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Athletae Christi. Early Christian Hagiography between Imitation and Rewriting

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2012

Abstract

This book introduces to the Czech audeince one of the most famous early Christain text, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis), and especially its reception in the subsequent early Christain literature from the 3rd to 5th centuyr AD when the interest in this text reaches its peak in the works of St Augustine and his followers. This text contained a number of innovative and potentially subversive features that were in antagonism to the social and theological conventions of that time.

Therefore it was necessary to explain these innovative traits away because in new historical and theological situation they ceased to correspond to the changing ideal of sanctity. The book is accompanied by the Czech translation of all of the Augustine's and pseudo-Augustine's homilies on Perpetua and Felicity.