Schep, Arie-Pieter
(2020)
Struggling for a Place in Society.
Master thesis, M Religion & Pluralism.
Abstract
Until quite recently, religion was the traditional category to describe Christianity in the study of early Christianity. This term, however, has been problematized and it is now generally accepted that we cannot describe early Christianity as a religion. Consequently, scholars try to describe early Christianity with other terms and they pay particular attention to the social categories of the ancient world. This study arises from an interest in how to adequately describe early Christianity when we take into account the social structure of the ancient world.
The Octavius of Minucius Felix is used as a window to look at the ancient world, containing both a Christian and a non-Christian view on Christianity. The central question of this study is how the Christian and the non-Christian in the Octavius of Minucius Felix differed in their descriptions of early Christianity. Social scientific, historical, and philological approaches are combined to study the social categories that come up in the Octavius.
First, the most important social categories of the ancient world are described to create a lens for this study. Then, some background information about the Octavius is given. The description of Christianity by the non-Christian and the Christian follows this. Finally, some conclusions are drawn. The results show that the non-Christian described Christianity as an association, like the Bacchants, whereas the Christian seems to suggest that Christians formed a philosophical school. This study also concluded with questioning the ethnicisation that a group of scholars detect in early Christian texts.
| Type: |
Thesis
(Master)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| Mason, S.N. | | Faculteit GGW, Faculteit Algemeen | S.Mason@rug.nl |
|
| Degree programme: |
M Religion & Pluralism |
| Academic year: |
2019-2020 |
| Date of delivery: |
08 Apr 2021 14:19 |
| Last modified: |
08 Apr 2021 14:19 |
| URI: |
https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/587 |
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