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The paper takes up analysis of the concept of human security, and within its framework of the existential security. Then, it attempts to determine the identity of the threats to these sorts of security. The threats assume the shape of the „soft” ones, attacking the sensitive, noetic sphere of human existence which relates to life understanding and explains how it is formed by the great cultural narratives. The dangers often develop in parallel with anxiety and fear – two symptoms that are more and more common and intensive in a contemporary society. The defence of the ultimate meaning that necessarily involves the recognition of God (V.E. Frankl) helps us to avoid the dangers.

Philicus' "Novel Composition" for the Alexandrian Grammarians: Initial Lines and Iambe's Speech The Hymn to Demeter (SH 676-80) by Philicus of Corcyra can be viewed as a combination of new and traditional features. It contains a proclamation of novelty, but, at the same time, it is rooted in the hymnic tradition; the traceable characteristics of the conventional hymn, however, are considerably modified by Philicus and practically require redefinition. What seems particularly worth emphasising is the poet’s receptiveness to other than hymnic modes of expression as well as intertextual allusions ranging in time from the archaic period to the present day. Philicus’ poem (dw#ra) is “brought” to the grammatikoi, a specific group of recipients whose opinions must have counted so much that the poet decided to address to them his hymn on par with the gods. Although it is a truism to say that the ancient hymn composers took into account two communicative settings, one formally adopted (the author/performer – the god) and one resulting from the circumstances of their performance (the author/performer – the audience/readers), it is Philicus’ merit to state explicitly what the other poets used to leave implicit.

The paper discusses the notion of time – one of fundamental importance in Christianity (John Paul II) – interpreting it as linear. The problem lies in the question whether the linear conceptof time exhausts its full doctrinal interpretation. The author looks for the conceptual origins of linear time and pinpoints the crucial sources: the modern scientific revolution (the discoveryof the depths of time stretching from 6 thousand years to 13.7 billion years), post-Enlightenment weakening of the idea of Providence, cultural transformations and exchanges leading tolearning about other perspectives on time. The author is inclined to support the thesis that the linear concept of time as a Bible-based one, and as formulated in the 20th C. by Oscar Cullmannand related to the historic-salvific orientation of modern theology, can only be accepted under some conditions, i.e. once one acknowledges the influence of the aforementioned modern sources on its formulation. These sources broaden the interpretation of the origin of this problematic concept.

Despite relatively extensive literature on the subject, Sotades' fr. 2 Pow. still requires lexico-semantic analysis with regard to the poetic expression as well as reconsideration of the issue of the main addressee of the composition. In this paper, the author demonstrates that the text contains some, more or less explicit, references to the construction of the aulos and the art of playing it – with the refined comedy of the fragment consisting in the description of a (decent) activity in terms of another (indecent) activity. In this context, two parties are involved: the ridiculed person clearly reacts (‘and he...') to an earlier action by the counterpart. The phrase ‘sent forth' testifies to the narrative character of the composition that seems to contain an anecdote rooted in the past, so the addressee described in the fragment may well be Philinus (as stated by Athenaeus) and not Theodorus; the latter being, if at all, Philinus' interlocutor mentioned in the lost part of the poem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]