The Miracles of St. Artemios

The Miracles of St. Artemios PDF

Author: Virgil S. Crisafulli

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9789004105744

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A translation of and philological-historical commentary on an anonymous hagiographical text, which provides insights into faith healing and the treatment of hernias in 7th-century Constantinople.

Writing and Holiness

Writing and Holiness PDF

Author: Derek Krueger

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-04-03

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0812202538

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Drawing on comparative literature, ritual and performance studies, and the history of asceticism, Derek Krueger explores how early Christian writers came to view writing as salvific, as worship through the production of art. Exploring the emergence of new and distinctly Christian ideas about authorship in late antiquity, Writing and Holiness probes saints' lives and hymns produced in the Greek East to reveal how the ascetic call to imitate Christ's humility rendered artistic and literary creativity problematic. In claiming authority and power, hagiographers appeared to violate the saintly practices that they sought to promote. Christian writers meditated within their texts on these tensions and ultimately developed a new set of answers to the question "What is an author?" Each of the texts examined here used writing as a technique for the representation of holiness. Some are narrative representations of saints that facilitate veneration; others are collections of accounts of miracles, composed to publicize a shrine. Rather than viewing an author's piety as a barrier to historical inquiry, Krueger argues that consideration of writing as a form of piety opens windows onto new modes of practice. He interprets Christian authors as participants in the religious system they described, as devotees, monastics, and faithful emulators of the saints, and he shows how their literary practice integrated authorship into other Christian practices, such as asceticism, devotion, pilgrimage, liturgy, and sacrifice. In considering the distinctly literary contributions to the formation of Christian piety in late antiquity, Writing and Holiness uncovers Christian literary theories with implications for both Eastern and Western medieval literatures.

A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium

A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium PDF

Author: Michal Zytka

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-28

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1351134094

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book discusses social, religious and medical attitudes towards bathing in Late Antiquity. It examines the place of bathing in late Roman and early Byzantine society as seen in the literary, historical, and documentary sources from the late antique period. The author argues that bathing became one of the most important elements in defining what it meant to be a Roman; indeed, the social and cultural value of bathing in the context of late Roman society more than justified the efforts and expense put into preserving bathing establishments and the associated culture. The book contributes a unique perspective to understanding the changes and transformations undergone by the bathing culture of the day, and illustrates the important role played by this culture in contributing to the transitional character of the late antique period. In his examination of the attitudes of medical professionals and laymen alike, and the focus on its recuperative utility, Zytka provides an innovative and detailed approach to bathing.

Miracles : 2 Volumes

Miracles : 2 Volumes PDF

Author: Craig S. Keener

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2011-11-01

Total Pages: 1459

ISBN-13: 1441239995

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Christianity Today 2013 Book Award Winner Winner of The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship's 2012 Award of Excellence 2011 Book of the Year, Christianbook.com's Academic Blog Most modern prejudice against biblical miracle reports depends on David Hume's argument that uniform human experience precluded miracles. Yet current research shows that human experience is far from uniform. In fact, hundreds of millions of people today claim to have experienced miracles. New Testament scholar Craig Keener argues that it is time to rethink Hume's argument in light of the contemporary evidence available to us. This wide-ranging and meticulously researched two-volume study presents the most thorough current defense of the credibility of the miracle reports in the Gospels and Acts. Drawing on claims from a range of global cultures and taking a multidisciplinary approach to the topic, Keener suggests that many miracle accounts throughout history and from contemporary times are best explained as genuine divine acts, lending credence to the biblical miracle reports.

Subtle Bodies

Subtle Bodies PDF

Author: Glenn Peers

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2001-02-14

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0520224051

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Explores the strategies used by Byzantine artists to represent the incorporeal forms of angels and the rationalizations in defence of their representations mustered by theologians in the face of iconoclastic opposition. These problems of representation provide a window on Late Antique thought.

The Corporeal Imagination

The Corporeal Imagination PDF

Author: Patricia Cox Miller

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-02-28

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0812204689

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

With few exceptions, the scholarship on religion in late antiquity has emphasized its tendencies toward transcendence, abstraction, and spirit at the expense of matter. In The Corporeal Imagination, Patricia Cox Miller argues instead that ancient Christianity took a material turn between the fourth and seventh centuries. During this period, Miller contends, there occurred a major shift in the ways in which the human being was oriented in relation to the divine, a shift that reconfigured the relationship between materiality and meaning in a positive direction. The Corporeal Imagination is a groundbreaking investigation into the theological poetics of material substance in late ancient Christian texts. From hagiographies to literary descriptions of sacred paintings to treatises on relics and theurgy, Miller examines a wide variety of ancient texts to reveal how Christian writers increasingly described the matter of the world as invested with divine power. By appealing to the reader's sensory imagination, Christian texts endowed phenomena like relics, saints' bodies in hagiography, and saints' presence in icons with a visual and tactile presence. The book draws on a variety of contemporary theoretical models to elucidate the significance of all these materials in ancient religious life and imagination.

The Eucharist in Theology and Philosophy

The Eucharist in Theology and Philosophy PDF

Author: István Perczel

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9789058674999

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Discusses the conceptual, doctrinal, theological, and philosophical aspects of the developments concerning the Eucharistic doctrines of the Christian Churches, not just the Western ones, but the Byzantino-Slavic and Oriental ones, too.

Promoting the Saints

Promoting the Saints PDF

Author: Ottó Gecser

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 9639776947

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The studies in this volume concentrate on a complex set of socio-cultural phenomena, the cult of saints, in a variety of regions from Egypt to Poland, with a focus on Italy and Central Europe. The subjects of the contributions range in time from the fourth until the eighteenth century. The diversity of approaches adopted by the contributors—from literary analysis and historical anthropology to archaeology and art history—represents that open and multidisciplinary historical research that characterizes the work of Gábor Klaniczay to whom these essays are dedicated.