Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity:

...Walter Harrelson Introduction to the Old Testament retinues of the bishops...

...A long and intellectually demollified the ferocious temper of the con- Brown describes this volume as a "syn- manding training in Greek literature and querors...

...political power and were convinced that Brown leads the reader to believe...

...Robert Imbelli Foundations in Theology In the Christian literature of the fifth cen- • Elizabeth Johnson Christology tury, the juxtaposition of autocratic secu- Session Two: July 12 July 23 • Mary Boys Teaching: The Pedagogy of Ministry lar authority and the mass of impoverished • Joseph Koury Canon Law: A Pastoral Perspective Through the Lens of Marriage humanity provided "a new language of • Carolyn Osiek The Epistles of St...

...The Towards a Christian Empire When Peter Brown taught at Berkeley, cities held the responsibility of extorting Peter Brown he taped a photograph of a cage in a zoo taxes from the peasants of the surroundUniversity of Wisconsin Press, $12.95, on his office door...

...mained a "commonwealth of cities...

...In the matter POWER AND PERSUASION IN LATE lives of "sacred indolence," or so Gibbon of taxation, in particular, the empire reANTIQUITY famously maintained...

...created by the steady growth of commer- formation in civic culture, professional During the last decades of the fourth cial farming rather than subsistence farm- historians and general readers alike will century, Christian monks and bishops ing, the drying up of slave labor as the find Brown's book an erudite and conbegan to replace philosophers as the moral empire reached its territorial limits, and vincing portrayal of the emergence of bridges between the rulers and the ruled...

...While the centralized personal authority and popu- monarch's behavior was bounded by edbishops "inculcated the duty of passive lar obedience...

...However, THE INSTITUTE AT BOSTON COLLEGE instead of basing their claims to eminence strictly on membership in a culti- Invites You To Prepare vated social group, the Christian leaders For Your Future In Ministry presented themselves as "lovers of the In Historic New England poor...

...His reading of primary sources, tion forms, complete this tear-off form and return to: Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, Boston College, Department R, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167 or call (617) 552-8440, such as the works and letters of Libanius (800) 487-1167 or (Fax) (617) 552-0811...

...Commonweal 9 April 1993: 29...

...fourth century may be a bit misleading...

...the continuing increase in absentee own- Christendom from the remains of the These Christian notables usually emerged ership of agricultural land that concentrated classical state...

...An old view of late lower classes, an ethic of friendship that Christianity for Roman political society Roman government, expressed by J.B...

...Appeals to the emperor moved away from • Sidney Callahan Family Life: Challenges and Choices references to the shared classical culture • Bernard Cooke Sacramental Theology • Claire Lowery Integrative Colloquium: Theology and Pastoral Practice of an elite minority and began to empha- • James O'Donohoe Fundamental Ethics size that, just as God had condescended Special am: Holistic Ministry in a New Era, my 1216 to become man through Christ, so the Evening course: 6:00-9:00 p.m...

...Paideia bound by the conversion Late Antiquity, he reopens the question of the ruling classes in codes of courtesy and of Constantine," how the empire's transformation from pa- assigned a special role, that of persuaders remarked Edward Gibbon, "his victorious ganism to Christianity affected its civic cul- and admonishers of the powerful, to religion broke the violence of the fall, and ture...

...bars was a large sign that read, "Do Not be coerced into obedience, this coercion Approach the Gibbon: It Bites...

...Seen in this conparrhesia, or "freedom of speech," to act of the empire's population during the text, the image of society presented by the as privileged moral adviser to the court...

...ruler should condescend to recognize his Christian Spirituality for a New Millennium: Margaret Brennan common humanity with the broad mass- Atternoon Workshops: 1:00-4:30 p.m...

...A worsening economic situation and an apparently rising population Summer of 1993 throughout the Eastern Empire made the Ministry in Transition: Keeping Pace With a Changing World poor, those without a defined place in so- If you are presently involved in some form of ministry in your parish or community, or are interested in becoming involved, come and see how the Institute can assist you in meeting your goals through courses and workshops for ciety, an increasingly visible and politi- enrichment, continuing education and degree...

...In this once influential view, both thesis" of themes found in a large body of rhetoric provided social distance from the the advantages and disadvantages of modem scholarship...

...In Power and Persuasion in the Greek term paideia...

...mained unchanged by the "Education equate reason for their continued exis- Imperial government, in this pretelePresident," George Bush, and that does tence...

...autocracy, Brown adds the limitation of higher than what...

...While the peasants could 182 pp...

...Sabbatical Program with Housing at Sabbatical Program Center as the late Roman Empire offers a useful • One and Two Week Summer Courses and Workshops...

...Addiction as Idolatry: Ministerial Approaches: Merle Jordan Brown's attention to the role of culture in maintaining such tenuous social systems • Graduate Degrees and Continuing Education: M.A., MA/MSW, M.Ed., C.A.E.S., Ph.D...

...Academic Year Weekend Courses corrective to the tendency of many con- • Summer On-Campus Air Conditioned Apartments with Kitchen • Substantial Financial Aid temporary social scientists to deal exclu- -----------------------------------------sively with formal structures and material To request a copy of the Institute's Bulletin, which lists all courses and contains information and applicaresources...

...Overflowing the countryside Session One: June 28-July 9 • Peter Fink Liturgical Prayer: Aesthetics and Spirituality and crowding into the cities, the poor were • Thomas Groome Sharing Faith in Religious Education and Ministry readily mobilized and integrated into the • Gustavo Gutierrez Theology of Liberation (Evening: 6:00-9:00 p.m...

...Christianity of the bishops was a long overIn this way, the elites, in their own eyes, This impoverishment does not appear to due response to a world that had changed were connected to the ultimate source of have been the result of a sudden crisis, as drastically since the empire's creation...

...cal presence...

...Schwehn appears inno- in the understanding and practice of the remained a system of laws, and that the cent of one of John Silber's rare funny academic vocation in general and for the Hellenistic tradition of the philosophercomments, that "we had to invent the term more particular efforts of religious com- king restricted the emperor's freedom of 'postsecondary' because we no longer munities to transmit their convictions in action...

...The empire was a big place...

...Power and Persuasion, therefore, treats how the devotio, or "loyal RATTLING GIBBON'S CAGE support," of local notables toward the central government was maintained by the upper-class culture shared by the indigenous provincial notables and officials of the imperial administration...

...Theology, Spirituality, and the Body: Colleen Griffith es of the ruled...

...created widespread networks of contacts, stem from the faith's softening of moral Bury in 1910, held that the empire of the and ideals of deportment that helped limit character...

...Given this division of the ucated opinion...

...Attached to the cage's ing countrysides...

...philosophers...

...When educated opinion obedience" and discouraged the "active Mediterranean world into ruler and ruled, proved insufficient against the power of virtues of society," the monks engaged in Gibbon's argument that Christianity's sole the emperor, however, tradition assigned 28: 9 April 1993 Commonweal to the philosopher the duty and right of The description of the impoverishment wealth in urban areas...

...exiles from Eden," he really means all not even now seem urgent to the rein- contribution to Roman political life was college profs, even though he acknowl- vestment strategies of the new presi- an attitude of compliant otherworldliness edges the problem of the formation and dent...

...es is surely one of the qualities that has The upper-class culture that united the f the decline of made Peter Brown, now at Princeton, the rulers of the Roman world was inculcatthe Roman Em- preeminent contemporary historian of late ed by the system of education known by f 6 pire was hastened antiquity...

...The abil- depended on an elaborate system of courCarl L. Bankston III ity to provide fresh approaches to issues tesy to ensure the collaboration of provinthat date back to Gibbon's mordant phras- cial aristocracies...

...Power and Persuasion describes • Michael St...

...It was While there may be some debate about they could exercise persuasive control over the product of a gradual, long-term trend the socioeconomic roots of this transit...

...Paul • David Power Theology of Ministry power...

...help to lessen the savagery of the barbar- lute monarchy," with all power vested in Since the emperor himself was exians from the north, within the civic struc- the emperor, and that its political consti- pected to stand at the apex of this pyrature of the empire the effects of the religion tution was a relatively simple matter of mid of cultivated social values, even the were almost entirely negative...

...of Antioch and newly discovered letters and sermons of Saint Augustine, is at Last First Phone: ( ) once sympathetic and objective, offering Street: City: State: Zip Code: both a sense of the writers' experience of their world and a modern interpretation of Country: Fax: ( ) that experience...

...Focused exclusive- It is especially urgent at a time when sev- distance...

...seems plausible...

...El from the old upper classes and shared many of the ideals of paideia...

...0 graphic era, depended on the cooperation of local elites with the emperor and his representatives...

...deformation of most eighteen-year-olds Exiles from Eden is a compelling ar- Recent students of the period, howevbefore they get to college as a "most trou- gument both for the restoration of religion er, tend to emphasize that the late empire bling" question...

...Session Three: July 26-August 6 • Walter Brueggemann The Psalms (Evening: 6:00-9:00 p.m...

...Although this "softening" did fourth and fifth centuries was an "abso- violence by prizing self-restraint...

...To these normative limitations on had an adequate answer to the question, the setting of modern higher education...

...ly on postsecondary education, this vol- eral institutions of higher learning-in- Communication, always slow and trouume does not directly address the "rising cluding several Catholic "colleges and blesome in antiquity, became even more tide of mediocrity" in American educa- universities-have experienced a failure difficult as the northern barbarians blocked tion that was decried bootlessly in the of nerve or a loss of rootedness in their overland routes through Western Europe early years of the Reagan era, that re- religious traditions, and therefore an ad- and the Balkans...

...Clair Ministry to the Troubled Personality how power was recast in a Christian image...