Magic, Charisma and Violence in Late Antiquity: Essays in Religion (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781399526784)

This collection of 21 essays, published together for the first time, offers three new models for thinking about religion and magic in late antiquity. Using a range of sources, David Frankfurter models a shift from thinking about "magic" to looking at the material powers of peculiar things activated in specific life contexts. Frankfurter then brings together various forms of charisma in the late antique world to demonstrate how charisma was both a source of authority and a power that someone could transmit through objects. The collection also considers the relationship of violence to religion, from religious instigations to collective violence to violence in collective fantasy: of martyrs' torments and of the rites of the monstrous Other.

Author: David Frankfurter
ISBN-10: 1399526782
ISBN-13: 9781399526784
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/28/2026
Pages: 488
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.89lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 1.06d