Monday, March 2, 2015

Assignment for Wednesday, 03-04-2015

Dear Readers of Rome

Our topic for Wednesday is the Holy Dead. We will talk about how Christianity rethinks the relation between the living and the dead, particularly the sainted dead, and how this effects their place(s) in the City.

Please do the following:

(1) Download, print and read excerpts from Peter Brown's The Cult of the Saints.

(2) Download, print and read the fact sheet about Relics in Rome.

(3) Download, print and read the very brief outline of Mysteries and the worship of Mithras, as we will be visiting a Mithraeum in Rome.

Peter Brown says that the Christian cult of the saints broke down, and occasionally inverted, the barriers of the ancient world - - barriers that were both spatial and social. Our task for Wednesday is to analyze how such Christian practices fit into prior patterns of civic life and patronage, even as they profoundly reshape those Roman patterns, and by so doing redraw the urban map. Expect me to question you about specifics from Brown's argument, so be sure to read him closely.

gs

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