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In Lucian's Assembly of the Gods, the god Momo regrets the degradation suffered by the oldest Olympian deities due to the changes introduced in the traditional religion, using such arguments just as Athenagoras in his Legatio when he defends Christianity. This paper analyses how the match between the reasoning between Lucian and the apologist evidences the crisis of religiosity in the second century A. D., as well as their condition of pepaideuménoi, despite the disparity of purposes between both authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the turbulent Europe of the World Wars, two French thinkers of Jewish Origin wrote both essays on the Iliad: Simone Weil (The Iliad, or the Poem of Force, 1940-1941) and Rachel Bespaloff (On the Iliad, 1943). Both writers have in common the return to the foundational texts of Western culture -- Homer in the Classical tradition and the Bible and the Gospels in the Christian tradition -- to rethink war and barbarism. This paper analyses the concept of 'force' in both authors, their similarities and differences, in order to conclude on the way in which this notion determines their interpretation of the Homeric poem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this paper is to establish the meaning and relevance of recovering the contents of pagan religion practiced by ancient Roman Republic, as the basis of the civil lifestyle conceived by Machiavelli in his idea of a mixed republic, through Discourses on Livy, one of his most mature political works. Here we can determine that Machiavelli, while searching to establish a civil religion model, found that not all Roman tradition was equally useful to him. Thus, ruminations on Roman religious tradition by authors such as Cicero or Lucretius, enable him, on the one hand, to sharpen his critical thinking regarding to the role played by religious beliefs and practices as forms of domination achieved through manipulation of fear and superstition. On the other hand, through Roman history and tradition while following Titus Livy, he finds that such critical stances are the expression of the crisis of the Republic, lead towards a dead-end, weaken legitimate authority, cause turmoil, and culminate in tyranny. Consequently, within the narrative of the Paduan historian, Machiavelli finds the model he was seeking for, an instrumentum regni that brings together all levels of society, helps to recognize authority, legitimizes hierarchies, and educates both dominated people and dominators, civitas becoming the beginning and end of all things. By following the search undertaken by Machiavelli it is possible to understand his purpose, that is to say, to refine his criticism of the period's dominant religion: Christianity. Therefore, far from seeking a reestablishment of paganism (something that would have been absurd at the time), his goal was not to destroy or replace Christianity, but to reform and adapt it to the conditions and needs of the new concept of a mixed republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his dialogue De vero bono, Lorenzo Valla (c. 1407-1457) aims to the thinking on pleasure (voluptas) and convenience (utilitas) as two inseparable aspects of an ethics based on the earthly human concerns. These two concepts are opposed to the honestas propter se, that is, the Stoic ideal of virtue as an end itself that should be pursued regardless of anything. In this paper we explore the interaction between the terms of this opposition considering ancient and medieval sources and how this operates in different passages of the De vero bono. Specifically, we will focus on the ways in which the voluptas-utilitas / honestas opposition is related to that of Agustin of Hippo's (354-430) between uti / frui. By comparing them we will examine how in his dialogue Valla stages tensions between conceptions of ethics based on one side on earthly concerns and on the other on the Christian dogma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arboleda de los enfermos is a religious treaty written in the middle of 15th century by Teresa de Cartagena, a nun from Burgos, after her hearing loss. In her treaty, Teresa de Cartagena attemps to show to those who also suffer from an illnes a way to heal their souls. The text presents some characteristics of mystic spanish literature, as it exposes the comprehension process of an inner reality in wich the soul needs to follow a crucial path of suffering. This paper analizes the symbolism in the treaty, from the Scholem and Lotman's perspectives about the symbol as a vehicle of tradition and mystical experience, to later explain the relationship between symbols of the Christian and Jewish traditions presented on the text. Teresa de Cartagena could have known this second tradition due to the Jewish converso origins of her family, in wich her grandfather, the ex rabine Pablo de Santa María, and her uncle Alfonso de Cartagena were counted, both prominet humanist and educated in Hebrew tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main intention of this paper is to define the substantial differences between the epic hero, constituted by Odysseus, and the late Antiquity hero, personified by Apollonius of Tyre. These differences show certain keys to understand the late Antiquity hero, where the ideal derives from a Christian rereading of Virgil: the new hero of this time is Christ, with Aeneas as background. In order to do this, I analyze the intersections between pagan and Christian topics that take place in Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri, especially in chapter 12, considering that this novel reuses and transforms some Homeric motifs using other traditions. According to my proposal, this feature responds to a late Antiquity --and possibly Christian-- sensibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]