Rethinking the gods
Subtitle: philosophical readings of religion in the post-Hellenistic period
By: Peter van Nuffelen
Series: Greek culture in the Roman world
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
ISBN-13: 9781107012035
Subjects: Religion; LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Ancient, Classical & Medieval; Philosophy; Ancient Philosophy; History
Description: "Ancient philosophers had always been fascinated by religion. From the first century BC onwards the traditionally hostile attitude of Greek and Roman philosophy was abandoned in favour of the view that religion was a source of philosophical knowledge. This book studies that change, not from the usual perspective of the history of religion, but as part of the wider tendency of Post-Hellenistic philosophy to open up to external, non-philosophical sources of knowledge and authority. It situates two key themes, ancient wisdom and cosmic hierarchy, in the context of Post-Hellenistic philosophy and traces their reconfigurations in contemporary literature and in the polemic between Jews, Christians and pagans. Overall, Post-Hellenistic philosophy displayed a relatively high degree of unity in its ideas on religion, which should not be reduced to a preparation for Neoplatonism"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Ancient Wisdom: 1. Tracing the origins: ancients, philosophers, and mystery cults; 2. Plutarch of Chaeronea: 'History as a basis for a philosophy that has theology as its end'; 3. Numenius: philosophy as a hidden mystery; 4. Dio Chrysostom, Apuleius and the rhetoric of ancient wisdom; Part II. Cosmic Hierarchy: 5. Towards the pantheon as the paradigm of order; 6. The Great King of Persia and his satraps: ideal and ideology; 7. Dio Chrysostom: virtue and structure in the Kingship Orations; 8. Plutarch: a benevolent hierarchy of gods and men; Part III. Polemic and Prejudice: Challenging the Discourse: 9. Lucian, Epicureanism and strategies of satire; 10. Philo of Alexandria: challenging Greco-Roman culture; 11. Celsus and Christian superstition; Epilogue.