RELS 214-01, Early Christian Literature, Fall 2006

Abstract

This course is a thematic survey of literature that emerged in the early Christian church during the period of late antiquity (300-450 CE). Of this period, Bart Ehrman and Andrew Jacobs have observed that “Christians in Late Antiquity lived through a vibrant period of Mediterranean and Near Eastern history, as new cultural and social forms emerged from old ones and new modes of thinking and living took hold in a world that managed to merge innovation and tradition at all levels of life...the study of Christianity in Late Antiquity has become the study of religious revolution: unpredictable, multifaceted, and diverse.” (Christianity in Late Antiquity, 1) This course has a particular emphasis on literature that reveals emerging forms of Christian piety in this period and it takes particular care to situate this literature in its generative context and in the political, historical and cultural milieu of the Roman Empire in order to understand the role of such foundational practices in this period