Series Information:
Early Church Fathers

Modelling Early Christianity explores the intriguing foreign social context of first century Palestine and the Greco-Roman East, in which the Christian faith was first proclaimed and the New Testament documents were written. It demonstrates that a sophisticated analysis of the context is essential in order to understand the original meaning of the texts.
The contributors examine social themes such as early Christian group formation, the centrality of kinship and honour and the economic setting. They offer a wealth of novel and socially realistic interpretations which make sense of the texts. At the same time, Modelling Early Christianity contains significant new ideas on the relationship between social-scientific and literary-critical analysis, the theoretical justification for model-use and the way these new approaches can fertilise contemporary Christian theology.

Modelling Early Christianity explores the intriguing foreign social context of first century Palestine and the Greco-Roman East, in which the Christian faith was first proclaimed and the New Testament documents were written. It demonstrates that a sophisticated analysis of the context is essential in order to understand the original meaning of the texts.
The contributors examine social themes such as early Christian group formation, the centrality of kinship and honour and the economic setting. They offer a wealth of novel and socially realistic interpretations which make sense of the texts. At the same time, Modelling Early Christianity contains significant new ideas on the relationship between social-scientific and literary-critical analysis, the theoretical justification for model-use and the way these new approaches can fertilise contemporary Christian theology.

"The Suffering Self" is a ground-breaking, interdisciplinary study of the spread of Christianity across the Roman empire. Judith Perkins shows how Christian narrative representation in the early empire worked to create a new kind of human self-understanding - the perception of the self as sufferer. Drawing on feminist and social theory, she addresses the question of why forms of suffering like martyrdom and self-mutilation were so important to early Christians.
This study crosses the boundaries between ancient history and the study of early Christianity, seeing Christian representation in the context of the Greco-Roman world. She draws parallels with suffering heroines in Greek novels and in martyr acts and examines representations in medical and philosophical texts.
Judith Perkins' controversial study is important reading for all those interested in ancient society, or in the history of Christianity.

The Suffering Self is a ground-breaking, interdisciplinary study of the spread of Christianity across the Roman empire. Judith Perkins shows how Christian narrative representation in the early empire worked to create a new kind of human self-understanding - the perception of the self as sufferer. Drawing on feminist and social theory, she addresses the question of why forms of suffering like martyrdom and self-mutilation were so important to early Christians.
This study crosses the boundaries between ancient history and the study of early Christianity, seeing Christian representation in the context of the Greco-Roman world. She draws parallels with suffering heroines in Greek novels and in martyr acts and examines representations in medical and philosophical texts.
Judith Perkins' controversial study is important reading for all those interested in ancient society, or in the history of Christianity.

This book is a study of the contribution of women to the development of the newly legitimate Christian church in the twiligth of the Western Roman Empire. There are many women noted for the example of their life in this period, regarded amongst the luminaries of the day; but while their make mentors, the patristic authors, have retained their fame, the women who surrounded and influenced them have all but disappeared from sight. The women themselves are partly to blame for this for - in order to be pious it made sense to disguise one's sex sometimes literally: Dr Cloke gives examples of those whose sex was discovered only after their death - they sought to become androgynous, a third sex before God.
God's Androgynes looks at a multitude of examples in some detail and takes an overview of the role of Christian women at this time. It will appeal not only to historians, classicists and theologians, but also to anyone who takes a general interest in the changing status of women over the the centuries.

The Russian church is central to an understanding of early Russian and Slav history, but for many years there has been no accessible, up-to-date introduction to the subject in English - until now. The late John Fennell's last book, is a masterly survey of the development, nature and role of the early Church in Russia from Christianization of the country in 988, through Kievan and Tatar poeriods to 1448 when the Russian Church finally became totally independent of its mother-church in Byzantium.

By applying perspectives from sociology and anthropology to a wide range of biblical data, The First Christians in their Social Worlds examines how the New Testament documents were influenced by the social realities of the early Christian communities for whom they were written, with the result that the texts reveal an intimate connection between society and Gospel. Overlaying this theoretical foundation, Philip Esler's book studies specific socio-political ideas in various texts of the New Testament, for example, charismatic phenomena, the admission of Gentiles into early Christian communities, sectarianism, and millenarianism and its relationship to political oppression.

Holy men, both pagan and Christian are persistent and puzzling figures in the religious life of the Roman Empire. In this first historical study of Holy Men for more than half a century, Dr Anderson applies techniques of literary analysis to throw light on the lifestyles and behaviour of these figures, from Jesus Christ to Peregrinus Proteus to dio Chrysostom, stressing their individuality as much as their common features.
Sage, Saint and Sophist examines the variety of services, real or imaginary, that these colouful figures had to offer and how they maintained their credibility to become the objects of successful religious cults.

The first translation into English of one of Gregory's eight books of miracle stories, which contains a series of anecdotes about the lives of confessors.

The apostolic tradition of St Hippolytus provides a single source of evidence on the inner life and religious polity of the early Christian Church. This book brings out the value of this treatise for the study of early Christian institutions, and the spirit of the primitive Church.

This is a source book for students of the patristic period and a companion volume to 'Creeds, Councils and Controversies' and 'Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church'. This updated edition incorporates vital documents that were not available when the original collection was compiled.

37 studies of the adoption of Christianity across northern Europe over1000 years, and the diverse reasons that drove the process. In Europe, the cross went north and east as the centuries unrolled: from the Dingle Peninsula to Estonia, and from the Alps to Lapland, ranging in time from Roman Britain and Gaul in the third and fourth centuries to the conversion of peoples in the Baltic area a thousand years later. These episodes of conversion form the basic narrative here. History encourages the belief that the adoption of Christianity was somehow irresistible, but specialists show theunderside of the process by turning the spotlight from the missionaries, who recorded their triumphs, to the converted, exploring their local situations and motives. What were the reactions of the northern peoples to the Christian message? Why would they wish to adopt it for the sake of its alliances? In what way did they adapt the Christian ethos and infrastructure to suit their own community? How did conversion affect the status of farmers, of smiths, of princes and of women? Was society wholly changed, or only in marginal matters of devotion and superstition? These are the issues discussed here by thirty-eight experts from across northern Europe; some answers come from astute re-readings of the texts alone, but most are owed to a combination of history, art history and archaeology working together. MARTIN CARVER is Professor of Archaeology, University of York.

The Didache is one of the earliest Christian writings, earlier than most of the documents that make up the New Testament. It provides practical instructions on how a Christian community should function, and offers unique insights into the way the earliest Christians lived and worshipped. In this highly readable introduction, Thomas O'Loughlin tells the intriguing story of the Didache, from its discovery in the late nineteenth century to the present. He then provides an illuminating commentary on the entire text, highlighting areas of special interest to Christians today, and ends with a fresh translation of the text itself.

New edition of, and commentary on, one of the most important liturgical books to have come down to us from the late Anglo-Saxon church. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579, the so-called 'Leofric Missal', is for the most part not really a missal, but a late-ninth or early-tenth-century combined sacramentary, pontifical and ritual with cues for the sung parts of various masses by the original, possibly French or Lotharingian, scribe. Subsequently, over the course of a hundred and thirty or so years, the sacramentary-pontifical-ritual was considerably augmented, first most probably for thesuccessors of Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury (890-923), the man for whom it was probably originally compiled, then later at Exeter for Bishop Leofric (1050-72).

Early Christian Dress is the first full-length monograph on the subject of dress in early Christianity. It pays attention to the ways in which dress expressed and shaped Christian identity, the role dress played in Christians' rivalries with pagan neighbours, and especially to the ways in which notions of gender were culled and revised in the process. Although many scholars have argued that gender in late antiquity was a performed and embodied category, few have paid attention to the ways in which dress and physical appearances were implicated in the understanding of femininity and masculinity. This study addresses that gap, revealing the amount of sartorial work necessary to secure stable gender categories in the worlds of early Imperial pagans and late ancient Christians. This study analyzes several vigorous discussions and debates that arose over Christian women's dress. It examines how Christians interpreted their dress-especially the dress of female ascetics-as evidence of Christianity's advanced morality and piety, a morality and piety that was coded "masculine." Yet even Christian leaders who championed ascetic women's ability to achieve a degree of virility in terms of their virtue and spiritual status were troubled when ascetics' dress threatened to materially dissolve gender categories, difference, and hierarchies. In the end, the study enables us to gain a broader view of how gender was constructed, perceived, and contested in early Christianity.

When Rome was at its height, an emperor s male beloved, victim of an untimely death, would be worshipped around the empire as a god. In this same society, the routine sexual exploitation of poor and enslaved women was abetted by public institutions. Four centuries later, a Roman emperor commanded the mutilation of men caught in same-sex affairs, even as he affirmed the moral dignity of women without any civic claim to honor. The gradual transformation of the Roman world from polytheistic to Christian marks one of the most sweeping ideological changes of premodern history. At the center of it all was sex. Exploring sources in literature, philosophy, and art, Kyle Harper examines the rise of Christianity as a turning point in the history of sexuality and helps us see how the roots of modern sexuality are grounded in an ancient religious revolution.

While Roman sexual culture was frankly and freely erotic, it was not completely unmoored from constraint. Offending against sexual morality was cause for shame, experienced through social condemnation. The rise of Christianity fundamentally changed the ethics of sexual behavior. In matters of morality, divine judgment transcended that of mere mortals, and shame a social concept gave way to the theological notion of sin. This transformed understanding led to Christianity s explicit prohibitions of homosexuality, extramarital love, and prostitution. Most profound, however, was the emergence of the idea of free will in Christian dogma, which made all human action, including sexual behavior, accountable to the spiritual, not the physical, world."

For over a thousand years, Eastern Christendom had as its center the second capital of the Roman Empire-Constantinople, the "New Rome," or Byzantium. The geographical division between the Eastern and Western Churches was only one manifestation of deeper rifts, characterized by a long history of conflicts, suspicions, and misunderstandings. Although the art, monasticism, and spirituality of Byzantium have come to be recognized as inspirational and influential in the shaping of Eastern European civilization, and of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as well, the West has been in the main ignorant of the historical evolution and the doctrinal significance of Byzantine theology. Here, for the first time in English, is presented a synthesis of Byzantine Christian thought. The reader is guided through its complexities to an understanding of Byzantium: its view of man and his destiny of "deification"; its ability to transcend the "Western captivity"; its survival under quite adverse historical circumstances. In the end, he may well find himself receptive to the basic positions of Byzantine thought, which have attained, in this time of need for the reintegration of Christianity itself, a surprising, contemporary relevance.

This book explores Cassian's use of scripture in the Conferences, especially its biblical models to convey his understanding of the desert ideal to the monastic communities of Gaul. Cassian intended the scriptures and, implicitly, the Conferences to be the voices of authority and orthodoxy in the Gallic environment. He interprets familiar biblical characters in unfamiliar ways that exemplify his ideal. By imitating their actions the monk enters a seamless lineage of authority stretching back to Abraham. This book demonstrates how the scriptures functioned as a dynamic force in the lives of Christian monks in the fourth and fifth centuries, emphasizes the importance of Cassian in the development of the western monastic tradition, and offers an alternative to the sometimes problematic descriptions of patristic exegesis as "allegory" or "typology". Cassian has been described as little more than a provider of information about Egyptian monasticism, but a careful reading of his work reveals a sophisticated agenda to define and institutionalize orthodox monasticism in the Latin West.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394 CE), who came from an illustrious Christian family of Capadocia, became bishop of the small town of Nyssa in 371 and is known as one of the founders of mystical theology in the Church. In "The Life of Moses," one of the most important books in the study of Christian mysticism, Gregory retells the story of Moses's life from the biblical account in Exodus and Numbers and then refers back to these stories as the basis for profound spiritual lessons. The ultimate goal of Gregory's spirituality is to strive for infinite progress in the never-completed journey to God. His exhortations to lead a life of virtue will inspire all who hope to increase their knowledge and love of God.

Over the last century unprecedented numbers of Christians from traditionally Orthodox societies migrated around the world. Once seen as an 'oriental' or 'eastern' phenomenon, Orthodox Christianity is now much more widely dispersed, and in many parts of the modern world one need not go far to find an Orthodox community at worship. This collection offers a compelling overview of the Orthodox world, covering the main regional traditions of Orthodox Christianity and the ways in which they have become global. The contributors are drawn from the Orthodox community worldwide and explore a rich selection of key figures and themes. The book provides an innovative and illuminating approach to the subject, ideal for students and scholars alike.

This volume brings together a set of contributions, many appearing in English for the first time, together with a new introduction, covering the history of the Ethiopian Christian civilization in its formative period (300-1500 AD). Rooted in the late antique kingdom of Aksum (present day Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea), and lying between Byzantium, Africa and the Near East, this civilization is presented in a series of case studies. At a time when philological and linguistic investigations are being challenged by new approaches in Ethiopian studies, this volume emphasizes the necessity of basic research, while avoiding the reduction of cultural questions to matters of fact and detail.

The papers presented here explore in various ways the interactions between clerics and the society in which Christian churches put down roots in Late Antiquity. Some of these complex processes, involved in the christianization of the Late Roman world, form the theme of the first three sections. Amongst other aspects, the essays in these sections examine the Three Chapters controversy and the participation of lay and clerical protagonists in it, the social standing of Italian bishops (including their use of lay personnel and their economic impact), and a comparison of pagan and Christian places of worship. The essays included in the last section deal with communication in Late Antiquity. They present the first results of a long-term project on the changing role of information during the last centuries of the Roman world. Eight papers in the volume are published in English for the first time.

In Books I-V of De Civitate Dei, Augustine rejects the claim that worship of the pagan gods had brought success in this life, and in Books VI-X, the prospect of a happy afterlife. In Books XI-XII, Augustine turns from attack to defence, for at this point he initiates his apology for the Christian faith. Books XI and XII document the initial phase of the rise of the two cities, the city of God and the city of this world, beginning with the creation of the world and the human race. In Book XI, Augustine rejects the theories of Aristotle, Plato and the Epicureans on the creation of the universe and addresses the creation of angels, Satan, the role of the holy Trinity and the importance of numerology in the Genesis account. In Book XII Augustine is chiefly concerned with refuting standard objections to the Christian tradition, returning to discussion of the Creation, including his calculation, based on the scriptures, that the world was created less than 6,000 years ago. Peter Walsh's acclaimed edition of The City of God is the only edition in English that provides not only a text but also a detailed commentary on one of the most influential documents in the history of western Christianity. Before his death in 2013 he had completed up to Book XVI; it is intended to complete all twenty-two books. Latin text, with facing-page English translation, introduction, notes and commentary.