Horrors of the Inner Chamber: Temples, Homes, and Secret Atrocities in Late Antiquity
This article addresses a pattern in the representation of the spaces of heathen practice in late antique Christian literature and in the conceptualisation of a necessary response to those spaces. I argue that Christian authors came to regard both temple structures and homes as suspicious enclosures,...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2020
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| In: |
Journal of early Christian history
Year: 2020, Volume: 10, Issue: 2, Pages: 82-107 |
| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BE Greco-Roman religions CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity |
| Further subjects: | B
Menouthis
B domestic B Temple B Egypt B Shenoute of Atripe B Theodosian code B House B Alexandria |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article addresses a pattern in the representation of the spaces of heathen practice in late antique Christian literature and in the conceptualisation of a necessary response to those spaces. I argue that Christian authors came to regard both temple structures and homes as suspicious enclosures, potentially concealing nefarious practices that could harm civic order and fortune. This view developed out of both a progressive suspicion of the domestic sphere in late antique Christian culture as harbouring heathen and heretical devotion, and a broader Roman suspicion of the Near Eastern temple, its architecture, and its secret priestly activities within. Such temples were constructed from early antiquity to exclude outsiders and to privilege a priestly cult within, unlike Roman temples that visibly framed the main cult image. |
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| ISSN: | 2471-4054 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of early Christian history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/2222582X.2020.1816486 |