12 V: Emiliano Bronisław Fiori (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), Re-thinking the hereafter in Egypt during the Origenist crisis: The Apocalypse of Paul

Abstract

“The Apocalypse of Paul, or Visio Pauli, an Egyptian apocryphon of the late 4th century narrating the otherworldly journey of the Apostle Paul, can be considered as a synthesis and a culmination of early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic imagery, especially of motifs that had been current since the earlier Apocalypse of Peter. The talk will present the literary and theological strategies that the Apocalypse of Paul put in place in order to reconfigure these traditional views on the hereafter, and, by doing so, to reshape the way of life of the ascetics and of common believers after the dramatic impact of the Origenist crisis at the end of the century.”