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ER = Electronic Reserves - available on-line. Try this direct link to the page for our course: Electonic Reserves. If it does not work, get up the Smathers library home page, click on "Course Reserves," look up the course under my name (Sterk), then click on the course number to get a list of books and articles already on reserve. If you cannot access electronic reserves from your computer, it is probably because you have an old browser and should try a different computer. Some readings will be put on webct. Those articles which the library is not permitted to scan or put into electronic format will be on 2-hour reserve. You may want to photocopy these articles; otherwise you will have to sit in the library to read them.

Introduction to the Mediterranean World, c. 150-650: Geography, Chronology, etc.
The Idea of "Conversion"
Introduce: "How to Read a Document," by Mark A. Kishlansky, et al., Sources of the West: Readings for Western Civilization, vol. 1, From the
Beginning to 1648 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. xi – xix; on-line précis of it here: http://www.lclark.edu/dept/history/reading.html. Here is the original version of "How to Read a Document"

Part I: The Roman Religious World
Part II: Christian Missionaries and Apologists

General Background (highly recommended):
Brown, WLA, pp. 49-57 and 70-81. (Optional: pp.1-45)
Philip Rousseau, “Giving Shape to Early Christian History,” in The Early Christian Centuries, chapter 1, pp. 1-20 [helpful intro to central issues in
history of Christianity in this era]

Primary Sources:
MacMullen/Lane, pp. 15-22 (1.4-1.8): dreams & astrology; 29-32 (2.1-2.3): healing shrines; 42-46: cult scenes; 53-56 (4.2-4.5): hymns; 84-103: Apuleius’s
        conversion to the cult of Isis; 106-108: Marcus Aurelius; 138-142: Philostratus on Apollonius of Tyana; 148-151: missionizing (non-Christian); 152-160:
        Roman perceptions of Jews; 207-215: conversions wrought by Gregory the Wonderworker
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, chapters 1-9; skim the rest
Justin Martyr, Second Apology; available on-line in an old translation, but preferably read the new translation available through in Coakley and Sterk, eds.,
        Readings in World Christian History (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2004), pp. 37-43. available through the library's electronic reserves [ER]
parts of Justin Martyr, First Apology: Read or at least skim chapters 1-8, 14, 24-25, 53, 54, & 59-60.

Secondary Sources: (These available through electronic course reserves at Smathers Library - ARES - or temporarily linked to this page.)
Robert Wilken, “The Christians as the Romans (and Greeks) Saw Them,” in Jewish & Christian Self-Definition, vol. 1, ed. E. P. Sanders, pp. 100-125 [ER] MacMullen, CRE, chapters I-III, pp. 1-24.
R. Macmullen, “Two Types of Conversion to Christianity,” Vigiliae Christianae 37 (1983): 174-192; reprinted in E. Ferguson, ed., Studies in Early Christianity XI (New York: Garland, 1993), 26-44. [reserve]
Kreider, Change of Conversion, Introduction & Chap. 1 (“The Conversions of Justin and Cyprian”)
Rebecca Lyman, “The Politics of Passing: Justin Martyr’s Conversion as a Problem of ‘Hellenization,’” in Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early
Middle Ages, ed. Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003), pp. 36-60 [ER]

If you have time, start Eric Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450CE (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), chapters 1 and 2. [We will not discuss these chapters until Week 5]

Recommended:
The Apology of Athenagoras, MacMullen/Lane, pp. 173-198
“Apologists, Apologies,” in E. Ferguson, et al eds., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity
Robert Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, 2nd edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) [expansion of earlier article into a book]
Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs, eds., “To See Ourselves as Others See Us.” Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity (Chico, Cal.: Scholars
        Press, 1985) [several good essays on Jewish & Christian definition and self-definition in first three centuries]
M.D. Jordan, “Philosophic ‘Conversion’ and Christian Conversion,” SC 5:2 (1985/6), 90-96.
Oskar Skarsaune, “The Conversion of Justin Martyr,” Studia Theologica 30 (1976): 53-73, reprinted in E.Ferguson, ed., Studies in Early Christianity, vol.
        11 (New York, 1993).
Arthur J. Droge, "Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy," Church History 56.3 (1987): 303-319, rerpinted in Studies in Early Christianity, vol. 7,         ed. E. Ferguson, et al. (New York, 1993), pp., [on-line]
M.J. Edwards, "Justin's Logos and the Word of God," Journal of Early Christian Studies 3.3 (1995): 261-280.
T. Rajak, “Talking at Trypho: Christian Apologetic as Anti-Judaism in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew,” in M. Edwards, M. Goodman, and S. Price, eds., Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Oxford, 1999).

Week 4: Sept. 16: Persecution and Martyrdom
(Please read carefully the updated instructions under Questions & Assignments for this week.)

Primary Sources:
MacMullen/Lane pp.164-172: perceptions of Christians; 218-232, 234-239: persecutions; and 198-201: Lactantius, Divine Institutes (also on persecutions)
Edicts Against Christians
Martrydom of Saints Perpetua & Felicity (on-line)
One other martyrdom account of your choice: e.g., Martyrdom of Polycarp, Martyrs of Lyons, Eusebius, Martyrs of Palestine, etc. See the following website for other possibilities: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook3.html#ec2, though better translations are available in Musurillo, ed. and trans., Acts of the Christian Martyrs, which will be on 2-hour reserve. Another possibility is one of the Persian martydom accounts in Brock and Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient. This book is on 2-hour reserve for our course, but the library also has an electronic copy of the book that anyone can access. (Just
look the title up in the catalog, click on the electronic version, and follow directions.)
Tertullian, Apology, (selections) 50

Secondary Sources: (Lane Fox is up; Salisbury should be up soon on the electronic reserves page)
Lane Fox, "Persecution and Martyrdom," chap. 9 in Pagans and Christians, 419-492 (5 pts): Pt.1; Pt. 2; Pt. 3; Pt. 4; Pt. 5 [book on 2-hour reserve]
Ste Croix, G.E.M. de. "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?" Past and Present 26 (Nov 1963), 6-38. [JSTOR; ER] here
Rodney Stark, Rise of Christianity, chapter 8: “The Martyrs: Sacrifice as Rational Choice,” 163-189

3-page paper due! - Click here for specific assignment under Week 4.
Also, think about what topics or themes most interest you for your final research paper. Check the list of potential topics for papers.

Week 5: Sept. 23: The Spread of Christianity Before Constantine: Modern Perspectives

Background:
Knut Schäferdiek, “Christian Mission and Expansion,” in Ian Hazlett, ed., Early Christianity. Origins and Evolution to AD 600 (London: SPCK, 1991), 65-77 [Read to bottom of 72 for a geographical overview of Christian expansion up to the era of Constantine]

Modern Perspectives (Secondary Sources):
Macmullen, CRE, chapter IV, pp. 25-42
Kreider, Change of Conversion, chapters 2-3, pp.10-32
Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, rest of book
H.A. Drake, "Models of Christian Expansion," in W.V. Harris, The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1-13.
A response to Stark in Journal of Early Christian Studies 6:2 (1998) [available on-line]: Keith Hopkins, “Christian Number and its Implications,” 185-226. If you have time (either now or later), you may want to skim the other two responses to stark in the same issue of the journal--JECS 6:2 (1998):
        Todd E. Klutz, “The Rhetoric of Science in The Rise of Christianity: A Response to Rodney Stark’s Sociological Account of Christianization,” 162-184
        Elizabeth Castelli, “Gender, Theory, and The Rise of Christianity: A Response to Rodney Stark,” 227-257
    and
        Rodney Stark, "E contrario," 259-267 [Stark’s response to the responses. Read this to get a sense of one scholarly debate!]
Eric Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450CE (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), chapters 1 and 2.

Recommended:
Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996).

2nd Half of Class (2:30-3:50): Hands-On Session on Research at Library West (Conf. Room West 211)

Secondary Sources:
MacMullen, CRE, chapter V, pp.43-51
Kreider, Change of Conversion, chapter 4, pp. 33-37

Jacob Burckhardt, excerpts from The Age of Constantine the Great, 292-300, 301-302, 304-306; reprinted in Eadie, ed., The Conversion of
        Constantine, ed. John W. Eadie (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1971), pp.22-29. [ER]
N. Baynes, "Religiosisssimus Augustus," from “Constantine the Great and the Christian Church” (1929); reprinted in Eadie, ed., The Conversion of
        Constantine, pp. 52-62. [ER]
Ramsey MacMullen, “Constantine and the Miraculous,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 9 (1968):81-96, reprinted in Studies in Early Christianity,
        Vol.11, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland, 1993), 155-170. [ER]
T.D. Barnes, “The Conversion of Constantine,” reprinted in T.D. Barnes, From Euesbius to Augustine (Variorum, 1994), 371-391. [ER]
Raymond Van Dam, “The Many Conversions of Emperor Constantine,” in Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Seeing and
        Believing, ed. Mills & Grafton, 127-151. [ER or webct]

Recommended:
H.A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops. The Politics of Intolerance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, chapters 5-7
T.D. Barnes, Eusebius and Constantine, chapters I-V
Alistair Kee, Constantine versus Christ (London: SCM, 1982), especially chaps. 2-3, pp. 23-48.

Week 7: Oct. 7 – Church & State: Conversion, Christianization, and Roman Law

Primary Sources:
MacMullen/Lane pp.240-247 (aftermath of persecution in North Africa); 266-278, Julian
Ambrose-Symmachus debate - Exchange of letters between Symmachus (pagan Roman senator) and Ambrose (Christian bishop) over whether the Altar of Victory should be removed from the Roman Senate. For fuller documentation of the debate in Brian Croke and Jill Harries, eds., Religious Conflict in
Fourth-Century Rome. A Documentary Study (Syndey, Australia: Syndey University Press, 1982), pp. 28-51.
Rufinus on the destruction of the Serapeum (391)
Edicts on religion from the Theodosian Code ; see especially this decree making Christianity the "official" religion of the empire and banning other religions.
Augustine, City of God on the "two cities" (short excerpt)

Secondary Sources: [Plan to print out articles by Saturday night since electronic resources might be unavailable for 24+ hours due to the hurricane!]
Macmullen, CRE, chapters VI-VIII
Kreider, Change of Conversion, chapter 4, 38-42 and chapter 5.
Peter Brown, “Christianization: Narratives and Process,” and “The Limits of Intolerance,” in Aspects of Christianisation, 1-54? [report]
Michelle Salzman, "The Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman Empire," Historia 42 (1993): 362-78. [report]
Ramsey MacMullen, “What Difference Did Christianity Make?” Historia 35 (1986), 322-343. [report]
Rita Lizzi, “Ambrose's Contemporaries and the Christianization of Northern Italy.” Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 156-173 – [report]

Recommended:
Richard Lim, “Christian Triumph and Controversy,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,                 1999), pp. 196-218.
David Hunt, "Christianising the Roman Empire: The Evidence of the Code," in The Theodosian Code, ed. Jill Harries and Ian Wood (London, 1993), pp.                 143-58.
Bowersock, G.W. "From Emperor to Bishop: The Self-Conscious Transformation of Political Power in the Fourth Century A.D.," Classical Philology 81
        (1986): 298-307
Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire. The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), chapter 4,         pp. 120-154.
Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

Primary Sources
Life of Symeon the Stylite (This short account by Evagrius is later than the others, but it is available on line and will introduce you to this fascinating saint)
Jerome, Letter to Eustochium (At lesat skim this letter!)
Palladius, Selections from The Lausiac History (Scroll down to read the accounts of women starting with chaper XLVI on Melania the Elder to the end.)
Susan Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (intro & one account)
Anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux [short excerpt]
St. Nino & conversion of Georgia (St. Nino, despite the sound of the name, is a woman)
Egeria, Diary of a Pilgrim (excerpts)

Secondary Sources
Brown, WLA, 96-112
Brown, Aspects of Christianisation, Lecture 3 [report]
Anne Yarbrough, “Christianization in the Fourth Century: The Example of Roman Women,” Church History 45 (1976), 149-165. [webct & ER] [report]
Kate Cooper, “Insinuations of Womanly Influence: An Aspect of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,” JRS 82 (1992), 150-164. [JSTOR & ER]

Michele Renee Salzman. The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2002), chapter 5. [This chapter may be scanned and on ER by Friday]

Robert Wilken, “At the Very Spot,” chapter 6 of The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought, re-issue ed. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994), pp.101-125. [webct & ER]
R.A. Markus, “How on earth could places become holy? Origins of the Christian idea of holy places,” JECS 2 (1994), 257-271. [report]
John M. Howe, “The Conversion of the Physical World. The Creation of a Christian Landscape,” in Muldoon, ed., Varieties of Religious Conversion, 63-78.
[report]

Recommended:
Peter Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity” (1971) reprinted in his Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Cal.:
University of California Press, 1982), pp.103-152; also the update in 1997 JECS update
Elizabeth Clark, “Holy Women, Holy Words: Early Christian Women, Social History, and the ‘Linguistic Turn’,” JECS 6/3 (1998): 413-430.
Beatrice Ceaseau, “Sacred Landscapes,” in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp.
21-59.

Background:
Brown, “Tempora Christiana: Christian Times,” chapter 3 in idem, The Rise of Western Christendom. Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000, 2nd ed.
(Blackwell Publishing, 2003) [brief but very good review of changed situation of fourth century; contextualizes Augustine]

Primary Sources:
Augustine's account of his own conversion in Confessions, Bk. 8 (on-line version available here); if you’ve never read Confessions, try to read at least Bks. 6-8.

Secondary Sources:
McMullen, CRE, chapters 9 & 10
Kreider, Change of Conversion, chapter 6
Karl F. Morrison, “Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions,” Conversion and Text. The Cases of Augustine of Hippo, Herman-Judah and Constantine Tsatsos (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992), 1-38. [ER = ARES] [report]
Frederick H. Russell, “Augustine. Conversion by the Book,” in James Muldoon, ed., Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages (Gainesville, Fl.:
University of Florida Press, 1997), 13-30. [report]
Eric Rebillard, Christians and their Many Identities, chapter 3: "Being Christian in the Age of Augustine"

Recommended:
Karl F. Morrison, chapter 1: "Posing the Question: Perspectives from a Historian's Desk," Understanding Conversion (Charlottesville: Univeristy of Virginia
Press, 1992), 1-26. [webct] - strongly recommended!
Peter Brown, “St. Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion,” Journal of Roman Studies 54 (1964): 107-16?
Peter Brown, “Augustine the Bishop in the Light of New Documents,” http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_4/brown.htm
(This very recent on-line “reflection” will give you a personal picture of Augustine’s post-Confessions career as a preacher and bishop in Roman North Africa in what was clearly far from a “Christian” society. It will also give you a taste of P. Brown’s marvelous biography of Augustine—which you should by all means read over break!)
Maureen Tilley, Donatist Martyr Stories. The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996)
Peter Brown, “Religious Coercion in the Later Roman Empire: The Case of North Africa,” History 48 (1963): 283-305.

Each student will meet with me individually to discuss research paper topic. Please arrive promptly for the 15-minute time slot for which you signed up.
(Click here for further information on your paper topic statement.)

Book Reviews due in my office on Friday, Oct. 25 by 4:00 pm. Please read and follow basic guidelines provided on this book review page.

Primary Sources:
MacMullen/Lane, pp. 279-289
Brief accounts of conversion of nations or peoples:
        Agathangelos, Gregory the Illuminator & the conversion of Armenia, selections
        Rufinus, on the conversion of Georgia (The short text follows some introductory material; note that "Iberia" here refers to a region of Georgia, not Spain)
        Rufinus, on Axum/Ethiopia [from Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 10.9-10] - The second short text is Rufinus's account of the Christianization of Axum, but feel free to read them all.
        John of Ephesus, Christianization of Nubia (modern southern Egypt & northern Sudan)
        Gregory of Tours, on the conversion of Clovis & the Franks, from History of the Franks
        Bede, on the conversion of England (not including the last section on the synod of Whitby)

Recommended:
Cordula Nolte, “Gender and Conversion in the Merovingian Era,” in Muldoon, ed., Varieties of Religious Conversion, pp. 81-99. [on 2-hour reserve]
Walter Goffart, "The Conversions of Avitus of Clermont, and Similar Passages in Gregory of Tours," in "To See Ourselves as Others See Us": Christians, Jews, "Others" in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Neusner & E. S. Frerichs (Chico, Cal., 1985), 473-497. [on conversion of Jews in 6th-cent. Gaul - webct]
Ramsey Macmullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997)
W.H.C. Frend, “The Winning of the Countryside,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 18, No. 1 (1967): 1-14.
Richard Lim, “Converting the Un-christianizable: The Baptism of Stage Peformers in Late Antiquity,” Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle
Ages, pp. 84-126.