Early Christianity

One of the primary biblical texts that has been used over the years to attempt to defend an intermediate state between this life and the eschatological resurrection of the body is 2 Cor 5:1-10. In an effort to clarify the real teaching of this section of text, it is my purpose to restudy the passage in its larger context to determine what Paul was endeavoring to say. Was he discussing anthropology? Was he discussing eschatology? Was he nuancing his earlier views expressed in 1 Thess 4 and 1 Cor 15, as some have argued, moving away from a biblical Jewish view of the state of the dead and the doctrine of the resurrection to a more Hellenistic view which proposes an immortal soul that escapes the body at death and assumes an intermediate state while waiting for the reunion of the soul with the body at the resurrection? Or did he have a different purpose that has often been hijacked for ulterior purposes? What was Paul’s real point in this passage?

This article traces the rise of research on children in the Hebrew Bible (HB). While early contributions to the field provided foundational insights, this area of scholarship has gained significant ground over the last ten years. This article begins by reviewing seminal points for studying children in the HB. I explain why this study is critical for our understanding of the Bible, and clarify how we discern who is a child in the text and the ancient world. Since the word ‘childist’ is still new to many in the academy, I discuss the origin of this term, define it, and urge its adoption. Most of the article assesses scholarship on children in the HB, with an emphasis on publications that have emerged recently as well as works forthcoming (at the time of publication). The conclusion sketches some of the many areas in this scholarly field that are ripe for further exploration.

This bibliographic essay addresses the different approaches to animal sacrifi ce generally with a focus on animal sacrifi ce in ancient Greece specifi cally. As animal sacrifi ce was one of the unfamiliar rituals introduced to western anthropologists by foreign cultures, the ritual of animal sacrifi ce was addressed by anthropologists as early as the nineteenth century. Later, the topic was a trend in other different majors like archaeology, history, sociology and psychology as well.

The paper explores the origin of Catharism presenting an alternative view on this controversial subject. A hypothesis is proposed about the probable connection between the early Cathar heretics from the 4th century and later Bogomils and Cathars.

This work deals with the phenomenon of female martyrdom in ancient Christianity, trying to integrate the traditional historical perspective with the more recent gender history perspective. The phenomenon is explored both through modern studies on the matter and through ancient literary sources. In addition to the historical-literary approach, there is an attempt to include the contribution of anthropology and the history of comparative religions to frame the phenomenon of martyrdom in general and not lose sight of the environment in which Christianity was born and developed, in close contact with the Jewish and Greek-pagan world.

Review of an interesting book, which documents and discusses all cases of mythical kinship relations concerning the Romans and their diplomacy and thus is a valuable tool for all who want to know more about the importance of Rome’s alleged Trojan ancestors in Rome’s dealings with the non-Roman world.

This paper offers a general overview of the rise and expansion of Christianity in Macedonia between the first and sixth centuries AD. It highlights that, in the absence of detailed literary sources, epigraphic and archaeological material represents our best source of information on the topic. The available evidence demonstrates that Christianity took root in the main urban centers (i. e., Thessalonica, Philippi, and Beroea possibly) in the first century and spread in all directions along the main communication axes in subsequent centuries. By the fifth century, it pervaded the entire Macedonian territory and effectuated a profound religious and cultural transformation of Macedonian society.

Ab ovo usque ad mala - from eggs to apples. We know this metaphorical summary of ancient Roman feasts from Horace's satire,1 where the appetizer was the egg, and the final course was the fruit bowl – the apples  in Horace’s Latin satire. Classical literature is rich in references to feasts, which were not just about food. At Roman feasts, destinies were decided over ornate platters. The beauty and richness of life were heaped on the platters in delicious dishes, which had their own order - just as there is an order, sequence, and flow to human life.
Ab ovo usque ad mala - these two endpoints also symbolise our life. Birth is represented in many cultures by the egg, the beginning and symbol of life, and we finally fall as ripe fruit from the tree of life. Nevertheless, between these two endpoints, we are constantly on the move. In the process of our destiny, our goals can be considered intermediate stages, whether our goal is to embrace the lessons of the past or to pass on life to  plant seeds for the future. The ultimate goal of our lives can be  metaphysical rather than physical.
The history of mankind as a whole can also be seen as a feast without a definite beginning, whose appetizer or conclusion we cannot define. At this feast, life serves up at least as many bitter bites as it does many pleasures. One such bitter bite was the COVID-19-epidemic, which came as a shock to us, even though humanity has seen many devastating epidemics throughout history – as well as famine, war, and many other calamities over the millennia.
Still, history is a feast where the intermediate courses can be prepared not only by the host but also by the guests. Humanity's responses to epidemics have been vaccinations and medicines, to war the development of military and civilian technology, to famines agricultural technology and more efficient food production. Destinies and processes were entwined and shaped from the beginning of human history to the present day.
The ’Destinies and Processes’ Digital Conference2 and the resulting book were a response to the plague. The COVID-19-induced closures stimulated technological advances, reshaped workflows, made us aware of our vulnerabilities, and encouraged us to look for new solutions. The spread of the contagion demanded caution, making it impossible to meet in person – which could not be replaced by the virtual world. However, online conferences made intellectual encounters possible, and for young scientists and scientist designates, it became even more crucial than before. With the Destinies and Processes Digital Conference, the Historical Knowledge and Memorial Foundation (formerly known as the Society for Dissemination Historical Knowledge) has made these virtual meetings and lectures possible, thanks to the work of the main organiser, Krisztina Dóra Fodor. Now, this volume offers a selection of the intellectual fruits of the conference, with further studies for dessert available to all.
Ab ovo usque ad mala - the studies and reviews are special treats for the reader. We publish this volume in the hope that the intellectual delicacies served up by young scientists and scientist-designates will prove nourishing, and inspire further historical feasts for all of us who take a seat at the table of spirit with this volume in hand.
- The Editors

In dem Band werden über 100 skulpierte Werkstücke karolingischer Zeit aus dem Bistum Chur in Katalogen ausführlich behandelt und in ihr kunstgeschichtliches Umfeld eingeordnet. Stücke aus der Kathedrale von Chur, dem Frauenkloster Schänis, der Benediktkapelle in Mals und Dorfkirchen im Vinschgau belegen den vielfältigen Gebrauch von Skulptur. Eine Diskussion zur zeitlichen Einordnung führt bei Chur zu einer neuen Datierung in die Jahre nach 800. Stilistische Erwägungen machen es zudem wahrscheinlich, dass in der Kapelle von Schloss Tirol zwei reich dekorierte Fensterbögen und zwei Elemente mit Flechtwerk-Motiven im Portal als Spolien eingebaut wurden. Zusammen mit der Skulptur aus St. Johann in Müstair, die bereits publiziert wurde, lassen sich nun die frühmittelalterlichen Bildhauerarbeiten im rätischen Gebiet überblicken und beurteilen.

Could an orality-oriented theology, one that impacts textual style and structure through sound and symbol, offer an additional type of theology that encourages and enhances further textual insights in this “age of art and heart?” In this chapter I will attempt to make the case for the need for such a theology, advancing a new “queen” for a new era—a oral-digital dominate world (in contrast to the print industrial world). And this new queen serves all subjects in the kingdom.

We Christians are seriously challenged today by many professing brethren if we do not preach that all ethnic Jews will be saved at the Day of Judgement. However, this fanciful hope is denied strongly by both Testaments which clearly teach that not all Jews belong to the People of God but a certain Remnant shall be saved, just as it is amongst the Gentiles. Some contenders who speak of an ethnic salvation of all Jews, allow for Jews dying in unbelief but believe that when Christ comes again, those same Jews will be rescued from hell and resurrected to eternal salvation. Some say, all the Jews then living at Christ's Second Coming will automatically be saved on sight of Him. Reading Isaiah, Amos and Hosea alone should show how this is but vain, hypothetical thinking void of all Scriptural backing. Firstly, where can one find an ethnic Jew today? I have never met a Jew, and I have met thousands, who has a pedigree of racial and ethnic purity, going back to Adam, Abraham, Moses or David, or wherever they might claim 'Here my family started'. We must ask when exactly did the Jews appear as a people or nation. They were only really one nation for a very short time and soon split up quickly over internal squabbling and a general departure from God. Secondly, the Old Testament, as the New, claim that only a remnant from all peoples, whatever earthly citizenship they might have, will be saved. Earthly nationality has never guaranteed a citizenship in Heaven nor does the adherence to any religious forms, rules and regulations. I should think it was quite clear by now that all the races of the world are mongrels ethnically speaking. Christ is the only door to Heaven, whatever religion was formerly held and no race has priority. Certainly, the Jews in Moses day who were already a mixed people racially before they left Egypt, had specially favours given them up to Christ's First Advent, but, as we read in Scripture, the majority turned away from God's covenant given to Abraham and rejected the Divine revelation. Sinning knows no ethnic purity but is the lot

This paper explores the issue of performative spaces in the medieval Latin Church, examining the mindsets of the time and the ways practitioners adopted the Platonic notion of world harmony. We then look at the Palatine Chapel of Aachen (Latin Aquisgranum) in the light of the Plato’s doctrine. At the heart of this analysis will be the cosmological drama at the creation of the world, described by Ambrose as a chorus of the constitutive elements. It is from this image that the proto-model of the Christian Church as ‘moving waters’ was derived, a vision shared by both the Eastern and the Western world. To this day, the Palatine chapel of Aquisgranum conveys the appearance of the Ambrosian vision of the primordial waters, with its renewed marble revetments imitating the cosmic waters. The church is designed according to propria dispositione, i. e. modularity. Augustine’s concept of modularity and his psychology of sound, space, movement, and time will be explored in the hypothetical inq...

The era in which ‘Socrates’ is thought to have emerged pertains to
c. 600-300 BC, known as “The Axial Age”. It is thought to have been
a time of some very original characters and religio-philosophical founding fathers: Socrates, Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster.

TREBINJSKO-MRKANSKA BISKUPIJA je zbornik radova povodom obilježavanja 1000. obljetnice prvoga pisanog spomena Trebinjske biskupije i 700. obljetnice prvoga pisanog spomena Mrkanske biskupije. Nakladnik je Trebinjsko-mrkanska biskupija, za nakladnika mons Petar Palić, apostolski upravitelj Trebinjsko-mrkanske biskupije, urednik je dr. sc. Marinko Marić. Zbornik se sastoji od 18 radova iz raznolikih tema povijesti i sadašnjosti biskupije. Zbornik su priredili: Marinko Marić i Ivica Puljić

U radu se donosi pregled nastanka i razvoja ranokršćanskih biskupija na području između rijeke Neretve i Boke kotorske. Rad obuhvaća same početke kršćanstva na tom području te prati osnutak i razvoj tamošnje crkvene hijerarhije.
The collection of papers on the 1000th anniversary of the first written mention of the Diocese of Trebinje and the 700th anniversary of the first written mention of the Diocese of Mrkan, 2023.
This paper provides an overview of the origin and development of early Christian dioceses between the Neretva River and Boka Kotorska. The article covers the very beginning of Christianity in the area and follows the foundation and evolution of the local church hierarchy.

Two new reconstructions show a bird’s eye view of Vindonissa in the Late Celtic-Early Roman and Late Roman
periods respectively. Together with the revised representations of the fortress and post-fortress periods, they illustrate
the landscape and settlement development from the late 1st century BC to the 4th century AD (supplements
1–4). The current state of research is thus shown vividly.
Keywords: Vindonissa, reconstructions, late Celtic period, oppidum, late Roman period, castrum.

Das vorliegende Buch ist Begleitband und Ausstellungsführer zu einer interdisziplinären Lehrveranstaltung, die im Sommersemester 2022 an der Universität Trier mit den beteiligten Fächern Klassische Archäologie, der Alten Geschichte und der Papyrologie durchgeführt worden ist. Schwerpunkte waren die dedizierten Sammlungen der Universität Trier, die im täglichen Studienverlauf den Studierenden immer wieder neue Einblicke in Quellenmaterial, historische Fragen und generelle Hinterlassenschaft eröffnen. Darunter fallen in Trier aufbewahrte Papyri, Münzen und Kleinobjekte aus Kult, Religion und Tagesgeschäft. Die universitäre Vorbereitung der im Jahr 2023 beginnenden Ausstellung wurde durch Präsenz- und Online-Sitzungen bewältigt und ermöglichte den Studierenden erste Einblicke in Konzeption und Durchführung einer Ausstellung, Erfahrung im Verfassen von zur Publikation vorgesehenen Beiträgen sowie der schließlich in der Publikation mündeten Einblicke ins Tagesgeschäft des eingebundenen Verlags.

Reading, through memory studies, the hermeneutical
process underlying the writing of the FG, the article
argues that the Maccabean epic, an integral part of
the cultural memory of Jesus the Jew and his johannist
followers, emerges with all its ambivalence and in its
constitutive matrices in the peculiar traits of the collective
memory about Jesus expressed in the Fourth
Gospel. After the Easter experience, in the light of first
Jewish war (66-74 CE) and the success of the messianic
proclamation in the Diaspora, the Johannist group rethinks
the Maccabaic matrices of its cultural memory
(history, rituals and values, especially the religious zeal)
and, without abandoning its demands (heroic loyalty
to one’s identity and mission; readiness to glorify God to
the point of giving one’s life), reconfigures them in terms
that are culturally effective for the Greek-Roman world
but profoundly anti-imperial.

The article describes a preserved poetic fragment commonly called De piscibus, written by Marcellus of Side. He was a physician and a renowned epic poet, who lived in the town of Side (Pamphylia) in the second century AD. In the analyzed fragment (v. 41–101), being an extract from his didactic epos entitled Cheironides, Marcellus of Side presents a number of remedies prepared from some marine animals, especially fishes, living in the Mediterranean Sea.

Matthew follows Mark's text closely, simplifying some of the detail 2 John's account coheres with some features of Mark--including some details that Matthew omits--but John differs dramatically from Mark, not for theological reasons, but on matters of time, place, and particulars. Luke, however, follows John in some of the ways he departs from Mark--a clear sign of Luke's use of some features of the Johannine tradition, also evident elsewhere in Luke's departures from Mark in six dozen cases.

Kao kanonska knjiga europske kulture i civilizacije Biblija je mnoštvom simbola, slika, likova, parabola, prispodoba, predaja i legendi i slično obogatila svjetsku književnost. Biblijske teme čest su motiv i hrvatske književnosti, kako u starijim razdobljima, tako i danas. U radu je naglasak na biblijskoj trilogiji Mire Gavrana (Judita, Krstitelj, Poncije Pilat) u kojoj se tematiziranjem biblijskih simbola i likova preispituju neka od aktualnih pitanja našeg vremena, ali i zrcali dubina i težina (autorske) potrage za svijetom koji bi bio pravedniji i bolji.As a canon book of the European culture and civilization the Bible has enriched the world literature by numerous symbols, images, figures, parables, comparisons, traditions and legends. Biblical themes are frequent motif in Croatian literature too, in the past as well as today. The work lays stress on the Biblical Trilogy of Miro Gavran (Judith, the Baptizer, Pontius Pilate) in which some actual issues of our time are re-examined ...

The life and work of Optatian are intricately interwoven: just as Optatian’s carmina rank among the most astonishing literary products of their times, his cursus honorum amounts to one of the most surprising senatorial careers in the age of Constantine. The sources are few and far between. But by reexamining the available materials, this chapter points to Optatian’s meteoric rise to political prominence: although the poet’s political career stagnated before his exile, Optatian rose to the highest strata of the senatorial elite immediately after his rehabilitation. The chapter begins by surveying the epigraphic and epistolary evidence for this astonishing career: while a close analysis of the prosopographical information contained in two inscriptions (one from Rome and one from Sparta) provides a basic framework for Optatian’s political biography, a close reading of the two surviving letters (for which a new chronology and context is suggested) yields crucial insights into the earliest phase of interaction between poet and emperor. Against this backdrop, the chapter revisits the manuscript tradition in order to propose a new model for the editing and publication of the purported insigne volumen dedicated to Constantine, and through which the poet secured his recall from exile. The sudden twists of fate in Optatian’s biography, the chapter argues, are closely linked to the poet’s special creations as a medium for interacting with the emperor – which again conveys precious information about the poetic conception of Optatian’s works.