Sergius of Rusafa: Sacred Defense in Late Antique Syria-MesopotamiaSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/Y48FMJF2/tei
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Elizabeth KeyFowdenSergius of Rusafa: Sacred Defense in Late Antique Syria-Mesopotamiahttp://syriaca.org/cbss/Y48FMJF2https://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/Y48FMJF2https://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/Y48FMJF21995Sergius of Rusafa is a study of frontier religion. It asks how S. Sergius, martyred at Rusafa in the early fourth century, became a mediator among the diverse groups with an interest in Syria-Mesopotamia. This region, near whose center Rusafa lay, was the frontier zone between the Roman and Iranian empires, monitored in the fifth and sixth centuries by the Arab allies of the two great powers. Although the cult was to be disseminated as far away as Gaul, Sergius of Rusafa is deliberately limited to the Syro-Mesopotamian arena. This is because, particularly in the fifth and sixth centuries, the cult of S. Sergius was intimately interwoven with the cultural and political life of the frontier zone. When that situation changed with the Arab conquest, the Sergius cult continued to thrive, but no longer served as a symbolic channel of communication between Romans, Iranians and Arabs. The mid-fifth century Passio, which recounts Sergius's martyrdom and miracles at Rusafa, survives in the original Greek and in Syriac and Latin translations. Chapter 1 shows how the Passio's account of the cult's early expansion is confirmed by literary, archeological and iconographical evidence. Although Rusafa's buildings have been thoroughly robbed over the centuries, investigation of objects found elsewhere which portray Sergius as imperial body guard or holy rider illustrates how Sergius was perceived as a divine defender in a volatile frontier zone. Chapter 2 depicts the cultural climate in which the Sergius cult flourished by focusing on the idea of the saint as frontier talisman. This is illustrated through the cult of the Iranian martyrs at Mayperqat, in northern Syria-Mesopotamia. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the topographical, archeological and epigraphical evidence for the spread of the cult on the ground, by looking firstly at its phases of development at Rusafa, and then among the communities of Syria- Mesopotamia. Finally, the fifth chapter traces how political and religious motives were married in the efforts of the Roman Emperor Justinian, the Iranian King of Kings Khusrau II and the Ghassanid Arab phylarch al-Mundhir to monopolize the favor of Rusafa's military martyr.
Fowden, Elizabeth Key. “Sergius of Rusafa: Sacred Defense in Late Antique Syria-Mesopotamia.” Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1995.
Elizabeth Key Fowden, Sergius of Rusafa: Sacred Defense in Late Antique Syria-Mesopotamia (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1995).ArabsByzantine empireGhassanidsIV CEIV-VII CEJustinianKhusrau IIRusafaSassaniansSt SergiusV CEVI CEarchaeologyfrontierhagiographymartyrdomnomadspoliticssaints