Ancient

S.G.F. Brandon shows how the idea of a posthumous moral judgment, when the sheep will be divided from the goats, is deeply rooted in our cultural history.

According to the ancient religions of the Near East, every man possessed a double nature, compounded of physical and psychical elements, each an essential adjunct of his life.

John Cohen traces the ancestry of modern automation back through the curious mechanical inventions of past centuries to the twilight figures of remote mythology.

S.G.F. Brandon suggests the influence of the idea of the Devil in Christian culture has been profound, inspiring both noble works of art and the most degrading superstitions.

S. Usher introduces Sallust, himself a disillusioned politician, who envisaged no future greatness for Rome until a single man of vision should have restored the old Republican sense of obligation—the individual's obligation to the state, and the state’s obligation to the world at large.

S.G.F. Brandon analyses the differences that divide the Eastern and Western views of man’s nature and destiny, concluding as to their urgent significance today, as mankind becomes more closely interrelated and interdependent.

Wilhelmina F. Jashemski visists the heart of the Pompeian house: the garden. While some gardens were splendid and spacious, others were crammed into minute courtyards “no larger than a professor's desk,” but rich with flowers and enclosed by painted walls.

S.G.F. Brandon explains how, from the religious conceptions of the ancient Hebrew people, sprang the traditional idea of how mankind originated.

The majestic narrative of the fortunes of the Jewish people, as unfolded in the Pentateuch, incorporates four different strains of literary tradition. Once fused together, writes S.G.F. Brandon, they produced a philosophy of history that has influenced not only Israel itself but the whole of Christian Europe.

Possibly some innate realism prevented the Mesopotamians from seeing death other than objectively. But the Epic of Gilgamesh remains an eloquent witness to the poignancy of their interrogation of the meaning of human life and destiny. S.G.F. Brandon.