Shaping the Divine man : holiness charisma and leadership in the Graeco Roman world This book deals with the intersection between religion philosophy and politics in the Graeco Roman world and especially in Late Antiquity with special reference to the figure alluded to in ancient sources with the expression theios aner . Charisma and leadership are basic elements of this notion: its literary historical and ideological context and the different interpretations of holiness and sanctity in a sociopolitical or educative community are researched in this collective endeavour. The scholarly contributions are organized along three sections Holiness Charisma and Leadership and Transmission and Reception aiming at an overall analysis of the patterns involving charismatic leadership of the intellectual and spiritual figures in the sources and its socio political context with the central axis of Late Antiquity. Thus together with some methodological considerations this book examines some well known figures of holiness and attempts to offer a panoramic transdisciplinary and comparative view of their cultural and intellectual context and to determine what socio political role they had Back cover