Conceptualising Divine Unions in the Greek and Near Eastern Worlds (Ancient Philosophy & Religion, 7)

This volume is an interdisciplinary investigation and contextualization of the various concepts of divine union in the private and public sphere of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds. Contents 5 Figures 7 Abbreviations 8 Introduction 11 Part 1: Religion, Kingship and Politics 21 Chapter 1. The Mesopotamian King between Gods and Men in the First Millennium BCE 23 Chapter 2. The Intersection of Gods and Kings in Achaemenid Iran 55 Chapter 3. Confronting and Uniting with Divinity in Ancient Egypt 84 Chapter 4. Constantine: God-Man or Man of God? 105 Part 2: Religion, Sex and Mythology 127 Chapter 5. Human-Divine Interactions in Homer, Hittite and Other Near Eastern Literary Traditions 129 Chapter 6. Teῶν Fίλtρa: Sexual Union between Gods and Mortals 158 Part 3: Religion, Philosophy and Ritual 179 Chapter 7. Genos Olbion, Genos Ouranion: Divine Ancestry in the Orphic Gold Tablets 181 Chapter 8. Union with the Divine in Greece and India: Mysteries and Monetisation 196 Chapter 9. Philosophy and the Daimonic in Plato 218 Chapter 10. Confusion (Ekplêxis) and Sympathy (Sympatheia): The Neoplatonist Proclus on the Aesthetics of Epiphany and Theurgic Union 239 Chapter 11. Proclus' Theurgic Union, Teουργικὴ Ἕνωsις, and the Concept of Fire 261 Chapter 12. Determinism and Divine Intervention: Divine Punishment in Stoic Theology 279 Chapter 13. Divine Unions in Byzantine Christianity: The Penetration of Fire into Iron as a Methaphor of Theôsis 301 Index of Ancient Sources/References 325 Index of Subjects 332 "The present volume is an interdisciplinary investigation and contextualization of the various concepts of divine union in the private and public sphere of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds. The collection focuses on human-divine interactions, intersection between kings and the divine, sexual unions with the divine, heroization and divinization rituals, divine epiphanies, mystic unions and assimilations with the divine, philosophical approaches for establishing union with the divine and theurgic unions with the divine"-- Provided by publisher.