From Acts on through the church fathers, it was a commonplace among writers that the Jews were involved - sometimes leading, sometimes following - in persecuting the church. Judith Lieu ( Neither Jew Nor Greek?: Constructing Early Christianity (Academic Paperback) ) doubts the evidence. . . . . Continue Reading »
When assessing worries about American empire, some historical perspective is helpful. Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper reminds us in Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference that “Throughout history, most people have lived in political units that did not pretend . . . . Continue Reading »
Spirit, Hegel said, works inwardly, ever forward, until “grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth which divided it from the sun . . . so that the earth crumbles away.” Apparently addressing relentless Geist , Hegel quotes Hamlet to his father’s ghost: . . . . Continue Reading »
Jerome thought that heretics, like the animals on the ark, come in twos, male and female. In Virginia Burrus’ translation: “Simon Magus founded a heresy, assisted by the help of Helen, a prostitute. Nicolaus the Antiochene, inventor of all impurities, led a female band. . . . . Continue Reading »
Public health, argues Gary Ferngren ( Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity ), was a Christian invention: “Except for making supplications to the gods, [ancient Greco-Roman] civil authorities did little to alleviate the situation [during plagues]. Responsibility for health was . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 1972 article, Janet Nelson argued that medieval heresy arose from a “crisis of theodicy” that arose because of an increasingly unstable and dislocated society. Mixed with these motives were worries about purity: Heretical groups believed themselves to be liberating . . . . Continue Reading »
Luther Peterson writes, “The confessionalization thesis is a fruitful instrument in explaining the transformation of medieval feudal monarchies into modern states, in particular how the new states changed their inhabitants into disciplined, obedience and united subjects. According to . . . . Continue Reading »
Constantine has often been blamed for mistreatment of Jews in the Roman empire, but that blame has been misplaced. He did little to change the legal status of Jews or tighten restrictions on them. Guy Stroumsa, however, has suggested that Constantine had a more subtle role in a . . . . Continue Reading »
So far as I know, Engels never rode the Underground, but he understood its spirit. In The Condition of the Working Class in England , he wrote: “Hundreds of thousands of people from all classes and ranks of society crowd each other [on the streets] . . . . Meanwhile it occurs to no one . . . . Continue Reading »
According to an article by the nineteenth-century Slaophil philosopher Ivan Kireevsky, the classical world represented a “triumph of formal human reason” that determined the shape of Western Europe through the Middle Ages and into the modern period. In Western Christendom, “the . . . . Continue Reading »
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