Heresiology in the Third-Century Mishnah: Arguments for Rabbinic Legal Authority and the Complications of a Simple Concept

2015 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-529
Author(s):  
Naftali S. Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Legal Text ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Simple Concept

When members of the early rabbinic group created the Jewish legal text known as the Mishnah in the late second or early third century, the concept of heresy was relatively common in the wider cultural discourse of the Roman world. Christian apologists, among others, frequently employed the Greek termhairesis(“heresy”/“heretic,” originally meaning “school of thought”/“adherent”) as part of their larger projects of drawing boundaries, defining identities, and making an argument for the authority of their own ideas and practices.

Roman Water-Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-194
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Water Power ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Grain Milling ◽  
Over Time

This chapter summarizes the archaeological evidence currently known for Roman water-mills, tracing the development and spread of water-powered grain milling over time across the Roman Empire. Problems of quantification and evidence bias, both documentary and archaeological, are addressed. In particular, it is argued that large discoidal millstones, formerly thought to derive either from animal-powered or water-powered mills, must come from water-mills, and that the idea of Roman animal-driven mills with discoidal millstones is a myth. This dramatically increases the amount of evidence available for water-powered grain milling, although very unevenly spread across the empire, and heavily dependent on the intensity of research in particular regions—good for Britain, parts of France, and Switzerland; poor everywhere else. The chapter also summarizes the state of knowledge on other applications of water-power—for ore-crushing machines at hard-rock gold and silver mines (by the first century AD), trip-hammers, tanning and fulling mills, and marble sawing (by the third century AD). The picture is fast-changing and the body of evidence continues to grow with new archaeological discoveries. The chapter ends with some thoughts about the place of water-power in the overall economy of the Roman world, and on the transmission of water-powered technologies between the Roman and medieval periods.

Why Did Decius and Valerian Proscribe Christianity?

1933 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Thomas Oborn
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Rapid Rise ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The People ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Direct Explanation ◽  
Hard Times

Severe economic depression had the Roman world in its grip during the middle of the third century A. D.; a condition from which the Mediterranean countries never fully recovered. There is much evidence to show that the economic structure of the Empire was crumbling. Very soon the outlying territories of the Empire were overrun by barbarians, trade collapsed, and brigandage and piracy reappeared on a large scale. All of this was accompanied by a rapid rise in the prices of the commodities of life. To-day we look for the causes of economic depressions in intricate and far-reaching social forces. In the third century Romans of the old school had a much more simple and direct explanation. When the Empire fell on hard times and disaster stalked the corners there was only one cause: the gods who had given Rome her power and the Empire its prosperity in the years gone by were being neglected, foreign gods and oriental cults had usurped the religious fervor of the people, and the venerable gods of the Eternal City were angered. The remedy was likewise simple: revive and stimulate the worship of the ancient gods of Rome, thus appeasing their anger, and prosperity would return.

Textualization and Archive in Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-315
Author(s):  
Monica Park
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Way

This article argues for a new way of reading Hellenistic “literary” hymns, one that situates them in contemporary religious and cultural discourse through the notions of “textualization” and the “cultural archive.” I apply this framework to Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos and show how this hymn became an important part of the articulation of Ptolemaic religion in the context of ritual politics in the third-century Aegean, as well as how it had a lasting impact on the way that the ritual geography of the Cyclades was imagined. Specifically, the analysis spotlights how the hymn successfully links historical and contemporary theoric choral activity with the etymologization of the Cyclades; how it textualizes the island of Kos within the ritual nexus of Delos; and, finally, how it becomes an important part of Greek cultural memory about Delos.

Antioch 268 and Its Legacy in the Fourth-Century Theological Debates

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-215
Author(s):  
Dragoș Andrei Giulea
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Sitz Im Leben ◽  
Individual Entity ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Father And Son

AbstractThe study proposes an analysis of the concepts ofousiaandhypostasisin the theology of the Council of Antioch which condemned Paul of Samosata in 268 CE. The authentic reports preserved from the assembly unveil the fact that the synodals who condemned Paul of Samosata employed the two terms interchangeably to denote the individual entity or person rather than the common essence or nature of the Father and Son. Additionally, they defended Christ's divinity before time and simultaneously assumed a certain subordinationism. The study additionally explores theSitz im Lebenof this theology, an accepted language embraced in the Eastern part of the Roman world in the third century. The article further traces the elements of this Antiochene theology in the fourth century in what was traditionally viewed as the “Arian” councils held in Antioch in 341 and 345 as well as in such authors as Eusebius of Caesarea and the Homoiousians. While Antioch 341 and 345 distanced themselves from Arianism, it is more coherent to interpret them, together with Eusebius and the Homoiousians, through this new hermeneutical lens, namely Antioch 268, rather than the traditional polarization between Nicaea and Arianism.

SOME CASES OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY? PANTOMIME MASKS AND THEIR CONTEXT

2001 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN JORY
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Mistaken Identity ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Hellenistic World

Abstract Pantomime, a form of masked mime, is known in the Hellenistic world from the third century BC. In a modified form it was the most popular type of performance on the stages of the Roman empire. The masks worn differed from the masks of drama in that they had closed mouths. The first part of the paper demonstrates that it is possible to classify types of pantomime mask in the same way that the masks of drama have been classified. The second part looks at the chronology and provenance of the surviving representations of pantomime masks and suggests reasons for the different dates at which they were incorporated into the theatrical iconography of various areas of the Roman world.

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