
classical age's most influential commentators on literary
theory--Aristotle, Horace, and Longinus--manifest a debate on the proper
place of the sacred in the aesthetic scene of representation. The debate
begins with Aristotle's establishment, via critical fiat, of the
aesthetic scene's formal and ethical self-sufficiency. Rather than
following up the possibilities for artistic and anthropological
discovery enabled by this bold gesture, however, Horace and Longinus
display a curious reluctance to evacuate sacrality from aesthetic
representation, as if they sensed that to do so was, at the very least,
to run the risk of emptying the center of its attention-fixing
capabilities...
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From Encyclopedia
Britannica
Excerpt:
...also called
DIONYSIUS LONGINUS, OR PSEUDO-LONGINUS, name sometimes assigned to the
author of On
the Sublime (Greek Peri Hypsous), one of the great,
seminal works of literary
criticism. The earliest surviving manuscript, from the 10th century,
first printed in 1554, ascribes it to Dionysius Longinus. Later it was
noticed that the index to the manuscript read "Dionysius or
Longinus." The problem of authorship embroiled scholars for
centuries, attempts being made to identify him with Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, Cassius Longinus, Plutarch, and others. The solution has
been to name him Pseudo-Longinus...
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Excerpt:
Longinus (or Pseudo-Longinus since his actual identity
is unknown) is best known for his work on sublimity. "On the
Sublime" was written by Longinus around 200 AD. He argued that
"sublimity is always an eminence and excellence in language; and
that from this, and this alone, the greatest poets and writers of prose
have attained the first place and have clothed their fame with
immortality..."
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