Strange and Familiar History of Byzantine Ar: Interpretation, Risk, and Empathy (ARC Humanities Press, 2026) represents a risky experiment in art-history writing. It takes objects of Byzantine art—manuscript illustration, frescos, mosaic, sculpture—and reads them through the lenses of disability studies, media studies, and gender studies in order to reveal something about their significance not only in that historical culture, but also in our own. Moreover, it uses lenses of personal history and self-reflection as a way to model an open-ended and faceted art history. Modern works of film, fiction, and art likewise appear frequently so that the Byzantine objects can emerge as both more strange and more familiar, and as both of the past and of our world. Their capacity for holding multiple times, generating multiple meanings, and for multiple subjectivities is fully embraced, and perhaps a different kind of art history emerges, one that eschews argument and mastery for humility, openness, empathy—thinking with, rather than about.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Glenn Peers is Emeritus Professor, Art History at University of Texas Austin and Syracuse University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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In The Problem of the Devil in Cappadocian Thought (Cambridge UP, 2026), Gabrielle Thomas questions the popular assumption that the devil served as the primary explanation for evil, sin, and suffering as early Christians grappled with all that is wrong in the world. Interrogating the status of the devil in the teachings of the Cappadocians – Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Macrina the Younger – she identifies their points of agreement, that the devil is a fallen angel, and disagreement, notably how Christ defeated him, his continued existence, and his ultimate end. In her investigation, Thomas engages fourth-century Christian thought in conversation with ancient philosophy, ancient history, classics, and biblical studies. She demonstrates how the Cappadocians negotiated myriad philosophical, theological, and spiritual problems with the devil. Thomas argues that the devil is not simply a strategy for explaining the problem of evil. Rather, the devil himself is the problem.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Gabrielle Thomas, an Anglican priest, is Dean and President of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Professor of Early Christian, Anglican, and Theological Studies at Yale Divinity School. She is the author of The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory of Nazianzus and For the Good of the Church: Unity, Theology, and Women and co-editor of Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at Umass Boston

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How did the state become Christian in late antiquity? Many scholars have traced the Christianization of the Roman world in the centuries following the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 312 CE. Robin Whelan, however, turns his attention away from the usual suspects in such accounts-emperors, empresses, bishops, ascetics, and other holy people-to consider a surprisingly understudied set of late ancient Christians: those who served the state as courtiers, bureaucrats, and governors. By tracing the requirements of regimes, the expectations of subjects, and patterns of engagement with churches and churchmen, he argues that that those who served the state in late antiquity could be seen-and indeed, could see themselves-as distinctly Christian authority figures-just as much as the emperors and kings whom they served, and the bishops and ascetics whom they governed. Serving the Christian State in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2026) is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Robin Whelan is Reader in Mediterranean History at the University of Liverpool.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston

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