A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution

by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser

Overview

In A Threat to Public Piety, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser reexamines the origins of the Great Persecution (AD 303–313), the last eruption of pagan violence against Christians before Constantine enforced the toleration of Christianity within the Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801463969
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome, also from Cornell.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From Permeable Circles to Hardened Boundaries
1. Ammonius Saccas and the Philosophy without Conflicts
2. Origen as a Student of Ammonius
3. Plotinus, Porphyry, and Philosophy in the Public Realm
4. Schism in the Ammonian Community: Porphyry v. Iamblichus
5. Schism in the Ammonian Community: Porphyry v. Methodius of Olympus
Conclusion: The Ammonian Community and the Great Persecution

What People are Saying About This

Susanna K. Elm

A Threat to Public Piety is a well-conceived, well-written, significant, and original contribution to the field of late Roman studies that will attract those interested in religion, philosophy, the rise of Christianity, and the relation between religion and power in the later Roman Empire. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser shows that philosophers in the later Roman Empire were not marginal, idiosyncratic figures but formed part of the imperial court and exercised influence as imperial advisers.

Editorial Reviews

The intellectual conflict between pagan philosophy and Christian theology is one of the fascinating—if not booming—topics in current studies of the third and fourth centuries.... DePalma Digeser's book is a valid attempt to bring together the often fragmented research on the Christian and pagan sides of this discourse. It also highlights the immense importance of both Porphyry and Origen—not only for third-century thought, but also for the eventual developments in the realm of politics and Roman society.

Ecclesiastical History - Ulrich Volp

"Occasionally in every generation a few books may be published that refreshingly redirect scholarship in their respective areas of expertise. This book by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser indisputably falls into that categoryowing to the fact that she has done something that no one has done beforenamely analyzing the works of ArnobiusLactantiusand Eusibius together to show how their common themes reveal a sustained criticism of the anti-Christian philosopher Porphyry of Tyre." —Michael Bland Simmons

Journey of Early Christian Studies

"A Threat to Public Piety is a well-conceived, well-written, significant, and original contribution to the field of late Roman studies that will attract those interested in religion, philosophy, the rise of Christianity, and the relation between religion and power in the later Roman Empire. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser shows that philosophers in the later Roman Empire were not marginal, idiosyncratic figures but formed part of the imperial court and exercised influence as imperial advisers."

Susanna K. Elm

"The intellectual conflict between pagan philosophy and Christian theology is one of the fascinating—if not booming—topics in current studies of the third and fourth centuries. . . . DePalma Digeser's book is a valid attempt to bring together the often fragmented research on the Christian and pagan sides of this discourse. It also highlights the immense importance of both Porphyry and Origen—not only for third-century thought, but also for the eventual developments in the realm of politics and Roman society."—Ulrich Volp, Ecclesiastical History (April 2013)

"Occasionally in every generation a few books may be published that refreshingly redirect scholarship in their respective areas of expertise. This book by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser indisputably falls into that category, owing to the fact that she has done something that no one has done before, namely analyzing the works of Arnobius, Lactantius, and Eusibius together to show how their common themes reveal a sustained criticism of the anti-Christian philosopher Porphyry of Tyre." —Michael Bland Simmons, Journey of Early Christian Studies (2012)

"A Threat to Public Piety is a well-conceived, well-written, significant, and original contribution to the field of late Roman studies that will attract those interested in religion, philosophy, the rise of Christianity, and the relation between religion and power in the later Roman Empire. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser shows that philosophers in the later Roman Empire were not marginal, idiosyncratic figures but formed part of the imperial court and exercised influence as imperial advisers."—Susanna K. Elm, University of California Berkeley, author of Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus and the Vision of Rome

From the Publisher