Crisis of Empire Doctrine and Dissent at the End of Late Antiquity [Hardcover]

This book focuses on the attempts of three asceticsJohn Moschus, Sophronius of Jerusalem, and Maximus Confessorto determine the Churchs power and place during a period of profound crisis, as the eastern Roman empire suffered serious reversals in the face of Persian and then Islamic expansion. By asserting visions which reconciled long-standing intellectual tensions between asceticism and Church, these authors established the framework for their subsequent emergence as Constantinople's most vociferous religious critics, their alliance with the Roman popes, and their radical rejection of imperial interference in matters of the faith. Situated within the broader religious currents of the fourth to seventh centuries, this book throws new light on the nature not only of the holy man in late antiquity, but also of the Byzantine Orthodoxy that would emerge in the Middle Ages, and which is still central to the churches of Greece and Eastern Europe.

Phil Booth is Leventis Lecturer in Eastern Christianity at Oxford University.

Phil Booth has produced a magisterial book focusing on three crucial figures from Palestine who wrote in Greek in the early seventh century. Two of them played a central role in the huge issues of the period that saw the first Arab conquests; all three saw their world as that of the entire Mediterranean. Booth's demonstration of how sacramental spirituality, theology and politics were interlinked is a major achievement and a real breakthrough. The seventh century will never seem the same again.
Averil Cameron, editor ofLate Antiquity on the Eve of Islam

Crisis of Empireis a fresh, provocative, and carefully revisionist interpretation of the extraordinary monastic dissent that challenged the imperial order in the turbulent seventh century in Byzantium.? Booths narrative brilliantly captures the drama of the alliances forged between monks, ecclesiastics, and provincial imperial officials in counl“S