Dirk Rohmann Boeken

This volume brings together a large number of sources with which to illustrate the problem of religious violence in relation to the history of Christianity in the Roman Empire and post-Roman world. The sources are presented in both the original languages and in new English translation and are accompanied by introductions, comments, and short bibliographies. Thematically, Dirk Rohmann focuses on the ways in which Christians were subjected to violence by their pagan surroundings, on the development and scope of the very Christian ideas of martyrdom and of persecution, on how Christians thought about the nature of God and of holy wars, as well as on the problem of violence within the world of early monasticism and asceticism. Drawing on the amount of texts extant from the first to seventh centuries, this book will be of interest to both students and academics in the areas of ancient and early medieval history, classics, and religious studies.

This volume explores how forced movement and exile of clerics developed over time and ultimately came to shape interactions between the late-antique Roman Empire, the Byzantine, post-Roman, and early medieval worlds. It investigates the politics and legal mechanics of ecclesiastical exile, the locations associated with life in exile, both in literary sources and in material culture, as well as the multitude of strategies which ancient and early medieval authors, and the exiles themselves, employed to create historical narratives of banishment. The chapters are revised versions of papers given at international conferences held at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, the German Historical Institute London, and the University of Alcalá in 2016 and 2017.

It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

Dirk Rohmann zufolge sahen die erhaltenen hellenistischen Historiker im harmonischen Zusammenwirken der Seelen gemäß der kosmischen Ordnung eine wesentliche Ursache für den Aufstieg und Fall von Staaten. Sowohl Polybios als auch Diodor begründen den Aufstieg Roms mit der seelischen Gesundheit der römischen Gesellschaft und deren Einklang mit der Götterwelt, umgekehrt den von ihnen empfundenen Niedergang und Freiheitsverlust der griechischen Stadtstaaten mit der seelischen Erkrankung von Herrschern, Politikern und ganzen Staaten. Diese Erkrankung zeigte sich im Übermaß der Leidenschaften, das von den hellenistischen Philosophenschulen, insbesondere dem Stoizismus, als ansteckender Wahnsinn verstanden wurde, der sich von den regierenden Personen oder Gruppen auf alle Menschen eines Staates epidemisch überträgt. Die äußerste Form des Wahnsinns äußerte sich in der Hybris der Selbstüberhebung und der Zerstörung von Heiligtümern. In dieser teleologischen Sicht konnten Seuchen die Folge sein, das Schicksal ganzer Staaten und Reiche konnte sich umkehren und über mehrere Generationen zu deren Auflösung führen.