Daniel R. Schwartz

More on Schalit's changing Josephus: The lost first stage

Whether or not we often allow history to fulfill Ciceros characterization of it as a magistra vitae (De Oratore 2.36), the reverse of that dictum is always true. Our lives guide our historiography; all true history is contemporary history, as Croce put it,1 and so changing circumstances and interests require every generation to rewrite history. Hence, the historical study of the historiography of successive generations is a fascinating and well-established pursuit. Indeed, most historians would probably agree that it is not only interesting but also, both as a brand of history itself and as a disciplining mirror, indispensable. But what is true of historiography in general should be true of biography all the more. For biographers are individuals who spend their time and energy pondering what made other individuals tick. As such, they may be influenced led to make unjustified projections, but also to discover previously unnoticed truths by the changing interests and circumstances of their own lives even more than usual historians are, who study objects not so readily comparable to themselves. Hence, if we study how different biographers, or even the same biographers over time, see their subjects differently in accordance with their own changing circumstances and interests, our understanding of both the historical personalities, and of their biographers who too are often legitimate and fascinating objects of historical interest will be enriched and enhanced.

Thomas Aquinas and Antonio de Córdoba on self-defence: saving yourself as a private end

ABSTRACT Revisionists about Aquinas’ teaching on private self-defence take the standard reading to hold that Aquinas applies a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) according to which the intentional killing of a wrongful attacker by a private person is morally prohibited while the non-intentional but foreseeable killing of the attacker is permitted. Revisionists dispute this reading and argue that Aquinas permits the intentional killing of wrongful attackers. I argue that revisionists mischaracterize the standard reading of Aquinas. I consider one of its main proponents, Antonio de Córdoba (1485–1579). When Córdoba condemned the intentional killing of wrongful attackers by private persons, he was not applying DDE. Rather, he was arguing that when you decide to kill an attacker you treat the attacker as a resource for the private end of saving your life. Killing a member of your community is a form of irrevocable social exclusion. This decision ought to be left to the public authorities. The disagreement between the authors defending the standard view and their critics was not about DDE but rather about the moral limits that membership in a community sets on the pursuit of private ends, including the private end of staying alive.

Scandal and Moral Demandingness in the Late Scholastics

This paper examines the views of a number of late scholastic moral theologians, with emphasis on Francisco Suárez, about the limits of the duty to refrain from those otherwise permissible actions which make it difficult for people to choose uprightly. In so doing, the paper singles out and analyses a number circumstantial factors capable of excusing ordinary agents for giving others an occasion of sin.

Rabbinic Law between Biblical Logic and Biblical Text: The Pitfalls of Exodus 21:33–34

When the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court conclude that some law, or some decision of a lower court, violates the U.S. Constitution, no great difficulties of principle or sentiment need accompany their decision to abrogate the opinions of the earlier legislators or judges. The justices, and others, are expected to understand their decision either as correcting a mistake that had been introduced by fallible people who, with intentions good or bad, or unintentionally, had violated the systems basic rulebook, or as reflecting the fact that since the time those legislators or judges made their decisions something relevant (such as notions of “cruel and unusual punishment” or of what affects interstate commerce) had changed, so what was once constitutionally acceptable no longer is. Thus, however upsetting the substance of the justices’ decision may be, it need not imply a condemnation of their predecessors nor entail a disruption of the systems authority structures—as is seen in the fact that the justices, and American citizens, readily use such explicit verbs as “reverse,” “strike down,” or “overturned” for what the justices do

A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism (review)

ending with Jehoiakin’s release was added to indicate acceptance of a Diaspora reality. The Deuteronomistic History would ultimatly undergo some further editing, but Römer does not see this editing as any longer “Deuteronomistic,” but calculated to create the current canonical separation between Torah and Former Prophets. This late phase involved the addition of 2 Samuel 21–24 and the Elijah-Elisha cycle. Römer manifests a strange combination of skepticism and confidence about our ability to discern the composition of the Deuteronomistic History. Unlike more detailed works, he does not try to separate a single verse into a half-dozen different sources and redactional layers because ancient Near Eastern evidence suggests that ancient scribal practices were not as mechanical as source critics have sometimes imagined. Rather, the scribes adopted a free attitude to earlier texts. Therefore, “we cannot reconstruct exactly the older texts that have been re-edited in later times, even if some biblical scholars still think they can” (p. 48). Römer’s cautious skepticism here is a welcome relief. However, he still unfolds a relatively specific vision of what his postulated editions of the Deuteronomistic History looked like. Römer often relies on broadly “ideological” criteria to distinguish redactions. Consequently, he sometimes reads narratives as allegories of later events. When he suggests that the negative portrait of David in 2 Samuel 11–12; 15–17; 19 was calculated “to counter messianic expectations linked to the arrival of Zerubbabel” (p. 177) in the Persian period, the reader is left to wonder whether Römer is among the scholars he criticizes for still thinking they can reconstruct older texts re-edited in later times.

Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities (review)

This well written and thought-provoking book is all about making distinctions explicit where our sources do not. As Hayes notes, to begin with, it is usually thought that ancient Jews considered Gentiles to be impure. The usual implication of the basic agreement has been the assumption that Jews thought contact with Gentiles imparted impurity to that which they contacted—people and things alike. Hayes takes issue with this by distinguishing, first of all, in the wake of Jonathan Klawans (Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism [New York: Oxford, 2000]) and some predecessors, between ritual impurity and moral impurity (dealt with, respectively, in Leviticus 12–15 and 18–26); she emphasizes that the latter, which cannot be transferred by contact, is the only type that could be ascribed to Gentiles. Thus, for example, while it is the case that those afflicted with a “flow” or menstruant women are themselves considered ritually impure and pass on such impurity by contact (see Lev 15:3–12, 24), someone guilty of the moral crimes addressed by Lev 18, which can cause Gentiles impurity (Lev 18:24!), is not ritually impure and does not impart such to those he or she contacts. Next, moving beyond Klawans, Hayes further designates a third type of impurity, genealogical impurity, which differs from the first two insofar as they are acquired by an individual in the course of his or her lifetime as a result of things they do or that happen to them, while it applies not to the author of the deed but, rather, to its product—the offspring of those who mixed their seed with that of a Gentile (see esp. Ezra 9). Finally, in tracing the development of these notions into early Christianity, this latter point makes for the distinction of yet a fourth type of impurity (p. 92), found in Paul (I Corinthians 6:15–20) and other Christian writings: “carnal impurity,” in which (given the unity implied by Genesis 2:24) it is indeed the participant of the mixed sexual relationship, not the progeny, who is affected by the impurity. Alongside of discerning these four types of impurity Hayes also insists on distinguishing between “profanation” and “defilement,” having the former oppose holiness and only the latter, impurity. Thus, for example, if II Maccabees 5:16 complains that Antiochus IV touched the holy vessels with “impure hands . . . profane hands,” Hayes takes the first adjective as referring to moral (not ritual) impurity and says the second is entirely accurate but means only that the Gentile king—just as any ritually pure but non-priestly Jew—would pollute the Temple by his incursion into off-limits areas of the Temple; “this does not translate into a principle of Gentile ritual purity” (p. 51).