| Description |
viii, 322 p. ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-308) and index. |
| Contents |
Animals in the Roman Empire -- United by soul or divided by reason? -- Vegetarianism, natural history and physiognomics -- Imagination and transformations -- The religious value of animals -- Animal sacrifice : traditions and new inventions -- "God is a man-eater" : the animal sacrifice and its critics -- The New Testament and the lamb of God -- Fighting the beasts -- Internal animals and bestial demons -- The crucified donkey-man, the leontocephalus and the challenge of beasts -- Winged humans, speaking animals. |
| Summary |
"Ingvild Saelid Gilhus explores the transition from traditional Greek and Roman religion to Christianity in the Roman Empire and the effect of this change on how animals were regarded, illustrating the main factors in the creation of a Christian conception of animals." "A wide range of key texts are consulted, ranging from philosophical treatises to novels and poems on metamorphoses; from biographies of holy men such as Apollonius of Tyana and Antony, the Christian desert ascetic, to natural history; from the New Testament via Gnostic texts to the Church fathers; from pagan and Christian criticism of animal sacrifice to the acts of the martyrs. Both the pagan and the Christian conception of animals remained rich and multi-layered through the centuries, and this book presents the dominant themes and developments in the conception of animals without losing that complexity."--BOOK JACKET. |
| Subject |
Animals -- Religious aspects -- History of doctrines.
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Animals -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History of doctrines -- Early church, approximately 30-600.
|
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Greece -- Religion.
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Rome -- Religion.
|
| ISBN |
9780415386500 (pbk.) |
|
0415386497 (hbk.) |
|
9780415386494 (hbk.) |
|
0415386500 (pbk.) |
|
