Research Catalog

Title

Sacred thresholds : the door to the sanctuary in late antiquity / edited by Emilie B. van Opstall.

Publication

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Opstall, Emilie Marlène van

Description

xiii, 376 pages : illustrations (some color); 25 cm.

Summary

Sacred Thresholds. The Door to the Sanctuary in Late Antiquity' offers a far-reaching account of boundaries within pagan and Christian sanctuaries: gateways in a precinct, outer doors of a temple or church, inner doors of a cella. The study of these liminal spaces within Late Antiquity - itself a key period of transition during the spread of Christianity, when cultural paradigms were redefined - demands an approach that is both interdisciplinary and diachronic. Emilie van Opstall brings together both upcoming and noted scholars of Greek and Latin literature and epigraphy, archaeology, art history, philosophy, and religion to discuss the experience of those who crossed from the worldly to the divine, both physically and symbolically. What did this passage from the profane to the sacred mean to them, on a sensory, emotive and intellectual level? Who was excluded, and who was admitted? The articles each offer a unique perspective on pagan and Christian sanctuary doors in the Late Antique Mediterranean.

Series Statement

Religions in the Graeco-Roman world ; volume 185

Uniform Title

Religions in the Graeco-Roman world ; v. 185.

Alternative Title

Door to the sanctuary in late antiquity

Subject

• To 1500
• Doors > Religious aspects
• Senses and sensation in architecture
• Architecture and religion > History > To 1500
• Boundaries > Miscellanea
• Architecture and religion

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 365-370) and index.

Contents

• Part 1: Experiencing sacred thresholds. On the threshhold: Paul the Silentiary's Ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia / Emilie M. van Opstall -- Entering the baptistry: Spatial, identity and salvific transitions in fourth- and fifth-century baptismal liturgies / Juliette Day -- From taboo to icon: The entrance to and the exit from the church in the first three Greek liturgical commentaries (ca. 500-730 CE) / Christian Boudignon -- Bonus intra, melior exit!: 'Inside' and 'outside' at Greek incubation sanctuaries / Ildikó Csepregi.
• Part 2: Symbolism and allegory of sanctuary doors. Sanctuary doors, vestibules and Adyta in the works of neoplatonic philosophers / Lucia M. Tissi -- The paradise of St. Peters / Sible L. de Blaauw -- Imagining the entrance to the afterlife: Peter as the gatekeeper of heaven in early Christianity / Roald Dijkstra.
• Part 3: Messages in stone. The Queen of Inscriptions contextualized: The presence of civic inscriptions in the pronaos of ancient temples in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (fourth century BCE-second century CE) / Evelien J.J. Roels -- Versus De Limine and In Limine: Displaying Greek paideia at the entrance of early Christian churches / Gianfranco Agosti -- The door to the sanctuary from Paulinis of Nola to Gregory of Tours / Enduring characteristics and evolutions from the Theodosian to the Merovingian period / Gaëlle Herbert de la Portbarré-Viard.
• Part 4: The Presence of the Divine. Filters of lights: Greek temple doors as portals of epiphany / Christina G. Williamson -- The other door to the santuary: The apse and divine entry in the early Byzantine church / Brooke Shilling.

ISBN

• 9789004368590
• 9004368590

LCCN

2018015943

OCLC

• on1028823374
• 1028823374
• SCSB-9164102

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries