Abbreviations ANF = Roberts, A., J. Donaldson, and A. C. Coxe, eds. 1885–1896. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Buffalo. BCNH.É = Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi. Section “Études.” BCNH.T = Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi. Section “Textes.” … Read more
1. Introduction In ancient Judaism and Christianity, the fascination with numbers and number symbolism was widespread. Just think of the 12 tribes and 12 apostles, Enoch’s 365 years on earth, and 40-day periods of fasting or mourning. In such patterns, Jews and Christians shared a common vocabulary… Read more
2. Generating the World of Numbers: Pythagorean and Platonist Number Symbolism in the First Century Two intellectual traditions from classical antiquity laid the foundation for the early Christian theology of arithmetic. The first, and most easily identified, was the rich tradition of number symbolism in the ancient… Read more
3. The Rise of the Early Christian Theology of Arithmetic: The Valentinians The New Testament shows that the earliest Christians were attuned to the number symbolism of their day. Christ itemized his followers symbolically, choosing 12 disciples and 70 apostles. The Book of Revelation is adorned with… Read more
Chapter 16. The Web of Athenaeus: The Art of Weaving Links “Every time we meet, my friend Timocrates, you repeatedly ask me what was said at the meetings of the deipnosophists, thinking that we discover new things…” That is the opening to Book 6 (222a). In Book… Read more
Chapter 17. The Epitome of the World The Deipnosophists crystallizes a fluid chain of texts, fragments, and words, connected by the memory threads of a circle of literati and, ultimately, by the memory of Athenaeus himself. A double logic can be recognized in this, namely a centrifugal… Read more
Chapter 18. When a Culture Reflects on Itself The work of Athenaeus would thus be a periodos tēs bibliothēkēs, a “tour of the library”, perhaps the library of Larensius, but certainly also that of memory, and also the ideal library whose reconstruction is enabled by textual tradition,… Read more
Works Cited Anderson, G. 1974. “Athenaeus: The Sophistic Environment.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Teil II: Principat, Band 34.3, 2173–2185. Berlin. ———. 1993. The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire. London. ———. 2000. Read more
Introduction: Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space Dimiter Angelov, Yota Batsaki, Sahar Bazzaz [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70… Read more
1. Constantine VII and the Historical Geography of Empire Paul Magdalino History and geography were fundamental to the identity of Byzantium as an ecumenical empire with a long existence in time and an outreach that extended to three continents. Yet while the Byzantine elite maintained a… Read more
