In his City of God, Augustine intermittently discussed extraordinary bodies, such as persons with... more In his City of God, Augustine intermittently discussed extraordinary bodies, such as persons with one eye in the centre of their forehead or only one cubit tall called pygmies. Taking his cues from Pliny the Elder and Solinus, who include such bodies to discuss the marvellous in natural history, Augustine, this chapter argues, used such bodies to discuss what history means: what do such bodies tell those who know how to read them about history, the present, and the future, especially on those occasions when the one history Augustine considers universal, Scripture, is silent? Bodies carry great heuristic weight in Augustine's oeuvre and these extraordinary bodies are no exception. Indeed, the way that Augustine thinks about such bodies, those of the past, the present and the future, illuminates how he
The translation of Virgins of God has been published by Editoria Doxoloia, Iasi
translated by Ev... more The translation of Virgins of God has been published by Editoria Doxoloia, Iasi translated by Eva Damian
Page 1. OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS 'VIRGINS OF GOD' The Making of Asceticism in Late A... more Page 1. OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS 'VIRGINS OF GOD' The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity PAPERBACKS Page 2. OXFORD CLASSICAL ...
Toward the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo wrote two letters (10* and 24*) to legal experts i... more Toward the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo wrote two letters (10* and 24*) to legal experts in which he reacted to recent attempts by slave-traders to sell 120 Roman North Africans «overseas» as slaves. Prompted by the fact that members of his clergy had offered them refuge in the episcopal compound at Hippo, Augustine sought to clarify the actual personal legal status of these men, women, and children. Were they slaves, coloni, or illegally captured free Roman citizens? What were their actual temporal, legal, personal conditions? Such concerns surrounding the condicio hominum temporalis, brought to light as a result of selling human beings, and their relevance and ramifications for Augustine’s thoughts and actions, especially with regard to the sin to which we are sold per originem of the First Man, are the focus of my remarks.
Toward the end of the fourth century CE, Optatus of Milevis, a North African bishop, was embroile... more Toward the end of the fourth century CE, Optatus of Milevis, a North African bishop, was embroiled in an intense controversy with rigorist Christians who felt that he and others like him had become traitors to the cause. According to his detractors, in a long past persecution Octavius’ people had literally handed over, tradere, the Scriptures to the hostile authorities. For the bishop’s opponents that sin, traditio, had been handed down, tradere, through the generations, from father to son. Therefore, for the rigorists, all sacramental practices performed by these traitors should be regarded as void and needed to be reenacted to be valuable.1 This applied also to a particular group of persons who held a status the rigorists considered sacramental: virgins of God. Optatus agreed with his opponents that virgins of God were indeed persons with a special status, but he did not consider it a sacrament. However, he was even more vehemently opposed to the rigorists’ demands that whatever had made these virgins special was something that could be voided and subsequently re-affirmed.
Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is central to the conceptualization of a perfect Christian life.... more Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is central to the conceptualization of a perfect Christian life. Especially the second part, theoria, where Gregory provides an extensive allegorical reading of the life of Moses, has been studied in great depth, in particular from the perspective of the unknowability of God, on the soul’s ascent, and questions of mysticism, but also in the context of the late antique priesthood and masculinity more generally. This chapter takes its cue of such discussions to focus instead on the first part, historia, and on a detailed analysis of Moses’ dress to argue that Gregory here wished to intervene in the manner in which elite Christian men and officeholders ought to dress; how they should display their status through clothing, especially in the context of ‘barbarian’ male fashion at a time of heightened tensions regarding the presence of Goths.
In his City of God, Augustine intermittently discussed extraordinary bodies, such as persons with... more In his City of God, Augustine intermittently discussed extraordinary bodies, such as persons with one eye in the centre of their forehead or only one cubit tall called pygmies. Taking his cues from Pliny the Elder and Solinus, who include such bodies to discuss the marvellous in natural history, Augustine, this chapter argues, used such bodies to discuss what history means: what do such bodies tell those who know how to read them about history, the present, and the future, especially on those occasions when the one history Augustine considers universal, Scripture, is silent? Bodies carry great heuristic weight in Augustine's oeuvre and these extraordinary bodies are no exception. Indeed, the way that Augustine thinks about such bodies, those of the past, the present and the future, illuminates how he
The translation of Virgins of God has been published by Editoria Doxoloia, Iasi
translated by Ev... more The translation of Virgins of God has been published by Editoria Doxoloia, Iasi translated by Eva Damian
Page 1. OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS 'VIRGINS OF GOD' The Making of Asceticism in Late A... more Page 1. OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS 'VIRGINS OF GOD' The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity PAPERBACKS Page 2. OXFORD CLASSICAL ...
Toward the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo wrote two letters (10* and 24*) to legal experts i... more Toward the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo wrote two letters (10* and 24*) to legal experts in which he reacted to recent attempts by slave-traders to sell 120 Roman North Africans «overseas» as slaves. Prompted by the fact that members of his clergy had offered them refuge in the episcopal compound at Hippo, Augustine sought to clarify the actual personal legal status of these men, women, and children. Were they slaves, coloni, or illegally captured free Roman citizens? What were their actual temporal, legal, personal conditions? Such concerns surrounding the condicio hominum temporalis, brought to light as a result of selling human beings, and their relevance and ramifications for Augustine’s thoughts and actions, especially with regard to the sin to which we are sold per originem of the First Man, are the focus of my remarks.
Toward the end of the fourth century CE, Optatus of Milevis, a North African bishop, was embroile... more Toward the end of the fourth century CE, Optatus of Milevis, a North African bishop, was embroiled in an intense controversy with rigorist Christians who felt that he and others like him had become traitors to the cause. According to his detractors, in a long past persecution Octavius’ people had literally handed over, tradere, the Scriptures to the hostile authorities. For the bishop’s opponents that sin, traditio, had been handed down, tradere, through the generations, from father to son. Therefore, for the rigorists, all sacramental practices performed by these traitors should be regarded as void and needed to be reenacted to be valuable.1 This applied also to a particular group of persons who held a status the rigorists considered sacramental: virgins of God. Optatus agreed with his opponents that virgins of God were indeed persons with a special status, but he did not consider it a sacrament. However, he was even more vehemently opposed to the rigorists’ demands that whatever had made these virgins special was something that could be voided and subsequently re-affirmed.
Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is central to the conceptualization of a perfect Christian life.... more Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is central to the conceptualization of a perfect Christian life. Especially the second part, theoria, where Gregory provides an extensive allegorical reading of the life of Moses, has been studied in great depth, in particular from the perspective of the unknowability of God, on the soul’s ascent, and questions of mysticism, but also in the context of the late antique priesthood and masculinity more generally. This chapter takes its cue of such discussions to focus instead on the first part, historia, and on a detailed analysis of Moses’ dress to argue that Gregory here wished to intervene in the manner in which elite Christian men and officeholders ought to dress; how they should display their status through clothing, especially in the context of ‘barbarian’ male fashion at a time of heightened tensions regarding the presence of Goths.
The history of early Christianity is of continuing significance and interest to a sizable portion... more The history of early Christianity is of continuing significance and interest to a sizable portion of the world's population. This study focuses on the history of Christianity in Egypt from its earliest recorded origins to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, when the Eyptian Coptic Church became a national religion because of its separation from the Catholic University. Within this time period, one can observe the development of features unique to Egyptian Christianity, the imposition of Catholic ecclesiasticism in Alexandria and southward, and the presence of forces which would lead to the establishment of a national religion. This study should contribute to an increased understanding of early Egyptian Christian history and the manner in which that religion was dispersed in other countries, as well as to the general history of early Christianity.
Quite recently it was said that the humanities and social sciences had taken a “linguistic turn.”... more Quite recently it was said that the humanities and social sciences had taken a “linguistic turn.” Today a “material turn” has taken place, perhaps in reaction to the ruling post-structuralism of the 1980s and 1990s, or as an extension of post-modern approaches. The dangers posed by human-induced climate change and the success of cognitive-scientific subdisciplines that address consciousness, social interaction, and communication run parallel to “new materialists” across numerous disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (archeologists, anthropologists, and historians of art, architecture, science, and religion) intent on turning an earlier anthropocentrism on its head. These new materialists experiment with sometimes extreme views of material agency, even while they examine symbolic systems in past and present, thus approaching “culture” as “human behavioral ecology” or pursuing “cognitive archeology” – with methods that presuppose the physical co-dependence of human reflect...
Im Herbst 1992, als „tattoos", „piercings", „brandings", und ähnliches mehr gerade... more Im Herbst 1992, als „tattoos", „piercings", „brandings", und ähnliches mehr gerade als „neue Welle" in das Bewußtsein der breiten Öffentlichkeit mindestens San Franciscos getreten waren, fragte ein Reporter des San Francisco Chronicle einige junge Leute, die gerade einen der „tattoo parlours" auf der Market Street offensichtlich gezeichnet verließen, welches Gefühl ihnen denn ihre neue Tätowierung vermittele. „I feel really free, really liberated" war die einhellige Antwort. Die unbekannten jungen Leute waren nicht allein. Kurze Zeit später, 1994, veröffentlichte eine bekannte Journalistin der Zeitschrift „The Nation" einen kurzen Artikel in einer prominenten Frauenzeitschrift über das Thema „Mein neuer Bauchnabelring" mit dem Tenor, der Körperschmuck symbolisiere ihre Befreiung aus einer gescheiterten Ehe sie fühle sich jetzt stark und frei. Das Wort „tattoo", im frühen 19. Jh. aus dem Polynesischen ins Englische übernommen, bezeichnete ursprünglich eine Form der Dekoration, die mit mechanischen Mitteln auf der Haut angebracht wurde, und zwar permanent. Die europäisch westliche Rezeption solcher Dekorationen fand (man denke nur an Melvilles Quiquogg) analog der allgemeinen Einstellung dem „Wilden" und „Exotischen" gegenüber statt. Sie stieß allerdings auch auf eine breite, seit dem Altertum bestehende europäische Vorstellungswelt vom menschlichen Körper und seiner Modifizierbarkeit. Eine der trotz aller Variationsbreite wohl grundlegenden Vorstellungen vom
The fourth century AD witnessed the emer-gence of an institution, monasticism, that was to become... more The fourth century AD witnessed the emer-gence of an institution, monasticism, that was to become one of the most important formative elements within Christianity for centuries to come. The "shadowed places" created in the wake of this emerging institution proved to be as formidable as ...
C. B, A. M (edd.): Les syncrétismes religieux dans le monde Méditerranéen antique. Actes... more C. B, A. M (edd.): Les syncrétismes religieux dans le monde Méditerranéen antique. Actes du Colloque International en l'honneur de Franz CUMONT à l'occasion du cinquantième anniversaire de sa mort. Rome, Academia Belgica, 2527 septembre 1997. Pp. 400, pls. ...
Reproduce, multiply, and fill the earth; each man should have his own wife and each woman her ... more Reproduce, multiply, and fill the earth; each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her con-jugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband; yet it is well for a man not to touch a woman. To reconcile ...
Roots always fascinate. It did not take Alex Haley to remind us that we all want to know where ou... more Roots always fascinate. It did not take Alex Haley to remind us that we all want to know where our origins lie, or that the "true" origins of things tend to be shrouded in myths and mysteries without which there simply would not be a good story. And frequently, the stories that uncover the ...
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translated by Eva Damian
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translated by Eva Damian