"This book contains a careful, thorough, and where necessary skeptical as regards doubtful evidence (especially in the case of Plato and the Old Academy) of the beginnings in European thought of the negative or apophatic way of thinking and its relations to more positive or kataphatic ways of thinking about God. One of its greatest strengths, perhaps the greatest, is that the author makes clear that none of the persons concerned, Hellenic, Jewish or Christian, was engaged in the pursuit of a philosophical abstraction, or the heaping of rhetorical superlatives on God. They were rather concerned to present the origin of the universe as an intimately present living reality which infinitely transcends our thought and speech. This, combined with careful attention to the varieties of negative theology and its relations with positive, and the particular difficulties experienced by the members of the various traditions involved, makes the book the best introduction to the negative theology available." -A. H. Armstrong, Emeritus Professor of Greek, University of Liverpool, England. Emeritus Professor of Classics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Senior Fellow of the British Academy.

This book presents the first comprehensive interpretation of the Paraphrase of Shem, Codex VII,1 in the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library. The lenghty introduction discusses the literary genre of the treatise, its plan and system, its situation among the Gnostic systems, its provenance and date. The translation sets out the text in paragraphs, with headings and subheadings. A short commentary follows the translation. The analysis of the system shows that the author is working from a model of the universe, whose principles have been drawn from Stoicism and Middle Platonism. While dipping into the springs of the major Sethian and Valentinian systems, the author follows his own way and offers an original system, anticipating in many respects Manichaeism.

Preliminary material /RUTH MAJERCIK -- INTRODUCTION /RUTH MAJERCIK -- FRAGMENTS /RUTH MAJERCIK -- VARIOUS CHALDEAN EXPRESSIONS /RUTH MAJERCIK -- DOUBTFUL FRAGMENTS /RUTH MAJERCIK -- COMMENTARY /RUTH MAJERCIK -- BIBLIOGRAPHY /RUTH MAJERCIK -- INDEX /RUTH MAJERCIK.

Band 1.

Preliminary material -- LA «ESCHARA» DEL TEMPIO GRECO ARCAICO -- BRYAKTES Un contributo allo studio dei «banchetti» eroici -- CIBELE IN UN'EPIGRAFE ARCAICA DI LOCRI EPIZEFIRÎ -- L'EPIGRAMMA GRECO DEL BAMBINO EUTYCHES AD ALBANO LAZIALE -- ANCORA SULL'INNO CRETESE A ZEUS DICTEO -- L'OFFERTA DI XENOKRATEIA NEL SANTUARIO DI CEFISO AL F ALERO -- GLI «ANGELI» DI TERA -- LAMINETTE AUREE ORFICHE: ALCUNI PROBLEMI -- QUALCHE OSSERVAZIONE SULLA LAMINETTA ORFICA DI HIPPONION -- ANCORA SUL MISTERIOSO E DI DELFI -- HORA QUIRINI -- LA FORTUNA E SERVIO TULLIO IN UN'ANTICHISSIMA SORS -- ANCORA SULL'ANTICA SORS DELLA FORTUNA E DI SERVIO TULLIO -- SOL INVICTUS AUGUSTUS -- IL TEMPIO DELLA DEA CONCORDIA IN UN BASSORILIEVO DEI MUSEI VATICANI -- IANUS GEMINUS -- L'ISOLA TIBERINA E LA SUA TRADIZIONE OSPITALIERA -- ENEA E VESTA -- L'EPIGRAFE REX NELLA REGIA DEL FORO ROMANO -- NUOVE OSSER VAZIONI SULLA LAMINA BRONZEA DI CERERE A LAVINIO -- LA MISTERIOSA ISCRIZIONE MEDIEVALE DI PISA, BARGA E LUCCA -- ISCRIZIONE IMPRECATORIA DI SPERLONGA -- L'EPIGRAFE GRECA DELLA «CELESTE ANNA» NEL MUSEO OLIVERIANO -- L'ISCRIZIONE DI ABERCIO E ROMA -- L'ISCRIZIONE DI ABERCIO E LA «VERGINE CASTA» -- VALENTINIANI A ROMA: RICERCHE EPIGRAFICHE ED ARCHEOLOGICHE -- ANCORA SUI VALENTINIANI A ROMA -- IL MISSIONARIO DI LIONE -- IL PRIMATO DELLA CHIESA DI ROMA -- DAL GIOCO LETTERALE ALLA CRITTOGRAFIA MISTICA -- ÉTUDES PRÉLIMINAIRES AUX RELIGIONS ORIENTALES DANS L'EMPIRE ROMAIN.

Theurgy is commonly taken to denote a complex of rites which are based on the so-called Chaldean Oracles, a collection of oracles in hexameters, which were probably composed during the late 2nd century AD. These rituals are mostly known through Neoplatonic sources, who engage in a passionate debate about their relevance to the salvation of the soul and thus to the philosopher's ultimate goal. Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler examines the development of the discourse on theurgy, attempting to reconstruct what was understood as theurgic ritual in the late antique sources. Withstanding the temptation to impose a unity on the disparate sources which span several centuries, she thus goes beyond the picture of a coherent, extra-philosophical tradition drawn by the Neoplatonists to sketch the variations in the rituals subsumed under 'theurgy' and their function, and shows how every author constructs his own 'theurgy'. This perspective leads to consider theurgy as an example of an 'artificial' ritual tradition, composed from already existing elements to create something claimed as sui generis. Theurgy offers the great opportunity to look at such a tradition from its beginning up to its end and to analyse the mechanisms of inventing and reinventing such a ritual tradition in process.

In the first part about the specific Stoic doctrine on moral progress (prokop ) attention is first given to the subtle view developed by the early Stoics, who categorically denied the existence of any mean between vice and virtue, and yet succeeded in giving moral progress a logical and meaningful place within their ethical thinking. Subsequently, the position of later Stoics (Panaetius, Hecato, Posidonius, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius) is examined. Most of them appear to adopt a basically 'orthodox' view, although each one of them lays his own accents and deals with Chrysippus' tenets from his own personal perspective. Occasionally, the 'heterodox' position of Aristo of Chios proves to have remained influential too. The second part of the study deals with the polemical reception of the Stoic doctrine of moral progress in (Middle-)Platonism. The first author who is discussed is Philo of Alexandria. Philo deals with the Stoic doctrine in a very ideosyncratical way. He never explicitly attacked the Stoic view on moral progress, although it is clear from various passages in his work that he favoured the Platonic-Peripatetic position rather than the Stoic one. Next, Plutarch's position is examined, through a detailed analysis of his treatise 'De profectibus in virtute'. Finally, attention is given to two school handbooks dating from the period of Middle-Platonism (Alcinous and Apuleius). In both of them, the Stoic doctrine is rejected without many arguments, which shows that a correct (and anti-Stoic) conception of moral progress was regarded in Platonic circles as a basic knowledge for beginning students.The whole discussion is placed into a broader philosophical-historical perspective by the introduction (on the philosophical tradition before the Stoa) and the epilogue (about later discussions in Neo-Platonism and early Christianity).

The assumption that Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 15 reflects a borrowing of ideas from Graeco-Roman mystery initiations is not the likeliest explanation of these texts nor does justice either to recent studies of the mysteries nor to the difficulty in reinterpreting resurrection to refer to a spiritual state which the baptized enjoyed in the present. Spiritual phenomena may have shown early Christians in the Graeco-Roman world that they had life, but not resurrection. Dying with Christ has other roots than the mysteries and the latter should not be interpreted in the light of Paul, but dying and coming to life again is a theme common to a great many rites of passage.