Studies in late antiquity

In: Variorum collected studies

Abstract

"Late Antiquity was particularly fertile in regard to the development of religion and philosophy; both what was propounded by scholars and what people throughout society thought and believed. The competition and cross-pollination between traditional Greco-Roman religion, Middle and Neo-Platonist philosophy, and Christian theology of the Patristic era created a feast for researchers that is both interesting and interdisciplinary. Current narratives of both peaceful competition and violent struggle between Christianity and Paganism (for lack of a better term) are reductive and incomplete. Greenwood's research, published between 2013 and 2018 in the fields of history, divinity, and philosophy, demonstrates the complexity of that era and provide a more fully-orbed picture of major actors including the Emperor Julian, Porphyry of Tyre, and Celsus. From the second to the fourth centuries, these were some of the major players in attempting to define the terrain in the conflict between their philosophies and the Christian religion. While the timeframe remains consistently within the late second to the mid-fourth centuries A.D., the evidence ranges between inscriptions, literature, and historical accounts. The particular focus of Greenwood's research is the emperor Julian (Flavius Caludius Julianus, d. 363), a figure of perennial interest, as not only the last pagan emperor, but the last anti-Christian polemicist of real significance in antiquity. This volume builds upon numerous recent articles offering a new perspective on Julian, bringing together research from ancient history, Neoplatonist philosophy, and patristic theology, and will be useful to students and scholars alike from these disciplines"--