Symeon the Holy Fool
Title | Symeon the Holy Fool PDF eBook |
Author | Derek Krueger |
Publisher | University of California Press |
Total Pages | 216 |
Release | 2018-05-18 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0520302117 |
This first English translation of Leontius of Neapolis's Life of Symeon the Fool brings alive one of the most colorful of early Christian saints. In this study of a major hagiographer at work, Krueger fleshes out a broad picture of the religious, intellectual, and social environment in which the Life was created and opens a window onto the Christian religious imagination at the end of Late Antiquity. He explores the concept of holy folly by relating Symeon's life to the gospels, to earlier hagiography, and to anecdotes about Diogenes the Cynic. The Life is one of the strangest works of the Late Antique hagiography. Symeon seemed a bizarre choice for sanctification, since it was through very peculiar antics that he converted heretics and reformed sinners. Symeon acted like a fool, walked about naked, ate enormous quantities of beans, and defecated in the streets. When he arrived in Emesa, Symeon tied a dead dog he found on a dunghill to his belt and entered the city gate, dragging the dog behind him. Krueger presents a provocative interpretation of how these bizarre antics came to be instructive examples to everyday Christians. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996.
Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium
Title | Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium PDF eBook |
Author | Youval Rotman |
Publisher | Harvard University Press |
Total Pages | 267 |
Release | 2016-09-19 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0674057619 |
Prologue. Insanity and religion -- Part I. Sanctified insanity: between history and psychology -- The paradox that inhabits ambiguity -- Meanings of insanity -- Part II. Abnormality and social change: early Christianity vs. rabbinic Judaism -- Abnormality and social change -- Socializing nature: the ascetic totem -- Epilogue. Psychology, religion, and social change
Brother-making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium
Title | Brother-making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium PDF eBook |
Author | Claudia Rapp |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | 369 |
Release | 2016 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0195389336 |
An exhaustive treatment of ritual brotherhood in Byzantium, this book challenges the 'Boswell Thesis' and argues that the ecclesiastical ritual to bless a relationship between two men bears no resemblance to marriage, but has its origins in early monasticism.
The Inner Kingdom
Title | The Inner Kingdom PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 180 |
Release | 1870 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy
Title | The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy PDF eBook |
Author | Paroma Chatterjee |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 301 |
Release | 2014-03-17 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 1107034965 |
Explores the development and diffusion of the vita image which emerged in Byzantium in the twelfth century and spread to Italy and beyond.
Jumble Sales of the Apocalypse
Title | Jumble Sales of the Apocalypse PDF eBook |
Author | Simon Jenkins |
Publisher | SPCK |
Total Pages | 129 |
Release | 2017-03-16 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 0281077223 |
‘What do you do when the Second Coming is scheduled for next Wednesday? . . . Assemble at your nearest church? Make sure you’ve got clean underwear on? Confess those last sins? Send some goodbye texts to unbelieving friends? Take Paracetamol in case the rapture gives you the bends?’ Those and other neglected theological questions are rigorously examined in this book. With its gently satirical take on some of the weird ways in which people express their beliefs, it’s a book that will help you appreciate the true value of religion by exploring the comedy of its wilder excesses. Whether you’re a believer or a non-believer, fond of religion or a more than just a bit suspicious of it, you’ll find your assumptions are far from safe after reading it!
Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond
Title | Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond PDF eBook |
Author | Sergey A. Ivanov |
Publisher | OUP Oxford |
Total Pages | 492 |
Release | 2006-04-06 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 0191515140 |
There are saints in Orthodox Christian culture who overturn the conventional concept of sainthood. Their conduct may be unruly and salacious, they may blaspheme and even kill - yet, mysteriously, those around them treat them with even more reverence. Such saints are called 'holy fools'. In this pioneering study Sergey A. Ivanov examines the phenomenon of holy foolery from a cultural standpoint. He identifies its prerequisites and its development in religious thought, and traces the emergence of the first hagiographic texts describing these paradoxical saints. He describes the beginnings of holy foolery in Egyptian monasteries of the fifth century, followed by its high point in the cities of Byzantium, with an eventual decline in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. He also compares the important Russian tradition of holy fools, which in some form has survived to this day.