eBook

Sons of hellenism, fathers of the church

Elm, Susanna

2012

Overview

This groundbreaking study brings into dialogue for the first time the writings of Julian, the last non-Christian Roman Emperor, and his most outspoken critic, Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, a central figure of Christianity. Susanna Elm compares these two men not to draw out the obvious contrast between the Church and the Emperor's neo-Paganism, but rather to find their common intellectual and social grounding. Her insightful analysis, supplemented by her magisterial command of sources, demonstrates the ways in which both men were part of the same dialectical whole. Elm recasts both Julian and Gregory as men entirely of their times, showing how the Roman Empire in fact provided Christianity with the ideological and social matrix without which its longevity and dynamism would have been inconceivable.

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Subject: 331-363 / Ancient / ancient history / ancient rome / bishop / christian church / christian historians / christian history / christianity / Church and state / Church and state -- Rome / Church history / Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 / classical history / classical rome / classicists / early christian studies / emperor julian / Emperor of Rome / Gregory / gregory of nazianzus / Gregory, of Nazianzus, Saint / hellenism / hellenistic society / historians / historical analysis / HISTORY / HISTORY / Ancient / General / ideological background / Julian / Julian, 361-363 / Julian, Emperor of Rome, 331-363 / neopaganism / nonfiction study / of Nazianzus, Saint / political science / POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory / prechristian / Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 / Religion / RELIGION / Antiquities & Archaeology / religious scholars / roman empire / Rome / Rome -- History -- Julian, 361-363 / Rome -- Religion / social matrix
• ISBN: 9780520269309, 0520269306, 9780520951655, 0520951654, 9780520287549, 0520287541