In a post-Constantine cultural and religious setting Christian theology was marked by a dialectical tension in which the spiritual could no longer be freed from the secular or the eternal from the temporal.".

What is now currently the 'holy seat of the Vatican' in Italy, was originally the sacerdotal seat of these ancient black Sibyl Queen Mothers. Centuries before for Christ, they were known to heal the sick, restore dignity and strength to the weak, and restore sight to the blind. They were famous for curing lameness, epileptics, deaf mutes and lepers. They were said to 'cast out demons' and even to 'raise-up the dead' Their prophecies are the oldest and most authentic in the world. They were the basis for Greek and Roman tragedies and plays. More astonishing, their prophetic books were later collected by the Roman authorities, who needed a 'western theological' foundation in order to compete with the powerful levitical Jews. These Sibyl prophecies soon became the sole and undisputed precursor to the western, Christian Bible. .

Intertwining art history, aesthetic theory, and Latin American studies, Aarnoud Rommens challenges contemporary Eurocentric revisions of the history of abstraction through this study of the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García. After studying and painting (for decades) in Europe, Torres-García returned in 1934 to his native home, Montevideo, with the dream of reawakening and revitalizing what he considered the true indigenous essence of Latin American art: "Abstract Spirit." Rommens rigorously analyses the paradoxes of the painter's aesthetic-philosophical doctrine of Constructive Universalism as it sought to adapt European geometric abstraction to the Americas. Whereas previous scholarship has dismissed Torres-García's theories as self-contradictory, Rommens seeks to recover their creative potential as well as their role in tracing the transatlantic routes of the avant-garde. Through the highly original method of reading Torres-García's artworks as a critique on the artist's own writings, Rommens reveals how Torres-García appropriates the colonial language of primitivism to construct the artificial image of "pure" pre-Columbian abstraction. Torres-García thereby inverts the history of art: this book teases out the important lessons of this gesture and the implications for our understanding of abstraction today.

"Edwin Hatch provided a colorful portrait of the religious world to which Justin Martyr belonged: ""The main subject-matter of . . . literary education [amongst the pagans] was the poets. . . . They were read as we read the Bible. They were committed to memory. The minds of men were saturated with them. A quotation from Homer or from a tragic poet was apposite on all occasions and in every kind of society"" (The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, 1957). So when some of these pagans converted to Christianity in Justin's day, is it reasonable to assume that they simply ""forgot"" these mythical narratives in which they had been reared from childhood? Re-appropriating ""Marvelous Fables"" sets out to argue that this was hardly the case. Rather, Justin in 1 Apology can be seen taking full advantage of this mythical framework that still loomed large in the minds of fledgling Christian believers and students in his care--masterfully re-appropriating this popular form of religious discourse for the purpose of solidifying their newfound faith."

On the famous mappa mundi, housed in Hereford Cathedral, Jerusalem is at the center of the world. For Jews, Christians, and Muslims, this holy city represents not merely a physical focus for their faith, but a theological and spiritual emblem: simultaneously a very earthly city and a uniquely celestial kingdom. How has this insignificant city become such a critical location in geopolitics and psychogeography? I'm Talking about Jerusalem explores the many and varied meanings and resonances of "Jerusalem"--in history, prophecy, theology, literature, imagery, and myth. "Jerusalem" appears 806 times in the Bible. For the Jews, Jerusalem is not simply a significant physical place, past and present, but a religious concept transcending time. For Christians, it is the site of Jesus's last days--and of countless Christian structures, relics, and remains. Islamic tradition has celebrated the city with seventeen names; it was a key stage in Muhammad's night journey and became Islam's third holiest place of pilgrimage. For all three Abrahamic religions, Jerusalem is a major pilgrimage destination. Aldous Huxley wrote, "We have each of us our Jerusalem"--a vision of what life might be. I'm Talking about Jerusalem considers Jerusalem as a political goal and eternal home; its place in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic eschatology; and as a metaphor for all we yearn for in this world and the next. A place of perfection and conclusion, a golden city, a paradise to be attained after death.