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This paper discusses "polemical triangulation," a common rhetorical and polemical device in Antiquity, through which an author attacks a person or a group of persons who are not the explicit addressees of a text or speech. It looks at its use and diversity with examples from Melito of Sardis and Ignatius, in the context of polemics against the Jews and the Docetists. In all cases, these models imply the existence of a marked anti-Judaism in Ignatius and his addressees. Some well-known methodological questions are addressed, such as the author's knowledge of the persons attacked, his or her relations with them, and other more or less consciously used sources of information. Finally, the paper draws conclusions about the relevance of the concerned statements for a historical study of the adversaries, their thinking or the arguments attributed to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on Leo the Great's sermons that allow to glimpse the intertwining between anti-Judaic and anti-heretical controversies. As part of the formulation of his doctrine, both Trinitarian and Christological, Leo strongly aimed to contrast both Judaism and the different heretical currents circulating at his time. In his dialectical procedure Judaism is often combined to other heresies (in particular, Manicheism), considered in a progressive removal from orthodoxy: Leo contested several heresies, for which the controversy against the Jews is proposed as an origin and as a model. He mixes pagans, Jews, and heretics according to polemical strategies functional to his ideological and religious conceptions. In particular, Jews are considered as a potentially dangerous enemy as Manichaeans. Although, in fact, the devil has exercised his dominion over all heretical doctrines, he has mainly caused the madness of the Manichaeans, in which the worst distortions of the true faith have flowed: the profanity of pagans, the blindness of Jews, the illegal practices of magic and, moreover, sacrilegious and blasphemous elements shared with other heresies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper focuses on the historically inaccurate characterization of Queen Zenobia as a Judaizer in ancient Christian sources, in relation to the heresy of Paul of Samosata. After surveying different presentations of the relationship between Paul and Zenobia and interrogating their significance, it argues that by weaving together Paul's xenophilia, Judeophilia, heresy, and appreciation for powerful women, a series of authors - Athanasius; Philastrius of Brescia; John Chrysostom; Theodoret; the author of a fragment attributed by Athanasius; those responsible for the invention of a work To Zenobia (or for attributing spurious excerpts of Paul to a lost work with this title); Photius; Michael the Great; Barhebraeus; and Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos - labored at painting the reversed image of the Christian intellectual tradition they knew and cherished: fully identified with the Roman Empire, ruled by a male emperor; separated from the scholarly practices of Jewish literate elites; and entrenched behind the wordy barricades of orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the several religious phenomena in light of which scholars have suggested viewing the origins of Manichaeism (usually Christianity and Zoroastrianism), Judaism has been too often excluded from the discussion. Nevertheless, there are reasons to think that Jewish traditions and ideas had an influence on the emergence of this religion in the 3rd century CE. In the light of some research recently conducted by a growing number of scholars, the modest aim of this paper is to carry out a reassessment and update aimed at clarifying the relationship between two phenomena (Judaism and Manichaeism) which played such a crucial role in the discourses on heresy in Late Antiquity and the Middle Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Greek verb deî appears several times in Luke-Acts and in different contexts of 'necessity': the necessity of the mission and the passion of Jesus and Paul; the necessity of the fulfilment of the Scripture; the necessity of moral or religious obligations as well as other necessary actions. The Peshitta does not translate all of occurrences of deî in Luke-Acts in the same way but chooses various verbs and expressions. The most frequent translation is the verb wāle ("to be right", "to be convenient", "one must"), which translates deî in different contexts. Another word used with a certain frequency is the passive participle ʻatid ("one must", "to be necessary", "to be destined"). However, the usage of this word, rich in theological content, is restricted to particular contexts. This paper seeks to give a precise explanation for how the Peshitta deals with the translation of deî in Luke-Acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the tales in parabiblical and Rabbinic Literature about the fate of Jewish infants during Egyptian captivity, comparing them with contemporary legal and homiletic texts about infancy, birth, and exposure of infants. The story of infants exposed and raised by angels is put in parallel with the Babylonian poem Atra-Hasis, advancing the hypothesis of an original myth about birth and overpopulation behind Exodus' infancy stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide an overview of the funerary practices and places reserved for infants in Visigothic Spain, between the late Roman period and the Arab Conquest. It investigates in particular some of the most important necropolises of the Meseta, the core of the Iberian Peninsula and the land occupied by the Goths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The child is a liminal subject in Italian archaeological research, still limited and discontinuous about it. Italian archaeology, particularly of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, seems in fact to be more affected by the critical issues and difficulties concerning the analysis of this specific age, reserving for it a marginal place in studies dealing with this topic. This paper focuses in particular on studies of infant funerary practices that are considered most indicative of the child's material presence in the ancient society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to give a brief overview of some strategies for the inclusion of children in the Egyptian society, with particular regard to sons who do not have a biological relation with their parents but who are acquired through assimilation practices, such as the adoption of an orphan or the emancipation of a young slave. For this purpose, some literary attestations will be examined in order to show how in ancient Egypt a "nobody's child" could turn into a legitimate child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to outline how the child was conceived and perceived in ancient Mesopotamian society. This overview will be outlined by examining the juridical documentation, which will allow us to know how much the child's status was closely linked to the protection of the family institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ancient Mesopotamia, infancy is an elusive category. Although vaguely defined from a lexical viewpoint, the concept of childhood is almost entirely absent from literature, and seldom represented in non-literary textual sources. Texts regarding childbirth, however, constitute an exception to this. Several sources, from mythological accounts of creation (anthropogonies) to therapeutic texts and omens, shift their attention to birth and the baby. Taking this fact into account, in this paper I focus on the role that children bodies play in divination. More specifically, I analyze how the appearance of the baby different body parts conveys a message that can concern both the baby - as carrier of his/her individual destiny written in his/her body (physiognomy), and the whole community (teratomancy), the child becoming at the same time both the message and messenger of the gods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of Syriac Christianity (4th-8th century CE), the use of choral singing was very common right from the beginning. Although it has not always been appreciated by sources, it unquestionably appears as a practiced and effective instrument in numerous theological and doctrinal disputes that shook Syriac Christianity. Through the sweetness of a heavenly song the groups of women approached God, indirectly affirming the authority of the doctrinal principles that inspired their songs. This paper aims to investigate this complex phenomenon through the analysis of some written texts and iconographic elements available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a survey of the presence of female figures in some Byzantine visions of the other world. In describing the torments of sinners in hell, these tales present several women being punished for their sexual misconduct. The same attitude can be observed in the Life of St Basil the Younger (10th century), where even a woman ultimately destined to heaven is shown guilty of sexual misdemeanors. The anonymous authors of these works (be they male or female) apparently share the mysoginist prejudices commonly found in Byzantine literature, where women are often depicted as naturally lecherous and lascivious temptresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the main aspects of empress Eudocia's (400-460 CE) life and literary production, focusing especially on her formation and cultural program. After receiving a traditional classical education, probably related also to some pagan sympathies of her father, Eudocia became Christian and married the emperor Theodosius ii. For all her life, in Constantinople and later in Jerusalem, she had an engaged literary activity, producing epic panegyrics, verse paraphrase of the Optateuch, an hagiographic poem on Cyprian of Antioch, and she was involved in the project of the Homerocentones, a patchwork of Homeric lines rewriting the NT. Especially the poem on saint Cyprian, a verse paraphrase of a hagiographical dossier (known by Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Ethiopian versions), raises many interesting questions from the literary and religious point of view. Nevertheless it remains one of the most undervalued product of Late antique literature, despite some excellent recent studies. I argue that the S. Cyprian was an attempt to demystify secular wisdom and transforming in Christian sense the language of the epic tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminine universe in the ancient Near East is a research topic that has been widely debated at least since the 1960s and that has seen an acceleration in Italy thanks in part to the important data from Mature Early Syrian Ebla, from the texts of the Royal Archives and the production of female sculptures made with different materials, distinctive works in the known documentation of the 3rd millennium BC. This paper aims to offer some considerations on female figures and their roles, in both the divine and human spheres, on the basis of data from the visual documentation and the textual sources. It seems clear that women achieved various levels of visibility depending on their rank and/or role, and that in some cases they stood out for their remarkable power in the sphere of cult or the political management of the kingdom. Here we will focus instead on those female subjects of "second rank" who may provide clues of help in outlining the social hierarchy in the archaic cultures of Mesopotamia and Syria. Among the data that have emerged we can note that among the multitude of anonymous women, prisoners of war, there is an improvement in status for those skilled at writing, who achieved the rank of scribe within the temple apparatus and the families who owned them. The female workforce seems to have had specific skills already in the 3rd millennium BC and represented an important resource for the state economy. One specific category that still requires full definition in the social hierarchy are wet nurses, not all of whom are anonymous, who enjoyed privileged status and a degree of power in the elite class, also indicated by their ownership of seals with their names on them and the display of their image on royal seals. The famous inscribed Akkadian seal of the wet-nurse Takunai, in the retinue of her mistress in a classic presentation scene, raises the question of whether and in how many other similar scenes on seals, the women - albeit anonymous - were such devoted servants of high ranking women. Similarly, attention is devoted to that flock of "minor figures" of women who are unknown but still part of the social hierarchy, crowded onto reliefs, seal impressions and inlaid panels. They are increasingly present in the visual communication at the time of the city-states, alongside the images of wealthy women in the statuary deposed in the city temples. A significant feature in the social hierarchy of archaic Near-Eastern cultures as concerns women, already noted some time ago thanks to an analysis of the sources, is that their basic roles are generally defined by a family relationship with a prominent male, through which the identity of female subjects becomes recognizable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper tackles the issue of demographic change during the Neolithic period. The common belief that a move from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society automatically brings to an increase in population is tested on specific case studies in Central and Eastern Anatolia. Isotopic analyses from human bones of women and infants from three different Neolithic sites are considered with the aim of comparing weaning age as an indirect marker of fertility: a late weaning is taken to suggest greater distance between births, whilst early weaning would imply higher fertility. Through this comparison it appears that the change to a domestic economy (agriculture and pastoralism) on its own cannot be advocated as the sole reason for demographic increase. Sedentarisation and mobility, as well as social organisation and beliefs, are probably major motors of fertility rates. It is furthermore pointed out that social behaviour regulating women's fertility rates does not appear to depend upon the single women's and babies' health and survivorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]