This book offers the first English translation of the funerary speech for John Chyrsostom delivered by one of his former clergy in a city close to Constantinople in the autumn of 407 when news arrived of John's death on a forced march in eastern Asia Minor. The speech is the earliest and fullest account of John's activities as bishop of Constantinople between 397 and 404. It replaces the slightly later Historical Dialogue on John by Palladius as the prime source for John in Constantinople The translators are both Late Roman Historians, and their introduction and notes illustrate the importance of this new text, which was first edited critically and published as recently as 2007.

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.

The work of the Christian scholar Lactantius provides an ideal lens through which to study how Rome became a Christian empire. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser shows how Lactantius' Divine Institutes seditious in its time responded to the emperor Diocletian's persecution and then became an important influence on Constantine the Great, Rome's first Christian emperor.The Making of a Christian Empire is the first full-length book to interpret the Divine Institutes as a historical source. Exploring Lactantius' use of theology, philosophy, and rhetorical techniques, Digeser perceives the Divine Institutes as a sophisticated proposal for a monotheistic state that intimately connected the religious policies of Diocletian and Constantine, both of whom used religion to fortify and unite the Roman Empire. For Digeser, Lactantius' writings justify Constantine's own attitude of tolerance toward pagans and casts light upon other puzzling features of Constantine's religious policy. Her book contributes importantly to an understanding of the political and religious tensions of the early fourth century."

This anthology of writings, drawn from five hundred years of spiritual exploration, shows how the early Church Fathers 'kept company with God'. It witnesses to the continuity of the Christian tradition as it emerged and grew from the era of the Apostles. In these days of division and cultural fragmentation, this rich heritage constitutes an invaluable resource of learning and wisdom. Including material from Cyprian, The Desert Tradition, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Benedict, and Gregory the Great, this collection will inspire and impress contemporary readers with its vitality and variety of thought.

For too long, the study of religious life in Late Antiquity has relied on the premise that Jews, pagans, and Christians were largely discrete groups divided by clear markers of belief, ritual, and social practice. More recently, however, a growing body of scholarship is revealing the degree to which identities in the late Roman world were fluid, blurred by ethnic, social, and gender differences. Christianness, for example, was only one of a plurality of identities available to Christians in this period.

In Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200 450 CE, Eric Rebillard explores how Christians in North Africa between the age of Tertullian and the age of Augustine were selective in identifying as Christian, giving salience to their religious identity only intermittently. By shifting the focus from groups to individuals, Rebillard more broadly questions the existence of bounded, stable, and homogeneous groups based on Christianness. In emphasizing that the intermittency of Christianness is structurally consistent in the everyday life of Christians from the end of the second to the middle of the fifth century, this book opens a whole range of new questions for the understanding of a crucial period in the history of Christianity."

Here is a brief and highly readable history of early Christianity. Etienne Trocme spares us references to the jungle of secondary literature and with a lifetime's experience of New Testament studies cuts short long discussions of might-have-beeps. With a sure eye to lines of development, he paints a fascinating picture of the world of the first Christians. Simply basing himself on the New Testament, he nevertheless shows how much experimentation and conflict there was to begin with. He emphasizes the initial close relations between Christians and Jews and the shock to Christianity when Jerusalem fell at the end of the Jewish war and the Jewish revival firmly went its own way. He demonstrates how controversial a figure Paul was and how he suffered apparent failure before many of his views triumphed at the end of the first century. Even those who feel that more than enough has been written about the early church will warm to this book, and those to whom the story is unfamiliar will find it difficult to put down. Etienne Trocme is Emeritus Professor of New Testament in the University of Strasbourg.

This title provides a sociological investigation into the life of the early Church by one of the 20th-century's leading biblical scholars.

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.

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.

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.

Recent studies have examined martyrdom as a means of constructing Christian identity, but until now none has focused on Stephen, the first Christian martyr. For the author of Luke-Acts, the stoning of Stephen-- even more than the death of Jesus-- underscores the perfidy of non-believing Jews, the extravagant mercy of Christians, and the inevitable rift that will develop between these two social groups. Stephen's dying prayer that his persecutors be forgiven-the prayer for which he is hailed in Christian tradition as the "perfect martyr" plays a crucial role in drawing an unprecedented distinction between Jewish and early Christian identities.
Shelly Matthews deftly situates Stephen's story within the emerging discourse of early Christian martyrdom. Though Stephen is widely acknowledged to be an actual historical figure, Matthews points to his name, his manner of death, and to other signs that his martyrdom was ideally suited to the rhetorical purposes of Acts and its author, Luke: to uphold Roman views of security and respectability, to show non-believing Jews to disadvantage, and to convey that Christianity was an exceptionally merciful religion. By drawing parallels between Acts and stories of the martyrdom of James, the brother of Jesus, Matthews challenges the coherent canonical narrative of Acts and questions common assumptions about the historicity of Stephen's martyrdom. She also offers a radical new reading of Stephen's last prayer, showing the complex and sometimes violent effects of its modern interpretations.
Perfect Martyr illuminates the Stephen story as never before, offering a deeply nuanced picture of violence, solidarity, and resistance among Jews and early Christians, a key to understanding the early development of a non-Jewish Christian identity, and an innovative reframing of one of the most significant stories in the Bible.

'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."

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.

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.

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.

The fact that some early Christians were slaves does not present a moral problem for Christians today. The fact that some early Christians were slaveholders does. Jennifer Glancy tackles questions that continue to haunt contemporary men and women, inside and outside of the churches: Why didnt Jesus speak out forcefully against slavery? Why didnt the early church see slavery as fundamentally incompatible with the gospel? Were there any bright moments when some Christians in fact drew that conclusion, and why dont we know more about them? Why didnt Christianity have more of an impact on slaveholding in the Roman Empire? And what lessons can we learn as we face moral catastrophes in our own day?

For almost 300 years, the dominant trend in New Testament interpretation has been to read the Acts of the Apostles as a document that argues for the political possibility of harmonious co-existence between 'Rome' and the early Christian movement. Kavin Rowe argues that the time is long overdue for a sophisticated, critically constructive reappraisal.
"A brilliant piece of work by a young scholar of considerable promise."
--First Things
"This well-written, well-argued book is a must read for New Testament scholars."
-- Review of Biblical Literature
"This sophisticated argument offers a comprehensive vision of Acts and deserves a wide readership."
-- Religious Studies Review
"There is so much happening in these pages that a slow and careful read will provoke sustained thoughts on a variety of subjects of ecclesial interest ranging from Christianity and culture to issues of tolerance and political theology."
-- Themelios

On First Principles by Origen of Alexandria, written around 220-230 AD, is one of the most important and contentious works of early Christianity. It provoked controversy when written, provoked further debate when translated into Latin by Rufinus in the fourth century, and was the subject, together with its author, of condemnation in the sixth century. As a result, the work no longer survives intact in the original Greek. We only have the complete work in the Latin translation of Rufinus, and a few extensive passages preserved in Greek by being excerpted into the Philokalia of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus. John Behr provides a new edition and translation of one of the most important texts from early Christianity. He includes an invaluable introduction, which provides a clear structure of the work with significant implications for how the text is to be read and for understanding the character of theology in the early Christian tradition.

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.

Inspired by the social theories of Max Weber, David d'Avray asks in what senses medieval religion was rational and, in doing so, proposes a new approach to the study of the medieval past. Applying ideas developed in his companion volume on Rationalities in History, he explores how values, instrumental calculation, legal formality and substantive rationality interact and the ways in which medieval beliefs were strengthened by their mutual connections, by experience, and by mental images. He sheds new light on key themes and figures in medieval religion ranging from conversion, miracles and the ideas of Bernard of Clairvaux to Trinitarianism, papal government and Francis of Assisi's charismatic authority. This book shows how values and instrumental calculation affect each other in practice and demonstrates the ways in which the application of social theory can be used to generate fresh empirical research as well as new interpretative insights.

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.

This study of the early church is written from a new religious and theological studies perspective. It builds on recent research in ancient history, archaeology, classical and oriental and cognate studies and also takes account of recent developments in reception studies, in particular in the area of popular literature, fiction, film, art and new religions. One of its aims is to demonstrate how certain perceptions of the early church still dominate the western cultural discourse and how important it is for a fruitful development of that discourse to inform it with a well grounded, well (historically) informed, notion of 'the early church'. The book falls into seven chapters. Chapter I discusses the concepts of 'the early church', 'early Christianity', its wording and history, including wider aspects of reception. Chapter II deals with concepts of history, memory and cultural origins in early Christian thought. Chapter III outlines varieties of religious traditions in the wider context of 'the early church', including 'heresies' or other religions like Gnosticism, Montanism and Manichaeism. Chapter IV introduces religious practices of early Christians and their perception in history, especially in western art. A fifth chapter deals with the emerging separation of religion and society in Late Antiquity. In a sixth chapter we outline the formation of orthodoxy, including the developments of creeds and the phenomenon of councils, and in a seventh chapter we will look at the phenomenon of 'De-Hellenization' and the formation of 'national' 'christianities' on the fringes of the old Mediterranean world.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology brings together expert work by leading scholars of the archaeology of Early Christianity and the Roman world in the Mediterranean and surrounding regions. The thirty-four contributions to this volume survey Christian material culture and ground the history, culture, and society of the first seven centuries of Christianity in archaeological method, theory, and research. The essays emphasize the link between archaeological fieldwork, methods, and regional and national traditions in constructing our knowledge of the Early Church and Christian communities within the context of the ancient Mediterranean, Near East, and Europe. Three sweeping introductory essays provide historical perspectives on the archaeology of the Early Christian world. These are followed by a series of topical treatments that focus on monuments and environments ranging from Christian churches to catacombs, martyria, and baths, as well as classes of objects of religious significance such as ceramics, lamps, and icons. Finally, the volume locates the archaeology of the Early Christian world in fifteen regional studies stretching from Britain to Persia, highlighting the unique historical contexts that have shaped scholarly discussion across time and space. The thorough, carefully-researched essays offer the most intensive, state-of-the-art treatment of recent research into the archaeology of Early Christianity available.

In this unique Armchair volume, noted church historians Justo and Catherine Gonzalez introduce readers to important early church figures whose teachings were denounced by the church as heresies. Instructional for what they taught and for revealing what the church wished to safeguard and uphold, these "heretics," including Marcion, Arius, Nestorius, and Pelagius, are engagingly presented in their contexts through a clear and accessible text that is highlighted by the humorous illustrations of Ron Hill. "Heretics for Armchair Theologians" is an enjoyable way to learn about the church's early life and beliefs.

Written by experts but designed for the novice, the Armchair series provides accurate, concise, and witty overviews of some of the most profound moments and theologians in Christian history. These books are essential supplements for first-time encounters with primary texts, lucid refreshers for scholars and clergy, and enjoyable reads for the theologically curious.