Post-Hellenistic Philosophy, Neoplatonism, and the Doxastic Turn in Religion: Continuities and Ruptures in Ancient Reflections on Religion

Numen ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 147-166
Author(s):  
Tuomo Lankila
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Main Line ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
The World ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy

This article is inspired by Peter Van Nuffelen’s comparison between post-Hellenistic philosophy and Neoplatonism. The article defends the thesis of a fundamental break between ancient religions and new universal religions which became prevalent at the end of late antiquity. This break concerns not only fundamental doctrines but also the principles of how religious communities were constituted. There was a shift from the world of practice-oriented and reciprocally recognizing cults to the world of exclusive theocracies whose mindset emphasizes doctrinal confession. Some seeds of such a “doxastic turn” are to be seen in the post-Hellenistic philosophy and especially in the dogmatic tendencies of Middle Platonism. Thus, there is an observable route from the post-Hellenistic thought towards late ancient universal religions.Neoplatonism’s role in this historical drama is not that of precursor but, rather, it represents a deviation from the main line.

"Monotheistic" tendency in the late antiquity paganism

1996 ◽  
pp. 56-61
Author(s):  
I. Mozgovyy
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The World

The unceasing approximation of the remarkable 2000th anniversary of the coming to the world of Christ highlights the need for further analysis of those processes that took place in the spiritual life of the ancient peoples and laid the foundations of modern civilization with its universal human norms and values.

Interfaith Families

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-104
Author(s):  
Halima Krausen
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Meaningful Learning ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
New Normal ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
Interfaith Marriages ◽  
Plural Society

In our plural society, interfaith marriages and multicultural families have become a new normal and are either considered problematic for the religious communities or welcomed as a contribution to a secular and more peaceful world. In the course of my work with European Muslims, I could accompany such families through a few generations. In this article, I am going to outline some typical challenges and crises in such relationships and their effects on young people growing up in mixed families, adding my observations of how they can be dealt with. Ultimately, there is a chance that, through dialogue, it provides a meaningful learning environment that prepares young people for the diverse reality of the world today.

Creation in the Poimandres and in Other Creation Stories

2020 ◽  
Vol 21-22 (1) ◽  
pp. 411-421
Author(s):  
Fritz Graf
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Creation Stories

AbstractMy paper develops from the observation that the cosmogonies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Hermetic Poimandres are related to each other. After an analysis of Ovid’s text as an example of a diakrisis cosmogony in which the world is created by the sorting out of its originally confused elements, I give a short overview of the history of this type of cosmogony before Ovid. I then analyze the respective cosmogony in the Poimandres as another example of the same typology. A look at the use of diakrisis cosmogonies in late antiquity, including in the first ‘Moral Poem’ of Gregory of Nazianzus, closes the paper and demonstrates the attraction of this cosmogonical model in the Imperial epoch.

Harmonizing the Truth: Eusebius and the Problem of the Four Gospels

Traditio ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas O'Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Perceived Utility ◽  
Latin West ◽  
Book Of Kells ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
The Church

In the late third century Eusebius of Caesarea, better remembered now for his work as a historian of the church, produced an apparatus for the reconciliation of the disagreements found in the four Christian gospels. It was a remarkable work in its own right for it preserved, as the tradition demanded, the plurality of the gospels, while allowing them to be presented and studied as a single entity, “the gospel,” and so succeeding in Tatian's aim in hisDiatessaron— as exegesis and apologetics demanded. Moreover, though now largely forgotten, it remained an important element within theology for centuries. This paper's aim is to locate the significance of Eusebius's work in its original setting in the world of late antiquity and the Christian defense of pagan challenges to the gospels' integrity, and then to follow the influence of his work within just one strand of the tradition: that which forms the background of western, Latin theology. So it will note how that work was adopted and adapted by Jerome, how it then passed on to the late-patristic Latin schoolmasters who sought to transform all learning into convenient modules of defined value, and then was taken up by others in just one region of the Latin West, the insular world, such as the anonymous scribes of the Book of Kells, the Stowe Missal, and the Book of Deer, for whom Eusebius's work was a mystery that they could not simply abandon, even when they could not understand it. Throughout this period, the Eusebian Apparatus roused the intellect of scholars, teachers, and scribes, but in each milieu the significance and perceived utility of the Apparatus was different. The history of ideas is about changes within intellectual and textual continuities, and with the Apparatus we have a clearly identifiable scholarly tool that does not in itself change over the period, but whose reception and exploitation vary greatly.

scholarly journals God en armoede in die Karoo – ’n Besinning oor ’n teologie van transformasie

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 321
Author(s):  
PI Van Niekerk
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Arid Area ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Social Involvement ◽  
Christian Humanism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

<strong>God and poverty in the Karoo – A reflection on a theology of transformation</strong> <br /> The Karoo is an outstretched arid area characterised by poverty and underdevelopment. This article focuses on the poverty of the Karoo people and the effect of their faith in God on social development and transformation. The future of the Karoo is vested in its people and religious communities. Previous research indicated that believers’ image of God had an effect on their attitude towards social development and transformation. A small sample of women in a Karoo town experienced God as loving, but not as a God that inspired people towards transformation. The test for the church lies in her social involvement in the world as its salvation is God’s concern. In Christian humanism the integrity of creation in a world filled with injustice and poverty is emphasised. Churches in the Karoo are encouraged to utilise a theology of transformation that is developmentally driven and inspired by a transforming image of God.

scholarly journals The First Main Line in Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-136
Author(s):  
D. Yu. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Management ◽  
Main Type ◽  
Extreme Points ◽  
Main Line ◽  
Railway Transport ◽  
The World ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Private Entrepreneurs ◽  
And Control ◽  
Rich History

The article is dedicated to the 170th anniversary of the first Russian railway main line St. Petersburg–Moscow. The country’s railway transport, as the main type of transportation, has a rich history and remarkable patriotic, labour, scientific, and technical traditions. We must remember them. The emergence of railways in Russia, as in other countries of the world, was accompanied by many problems that needed to be solved: financing methods, types of ownership, track gauge, types of traction and signalling, traffic management and control, competition with other modes of transport, etc. The stage of emergence of railways in Russia is very instructive. What extreme points of view were expressed, and how long did it take to start building main lines? After the society realised the need for construction of railways, it became obvious that the costs required are not affordable neither for the state, nor for creditors, nor for private entrepreneurs. To better understand how construction of the first railway in Russia was conducted, the article offers many illustrations. 

scholarly journals Ritual & Practices to Attain Spirituality in the light of Religious Scriptures of the World Religion

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Tayyaba Razzaq
Keyword(s):  
Research Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Major Purpose ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Ritual Systems

Humans are spiritual beings and preferred to be an element (one way or the other) of this potent mighty power that fascinated him. Men have been urged to look or visualize the Mighty Lord. Different kind of tools and means were designed in various religious communities to offer a few beautified methods to meet this fundamental intuition. To attain spirituality, many ancient religions had their own rituals and ceremonial systems that mostly consist of external rites and practices. The purpose of the study is to examine and determine the importance of rituals that are being practice in the world religions? What the methods religious scriptures has mentioned for their followers to adopt to attain spirituality? The study is to find out similarities and differences in rituals & practices to attain spirituality as mentioned in their religious scriptures? Research methodology for this study adapted is descriptive. This research study has fined out that some ritual systems are concerned with inwards purification rather than outwards. The major purpose of all such practices; fasting, sacrifices, charity etc are all to free men from the entire evil deeds, make him pure as the will of the Lord and closer to it.

scholarly journals Οι νεοελληνικές τύχες του Αλκιβιάδη ως το τέλος του 19ου αιώνα

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Στέση Αθήνη
Keyword(s):  
Greek Literature ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Literary Character ◽  
The World ◽  
European Family

 The beginning of the closer acquaintance of Modern Greek literature with Alcibiades’ forceful personality is located during the years of Greek Enlightenment, with the discovery of the world of History and the “return to the antiquity” through foreign texts, translated into Greek. Nevertheless, Alcibiades’ appearance as a literary character was delayed compared with his reach European literary fortunes. Alcibiades appears in 1837 through Alcibiades byAugustusGottliebMeissner, a translated “bildungsroman” from German, and half a century later through a second translation, from Italian this time, the homonymous FelicioCavallotti’s historical drama (1889). Examining closely these two texts and considering their presence in the source literatures as well as the terms of their reception in Greek it is concluded that Socrates’ disciple array with literary raiment served the ideological schema aiming at the strengthening of the relations between Modern Greek culture and antiquity and simultaneously the European family.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet I. Flower
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Home Town ◽  
Previous Discussion ◽  
The World

The characteristic ubiquity of lares in the Roman home, town, and countryside is matched by the impressive survival of their cults throughout antiquity. Most of the previous discussion has investigated lares in republican and early imperial times, but they survived well into the world of late antiquity, despite increasingly heated competition from an army of new and exotic gods, some of whom made elaborate promises of personal salvation and a future life of bliss. This epilogue draws upon a section of the Theodosian Code (published on February 15 AD 438) to provide a fitting way to conclude this study, which considered many small case studies and individual pieces of evidence to offer a mosaic picture of life with lares. The Theodosian Code here quotes a law promulgated on November 8 AD 392 at Constantinople that bans traditional Roman practices.

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