Plutarch In The Religious And Philosophical Discourse Of Late Antiquity

Either as insider or as sensitive observer, Plutarch provides us with exceptional evidence to reconstruct the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of the first centuries CE. This collection of articles sheds important light on the religious and philosophical discourse of Late Antiquity.

Either as insider or as sensitive observer, Plutarch provides us with exceptional evidence to reconstruct the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of the first centuries CE. This collection of articles sheds important light on the religious and philosophical discourse of Late Antiquity.

“Bridging Discourses in the World of the Early Roman Empire" is a fitting description of both the religio-philosophical spirit of Plutarch and the task of bringing his writings into fruitful dialogue with the New Testament and Early Christian writings. The contributions in this volume explore various ways of how to do it.

The present book includes sixteen studies by Professor Frederick E. Brenk on Plutarch on Literature, Graeco-Roman Religion, Jews and Christians. Of them, thirteen were published earlier in different venues and three appear here for the first time. Written between 2009 and 2022, these studies not only provide an excellent example of Professor Brenk’s incisiveness and deep knowledge of Plutarch; they also provide an excellent overview of Plutarchan studies of the last years on a variety of themes. Indeed, one of the most salient characteristics of Brenk’s scholarship is his constant interaction and conversation with the most recent scholarly literature.

In Plutarch’s Moon Luisa Lesage Gárriga offers a new approach on Plutarch’s views on cosmos, the afterlife and salvation, focusing on one of his most fascinating treatises. Dealing with the nature and function of the moon from multiple perspectives, this treatise offers a comprehensive overview of scientific knowledge and religious-philosophical thought from the first centuries CE. Yet, up until now no single scholar has attempted an integral approach to its various and complementary perspectives, generally focusing on a specific aspect, as if they were unrelated. By means of this study, the author shows that De facie is a literary creation that reflects and conveys a coherent worldview, finally providing a solid and overarching understanding of the treatise.

The polygraph from Chaeronea includes in Moralia and Lives a wide range of interesting views on religious and philosophical matters: philosophical theology, cult, ethics, politics, natural sciences, hermeneutics, atheism, and the afterlife. The essays included in Plutarch’s Religious Landscapes offer a glance into these views.

Focusing on the period known as the Second Sophistic (an era roughly co-extensive with the second century AD), this Handbook serves the need for a broad and accessible overview. The study of the Second Sophistic is a relative new-comer to the Anglophone field of classics and much of what characterizes it temporally and culturally remains a matter of legitimate contestation. The present handbook offers a diversity of scholarly voices that attempt to define, as much as is possible in a single volume, the state of this rapidly developing field. Included are chapters that offer practical guidance on the wide range of valuable textual materials that survive, many of which are useful or even core to inquiries of particularly current interest (e.g. gender studies, cultural history of the body, sociology of literary culture, history of education and intellectualism, history of religion, political theory, history of medicine, cultural linguistics, intersection of the Classical traditions and early Christianity). The Handbook also contains essays devoted to the work of the most significant intellectuals of the period such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Lucian, Apuleius, the novelists, the Philostrati and Aelius Aristides. In addition to content and bibliographical guidance, however, this volume is designed to help to situate the textual remains within the period and its society, to describe and circumscribe not simply the literary matter but the literary culture and societal context. For that reason, the Handbook devotes considerable space at the front to various contextual essays, and throughout tries to keep the contextual demands in mind. In its scope and in its pluralism of voices this Handbook thus represents a new approach to the Second Sophistic, one that attempts to integrate Greek literature of the Roman period into the wider world of early imperial Greek, Latin, Jewish, and Christian cultural production, and one that keeps a sharp focus on situating these texts within their socio-cultural context.

"Max J. Lee examines the philosophies of Platonism and Stoicism during the Greco-Roman era and their rivals including Diaspora Judaism and Pauline Christianity on how to transform a person's character from vice to virtue. He describes each philosophical school's respective teachings on diverse moral topoi such as emotional control, ethical action and habit, character formation, training, mentorship, and deity." --provided by publisher