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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian religions > Pre-Christian European & Mediterranean religions > General
Jane Harrison examines the festivals of ancient Greek religion
to identify the primitive "substratum" of ritual and its
persistence in the realm of classical religious observance and
literature. In Harrison's preface to this remarkable book, she
writes that J. G. Frazer's work had become part and parcel of her
"mental furniture" and that of others studying primitive religion.
Today, those who write on ancient myth or ritual are bound to say
the same about Harrison. Her essential ideas, best developed and
most clearly put in the Prolegomena, have never been eclipsed.
What did people in the early Christian period think about the pagan
inscriptions filling their late antique cities? Like public
advertisements lining our streets today, these inscriptions were
everywhere and communicated specific messages to literate late
Roman viewers, often providing a very different view of the
classical past than that being preached from early Christian church
pulpits. In Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers, Anna M. Sitz
provides a fresh perspective on the Christianization of the Roman
empire from the fourth to the seventh century CE by analyzing a
previously overlooked body of evidence: the many ancient, pagan
inscriptions, written in Greek or other languages, which were
reused, preserved, or even partially erased in this period. This
volume brings together for the first time the literary and
archaeological evidence for attitudes towards these ancient
inscriptions in the eastern Mediterranean, from Greece to Asia
Minor, Syria to Egypt. Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers
illustrates how early Christians, late pagans, and Jews in the
eastern Mediterranean interpreted older inscriptions in Greek and
other languages through their own worldviews in order to build the
late antique present.
Christian Satanism will make you turn many heads. It is a religion
composed of Christian and Satanic thinking. People refute it but
those that follow it are only saying they accept both sides and use
both sides for fuller a better purposes. And it is like taking on
an anti- title title.
How have the goddesses of ancient myth survived, prevalent even now
as literary and cultural icons? How do allegory, symbolic
interpretation, and political context transform the goddess from
her regional and individual identity into a goddess of philosophy
and literature? Emilie Kutash explores these questions, beginning
from the premise that cultural memory, a collective cultural and
social phenomenon, can last thousands of years. Kutash demonstrates
a continuing practice of interpreting and allegorizing ancient
myths, tracing these goddesses of archaic origin through history.
Chapters follow the goddesses from their ancient near eastern
prototypes, to their place in the epic poetry, drama and hymns of
classical Greece, to their appearance in Platonic and Neoplatonic
philosophy, Medieval allegory, and their association with
Christendom. Finally, Kutash considers how goddesses were made into
Jungian archetypes, and how some contemporary feminists made them a
counterfoil to male divinity, thereby addressing the continued role
of goddesses in perpetuating gender binaries.
Eusebius's groundbreaking History of the Church, remains the single
most important source for the history of the first three centuries
of Christianity and stands among the classics of Western
literature. His iconic story of the church's origins, endurance of
persecution, and ultimate triumph-with its cast of martyrs,
heretics, bishops, and emperors-has profoundly shaped the
understanding of Christianity's past and provided a model for all
later ecclesiastical histories. This new translation, which
includes detailed essays and notes, comes from one of the leading
scholars of Eusebius's work and offers rich context for the
linguistic, cultural, social, and political background of this
seminal text. Accessible for new readers and thought-provoking for
specialists, this is the essential text for anyone interested in
the history of Christianity.
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