Death's Dominion - Power, Identity, and Memory at the Fourth-Century Martyr Shrine - Nathaniel J. Morehouse
To Control: The Places and Practices Associated With the Remains of the Saints
Death's Dominion - Power, Identity, and Memory at the Fourth-Century Martyr Shrine - Nathaniel J. Morehouse
Nathaniel J. Morehouse [+]
John Carroll University
Nathaniel Morehouse (PhD, University of Manitoba, Early Christianity). In addition to his work on the uses of intentional memory creation in the Fourth-Century Christian context, Nathaniel dabbles with the idea of evil and the history of Christmas. His first book, Death’s Dominion: Power, Identity, and Memory at the Fourth Century Martyr Shrine, was published by Equinox in 2016. He lives in NorthEast Ohio where he teaches courses in Religious Studies and Philosophy at John Carroll University and Lakeland Community College.
Description
Chapter three examines how later bishops, following Constantine and Damasus, sought to control the martyr cult as it developed elsewhere in the empire during the late fourth century. Some of those bishops had their own issues of control to address (e.g. Augustine, Ambrose) and approached the cult of the martyrs in ways that addressed those issues of authority. Other contemporary bishops who did not have nearly the same political situations to contend with (e.g. Paulinus of Nola) embraced the martyr cult with less concern for their personal power.