In this Book
- Pagans and Christians in the Late Roman Empire: New Evidence, New Approaches (4th–8th centuries)
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Central European University Press
- Series: CEU Medievalia
summary
Do the terms 'pagan' and 'Christian,' 'transition from paganism to Christianity' still hold as explanatory devices to apply to the political, religious and cultural transformation experienced Empire-wise? Revisiting 'pagans' and 'Christians' in Late Antiquity has been a fertile site of scholarship in recent years: the paradigm shift in the interpretation of the relations between 'pagans' and 'Christians' replaced the old 'conflict model' with a subtler, complex approach and triggered the upsurge of new explanatory models such as multiculturalism, cohabitation, cooperation, identity, or group cohesion. This collection of essays, inscribes itself into the revisionist discussion of pagan-Christian relations over a broad territory and time-span, the Roman Empire from the fourth to the eighth century. A set of papers argues that if 'paganism' had never been fully extirpated or denied by the multiethnic educated elite that managed the Roman Empire, 'Christianity' came to be presented by the same elite as providing a way for a wider group of people to combine true philosophy and right religion. The speed with which this happened is just as remarkable as the long persistence of paganism after the sea-change of the fourth century that made Christianity the official religion of the State. For a long time afterwards, 'pagans' and 'Christians' lived 'in between' polytheistic and monotheist traditions and disputed Classical and non-Classical legacies.
Table of Contents
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- List of Illustrations
- pp. vii-x
- Introduction
- pp. 1-8
- Lives
- Empress Verina among the Pagans
- pp. 43-58
- John Lydus, Pagan and Christian
- pp. 59-68
- Identities
- Cults
- Landscapes
- Tombs
- List of Contributors
- pp. 357-362
- Index of Personal Names
- pp. 363-368
- Index of Geographical Names
- pp. 369-372
Additional Information
ISBN
9789633862568
Related ISBN(s)
9789633862551
MARC Record
OCLC
1019979655
Pages
382
Launched on MUSE
2018-01-21
Language
English
Open Access
No