Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This diploma thesis is devoted to the situation of Christians living in the Roman Empire in the first four centuries AD. Every new religion has to face a number of problems in its beginnings, its misunderstanding and its position in society must be gradually enforced. However, the very beginnings of Christianity are not easy to grasp, since so many sources have not been preserved to this day. Likewise, many events are perceived through Christian optics and thus interpreted unilaterally. These are, above all, martyrological texts that have been extensively modified over time and authenticity is now relatively difficult. This diploma thesis is divided into several chapters, while in the first one I try to describe the Roman society and the Roman religion with which the Christian faith was confronted. Further chapters and chapters are devoted to the rise and spread of Christianity, the person of Jesus Christ, and the Church Fathers who report to us about the first centuries of Christian faith. The most extensive part of this diploma thesis is devoted to the main topic of persecution of Christians in the first four centuries AD. To date the individual stages of the persecution of Christians, I will help them by dividing them according to G.E.M. de Ste. Croixe. Chapters to describe the three stages of...

There is an ancient rabbinic apothegm which asserts that prophecy “ceased” after the last Biblical prophets, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi. After their deaths, a new phase of divine revelation was believed to have emerged through manifestations of a bat kol (lit. “Daughter of a voice”). This thesis examines the bat kol’s function within the contours of the Babylonian Talmud, primarily, employing philological, literary, and historical analyses. Moreover, it includes a review of parallels with Biblical and Second-Temple era, Apocalyptic works, so as to suggest possible origins. In addition, a sample of about ten stories are presented as representative of larger categories I consider best exhibit the bat kol’s purpose. The categories include: announcing an individual’s entry into the world to come, encomium and disdain towards individuals, matters related to Halacha (Jewish Law), and miscellaneous. As a result we discover how the rabbis employed the bat kol to address contemporary concerns.

[pt] O Deus de Jesus Cristo nos convoca sempre a optar pelas vítimas deste mundo. Nosso trabalho acadêmico concentra-se na esperança das mesmas e na promessa de resgatá-las como chave de leitura hermenêutica teológica. Aspira-se reconhecer que na Teologia de Jon Sobrino existe uma urgente necessidade do zelo teológico centrado no Mistério da presença misericordiosa de Deus na história. Neste sentido, amplia-se o olhar para os novos rostos de vítimas na realidade Latino- Americana e Caribenha que emergem da Globalização. E com a convicção de que fazer teologia a partir de testemunhas enriquece e aprofunda a teologia de textos, o ensejo é registrar e aclamar o rosto humano de Deus nas vítimas, enfocando a ética, a mística e a profecia à luz da teologia de Jon Sobrino. / [en] The God of Jesus Christ calls upon us to opt for the victims of this world. Our essay focuses on the hope of these victims and on the promise of rescuing them as the key of theological hermeneutic reading. We aspire to acknowledge that in Jon Sobrino’s theology there is an urgent need for the theological concern, centered in the Mystery of God’s merciful presence throughout history. With that in mind, attention given to the new victims brought up by globalization in the reality of Latin America and Caribbean must be amplified. Our aim is to register and proclaim the human face of God in the victims, focusing on ethics, mystique and in the prophecy in the light of Jon Sobrino’s theology, with the conviction that making theology from witnesses enriches and deepens the text’s theology.

The aim of the master thesis is to identify factors on which a motivation of individual, rather terrorist organization is based for committing of suicide attacks as a social phenomenon, that appears to be a priori incomprehensible in the context of European culture setting. The secondary aim of the thesis is to distinguish an eventual difference of motivation between female suicide attackers and male suicide attackers. For these purposes, two terrorist organizations have been analysed within two separately designed case studies, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Hamas for those the suicide attacks have represented the real "modus operandi" and simultaneously engaged women to their suicide missions. These terrorist organizations have been systematically analysed in terms of cultural, political, economic and organizational and social-psychological factors. The levels of analysis used, represent a synthetized reflection of existing theoretic treatment of suicide terrorism issue. The resulting findings confirm, first of all, the fact, that suicide terrorism phenomenon constitutes considerably complicated social phenomenon, whose central motive appears to be political, more precisely nationalistic. However its strength and effectiveness are largely interconnected with other motives, both cultural,...

The Massacre of Chios (1824) by Eugéne Delacroix illustrates the titular genocide from the Greek War of Independence. This genocide was a veritable razing of the entire island by Ottoman Turks in 1822. Today, a replica of Delacroix's painting resides on the island inside the entrance of the Chios Byzantine Museum, located in a converted mosque built on the ruins of a Christian church. This site is a case for the existence of non-Western temporalities, including liturgical and Aegean temporalities, as they pertain to the commemoration of the massacre through interaction with the replica. These temporalities are not causal or linear as in the West. On Chios, everyday interactions with history happen through the orthodox devotions and concomitant emotions of the present, with temporally transcendent icons, relics, and rituals promoting the imbrication of temporalities. The layout of the mosque, in its simplicity, conforms roughly to the plan of a Greek Orthodox church with the museum space organized to emphasize this, encouraging a liturgical temporality. Given that Chiots remember the massacre victims as tantamount to saints, the saturation of Christian elements in Delacroix's composition communes with the museum space to create an active site of memory, with the replica functioning like the Holy Greek Orthodox icons in the adjacent room, inviting a liturgical temporality. A comparable site, Agio Minas, a major massacre site in Southern Chios, also exhibits genocide victims as saints through eikonic imagery; here, victims' remains are displayed as relics alongside an icon of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, setting the stage, so to speak, for the naos where blood still stains the stone floor. In a similar way, the replica located in the "narthex" of the museum mediates a preparatory experience that overlays a narrative of Christian martyrdom onto the museum's "naos," where visitors engage with the icon collection. The proximity of replica and Byzantine collection overlays Chios' destruction with that of Constantinople's, collapsing time and presenting the two as related events. The Chios Byzantine Museum exemplifies what anthropologist Nicolas Argenti has termed "Aegean temporality," where past and present overlap in physical and incorporeal sites of memory. Orthodox icons do just that: transcendent and a-temporal by nature, their efficacy lies in bringing the pictured figure into the present moment and "enfleshing" remembrance as a current reality. The replica Massacre of Chios likewise acts as an active a-temporal object. Because of affordances granted by the narthex space and eikonic associations, it sacralizes the museum space into a living site of memory. With Aegean temporality facilitating a constant re-experiencing of the massacre, the massacre's presence and potency is not something left in the past. The painting's status as a semi-icon supports the immediacy of the massacre, as the viewer spiritually interacts with the image in the present.

В работе исследуется динамика обращения российских авторов переходного времени (второй половины XVI – начала XVIII в.) к сакральной для христианской культуры топике жертвы и жертвенности, тенденции ее секуляризации и манипулятивно-идеологического использования. Особое внимание уделено варьированию риторических стратегий и образно-сюжетного воплощения этих «общих мест» в литературной полемике Ивана Грозного и Андрея Курбского (а также в ее рецепции) и в старообрядческой словесности. / This work studies the dynamics of use of the sacred for Christian culture literary topoi of victim and self-sacrifice in Era of Change’s Russian literature (the second half of the 16th – early 18th centuries), the trends of its secularization and ideologization. Special attention is paid to the variation of rhetorical strategies and imagery of these “common places” in the literary polemic of Ivan the Terrible and Andrey Kurbsky (as well as its reception) and in the Old Believers’ works.

The objective of this study is to investigate what the narrative of The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas (Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis), read in english translation by Herbert Musurillo, seeks to persuade its reader about, and how. The study takes a theoretical starting point in professor Ross S. Kraemer’s critical perspective on ancient narratives about women as sources not necessarily communicating historical truths and actualities of real women in the ancient world, but are more likely to be narratives consciously constructed by male authors using female characters as rhetorical tools to discuss or explore differing subjects such as gender and identity. Through the method of narrative criticism and reader-response criticism this study answers the following research questions: how are women being described in the narrative of The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, and what function(s) do these descriptions of women have in the narrative of The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas?  The study shows that women are described as either weak feminine mothers or, according to Greco-Roman antique conceptions of gender and sexuality, a masculine male, transformed from a former state of femininity and motherhood. The descriptions are closely tied to the bodies of the women and there is a clear hierarchy where the masculine martyr is ascribed a higher status with a point of view closely related to that of God’s. The descriptions of women have both ideological and theological functions as a way to discuss questions regarding power, motherhood and masculinity. The hierarchy between the characters functions as a rhetorical tool to exemplify what can stand in the way for christians to seek martyrdom, which in the perspective of the narrative is the way someone, through her body and masculine behaviour in the face of torture and sexual humiliation, can communicate the truth about God’s power to the assembled crowds of onlookers. Contrary to previous studies, this study shows that the text communicates ascetic tendencies towards its readers concerning motherhood and are not to be interpreted as a celebration of women or femininity. The descriptions of women functions as a way to demonise the empire - but not the empire's perspective on gender. This is also a contrast to previous feminist studies of the text. The masculine male transformed from a former phase of femininity and motherhood is the exception that proves the rule about the perception of female weakness and lower status in power. The text appropriates the gender power order and the Greco-Roman ancient construction of gender and sexuality to ascribe the martyrs and God the true power. The rhetoric of female weakness being transformed in to masculine strength, self-restraint and body control through the works of God, functions to convince readers about the narratives ideological perspective and message about the martyrs being the true rulers. The motive is that the antagonist, the empire, the main masculine power in the world, is defeated and proven to be false through submissive feminisation.

From 2002 to 2006, ten Palestinian women committed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and military personnel, resulting in more fatalities and wounded noncombatants on average than attacks by male perpetrators. Rather than examining individual women’s motivations to become a suicide bomber, this research endeavor seeks to shift focus from this prevailing analytical approach to a sociological analysis of how militant organizations frame female participation to the public. Social movement perspectives and an extension of Erving Goffman’s work on frame analysis theoretically inform an examination of media produced by the two non-secular militant organizations of Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. Organizations attempt to mitigate the “broken frame” introduced by female incorporation into an overwhelmingly male enterprise by strategically creating new frames that exalt and reinterpret extant social norms. Organizations frame female perpetrators as un-feminine individuals prior to their actions but, through the act of martyrdom, frame them as feminized symbols of the threat posed to Palestinian society, and its gender order, by Israeli military presence in the occupied territories. Martyrdom is framed, physically and symbolically, as a transformative experience. An application of frame analysis to violent social movements offers researchers the opportunity to understand how groups attempt to garner support and advance their interests within their populations and abroad. / text

Constantin, grâce à sa prise de pouvoir au début du IVe siècle, permettra l'essor d'un nouveau type de dévotion, consacré aux hommes et aux femmes ayant rendu l'âme en défendant leur ferveur pour le Christ et son Père. Ainsi, Laurent, persécuté à Rome en l'an 258, deviendra au siècle suivant la figure prédominante du martyre dans la ville éternelle. Ce mémoire cherche à comprendre comment se développera son culte et quelles sont les raisons qui mèneront son martyre à la primauté dans la capitale romaine. En étudiant les sources littéraires et épigraphiques, notamment sous la plume de Damase, Ambroise, Prudence et Augustin, ainsi qu'en explorant les informations archéologiques sur la construction d'églises dévouées à Laurent, nous en sommes venus à la conclusion que le martyr romain a contribué à la création d'une mémoire collective chrétienne qui correspondait au besoin identitaire de l'Urbs, dans ce passage d'un empire « païen » à un empire chrétien. Cette création d'une mémoire collective repose sur la sacralisation du territoire par l’empereur Constantin et l’évêque romain Damase, l’introduction de nouveaux rituels et dans la foulée, de l’instrumentalisation de Laurent et du culte des saints par les auteurs anciens dans leur élaboration de l’identité chrétienne de la ville de Rome. / Constantine, with his seize of power in the early fourth century, has allowed the growth of a new form of devotion dedicated to the men and women tormented because of their beliefs in Christ and his Holy Father. Thereby, Lawrence, persecuted in 258 A.D. in Rome, has become the main figure of martyrdom in the Eternal City during the following century. This master's thesis aims at comprehending how the cult of Lawrence's unfolded and why it became the predominant martyr cult in the Roman capital. By studying literary and epigraphic sources, especially Damasus, Ambrose, Augustine and Prudence, as well as the archaeological data on the construction of the churches dedicated to Lawrence, we came to the conclusion that the Roman martyr helped establish a Christian collective memory corresponding to the identity needs of the Urbs in this period characterized by the passage of a "pagan" empire to a Christian empire. This creation of a collective memory is based on the sacralisation of the roman territory by the emperor Constantine and the roman bishop Damasus, on the introduction of new rituals and on the instrumentation of Lawrence and the cult of the saints by the ancient writers in their elaboration of a Christian identity for the city of Rome.