The Center for the Premodern World, Levan Institute for the Humanities, and the Religion Department presents 

The Migrant, the Teacher, the Heretic. Early Christian Intellectual Networks in Rome Beyond the Orthodoxy-Heresy Dichotomy

András Handl (Leuven / Bern)

The world of early third-century Christians in Rome has traditionally been depicted as a battle (and victory) of orthodoxy over heretical groups. The most important written source of the era, an obscure heresiography called the Refutatio omnium haeresium, confirms this impression. It is well known that the anonymous author (formerly ‘Hippolytus’) invented connections between Greek philosophers and various heterodox Christian groups. He aimed to prove that these dissenting groups, most of them migrants, were more devoted to philosophical teachers than to Christ. While this list of ‘heretics’ is an obvious construction intended to separate, approaching the list as a network overcomes this separation and shed light on local interconnectedness beyond constructed reality. This talk has three aims. First, it tests this hypothesis by surveying evidence suggesting everyday encounters between heterodox Christian teachers. Second, it aims to map so far hidden connections among mainly migrant groups. Finally, it explores how network theory can help overcome the omnipresent but problematic orthodoxy-heresy dichotomy.