The book of Zechariah is ""the longest and most obscure"" of the Twelve Minor Prophets, Jerome remarked. That may have been the reason why in 386 he visited the Alexandrian scholar Didymus the Blind and requested a work on this prophet. Though long thought to be lost, the work was rediscovered in 1941 at Tura outside Cairo along with some other biblical commentaries. As a result we have in our possession a commentary on Zechariah by Didymus that enjoys particular distinction as his only complete work on a biblical book extant in Greek whose authenticity is established, which comes to us by direct manuscript tradition, and has been critically edited. Thus it deserves this first appearance in English. A disciple of Origen, whose work on Zechariah reached only to chapter five and is no longer extant, Didymus's commentary on this apocalyptic book illustrates the typically allegorical approach to the biblical text that we associate with Alexandria. Even Cyril of Alexandria in the next generation will lean rather to the historical style of commentary found in the Antiochene scholars Theodore and Theodoret, whose works on the Twelve are also extant and who had Didymus open before them. Didymus alone offers his readers a wide range of spiritual meanings on the obscure verses of Zechariah, capitalizing on his extraordinary familiarity with Holy Writ (despite his disability), and proceeding on a process of interpretation-by-association, frequently invoking also etymology and number symbolism to plumb the meaning of the text. No wonder he remarks, ""The reader who understands it is a seer""; such is the richness of the hermeneutical offering.

In 1953, the Fathers of the Church series published selected sermons of St. Peter Chrysologus (ca. 406-50), Archbishop of Ravenna and Doctor of the Church, thereby making thirty percent of his authentic sermons available to an English-speaking audience. With the publication of this volume all of Chrysologus's authentic sermons up to number 72 are now available in English. The sermons offer readers a glimpse into the daily life, religious debates, political milieu, and Christian belief and practice in the second quarter of fifth-century Ravenna. Chrysologus preached and served as bishop at a time when the seat of the western Roman Empire was located in Ravenna. His career as bishop bridged the closing years of Augustine's episcopate in North Africa and the early years of Pope Leo the Great's pontificate in Rome. His sermons attest to his relations with the ruler of the state, the Empress Galla Placidia, as well as his familiarity with some of the significant theological controversies of the day. His chief importance, however, was not as an outstanding theologian, but as a shepherd who ruled his flock and preached well to its members. Loyally orthodox, he urged them to practice Christian virtues. He was concerned with their moral rectitude and spiritual growth, their understanding of the basic tenets of the Christian faith, their reverence and love for God, and their immersion in the Scriptures. Chrysologus's sermons are relatively brief in length, at least according to patristic standards, and he combines colloquial speech with a highly rhetorical flourish. The imagery that he employs indicates how attuned he was to the experiences of his congregation, how enamored he was of the beauty of the countryside or seashore, and how thoroughly imbued he was with the letter and the spirit of the Scriptures.

Friend of John Chrysostom and pupil of Diodore of Tarsus, the founder of the method of exegesis practiced in Antioch, Theodore was appointed bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia in 392. His pedigree thus seems impeccable, as was his early reputation as a commentator on the Bible, which earned him the sobriquet ""The Interpreter."" More than one modern scholar has been prepared to class Theodore as ""the foremost exponent of Antiochene exegesis."" Yet not long after his death in 428--coincidentally, but significantly, the year Nestorius acceded to the see of Constantinople--Theodore became the object of intemperate criticism by the likes of Cyril of Alexandria for his Christological views. His works were condemned by the fifth ecumenical council of 553, and only the Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, here appearing in English for the first time, survives entirely in Greek. Does Theodore deserve either or both of these extreme assessments? Why did his adversaries allow this one work to survive the flames untouched? Is it because, as has been said in facile repetition, ""it contains nothing of Christological import""? The truth emerging from a reading of the Commentary is that both views are wide of the mark. Theodore does not entertain a Christological interpretation of verse after verse in the manner of his Alexandrian contemporary Didymus, but he situates these twelve prophetic figures from the eighth to the sixth century of Israel's history within an overall Christological perspective. True to his school's accent on historia, however, he prefers to look for a factual basis to their prophecy (a problem in the case of Jonah), is less sensitive to the moving imagery of a Hosea or a Micah than modern readers would appreciate, and is unfamiliar with the genre of apocalyptic, which appears especially in Joel and Zechariah. Theodoret of Cyrus in the decades after Theodore's death had his works open before him as he commented on prophets, just as modern commentators will also appreciate his work.

Alan Richardson's Creeds in the Making was first published more than forty years ago, in January 1935. After ten reprints, it went out of print in 1975 to make way, we hoped, for a new work which would reflect the scholarship of a new generation. There is, however, still no short inexpensive paperback available which illustrates the early development of the creeds and Christian doctrine to a general audience in quite the same way as this does, with its freshness, charm and that almost timeless quality of writing and judgment which was so characteristic of its author. So we are happy that it should be reissued for the 1980s, as an introduction to those coming to creeds and doctrine for the first time, and as a fitting memorial to a great modern pastor and teacher. From the first reviews: 'Mr Richardson has a true teacher's gift, that of making his subject live and relating it to modern experience and modern knowledge of the universe. He tells a story, and tells it well. Nor is he content with telling: he explains. He takes the principal doctrines of the Christian creed, shows how they came to be defined and what is their lasting value' (CEN). `In six chapters, Mr Alan Richardson covers the theology of the creed down to the article of belief in the Holy Ghost. What he gives us is very like a course of lectures to theological students, carefully worked out, scholarly and full, yet simply expressed' (Church Times). Alan Richardson, who died in 1975, was Dean of York and before that Professor of Christian Theology in the University of Nottingham.

How did the Jesus movement-a messianic sectarian version of Palestinian Judaism-transcend its Judaean origins and ultimately establish itself in the Roman East as the multi-ethnic socio-religious experiment we know as early Christianity? In this major work, Hellerman, drawing upon his background as a social historian, proposes that a clue to the success of the Christian movement lay in Jesus' own conception of the people of God, and in how he reconfigured its identity from that of ethnos to that of family. Pointing first to Jesus' critique of sabbath-keeping, the Jerusalem temple, and Jewish dietary laws-practices central to the preservation of Judaean social identity-he argues that Jesus' intention was to destabilize the idea of God's people as a localized ethnos. In its place he conceived the social identity of the people of God as a surrogate family or kinship group, a social entity based not on common ancestry but on a shared commitment to his kingdom programme. Jesus of Nazareth thus functioned as a kind of ethnic entrepreneur, breaking down the boundaries of ethnic Judaism and providing an ideological foundation and symbolic framework for the wider expansion of the Jesus movement.

This work follows the study of the ecclesiastical geology of almost all Anglo-Saxon religious sites throughout England. There, it proved possible to both understand and distinguish clearly obvious patterns in the use of stonework, to determine the use and value of specific rock types, and to illustrate diagnostic features which could be used to identify building of that period. Subsequent studies of ecclesiastical sites, in Scotland and the Scottish Islands, the Isle of Man and Ireland expanded the value of the English studies by revealing closely analogous examples of the same indicative features. Beyond the domain of the Anglo-Saxons but of the same age, they were shown to follow a fashion; to this fashion the name 'Patterned' was applied.

"Celibate Marriages in Late Antique and Byzantine Hagiography" explores the puzzling phenomenon of celibate marriage as depicted in the lives of three couples who achieved sainthood. Marriage without intercourse appears to have no purpose, especially in Christian antiquity, yet these three tales were copied for centuries. What messages were they promoting? What did it mean to be a virgin husband and a virgin wife? Including full translations, this volume sets each life in its historical context, and by examining their individual and shared themes, the book shows that the tension raised by pitting marriage against celibacy is constantly debated. It also highlights the ingenuity of Byzantine hagiographers as they attempted to reconcile this curious paradox. This book addresses a gap in late Antique and Byzantine hagiographic studies where primary sources and interpretative material are very rarely presented in the same volume. By providing a variety of contexts to the material a much more comprehensive, revealing and holistic picture of celibate marriage emerges.

The passing of Professor Graham Stanton, former Lady Margaret chair of divinity at Cambridge University, in 2009 marked the passing of an era in Matthean scholarship and studies of early Christianity. Stanton's fifteen books and dozens of articles span thirty-four years and centre largely on questions pertaining to the gospel of Matthew and early Christianity. The present volume pays tribute to Stanton by engaging with the principal areas of his research and contributions: the Gospel of Matthew and Early Christianity. Contributors to the volume each engage a research question which intersects the contribution of Stanton in his various spheres of scholarly influence and enquiry. The distinguished contributors include; Richard Burridge, David Catchpole, James D.G. Dunn, Craig A. Evans, Don Hagner, Peter Head, Anders Runesson and Christopher Tuckett.

St. Cyprian works fall naturally into two groups: treaties (sermons, libelli, tractus) and letters (epistulae). A translation of the treatises will be found in volume 36 of this series. The letters, of which eighty-one have come down to us, written from c.249 until his death in 258 A.D., may be found translated in this volume. They give a penetrating insight into the affairs of the Church in Africa in the middle of the third century. They reveal problems of doctrine and of discipline which had to be decided in a period of crisis and persecution when the Church, still in its infancy, had not yet emerged from the catacombs. Most important of all, they make Cyprian vividly alive as an understanding bishop who could be both gentle and firm, enthusiastic and moderate. He was prudent enough to go into exile to direct his flock from afar when his presence was a potential source of danger to the people; he was courageous enough to face martyrdom that he knew would ultimately he his. Of these letters, fifty-nine were written by Cyprian himself and six more, emanating from Carthaginian Councils or Synods, were largely his work also. Sixteen letters were written by others; apparently eleven were lost. St. Cyprian's prestige and influence was great in Christian antiquity. Unfortunately, he is not well known or as widely read in modern times as he deserves. This is probably due to Cyprian's lack of complete orthodoxy, in the modern sense of the word, regarding the recognition of the See of Peter and the rebaptism of heretics. The modern reader must bear in mind that the period of the Fathers was the time of the laying of the foundation of so much which we accept and see so clearly today. In any case, both Lactantius (Div. Inst. 5.1.24) and St. Augustine (De bapt. contra Donatistas), while acknowledging the weaknesses of St. Cyprian's stand on the questions mentioned, do not in the slightest detract from their respect and admiration for their fellow countryman. Prudentius pays St. Cyprian the following tribute in his Peristephanon 13.5.6 ff.): 'As long as Christ will allow the race of men / to exist and the world to flourish, / As long as any book will be, as long as there / Will be holy collections of literary works, / Everyone who loves Christ will read you, O / Cyprian, will learn your teachings.'

How did Jesus of Nazareth become the Christ of the Christian tradition? "Magisterial. . . . A learned, brilliant and enjoyable study."-Geza Vermes, Times Literary Supplement In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the variety of New Testament images of Jesus by exploring the ways that the new Christian communities interpreted his mission and message in light of the delay of the Kingdom he had preached. This edition includes an introduction reviews the most recent scholarship on Jesus and its implications for both history and theology. "Brilliant and lucidly written, full of original and fascinating insights."-Reginald H. Fuller, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "This is a first-rate work of a first-rate historian."-James D. Tabor, Journal of Religion "Fredriksen confronts her documents-principally the writings of the New Testament-as an archaeologist would an especially rich complex site. With great care she distinguishes the literary images from historical fact. As she does so, she explains the images of Jesus in terms of the strategies and purposes of the writers Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."-Thomas D'Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

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.

Drawing upon the concepts of cultural and linguistic hybridity developed by Homi Bhabha, Salman Rushdie, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others, Garroway suggests that the first generation of Gentile converts were uncertain whether they had become Jews or remained Gentiles in the wake of their baptism into Christ.

The theology of creation interconnected with virtually every aspect of early Christian thought, from Trinitarian doctrine to salvation to ethics. Paul M. Blowers provides an advanced introduction to the multiplex relation between Creator and creation as an object both of theological construction and religious devotion in the early church. While revisiting the polemical dimension of Christian responses to Greco-Roman philosophical cosmology and heterodox Gnostic and Marcionite traditions on the origin, constitution, and destiny of the cosmos, Blowers focuses more substantially on the positive role of patristic theological interpretation of Genesis and other biblical creation texts in eliciting Christian perspectives on the multifaceted relation between Creator and creation. Greek, Syriac, and Latin patristic commentators, Blowers argues, were ultimately motivated less by purely cosmological concerns than by the urge to depict creation as the enduring creative and redemptive strategy of the Trinity. The 'drama of the divine economy', which Blowers discerns in patristic theology and piety, unfolded how the Creator invested the 'end' of the world already in its beginning, and thereupon worked through the concrete actions of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to realize a new creation.

This short but highly significant study is the first real sequel to Professor Martin Hengel's classic and monumental work Judaism and Hellenism. It demonstrates from a wealth of evidence, much of it made readily available here for the first time, that in the New Testament period Hellenization was so widespread in Palestine that the usual distinction between 'Hellenistic' Judaism and Palestinian' Judaism is not a valid one and that the word Hellenistic' and related terms are so vague as to be meaningless. The consequences of this for New Testament study are, of course, considerable. Martin Hengel was Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism in the University of Tuebingen.

Since the 1830s, Holiness and Pentecostal movements have had a significant influence on many Christian churches, and they have been a central force in producing what is known today as World Christianity. This book demonstrates the advantages of analyzing them in relation to one another. The Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Methodist Church identify strongly with the Holiness Movement. The Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World identify just as strongly with the Pentecostal Movement. Complicating matters, denominations such as the Church of God (Cleveland), the International Holiness Pentecostal Church, and the Church of God in Christ have harmonized Holiness and Pentecostalism. This book, the first in the new series Studies in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements, examines these complex relationships in a multidisciplinary fashion. Building on previous scholarship, the contributors provide new ways of understanding the relationships, influences, and circulation of ideas among these movements in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Southeast and East Asia. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Kimberly Ervin Alexander, Insik Choi, Robert A. Danielson, Chris E. W. Green, Henry H. Knight III, Frank D. Macchia, Luther Oconer, Cheryl J. Sanders, and Daniel Woods.

Dr Jeremias argues that the historical truth can be detected beneath the traditions preserved in the New Testament about the Last Supper. It was a climax of a series of Messianic meals, this time a passover meal. Jesus himself abstained, in anticipation of the new Exodus, to be initiated by the breaking of his body and the outpouring of his blood, but at it the disciples received a share in the atoning power of their Lord's sufferings.

'Among historians of the Early Church in Europe today, none surpasses Professor Cullmann, wrote Professor F. F. Bruce in a review of this book, adding: 'this volume of studies is assured of wide and eager acceptance.' A reviewer from a quite different religious background, Father Gervase Mathew, O.P., noted that these essays are 'marked by three rare qualities: strong sanity, exact scholarship and Christian charity'. 'All are written with the author's customary distinction, clarity and orderliness,' said an Anglican, Canon Montefiore, about this 'fine collection of brilliant essays'. The Early Church was first published in English in 1956. For this edition five of the chapters (2-6) have been selected as being of special importance, but the original pagination has been retained for the convenience of scholars. This arrangement, suggested by the volume's editor Dr A.J.B. Higgins, has been approved by Dr Cullmann.

In A Threat to Public Piety, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser reexamines the origins of the Great Persecution (AD 303 313), the last eruption of pagan violence against Christians before Constantine enforced the toleration of Christianity within the Empire. Challenging the widely accepted view that the persecution enacted by Emperor Diocletian was largely inevitable, she points out that in the forty years leading up to the Great Persecution Christians lived largely in peace with their fellow Roman citizens. Why, Digeser asks, did pagans and Christians, who had intermingled cordially and productively for decades, become so sharply divided by the turn of the century?Making use of evidence that has only recently been dated to this period, Digeser shows that a falling out between Neo-Platonist philosophers, specifically Iamblichus and Porphyry, lit the spark that fueled the Great Persecution. In the aftermath of this falling out, a group of influential pagan priests and philosophers began writing and speaking against Christians, urging them to forsake Jesus-worship and to rejoin traditional cults while Porphyry used his access to Diocletian to advocate persecution of Christians on the grounds that they were a source of impurity and impiety within the empire.

The first book to explore in depth the intellectual social milieu of the late third century, A Threat to Public Piety revises our understanding of the period by revealing the extent to which Platonist philosophers (Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus) and Christian theologians (Origen, Eusebius) came from a common educational tradition, often studying and teaching side by side in heterogeneous groups."

This is the seventh volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.jgrchj.net) since 2000. Volume 1 was for 2000, Volume 2 was for 2001-2005, Volume 3 was for 2006, Volume 4 was for 2007, Volume 5 was for 2008, Volume 6 was for 2009 and Volume 7 is for 2010. As they appear, the hardcopy editions will replace the online materials. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, language and cultures of the Graeco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism. The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the 'larger picture' of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches.

Depicting the lives of the saints in an array of both factual and fictional stories--some preposterous, some profound, and some shocking--The Golden Legend was perhaps the most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages. It was compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine, a scholarly friar and eventual archbishop of Genoa, whose purpose was to captivate, encourage, and edify the faithful, while preserving a vast store of information pertaining to the legends and traditions of the church. In his new translation, the first in English of the complete text, William Granger Ryan captures the immediacy of this rich, image-filled work, and offers an important guide for readers interested in medieval art and literature and, more generally, in popular religious culture.

These stories have the effect of bringing the saints to life as real people, in the context of late thirteenth-century living, but in them the saints do things that ordinary people can only wonder at. There is St. Juliana, who, fed up with the propositions of a dull-witted demon, gives him a sound thrashing and tosses him in the sewer; St. Hilary, who challenges the authority of a corrupt pope and foresees the prelate's death; and St. James the Dismembered, who, with the chopping off of each body part by the Roman executioner, joyfully proclaims yet another reason for loving God.

In the course of reading these stories, which are arranged according to the order of saints' feast days throughout the liturgical year, we happen upon many fascinating cultural and historical topics, such as the Christianization of Roman holidays, the symbolism behind the monk's tonsure, Nero's "pregnancy," and the reason why chaste but hot-blooded women can grow beards. At the same time these stories draw abundantly on Holy Scripture to shed light on the mysteries of the Christian faith. The chapters devoted to Christ and to the Blessed Virgin are particularly moving examples of the mingling of doctrine and narrative to give life to dogma.

The most prominent Christian theologian and exegete of the third century, Origen was also an influential teacher. In the famed Thanksgiving Address, one of his students-often thought to be Gregory Thaumaturgus, later bishop of Cappadocia-delivered an emotionally charged account of his tutelage in Roman Palestine. Although it is one of the few "personal" accounts by a Christian author to have survived from the period, the Address is more often cited than read closely. But as David Satran demonstrates, this short work has much to teach us today. At its center stands the question of moral character, anchored by the image of Origen himself, and David Satran's careful analysis of the text sheds new light on higher education in the early Church as well as the intimate relationship between master and disciple.

An Occult Study and a Key to the Bible Containing the History of an Initiate. "The only object of the following pages is to aid in dispelling the mists which for many centuries have been gathering around the person of the supposed founder of Christianity, and which have prevented mankind from obtaining a clear view of the true Redeemer, who is not to be found in history nor in external forms, but who can only be found within the interior temple of the soul by him in whom his presence becomes manifest." Contents: True History of Christ (An Allegory); Jehovah; Nazareth; Egypt; The Mysterious Brotherhood; The Higher Degrees; The Wisdom Religion; The Temptation; The Sermon Upon the Mount; Doctrines of the Christ Spirit; Herodias; Jerusalem; The Great Renunciation; The Temple; The Hero; the Final Initiation; The Church.

In "Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture," Jill Stevenson uses cognitive theory to explore the layperson's physical encounter with live religious performances, and to argue that laypeople's interactions with other devotional media--such as books and art objects--may also have functioned like performance events. By revealing the remarkable resonance between cognitive science and medieval visual theories, Stevenson demonstrates how understanding medieval culture can enrich the study of performance generally. She concludes by applying her theories of medieval performance culture to contemporary religious forms, including creationist museums, Hell Houses, and megachurches.

The poems of Aurelius Prudentius appear in two volumes of the present series, i.e., Volume 43 and this volume, 52. It cannot be said that poetry, in a literary sense, truly prospered in Christian surroundings. However, the greatest of the Latin Christian poets was the present author, who was born in any one of the three cities: Tarragona, Saragossa, and Calahorra. Modern scholarship favors Calahorra. Any estimate of Prudentius must include a recognition of certain defects in his works, notably the length and prolixity of his hymns, the crude realism in his descriptions of the torments of the martyrs, the long declamatory speeches, the unreality of his allegory, and his excessive use of alliteration and assonance. Though his writings as a whole cannot be ranked among those of the great poetry in many instances. Prudentius has a technical skill surpassing that of the other Christian Latin poets. He is the creator of the Christian ode and the Christian allegory. He has something of the epic power of Virgil and the lyric beauty and variety of Horace. Prudentius has still greater claims to greatness, however, in the Christian thought and inspiration of his poetry. A recent critic has declared with truth that Prudentius is 'first a Catholic and only in the second place a poet.' His faith is that of the Nicene Creed. In his poetry, Prudentius celebrates the triumph of Christianity over paganism. He saw the Church emerging from its three-hundred-year struggle against the forces if idolatry and heresy, triumphant through its saving doctrine and the blood of its martyrs. He saw the magnificent basilicas, both in Spain and in Rome, rising in the place of the pagan temples. As an historian of Christian thought and culture at the end of the fourth century, Prudentius cannot be overestimated.

Mission is one of the key subjects for the church today. What does it mean to live the Christian faith in a world of many faiths and none? In this book, two leading scholars explore what mission and discipleship meant for some of the earliest Christian communities. Morna Hooker and Frances Young outline the nature of mission for the earliest Christian communities (in the New Testament and beyond) and relate this to the context of the mission and discipleship today, thereby engaging with and challenging some common assumptions made about mission today. Originally presented as the Hugh Price Hughes Lectures in the West London Mission, the book will be of interest not only to students of theology but to all interested in the life and ministry of the church today.