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 BARI - STUDI CLASSICI E CRISTIANI - ()

Research Unit Leader

Giorgio Otranto

Description

A) The Bari Unit’s first research strand centers on the reconstruction of the everyday life of the Christian communities, the formation of the dioceses and inter-community relationships, up to the reign of Gregory the Great (590-604). This has formed the basis for a project that aims to bring F. Lanzoni’s book [Le diocese d’Italia dalle origini al principio del secolo VII (an. 604), Faenza 1927] up to date. This will entail an organic resumption of the studies of the aspects, characters and purposes of Christianization carried out over the last thirty years, including the events that led up to the gradual formation of a diocesan network throughout Southern Italy, within a time frame that traditionally begins with Paul’s journey to Rome (61 A.D.) and ends with Gregory the Great’s episcopate. In particular, taking the numerous research projects undertaken by the Research Unit in Bari geared to defining some of the aspects of the Christianization of Southern Italy as our starting point, we will attempt to reconstruct the history of the dioceses in the Italian peninsula, paying particular attention also to rural settlements and urban centers that failed to qualify as diocesan sees. Modern-day regions will be used as the geographical articulation, rather than the Regiones Augustee on which Lanzoni based his book. The division into Regiones Augustee, although based on solid historiographical tradition, no longer seems appropriate for the communication needs of society today. Furthermore, it does not always reflect the continual modifications to the administrative confines of Italy during the Late Antiquity. The scope of the research is to set the creation of an editorial/scientific product in motion which, modeled on Lanzoni’s work, will make up a history of Italy by diocese, through an examination not just of Episcopal chronotaxis, but also of the various aspects of community life. As far as Christian documentary sources are concerned, the intention is to focus on papal epistolography and the councils of the Early Church up to Gregory the Great. Through an examination of these acts of witness Episcopal chronotaxis, the development of canon law and the definition of dogma will be determined, and the internal life of the communities, intercommunity relationships and Christian “lived experience” will be studied, with particular emphasis on such aspects as marriage and family life.

The project for updating Lanzoni [Historia Italiae Christianae (HIC)] envisages the following outline-plan for each of the individual volumes:

Introduction (an updated critical assessment of the territory of the region under examination: confines, road network, municipia, vici, villae, stationes…)

The dioceses
- Head word
- Sources
• Literary
• Documentary
• Liturgical
• Hagiographic
• Monumental (archaeological, epigraphic, iconographic, instrumenta)
- Episcopal chronotaxis
• Bishops of whom there is certain proof
• Bishops over whom some doubt remains
- Sites, settlements and other evidence within the diocesan territory
- Conclusive observations

Conclusion

Bibliography

Indices

Art work


Based on the previous experience of members of the Research Unit, the initial focus of attention will be on: Puglia, Basilicata, Molise, Campania, Calabria, Sicily. The investigation, which will be of an interdisciplinary nature, will be multi-directional and will examine literary texts of all kinds (Church Fathers, conciliary canons, ecclesiastical constitutions, papal epistles, hagiographic and liturgical material) and epigraphic and archaeological sources, and will involve some territorial reconnaissance.


B) The Bari Unit’s second research strand, centering on studies of a philological/literary nature, includes the analysis of literary output between the 4th century and the 8th century, on the subject of the exegesis of the Psalms in Basil of Caesarea and relations between Jews and Christians.
Basil’s historical/moral hermeneutics (4th century), with its vigilant and measured retrieval of particular Origenian criteria, is considered to be one of the most fundamental and grounded works on Alexandrianism. Cappadocius’s exegetical, predominantly homiletic efforts, however, repudiated the excesses of Allegorism, proving more receptive to the literal and historical/philological data pertaining to pastoral requirements and problems of communication, at a time of great doctrinal crisis triggered by Arianism. The compilation of a critical edition of Basil’s Homilies on the Psalms, one of his most interesting works, and still accessible in the ancient 18th century edition produced by the Benedictines of St. Maur, reproduced in PG 29, is becoming increasingly urgent, however. An international team of scholars, including some of the members of the Bari Research Unit, has been working on the 4 volume edition of this for the “Sources Chrétiennes” series. 28 acts of witness have been selected and acquired from among the most authoritative of the three groups of manuscripts, the collation of which has just been completed, and the team has now decided on the criteria for the definitive composition of the text. The Bari Unit also has editorial responsibility for dealing with the corpora of the manuscripts, the date and place of each of the homilies, the literary genre, the doctrinal and moral exegetical content, audience etc. for the Introduction to Volume I.
Particular attention will be paid to the changes brought about by the advent of Christianity to many different aspects of human expression and the institutional life. Within this sphere, it is our intention to explore the dynamics and modalities of the contemporary presence of different religions in the Mediterranean between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the evolution of relations with Judaism in particular. The Research Unit is continuing to analyze the relationships that existed during the 7th century and the 8th century between the two religious groups in some parts of Byzantine Orient, especially in Syria and Palestine, with particular emphasis on the changes wrought by the Persian and Arab invasions. Our main objective is to examine some coeval texts from the Oriental area, and the Dialogue of the Jews Papiscus and Philo with a Certain Monk, the Trophies of Damascus and the Quaestio 137 ad Antiochum Ducem in particular. The anti-Judaic polemic contained in these works is bound up with the polemic surrounding the veneration of images, practiced by both Jews and Christians.
Our research will also study the many convergences of meaning and letters with other coeval texts (CPG 7797; 7772; 7795; 7815). It is possible, in fact, to perceive two different levels on which the texts interrelate: on one hand there are affinities between the subjects, the manner in which Scriptural sources are drawn on and the re-echoing of similar models; on the other, fairly lengthy precise and cogent pieces of text correspond word for word.
The Byzantine anti-Judaic polemic during the 7th and 8th centuries is currently a subject of very lively debate, causing questions relative to the body of anti-Judaic literature to resurface, or rather the question of its relationship to religious, social and political reality. It is our intention, in particular, to tackle the question of the debate surrounding the theory that anti-Judaic polemic during the period in question was influenced by the political motives of Christians in the Orient who were opposed to Islam. This kind of research will enable the Bari Unit to identify facts and motives that will help to promote a greater understanding of the relations and/or the conflicts between Jews and Christians over the centuries right up to the present day, and provide possible solutions for renewed types of encounter.
For over a decade, the Bari Research Unit has organized a Study Week at Trani, centered on questions of particular interest to Christianic studies, which is open to young scholars from Italy and abroad. This is intended to create a synergy between the scientific experiments and methodologies of different schools and research groups. As well as the documents and commentaries published annually in the journals Annali di Storia dell’Esegesi and Vetera Christianorum, the findings of the Study Weeks held between 1993 and 1999 have been put together in the book La Bibbia nelle comunità antiche (The Bible in the Communities of Antiquity). Bilancio e prospettive di un’esperienza formativa (Quaderni di Vetera Christianorum 27), ed. L. Carnevale, Bari 2002.