Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity

Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity
Author: Claudia Rapp
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2013-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520931416
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Between 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop—as the highest Church official in his city—from model Christian to model citizen. Claudia Rapp's exceptionally learned, innovative, and groundbreaking work traces this transition with a twofold aim: to deemphasize the reign of the emperor Constantine, which has traditionally been regarded as a watershed in the development of the Church as an institution, and to bring to the fore the continued importance of the religious underpinnings of the bishop's role as civic leader. Rapp rejects Max Weber’s categories of "charismatic" versus "institutional" authority that have traditionally been used to distinguish the nature of episcopal authority from that of the ascetic and holy man. Instead she proposes a model of spiritual authority, ascetic authority and pragmatic authority, in which a bishop’s visible asceticism is taken as evidence of his spiritual powers and at the same time provides the justification for his public role. In clear and graceful prose, Rapp provides a wholly fresh analysis of the changing dynamics of social mobility as played out in episcopal appointments.

The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity

The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity
Author: Andrew Fear
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2013-02-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472504178
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Late Antiquity witnessed a major transformation in the authority and power of the Episcopate within the Church, with the result that bishops came to embody the essence of Christianity and increasingly overshadow the leading Christian laity. The rise of Episcopal power came in a period in which drastic political changes produced long and significant conflicts both within and outside the Church. This book examines these problems in depth, looking at bishops' varied roles in both causing and resolving these disputes, including those internal to the church, those which began within the church but had major effects on wider society, and those of a secular nature.

Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity

Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity
Author: Carmen Angela Cvetković
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2019-02-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110552515
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Recent studies on the development of early Christianity emphasize the fragmentation of the late ancient world while paying less attention to a distinctive feature of the Christianity of this time which is its inter-connectivity. Both local and trans-regional networks of interaction contributed to the expansion of Christianity in this age of fragmentation. This volume investigates a specific aspect of this inter-connectivity in the area of the Mediterranean by focusing on the formation and operation of episcopal networks. The rise of the bishop as a major figure of authority resulted in an increase in long-distance communication among church elites coming from different geographical areas and belonging to distinct ecclesiastical and theological traditions. Locally, the bishops in their roles as teachers, defenders of faith, patrons etc. were expected to interact with individuals of diverse social background who formed their congregations and with secular authorities. Consequently, this volume explores the nature and quality of various types of episcopal relationships in Late Antiquity attempting to understand how they were established, cultivated and put to use across cultural, linguistic, social and geographical boundaries.

Bishops in Flight

Bishops in Flight
Author: Jennifer Barry
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520300378
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At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Flight during times of persecution has a long and fraught history in early Christianity. In the third century, bishops who fled were considered cowards or, worse yet, heretics. On the face, flight meant denial of Christ and thus betrayal of faith and community. But by the fourth century, the terms of persecution changed as Christianity became the favored cult of the Roman Empire. Prominent Christians who fled and survived became founders and influencers of Christianity over time. Bishops in Flight examines the various ways these episcopal leaders both appealed to and altered the discourse of Christian flight to defend their status as purveyors of Christian truth, even when their exiles appeared to condemn them. Their stories illuminate how profoundly Christian authors deployed theological discourse and the rhetoric of heresy to respond to the phenomenal political instability of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Episcopal Elections in Late Antiquity

Episcopal Elections in Late Antiquity
Author: Johan Leemans
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 621
Release: 2011-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110268604
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The present volume contributes to a reassessment of the phenomenon of episcopal elections from the broadest possible perspective, examining the varied combination of factors, personalities, rules and habits that played a role in the process that eventually resulted in one specific candidate becoming the new bishop, and not another. The importance of episcopal elections hardly needs stating: With the bishop emerging as one of the key figures of late antique society, his election was a defining moment for the local community, and an occasion when local, ecclesiastical, and secular tensions were played out. Building on the state of the art regarding late antique bishops and episcopal election, this volume of collected studies by leading scholars offers fresh perspectives by focussing on specific case-studies and opening up new approaches. Covering much of the Later Roman Empire between 250–600 AD, the contributions will be of interest to scholars interested in Late Antique Christianity across disciplines as diverse as patristics, ancient history, canon law and oriental studies.

Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church

Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church
Author: Andrea Sterk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0674044010
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Although an ascetic ideal of leadership had both classical and biblical roots, it found particularly fertile soil in the monastic fervor of the fourth through sixth centuries. Church officials were increasingly recruited from monastic communities, and the monk-bishop became the dominant model of ecclesiastical leadership in the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium. In an interesting paradox, Andrea Sterk explains that "from the world-rejecting monasteries and desert hermitages of the east came many of the most powerful leaders in the church and civil society as a whole." Sterk explores the social, political, intellectual, and theological grounding for this development. Focusing on four foundational figures--Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom--she traces the emergence of a new ideal of ecclesiastical leadership: the merging of ascetic and episcopal authority embodied in the monk-bishop. She also studies church histories, legislation, and popular ascetic and hagiographical literature to show how the ideal spread and why it eventually triumphed. The image of a monastic bishop became the convention in the Christian east. Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church brings new understanding of asceticism, leadership, and the church in late antiquity. Table of Contents: Introduction I. Basil of Caesarea and the Emergence of an Ideal 1. Monks and Bishops in the Christian East from 325 to 375 2. Asceticism and Leadership in the Thought of Basil of Caesarea 3. Reframing and Reforming the Episcopate: Basil's Direct Influence II The Development of an Ideal 4. Gregory of Nyssa: On Basil, Moses, and Episcopal Office 5. Gregory of Nazianzus: Ascetic Life and Episcopal Office in Tension 6. John Chrysostom: The Model Monk-Bishop in Spite of Himself III The Triumph of an Ideal 7. From Nuisances to Episcopal Ideals: Civil and Ecclesiastical Legislation 8. Normalizing the Model: The Fifth-Century Church Histories 9. The Broadening Appeal: Monastic and Hagiographical Literature Epilogue: The Legacy of the Monk-Bishop in the Byzantine World Abbreviations Notes Frequently Cited Works Index

The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity

The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity
Author: Andrew Fear
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013-02-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472504186
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Late Antiquity witnessed a major transformation in the authority and power of the Episcopate within the Church, with the result that bishops came to embody the essence of Christianity and increasingly overshadow the leading Christian laity. The rise of Episcopal power came in a period in which drastic political changes produced long and significant conflicts both within and outside the Church. This book examines these problems in depth, looking at bishops' varied roles in both causing and resolving these disputes, including those internal to the church, those which began within the church but had major effects on wider society, and those of a secular nature.

Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective

Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective
Author: Richard Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107328667
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This innovative study illuminates the role of polemical literature in the political life of the Roman empire by examining the earliest surviving invectives directed against a living emperor. Written by three bishops (Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari), these texts attacked Constantius II (337–61) for his vicious and tyrannical behaviour, as well as his heretical religious beliefs. This book explores the strategies employed by these authors to present themselves as fearless champions of liberty and guardians of faith, as they sought to bolster their authority at a time when they were out of step with the prevailing imperial view of Christian orthodoxy. Furthermore, by analysing this unique collection of writings alongside late antique panegyrics and ceremonial, it also rehabilitates anti-imperial polemic as a serious political activity and explores the ways in which it functioned within the complex web of presentations and perceptions that underpinned late Roman power relationships.

Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church

Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church
Author: Bronwen Neil
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020-04-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813232775
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Recent decades have seen great progress made in scholarship towards understanding the major civic role played by bishops of the eastern and western churches of Late Antiquity. Brownen Neil and Pauline Allen explore and evaluate one aspect of this civic role, the negotiation of religious conflict. Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church focuses on the period 500 to 700 CE, one of the least documented periods in the history of the church, but also one of the most formative, whose conflicts resonate still in contemporary Christian communities, especially in the Middle East. To uncover the hidden history of this period and its theological controversies, Neil and Allen have tapped a little known written source, the letters that were exchanged by bishops, emperors and other civic leaders of the sixth and seventh centuries. This was an era of crisis for the Byzantine empire, at war first with Persia, and then with the Arab forces united under the new faith of Islam. Official letters were used by the churches of Rome and Constantinople to pursue and defend their claims to universal and local authority, a constant source of conflict. As well as the east-west struggle, Christological disagreements with the Syrian church demanded increasing attention from the episcopal and imperial rulers in Constantinople, even as Rome set itself adrift and looked to the West for new allies. From this troubled period, 1500 letters survive in Greek, Latin, and Syriac. With translations of a number of these, many rendered into English for the first time, Conflict and Negotiation in the Early Church examines the ways in which diplomatic relations between churches were developed, and in some cases hindered or even permanently ruptured, through letter-exchange at the end of Late Antiquity.