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Prologue : what is a Christian gift? -- Introduction : philanthropy and asceticism in the first affluent Christian society -- A present-giving world -- Give to all who ask of you : the challenge of early Byzantine philanthropy -- Bend your heart to mercy : giving alms in early Byzantine communities -- With your whole soul : from alms to charity in early Byzantine monasticism -- What God has put in your heart : divine patronage and material blessings -- First fruits of the world : fruitbearings, penance and prosperity in the countryside -- Imperishable remembrance : offerings and the rise of patronal monasteries -- Epilogue : when holy men walked the earth.

"This book demonstrates that the history of Christianity in the fourth century has been written mainly on the basis of Greek ecclesiastical histories and Syriac martyrdom narratives that date to decades, even centuries, after the fact. By closely analyzing these sources--which often exhibit conflicting religious, political, and hagiographical agendas--an evolving portrait of the first Christian emperor begins to emerge. This portrait of Constantine is useful not for re-constructing the events of the fourth century, but for understanding how the Syriac Christians of Roman Mesopotamia and Sasanian Persia used Constantine and the Christians of the West to fashion multiple political and religious identities over a prolonged period of change"--Provided by publisher

"A State of Mixture seeks to resolve the paradox of how East Syrian Christian communities flourished in a Zoroastrian political system, the Iranian Empire. If previous studies have regarded Christians as marginal, insular, and often persecuted, the present book demonstrates their integration into elite networks, adoption of Iranian political practices and imaginaries, and participation in imperial institutions. The rise of Christianity in Iran depended on the Zoroastrian theory and practice of hierarchical, differentiated inclusion, according to which Christians, Jews, and others occupied legitimate places in Iranian political culture in positions subordinate to the imperial religion. Christians, for their part, positioned themselves in a political culture not of their own making with recourse to their own ideological and institutional resources, ranging from the writing of saints' lives to the judicial arbitration of bishops. In placing the social history of East Syrian Christians at the center of the Iranian imperial story, A State of Mixture helps to explain the endurance of a culturally diverse empire across four centuries"--Provided by publisher

Theodoret's People sheds new light on religious clashes of the mid-fifth century regarding the nature (or natures) of Christ. Adam M. Schor focuses on Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, his Syrian allies, and his opponents, led by Alexandrian bishops Cyril and Dioscorus. Although both sets of clerics adhered to the Nicene creed, their contrasting theological statements led to hostilities, violence, and the permanent fracturing of the Christian community. Schor closely examines council transcripts, correspondence, and other records of communication. Using social network theory, he argues that Theodoret's doctrinal coalition was actually a meaningful community, bound by symbolic words and traditions, riven with internal rivalries, and embedded in a wider world of elite friendship and patronage

This remarkable history foregrounds the most marginal sector of the Roman population, the provincial peasantry, to paint a fascinating new picture of peasant society. Making use of detailed archaeological and textual evidence, Leslie Dossey examines the peasantry in relation to the upper classes in Christian North Africa, tracing that region's social and cultural history from the Punic times to the eve of the Islamic conquest. She demonstrates that during the period when Christianity was spreading to both city and countryside in North Africa, a convergence of economic interests narrowed the gap between the rustici and the urbani, creating a consumer revolution of sorts among the peasants. This book's postcolonial perspective points to the empowerment of the North African peasants and gives voice to lower social classes across the Roman world

Mirage of the Saracen analyzes the growth of monasticism and Christian settlements in the Sinai Peninsula through the early seventh century C.E. Walter D. Ward examines the ways in which Christian monks justified occupying the Sinai through creating associations between Biblical narratives and Sinai sites while assigning uncivilized, negative, and oppositional traits to the indigenous nomadic population, whom the Christians pejoratively called ""Saracens."" By writing edifying tales of hostile nomads and the ensuing martyrdom of the monks, Christians not only reinforced their claims to the spi

This remarkable history foregrounds the most marginal sector of the Roman population, the provincial peasantry, to paint a fascinating new picture of peasant society. Making use of detailed archaeological and textual evidence, Leslie Dossey examines the peasantry in relation to the upper classes in Christian North Africa, tracing that region's social and cultural history from the Punic times to the eve of the Islamic conquest. She demonstrates that during the period when Christianity was spreading to both city and countryside in North Africa, a convergence of economic interests narrowed the ga

Between 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop--as the highest Church official in his city--from model Christian to model citizen. Claudia Rapp's exceptionally learned, innovative, and groundbreaking work traces this transition with a twofold aim: to deemphasize the reign of the emperor Constantine, which has traditionally been regarded as a watershed in the development of the Church as an institution, and to bring to the fore the continued importance of the religious underpinnings of the bishop's role as civic leader. Rapp rejects Max Weber's categories of "charismatic" versus "institutional" authority that have traditionally been used to distinguish the nature of episcopal authority from that of the ascetic and holy man. Instead she proposes a model of spiritual authority, ascetic authority and pragmatic authority, in which a bishop's visible asceticism is taken as evidence of his spiritual powers and at the same time provides the justification for his public role. In clear and graceful prose, Rapp provides a wholly fresh analysis of the changing dynamics of social mobility as played out in episcopal appointments

What has the emperor to do with the church?" : persecution and martyrdom from Diocletian to Constantine -- "The God of the martyrs refuses you" : religious violence, political discourse, and Christian identity in the century after Constantine -- An eye for an eye : religious violence in donatist Africa -- Temperata severitas : Augustine, the state, and disciplinary violence -- "There is no crime for those who have Christ" : holy men and holy violence in the late fourth and early fifth centuries -- "The monks commit many crimes" : holy violence contested -- "Sanctify thy hand by the blow" : problematizing Episcopal power -- Non iudicium sed latrocinium : of Holy Synods and robber councils.

Every effort is being made to retain in the literature programs of the Soviet schools and universities all the best work of the Russian literary giants of the nineteenth century. There is even a trend in Soviet scholarship to place the best literary work of the Soviet period in the tradition of the nineteenth-century Russian classics. Lenin repeated time and again that it was necessary "to assimilate critically all that is valuable from the preceding culture." Some Soviet scholars go even further and claim that socialist realism and its best representatives are continuing the literary traditions of the great nineteenth-century Russian writers. Konstantin Fedin is thought of as one who continues Turgenev's "traditions of intellectualism" and shares his ability to be "a chronicler of his epoch, a creator of unforgettable women characters," and Sholokhov is regarded as a writer who further develops Tolstoy's style. Some Soviet critics even complain because there is no visible link in the educational programs to connect Mayakovsky with Pushkin and Lermontov.