AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAȘCU Danubius, XLI, Galati, 2023, pp. 327-336. Abstract During the last decades of the communist regime in Romania, at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania, a marvelously unexplainable event occurred, with considerable impact in the fields of academia and mass-media. In a paradoxical way, freedom of writing became possible, during the 1970s…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAȘCU ABBA SOPATRUS ON APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE Danubius, XL, Galati, 2022, pp. 209-220. Abstract The textual proximity of “woman” and “apocryphal literature” in a fragment included in the Apophthegmata Patrum may seem paradoxical. Abba Sopatrus’ apophthegm must be understood against the background of the theological debates of Origenists and non-Origenists during the IVth –…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAŞCU Danubius, XXXI, Galati, 2013, pp. 309-326. Abstract In the Romanian folklore tradition, a considerable amount of sources attest the widespread belief in “the heaven‘s custom houses“, as a constitutive part of the imaginary circumscribing the journey of the soul, after death. These traditions and the funeral rites inspired by them survive into…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAŞCU Danubius, XXXII, Galati, 2014, pp. 419-446. Abstract Hans Jonas has distinguished the “Syrian-Egyptian” Gnostic systems (the Nag Hammadi Library) from the “Iranian” Gnostic systems (Manichaeism, Mandaeism). Concerning the first type, the origin of Evil and the Powers of Darkness appertains to the climax of an ontological involution or descending process, from the…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAŞCU Danubius, XXXVI, Galaţi, 2018, pp. 347-358. Abstract The Ch’un-ch’iu (Chunqiu) or Annals of the Spring-Autumn Period had been indited according to the textual pattern of a Court chronicle which describes the autocratic regime of the twelve dukes who governed the State of Lu from the Shan-tung (Shandong) region, a vassal-state of the…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAȘCU Danubius, XXXVII, Galaţi, 2019, pp. 323-330. Abstract Several apologues included in Tripiaka open up with one and the same formula: “Look what story has been told to me: One day, the Buddha was to be found in Śrāvastī, in the Jetavana, in the garden of Anāthapi<*ada.” In all the apologues introduced by…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAȘCU Danubius, XXXVIII, Galaţi, 2020, pp. 487-500. Abstract Beside the midrashic purpose, the illusory staining of Bathenosh’s and Sarai’s feminine innocence in the Dead Sea Scrolls opened new ground for captatio benevolentiae, as it revisited the archaic history with a new feeling of drama, tragedy and redemption. In On the Origin of the…

AUTHOR: Silviu LUPAȘCU Danubius, XXXIX, Galaţi, 2021, pp. 229-236. Abstract During the Ayyubide dynasty (1171-1260), founded by the sultan Saladin or Salah-ad-din (1137-1193), the son of Moses ben Maimon, Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon (1186-1237), followed his father as leader of the Jewish community in Egypt, nagid (Hebrew), al-raʼīs or al-rayyis (Arabic). In accordance with…