Contenu du sommaire

Hérakleiè nosos. Heracles' Epilepsy Epilepsy in Heracles' « lifetime » turns out to be linked indissociably to the Double's problems. Heracles, whose identity is basically and for ever uncertain never succeeds in disentangling himself from a network of doubles. As regards symptoms the hero's murderous fury, looked upon as an effect triggered off by the hallucination of the double, shows what the confused filiation which Heracles inherited consists of, and how it results in his intolerable situation in life.

The Myth of Nero - from the Apocalypse of John to the Babylonian Talmud The myth of Nero's return which arose after his death, is a peculiar phenomenon of the epoch of the birth of Christianity. It is part of the eschatological, apocalyptic atmosphere surrounding the life of peoples in the ancient Orient. Its origin is to be found in the oriental policy of Nero. The Gentiles, Jews and Christians brought out different features of the myth. The Apocalypse of Saint John, one of the main documents containing the myth, whose first version was composed immediately after the death of Nero, is a Jewish work. Christians and Jews alike gave the myth a mystic coloration and a totally different interpretation.

Free Prayers in Traditional Islam Free prayers and devotions are a dimension of Islam. Such free prayers, as distinct from ritual prayer, are usually in the form of « traditions ». We have a good example in the nine prayers which Fahr al-Dîn al-Râzï (d. 606 H. /1210) selected in chapter 58, translated here, of his Persian "Garni' al-'ulum". Four of them are ascribed to ancient prophets, and the five following ones to Muhammad.. Almost all of them are prayers of petition, in the first person singular, where one prays for oneself alone. These features conform to the usual pattern (although some exceptions are worthy of note) of the numerous texts of prayers that may be found in the Koran. They are also conspicuous, but in a quite different tone, in the «Intimate prayer of longing » (Munâgât al-râgibîn) attributed to the Shî'ite Imam Ali b. al-Husayn al-Saggâd (d. 95 H. /714).

The Conquest of Ireland. Religion and migration in the seventeenth century Several recent publications have pointed out the role of Protestant immigration — Scottish, English or Huguenot — in the making of modern Ireland. While Francis Bacon and William Petty underlined the strategic importance of population as a factor of stability, the new settlers went through episodes of buoyancy and disillusionment which involved a dual process of identification and enmity towards the host country. It seems therefore that demography, religion and politics have been closely related from a very early stage in Irish history.