RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Christianity and the Mediterranean World : Religious Plurality, Cohexistence and Conflicts. Towns and Peripheries (1th-8th Centuries)

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di UDINE - SCIENZE STORICHE E DOCUMENTARIE - ()

Research Unit Leader

Edmondo Lupieri

Description

In the context of the activities of the National Research Group (N.R.G.), the Research Unit (R.U.) will undertake three types of activity: a) research b) dissemination abroad of the results obtained by the N.R.G. and c) local presentation (in Udine and Trieste) of the results obtained by the R.U. and by its closest collaborators in the other Research Units.

a) Research activities.
The R.U.has chosen three areas of study on the subject of how Christanity, in the period being considered, developed techniques of opposition or forms of coexistence and compromise to deal with internal and external conflicts.
Given the absence of archaeological documentation, we normally use primitive Christian literary production to try to reconstruct the primitive Christian world. Of this production only one part is represented by the New Testament (NT), because it contains only those texts recognized as the expression of the religious heritage officially accepted by the Great Church, a heritage that was formed in a period of time ending around the beginning of the fourth century C. E. Nevertheless, within this documentation we can try to identify the main ideological lines of that primitive Christianity that became the Great Church. The various currents seem to define their identity and their differences on the basis of the presence, positive or negative, and the absence of figures of ancient leaders, considered authors or characters of the various texts. For instance, little and often controversial space is left in the NT to the "brothers" of Jesus, in spite of their historical importance as guides in the primitive oriental Christian communities. Instead, depending on the texts, the figures of Paul, of the apostles and/or of Peter emerge, with the constant exclusion of Judas (whose significance within some Christian groups is further highlighted by very recent paleographic discoveries).
The first area of research, often in close collaboration with the work done by the Bologna R.U. (Prof. M. Pesce), intends to deepen the analysis of the texts of the NT, with preference to the Gospel according to Matthew and the Apocalypse. In particular, the Scientific Director of the R.U. (S.R.) will study the motives for the conflicts in these texts with forms of non-Christian Judaism (especially the first Pharisaism) and with other forms of primitive Christianity (for instance, that of the Pauline tradition). Such conflicts could be based on key arguments for the very existence of the groups of followers of Jesus. Two such arguments (the extension of salvation to non Hebrews and the acceptance or refusal of an “imperial market ideology”, constituent of that historical phase of the Mediterranean and near-eastern world) appear particularly suitable to the study of the formation and development of the conflicts and to the analysis of the concrete attempts at compromise and coexistence within and around primitive Christianity. The work will take into account interdisciplinary contributions and methodologies, aided by highly qualified full time NT external researchers, such as Prof. R. Fabris, (see “Matteo”, published by Borla, Rome 1996) and doctoral research candidate L. Walt. As a result of the research, we envision the preparation of a number of scientific papers and the conclusion of a Commentary to the Gospel according to Matthew which will be an ideal continuation of a number of papers presently in printing or in preparation by the S.R. (“Early Christian Reactions to a Market Ideology? The cases of Matthew and Revelation [Düsseldorf, May 19, 2006]; “How Different to Be Different? The Cases of Matthew and Revelation”[Washington, DC Nov 19,2006] and will mark a methodological continuity with the Commentary on the Apocalypse of John (item 9 in the bibliography of section 1.6). The project will include presentations of the research results in prestigious venues, both in Italy and abroad.

The second area of research will be the continuation of the project started by Dr. E. Colombi (in collaboration with doctoral research candidate M. Cerno) thanks to previous funding by MIUR and concerning the early medieval hagiographic production in the Aquileia area. It is a body of about thirty Passiones, generated under the influence of the ancient church of Aquileia and tied to its territories (from Friuli to Istria to Pannonia). They are texts that have been neither critically analyzed nor edited following the most recent hagiographic criteria. Concerning this last aspect of the research, the collaboration with the Bari R.U. has been a fundamental element. As agreed upon at the penultimate meeting of the N.R.G. at Bertinoro, the same methodological and hagiographical criteria have been adopted (consideration of these texts not for the truth of the narration but as witness of a given historical period that has determined their constitution from various historical, devotional, liturgical and literary elements).
Thanks to the start of the work aimed at the critical edition, new elements have arisen that allow the insertion of the acquired data in a new research perspective:
A) The situations of conflict from which these texts were generated. We are referring here not to inter-religious, but to intra-religious conflicts: the discovery of multiple editions, or of meaningful variants, unknown to or not analyzed by previous researchers, seems to lead the research to formulate the hypothesis of dating various Passiones on the basis of doctrinal elements present in the text (from the Arian conflict to the yearnings by the Church of Aquileia to be recognized as apostolic site). The situation of conflict, then, and not only the cultic needs, is often the stimulus for the writing of a Passio, or at least a strong element of its message.
B) The geographical location. The Aquileia hagiographic production appears, in view of the discoveries pertaining to the composition of the texts, as a point of literary and devotional intersection in the meeting of diverse religious and geographical realities. This is true, on one hand, as Aquileia centralized its power at the detriment of the cities that during the Middle Ages were part of its diocese (from Trieste to Concordia to Parenzo), while on the other hand, new elements from the research emphasize the historical function of the region as a cultural bridge between the East and the West, including the religious culture.
We want to deepen the analysis of many new data that point to an insofar unknown link between the hagiographies of this area and the oriental ones: e.g. the Passio of Ilarius and Tatianus, among the most important and ancient martyrs of Aquileia, seems to be partly a copy of the Passio of the Byzantine Ananias, and even that of Donatus, the patron saint of the city of Cividale, would be a product of the re-elaboration, on the occasion of the transfer of relics, of the Passio of the Pannonian martyr Pullius, of which the writer of the Passio Donati intentionally changed name and city of origin.

The third area of research covers the ideological interactions, both conflictual and constructive, experienced by Christianity, between the second and fourth centuries, on the one hand, with the Hellenistic culture and on the other, with deviant or competing movements, such as the Gnostic sects or Manichaeism. On the latter there is already a synergy, which will be further developed, of Prof. Magris and the university of Turin (Prof. C. Gianotto). Importance will be given to the selective use by the Christians of material extracted from Greek philosophy. This, in fact, was used not only in the polemic against the philosophers themselves, who were hostile to Christianity, but also to define central aspects of the Christian identity. This work was a self re-definition on philosophical bases which allowed the construction of logical arguments with which the Great Church was able to conduct, and eventually win, the intellectual fight with Gnosticism and Manichaeism, which also tended to use the same philosophical arguments in their polemic. The study, therefore, of the use (and the abuse) of Greek philosophy by the Christian authors of this period is uniquely suited to identify the cultural techniques with which the Christians were able to oppose or reach compromises with their intellectual adversaries. This line of research is also based on previously approved MIUR projects and on a rich bibliography on the subject (beside the volumes indicated in the basic bibliography, see the more recent works by A. Magris: Augustins Prädestinationslehre und die manichäischen Quellen, in AA.VV., Augustine and Manichaeism in the Latin West [edited by J. Van Oort, O. Wermelinger e G. Wurst], Leyden, Brill, 2001; Greek Philosophy and the formation of the Christian Identity, “AStE” 21 [2004]; Review of J. D. TURNER, Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition, in «Adamantius», 11 [2005]).

b) Dissemination abroad.
The results obtained by the N.R.G. over twenty years of research activities co-financed by the MURST-MIUR are well known in Italy, thanks to specific series of conferences and publications, as well as to the issues of "Adamantius" and "Annali di Storia dell'Esegesi". However, the fact that the majority of the above cultural products are in the Italian language, constitutes an obstacle to their diffusion abroad. As already occurred in the previous two-year periods (COFIN 2000 MM10268592, COFIN 2002 2002102574, and COFIN 2004 2004108211), the N.R.G. has decided to promote knowledge of its activities among foreign scholars and research centres. For this purpose, in the coming two-year period, the R.U. will be responsible for: 1) the presentation of research work and results at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion and of the Society of Biblical Literature (Washington, DC 18-21 Nov. 2006 and San Diego, CA, 17-20 Nov. 2007); 2) the running of an on-line bulletin of information for abroad.
1) Annual Meeting AAR/SBL.
From 1997 to 2003, the University of Udine, under the coordination of the S.R., has sponsored an annual "Italian Evening", as an Additional Meeting of the highly prestigious Annual Meeting of the AAR/SBL, held respectively in San Francisco (1997), Orlando (1998), Boston (1999), Nashville (2000), Denver (2001), Toronto (2002) and Atlanta (2003), with the co-sponsorship and /or patronage of the MIUR-MURST (for the period 2002-2003), public bodies (Consulates General of Italy in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago [for Denver] and Toronto) and Italian and foreign private organisations (W. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co.; Casalini Libri; Azienda Vitivinicola "La Delizia" of Casarsa; Ente Friuli nel Mondo). In view of the success and interest aroused, the SBL directors have asked the S.R. to organize a new program unit for the Annual Meeting, beginning with San Antonio (2004). Thus, for the first time in the history of the SBL, a new program unit under the title "The Construction of Christian Identities" with the R.S. and the National Scientific Coordinator as Chairpersons, has been activated starting in 2004 as part of a three-year renewable "Consultation". This has already permitted the utilization of an even more prestigious platform to publicize and diffuse the results of the research of the entire N.R.G. abroad (in the last two Annual Meetings in San Antonio [2004]and Philadelphia [2005]). If this project is cofinanced by the MIUR, it will be possible to continue the current positive activity abroad and to present the results of our research in the next two Annual Meetings of the SBL/AAR, in Washington, DC (2006), and San Diego, CA (2007).
2) On-line newsletter. <br />The N.R.G. has decided to assign to the R.U. the task of publicizing on the Internet its research activities, conferences and publications. This is to be done by means of a web portal called "Italian Studies on Religions" (ISR), active since 1996 with the server located at the University of Udine (www.uniud.it/isr/). This is the first portal in Italy that allows foreign users to access information on Italian research facilities and activities in the field of historical religious studies (from opening hours and on-line catalogues of libraries, to the curricula of Italian scholars). Thanks to the previous financing, ISR, structured as a hypertext, is a widely recognised and efficient communication tool, deservedly acclaimed internationally for its usefulness, ease of use and elegant presentation.
The co-financial support will permit the setting up of new webpages, their update and the general management of the portal, which in the next two-year period will become the official organ of the N.R.G. on the Internet, as was the case previously for the N.R.G. of the COFIN 2000 (MM10268592), COFIN 2002 (2002102574 and COFIN 2004 (2004108211).

C) Local dissemination of the national research results.
This R.U. wants to promote its own university sites as venues for meetings and scientific exchanges among the members of the N.R.G. The proposal includes organizing at least six meetings of the members of the N.R.G., with one concluding round table discussion.
The purpose of the meetings is to intensify the existing exchange of results, even partial, in real time. This would permit not only a closer coordination of the lines of research within the groups but also, in a broader scholarly perspective, the meetings and the round table could become ‘reference points’ of the national and international research on specific topics. This is unfortunately not yet much in use in Italy, but it would permit a more rapid achievement of the scientific and methodological goals of our project. As for the organization of the meetings, the amount of financing granted will be the deciding factor for their constitution and for the possibility of also including researchers from abroad.