Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50-600 A.D.)

Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50-600 A.D.) PDF Author: Antigone Samellas
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161476686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Antigone Samellas examines the modes of reception of Jesus' message of salvation. She explores the Greek and Jewish influence on Christian eschatology and traces the Hellenistic roots of Christian consolation philosophy. The author examines Christianity as a 'total therapy of grief' and highlights the differences that existed between the religious cures and the Hellenistic philosophical therapies. To gain a better understanding of the process of conversion to the new faith Antigone Samellas also investigates which aspects of Christianity were appealing and which repugnant in the eyes of pagans and Jews. Finally, she attempts to convey something of the wisdom of the East, in all its cultural and religious nuances, to the modern reader.

Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50-600 A.D.)

Death in the Eastern Mediterranean (50-600 A.D.) PDF Author: Antigone Samellas
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161476686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Antigone Samellas examines the modes of reception of Jesus' message of salvation. She explores the Greek and Jewish influence on Christian eschatology and traces the Hellenistic roots of Christian consolation philosophy. The author examines Christianity as a 'total therapy of grief' and highlights the differences that existed between the religious cures and the Hellenistic philosophical therapies. To gain a better understanding of the process of conversion to the new faith Antigone Samellas also investigates which aspects of Christianity were appealing and which repugnant in the eyes of pagans and Jews. Finally, she attempts to convey something of the wisdom of the East, in all its cultural and religious nuances, to the modern reader.

Melania

Melania PDF Author: Catherine Michael Chin
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520379217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Melania the Elder and her granddaughter Melania the Younger were major figures in early Christian history, using their wealth, status, and forceful personalities to shape the development of nearly every aspect of the religion we now know as Christianity. This volume examines their influence on late antique Christianity and provides an insightful portrait of their legacies in the modern world. Departing from the traditionally patriarchal view, Melania gives a poignant and sometimes surprising account of how the rise of Christian institutions in the Roman Empire shaped our understanding of women’s roles in the larger world.

Honorius

Honorius PDF Author: Chris Doyle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317278070
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Honorius explores the personal life and tumultuous times of one of the last emperors of the Roman West. From his accession to the throne aged ten to his death at thirty-eight, Honorius’ reign was blighted by a myriad of crises: military rebellions, political conspiracies, barbarian invasions, and sectarian controversies. The notorious sack of the city of Rome occurred on Honorius’ watch, and much of the western empire was given over to anarchy and violence. This book should interest undergraduates, research students, and professional scholars. Given the enduring appeal of the fall of Rome and the collapse of western Roman civilization, the wider public should also find much of interest.

Gnostic Morality Revisited

Gnostic Morality Revisited PDF Author: Ismo Dunderberg
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161525674
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
While the early Christian texts discussed in this book are often treated as "gnostic" ones, they are here approached as witnesses to the views of educated Christians engaged in dialogue with philosophical traditions. Following the idea that ancient philosophical schools provided their adherents with ways of life, Ismo Dunderberg explores issues related to morality and lifestyle in non-canonical gospels and among groups that were gradually denounced as heretical in the church. He deals with the soul's progress from material concerns to a life dominated by spirit, the control of emotions, the avoidance of luxury, the ideal "perfect human" as a tool in moral instruction, classifications of humankind into distinct groups based on their moral advancement, and Christian debates about the value of martyrdom. In addition, he offers a critical review of some recent trends and attitudes in New Testament scholarship.

Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity

Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity PDF Author: Susan R. Holman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000922944
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Using contemporary theories drawn from health humanities, this volume analyses the nature and effects of disability, medicine, and health discourse in a variety of early Christian literature. In recent years, the "medical turn" in early Christian studies has developed a robust literature around health, disability, and medicine, and the health humanities have made critical interventions in modern conversations around the aims of health and the nature of healthcare. Considering these developments, it has become clear that early Christian texts and ideas have much to offer modern conversations, and that these texts are illuminated using theoretical lenses drawn from modern medicine and public health. The chapters in this book explore different facets of early Christian engagement with medicine, either in itself or as metaphor and material for theological reflections on human impairment, restoration, and flourishing. Through its focus on late antique religious texts, the book raises questions around the social, rather than biological, aspects of illness and diminishment as a human experience, as well as the strategies by which that experience is navigated. The result is an innovative and timely intervention in the study of health and healthcare that bridges current divides between historical studies and contemporary issues. Taken together, the book offers a prismatic conversation of perspectives on aspects of care at the heart of societal and individual "wellness" today, inviting readers to meet or revisit patristic texts as tracings across a map of embodied identity, dissonance, and corporal care. It is a fascinating resource for anyone working on ancient medicine and health, or the social worlds of early Christianity.

Africa's Social and Religious Quest

Africa's Social and Religious Quest PDF Author: Randee Ijatuyi-Morphé
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761862684
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 647

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Book Description
This well-crafted book probes the key dimensions of Africa’s existential predicament. It constitutes an intellectual response to a gnawing “African situation”—the starting point for grasping Africa’s social and religious quest. Beyond split explanations of external versus internal factors (e.g., colonization/slavery vs. leadership/cultural values), this study accounts more comprehensively for emergent issues shaping this situation. The situation reflects a gamut of problems in traditional African religion and material culture, which hitherto defines African communality, polities, and destinies vis-à-vis the cosmos and nature. Thus, African religion and communities, each with its own attendant values, do not operate by critical engagement with larger issues of society and civilization, especially those shaped by the advent of (post-) modernity. Rather, they operate via adaptation. The communal drive for natural and social harmony inevitably produces a preservationist view of culture (“leaving things as they are”). This study takes an integrative approach to religion, society, and civilization; eschews dichotomies; and broadly defines and re-signifies life and wholeness as a true end of Africans’ quest today.

The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade

The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade PDF Author: Susan Wise Bauer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393059758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
Chronicles the period between the 4th and 12th centuries, when religion became the justification for political and military action, a time that included the development of Islam, the crowning of Charlemagne, and the rise of the T'ang Dynasty.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450 PDF Author: Maijastina Kahlos
Publisher:
ISBN: 019006725X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the Christianization of the late Roman Empire. The focus is on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups ('pagans' and 'heretics'). The book shows that the narrative is more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world.

John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow

John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow PDF Author: Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317110552
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow is one of the most important sources for late sixth-early seventh century Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian monasticism. This undisputedly invaluable collection of beneficial tales provides contemporary society with a fuller picture of an imperfect social history of this period: it is a rich source for understanding not only the piety of the monk but also the poor farmer. Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen fills a lacuna in classical monastic secondary literature by highlighting Moschos' unique contribution to the way in which a fertile Christian theology informed the ethics of not only those serving at the altar but also those being served. Introducing appropriate historical and theological background to the tales, Llewellyn Ihssen demonstrates how Moschos' tales addresses issues of the autonomy of individual ascetics and lay persons in relationship with authority figures. Economic practices, health care, death and burials of lay persons and ascetics are examined for the theology and history that they obscure and reveal. Whilst teaching us about the complicated relationships between personal agency and divine intercession, Moschos’ tales can also be seen to reveal liminal boundaries we know existed between the secular and the religious.

The Power of Sacrifice

The Power of Sacrifice PDF Author: George Heyman
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813214890
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
In this work, George Heyman offers a fresh perspective on the similarities between pagan Roman and Christian thinking about the public role of sacrifice in the first two and a half centuries of the Christian era.