{"product_id":"9780674287198","title":"Our Divine Double","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat if you were to discover that you were not entirely you, but rather one half of a whole, that you had, in other words, a divine double? In the second and third centuries CE, this idea gripped the religious imagination of the Eastern Mediterranean, providing a distinctive understanding of the self that has survived in various forms throughout the centuries, down to the present. \u003ci\u003eOur Divine Double \u003c\/i\u003etraces the rise of this ancient idea that each person has a divine counterpart, twin, or alter-ego, and the eventual eclipse of this idea with the rise of Christian conciliar orthodoxy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCharles Stang marshals an array of ancient sources: from early Christianity, especially texts associated with the apostle Thomas “the twin”; from Manichaeism, a missionary religion based on the teachings of the “apostle of light” that had spread from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean; and from Neoplatonism, a name given to the renaissance of Platonism associated with the third-century philosopher Plotinus. Each of these traditions offers an understanding of the self as an irreducible unity-in-duality. To encounter one’s divine double is to embark on a path of deification that closes the gap between image and archetype, human and divine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile the figure of the divine double receded from the history of Christianity with the rise of conciliar orthodoxy, it survives in two important discourses from late antiquity: theodicy, or the problem of evil; and Christology, the exploration of how the Incarnate Christ is both human and divine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50078620221680,"sku":"9780674287198","price":51.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780674287198_p0.jpg?v=1784732027","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780674287198","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}