The Life of Peter the Iberian by John Rufus records the ascetic struggle of a fifth-century anti-Chalcedonian bishop of Mayyuma, Palestine. Cornelia Horn presents a historical-critical study of the only substantial anti-Chalcedonian witness to the history of the conflict in Palestine and analyses the formative period of fifth-century anti-Chalcedonian hierarchy, theology, and its ascetic expression. Important themes are pilgrimage as an ascetic ideal and asceticism assource of theological authority. Archaeological data on many places in the Levant and textual sources in Syriac, Coptic, Greek, Armenian, and Georgian are examined. This book contributes to our understanding of the origins of anti-Chalcedonian theology and the influence of asceticism on its development, theChristian topography of the Levant, and the history of the anti-Chalcedonian movement in Palestine.

Barsauma was a fifth-century Syrian ascetic, archimandrite, and leader of monks, notorious for his extreme asceticism and violent anti-Jewish campaigns across the Holy Land. Although Barsauma was a powerful and revered figure in the Eastern church, modern scholarship has widely dismissed him as a thug of peripheral interest. Until now, only the most salacious bits of the Life of Barsauma—a fascinating collection of miracles that Barsauma undertook across the Near East—had been translated. This pioneering study includes the first full translation of the Life and a series of studies by scholars employing a range of methods to illuminate the text from different angles and contexts. This is the authoritative source on this influential figure in the history of the church and his life, travels, and relations with other religious groups.

The New York Times bestseller and definitive history of Christianity for our time—from the award-winning author of The Reformation and Silence A product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill, Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity goes back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and encompasses the globe. It captures the major turning points in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox history and fills in often neglected accounts of conversion and confrontation in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. MacCulloch introduces us to monks and crusaders, heretics and reformers, popes and abolitionists, and discover Christianity's essential role in shaping human history and the intimate lives of men and women. And he uncovers the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the surprising beliefs of the founding fathers, the rise of the Evangelical movement and of Pentecostalism, and the recent crises within the Catholic Church. Bursting with original insights and a great pleasure to read, this monumental religious history will not soon be surpassed.

The context of the history of Georgia from the fourth to the sixth centuries -- Christianity and monasticism in Georgia in the fourth and fifth centuries -- Peter's genealogy in the life of Peter the Iberian : hagiographic ancestry -- The history of the christological controversies and their context in Palestine from the fourth to the sixth centuries -- Monasticism in fifth-century Palestine -- On the death of Theodosius -- The anti-chalcedonian defeat in Palestine -- Authorship -- John Rufus -- Rhetoric and genre in the life of Peter the Iberian -- Text-critical overview -- Versions and original text -- Synopsis of the Vita Petri Iberi and the De obitu Theodosii -- Outline of the Vita Petri Iberi -- Outline of the De obitu Theodosii -- Genealogical tables of the families of Peter the Iberian and Zuzo -- Chronological timeline -- Texts and translations -- Life of Peter the Iberian -- On the death of Theodosius.

Is it possible to rethink the multilayered and polyvalent Christology of the Qur’ān against the intersecting of competing peripheral Christianities, anti-Jewish Christian polemics, and the making of a new Arab state in the 7th-century Near East? To what extent may this help us to decipher, moreover, the intricate redactional process of the quranic corpus? And can we unearth from any conclusions as to the tension between a messianic-oriented and a prophetic-guided religious thought buried in the document? By analysing, first, the typology and plausible date of the Jesus texts contained in the Qur’ān (which implies moving far beyond both the habitual chronology of the Qur’ān and the common thematic division of the passages in question) and by examining, in the second place, the Qur’ān’s earliest Christology via-à-vis its later (and indeed much better known) Muhamadan kerygma, the present study answers these crucial questions and, thereby, sheds new light on the Qur’ān’s original sectarian milieu and pre-canonical development.

Sophronius' Synodical Letter was was read out at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680-1, and provided the only sustained rebuttal of the monoenergist doctrine. This is the first publication of the letter in annotated translation alongside the original Greek. Includes a comprehensive introduction and further documents on the monoenergist doctrine.

"This book focuses on the attempts of three seventh-century Palestinian intellectuals--John Moschos, Sophronius of Jerusalem, and Maximus the Confessor--to determine the Church's power and place during a period of profound crisis, as the eastern Roman empire suffered serious reversals in the face of Persian and then Islamic expansion. Through their stories, Booth documents nothing less than a profound change in the very nature of the self-perception of a religious society. Although focused on the first half of the seventh century, this book throws bright light both behind itself--on the nature of the role of the holy man in late antiquity--and in front of itself--on the nature of the Byzantine Orthodoxy that would emerge in the middle ages, and which is still central to the churches of Greece and Eastern Europe"--