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Icons of Power : Ritual Practices in Late Antiquity / Naomi Janowitz.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Magic in HistoryPublisher: University Park, PA : Penn State University Press, [2022]Copyright date: ©2002Description: 1 online resource (192 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780271093390
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 291.3/8/093 23
LOC classification:
  • BF1622 .J45 2002eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Abbreviations -- 1 Late Antique Theories of Efficacy -- 2 The Divine Name as Effective Language -- 3 Thinking with the Divine Name -- 4 The Meaning of Letters -- 5 Using Names, Letters, and Praise -- 6 Combining Words and Deeds -- 7 Transformation by Deed Alone -- Concluding Note -- Select Bibliography -- Primary Source Index -- General Index
Summary: In the waning years of the Roman Empire, Jews, Christians, and pagans alike used rituals to bridge the gap between the human and the divine. Depending on one’s point of view, however, such rituals could be labeled negatively as ";magic"; or positively as ";theurgy."; This has led to numerous problems of interpretation, including marginalizing certain ritual practices as magic or occult while privileging others as genuine or orthodox. In Icons of Power, Naomi Janowitz sifts through the polemics to make sense of the daunting mosaic of religious belief and practice in Late Antiquity. From rabbis who ascended to heavenly places, to sorcerers seeking to harm enemies with spells, to alchemists working metals to purify the soul, Janowitz reveals how ritual practitioners held common assumptions about why their rituals worked and about how to perform those rituals. Indeed, such assumptions were so much a part of the inherited mentality of the age that they were, for the most part, never explained—and this is precisely what Janowitz accomplishes in Icons of Power. By shifting the discussion out of the rhetoric of ";magic"; or ";mysticism"; and describing the mechanisms of ritual with semiotic terms, she moves us beyond the value-laden terminology of ancient polemicists and modern scholars so that we can better see how these rituals worked and how they affected the social identities of their followers. Janowitz recovers a lost world of religious expression that has been clouded by misinterpretation for many centuries. In the process, Icons of Power makes an important contribution to our understanding of society in Late Antiquity.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780271093390

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Abbreviations -- 1 Late Antique Theories of Efficacy -- 2 The Divine Name as Effective Language -- 3 Thinking with the Divine Name -- 4 The Meaning of Letters -- 5 Using Names, Letters, and Praise -- 6 Combining Words and Deeds -- 7 Transformation by Deed Alone -- Concluding Note -- Select Bibliography -- Primary Source Index -- General Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In the waning years of the Roman Empire, Jews, Christians, and pagans alike used rituals to bridge the gap between the human and the divine. Depending on one’s point of view, however, such rituals could be labeled negatively as ";magic"; or positively as ";theurgy."; This has led to numerous problems of interpretation, including marginalizing certain ritual practices as magic or occult while privileging others as genuine or orthodox. In Icons of Power, Naomi Janowitz sifts through the polemics to make sense of the daunting mosaic of religious belief and practice in Late Antiquity. From rabbis who ascended to heavenly places, to sorcerers seeking to harm enemies with spells, to alchemists working metals to purify the soul, Janowitz reveals how ritual practitioners held common assumptions about why their rituals worked and about how to perform those rituals. Indeed, such assumptions were so much a part of the inherited mentality of the age that they were, for the most part, never explained—and this is precisely what Janowitz accomplishes in Icons of Power. By shifting the discussion out of the rhetoric of ";magic"; or ";mysticism"; and describing the mechanisms of ritual with semiotic terms, she moves us beyond the value-laden terminology of ancient polemicists and modern scholars so that we can better see how these rituals worked and how they affected the social identities of their followers. Janowitz recovers a lost world of religious expression that has been clouded by misinterpretation for many centuries. In the process, Icons of Power makes an important contribution to our understanding of society in Late Antiquity.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jun 2022)