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From opinion to heresy : the semantic evolution of the word « secta », from its origins to the Early Middle Ages The word "secta", originally devoid of negative connotations, long referred to a line of intellectual or moral conduct, particularly in philosophy. Christians gave the term a religious overtone by using it, adjoined to the calque "haeresis", to translate the Greek "hairèsis", used even in the New Testament to mean dissenting or heterodox groups. "Secta" suggested the deviation and indiscipline of a circle placing itself outside the Catholic Church. This semantic shift towards the modern idea of a « sect » was for a long time incidental, until the adoption of Christianity as a State religion (391-392) officialized it. Classical pluralism, which considered the variety of « sects » as a sign of intellectual health, was thus replaced by an exclusive religion imposing an indisputable dogma. "Secta" tended to become a synonym of "haeresis", and its use in a non-pejorative sense was limited to science.

The Metaphor of the Salt and the Serpent in the works of Aphraates, the Persian Sage Aphraates, the Christian, Syrian language author from the IVth Century, uses a seemingly familiar metaphor : « Let us be the true salt so as not to become food for serpent. » The salt is a reference to "Matthew" 5, 13 and the serpent, a symbolic figure of evil is characterised by both its wily personality and its venom. However, the deeper meaning of this extremely rare expression remains mysterious. What are the origins of the belief that the snake feeds on man and that the salt enables one to triumph over the Enemy ? Through the study of these complex symbols that are strongly influenced by the rites and beliefs of the Near and Middle East as well as early Christian literature, the meaning resulting in the association of the salt and the snake in the metaphor of Aphraates, as well as its eschatological dimension, becomes more precise.

About some Pythagorean cosmological stereotypes in the systems of Muslim thinkers at the Middle Ages Among the Pythagorean stereotypes that made their way to Muslim thinkers, two topics are of special note. The first has to do with the subtle nature of the celestial bodies and their intelligence, the second with the postulate of the pre-existence of souls and a number of its direct consequences, such as the fall, metempsychosis, the return to celestial origine and apocatastasis. These questions arise with philosophers such as al-Kindî, al-Râzî and al-Farâbî (first part of this article) as well as with mystics (second part of this article). Whereas the philosophers had access to translations of the Greek texts, however, the mystics encountered these thought processes through intermediary teachings, inspired mainly by the works of Origen and Evagre.

No Grail for the Wandering Jew. The Jew in XXth century Grail Novels At the end of the XlXth century, when the myth of the Holy Grail revived in Western Europe, it came back with a puzzling antagonism against the Jew - that Middle Ages literature had never known. Was it conjonctural or structural ? In the XXth century literature, the Jew and the Grail are still opposite figures. Studying contemporary Grail novels which provide positive Jewish characters is helpful for interprating such an antagonism. The impossible communion of the Jew at the Holy Grail is properly mythical. Thus is shown the opposition between transcendence and incarnation, achieved and unachieved redemption. The Holy Grail may be the unjewish part of christianism.