Early Christian Art

Art History ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Marsengill
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Art History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Byzantine Art ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Art And Architecture

Early Christian art history encompasses a range of material loosely dated from the first known appearances of Christian art in the late 2nd or early 3rd century and continuing through the 6th, 7th, and sometimes even into the early 8th centuries. Early Christian art history, however, has proven to be an inchoate term, often overlapping with, or including, Early Byzantine art history. In previous divisions of the field, Early Byzantine art tended to be too politically confining when one considers cities such as Ravenna before and after its inclusion in the Eastern Byzantine Empire. On the other hand, Early Christian art implied only the earliest centuries, usually through the 4th or mid-5th centuries, and usually centered on Roman art. Thus, many scholars today favor the term Late Antique in order to integrate the study of art and architecture of the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire as well as to understand Christian art in dialogue with Jewish and pagan art. In terms of dating, scholars generally acknowledge the genesis of Christian art and architecture around 200 ce, although some pursue theories that Christians participated in visual culture in the early 2nd century, if they had not yet developed a distinctly Christian visual language. In terms of geography, the eastern and western Mediterranean, Palestine and the Near East, and sometimes even northern Europe and Britain are all included. One result of this large geographical span has been the separation of Early Christian art in Rome, the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, the Near East, and so on. In the last decade or so, however, scholars have generally recognized a more cohesive Mediterranean world and a more fluid transition from Late Antiquity to medieval art and culture. Questions of continuity between these periods have ultimately made dating the end of “Early Christian” or “Late Antique” difficult, if not impossible. Most scholars see the end of Late Antiquity as coinciding with the death of Justinian I or, for the convenience of a rounded date, the year 600. Others argue the end of the period occurred at the beginning of the 7th century with the spread of Islam in the Near East and across North Africa. Byzantinists sometimes recognize the beginning of the iconoclastic controversy in 730 as the end of Late Antiquity. Accordingly, “true” Byzantine-era art begins after iconoclasm in the 9th century, what some refer to as the Middle Byzantine period, which marks the beginning of a distinguishable Byzantine state and extends until the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, then followed by the Late Byzantine period (until 1453). Those who assert the continuity of Late Antique traditions in early Islamic art have recently broached the year 800 as the cut-off point.

The Comparative Study of “Scholasticism” in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East Syrians

AJS Review ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam H. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of

Now is an appropriate time to reconsider the historiographical benefit that a comparative study of the East Syrian (“Nestorian”) schools and the Babylonian rabbinic academies may offer. This is attributable both to the recent, rapid increase in scholarship on Jewish–Christian relations in the Roman Empire and late antiquity more broadly, and to the return by some scholars of rabbinic Judaism to the issues of a scholarly exchange of the late 1970s and early 1980s about the nature of rabbinic academic institutionalization. Furthermore, over the past twenty years, scholars of classics, Greek and Roman history, and late antiquity have significantly added to the bibliography on the transmission of knowledge—in lay person's terms, education—in the Greco-Roman and early Christian worlds. Schools continue to be an intense topic of conversation, and my own recent work on the School of Nisibis and the East Syrian schools in general suggests that the transformations and innovations of late antiquity also occurred in the Sasanian Empire, at a great distance from the centers of classical learning, such as Athens, Alexandria, and Antioch. The recently reexamined East Syrian sources may help push the conversation about rabbinic academic institutionalization forward. However, the significance of this issue is not simply attributable to its bearing on the social and institutional history of rabbinic institutions. Such inquiry may also reflect on how we understand the Babylonian Talmud and on the difficult redaction history of its constituent parts. Furthermore, I hope that the discussion offered herein will contribute to the ongoing analysis of the late antique creation and formalization of cultures of learning, which were transmitted, in turn, into the Eastern (i.e., Islamic and “Oriental” Christian and Jewish) and Western Middle Ages within their corresponding communities.

scholarly journals CHRIST THE PHILOSOPHER FIGURES IN LATE ANTIQUE AND EARLY CHRISTIAN ART

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (77) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
The People ◽  
Ancient Society ◽  
True Knowledge

Late Antique and Early Christian Art designates the idiosyncratic content and style of the art which was produced during the Christianity transition process of the Roman society which was nourished mostly by the ancient Greek culture. In this transition process in which the border lines were blurred and the Christian iconography was not standardized yet, the pagan elements were included to the Christian narration or the visual images which were needed by the Christians were articulated into the pagan narration. This process which was lasted between the third to sixth centuries ended by the dissolving of pagan culture into Christianity. After Christianity constructed its own content and image discourse, pagan elements disappeared except rare personifications and mythological premises of some Christian scenes of which their geneological roots cannot be settled down easily. In this period, the philosopher image, one of the prestige indications of the ancient culture, was used for Jesus depictions frequently. In ancient society the notions of morality, culture, education and philosophy were perceived as honourable and closely interrelated with each other. The philosopher figure who possesses these virtues is an educated and restained person, a wise teacher who guides the people around him by the way of his attitudes, his own life and his lectures. In relation to this perception, in Late Antique and Early Christian Art, especially on sarcophagi, Christ is depicted in the image of philosopher/teacher who leads the person to the true knowledge both in life and after-life. Christian theology has created its own sphere and conceptual framework, consequently the identity between the virtuous life and philosophy is abandoned at the end of Late Antiquity. In this milieu philosophy losts its importance, even starts to define an anti-theological sphere for Christians. The philosopher image is no longer appropriate for the ones who identify it with the pagan and hence religionless Greeks of the ancient times. By losing the previous value of the philosopher’s image in ancient society, Christ the Philosopher figures have disappeared from the representations. Key Words: Late Antiquity, Early Christian Art, Iconography, Christ the Philosopher

Sicily before the Muslims. The Transformation of the Roman Villas between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Fourth to Eighth Centuries CE

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Castrorao Barba
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Productive Activities ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
New Settlements

AbstractThis article treats the issue of transformation in the Sicilian countryside between Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period by analyzing the fate of the Roman villas. A brief synthesis of the European debate over the end of the Roman villas helps to find new interpretative keys for the Sicilian contexts within the changes of the settlement dynamics among the last centuries of the Roman Empire and the Muslim conquest of the island. Descriptions of the primary characteristics of the Late Antique villas in Sicily can be divided into two main phases: between the third and the fifth centuries, the villas were ‘monumentalized’ as a sign of the wealth of the owners and the reorganization of the Late Roman agrarian system; from the fourth/fifth to the eighth century, some villas were reoccupied and reused in different ways (burials, new settlements, productive activities, places of worship). The study also performs some statistical analysis about chronological trends to track long-term transformations of the villas. The article concludes with some reflections and questions for future research on the complexity of rural Sicilian society during Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period.

Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ophir Münz-Manor
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Biblical Poetry ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
The One

The article presents a contemporary view of the study of piyyut, demonstrating that Jewish poetry of late antiquity (in Hebrew and Aramaic) was closely related to Christian liturgical poetry (both Syriac and Greek) and Samaritan liturgy. These relations were expressed primarily by common poetic and prosodic characteristics, derived on the one hand from ancient Semitic poetry (mainly biblical poetry), and on the other from innovations of the period. The significant connections of content between the different genres of poetry reveal the importance of comparative study. Thus the poetry composed in late antiquity provides additional evidence for the lively cultural dialogue that took place at that time.

Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
The Relationship

Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions brings together thirteen scholars of late-antique, medieval, and renaissance traditions who discuss magic, religious experience, ritual, and witch-beliefs with the aim of reflecting on the relationship between man and the supernatural. The content of the volume is intriguingly diverse and includes late antique traditions covering erotic love magic, Hellenistic-Egyptian astrology, apotropaic rituals, early Christian amulets, and astrological amulets; medieval traditions focusing on the relationships between magic and disbelief, pagan magic and Christian culture, as well as witchcraft and magic in Britain, Scandinavian sympathetic graphophagy, superstition in sermon literature; and finally Renaissance traditions revolving around Agrippan magic, witchcraft in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and a Biblical toponym related to the Friulan Benandanti’s visionary experiences. These varied topics reflect the multifaceted ways through which men aimed to establish relationships with the supernatural in diverse cultural traditions, and for different purposes, between Late Antiquity and the Renaissance. These ways eventually contributed to shaping the civilizations of the supernatural or those peculiar patterns which helped men look at themselves through the mirror of their own amazement of being in this world.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

Rye’s Rise and Rome’s Fall: Agriculture and Climate in Europe during Late Antiquity

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-169
Author(s):  
Paolo Squatriti
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Climate Patterns ◽  
Cultivated Plant ◽  
Successes And Failures

Abstract This essay discusses the introduction and circulation of plants in the western Roman empire between roughly AD 300 and 800. It focuses on one cultivated plant, rye, and on a few ecologically different regions in Gaul and Italy, in order to probe the causes of botanical successes and failures. It suggests that late antique people increasingly took care of rye for economic, social, and cultural reasons. It reaches this conclusion through an analysis of other explanations for the success of rye, such as late antique climate patterns and late antique human migration. It suggests that these explanations are unsatisfactory because they do not account for all the varied instances of increased rye cultivation between the 4th and 8th c. in Europe.

The Eerdmans Encyclopaedia of Early Christian Art and Architecture, written by Paul Corby Finney

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-337
Author(s):  
J.K. Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
Art And Architecture

Christianisation and Local Names in Asia Minor: Fall and Rise in Late Antiquity

2019 ◽  
pp. 258-276
Author(s):  
Sylvain Destephen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
The Rich

This article analyses processes in detail based on the evidence now provided by the relevant volumes of Prosopographie chr�tienne du Bas-Empire, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and the rich cemetery at Korykos. It is argued that the onomastic patrimony of late antique Asia Minor underwent a twofold process of transformation and simplification but did not vanish. The complete hegemony that the Romans achieved in Asia Minor in the 1st century BC induced a Latinisation of the region that was only superficial. This development had two contrasting effects. Firstly, Hellenistic and Roman influences reduced ethnic and cultural diversity in Asia Minor to the point where indigenous languages were more or less extinct when Christianity arose. Secondly, Hellenisation and Romanisation allowed a general enrichment of the onomastic patrimony in Asia Minor. The study of names therefore provides a balanced response since Asia Minor possesses a rich, varied onomastic patrimony. It also relates to how the conversion of the Roman Empire in general, and of Asia Minor in particular, brought about an overall transformation of the names people bore, even though modifications occurred more rapidly within ecclesiastical and monastic milieus than among ordinary laymen.

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