Collecting early Christian letters : from the apostle Paul to late antiquity / edited by Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Neil, Bronwen, editor.

Allen, Pauline, 1948- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Letter writing--History.

Letter writing.

History.

Letter writing--Religious aspects.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 260 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Summary:

"Letter-collections in Late Antiquity give witness to the flourishing of letter-writing, with the development of the mostly formulaic exchanges between elites of the Graeco-Roman world to a more wide-ranging correspondence by bishops and monks, as well as emperors and Gothic kings. The contributors study individual collections from the first to sixth centuries CE, ranging from the Pauline and deutero-Pauline letters through monastic letters from Egypt, bishops' letter-collections and early papal collections compiled for various purposes. This is the first multi-authored study of New Testament and late-antique letter-collections, crossing the traditional divide between these disciplines by focusing on Latin, Greek, Coptic and Syriac epistolary sources. It draws together leading scholars in the field of late-antique epistolography from Australasia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part I. Introducing Early Christian Letters: 1. Continuities and changes in the practice of letter-collecting from Cicero to late antiquity / Bronwen Neil; 2. Rationales for episcopal letter collections in late antiquity / Pauline Allen

Part II. Collecting New Testament and Early Monastic Letters: 3. The Pauline letters as community documents / Ian J. Elmer; 4. 2 Corinthians and possible material evidence for composite letters in antiquity / Brent Nongbri; 5. The letter collections of Anthony and Ammonas: shaping a community / Samuel Rubenson; 6. From letter to letter collection: monastic epistolography in late antique Egypt / Malcolm Choat

Part III. Collecting Early Bishops' Letters: 7. Letters of Ambrose of Milan (374-97), Books I-IX / J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz; 8. The letters of Basil of Caesarea and the role of letter collections in their transmission / Anna Silvas; 9. The ins and outs of the Chrysostom letter collection: new ways of looking at a limited corpus / Wendy Mayer; 10. The letters of Theodoret of Cyrrhus: personal collections, multi-author archives and historical interpretation / Adam M. Schor

Part IV. Collecting Early Papal Letters: 11. Collectio Corbeiensis, Collectio Pithouensis and the earliest collections of papal letters / Geoffrey D. Dunn; 12. De profundis: the letters and archives of Pelagius I of Rome (556-61) / Bronwen Neil.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781107091863

1107091861

OCLC:

891610329

Online:

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