The course will introduce students to the Bible and the two religions it founded, Judaism and Christianity.: presentation of the Torah and “the” Christian Bible (historical, philological, linguistic, literary, and theological approaches); of Judaism and Christianity, and of what is known as the “separation of ways"; of Christian theology through a selection of works and Latin texts from late antiquity and the Middle Ages, from the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity to Nicholas of Cusa. The relationship between the two religions will be studied with particular attention: it is necessary to honor the Jewish roots of Christianity and the chronological and ontological priority of Judaism.

Latin, along with Greek, was one of the major languages of culture in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and up until the modern era, particularly in theology and philosophy. It is the language of ancient Rome, but also of the Western Catholic Church, medieval Christianity, theology, and philosophy. It is the language of Plautus, Ennius, Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, Apuleius, Lucretius, Ovid... but also of Perpetua, Tertullian, Egeria, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Hrotsvita, Bernard of Clairvaux, Angela of Foligno, Francesco Petrarca, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz... I will help you discover, or better understand and appreciate, this vast and fascinating linguistic and cultural universe. We will work methodically and progressively on the language and texts.