Peter
Brown,
Through the Eye of a Needle:
Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in
the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2012)
Kim Bowes,
Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious
Change inn Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008)
Eusebius, The History of the Church,
tr. G.A. Williamson and A. Louth (Penguin, rev. ed.,
1990)
Recommended
for purchase if you can find inexpensive copies, but not
required:
Peter Brown, The
World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 (Norton,
1989)
[Highly recommended for
purchase if you do not already have a copy.]
Peter Brown, The
Rise of Western Christendom. Triumph and Diversity, 200-1000
AD. 2nd edition,
(Blackwell, 2003)
[Despite the title,
Brown deals quite a bit with eastern Christendom as well.
Again, this is a book you should certainly purchase!]
Ramsey MacMullen,
Christianizing the Roman
Empire, AD 100-400 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986) [available as an e-book at Smathers]
A.D. Nock,
Conversion. The Old and the New in Religion from
Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Baltimore and
London, 1933; 1998)
Martin Goodman,
Mission
and Conversion. Proselytism in the Religious History of
the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Ian Wood, The Missionary Life.
Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe 400-1050 (Longman, 2001)
[Not normally available
in the U.S.;
at the moment, however, there are a number of good used
inexpensive copies available on Amazon. Get it if you
can!]
Many essays, articles, and book chapters, books, and
dissertations will be available on reserve or electronic
reserve (ER) at the library or through Sakai.
SCHEDULE
[in process - readings tentative]
1/8 - Intro. to the Course
(Week 1)
Introductions & Course Overview
Gibbon, Harnack, Nock
Recommended Reading:
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, Vol. 1, chap. 15
Nock, Conversion, Chapters
1 and 5-14 [chapter 1 is posted here]
Karl F. Morrison, chapter 1: "Posing the
Question: Perspectives from a Historian's Desk," Understanding Conversion (Charlottesville:
Univeristy of Virginia Press, 1992), 1-26 [sakai]. To get a
quick take on Morrison's whole book, here is a review.
For those interested, I have also put up on sakai
Thomas Head's review of Morrison's two related
books on conversion.
Start Brown, Eye of a Needle [long book; full
discussion on 2/12]
1/15 - Explaining
Early Christian Expansion(c.100-c.300)
(Week 2)
A few arguments, approaches, & assessments:
MacMullen,
Christianizing the Roman
Empire, 1-42
Harris volume, 1-41, & 53-68 (Drake, Rives, & Kyrtatas
articles)
Cameron,
Christianity and the
Rhetoric of Empire. The Development of Christian Discourse,
chapter 1 [sakai]
Martin Goodman, Chapters 1-5 in
Mission and
Conversion. Proselytism in the Religious History of the
Roman Empire, 1-108; focus on chapters 1 & 5. [sakai]
Béatrice Caseau, "Sacred Landscapes," pp.21-59 in G.W.
Bowersock, P.R.L. Brown, and O. Grabar, eds.,
Late
Antiquity. A Guide to the Postclassical World
Conversion of Elites & Non-Elites:
Justin Martyr,
Dialogue
with Trypho, chapters 1-8 (skim the rest)
Justin Martyr,
Second Apology (focus
on chapters 12-15)
Cyprian,
Ad Donatum, especially
3-5
Pontius the Deacon,
Vita Cypriani
Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus
[excerpt - sakai]
Alan Kreider, "The Conversions of Justin and Cyprian," 1-9 in
The Change of Conversion and
the Origin of Christendom [sakai]
Rebecca Lyman, “The Politics of Passing: Justin Martyr’s
Conversion as a Problem of ‘Hellenization’” in Grafton &
Mills, 36-50/60. [library ER]
Start Eusebius, History of the Church, 256-333.
Recommended: Ramsay MacMullen,
"Two
Types of Conversion to Christianity," Vigiliae
Christianae 37 (1983): 174-192. [JSTOR]
Reports: Gibbon, Harnack, Nock
1/22 - Early
Christian Expansion (cont.)
(Week 3)
Bowes,
Private Worship, Public Values, chapter 1, 18-60
The Role of Women?
Passages from Origen,
Contra
Celsum:
3.44-60
and
6.12:14
[find on-line if link doesn't work];
Acts of [Paul and] Thecla
[this is a good translation of most of it]
Matthews,
First Converts,
Introduction and chapter 4 [book on library reserve]
Osiek, “Women as Agents of
Expansion,” in Carolyn Osiek & Margaret Y. MacDonald,"
A Woman's Place, 220-243
[library ER or sakai]
Elizabeth Clark, “Thinking with Women: The Uses of
the Appeal to ‘Woman’ in Pre-Nicene Propaganda Literature,”
in
Harris, ed., Chap.3
Pagans, Polytheists, Barbarians, and the Conversion of Constantine
John Curran, “The Conversion of
Rome Revisited,” in Stephen
Mitchell & Geoffrey Greatrex, eds.,
Ethnicity and
Culture in Late Antiquity, 1-14. [on reserve]
Harris volume, chapters 4, 5, 7 & 8
MacMullen, CRE, 43-67
Eusebius accounts:
Church
History, Book IX.9.1-12 and Life
of Constantine (excerpt on Constantine's
"conversion")
Eusebius,
History of the Church, 256-332.
Van Dam, “The Many Conversions of Emperor Constantine,” in
Grafton & Mills
Recommended:
Eusebius,
Life of Constantine, 67-182 in Cameron &
Hall, trans.,
Eusebius: Life of Constantine (Oxford,
1999).
Report: Eusebius of Caesarea
1/29 - Christianizing Late
Roman Society
(Week 4)
Excerpts
from Book 16 of the Theodosian Code
David Hunt, "Christianising the Roman Empire: The Evidence of
the Code," in Jill Harries and Ian Wood, eds., The Theodosian Code. Studies in
the Imperial
Law of Late Antiquity,
Duckworth, 1993, 143-158. [sakai]
Michele Salzman, "Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman
Empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the Theodosian Code," Historia 80 (1993):
362-378 [sakai]
Harris volume, chapter 6: Isabella Sandwell, "Outlawing
'Magic' or Outlawing 'Religion'? Libanius and the
Theodosian Code as Evidence for Legislation against 'Pagan'
Practices," 87-123.
Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, chapter 2
Richard Lim, "The Sacred" (Intro to
Part V) and "Christianization, Secularization, and the
Transformation of Public Life," in Philip Rousseau, ed., A
Companion to Late Antiquity
(Wiley-Blackwell,
2009), 493-511 [sakai]
Rita Lizzi, “Ambrose's Contemporaries and the
Christianization of Northern Italy.”
Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 156-173 [sakai]
Michele Salzman, The Making
of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in
the Western Roman Empire, chapters 6 & 7:
"The Emperor's
Influence on
Aristocratic Conversion" and "The Aristocrats' Influence on
Christianity" [sakai; endnotes to Salzman 6&7 a separate
file]
Peter Brown, "Conversion and Christianization in Late
Antiquity: The Case of Augustine," in Straw & Lim ed., The Past Before Us. The Challenge
of
Historiographies of
Late Antiquity (Brepols, 2004), 103-117.
[sakai]
J. Maxwell, "Teaching to the Converted: John Chrysostom's
Pedagogy," in Christianization and Communication in Late
Antiquity: John Chrysostom and
his Congregation in
Antioch, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Recommended:
Richard Lim, "Converting the Unchristianizable: The Baptism of
Stage Performers in Late Antiquity," in Mills & Grafton,
eds., 84-126.
Report: Theodosian Code, Book XVI
Possibly: Eric Rebillard, Christians
and their Many Identities in Late Antique North Africa
(Cornell University Press, 2012)
Discussion
of Research Papers: Choosing a Topic
2/5 - No
seminar meeting
(Week 5)
Work on written assignments!
Everyone must meet with me individually
this week about book review, translation & commentary,
& direction of paper!
2/12 -
Christianizing Society (cont.): the West
(Week 6)
Peter Brown, Eye of a Needle
2/19
- Monks, Mission, Imperial Politics
(Week 7)
Richard M. Price, "
The Holy Man
and Christianization from the Apocryphal Apostles to St
Stephen of Perm," in
The
Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages:
Essays on the
Contribution of Peter
Brown. Edited by James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony
Hayward. (New York: OUP, 1999) [sakai]
Philostorgius,
Church History III.4-6 - account of the
missionary work of Theophilus the Indian. There is a new
edition and English translation of this work by
Philip
Amidon, and this section
is available on
line. An older translation of
Photius's
Epitome of Philostorgius, Book III.4-6 is also available
on-line.
"Abraham"
in Theodoret,
History of the
Monks of Syria (Historia religiosa)
W.H.C. Frend, "The Missions of the Early Church, 180-700 AD,"
in Derek Baker, ed.,
Miscellanea
Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 3 (Louvain, 1970) [sakai]
W.H.C. Frend, “The Church in the Reign of Constantius II
(337-361):
Mission—Monasticism—Worship,”
Entretiens sur L’Antiquité Classique (
Geneva,
1989), 73-111; reprinted in Frend,
Orthodoxy, Paganism and
Dissent in the Early Christian Centuries (Ashgate:
Variorum, 2002).
Anastasios Yannoulatos, "Monks & Mission in the Eastern
Church During the Fourth Century,"
International Review of Missions 58 (1969),
208-226. [sakai]
E.A. Thompson, "Christianity and the Northern Barbarians,"
in Arnaldo Momigliano, ed., The Conflict between
Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth
Century (Oxford, 1963).
[sakai]
Ralph Mathisen, "Barbarian Bishops and the Churches 'in
Barbaricis Gentibus' During Late Antiquity,"
Speculum,
Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jul., 1997): 664-697. [sakai]
2/26 - Mission & National
Conversions: Histories, Hagiography
& the problem of the sources
(Week 8)
East: Georgia, Armenia, Axum, South Arabia
Primary sources:
Rufinus,
Church History,
10.9-10 [on Axum and Iberia], Philip Amidon's English
translations is available as an e-book
Agathangelos,
History of the
Armenians [excerpts on the conversion of Armenia]
The relevant excerpts from these two texts are now available in
one document on sakai.
Françoise Thelamon, "La conversion des Ibères,"
chapter 2 in
Païens et
chrétiens au IVe siècle, 85-122 (French -
available on ARES - library electronic reserve)
Christopher Haas, "Mountain Constantines: The
Christianization of Aksum and Iberia,"
Journal of Late Antiquity
1.1 (Spring, 2008):101–126 [sakai]
Andrea Sterk "Mission from Below: Captive
Women and Conversion on the East Roman Frontiers"
Church
History 79/1 (2010) & "'Representing' Mission from
Below: Historians as
Interpreters and Agents of
Christianization"
Church History 79/2 (2010)
Cornelia Horn, "The Lives and Literary Roles of
Children in Advancing Conversion to Christianity: Hagiography
from the Caucasus in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages on
Georgia,"
Church History 76
(2007): 262-297. [sakai]
Recommended:
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson,
"Reviving
the Memory of the Apostles: Apocryphal Tradition and Travel
Literature in Late Antiquity" in
Revival and
Resurgence in Christian History,
ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy
Gregory. Studies in Church History 44. Woodbridge:
Ecclesiastical History Society and Boydell Press, 2008.
(Here is Johnson's website:
http://scottfjohnson.com/cv/ - scroll down for some other
relevant recent articles in pdf. format.)
West: Franks, Lombards, Anglo-Saxon England...
Primary sources:
Patrick,
Confession
[versions readily available on-line or a good translation on
webct]
Gregory
of Tours on the Conversion of Clovis
Bede
on the Conversion of England
Ian Wood, "The Missionary Life", article [sakai]
Walter Pohl, "Deliberate Ambiguity: The Lombards and
Christianity," in Armstrong & Wood, eds.,
Christianizing Peoples and
Converting Individuals (Brepols, 2000), 47-58
Ian Wood, "Some Historical Re-Identifications and the
Christianization of Kent," Armstrong & Wood, 27-35.
Wolfert Egmond, “Converting Monks: Missionary Activity in Early
Medieval Frisia and
Saxony” in
Guyda & Wood
Reports:
Rufinus, Sozomen & Socrates, Patrick, Columbanus
Book Review due in class or in my office by
Thursday or Friday noon (2/28 or 3/1).
SPRING BREAK
3/2-3/10
3/12 - Mission and the "First Byzantine Commonwealth;" Mission
under Justinian
(Week 9)
Primary Sources:
The Martyrs of Najran [pre-Islamic Arabia]
John of Ephesus,
Ecclesiastical
History (excerpt on the mission to Nubia); followed by
Cosmas Indicopleustes (1-page excerpt on Christians in India)
[webct]
Procopius,
Wars I.19-20
[available on-line, more passages coming]
Recommended for Background:
Volker L. Menze,
Justinian and the Making of the Syrian
Orthodox Church (Oxford, 2008).
S.P. Brock, "Christians in the Sassanian Empire: A Case of
Divided Loyalties,"
Studies in
Church History 18 (London, 1982), pp.1-19. [sakai]
Philip Wood,
'We have no king but Christ.' Christian
Political Thought in Greater Syria on the Eve of the Arab
Conquest (c.400-585) (Oxford University
Press, 2006), chapter 7: "A
Miaphysite Commonwealth,"
209-256 [sakai-coming]
Garth Fowden, "The First Byzantine Commonwealth: Interactions of
Political and Cultural Universalism," chap. 5 in
Empire to
Commonwealth. Consequences
of Monotheism in Late
Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), 100-137. [sakai]
Isrun Engelhardt,
Mission und Politik in Byzanz. Ein
Beitrag zur Strukturanalyse byzantinischer Mission zur Zeit
Justins und Justinians (Munich, 1974),
4-22 [sakai]
Stanley Burstein, "When Greek was an African
Language: The Role of Greek Culture in Ancient and Medieval
Nubia,"
Journal of World
History Vol. 19, No. 1
(2008): 41-61. You
can skim 41-49, and focus on 54-61. [JSTOR]
Jitse Harm Fokke Dijkstra,
Religious Encounters on the
Southern Egyptian Frontier in Late Antiquity
(Groningen, 2005), pp. 125-150. (chapter comparing Procopius
& John of Ephesus on
Nubia) [book version of this on-line dissertation coming up on
sakai]
Philae and the End of Ancient
Egyptian Religion: A Regional Study of Religious
Transformation (298-642
CE),
Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta (Peeters, 2008)
Michael Maas, "'Delivered from their Ancient Customs':
Christianity and the Question of Cultural Change in Early
Byzantine Ethnography," in Mills & Grafton, eds.,
Conversion, 162-188.
[sakai]
Report: John of Ephesus
Friday, 3/15 - Translation & Commentary [or primary-source
analysis] due
3/19
- Conversion & Christianization: The Evidence of
Art/Archeology/Material Culture
(Week 10)
[at my home]
Thomas Mathews,
The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early
Christian Art, 2nd rev. edition (Princeton University
Press, 1999), Chapter 4 and
Epilogue [sakai]
Kim Bowes,
Private Worship, Public Values, chapter 3
Eric Rebillard, "Conversion and Burial in the Later Roman
Empire," in Mills & Grafton, eds., 60-83. [sakai]
Florin Curta, "Before Cyril and Methodius: Christianity and
Barbarians beyond the Sixth-Century Danube Frontier," in Curta,
ed., East Central and Eastern
Europe in the Early Middle Ages,
181-208. [sakai]
Bonnie Effros, "De partibus Saxoniae and the Regulation of
Mortuary Custom: A Carolingian Campaign of Christianization or
the Suppression of Saxon Identity?"
Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 75 (1997): 267-286.
[webct]
Find one article of your own on this topic and, if possible,
relevant to your own research paper for the course!
Final paper proposal or abstract due in my
office on Friday afternoon, 3/22 or 3/29 (with preliminary
bibliography)
3/26 - Byzantine
Mission:
Slavs
(Week 11)
Primary Source: Life of Constantine[-Cyril] [webct]
Recommended: Excerpt on the Conversion of Russia from
the Primary Chronicle
[webct]
Recommended for background:
Florin Curta, "The Rise of
New Powers (800-900)," in Southeastern Europe in
the Middle Ages, 111-179. [will be put on
reserve at library]
Jonathan Shepard, "Byzantium's
Overlapping Circles," Proceedings
of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies.
Vol. I Plenary Papers (London,
2006), 15-56.
[On-line pdf; also up on webct]
J. Shepard, "Spreading the Word: Byzantine
Missions," in The Oxford
History of Byzantium (OUP, 2002), 230-248 [webct -
coming]
Another Shepard essay (brand new in the Cambridge History of Christinaity,
vol. 3, Oct. 2008) on Slavic Christianities
Sergey A. Ivanov, "Casting Pearls Before Circe's Swine: The
Byzantine View of Mission," in Travaux et Mémoires 14. Mélanges Gilbert Dagron
(Paris,
2002), 294-301. [webct]
Sergey A. Ivanov, "Religious Missions," in the The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire
(2009), chapter 7.
Thomas S. Noonan, “Why Orthodoxy did not Spread among the
Bulgars of the Crimea during
the Early Medieval Era: An Early Byzantine Conversion Model,”
Armstrong & Wood, eds, 15-24. [webct]
Omeljan Pritsak, "Turkological Remarks on Constantine's
Khazarian Mission in the Vita
Constantini in In Christianity among the Slavs:
The Heritage
of Saints Cyril and
Methodius, eds. Edward G. Farrugia, Robert F. Taft,
& Gino K. Piovesana. Rome, 1988. Pp. 295-298
[webct]
Ihor Ševčenko, "Religious Mission seen by Byzantium" Harvard Ukranian Studies 1988-1989
[webct]
Richard E. Sullivan, "Early Medieval Missionary
Activity: A Comparative Study of Eastern and Western
Methods," Church
History 23/1 (1954): 17-34
[older article
attempting comparative questions - available through JSTOR
& on webct]
4/1 -
Seminar with Megan Williams
(Week 12)
Historia Augusta
Readings TBA
4/2 - Megan Williams'
Lecture, Title TBA
(7:30 pm, Keene Faculty Center)
4/9 -
Further East: Conversion, Christianity, Syria, & Islam
(Week 13)
Primary Sources:
Timothy's Apology [sakai]
Apocalpyse
of Samuel Qalamun
Jack Tannous, "Syria Between Byzantium and
Islam: Making Incommensurables Speak," Dissertation, Princeton
University, 2010. (at least chapter 4; skim other
chapters) [sakai]Sydney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow
of the Mosque (Princeton University Press, 2008) , at
least chapters 1-3 and 6
Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the medieval period an
essay in quantitative history (Cambridge, Mass.,
1979), 1-42, 64-79, 128-138 and/or Bulliet article in
New Cambridge History of
Islam, vol. 3
D.J. Wasserstein, "Conversion and the ahl al-dhimma' New
Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 4: Islamic Cultures
and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century, ed.
R. Irwin
(Cambridge, 2010), 184-208
Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, eds., Conversion
and Continuity. Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic
Lands (Toronto: PIMS, 1990). Several essays in
Part One: The Rationale
and Polemics of Conversion [will be posted on sakai or sent]
Also recommended for Background:
F. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of
Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010)
N. Khalek, Damascus after the Muslim Conquest. Text and
Image in Early Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011)
4/16 - Back
to the West
(Week 14)
Review Effros articles from Week 10 [sajau]
Ian Wood, The Missionary Life, chapter 1-4 and chapter
12 (Conclusion)
Start Presentations (2 presentations in
the last hour: Rance & Matt K.)
(Week 15)
Presentations: Everyone
who did not present last week.
Final Papers - Hard copy due in my office by
Tuesday,
April 30 (or Wednesday, May 1 before 5:00 at the very
latest - No exceptions!)