Christianity and the Law: The First Millennium

Graduate / Professional

Christianity has often been treated as a religion of grace, not law—a contrast often worked out, from the New Testament onward, at the expense of Judaism. Engagement with late antique, medieval, and Byzantine sources, however, yields a far more complicated—and far less antinomian—picture. This seminar attends to developments in legal and religious thought during the first millennium CE, with particular emphasis on Christians’ relationship with law. Three central loci focus on the law of the Hebrew Scriptures, and Christians’ appropriation (and frequently simultaneous rejection) thereof; Christians’ engagement with the laws of their civic environs, including the Roman Empire and its successors, the Sassanid Kingdom, and the Caliphates; and Christians’ own efforts at writing law. M 9:25am-11:20am