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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Summary
Summary
Late Antiquity witnessed a dramatic recalibration in the economy of power, and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the realm of religion. The transformations that occurred in this pivotal era moved the ancient world into the Middle Ages and forever changed the way that religion was practiced. The twenty eight studies in this volume explore this shift using evidence ranging from Latin poetic texts, to Syriac letter collections, to the iconography of Roman churches and Merowingian mortuary goods. They range in chronology from the late third through the early seventh centuries AD and apply varied theories and approaches. All converge around the notion that religion is fundamentally a discourse of power and that power in Late Antiquity was especially charged with the force of religion. The articles are divided into eight sections which examine the power of religion in literature, theurgical power over the divine, emperors and the deployment of religious power, limitations on the power of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the use of the cross as a symbol of power, Rome and its transformation as a center of power, the power of religion in the barbarian west, and religious power in the communities of the east. This kaleidoscope of perspectives creates a richly illuminating volume that add a new social and political dimension to current debates about religion in Late Antiquity.
Author Notes
Andrew Cain is Assistant Professor and Noel Lenski is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA.
Table of Contents
Introduction: power and religion on the frontier of late AntiquityNoel Lenski |
Part I Religion and the Power of the Word |
Disarming Aeneas: Fulgentius on Arms and the ManEmily Albu |
'Apocalypse? No' - the power of millennialism and its transformation in late Antique ChristianityJosef Lössl |
Clementissimus imperator: power, religion and philosophy in Ambrose's De obitu Theodosii and Seneca's De clementiaGiacomo Raspanti |
Haec quibus uteris verba: the Bible and Boethius' ChristianityDanuta Shanzer |
Part II Power over the Divine: Porphyry, Iamblichus and the Struggle for the Philosophical Tradition |
The power of religious rituals: a philosophical quarrel on the eve of the great persecutionElizabeth DePalma Digeser |
Subjugating the divine: Iamblichus on the theurgic evocationSergio Knipe |
Arbiter of the oracular: reading religion in Porphyry of TyreAaron P. Johnson |
Part III Emperors and the Deployment of Religious Power |
Church, state and children: Christian and imperial attitudes toward infant exposure in late AntiquityJudith Evans Grubbs |
Imperial politics at the court of Theodosius IIHugh Elton |
'The trembling of Cain': religious power and institutional culture in Justinianic oath-makingCharles Pazdernik |
Power from humility: Justinian and the religious authority of monksHartmut Leppin |
Part IV Ecclesiastical Hierarchies and the Limits of Religious Power |
Currencies of power: the veniality of offices in the later Roman empireSabine R. Huebner |
Religion and power in the early thought of John ChrysostomJustin Stephens |
'The truth shall make you free': Augustine on the power of religionGillian Clark |
'Our own most severe judges': the power of penance in the Eusebius Gallicanus sermonsLisa Bailey |
Part V Constantine and the Power of the Cross |
Solar power in late AntiquityH.A. Drake |
'How to read a halo: 3 (or more) versions of Constantine's visionJacqueline Long |
The power of the Cross: celestial cross appearances in the 4th centuryJan Willem Drijvers |
Part VI Rome: The Center of Power |
Augures et pontifices: public sacral law in late Antique Rome (4th-5th centuries AD)Rita Lizzi Testa |
Imagining the Capitolium in late AntiquityLucy Grig |
The making of a papal Rome: Gregory I and the letania septiformisJacob A. Latham |
Part VII The Power of Religion in the Barbarian West |
Ricimer's church in Rome: how an Arian barbarian prospered in a Nicene worldRalph W. Mathisen |
Gregory of Tours and 'Arianism'Edward James |
The imagery of personal objects: hints of 'do-it-yourself' Christian culture in Merovingian Gaul?Bailey K. Young |
Part VIII The Power of Religion in the Communities of the East |
Antioch and the intersection between religious factionalism, place, and power in late AntiquityWendy Mayer |
On the way to Bethlehem: Mary between Jerome and John of JerusalemHagith Sivan |
Christianity in war: Ammianus on power and religion in Constantius' Persian warJohn Weisweiler |
Persecuting heresy in early Islamic Iraq: the Catholicos Ishoyahb III and the elites of NisibisRichard E. Payne |
Bibliography |
Index |