Description
Book SynopsisExplores the slow shift from one form of public community to another - from the ancient city to the Christian Church. He explains how in the four centuries between Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and Justinian (527-565), the Mediterranean world passed through a series of profound transmutations.
Trade Review[
Late Antiquity] is a scintillating essay. Brown brilliantly arranges his intuitions around the central theme of the 'public' classical city being replaced by the internalized Christian city of another, non-secular world. That becomes the central pattern of explanation for changes in attitude to sexuality, and for the development of unprecedented respect for sexual purity as an attribute of nuns, monks and bishops. -- Thomas Wiedemann * Jact Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction The "Wellborn" Few Person and Group in Judaism and Early Christianity Church and Leadership The Challenge of the Desert East and West: The New Marital Morality Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index
