The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome

A new look at the Cult of the Saints in late antiquity: did it really dominate Christianity in late antique Rome?

Nicola Denzey Lewis (Author)

9781108471893, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 September 2020

440 pages
23.4 x 16 x 2.8 cm, 0.74 kg

'… this illuminating book successfully challenges Brown and promotes the reexamination of much evidence for late antique saint piety … it reminds us that we ought to be open to discovering multiple historical perspectives – even within a single city, even at the same time.' Michelle Freeman, Reading Religion

In The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome, Nicola Denzey Lewis challenges the common understanding of late antique Christianity as dominated by the Cult of Saints. Popularized by historian Peter Brown, the Cult of the Saints presupposes that a 'corporeal turn' in the 4th century CE initiated a new sense of the body (even the corpse or bone) as holy. Denzey Lewis argues that although present elsewhere in the late Roman Empire, no such 'corporeal turn' happened in Rome until the early modern period. The prevailing assumption that it did was fostered by the apologetic concerns of early modern Catholic scholars, as well as contemporary attitudes towards death, antiquity, and the survival of the Church against secularism. Denzey Lewis delves deeply into the world of Roman late antique Christianity, exploring how and why it differed from the set of practices and beliefs we have come to think flourished in this crucial age of Christianization.

1. The Reinventio of the Hidden City
2. Rewiring the Sacred Circuit (Roma Sancta Renovata)
3. Remains to be Seen (or, 'on the Holy Corpse')
4. Peter's Bones
5. De Rossi's Deception: Crafting the Crypt of the Popes
6. Raising Late Antique Jews from the Valley of Dry Bones
7. Disposing with Depositio (Ad Sanctos)
8. Inventing Christian Rome.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], History of religion [HRAX], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], European history [HBJD]