Religion and power in the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages

This blended mobility CIVIS course aims to familiarise Bachelor's students with the transformation of Christianity and the broader religious landscape after the 4th century as that interacted with political power.

During the course, Professors and students will analyse the relation of this transformation with the then refurbished model of a Christian empire. There will be a focus on the impact of this process on the emergence of the so-called Byzantine Christianity in the East, the native peripheral Christianity in Asia (Syria, Armenia) and Africa (Coptic, Ethiopic, Nubian Christians), as well as the transformation of the broader religious landscape concerning Judaism, “marginal” religious currents such as Gnosticism and apocalypticism.

Finally, the course will highlight the consequences of the addressed topics to Early Islam and its millennial features during the Meccan period.

Main topics addressed

The main topics addressed during this course will be the following:

• The concept of the Christian emperor and his politics after the turbulations from the 4th to 6th century (laws against “heresies” and Jews, councils like Nicaea, Chalcedon, etc.)
• The plurality of the culture of this period, shaped by Christian and non-Christian groups, that threatened the emperors’ authority and led to a multi-faceted and polycentric culture in the 6th century
• The restructuring of the relations between religion and political power after the 7th century in the emergence of a Christian “Romanitas” in the Chalcedonian East and the concept of a “sacred centre” in Constantinople
• The impact of the above-mentioned restructuring on the structures and the cult of the Christian Church in the East
• The shaping of the peripheral non-Chalcedonian Christianity in Asia (Syriac and Armenian Christianity) and Africa (Coptic, Nubian, and Ethiopian Christians)
• The relations between various dominant religious systems as well as between dominant religious structures and contemporaneous religious movements in the margins since these marginals movements (deemed as “heretical”) created a crucial formative factor of the religious landscape
• The study of early Islam (enabled by the dramatic advances in the field of Qur’anic studies) from the viewpoint of the contrast between the inner-worldly and micro-millennial focus of the Meccan phase, on the one hand, and its swift shift towards the political and macro-millennial attitudes of the Medinan phase, on the other
• The study of Judaism regarding a clear shift to later Babylonian rabbinic views from the earlier and decidedly apolitical attitudes of Palestinian forms of rabbinic Judaism that emerged in the aftermath of the unsuccessful revolts against Rome. These views were more open towards the political compromises necessary for any negotiation of the politics of the Sasanian Empire in which they resided

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, the students will:

• Be familiar with a concept of Late Antiquity that crosses the border of the Roman Empire and the classical periodization of history
• Be informed about some of the most characteristic religious movements and ideas of the margins, such as “Gnosticism”, Manichaeism, but also apocalyptic and chiliastic groups with a special focus on their impact on the religious history of the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
• Be familiar with the most important primary literature about these movements and their opponents and the debates, whereby aspects of the construction of the “Other” will be particularly highlighted
• Comprehend the complex interplay of non-Chalcedonian traditions and the Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Empires
• Understand the political and cultural shifts that accompanied the Meccan and Medinan phases of the Qur’anic community and how Islam’s Late Antique and Qur’anic heritage shaped Islamic politics up to Abbasid times

Students will be able to: 

• Analyse important texts concerning religion and power in Late Antiquity
• Contextualise texts and information about inner-Christian debates/controversies
• Describe the process of political and cultural “Christianisation” of the Roman Empire
• Discuss the most essential scholarly strategies for the 4th to 6th centuries
• Recognise the structural evolution of Christianity in the East after the end of Late Antiquity
• Identify essential events and persons related to Eastern Christianity after the 6th century
• Analyse the influence of Christianity on the creation of political norms, functions, and ideology in a Christian Empire (Byzantium, Nubia, Armenia)
• Assess the impact of centralized political power on aspects of medieval Christianity
• Locate rabbinic and non-rabbinic Jewish traditions within the social fibre of the respective Empires