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Sacra Privata, Family Duties, and the Dead: Insights from the Fathers and Cultural Anthropology

Published/Copyright: October 7, 2017
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Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
From the journal Archiv für Religionsgeschichte Volume 18-19 Issue 1

Abstract

When discussing boundaries between domestic and public religion, society and family, a look at ancient rites and rituals proves to be illuminating despite the given difficulties in reconstructing non-verbal ritual acts through verbal texts and archeaological remains. Ever since the discipline’s origins in the 18th and 19th century, cultural anthropology has attempted to describe, analyse and systematize the ritual functions of defining and maintaining boundaries between different realms and stages of human life. The essay endeavours to investigate some more and some less successful attempts by the Church Fathers to come to terms with complicated ritual dynamics, and suggests ways to access critically historical plausibilities of claims made by the ancient sources.

Published Online: 2017-10-7
Published in Print: 2017-9-26

© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Contents
  3. I. Sacra Privata: Domestic Religion in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity
  4. Domestic Religion in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity
  5. The Spaces of Domestic Religion in Late Antique Egypt
  6. Location of Domestic Rituals in the Roman Empire: An Interprovincial Comparison
  7. The roles of Isis in Roman domestic cults: A study of the “Isis-Fortuna” bronze statuettes from the Vesuvian area 37
  8. Household and Family in Diaspora Judaism
  9. Re-envisioning Ekklēsia Space: Evidence of the Flexible Use of Household Space for Religious Instruction and Practice in the Pastoral Epistles
  10. A Missing Sacrament? Foot-washing, Gender, and Space in Early Christianity
  11. Domestic religion, family life and the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
  12. “When the Saints Go Marching in”. Gregory of Tours and his domestic Oratory
  13. Sacra Privata, Family Duties, and the Dead: Insights from the Fathers and Cultural Anthropology
  14. The Cult in the Cell
  15. Shedding Light on Early Christian Domestic Cult: Characteristics and New Perspectives in the Context of Archaeological Findings
  16. II. Savior Gods in the Mediterranean World
  17. Theoi Soteres
  18. ‘Salvation’ (Soteria) and Ancient Mystery Cults
  19. III. Varia
  20. King Osiris and Lord Sarapis
  21. Morality, Emotions and Reason: New Perspectives in the Study of Roman Magic
https://doi.org/10.1515/arege-2016-0010

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Contents
  3. I. Sacra Privata: Domestic Religion in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity
  4. Domestic Religion in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity
  5. The Spaces of Domestic Religion in Late Antique Egypt
  6. Location of Domestic Rituals in the Roman Empire: An Interprovincial Comparison
  7. The roles of Isis in Roman domestic cults: A study of the “Isis-Fortuna” bronze statuettes from the Vesuvian area 37
  8. Household and Family in Diaspora Judaism
  9. Re-envisioning Ekklēsia Space: Evidence of the Flexible Use of Household Space for Religious Instruction and Practice in the Pastoral Epistles
  10. A Missing Sacrament? Foot-washing, Gender, and Space in Early Christianity
  11. Domestic religion, family life and the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
  12. “When the Saints Go Marching in”. Gregory of Tours and his domestic Oratory
  13. Sacra Privata, Family Duties, and the Dead: Insights from the Fathers and Cultural Anthropology
  14. The Cult in the Cell
  15. Shedding Light on Early Christian Domestic Cult: Characteristics and New Perspectives in the Context of Archaeological Findings
  16. II. Savior Gods in the Mediterranean World
  17. Theoi Soteres
  18. ‘Salvation’ (Soteria) and Ancient Mystery Cults
  19. III. Varia
  20. King Osiris and Lord Sarapis
  21. Morality, Emotions and Reason: New Perspectives in the Study of Roman Magic
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