Magic and heresy in ancient Christian literature / Shaily Shashikant Patel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Patel, Shaily Shashikant, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in religion in late antiquity, 2633-8602.

Cambridge elements. Elements in religion in late antiquity, 2633-8602

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian literature, Early--History and criticism.

Christian literature, Early.

Magic in literature.

Christian heresies in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (78 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

Magic and Heresy in Ancient Christian Literature is a genealogical study of two parallel but not coequal discursive trajectories: of 'magic' and of 'heresy.' This longue durée analysis charts how these two discursive streams intersect in myriad ways, for myriad ends, across the first four centuries of selected Christian literature. Magic and Heresy attempts to answer in part the question: When and how did early Christian authors start thinking of magic as heresy - that is, as a religious and epistemic system wholly external to their own orthodoxies? Prompted by metacritical concerns about the relationship between magic and heresy, as well as these categories' roles in erecting and maintaining Christian empire, this Element seeks to disrupt tidy conceptual conflations of magic-heresy constructed by ancient authors and replicated in some modern scholarship. Magic and Heresy excavates the cycles of discursive disciplining that eventually resulted in these very conflations.

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Imprints page

Magic and Heresy in Ancient Christian Literature

Contents

Introduction: Imperial Orthodoxy and Its Enduring Épistémè - Toward an Undisciplined Historiography

Methodology and Structure

From Christ-Beliefs to Christianity: The First Century

Heresy before Heresiology

Magic before Heresiology

Case Study: The Acts of the Apostles and the Making of Christianity

Coda: Magic, Heresy, and Formative Christianity

The Long Shadow of Emergent Heresiology: The Second Century

Heresy to Heresiology

Toward a "Strong Notion" of Magic

Case Study: Magician-Heresiarchs in Irenaeus of Lyons

Coda: The Second Century's Long Shadows

Between Ascendant Orthodoxy and Empire: The Third Century

Heresy and Empire

Magic, Miracle, and Ascendant Christianity

Case Study: Hippolytus' Refutation of All Heresies

Coda: The Empire against Christianity

Totalizing Epistemologies and Imperial Orthodoxy: The Fourth Century

Heresy and Totalizing Epistemologies

Magic and Imperial Orthodoxy

Case Study: Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History

Looking Back from Late Antiquity

Coda: Orthodoxies, Empires, and an Épistémè

References

Acknowledgments.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 18 Jul 2025).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-009-33163-9

1-009-33164-7

1-009-33165-5

OCLC:

1522005805