Constantine and the Christian Empire PDF Download

Author: Constantine I (Emperor of Rome)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This volume makes available three works attributed to Constantine - two of which were certainly not written by him - which are important sources for historians of the papacy, Christianity and Constantine himself. The Oration to the Saints is an intellectual defence of Christianity, which puts the case for monotheism, extols the incarnation and voluntary abasement of the Son of God, and finally declares Constantine's personal adherence to the Saviour. The legend of the discovery of the True Cross by the empress Helena, mother of Constantine, following her conversion to Christianity is presented in translations of two variant accounts. The third text, the Edict of Constantine, presents Constantine's supposed edict to Pope Silvester transferring lands to the papacy. An introduction considers the authorship, motivation and historical context for each of the works, and extensive annotation elucidates textual difficulties and allusions.

Author: Charles Odahl
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136961283
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
Drawing on over a quarter of a century of the author's research and experience, this book focuses on the man and his life for scholars, students, and those interested in Roman imperial, early Christian, and Byzantine imperial history. It is illustrated with ninety-two photographs and eight maps.

Author: M. Shane Bjornlie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317025652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
The transformation from the classical period to the medieval has long been associated with the rise of Christianity. This association has deeply influenced the way that modern audiences imagine the separation of the classical world from its medieval and early modern successors. The role played in this transformation by Constantine as the first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire has also profoundly shaped the manner in which we frame Late Antiquity and successive periods as distinctively Christian. The modern demarcation of the post-classical period is often inseparable from the reign of Constantine. The attention given to Constantine as a liminal figure in this historical transformation is understandable. Constantine’s support of Christianity provided the religion with unprecedented public respectability and public expressions of that support opened previously unimagined channels of social, political and economic influence to Christians and non-Christians alike. The exact nature of Constantine’s involvement or intervention has been the subject of continuous and densely argued debate. Interpretations of the motives and sincerity of his conversion to Christianity have characterized, with various results, explanations of everything from the religious culture of the late Roman state to the dynamics of ecclesiastical politics. What receives less-frequent attention is the fact that our modern appreciation of Constantine as a pivotal historical figure is itself a direct result of the manner in which Constantine’s memory was constructed by the human imagination over the course of centuries. This volume offers a series of snapshots of moments in that process from the fourth to the sixteenth century.

Author: Raymond Van Dam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139499726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Constantine's victory in 312 at the battle of the Milvian Bridge established his rule as the first Christian emperor. This book examines the creation and dissemination of the legends about that battle and its significance. Christian histories, panegyrics and an honorific arch at Rome soon commemorated his victory, and the emperor himself contributed to the myth by describing his vision of a cross in the sky before the battle. Through meticulous research into the late Roman narratives and the medieval and Byzantine legends, this book moves beyond a strictly religious perspective by emphasizing the conflicts about the periphery of the Roman empire, the nature of emperorship and the role of Rome as a capital city. Throughout late antiquity and the medieval period, memories of Constantine's victory served as a powerful paradigm for understanding rulership in a Christian society.

Author: Noel Emmanuel Lenski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521521574
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine offers students a comprehensive one-volume survey of this pivotal emperor and his times. Richly illustrated and designed as a readable survey accessible to all audiences, it also achieves a level of scholarly sophistication and a freshness of interpretation that will be welcomed by the experts. The volume is divided into five sections that examine political history, religion, social and economic history, art, and foreign relations during the reign of Constantine, who steered the Roman Empire on a course parallel with his own personal development.

Author: Cynthia White
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 0800697472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This brief survey text tells the story of early Christianity. Cynthia White explores the emergence of Christianity in Rome during the first four centuries of the Greco-Roman empire, from the first followers of Jesus Christ, to conflicts between Christians and Jewish kings under Roman occupation, to the torture of Christian followers, Diocletian's reforms, and Constantine's eventual conversion to monotheism, which cemented Christianity's status as the official religion of Rome. The text's chapters will integrate key pedagogy, including introductions, study questions, textboxes, photos, maps, suggested readings, and a glossary and timeline.

Author: J. L. Lightfoot
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191568775
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
In this book, J. L. Lightfoot throws a bridge between two mutually ignorant areas: pagan oracles and Judaeo-Christian studies. The Sibyl was a legendary figure in Greco-Roman antiquity who was credited with verse prophecies, often of an apocalyptic character. Lightfoot describes how she was taken over by Jews in the Hellenistic period, and later by Christians, as a vehicle for their own understandings of prophecy. She explores what those understandings were, and describes how the message was then clothed in the very distinctive and mannered pagan idiom that was the hallmark of Sibylline prophecy. The volume contains an edition, translation, and commentary on the undeservedly neglected first and second books of extant oracles. The commentary illustrates some of the ways in which biblical scriptures were represented and recast in an oracular idiom, and pays particular attention to the oracle's most noteworthy feature, its extraordinarily rich description of the Day of Judgement.

Author: N. Clayton Croy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004370900
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The only narratives of Jesus’ birth locate the event in Bethlehem, but the adult Jesus is consistently associated with Nazareth. How do we reconcile these two indisputable facts? Some dismiss Bethlehem as a theologoumenon, a theological fabrication. Others insist on Bethlehem based on the census of Quirinius. In the present volume, N. Clayton Croy argues that both are wrong. Instead Jesus’ birthplace was determined by the scandalous nature of Mary’s pregnancy, with it being necessary for Mary and Joseph to escape the inevitable shame of an ill-timed conception and decamp to a less hostile environment. In this light, a Bethlehem-born Jesus who grew up in Nazareth should never have been considered problematic.

Author: Markus Bockmuehl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139487795
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The social and intellectual vitality of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity was in large part a function of their ability to articulate a viably transcendent hope for the human condition. Narratives of Paradise - based on the concrete symbol of the Garden of Delights - came to play a central role for Jews, Christians, and eventually Muslims too. The essays in this volume highlight the multiple hermeneutical perspectives on biblical Paradise from Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins to the systematic expositions of Augustine and rabbinic literature. They show that while early Christian and Jewish sources draw on texts from the same Bible, their perceptions of Paradise often reflect the highly different structures of the two sister religions. Dealing with a wide variety of texts, these essays explore major themes such as the allegorical and literal interpretations of Paradise, the tension between heaven and earth, and Paradise's physical location in space and time.

Author: Paul Foster
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281065160
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This book introduces twelve key Christians from the second and third centuries, a formative period for the Church. These figures are: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Perpetua, Origen, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Gregory Thaumaturgos and Eusebius. Each chapter is self-contained and requires no preliminary knowledge of the figure under discussion, making this an ideal book for laity and for undergraduates studying Christian origins or Patristics.