In seventeenth-century Europe, the Copts, or the Egyptian members of the Church of Alexandria, were widely believed to hold the key to an ancient wisdom and an ancient theology. Their language was thought to lead to the deciphering of the hieroglyphs and their Church to retain traces of early Christian practices, as well as early Egyptian customs. This book, the first full-length study of the subject, discusses the attempts of Catholic missionaries to force the Church of Alexandria into union with the Church of Rome and the slow accumulation of knowledge of Coptic beliefs, undertaken by Catholics and Protestants. It ends with a survey of the study of the Coptic language in the West, and of the uses to which it was put by Biblical scholars, antiquarians, theologians and Egyptologists.

A comprehensive overview of Hajj, one of the central pillars of Islam. Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage consists of twenty-seven essays addressing objects in the remarkable collection of Nasser David Khalili. The collection features more than five thousand objects relating to the arts of pilgrimage, from the eighth century to today, and includes Qur'ans, illustrated manuscripts, rare books, scientific instruments, textiles, coins, paintings, prints, and photo-postcards, as well as archival material, unique historical documents, and examples of the work of some of the earliest Muslim photographers of Hajj. Together the essays collected in Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage provide a comprehensive overview of Hajj, illustrating the religious, spiritual, cultural, and artistic aspects of pilgrimage to the Holy Sanctuaries of Islam and the cosmopolitan nature of Hajj itself. Each essay is written by a prominent specialist in the field and beautifully illustrated with full-color images of objects from the collection, some of which have never been seen in print before. Taking readers from the early history of Islam to the fascinating story of the Western view of Muslim pilgrimage, these essays will transform our perception of Hajj.

In seventeenth-century Europe the Copts, or the Egyptian members of the Church of Alexandria, were widely believed to hold the key to an ancient wisdom and an ancient theology. Their language was thought to lead to the deciphering of the hieroglyphs and their Church to retain traces of early Christian practices as well as early Egyptian customs. Now available in paperback for the first time, this first, full-length study of the subject, discusses the attempts of Catholic missionaries to force the Church of Alexandria into union with the Church of Rome and the slow accumulation of knowledge of Coptic beliefs, undertaken by Catholics and Protestants. It ends with a survey of the study of the Coptic language in the West and of the uses to which it was put by Biblical scholars, antiquarians, theologians, and Egyptologists.

This is the first study of the reception of the apocryphal Second Book of Esdras (4 Ezra) from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Professor Hamilton discusses the concepts of biblical apocrypha and canonicity in connection with the increasingly critical attitude to religious authority which developed with the humanists and intensified with the Reformation. The Book owed its initial success to Hebraists such as Pico della Mirandola and Bibliander. It was used to account for the origins of Jewish Kabbalah and to prophesy political and religious events: the fall of the Ottoman empire, or the destruction of the papacy. Anabaptists, dissident Protestants of various persuasions, Rosicrucians and Paracelsians consulted it not only as a work of prophecy but, it is argued, as an emblem of dissent, rejected by the official Churches. At the same time more sober scholars, both Protestants and Catholics, scrutinized 2 Esdras with greater objectivity, endeavouring to date it correctly and establish its authorship. This study also investigates the interaction between their views and those of the Book's enthusiastic supporters.

'Literature is not innocent,' stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays, arguing that only by acknowledging its complicity with the knowledge of evil can literature communicate fully and intensely. These literary profiles of eight authors and their work, including Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal and the writings of Sade, Kafka and Sartre, explore subjects such as violence, eroticism, childhood, myth and transgression, in a work of rich allusion and powerful argument.

Vols. 8-27 have various assistant and associate editors.

Editors of v. 3-5: J. Goebel, Jr. and J.H. Smith.

Editors of v. 3-5: J. Goebel, Jr. and J.H. Smith.

Vols. 8-27 have various assistant and associate editors.

Editors of v. 3-5: J. Goebel, Jr. and J.H. Smith.

Editors of v. 3-5: J. Goebel, Jr. and J.H. Smith.