Faculty

Adjunct Professor Dan Caner (MELC) has published a new monograph, The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 62; University of California Press, 2021). This is a social and cultural history about Christian philanthropy, sacred wealth, and the people who used or supplied it in the eastern Roman Empire before the rise of Islam. Besides examining how the ancient concept of philanthropy was Christianized in both theory and practice, it shows how it was articulated through five interrelated gift ideals: alms, charity, blessings, fruitbearings and liturgical offerings. The book explores what these gift ideals were supposed to mean to lay and ascetic Christians, how they defined different types of relationships between these two groups, how they supported the ascetic acquisition of pure wealth, and how they related to a range of religious and social concerns.