SAPERE XVII: Polis - Friendship - Penalties Beyond: Letters to and about John

Polis - Friendship - Beyond Penalties: Letters to and about John, introduced, translated and provided with interpretative essays by Katharina Luchner / Bruno Bleckmann / Reinhard Feldmeier / Herwig Görgemanns / Adolf Martin Ritter / Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler, Tübingen 2010.

Synesius of Cyrene (ca. 370-413 AD) is a personality with many facets: landowner and family father, philosopher and hymn writer, politically and militarily active, finally bishop. His letters are literary jewels, full of life, humane, often witty, always polished. They provide insight into the social, political, religious and intellectual conditions of his time and his environment, the late antiquity of eastern Libya.

For this volume, 9 letters have been selected that revolve around a certain John; it must remain uncertain whether the same person is meant throughout. These letters are satirical, high-spirited, worried, desperate, ironic; the centrepiece (Letter 43), a most profound admonition to a John who is suspected of murder, is based on a religious conception of the afterlife with images from Plato's myths. Literary, historical and religious backgrounds are explained in 6 essays.

Reviews:

• Medienspiegel Deutsch-Maghrebinische Gesellschaft (März 2011).
• D. Buda Revista Teologica, (01/2013).

Buchner, Katharina; Bleckmann, Bruno; Feldmeier, Reinhard; Görgemanns, Herwig; Ritter, Adolf Martin; Tanaseanu-Döbler, Ilinca
Composite volume; German, Ancient Greek
Published: 2010
Verlag: Mohr Siebeck Verlag
ISBN: 978-3-16-150654-3