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An Inquiry into the Textual Transmission of Porphyry’s Philosophy according to the Chaldean Oracles
This book gives us a new perspective on the Philosophy according to the Chaldean Oracles by Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 232/305 CE), demonstrating that much of what we thought we knew about this work and its fragments is mistaken. Here, for the first time, the attempt is made at reconstructing the original text by following the vicissitudes of its reception and transmission from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to modern scholarship.
The extensive and painstaking study of the surviving fragments leads to the radically innovative conclusion that this encyclopedic treatise, written by Porphyry in the last decades of the 3rd century CE, consisted of fifteen books organized in various sections. After an initial discussion of the nature of theurgy and of its subordinate role with respect to philosophy, Porphyry describes the entire history of Greek philosophy from Homer up to his own teacher Plotinus, to then go on to present “introductions” to the seven encyclical disciplines whose study is required for the comprehension of theosophy, that is, the esoteric speculation on the three parts of philosophy: anthropology-ethics, physics, and metaphysics-theology.
By harmonizing the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the Chaldean Oracles, Porphyry intends to present the complete and definitive philosophic system, with the aim of showing the universal way for the liberation of the souls of initiates and of contextually fighting the final battle of the Greco-Roman civilization against Christianity.
Author:
With this analysis of Sol images, Steven E. Hijmans paints a new picture of the solar cult in ancient Rome. The paucity of literary evidence led Hijmans to prioritize visual sources, and he opens this study with a thorough discussion of the theoretical and methodological issues involved. Emphasizing the danger of facile equivalencies between visual and verbal meanings, his primary focus is Roman praxis, manifest in, for instance, the strict patterning of Sol imagery. These patterns encode core concepts that Sol imagery evoked when deployed, and in those concepts we recognize the bedrock of Rome’s understandings of the sun and his cult. Case studies illustrate these concepts in action and the final chapter analyzes the historical context in which previous, now discredited views on Sol could arise.
With this analysis of Sol images, Steven E. Hijmans paints a new picture of the solar cult in ancient Rome. The paucity of literary evidence led Hijmans to prioritize visual sources, and he opens this study with a thorough discussion of the theoretical and methodological issues involved. Emphasizing the danger of facile equivalencies between visual and verbal meanings, his primary focus is Roman praxis, manifest in, for instance, the strict patterning of Sol imagery. These patterns encode core concepts that Sol imagery evoked when deployed, and in those concepts we recognize the bedrock of Rome’s understandings of the sun and his cult. Case studies illustrate these concepts in action and the final chapter analyzes the historical context in which previous, now discredited views on Sol could arise.

This is part I of a two-part set.
With this analysis of Sol images, Steven E. Hijmans paints a new picture of the solar cult in ancient Rome. The paucity of literary evidence led Hijmans to prioritize visual sources, and he opens this study with a thorough discussion of the theoretical and methodological issues involved. Emphasizing the danger of facile equivalencies between visual and verbal meanings, his primary focus is Roman praxis, manifest in, for instance, the strict patterning of Sol imagery. These patterns encode core concepts that Sol imagery evoked when deployed, and in those concepts we recognize the bedrock of Rome’s understandings of the sun and his cult. Case studies illustrate these concepts in action and the final chapter analyzes the historical context in which previous, now discredited views on Sol could arise.

This is volume II of a two-volume set.
Scholarly monographs on the religious iconography of Mandaeism.
The First Complete Publication of the Text of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll (8ḤevXIIgr), Preceded by a Study of the Greek Translations and Recensions of the Bible Conducted in the First Century CE under the Influence of the Palestinian Rabbinate
Translator:
This ground-breaking study in Septuagint translation technique is, after sixty years, finally available to an English-speaking audience. Barthélemy provides us with a first look at the fragments of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from the Cave of Horror and embarks on a careful examination of this scroll’s place in the history of Septuagint translation and revision. He poses questions and answers that have yet to be fully explored. Devanciers d’Aquila is described as “epoch-making” (Robert Kraft—Gnomon), “a stimulating contribution” (Sidney Jellicoe—Journal of the American Oriental Society), and “a monograph of singular importance” (Geza Vermes–Journal of Semitic Studies).
Volume Editor:
Aiming to develop a less studied literary genre, this book provides a well-rounded picture of spiritual and physical diseases and their remedies as they were ingrained in the imagination and practices of Middle Eastern Abrahamic cultures, with a special emphasis of Christian communities (Greeks/Byzantines, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Ethiopians). The volume traces traditions dealing with the onset of a disease in the body and soul, the search for remedy, the maintenance of healing, and the engagement of these processes with faith—either through their affirmation in the public sphere or remaining within the personal framework, as in monastic traditions. A recurring presence in religious literature and the history of the intellectual world, the confrontation between disease and healing may well still be current for our modern understanding of the paths to seeking and maintaining the health of one’s body and soul, without excluding the factor of faith as a core principle.
Editor:
International studies in Hellenic and Roman theology.
The towns and villages of Phrygia, a predominantly rural region of inner Asia Minor, provide richer documentation of their early Christian communities than any other part of the Roman empire. This includes the earliest lengthy Christian funerary text, coin types depicting Noah and the Flood introduced by Christians at the Phrygian emporium of Apamea, the famous ‘Christians for Christians’ inscriptions, and more than a hundred other pre-Constantinian grave monuments, The abundant evidence for the Christian presence up the Turkish invasions throws new light on continuity between Late Antiquity and the Middle Byzantine period, and on the warfare between the Byzantines and Turks in the 11th century. This is the first exhaustive regional study since 1897.