T.111 Shenoute's Literary Corpus. Volume One. -- t.112 Shenoute's Literary Corpus. Volume Two.

Armenian mediaeval historians, who have concentrated primarily on political high points, have tended to dismiss the more than four centuries dividing the two royal epochs of the Arsacids (ending, A.D. 428) and the Bagratids (inaugurated with the coronation of Ashot I, A.D. 884), as a 'Dark Age'. The intention of the present study, on the contrary, is to attempt the examination of a portion of the 'Interregnum' (600-750) as a period of religious synthesis and social renewal, as well as of intellectual and particularly artistic effervescence. In such an interpretation, the 'Interregnum', despite the unfavourable nature of its exterior and interior political setting, becomes the hypothetical locus during which, the identity of Armenia seems to have been forged, as that of a nation existing outside the framework of a political state. Consequently, the purpose of the present investigation is to eschew a political approach, which has proved at best episodic and fragmentary, in order to seek, in a period devoid of a centralized state, a different explanation for the continuous survival of 'Armenia', in spite of the numerous vicissitudes of its tumultuous history.

The volume offers the acts of a meeting held at the University of Turin on the foundations of power and the conflicts of authority as documented by the monastic sources of East and West in Late Antiquity, with special reference to Max Weber's analysis of these notions. The issue is here examined from a variety of perspectives: the different meanings of power and authority in ancient monastic sources; the criteria by which authority is established within the monastic organizations; the kind of power and authority exercised towards outsiders; the relationship between monks and other authorities, especially the Church; the monks and their economic activity; the strategies for the solution of conflicts. The wide range of historical and cultural problems raised by these questions is what the present volume tries to illuminate through individual studies of a number of specific phenomena, events, and figures (from Shenute to John Cassian, from Abraham of Kashkar to Maxim the Confessor), paying particular attention to monasticism in Egypt, Palestine, Africa, and Persia.

"Hugo Lundhaug and Lance Jenott offer a sustained argument for the monastic provenance of the Nag Hammadi Codices. They examine the arguments for and against a monastic Sitz im Leben and defend the view that the Codices were produced and read by Christian monks, most likely Pachomians, in the fourth- and fifth-century monasteries of Upper Egypt. Eschewing the modern classification of the Nag Hammadi texts as “Gnostic,” the authors approach the codices and their ancient owners from the perspective of the diverse monastic culture of late antique Egypt and situate them in the context of the ongoing controversies over extra-canonical literature and the theological legacy of Origen. Through a combination of sources, including idealized hagiographies, travelogues, monastic rules and exhortations, and the more quotidian details revealed in documentary papyri, manuscript collections, and archaeology, monasticism in the Thebaid is brought to life, and the Nag Hammadi codices situated within it. The cartonnage papyri from the leather covers of the codices, which bear witness to the monastic culture of the region, are closely examined, while scribal and codicological features of the codices are analyzed and compared with contemporary manuscripts from Egypt. Special attention is given to the codices’ scribal notes and colophons which offer direct evidence of their producers and users. The study ultimately reveals the Nag Hammadi Codices as a collection of books completely at home in the monastic manuscript culture of late antique Egypt."--

The past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of scholarship on dress in the ancient world. These recent studies have established the extent to which Greece and Rome were vestimentary cultures, and they have demonstrated the critical role dress played in communicating individuals’ identities, status, and authority. Despite this emerging interest in ancient dress, little work has been done to understand religious aspects and uses of dress. This volume aims to fill this gap by examining a diverse range of religious sources, including literature, art, performance, coinage, economic markets, and memories. Employing theoretical frames from a range of disciplines, contributors to the volume demonstrate how dress developed as a topos within Judean and Christian rhetoric, symbolism, and performance from the first century BCE to the fifth century CE. Specifically, they demonstrate how religious meanings were entangled with other social logics, revealing the many layers of meaning attached to ancient dress, as well as the extent to which dress was implicated in numerous domains of ancient religious life.

Shenoute of Atripe: stern abbot, loquacious preacher, patron of the poor and scourge of pagans in fifth-century Egypt. This book studies his numerous Coptic writings and finds them to be the most important literary source for the study of society, economy and religion in late antique Egypt. The issues and concerns Shenoute grappled with on a daily basis, Ariel Lopez argues, were not local problems, unique to one small corner of the ancient world. Rather, they are crucial to interpreting late antiquity as a historical period—rural patronage, religious intolerance, the Christian care of the poor and the local impact of the late Roman state. His little known writings provide us not only with a rare opportunity to see the life of a holy man as he himself saw it, but also with a privileged window into his world. Lopez brings Shenoute to prominence as witness of and participant in the major transformations of his time.

Exploring the key documents, authors and themes of Early Christian traditions, this volume traces the vital trajectories of emerging distinctive Christian identity in the Graeco-Roman world. Special attention is given to the coherent growth of Christian faith in connection with worship, alongside the crucial transformation of Christian life and doctrine under the Christian Emperors. As well as offering a chronological development of the Early Church, the book examines the interaction between Christian worship and faith. In addition, readers interested in systematic theology can refer to chapters on the roots of some significant theological notions in Christian Antiquity, also with reference to ancient philosophy. Issues addressed include: · Distinctiveness of the Christian identity during the first centuries · Diversity of communities and their theologies · Connection between faith and worship · Transition from the persecuted minority to triumphant Church with Creeds · History of early Christian thought and modern systematic theology

In this book, Dana Robinson examines the role that food played in the Christianization of daily life in the fourth century CE. Early Christians used the food culture of the Hellenized Mediterranean world to create and debate compelling models of Christian virtue, and to project Christian ideology onto common domestic practices. Combining theoretical approaches from cognitive linguistics and space/place theory, Robinson shows how metaphors for piety, such as health, fruit, and sacrifice, relied on food-related domains of common knowledge (medicine, agriculture, votive ritual), which in turn generated sophisticated and accessible models of lay discipline and moral formation. She also demonstrates that Christian places and landscapes of piety were socially constructed through meals and food production networks that extended far beyond the Eucharist. Food culture, thus, provided a network of metaphorical concepts and spatial practices that allowed the lay faithful to participate in important debates over Christian living and community formation.