Rome and its religions: worship, morality, spirituality
Study day organized on the occasion of the republication of Lux Perpetua (Bibliotheca Cumontiana, Opera maiora 2 / Nino Aragno Editore, Turin, 2010) by Professors Carlo Ossola and John Scheid.
Lux Perpetua is the last work by Franz Cumont (1868-1947), published posthumously in 1949. The reading of ancient religion, and in particular of its eschatological conceptions, that it proposes has left a strong imprint on subsequent generations, right up to the present day. Proof of this is the fact that no one has really taken up the subject since. However, Cumont's vision of Roman religion, imbued with morality, spirituality and symbolism, has been the subject of serious criticism since 1949. The republication of Lux Perpetua, as part of the "Bibliotheca Cumontiana" collection promoted by the Academia Belgica (Rome), following that of Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain (1st ed. 1906, 5th ed. 2006 in the same collection), is an opportunity to examine the intellectual construction that nourishes Cumont's work and its reception. The volume's editors, A. Motte and B. Rochette, will share their interpretations with various specialists in Roman religion and Franz Cumont.
PROGRAM
9:30 Introduction by Carlo OSSOLA and John SCHEID
10:00 Walter GEERTS (University of Antwerp - Academia Belgica, Rome)
Cumont, the Academia Belgica and the Bibliotheca Cumontiana
10:30 Bruno ROCHETTE (University of Liège)
Reissuing Lux Perpetua: for whom and why?
11:30 Michel TARDIEU (Collège de France)
Cumont's Mithrasliturgy controversy
12h00 Françoise VAN HAEPEREN (University of Louvain)
Doctors of the soul". Priests of Eastern religions, according to Cumont
2:30 pm Robin LANE FOX (New College, Oxford)
Astrology and Cognitive Dissonance
15h00 Danny PRAET (Ghent University)
The contribution of Scripta Minora to the study of the links between philosophy and religion in the thought and work of Franz Cumont
4:00 pm Carlos LEVY (University of Paris IV)
The problem of immanence in Lux Perpetua
16:30 Corinne BONNET (University of Toulouse, UTM)
Lux Perpetua: a spiritual testament?
