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[German Version] (feast day Dec 25), ascetic and martyr, was born to a pagan family. The novelistic account of her martyrdom is highly imaginative, with many legendary features. It reports that she was the daughter of Philip, the Roman prefect in Egypt, who gave her a literary and philosophical education. She was converted from philosophy to Christianity by reading the Epistles ¶ of Paul. She joined a monastery disguised as a man, and on account of her great virtue, she apparently soon became its abbot. Appea…

[German Version] (feast day Jan 20/21) and his companions suffered martyrdom under Diocletian for destroying an altar of Mithras (Mithraic religion). Besides an anonymous …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The concept of a primeval or primordial history (Ger. Urgeschichte), as used in scholarly discourse, starts with the biblical text of Gen 1–11, but may be transferred to other contexts in religious studies. However, this makes sense only where identity-forming narratives proceed on a chronological basis (History/Concepts of history) in their notions of time, and where they are guided by the idea of a special quality in the origin of the world and/or their own society and…