Browse results
Abstract
In this article, I will examine the functions of oaths in narratives of encounter, confrontation and polemic between religious communities in late antiquity, especially Jews and Christians. Through an analysis of these narratives, I hope to show that oaths had several functions: specific oath formulae were strongly associated with specific religious identities, and as such could be used to highlight distance between religious groups. However, oaths could be used to demonstrate the permeability of religious boundaries, or even be deployed cunningly to conceal one’s identity or subvert expectations of its performance.
Abstract
Four fragmentary Egyptian papyrus sheets containing liturgical texts housed at the Catholic University of Milan were published by Giuseppe Ghedini in 1933 and subsequently known as the Milan Euchologion. While reportedly lost, a single photograph of the papyri preserved in Harold Idris Bell’s papers in the British Library allows for a reassessment of the arrangement and contents of the papyri. Based on a new analysis of the fragments, it is clear that they preserve the end of an anaphora (fruits of communion, intercession, and doxology), a prayer of fraction, and a prayer of thanksgiving after communion and that they date to the second half of the fourth century. This places them among the earliest material witnesses to the anaphora and the post-anaphoral part of the Eucharist.
Abstract
In strom. V.9.1 and strom. V.14.103–106, Clement of Alexandria presents opinions (doxai) of Greek philosophers regarding ‘eschatology’. By making use of so-called doxographies (i.e. the collection of philosophical opinions on a particular topic), Clement employs a popular method in contemporary philosophical debate. In this article, I will show how Clement reinterprets philosophers’ opinions and modifies them to construct a philosophical proof for (Christian) eschatology. It allows him to make controversial topics such as ‘final judgement’ and ‘resurrection’ more plausible to his philosophically educated readers, as according to him, these ideas have already been discussed and confirmed by several well-known philosophers (Heraclitus, Empedocles, Plato and the Stoics).