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1. The idea of the Hellenistic  

Peter Thonemann

in The Hellenistic Age: A Very Short Introduction

1. The idea of the Hellenistic The man from Soli all Greeks). The Persian empire, 200 years old, and stretching from the shores of the Aegean to the foothills of the Himalayas, must have seemed as stable as the heavens. A ‘Hellenistic’ Age? les trente glorieuses ; Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic. Historical ‘periods’ are blunt instruments, but without them we cannot talk about the past at all. Ancient Greek history is today conventionally divided into four periods: Archaic (from around 800 to 500 BC), Classical (500 to 323 BC), Hellenistic (323 to 30 BC) and Roman Imperial (30 BC to—say—AD

2. Beliefs, rituals, and narratives  

Linda Woodhead

in Christianity: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn)

2. Beliefs, rituals, and narratives Having considered how the figure of Jesus was interpreted, we can take the story further by looking at how depictions of him developed, and how they fit into the broader scheme of Christian rituals and symbols. Later chapters explain how the elements of Christianity discussed here were developed in different branches of Christianity. In Eastern Christianity, for example, less emphasis is placed on sin than in Western churches, and in some forms of Christianity the Holy Spirit has a much more central place than others. In this chapter, however, we can turn down the volume