The article intends to draw attention to some of the most significant and telling appropriations of traditional themes of Biblical paradise in medieval Christian dualism (namely, Paulicianism, Bogomilism and related groups in Eastern Christendom and Catharism in Western Christendom) and initiate discussion on the important but presently not always explicable problem of their theological and literary provenance. The significance of this problematic is highlighted by the increasing amount of direct and indirect evidence of the role played by a number of early Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphic works in the formation of medieval Christian dualist cosmogonic, cosmological, satanological, Christological and biblical history traditions. The preliminary survey of medieval dualist conceptions of biblical Paradise shows also once more that the doctrinal evidence for Bogomilism and Catharism is too complex and polyvalent to be defined or ignored apriori as representing medieval heresiological constructs drawing on earlier heresiological texts and stereotypes. The material examined in the article shows that the text-critical treatment of the primary sources to first establish the most plausible literary and theological provenance of the respective teachings attributed to medieval Christian dualist groups or individuals still remains indispensable to the study of medieval heresy and needs to precede the application of models and approaches drawn from contemporary anthropological and sociological theory to the source material.
The outbreak and Balkan and Anatolian trajectories of the rebellions of Borkluce Mustafa and Sheikh Bedreddin in 1416 still pose a series of religio-historic problems which still do not allow a satisfactory and detailed reconstruction of their chronology. Widening the investigation of the source base for these uprisings and their following remains a crucial desideratum for a better understanding of the turbulent period of the Ottoman interregnum and the Ottoman-Byzantine transition in eastern Anatolia in the early fifteenth century. Apart from the social and political features of the rebellions (which have been treated in a variety of contrasting ideological and methodological frameworks, their striking religious dimension has been also increasingly attracting scholarly and general attention. Earlier and recent research on the Ottoman interregnum period have occasionally advanced arguments for the active participation of Christian heretical groups, whether Christian dualist (Bogomil or Paulician) or radical apocalyptic insurgents of Eastern or Western Christian provenance. Drawing on new advances in research on religious trends in the late Byzantine and Balkan Orthodox and early Ottoman religious life and inter-religious contacts, the paper will offer an reassessment of the evidence of such proposed Christian heretical presence in the uprisings, while also exploring other venues for the provenance of their religious and trans-confessional underpinnings.
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