Educating Early Christians through the Rhetoric of Hell: \u27Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth\u27 as \u27Paideia\u27 in Matthew and the Early Church

Meghan Henning explores the rhetorical function of the early Christian concept of hell, drawing connections to Greek and Roman systems of education, and examining texts from the Hebrew Bible, Greek and Latin literature, the New Testament, early Christian apocalypses and patristic authors. This work is a revised version of the author\u27s Ph.D. dissertation, which was successfully defended at Emory University in 2013. It is included in the series Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II. She writes, Now that this work is finished, I am delighted to have the opportunity to thank those who have generously traveled with me on this journey through the hallows of early Christian hell. During the course of my work on the dissertation I was fortunate to receive funding for my research not only from the graduate school but also from the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program, and the Society of Biblical Literature. I am also extremely grateful to Jörg Frey, Tobias Nicklas, and the editorial team at Mohr Siebeck for their help, especially Dr. Henning Ziebritzki and his staff. I am indebted to Christian Bemmerl, Craig Dressler, Franziska Ede, and Megan Getman, who have tirelessly assisted in the preparation of the manuscript

Hypatie d’Alexandrie

L’article donne une vue d’ensemble sur la réception antique et moderne de la figure alexandrine de la philosophe païenne Hypatie, dont le martyre en 415 de notre ère symbolise l’obscurantisme religieux des premiers chrétiens. L’article étudie les mécanismes de la transmission antique des savoirs, laquelle fonde la longue tradition de l’histoire européenne des idées. Surtout, il interroge la valeur de la tradition produite autour des textes évoquant Hypatie : par exemple, les lettres que Synésios de Cyrène aurait adressées à celle qu’il désigne comme sa Maîtresse. Celles-ci, loin de révéler la réalité historique d’un amour très platonicien entre un savant et une femme à l’intelligence perçue comme quasi-divine, semblent plutôt mettre en scène un couple philosophique fictif, qui, à l’instar de Diotime et Socrate, valorise finalement l’élu, seul entre les disciples capable de saisir l’essence de la parole philosophique. Après cette déconstruction du personnage de la philosophe néo-platonicienne, l’article interroge la production de l’Hypatie historique. Il analyse en particulier les débats autour de la paternité ou la co-paternité des œuvres d’Hypatie traitant de l’astronomie et des mathématiques avant de conclure sur l’importance de l’oralité dans la tradition philosophique antique, des Pythagoriciens aux cercles alexandrins de la fin du iiie siècle et du début du ive siècle de notre ère.The article offers a general vision of the ancient and modern reception of the pagan philosopher Hypatia whose martyrdom in 415 symbolizes the religious obscurantism of the early Christians. It analyzes the mechanisms in the ancient transmission of knowledge, which have underwritten a long tradition in the European history of ideas. Specifically, it questions the tradition that emerged from texts that spoke about Hypatia: for example, the letters Synesius of Cyrene supposedly sent to the woman he designates as his Mistress. Far from revealing the historic reality of a very platonic love between a scholar and a woman whose intelligence was seen as quasi-divine, these letters reveal instead a fictive philosophical couple, where the chosen one emerges as the only disciple capable of understanding the essence of philosophical speech (like Diotima and Socrates). Following this deconstruction of the figure of the Neoplatonist philosopher, the article explores the construction of an historical Hypatia, notably the debates around the paternity and co-paternity of Hyaptia’s works dealing with astronomy and mathematics. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of orality in the ancient philosophical tradition from the Pythagoricians to the Alexandrian circles at the end of the 3rd century and the beginning of the 4th century A.D

Politeísmo, magia y teúrgia. La crítica de Prudencio al neoplatonismo de Juliano el Apóstata según Apoth. 449-502

This paper aims to analyze Prudentius´ critique to Julian the Apostate´s neoplatonic system mainly through an allegorical scene contained within verses 449-502 of the Apotheosis, where a failed pagan ritual is described. Towards concluding that in the fourth century A.D. the conflict between pagans and christians motivated the breakup of the neoplatonic system into two parallel currents, the augustinian and the misterical one, we will focus on three points: (1) Some aspects of the general state of neoplatonic imperial thought with regards to certain historical, philosophical and social transformations within Paganism and Christianity, attending specially to the internal fractures of the former; (2) Prudentius´ argument for the metaphysical and moral insufficiency of Julian´s use of polytheistic symbolism, with the latter´s consequent counter-arguments and some examples of conflict and syncretism with regards to this question and (3) Prudentius´ argument for the impious and heretical condition of the components of theurgic activity, with the successive defense of an internal and not external mystical paradigm

Dionysus in India

In this paper, I propose that finding Dionysus' counterpart in India is a futile task unless the relation focuses on Dionysus as a divine force of nature variously manifest following the meaning of the Rig Veda verse mentioned above. As Nietzsche saw the Dionysian as a force of nature inherent in the human, it becomes a much more plausible thesis to ascertain a relation of Dionysus to India through Indo-European comparative mythology and philology. This is so because many scholars have given objective status to assertions about Dionysus' relation to India that can at best be only subjectively attested. The fields of Indo-European comparative mythology and philology, because of their very nature of dealing with a body of literature that is yet unattested, provide space for an objectively plausible, though still subjectively arguable, thesis for a relation of Dionysus to India. All this will become evident as we travel from Germany in the early twentieth century to the culture of the Indo-Europeans through Rome, Greece, Persia, Iran, and India

Predictors of disease worsening defined by progression of organ damage in diffuse systemic sclerosis: a European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) analysis

OBJECTIVES: Mortality and worsening of organ function are desirable endpoints for clinical trials in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study was to identify factors that allow enrichment of patients with these endpoints, in a population of patients from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research group database. METHODS: Inclusion criteria were diagnosis of diffuse SSc and follow-up over 12±3 months. Disease worsening/organ progression was fulfilled if any of the following events occurred: new renal crisis; decrease of lung or heart function; new echocardiography-suspected pulmonary hypertension or death. In total, 42 clinical parameters were chosen as predictors for the analysis by using (1) imputation of missing data on the basis of multivariate imputation and (2) least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression. RESULTS: Of 1451 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 706 had complete data on outcome parameters and were included in the analysis. Of the 42 outcome predictors, eight remained in the final regression model. There was substantial evidence for a strong association between disease progression and age, active digital ulcer (DU), lung fibrosis, muscle weakness and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level. Active DU, CRP elevation, lung fibrosis and muscle weakness were also associated with a significantly shorter time to disease progression. A bootstrap validation step with 10 000 repetitions successfully validated the model. CONCLUSIONS: The use of the predictive factors presented here could enable cohort enrichment with patients at risk for overall disease worsening in SSc clinical trials.status: publishe