Christianity Empire And The Making Of Religion In Late Antiquity

In Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity, Jeremy M. Schott examines the ways in which conflicts between Christian and pagan intellectuals over religious, ethnic, and cultural identity contributed to the transformation of Roman imperial rhetoric and ideology in the early fourth century C.E. During this turbulent period, which began with Diocletian's persecution of the Christians and ended with Constantine's assumption of sole rule and the consolidation of a new Christian empire, Christian apologists and anti-Christian polemicists launched a number of literary salvos in a battle for the minds and souls of the empire. Schott focuses on the works of the Platonist philosopher and anti- Christian polemicist Porphyry of Tyre and his Christian respondents: the Latin rhetorician Lactantius, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, and the emperor Constantine. Previous scholarship has tended to narrate the Christianization of the empire in terms of a new religion's penetration and conquest of classical culture and society. The present work, in contrast, seeks to suspend the static, essentializing conceptualizations of religious identity that lie behind many studies of social and political change in late antiquity in order to investigate the processes through which Christian and pagan identities were constructed. Drawing on the insights of postcolonial discourse analysis, Schott argues that the production of Christian identity and, in turn, the construction of a Christian imperial discourse were intimately and inseparably linked to the broader politics of Roman imperialism.

Eusebius’s groundbreaking History of the Church, remains the single most important source for the history of the first three centuries of Christianity and stands among the classics of Western literature. His iconic story of the church’s origins, endurance of persecution, and ultimate triumph—with its cast of martyrs, heretics, bishops, and emperors—has profoundly shaped the understanding of Christianity’s past and provided a model for all later ecclesiastical histories. This new translation, which includes detailed essays and notes, comes from one of the leading scholars of Eusebius’s work and offers rich context for the linguistic, cultural, social, and political background of this seminal text. Accessible for new readers and thought-provoking for specialists, this is the essential text for anyone interested in the history of Christianity.

In this book A.D. Lee charts the rise to dominance of Christianity in the Roman empire. Using translated texts he explains the fortunes of both Pagans and Christians from the upheavals of the 3rd Century to the increasingly tumultuous times of the 5th and 6th centuries. The book also examines important themes in Late Antiquity such as the growth of monasticism, the emerging power of bishops and the development of pilgrimage, and looks at the fate of other significant religious groups including the Jews, Zoroastrians and Manichaeans.

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.

Known as the “Father of Church History,” Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity’s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new “nation,” the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius’s text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period—across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries—until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius’s vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.

It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

This sourcebook gathers into a single collection the writings that illuminate one of the most fundamental periods in the history of Christian Europe. Beginning from the Great Persecution of Diocletian and the conversion of Constantine the first Christian Roman emperor, the volume explores Christianity's rise as the dominant religion of the Later Roman empire and how the Church survived the decline and fall of Roman power in the west and converted the Germanic tribes who swept into the western empire. These years of crisis and transformation inspired generations of great writers, among them Eusebius of Caesarea, Ammianus Marcellinus, Julian 'the Apostate', Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo. They were also years which saw Christianity face huge challenges on many crucial questions, from the evolution of Christian doctrine and the rise of asceticism to the place of women in the early Church and the emerging relationship between Church and state. All these themes will be made accessible to specialists and general readers alike, and the sourcebook will be invaluable for students and teachers of courses in history and church history, the world of late antiquity, and religious studies.

Many reasons can be given for the rise of Christianity in late antiquity and its flourishing in the medieval world. In asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, Averil Cameron turns to the development of Christian discourse over the first to sixth centuries A.D., investigating the discourse's essential characteristics, its effects on existing forms of communication, and its eventual preeminence. Scholars of late antiquity and general readers interested in this crucial historical period will be intrigued by her exploration of these influential changes in modes of communication. The emphasis that Christians placed on language—writing, talking, and preaching—made possible the formation of a powerful and indeed a totalizing discourse, argues the author. Christian discourse was sufficiently flexible to be used as a public and political instrument, yet at the same time to be used to express private feelings and emotion. Embracing the two opposing poles of logic and mystery, it contributed powerfully to the gradual acceptance of Christianity and the faith's transformation from the enthusiasm of a small sect to an institutionalized world religion.

The Making of Christian Communities sheds light on one of the most crucial periods in the development of the Christian faith. It considers the development and spread of Christianity between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and includes analysis of the formation and development of Christian communities in a variety of arenas, ranging from Late Roman Cappadocia and Constantinople to the court of Charlemagne and the twelfth-century province of Rheims, France during the twelfth century. The rise and development of Christianity in the Roman and Post-Roman world has been exhaustively studied on many different levels, political, legal, social, literary and religious. However, the basic question of how Christians of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages formed themselves into communities of believers has sometimes been lost from sight. This volume explores the idea that survival of the Christian faith depended upon the making of these communities, something that the Christians of this period were themselves acutely - and sometimes acrimoniously - aware.

Among medieval Christian societies, Byzantium is unique in preserving an ecclesiastical ritual of adelphopoiesis, which pronounces two men, not related by birth, as brothers for life. It has its origin as a spiritual blessing in the monastic world of late antiquity, and it becomes a popular social networking strategy among lay people from the ninth century onwards, even finding application in recent times. Located at the intersection of religion and society, brother-making exemplifies how social practice can become ritualized and subsequently subjected to attempts of ecclesiastical and legal control. Controversially, adelphopoiesis was at the center of a modern debate about the existence of same-sex unions in medieval Europe. This book, the first ever comprehensive history of this unique feature of Byzantine life, argues persuasively that the ecclesiastical ritual to bless a relationship between two men bears no resemblance to marriage. Wide-ranging in its use of sources, from a complete census of the manuscripts containing the ritual of adelphopoiesis to the literature and archaeology of early monasticism, and from the works of hagiographers, historiographers, and legal experts in Byzantium to comparative material in the Latin West and the Slavic world, Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium examines the fascinating religious and social features of the ritual, shedding light on little known aspects of Byzantine society.