["[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-01 00:00]\n<User>Here's some valuable information I collected:\nA 2001 study by Nebel et al. showed that both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish populations share the same overall paternal Near Eastern ancestries. In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent. The authors also report on Eu 19 (R1a) chromosomes, which are very frequent in Central and Eastern Europeans (54%\u201360%) at elevated frequency (12.7%) in Ashkenazi Jews. They hypothesized that the differences among Ashkenazim Jews could reflect low-level gene flow from surrounding European populations and/or genetic drift during isolation. A later 2005 study by Nebel et al., found a similar level of 11.5% of male Ashkenazim belonging to R1a1a (M17+), the dominant Y-chromosome haplogroup in Central and Eastern Europeans.\n\nThey established communities throughout Central and Eastern Europe, which had been their primary region of concentration and residence until recent times, evolving their own distinctive characteristics and diasporic identities. In the late Middle Ages the center of gravity of the Ashkenazi population, and its traditional cultural life, shifted steadily eastward, out of the German lands into Poland and Lithuania (including present-day Belarus and Ukraine). In the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries, those Jews who remained in or returned to the German lands experienced a cultural reorientation; under the influence of the Haskalah and the struggle for emancipation, as well the intellectual and cultural ferment in urban centers, they gradually abandoned the use of Yiddish, while developing new forms of Jewish religious life and cultural identity.\n<Assistant>I've captured all of this valuable information.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-02 00:00]\n<User>I have some fresh insights to share:\nThe name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Khaphet, son of Noah, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10). The name of Gomer has often been linked to the ethnonym Cimmerians. Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from Assyrian A\u0161k\u016bza (cuneiform A\u0161kuzai/I\u0161kuzai), a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates, whose name is usually associated with the name of the Scythians. The intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a waw \u05d5 with a nun \u05e0.\n\nThe genome-wide genetic study carried out in 2010 by Behar et al. examined the genetic relationships among all major Jewish groups, including Ashkenazim, as well as the genetic relationship between these Jewish groups and non-Jewish ethnic populations. The study found that contemporary Jews (excluding Indian and Ethiopian Jews) have a close genetic relationship with people from the Levant. The authors explained that \"the most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant\".\n\nThe history of Jews in Greece goes back to at least the Archaic Era of Greece, when the classical culture of Greece was undergoing a process of formalization after the Greek Dark Age. The Greek historian Herodotus knew of the Jews, whom he called \"Palestinian Syrians\", and listed them among the levied naval forces in service of the invading Persians. While Jewish monotheism was not deeply affected by Greek Polytheism, the Greek way of living was attractive for many wealthier Jews. The Synagogue in the Agora of Athens is dated to the period between 267 and 396 CE. The Stobi Synagogue in Macedonia, was built on the ruins of a more ancient synagogue in the 4th century, while later in the 5th century, the synagogue was transformed into Christian basilica.\n\nIn an essay on Sephardi Jewry, Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs summarized the demographic history of Ashkenazi Jews in the last thousand years, noting that at the end of the 11th century, 97% of world Jewry was Sephardic and 3% Ashkenazi; by the end of XVI century, the: 'Treaty on the redemption of captives', by Gracian of the God's Mother, Mercy Priest, who was imprisoned by Turks, cites a Tunisian Hebrew, made captive when arriving to Gaeta, who aided others with money, named: 'Simon Escanasi', in the mid-17th century, \"Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two\", but by the end of the 18th century, \"Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe versus the Ottoman Muslim world.\" By 1931, Ashkenazi Jews accounted for nearly 92% of world Jewry. These factors are sheer demography showing the migration patterns of Jews from Southern and Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe.\n\nIn Israel, the term Ashkenazi is now used in a manner unrelated to its original meaning, often applied to all Jews who settled in Europe and sometimes including those whose ethnic background is actually Sephardic. Jews of any non-Ashkenazi background, including Mizrahi, Yemenite, Kurdish and others who have no connection with the Iberian Peninsula, have similarly come to be lumped together as Sephardic. Jews of mixed background are increasingly common, partly because of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi, and partly because many do not see such historic markers as relevant to their life experiences as Jews.\n\nIn this respect, the counterpart of Ashkenazi is Sephardic, since most non-Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews follow Sephardic rabbinical authorities, whether or not they are ethnically Sephardic. By tradition, a Sephardic or Mizrahi woman who marries into an Orthodox or Haredi Ashkenazi Jewish family raises her children to be Ashkenazi Jews; conversely an Ashkenazi woman who marries a Sephardi or Mizrahi man is expected to take on Sephardic practice and the children inherit a Sephardic identity, though in practice many families compromise. A convert generally follows the practice of the beth din that converted him or her. With the integration of Jews from around the world in Israel, North America, and other places, the religious definition of an Ashkenazi Jew is blurring, especially outside Orthodox Judaism.\n\nBut after emancipation, a sense of a unified French Jewry emerged, especially when France was wracked by the Dreyfus affair in the 1890s. In the 1920s and 1930s, Ashkenazi Jews from Europe arrived in large numbers as refugees from antisemitism, the Russian revolution, and the economic turmoil of the Great Depression. By the 1930s, Paris had a vibrant Yiddish culture, and many Jews were involved in diverse political movements. After the Vichy years and the Holocaust, the French Jewish population was augmented once again, first by Ashkenazi refugees from Central Europe, and later by Sephardi immigrants and refugees from North Africa, many of them francophone.\n\nThe term Ashkenazi also refers to the nusach Ashkenaz (Hebrew, \"liturgical tradition\", or rite) used by Ashkenazi Jews in their Siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition's choice of prayers, order of prayers, text of prayers and melodies used in the singing of prayers. Two other major forms of nusach among Ashkenazic Jews are Nusach Sefard (not to be confused with the Sephardic ritual), which is the general Polish Hasidic nusach, and Nusach Ari, as used by Lubavitch Hasidim.\n\nEfforts to identify the origins of Ashkenazi Jews through DNA analysis began in the 1990s. Currently, there are three types of genetic origin testing, autosomal DNA (atDNA), mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and Y-chromosomal DNA (Y-DNA). Autosomal DNA is a mixture from an individual's entire ancestry, Y-DNA shows a male's lineage only along his strict-paternal line, mtDNA shows any person's lineage only along the strict-maternal line. Genome-wide association studies have also been employed to yield findings relevant to genetic origins.\n\nIn 2006, a study by Behar et al., based on what was at that time high-resolution analysis of haplogroup K (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women, or \"founder lineages\", that were \"likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool\" originating in the Middle East in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Additionally, Behar et al. suggested that the rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA is originated from ~150 women, and that most of those were also likely of Middle Eastern origin. In reference specifically to Haplogroup K, they suggested that although it is common throughout western Eurasia, \"the observed global pattern of distribution renders very unlikely the possibility that the four aforementioned founder lineages entered the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool via gene flow from a European host population\".\n\nSpeculation that the Ashkenazi arose from Khazar stock surfaced in the later 19th century and has met with mixed fortunes in the scholarly literature. In late 2012 Eran Elhaik, a research associate studying genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, argued for Khazar descent in his paper The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses. A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA found no significant evidence of Khazar contribution to the Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, as would be predicted by the Khazar hypothesis.\n\nSporadic epigraphic evidence in grave site excavations, particularly in Brigetio (Sz\u0151ny), Aquincum (\u00d3buda), Intercisa (Duna\u00fajv\u00e1ros), Triccinae (S\u00e1rv\u00e1r), Savaria (Szombathely), Sopianae (P\u00e9cs), and Osijek in Croatia, attest to the presence of Jews after the 2nd and 3rd centuries where Roman garrisons were established, There was a sufficient number of Jews in Pannonia to form communities and build a synagogue. Jewish troops were among the Syrian soldiers transferred there, and replenished from the Middle East, after 175 C.E. Jews and especially Syrians came from Antioch, Tarsus and Cappadocia. Others came from Italy and the Hellenized parts of the Roman empire. The excavations suggest they first lived in isolated enclaves attached to Roman legion camps, and intermarried among other similar oriental families within the military orders of the region.Raphael Patai states that later Roman writers remarked that they differed little in either customs, manner of writing, or names from the people among whom they dwelt; and it was especially difficult to differentiate Jews from the Syrians. After Pannonia was ceded to the Huns in 433, the garrison populations were withdrawn to Italy, and only a few, enigmatic traces remain of a possible Jewish presence in the area some centuries later.\n<Assistant>Thanks for the update. I've recorded these facts.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-03 00:00]\n<User>Here's some more information I came across:\nWith the onset of the Crusades in 1095, and the expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), and parts of Germany (15th century), Jewish migration pushed eastward into Poland (10th century), Lithuania (10th century), and Russia (12th century). Over this period of several hundred years, some have suggested, Jewish economic activity was focused on trade, business management, and financial services, due to several presumed factors: Christian European prohibitions restricting certain activities by Jews, preventing certain financial activities (such as \"usurious\" loans) between Christians, high rates of literacy, near universal male education, and ability of merchants to rely upon and trust family members living in different regions and countries.\n\nIn the Midrash compilation, Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Berechiah mentions Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah as German tribes or as German lands. It may correspond to a Greek word that may have existed in the Greek dialect of the Palestinian Jews, or the text is corrupted from \"Germanica.\" This view of Berechiah is based on the Talmud (Yoma 10a; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 71b), where Gomer, the father of Ashkenaz, is translated by Germamia, which evidently stands for Germany, and which was suggested by the similarity of the sound.\n<Assistant>I've processed this information and will remember it.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-04 00:00]\n<User>I'd like to share some important information:\nIn the generations after emigration from the west, Jewish communities in places like Poland, Russia, and Belarus enjoyed a comparatively stable socio-political environment. A thriving publishing industry and the printing of hundreds of biblical commentaries precipitated the development of the Hasidic movement as well as major Jewish academic centers. After two centuries of comparative tolerance in the new nations, massive westward emigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries in response to pogroms in the east and the economic opportunities offered in other parts of the world. Ashkenazi Jews have made up the majority of the American Jewish community since 1750.\n\nReligious Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel are obliged to follow the authority of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi in halakhic matters. In this respect, a religiously Ashkenazi Jew is an Israeli who is more likely to support certain religious interests in Israel, including certain political parties. These political parties result from the fact that a portion of the Israeli electorate votes for Jewish religious parties; although the electoral map changes from one election to another, there are generally several small parties associated with the interests of religious Ashkenazi Jews. The role of religious parties, including small religious parties that play important roles as coalition members, results in turn from Israel's composition as a complex society in which competing social, economic, and religious interests stand for election to the Knesset, a unicameral legislature with 120 seats.\n\nNew developments in Judaism often transcend differences in religious practice between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. In North American cities, social trends such as the chavurah movement, and the emergence of \"post-denominational Judaism\" often bring together younger Jews of diverse ethnic backgrounds. In recent years, there has been increased interest in Kabbalah, which many Ashkenazi Jews study outside of the Yeshiva framework. Another trend is the new popularity of ecstatic worship in the Jewish Renewal movement and the Carlebach style minyan, both of which are nominally of Ashkenazi origin.\n<Assistant>Understood. I'll keep these facts for future reference.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-05 00:00]\n<User>Here are some facts I recently discovered:\nSeveral famous people have Ashkenazi as a surname, such as Vladimir Ashkenazy. However, most people with this surname hail from within Sephardic communities, particularly from the Syrian Jewish community. The Sephardic carriers of the surname would have some Ashkenazi ancestors since the surname was adopted by families who were initially of Ashkenazic origins who moved to Sephardi countries and joined those communities. Ashkenazi would be formally adopted as the family surname having started off as a nickname imposed by their adopted communities. Some have shortened the name to Ash.\n<Assistant>Thanks for the information. I've saved it.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-06 00:00]\n<User>Here are some new facts I learnt just now:\nA study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al. found that the Y-chromosome of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews contained mutations that are also common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East. The proportion of male genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to less than 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with \"relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim,\" and a total admixture estimate \"very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%.\" This supported the finding that \"Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors.\" \"Past research found that 50\u201380 percent of DNA from the Ashkenazi Y chromosome, which is used to trace the male lineage, originated in the Near East,\" Richards said.\n<Assistant>Thanks for sharing. I've committed this to memory.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-07 00:00]\n<User>I have some interesting updates for you:\nIn 2013, however, a study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by a team led by Martin B. Richards of the University of Huddersfield in England reached different conclusions, again corroborating the pre-2006 origin hypothesis. Testing was performed on the full 16,600 DNA units composing mitochondrial DNA (the 2006 Behar study had only tested 1,000 units) in all their subjects, and the study found that the four main female Ashkenazi founders had descent lines that were established in Europe 10,000 to 20,000 years in the past while most of the remaining minor founders also have a deep European ancestry. The study states that the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Near East (i.e., they were non-Israelite), nor were they recruited in the Caucasus (i.e., they were non-Khazar), but instead they were assimilated within Europe, primarily of Italian and Old French origins. Richards summarized the findings on the female line as such: \"[N]one [of the mtDNA] came from the North Caucasus, located along the border between Europe and Asia between the Black and Caspian seas. All of our presently available studies including my own, should thoroughly debunk one of the most questionable, but still tenacious, hypotheses: that most Ashkenazi Jews can trace their roots to the mysterious Khazar Kingdom that flourished during the ninth century in the region between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire.\" The 2013 study estimated that 80 percent of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to Europe, and only 8 percent from the Near East, while the origin of the remainder is undetermined. According to the study these findings \"point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities.\"\n<Assistant>I understand. I'll keep this in mind.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-08 00:00]\n<User>The following are some new knowledge:\nA 2010 study on Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer et al. stated \"Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry\", as both groups \u2013 the Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews \u2013 shared common ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. The study examines genetic markers spread across the entire genome and shows that the Jewish groups (Ashkenazi and non Ashkenazi) share large swaths of DNA, indicating close relationships and that each of the Jewish groups in the study (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek and Ashkenazi) has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to their fellow non-Jewish countrymen. Atzmon's team found that the SNP markers in genetic segments of 3 million DNA letters or longer were 10 times more likely to be identical among Jews than non-Jews. Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. The study also found that with respect to non-Jewish European groups, the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that the genetic-similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in the time of the Roman Empire. It was also found that any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants in the study shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins.\n\nA 2013 trans-genome study carried out by 30 geneticists, from 13 universities and academies, from 9 countries, assembling the largest data set available to date, for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins found no evidence of Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews. \"Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region\", the authors concluded.\n\nThe origins of the Ashkenazim are obscure, and many theories have arisen speculating about their ultimate provenance. The most well supported theory is the one that details a Jewish migration through what is now Italy and other parts of southern Europe. The historical record attests to Jewish communities in southern Europe since pre-Christian times. Many Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until 212 CE, when Emperor Caracalla granted all free peoples this privilege. Jews were required to pay a poll tax until the reign of Emperor Julian in 363. In the late Roman Empire, Jews were free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. But, after Christianity became the official religion of Rome and Constantinople in 380, Jews were increasingly marginalized.\n\nHistorical records show evidence of Jewish communities north of the Alps and Pyrenees as early as the 8th and 9th century. By the 11th century Jewish settlers, moving from southern European and Middle Eastern centers, appear to have begun to settle in the north, especially along the Rhine, often in response to new economic opportunities and at the invitation of local Christian rulers. Thus Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, invited Jacob ben Yekutiel and his fellow Jews to settle in his lands; and soon after the Norman Conquest of England, William the Conqueror likewise extended a welcome to continental Jews to take up residence there. Bishop R\u00fcdiger Huzmann called on the Jews of Mainz to relocate to Speyer. In all of these decisions, the idea that Jews had the know-how and capacity to jump-start the economy, improve revenues, and enlarge trade seems to have played a prominent role. Typically Jews relocated close to the markets and churches in town centres, where, though they came under the authority of both royal and ecclesiastical powers, they were accorded administrative autonomy.\n\nIn the first half of the 11th century, Hai Gaon refers to questions that had been addressed to him from Ashkenaz, by which he undoubtedly means Germany. Rashi in the latter half of the 11th century refers to both the language of Ashkenaz and the country of Ashkenaz. During the 12th century, the word appears quite frequently. In the Mahzor Vitry, the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of the synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances.\n\nFrance's blended Jewish community is typical of the cultural recombination that is going on among Jews throughout the world. Although France expelled its original Jewish population in the Middle Ages, by the time of the French Revolution, there were two distinct Jewish populations. One consisted of Sephardic Jews, originally refugees from the Inquisition and concentrated in the southwest, while the other community was Ashkenazi, concentrated in formerly German Alsace, and speaking mainly Yiddish. The two communities were so separate and different that the National Assembly emancipated them separately in 1790 and 1791.\n\nVarious studies have arrived at diverging conclusions regarding both the degree and the sources of the non-Levantine admixture in Ashkenazim, particularly in respect to the extent of the non-Levantine genetic origin observed in Ashkenazi maternal lineages, which is in contrast to the predominant Levantine genetic origin observed in Ashkenazi paternal lineages. All studies nevertheless agree that genetic overlap with the Fertile Crescent exists in both lineages, albeit at differing rates. Collectively, Ashkenazi Jews are less genetically diverse than other Jewish ethnic divisions.\n<Assistant>Understood. I'll keep these facts for future reference.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-09 00:00]\n<User>I want to share some knowledge I just acquired:\nBefore 2006, geneticists had largely attributed the ethnogenesis of most of the world's Jewish populations, including Ashkenazi Jews, to Israelite Jewish male migrants from the Middle East and \"the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism.\" Thus, in 2002, in line with this model of origin, David Goldstein, now of Duke University, reported that unlike male Ashkenazi lineages, the female lineages in Ashkenazi Jewish communities \"did not seem to be Middle Eastern\", and that each community had its own genetic pattern and even that \"in some cases the mitochondrial DNA was closely related to that of the host community.\" In his view this suggested \"that Jewish men had arrived from the Middle East, taken wives from the host population and converted them to Judaism, after which there was no further intermarriage with non-Jews.\"\n\nA 2006 study by Seldin et al. used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure. The results showed \"a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups\". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the \"northern\" population group, while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the \"southern\" group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the \"southern\" group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were \"consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups\".\n\nSaint Athanasius of Alexandria (/\u02cc\u00e6\u03b8\u0259\u02c8ne\u026a\u0283\u0259s/; Greek: \u1f08\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f08\u03bb\u03b5\u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2, Athan\u00e1sios Alexandr\u00edas; c. 296\u2013298 \u2013 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor or, primarily in the Coptic Orthodox Church, Athanasius the Apostolic, was the twentieth bishop of Alexandria (as Athanasius I). His episcopate lasted 45 years (c. 8 June 328 \u2013 2 May 373), of which over 17 were spent in five exiles ordered by four different Roman emperors. Athanasius is a renowned Christian theologian, a Church Father, the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism, and a noted Egyptian leader of the fourth century.\n\nT. Gilmartin, (Professor of History, Maynooth, 1890), writes in Church History, Vol. 1, Ch XVII: On the death of Alexander, five months after the termination of the Council of Nice, Athanasius was unanimously elected to fill the vacant see. He was most unwilling to accept the dignity, for he clearly foresaw the difficulties in which it would involve him. The clergy and people were determined to have him as their bishop, Patriarch of Alexandria, and refused to accept any excuses. He at length consented to accept a responsibility that he sought in vain to escape, and was consecrated in 326, when he was about thirty years of age.\n\nThrough the influence of the Eusebian faction at Constantinople, an Arian bishop, George of Cappadocia, was now appointed to rule the see of Alexandria. Athanasius, after remaining some days in the neighbourhood of the city, finally withdrew into the desert of Upper Egypt, where he remained for a period of six years, living the life of the monks, devoting himself to the composition of a group of writings; \"Apology to Constantius\", the \"Apology for his Flight\", the \"Letter to the Monks\", and the \"History of the Arians\".\n\nThe Arians no longer presented an unbroken front to their orthodox opponents. The Emperor Constantius, who had been the cause of so much trouble, died 4 November, 361 and was succeeded by Julian. The proclamation of the new prince's accession was the signal for a pagan outbreak against the still dominant Arian faction in Alexandria. George, the usurping Bishop, was flung into prison and murdered. An obscure presbyter of the name of Pistus was immediately chosen by the Arians to succeed him, when fresh news arrived that filled the orthodox party with hope. An edict had been put forth by Julian permitting the exiled bishops of the \"Galileans\" to return to their \"towns and provinces\". Athanasius received a summons from his own flock, and he accordingly re-entered his episcopal capitol on 22 February, 362.\n\nThe accession of Valens gave a fresh lease of life to the Arian party. He issued a decree banishing the bishops who had been deposed by Constantius, but who had been permitted by Jovian to return to their sees. The news created the greatest consternation in the city of Alexandria itself, and the prefect, in order to prevent a serious outbreak, gave public assurance that the very special case of Athanasius would be laid before the emperor. But the saint seems to have divined what was preparing in secret against him. He quietly withdrew from Alexandria, 5 October, and took up his abode in a country house outside the city. Valens, who seems to have sincerely dreaded the possible consequences of another popular outbreak, within a few weeks issued orders allowing Athanasius to return to his episcopal see. \n\nHis biography of Anthony the Great entitled Life of Antony(\u0392\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 \u03a0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f08\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03c5, Vita Antonii) became his most widely-read work. Translated into several languages, it played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. Depicting Anthony as an illiterate and holy man who through his existence in a primordial landscape has an absolute connection to the divine truth, the biography also resembles the life of his biographer Athanasius. It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West. The so-called Athanasian Creed dates from well after Athanasius's death and draws upon the phraseology of Augustine's De trinitate.\n\nConflict with Arius and Arianism as well as successive Roman emperors shaped Athanasius's career. In 325, at the age of 27, Athanasius began his leading role against the Arians as his bishop's assistant during the First Council of Nicaea. Roman emperor Constantine the Great had convened the council in May\u2013August 325 to address the Arian position that the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, is of a distinct substance from the Father. Three years after that council, Athanasius succeeded his mentor as archbishop of Alexandria. In addition to the conflict with the Arians (including powerful and influential Arian churchmen led by Eusebius of Nicomedia), he struggled against the Emperors Constantine, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate and Valens. He was known as \"Athanasius Contra Mundum\" (Latin for Athanasius Against the World).\n<Assistant>Great! I've added this to my knowledge base.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-10 00:00]\n<User>I have some fresh insights to share:\nRufinus relates a story that as Bishop Alexander stood by a window, he watched boys playing on the seashore below, imitating the ritual of Christian baptism. He sent for the children and discovered that one of the boys (Athanasius) had acted as bishop. After questioning Athanasius, Bishop Alexander informed him that the baptisms were genuine, as both the form and matter of the sacrament had been performed through the recitation of the correct words and the administration of water, and that he must not continue to do this as those baptized had not been properly catechized. He invited Athanasius and his playfellows to prepare for clerical careers.\n\nAthanasius recounts being a student, as well as being educated by the Martyrs of the Great (tenth) and last persecution of Christianity by pagan Rome.[citation needed] This persecution was most severe in the East, particularly in Egypt and Palestine. Peter of Alexandria, the 17th archbishop of Alexandria, was martyred in 311 in the closing days of that persecution, and may have been one of those teachers. His successor as bishop of Alexandria, Alexander of Alexandria (312\u2013328) was an Origenist as well as a documented mentor of Athanasius. According to Sozomen, Bishop Alexander \"invited Athanasius to be his commensal and secretary. He had been well educated, and was versed in grammar and rhetoric, and had already, while still a young man, and before reaching the episcopate, given proof to those who dwelt with him of his wisdom and acumen\". Athanasius's earliest work, Against the Heathen \u2013 On the Incarnation (written before 319), bears traces of Origenist Alexandrian thought (such as repeatedly quoting Plato and used a definition from Aristotle's Organon) but in an orthodox way. Athanasius was also familiar with the theories of various philosophical schools, and in particular with the developments of Neo-Platonism. Ultimately, Athanasius would modify the philosophical thought of the School of Alexandria away from the Origenist principles such as the \"entirely allegorical interpretation of the text\". Still, in later works, Athanasius quotes Homer more than once (Hist. Ar. 68, Orat. iv. 29). In his letter to Emperor Constantius, he presents a defense of himself bearing unmistakable traces of a study of Demosthenes de Corona.\n<Assistant>Appreciated. I'll retain these important details."]
[{"question": "Levels of the Eu 19 (R1a) chromosome were seen in what percentage of the Ashkenazi Jewish population?", "answer": "12.7%"}, {"question": "In the late Middle Ages, as the Ashkenazi population shifted it moved from what location?", "answer": "German lands"}, {"question": "In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Jews who returned to German lands experienced what?", "answer": "a cultural reorientation"}, {"question": "The name of Ashkenazi derives from which biblical figure?", "answer": "Ashkenaz"}, {"question": "Assyrian A\u0161k\u016bza expelled which group from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates?", "answer": "Cimmerians"}, {"question": "The genome-wide genetic study carried out in 2010 by Behar et al. examined the genetic relationships among which Jewish groups?", "answer": "all major Jewish groups"}, {"question": "Which Greek historian knew of the Jews?", "answer": "Herodotus"}, {"question": "The Greek historian Herodotus listed the Jews as the levied naval forces in service to whom?", "answer": "the invading Persians"}, {"question": "According to Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, at the end of the 11th century, what percentage of the world's Jewry was Sephardic?", "answer": "97%"}, {"question": "According to Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, at the end of the 11th century, what percentage of the world's Jewry was Ashkenazi?", "answer": "3%"}, {"question": "By 1931, Ashkenazi Jews were what percentage of the world Jewry?", "answer": "92%"}, {"question": "By tradition, when a Sephardic or Mizrahi woman marries into an Orthodox or Haredi Ashkenazi Jewish family she raises her children to be which type of Jew?", "answer": "Ashkenazi Jews"}, {"question": "When did the Dreyfus affair occur?", "answer": "1890s"}, {"question": "A 2006 study by Behar et al, suggested that a large percentage of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from how many women?", "answer": "from just four women"}, {"question": "The women that a large percentage of the current Ashkenazi population is descended from are also known as what?", "answer": "founder lineages"}, {"question": "The large number of Jews in Pannonia formed communities and built what?", "answer": "a synagogue"}, {"question": "In what year were the Roman garrison populations withdrawn to Italy?", "answer": "433"}, {"question": "Rabbi Berechiah's view is based on what?", "answer": "the Talmud"}, {"question": "What is the name of the Midrash compilation?", "answer": "Genesis Rabbah"}, {"question": "Ashkenazi Jews have made up the majority of the American Jewish community since when?", "answer": "1750"}, {"question": "Religious Ashkenazi Jews look to the authority of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi in which matters?", "answer": "halakhic matters"}, {"question": "What do many Ashkenazi Jews study outside of the Yeshiva framework?", "answer": "Kabbalah"}, {"question": "Which new trend has been associated with the Jewish Renewal movement?", "answer": "ecstatic worship"}, {"question": "Most people with the surname Ashkenazi, hail from which particular community?", "answer": "Syrian Jewish community"}, {"question": "Some people with the surname shorten it to what?", "answer": "Ash"}, {"question": "It was found that the Y-chromosome of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews contained mutations that are also common with what other people?", "answer": "Middle Eastern peoples"}, {"question": "A 2013 study estimates that what percentage of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to Europe?", "answer": "80 percent"}, {"question": "A 2013 study estimates that what percentage of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women from the Near East?", "answer": "8 percent"}, {"question": "The 2010 study found that what modern population is most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews?", "answer": "modern-day Italians"}, {"question": "How many geneticists carried out the 2013 trans-genome study?", "answer": "30 geneticists"}, {"question": "The historical record attests to Jewish communities in southern Europe since what time?", "answer": "pre-Christian times"}, {"question": "Many Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until what year?", "answer": "212 CE"}, {"question": "Jewish settlers appear along the Rhine by what century?", "answer": "11th century"}, {"question": "When did France expel its original Jewish population?", "answer": "the Middle Ages"}, {"question": "By the time of the French Revolution there were how many distinct Jewish populations?", "answer": "two distinct Jewish populations"}, {"question": "All studies agree that genetic overlap with what location exists in both lineages?", "answer": "Fertile Crescent"}, {"question": "In a 2006 study, how many autosomal SNPs were used?", "answer": "five thousand"}, {"question": "For how many years was Saint Athanasius of Alexandria a bishop?", "answer": "45 years"}, {"question": "When did Saint Athanasius die?", "answer": "2 May 373"}, {"question": "Of what city was he bishop?", "answer": "Alexandria"}, {"question": "How long did his episcopate last?", "answer": "45 years"}, {"question": "In what year was Athanasius consecrated?", "answer": "326"}, {"question": "How long after the Council of Nice did Saint Athanasius die?", "answer": "five months"}, {"question": "In what year was he consecrated?", "answer": "in 326"}, {"question": "Where did Athanasius remain for 6 years while living as a monk?", "answer": "Upper Egypt"}, {"question": "How long did he spend in the desert?", "answer": "six years"}, {"question": "Who succeeded Emperor Constantius?", "answer": "Julian"}, {"question": "Who succeeded George of Cappadocia?", "answer": "Pistus"}, {"question": "In what year did Emperor Constantius die?", "answer": "361"}, {"question": "How did George of Cappadocia die in prison?", "answer": "murdered"}, {"question": "Who succeeded the Emperor Constantius?", "answer": "Julian"}, {"question": "What saint fled from Alexandria on 5 October to a country house outside Alexandria?", "answer": "Athanasius"}, {"question": "Life of Antony played an important role in the spreading of ascetic ideals in what religion?", "answer": "Eastern and Western Christianity"}, {"question": "The biography, Life of Antony, also resembles of the life of who?", "answer": "Athanasius"}, {"question": "About whom did he write his most widely-read work?", "answer": "Anthony the Great"}, {"question": "How did he depict Anthony?", "answer": "illiterate and holy"}, {"question": "Athanasius began his leading role at what age?", "answer": "27"}, {"question": "How many years after the First Council of Nicaea did Athanasius become archbishop?", "answer": "Three years"}, {"question": "Who is one emporer Athanasius struggled against?", "answer": "Constantine"}, {"question": "Whose position was it that Jesus was the Son of God?", "answer": "the Arian position"}, {"question": "What work did the Bishop suggest for Athanasius?", "answer": "clerical careers"}, {"question": "Where was persecution of Christianity the worst?", "answer": "in the East"}, {"question": "In what year was Peter of Alexandria martyred?", "answer": "in 311"}, {"question": "Who could have been one of Athanasius's teachers?", "answer": "Peter of Alexandria"}, {"question": "What suggests that Athanasius was familiar with ancient Greek philosophers?", "answer": "quoting Plato"}]