JournalTOCs

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
Journal Prestige (SJR): 6.851

Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 71

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 0007-2303 - ISSN (Online) 1533-4465
Published by Brookings Institution

[1 journal]

The Subject Vanishes: Jews, Heretics, and Martyrs after the Linguistic
Turn
- Abstract: memoriae Elizabeth A. Clark sacrumMy title of course nods to Elizabeth Clark’s classic and paradigm-changing 1998 essay, “The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist Historian after the ‘Linguistic Turn.’”1 It also looks to her succinct reprise of that great essay’s theme in an article from 2008, in a volume on the spread of Christianity in the first four centuries c.e. That piece was entitled “Thinking with Women: The Uses of the Appeal to Women in pre-Nicene Christian Propaganda Literature.”2 Liz’s expertise with theory far exceeds my own: do not expect to hear in this essay any meditations on post-structuralism, on deconstruction, or on Foucault and the other usual suspects. I will speak, rather, to simpler ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Third Heaven: Reading the Secret
Book of James (NHC I,2) with a Parodic Imagination
- Abstract: Two apostles walk into the third heaven, and the Majesty of heaven says to them: nothing, because the rest of the apostles interrupted.Admittedly, this anecdote may not be ha-ha funny to the modern reader. It’s no “Two apostles walk into a bar . . . ” or “‘Knock-knock.’ ‘Who’s th-'’ ‘Interrupting apostles.’” Nevertheless, one might recognize a certain lightly comic incongruity at play. Acquainted with other heavenly journeys, an audience might expect the pair of pilgrims to gain some spiritual enlightenment or eschatological insight, or at least to receive matching souvenir thorns in their flesh to remind them of the trip. They would not expect this ascensus interruptus.It is, therefore, surprising when the ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Shaping Christianity in Calagurris: Prudentius’s renouatio of
Ambrose in Peristephanon 1
- Abstract: Peristephanon 1 is the earliest extant record of the two martyrs (Emeterius and Chelidonius) buried in the provincial town of Calagurris, and it is likely that even in Prudentius’s own time his was the only written record available.1 The poet asserts his dependence on oral tradition and recounts the destruction of the imperial records during the persecution; scholars overwhelmingly conclude that the only source for Peri. 1 was contemporary oral tradition.2 Not only is the content of Peri. 1 unique, but so is its form: there is no record of the prior use of this poem’s meter, the trochaic tetrameter catalectic, for martyr verse. Thus, there has hitherto been no means of assessing Prudentius’s own emphases and ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
“Mother Church” as a “Dove” in 5 Ezra, Cyprian,
and the Tabarka Mosaics
- Abstract: 5 Ezra is a short, early Christian pseudepigraphon that probably dates to the latter half of the third century.1 It has been preserved in the primary Latin (Vulgate) manuscript traditions as chapters 1–2 of the apocryphal Jewish apocalyse 4 Ezra (or 2 Esdras), but it is clearly a separate work, attached to 4 Ezra by virtue of their alleged common attribution. The book is essentially a supersessionist tractate: it describes in narrative terms God’s rejection of the former people, Israel, and God’s choice of a new people, the Christians, to take Israel’s place. Evidence suggests that it was composed in Latin, the only ancient language in which it is preserved. The most likely provenance is North Africa.25 Ezra 2.1–32 ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Fraught with Tension: The Question of the Unity of the Corpus Dionysiacum
- Abstract: The Corpus Dionysiacum first appeared in the early sixth century and consists of four treatises entitled On Divine Names, On Mystical Theology, On Celestial Hierarchy, On Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, as well as ten letters. The author of the Corpus Dionysiacum suggests that he is Dionysius of the Areopagus, the convert and disciple of the apostle Paul mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles 17.34. Some doubts had been expressed about the identity of the author in the Middle Ages and early modern period, but only at the end of the nineteenth century did two scholars present proof of his dependence on Proclus.1 All attempts to identify the author have been futile; it is clear that he knew Proclus well and probably ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Augustine’s Theology of the Resurrection by Augustine M. Reisenauer
(review)
- Abstract: Augustine never dedicated a treatise to resurrection, but Augustine M. Reisenauer argues that this absence reveals “the ubiquitous centrality of the resurrection in Augustine’s theology” (2). One way to pursue such a far-reaching thesis would be to define “resurrection” so broadly that it appears everywhere. A key feature of this book, however, is its attention to how the specific referents of “resurrection” in Augustine are both diverse and interrelated, finding their center in the resurrection of Christ. Most basically, to resurrect is to return from death to life (De Trinitate 8.5.8). This simple definition raises three framing questions: What can die' What does it mean to “return”' What is true ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power: Constantine, Julian, and the
Bishops on Exegesis and Empire by Lea Niccolai (review)
- Abstract: Knowledge is power—or there were times, at least, when it was. One such time is the setting for Lea Niccolai’s magisterial monograph, which illuminates the close, consistent connections between intellectual capital, imperial legitimacy, and religious validity that unite the history of political discourse and propaganda in the fourth-century Roman Empire. Niccolai’s core idea is that late Roman emperors, namely Constantine, Constantius II, and Julian buttressed their political authority among imperial elites by projecting (and having projected onto them by associated intellectuals) an image of philosophical mastery—especially in their capacity to interpret not only classical and sacred texts, but also history and ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Interacting with Saints in the Late Antique and Medieval Worlds ed. by
Robert Wiśniewski, Raymond Van Dam, and Bryan Ward-Perkins (review)
- Abstract: Interacting with Saints in the Late Antique and Medieval Worlds includes a selection of papers from a 2018 conference at the University of Warsaw, a final act of the ERC Advanced Grant The Cult of the Saints: a Christendom-wide study of its origins, spread and development (340540). Specialists will be most familiar with this collaborative grant project through its resulting database, The Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity (http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/), an expansive, easily searchable collection of Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Georgian, and Armenian evidence for the cult of saints. This volume exemplifies the profits reaped from the grant team’s accomplishments. The essays demonstrate the database’s success in ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Providence and Narrative in the Theology of John Chrysostom by Robert G.
T. Edwards (review)
- Abstract: This study is a revision of a PhD dissertation completed at the University of Notre Dame and supervised by Blake Leyerle. It is the first monograph-length treatment of the theme of providence (πρόνοια) in the thought of John Chrysostom (ca. 350–407 c.e.). Edwards focuses his analysis on the Consolation to Stagirius (CPG 4310), Homilies on the Statues (CPG 4330), and On the Providence of God (CPG 4401). While these works have different audiences, belong to different genres, and were written at different points spanning most of Chrysostom’s career, they “share a common mode of consolation: they rely on proofs of divine providence as revealed in biblical history” (11). Scholars have recognized providence as an ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and
Material Transformations by Mark Letteney (review)
- Abstract: In the opening pages of The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, Mark Letteney explains his project with an appeal to two distinct if related metaphors. In the first, he describes his book as an intellectual history of late antiquity centered around a time when “a novel form of argumentation escaped from the lab” (4). In the wake of Nicaea, Christians, he maintains, forged modes of argumentation within their scholarly enclaves that were nothing short of revolutionary: “Nicene Christians, ascending positions of power, changed the way that an entire scholastic culture approached the creation, verification, and dissemination of facts” (5). This cultural apparatus was, in his second image (borrowed from ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
The Festal Letters of Athanasius of Alexandria, with the Festal Index and
the Historia Acephala trans. by David Brakke and David M. Gwynn (review)
- Abstract: This book is a marvelous addition to the Translated Texts for Historians series. The centerpiece of this volume is the first full English translation of Athanasius’s extant Festal Letters, last translated nearly 175 years ago. The volume also contains fresh English translations of the Festal Index and the Historia Acephala, the first, respectively, in nearly 175 years and in more than 125 years. Brakke is responsible for the translations and Gwynn for the introductions and commentaries. The result is a superb set of translations that are immensely readable and accompanied by extensive and meticulous notes and commentary that enable the reader to interpret and understand the texts in their varied aspects: the ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
The Metaphysics of Light in the Hexaemeral Literature: From Philo of
Alexandria to Gregory of Nyssa by Isidoros C. Katsos (review)
- Abstract: There has long been sustained interest in the study of ancient thought regarding the relationship between light and vision, not to mention the significance of light imagery used more generally across ancient texts. Isidoros Katsos examines the formative Jewish-Christian metaphysics of light as a contemplative exercise within the hexaemeral tradition instantiated in the writings of Philo, Origen of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nyssa. Katsos frames his study as a major intervention within a field of literature that has failed to grasp what light was understood to be in itself. The project of this book is to work towards a broader, more ordered metaphysics of light by first taking a major step back to ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Controversial Scholar, a Scandalous Gospel of
Jesus, and the Fierce Debate over its Authenticity by Geoffrey S. Smith
and Brent C. Landau (review)
- Abstract: In their book, Smith and Landau (hereafter GS and BL) argue that the Letter to Theodore (hereafter the Letter) putatively discovered by Morton Smith at the monastery of Mar Saba in 1958 was not Smith’s forgery but was “created by a monk in late antiquity embroiled in an ecclesiastical controversy” (185). According to the authors, this ancient monk forged the Letter to create a precedent for the custom of “brother-making” (179, 183) (or “same-sex monastic partnerships,” 181). It is important to note their language: “It is therefore possible to understand the Secret Gospel—and the Letter to Theodore as a whole—as a document composed by a monk of the fifth, sixth, or seventh century” (181, emphasis mine). This ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Those for Whom the Lamp Shines: The Making of Egyptian Ethnic Identity in
Late Antiquity by Vince L. Bantu (review)
- Abstract: The question of when to date the emergence of a distinct Christian Egyptian identity, and how to characterize that identity (as national, ethnic, confessional, provincial, etc.), is an important, if not always central, one for scholars of late antique and early Islamic Egypt. While the prevailing consensus at this point is that no such identity existed until some point after the end of Roman hegemony in Egypt, Vince Bantu’s monograph is the first to make a sustained argument against this prevailing consensus. Through a close examination of Egyptian and non-Egyptian Christian texts between the fourth and eighth centuries, Bantu argues that a distinct Egyptian “ethnic consciousness” emerged two centuries before ‘Amr ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00
Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity by
Julia Kelto Lillis (review)
- Abstract: Julia Kelto Lillis’s Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity focuses on the many ways that female virginity was conceived, assessed, and (later) perceived by early Christian authors. The book provides an analysis of virginity discourse. While other projects on the subject have used similar methods, Lillis presents a clearly written and nuanced argument about the variations of virginity that existed, both with and without the female body in view. By “mapping” the territory of early Christian virginity discourse, Lillis importantly underscores “the complex interests at stake” (18) in these texts.After the acknowledgments, the book opens with “Notes to the Reader,” a short yet informative ... Read More
  PubDate: 2024-06-14T00:00:00-05:00

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