JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES最新文献

{"title":"Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity by Kyle Smith (review)","authors":"Nicole Kelley","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936767","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity</em> by Kyle Smith <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Nicole Kelley </li> </ul> Kyle Smith<br/> <em>Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity</em><br/> Oakland: University of California Press, 2022<br/> Pp. xxi + 333. $29.95. <p>This book is (aptly) described by its author as “a magpie’s collection of stories and scholarship” that has been distilled “into an entertaining narrative for a general reader” (273). Have you ever asked what the Jägermeister label is about, or pondered why hazelnuts are also called filberts? Did you ever wonder who came up with the b.c./a.d. idea in the first place? The answers to these and other questions await you in the pages of Kyle Smith’s <em>Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity</em>. It is half Eusebius’s <em>Church History</em>, half Chaucer’s <em>Canterbury Tales</em>, and more fun to read than either of those. It is engaging and accessible enough to work in an undergraduate classroom (it has all the good stories and none of the scholarly jargon). Its “Notes for Further Reading” and bibliography are excellent resources. Especially given its host of high-quality images, this book is a bargain.</p> <p>Smith’s thesis is this: “The centrality of martyrdom to Christianity has profoundly affected the development of its cultural expression and devotion, from its art and architecture to its liturgy and literature—even its conception of time” (1). The book’s 300-plus pages are perhaps less an argument for this thesis than an illustration of it through a dizzying array of examples. Smith’s approach is simultaneously textual and materialist. In recognizing martyrdom—and martyr narratives in particular—as the beating heart of Christianity, the book belongs to the tradition of “Christian death literature” established by historiographers like Eusebius of Caesarea (3). Smith relies on familiar textual sources such as Foxe’s <strong>[End Page 471]</strong> <em>Book of Martyrs</em>, breathing new life into them by giving them detailed material histories of their own. At the same time, he gives significant attention to material and visual culture: calendrical systems, late medieval Florentine altarpieces featuring a porcupine-like St. Sebastian, the stained-glass windows of Canterbury Cathedral, and the bedazzled skeleton of St. Leontius all make appearances.</p> <p>Of the book’s eight chapters, Chapters Two, Four, and Seven discuss practices for memorializing the dead, and their impact on Christian conceptions of time. In these chapters, Smith brings scholarly conversations about calendars, time reckoning, and textual technologies to bear upon the familiar topics of martyrdom and the cult of the saints. This is the primary scholarly intervention of the book, whose target audience is more popular than academic.</p","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"283 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216142","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":"Developments in Early Eucharistic Praying in Light of Changes in Early Christian Meeting Spaces","authors":"Nathan P. Chase","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936759","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Performance criticism (Tambiah) and the Egyptian textual and material evidence strongly suggest that there is a correlation between the size of Christian worship spaces and the length of early Eucharistic prayers that likely holds outside of Egypt as well. Liturgy as an embodied experience not only includes liturgical texts, but also art, architecture, sounds, smells, gestures, and movements. Attending to the non-textual dimensions of the liturgical celebration provides a fuller picture of how Christians, especially in the early Church, celebrated their liturgies. This article looks at the way Eucharistic texts and spaces related to one another in the early church in order to evaluate and substantiate the theory that the shift from house churches to basilicas in the fourth century meant that the short and often improvised Eucharistic prayers of the pre-Nicene period were no longer suitable to the larger purpose-built liturgical spaces that emerged in the post-Nicene period. Despite the abundance of Eucharistic texts and spaces in the early church, no one has attempted to corollate changes in space and liturgical texts. Egypt is the ideal region to serve as a case study since there are a number of early Christian meeting spaces and Eucharistic texts preserved in that region. This article will test the theory that larger spaces required longer liturgical prayers and show that the expansion of Christian congregations, their meeting spaces, and their prayers was part of a broader process of ritual involution that we would expect to find in other aspects of their rituals as well. </p></p>","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216136","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":"Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity: New Conversations for Health Humanities ed. by Susan R. Holman (review)","authors":"C. L. Buckner","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936769","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936769","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity: New Conversations for Health Humanities&lt;/em&gt; ed. by Susan R. Holman &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; C. L. Buckner &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Susan R. Holman, Chris L. de Wet, Jonathan L. Zecher, editors&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity: New Conversations for Health Humanities&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Religion, Medicine, and Health in Late Antiquity 1&lt;br/&gt; New York: Routledge, 2024&lt;br/&gt; Pp. viii+186. $170.00. &lt;p&gt;To what extent can we understand early Christians as engaging in hazing culture? Is it possible for the lives of ancient ascetics to inform discourses concerning mental health? How does water access impact public health and the transformation of communities in antiquity and beyond? This volume of ten essays seeks to answer these questions and many more. Each contribution examines healing, medical, and health discourses from the second through the sixth centuries &lt;small&gt;c.e.&lt;/small&gt;, except for the tenth installment in which Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen responds to the entries authored by Susan Holman, Helen Rhee, and Chris de Wet. Drawing on a variety of postmodern theories and scholarship, the contributions seek to challenge contemporary approaches to reading late antique literature and to carve out a place for engaging modernity in conversations about the ancient world.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;From the beginning, Anne Rebecca Solevåg reminds readers of the fraught nature of medical metaphor: “We should not assume a neat division between the domains of religion and metaphorical language, where medicine related to the literal body, while religion borrowed medical concepts to speak metaphorically about the health of the soul. Rather, both domains were concerned with the health of the body &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; soul” (14). Indeed, the multiple ancient medical discourses appearing throughout the volume exemplify how ancient exegetical authors, heresiologists, theologians, and hagiographers sought to treat the individual body, the social body, and the human soul simultaneously. This reality forces each contributor to imagine how medical conditions, procedures, or even the act of pathologizing the body or mind serve to circumscribe shame or virtue onto various bodies.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The work asks some of its most critical questions when it undermines associations of modern medicine with assumed progress or development. For example, Elisa Groff’s contribution employs the WHO’s standard of reproductive and sexual health in her discussion of Aëtius of Amida’s medical writing. She notes that Aëtius seeks to disassociate infertility from moral worth, a noble if not futile undertaking in a world that closely tied women’s societal value to their ability to produce viable offspring. In doing so, she draws attention to the specificity of Aëtius’s terminology (69–70","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216148","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":"Sancti Viri, Ut Audio: Theologies, Rhetorics, and Receptions of the Pelagian Controversy Reappraised by Anthony Dupont et al. (review)","authors":"Thomas P. Scheck","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936763","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Sancti Viri, Ut Audio: Theologies, Rhetorics, and Receptions of the Pelagian Controversy Reappraised&lt;/em&gt; by Anthony Dupont et al. &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Thomas P. Scheck &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Anthony Dupont, R. Villegas Marín, G. Malavasi, M. Cosimo Chiriatti, editors&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;span&gt;Sancti Viri, Ut Audio:&lt;/span&gt; Theologies, Rhetorics, and Receptions of the Pelagian Controversy Reappraised&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Leuven: Peeters, 2023&lt;br/&gt; Pp. 385. €78.00. &lt;p&gt;In 1989 Matthijs Lamberigts argued that the Pelagian controversy should not be assessed on the basis of an either-or attitude and that the possible rehabilitation of Pelagius or Julian cannot be linked to a repudiation or rejection of Augustine’s positions. Such an attitude would only result in a mirror image of former approaches to the matter and would not truly advance the scientific research into this dispute.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It appears to me that the contributors to the volume under review have by and large adhered to this plea for balance, moderation, and respect. The title of this book recalls Augustine’s words about Pelagius in &lt;em&gt;De peccatorum meritis et remissione&lt;/em&gt; 3.1.1: “a holy man, I hear.” The essays are all in English and reappraise the antique “Pelagian” controversy with its now recognized myriads of theologies, rhetorics, and receptions.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The opening piece is by Otto Wermelinger himself, whose 1975 work, &lt;em&gt;Rom und Pelagius&lt;/em&gt;, has long been a standard work. It outlines the current state of research as of 2022. Anthony Dupont engages Augustine’s appeal to Ambrose for support for his doctrine of original sin. He concludes that the Ambrosian &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 473]&lt;/strong&gt; and Augustinian understandings of original sin are to be distinguished. Jonathon Yates examines the prominent use of Matt 6.12–13 in Augustine’s epistolary polemics against Pelagius (&lt;em&gt;Epp&lt;/em&gt;. 175–79) following his acquittal at the Synod of Diospolis in December 415. Joshua Evans studies the rival conceptions of the flesh of Christ in the polemics between Augustine and Julian. Based primarily on texts in Cicero, Evans clarifies Julian’s concept of the &lt;em&gt;ignis vitalis&lt;/em&gt;, “fire of life,” which is the foundation of Julian’s claim that Christ, as a real human being, had concupiscence and of his charge against Augustine that a human being without concupiscence (Augustine’s Christ) is either a contradiction in terms or a corpse. The converse side of the argument (Augustine’s) is also treated in detail based on material from &lt;em&gt;De Trinitate&lt;/em&gt;. and &lt;em&gt;Contra Iulianum&lt;/em&gt;. The bishop of Hippo’s view, according to Evans, is that Christ’s flesh did not in any way resist the spirit so that the spirit had to subdue it.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Mathijs Lamberigts traces an outline of Julian’s life and career and then treats the theme of God’s grace and mercy in Julian of Eclanum. He con","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216141","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":"Μετοχῇ Θεότητος: Partakers of Divinity in Origen's Contra Celsum","authors":"Beniamin Zakhary","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936757","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Origen employs the words μετοχῇ θεότητος in <i>Contra Celsum</i> 3.37, which could be translated as “participating in divine nature.” There are two academic perspectives on this phrase. One sees this phrase to be a deification reference to 2 Peter 1.4, and Origen is said to be the first author to use the verse’s wording to refer to followers of Christ as “partakers of the divine nature.” The other view considers this phrase a simple comment on the divine realm, reflecting the understanding of Origen regarding the divinity of angels. The paper at hand provides clarification for the phrase μετοχῇ θεότητος, positioning it in Origen’s overall understanding of deification, and challenging the two scholarly stances on this phrase. First, this paper shows that <i>Contra Celsum</i> 3.37 does not intend to reference 2 Peter 1.4, but likely signals completely different biblical references. Second, the paper examines the language and context of Origen’s statement to show that this phrase is not only a comment on the divinity of angels, but also reflects Origen’s thoughts on human deification. In doing so, this paper analyzes Origen’s terminology and his philosophical approach towards human <i>theosis</i> in order to propose an answer to the questions of who is deified, who is not deified, and what it means to share in divinity. Overall, it becomes clear that in addition to commenting on angels, the phrase μετοχῇ θεότητος summarizes Origen’s understanding of human deification, even if not as a reference to 2 Peter 1.4. It reflects a human-angel continuum and posits a direct human participation in God.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216107","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":"Sex and Sanctity in the Apocryphal Acts of Andrew: A Christian Bedtrick and Its Biblical Bedrock","authors":"Fotini Hadjittofi, Hagith Sivan","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a923168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a923168","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>In the apocryphal <i>Acts of Andrew</i>, a familiar double plot of sex and mistaken identity features Maximilla, a recently converted wife, tricking her pagan husband, Aegeates, into bedding her masked maid in order to retain the purity of her own bed. In resorting to this stratagem of sexual deception, the heroine of this tale behaves in a manner that contemporary Christians would (and did) find scandalous and unacceptable. This article investigates how this unique, sanctified bedtrick mobilizes different traditions (both Greco-Roman and biblical), subverts the predominant model of the Christian wife, and constructs a peculiar, alternative ideal. The Christian bedtrick evokes mythical and novelistic patterns but presents its instigator as paradoxically chaste—the opposite of her depraved analogues in myth and novel. The text also evokes biblical bedtricks, but only to challenge the emphasis on survival through procreation at all cost that underpins most of the bedtricks in Genesis. The article argues, finally, that the bridal switch between Rachel and Leah in Genesis 29 provides the closest biblical parallel for Maximilla's strategy. The striking apocryphal bedtrick also bears intriguing similarities to two texts that clearly hark back to the bridal switch of Genesis 29: an ancient Jewish \"novel\" (Josephus, <i>Jewish Antiquities</i> 12.154–236) and an exegetical vignette from rabbinic midrash (<i>Lamentations Rabbah</i> proem 24) that employ \"holy\" bedtricks in the interests of individual or collective salvation.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140323631","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":"Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings by Markus Vinzent (review)","authors":"Michael Hollerich","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a923178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a923178","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings&lt;/em&gt; by Markus Vinzent &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Michael Hollerich &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Markus Vinzent&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023&lt;br/&gt; Pp. xvi + 401. $39.99. &lt;p&gt;Markus Vinzent's new book applies the \"retrospective\" historical method that he has been developing ever since his controversial &lt;em&gt;Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament&lt;/em&gt; (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011) to examine what we think we know about how Christianity began. Those unfamiliar with his project should begin with the Epilogue, \"Outlook: How Were Things Actually?\" (325–33) and the Appendix on \"Chronological and Anachronological Historiography\" (334–54), in which three timelines illustrate the stifling conventionality still exerted by the historical writing of Eusebius of Caesarea.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;We will never in fact know how Christianity began for two main reasons. First, we are unconsciously conditioned by centuries of previous historical writing. The book demonstrates this retrospectively by digging through layers of such sources, starting from the sixth century and culminating in a long chapter on the several collections of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch and of St. Paul. Second, we do not have self-identified \"Christian\" documentation until the 140s, after the Bar Kochba war. Here Vinzent unapologetically repeats his fundamental thesis from earlier books: that the canonical Gospels and the New Testament itself by that name owe their existence to the creative genius of Marcion of Sinope, who wrote the first gospel by putting oral traditions about Jesus of Nazareth into a geographical and biographical form. We cannot go back before Marcion. The new book builds on his earlier hypotheses, \"even though they are not (yet) shared by the vast majority of my colleagues\" (xiv).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Our time travel thus ends in a \"black box of ignorance\" (337). Vinzent holds a radical view of the common opinion that Christianity by that name did not exist as a religion that thought and acted separately from Jewish practice until the mid-second century. Our ignorance means that a \"dogmatically closed beginning\" (333) is literally unthinkable, an aporia that happily discredits divisive and absolutist religious ideologies.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I can speak most usefully on Vinzent's treatment of Eusebius in Chapter Two. Because Eusebius's &lt;em&gt;Ecclesiastical History&lt;/em&gt; and, to a lesser degree, his &lt;em&gt;Chronicle&lt;/em&gt; became the \"quasi 'official' history\" (116), Vinzent asks how differently we would regard the beginnings of Christianity if we could set aside the views that we inherit from Eusebius's configuration of the story. Eusebius's seductive p","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140323635","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 Reign of Constantius II by Nicholas Baker-Brian (review)","authors":"Eric Fournier","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a923176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a923176","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Reign of Constantius II&lt;/em&gt; by Nicholas Baker-Brian &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Eric Fournier &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Nicholas Baker-Brian&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Reign of Constantius II&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; London: Routledge, 2023&lt;br/&gt; Pp. xxii + 414. $190.00 (Hardback) / $52.95 (e-book). &lt;p&gt;The Roman emperors Constantine I (r. 306–37 &lt;small&gt;c.e.&lt;/small&gt;) and Julian (r. 360–61), respectively known as \"the Great\" and \"the Apostate,\" have been among the most popular subjects of ancient history for centuries. Consequently, titles on these two rulers abound. By contrast, the rule of Constantine's sons has been comparatively neglected, overshadowed by the famous emperors who bookended their reigns. The work under review aims to address this imbalance by focusing on the central character of Constantius II (r. 337–60), including the early years of his rule that he shared with his two brothers, Constantine II (r. 337–40) and Constans (r. 337–50). It takes a traditional historical approach that focuses on political and military events as well as the prosopography of administrators in charge of the empire. As the preliminary page accurately discloses, \"The over-arching aim is to investigate power in the post-Constantine period, and the way in which imperial and episcopal networks related to one another with the ambition of participating in the exercise of power.\"&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;To do so, Baker-Brian uses an impressive array of sources, including numismatic and iconographic evidence (mostly from the coins themselves), in addition to the more traditional legal texts and historiographical narratives. One feature of his treatment of bishops and the abundant ecclesiastical wranglings that are a mainstay of contemporary (mostly pro-Nicene) accounts of Constantius II's reign is a willingness to give more credit to Philostorgius's (heterousian) perspective than previous scholarship. The result is a measured rehabilitation of sorts, which moves away from partisan accounts as much as possible and situates Constantius II (and his brothers) and the difficult decisions he had to make during his reign within their context, by reassessing sources such as panegyrics that have been relatively neglected by historians. Prior scholarship and historiography also have &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 143]&lt;/strong&gt; prominent roles in this study, and Baker-Brian regularly engages with the most recent interpretations. Scholars interested in the topic would do well to consult the work under review in parallel with &lt;em&gt;The Sons of Constantine, AD 337–361: In the Shadows of Constantine and Julian&lt;/em&gt;, which the author co-edited with Shaun Tougher (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), and which provides many of the original interpretations discussed in the work under review.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;In addition to the Introduction and Afterword, the book is divided into seven chapters, the first two ","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140323634","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":"Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity by Georgia Frank (review)","authors":"Naomi Janowitz","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a923177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a923177","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity&lt;/em&gt; by Georgia Frank &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Naomi Janowitz &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Georgia Frank&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023&lt;br/&gt; Pp. 208. $59.95. &lt;p&gt;Georgia Frank's evocative volume reflects the popular turn to material objects in the study of religion. This new emphasis on artifacts reflects frustration with linguistic or discourse models that have gained traction in the past decades. Some objects have always played a role in the study of religion. What is new is an attempt not to regiment the meaning of objects apart from theology but instead to see if the objects have something distinct to say when they \"talk\" (Lorraine Daston, &lt;em&gt;Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science&lt;/em&gt; [New York: Zone Books, 2008]). Two problems emerge in these studies. First is the question of what qualifies as an object. For the recent volume &lt;em&gt;Ritual Matters: Material Remains and Ancient Religion&lt;/em&gt;, the category of objects includes monuments, organic and vegetable remains, crafted items, written documents, and figurines (Moser and Knust [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017], 4). In contrast, in her recent study, &lt;em&gt;The Lives of Objects: Material Culture, Experience, and the Real in the History of Early Christianity&lt;/em&gt;, Maia Kotrosits adds \"internal objects\" following the psychoanalysts Donald Winnicott and Melanie Klein. Adding these mental constructs highlights the \"hazy boundaries of subjects and objects, animate and inanimate\" (Kotrosits [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020], 8). Second, if objects have representational meanings, that is, if they \"stand for\" something, what representational theories are necessary to locate these meanings?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;On the first point, Frank draws her boundaries about objects by looking to Stowers's \"religion of everyday exchange\" (Stanley Stowers, \"Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families,\" in &lt;em&gt;Household and Family Religion in Antiquity&lt;/em&gt;, ed. Bodel and Olyan [Oxford: Blackwell, 2008], 5–19) and, within that, emphasizing rituals. Chapter One outlines Frank's choice to focus on Christian worshipers since ordinary Christians left few autobiographical writings: what acts did worshipers engage in, and what objects did they interact with while they were doing them? Specifically, Frank draws on descriptions found in sermons, liturgical instruction books, and festal hymn books to evoke the physical world of Christian worship (fourth to sixth centuries). Anthropologists have long noted the \"sensuous interface of ritual, where discourse is itself most obviously a palpable thing, publicly accessible to the senses simultaneously as it circula","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140323623","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":"Education in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Dynamism and Reinterpretation, 300–550 CE by Jan R. Stenger (review)","authors":"Lillian I. Larsen","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a923174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a923174","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Education in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Dynamism and Reinterpretation, 300–550 CE&lt;/em&gt; by Jan R. Stenger &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Lillian I. Larsen &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Jan R. Stenger&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;Education in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Dynamism and Reinterpretation, 300–550 CE&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022&lt;br/&gt; Pp. ix + 325. £81.00 &lt;p&gt;Through looking at \"how people of the late antique Mediterranean were thinking and discussing questions of upbringing, formal education, and self-formation\" (2), Jan Stenger's &lt;em&gt;Education in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Dynamism and Reinterpretation, 300–550 CE&lt;/em&gt; aims to show that one is \"missing out on a crucial dimension of education\" if one \"neglect[s] the theorization made by [late antique] thinkers\" (2). By documenting the degree to which education surfaces as a \"pervasive topic in literature, thought, and society\" (3), Stenger seeks to correct a long-held \"prejudice that this period was anything but original\" (5). Just as importantly, Stenger demonstrates that \"paideia was a central issue of the time,\" both in the \"secular realm\" and \"within the church\" (3). \"While not denying the strong and palpable continuities in schooling across the epochal watershed of &lt;em&gt;c.&lt;/em&gt; 300 CE\" (6), Stenger premises that by shifting \"the focus from practice\" to \"analysis of theorization,\" it is possible to \"re-evaluate the relationship between education and society\" (7). As he harnesses more than two centuries of late ancient debate, Stenger redefines late antiquity as a period that was \"by no means suffering from wholesale decline but . . . rather marked by \"dramatic upheavals and symptoms of transition\" (7).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Juxtaposing Greco-Roman theorists with emergent Christian voices, the volume is structurally organized as a dialogue about pedagogy. Following a detailed introduction (1–16), discussion begins with exploration of late antiquity's primary \"Educational Communities\" (17–56), then turns to \"The Emergence of Religious Education\" in Chapter Two (57–98). In his third chapter, Stenger seeks to temper the notion of \"ancient Schooling [as a] training ground for elite men\" (99–106) by re-orienting the question to \"What Men Could Learn from Women\" (99–140). Chapter Four extends this discussion to \"The Life of Paideia\" (141–88) as narratively encapsulated in exemplary &lt;em&gt;Lives&lt;/em&gt; and teachings. In the fifth chapter, Stenger situates emergent templates within a social and civic frame, addressing the implications of education aimed at \"Moulding the Self and the World\" (189–238).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The volume's final chapter brings the conversation full circle. Having traced the social, religious, demographic, cultural, and civic exchanges that govern \"The &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 139]&lt;/strong&gt; Making of the Late Antique Mind\" (239–84), Stenger presents the &lt;em&gt;Vivarium&lt;/em&gt; of ","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140323627","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}