Full Description
Death and rebirth was of vital importance to early Christians in late antiquity. In late antiquity, death was all encompassing. Mortality rates were high, plague and disease in urban areas struck at will, and one lived on the knife's edge regarding one's health. Religion filled a crucial role in this environment, offering an option for those who sought cure and comfort. Following death, the inhumed were memorialized, providing solace to family members through sculpture, painting, and epigraphy. This book offers a sustained interdisciplinary treatment of death and rebirth, a theme that early Christians (and scholars) found important. By analysing the theme of death and rebirth through various lenses, the contributors deepen our understanding of the early Christian funerary and liturgical practices as well as their engagement with other groups in the Empire.
Contents
Introduction
Lee M. Jefferson
1. Death and Rebirth within North African Montanism
William Tabbernee
2. The Church as the Locus of Miracles: Santa Sabina and Revisiting the Staff of Jesus in Early Christian Art
Lee M. Jefferson
3. Wearing the Cross: Macrina, the Cross, and Co-Crucifixion
Felicity Harley-McGowan
4. Altar-ed Arks: Form as (Theological) Function in Late Antique and Early Medieval Reliquaries
Jennifer Awes Freeman
5. Marriage and Martyrdom in Roman North Africa: Augustine and Crispina of Tebessa
David G. Hunter
6. "Bring Out Yer Dead": A Funerary Ritual Koine and Its Christian Dialects from Little Traditions to a Great Tradition
Jacob Latham
7. Apostolic Posture: Mary Magdalene as Witness to Death and Resurrection in Art
Michael Peppard
8. Reuniting after Death, Defining Familial Piety in Life: A Case of Rhetoric in Word and Image
Mark D. Ellison
9. Undead Apostles and The Development of Cultic Practices
David L. Eastman
10. To Die for God: Sacrifice, Eucharist, and Martyrdom
