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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Mark the Deacon: The Life of Porphyry of Gaza: Translated with Introduction and Notes, with a Translation of the Georgian Life

Mark the Deacon: The Life of Porphyry of Gaza: Translated with Introduction and Notes, with a Translation of the Georgian Life

Whitby, Michael
Childers, Jeff
Rapp, Claudia

Hardcover

Series: Translated Texts for Historians, Book 89

Literary CriticismAncient History GeneralGeneral Christianity

ISBN10: 1836243340
ISBN13: 9781836243342
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Published: Apr 22 2025
Pages: 280
Weight: 1.07
Height: 0.69 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English

In Late Antiquity Gaza was an exceptionally prosperous city, with wealth derived from a flourishing wine trade across the Mediterranean, as well as an intellectual centre whose leading lights combined traditional classical and Christian learning. Bishop Porphyry is famous for effecting the transformation in the early fourth century AD of this thriving community from a bastion of pagan beliefs into a Christian city, primarily through the destruction of the main temple to the god Marnas and other pagan sanctuaries and the working of miracles for the benefit of the local population. Conversion was neither easy nor guaranteed, since the leaders of local society at the time were solidly pagan and prepared to mobilize violence to defend their traditional ways. His success required missions to the empire's capital, Constantinople, where he interacted with the Patriarch John Chrysostom and imperial authorities. On one occasion he managed with the help of Empress Eudoxia to outmanoeuvre Emperor Arcadius into acceding to his request for imperial authority and physical backing to secure the closure and demolition of temples. The two key versions of Porphyry's biography are here presented together in new translations for the first time.

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