Full Description
This ground-breaking work is a critical edition of chapter XI (The Resurrection of Lazarus) of Nonnus of Panopolis' Paraphrasis of the Gospel of St John, written in the mid-fifth century in elegant hexameters. Made available for the first time in Anglophone literature, the volume consists of an introduction discussing cultural (theological and philosophical affiliations, dialogue with contemporary art), literary (character-sketching, narrative, interaction with the Dionysiaca), and technical (paraphrastic technique, transmission, metre) aspects and places the work in its immediate and broader context. The Introduction includes an edition of chapter XI from the so-called Athous paraphrase of Nonnus' Paraphrasis.
An exhaustive line-by-line commentary covers a wide range of issues arising from Nonnus' spiritualizing rendition. Konstantinos Spanoudakis identifies literary models and intertextual links with earlier traditions: epic (mainly Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, Oppian), mystic (Orphic literature, Chaldean Oracles), and philosophical (Neoplatonists, Gnostics). Dr Spanoudakis illustrates Nonnus' interaction with early Christian poetry and literature, his debt to Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel of John, his familiarity with Syriac exegesis (John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia), and the homiletic and apocryphal tradition on Lazarus. The book features a short Appendix discussing a curse against the Jews embedded as an interpolated verse in ms V.
Contents
Preface ; Abbreviations ; Introduction ; I. Poet and Poems ; IIa. Literary Affiliations ; IIb. Biblical and Patristic Affiliations ; IIc. Afterlife ; IIIa. Neoplatonism ; IIIb. Theurgy ; IV. Dionysiac Ramifications: Some Resurrections in the Dionysiaca ; V. Paraphrasis XI as Contemporary Poetry ; VI. Paraphrastic and Literary Techniques ; VII. Perspectives on the Lazarus Miracle ; VIII. The Vorlage(n) and the Syrus Lewisianus ; IX. Metre ; X. Manuscripts ; XI. The Athous Paraphrase (Athous Dionysiou 326 [D]) ; XII. This edition ; Texts and Translation ; Commentary ; Appendix: An Interpolated Verse in ms. V ; Bibliography ; Index of Passages ; Index of Greek Words Discussed ; General Index
