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Acta Archaeologica
AHC
Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum
AntAfr
Antiquités Africaines
AntTard
Antiquité Tardive
APB
Acta Patristica et Byzantina
BASOR
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BBGG
Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata
BCH
Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique
BHG
F. Halkin, ed. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca. 3rd ed. Subsidia Hagiographica 8a. Brussels, 1957.
BHL
Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina. 2 vols. Subsidia Hagiographica 6. Brussels, 1898–1901.
BMGS
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
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Byzantinische Zeitschrift
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Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca. Turnhout, 1977–.
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Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina. Turnhout, 1953–.
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Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1853–.
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Classical Quarterly
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Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Louvain, 1903–.
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Scriptores Arabici
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Scriptores Coptici
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Scriptores Iberici
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Scriptores Syri
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Dumbarton Oaks Papers
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English Historical Review
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Early Medieval Europe
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Échos d’Orient
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Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. Berlin, 1897–.
GOTR
Greek Orthodox Theological Review
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Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
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Harvard Theological Review
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Illinois Classical Studies
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JECS
Journal of Early Christian Studies
JEH
Journal of Ecclesiastical History
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Journal of Hellenic Studies
JÖByz
Jahrbuch der Österrichischen Byzantinistik
JRS
Journal of Roman Studies
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Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
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Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’École Française de Rome
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Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Berlin and Munich, 1826–.
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Auctores Antiquissimi
SRM
Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum
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Oriens Christianus
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Orientalia Christiana Periodica
OLP
Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica
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L’Orient Syrien
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P&P
Past and Present
PBSR
Papers of the British School at Rome
PG
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La Parola del Passato
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RAC
Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana
RÉAug
Revue des Études Augustiniennes
RÉB
Revue des Études Byzantines
RÉG
Revue des Études Grecques
RHE
Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique
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Revue Numismatique
ROC
Revue de l’Orient Chrétien
RömHM
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RQ
Römische Quartalschrift fürAltertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte
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Studi Classici e Orientali
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Siculorum Gymnasium
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Studia Patristica
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Studi e Testi. Vatican City, 1900–.
T&MByz
Travaux et Mémoires du Centre de Recherche d’Histoire et Civilisation Byzantines
ThLZ
Theologische Literaturzeitung
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Theological Studies
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VChr
Vigiliae Christianae
VetChr
Vetera Christianorum
ZAC
Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum
ZKG
Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte
ZPE
Zeitschrift fürPapyrologie und Epigraphik
ZSlPh
Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie
Introduction
In the course of the seventh century, the Eastern Roman empire underwent a profound transformation. As first the Persians and then the Muslims swept over and seized the valuable provinces of the Roman Near East, the inhabitants of the now reduced empire experimented with a series of structural and cultural changes that responded to the dramatic curtailment of Roman power. The structural elements of that change—that is, the series of administrative, economic, and military reforms imposed by the emperor Heraclius and his successors—are now for the most part well known; and aspects of the cultural change (in particular, the decline in secular literature, the explosion in anti-Jewish and apocalyptic texts, and the heightened interest in, or anxieties over, religious icons), have also occupied a prominent position within scholarship. Other elements within this cultural change, however—in particular, the debasement of monasticism as the guardian of ascetic virtue, the rise of the eucharist as the central, aggregating icon of the Christian faith, and the renegotiation of competing ascetical and liturgical narratives—are less well appreciated. This book explores them in greater depth.
The story of the Christian religion in late antiquity is in many ways the story of a religion struggling and failing to overcome its ancient roots. From the conversion of Constantine onward, court theologians articulated a grand vision of a new Christian empire under a Roman emperor presented as God’s pious vicegerent on earth. The Christian faith, however, had been conceived and developed in opposition to the political culture of the Roman state and, as such, carried within its intellectual inheritance the conceptual potential for a full ecclesial dissociation from the secular realm. As the pagan provincial convert was exposed to the new political ideals emanating from Constantinople, therefore, so too was he or she exposed to a Christian culture cut through with political ambiguity, one that held forth the possibility, to some for the first time, of a political identity distinct from, and even antipathetic to, that of Rome.
As the imperial authorities wrestled with the inherent ambiguities of Christian empire, so too did they struggle to mediate those divergent methodologies of Christological exegesis that had developed in the pre-Constantinian period. Emperors aspired to the spiritual and political consensus expounded in the new rhetoric of Christian rule, and in this forced or, at least, precipitated attempts to reconcile the different Christological positions. As a result of those attempts the more extreme doctrinal ideas conceived on both sides were marginalized, but the more important, and more permanent, effect was nevertheless to crystallize the different tendencies into distinct and intractable traditions with their own formulas and Fathers, languages, and hierarchies. As the imperial position became more focused on particular definitions, and as the number of official heretics ever expanded—in particular after the divisive Council of Chalcedon (451)—some alienated communities