Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
New Perspective

The topic of religious identity in late antiquity is highly contentious. How did individuals and groups come to ascribe identities based on what would now be known as ‘religion’, categorizing themselves and others with regard to Judaism, Manichaeism, traditional Greek and Roman practices, and numerous competing conceptions of Christianity? How and why did examples of self-identification become established, activated, or transformed in response to circumstances? To what extent do labels (ancient and modern) for religious categories reflect a sense of a unified and enduring social or group identity for those included within them? How does religious identity relate to other forms of ancient identity politics (for example, ethnic discourse concerning ‘barbarians’)? This book responds to the recent upsurge of interest in this issue by developing interdisciplinary research between classics, ancient and medieval history, philosophy, religion, patristics, and Byzantine studies, expanding the range of evidence standardly used to explore these questions. In exploring the malleability and potential overlapping of religious identities in late antiquity, as well as their variable expressions in response to different public and private contexts, it challenges some prominent scholarly paradigms through a combination of methodological discussions and case studies of specific texts, authors, genres, themes, and artistic corpora. In particular, rhetoric and religious identity are here brought together and simultaneously interrogated to provide mutual illumination: in what way does a better understanding of rhetoric (its rules, forms, practices) enrich our understanding of the expression of late-antique religious identity? How does an understanding of how religious identity was ascribed, constructed, and contested provide us with a new perspective on rhetoric at work in late antiquity?

Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Richard Flower ◽  
Morwenna Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Creation

This chapter provides an overview of scholarly trends and approaches to this topic and outlines the place of this volume and its individual chapters within recent developments. In doing so, it considers a number of linked issues, including what was perceived as falling within the sphere of ‘the religious’ in late antiquity; how religious identities were constructed, activated and expressed; how the notion of late-antique religious identity should be understood and classified by scholars; where ‘rhetoric’ can be located within methods of cultural expression including, but not limited to, traditional literary forms and paideia; and how these methods were employed for the creation and reshaping of concepts of religious identity.

Ildar Garipzanov, Caroline Goodson, and Henry Maguire, ed., Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Cursor Mundi, 27, Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, xviii, 392 p., 141 ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 377-379
Author(s):  
Kriszta Kotsis
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Visual Communication ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cursor Mundi ◽  
Definition Of

Late antique and early medieval graphic signs have traditionally been studied by narrowly focused specialists leading to the fragmentation and decontextualization of this important body of material. Therefore, the volume aims “to deepen interdisciplinary research on graphic signs” (7) of the third through tenth centuries, with contributions from archaeologists, historians, art historians, a philologist, and a paleographer. Ildar Garipzanov’s introduction defines the central terms (sign, symbol, graphicacy), calls for supplanting the text-image binary with “the concept of the visual-written continuum” (15), and argues that graphicacy was central to visual communication in this period. He emphasizes the agency of graphic signs and notes that their study can amplify our understanding of the definition of personal and group identity, the articulation of power, authority, and religious affiliation, and communication with the supernatural sphere.

The Lex Dei and the Latin Bible

2007 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-441
Author(s):  
Robert Frakes
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Latin Work ◽  
Shed Light

Two striking developments in late antiquity are the growing influence of Christianity and the codification of Roman law. The first attempt to harmonize these two developments lies in the late antique Latin work known by scholars as the Lex Dei (“Law of God”) or Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (“Collation of the Laws of Moses and of the Romans”). The anonymous collator of this short legal compendium organized his work following a fairly regular plan, dividing it into sixteen topics (traditionally called titles). Each title begins with a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (in Latin), followed by quotations of passages from Roman jurists and, occasionally, from Roman law. His apparent motive was to demonstrate the similarity between Roman law and the law of God. Scholars have differed over where the collator obtained his Latin translations of passages from the Hebrew Bible. Did he make his own translation from the Greek Septuagint or directly from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves? Did he use the famous Latin translation of Jerome or an older, pre-Jerome, Latin translation of the Bible, known by scholars as the Vetus Latina or Old Latin Bible? Re-examination of the evolution of texts of the Latin Bible and close comparison of biblical passages from the Lex Dei with other surviving Latin versions will confirm that the collator used one of the several versions of the Old Latin Bible that were in circulation in late antiquity. Such a conclusion supports the argument that the religious identity of the collator was Christian (a subject of scholarly controversy for almost a century). Moreover, analysis of the collator's use of the Bible can also shed light on his methodology in compiling his collection.

scholarly journals From the Tombs into the City: Grave Robbing and the Reuse of Funerary Spolia in Late Antique Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Cristina Murer
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

Archaeological evidence demonstrates that funerary spoil (e.g. sarcophagus lids, funerary altars, epitaphs, reliefs, and statues) were frequently reused to decorate the interiors of public and private buildings from the third to the sixth century. Therefore, the marble revetments of high imperial tombs must have been spoliated. Imperial edicts, which tried to stamp part the overly common practice of tomb plundering, confirm that the social practice of tomb plundering must have been far more frequent in late antiquity than in previous periods. This paper discusses the reuse of funerary spoil in privet and public buildings from Latium and Campania and contextualizes them by examining legal sources addressing tomb violation. Furthermore, this study considers the extent to which the social practice of tomb plundering and the reuse of funerary material in late antiquity can be connected with larger urbanist, sociohistorical, and political transformations of Italian cityscapes from the third to the sixth century.

scholarly journals A Christian Emperor between Pagan Gods

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Ketty Iannantuono
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
The Media ◽  
New Form ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Ancient Monuments ◽  
High Degree

Abstract In recent years, images of rage against monuments have filled the media. Unmistakably expressing a high degree of tension in societies, these forms of hostility against heritage have been diversely interpreted, prompting passionate expressions of support as well as fierce criticism. Contesting public memorials, however, is not a new form of socio-political dissent. During Late Antiquity, for example, a new sensibility towards ancient monuments emerged in the vast territories that were once part of the Roman Empire. In this article, the late-antique fate of the so-called ‘temple of Hadrian’ at Ephesus is analysed as a case-study. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the approaches adopted to accommodate traditional monumental landscapes in the changed late-antique socio-political context. This analysis offers a new perspective on ancient and contemporary phenomena of contestations of monuments.

Approaching ‘Religious Identity’ in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Éric Rebillard
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Identity Salience ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

The category of ‘semi-Christians’ has often been criticized, but nevertheless seems to endure in academic discourse. It is used for describing Christians who do not fully embrace Christianity. After a review of the use of this category and its critics, this chapter proposes a shift of paradigm for approaching ‘religious identity’ in late antiquity. Instead of classifying individuals according to one category membership, their ‘religious identity’, I introduce the notion of identity salience and that of arrangement of category membership sets. Finally, I consider what such theoretical considerations can bring to the understanding of individuals described as ‘semi-Christians’ with the case-studies of Ausonius and Macrobius.

Setting the Scene for an Environmental History of Late Antiquity

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Adam Izdebski
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Actual Experience ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
New Framework

Abstract Environmental history is a well-established discipline that until recently focused mainly on the modern era and was dominated by historians. Numerous scholars agree today that this needs to change: a focus on Late Antiquity can help this happen. To make it possible, we should concentrate our efforts on three parallel projects. First, make late antique studies more interdisciplinary, i.e. joining the efforts of historians, archaeologists and natural scientists. Second, look at Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages as a source of case studies that are relevant to the central themes of environmental history. Third, use environmental history as a new framework that has the potential to modify our vision of the 1st millennium AD, by getting us closer to the actual experience of the people who lived this past.

Iconography and Archaeology

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-113
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Marlowe
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Physical Strength ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman Villa ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Art Historians

This chapter critically examines how scholars have interpreted Roman portraits of the third century ce. It focuses on two case studies. The first is a famous portrait of Maximinus Thrax from the Albani collection and now in the Capitoline Museum. Read through the lens of late antique literary sources, the portrait has been seen by art historians as portraying Maximinus’ ferocity, physical strength, and low class, barbarian origins. The second case study is a far less well-known pair of portraits excavated at the Roman villa of Lullingstone, south of London, which became the object of a highly unusual domestic cult in late antiquity. These case studies are used to argue that the heavy reliance on iconography and literary sources required to interpret portraits lacking archaeological context is less reliable and less informative than interpretations derived from a combination of iconography and archaeology.

Ireland in Late Antiquity

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elva Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
The Relationship

It is often assumed that Ireland entered recorded history with the emergence of organized Christianity on the island at some point in the fourth or fifth century C.E. This assumption has meant that the histories of late antique and early medieval Ireland are primarily viewed through the lens of conversion. Religious identities, frequently imagined as a binary opposition of “Christian” and “pagan,” have been a dominant historiographical focus. This essay argues that it is more fruitful to examine the relationship between Ireland and its neighbors from c. 150–c. 550 C.E. through a frontier dynamic, a dynamic in which religious identity was but one factor among many. By recasting the Irish experience in this way, it is possible to take a more comparative approach which cuts against the grain of Irish exceptionalism. Moreover, situating Ireland within the scholarly discourse of late antiquity allows for a new and nuanced understanding of the social and religious changes that characterized this period on the island.

scholarly journals Publication and the Papacy in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samu Niskanen
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The Middle Ages

This Element explores the papacy's engagement in authorial publishing in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The opening discussion demonstrates that throughout the medieval period, papal involvement in the publication of new works was a phenomenon, which surged in the eleventh century. The efforts by four authors to use their papal connexions in the interests of publicity are examined as case studies. The first two are St Jerome and Arator, late antique writers who became highly influential partly due to their declaration that their literary projects enjoyed papal sanction. Appreciation of their publication strategies sets the scene for a comparison with two eleventh-century authors, Fulcoius of Beauvais and St Anselm. This Element argues that papal involvement in publication constituted a powerful promotional technique. It is a hermeneutic that brings insights into both the aspirations and concerns of medieval authors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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