Stockholm university
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Henrik Johnsén

About me

Associate professor (docent) in History of Religions.

Teaching

I teach the courses "Kristendomens historia" (History of Christianity)(RHG003/RKVG13) and "Abrahamitiska religioner" (Abrahamic religions) (RHG506), "Religionshistoriska perspektiv på epidemier och sjukdomar" (Religious perspectives on epidemics and diseases) (RHG510), and "Religiös fromhet och asketism" (Religious piety and asceticism) (RHG512). I also supervise essays on Christianity in general.

Research

My research is focused on Christianity, and especially late antique Christian monasticism and its relation to late-antique Greco-Roman philosophy and literary culture, but also Syriac Orthodox Christianity in present-day Sweden. My dissertation dealt with literary issues and questions related to tradition and change in The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus, an early Byzantine monastic text. My research on early monasticism and late antique philosophy was part of a seven-year project “Early Monasticism and Classical Paideia”, funded by Riksbankens jubileumsfond.

Since 2018 I’m part of a research project on “Integration and Tradition: the Making of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Sweden”, funded by the Swedish Research Council, but also a minor project on monastic maxims literature and literary culture in early Byzantine monasticism. 

Från Januariy 2022 I'm also part of a new research project on the emergence of early Western monasticism, "Authority, community and individual freedom - Latin monastic culture and the roots of European educational ideals," funded by Riksbankens jubileumsfond.

2022-cont. Post-doc, “Authority, community and individual freedom - Latin monastic culture and the roots of European educational ideals”, Lund University           

2018-cont. Post-doc, “Integration and Tradition: the Making of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Sweden”, Stockholm University

2017-2018 Scandinavian guest professor, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

2017 Visiting fellow, Yale University

2009-2016 Post-doc, "Early Monasticism and Classical Paideia", Lund University

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Reading kephalaia

    2020. Henrik Rydell Johnsén. Vigiliae christianae (Print), 1-24

    Article

    How Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) composed his highly influential treatises of short and succinct chapters (kepahalaia) is bewildering and has been discussed by many scholars. In this essay the literary composition of Evagrius’ To monks in monasteries and communities, or Ad monachos, a typical text of short chapters, is examined from a literary perspective by relating the text to literary conventions, common in late antique literature and in rhetorical handbooks and exercises (progymnasmata). It is demonstrated how the teaching develops gradually in accordance with a pattern for a so-called amplified argument (epicheireme) codified in Pseudo-Hermogenes Progymnasmata. By this arrangement of the teaching, the reader is offered, not just a random taste of various aspects of the monastic life, but a set of specific conclusions to implement or to be aware of practically in the life as monk; conclusions that are perceptible not at just a cursory glance, but at a careful and repeated reading.

    Read more about Reading kephalaia

  • Wisdom on the Move: Late Antique Traditions in Multicultural Conversation

    2020. Susan Ashbrook Harvey (et al.).

    Book (ed)

    Wisdom on the Move explores the complexity and flexibility of wisdom traditions in Late Antiquity and beyond. This book studies how sayings, maxims and expressions of spiritual insight travelled across linguistic and cultural borders, between different religions and milieus, and how this multicultural process reshaped these sayings and anecdotes. Wisdom on the Move takes the reader on a journey through late antique religious traditions, from manuscript fragments and folios via the monastic cradle of Egypt, across linguistic and cultural barriers, through Jewish and Biblical wisdom, monastic sayings, and Muslim interpretations. Particular attention is paid to the monastic Apophthegmata Patrum, arguably the most important genre of wisdom literature in the early Christian world.

    Read more about Wisdom on the Move: Late Antique Traditions in Multicultural Conversation

  • Wisdom on the Move

    2020. Henrik Rydell Johnsén, Thomas Arentzen, Andreas Westergren. Wisdom on the Move: Late Antique Traditions in Multicultural Conversation, 1-10

    Chapter
    Read more about Wisdom on the Move

  • Repentance and confession

    2019. Henrik Rydell Johnsén. Pratiche didattiche tra centro e periferia nel Mediterraneo tardoantico, 141-170

    Chapter

    It is well known that monasticism was crucial to the development of repentance in early Christianity. With monasticism followed a renewal of the earlier practice with great importance for later Christian traditions. But were these changes just an internal development of earlier Christian teaching adjusted to new circumstances? Or were there also new impulses from external sources? In this paper, the teaching on repentance and confession in the Institutes and the Conferences by John Cassian (d. 435) and the Apophthegmata Patrum (from 5th/6th century), is compared with teachings related to the tendency towards the “care of the self” in late antique philosophy. In contrast to scholars who often have underscored the difference between the two traditions, this essay argues that the new monastic contribution to the earlier Christian practice of repentance can to a large extent be explained as adaptions of well-known practices or “technologies of the self” within late antique philosophy. Clement of Alexandria and Origen seems to have been crucial pioneers in this adaption, but traditions of philosophy were also filtered directly into the monastic tradition independently from these earlier Christian authors. 

    Read more about Repentance and confession

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