This short-form article explores the various presentations of “the Middle” within Valentinian authored documents (the Gospel of Truth and Gospel of Philip) and sources which report about the Valentinians (Irenaeus and his report about Ptolemy’s theology). It suggests underscores the deep distinctions each view has and suggests that these may be…[Read more]

At Christmas, Christians celebrate that Jesus was born on December 25 as the son of God andthe Virgin Mary. But this event is not unique. In this article, I show that the birth of Jesus hasseveral non-Christian predecessors, whereby various elements of the ritual dynamics have beenChristianized and implemented into the figure we know today as Jesus Christ.

In comics: how ancient rabbis upend “traditional” ideas of reproduction, gender, and humanity. A blog post commissioned by UC Press Blog about the book When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species.

Link: htt…[Read more]

More detailed discussions on Thomas Biggs: Sown Men and Rome’s Civil Wars. Rethinking the End of Melinno’s Hymn to Rome (Mnemosyne 76.3) and Gerlinde Bretzigheimer: Intertextualität und Intratextualität in Ausonius’ Epitaphia heroum (Wiener Studien 135).

This paper aims to examine models by which symbolism of light and lamp in
the Mediterranean region was manifested in the early Christian visual culture,
i.e. lamp representations from Central Balkans. Lamps with Early
Christian representations are considered in the context of transculturality
of Late Antiquity, as well as political and…[Read more]

Elements of Christian visual culture appeared in
various media in monumental and applied art during the late
antique period, from painted decoration in the catacombs,
through funerary monuments, to utilitarian objects such as
jewellery and lamps. The paper analyses the symbolic meaning
of fish and maritime motifs in the context of the late…[Read more]

On a number of pilgrimage objects from Late Antiquity, St Thecla, a highly revered saint, also known as Thecla the Protomartyr, is shown accompanied by St Menas, whose tomb in Egypt was the pilgrimage centre associated with healing miracles. The saintly couple appear in ad bestias compositions or in a simplified variant as two saints with a cross.…[Read more]

The volume under review is based on the premise that there is no real dialogue between Greek and Latin studies on the literature (and especially on the poetry) of Late Antiquity, at least not a dialogue as intense as with regard to the earlier, ‘classical’ literature. The reason for this is not least the problem that mutual dependencies between…[Read more]

More detailed Discussions on J. van Waarden: Leafing through Pliny with Sidonius. Sidon. Ep. 1.1, Plin. Ep. 1.1, 1.2, and 1.5, and Satire, Mnemosyne 75/6, 2022, 1021–1043 (62–64) and G. Wöhrle: Fragmente im
Überfluss. Zur Problematik eines philologischen Begriffs, Hermes 150/4, 2022, 385-404 (64–67).

This article examines the Greek goddess Hygieia by looking at her identity, cult status in the ancient world and subsequent scholarly reception. Should she be viewed as a goddess or a personification? By studying Hygieia primarily as a concept of health within ancient medicine, as well as a personification and a goddess, it will be argued that…[Read more]

In this paper, I argue that Hygieia has to be viewed as a full goddess in Greek religion and medicine, with a special focus on her position within the Asklepios cult. I will examine her identity, to which scholars attribute several labels like goddess, abstraction and personification. I further argue that Hygieia’s role in performing incubation r…[Read more]

The present paper aims to investigate the role of anthropology in the development of Ritual Studies as an inter-disciplinary platform, with a focus on ritual dynamics by using a historiographic description, focusing on thetransition of Greco-Roman to Christian culture. This study attempts to shed light not only on the contributionof anthropology…[Read more]

The Companion assembles a total of twenty chapters in English throughout, which – as explained in more detail in the Introduction by the two editors – are thematically divided into three sections (“parts”): “Isidore’s Contexts” (chapters 1-4, including the “Introduction”), “Themes in Isidore’s Works” (chapters 5-13), and “Transmission andReception…[Read more]

A work-in-progress, this is an extended bibliography on Messene covering the period from 1831 and up to today. It includes the excavation reports and archaeological/historical publications of ancient and byzantine Messene in Messenia, SW Peloponnese. Please send via mail or message any corrections, suggestions and additions.

Review of Katell Berthelot, Jews and Their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Pp. 552. ISBN 9780691199290. $45.00.

It is my modest goal in this essay to trace how Nock uses conversion to produce religion(s) and then to explore its similarities to and differences from an analogous construction of religion-through-conversion in late antiquity.

Benjamin Porat’s Justice for the Poor differs from these books not only in that it is written in Hebrew (from the list above, only Wilfand’s 2014 book has been translated into Hebrew), but also because it envisions rabbinic charity as a branch of “law.” Porat is a law professor, and his book is jointly published by a law school, a think tank an…[Read more]

In gewissem Sinne ist der Befehl zur allgemeinen Zwangstaufe im Codex Justinianus Abschluss einer beinahe 200-jährigen Entwicklung. Im Folgenden werden einzelne Stränge der kaiserlichen Gesetzgebung zwischen Konstantin I. und Theodosius I. besprochen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf dem westlichen Reichsteil. Allein die schiere Menge kaiserlicher B…[Read more]

This excel file contains structured and formalized data about all surviving and identified early medieval Western manuscripts containing the text of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, fully or partially. It records information about the place of origin, provenance, preservation, the date of origin, material properties, script, content, the…[Read more]

This article provides an overview of the annotated pre-1200 manuscripts of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville and discusses the nature and character of the annotation of this work. It shows that the Etymologiae was annotated principally in the early Middle Ages. The glossing took place in three contexts: in the insular world, perhaps in the…[Read more]