"Generative Authority" FWF Start Award 2024The GenAut Project is devoted to the study of the network of late antique and medieval literary works – both apocryphal and hagiographic – with early Christian figures connected to apostles as main characters.
Secondary compared both to the apostolic figures they are connected to and to later towering patristic authors like Gregory of Nazianzus or Augustine, the characters in this network are barely historical individuals which have nonetheless been literary productive figures. For instance, for Polycarp of Smyrna there are two martyrdom narratives independent from one another, one in Greek, the other in Coptic, a Greek life, and a late Byzantine panegyric; virtually only the Greek martyrdom garners scholarly attention. For Ignatius of Antioch there are several recensions of a martyrdom, none of them included among in the “apostolic fathers” writings. And at the same time for Thecla of Iconium – far more widely copied than the other characters in the network – an even larger group of texts composed between the second through the tenth century.
The GenAut Project will provide the first systematic treatment of the development of the literature focused on apostolically connected characters across several late-antique and medieval manuscript cultures.
The project is funded thanks to the FWF START 2024 Award by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and is hosted by the University of Vienna, at the Institute of Church History, Christian Archaeology and Ecclesiastical Art, 2024–2029. | Grant DOI 10.55776/STA214
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In the image below (and the background image) there is the beginning of the Coptic Martyrdom of Ignatius in P.Vindob. K 7588 (ninth century) with its ornate superscript title, digitised and available online on the ÖNB website.
