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Columbia University

Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Discovery, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity

Abstract

dc:description

This dissertation analyzes the paradigms Christian writers (150-500 C.E.) used to array, historicize, and polemicize ethnographic data. A study of late antique heresiological literature (orthodox treatises about heretics) demonstrates how the religious practices, doctrinal beliefs, and historical origins of heretics served to define Christian schematizations of the world. In studying heretics, Christian authors defined and ordered the bounds of Christian knowledge and the process by which that knowledge was transmitted.

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Berzon, Todd Stephen

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

Language dc:language
English

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:academiccommons.columbia.edu:10.7916/D8RR1XM2

Chain of custody

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Harvested from
Columbia University
Base URL
academiccommons.columbia.edu/oai
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
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citation

Berzon, Todd Stephen. Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Discovery, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity. 2013. https://doi.org/10.7916/D8RR1XM2