Religio Philosophical Discourses In The Mediterranean World

This first volume of the new Brill series “Ancient Philosophy & Religion” offers analyses of Platonic philosophy and piety, the emergence of a common religio-philosophical discourse in Antiquity, the place of Jesus among ancient philosophers, and responses of pagan philosophers to Christianity from the second century to Late Antiquity.

In Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition Niko Huttunen challenges the interpretation of early Christian texts as anti-imperial documents. He presents examples of the positive relationship between early Christians and the Roman society. With the concept of “recognition” Huttunen describes a situation in which the parties can come to terms with each other without full agreement. Huttunen provides examples of non-Christian philosophers recognizing early Christians. He claims that recognition was a response to Christians who presented themselves as philosophers. Huttunen reads Romans 13 as a part of the ancient tradition of the law of the stronger. His pioneering study on early Christian soldiers uncovers the practical dimension of recognizing the empire.

The notion of faith experienced a remarkable surge in popularity among early Christians, with Paul as its pioneer. Yet what was the wider cultural significance of the pistis word group? This comprehensive work contextualizes Paul’s faith language within Graeco-Roman cultural discourses, highlighting its semantic multifariousness and philosophical potential. Based on an innovative combination of cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis, it explores ‘faith’ within social, political, religious, ethical, and cognitive contexts. While challenging modern individualist and irrational conceptualizations, this book shows how Paul uses pistis to creatively configure philosophical narratives of his age and propose Christ as its ultimate embodiment.

In this volume, Annalisa Phillips Wilson sheds new light on the much debated issue of Paul’s inconsistency on the Jewish law by comparing his discourse on Jewish practices with Stoic ethical reasoning.

Celsus penned the earliest known detailed attack upon Christianity. While his identity is disputed and his anti-Christian treatise, entitled the True Word, has been exclusively transmitted through the hands of the great Christian scholar Origen, he remains an intriguing figure. In this interdisciplinary volume, which brings together ancient philosophers, specialists in Greek literature, and historians of early Christianity and of ancient Judaism, Celsus is situated within the cultural, philosophical, religious and political world from which he emerged. While his work is ostensibly an attack upon Christianity, it is also the defence of a world in which Celsus passionately believed. It is the unique contribution of this volume to give voice to the many dimensions of that world in a way that will engage a variety of scholars interested in late antiquity and the histories of Christianity, Judaism and Greek thought.

This volume is an interdisciplinary investigation and contextualization of the various concepts of divine union in the private and public sphere of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds.

The much-acclaimed present-day philosophical turn to the letters of Saint Paul points to a profound consonance between ancient and modern thought. Such is the bold claim of this study in which scholars from contemporary continental philosophy, new testamentary studies and ancient philosophy discuss with each other the meaning Paul's terms pistis, faith. In this volume, this theme discusses in detail the threefold relation between Paul and (1) continental thought, (2) the Graeco-Roman world, and (3) political theology. It is shown that pistis does not only concern a mode of knowing, but rather concerns the human ethos or mode of existence as a whole. Moreover, it is shown that the present-day political theological interest in Paul can be seen as an attempt to recuperate Paul’s pistis in this comprehensive sense. Finally, an important discussion concerning the specific ontological implications and background of this reinterpretation of pistis is examined by comparing the ancient ontological commitments to those of the present-day philosophers. Thus, the volume offers an insight in a crucial consonance of ancient and modern thought concerning the question of pistis in Paul while not forgetting to stipulate important differences.

"Max J. Lee examines the philosophies of Platonism and Stoicism during the Greco-Roman era and their rivals including Diaspora Judaism and Pauline Christianity on how to transform a person's character from vice to virtue. He describes each philosophical school's respective teachings on diverse moral topoi such as emotional control, ethical action and habit, character formation, training, mentorship, and deity." --provided by publisher

This book provides a comprehensive and field-defining examination of the study of religions in Ireland. By bringing together some of the foremost experts on religions in an Irish context, it critically traces the development of an important field of study and evaluates the thematic threads that have emerged as significant. It thereby offers an assessment of contemporary religions in Ireland and their relationships to society, culture, economics, politics and the State. Contributors make connections between topics as diverse as Ireland's Revolutionary Period, the formation of the Irish State, the decline of Catholicism, the rise of migrant religions and New Religious Movements and the effects of secularisation on religions and society. This book emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the study of religions whilst illustrating the coherent themes that have shaped the development of the field in Ireland, making it unique.

By integrating conversations across disciplines, especially focusing on classical studies and Jewish and Christian studies, this volume addresses several imbalances in scholarship on reading and textual activity in the ancient Mediterranean. Contributors intentionally place Jewish, Christian, Roman, Greek and other reading circles back into their encompassing historical context, avoiding subdivisions along modern subject lines, divisions still bearing marks of cultural and ideological interests. In their examination, contributors avoid dwelling upon traditional methodological debates over orality vs. literacy and social classifications of literacy, instead turning their attention to the social-historical: groups of people, circles and networks, strata and class, scribal culture, material culture, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, functions and types of literacy and the social relationships that all of these entail. Overall, the volume contributes to an emerging and important interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in ancient literacy, encouraging future discussion between two currently divided fields.