This is a substantially expanded and completely revised edition of a book first published by Fortress Press in 1988 as Maenads, Matyrs, Matrons, Monastics. The book collects translations of primary texts relevant to women's religion (pagan, Jewish, and Christian) in Western antiquity, from the fourth century BCE to the fifth century CE. This volume provides a unique and invaluable resource for scholars of classical antiquity, early Christianity and Judaism, and women's religion more generally.

Distinguished experts from a range of disciplines with a common interest in late antiquity probe the apparent paradox of pagan monotheism, and reach a better understanding of the historical roots of Christianity.

In this unique reference work, Roman religion is finally accorded its due and set in its full context. Dictionary of Roman Religion contains more than 1,400 entries. Among the topics covered are deities and spirits, festivals, sacrifices, temples, altars, cult objects, burial rites, writers on religion, and historical religious events. Different religions within the Roman world, such as Mithraism, Druidism, Judaism, and Christianity, are also discussed. Illustrated, cross-referenced, and featuring a bibliography and glossary, this dictionary is both comprehensive and essential for students and researchers. The essays and suggestions for further reading also make this appealing to all who are interested in ancient religions, myths, and legends.

The study of ancient Greek religion has been excitingly renewed in the last thirty years. Key areas are: religion and politics; archaeological finds; myth and ritual; gender; problems raised by the very notion of 'religion'. This volume contains challenging papers (updated especially for this collection) by some of the most innovative participants in this renewal.

The popular image of the Viking as a horn-helmeted berserker plying the ocean in a dragon-headed long boat is firmly fixed in history. Imagining Viking "conquerors" as much more numerous, technologically superior, and somehow inherently more warlike than their neighbors has overshadowed the cooperation and cultural exchange which characterized much of the Viking Age. In actuality, the Norse explorers and traders were players in a complex exchange of technology, customs, and religious beliefs between the ancient pre-Christian societies of northern Europe and the Christian-dominated nations surrounding the Mediterranean. DuBois examines Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Mediterranean traditions to locate significant Nordic parallels in conceptions of supernatural beings, cults of the dead, beliefs in ghosts, and magical practices. These beliefs were actively held alongside Christianity for many years, and were finally incorporated into the vernacular religious practice. The Icelandic sagas reflect this complex process in their inclusion of both Christian and pagan details. This work differs from previous examinations in its inclusion of the Christian thirteenth century as part of the evolution of Nordic religions from localized pagan cults to adherents of a larger Roman faith.Thomas DuBois unravels for the first time the history of the Nordic religions in the Viking Age and shows how these ancient beliefs and their oral traditions incorporated both a myriad of local beliefs and aspects of foreign religions, most notably Christianity.

The twentieth century has seen a remarkable revival of 'the Old Religion, ' as adherents of New-paganism call the native religious traditions of Europe and tribal traditions from North America that predated Christianity. Many neo-pagan groups identify with Celtic (Druidic), Egyptian, Native American, Norse, or Roman traditions; others with modern science-fiction motifs; and still others with witchcraft. Neo-paganism is occultic in nature. A central figure in much of Neo-paganism is the Mother Goddess, who has been introduced and worshiped among certain feminists even in some mainline Protestant churches. Why this series? This is an age when countless groups and movements, old and new, mark the religious landscape in our culture, leaving many people confused or uncertain in their search for spiritual truth and meaning. Because few people have the time or opportunity to research these movements fully, these books provide essential information and insights for their spiritual journeys. Each book has five sections: - A concise introduction to the group - An overview of the group's theology -- in its own words - Tips for witnessing effectively to members of the group - A bibliography with sources for further study - A comparison chart that shows the essential differences between biblical Christianity and the group -- The writers of these volumes are well qualified to present clear and reliable information and help us discern religious truth from falsehood. This is an age when countless groups and movements, new and old, mark the religious landscape in our culture. As a result, many people are confused or uncertain in their search for spiritual truth and meaning. Because few people have the time or opportunity to research these movements fully, the Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements series provides essential information and insights for their spiritual journeys. The second wave of books in this series addresses a broad range of spiritual beliefs, from non-Trinitarian Christian sects to witchcraft and neo-paganism to classic non-Christian religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. All books but the summary volume, Truth and Error, contain five sections: -A concise introduction to the group being surveyed -An overview of the group s theology --- in its own words -Tips for witnessing effectively to members of the group -A bibliography with sources for further study -A comparison chart that shows the essential differences between biblical Christianity and the group -- Truth and Error, the last book in the series, consists of parallel doctrinal charts compiled from all the other volumes. Three distinctives make this series especially useful to readers: -Information is carefully distilled to bring out truly essential points, rather than requiring readers to sift their way through a sea of secondary details. -Information is presented in a clear, easy-to-follow outline form with menu bar running heads. This format greatly assists the reader in quickly locating topics and details of interest. -Each book meets the needs and skill levels of both nontechnical and technical readers, providing an elementary level of refutation and progressing to a more advanced level using arguments based on the biblical text. The writers of these volumes are well qualified to present clear and reliable information and help readers to discern truth from falsehood."

Cicero's philosophical works are now exciting renewed interest and more generous appreciation, in part because he provides vital evidence of the views of the (largely lost) Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic age, and partly because of the light he casts on the intellectual life of first-century Rome. Hellenistic philosophy has in recent years atrracted growing interest from academic philosophers in Europe and North America. The Nature of the Gods is a document of central significance in this area, for it presents a detailed account of the theologies of the Epicureans and of the Stoics, together with the critical objections to these doctrines raised by the Academic school. hen these Greek theories of deity are translated into the Roman context, a fascinating clash of ideologies results.

No one disputes the centrality of cult activity in the lives of individuals and communities in ancient Greece. The significance of where people worshipped their gods has been far less acknowledged. In 1884 Francois de Polignac argued that the placing of cult centres played a major part in establishing the concept of the city-state in archaic Greece. The essays in this collection, headed by that of de Polignac himself in which he re-assesses his position, critically examine the social and political importance of sanctuary placement, not only by re-examining the case of the archaic Greece discussed by de Polignac, but by extending analysis both back to Mycenaean times and onwards to Greece under Roman occupation. These essays reveal something of the complexity of relations between religion and politics in ancient Greece, demonstrating how vital factors such as tradition, gender relations, and cult identity were in creating and maintaining the religious mapping of the Greek countryside.

This is the biography of an archetype, a potential being who exists in all of us and who, since the beginning of human history, has emerged in varying degrees into consciousness in the many diverse cultural forms to which we apply the word goddess in the sense of female deity. It is only in relatively recent times that we have begun to recognize the presence behind these many goddess masks of a being who is Goddess as opposed to God, a force who long preceded her male counterpart as an appropriate metaphor for the Great Mystery of existence.

Professor Dr. Dres. h.c. Otto Kaiser celebrated his 75th birthday on 30th November 1999. To mark the occasion, the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Marburg organised an international symposium and one of the plenary lectures was given by Professor Kaiser. The book contains the four plenary lectures of the symposium.

Published in 1990 under the title "Los mitos del tlacuache," this is the first major theoretical study of Mesoamerican mythology by one of the foremost scholars of Aztec ideology. Using the myth cycle of the opossum and the theft of fire from the gods as a touchstone, L pez Austin constructs a definition of myth that pertains to all of Mesoamerican culture, challenging the notion that to be relevant such studies must occur within a specific culture.

Shown here is that much of modern mythology has ancient roots, despite syncretism with Christianity, and can be used to elucidate the pre-Columbian world view. Analysis of pre-Columbian myths can also be used to understand current indigenous myths. Subtopics include the hero and his place in the Mesoamerican pantheon, divine space and human space, mythic event clusters, myth as truth, and the fusion of myth and history.

This book presents a unique description of the Mesoamerican world view for students of comparative religion, history of religion, folklore, ethnology, and anthropology.

In the centuries following the conquests of Alexander the Great the dramatic unification of the Mediterranean world created exceptionally fertile soil for the growth of new religions. Christianity, for example, was one of the innovative religious movements that arose during this time. However, Christianity had many competitors, and one of the most remarkable of these was the ancient Roman "mystery religion" of Mithraism.
Like the other "mystery cults" of antiquity, Mithraism kept its beliefs strictly secret, revealing them only to initiates. As a result, the cult's teachings were never written down. However, the Mithraists filled their temples with an enigmatic iconography, an abundance of which has been unearthed by archaeologists. Until now, all attempts to decipher this iconography have proven fruitless. Most experts have been content with a vague hypothesis that the iconography somehow derived from ancient Iranian religion.
In this groundbreaking work, David Ulansey offers a radically different theory. He argues that Mithraic iconography was actually an astronomical code, and that the cult began as a religious response to a startling scientific discovery. As his investigation proceeds, Ulansey penetrates step by step the mysteries concealed in Mithraic iconography, until finally he is able to reveal the central secret of the cult: a secret consisting of an ancient vision of the ultimate nature of the universe.
Brimming with the excitement of discovery--and reading like an intellectual detective story--Ulansey's compelling book will intrigue scholars and general readers alike.

This is a brief and lively introduction to the religious institutions, beliefs and practices of the Graeco-Roman world during the `Hellenistic Age' (c.300 BC-300 AD).

Discussion of the various phenomena of Hellenistic religion is organized around the three classic types: piety, mystery, and gnosis. As the author follows the historical development of these phenomena, he demonstrates the effect of religion on two fundamental transformations of the Hellenistic world-view. The first of these is the transformation of the understanding of the structure of the cosmos from the archaic to the `Ptolemaic' view. The second transformation is what Martin describes as a shift in the relative importance of masculine and feminine god-images. He concludes with a discussion of late Hellenistic religion's interaction with and influence on early Christianity.

From the turn of the fifth century to the beginning of the eighteenth, Christian writers were fascinated and troubled by the "Problem of Paganism," which this book identifies and examines for the first time. How could the wisdom and virtue of the great thinkers of antiquity be reconciled with the fact that they were pagans and, many thought, damned? Related questions were raised by encounters with contemporary pagans in northern Europe, Mongolia, and, later, America and China. Pagans and Philosophers explores how writers--philosophers and theologians, but also poets such as Dante, Chaucer, and Langland, and travelers such as Las Casas and Ricci--tackled the Problem of Paganism. Augustine and Boethius set its terms, while Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury were important early advocates of pagan wisdom and virtue. University theologians such as Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Bradwardine, and later thinkers such as Ficino, Valla, More, Bayle, and Leibniz, explored the difficulty in depth. Meanwhile, Albert the Great inspired Boethius of Dacia and others to create a relativist conception of scientific knowledge that allowed Christian teachers to remain faithful Aristotelians. At the same time, early anthropologists such as John of Piano Carpini, John Mandeville, and Montaigne developed other sorts of relativism in response to the issue. A sweeping and original account of an important but neglected chapter in Western intellectual history, Pagans and Philosophers provides a new perspective on nothing less than the entire period between the classical and the modern world.

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

Here, in the translation and edition of Nabih A. Faris of the American University at Beirut, is the text of the unique Arabic source on the idols and worship of pagan Arabia. The influence of pagan Arabia on the development of Islam is increasingly recognized by modern scholars, and this is an important key to its understanding. Princeton Oriental Studies, No. 14. Originally published in 1950. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.