| Description |
xvi, 334 p. : ill., map ; 27 cm |
| Bib Note |
Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-322) and indexes |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Christian apologists and the second-century built environment -- Bringing together literature and archaeological remains -- Framing the question, framing the world -- What is an apology? : Christian apologies and the so-called Second Sophistic -- What does it mean to apologize? -- Addressing the Roman emperors, being Greek -- Defining the so-called Second Sophistic -- Traveling to Olympia : material manifestations of Greek Paideia and imperial address -- The Fountain of Regilla and Herodes Atticus -- Apologetics and christianness -- What is the space of the Roman Empire? : mapping, bodies, and knowledge in the Roman world -- Traveling men : Lucian, Tatian, and Justin -- Lucian -- Tatian -- Justin -- The Sebasteion in Aphrodisias -- Into the cities -- What informs the geographical imagination? : the Acts of the Apostles and Greek cities under Rome -- Placing Acts -- The Panhellenion -- Hadrian, ethnicity, and true religion -- What has Athens to do with Rome? -- Traveling back to Acts -- Acts 2 -- Paul in Lystra and Athens : confusing humans and gods -- Paul in Thessalonik and Philippi : Roman sedition against Rome? -- What is justice? what is piety? what is Paideia : Justin, the forum of Trajan in Rome, and a crisis of mimsis -- The column of Trajan -- Justin's apologies -- Names and deeds : Justin introduces himself, the emperors, and the mock court -- On the name -- The name and speech-acts -- A higher court -- Mimsis, images, and daimones -- Sameness and difference -- Justice, piety, and Paideia in the Forum of Trajan -- The forum's surroundings -- Moving through the forum of Trajan -- War and the "temple of peace" -- Human bodies and the image(s) of god(s) -- How do you know God? : Athenagoras on names and images -- "This golden one, this Herakles, this God" : Commodus and Herakles -- The ambivalence of Herakles -- Commodus as Herakles -- A proliferation of signs -- Athenagoras -- Athenagoras's argument : the proemium -- Grammar and theology -- Atheism and piety "in the presence of philosopher-kings" -- The material gods -- What do we learn when we look? (part I) images, desire, and Tatian's to the Greeks -- What an image does -- The origins of images -- What you see and what you get : theorizing vision -- Images and the theological imagination : Cicero, Dio, and Maximus of Tyre -- Tatian, spectacle, and connoisseurship -- Tatian at the theater -- Tatian's grand tour -- What do we learn when we look? (part II) Aphrodite and Clement of Alexandria -- The Knidian Aphrodite and her afterlife -- Aphrodite at Knidos -- Pseudo-Lucian and the Knidia -- The Knidia and the ancient gaze -- The Knidia and Roman portraits -- Clement of Alexandria -- Alexandria, the mad, hybrid, spectacular city -- Introducing clement's Exhortation -- "They say a girl loved an image" : The exhortation on statues, piety, and desire -- Clement on the Knidian Aphrodite -- Stories of the gods : the pornographic Venus and Mars |
| Summary |
Nasrallah shows how early Christians took up themes of justice, piety, and even the question of whether humans could be gods. They did so in the midst of sculptures that conveyed visually that humans could be gods, monumental architecture that made claims about the justice and piety of the Roman imperial family, and ideas of geography that placed Greek or Roman ethnicity at the center of the known world. --from publisher description |
| Subject |
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
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Art, Roman
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Architecture, Roman
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Christian art and symbolism -- Rome
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| ISBN |
9780521766524 (hardback) |
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0521766524 (hardback) |
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