EUH 5934
Graduate Seminar: 
Mission, Conversion, Christianization (c.100-c.800)

Spring, 2013



Requirements

Books

Schedule of Seminar Sessions and Readings

REQUIREMENTS

1. Each seminar participant will be required to:
a) prepare one or two oral reports on a particular author or source relevant to the week's topic
b) lead or co-lead discussion for two of the weekly seminar meetings
c) write 5 brief (2-page) response papers or 2 4-page response papers on the week's readings (details TBA)

2. Translation & Commentary.  One 2-page translation of an excerpt from a Greek or Latin primary-source text relevant to the class (& preferably relevant to your own final paper) with a 2-3 page commentary.

3. Each student will write a book review (1000-1200 words) of  a work related to the theme of the course.  This review (which will be due midway through the semester) should be chosen in connection with the topic for the final paper.

4. The final paper for this course will be a short research paper or bibliographic essay on a topic of your choice within the thematic and chronological parameters of the course.  This final paper (15-25 pages in length) is due exam week at the end of the course; however, during the final two seminar meetings, each student will give an oral presentation on their topic to be followed by questions and discussion.

Please do not be late with written assignments!  Bis dat qui cito dat!

Grading:
30%   participation (including leadership of discussion, reports, and response papers)
15%   book review
15%   translation & commentary
40%   final paper, including short presentation on your topic



BOOKS

Required Books:
These first two books arevolumes of essays that are directly on our topic, and we will be reading most of the essays in these volumes.  However, they are extremely expensive (at least $135 & $75 respectively), and you should not purchase them unless you find inexpensive used copies somewhere (or you are independently wealthy): 

William V. Harris, ed. The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries: Essays in Explanation.  Brill, 2005.  

Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton, eds. Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Seeing and Believing.  University of Rochester Press, 2003. 

Purchase (usually cheapest on Amazon)
:
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
1/15 - Explaining Early Christian Expansion (c.100-c.300)
1/22 - Early Christian Expansion (cont.)
1/29 - Christianizing Late Roman Society
2/5 - Christianizing Late Roman Society (cont.)
2/12 - No class:  individual meetings with professor
2/19 - Monks, Mission, & Imperial Politics
2/26 - Mission & National Conversions: Histories, Hagiography, & the problems of the sources

SPRING BREAK

3/12 -
Mission & the "First Byzantine Commonwealth"; Mission under Justinian
3/19- Conversion & Christianization:  The Evidence of Art/Archeology/Material Culture
3/26- Byzantine Missions: Slavs
4/2 - Special Seminar with Megan Williams [Historia Augusta]
4/9 - Further East: Conversion, Christianity, Syria, & Islam
4/16 - Further East (continued); Presentations of Research & Discussion
4/23 - Presentations & Discussion



1/8 - Intro. to the Course

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; keep reading if you have time. To get a quick take on Morrison's whole book, here is a review.  For those interested, I will also put up Thomas Head's review of Morrison's two related  books on conversion.

Start Brown, Eye of a Needle [long book; full discussion on 2/5]

1/15 - Explaining Early Christian Expansion(c.100-c.300)

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 [webct]
Martin Goodman, Chapters 1-5 in Mission and Conversion. Proselytism in the Religious  History of the Roman Empire, 1-108.  [webct]
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 - webct]

Alan Kreider, "The Conversions of Justin and Cyprian," 1-9 in The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom [webct]
Rebecca Lyman, “The Politics of Passing: Justin Martyr’s Conversion as a Problem of ‘Hellenization’” in Grafton & Mills, 36-50/60. [library ER]
Recommended:  Ramsay MacMullen, "Two Types of Conversion to Christianity," Vigiliae Christianae 37 (1983): 174-192. [JSTOR]

Report:  Eusebius of Caesarea

1/22 - Early Christian Expansion (cont.)

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 reserve; hopefully scanned soon]
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)
Van Dam, “The Many Conversions of Emperor Constantine,” in Grafton & Mills

1/29 - Christianizing Late Roman Society

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. [webct]
Michele Salzman, "Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the Theodosian Code," Historia 80 (1993): 362-378 [webct]
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
Rita Lizzi, “Ambrose's Contemporaries and the Christianization of Northern Italy.” Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 156-173 [webct]

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" [webct; 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.  [webct]
Richard Lim, "Converting the Unchristianizable: The Baptism of Stage Performers in Late Antiquity," in Mills & Grafton, eds., 84-126.
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. 

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 Topics


2/5 - Christianizing Society (cont.): the West

Peter Brown, Eye of a Needle


2/12 - No seminar meeting

Work on written assignments

Everyone must meet with me individually this week about book review, translation & commentary, & direction of paper!


2/19 - Monks, Mission, Imperial Politics

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) [webct]
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) [webct]
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. [webct]
E.A. Thompson, "Christianity and the Northern Barbarians," in  Arnaldo Momigliano, ed.,  The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 1963) [webct]
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] - here or 3/26

Book Review due in class or in my office by Friday noon (2/22).

2/26 - Mission & National Conversions:  Histories, Hagiography & the problem of the sources

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 webct.

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 [on-line & webct]
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]

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, article [up on webct]
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


SPRING BREAK
3/2-3/10


3/12 - Mission and the "First Byzantine Commonwealth;" Mission under Justinian

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. [webct]
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. [webct]
Isrun Engelhardt, Mission und Politik in Byzanz. Ein Beitrag zur Strukturanalyse byzantinischer Mission zur Zeit Justins und Justinians (Munich, 1974),
        4-22 [webct]
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,
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. (comparing Procopius
         & John of Ephesus on Nubia) [Dissertation & now book on-line]
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.

Report: John of Ephesus

Translation & Commentary due

3/19 - Conversion & Christianization:  The Evidence of Art/Archeology/Material Culture

Kim Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values
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. [webct]
Eric Rebillard, "Conversion and Burial in the Later Roman Empire," in Mills & Grafton, eds., 60-83.  [webct]
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]
Thomas Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art, 2nd rev. edition (Princeton University Press, 1999), Chapter 4 and
        Epilogue [sakai]

Find one article of your own on this topic and, if possible, relevant to your own research paper for the course!

2nd half of seminar:
Ian Wood, The Missionary Life [all or parts - or save for 3/]

Paper topic proposal or abstract due in my office on Friday afternoon, 10/31 (with preliminary bibliography)


3/26 - Byzantine Mission: Slavs

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]  and/or
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]


4/2 - Seminar with Megan Williams

Historia Augusta
Readings TBA


4/9 - Further East: Conversion, Christianity, Syria, & Islam

Jack Tannous, "Syria Between Byzantium and Islam: Making Incommensurables Speak," Dissertation, Princeton University, 2010.  chapters TBA.

Possible Readings:
Primary Source: Apocalpyse of Samuel Qalamun (http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/apocalypse_of_samuel_of_kalamoun_02_trans.htm)

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 (TBA).

Other readings coming...

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 - Further East (cont.)  [or back to the West]


Start Presentations


4/23    

Presentations