Early Christian Literature

Title: "Will it be lawful to live of the sword? (Licebit in gladio conversari?)» (Tertullian, The Crown 11,2). Christian origins in the face of military violence and war.

Is it possible for a Christian to wield a sword to assume the insignia of an army? Can baptism and enlistment oath be combined? Is it possible for those who profess the kerygma to honour the obligations of military service? These questions, which from the very beginning of the preaching of the Gospel animated the theological debate within the first communities of believers in "Jesus, the Christ", will provide the key to understanding and the topic of the itinerary proposed this year in the Early Christian Literature lessons.
The course will retrace the development of a theme, that of the compatibility between Christianity and military service, from a threefold perspective: theoretical, historical, and ethical. Since the drafting of the first Christian texts, including those of the first century which constituted the "New Testament" collection, this topic was discussed both for its ideal content (with respect to the eschatological implications of Christian militancy and their political repercussions) and as a concrete historical circumstance (not immune of juridical-penal implications, at the origin of the whole tradition of the so-called "military martyrdoms") and as a moral question (posed by what the practice of military service requires) and, above all, as an ethical argument (raised by the incompatibility between armed militancy and "Justice of the Kingdom" [cf. Mt 6:33]).
Lastly, particular attention will be paid to two texts, coherent in terms of historical provenance and Christian matrix: The Crown of Tertullian of Carthage and the Acts of Maximilian, both expressions of the same tradition of «Latin Christianity» (according to the historical-theological classification of Jean Daniélou ), one - the Tertullian treatise - to be traced back to the beginnings of that Christian tradition, the other - the brief account of the martyrdom of the young man of Teveste - from the Diocletian age, at its peak.
The development of the course will follow three didactical Units:
I Unit: The peculiarities of early Christian writing: from Paul and the proto-Christian traditions (I century CE) to the birth of a new "literature" (II century CE).
II Unit: Christianity in the face of military violence and war, between eschatological radicalism, martyrdom, and attempts to a moral discipline.
III Unit: The Crown of Tertullian and the Acts of Maximilian.
In the first Unit, the characteristic features of the most ancient Christian textual production will be presented, recalling the epistemological principles on which the disciplinary autonomy of Early Christian Literature is based, whose essential methodological acquisitions will be exemplarily applied to the criticism of the two texts analysed. The discussion of these topics will be developed by following an itinerary which, starting from the first Christian textual production, will illustrate the progressive appearance of literary characters in the writing production of the "Disciples of the Lord", thus observing the changes which, even from a historical and historical of ideas perspectives, will progressively involve these first kerygmatic movements.
In the second Unit, the central argument will be the genesis and the principal developments of the reflection around the theme of compatibility between Christian kerygma and military service (from the original appearance of this issue [1st century] up to the consolidation of its most relevant answers). The historical development and Sitz im Leben of this discussion will be presented: particular attention will be paid to the ramifications of this debate in the main early Christian theological and literary traditions (in particular Alexandrian and African), recalling the different arguments and most significant theoretical results which marked the complex developing of this topic.
Finally, the last Argument Unit will be dedicated to the reading and commentary of the two proposed texts, The Crown, by Tertullian of Carthage, and the Acts of Maximilian. Through analysing these documents, the class will discuss the relationship between them (on the theoretical level, first of all, but also potentially on the textual one), trying to derive from their criticism the salient features of their common Sitz im Leben ("site of life": vital setting).