Stephen Shoemaker

Harvard University | Harvard · Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

This brief book offers a lively introduction to the early history of Ethiopia and its relations with South Arabia. In it Bowersock opens up for readers the world of ancient East Africa primarily through the careful exegesis of two inscriptions that once were found on a now lost monument, the throne of Adulis, for which the book is titled. Our knowl...

The so-called Kollyridians of Epiphanius’s Panarion are commonly regarded in modern scholarship as a group of Christian goddess worshipers who believed in the Virgin Mary’s divinity. Yet a careful reading of Epiphanius’s account, with close attention to his rhetoric, suggests instead that the Kollyridians merely were offering Mary a kind of v...

In 1986, Michel van Esbroeck published a remarkable new Life of the Virgin that not only is among the most profound and eloquent Mariological writings of early Byzantium but also presents a useful compendium of early apocryphal traditions about Mary. Some of the Life's episodes are already well known from their original sources, such as the Proteva...

Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the Virgin Mary. By Sarah JaneBoss. London: Cassell, 2000. x + 253 pp. $24.95 paper; $57.95 cloth. - Volume 73 Issue 4 - Stephen J. Shoemaker

In his recent book, Mary through the Centuries, Jaroslav Pelikan notes that “one of the most profound and persistent roles of the Virgin Mary in history has been her function as a bridge builder to other traditions, other cultures, and other religions.” This is particularly true of the late ancient Near East, where Mary's significance frequently re...

The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England. By ClaytonMary. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xii + 355 pp. $69.95 cloth. - Volume 68 Issue 4 - Stephen J. Shoemaker