Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity (eBook)

Collected Essays I

Jan N. Bremmer (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2017 | 1. Auflage
519 Seiten
Mohr Siebeck (Verlag)
978-3-16-155438-4 (ISBN)

Infos

In this work, Jan N. Bremmer aims to bring together the worlds of early Christianity and those of ancient history and classical literature - worlds that still all too rarely interlock. Contextualising the life and literature of the early Christians in their Greco-Roman environment, he focusses on four areas. A first section looks at more general aspects of early Christianity: the name of the Christians, their religious and social capital, prophecy and the place of widows and upper-class women in the Christian movement. Second, the chronology and place of composition of the early apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and Pseudo-Clementines are newly determined by paying close attention to their doctrinal contents, but also, innovatively, to their onomastics and social vocabulary. The author also analyses the frequent use of magic in the Acts and explains the prominence of women by comparing the Acts to the Greek novel. Third, an investigation into the theme of the tours of hell suggests a new chronological order, shows that the Christian tours were indebted to both Greek and Jewish models, and illustrates that in the course of time the genre dropped a large part of its Jewish heritage. The fourth and final section concentrates on the most famous and intriguing report of an ancient martyrdom: the Passion of Perpetua. It pays special attention to the motivation and visions of Perpetua, which are analyzed not by taking recourse to modern theories such as psychoanalysis, but by looking to the world in which Perpetua lived, both Christian and pagan. It is only by seeing the early Christians in their ancient world that we might begin to understand them and their emerging communities.

Born 1944; 1979 PhD; 1978-90 Associate Professor for ancient history at the University of Utrecht; 1990-2009 Chair of Religious Studies at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen; 2019-20 Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies »Beyond Canon,« Regensburg.

Inhalt

Cover 1
Preface 8
Contents 16
Abbreviations 18
Section I: Aspects of Early Christianity 20
Chapter 1: Why Did Jesus’ Followers Call Themselves ‘Christians’? 22
1. The Importance of Christ 22
2. Christian and pagan adhesion to one god 24
3. Jesus’ followers as ‘Christians’ 26
Chapter 2: The Social and Religious Capital of the Early Christians 32
1. Charity 35
2. Interconnectedness 37
3. Family aspects 39
4. Bonding and bridging 44
5. Religious capital 47
Conclusion 50
Chapter 3: Why Did Early Christianity Attract Upper-class Women? 52
Chapter 4: Pauper or Patroness: the Widow in theEarly Christian Church 62
1. Jesus and the first Palestine congregations 63
2. The Greek world 66
3. The Roman world 70
4. Syria and Egypt 73
5. The Christian Empire 75
6. Conclusions 82
Chapter 5: Peregrinus’ Christian Career 84
Chapter 6: The Domestication of Early Christian Prophecy 100
1. The situation in Paul’s time 100
2. The situation around AD 100 102
3. Montanism or the revival of prophecy 106
4. Preliminary conclusions 110
5. The Ascension of Isaiah and ecstatic prophecy 111
Section II: Studies in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostlesand the Pseudo-Clementines 116
Chapter 7: Women in the Acts of John 118
1. Lycomedes and Cleopatra (19–29) 119
2. Andronicus and Drusiana (63–86) 121
3. Old women and widows (30–7) 123
4. Conclusion 128
Appendix: date and place of composition of the Acts of John 130
Chapter 8: Man, Magic, and Martyrdom in the Acts of Andrew 134
1. Males and females 139
2. Magic and exorcism 141
3. Martyrdom 148
Chapter 9: Aspects of the Acts of Peter: Women, Magic, Place and Date 152
1. Women 152
2. Demons and magic 159
3. Place of origin and date of the APt 162
Chapter 10: Magic, Martyrdom and Women’s Liberation in the Acts of Paul and Thecla 168
1. Paul and Thecla in Iconium 169
3. Paul and Thecla in Antioch 177
4. Composition, name, date, place of origin, author, and aims of the AP 182
Chapter 11: The Acts of Thomas: Place, Date and Women 186
1. Women 190
2. Women and the AAA 196
Chapter 12: Conversion in the Oldest Apocryphal Acts 200
1. The Acts of John 201
2. The Acts of Peter 206
3. The Acts of Paul 209
4. Conclusions and general observations 212
Chapter 13: Magic in the Apocryphal Acts 216
1. Realities and representations of magic 217
2. Exorcism 221
3. The confrontation between the apostle Peter and Simon Magus 227
4. Conclusions 235
Chapter 14: The Apocryphal Acts: Authors, Place, Time and Readership 238
1. Authorship, text and message 238
2. The chronology and place of origin of the AAA 240
3. Readership 244
Chapter 15: Pseudo-Clementines: Texts, Dates, Places, Authors and Magic 254
1. Text 254
2. Place and Date of the Grundschrift, Homilies and Recognitions 258
3. The Author of the Grundschrift 260
4. Magic 262
Chapter 16: Apion and Anoubion in the Homilies 270
1. Athenodorus 270
2. Annoubion 271
3. Appion 275
4. Conclusion 283
Section III: Apocalypses and Tours of Hell 286
Chapter 17: The Apocalypse of Peter: Greek or Jewish? 288
Chapter 18: The Apocalypse of Peter: Place, Date and Punishments 300
1. The Date and Place of the Apocalypse of Peter 300
2. Crimes and punishments 303
3. The nature and chronology of the tours of hell 310
Chapter 19: Christian Hell: From the Apocalypse of Peter to the Apocalypse of Paul 314
1. Date and place of origin 317
2. Old and new sins and sinners 321
3. Punishments 328
4. Conclusion 331
Chapter 20: Tours of Hell: Greek, Jewish, Roman and Early Christian 332
1. The Greeks 333
2. Palestine 336
3. Rome 338
4. Early Christianity 342
5. Conclusion 347
Chapter 21: Descents to Hell and Ascents to Heavenin Apocalyptic Literature 348
1. Descents in the classical world 349
2. An Enochic interlude 351
3. A descent in Rome 353
4. Descents in early Christianity 354
5. Ascent to heaven 357
5.1 The ascent of the soul to heaven: round trips and single journeys 357
5.2 Roundtrips to heaven in vision or ‘reality’ 360
5.3 Ascent to immortal heavenly life 362
6. Conclusion 363
Section IV: The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas 366
Chapter 22: Perpetua and her Diary: Authenticity, Family and Visions 368
1. The Acta martyrum 369
2. The text of the Passion of Perpetua 372
3. Perpetua and her family 376
4. Perpetua’s visions 383
4.1 Perpetua’s Ascent to Heaven 385
4.2 Perpetua and her brother Dinocrates 392
4.3 The fight against the Egyptian 398
5. Conclusion 405
Chapter 23: Felicitas: The Martyrdom of a Young African Woman 406
Chapter 24: The Motivation of Martyrs: Perpetua and the Palestinians 422
1. The penultimate day 424
2. The preparations for the execution 427
3. The motivation of martyrs 435
Chapter 25: Passio Perpetuae 2, 16 and 17 442
2.1–2 442
2.3 450
16.1 451
16.2 454
17 456
Chapter 26: The Vision of Saturus in the Passio Perpetuae 458
1. Saturus and (the text of) his vision 458
2. Saturus’ welcome in heaven 461
3. Conversation with the clergy on earth 467
4. Conclusion 472
Chapter 27: Contextualising Heaven in Third-Century North Africa 474
1. The Passio Sanctorum Mariani et Iacobi 475
2. The court scene 476
3. The heavenly landscape 479
4. The fountain and the cup 481
5. Marian’s heaven 485
Acknowledgements 488
Index of names, places and passages 490

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.7.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Altertum / Antike
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
• ISBN-10: 3-16-155438-8 / 3161554388
• ISBN-13: 978-3-16-155438-4 / 9783161554384