From Temple to Church ─ Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic Topography in Late Antiquity

Emmel (Coptology, Westfalische Wilhelms-U. Munster, Germany) and Gotter (ancient history, U. Konstanz, Germany) present 12 papers examining the Christianization of Roman antiquity through the theme of "from temple to church," a theme that encompasses examining the destruction of pagan temples as historical events of conflict, as discourse, and as surviving monuments in which Christian sacral topography was put in the place of pagan sacral topography. Topics include the nonreligious factors influencing the transformation of the Egyptian sacral landscape, the discursive choices made by Church historians regarding the role of the emperors in temple destructions, temple destruction in the Egyptian monastic literature as problematic engagement with the world, changing depictions of Saints' roles in temple destructions between the fourth and sixth centuries, historical conflict between a monastic leader of Upper Egypt and a prominent pagan landowner around the turn of the fourth century, evidence concerning the historical dynamics of temple to church transformations in Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, diverse courses of Christianization in urban and rural Palestine, and evidence regarding the destruction of the Alexandrian Serrapeum in the year 392 and what the literature about it reveals about the wider programmatic church and state attacks on the pagan tradition. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Johannes Hahn, Ph.D. (1986) and Habilitation (1993), Heidelberg University, is Professor of Ancient History at the Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster. He has published primarily on Roman imperial history and late antiquity, including Gewalt und religioser Konflikt. Studien zu den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen, Heiden und Juden im Osten des Romischen Reiches (Akademie Verlag, 2004).Stephen Emmel, Ph.D. (1993) in Religious Studies, Yale University, is Professor of Coptology at the Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster. He has published extensively on Coptic philology and Coptic literature, including Shenoute's Literary Corpus (Peeters, 2004).Ulrich Gotter, Ph.D. (1992) and Habilitation (2002), Freiburg University, is Professor of Ancient History at the Universitat Konstanz. He has published on Roman republican history, Roman historiography, and processes of acculturation and of Christianization and is currently working on monarchy in the ancient world.The contributors to this volume are: Roger S. Bagnall, Doron Bar, David Brakke, Angelos Chaniotis, Stephen Emmel, David Frankfurter, Ulrich Gotter, Peter Grossmann, Johannes Hahn, and Helen Saradi.