This book about receptions of Simon Magus uncovers further facets of one who was held to be the evil archetype of heretics. Ephraim Nissan and Alberto Ferreiro explore how Simon Magus has been represented in text, visual art, and music. Special attention is devoted to the late medieval Catalan painter Lluís Borrassà and the Italian librettist and musician Arrigo Boito. The tradition of Simon Magus’ demonic flight, ending in his crashing down, first appears in the patristic literature. The book situates that flight typologically across cultures. Fascinating observations emerge, as the discussion spans flight of the wicked in rabbinic texts, flight and death of King Lear’s father and a Soviet-era Buryat Buddhist monk, flight and doom of the fool in an early modern German broadsheet, and more. The book explains and moves beyond extant scholarly wisdom on how the polemic against Mani (the founder of Manichaeism) was tinged with hues of Simon Magus. The novelty of this book is that it shows that Simon Magus’ receptions teach us a great deal about the contexts in which this archetype was deployed. 

First screened at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Pedro Almodóvar's powerful and passionate semi-autobiographical melodrama follows the intertwining stories of two boys, Enrique (Fele Martínez) and Ignacio (Gael García Bernal), who fall in love at an abusive Catholic school and are parted by a jealous paedophile priest. Sixteen years later, Enrique, now a successful filmmaker, is casting about for an idea for a new film when a young cross-dressing actor, claiming to be Ignacio but known as 'Angel', approaches him with a short story based on their schooldays together. Enrique decides to use the story, and casts Angel in the film's lead role, despite his discovery that Angel is not in fact Ignacio, who died three years earlier shortly after completing the story, but his younger brother. Enrique's film also includes scenes in which the grown-up Ignacio tracks down the Catholic priest who abused them as boys, and these scenes soon become mirrored by real-life events. Almodóvar moves away from his trademark quirky comedy with this dark and brooding drama, using a complex 'film-within-a-film' structure to create a noir-like sense of mystery and blurred identity, and to explore the relationship between fantasy and reality.

"And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, the risen Jesus] interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk 24:27). The church fathers mined the Old Testament throughout for prophetic utterances regarding the Messiah, but few books yielded as much messianic ore as the Twelve Prophets, sometimes known as the Minor Prophets, not because of their relative importance but because of the relative brevity of their writings. Encouraged by the example of the New Testament writers themselves, the church fathers found numerous parallels between the Gospels and the prophetic books. Among the events foretold, they found not only the flight into Egypt after the nativity, the passion and resurrection of Christ, and the outpuoring of the Spirit at Pentecost, but also Judas's act of betrayal, the earthquake at Jesus' death and the rending of the temple veil. Detail upon detail brimmed with significance for Christian doctrine, including baptism and the Eucharist as well as the relation between the covenants. In this rich and vital resource edited by Alberto Ferreiro you will find excerpts, some translated here into English for the first time, from more than thirty church fathers, ranging in time from Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (late first and early second centuries) to Gregory the Great, Braulio of Saragossa and Bede the Venerable (late sixth to early eighth centuries). Geographically the sources range from the great Cappadocians--Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa--John Chrysostom, Ephrem the Syrian and Hippolytus in the East to Ambrose, Augustine, Cyprian and Tertullian in the West and Origen, Cyril and Pachomius in Egypt. Here is a treasure trove out of which Christians may bring riches both old and new in their understanding of these ancient texts.

"And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [the risen Jesus] interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk 24:27). The church fathers mined the Old Testament throughout for prophetic utterances regarding the Messiah, but few books yielded as much messianic ore as the Twelve Prophets, sometimes known as the Minor Prophets because of the relative brevity of their writings. Encouraged by the example of the New Testament writers, the church fathers found numerous parallels between the Gospels and the prophetic books. Among the events foretold, they found not only the flight into Egypt after the nativity, the passion, and resurrection of Christ, and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, but also Judas's act of betrayal, the earthquake at Jesus' death and the rending of the temple veil. Detail upon detail brimmed with significance for Christian doctrine, including baptism and the Eucharist as well as the relation between the covenants. In this rich and vital resource you will find excerpts, some translated here into English for the first time, from more than thirty church fathers, ranging in time from Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus (late first and early second centuries) to Gregory the Great, Braulio of Saragossa, and Bede the Venerable (late sixth to early eighth centuries). Geographically the sources range from the great Cappadocians-Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa-John Chrysostom, Ephrem the Syrian, and Hippolytus in the East, to Ambrose, Augustine, Cyprian, and Tertullian in the West, and Origen, Cyril, and Pachomius in Egypt. This Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume is a treasure trove out of which Christians may bring riches both old and new in their understanding of these ancient texts.