Zakład Historii Starożytnej IH serdecznie zaprasza na referat €˜Perge igitur ad illas partes et affer nobis reliquias: St. Boniface of Tarsus and the Roman Appetite for Eastern Relics, który wygłosi Maya Maskarinec (PhD student, University of California, Los Angeles). Referat ten zakończy tegoroczne spotkania seminarium późnoantycznego i zostanie wygłoszony w czwartek 6 czerwca 2013 r., o godz. 16.45, w Bibliotece Zakładu Papirologii UW, w budynku Wydziału Prawa (Collegium Iuridicum I) na terenie głównym UW. 

Abstract

The papal-centric sources for early medieval Rome provide little evidence for the religious activities and interests of the Roman elite. This paper focuses on the passio of St. Boniface of Tarsus, which, I argue, offers insight into Rome’s Greek-speaking elite. Written in Greek and subsequently translated into Latin, this unusual text portrays Rome, a city so often celebrated for its profusion of early Christian martyrs, as a city lacking in “native” sanctity. Set in the time of the imperial Christian persecutions, its Roman protagonist, Boniface, is sent by his mistress to the Eastern Mediterranean to purchase relics as remission for their sins. Reading this unusual text in the context of the 7th-century Persian and Arab invasions that threatened Cilicia, as a guide the 7th/8th-century diaconia of S. Bonifacio on the Aventine, allows us to reconstruct the profile of this Greek-speaking community. In cultivating the legacy of Boniface, the Aventine diaconia promoted a saint whose legend affirmed its charitable mission and promoted the salvific power of its relics for an aristocratic Roman audience concerned with salvation. Furthermore, in conjunction with other contemporary sources for the period, we may trace a vogue for “foreign” relics in Rome, especially as Rome was vaunted as a safe haven for Christian sanctity.