|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
Julian: An Intellectual Biography, first published in 1981,
presents a penetrating and scholarly analysis of Julian's
intellectual development against the background of philosophy and
religion in the late Roman Empire. Professor Polymnia Athanassiadi
tells the story of Julian's transformation from a reclusive and
scholarly adolescent into a capable general and an audacious social
reformer. However, his character was fraught with a great many
contradictions, tensions and inconsistencies: he could be sensitive
and intelligent, but also uncontrollably spontaneous and subject to
alternating fits of considerable self-pity and self-delusion.
Athanassiadi traces the Emperor Julian's responses to personal and
public challenges, and dwells on the conflicts that each weighty
choice imposed on him. This analysis of Julian's character and of
all the issues that confronted him as an emperor, intellectual and
mystic is based largely on contemporary evidence, with particular
emphasis on the extensive writings of the man himself.
The 21 studies in this volume, which deal with issues of social and
intellectual history, religion and historical methodology, explore
the ways whereby over the course of a few hundred years -roughly
between the second and the fifth centuries A.D.- an anthropocentric
culture mutated into a theocentric one. Rather than underlining the
differences between a revamped paganism and the emergent Christian
traditions, the essays in the volume focus on the processes of
osmosis, interaction and acculturation, which shaped the change in
priorities among the newly created textual communities that were
spreading across the entire breadth of the late antique oecumene.
The main issues considered in this connection include the phenomena
of textuality and holy scripture, canonicity and exclusion, truth
and error, prophecy and tradition, authority and challenge, faith
and salvation, holy places and holy men, in the context of the
construction of new orthodox readings of the Greek philosophical
heritage. Moreover the volume suggests that intolerant attitudes,
which form a characteristic trait of monotheisms, were not an
exclusive preserve of Christianity (as the Enlightenment tradition
would insist), but were progressively espoused by pagan
philosophers and divine men as part of the theory and practice of
Hellenism's theological koine. Efforts to establish the monopoly of
a revealed truth against any rival claims were transversal to the
textual communities which emerged in late antiquity and remodelled
the intellectual and spiritual landscape of the Greater
Mediterranean.
Julian: An Intellectual Biography, first published in 1981,
presents a penetrating and scholarly analysis of Julian's
intellectual development against the background of philosophy and
religion in the late Roman Empire. Professor Polymnia Athanassiadi
tells the story of Julian's transformation from a reclusive and
scholarly adolescent into a capable general and an audacious social
reformer. However, his character was fraught with a great many
contradictions, tensions and inconsistencies: he could be sensitive
and intelligent, but also uncontrollably spontaneous and subject to
alternating fits of considerable self-pity and self-delusion.
Athanassiadi traces the Emperor Julian's responses to personal and
public challenges, and dwells on the conflicts that each weighty
choice imposed on him. This analysis of Julian's character and of
all the issues that confronted him as an emperor, intellectual and
mystic is based largely on contemporary evidence, with particular
emphasis on the extensive writings of the man himself.
Distinguished experts from a range of disciplines (Orientalists, philologists, philosophers, theologians, and historians) 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.
The 21 studies in this volume, which deal with issues of social and
intellectual history, religion and historical methodology, explore
the ways whereby over the course of a few hundred years -roughly
between the second and the fifth centuries A.D.- an anthropocentric
culture mutated into a theocentric one. Rather than underlining the
differences between a revamped paganism and the emergent Christian
traditions, the essays in the volume focus on the processes of
osmosis, interaction and acculturation, which shaped the change in
priorities among the newly created textual communities that were
spreading across the entire breadth of the late antique oecumene.
The main issues considered in this connection include the phenomena
of textuality and holy scripture, canonicity and exclusion, truth
and error, prophecy and tradition, authority and challenge, faith
and salvation, holy places and holy men, in the context of the
construction of new orthodox readings of the Greek philosophical
heritage. Moreover the volume suggests that intolerant attitudes,
which form a characteristic trait of monotheisms, were not an
exclusive preserve of Christianity (as the Enlightenment tradition
would insist), but were progressively espoused by pagan
philosophers and divine men as part of the theory and practice of
Hellenism's theological koine. Efforts to establish the monopoly of
a revealed truth against any rival claims were transversal to the
textual communities which emerged in late antiquity and remodelled
the intellectual and spiritual landscape of the Greater
Mediterranean.
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.
|
|