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Divine Powers in Late Antiquity

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Irini-Fotini Viltanioti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019876720X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
A collection of original essays on the concept of divine power(s) in Late Antiquity. It investigates how four major figures of Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus) and early Christian authors (from the New Testament, the Alexandrian school, and the Cappadocian Fathers) developed aspects of the notion of divine power.

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Irini-Fotini Viltanioti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019876720X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
A collection of original essays on the concept of divine power(s) in Late Antiquity. It investigates how four major figures of Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus) and early Christian authors (from the New Testament, the Alexandrian school, and the Cappadocian Fathers) developed aspects of the notion of divine power.

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Anna Marmodoro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191079960
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Is power the essence of divinity, or are divine powers distinct from divine essence? Are they divine hypostases or are they divine attributes? Are powers such as omnipotence, omniscience, etc. modes of divine activity? How do they manifest? In which way can we apprehend them? Is there a multiplicity of gods whose powers fill the cosmos or is there only one God from whom all power(s) derive(s) and whose power(s) permeate(s) everything? These are questions that become central to philosophical and theological debates in Late Antiquity (roughly corresponding to the period 2nd to the 6th centuries). On the one hand, the Pagan Neoplatonic thinkers of this era postulate a complex hierarchy of gods, whose powers express the unlimited power of the ineffable One. On the other hand, Christians proclaim the existence of only one God, one divine power or one 'Lord of all powers'. Divided into two main sections, the first part of Divine Powers in Late Antiquity examines aspects of the notion of divine power as developed by the four major figures of Neoplatonism: Plotinus (c. 204-270), Porphyry (c. 234-305), Iamblichus (c.245-325), and Proclus (412-485). It focuses on an aspect of the notion of divine power that has been so far relatively neglected in the literature. Part two investigates the notion of divine power in early Christian authors, from the New Testament to the Alexandrian school (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius the Great) and, further, to the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa), as well as in some of these authors' sources (the Septuagint, Philo of Alexandria). The traditional view tends to overlook the fact that the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was at least as important as Platonic philosophical texts in the shaping of the early Christian thinking about the Church's doctrines. Whilst challenging the received interpretation by redressing the balance between the Bible and Greek philosophical texts, the essays in the second section of this book nevertheless argue for the philosophical value of early Christian reflections on the notion of divine power. The two groups of thinkers that each of the sections deal with (the Platonic-Pagan and the Christian one) share largely the same intellectual and cultural heritage; they are concerned with the same fundamental questions; and they often engage in more or less public philosophical and theological dialogue, directly influencing one another.

Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World

Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World PDF Author: Scott Noegel
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271046006
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
In the religious systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, gods and demigods were neither abstract nor distant, but communicated with mankind through signs and active intervention. Men and women were thus eager to interpret, appeal to, and even control the gods and their agents. In Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World, a distinguished array of scholars explores the many ways in which people in the ancient world sought to gain access to--or, in some cases, to bind or escape from--the divine powers of heaven and earth. Grounded in a variety of disciplines, including Assyriology, Classics, and early Islamic history, the fifteen essays in this volume cover a broad geographic area: Greece, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Topics include celestial divination in early Mesopotamia, the civic festivals of classical Athens, and Christian magical papyri from Coptic Egypt. Moving forward to Late Antiquity, we see how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each incorporated many aspects of ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman religion into their own prayers, rituals, and conceptions. Even if they no longer conceived of the sun, moon, and the stars as eternal or divine, Christians, Jews, and Muslims often continued to study the movements of the heavens as a map on which divine power could be read. The reader already familiar with studies of ancient religion will find in Prayer, Magic, and the Stars both old friends and new faces. Contributors include Gideon Bohak, Nicola Denzey, Jacco Dieleman, Radcliffe Edmonds, Marvin Meyer, Michael G. Morony, Ian Moyer, Francesca Rochberg, Jonathan Z. Smith, Mark S. Smith, Peter Struck, Michael Swartz, and Kasia Szpakowska. Published as part of Penn State's Magic in History series, Prayer, Magic, and the Stars appears at a time of renewed interest in divination and occult practices in the ancient world. It will interest a wide audience in the field of comparative religion as well as students of the ancient world and late antiquity.

Cosmic Order and Divine Power

Cosmic Order and Divine Power PDF Author: Johan C. Thom
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161528095
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
The treatise De mundo offers a cosmology in the Peripatetic tradition which subordinates what happens in the cosmos to the might of an omnipotent god. Thus the work is paradigmatic for the philosophical and religious concepts of the early imperial age, which offer points of contact with nascent Christianity.

Eleatic Ontology from the Hellenistic Period to Late Antiquity

Eleatic Ontology from the Hellenistic Period to Late Antiquity PDF Author: Anna Motta
Publisher: FedOA - Federico II University Press
ISBN: 8868872366
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
[Italiano]: L’Ontologia eleatica dal periodo ellenistico alla tarda antichità raccoglie saggi che esplorano la ricezione antica del sorprendente racconto dell’essere di Parmenide di Elea. Scritti da un gruppo internazionale di studiosi che propongono una grande varietà di orientamenti e approcci, i contributi inclusi in questo volume offrono nuove prospettive su momenti cruciali di tale ricezione, rivelano i punti di contatto e le istanze di interazione reciproca tra le tradizioni filosofiche e consentono ai lettori di riflettere sulle nuove concezioni rivoluzionarie che i pensatori di queste epoche hanno sviluppato nel continuo confronto con la venerabile figura di Parmenide e le sfide poste dal suo pensiero./[English]: Eleatic Ontology from the Hellenistic Period to Late Antiquity collects essays exploring the late-ancient reception of Parmenides of Elea’s groundbreaking account of being. Written by an international array of scholars and reflecting a range of outlooks and approaches, the essays included offer fresh perspectives on crucial points in that reception, reveal points of contact and instances of mutual interaction between philosophic traditions, and allow readers to reflect on the revolutionary new conceptions that thinkers of these eras developed in the continuing confrontation with the venerable figure of Parmenides and the challenges posed by his thought.

Gaining and Losing Imperial Favour in Late Antiquity

Gaining and Losing Imperial Favour in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Kamil Cyprian Choda
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004411798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
The volume Gaining and Losing Imperial Favour in Late Antiquity studies fundamental dynamics of the political culture of the Later Roman Empire (4th and 5th centuries A.D.) by examining how people rose in and fell from the emperor’s favour.

Soul, Body, and Gender in Late Antiquity

Soul, Body, and Gender in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Stanimir Panayotov
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003818803
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Book Description
Including both traditional and underrepresented accounts and geographies of soul, body, gender, and sexuality in late antique history, philosophy, and theology, this volume offers substantial re-readings of these and related concepts through theories of dis/embodiment. Bringing together gender studies, late antique philosophy, patristics, history of asceticism, and history of Indian philosophy, this interdisciplinary volume examines the notions of dis/embodiment and im/materiality in late antique and early Christian culture and thought. The book’s geographical scope extends beyond the ancient Mediterranean, providing comparative perspectives from Late Antiquity in the Near East and South Asia. It offers critical interpretations of late antique scholarly objects of inquiry, exploring close readings of soul, body, gender, and sexuality in their historical context. These fascinating studies engage scholars from different fields and research traditions with one another, and reveal both change and continuity in the perception and social role of gender, sexuality, body, and soul in this period. Soul, Body, and Gender in Late Antiquity is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Classics, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as those working on late antique and early Christian history, philosophy, and theology.

Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice

Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice PDF Author: Richard Valantasis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691188165
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 528

Book Description
This is an unprecedented collection of nearly seventy Late Antique primary religious texts. These texts--all in new English translation and many appearing in English for the first time--represent every major religious current from the late first century until the rise of Islam. Produced through the efforts of thirty-six leading scholars in the field, they constitute a comprehensive view of religious practice in Late Antiquity. Religious life and performance during this period comprised diverse, often unusual practices. Philosophical ascent, magic, legal pronouncement, hymnography, dietary and sexual restriction, and rhetoric were all part of this deeply fascinating world. Religious and political identity often intertwined, as reflected in the Roman persecution of Christians. And a fluid boundary between religion and superstition was contested in daily life. Many practices, including ascetic training, crossed religious boundaries. Others, such as "incubation" at specific temples and certain divination rites, were distinctive practices of individual groups and orders. Intrinsically interesting, the practice of religion in the Late Antique also edifies modern-day religious life. As this volume shows, the origins of the contemporary Western religious terrain can be gleaned in this period. Rabbinic Judaism flourished and spread. Christianity developed still-important theological categories and structures. And even movements that did not survive intact--such as Neoplatonism and the once-powerful Manichaean churches--continue to influence religion today. This rich sourcebook includes discussions of asceticism, religious organization, ritual, martyrdom, religion's social implications, law, and theology. Its unique emphasis on practice and its inclusion of texts translated from lesser-known languages advance the study of religious history in several directions. A strong interdisciplinary orientation will reward scholars and students of religion, theology, gender studies, classical literatures, and history. Each text is accompanied by an introduction and a bibliography for further reading and research, making the book appropriate for use in any university or seminary classroom.

Divination and Human Nature

Divination and Human Nature PDF Author: Peter Struck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Divination and Human Nature casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination—the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. In this book, Peter Struck reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact—that humans could sometimes have uncanny insights—and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition. Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, Struck demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, Struck notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition. Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, Divination and Human Nature illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic.

Education and Religion in Late Antique Christianity

Education and Religion in Late Antique Christianity PDF Author: Peter Gemeinhardt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317145909
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
This book studies the complex attitude of late ancient Christians towards classical education. In recent years, the different theoretical positions that can be found among the Church Fathers have received particular attention: their statements ranged from enthusiastic assimilation to outright rejection, the latter sometimes masking implicit adoption. Shifting attention away from such explicit statements, this volume focuses on a series of lesser-known texts in order to study the impact of specific literary and social contexts on late ancient educational views and practices. By moving attention from statements to strategies this volume wishes to enrich our understanding of the creative engagement with classical ideals of education. The multi-faceted approach adopted here illuminates the close connection between specific educational purposes on the one hand, and the possibilities and limitations offered by specific genres and contexts on the other. Instead of seeing attitudes towards education in late antique texts as applications of theoretical positions, it reads them as complex negotiations between authorial intent, the limitations of genre, and the context of performance.