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Course A107: From Late Antiquity to Byzantium

Christianity and Persecution

Sources and Documents

J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius (SPCK), 247ff
P. R. Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church, : A collection of legal documents up to A. D. 535 (London, 1966)
R. MacMullen and E. N. Lane, Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C.E.: a sourcebook (Minneapolis, 1992)
A. D. Lee, Pagans and Christians in late antiquity a sourcebook (London, 2000)

Lactantius, Divine Institutes translated with an introduction and notes by A. Bowen, University of Cambridge and P. Garnsey, University of Cambridge (Liverpool, 2003)

Christianity

  • A useful bibliography at http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/

    J. N. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds
    Henry Chadwick, The Early Church
    R. Markus, Christianity in the Roman World (London, 1974)
    S. G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (London, 1991)
    Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley, 1991)
    J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak edd., The Jews among pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London, 1992)
    Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (Yale Univ Press, 1997)
    William E. Klingshirn & Mark Vessey edd., The limits of ancient Christianity essays on late antique thought and culture in honor of R. A. Markus (Ann Arbor, 1999)
    Mark Humphries, Communities of the blessed social environment and religious change in northern Italy, AD 200-400 (Oxford, 1999)
    Apologetics in the Roman Empire pagans, Jews, and Christians edd. M. Edwards, M. Goodman and S. Price, in association with C. Rowland (Oxford, 1999)
    Keith Hopkins, A world full of Gods pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Roman Empir (London Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999)
    Geoffrey S. Nathan, The family in late antiquity: the rise of Christianity and the endurance of
    tradition     (London, 1999)
    Henry Chadwick, The church in ancient society from Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford, 2001).
    Dominic Janes, Romans and Christians (Stroud Tempus, 2002).
    And see the article by Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe for the BBC

    • Persecution

  • G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, 'Aspects of the Great Persecution', Harvard Theol Rev. 47 (1954), 75-109
  • F.Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 573-9
  • W. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church, ch. 15
  • S. Mitchell, on Maximin's edict of 312 in JRS 79 (1989)
  • Brent Shaw, 'The passion of Perpetua', Past and Present 139 (May, 1993), 3-45
  • P. S. Davies, 'The origins and purpose of the persecution of 303 AD', JThS 40 (1989), 66-94
  • G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1995, The Wiles Lectures given at the Queen's University of Belfast)
  • J. B. Rives, The decree of Decius and the religion of Empire. JRS 89 (1999)
  • Judith Lieu, Christian identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman world (Oxford, 2004)
  • Gillian Clark , Christianity and Roman society (Cambridge, 2004)
  • G.E.M. De Ste. Croix, Christian persecution, martyrdom, and orthodoxy edd M. Whitby and J. Streeter (Oxford, 2006)

    • Christianisation

  • R. MacMullen, Christianising the Roman Empire, AD 100-400 (New Haven, 1984)
  • R. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1991)
  • S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land men and gods in Asia Minor (Oxford, 1993) II The rise of the church
  • Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth. The consequences of monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993)

    • Look at Christian art, 1 , 2 , 3 , and particularly the Catacombs

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    Last modified December 1, 2009