Elective Course. Explorations in ancient religion from Archaic Greece to Christian Late Antiquity

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Knowledge of English at B2 level. Preferably a working knowledge of Greek and Latin.

It is the intention of the course to let students get to know developments in analysing ancient religion in its widest sense, that is, starting with ancient mythology and concluding with Christian hagiography. We will start with the myth of Perseus, which will introduce us to the problems of myth and ritual. Then we will look at the possible occurrence of atheism in classical Greece and the various approaches to it, starting a century ago, which will also introduce us into the debate whether the Greeks had a notion of belief. We will proceed by looking at an ancient horror story from the time of the Second Sophistic (second century AD), which will enable us to look at pagan and Christian ideas about the afterlife. We will conclude by taking a look at the Life of Hilarion, a kind of hagiographic biography.

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Course terms:

14 April 2025 13:15–14:45

15 April 2025 9:45–11:15; 13:15–14:45

16 April 2025 9:45–11:15

It is the intention of the course to let students get to know developments in analysing ancient religion in its widest sense, that is, starting with ancient mythology and concluding with Christian hagiography. We will start with the myth of Perseus, which will introduce us to the problems of myth and ritual. Then we will look at the possible occurrence of atheism in classical Greece and the various approaches to it, starting a century ago, which will also introduce us into the debate whether the Greeks had a notion of belief. We will proceed by looking at an ancient horror story from the time of the Second Sophistic (second century AD), which will enable us to look at pagan and Christian ideas about the afterlife. We will conclude by taking a look at the Life of Hilarion, a kind of hagiographic biography.

J.N. Bremmer, Greek Religion, second edition, Cambridge, 2021.

J.N. Bremmer, The World of Greek Religion and Mythology (Tuebingen, 2019).

M. Winiarczyk, Diagoras of Melos. A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism (Berlin and Boston, 2016).

M.E. Kotwick, ‘Interrogating the Gods’, in J. Billings and Ch. Moore (eds), The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists (Cambridge, 2023) 251-76.

S. Sierksma-Agteres, Paul and the Philosophers’ Faith: discourses of Pistis in the Graeco-Roman world (Leiden, 2024) 698-705 (critical discussion of T. Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods, 2015).

T. Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic (Oxford, 2006).

W.F. Hansen, Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels (Exeter, 1996) or K. Brodersen, Phlegon von Tralles, Das Buch der Wunder (Darmstadt, 2002).

K. Yu, ‘Textualizing Wonders: Ancient Greek Paradoxography in Comparative Perspective’, in G.W. Most and M. Puett (eds), After Wisdom (Leiden, 2022) 251-83.

J.N. Bremmer, ‘Religious Pluralism and Diversity in the Ancient World: Herodotus, the Roman Republic and Late Antiquity’, Teologická reflexe 29 (2023) 105-36.

J.N. Bremmer, ‘Athanasius’ Life of Antony: Marginality, Spatiality and Mediality’, in L. Feldt and J.N. Bremmer (eds), Marginality, Media, and Mutations of Religious Authority in the History of Christianity (Leuven, 2019) 23-45.

J.N. Bremmer, ‘The City a Desert: The Case of Jerome’s Paul the First Hermit’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 97/3 (2021) 385-409.

Carolinne White, Early Christian Lives, London 1998, 80-115 (Life of Hilarion).

Knowledge of ancient religion. Approaches to topics in religious studies.

Ongoing assessment of activity.

Presence in at least two meetings is necessary to pass.