Biography

Emmanouela Grypeou is a senior lecturer for the History of Christianity at Stockholm University in Sweden. Previously, she has held research and teaching positions at the University of Erfurt, Humboldt University Berlin, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and as a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on the interactions between Eastern Christianity with Judaism and Early Islam respectively, as well as on apocalypticism and eschatology.

Project Abstract

The Horarium is a short text which catalogues and describes the hours of the night and/or day in which the elements of the creation worship and offer praise to God. The text expands on the biblical motif of the creation praising the creator (Ps 145:21; 148:1-8; 150:6, etc.). This praise is also related to the heavenly liturgy including mentioning of priests, rituals and other liturgical acts. In most recensions this list is divided into two major sections, the "Hours of the Night" and the "Hours of the Day". This extremely popular and influential text from Late Antiquity is attested in a complex manuscript and recension tradition and is preserved in Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Ge‛ez, Georgian, and Arabic.

According to a scholarly approach, the Horarium is a Christian work composed in Syriac, whereas other scholars suggest a Jewish provenance in the Second Temple period. Significantly, the text shares certain motifs with the Hekhalot literature and with the late Hebrew text, the Pereq Shira. A modified form of the Horarium is preserved in Greek and Armenian, which is attributed to Apollonius of Tyana and is integrated into a larger work on magic and astrology called Apotelesmata.

Significantly, it includes angelological and demonological traditions and relate to magical spells and talismans; a tradition which is missing from the Syriac texts The text of the Horarium offers important insights into the conception and understanding of time and time units in the ancient world as a heavenly dimension which connects the creation with the creator and accordingly, affects human worship and everyday piety.

Curriculum vitae

Education

Ph.D. (1996-2001), Languages and Cultures of the Christian Orient, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany

M.A. (1991-1994), Catholic Theology - Sociology, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany

Fellowships and Positions

Since 2017: “Universitetslektor” (tenured senior lecturer/associate professor) for the History of Christianity at the Institute for the History of Religions, Stockholm University.

2013–2016: “Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin” (post-doctoral research fellow with teaching responsibilities), Humboldt University of Berlin: Antikes Christentum (50%) and collaboration at the research project Transfer of Apocalyptic Knowledge in Antique Christianity, Collaborative Research Center (SFB): Episteme in Motion.

2014–2016: “Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin” (post-doctoral research fellow) at the project Corpus Coranicum. Research Group The World of the Qur’an (50%); Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.

2011–2013: Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Chair of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions (with Guy Stroumsa), Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford.

2008–2011: Affiliated Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, Cambridge.

2005–2008: Post-doctoral senior research associate and adjunct lecturer with the research project: The Exegetical Encounters between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity, at the Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Studies – Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge / Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge.

2001–2004: “Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin” (post-doctoral research fellow with teaching responsibilities) with the research project Globalization and Regionalization Processes in Eastern Christianity and Their Impact on the Formation, Expansion and Early Development of Islam in the 6th and 7th Centuries at the Chair for Muslim Religious and Cultural History, Department of Religious Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany.

2003–2004: Visiting Scholar at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, USA.

Selected Publications

(2013) The Book of Genesis in Late Antiquity: Encounters between Jewish and Christian Exegesis (with H. Spurling). Jewish Christian Perspectives 24. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004245556

(2015) Apokalypse Adams (NHC V,5) an annotated translation from Coptic into German with an introduction. Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, Neue Folge Bd.1/2. Gütersloher Verlagshaus.

http://www.randomhouse.de/Paperback/Apokalypse-Adams/Emmanouela-Grypeou/e402544.rhd

(2016) Talking skulls: On Some Personal Accounts of Hell and their Place in Apocalyptic Literature. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity 20(1), 109-126. https://doi.org/10.1515/zac-2016-0006

(2013) Höllenreisen und engelgleiches Leben: Die Rezeption von apokalyptischen Traditionen in der koptisch-monastischen Literatur. In D.F. Bumazhnov (Ed.), Christliches Agypten in der spätantiken Zeit: Akten der 2. Tubinger Tagung zum christlichen Orient (pp. 43-54). Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 79, Mohr Siebeck.

(2009) ‘A tour of the other world’: A contribution to the textual and literary criticism of the ‘Six Books Apocalypse of the Virgin’ (with J.-P. Monferrer Sala). Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 6, 111-165. http://www.uco.es/revistas/index.php/cco/article/view/116/113

(2007) The Re-Written Bible in Arabic: The Paradise Story And Its Exegesis in The Arabic Apocalypse Of Peter. In D. Thomas (Ed.), The Bible in Arab Christianity (pp. 113-129). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004155589.i-421.24