Серия "Christianity in Late Antiquity"

Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia on Cyprus from 367 to 403 C.E., was incredibly influential in the last decades of the fourth century. Whereas his major surviving text (the <I>Panarion</I>, an encyclopedia of heresies) is studied for lost sources, Epiphanius himself is often dismissed as an anti-intellectual eccentric, a marginal figure of late antiquity. In this book, Andrew Jacobs moves Epiphanius from the margin back toward the center and proposes we view major cultural themes of...

Melania the Elder and her granddaughter Melania the Younger were major figures in early Christian history, using their wealth, status, and forceful personalities to shape the development of nearly every aspect of the religion we now know as Christianity. This volume examines their influence on late antique &#160;Christianity and provides an insightful portrait of their legacies in the modern world. Departing from the traditionally patriarchal view, <I>Melania</I> gives a poignant...

Ephrem the Syrian was one of the founding voices in Syriac literature. While he wrote in a variety of genres, the bulk of his work took the form of <I>madrashe</I>, a Syriac genre of musical poetry or hymns. In <I>Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia,</I> Jeffrey Wickes offers a thoroughly contextualized study of Ephrem&rsquo;s magnum opus, the <I>Hymns on Faith</I>, delivered in response to the theological controversies that followed the First...

A seminal figure in late antique Christianity and Christian orthodoxy, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus published a collection of more than 240 letters. Whereas these letters have often been cast aside as readers turn to his theological orations or autobiographical poetry for insight into his life, thought, and times, <I>Self-Portrait in Three Colors</I> focuses squarely on them, building a provocative case that the finalized collection constitutes not an epistolary archive but an...

Although the reception of the Eastern Father Gregory of Nyssa has varied over the centuries, the past few decades have witnessed a profound awakening of interest in his thought.&#160;<I>The Body and Desire</I>&#160;sets out to retrieve the full range of Gregory&rsquo;s&#160;thinking on the challenges of the ascetic life by examining within the context of his theological commitments his evolving attitudes on what we now call gender, sex, and sexuality. Exploring...

Late antiquity was a perilous time for children, who were often the first victims of economic crisis, war, and disease. They had a one in three chance of dying before their first birthday, with as many as half dying before age ten. Christian writers accordingly sought to speak to the experience of bereavement and to provide cultural scripts for parents who had lost a child. These late ancient writers turned to characters like Eve and Sarah, Job and Jephthah as models for grieving and for...