DR ANNA SILVAS
ARC Research Fellow, University of New England

Dr Anna Silvas currently holds an ARC Discovery Project Grant at the University of New England, Armidale. This project is entitled Basil of Caesarea and the nexus of Greek, Latin and Semitic cultures in late Antiquity. She has recently published two books, The Asketicon of Basil the Great (Oxford 2005) and Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters (Leiden 2006). She has also published many articles on the Cappadocians, as well as a study on the biographical sources on Jutta and Hildegard of Bingen (Pennsylvania 1999).

INTERPRETING THE MOTIVES OF BASIL'S SOCIAL DOCTRINE

I begin this paper with Heracleias, enjoying hospitality at the ptochotropheion/xenodocheion outside Caesarea, and getting to meet and speak with its founder, Basil. After briefly outlining the emergence of Basil's social engagement, culminating in this so-called 'Basileias', I ask a kind of hermeneutic question: what were his motives? I review three significant writers on Basil (Gribomont, Rousseau and Holman), and show the inadequacy of their interpretations, then go on to emphasize what I think is essential if we are to understand what drove Basil in this sphere of action.

DR WENDY MAYER
Washington DC

Wendy Mayer is a social historian recognised internationally for her work deconstructing long-standing assumptions concerning the late antique priest and bishop John Chrysostom. Her recent books include John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints (with Bronwen Neil) and The Homilies of St John Chrysostom - Provenance. Reshaping the Foundations. In 2006-2007 she was awarded a Fellowship in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC during which she conducted the research for a book titled The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300-638 CE) (with Pauline Allen). The regard in which her work is held is indicated by the number of invited lectures and seminars she has delivered internationally in the past three years in cities as diverse as Paris (Sorbonne), Tokyo, Boston, Basel, Washington DC, Leuven and Rome.

WELCOMING THE STRANGER IN THE MEDITERRANEAN EAST

Late Antiquity is a period during which hospitality towards the stranger began to diversify in a number of interesting - and, at times, novel - ways. By the end of the fourth century hospices and hospitals began to develop in the east, the practice of receiving the translated relics of martyrs emerged and the rise of asceticism and the formation of monastic communities began to lead in some instances to the care by them of the poor, sick, displaced and elderly. Exiled bishops were forcibly relocated to remote areas in Egypt, Armenia and on the coast of the Black Sea, where local communities welcomed them or not, depending on the circumstances. At the turn of the fourth century the growing maturation of Constantinople as the capital of the eastern empire saw the influx of numerous individuals from other provinces - bishops, monks, lay people - who came (and often stayed for months, if not years) seeking imperial and senatorial favour. By the mid fifth century the vandal invasions had led to the need to handle the relocation and care of refugees, some of whom made their way into eastern provinces. In this same century the rise of spectacular pillar saints in Syria saw the increased growth of another phenomenon - hagiotourism - which drew Christian pilgrims in large numbers from the far flung corners of the empire. This paper seeks to draw out the full diversity of what it meant to welcome the stranger in the late antique east with specific attention to the imperial capital, Constantinople, and to the province of Syria.