Life (eBook)

The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe

Catherine Michael Chin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
258 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-40069-6 (ISBN)

Infos

A vivid and intimate glimpse of ancient life under the sway of cosmic and spiritual forces that the modern world has forgotten.
 
Life immerses the reader in the cosmic sea of existences that made up the late ancient Mediterranean world. Loosely structured around events in the biography of one early Christian writer and traveler, this book weaves together the philosophical, religious, sensory, and scientific worlds of the later Roman Empire to tell the story of how human lives were lived under different natural and spiritual laws than those we now know today.
 
This book takes a highly literary and sensory approach to its subject, evoking an imagined experience of an ancient natural and supernatural world, rather than merely explaining ancient thought about the natural world. It mixes visual and literary genres to give the reader a sensory and affective experience of a thought-world that is very different from our own. An experimental intellectual history, Life invites readers into the premodern cosmos to experience a world that is at once familiar, strange, and deeply compelling.

Inhalt

Contents

A Note on Images 

Introduction: Life, or, Stories from an Early Christian Universe 

1. Small Alive Things 
2. You Grew Here 
3. A Horizon Is Not a Limit 
4. The Future is Very Far Away and We Have Not Arrived There Yet 
Conclusion: A Confession About Method 

Appendix: Image Descriptions 
Notes 
Acknowledgments 
Bibliography 
Subject Index 
Source Index 

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.3.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Schlagworte: Ancient World • Angels • COSMIC • early Christian writing • fourth-century monk • History • interwined • lived experience • Philosophical • premodern • Religious • Rufinus of Aquileia • Scientific • souls • Stars • Stones • the lives of plants • theological frameworks • Theology
• ISBN-10: 0-520-40069-0 / 0520400690
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-40069-6 / 9780520400696