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The period of the Crusades has often been considered as an epoch of eschatological fervor for the Christians who participated to this enterprise, a mission that aimed to reconquer the holy places from the Muslims. Such a zeal, however, did not affect only Christians, but also the Jewish communities that lived in Europe, in the Byzantine empire and in the Holy Land. This paper focuses on the Jewish literary production during the Crusades, aiming to demonstrate that the eschatological texts were functional in order to explain persecutions, battles, clash of civilizations and religions. These happenings were interpreted as events anticipating the final era, the time of the advent of the Messiah(s) who would gather the exiles, redeem the Jewish people, reconquer Jerusalem and restore the supremacy of Israel. In other words, this period of crisis was understood as a sequence of events that were part of a divine plan leading to the redemption of Israel. The texts that are taken in consideration are Aggadat Mašiah, The Prayer of R. Šim'on b. Yoh'ai and 'Otot ha- Mašiah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to collect what we know about Pamphilus of Caesarea's 'school', and to evaluate its impact on the development of Eusebius' work and thought. Pamphilus' school was a circle of friends, not an institution.The few members of the school, known thanks to the Martyrs of Palestine, were very different in terms of age and condition. Pamphilus' teaching is not precisely known. Eusebius suggests that he taught theology and Scripture. He also taught morals, but probably not in a theoretic form. Even if Eusebius often introduces Pamphilus and his pupils as «philosophers», there is no reason to think that Greek philosophy was taught by Eusebius' master, though this remains possible. The general impression is that, though Pamphilus probably intended to imitate Origen who founded a school in Caesarea around 233, the nature of his own teaching was, at least in part, very different from that of Origen. It is sure, however, that the circle venerated Origen and devoted a good deal of its time to search, defend and copy his whole work. It remains to be seen if the circle learnt Origen's thought alone, or also the thought of subsequent Alexandrian masters, such as Theognostus and Pierius, the teacher of Pamphilus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]