Author: A. Edward Siecienski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351976117
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy brings together some of the English-speaking world’s leading Constantinian scholars for an interdisciplinary study of the life and legacy of the first Christian emperor. For many, he remains a "sign of contradiction" (Luke 2:34) whose life and legacy generate intense debate. He was the first Christian emperor, protector of the Church, and eventually remembered as "equal to the apostles" for bringing about the Christianization of the Empire. Yet there is another side to Constantine’s legacy, one that was often neglected by his Christian hagiographers. Some modern scholars have questioned the orthodoxy of the so-called model Christian emperor, while others have doubted the sincerity of his Christian commitment, viewing his embrace of the faith as merely a means to a political end. Drawing together papers presented at the 2013 symposium at Stockton University commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, this volume examines the very questions that have for so long occupied historians, classicists, and theologians. The papers in this volume prove once again that Constantine is not so much a figure from the remote past, but an individual whose legacy continues to shape our present.
Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy
Author: A. Edward Siecienski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351976117
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy brings together some of the English-speaking world’s leading Constantinian scholars for an interdisciplinary study of the life and legacy of the first Christian emperor. For many, he remains a "sign of contradiction" (Luke 2:34) whose life and legacy generate intense debate. He was the first Christian emperor, protector of the Church, and eventually remembered as "equal to the apostles" for bringing about the Christianization of the Empire. Yet there is another side to Constantine’s legacy, one that was often neglected by his Christian hagiographers. Some modern scholars have questioned the orthodoxy of the so-called model Christian emperor, while others have doubted the sincerity of his Christian commitment, viewing his embrace of the faith as merely a means to a political end. Drawing together papers presented at the 2013 symposium at Stockton University commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, this volume examines the very questions that have for so long occupied historians, classicists, and theologians. The papers in this volume prove once again that Constantine is not so much a figure from the remote past, but an individual whose legacy continues to shape our present.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351976117
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy brings together some of the English-speaking world’s leading Constantinian scholars for an interdisciplinary study of the life and legacy of the first Christian emperor. For many, he remains a "sign of contradiction" (Luke 2:34) whose life and legacy generate intense debate. He was the first Christian emperor, protector of the Church, and eventually remembered as "equal to the apostles" for bringing about the Christianization of the Empire. Yet there is another side to Constantine’s legacy, one that was often neglected by his Christian hagiographers. Some modern scholars have questioned the orthodoxy of the so-called model Christian emperor, while others have doubted the sincerity of his Christian commitment, viewing his embrace of the faith as merely a means to a political end. Drawing together papers presented at the 2013 symposium at Stockton University commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, this volume examines the very questions that have for so long occupied historians, classicists, and theologians. The papers in this volume prove once again that Constantine is not so much a figure from the remote past, but an individual whose legacy continues to shape our present.
Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity
Author: Jeremy M. Schott
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812203461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
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.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812203461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
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.
Of the nature and qualification of religion
Author: Samuel von Pufendorf
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West
Author: Perez Zagorin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400850711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Religious intolerance, so terrible and deadly in its recent manifestations, is nothing new. In fact, until after the eighteenth century, Christianity was perhaps the most intolerant of all the great world religions. How Christian Europe and the West went from this extreme to their present universal belief in religious toleration is the momentous story fully told for the first time in this timely and important book by a leading historian of early modern Europe. Perez Zagorin takes readers to a time when both the Catholic Church and the main new Protestant denominations embraced a policy of endorsing religious persecution, coercing unity, and, with the state's help, mercilessly crushing dissent and heresy. This position had its roots in certain intellectual and religious traditions, which Zagorin traces before showing how out of the same traditions came the beginnings of pluralism in the West. Here we see how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers--writing from religious, theological, and philosophical perspectives--contributed far more than did political expediency or the growth of religious skepticism to advance the cause of toleration. Reading these thinkers--from Erasmus and Sir Thomas More to John Milton and John Locke, among others--Zagorin brings to light a common, if unexpected, thread: concern for the spiritual welfare of religion itself weighed more in the defense of toleration than did any secular or pragmatic arguments. His book--which ranges from England through the Netherlands, the post-1685 Huguenot Diaspora, and the American Colonies--also exposes a close connection between toleration and religious freedom. A far-reaching and incisive discussion of the major writers, thinkers, and controversies responsible for the emergence of religious tolerance in Western society--from the Enlightenment through the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights--this original and richly nuanced work constitutes an essential chapter in the intellectual history of the modern world.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400850711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Religious intolerance, so terrible and deadly in its recent manifestations, is nothing new. In fact, until after the eighteenth century, Christianity was perhaps the most intolerant of all the great world religions. How Christian Europe and the West went from this extreme to their present universal belief in religious toleration is the momentous story fully told for the first time in this timely and important book by a leading historian of early modern Europe. Perez Zagorin takes readers to a time when both the Catholic Church and the main new Protestant denominations embraced a policy of endorsing religious persecution, coercing unity, and, with the state's help, mercilessly crushing dissent and heresy. This position had its roots in certain intellectual and religious traditions, which Zagorin traces before showing how out of the same traditions came the beginnings of pluralism in the West. Here we see how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers--writing from religious, theological, and philosophical perspectives--contributed far more than did political expediency or the growth of religious skepticism to advance the cause of toleration. Reading these thinkers--from Erasmus and Sir Thomas More to John Milton and John Locke, among others--Zagorin brings to light a common, if unexpected, thread: concern for the spiritual welfare of religion itself weighed more in the defense of toleration than did any secular or pragmatic arguments. His book--which ranges from England through the Netherlands, the post-1685 Huguenot Diaspora, and the American Colonies--also exposes a close connection between toleration and religious freedom. A far-reaching and incisive discussion of the major writers, thinkers, and controversies responsible for the emergence of religious tolerance in Western society--from the Enlightenment through the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights--this original and richly nuanced work constitutes an essential chapter in the intellectual history of the modern world.
Law, Religion, and Freedom
Author: W. Cole Durham Jr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367704469
Category : Freedom of religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This book examines major conceptual challenges confronting freedom of religion or belief in contemporary settings. It will be a valuable resource for students, academics, and policy-makers with an interest in law, religion, and human rights.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367704469
Category : Freedom of religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This book examines major conceptual challenges confronting freedom of religion or belief in contemporary settings. It will be a valuable resource for students, academics, and policy-makers with an interest in law, religion, and human rights.
The Edict of Religion
Author: Karl Friedrich Bahrdt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
Wider attention to Carl Friedrich Bahrdt should revise the standard picture of eighteenth-century Germany. German writers were often reported to be apolitical. Historians often claim that the Germans developed a more radical politics in response to the French Revolution. A commonly held stereotype depicts the Germans as having no sense of humor. Bahrdt's 1788 play The Edict of Religion, a ribald work of satire that attacks the tyranny and hypocrisy of the Prussian authorities, shatters these assumptions. The Edict of Religion is chiefly important in the history of ideas because it called for religious freedom, intellectual freedom, and freedom of the press before the French Revolution focused attention on human rights. Upon its publication, however, Bahrdt confronted the quasi-military discipline of the Prussian state that he denounced. He was tried and imprisoned--but could not be silenced. In The Story and Diary of My Imprisonment, also in this volume (and, like The Edict of Religion, here in English for the first time), Bahrdt holds the authorities up to ridicule and defends himself as an innocent victim.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
Wider attention to Carl Friedrich Bahrdt should revise the standard picture of eighteenth-century Germany. German writers were often reported to be apolitical. Historians often claim that the Germans developed a more radical politics in response to the French Revolution. A commonly held stereotype depicts the Germans as having no sense of humor. Bahrdt's 1788 play The Edict of Religion, a ribald work of satire that attacks the tyranny and hypocrisy of the Prussian authorities, shatters these assumptions. The Edict of Religion is chiefly important in the history of ideas because it called for religious freedom, intellectual freedom, and freedom of the press before the French Revolution focused attention on human rights. Upon its publication, however, Bahrdt confronted the quasi-military discipline of the Prussian state that he denounced. He was tried and imprisoned--but could not be silenced. In The Story and Diary of My Imprisonment, also in this volume (and, like The Edict of Religion, here in English for the first time), Bahrdt holds the authorities up to ridicule and defends himself as an innocent victim.
Beyond Intolerance
Author: Davide Dainese
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503574493
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
313 AD is generally considered as a "turning point" in religious and political Western history. The meeting of Constantine and Licinius in Milan and the subsequent "edict" opened the way to the Christianisation of Roman imperial structures and, finally, to the0declaration of Christianity as the only allowed religion in the Roman Empire. The papers summoned in this volume tackle this complex historical phase from a number of 0 perspectives (from Church history and theology to political and juridical history), following a strongly multidisciplinary approach.
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503574493
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
313 AD is generally considered as a "turning point" in religious and political Western history. The meeting of Constantine and Licinius in Milan and the subsequent "edict" opened the way to the Christianisation of Roman imperial structures and, finally, to the0declaration of Christianity as the only allowed religion in the Roman Empire. The papers summoned in this volume tackle this complex historical phase from a number of 0 perspectives (from Church history and theology to political and juridical history), following a strongly multidisciplinary approach.
Religion and Royal Justice in Early Modern France
Author: Diane C. Margolf
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027109091X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Diane Margolf looks at the Paris Chambre de l’Edit in this well-researched study about the special royal law court that adjudicated disputes between French Huguenots and the Catholics. Using archival records of the court’s criminal cases, Margolf analyzes the connections to three major issues in early modern French and European history: religious conflict and coexistence, the growing claims of the French crown to define and maintain order, and competing concepts of community and identity in the French state and society. Based on previously unexplored archival materials, Margolf examines the court through a cultural lens and offers portraits of ordinary men and women who were litigants before the court, and the magistrates who heard their cases.
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027109091X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Diane Margolf looks at the Paris Chambre de l’Edit in this well-researched study about the special royal law court that adjudicated disputes between French Huguenots and the Catholics. Using archival records of the court’s criminal cases, Margolf analyzes the connections to three major issues in early modern French and European history: religious conflict and coexistence, the growing claims of the French crown to define and maintain order, and competing concepts of community and identity in the French state and society. Based on previously unexplored archival materials, Margolf examines the court through a cultural lens and offers portraits of ordinary men and women who were litigants before the court, and the magistrates who heard their cases.
A Companion to the Huguenots
Author: Raymond A. Mentzer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004310371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
The Huguenots are among the best known of early modern European religious minorities. Their suffering in 16th and 17th-century France is a familiar story. The flight of many Huguenots from the kingdom after 1685 conferred upon them a preeminent place in the accounts of forced religious migrations. Their history has become synonymous with repression and intolerance. At the same time, Huguenot accomplishments in France and the lands to which they fled have long been celebrated. They are distinguished by their theological formulations, political thought, and artistic achievements. This volume offers an encompassing portrait of the Huguenot past, investigates the principal lines of historical development, and suggests the interpretative frameworks that scholars have advanced for appreciating the Huguenot experience.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004310371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
The Huguenots are among the best known of early modern European religious minorities. Their suffering in 16th and 17th-century France is a familiar story. The flight of many Huguenots from the kingdom after 1685 conferred upon them a preeminent place in the accounts of forced religious migrations. Their history has become synonymous with repression and intolerance. At the same time, Huguenot accomplishments in France and the lands to which they fled have long been celebrated. They are distinguished by their theological formulations, political thought, and artistic achievements. This volume offers an encompassing portrait of the Huguenot past, investigates the principal lines of historical development, and suggests the interpretative frameworks that scholars have advanced for appreciating the Huguenot experience.
The Triumph of Christianity
Author: Bart D. Ehrman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786073021
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
How did Christianity become the dominant religion in the West? In the early first century, a small group of peasants from the backwaters of the Roman Empire proclaimed that an executed enemy of the state was God’s messiah. Less than four hundred years later it had become the official religion of Rome with some thirty million followers. It could so easily have been a forgotten sect of Judaism. Through meticulous research, Bart Ehrman, an expert on Christian history, texts and traditions, explores the way we think about one of the most important cultural transformations the world has ever seen, one that has shaped the art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics and economics of modern Western civilisation.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786073021
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
How did Christianity become the dominant religion in the West? In the early first century, a small group of peasants from the backwaters of the Roman Empire proclaimed that an executed enemy of the state was God’s messiah. Less than four hundred years later it had become the official religion of Rome with some thirty million followers. It could so easily have been a forgotten sect of Judaism. Through meticulous research, Bart Ehrman, an expert on Christian history, texts and traditions, explores the way we think about one of the most important cultural transformations the world has ever seen, one that has shaped the art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics and economics of modern Western civilisation.