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The Mediterranean has long been a space of interaction between cultures which shaped and reshaped their identities and traditions. How these often competing communities questioned, structured and performed their own beliefs and religious practices by shaping their orthodoxies and disclosing heresies commends a persistent and multifaceted interdisciplinary research. The present volume gathers eleven selected papers from the fields of Late Antique, Byzantine, Ottoman, Western Medieval, Caucasus, and Jewish studies on themes that reflect on and address the complex formation and development of cultural, intellectual and religious identities in the Mediterranean.

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7 Acknowledgments
8 List of Abbreviations
11 List of Figures
12 Introduction - Mihail Mitrea
20 Tradition and Transformation in Ancient Jewish Cosmology and Biblical Interpretation - Nicholas J. Ellis
40 Uses and Misuses of the Common Concepts Strategy in Emperor Julian´s Contra Galilaeos - Máté Veres
56 The Iconography of the Mithraic Tondo from Salona Revisited - Nirvana Silnovic
76 Martyrdom and Episcopal Authority: The Bishop-Martyr in Pannonian Hagiography - Hajnalka Tamás
92 Questioning Authority: Christian Education Leading to Lay Participation in Doctrinal Debates - Jessica I. O. van ´t Westeinde
115 Presenting a Practical Way of Life through Biographical Discourse: The Examples of Gregory of Nyssa and Marinus - Ma‰l Goarzin
130 The Murder at Mount Kangar: The Oral Narratives of the Caucasian ´Schism´ - Nikoloz Aleksidze
149 Three Deaths in Nikephoros Blemmydes´ Di g sis Merik II - Jonas J. H. Christensen
163 Bad Luck and Divine Protection - Religion and Biography in the Peri g sis by Andrew Libadenos - Annika Asp-Talwar
183 Rewriting Ecclesia Primitiva: Peter of John Olivi´s Image of Early Christianity and the Formation of Dissent in the Western Mediterranean around 1300 - Christian Hoffarth
212 South - East European Princesses, Christian Renegades and Early Ottoman Statehood in the Balkans: State of Research and New Perspectives - Mihailo St. Popovic
226 Bibliography
270 Contributors

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