Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars documents and analyses this development. Authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human individuality.

Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars documents and analyses this development. Authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human individuality.

Can time exist independently of consciousness? In antiquity this question was often framed as an enquiry into the relationship of time and soul. Aristotle cautiously suggested that time could not exist without a soul that is counting it. This proposal was controversially debated among his commentators. The present book offers an account of this debate beginning from Aristotle's own statement of the problem in Book IV of the Physics. Subsequent chapters discuss Aristotle's Peripatetic followers, Boethus of Sidon and Alexander of Aphrodisias; his Neoplatonic readers, Plotinus and Simplicius; and early Christian authors, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine. At the centre of the debate stood the relation between the subjective time in the soul and the objective time of the cosmos. Both could be seen as united in the world soul as the seat of subjective time on a cosmic scale. But no solution to the problem was final. No theory gained general acceptance. The book shows the fascinating variety and plurality of ideas about time and soul throughout antiquity. Throughout antiquity, the problem of time and soul remained as intriguing as it proved intractable.

Current interest in the relation of religion and politics is intense in both the US and Germany. Yet observers are regularly struck by fundamental divergences between approaches to and conceptualisations of this field on either side of the Atlantic. This volume, containing contributions by German and American authors from various disciplinary backgrounds, seeks to offer some clarification by elucidating traditional and newly emerging differences between, but also common challenges to, these societies in issues such as pluralism of values, religious education, the role of religious minorities, the relation of religion and elite formation, and religious aspects of voting patterns.

This reader of texts from the influential 19th-century theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) brings together a selection of texts in English translation from across Baur’s wide range of exegetical, historical, philosophical and theological expertise. In these excerpts, including many translated for the first time, readers gain a comprehensive overview of Baur’s output and his remarkable role in the shaping of modern scholarly discourse in his fields. Beginning with a full scholarly introduction, and extensively annotated texts, readers are introduced to Baur’s bold and controversial historical hypotheses and encounter the variety of intellectual and stylistic registers he used, from the purely scholarly to the sharply polemical. The editors also explore the ways in which Baur was instrumental in some of the most fundamental intellectual paradigm shifts of the 19th-century, including the radical historicization of Christian theology and its interaction with Schelling, Hegel, and the German Idealist tradition.

Die Frage nach den Weltbildern als einer fundamentalen Kategorie von Weltwahrnehmung wird in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften seit langer Zeit diskutiert. Dabei wurde immer wieder auch Gebrauch von Bildern gemacht, die das Weltbild einer bestimmten Kultur darzustellen versuchen. Nicht gefragt worden ist bislang, ob und in welchem Mass hierbei Visualitat ein Aspekt von Weltbildern ist. Diese Frage ist inzwischen angesichts vielfaltiger Entwicklungen in verschiedenen Wissenschaftsbereichen akut geworden. Zum einen wurde in den kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskussionen der vergangenen Jahre zunehmend deutlich, wie grundlegend die Bedeutung der Bildlichkeit fur alle Bereiche der Weltwahrnehmung ist. Gleichzeitig hat die Entwicklung der Kognitionswissenschaften zu komplementaren Einsichten aus naturwissenschaftlicher Sicht gefuhrt. Der vorliegende Band versucht daher, diese verschiedenen Diskussionsstrange zusammenzufuhren. Autoren aus Theologie und Byzantinistik, Wissenschafts- und Kunstgeschichte, Philosophie und Astrophysik reprasentieren die Diversitat der methodischen und inhaltlichen Zugange zu diesem Thema.

This reader of texts from the influential 19th-century theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) brings together a selection of texts in English translation from across Baur’s wide range of exegetical, historical, philosophical and theological expertise. In these excerpts, including many translated for the first time, readers gain a comprehensive overview of Baur’s output and his remarkable role in the shaping of modern scholarly discourse in his fields. Beginning with a full scholarly introduction, and extensively annotated texts, readers are introduced to Baur’s bold and controversial historical hypotheses and encounter the variety of intellectual and stylistic registers he used, from the purely scholarly to the sharply polemical. The editors also explore the ways in which Baur was instrumental in some of the most fundamental intellectual paradigm shifts of the 19th-century, including the radical historicization of Christian theology and its interaction with Schelling, Hegel, and the German Idealist tradition.

The author addresses the continuing importance of the Reformation and its ongoing relevance for theology today through an exploration of Luther's understanding of Christology, the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ. "In Luther's theological position lay a strong and uncompromising affirmation of the absolute centrality of the person of Jesus Christ for the Christian faith. In this sense, the principle, slogan or motto "Christ alone" (solus Christus) is the culmination of the other three, similar phrases - Scripture alone (sola scriptura); by faith alone (sola fide); by grace alone (sola gratia) - which are often associated with Reformation theology. The centrality of Luther's fixation on the person of Jesus Christ as the one, single redeemer of humankind will, I hope, open a perspective for the commemoration of Luther and his Reformation that should be of interest and concern for Protestants and Catholics alike." From the Introduction