La diffusion du Christianisme en Italie du Nord : chronique bibliographique

Abstract

This paper examines some recent publications concerning early Christianity in North-Eastern Italy. It is mostly focused on Rajko Bratož, Il Cristianesimo aquileiese prima di Costantino fra Aquileia e Poetovio (Ricerche per la storia della chiesa in Friuli 2), Udine-Gorizia, 1999 and Mark Humphries, Communities of the Blessed: Social Environment and Religious Change in Northern Italy, AD 200-400 (Oxford Early Christian Studies), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Bratož’ book is based on a thesis which was submitted in Ljubljana in 1986 and later published in Slovenian. It has been widely updated for the Italian publication. It is concerned with the origins of Christianity in an area which does not coincide with any ancient administrative division of the Roman Empire. This allows the author to ask the question of the influence of Aquileia in the spread of Christianity both in Northern Italy and in Noricum and Pannonia. Humphries’ book deals with a later period, mostly the fourth century, and attempts to propose a new interpretation of religious change in Northern Italy in the light of modern historiography. It concerns the whole Cispadana, including all the X Regio. As manifestations of the vitality of historical research on early Christianity, both studies give the opportunity of examining the status quaestionis of many difficult matters such as the episcopal lists, the hagiography and the ecclesiastical organization. A review of these works provides a good occasion to compare the very different historiographies from which they originate.