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.

“O, Foolish Galatians”: Imagining Pauline Community in Late Antiquity

2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd S. Berzon
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Object A ◽  
Precise Meaning ◽  
Ethnic Affiliation ◽  
Conscious Choice ◽  
The One

This essay analyzes how late antique commentators on Paul's epistle to the Galatians used the issue of theological disobedience to elaborate the precise meaning of Christian kinship and community in their own times. Paul's anger and frustration at the Galatians, in particular, provided a convenient rhetorical platform for theorizing the nature of and impediments to Christian community in late antiquity. While most Pauline exegetes of the fourth and fifth centuries read the Galatians’ disobedience as a conscious choice born of ignorance, misunderstanding, and weak-mindedness, Jerome located the source of this indiscipline in the Galatians’ ethnic or national disposition. For him, the Galatians were an ethno-theological object—a template upon which he could propose a correlation between Christian error or heresy, on the one hand, and ethnic disposition, on the other. The differences and factions that Paul described in his letters were reimagined in late antiquity as both exemplars of Christian heresy and as heresies of ethnological origin. Ultimately, however, the process of transforming Paul into a heresiologist served only to emphasize the complexity of interpretive maneuvers deployed to define the terms of Christian community vis-à-vis other types of social, political, and ethnic affiliation.

scholarly journals Art and Identity in Late Antique Synagogues of the Roman-Byzantine Diaspora

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 164
Author(s):  
Noa Yuval-Hacham
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Buildings ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Jewish Diaspora ◽  
Diasporic Identity ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
The One

Late antiquity witnessed the increased construction of synagogues in the Jewish diaspora of the Roman-Byzantine world. Although not large in number, these synagogues were impressive and magnificent structures that were certainly conspicuous in the urban landscape, especially when constructed within a central location. This paper focuses on mosaic carpets discovered at these synagogues, to discern their distinguishing features through a comparative perspective. Two focal points are examined: on the one hand, local Roman-Byzantine mosaics in civic and religious buildings, and on the other hand, Jewish mosaics carpets in Palestinian synagogues. This comparison reveals several clear distinctions between the Jewish diasporic mosaic carpets and the other two groups of mosaics, that broaden our understanding of the unique nature of Jewish art in the Roman-Byzantine diaspora in particular, and of Jewish diasporic identity in late antiquity in general.

Persecution and response in late paganism: the evidence of Damascius

1993 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polymnia Athanassiadi
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The One ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
Immediate Reactions ◽  
Complex Subject

The theme of this paper is intolerance: its manifestation in late antiquity towards the pagans of the Eastern Mediterranean, and the immediate reactions and long-term attitudes that it provoked in them. The reasons why, in spite of copious evidence, the persecution of the traditional cults and of their adepts in the Roman empire has never been viewed as such are obvious: on the one hand no pagan church emerged out of the turmoil to canonise its dead and expound a theology of martyrdom, and on the other, whatever their conscious religious beliefs, late antique scholars in their overwhelming majority were formed in societies whose ethical foundations and logic are irreversibly Christian. Admittedly a few facets of this complex subject, such as the closing of the Athenian Academy and the demolition of temples or their conversion into churches, have occasionally been touched upon; but pagan persecution in itself, in all its physical, artistic, social, political, intellectual and psychological dimensions, has not as yet formed the object of scholarly research.

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The One ◽  
Reference Tools ◽  
Reference Tool

Biography is one of the most widespread literary genres worldwide. This book offers the first wide-ranging, multi-authored survey on biography in Antiquity from its earliest representatives to Late Antiquity. It aims to be a broad introduction and a reference tool on the one hand, and to move significantly beyond the state-of-the-art on the other. To this dual end, it addresses conceptual questions about this sprawling genre, provides both in-depth readings of key-texts and diachronic studies, and deals with the reception of ancient biography in subsequent eras up to today. In addition, it approaches the concept of ancient biography more widely than other reference tools on the topic have done: it examines biographical depictions in different textual and visual media and provides outlines of biographical developments in ancient and late antique cultures other than the Graeco-Roman one.

Christus Virgo

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Sissel Undheim
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The description of Christ as a virgin, 'Christus virgo', does occur at rare occasions in Early Christian and late antique texts. Considering that 'virgo' was a term that most commonly described the sexual and moral status of a member of the female sex, such representations of Christ as a virgin may exemplify some of the complex negotiations over gender, salvation, sanctity and Christology that we find in the writings of the Church fathers. The article provides some suggestions as to how we can understand the notion of the virgin Christ within the context of early Christian and late antique theological debates on the one hand, and in light of the growing interest in sacred virginity on the other.

Martyrs and Life-Writing in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 374-385
Author(s):  
Koen De Temmerman ◽  
Danny Praet
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Narrative Representations ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Narrative Frame ◽  
Traditional Scholarship ◽  
The One

This chapter explores martyr accounts. Scholars traditionally divide these texts into two types: narrative representations of the suffering and death of martyrs (the so-called passiones) on the one hand, and dramatic representations of the trial preceding this (the so-called acta or praxeis), on the other. The exact semantic range of both labels is debated, but in any case the distinction does not capture the textual reality in its full complexity: even the predominantly narrative texts often contain an interrogation scene, whereas most so-called acta always have a narrative frame, however minimal it may be. In addition, there is no formal unity across the board. This chapter first addresses some of the intellectual premisses that in traditional scholarship on martyr acts were for a long time conducive of historical questions, much to the detriment of the study of these texts as narratives in their own right. The chapter then observes that many martyr acts recount not only the deaths of their protagonists but also cover (parts of) their preceding lives, and it explores how these texts adopt and adapt narrative and rhetorical protocols from traditional life-writing to shape the lives of their protagonists. Finally, attention is paid briefly to the thematic cluster of erotic love, desire, marriage, and the preservation of chastity that drives many such narrative elaborations. It is concluded that whereas research on these texts has long been driven by historical interests, they are also treasure-troves for scholars interested in narrative in general and life-writing in particular.

Roma and Constantinopolis in Late-Antique Art From 312 to 365

1947 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 135-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. C. Toynbee
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Complex Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
The One ◽  
Independent Existence ◽  
Res Publica

Little more than a decade after Constantine's conversion to Christianity the ancient gods and goddesses of the Graeco-Roman pantheon ceased to appear upon the official coinage and public monuments of the Empire. The personifications—Victoria, Virtus, Pax, Libertas, Securitas, etc., and the ‘geographical’ figures of Res Publica, Roma, Tellus, cities, countries, and tribes—remained. Yet some of these had, up to that very time, received, like the Olympians, their shrines and altars and other honours associated with pagan cultus; and we ask ourselves how it was that a Christian State, while rejecting the one, could retain and ‘baptize’ the other. The answer to this question, which involves the whole complex problem of the nature of pagan religious belief under the later Empire, can only be tentatively suggested here. The pantheon had eventually to go because its denizens had possessed, for the great majority of pagans, a real, objective, and independent existence.

John Chrysostom on Almsgiving and the Use of Money

1994 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Leyerle
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
The One ◽  
Real Wealth

Few themes so dominate the homilies of John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407 CE) as the plight of the poor and the necessity of almsgiving. His picture of the poor, however, is always set against the prosperous marketplace of late antiquity. It seems therefore scarcely surprising that his sermons on almsgiving resound with the language of investment. With such imagery, Chrysostom tried not only to prod wealthy Christians into acts of charity but also, and perhaps more importantly, to dislodge his rich parishioners from their conviction that an uncrossable social gulf separated them from the poor. The rhetorical strategy he used is typical of all his polemical attacks. On the one hand, he denigrated the pursuit of money and social status as fundamentally unattractive; it is both unchristian and unmasculine. On the other hand, he insisted that real wealth and lasting prestige should indeed be pursued, but more effectively through almsgiving. I shall first examine how Chrysostom effected this recalculation of wealth, and then I shall turn to the question of whether there may have been some advantage for him in pleading so eloquently on behalf the poor.

scholarly journals Late Antique Dalmatia and Pannonia in Cassiodorus’ Variae

Millennium ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-274
Author(s):  
Hrvoje Gračanin
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

Abstract As the title suggests, the present paper offers an analysis of selected letters from Cassiodorus’ Variae, which are important for late antique history of Dalmatia and Pannonia. The study is intended to be twofold: on the one part, it examines the information that can be derived from the letters about both provinces’ political, administrative, economic, social and ethnic picture in the time of Ostrogothic rule over the Eastern Adriatic and Middle Danube regions; on the other part, it explores literary and political contexts and underlying ideologies that are present in the selected letters.

Comparative Study of Graphic Representation Methods on Architectural Heritage

2015 ◽  
pp. 182-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Teodoro Garfella ◽  
María Jesús Máñez ◽  
Joaquín Ángel Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
General Public ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The Other ◽  
Graphic Representation ◽  
Digital Photogrammetry ◽  
Architectural Heritage ◽  
Documentation Systems ◽  
The One ◽  
Architectural Survey

Today there are many publications or papers related with several graphic surveys of architectural heritage carried out using a variety of both traditional and cutting edge methods. Yet, the implementation of new graphical documentation systems, such as Automated Digital Photogrammetry, has introduced a fresh approach to dealing with architectural surveys by making them more accessible to the general public and, to a certain extent, increasing their usability (Garfella, Máñez, Cabeza, & Soler, 2014). The present study aims, on the one hand, to offer an overview of architectural survey systems and, on the other hand, to evaluate the differences in the degree of precision or accuracy between the latest state-of-the-art methods and the already well-established ones. This will enable us to examine the results obtained in this experiment to look for concordances and discrepancies between them that can be helpful when using such systems to deal with tasks in the future.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document