Were holy men historical figures or figments of the theological imagination? Did the biographies devoted to them reflect facts or only the ideological commitments of their authors? For decades, scholars of late antiquity have wrestled with these questions when analysing such issues as the Christianization of Europe, the decline of paganism, and the 'rise of the holy man' and of the hagiographical genre. In this book Peter Turner suggests a new approach to these problems through an examination of a wide range of spiritual narrative texts from the third to the sixth centuries A.D.: pagan...

This book is a gentle and sympathetic introduction to many of the problems of scientific computing, and the wide variety of methods used for their solutions. It is ideal for students taking a first course in numerical mathematics who need a low level entry to the subject. It gives an appreciation of the need for numerical methods for the solution of different types of problem, and discusses basic approaches. For each of the problems, at least some mathematical justification and examples provide both practical evidence and motivations for the reader to follow. Practical justification of...