Servants of god?: Servi in the letters of Gregory the great

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Lisa Kaaren Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Leadership ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Religious Ideal ◽  
Medieval Christianity ◽  
The Church

When Gregory the Great styled himself 'servant of the servants of God' in his correspondence, he was drawing on a long tradition of using service as a metaphor to describe appropriate religious leadership and piety. However, his letters also reveal a church filled with servi, whose service to religion was neither metaphorical nor chosen, and upon whom both religious institutions and individuals were utterly dependent. This article explores the conjunction and disjunction between the rhetoric of service as a religious ideal in Gregory's correspondence, and the reality of service, which his letters indirectly reveal. It argues that the rhetoric and reality of service both shaped each other and that service thereby became a determinative model of behaviour in late antique and early medieval Christianity. Gregory's letters are therefore a useful case-study through which to explore an important issue in the development of the church as a sociallyembedded institution.

What Is Hidden in the Small Box? Narratives of Late Antique Roman Palestine in Dialogue

AJS Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94
Author(s):  
Reuven Kiperwasser
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Narrative Tradition ◽  
Judaic Studies ◽  
Roman Palestine ◽  
The Church ◽  
Shared Narrative

This study is a comparative reading of two distinct narrative traditions with remarkably similar features of plot and content. The first tradition is from the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah, datable to the fifth to sixth centuries. The second is from John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale), which is very close to Kohelet Rabbah in time and place. Although quite similar, the two narratives differ in certain respects. Pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg had been interested in the question of the relationships between early Christian authors and the rabbis; however, the relationships between John Moschos and Palestinian rabbinic writings have never been systematically treated (aside from one enlightening study by Hillel Newman). Here, in this case study, I ask comparative questions: Did Kohelet Rabbah borrow the tradition from Christian lore; or was the church author impressed by the teachings of Kohelet Rabbah? Alternatively, perhaps, might both have learned the shared story from a common continuum of local narrative tradition? Beyond these questions about literary dependence, I seek to understand the shared narrative in its cultural context.

How Civic is Russia's New Civil Religion and How Religious is the Church?

2017 ◽  
pp. 125-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Teper
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Religious Elements ◽  
The Church

This chapter demonstrates how and why a shift in the balance between civic and religious elements of a civil religion can take place, using Russia as an illuminating case study. Post-Soviet Russia is used to demonstrate how religion can be utilized to reinforce national identity and the legitimacy of the political system in the face of their civic weaknesses. The chapter demonstrates how, eventually, the civic-democratic political model officially designated during Yeltsin's presidency gradually changed to a more religiously grounded one, albeit a model that is not fully recognized, during Putin's rule. Moreover, the Russian case allows us to differentiate between two possible levels of civil religion: an official and openly communicated secularism, and an established church religion, promoted by the establishment in more subtle but not necessarily less aggressive ways. It further shows that just as the state has to adopt religious features in order to be deified, religious institutions have themselves to become more secular to be suitable for adoption as the state's civil religion.

William Tyndale's Use of History as a Weapon of Religious Controversy

1962 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Pineas
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Religious Controversy ◽  
Medieval Chronicles ◽  
Medieval Christianity ◽  
The Church

In their struggle against the Church of Rome, a number of sixteenth century English reformers became students of ecclesiastical and secular history. To support their contention that the Roman Church had deviated from New Testament principles, these reformers studied the available records concerning the dogma and ritual of primitive and early medieval Christianity. To prove their charge that for eight hundred years the Church of Rome had usurped the temporal power of European and English rulers, they turned to the medieval chronicles.

The Life of Penance

2020 ◽  
pp. 1049-1070
Author(s):  
Kevin Uhalde
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Medieval Christianity ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

This chapter explores the relationship between memory, narrative, and penance in Merovingian literature. Penitential memory was a key component of the philosophical understanding of repentance that persisted throughout late-antique and early medieval Christianity. Remembering the emotions associated with past errors was critically important to the penitential process, as a brief survey of the literature from the second through the sixth centuries demonstrates. This tradition provides a context for identifying and understanding the function of penitential memory in Merovingian texts. By way of example, this chapter interprets particular moments from Gregory of Tours’s Histories, Passion of Praeiectus, Life of Columbanus, and Life of Eligius. At the same time, there were social, ecclesiastical, and even political consequences to memorializing repentance and the failures that made repenting necessary. While attention to the philosophical understanding of penance enriches our understanding of saints’ lives and other sources, therefore, the literary act of commemoration also affected the representation of penance.

scholarly journals The sword of god: Plague and episcopal authority in the Late Antique West

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Amanda Kenney
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
Venerable Bede ◽  
Understanding Of Illness ◽  
Episcopal Authority

This thesis examines three major historical figures of Early Medieval Europe to discover the attitudes and responses to the plague: Pope Gregory the Great, Gregory of Tours, and the Venerable Bede. Gregory the Great provides the standard for episcopal reaction to plague with his own example and with the advice given to two bishops whose districts suffered outbreaks of plague. I then examine Gregory of Tours' 'History of the Franks' and the Venerable Bede's 'Ecclesiastical History of the English People' to discover their understanding of illness in general, plague in particular, and the types of responses praised and condemned in their accounts.

How Civic Is Russia's New Civil Religion and How Religious Is the Church?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1284-1307
Author(s):  
Yuri Teper
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Religious Elements ◽  
The Church

This chapter demonstrates how and why a shift in the balance between civic and religious elements of a civil religion can take place, using Russia as an illuminating case study. Post-Soviet Russia is used to demonstrate how religion can be utilized to reinforce national identity and the legitimacy of the political system in the face of their civic weaknesses. The chapter demonstrates how, eventually, the civic-democratic political model officially designated during Yeltsin's presidency gradually changed to a more religiously grounded one, albeit a model that is not fully recognized, during Putin's rule. Moreover, the Russian case allows us to differentiate between two possible levels of civil religion: an official and openly communicated secularism, and an established church religion, promoted by the establishment in more subtle but not necessarily less aggressive ways. It further shows that just as the state has to adopt religious features in order to be deified, religious institutions have themselves to become more secular to be suitable for adoption as the state's civil religion.

The Contribution of Regional Survey to the Late Antiquity Debate: Greece in its Mediterranean Context

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. BINTLIFF
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
State Control ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Regional Survey ◽  
Central Greece ◽  
Strong State ◽  
The Mediterranean

The fall of the Roman Empire remains a mystery. Archaeological and historical concerns today are less metaphysical and more intellectually challenging at the level of reconstructing the processes at work before, during and long after the official sack of Rome, and are as much focused on the succeeding transition to the medieval world as on the build-up to imperial decay and collapse. This chapter presents a grassroots case-study examination of the transformation of society in town and country in central Greece, founded on a regional survey project that has been running for 25 years. From the arrival of Roman control, through Late Antiquity and into the resurgence of strong state control emanating out of Byzantium in the eighth-nineth centuries AD, this chapter tries to set the patterns, provisional interpretations and questions which have arisen from the sequence in this region into wider debates around the Mediterranean concerning the contribution of regional archaeological surveys to the late antique-early medieval transition.

Reuse of Roman Artefacts in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval West

2020 ◽  
pp. 425-446
Author(s):  
Ellen Swift
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Ferrous Metal ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Silver Plate ◽  
Metal Artefacts ◽  
Wide Range

In Late Antiquity, reuse and recycling has mainly been considered in relation to spolia and to precious metal artefacts such as silver plate and coins. Yet there is much evidence for reuse behaviour across a wide range of artefact types in more everyday materials. Some of this is connected to ordinary habits of reuse and recycling found throughout the Roman and late antique periods, although it is in part also a response to prevailing economic and social conditions. Since these may vary from one place to another or across different social groups, interpretations must take account of the particular contexts within which objects were used. This chapter addresses reuse behaviour from the late antique and early medieval periods in the West, with a case study drawn from the author’s detailed studies of particular non-ferrous metal objects from Britain, including objects newly produced in the fifth century.

scholarly journals The reception of Chalcedon in the West: a case study of Gregory the Great

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-317
Author(s):  
Janet Sidaway
Keyword(s):  
The West ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Ecumenical Council ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way ◽  
Literary Legacy

AbstractGregory illustrates the complex reception of Chalcedon in the West in the way he dealt with the Istrian Schism caused by the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553. At issue was whether Chalcedon's decisions in their entirety or its doctrinal statements alone were inviolable. Gregory strongly urged the latter, influenced by initial papal support for the Fifth Council, his conviction that only those within the church would be saved and pastoral anxiety about the imminence of the eschaton. However, his literary legacy also demonstrates his commitment to the soteriological significance of the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures of Christ.

scholarly journals THE CITY SPEAKS: CITIES, CITIZENS, AND CIVIC DISCOURSE IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Traditio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
MEGAN WELTON
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Civic Discourse ◽  
Ultimate Fate ◽  
The City

This article investigates how civic discourse connects the virtue of citizens and the fortunes of cities in a variety of late antique and early medieval sources in the post-Roman west. It reveals how cities assume human qualities through the rhetorical technique of personification and, crucially, the ways in which individuals and communities likewise are described with civic terminology. It also analyzes the ways in which the city and the civic community are made to speak to one another at times of crisis and celebration. By examining a diverse range of sources including epideictic poetry, chronicles, hagiographies, and epigraphic inscriptions, this article addresses multiple modes of late antique and early medieval thought that utilize civic discourse. It first explores how late antique and early medieval authors employed civic discourse in non-urban contexts, including how they conceptualized the interior construction of an individual's mind and soul as a fortified citadel, how they praised ecclesiastical and secular leaders as city structures, and how they extended civic terminology to the preeminently non-urban space of the monastery. The article then examines how personified cities spoke to their citizens and how citizens could join their cities in song through urban procession. Civic encomia and invective further illustrate how medieval authors sought to unify the virtuous conduct of citizens with the ultimate fate of the city's security. The article concludes with a historical and epigraphic case study of two programs of mural construction in ninth-century Rome. Ultimately, this article argues that the repeated and emphatic exhortations to civic virtue provide access to how late antique and early medieval authors sought to intertwine the fate of the city with the conduct of her citizens, in order to persuade their audiences to act in accordance with the precepts of virtue.

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