NES 4640 - [Suffering and the Early Christian Imagination: Apocalypticism, Gnosticism, and Asceticism]

(crosslisted)
(also JWST 4640, RELST 4640)(GHB) (HA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015.

K. Haines-Eitzen.

How is it that religion can be both a cause of and cure for suffering? In what ways might different religious ideologies be understood as responses to suffering? Such questions are the big issues at stake in this course, which focuses very specifically on three ideologies that emerged in early Christianity: apocalypticism, “gnosticism,” and asceticism. Although we might normally think of persecution and martyrdom as fundamental to early Christianity, ideologies that emphasized the coming end of the world, those that emphasized the divine element within humans, and those that disciplined the body through celibacy, fasting, and other practices came to shape diverse responses to pain, alienation, and suffering in early Christianity. Our readings will focus on some of the writings in the New Testament, the “gnostic” literatures, and monastic texts as well as theoretical writings on the problem of suffering and religion. (RS)