15. Origen, Eusebius, the Doctrine of Apokatastasis, and Its Relation to Christology Ilaria Ramelli In Origen’s thought, the doctrine of apokatastasis is interwoven with his anthropology, eschatology, theology, philosophy of history, theodicy, and exegesis; for anyone who takes Origen’s thought seriously and with a deep grasp… Read more
16. Eusebius and Lactantius: Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Christian Theology [1] Kristina A. Meinking Philosophers and theologians of antiquity had long held that the supreme god was impassible and thus not subject to emotions. In his De ira Dei, however, Lactantius argues… Read more
Afterword. Receptions Jeremy M. Schott Late-ancient and Byzantine Receptions In most respects, Eusebius’ biography is lost to historians. His successor, Acacius, penned a hagiographical Life that has not survived. [1] Eusebius, for his part, authored a Life of his mentor,… Read more
Foreword Why should anyone bother reading Athenaeus today? Among the extant corpus of Greek texts, the Deipnosophists is a paradoxical work, such a long and undigested text, with a confusing structure, a text mainly composed of fragments of other texts, of quotations from a lost a library. Read more
Chapter 1. On the Art of Planting Cabbage On opening the Deipnosophists randomly, the reader could chance upon the following passage (1.34c): “That the Egyptians like wine is also proven by the fact that only there as a custom during meals, before all foods, still… Read more
Chapter 2. Banquet, Symposium, Library Every reader of Athenaeus, from the very first lines of his work, experiences a perverted Ariadne’s thread: by following it, one does not come out of the labyrinth; rather, one progressively penetrates it, one gets lost in its details, losing sight of… Read more
Chapter 3. “Athenaeus is the Father of this Book” What was Athenaeus’ project? Why did he not stop at the stage of compilation, which would have allowed him to possess a collection of excerpts from a wide range of books, or to write a monograph… Read more
Chapter 4. Banquet and Sumposion The symposium (sumposion) was an essential moment in the social life of ancient Greece. A circle of friends gathered to enjoy the pleasures of wine, generally after having shared those of the table (deipnon), the two being distinct moments. Read more
Chapter 5. Simile Space and Narrative Space In the Iliad, place is most often delineated within the context of the Homeric similes, rather than in narrative. [1] Previous scholarship has emphasized two distinct but equally important aspects of Iliadic Gleichnisorte (“simile spaces”):… Read more
Chapter 6. Larensius’ Circle The setting of the conversations is defined from the very first lines of the Deipnosophists: the banquets offered by Larensius, a rich Roman, to individuals endowed with the greatest experience in all fields of culture (1.1a). If Plutarch’s banquets brought together… Read more
