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• Magical Iconography. How Can an Image Protect and Heal?

  43–52.

  Grzegorz First

  Views:

  193

  One of the features of the attitude of ancient societies towards the threats of everyday life was a close relationship between spiritual/magical and religious beliefs and the real actions aimed at overcoming dangers. This relationship is visible in the magical iconography of Ancient Egypt and other Ancient Near Eastern cultures – in the form of demons, minor deities, and other benevolent supernatural beings that can protect people. Images of theses deities are sometimes accompanied by archaeological traces (holes for water, traces of rubbing, touching), indicating that images were also subjects of action. The question is how the magical and religious iconography meets the non-supernatural actions and how this custom could emerge in other parts of the Ancient world and in post-ancient times.

• Three Years? : St. Paul’s Journey to Arabia

  115–127

  Dániel Bajnok

  Views:

  61

  The article intends to summarize and answer the questions concerning the journey of Paul to Arabia. Shortly after his conversion, Paul left Damascus to go to Arabia, a place that can be possibly identified with the Kingdom of Nabataea. We cannot surely establish the duration of his stay in Arabia, which may be considerably shorter than three years. Some scholars have claimed that Paul went there to preach the gospel, whereas others have assumed that he prepared in contemplation and prayer to his career as an apostle. The Nabataean kingdom and its capital, Petra, was a greatly Hellenized, “cosmopolitan place”. A passage of Strabo (XIV.5.13.) leads us to a third conceivable assumption to explain the motivation for Paul’s visit in Arabia: the Hellenic surroundings of Petra contributed to the development of his theological thinking.

• Romulus et Rémus, Pierre et Paul: Du fratricide à la concorde fraternelle

  171–178

  Dominique Briquel

  Views:

  65

  Ancient authors present the founding of Rome as done either by one conditor, Romulus, or by two conditores, Romulus and Remus. Use of singular or plural was not really significant, as everyone knew that the twin brothers had a different destiny and that Rome was founded, as such, by Romulus alone. But use of the plural conditores as founders of the city is common in Christian texts: it was a way for Christian authors to emphasize that from its very beginnings Rome was affected by crime of the most scandalous sort, Romulus killing his own brother. By contrast Christians could find in their own tradition a model of perfect brotherhood, or at least brotherhood in Christ, viz. Peter and Paul, who were the common founders of Roma Christiana. Peter and Paul were the figures that Christians could set against Romulus and Remus, as founders of the new Christian city.