Enslavement to fate," "cosmic pessimism" and other explorations of the Late Roman psyche
A brief history of a historiographical trend
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3943282 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicola Denzey (York University, Toronto, ON,, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 277-299 |
| Publication date | 2004-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-4298 • E-ISSN: 2042-0587 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/000842980403300301 |
| OpenAlex | W2033647416 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 13 |
This article investigates the intellectual connections within a community of international scholars active in the first half of this century. Franz Cumont, André-Jean Festugière, E. R. Dodds and Arthur Darby Nock all shared a conceptual and methodological approach to the religious "attitudes" of the Late Roman period. These scholars maintained that "cosmic pessimism" or a sense of having been "enslaved" by the inexorable influence of fate resulted in a religious environment that gave rise to various soteriologically oriented religious movements, of which Christianity served as the culmination. This article reviews the assessments and methods of this cadre of scholars, noting the influence of "enslavement to fate" and "cosmic pessimism" as tropes in later scholarship, and briefly offers an alternate way to understand religion and religions in Roman antiquity
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Christianity · Culmination · Epistemology · Historiography · History of religions · Period (music · Pessimism · Political science · Psyche · Scholarship · Sociology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classics · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
Roman Life Expectancy
The varieties of religious experience
The social and economic history of the Roman empire.
Conversion
Christianizing the Roman Empire
Egypt in Late Antiquity
Five Stages of Greek Religion
The Egyptian hermes. A historical approach to the late pagan mind
Vettii Valentis Antiocheni Anthologiarum libri novem
The Greeks and the Irrational
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,07 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2012 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |