JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES最新文献

{"title":"Melania the Younger: From Rome to Jerusalem by Elizabeth A. Clark (review)","authors":"Roberto Alciati","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0029","url":null,"abstract":"they each other and the networks in which they circulated, the pagan authors past and present (e.g., Libanius of Antioch) that they esteemed, or not least the biblical writers (the author of the Song of Songs, the Apostle Paul, etc.) who displayed their own artistry. Ludlow concludes with a strong reminder that the virtuosity of these Christian authors served a deeply theological passion to draw their audiences into the creative and salvific economy of the divine Craftsman. I discern few serious flaws in Ludlow’s convincing account. Some of her chapters duplicate earlier published essays and there is invariably the challenge of providing an even flow between them. Chapter Seven on christological use of prosōpopoeia seemed to break the rhythm of discussing the crafting of speeches for women that began in Chapter Six and was resumed in Chapter Eight. In some instances, furthermore, I would have preferred more nuance in Ludlow’s description of the specific emotions that these early Christian writers/preachers were trying to elicit using ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia. Some of these emotions, after all, were quite context-specific, such as when they sought a very particular quality of Christian mercy (not pity-at-a-distance) in response to the poor. There are some incidental typographical and other minor errors: read “Johan” for “Josef” Leemans (40); “Francine” for “Christine” Cardman (124); and “Council of Constantinople, 381” for “Council of “Chalcedon, 381” (206). But these are very minor things. Ludlow’s monograph is a groundbreaking and far-reaching contribution to the ongoing investigation of the rich and diverse literary (and rhetorical) culture of late ancient Christianity. It exhibits her own virtuosity in integrating the unique perspectives of historical theology and cultural history. Hopefully, in her future work, Ludlow will extend precisely this kind of exploration beyond the Cappadocians and John Chrysostom to other representative early Christian littérateurs. Paul M. Blowers, Milligan University","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"465 - 467"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45799483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What Makes a Church Sacred? Legal and Ritual Perspectives from Late Antiquity by Mary K. Farag (review)","authors":"D. Caner","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0030","url":null,"abstract":"an anachronistic theological term for a text written during the fourth century. Moreover, according to Clark, aghioi could be a tempting reference to some bishops (including the bishop of Rome) who were told of Melania’s intent to give up the marriage by “her parents or other relatives” (28). The above-mentioned lexical substitution appears a bit daring, since it is not attested in the contemporary literature. As already noted, Clark masterfully succeeds in integrating literary sources with archaeological evidence. However, it is worth pointing out a more general aspect. It is not groups who write histories, but individuals. In this case, Gerontius is the only (or almost only) witness of Melania’s actions; for him, as for any biographer, Melania’s life is a story that unfolds in the moment in which it is narrated according to a chronological order. At the same time, there is also a logical order, namely an origin that is simultaneously both a starting point and the raison d’être in the Life. In other words, Gerontius’s compositional decisions still need to be deeply investigated, especially concerning the differences between the Greek and Latin versions (somewhat neglected in Clark’s book). Despite this, the book is a rich resource, especially for teaching. It not only illuminates one dimension of the biographical trajectory of Melania, but it also shows how it is possible to make sense of a short hagiographical text by asking different questions and by using various reading methods. Melania’s journey is not only a crossing of the Mediterranean in the fourth century, but also an opportunity to understand how a story entirely textually mediated can be integrated with the results of archaeology and social history. Roberto Alciati, Università di Firenze","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"467 - 469"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45538024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perpetual Adjustment: The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity and the Entailments of Authenticity","authors":"E. Muehlberger","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The words attributed to Perpetua in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, like any other first-person account, impose a choice on readers from the very start: should they be taken as authentic or not? Scholars who focus on her account have tended to begin from the assumption of authenticity. This essay examines the benefits gained by that approach; it then details the constraints that authenticity creates. Judging the constraints to be graver than the benefits are good, I propose reading Perpetua's account without first committing to its authenticity, which allows for the text to be historical evidence of a different kind. When read this way, Perpetua's words align with a tradition of late ancient writers ventriloquizing women renowned and honored, but for whom no words had been previously recorded. The creation of her account is thus one more act in a well-documented project of perpetual adjustment, in which late ancient Christians invented in their present abundant textual and material evidence to represent the past as they imagined it.","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"313 - 342"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45240170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"First Cities in Late Antique Christian Thought","authors":"Sam Ottewill-Soulsby","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Debates about the demise of the Roman city have often considered the spread of Christianity as a factor in destroying the classical concepts that underwrote it. One way of understanding the impact of Christianity on classical urbanism is to examine its influence on concepts of the first city. By identifying the elements that make up a city, these ideas offer a useful means of investigating how writers perceived the fundamental nature of the city. Genesis clearly attributes the first city to Cain, something potentially in conflict with classical narratives of the city as part of a civilizing process. In practice, while Cain's city was to become dominant in the early middle ages, it had little impact on late antique Christian thought prior to the late fourth century and particularly Augustine's popularization of it in De civitate Dei. Earlier Christian writers such as Lactantius and Eusebius instead engaged with classical first cities in a wide variety of ways reflective of the debates in which they participated. Lactantius rejected these models of urbanism because they contradicted his understanding of history, morality, and justice, whereas Eusebius embraced them as a way of considering the role of the divine in human development. The differences in their approaches point to the variety in early Christian approaches to the city, suggesting that the city of God was not necessarily inherently incompatible with the classical city.","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"373 - 402"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41823804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"St. Konon of Pamphylia: Scales of Veneration and Local Identity in Late Antiquity","authors":"Jacob Ashkenazi","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The cult of saints in late antiquity was built on oral tales of persecuted heroes from the distant past, which from the mid-fourth century began to transform into a literary genre. Though universal, regional, and local cults frequently dwelt in harmony in Christian communities in late antiquity, local veneration of saints served as a symbol of distinct identity, ethnic pride, and local patriotism. The following study examines the veneration of a certain saint, Konon, whose name appears in a dedicatory inscription located on the mosaic floor of a sixth-century private church, on the outskirts of a remote village in Galilee. Out of three martyrs that bore this name, the most suitable to be the Galilean saint is the one who was martyred in the third century in the town of Magidos in Pamphylia. According to his martyrology, Konon of Magidos confessed during his interrogation that he was born in the town of Nazareth in Galilee and that he is related to Christ.In the fifth and even the sixth century, Christians were still a minority in eastern Lower Galilee, a territory that was part of the newly established province of Palaestina Secunda and they needed to contend with Jewish demographic dominance in the region, a reality that drove them to look for local expressions of identity. By applying the concept of scales to the cult of saints in local communities, I stress that recently Christianized Galileans embraced Konon as a venerated saint, and by doing so they turned him into a symbol of Galilean identity and a token of their local \"Galilean patriotism.\"","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"433 - 462"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43036301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Claiming the Wilderness in Late Roman Gaul","authors":"John-Henry Clay","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The enthusiasm with which Christian authors of late Roman Gaul adopted the ideal of desert asceticism is well known. There is also general agreement that the appeal of the wilderness was, for many of these individuals, more rhetorical than actual. What has not been fully acknowledged is the extent to which their attitudes to wilderness were influenced by classical thought in addition to biblical and hagiographical literature. To the educated classical mind, the cosmos was built on a fundamental dichotomy between order and chaos that permeated the physical and natural world. Wilderness, in its raw natural form, was a manifestation of chaos, while human civilization reflected the principles of order. The argument of this article is that this dichotomy, thanks to a tradition of classical education, helped structure the response of educated Gallo-Romans to the Christian desert tradition as its ideals spread to the west. Despite the appeal of monastic asceticism per se, its association with the desert provoked suspicion among those who had been trained to regard wilderness as the antithesis of civilization and culture. It is, however, possible to detect an evolution in attitudes over the last century of Roman rule in Gaul, as successive generations responded to social and political transformations and, drawing on both Christian and classical tradition, developed new ways of relating to the natural world.","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"403 - 432"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43862413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When Did Caelestius Become Known as a Disciple of Pelagius? Reassessing the Sources","authors":"G. Malavasi, A. Dupont","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Traditionally, Caelestius has been considered a disciple of Pelagius, and even in scholarly circles this image of master and disciple has been applied to the pair down to the present day. Otto Wermelinger questioned this alleged discipleship more than fifty years ago, but his claim was not taken up in subsequent scholarship. Taking Wermelinger's doubts as a point of departure, the present article reexamines the idea that Caelestius was a disciple of Pelagius. We show that sources are lacking to prove that either Caelestius or Pelagius thought about their relationship as one of discipleship. That characterization of their relationship was a heresiological tactic meant to damage Pelagius; it was probably first deployed around the Synod of Diospolis in 415 and was subsequently systematically adopted (and popularized) by Augustine of Hippo. The treatise Praedestinatus and the anti-Pelagian advocate Marius Mercator illustrate how Augustine's portrayal of Caelestius as a disciple of Pelagius was received early on.","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"343 - 371"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44154931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Acts of the Early Church Councils: Production and Character by Thomas Graumann (review)","authors":"Sandra Leuenberger-Wenger","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0031","url":null,"abstract":"historical, explanatory framework: it is striking, for example, that Farag does not discuss the collapse of the Roman imperial government in the West during the fifth century. Perhaps this had no impact on church rulings, but it might explain why, for example, bishops in sixth-century Gaul could claim a “right of exchange” (53) over church property that Justinianic law reserved for a Roman emperor. But my main difficulty was with the chapters on regifting of donations in ritual settings. There is no question that a circular pattern of giving was promoted by some Christian authorities, and that episcopal repurposing of lay offerings or church funds was often a delicate matter. But I see no evidence that regifting was generally regarded as “taboo” in late antiquity (148–50). Nor am I at all persuaded by Farag’s interpretation of gift-giving displayed in church apse mosaics. She argues at length that these illustrate not merely donors offering churches to God, but a two-directional gift exchange in which those donors simultaneously “receive the same building back” (118) from God. Besides being not apparent to my sight, the argument seems both strained and improbable, and is not supported by the only contemporary interpretation we have of an apse donor mosaic, Choricius’s First Encomium to Marcian 31 (whose interpretation is not discussed by Farag), which describes such gift-giving as moving only in a single direction, from donor to saint, then to God. Indeed, the motives and ethical problems related to religious regifting in late antiquity were more complex than explored in this book. Farag barely mentions ascetic perspectives (at least, not specifically as such). But writings by or about monks and ascetically minded bishops like John Chrysostom, Rabbula of Edessa, and Caesarius of Arles offer a remarkably coherent set of rationales both for protecting church poor funds and for repurposing offerings to provide for the poor or other religious works. Nonetheless Farag makes a signal contribution by focusing on church buildings themselves, which, as immoveable property and concrete symbols, often posed very particular problems of inalienability, expenditure, and use. Daniel Caner, Indiana University, Bloomington","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"469 - 471"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45506722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moment of Reckoning: Imagined Death and Its Consequences in Late Ancient Christianity by Ellen Muehlberger (review)","authors":"J. Zecher","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"299 - 301"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43086023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moses the Hellenic Sage: Re-reading Julian’s Against the Galileans","authors":"Brad A. Boswell","doi":"10.1353/earl.2022.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2022.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Some sixty years after Julian the Apostate died on a Persian battlefield, Cyril of Alexandria responded at length to one of the emperor’s final treatises, the anti-Christian Against the Galileans. Christians like Cyril were long preoccupied with Julian’s treatise, and this fixation suggests that its rhetorical potency endured well after the demise of its author and his short-lived political threat. Despite this fixation by ancient Christians, modern scholarship routinely treats Against the Galileans as intellectually and rhetorically anemic, leaving unanswered how Julian’s text could have unsettled so many Christians. This article explores what was so compelling about Against the Galileans. In short, it argues that the enduring existential heft of Julian’s treatise lay in the strategy of narrative subsumption: drawing on his training in Christian scripture and doctrine, Julian fractured the Christian master narrative and rearranged the shattered pieces into a new coherence within his alternative, Hellenic narrative. Julian’s subtle strategy is most evident in the way he co-opts Moses as a mediocre Hellenic-style sage and lawgiver—a fact that also explains the misleading analyses of Against the Galileans in modern scholarship. These evaluations routinely overlook Julian’s nuance by regarding him as flatly critical, as ambivalent, or as outright inconsistent in his treatment of Moses. This article argues to the contrary that Julian’s subtle co-opting of Moses offers a window onto his grander strategy: to undermine the Christian narrative by offering a more compelling account of its key episodes, reconstrued within a Hellenic narrative.","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"30 1","pages":"245 - 274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48017305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}