A Divisive Intellectualist Leader: Cyprian’s Management of a Heterarchical Crisis
Initially, the article concentrates on a major change in ancient Mediterranean religions that can be understood as an “intellectualization of religion.” Focusing on the text-based practices of early Christian religious specialists, it looks at this phenomenon as a facet of an urban religion rather t...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
Numen
Year: 2022, Volume: 69, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 140-162 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Cyprianus, Thascius Caecilius, Saint 200-258
/ Church
/ Intellectualization
/ Heterarchie
/ Urbanity
/ History 249-256
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy BE Greco-Roman religions CB Christian life; spirituality CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity KBL Near East and North Africa RB Church office; congregation SA Church law; state-church law |
| Further subjects: | B
Cyprian of Carthage
B intellectualization B Urban Religion B heterarchy B Christ religion |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Initially, the article concentrates on a major change in ancient Mediterranean religions that can be understood as an “intellectualization of religion.” Focusing on the text-based practices of early Christian religious specialists, it looks at this phenomenon as a facet of an urban religion rather than an inherent quality of early Christ religion. The article goes on to address heterarchy, i.e., the tendency toward a nonhierarchical arrangement of power, as a further element that characterizes city life as well as relations among cities. Not linearly ranked and topographically fractionated, the first urban Christ groups also constituted heterarchical formations shaped by the assorted types of power coalescing in urban environments. Zooming in on the imperial city of Carthage in the mid-3rd century, the article then analyzes the intersection of the two phenomena. It demonstrates the effects that the enforcement of a textually designed and conceptually sophisticated project of Church order produced on the Christ networks by arguing that, in urban contexts characterized by a host of powers, authority claims, and forms of capital, Cyprian’s intellectualized religion contributed to breaking apart existing coalescences of people united by religion. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5276 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Numen
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341650 |