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This late ancient Christian treatise, preserved in Syriac and falsely attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), exhorts female virgins to be "holy in body and spirit" (1 Cor. 7:34) and to abstain from "all that is in the world - the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches" (1 John 1:16). Drawing on themes developed in the 'de virginitate' literature of the fourth and fifth centuries, the author instructs virgins on their proper physical deportment and use of the five senses, but he incorporates into his work exhortations to purity and repentance originally addressed to a wider audience of male and female ascetics and perhaps even laity. Most likely a translation of a Greek original composed between the fifth and ninth centuries, the treatise is of interest also for its frequent and inventive use of the Bible in support of the ascetic ideal

The essays in this book honor and extend the work of Rowan A. Greer, Walter H. Gray Professor Emeritus of Anglican Studies at Yale University Divinity School, by exploring the connections between textual interpretation and the formation of religious identity. A diverse and prestigious group of biblical scholars, church historians, and theologians study the function that scripture plays in the creation and maintenance of faith communities and the ways that communal locations in turn shape the interpretation of scripture. The first part of the book examines specific examples of ancient biblical interpretation as a means of creating, maintaining, and challenging Christian identity in the pluralistic ancient world. Authors study acts of interpretation in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Physiologus, Gnostic literature, the fifth-century mosaic of the Church of Hosios David in Thessaloniki, and in the works of Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Porphyry of Tyre. Reading scripture emerges as a strategy for locating the reader and his or her community with respect to other Christians, Jews, and pagans. Part 2 of the volume considers the general problem of interpretation withi

Product Description: This book is a special issue of Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Product Description: Many recent studies have argued that the self is a modern invention, a concept developed in the last three centuries. Religion and the Self in Antiquity challenges that idea by presenting a series of studies that explore the origins, formation, and limits of the self within the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world...read more

This book argues that it is time to rethink reception as a traditional paradigm for understanding the relation between the ancient Greco-Roman traditions and early Judaism and Christianity. The concept of reception implies taking something from one fixed box into another, often chronologically later one, but actually Jews and Christians were deeply involved in Greco-Roman society in many different ways. The communication of cultural and religious ideas and practices took place among various religious and cultural communities with many overlaps. Accordingly, the contributors of this volume intend to develop a more multi-faceted view of such processes and to go beyond the term reception.