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Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power

Constantine, Julian, and the Bishops on Exegesis and Empire

Lea Niccolai author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:1st Jun '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power cover

Rethinks Rome's Christianisation as a crisis of knowledge propelled by Constantine, with Emperor Julian as its key interpreter and catalyst.

Shows that the paradox of the late antique clash between Christianity and Greco-Roman culture is that classical culture wrote the script for the Christianisation of Roman power. Emperor Julian's writings reveal the continuous influence of traditional philosophical ideals in shaping the competition between fourth-century pagan and Christian leaders.This book rethinks the Christianisation of the late Roman empire as a crisis of knowledge, pointing to competitive cultural re-assessment as a major driving force in the making of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian state. Emperor Julian's writings are re-assessed as key to accessing the rise and consolidation of a Christian politics of interpretation that relied on exegesis as a self-legitimising device to secure control over Roman history via claims to Christianity's control of paideia. This reconstruction infuses Julian's reaction with contextual significance. His literary and political project emerges as a response to contemporary reconfigurations of Christian hermeneutics as controlling the meaning of Rome's culture and history. At the same time, understanding Julian as a participant in a larger debate re-qualifies all fourth-century political and episcopal discourse as a long knock-on effect reacting to the imperial mobilisation of Christian debates over the link between power and culture.

'Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power is filled with insight and fresh thinking that breathes new life into the study of kingship literature and the way Christians successfully adapted classical values to their own uses.' Harold Drake, Sehepunkte

ISBN: 9781009299299

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 25mm

Weight: 690g

348 pages