Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power

Constantine, Julian, and the Bishops on Exegesis and Empire

Dados Bibliográficos

ID19909971
AutoresLea Niccolai (University of Cambridge, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Data de publicação2023-06-01
Open AccessSim
TipoBOOK
PeriódicoChristianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781009299312
OpenAlexW4383316441
Open LibraryOL49303658M
ISBN9781009299312
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5

This book rethinks the Christianisation of the late Roman empire as a crisis of knowledge, pointing to competitive cultural re-assessment as a major driving force in the making of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian state. Emperor Julian's writings are re-assessed as key to accessing the rise and consolidation of a Christian politics of interpretation that relied on exegesis as a self-legitimising device to secure control over Roman history via claims to Christianity's control of paideia. This reconstruction infuses Julian's reaction with contextual significance. His literary and political project emerges as a response to contemporary reconfigurations of Christian hermeneutics as controlling the meaning of Rome's culture and history. At the same time, understanding Julian as a participant in a larger debate re-qualifies all fourth-century political and episcopal discourse as a long knock-on effect reacting to the imperial mobilisation of Christian debates over the link between power and culture

Ancient history · Art · Christianity · Emperor · Empire · Exegesis · Hermeneutics · Interpretation (philosophy) · Literature · Paideia · Political science · Politics · Roman Empire · State (computer science) · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies