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This history of early Christian creeds contains an up-to-date account of their origin and development from the credal texts in the New Testament to the fully fledged classical formulae of the 4th century. It includes the creeds’ use and alteration in subsequent periods until the time of Charlemagne and the beginnings of the filioque controversy. In addition, the author provides a scholarly commentary on the most common ancient confessions: the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed. Going beyond previous studies, the book contains chapters dedicated to the use of creeds in law, art, music, everyday life and even magic. Recently discovered source texts, such as a new Ethiopic version of the Roman Creed and a short recension of the Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople, receive extensive treatment. Credal developments in the eastern churches beyond the borders of the Roman Empire complete this comprehensive overview. This volume is intended both as a textbook for advanced students of theology and cognate disciplines and as a reference book on the creeds in a wide range of contexts. All source texts are accompanied by modern English translations.
Volume two of Theorizing Rituals mainly consists of an annotated bibliography of more than 400 items covering those books, edited volumes and essays that are considered most relevant for the field of ritual theory. Instead of proposing yet another theory of ritual, the bibliography is a comprehensive monument documenting four decades of theorizing rituals.
In order to reconstruct ancient rituals we must rely on ancient texts. That is the premise of these eight papers which are taken from a conference held at Stanford University in 2002 which brought together scholars of Roman religion and scholars of Roman literature to debate the `textuality of ritual'. The papers are followed by six brief essays which discuss the themes of the and consider the problems of retrieving ritual from texts written by such complex authors as Virgil, Ovid and Livy. The essays themselves focus on: the theme of sacrificial ritual in Roman poetry; religious communication in Rome; professional poets and the 2nd-century BC temple of Hercules of the muses; Livy; the Aeneid ; Ovid's use of hymns in the Metamorphoses ; Ovid's depiction of a triumph in Tristia ; the secret name of Rome. The numerous extracts are presented in Latin verse and English prose translation.
A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of a wide range of topics relating to the practices, expressions, and interactions of religion in antiquity, primarily in the Greco-Roman world. • Features readings that focus on religious experience and expression in the ancient world rather than solely on religious belief • Places a strong emphasis on domestic and individual religious practice • Represents the first time that the concept of “lived religion” is applied to the ancient history of religion and archaeology of religion • Includes cutting-edge data taken from top contemporary researchers and theorists in the field • Examines a large variety of themes and religious traditions across a wide geographical area and chronological span • Written to appeal equally to archaeologists and historians of religion
This book explores a new way for students of International Relations to look at war, peace and world orders throughout European history. The contributors argue that the predominant 'realist' paradigm that focuses on states and their self-interest is not applicable to the largest period of European history, because states either did not exist or were only in the making. Instead, they argue, we have to look through the eyes of historical entities to see how they understood the world in which they lived, The authors use a wide range of case-studies, focusing on subjects as diverse as the ancient Greek concept of honour and persecution under Communist regimes during the Cold War to explore the ways in which people in different societies at different times perceived and felt about war and peace in the world around them.
This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life. It moves from the deserts of Egypt and the Frankish monasteries of early medieval Europe to the religious ruptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the reforms of the later Middle Ages. Throughout that story the book balances a rich sense of detail with a broader synthetic view. It presents the history of religious life and its orders as a complex braid woven from multiple strands: individual and community, spirit and institution, rule and custom, church and world. The result is a synthesis that places religious life at the center of European history and presents its institutions as key catalysts of Europe’s move toward modernity.
Volume two of Theorizing Rituals mainly consists of an annotated bibliography of more than 400 items covering those books, edited volumes and essays that are considered most relevant for the field of ritual theory. Instead of proposing yet another theory of ritual, the bibliography is a comprehensive monument documenting four decades of theorizing rituals.
Without denying the importance of the postmodernist approach to the narrative form and rhetorical strategies of historiography, the author, one of Germany's most prominent cultural historians, argues here in favor of reason and methodical rationality in history. He presents a broad variety of aspects, factors and developments of historical thinking from the 18th century to the present, thus continuing, in exemplary fashion, the tradition of critical self-reflection in the humanities and looking at historical studies as an important factor of cultural orientation in practical life. Jörn Rüsen was Professor of Modern History at Universities Bochum and Bielefeld for many years. From 1994 to 1997 he was Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld. Since 1997 he has been President of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut). He specialises in theory and methodology of historical sciences, the history of historiography, intercultural aspects of historical thinking, theory of historical learning, and the history of human rights.
Scholars have long separated a few privileged “religions of the Book” from faiths lacking sacred texts, including ancient Roman religion. Looking beyond this distinction, Duncan MacRae delves into Roman treatises on the nature of gods and rituals to grapple with a central question: what was the significance of books in a religion without scripture?
Ovid's Fasti comments on Augustan religion by means of ambivalent aetiologies, elegiac jokes and subtle allusions to the religious self-fashioning of the imperial family. Darja Sterbenc Erker carefully reconstructs Ovid's subtle unmasking of religious fundaments of Augustus' principate.