Rarely are we privileged to see the making of a saint, but it is just what this book gives us for John of Kronstadt (1829-1908), a major figure in the religious life of Late Imperial Russia. So popular was Father John during his years of ministry that Kronstadt became a pilgrimage site replete with peddlers selling souvenir photographs, postcards, and commemorative mugs.

A Prodigal Saint follows Father John's development from activist priest to venerated spiritual leader and, after his death, to his elevation to sainthood in 1990. We see both the inner life of an aspiring saint and the symbiotic relationship between a living icon and his followers.

Father John represented a fundamentally new type of religious behavior and a new standard of sanctity in Late Imperial Russia. He ministered to the poor of Kronstadt, creating shelters and employment programs and participating in the temperance movement. In the process he acquired a reputation for prayerful intercession that soon spread beyond Kronstadt. When he was asked to minister to the dying Alexander III in 1894, his fame became international as he attracted correspondents from the United States and Europe. In his later years he allied himself increasingly with the radical right, which has had momentous implications for the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century.

Kizenko draws upon rich and virtually unknown documents from the Russian archives, including Father John's diaries, thousands of letters he received from his followers, and the police reports on the sect that formed around him. John's diaries are a truly unique source, for they document the making of a modern saint: his struggles with doubt, his ascetic practices, and his growing realization that others saw him as a saint. Kizenko explores the extent to which Father John collaborated in the formation of his own cult and how he himself was influenced by the expectations and desires of his audience. In the final chapter she follows Father John's posthumous reputation (and the struggles over how to use that reputation) in Russia, the Soviet Union, and throughout the world. A Prodigal Saint is published in collaboration with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University as part of its Studies of the Harriman Institute series. It is a pioneering study that contributes to our understanding of lived religion, saints' cults, and modern Russian history.

Augustine was arguably the greatest early Christian philosopher. His teachings had a profound effect on Medieval scholarship, Renaissance humanism, and the religious controversies of both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Here, Henry Chadwick places Augustine in his philosophical and religious context and traces the history of his influence on Western thought, both within and beyond the Christian tradition. A handy account to one of the greatest religious thinkers, this Very Short Introduction is both a useful guide for the one who seeks to know Augustine and a fine companion for the one who wishes to know him better.

In this volume, Michael Flexsenhar III advances the argument that imperial slaves and freedpersons in the Roman Empire were essential to early Christians' self-conception as a distinct people in the Mediterranean and played a multifaceted role in the making of early Christianity. Scholarship in early Christianity has for centuries viewed Roman emperors' slaves and freedmen as responsible for ushering Christianity onto the world stage, traditionally using Paul's allusion to "the saints from Caesar's household" in Philippians 4:22 as a core literary lens. Merging textual and material evidence with diaspora and memory studies, Flexsenhar expands on this narrative to explore new and more nuanced representations of this group, showing how the long-accepted stories of Christian slaves and freepersons in Caesar's household should not be taken at face value but should instead be understood within the context of Christian myth- and meaning-making. Flexsenhar analyzes textual and material evidence from the first to the sixth century, spanning Roman Asia, the Aegean rim, Gaul, and the coast of North Africa as well as the imperial capital itself. As a result, this book shows how stories of the emperor's slaves were integral to key developments in the spread of Christianity, generating origin myths in Rome and establishing a shared history and geography there, differentiating and negotiating assimilation with other groups, and expressing commemorative language, ritual acts, and a material culture. With its thoughtful critical readings of literary and material sources and its fresh analysis of the lived experiences of imperial slaves and freedpersons, Christians in Caesar's Household is indispensable reading for scholars of early Christianity, the origins of religion, and the Roman Empire.

Recognized as a saint by both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians alike, Jacob of Sarug (d. 521) produced many narrative poems that have rarely been translated into English. Of his reported 760 metrical homilies, only about half survive. Part of a series of fascicles containing the bilingual Syriac-English editions of Saint Jacob of Sarug's homilies, this volume contains two of his homilies on Jacob. The Syriac text is fully vocalized, and the translation is annotated with a commentary and biblical references. The volume is one of the fascicles of Gorgias Press's Complete Homilies of Saint Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain all of Jacob's surviving sermons.

What did the early Christians wear' What did they eat' What did they talk about over the dinner table' What recreations did they enjoy' These are among the questions answered in this study, which reveals the social background to the first five hundred years of the Church's development, through six vividly recounted, biographical portraits. Applying the methods of the social historian to the early Church, the author describes the daily life of the first believers, personifying the general facts and depicting them in these composite portraits of specific individuals, who are taken as representatives of different strands of early Christian life: Clement, a philosopher and teacher in Alexandria at the end of the 2nd century Paul of Samosata, A.D. 268, who taught heretically in Antioch Virginia, A.D. 304, whose last day on earth is set against the background of Diocletian's persecutions Diogenes, a sexton of Rome John Chrysotom, A.D. 400, a great Bishop of the Church John Cassian, a friend of Chrysotom and resident of Marseilles. The author uses contemporary documents and authorities to construct the biographies, which animate and illuminate the early development of the Church. By conducting the reader through the daily routines of these individuals, the past is recreated as a living reality. "A little rest is now obviously called for, and Paul goes up to the roof where a couch is placed beneath an awning. The air is pleasantly warm and filled with the mingled scent of lilies, jacinths and pinks which rises from the many gardens of Antioch." Extract from Paul

Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus), ca. 345-420, of Stridon, Dalmatia, son of Christian parents, at Rome listened to rhetoricians, legal advocates, and philosophers, and in 360 was baptized by Pope Liberius. He travelled widely in Gaul and in Asia Minor; and turned in the years 373-379 to hermetic life in Syria. Ordained presbyter at Antioch in 379 he went to Constantinople, met Gregory of Nazianzus and advanced greatly in scholarship. He was called to Rome in 382 to help Pope Damasus, at whose suggestion he began his revision of the Old Latin translation of the Bible (which came to form the core of the Vulgate version). Meanwhile he taught scripture and Hebrew and monastic living to Roman women. Wrongly suspected of luxurious habits, he left Rome (now under Pope Siricius) in 385, toured Palestine, visited Egypt, and then settled in Bethlehem, presiding over a monastery and (with help) translating the Old Testament from Hebrew. About 394 he met Augustine. He died on 30 September 420.

Jerome's letters constitute one of the most notable collections in Latin literature. They are an essential source for our knowledge of Christian life in the fourth-fifth centuries; they also provide insight into one of the most striking and complex personalities of the time. Seven of the eighteen letters in this selection deal with a primary interest of Jerome's: the morals and proper role of women. The most famous letter here fervently extols virginity.

How did second-century Christians vie with each other in seeking to produce an authoritative discourse of Christian identity? In this innovative book, Denise Buell argues that many early Christians deployed the metaphors of procreation and kinship in the struggle over claims to represent the truth of Christian interpretation, practice, and doctrine. In particular, she examines the intriguing works of the influential theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-210 c.e.), for whom cultural assumptions about procreation and kinship played an important role in defining which Christians have the proper authority to teach, and which kinds of knowledge are authentic.

Buell argues that metaphors of procreation and kinship can serve to make power differentials appear natural. She shows that early Christian authors recognized this and often turned to such metaphors to mark their own positions as legitimate and marginalize others as false. Attention to the functions of this language offers a way out of the trap of reconstructing the development of early Christianity along the axes of "heresy" and "orthodoxy," while not denying that early Christians employed this binary. Ultimately, Buell argues, strategic use of kinship language encouraged conformity over diversity and had a long lasting effect both on Christian thought and on the historiography of early Christianity.

Aperceptive and closely argued contribution to early Christian studies, "Making Christians" also branches out to the areas of kinship studies and the social construction of gender.

This book is the first modern collection of studies on important aspects of the Protevangelium of James. The volume opens with three chapters on introductory questions, such as the canonical or apocryphal status of the Protevangelium in early Christianity, its date, author and provenance, and the way it adapted and developed earlier traditions about the birth of Jesus. The subsequent chapters first focus on the protagonists Mary and Joseph, after which they discuss the Jewish aspects of the Protevangelium, Salome's manual inspection of Mary, the place and nature of space in the Protevangelium, and the question of the text's consistency and coherence. The final two chapters discuss a series of annunciation scenes in Christian and Islamic literature, which are often heavily dependent on the Protevangelium, and the latter's reception in the Armenian Gospel of the Infancy. The Appendix looks at the Armenian apocryphal text entitled Script of the Lord's Infancy, a witness to the great popularity enjoyed in Armenia by the early Syriac apocryphal stories of Christ's birth and childhood. As has become usual, the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography and a detailed index.

This work, whose full title is Life of Colman, son of Luachain, or Betha Colmain maic Luachain, is a thirteenth-century Life of a seventh-century saint Colman (who first gave Mullingar its name, 'the wry mill', An Muileann gCearr), written originally in Irish at Lynn monastery south of Mullingar, preserved at the Rennes Municipal Library in Brittany, and translated and published by Kuno Meyer in 1911. This Life provides one of the most important sources for the ecclesiastical, topographical, social and political history of life in the midlands during the Early Christian era. Next to the Tripartite Life of Patrick and the biographies of Colum Cille, it is the richest and fullest among the lives of Irish saints that have come down to us, replete with details of the daily life of the monasteries, their royal patrons and subjects, dwelling among miracle-workers, saints and demons in a land subject to the vagaries of plague, famine and war. Meyer's translation and introduction to the Life form the core of the book, added to which is a preface by Leo Daly, an original essay review by J.C. MacErlean from Studies, and commentary by Father Paul Walsh and others, correcting and amending the original document. A glossary, an index of personal names, places and tribes, and bibliographic essay make up the text. Pages from the original manuscript, topographical photographs showing monastic remains and associated sites, as well as more recent iconography, furnish illustrations.

In AD 597, St Augustine arrived at Canterbury to preach the gospel to the heathen English. To celebrate the 1400th anniversary of his coming, this text looks at the context and legacy of his evangelism in the British Isles. The history of the evangelisation of England and of the Anglo-Saxon's subsequent missionary expeditions elsewhere is well known, but this work concentrates on the theological perspective of the early English church. Exploring the minds and deeds of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries, topics include: Christianity in Roman Britain; the Celtic Church; the first generation of the Roman mission; the church in the north to AD 740 (School of York); the church in the south to AD 740 (Synod of Cloveshoe/Whitby); the Anglo-Saxon missions to Europe in the eighth-century. The first chapter examines the sources for students of the period and the last offers a theological retrospect. Reports of ethnic migrations and doctrinal disputes are provided alongside accounts of such figures as Martin of Tours, Columba, and Gregory the Great, "apostle of the English".

The philosopher Philo was born about 20 BCE to a prominent Jewish family in Alexandria, the chief home of the Jewish Diaspora as well as the chief center of Hellenistic culture; he was trained in Greek as well as Jewish learning. In attempting to reconcile biblical teachings with Greek philosophy he developed ideas that had wide influence on Christian and Jewish religious thought.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the works of Philo is in ten volumes and two supplements, distributed as follows. Volume I: Creation; Interpretation of Genesis II and III. II: On the Cherubim; The Sacrifices of Abel and Cain; The Worse Attacks the Better; The Posterity and Exile of Cain; On the Giants. III: The Unchangeableness of God; On Husbandry; Noah's Work as a Planter; On Drunkenness; On Sobriety. IV: The Confusion of Tongues; The Migration of Abraham; The Heir of Divine Things; On the Preliminary Studies. V: On Flight and Finding; Change of Names; On Dreams. VI: Abraham; Joseph; Moses. VII: The Decalogue; On Special Laws Books IIII. VIII: On Special Laws Book IV; On the Virtues; Rewards and Punishments. IX: Every Good Man Is Free; The Contemplative Life; The Eternity of the World; Against Flaccus; Apology for the Jews; On Providence. X: On the Embassy to Gaius; indexes. Supplement I: Questions on Genesis. II: Questions on Exodus; index to supplements.

The Xi'an Stele, erected in Tang China's capital in 781, describes in both Syriac and Chinese the existence of Christian communities in northern China. While scholars have so far considered the Stele exclusively in relation to the Chinese cultural and historical context, Todd Godwin here demonstrates that it can only be fully understood by reconstructing the complex connections that existed between the Church of the East, Sasanian aristocratic culture and the Tang Empire (617-907) between the fall of the Sasanian Persian Empire (225-651) and the birth of the Abbasid Caliphate (762-1258). Through close textual re-analysis of the Stele and by drawing on ancient sources in Syriac, Greek, Arabic and Chinese, Godwin demonstrates that Tang China (617-907) was a cosmopolitan milieu where multiple religious traditions, namely Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Christianity, formed zones of elite culture. Syriac Christianity in fact remained powerful in Persia throughout the period, and Christianity - not Zoroastrianism - was officially regarded by the Tang government as 'The Persian Religion'.Persian Christians at the Chinese Court uncovers the role played by Syriac Christianity in the economic and cultural integration of late Sasanian Iran and China, and is important reading for all scholars of the Church of the East, China and the Middle East in the medieval period.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado's steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.

The image of St George - the mounted, medieval knight slaying a dragon - seems so familiar to us all that it is tempting to assume this figure is easily understood. He is, in fact, one of the most significant and complex mythic figures in Christian culture, and has played an important role in Eastern Orthodox, Coptic and western European traditions over many centuries. Today St George continues to have a lively and diverse following: his various appearances can be found across many world religions, including Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and the African-Brazilian belief system Candomble. St George's identification with nature, springtime and healing means that he can also be found throughout pagan beliefs. St George: A Saint for All includes firsthand accounts of celebrations in Georgia, Greece, Malta and Belgium, and explores the iconic figure's wide-ranging significance in nations such as Lebanon, Palestine, Ethiopia and Estonia, as well as his totemic role for the Roma people. With or without the dragon, St George has been repeatedly reinvented over the last 1,700 years. This book is an engaging account of the huge potential that artists, poets and painters have found in his myth, discussing the often controversial political uses to which the saint has been put, including many reworkings and reimaginings, and places his current cultural position in its historical context. This is the first book to offer a full overview of the cult of St George, from its beginnings in the eastern Mediterranean to its established presence around the world today.

Classifying Christians investigates late antique Christian heresiologies as ethnographies that catalogued and detailed the origins, rituals, doctrines, and customs of the heretics in explicitly polemical and theological terms. Oscillating between ancient ethnographic evidence and contemporary ethnographic writing, Todd S. Berzon argues that late antique heresiology shares an underlying logic with classical ethnography in the ancient Mediterranean world. By providing an account of heresiological writing from the second to fifth century, Classifying Christians embeds heresiology within the historical development of imperial forms of knowledge that have shaped western culture from antiquity to the present.

In a time when the ordination of women is an ongoing and passionate debate, the study of women's ministry in the early church is a timely and significant one. There is much evidence from documents, doctrine, and artifacts that supports the acceptance of women as presbyters and deacons in the early church. While this evidence has been published previously, it has never before appeared in one complete English-language collection.

With this book, church historians Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek present fully translated literary, epigraphical, and canonical references to women in early church offices. Through these documents, Madigan and Osiek seek to understand who these women were and how they related to and were received by, the church through the sixth century. They chart women's participation in church office and their eventual exclusion from its leadership roles. The editors introduce each document with a detailed headnote that contextualizes the text and discusses specific issues of interpretation and meaning. They also provide bibliographical notes and cross-reference original texts. Madigan and Osiek assemble relevant material from both Western and Eastern Christendom.

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.

This book, which includes a new preface by the author, offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans. "A fascinating . . . account of early Christian thought. . . . Readable and exciting."-Robert McAfee Brown, New York Times Book Review "Should fascinate any reader with an interest in the history of human thought."-Phoebe-Lou Adams, Atlantic Monthly "The pioneering study in English of Roman impressions of Christians during the first four centuries A.D."-E. Glenn Hinson, Christian Century "This gracefully written study . . . draws upon well-known sources-both pagan and Christian-to provide the general reader with an illuminating account . . . [of how] Christianity appeared to the Romans before it became the established religion of the empire."-Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor

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.

Stephen Neill (1900-1984) was a towering figure of twentieth-century global Christianity, but was in many ways a broken man who faced profound and crippling struggles. A Worldly Christian charts the extraordinary but often tragic life of a global Christian pioneer par excellence in a church that diversified dramatically during his lifetime. Privileged to live in radically different cultural contexts over the course of his life, Neill excelled by turns as a missionary and bishop in India, an ecumenist in Geneva, a professor in Hamburg and Nairobi, and a prolific author of some seventy books and hundreds of articles upon his retirement to the UK. Throughout this varied career, he shared his tremendous knowledge of the world Christian movement with scholars, clergy and laypersons alike. Many will find his story compelling, from Christian scholars to all those who have cherished his influential body of work and benefit from his legacy.

Building on the work of Tertullian and Paul this volume continues a series of specially commissioned studies by leading voices in New Testament/Early Christianity and Patristics studies to consider how Paul was read, interpreted and received by the Church Fathers. In this volume the use of Paul's writings is examined within the work of the Apostolic Fathers. Issue of influence, reception, theology and history are examined to show how Paul's work influenced the developing theology of the early Church. The literary style of Paul's output is also examined. The contributors to the volume represent leading lights in the study of the Apostolic Fathers, as well as respected names from the field of New Testament studies.

Most books about Celtic saints are based on their legendary medieval lives. This book, however, focuses on the sites where these early Christians lived and worked. Archaeology, combined with early inscriptions and texts, offers us important clues which help us to piece together something of the fascinating world of early Christianity. The book is illustrated with the author's own evocative photographs of the sites where the Celtic saints of north Britain worked and prayed. The reader is therefore drawn into the beautiful world which these men and women inhabited. 'Celtic Saints of Scotland' includes accounts of most well-known saints, and a number of less famous individuals. It is not, however, exhaustive: lack of historical data means that there are hundreds more Celtic monks and nuns, of whom we know little beyond their names. The book is easy to read, with an Introduction and maps to pinpoint the sites described and photographed. It is aimed at a broad reading public. Since it is both readable and fully illustrated, it will appeal to anyone interested in history, landscape or spirituality, and to tourists in Scotland, Northumbria and the Isle of Man. Based on sound scholarship, it will also be of value to students of history, religion and culture.

Augustine in Context assesses the various contexts - historical, literary, cultural, spiritual - in which Augustine lived and worked. The essays, written by an international team of scholars especially for this volume, provide the background against which Augustine's treatises should be read and interpreted. They are organized according to a rationale which moves from an introduction to the person (the so-called 'personal context') to the contexts of Augustine's works and ideas, starting from the intellectual setting and extending to the socio-political realm. Collectively the essays highlight the embeddedness of Augustine in the world of late antiquity and the interdependence of his discourse with contemporary forms of social life. They shed new light on one of the most important figures of the western canon and facilitate a more enlightened reading of his writings.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado's steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.