Midterm Test Vocab

Question 1

Primary Texts

Answer 1

original texts, products of history

Question 2

Secondary Texts

Answer 2

commentary on the original, commentary on history

Question 3

Historiography

Answer 3

the writing down of history

Question 4

General Revelation

Answer 4

God’s revelation of himself to all people through nature (that which has been made)

Question 5

Special Revelation

Answer 5

God’s revelation of himself through scripture

Question 6

Natural Law

Answer 6

the pattern in nature that communicates something about the creator

Question 7

Etiology

Answer 7

the study of causes, causality

Question 8

Iconoclasm

Answer 8

the rejection of the use of images in worship; it is also associated with the belief that all material reality is corrupt and impure and the rejection of art as a medium of truth

Question 9

The Book of Jonah

Answer 9

likely written between 500 and 400 BC(E); Robert Alter is the translator/commentator

Question 10

Jonah’s Universalism

Answer 10

the book of Jonah is unique from other prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible because it is primarily concerned with people outside of the nation of Israel

Question 11

Theophany

Answer 11

a visible manifestation to humankind of God or a god

Question 12

The Bhagavad-Gita

Answer 12

a Hindu scripture likely written between 500 and 200 BC(E); it is part of a larger epic called the Mahabharata

Question 13

Krishna

Answer 13

Both an avatar of the supreme being, Vishnu, and a friend and charioteer of Prince Arjuna

Question 14

yoga

Answer 14

comes from a root word meaning ‘to yoke.’ It means to be yoked in the sense that “an ox [is] yoked to the plow”: to strain, to be restrained

Question 15

Rhetoric

Answer 15

according to Aristotle—“All the available means of persuasion.”

Question 16

Oedipus Tyrannus

Answer 16

Written by Sophocles. Probably written/performed around 430 BC(E)

Question 17

Theodicy

Answer 17

how can there be evil in a world created by a just God; the project of attempting to show God’s justice in spite of the many evils and wrongs in the world. Omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolance

Question 18

Literal meaning of “Oedipus”

Answer 18

literally, rational biped; “oid,” eye-witness knowledge;
“dipous,” two-footed; it also means “swollen footed”

Question 19

Plato’s Definition of a Human

Answer 19

featherless biped; Diogenes brings a plucked chicken to
dispute it; in later generations, “reason” is added to the definition: “a rational, featherless biped.”

Question 20

Aristotle said “the _____ is not worth ______”; in Oedipus’s case almost the opposite seems to be true

Answer 20

“the unexamined life is not worth living”

Question 21

tyrannos

Answer 21

an illegitimate king or ruler who has won power by his own efforts

Question 22

hubris

Answer 22

Greek word meaning the violation of reverence; it is commonly thought of as pride

Question 23

hamartia

Answer 23

Greek word meaning fatal flaw or fatal characteristic trait. Aristotle famously associated this term with Oedipus

Question 24

Oedipus as an Affirmation of Religion

Answer 24

don’t try to rise above your rank, but live humbly, and the gods will reward you

Question 25

Nietzche’s Interpretation

Answer 25

society punishes the human beings who rise above the ordinary

Question 26

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Answer 26

written around 8 AD/CE, most likely after he was exiled to modern-day Romania

Question 27

Epic Poetry

Answer 27

long narrative poems usually involving heroes and divinities, oftentimes telling the origin of the universe/everything, a race, or nation. They usually have their roots or are inspired by poems/writers that do have their roots in an oral tradition

Question 28

The western epic lineage, roughly

Answer 28

a. Homer: Greek gods and old heroes b. Hesiod: Greek gods and the creation of the world c. Virgil: Romanized gods and heroes founding Rome d. Ovid: Romanized gods and their victims (some heroes) e. Dante: complex mixture of pagan deities/heroes trapped in the Christian cosmos (Catholic) f. Milton: a Protestant retelling of Genesis that also has complex mixtures of pagan deities and heroes thrown in

Question 29

Ovid versus Virgil

Answer 29

Ovid had tense relationships with political leaders in Rome, but Virgil managed to make peace with Augustus; their epic poems are equally reflections of their character: Ovid’s is dark, cynical, and cyclical; Virgil’s is positive, inspirational, and linear

Question 30

Ovid’s Olympians

Answer 30

unlike Homer and Virgil’s Olympian gods, Ovid’s are not as governed by Fate and Justice

Question 31

Ovid’s Chaos

Answer 31

Ovid, as well as Hesiod, believed that the original prime matter of all the universe took the form of chaos

Question 32

Lapse, pre- and postlapsarianism

Answer 32

Lapse is the fall; prelapsarian world is prior; postlapsarian world is after

Question 33

Gigantomachia

Answer 33

the war between the titans/giants and the gods. In ancient literature, giants are generally symbolic of creatures that, by the strength of their own might, want to overthrow their creators/superiors. They upset the authority of the gods

Question 34

Plato’s Realm of the Forms

Answer 34

Plato believed that our world was a shadow of the realm of the forms, where everything is perfect and exists in perfect harmony

Question 35

Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura

Answer 35

literally, On the Nature of Things; it’s a philosophical treatise of Epicurean philosophy, a description of the universe; very influential to later scientific and secular humanist thought

Question 36

Epicurean philosophy

Answer 36

an atomist and materialist philosophy that stood against the traditional religious structure of Greece and Rome. It was brought into prominence in Rome by Lucretius

Question 37

atomism

Answer 37

a view of the world that it is composed of many tiny, indivisible things (atoms) that determine the thing they compose

Question 38

ataraxia

Answer 38

inner peace; the absolute absence of fear

Question 39

hedonism

Answer 39

the belief that the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good

Question 40

aponia

Answer 40

the absence of physical pain

Question 41

Etymology of “atom”—from Greek “atomos”

Answer 41

“a—” meaning without or unable to in this case, and “tomos” deriving from the Greek verb “temnein,” “to cut."

Question 42

Lucretius’s Fortuna

Answer 42

unlike Ovid, Lucretius’s universe is guided by Fortuna, which for him means Chance, not the Olympian gods; later on, in the middle ages, Fortuna will take on a different meaning (see Boethius in particular)

Question 43

Virgil’s Aeneid

Answer 43

written roughly 30-19 BC(E); it is an unfinished epic poem in the tradition of Homer that tells the story of the founding of Rome

Question 44

virtus

Answer 44

meaning virtue and manliness, not in our sense, but in the sense of “human” or “as a human ought to be.”

Question 45

Cassandra

Answer 45

She was cursed with the ability to prophesy things no one will ever heed

Question 46

Roman Value of pietas

Answer 46

piety for the gods, fear for authority, a proper understanding of the order of the universe, namely patrons, parents, and the city of Rome itself.

Question 47

Roman Value of hospes

Answer 47

means both host and guest, and when a guest, especially a noble Roman guest, visits, it is appropriate to host them with rich wines and foods. A violation of hospes is a sin against society and the gods

Question 48

Aeneas and Christ

Answer 48

both of these “heroes” have their heroism depicted as subservience to God/gods/higher beings and virtues