The writings of the Church Fathers form a distinct body of literature that shaped the early church and built upon the doctrinal foundations of Christianity established within the New Testament. Christian literature in the period c.100-c.400 constitutes one of the most influential textual oeuvres of any religion. Written mainly in Greek, Latin and Syriac, Patristic literature emanated from all parts of the early Christian world and helped to extend its boundaries. The History offers a systematic account of that literature and its setting. The works of individual writers in shaping the various genres of Christian literature is considered, alongside three general essays, covering distinct periods in the development of Christian literature, which survey the social, cultural and doctrinal context within which Christian literature arose and was used by Christians. This is a landmark reference book for scholars and students alike.

This book studies the complex attitude of late ancient Christians towards classical education. In recent years, the different theoretical positions that can be found among the Church Fathers have received particular attention: their statements ranged from enthusiastic assimilation to outright rejection, the latter sometimes masking implicit adoption. Shifting attention away from such explicit statements, this volume focuses on a series of lesser-known texts in order to study the impact of specific literary and social contexts on late ancient educational views and practices. By moving attention from statements to strategies this volume wishes to enrich our understanding of the creative engagement with classical ideals of education. The multi-faceted approach adopted here illuminates the close connection between specific educational purposes on the one hand, and the possibilities and limitations offered by specific genres and contexts on the other. Instead of seeing attitudes towards education in late antique texts as applications of theoretical positions, it reads them as complex negotiations between authorial intent, the limitations of genre, and the context of performance.

Basil the Great was born ca. 330 CE at Caesarea in Cappadocia into a family noted for piety. He was at Constantinople and Athens for several years as a student with Gregory of Nazianzus and was much influenced by Origen. For a short time he held a chair of rhetoric at Caesarea, and was then baptized. He visited monasteries in Egypt and Palestine and sought out the most famous hermits in Syria and elsewhere to learn how to lead a pious and ascetic life; but he decided that communal monastic life and work were best. About 360 he founded in Pontus a convent to which his sister and widowed mother belonged. Ordained a presbyter in 365, in 370 he succeeded Eusebius in the archbishopric of Caesarea, which included authority over all Pontus. He died in 379. Even today his reform of monastic life in the east is the basis of modern Greek and Slavonic monasteries.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Basil's "Letters" is in four volumes.

Christian monasticism emerged in the Egyptian deserts in the fourth century AD. This introduction explores its origins and subsequent development and what it aimed to achieve, including the obstacles that it encountered; for the most part making use of the monks' own words as they are preserved (in Greek) primarily in the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Mainly focussing on monastic settlements in the Nitrian Desert (especially at Scete), it asks how the monks prayed, ate, drank and slept, as well as how they discharged their obligations both to earn their own living by handiwork and to exercise hospitality. It also discusses the monks' degree of literacy, as well as women in the desert and Pachomius and his monasteries in Upper Egypt. Written in straightforward language, the book is accessible to all students and scholars, and anyone with a general interest in this important and fascinating phenomenon.

The early Christian writer Tertullian first applied the epithet "bride of Christ" to the uppity virgins of Carthage as a means of enforcing female obedience. Henceforth, the virgin as Christ's spouse was expected to manifest matronly modesty and due submission, hobbling virginity's ancient capacity to destabilize gender roles. In the early Middle Ages, the focus on virginity and the attendant anxiety over its possible loss reinforced the emphasis on claustration in female religious communities, while also profoundly disparaging the nonvirginal members of a given community. With the rising importance of intentionality in determining a person's spiritual profile in the high Middle Ages, the title of bride could be applied and appropriated to laywomen who were nonvirgins as well. Such instances of democratization coincided with the rise of bridal mysticism and a progressive somatization of female spirituality. These factors helped cultivate an increasingly literal and eroticized discourse: women began to undergo mystical enactments of their union with Christ, including ecstatic consummations and vivid phantom pregnancies. Female mystics also became increasingly intimate with their confessors and other clerical confidants, who were sometimes represented as stand-ins for the celestial bridegroom. The dramatic merging of the spiritual and physical in female expressions of religiosity made church authorities fearful, an anxiety that would coalesce around the figure of the witch and her carnal induction into the Sabbath.

This book examines Paul's letter to the Philippians against the social background of the colony at Philippi. After an extensive survey of Roman social values, Professor Hellerman argues that the cursus honorum, the formalized sequence of public offices that marked out the prescribed social pilgrimage for aspiring senatorial aristocrats in Rome (and which was replicated in miniature in municipalities and in voluntary associations), forms the background against which Paul has framed his picture of Jesus in the great Christ hymn in Philippians 2. In marked contrast to the values of the dominant culture, Paul portrays Jesus descending what the author describes as a cursus pudorum ('course of ignominies'). The passage has thus been intentionally framed to subvert Roman cursus ideology and, by extension, to redefine the manner in which honour and power were to be utilized among the Christians at Philippi.

This volume aims to create--in Walter Benjamin's terms--dialectical images from early Christian texts and the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It blasts the past and the present into one another, creating new constellations of thought, ones connected with tensions and mediated by theory (mediation being what Theodor Adorno adds to Benjamin's concept of the dialectical image). Our ancient images derive from the Gospels, the Apostle Paul, Revelation, Irenaeus, Origen, and Augustine. Our modern images and theories derive from Walter Benjamin, Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, and Judith Butler. Together these images and theories challenge the way we think about gentrification, progress, early Christianity, revolutionary movements, history, the body of Christ, canonicity, language, gender, and bodies, both human and non-human. Eleven international scholars contribute to this volume. These scholars are experts in the fields of Biblical Studies, Early Christian Studies, Philosophy, and Critical Theory.

Tertullian was the first Western Christian to write theology, defending Christians against the hostility of the Roman state, as well as arguing against Marcion, Praxeas and theosophical fantasy. A complex thinker, Tertullian has, in the modern era, been rejected by both liberal Christianity and its secular critics. For a long time misquoted and misused, he now calls for sustained analysis and interpretation. This book offers a major reappraisal of his theology and its influence on the shape of the Western Christian tradition.

St. Augustine's masterpiece is an interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good and evil: the City of God in conflict with the City of the Devil. Abridged for the modern reader.

This beautifully designed, full-color textbook introduces the Roman background of the New Testament by immersing students in the life and culture of the thriving first-century towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which act as showpieces of the world into which the early Christian movement was spreading. Bruce Longenecker, a leading scholar of the ancient world of the New Testament, discusses first-century artifacts in relation to the life stories of people from the Roman world. The book includes discussion questions, maps, and 175 color photographs. Additional resources are available through Textbook eSources.

Augustinus (354430 CE), son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste in North Africa, and his Christian wife Monica, while studying in Africa to become a rhetorician, plunged into a turmoil of philosophical and psychological doubts in search of truth, joining for a time the Manichaean society. He became a teacher of grammar at Tagaste, and lived much under the influence of his mother and his friend Alypius. About 383 he went to Rome and soon after to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric, being now attracted by the philosophy of the Sceptics and of the Neo-Platonists. His studies of Paul's letters with Alypius and the preaching of Bishop Ambrose led in 386 to his rejection of all sensual habits and to his famous conversion from mixed beliefs to Christianity. He returned to Tagaste and there founded a religious community. In 395 or 396 he became Bishop of Hippo, and was henceforth engrossed with duties, writing and controversy. He died at Hippo during the successful siege by the Vandals.

From Augustine's large output the Loeb Classical Library offers that great autobiography the "Confessions" (in two volumes); "On the City of God" (seven volumes), which unfolds God's action in the progress of the world's history, and propounds the superiority of Christian beliefs over pagan in adversity; and a selection of "Letters" which are important for the study of ecclesiastical history and Augustine's relations with other theologians.

The volume continues P. G. Walsh's admired translation with commentary of Augustine's The City of God Books I-XIV which have been published in eight earlier volumes between 2003 and 2016, and this ninth volume in the collection looks at books XV and XVI. After completing the first ten books of De Civitate Dei, in which Augustine sought to refute the claim that pagan deities had ensured that Rome enjoyed unbroken success and prosperity in this life and guaranteed its citizens a blessed life after death, Augustine devoted the remaining twelve books to discuss the origins, development and destiny of the two cities of Babylon and Jerusalem, with the predominant emphasis on the city of God. This is the only edition of these books in English which provides not only a text but also a detailed commentary on one of the most influential documents in the history of western Christianity. Latin text with facing-page English translation, introduction and commentary.

The Copts, adherents of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, today represent the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and their presiding bishops have been accorded the title of pope since the third century AD. This study analyzes the development of the Egyptian papacy from its origins to the rise of Islam. How did the papal office in Egypt evolve as a social and religious institution during the first six and a half centuries AD? How do the developments in the Alexandrian patriarchate reflect larger developments in the Egyptian church as a whole-in its structures of authority and lines of communication, as well as in its social and religious practices? In addressing such questions, Stephen J. Davis examines a wide range of evidence-letters, sermons, theological treatises, and church histories, as well as art, artifacts, and archaeological remains-to discover what the patriarchs did as leaders, how their leadership was represented in public discourses, and how those representations definitively shaped Egyptian Christian identity in late antiquity.The Early Coptic Papacy is Volume 1 of The Popes of Egypt: A History of the Coptic Church and Its Patriarchs. Also available: Volume 2, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt, 641-1517 (Mark N. Swanson) and Volume 3, The Emergence of the Modern Coptic Papacy (Magdi Girgis, Nelly van Doorn-Harder).

Along with his Confessions, The City of God is undoubtedly St. Augustine's most influential work. In the context of what begins as a lengthy critique of classic Roman religion and a defence of Christianity, Augustine touches upon numerous topics, including the role of grace, the original state of humanity, the possibility of waging a just war, the ideal form of government, and the nature of heaven and hell. But his major concern is the difference between the City of God and the City of Man - one built on love of God, the other on love of self. One cannot but be moved and impressed by the author's breadth of interest and penetrating intelligence. For all those who are interested in the greatest classics of Christian antiquity, The City of God is indispensable. This long-awaited translation by William Babcock is published in two volumes, with an introduction and annotation that make Augustine's monumental work approachable. Books 11-22 offer Augustine's Christian view of history, including the Christian view of human destiny. The INDEX for Books 1-22 (both volumes of The City of God) is contained in this edition.

Second century apocryphal Christian texts are Christian fiction: they draw on the motifs of contemporary pagan stories of romance, travel and adventure to entertain their readers, but also to explore what it means to be Christian. The Thecla episodein the Apocryphal Acts of Paul recounts the conversion of a young pagan woman, her rejection of marriage, her narrow escapes from martyrdom and the end of her story as an independent, ascetic evangelist. In Thecla's Devotion, J.D. McLarty reads the Thecla episode against a paradigm pagan romance, Callirhoe: for both texts the passions are key to the unfolding of the plot - how are unruly emotions to be managed and controlled? The pagan would answer, 'through reason'. This study uses the portrayal of emotion within character and plot to explore the response of the Thecla episode to this key question for Christian identity formation.

An unusual perspective on the cultural and political milieu in existence at the time of the emergence of Christianity. Events such as the Persian Wars are examined with a view to understanding the spiritual struggles raging between those forces that wished to promote a newly emerging human consciousness, based on independent thought and a growing sense of egocentricity; and those forces that wished to preserve the authoritarian structures of the past, which were rooted in now decadent mystery practices. In particular the role of Essenes receives prominence, given that Bock was writing prior to the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the second half of the book, Bock investigates the esoteric biographies of some of the key figures surrounding Jesus Christ, and demonstrates how their destinies were affected by the encounters with the being of Christ.

In this historical and theological study, John G. Gager undermines the myth of the Apostle Paul's rejection of Judaism, conversion to Christianity, and founding of Christian anti-Judaism. He finds that the rise of Christianity occurred well after Paul's death and attributes the distortion of the Apostle's views to early and later Christians. Though Christian clerical elites ascribed a rejection-replacement theology to Paul's legend, Gager shows that the Apostle was considered a loyal Jew by many of his Jesus-believing contemporaries and that later Jewish and Muslim thinkers held the same view. He holds that one of the earliest misinterpretations of Paul was to name him the founder of Christianity, and in recent times numerous Jewish and Christian readers of Paul have moved beyond this understanding. Gager also finds that Judaism did not fade away after Paul's death but continued to appeal to both Christians and pagans for centuries. Jewish synagogues remained important religious and social institutions throughout the Mediterranean world. Making use of all possible literary and archaeological sources, including Muslim texts, Gager helps recover the long pre-history of a Jewish Paul, obscured by recent, negative portrayals of the Apostle, and recognizes the enduring bond between Jews and Christians that has influenced all aspects of Christianity.

Bede "the Venerable," English theologian and historian, was born in 672 or 673 CE in the territory of the single monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow. He was ordained deacon (691-2) and priest (702-3) of the monastery, where his whole life was spent in devotion, choral singing, study, teaching, discussion, and writing. Besides Latin he knew Greek and possibly Hebrew. Bede's theological works were chiefly commentaries, mostly allegorical in method, based with acknowledgment on Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and others, but bearing his own personality. In another class were works on grammar and one on natural phenomena; special interest in the vexed question of Easter led him to write about the calendar and chronology. But his most admired production is his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Here a clear and simple style united with descriptive powers to produce an elegant work, and the facts diligently collected from good sources make it a valuable account. Historical also are his Lives of the Abbots of his monastery, the less successful accounts (in verse and prose) of Cuthbert, and the Letter to Egbert his pupil (November 734), so important for our knowledge about the Church in Northumbria. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Bede's historical works is in two volumes (the second of which includes Lives of the Abbots and Letter to Egbert).

The relationship between the Church and the Scriptures of Israel is fraught with complexities, particularly about how the first Christians read Scripture alongside the Gospel of Christ. Patrick T. Egan examines the text of 1 Peter in the light of its numerous quotations of Scripture and demonstrates how the epistle sets forth a scriptural narrative that explains the nature and purpose of the Church. Egan argues that 1 Peter sets forth an ecclesiology based in a participatory Christology, in which the Church endures suffering in imitation of Jesus's role as the suffering servant. The epistle admonishes the Church to a high moral standard in response to Christ's atoning work while also encouraging the Church to place hope in God's final vindication of his people. Addressing the churches of Asia Minor, 1 Peter applies the Scriptural narrative to the Church in unexpected ways.

Places and spaces are key factors in how individuals and groups construct their identities. Identity theories have emphasised that the construction of an identity does not follow abstract and universal processes but is also deeply rooted in specific historical, cultural, social and material environments. The essays in this volume explore how various groups in Late Antiquity rooted their identity in special places that were imbued with meanings derived from history and tradition. In Part I, essays explore the tension between the Classical heritage in public, especially urban spaces, in the form of ancient artwork and civic celebrations and the Church's appropriation of that space through doctrinal disputes and rival public performances. Parts II and III investigate how particular locations expressed, and formed, the theological and social identities of Christian and Jewish groups by bringing together fresh insights from the archaeological and textual evidence. Together the essays here demonstrate how the use and interpretation of shared spaces contributed to the self-identity of specific groups in Late Antiquity and in so doing issued challenges, and caused conflict, with other social and religious groups.

St Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer, authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in St Paul: The Misunderstood Apostle, he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity throughout the world than any other figure in history. It was Paul who established the first Christian churches in Europe and Asia in the first century, Paul who transformed a minor sect into the largest religion produced by Western civilization, and Paul who advanced the revolutionary idea that Christ could serve as a model for the possibility of transcendence. While we know little about some aspects of the life of St Paul - his upbringing, the details of his death - his dramatic vision of God on the road to Damascus is one of the most powerful stories in the history of Christianity, and the life that followed forever changed the course of history.

Many recognise Everett Ferguson as the definitive voice on early Christianity, patristic writing and ecclesiology. The Early Church at Work and Worship is a challenging collection, broad in scope and formidable in depth. This is the first volume of Ferguson's collected essays, and includes some of his most memorable work, especially on "laying on of hands". Practices of Ordination and attitudes to religious schism in antiquity are analysed by the scholar in this collection, which not only includes articles and publications from various sources, but also previously unpublished material.

What did dreams mean to Egyptian Christians of the first to the sixth centuries? Alexandrian philosophers, starting with Philo, Clement and Origen, developed a new approach to dreams that was to have profound effects on the spirituality of the medieval West and Byzantium. Their approach, founded on the principles of Platonism, was based on the convictions that God could send prophetic dreams and that these could be interpreted by people of sufficient virtue. In the fourth century, the Alexandrian approach was expanded by Athanasius and Evagrius to include a more holistic psychological understanding of what dreams meant for spiritual progress. The ideas that God could be known in dreams and that dreams were linked to virtue flourished in the context of Egyptian desert monasticism. This volume traces that development and its influence on early Egyptian experiences of the divine in dreams.

"English-speaking Christians owe Paulist Press an enormous debt of gratitude for their continuing efforts to help us gain a deeper appreciation of our spiritual heritage." Spiritual Life Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings translated and introduced by H. Lawrence Bond preface by Morimichi Watanabe "This cloud, mist, darkness, or ignorance into which whoever seeks your face enters when one leaps beyond every knowledge and concept is such that below it your face cannot be found except veiled. But this very cloud reveals your face to be there beyond all veils...The denser, therefore, one knows the cloud to be the more one truly attains the invisible light in the cloud. I see, O Lord, that it is only in this way that the inaccessible light, the beauty, and the splendor of your face can be approached without veil." From De visione Dei, c. 6 Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) is often called the outstanding intellectual figure of the fifteenth century as well as the principal gatekeeper between medieval and modern philosophy. This volume gives fresh attention to the theological and mystical dimensions of his thought. The introduction casts new and exciting light on the development of Cusa's theology of spirituality. The book also provides for the first time in one volume an English translation of Cusa's basic mystical corpus: On Learned Ignorance; On the Hidden God; On Seeking God; On the Vision of God; and On the Summit of Contemplation. Another unique feature is the annotated glossary of key Cusan terms that accompanies the texts. Cusa's writings reveal a remarkable imaginative and gifted theologian who anticipated contemporary questions of ecumenicity and pluralism, empowerment and reconciliation, and tolerance and individuality. These translations particularly communicate to us his experience of a very large God that jostles us out of our parochialism. For all his intellectual power, he never closes his thought into a system. He is a significator and a conjecturer. He keeps pointing beyond his own words and beyond even his prized formulae and labels, including "learned ignorance" and "coincidence of opposites." He persistently brings theology to the edge of incomprehensibility, beyond both positive and negative ways, beyond even paradox and the coincidence of opposites, to the realm of the Purely Absolute and Infinite, to the contemplation of Possibility Itself.