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The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).

We first show that new types of conflicts need new types of weapons, but also that new types of weapons induce new forms of conflicts. Then we study dangers coming from new military technologies: drones, SARMOs and LAWS as well as Cyber-weapons. Finally, we show how Christian anthropology is an appropriate frame enabling us to tackle the moral issues addressed by such new technologies.

Prognostications for how AI will affect the future of humanity are greatly enriched by theological and historical perspectives regarding the nature and use of idols, images used to worship the gods. With the background of the Egyptian «mouth-opening» ritual in mind, and ancient constructions of seeming-autonomous statues, Scriptural accounts suggest that pagans constructed and worshipped idols for reasons of transference — substituting a creature for the Creator —, greed, and control. In parallel fashion, with futurist accounts of AI and robotics in mind, an historicaltheological perspective indicates that these new technologies are often at the service of an analogous kind of idolatry: relationship transference, corporate and individual greed, and social control: three motives that are encapsulated in Lewis Mumford’s prediction that, in a secular age, «man’s final achievement, at the summit of his progress, would be to create an ineffable electronic God». Finally, a theological account suggests a way forward: returning to right relationships, self-gift in union with Christ the Incarnate God, and responsibility as worship.

In light of the pervasive developments of new technologies, such as NBIC (Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science), it is imperative to produce a coherent and deep reflexion on the human nature, on human intelligence and on the limit of both of them, in order to successfully respond to some technical argumentations that strive to depict humanity as a purely mechanical system. For this purpose, it is interesting to refer to the epistemology and metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas as a stable philosophical reference on Human Nature. Indeed, we find in the works of Aquinas some of the most productive elements that could form a base to our deeper understanding of, and possibly even solutions to some of the most perplexing questions raised in our times by the existence of A.I.

Within the context of contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science, one’s adherence to the possibility of «strong artificial intelligence », i.e. machines having conscious minds, depends on whether or not one believes that consciousness arises solely from functional-organizational features of the brain. After briefly reviewing some spotlights in the history of the philosophy of A.I., I discuss a contemporary argument in favor of strong A.I., David Chalmers’ argument against fading qualia, and offer some points of criticism.

Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social, political and religious history of Merovingian Gaul. This book focuses on Gregory's hagiographical collections, especially the Glory of the Martyrs, Glory of the Confessors, and Life of the Fathers, which contain accounts of saints and their miracles from across the Mediterranean world. It analyses these accounts from literary and historical perspectives, examining them through the lens of relations between the Merovingians and their Mediterranean counterparts, and contextualizing them within the identity crisis that followed the disintegration of the Roman world. This approach leads to groundbreaking conclusions about Gregory's hagiographies, which this study argues were designed as an \"ecclesiastical history\" (of the Merovingian Church) that enabled him to craft a specific Gallo-Christian identity for his audience.

This groundbreaking study brings into dialogue for the first time the writings of Julian, the last non-Christian Roman Emperor, and his most outspoken critic, Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, a central figure of Christianity. Susanna Elm compares these two men not to draw out the obvious contrast between the Church and the Emperor's neo-Paganism, but rather to find their common intellectual and social grounding. Her insightful analysis, supplemented by her magisterial command of sources, demonstrates the ways in which both men were part of the same dialectical whole. Elm recasts both Julian and Gregory as men entirely of their times, showing how the Roman Empire in fact provided Christianity with the ideological and social matrix without which its longevity and dynamism would have been inconceivable.

Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure.Through the Eye of a Needleis a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven. Through the Eye of a Needlechallenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.

Although it would appear in studies of late antique ecclesiastical authority and power that scholars have covered everything, an important aspect of the urban bishop has long been neglected: his role as demonologist and exorcist. When the emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the realm, bishops and priests everywhere struggled to \"Christianize\" the urban spaces still dominated by Greco-Roman monuments and festivals. During this period of upheaval, when congregants seemingly attended everything but their own \"orthodox\" church, many ecclesiastical leaders began simultaneously to promote aggressive and insidious depictions of the demonic. InCity of Demons,Dayna S. Kalleres investigates this developing discourse and the church-sponsored rituals that went along with it, showing how shifting ecclesiastical demonologies and evolving practices of exorcism profoundly shaped Christian life in the fourth century.