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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1307: Creating Orthodoxy?: The Establishment and Impact of Novel Religious Practices in Society

Wednesday 6 July 2016, 16.30-18.00

Moderator/Chair:Hope Williard, University of Leeds / School of History & Heritage, University of Lincoln
Paper 1307-aArianism as Social 'Phenomenon'
(Language: English)
Astrid Schmölzer, Institut für Alte Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Index terms: Archaeology - General, Architecture - Religious, Daily Life, Social History
Paper 1307-bWhat To Do on Sunday?: Answers from Heavenly Letters and Earthly Laws
(Language: English)
Uta Heil, Institut für Kirchengeschichte, Christliche Archäologie und Kirchliche Kunst, Universität Wien
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Liturgy, Religious Life
Paper 1307-c'Non est ergo idem peccatum ADAE et infantum': Anselm of Canterbury, Analogy, and the Origins of Limbo
(Language: English)
Daniel W. Houck, Department of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University, Texas
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Medieval, Theology
Abstract

Paper -a:
In the last few years, new studies concerning the question of Arianism as independent persuasion have been carried out. This paper deals with the phenomenon 'Arianism', its definitions and effects on daily life, as far as we can gauge them from historical sources. Working with methods of religious studies, archaeology, and ancient and early medieval history, we can build a completely new picture. This paper gives a new aspect in Arianism as a social 'phenomenon'. Therefore, we will have to deal with many different views and source problems before finally discovering its new status.

Paper -b:
Since the time of Constantine, Sunday was a holiday but there was no consensus how to celebrate this day. Imperial legislation and ecclesiastical canons from the 4th century onwards give the impression that this subject was not in the foreground. But in the 6th and 7th century there arouse a fierce debate on how to venerate this special day of the week. One piece of evidence is the apocryphal Letter of Jesus Christ from Heaven thrown down to earth. Besides, there is another almost unknown apocryphon, a Didaskalie of Jesus Christ which can shed some light on the debate, on East-West-relations in those days, and on Christian-Jewish relations.

Paper -c:
Anselm of Canterbury offered a groundbreaking account of original sin in his De conceptu virginali, c. 1100. Scholarship has fundamentally misunderstood it, assuming that Anselm simply repeats Augustine. I show that Anselm, his so-called 'ultra realism' notwithstanding, clearly affirmed, for the first time in Western theological history, that infants' original sin is less grave than Adam's act of sin in the Garden of Eden. In conclusion, I'll discuss how Anselm's work underlay the 13th-century development of the doctrine of limbo - reaching its climax in Thomas Aquinas, who argued that infants who die unbaptized experience a perfect natural happiness in hell.