Between Polemics and Encounter: "Jews" and "Christians" in Rome and Sasanian Persia

CLAS 34021 Between Polemics and Encounter: "Jews" and "Christians" in Rome and Sasanian Persia

Crosslistings
HCHE 37213, BIBL 37213, HUD 37213 RLST 27213, CLCV 24021

In recent decades, scholars of biblical and early Christian literature have examined the various ways literary sources constructed the relationship between “Jews” and “Christians” in Late Antiquity. These resources prove challenging for reconstructing the situation on the ground. This course will introduce students to the various models that scholars have advanced for making sense of the evidence and debated categories such as “Jewish-Christianity.” Against this backdrop, students will undertake a close reading of a select, representative examples to examine the development of adversus Iudaeos (“against the Jews”) literature. The readings will focus our attention on evidence from Greek- and Syriac-speaking Christians living within the multilingual and religiously diverse regions at the boundary of the Roman and Sassanian Persian Empires. Familiar sources such as the Pauline epistles, Apostolic Fathers, and John Chysostom will be accompanied by readings from the pseudo-Clementine literature, the Didascalia Apostolorum, poetry, and Persian Martyr Acts. We will explore how new discoveries within Syriac studies are currently reshaping our approaches to traditional questions. 

Prerequisites

None; those with skills in Greek and Syriac will have the opportunity to apply them.

Erin Galgay Walsh
2021-22 Winter