Chapter Four: Archaic and Classical Ceramics of Eleon

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-133
Author(s):  
Trevor Van Damme ◽  
Susan Lupack
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Ceramic Materials ◽  
Long Gap ◽  
First Time

After a long gap in the ceramic record following the twelfth century bc, ceramic materials dating from the eighth through the fourth century bc are documented in our excavations. This contribution presents for the first time the key deposits of Archaic and Classical material identified on the acropolis of Eleon from 2011 to 2014, including the evidence for the dating of the polygonal wall, the only monumental construction of this period identified so far at the site. Attention is also drawn to the large quantities of votive materials recovered from the ramped entryway and other areas of the site, which appear to attest to one or more cults operating on the acropolis during the sixth through the fourth century bc, if not earlier.

The Date of the Muratorian Fragment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-172
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
First Time ◽  
Objective Methodology

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
First Time

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. This book offers for the first time a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy. It shows how it took its distinctive shape in the late fourth century and gives an account of its subsequent development until the time of John of Damascus. The book falls into three main parts. The first of them starts from an analysis of the philosophical project underlying the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. This philosophy, arguably the first distinctively Christian theory of being, soon becomes near-universally shared in Eastern Christianity. A few decades after the Cappadocians, all sides in the early Christological controversy take its fundamental tenets for granted. Its application to the Christological problem thus appeared inevitable. Yet it created substantial conceptual problems. Parts II and III of the book describe in detail how these problems led to a series of increasingly radical modifications of the Cappadocian philosophy. The chapters of Part II are dedicated to the miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, while Part III discusses the defenders of the Council from the early sixth to the eighth centuries. Through this overview, the book reveals this period as one of remarkable philosophical creativity, fecundity, and innovation.

The abolition of the liturgical chorēgia and the creation of the agōnothesia in Athens: new considerations on a debated issue

2020 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 34-68
Author(s):  
Delphine Ackermann ◽  
Clément Sarrazanas
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
Ancient Source ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Government ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Look

Abstract:No ancient source indicates when the agōnothesia, attested for the first time in 307/6 BC, was introduced in Athens. Scholars have long attributed its creation, along with the abolition of the liturgical chorēgia, to the government of Demetrius of Phalerum (317–307 BC), motivated by oligarchic ideology and a desire to preserve the wealth of rich citizens. This traditional thesis has recently been challenged, with some scholars attributing the creation of the agōnothesia to the restored democratic government of 307 BC and others to the government of Phocion (322–318 BC). A new look at epigraphical and literary documents hitherto neglected or imperfectly understood (especially from the Attic demes) allows the authors to establish that the liturgical chorēgia disappeared at the beginning of the government of Demetrius of Phalerum, around 316 BC. The institution of the agōnothesia had a precedent (hitherto overlooked) in Lycurgan Athens with the new festival of the Amphiaraia of 331 BC. Both measures were in fact consensual and must not be interpreted as strictly oligarchic in inspiration. The creation of the agōnothesia was above all a pragmatic response on Athens’ part to the major changes that occurred in the agonistic world in the late fourth century.

Amphilochius of Iconium and Lycaonian Asceticism

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 185-205
Author(s):  
Peter Thonemann
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Ascetic Communities ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
First Time

AbstractNon-orthodox Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity is known to us largely through the distorting lens of orthodox heresiology. This paper aims to reassess the character of the ascetic communities of rural Lycaonia in the fourth century a.d. in the light of the surviving funerary and ecclesiastical epigraphy, including three inscriptions published here for the first time. We are fortunate to be able to read these texts in the light of a neglected work of orthodox polemic, Amphilochius’ Against False Asceticism, the work of an embattled orthodox bishop at Iconium in the late 370s a.d. This treatise formed part of a successful campaign to stigmatize the Lycaonian ascetics as heretics, a position which was enshrined in Theodosius’ anti-heretical legislation of a.d. 381–3.

Notes on Pelagonius

1990 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. N. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Time

The text of the fourth-century veterinary writer Pelagonius, recently edited for the first time this century and greatly improved by K.-D. Fischer, poses many problems for an editor. The Latinity of Pelagonius himself in the epistles which precede various chapters is awkward and difficult to understand. Much of the rest of the work is a compilation, not all of it Pelagonius' own work, based on a variety of sources from the magical to the scientific. The work survives largely in a single manuscript, codex Riccardianus 1179, a. 1485 (R). In this paper I pass over intractable questions of spelling and concentrate on more substantial problems of text and interpretation, some of which concern punctuation.

Abbas qui et scriptor?The Handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1154–1186)

Traditio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 45-86
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pohl
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Manuscript Production ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
First Time ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This article investigates a specific twelfth-century hand that occurs in a group of manuscripts connected to the Norman abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel and identifies it as the hand of Robert of Torigni, the famous Anglo-Norman historian who became abbot of that monastery in 1154. The manuscripts used as evidence all contain corrections and interlinear glosses in what I contend constitutes Robert's own hand, and have neither been studied comparatively nor had their relationships scrutinized. Indeed, scholarship to date has actually argued for different examples of handwriting altogether as belonging to Robert and has not inquired as to whether the glosses and annotations contained within the codices discussed here could be indicative of Robert's scribal activity in the scriptorium of Mont-Saint-Michel during the period of his abbacy (1154–86). This article, therefore, seeks to challenge the prevailing notions concerning Robert's characteristic handwriting, both in terms of its supposed shape and character, and with regard to the manuscripts in which it is thought to survive. This fundamental reassessment of previous scholarship will be achieved by combining, for the first time, a comprehensive paleographical analysis of the manuscripts with a discussion of their broader historical and institutional contexts. Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly, in identifying Robert's hand and the contexts in which it survives, this article aims to enhance our knowledge concerning the person behind the script. It will present new and important insights into Robert's activities as head of his monastic community, as well as into his methods as a monastic historian who, as will be shown, was intimately involved in the processes of manuscript production at Mont-Saint-Michel during the second half of the twelfth century. Ultimately, this article argues that Robert, despite being the author and intellectual architect of complex and influential historical works, had in fact very little training as a book scribe, which is evidenced by his handwriting.

Flight from Governmental Repression or Popular Violence

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Robert Chazan
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Population Movement ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Jewish Migration ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time

Beginning in the twelfth century, edicts of expulsion set in motion for the first time since early antiquity forced Jewish population movement. There have arguably been two further sources of pre-modern involuntary Jewish migration—repressive governmental edicts that made Jewish life spiritually or materially impossible and popular violence so threatening as to necessitate flight. Neither of these pressures is clear-cut in its impact, as were the edicts of expulsion from European states. This chapter considers the impact of both these pressures on Jewish population movement. It describes instances of abrogation of basic Jewish religious rights, expressed as governmental demands that Jews convert to the ruling faith.

The Vikings in England: a review

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 181-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Fellows Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Life Time ◽  
Present Review ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Domesday Book ◽  
First Time

In the preface to F. M. Stenton's collected papers Lady Stenton notes that the publication ofAnglo-Saxon Englandin 1943 marked the culmination of a life-time spent largely preparing for and writing a book in which ‘place-names, coins and charters, wills and pleas, archaeology and the laws of the Anglo-Saxons were all for the first time adequately used to produce a balanced narrative, supported by Domesday Book and the twelfth-century charters which made it easier to understand the earlier material’. Indeed, with the exception of archaeology, Sir Frank had been actively engaged in all these fields of research, as is revealed by the list of his published works, and it seemed unlikely at the time that it would ever be necessary to make major adjustments to the view of the Scandinavian settlements that he presented. Only twelve years had passed, however, when voices of dissent began to arise and the first of three papers that were to herald two decades of controversy about the Vikings in England was published. The present review examines the most significant contributions to the ensuing debate and considers whether it has, in fact, been necessary to depart substantially from the views held by Stenton.

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