At the time of these lectures Steiner was planning to inaugurate the second section of the Esoteric School, which was to deal in a direct way with a renewal - out of his own spiritual research - of ritual and symbolism. He gave these lectures as a necessary preparation, to clarify the history and nature of the cultic tradition. He thus discusses principally Freemasonry and its background, but also the Rosicrucians, Manichaeism, the Druids, the Prometheus Saga, the Lost Temple, Cain and Abel - and much else besides.

Depicting the lives of the saints in an array of factual and fictional stories, The Golden Legend was perhaps the most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages. It was compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine, a scholarly friar and later archbishop of Genoa, whose purpose was to captivate, encourage, and edify the faithful, while preserving a vast store of information pertaining to the legends and traditions of the church. In this translation, the first in English of the complete text, William Granger Ryan captures the immediacy of this rich work, which offers an important guide for readers interested in medieval art and literature and, more generally, in popular religious culture. Arranged according to the order of saints' feast days, these fascinating stories are now combined into one volume. This edition also features an introduction by Eamon Duffy contextualizing the work.

When shots ring out on the Grand Trunk Road in the fictional Pakistani city of Zamara, Nargis’s life begins to crumble around her. Soon her husband—and fellow architect—is dead and, under threat from a powerful military intelligence officer, she fears that a long-hidden truth about her past will be exposed. For weeks someone has been broadcasting people’s secrets from the minaret of the local mosque, and, in a country where even the accusation of blasphemy is a currency to be bartered, the mysterious broadcasts have struck fear in Christians and Muslims alike. A revelatory portrait of the human spirit, in The Golden Legend, Nadeem Aslam gives us a novel of Pakistan’s past and present—a story of corruption and resilience, of love and terror, and of the disguises that are sometimes necessary for survival.

The thirteenth century Italian chronicler Jacobus de Voragine was the author of ‘The Golden Legend’, a collection of 153 hagiographies, narrating the colourful adventures of Christian saints. The most widely read book after the Bible in the late Middle Ages, it recounts for the first time some of the most famous exploits of the saints, including the valiant St. George slaying the dragon, the life of St. Barbara and the legendary adventures of Mary Magdalen, among many others. In spite of its dubious historicity, ‘The Golden Legend’ remains one of the most important sources for the analysis of Christian iconography, offering an invaluable window into the beliefs and spiritual wonders of the medieval world. Delphi’s Medieval Library provides eReaders with rare and precious works of the Middle Ages, with noted English translations and the original texts. This eBook presents Jacobus’ 'The Golden Legend', with illustrations, an informative introduction and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Jacobus’ life and works * Features the ‘The Golden Legend’ in English translation, with key selections from the original Latin text * Features William Caxton’s translation, revised by Frederick Startridge Ellis in 1900 * Concise introduction to the text * Images of famous paintings that have been inspired by Jacobus’ works * Excellent formatting of the texts * Easily locate the ‘Lives’ you want to read with individual contents tables * Special ‘Highlights’ contents table, allowing you to browse easily the more famous ‘Lives’ * Features two bonus biographies — discover Jacobus’ medieval world CONTENTS: The Translation The Golden Legend (1265) Highlights from ‘The Golden Legend’ Detailed Table of Contents The Original Text Selections from the Latin Text The Biographies Jacobus de Voragine (1911) Blessed Jacopo de Voragine (1913) by Michael Ott

One of the central texts of the Middle Ages, The Golden Legend deeply influenced the imagery of poetry, painting and stained glass with its fascinating descriptions of saints' lives and religious festivals. By creating a single-volume sourcebook of core Christian stories, Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1229-98) attracted a huge audience across Europe. This selection of over seventy biographies ranges from the first Apostles and Roman martyrs to near-contemporaries such as St Dominic, St Francis of Assissi and St Elizabeth of Hungary. Here, witnesses to the true faith endure horrific tortures; reformed prostitutes win divine forgiveness; while other women live disguised as monks or nobly resist lustful tyrants. Lucid and compelling, The Golden Legend offers an enthralling insight into the medieval mind. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.