Unit webpage and technology used and required

Online units can be accessed at: http://ilearn.mq.edu.au/.

PC and Internet access are required. Basic computer skills (e.g., internet browsing) and skills in word processing are also a requirement. Please consult teaching staff for any further, more specific requirements.

Required and recommended texts

The set text for this course is Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (London: Penguin, 2006 [new edition]) available through the Macquarie University Co-Op Bookstore. Lane Fox provides a readable and informative narrative of the historical themes on which this unit focuses. Weekly readings from ancient texts are contained in a Book of Readings, which will be available via the iLearn unit.

The Bookshop also has some copies available of J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak, The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London, 1992); this is recommended but not compulsory, but students will find the essays contained in it very useful.

As frequent recourse will be made to papyri and inscriptions contained in the series New Documents illustrating Early Christianity, students should consider purchasing these volumes, which contain texts, translations, commentary and bibliography on hundreds of texts which bear on the themes of the unit. Any or all of volumes 4-7 may be purchased at extremely discounted rates from the department; please ring 9850 7512 Tues, Wed or Thurs mornings.

Frequent recourse will be made to the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, the first ever work of ‘Christian History’, written at the close of the period this course deals with. A readily available version of this work is published in Penguin Classics: Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. G.A. Williamson (London & New York, 1989). Students who are able to purchase this will find it useful, but a good translation is also available on-line, at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.html (cf. below, Internet Resources).

Internet Resources

The WWW contains many valuable resources for this unit, in addition to texts made available through E-Reserve, and the many journals and other secondary discussions accessible via the library’s web-site and elsewhere. The list here only some, and would be happy to have others which students have found useful brought to our attention. A consolidated set of links to these and other Internet resources can be found on the iLearn site.

The full translated text of the majority of the primary (ancient) sources used in the course can be found online. This applies especially to literary texts, such as Jewish writers, Christian apologists, Ecclesiastical historians, and other patristic writers (Church Fathers), as well as Graeco-Roman authors (including in some cases Anti-Christian polemicists). There are also many online resources for the use and study of documentary sources, especially papyri. In some cases the online translation may not be the most up-to-date, or that reproduced in the Book of Readings, but it will be serviceable for the needs of this course. This means that there is very little excuse for not being able to read or cite most such texts.

Translations of Early Christian writers

http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html

Works of Josephus

http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/home.htm

Classical Greek and Latin Texts

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html

Material downloaded or cited from the Web (other than the Website of this unit) should always be listed in your bibliography with reference to its full title, Web address and the date on which you accessed the web-site.

NB: Be very careful when using material from the web. Only use material from reputable websites set up by universities, museums/galleries, reputable scholars or associations, etc. In particular, it should be clearly understood that the use of general and non-specialist online encyclopaedias will not be any better received than use of printed versions (e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica), and neither is acceptable. The use of material from unscholarly and uncritical websites may result in the deduction of marks.

There will be 12 Lectures in the unit, treating of the themes set out below; these lectures were recorded semester 2, 2007 mainly by Dr Malcolm Choat.

1: a) Introduction: Jewish and Greek culture in the early Roman World                               

1: b) Rome and the Jews in the first and second century

Tutorial topic:Roman opinions on Judaism

2: a) Jewish and Greek culture and the spread of Christianity in the first two centuries

2: b) The Roman World to the third century and the imperial cult

Tutorial topic: Classical views on the afterlife.

3: a) The Jews and Rome in the first and second century

3: b) Christianity and the Roman state in the third century: I

Tutorial topic: Decius, the Christians, and the libelli

4: a) Christianity and the Roman state in the third century: II

4: b) The Great Persecution

Tutorial topic: The Martyrdom of Phileas

5: a) Pagans, Christians and Jews in the papyri (2nd – 3rd century)

5: b) Pagans, Christians and Jews in the papyri (3rd – 4th century)

Tutorial topic: The signs of Christianity in the papyri with a contested case: P.Harris 1.107

6: a) Philosophical debates

6: b) ‘A World Full of Gods’: Questions on the pagan (?) origins of ‘heresy’

Tutorial topic: Porphyry: Neoplatonism and Christianity

7: Take-home examination