Among the Hamilton Lugar school’s recent faculty achievements, Daniel Caner published a new monograph, “The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium“. Professor Caner is the Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (MELC). He primarily examines late antique social and cultural history, with an emphasis on the religious communities of the Mediterranean Middle East.
The Rich and Pure is a social and cultural-historical analysis. The book delves into several elements regarding the early evolution of Christian philanthropy, the Christian notion of sacred wealth, and the people who used/supplied the wealth in the eastern Roman Empire prior to the rise of Islam. Researching how the ancient concept of philanthropy was Christianized in both theory and practice, the book explains how it was articulated through five interrelated gift ideals: alms, charity, blessings, fruit-bearings, and liturgical offerings. The book explores what these gift ideals were intended 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.
The Rich and Pure is praised as an illustration of history’s first complex Christian society as seen through the lens of Christian philanthropy and gift-giving. Professor Caner studies the origins of what became known as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe. The book shows how Christian philanthropy became articulated through distinct religious ideals of giving that helped define proper social relations among the rich, the poor, and “the pure” (Christian holy people), resulting in new and enduring social expectations. The Rich and the Pure offers a portrait of the entire early Byzantine society.
Daniel Caner is Associate Professor at Indiana University, Bloomington. He also researches the Byzantine Empire (the Christianized Roman Empire of the Eastern Mediterranean), asceticism (severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, traditionally for religious reasons), philanthropy, hagiography (writings about the lives of saints), and historiography (the study of historical writing). His previous books include Wandering Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity and History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai.
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