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Associate Professor of Religion
B.A., University of San Francisco 1976
M.T.S., Harvard University, The Divinity School 1979
Th.D., Harvard University, The Divinity School 1987
Current Research
Dr. Limberis is trained in the History of Ancient Christianity and is fascinated by the interplay of religious cultures -- pagan, Christian, Jewish -- in the first five centuries of the common era. Her research has invariably landed on the two most volatile centuries, the first and the fourth, when the power of the Roman state brings the most to bear on the varieties of religions in the Mediterranean. In addition, this research has expanded to include the visual arts of the period, iconography, sculptural arts, Roman painting, and mosaics. Her class, CO81 Religion and the Arts, deals with many of these themes.
Professor Limberis is now working on her next book, Architects of Piety: The Cult of the Martyrs in the Cappadocian Fathers. As the Cappadocian Fathers came to power as bishops in the 4th century C.E., they were deeply influenced by the extant martyr cults of the regions of Pontus and Cappadocia. This work examines how the Fathers' own families profoundly shaped Christian piety through their observance of the martyr cults; and how, in turn, the Fathers' championed this piety, transforming it from the local to the Imperial along the way. |
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Publications
“Family Piety and the Cult of the Martyrs in the Cappadocian
Fathers,” in Derek Krueger, ed., A People’s History of
Christianity, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, May 2006.
"Ecclesiastical Ambiguities: Corinth in the fourth and fifth
centuries," in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth:
Interdisciplinary Approaches, Daniel Schowalter and Steven
Friesen, eds., in Harvard Theological Studies, 53, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2005, pp. 443-457.
“Religion as the Cipher for Identity: The Cases of Emperor Julian, Libanius, and Gregory Nazianzus,” Harvard Theological Review 93:4 (2000) pp. 373-400.
“The Provenance of the 'Caliphate' Church: Abraham in James 2:17-26 and Galatians 3 Reconsidered,”in Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series, 148, Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 5, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, Ltd., 1997, pp. 397-420.
“The Council of Ephesos: The Rise of the Cult of the Theotokos and the Demise of the See of Ephesos,” in Helmut Koester, (ed.) Ephesos, Metropolis of Asia, Harvard Theological Studies, 41, Valley Forge: Trinity Press international, 1995, pp. 321-340.
Divine Heiress, the Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople, London: Routledge Ltd., 1994.
“The Eyes Infected by Evil: Basil of Caesarea's Homily, On Envy,” Harvard Theological Review 84:2 (1991) pp. 163-184. |
