Books by Averil Cameron

Hans Lietzmann was not only a great scholar of the early church, but was also interested in early Christian literature and its value to the historian. However, although there is a large body of scholarship on patristic studies and theology, little attention has been paid even now to literary, as opposed to rhetorical, analysis. Some scholars are now trying to address the problem, which is both methodological and intellectual. This publication discusses the issues involved, and suggests new ways of applying literary readings to early Christian texts. Are we entering a new age of interpretation of the massive literary production by early Christians, and how does this relate to the traditional disciplines of patristics and church history?

Why the marginalized story of Byzantium has much to teach us about Western historyFor many of us, Byzantium remains "e;byzantine"e;-obscure, marginal, difficult. Despite the efforts of some recent historians, prejudices still deform popular and scholarly understanding of the Byzantine civilization, often reducing it to a poor relation of Rome and the rest of the classical world. In this book, renowned historian Averil Cameron presents an original and personal view of the challenges and questions facing historians of Byzantium today.The book explores five major themes, all subjects of controversy. "e;Absence"e; asks why Byzantium is routinely passed over, ignored, or relegated to a sphere of its own. "e;Empire"e; reinserts Byzantium into modern debates about empire, and discusses the nature of its system and its remarkable longevity. "e;Hellenism"e; confronts the question of the "e;Greekness"e; of Byzantium, and of the place of Byzantium in modern Greek consciousness. "e;The Realms of Gold"e; asks what lessons can be drawn from Byzantine visual art, and "e;The Very Model of Orthodoxy"e; challenges existing views of Byzantine Christianity.Throughout, the book addresses misconceptions about Byzantium, suggests why it is so important to integrate the civilization into wider histories, and lays out why Byzantium should be central to ongoing debates about the relationships between West and East, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and the ancient and medieval periods. The result is a forthright and compelling call to reconsider the place of Byzantium in Western history and imagination.

Averil Cameron refutes an argument by some scholars that Christians did not dialogue after a wall of silence came down in the fifth century AD. Cameron shows that in late antiquity and throughout Byzantium Christians debated and wrote philosophical, literary, and theological dialogues, and she makes a case for their centrality in Greek literature.

In this new evaluation of Procopius, Professor Cameron emphasises the essential unity of the three works and, startin with the 'minor' ones, deomstrates their intimate connection with the Wars.

Asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, the author turns to the development of Christian discourse over the first to sixth centuries AD, investigating its essential characteristics, its effects on existing forms of communication, and its eventual preeminence.