Journal of Early Christian Studies: Journal of the North American Patristics Society Volume 20 / Number 1 / Spring 2012
The John Hopkins University Press
Number of quotes: 7
Book ID: 121 Page: 63
Section: 2A3,2E3
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesThe accepted model for the birth of Christian sacred architecture traces a line of evolution marked by successive stages of increasing monumentality: martyrs’ tombs were transformed from “ordinary” graves to small shrines, and then from modest cult centers to focal points of large, communal basilicas.
Quote ID: 2774
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 121 Page: 65
Section: 2A3
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesOne can see, for example, in the efforts of Bishop Damasus (366-84 c.e.) the project of transforming saints’ tombs in the Roman catacombs into holy places.{16} By adding stairwells, widening access galleries, and opening up spaces to gather around saints’ tombs, Damasus made the graves accessible to a larger public of pious Christians. He elevated the sacred tombs themselves by adding familiar monumental architectural elements, such as columns and arches, and creating grandiose verse inscriptions that recalled the lives and martyrdoms of the saints.{17}
Quote ID: 2775
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 121 Page: 66
Section: 2E1
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesIn the excavations conducted in the 1940s beneath the altar of St. Peter at the Vatican, for example, it was discovered that the basilica construction did not originally completely bury the mid-second-century aedicula shrine, but instead enveloped it in exquisite marble and left it projecting through the floor of the fourth-century church.{19} This archaeological testimony confirmed the tight relationship between the basilica’s architectural plan and the earlier shrine: every component of the basilica directed the visitor to the apostle’s memoria.
Quote ID: 2776
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 121 Page: 67/68
Section: 2A3
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesKrautheimer’s own analysis of St. Peter’s, for example, stressed the uniqueness, the un-typicality, of the arrangement at that shrine.{25}
Despite such revisions and nuances of scholarly interpretation, however, the conventional evolutionary model remains deeply entrenched in studies of early Christian architecture and saints’ cults. Especially outside of archaeological circles, the study of sites whose architectural development does not strictly conform to the model of progression has done little to unsettle the authority of the dominant narrative. The model itself, with its underlying notion that cult and cult places literally “grew up around” martyrs’ tombs, has not been directly contested.
Quote ID: 2777
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 121 Page: 98/99
Section: 2A3
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesScholars have attempted to reconcile the contradictory claims that the saints’ remains rest both in Rome and in Split through various means: by arguing for the existence of two saints of the same two names, one of each in each city (e.g., Anastasius the fuller in Rome and Anastasius the cornicularius in Split, based on the disagreement in the hagiographic sources of the saint’s profession);{90} by conceding that the pope’s exportation of the relics was only partially carried out and left a portion of the two saints’ corpses for the Spalatum mission to retrieve; or, finally by denying the church of Spalatum’s claims to Anastasius’s authentic remains altogether.{91} Yet we are also now accustomed to viewing saints’ narratives from a political perspective and to analyzing the roles they could serve in an environment of competing urban communities.{92}
Quote ID: 2778
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 121 Page: 111
Section: 2A3
Yasin/Salona’s ChurchesThe conventional model for martyrium evolution provide an overly confident and homogeneous picture of cult development.
Quote ID: 2779
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 121 Page: 144
Section: 2E2
Wilkinson/Dedicated WidowsSimply put, for the purposes of this essay, a “dedicated” widow will designate any Christian woman who has pledged (in whatever manner) the preservation of her widowed state to God. {10} This is a practice that seems to have begun quite early in Christian circles, though our evidence prior to late antiquity is rather thin. Increasingly in the fifth century and beyond, it became common for dedicated widows to enter monastic houses, but throughout the medieval period it also remained common for such women to retain their property and to live in semi-retirement in their own homes. {11}
Quote ID: 2780
Time Periods: 567
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