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- Late Antiquity, John Chrysostom, Early Christian Preaching, Late Antique social history, Antioch and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, Ps-chrysostomica, and 29 moreArchitectural History, 3D Reconstruction, Ancient History, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Late Antique Archaeology, Classics, Greek Epigraphy, Second Temple Judaism, Early Christian Art, Early Christianity, Byzantine Studies, Funerary Archaeology, Patristics, Roman Religion, Roman Empire, Late Antique and Byzantine History, Roman Archaeology, New Religious Movements, Religious Conflict, Cognitive Science of Religion, Ancient Antioch, Greek Patristics, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Medicine, Roman and Late Antique Philosophy, Hellenistic Philosophy, Patristics and Late Antiquity, Preaching, Late Roman Empire, and Severian of Gabalaedit
Note that this version is prepublication. The chapter has been edited, with some additions to footnotes, plus contains images in the published version.
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In the twenty-first century, across universities, theological schools, and countries, patristics is under pressure. The increasing secularism of western countries, the pressures of business- and vocationally-driven educational models, a... more
In the twenty-first century, across universities, theological schools, and countries, patristics is under pressure. The increasing secularism of western countries, the pressures of business- and vocationally-driven educational models, a deep suspicion of institutionalised religion in the wake of nation-wide sex-abuse scandals, and fundamentalist movements – to name but a few social and political factors – are all having their impact. In this paper I argue that these same factors are in fact an opportunity for re-energising and re-investment in the field. A case can be made to governments, society and university or college administrators that patristics is relevant and has something vital to contribute. Examples are drawn from personal experiences since taking up the position of Associate Dean for Research in a small embattled theological college where many of these challenges are encountered in microcosm. My scholarly formation in patristics research, I have found, speaks to those challenges in surprisingly fruitful ways. If Elizabeth Clark famously argued in the 1990s for more church history, less theology in the field, what I will propose are some further avenues which postmodernity challenges us to take up. That vision embraces and lifts up a future for patristics in not just Europe, the United Kingdom and North America, but also Asia and the global South.
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Focusing on the language of pollution and disgust that permeates the emperor Julian’s writings on the topic of the worship by Christians of corpses, this article appeals to Moral Foundations Theory and other recent research in cognition.... more
Focusing on the language of pollution and disgust that permeates the emperor Julian’s writings on the topic of the worship by Christians of corpses, this article appeals to Moral Foundations Theory and other recent research in cognition. Understanding the agency of language in activating subconscious moral judgements, it is argued, is helpful for explaining how, despite his policy of religious tolerance, Julian’s discourse escalated anti-Christian sentiment, on the one hand, and hostility on the part of Christians, on the other. The after-effects at Antioch are traced through the presbyter John Chrysostom’s discourses against the Jews and in praise of his anti-Julian model, the apostle Paul.
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This final chapter takes the insights of the preceding chapters and develops them further. On the basis of the cumulative evidence that persecution discourse is pervasive in Late Antiquity and that it has certain common elements that are... more
This final chapter takes the insights of the preceding chapters and develops them further. On the basis of the cumulative evidence that persecution discourse is pervasive in Late Antiquity and that it has certain common elements that are persistent regardless of culture or historical context, the chapter seeks to investigate why this is the case. The exploration proceeds in three parts. Firstly, two studies are discussed that bracket the period that is the subject of this book – one from early Islamic Egypt, one from fourth-century North Africa. Discussion here focuses on how the insights these studies produce intersect with those raised in the case studies. Secondly, a number of theories from social and cognitive psychology – in particular, from the domain of moral psychology – are introduced that help to explain why certain language and themes keep recurring across different cultures and regions in Late Antiquity. This section covers the topics of ideological narratives, sacred values and devoted actors, social-functional moral intuitions and moral “commonsense”, feedback loops, and addiction to difference. What is argued is that the features common to persecution rhetoric are common precisely because of how the rhetoric of persecution taps into and activates parts of the human brain that transcend culture, even though the specific narrative framing might be culturally encoded. Thirdly, what this has to say about when and why persecution rhetoric emerges within a social group, with particular reference to the intended as well as actual effect of that rhetoric on its audience, is considered. In conclusion, consideration is given to the question of the relationship between rhetoric and reality.
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Building on recent research in how preachers in Late Antiquity embraced Graeco-Roman medical knowledge in their understanding of anthropology and studies that apply to an understanding of ritual contemporary research on the senses and... more
Building on recent research in how preachers in Late Antiquity embraced Graeco-Roman medical knowledge in their understanding of anthropology and studies that apply to an understanding of ritual contemporary research on the senses and cognition, the article begins with an outline of how John Chrysostom viewed the mind-soul-body. It next explores the physicality of the rituals involved in Christian initiation in Antioch, touching on the potential insights offered by sensescape theory and research on enclothed cognition. The article then explores the physical implications for mystagogy of medical theory. Finally, it locates mystagogy within the larger programme of psychagogy and the health of the embodied soul. Within the article mystagogy is defined narrowly as the final stage of induction into the Christian mysteries.
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One of the few points on which the multitude of debates that have occurred across the disciplines in recent years agree is that, whether addressing the late ancient past or the global present, the phenomenon we label religious violence is... more
One of the few points on which the multitude of debates that have occurred across the disciplines in recent years agree is that, whether addressing the late ancient past or the global present, the phenomenon we label religious violence is far from simple. The paper outlines some of the current debates and trends with regard to the world of Late Antiquity and introduces a variety of challenges posed by them. A key question these pose is not just whether there is a causal relationship between religion and violence, but whether in trying to unpack religious violence as a perceived phenomenon we are asking the wrong question about, among other things, the relationship between narratives of violence (which in Late Antiquity were prolific) and actual violent action.
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As I am in the process of arguing elsewhere, the application of moral cognition research to preaching offers the potential to map what a homilist intended against a homily's probable impact; intuit different positions within the one party... more
As I am in the process of arguing elsewhere, the application of moral cognition research to preaching offers the potential to map what a homilist intended against a homily's probable impact; intuit different positions within the one party as well as on opposing sides; chart developing estrangement between two formerly aligned parties/individuals; and better explain ecclesiastical disputes where doctrine itself was not in question. That is, as a mode of analysis, it can be applied to patristic homilies both authentic and inauthentic across the full spectrum of an ecclesiastical divide. In this article we engage in a preliminary analysis of the homiletic exchange (De recipiendo Severiano, De pace) delivered by John Chrysostom and Severian of Gabala that was ostensibly intended to effect reconciliation. Although considerably more work is needed, the results are suggestive that, rather than improving the situation, how each homilist conveyed his message may well have contributed further to the emerging Johannite-anti-Johannite divide.
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When secularization is posited as a threat to religion – whatever that religion may be – what is being expressed, whether the threat is real or not, is fear of the loss of the sacred. How fundamentalism and appeals to tradition are... more
When secularization is posited as a threat to religion – whatever that religion may be – what is being expressed, whether the threat is real or not, is fear of the loss of the sacred. How fundamentalism and appeals to tradition are triggered by that fear and become part of the human response is the subject of this article. What matters, it suggests, is that the idea itself of secularization, however defined or understood, generates an emotional response strongly associated with fear and that that fear is rooted in the concept of the sacred. In order to make this case, first, we clarify the methodological presuppositions that underpin our argument. Second, we discuss the work of the Harvard School of moral psychologists, particularly in the area of moral intuition, and its applicability to the phenomenon that informs the topic of this volume. Third, we discuss one specific moral intuition – sacrilege/sanctity/degradation – and its agency in a number of problematic social entailments, introducing a couple of indicative examples. Finally, we pull together the research we have introduced and discuss why appeal to tradition and the emergence of fundamentalism is a natural, perhaps inevitable, human response to the perceived threat of loss of the sacred.
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This article seeks to provide a framework for the four articles that follow. While the employment of medical metaphors by the writers of Late Antiquity has long been recognized, for medical historians the domains to which the metaphors... more
This article seeks to provide a framework for the four articles that follow. While the employment of medical metaphors by the writers of Late Antiquity has long been recognized, for medical historians the domains to which the metaphors are applied have remained largely in the background. Attention has tended to focus on the metaphors themselves and on the degree to which they reflect actual historical medical thought and practice. More recently attention is focusing on the cultural, conceptual, and moral purpose of medical metaphors and how their employment might in itself be therapeutic. In this article three recent shifts in the way the role of medical metaphor is viewed are discussed. This includes attention to its cognitive implications for the hearer.
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Introductory chapter to preaching in the Patristic era in Latin
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The preaching in Syrian Antioch by John Chrysostom of a series of sermons against the Jews has frequently been viewed both as some of the most extreme anti-Jewish Christian discourse and as a watershed moment in the emergence from... more
The preaching in Syrian Antioch by John Chrysostom of a series of sermons against the Jews has frequently been viewed both as some of the most extreme anti-Jewish Christian discourse and as a watershed moment in the emergence from anti-Judaism of antisemitism. In the wake of the horror of the Holocaust, the problem of reconciling these disquieting sermons with John’s status as one of the most admired Christian preachers of all time has led scholars to respond in a variety of ways. The bulk of these explanations have sought to explain the author’s intent or the context that gave rise to this particular set of sermons. Little attention has been paid to quantifying the sermons’ original impact. This is despite the fact that the sermons’ negative impact in later centuries—that they contributed to antisemitic sentiment—has long been assumed. In light of current events in Syria in which some of the same language of “infidels” and “dogs” is being employed not by Christians against “Jews,” but by radical Muslims against western “secular” governments and their constituents, in this chapter we seek to revisit these sermons within the larger context of religious conflict and the radicalising impact of language upon the listener. In particular, using explanatory models from moral psychology, conceptual metaphor theory and the neurosciences we conclude that the intent of the author, the original context or social reality, and even the reasoned argument, matter less than we would like to think. Of insidious influence are the pre-conscious conceptual frameworks and intuitions that the words employed activate and neurally strengthen in the brain of the listener. This finding supports the pessimistic claim of John Gager that, if “the Judaizers are the targets of [John’s] wrath,” it is “the Jews [who are] its victims.”
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This chapter argues for the utility of the recent work of moral psychologists for understanding current political decision-making and broad societal trends in Australian society.
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This article addresses the problem of pseudonymously attributed homilies, arguing for a new nomenclature and taxonomy. It further suggests that using cognitive approaches to such homilies may help to validate their utility as historical... more
This article addresses the problem of pseudonymously attributed homilies, arguing for a new nomenclature and taxonomy. It further suggests that using cognitive approaches to such homilies may help to validate their utility as historical documents, even when the precise author and/or date cannot be know.
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The article reflects on changes in our approach to the study of liturgy in the first eight centuries CE. This is pre-publication version. Please cite from published version when it appears, for correct pagination.
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This is a pre-publication version of the chapter. The research it offers pre-dates the articles I published in 2015 on medico-philosophical psychic therapy, Chrysostom on the sick soul, and the transformation of medical writings as a genre.
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Late Antiquity is a period during which hospitality towards the stranger began to diversify in a number of interesting – and, at times, novel – ways. By the end of the fourth century hospices and hospitals began to develop in the east,... more
Late Antiquity is a period during which hospitality towards the stranger began to diversify in a number of interesting – and, at times, novel – ways. By the end of the fourth century hospices and hospitals began to develop in the east, the practice of receiving the translated relics of martyrs emerged, and the rise of asceticism and the formation of monastic communities began to lead in some instances to the care by them of the poor, sick, displaced, and elderly. Exiled bishops were forcibly relocated to remote areas in Egypt, Armenia, and on the coast of the Black Sea, where local communities welcomed them or not, depending on the circumstances. At the turn of the fourth century the growing maturation of Constantinople as the capital of the eastern empire saw the influx of numerous individuals from other provinces – bishops, monks, lay people – who came (and often stayed for months, if not years) seeking imperial and senatorial favour. By the mid fifth century the vandal invasions had led to the need to handle the relocation and care of refugees, some of whom made their way into eastern provinces. In this same century the rise of spectacular pillar saints in Syria saw the increased growth of another phenomenon – hagiotourism – which drew Christian pilgrims in large numbers from the far flung corners of the empire. This paper seeks to draw out the full diversity of what it meant to welcome the stranger in the late antique east with specific attention to the imperial capital, Constantinople, and to the province of Syria.
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Drawing on recent scholarship on mental health in the ancient world, it is argued that the previously puzzling final treatise that John Chrysostom sent to his supporters from exile is a therapeutic medico-philosophical treatise for the... more
Drawing on recent scholarship on mental health in the ancient world, it is argued that the previously puzzling final treatise that John Chrysostom sent to his supporters from exile is a therapeutic medico-philosophical treatise for the sick soul that draws on a well-established tradition within Hellenistic and imperial medicine and philosophy. Viewed in this light, it is a natural accompaniment to two other works written by him at this time, the treatise Quod nemo laeditur and the final letter to Olympias. It is argued that all three works emerge from a holistic approach to the health of the human soul that is in continuity with Galen and his predecessors, an approach embraced by John early in his ministry.
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This article argues for a retheorization of contemporary approaches to religious conflict on the basis of recent neuroscientific research. A consequence of that retheorization, it is argued, will be an approach to the role of religion in... more
This article argues for a retheorization of contemporary approaches to religious conflict on the basis of recent neuroscientific research. A consequence of that retheorization, it is argued, will be an approach to the role of religion in society that takes religion and religious conflict in pre-Enlightenment society into account. Of particular value to this endeavour is a re-exploration of both traditional societies in which religion is ‘embedded’ and the ancient and late-ancient world in which the first ‘rise of intolerance’ is perceived to have taken place. In order to facilitate this process, a number of steps for achieving a retheorization are laid out. The article then engages in taking the first part of the first step, a critique of dominant and current approaches to the topic in early Christianity and late antiquity. This is sufficient to demonstrate that what is characterized as ‘the cognitive turn’ disrupts current approaches to religious conflict, while simultaneously pointing towards a number of neglected paths for research.
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The focus of this chapter is on the reception history (Nachleben) of John Chrysostom. This is a pre-publication version. There are some small changes in the published version.
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This chapter assesses the corpus of letters attributed to John Chrysostom as an epistolographic corpus. By considering what was included and what was not, it speculates that the corpus was assembled in the household of a Johannite... more
This chapter assesses the corpus of letters attributed to John Chrysostom as an epistolographic corpus. By considering what was included and what was not, it speculates that the corpus was assembled in the household of a Johannite supporter in Antioch.
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Note: This article was an early assessment of the sources concerning the Empress Eudoxia, which is now in a number of respects outdated, especially with regard to the reliability of the Vita Porphyrii and the sermon from exile that offers... more
Note: This article was an early assessment of the sources concerning the Empress Eudoxia, which is now in a number of respects outdated, especially with regard to the reliability of the Vita Porphyrii and the sermon from exile that offers a favourable picture of Eudoxia's philanthropy.
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This article provides an overview of approaches to men and women in Christian society, culture and thought from the first to eighth centuries. It includes a select bibliography of scholarship on the topic. It's intended readership is... more
This article provides an overview of approaches to men and women in Christian society, culture and thought from the first to eighth centuries. It includes a select bibliography of scholarship on the topic. It's intended readership is scholars and students working in the fields of New Testament and Early Christian Studies and/or Patristics.
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This article reconsiders the attitude towards and relationship with women of John Chrysostom. Following an overview of scholarship on this question, it proposes that examining his correspondence with women from Antioch (in comparison with... more
This article reconsiders the attitude towards and relationship with women of John Chrysostom. Following an overview of scholarship on this question, it proposes that examining his correspondence with women from Antioch (in comparison with that with women from Constantinople) offers a corrective to the more negative points of view.
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The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c. 300-700 CE). Through a series of detailed case studies covering the full chronological and geographical span of the period, this book... more
The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c. 300-700 CE). Through a series of detailed case studies covering the full chronological and geographical span of the period, this book investigates how the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity changed the way that Christians and para-Christians perceived the hostile treatments they received, either by fellow Christians or by people of other religions. A closely related second goal of this volume is to encourage scholars to think more precisely about the terminological difficulties related to the study of persecution. Indeed, despite sustained interest in the subject, few scholars have sought to distinguish between such closely related concepts as punishment, coercion, physical violence, and persecution. Often, these terms are used interchangeably. Although there are no easy answers, an emphatic conclusion of the studies assembled in this volume is that "persecution" was a malleable rhetorical label in late antique discourse, whose meaning shifted depending on the viewpoint of the authors who used it. This leads to our third objective: to analyze the role and function played by rhetoric and polemic in late antique claims to be persecuted. Late antique Christian writers who cast their present as a repetition of past persecutions often aimed to attack the legitimacy of the dominant Christian faction through a process of othering. This discourse also expressed a polarizing worldview in order to strengthen the group identity of the writers' community in the midst of ideological conflicts and to encourage steadfastness against the temptation to collaborate with the other side.
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The essays collected in Christians Shaping Identity celebrate Pauline Allen’s significant contribution to early Christian, late antique, and Byzantine studies, especially concerning bishops, heresy/orthodoxy and christology. Covering the... more
The essays collected in Christians Shaping Identity celebrate Pauline Allen’s significant contribution to early Christian, late antique, and Byzantine studies, especially concerning bishops, heresy/orthodoxy and christology. Covering the period from earliest Christianity to middle Byzantium, the first eighteen essays explore the varied ways in which Christians constructed their own identity and that of the society around them. A final four essays explore the same theme within Roman Catholicism and oriental Christianity in the late 19th to 21st centuries, with particular attention to the subtle relationships between the shaping of the early Christian past and the moulding of Christian identity today. Among the many leading scholars represented are Averil Cameron and Elizabeth A. Clark
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The studies collected in this volume address the role of men and/or women in theology, in history, in narrative, in liturgy – in short, in a range of aspects of Christianity as it emerged and rose into prominence as a religion. In some... more
The studies collected in this volume address the role of men and/or women in theology, in history, in narrative, in liturgy – in short, in a range of aspects of Christianity as it emerged and rose into prominence as a religion. In some cases they trace ideas that, often without our awareness of their origin or history, continue to hold sway within various Christian communities today. In others, they show that there were a number of alternative views, traditions, and possible trajectories in the first Christian centuries and that there were a complexity of reasons why one or another disappeared, persisted, or came to dominate. In their attention to the Jewish and Graeco-Roman social and cultural context from which these ideas and practices emerged, the essays present a twenty-first-century view of the early Christian centuries, one that the topic of men and women, by its nature, brings into focus.
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In The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300-638 CE) Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen for the first time draw together all of the existing evidence concerning the Christian worship sites of this influential late-antique city, with significantly... more
In The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300-638 CE) Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen for the first time draw together all of the existing evidence concerning the Christian worship sites of this influential late-antique city, with significantly new results in a number of cases. In addition to providing a catalogue of the worship sites, in which each entry critiques and summarizes the available data, supplemented by photographs from the excavations, the authors analyze the data from a number of perspectives. These include the political, economic and natural forces that influenced the construction, alteration and reconstruction of churches and martyria, and the political, liturgical and social use and function of these buildings. Among the results is an emerging awareness of the extent of the lacunae and biases in the sources, and of the influence of these on interpretation of the city's churches in the past. What also rises to the fore is the significant role played by the schisms within the Christian community that dominated the city's landscape for much of these centuries.
The Greek text published by Montfaucon was accidentally omitted in the reprint of Montfaucon's edition by J.-P. Migne in the Patrologia Graeca, vol. 52. The following is a personal transcription of the Montfaucon text, with thanks to the... more
The Greek text published by Montfaucon was accidentally omitted in the reprint of Montfaucon's edition by J.-P. Migne in the Patrologia Graeca, vol. 52. The following is a personal transcription of the Montfaucon text, with thanks to the Rare Books Collection, Dumbarton Oaks.
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The purpose of this file is to alert users to new additions to the bibliography since the bibliography was last published. Note that existing entries in the full bibliography are corrected periodically. Those corrections are not listed... more
The purpose of this file is to alert users to new additions to the bibliography since the bibliography was last published. Note that existing entries in the full bibliography are corrected periodically. Those corrections are not listed here.
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The attached file is the latest version of the bibliography in PDF. Note that the online version published on the web site of the former Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, has not been updated since... more
The attached file is the latest version of the bibliography in PDF.
Note that the online version published on the web site of the former Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, has not been updated since 2016. Covid and increased workload in 2020 has restricted the time available to read widely and update the Bibliography more thoroughly. The additions in the last 12 months most likely only partially reflect everything that has been published.
Note that the online version published on the web site of the former Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, has not been updated since 2016. Covid and increased workload in 2020 has restricted the time available to read widely and update the Bibliography more thoroughly. The additions in the last 12 months most likely only partially reflect everything that has been published.