Beyond Conflicts

That there were various ways of interaction between different groups in Graeco-Roman Egypt cannot be doubted, as a number of more or less recent regional studies have further reinforced. And as is well-known, Egypt emerges as a sort of exception in the study of ancient cultures and religions because it provides scholars with the opportunity to draw on a great number and variety of documents. Exploring interactively the diversity of documentary material is the main aim of this book. In socio-cultural terms, such an analysis corroborates the image of Egypt as a pervasive cultural system where for many centuries different elites coagulated themselves around a number of standard modalities to produce »cultural« and »religious« micro-systems. This shows that people, even when different languages and textual practices survive, respond to specific modalities of cohabitation under the umbrella of this hegemonic cultural »field.«Introduction
Luca Arcari: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Cent. CE

Part One: Use, (Re-)Invention and (Re-)Definition of Discursive Practices
Tobias Nicklas: Jewish, Christian, Greek? The Apocalypse of Peter as a Witness of Early 2nd-Cent. Christianity in Alexandria - Philippe Matthey: The Once and Future King of Egypt: Egyptian »Messianism« and the Construction of the Alexander Romance - Antonio Sena: Demonology between Celsus and Origen: A Theoretical Model of Religious Cohabitation? - Daniele Tripaldi: »Basilides« and »the Egyptian Wisdom:« Some Remarks on a Peculiar Heresiological Notice (Ps.-Hipp. Haer. 7.20-27) - Thomas J. Kraus: Demosthenes and (Late) Ancient Miniature Books from Egypt: Reflections on a Category, Physical Features, Purpose and Use - Paola Buzi: Remains of Gnomic Anthologies and Pagan Wisdom Literature in the Coptic Tradition

Part Two: Ideological Debates as Images of Cultural and Religious Cohabitations
Bernard Pouderon: »Jewish,« »Christian« and »Gnostic« Groups in Alexandria during the 2nd Cent.: Between Approval and Expulsion - Adele Monaci Castagno: Messengers from Heaven: Divine Men and God's Men in the Alexandrian Platonism (2nd-4th Cent.) - Mark J. Edwards: Late Antique Alexandria and the »Orient« - Ewa Wipszycka: How Insurmountable was the Chasm between Monophysites and Chalcedonians? - Philippe Blaudeau: » Vel si non tibi communicamus, tamen amamus te «. Remarques sur la description par Liberatus de Carthage des rapports entre Miaphysites et Chalcédoniens à Alexandrie (milieu Ve-milieu VIe s.)

Part Three: Cults and Practices as Spaces for Encounters and Interactions
Sofía Torallas Tovar: Love and Hate? Again on Dionysos in the Eyes of the Alexandrian Jews - Francesco Massa: Devotees of Serapis and Christ? A Literary Representation of Religious Cohabitations in the 4th Century - Mariangela Monaca: Between Cyril and Isis: Some Remarks on the Iatromantic Cults in 5th-Cent. Alexandria

Part Four: »Open« and »Closed« Groups
Marie-Françoise Baslez: Open-air Festivals and Cultural Cohabitation in Late Hellenistic Alexandria - Livia Capponi: The Common Roots of Egyptians and Jews: Life and Meaning of an Ancient Stereotype - Hugo Lundhaug: The Nag Hammadi Codices in the Complex World of 4th- and 5th-Cent. Egypt

Part Five: The Construction of Authority in Philosophical and Religious Schools
Carmine Pisano: Moses »Prophet« of God in the Works of Philo, or How to Use Otherness to Construct Selfness - Giulia Sfameni Gasparro: Alexandria in the Mirror of Origen's didaskaleion: Between the Great Church, Heretics and Philosophers - Marco Rizzi: Cultural and Religious Exchanges in Alexandria: The Transformation of Philosopy and Exegesis in the 3rd Cent. in the Mirror of Origen