The course will spread on the formation of the concept of the new Israel applied to Christians by investigating the specific literature..Special attention will then be given to apocalyptic literature, showing the profound interactions between Jewish apocalyptic, Arab-Islamic apocalyptic and Christian apocalyptic, from the texts of the pseudo-Methodius to the Epistle to Gerbergam by Adso da Mont-en-Dier.
M. Simonetti - E. Prinzivalli, Storia della letteratura cristiana antica, Bologna, EDB, 2010.
Storia del Cristianesimo vol. 1, L’età antica (secoli I-VII), a cura di E. Prinzivalli, Roma, Carocci, 2015 (the chapters indicates during the lessons)
G. Lettieri, Più a fondo. L’ontologia apocalittica valentiniana e le origini della teologia mistica cristiana, in L’anti-Babele. Sulla mistica degli antichi e dei moderni, a cura di I. Adinolfi, G. Gaeta. A. Lavagetto, Genova, Il Melangolo, 2017, pp. 71-116.
Learning Objectives
1. provide to the students a historical overview of the most important themes of ancient Christian literature (Latin and Greek);
2. to learn to study ancient religious texts from a historical-critical point of view;
3. to learn to read and interpret the primary sources related to the Christian religious system by contextualizing them historically and comparatively;
4. to understand and deal with methodologies and problems specifically related to the study of pre-modern religious systems;
5 to encourage the development of analytical skills that allow the students to insert each text within a real textual galaxy, asking themselves on the question of intercultural comparison.
Prerequisites
none
Teaching Methods
lessons
Further information
Materials (papers, articles, books and sources) used and commented during the course are available for students in Moodle platform and are not mandatory for the final exam but recommended
Type of Assessment
The exam is oral for all students, even those who do not attend lectures and exchange students (Erasmus and other programmes) The test consists of questions on the following specific topics:
- Knowledge of the historical phenomena
- Knowledge of the texts
- Ability to use appropriately the terminology of the discipline.
Students must demonstrate sufficient knowledge in all three parts to pass the exam. The marks obtained in the three parts are totalled to yield the final mark.
Course program
The idea of substitution. The course will spread on the formation of the concept of the new Israel applied to Christians by investigating the specific literature. It was a complex and very peculiar process, which requires a delicate and in-depth analysis, with the precise historical contextualization of Christian authors in their contexts. After having retraced the most ancient centuries of Christianization from an exquisitely historical point of view, the course will give an account of the history of ancient Christian literature, privileging those works and those authors in which the so-called "substitute vision" appears, that is, the substitution of one people for another and in which "we" Christians begin to appear in an oppositional sense with respect to the Jewish communities. Special attention will then be given to apocalyptic literature, showing the profound interactions between Jewish apocalyptic, Arab-Islamic apocalyptic and Christian apocalyptic, from the texts of the pseudo-Methodius to the Epistle to Gerbergam by Adso da Mont-en-Dier.