The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage explores how the visionary experiences of early Christian martyrs shaped and informed early Christian ancestor cult and the construction of the cemetery as paradise. Taking the early Christian cemeteries in Carthage as a case study, the volume broadens our understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the early Christian cult of the saints, and highlights the often divergent views about the dead and post-mortem realms expressed by the church fathers, and in graveside ritual and the material culture of the cemetery. This fascinating study is a key resource for students of late antique and early Christian culture.

George Synkellos, a monk of Constantinople who once held a position of authority under the patriarch Tarasios, composed (in Greek) a chronicle of universal history in the early ninth century. Beginning with the creation of the universe, the chronicle preserves a rich collection of ancient sources, many of them otherwise unknown. The English translation provided here, together with introduction and notes, promises to make this influential and wide-ranging history more accessible.

This latest comprehensive work on Simon Magus lends new impetus to the investigation of Early Christianity and questions surrounding the origin and nature of Gnosticism. Major contributions of this study include: (1), a departure from the traditional exegesis of Acts 8, 5-24 (the first narrative source of Simon), and the later following reports of ancient Christian writers; (2), an overview of the literature of Graeco-Roman antiquity to determine the contribution of "magic" and "the Magoi" in the development of perceptions and descriptions of Simon; and (3), the inclusion of social science explanation models and modern estimations of "identity," in a creative approach to questions surrounding the phenomenon of Simon.

The Commentary on Revelation is Bede's first venture into Biblical exegesis -- an ambitious choice for a young monastic scholar in a newly Christianized land. Its subject matter - the climax of the great story of creation and redemption, of history and of time itself - adds to the Commentary's intrinsic importance, for these themes lie at the heart of Bede's concerns and of his achievement as a historian, exegete, scholar, and preacher. But Bede was also a man of his age. When he penned the Commentary around 703, speculation and anxiety about the end of the world was in the air. According to conventional chronology, almost 6000 years had passed since creation. If for God 'one day... is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day' (2 Peter 3:8), the world was destined to last six millennia, corresponding to the six days of creation. The end, then, was close. Bede vigorously opposed the temptation to calculate the time of the end. The Commentary argues that Revelation is not a literal prophecy, but a symbolic reflection on the perennial struggle of the Church in this world. At the same time, the young Bede is starting to shape his own account of how the end-times would unfold. This translation, prefaced by a substantial Introduction, will be of interest to students of medieval religious and cultural history, of Anglo-Saxon England, and of the history of Biblical exegesis in the Middle Ages.

Two texts are presented in English translation here. The first is what remains of a historical work Hilary wrote against two distinguished contemporary bishops, Valens and Ursacius, whose intervention on behalf of the Emperor Constantius Hilary thought disastrous. They throw a flood of light upon scenes of disarray, violence and betrayal in the Church life of the fourth century.

This volume provides the first full-scale edition and commentary in English of the text known as 2 Clement since Lightfoot's magisterial work at the end of the 19th century. The volume contains a critical edition of the text in Greek, including a full critical apparatus based on all the surviving manuscripts, together with an English translation. A full introduction deals with issues of manuscript and other attestation, authorship, date, place etc., as well as discussing issues concerning the genre of the text, the identity of possible 'opponents', citations, as well as providing an overall summary of the theology of the text. The work also provides a full-scale detailed commentary on the Greek text, providing analysis of all the main issues arising from the text.

Edward Adams challenges a strong consensus in New Testament and Early Christian studies: that the early Christians met 'almost exclusively' in houses. This assumption has been foundational for research on the social formation of the early churches, the origins and early development of church architecture, and early Christian worship. Recent years have witnessed increased scholarly interest in the early 'house church'. Adams re-examines the New Testament and other literary data, as well as archaeological and comparative evidence, showing that explicit evidence for assembling in houses is not nearly as extensive as is usually thought. He also shows that there is literary and archaeological evidence for meeting in non-house settings. Adams makes the case that during the first two centuries, the alleged period of the 'house church', it is plausible to imagine the early Christians gathering in a range of venues rather than almost entirely in private houses. His thesis has wide-ranging implications.

This book discusses the development of the English Church during a rich and turbulent two centuries of European history. It provides a comprehensive survey covering the late Anglo-Saxon period through the Norman Conquest and right across the Anglo-Norman period. Professor Loyn addresses major themes in medieval history. He begins with the pre-1066 period looking at the great Benedictine monastic revival; he looks at the role of the Church in the Conquest itself; the evidence of the Domesday Book and then considers the activities of the Church in the turbulent years of the Conqueror's successors. The book concludes with a discussion of doctrine, belief and ritual.

This is the first full-length study of Demetrius of Alexandria (189-232 ce), who generated a neglected, yet remarkable hagiographic program that secured him a positive legacy throughout the Middle Ages and the modern era. Drawing upon Patristic, Coptic, and Arabic sources spanning a millennium, the analysis contextualizes the Demetrian corpus at its various stages of composition and presents the totality of his hagiographic corpus in translation. This volume constitutes a definitive study of Demetrius, but more broadly, it provides a clearly delineated hagiographic program and charts its evolution against a backdrop of political developments and intercommunal interactions. This fascinating study is a useful resource for students of Demetrius and the Church in Egypt in this period, but also for anyone working on Early Christianity and hagiography more generally.

This small book, the last work of a world-renowned scholar, has established itself as a classic. It provides a superb overview of the vast historical process by which Christianity was Hellenized and Hellenic civilization became Christianized.

Jaeger shows that without the large postclassical expansion of Greek culture the rise of a Christian world religion would have been impossible. He explains why the Hellenization of Christianity was necessary in apostolic and postapostalic times; points out similarities between Greek philosophy and Christian belief; discuss such key figures as Clement, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa; and touches on the controversies that led to the ultimate complex synthesis of Greek and Christian thought.

What did it mean to be a Christian in the Roman Empire? In one of the inaugural titles of Oxford's new Essentials in Biblical Studies series, Harry O. Maier considers the multilayered social contexts that shaped the authors and audiences of the New Testament. Beginning with the cosmos and the gods, Maier presents concentric realms of influence on the new religious movement of Christ-followers. The next is that of the empire itself and the sway the cult of the emperor held over believers of a single deity. Within the empire, early Christianity developed mostly in cities, the shape of which often influenced the form of belief. The family stood as the social unit in which daily expression of belief was most clearly on view and, finally, Maier examines the role of personal and individual adherence to the religion in the shaping of the Christian experience in the Roman world. In all of these various realms, concepts of sacrifice, belief, patronage, poverty, Jewishness, integration into city life, and the social constitution of identity are explored as important facets of early Christianity as a lived religion. Maier encourages readers to think of early Christianity not simply as an abstract and disconnected set of beliefs and practices, but as made up of a host of social interactions and pluralisms. Religion thus ceases to exist as a single identity, and acts instead as a sphere in which myriad identities co-exist.

The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage explores how the visionary experiences of early Christian martyrs shaped and informed early Christian ancestor cult and the construction of the cemetery as paradise. Taking the early Christian cemeteries in Carthage as a case study, the volume broadens our understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the early Christian cult of the saints, and highlights the often divergent views about the dead and post-mortem realms expressed by the church fathers, and in graveside ritual and the material culture of the cemetery. This fascinating study is a key resource for students of late antique and early Christian culture.

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.

This important work engages with a long historical debate: were the earliest Christians under the direction of ordained ministers, or under the influence of inspired laypeople? Who was in charge: bishops, elders and deacons, or apostles, prophets and teachers? Rather than trace Church offices backwards, Burtchaell examines the contemporary Jewish communities and finds evidence that Christians simply continued the offices of the synagogue. Thus, he asserts that from the very first they were presided over by officers. The author then advances the provocative view that in the first century it was not the officers who spoke with the most authority. They presided, but did not lead, and deferred to more charismatic laypeople. Burtchaell sees the evidence in favor of the Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican view that bishops have always presided in the Christian Church. At the same time he argues alongside the Prostestants that in its formative era the Church deferred most to the judgment of those who were inspired, yet never ordained.

When first published in 1958, The Canons of the Council of Sardica, AD 343 at once became the standard account of the canons passed by the Western bishops assembled at Serdica in 343 and the thinking on Church matters that lay behind them. In this new edition Hamilton Hess has updated his account in the light of recent literature, included new material and the full texts of the canons, and translated all quotations into English to reach a wider audience. Three new opening chapters make a fresh contribution to the study of early church history in giving a comprehensive analysis of the rise of the conciliar movement from its earliest beginnings to the fourth-century establishments of councils as exclusively episcopal legislative assemblies. It is also shown that the emergence of canon law was a gradual evolutionary process leading towards the sixth-century organization of canonical collections as juridical ecclesiastical codes parallel with and complementary to the contemporary civil codes of the Roman empire.

This is the first of a four-volume ground-breaking study of Christological origins. The fruit of twenty years' research, Jesus Monotheism lays out a new paradigm that goes beyond the now widely held view that Paul and others held to an unprecedented 'Christological monotheism'. There was already, in Second Temple Judaism and in the Bible, a kind of 'christological monotheism'. But it is first with Jesus and his followers that a human figure is included in the identity of the one God as a fully divine person. Volume I lays out the arguments of an emerging consensus, championed by Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham, that from its Jewish beginnings the Christian community had a high Christology and worshipped Jesus as a divine figure. New data is put forward to support that case. But there are weaknesses in the emerging consensus. For example, it underplays the incarnation and does not convincingly explain what causes the earliest Christology. The recent study of Adam traditions, the findings of Enoch literature specialists, and of those who have explored a Jewish and Christian debt to Greco-Roman Ruler Cult traditions, all point towards a fresh approach to both the origins and shape of the earliest divine Christology.

Early Christians and Animals presents a lively study of the significance of animals in early Christian thought, tradition, text and art. Robert M. Grant: * examines the diverse and often conflicting sources, from the pagan antecedents Aristotle and Pliny, to Biblical animal references and the Church fathers * provides fresh translations of key texts concerning animals - the Physiologus, Basils homilies and Isidores chapters.

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"The selections recapture the drama and counter-cultural nature of becoming a Christian and creating a community that stood out from the crowd...This collection offers easy access to early Christianity's daily life."
-- "The Princeton Seminary Bulletin"

Life and Practice in the Early Church brings together a range of primary texts from the church's first five centuries to demonstrate how early Christians practiced their faith. Rather than focusing on theology, these original documents shed light on how early believers "did church," addressing such practical questions as, how did the church administer baptism? How were sermons delivered? How did the early church carry out its missions endeavors?

Early Christian writings reveal a great deal about the tradition, as well as the wider culture in which it developed. Far from being monolithic, the documents which present the voices of the early church fathers in their own words demonstrate variation and diversity regarding how faith was worked out during the patristic period. The texts illuminate who was eligible for baptism, what was expected of worshippers, how the Eucharist was celebrated, and how church offices and their functions were organized. Contextual introductions explain practices and their development for those with little prior knowledge of Christian history or tradition. The pieces included here, all in accessible English translation, represent such sources as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, the Cappadocians, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Augustine.

Bradley G. Green's close reading of Augustine challenges Colin Gunton's argument that Augustine bequeathed to the West a theological tradition with serious deficiencies. According to Gunton, Augustine's particular construal of the doctrine of God led to fundamental problems in the relationship between creation and redemption. However, Green persuasively argues that Augustine did not sever the link between creation and redemption, but rather affirmed that the created order is a means of genuine knowledge of God by which redemption is accomplished. Green suggests the prominent role this relationship plays in Augustine's doctrines of man and God, provides the kind of relational Christian ontology that Gunton sought. In short, Augustine could have provided Gunton with fundamental theological resources in countering the modernity he so rightly challenged.

Essays bring out the important and complex roles played by Anglo-Saxon churchmen, including Bede and lesser-known figures. Both episcopal and abbatial authority were of fundamental importance to the development of the Christian church in Anglo-Saxon England. Bishops and heads of monastic houses were invested with a variety of types of power and influence. Their actions, decisions, and writings could change not only their own institutions, but also the national church, while their interaction with the king and his court affected wider contemporary society. Theories of ecclesiastical leadership were expounded in contemporary texts and documents. But how far did image or ideal reflect reality? How much room was there for individuals to use their office to promote new ideas? The papers in this volumeillustrate the important roles played by individual leading ecclesiastics in England, both within the church and in the wider political sphere, from the late seventh to the mid eleventh century. The undeniable authority of Bede and Bishop AEthelwold is demonstrated but also the influence of less-familiar figures such as Bishop Wulfsige of Sherborne, Archbishop Ecgberht of York and St Leoba. The book draws on both textual and material evidence to show the influence (by both deed and reputation) of powerful personalities not only on the developing institutions of the English church but also on the secular politics of their time. Contributors: Alexander R. Rumble, Nicholas J.Higham, Martyn J. Ryan, Cassandra Rhodes, Allan Scott McKinley, Dominik Wassenhoven, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Debby Banham, Joyce Hill.

This book examines the transformation in US thinking about the role of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) in national security policy since the end of the Cold War. The evolution of the BMD debate after the Cold War has been complex, complicated and punctuated. As this book shows, the debate and subsequent policy choices would often appear to reflect neither the particular requirements of the international system for US security at any given time, nor indeed the current capabilities of BMD technology. Ballistic Missile Defence and US National Security Policy traces the evolution of policy from the zero-sum debates that surrounded the Strategic Defense Initiative as Ronald Reagan left office, up to the relative political consensus that exists around a limited BMD deployment in 2012. The book shows how and why policy evolved in such a complex manner during this period, and explains the strategic reasoning and political pressures shaping BMD policy under each of the presidents who have held office since 1989. Ultimately, this volume demonstrates how relative advancements in technology, combined with growth in the perceived missile threat, gradually shifted the contours and rhythm of the domestic missile defence debate in the US towards acceptance and normalisation. This book will be of much interest to students of missile defence and arms control, US national security policy, strategic studies and international relations in general.

This book examines the organization of religion - Christian, pagan, and Jewish - in the Roman Empire at the time of Constantine and Augustine. The author argues that because official pagan religion was inextricably tied to the structure of individual cities, Christianity alone was able to unite the inhabitants of the Empire as a whole.

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.

This book offers an original interpretation of the origin and early reception of the most fundamental claim of Christianity: Jesus' resurrection. Richard Miller contends that the earliest Christians would not have considered the New Testament accounts of Jesus' resurrection to be literal or historical, but instead would have recognized this narrative as an instance of the trope of divine translation, common within the Hellenistic and Roman mythic traditions. Given this framework, Miller argues, early Christians would have understood the resurrection story as fictitious rather than historical in nature. By drawing connections between the Gospels and ancient Greek and Roman literature, Miller makes the case that the narratives of the resurrection and ascension of Christ applied extensive and unmistakable structural and symbolic language common to Mediterranean "translation fables," stock story patterns derived particularly from the archetypal myths of Heracles and Romulus. In the course of his argument, the author applies a critical lens to the referential and mimetic nature of the Gospel stories, and suggests that adapting the "translation fable" trope to accounts of Jesus' resurrection functioned to exalt him to the level of the heroes, demigods, and emperors of the Hellenistic and Roman world. Miller's contentions have significant implications for New Testament scholarship and will provoke discussion among scholars of early Christianity and Classical studies.