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Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition

Online ISBN:
9780520931411
Print ISBN:
9780520242968
Publisher:
University of California Press
Book

Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition

Published online:
22 March 2012
Published in print:
6 September 2005
Online ISBN:
9780520931411
Print ISBN:
9780520242968
Publisher:
University of California Press

Abstract

Between the years 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop—as the highest Church official in his city—from model Christian to model citizen. This work traces this transition with a twofold aim: to deemphasize the reign of the emperor Constantine, which has traditionally been regarded as a watershed in the development of the Church as an institution, and to bring to the fore the continued importance of the religious underpinnings of the bishop's role as civic leader. The book rejects Max Weber's categories of “charismatic” versus “institutional” authority that have traditionally been used to distinguish the nature of episcopal authority from that of the ascetic and holy man. Instead it proposes a model of spiritual authority, ascetic authority and pragmatic authority, in which a bishop's visible asceticism is taken as evidence of his spiritual powers and at the same time provides the justification for his public role. The book provides an analysis of the changing dynamics of social mobility as played out in episcopal appointments.

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