Theurgy in Late Antiquity: the invention of a ritual tradition

Theurgy is commonly taken to denote a complex of rites which are based on the so-called Chaldean Oracles, a collection of oracles in hexameters, which were probably composed during the late 2nd century AD. These rituals are mostly known through Neoplatonic sources, who engage in a passionate debate...

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書目詳細資料
主要作者: Tanaseanu-Döbler, Ilinca 1979- (Author)
格式: 電子 圖書
語言:English
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出版: Göttingen [u.a.] Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2013
In: Beiträge zur europäischen Religionsgeschichte (1)
Year: 2013
叢編:Beiträge zur europäischen Religionsgeschichte 1
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B 神通術 / 宗教儀式 / 歷史 200-500
B Oracula Chaldaica / 神通術
Further subjects:B 宗教學
B 古典時代晚期
B 宗教史
B 學位論文
在線閱讀: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
實物特徵
總結:Theurgy is commonly taken to denote a complex of rites which are based on the so-called Chaldean Oracles, a collection of oracles in hexameters, which were probably composed during the late 2nd century AD. These rituals are mostly known through Neoplatonic sources, who engage in a passionate debate about their relevance to the salvation of the soul and thus to the philosopher’s ultimate goal. Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler examines the development of the discourse on theurgy, attempting to reconstruct what was understood as theurgic ritual in the late antique sources. Withstanding the temptation to impose a unity on the disparate sources which span several centuries, she thus goes beyond the picture of a coherent, extra-philosophical tradition drawn by the Neoplatonists to sketch the variations in the rituals subsumed under ‘theurgy’ and their function, and shows how every author constructs his own ‘theurgy’. This perspective leads to consider theurgy as an example of an ‘artificial’ ritual tradition, composed from already existing elements to create something claimed as sui generis. Theurgy offers the great opportunity to look at such a tradition from its beginning up to its end and to analyse the mechanisms of inventing and reinventing such a ritual tradition in process.
The development of ritual tradition.
ISBN:364754020X