This essay argues that scholarship on gnostic texts could strongly benefit from taking into greater account elements of autochthonous ancient Egyptian religious concepts when interpreting gnostic intellectual and ritual systems. The central argument focuses on conspicuously similar roles and characteristics of female characters in both gnostic and ancient Egyptian symbolism, as witnessed especially within the Egyptian theological and ritual traditions of the so-called Great Goddesses (Isis, Neith, and Hathor). As these immensely popular cults were contemporaneous with the presumed development of various gnostic systems, this essay argues for a direct Egyptian – gnostic influence. The textual analysis focuses on a comparison of Chapter 30 of the Adversus haereses of Irenaeus of Lyon (with appropriate references to original gnostic concepts and texts) with an Egyptian cosmogonic myth located in the temple of Khonsu in Karnak, proceeding then to the analysis of select passages of NHC VI,2 (The Thunder: Perfect Mind). The essay argues that in both ancient Egyptian and gnostic sources, female characters are described as: (1) primordial deities, creators of elementary principles governing creation; (2) being in a mutual relationship of createdness with a divine male creative principle/the world; (3) androgynous/gynandrous, begetting through some type of autoerotic activity; (4) taking on primordial serpentine forms; (5) rulers of the created world; (6) mediators with the ability to connect opposing principles; (7) ambivalent and – from the androcentric optics of these symbolic systems – as possessing deeply troubling, creative/destructive abilities. These ancient Egyptian concepts would have been disseminated among Gnostics living in Egypt – for example, during the massively popular public festivals of the various Great Goddess cults at their ritual centres at Phylae, Dendera, Edfu, and Saïs.
The presented study is trying to analyze the development of the image of the president's birthday celebrations in 1919–1953. The day was one of the most important rituals during the common year. It was also one of the key factors in forming of the collective memory of the Czechoslovak society at that time. That was especially valid in the years when the independent Czechoslovak state was endangered. By comparison, the study is trying to show, how the form of the feast has changed during the reflected period, which was characteristic by dynamic changes of regimes and ideologies.
Tato empirická studie ukazuje, že žáci a učitelé na zkoumané švédské střední škole považují kontrolu procedur při ověřování znalostí a udělování hodnocení za natolik neadekvátní, že zde existuje riziko neférovosti distribuce výsledného hodnocení. V tržně orientovaném a konkurenčně pojatém systému školství, který se řídí podle stanovených cílů a dosažených výsledků, se na známky často pohlíží jako na nejlepší měřítko kvality vzdělávání. Známky tak nabývají na významu pro jednotlivé žáky, učitele i školy. Nejhorší známka, která stále ještě znamená úspěšné hodnocení v předmětu, je obzvlášť důležitá a představuje jakousi tvrdou měnu vzdělanosti, neboť znamená hranici mezi neúspěchem a dosažením cíle. Data sebraná v diskusích o normách ukazují, že žáci i učitelé, diskutujíce odděleně, pohlížejí na opisování ve školách s tolerancí založenou na pojmu spravedlnosti a opisování vnímají jako z působ zajištění férovosti distribuce známek, přičemž obzvlášť tolerantně přistupují k opisování těch žáků, kteří by jinak riskovali hodnocení nedostatečně. Společensky sjednané normy explicitní zákazy podvádění na školách žáci ani učitelé nerespektují a naopak některé formy podvodů podporují. Tato podvojná agenda, o níž všichni vědí, je pečlivě střeženým tajemstvím, a proto také dochází k její reprodukci. and This empirical study shows that Swedish upper secondary students and teachers perceive the control of procedures for knowledge checks and grading so inadequate that the distribution of final assessment risks being unfair. In a market-oriented competitive school system, managed by objectives and results, grades tend to be regarded as the best measure of educational quality. Student grades thus become important for individual students, teachers and schools. Particularly important as educational hard currency is the lowest acceptable grade level, that distinguishes failures from result-achievement. Data from discussions on norms indicate that students and teachers (all of whom discussed the matters separetely) show a clear justice-based tolerance for school-cheating perceived as re-securing a fair distribution of grades. The teachers are particularly tolerant to cheating students who would risk failing grades had they not cheated. Explicit prohibitions of cheating are thereby outcompeted by negotiated social norms of justice that implicitly encourages some forms of cheating. The well-known double agenda is kept as a hidden truth and thereby reproduced.
The author comments on Leonardo Ambasciano's book An Unnatural History of Religions: Academia, Post-truth and the Quest for Scientific Knowledge (2019) and develops the line of its argument that a fideistic, sui generis, confessional History of Religions tradition continues due to the tacit support from scholars, institutions and organisations. Gnosticism is presented as a case study, showing how it exemplifies core critiques of HoR, and is supported by the same scholars and institutions, particularly the IAHR. The author then considers the recent British Academy report into Theology and Religious Studies in the UK to argue that the HoR tradition in contemporary Religious Studies is not a "problem to be solved", but rather something at the very basis of the discipline. The argument is therefore made that there cannot be a truly scientific academic study of religion while RS exists.
This paper explores how Byzantine iconoclasm is depicted in the Modern Greek fiction of the past 150 years. It focuses mainly on the novels Pope Joan by E. Roidis and Sergios and Bakchos by M. Karagatsis and a crime fiction series by P. Agapitos, but it also takes into account short stories (A. Papadopoulou, Z. Papantoniou). It argues that the authors chose three types of approaches respectively: a romantic one, a satiric one, and one which combines historical fidelity with contemporary characters.
By the end of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), about 50,000 Greeks had fled to Eastern Europe. The complex conditions of this massive exodus have been thoroughly discussed by historians and social scientists. However, much less is known about the conditions under which a large number of political refugees eventually returned to Greece. The few available studies on the repatriation of such refugees have shown that returning home was a more complicated and demanding process than adjusting to a "host" country. Repatriation was the primary desire of the majority of Greek refugees. However, as the years in Czechoslovakia passed, the hopes of free repatriation diminished. What the refugees were most fearful of was dying in a foreign country, away from their homeland and relatives, something they considered to be a "double death". Thus, some refugees expressed a "last wish" that at least their bones would be taken back home. The work I present here concerns the difficulties that this kind of repatriation faced. I attend to the meanings as well as the hopes and fears attached to the notion of "home" as a place of origin to which one yearns to return.