TY - BOOK
T1 - 'We have no king but Christ'
T2 - Christian Political Thought in Greater Syria on the Eve of the Arab Conquest (c.400-585)
AU - Wood, Philip
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Philip Wood 2010. All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/1/1
Y1 - 2011/1/1
N2 - This book examines the effects of Christianization upon regional identity and political thought in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth and sixth centuries. Itfocuses on the centrifugal effects of foundation myths, especially within the Syriac-speaking world. These myths produced a sense of cultural independence, peculiar to Syria and Mesopotamia, and this in turn provided the basis for a more radical challenge to the Roman emperor, during the turbulent Christological controversies of the sixth century. The book begins by examining how bishops and emperors could use Christianity to manage and control local religious behaviour, before turning to the rich evidence from the city of Edessa, and its Syriac legends of early kings and missionaries, to investigate how the connection between religion and cultural independence worked within the Christian Roman empire. At a time when Jews in the Roman world were increasingly differentiated by religion and custom, this book investigates how far Edessenes and other Syriac-speakers were consciously members of a distinctive group. The argument continues by discussing the transformation of this cultural legacy in the sixth century, when the hagiographies of bishops such as John of Ephesus began to invoke local belief and culture in Mesopotamia as an ancient orthodoxy, that made Edessa or Mesopotamia a chosen land, preserving true belief at a time when the rest of the empire had gone astray. For these authors, the emperor's ruler was conditional on his obedience to Christ, the true ruler of all.
AB - This book examines the effects of Christianization upon regional identity and political thought in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth and sixth centuries. Itfocuses on the centrifugal effects of foundation myths, especially within the Syriac-speaking world. These myths produced a sense of cultural independence, peculiar to Syria and Mesopotamia, and this in turn provided the basis for a more radical challenge to the Roman emperor, during the turbulent Christological controversies of the sixth century. The book begins by examining how bishops and emperors could use Christianity to manage and control local religious behaviour, before turning to the rich evidence from the city of Edessa, and its Syriac legends of early kings and missionaries, to investigate how the connection between religion and cultural independence worked within the Christian Roman empire. At a time when Jews in the Roman world were increasingly differentiated by religion and custom, this book investigates how far Edessenes and other Syriac-speakers were consciously members of a distinctive group. The argument continues by discussing the transformation of this cultural legacy in the sixth century, when the hagiographies of bishops such as John of Ephesus began to invoke local belief and culture in Mesopotamia as an ancient orthodoxy, that made Edessa or Mesopotamia a chosen land, preserving true belief at a time when the rest of the empire had gone astray. For these authors, the emperor's ruler was conditional on his obedience to Christ, the true ruler of all.
KW - Christology
KW - Edessa
KW - Foundation Myth
KW - Hagiography
KW - Mesopotamia
KW - Miaphysite
KW - Missionary
KW - Orthodoxy
KW - Syriac
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84922763766&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588497.001.0001
DO - 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588497.001.0001
M3 - Book
AN - SCOPUS:84922763766
SN - 9780199588497
BT - 'We have no king but Christ'
PB - Oxford University Press
ER -