As a ruler of the church of Alexander and president of the Third Ecumenical Council of 431, Cyril was one of the most powerful men of the fifth century. Not only did he define the concept of christological orthodoxy for the next two centuries, but he is also often regarded as an unscrupulous cleric who was responsible for the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia and for the overthrow of the archbishop Nestorius.
Cyril of Alexandria presents key selections of Cyril's writings in order to make his thought accessible to students. The writings are all freshly translated and an extended introduction outlines Cyril's life and times, his scholastic method, his christology, his ecclesiology, his eucharistic doctrine, his spirituality and his influence on the Christian tradition.

This book examines John Chrysostom's role as preacher and his pastoral activites as deacon, presbyter and bishop. It also provides fresh and lively translations of a key selection of sermons and letters.

This book examines John Chrysostom's role as preacher and his pastoral activites as deacon, presbyter and bishop. It also provides fresh and lively translations of a key selection of sermons and letters.

A number of recent studies have examined martyrdom as a means of identity construction. Shelly Matthews argues that the story of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, should be brought into this scholarly conversation. Stephen's story is told in the biblical book of Acts. He has, with near unanimity, been classified as unquestionably a real historical figure, probably because of the narrative coherence and canonical status of the book in which he appears. Matthews points to multiple signals that Stephen functions for Luke (the author of Acts) as a symbolic character. She suggests reframing the Stephen story not in terms of the impossible task of ascertaining "what really happened," but in terms of rhetoric and ethics. All aspects of the Stephen story, she argues, from his name to the manner in which he is killed, are perfectly suited to the rhetorical aims of Luke-Acts. The story undergirds Acts' hostile depiction of the Jews; conforms largely to Roman imperial aims; and introduces radical identity claims of a "marcionite" character. Stephen's role as a typological martyr also explains this 2nd-century text's otherwise eccentric treatment of Christian martyrdom. Matthews juxtaposes the Stephen story with related extra-canonical narratives of the martyrdom of James, thus undercutting the perfect coherence and singularity of the canonical narrative and evoking a more complex historical narrative of violence, solidarity, and resistance among Jews and Christians under empire. Finally, she looks at the traditional reason Stephen is considered the perfect martyr: his dying prayer for the forgiveness of his persecutors. Noting that this prayer was frequently read as idealizing Stephen, while having no effect on those for whom he prayed, she discovers a parallel the Roman discourse of clemency. Any other reading, she says, poses a potentially radical challenge to the cosmic framework of talionic justice, which explains the prayer's complicated reception history.

This is the third collection of articles by Nina GarsoA-an on Early Armenian history and civilization. A number of articles included here continue earlier investigations of Iranian and Byzantine political and, especially, doctrinal and social influences on Medieval Armenia, precariously wedged between the two super-powers of the period, Byzantium and Sasanian Persia. A second theme is the development of the autocephalous Armenian Church as it freed itself from foreign pressures and achieved its own dogmatic position. Last, several studies consider some inadequacies in some recent historiography and suggest a more promising redirection in our approach to Armenian history and the formation of its national identity.

The papers presented here explore in various ways the interactions between clerics and the society in which Christian churches put down roots in Late Antiquity. Some of these complex processes, involved in the christianization of the Late Roman world, form the theme of the first three sections. Amongst other aspects, the essays in these sections examine the Three Chapters controversy and the participation of lay and clerical protagonists in it, the social standing of Italian bishops (including their use of lay personnel and their economic impact), and a comparison of pagan and Christian places of worship. The essays included in the last section deal with communication in Late Antiquity. They present the first results of a long-term project on the changing role of information during the last centuries of the Roman world. Eight papers in the volume are published in English for the first time.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Part of a six-volume set that should provide an introduction to key areas of research and debate on the early history of Christianity, this book focuses on the affect early Christianity had on people's lives.

Conventionally, the history of the rabbinic movement has been told as a distinctly intra-Jewish development, a response to the gaping need left by the tragic destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. In Rabbis as Romans, Hayim Lapin reconfigures that history by drawing sustained attention to the extent to which rabbis participated in and were the product of a Roman and late-antique political economy. Rabbis as a group were relatively well off, literate Jewish men, an urban sub-elite in a small, generally insignificant province of the Roman empire. That they were deeply embedded in a wider Roman world is clear from the urban orientation of their texts, the rhetoric they used to describe their own group (mirroring that used for Greek philosophical schools), their open embrace of Roman bathing, and their engagement in debates about public morals and gender that crossed regional and ethnic lines.
Rabbis also form one of the most accessible and well-documented examples of a "nativizing" traditionalist movement in a Roman province. It was a movement committed to articulating the social, ritual, and moral boundaries between an Israelite "us" and "the nations." To attend seriously to the contradictory position of rabbis as both within and outside of a provincial cultural economy, says Lapin, is to uncover the historical contingencies that shaped what later generations understood as simply Judaism and to reexamine in a new light the cultural work of Roman provincialization itself.

Gregory of Nyssa provides a concise and accessible introduction to the thought of this early church father with new translations of key selections of his writings. Anthony Meredith presents a diverse range of Gregory's writings:
* his contribution to the debates of the period about the nature of God in argument with a form of extreme Arianism
* his discussion of the nature and work of the Holy Ghost, against the so-called 'Spirit fighters'
* his defence of the humanity of Christ against those who denied it (notably Apollinarius)
* the nature of fate and other philosophical issues.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203006534

Gregory of Nyssa provides a concise and accessible introduction to the thought of this early church father with new translations of key selections of his writings. Anthony Meredith presents a diverse range of Gregory's writings:
* his contribution to the debates of the period about the nature of God in argument with a form of extreme Arianism
* his discussion of the nature and work of the Holy Ghost, against the so-called 'Spirit fighters'
* his defence of the humanity of Christ against those who denied it (notably Apollinarius)
* the nature of fate and other philosophical issues.

"Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls" explores the evidence about the different uses of time-measurement in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Jewish texts. James C. VanderKam examines the pertinent texts, their sources and the different uses to which people put calendrical information in the Christian world. He argues that the scrolls indicate that a dispute about the correct calendar for dating festivals was one of the principal reasons for the separation of the authors of the scrolls from Jewish society.

Khaled Anatolios presents a comprehensive study of St Athanasius, one of the most influential figures in the development of Christian doctrine. Athanasius analyses the coherence of Athanasius' theology by relating the various aspects of his doctrine to an emphasis on the distinction and relation between God and the world.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203011244

Origen was the most influential Christian theologian before Augustine, the founder of Biblical study as a serious discipline in the Christian tradition, and a figure with immense influence on the development of Christian spirituality.
This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into Origen's life and writings. An introduction analyses the principal influences that formed him as a Christian and as a thinker, his emergence as a mature theologian at Alexandria, his work in Caesarea and his controversial legacy. Fresh translations of a representative selection of Origen's writings, including some never previously available in print, show how Origen provided a lasting framework for Christian theology by finding through study of the Bible a coherent understanding of God's saving plan.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203011996

Origen was the most influential Christian theologian before Augustine, the founder of Biblical study as a serious discipline in the Christian tradition, and a figure with immense influence on the development of Christian spirituality.
This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into Origen's life and writings. An introduction analyses the principal influences that formed him as a Christian and as a thinker, his emergence as a mature theologian at Alexandria, his work in Caesarea and his controversial legacy. Fresh translations of a representative selection of Origen's writings, including some never previously available in print, show how Origen provided a lsting framework for CHristian theology by finding through study of the Bible a coherent understanding of God's saving plan.

This book examines the views of Greek Church Fathers on hoarding, saving, and management of economic surplus, and their development primarily in urban centres of the Eastern Mediterranean, from the late first to the fifth century. The study shows how the approaches of Greek Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelusium, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, to hoarding and saving intertwined with stances toward the moral and social obligations of the wealthy. It also demonstrates how these Fathers responded to conditions and practices in urban economic environments characterized by sharp inequalities. Their attitudes reflect the gradual widening of Christian congregations, but also the consequences of the socio-economic evolution of the late antique Eastern Roman Empire. Among the issues discussed in the book are the justification of wealth, alternatives to hoarding, and the reception of patristic views by contemporaries.

F. Gerald Downing explores the teachings of Paul, arguing that the development of Paul's preaching and of the Pauline Church owed a great deal to the views of the vagabond Cynic philosophers, critics of the gods and of the ethos of civic society.
F. Gerald Downing examines the New Testament writings of Paul, explaining how he would have been seen, heard, perceived and understood by his culturally and ethnically diverse converts and disciples. He engages in a lucid Pauline commentary and offers some startling and ground-breaking views of Paul and his Word.
Cynics, Paul and the Pauline Churches is a unique and controversial book, particularly in its endorsement of the simple and ascetic life proffered in Paul's teachings in comparison with the greedy, consumerist and self-promoting nature of today's society.

eBook available with sample pages: 020320347X

Continuing from the year 817, reached in his The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes, Raymond Davis deals with the remaining ten biographies of the Liber Pontificalis down to 886, when compilation ceased. The 9th-century biographies, as a semi-official papal chronicle, are one of the most important sources for Italian history. Major themes preoccupying the popes of this period and their contemporary biographers were relations with the Carolingian and Byzantine Empires. In respect of the former, the popes were determined to maintain freedom of action while the Western emperors were concerned to exercise some influence in Rome. In the case of the Eastern Empire, the popes wished to maintain their independence, established in the previous century, yet to assert primacy over the Byzantine Church; hence their concern both to have their right to decide between claimants to the See of Constantinople acknowledged and to assert jurisdiction in territory disputed between East and West. Rome itself was under threat, and the Saracen invasion of 846 forms a high-point of the narrative.

Religion in Late Roman Britain explores the changes in religion over the fourth century; the historical background for these changes and the forces which contributed to them.
Dorothy Watts examines the reasons for the decline of Christianity and the continuation of the pagan, Celtic cults in Britain. The author establishes a chronology for the rise and decline of Christianity, based on the available archaeological evidence, and she charts the fate of the pagan cults and temples in the fourth century. The author discusses the nature of Romano-British pagan religion and she analyses the controversial rite of decapitated burial in the light of some startling new archaeological evidence.

eBook available with sample pages: 020306173X

Christian Origins is an exploration of the historical course and nature of early Christian theology, which concentrates on setting it within particular traditions or sets of traditions.
In the three sections of the volume, Reading Origen, Reading the Fourth Century and Christian Origins in the Western Traditions, the contributors reconsider classic themes and texts in the light of the existing traditions of interpretation. They offer critiques of early Christian ideas and texts and they consider the structure and origins of standard modern readings of these ideas and texts. The contributors employ a variety of methodological approaches to analyse the interplay between ancient philosophical traditions and the development of Christian thought and to redefine the parameters between the previously accepted divisions in the traditions of Christian theology and thought.

Contents:
List of Illustrations Preface List of Abbreviations
Part One: The World of Paul 1. Introduction: The Three Worlds 2. The Geography of Paul's World 3. Travelling the World
Part Two: Peoples, Cultures and Languages 4. The Native Cultures 5. Hellenisation in the Near East 6. Roman Rule in the Near East
Part Three: The City, the State and the Individual in Paul's World 7. The Life of the Polis 8. The Individual's Self-Identification
Part Four: Paul's Cities 9. Palestine, Syria and Arabia 10. Cyprus and Southern Asia Minor 11. Western Asia Minor 12. Greece and Macedonia 13. Rome and the West Bibliography Index.

Author Biography:
Richard Wallace is a lecturer in the Department of Classics at Keele University and the treasurer of the Classical Association.
Wynne Williams retired from teaching ancient history at Keele University in 1991. He is co-author, with Richard Wallace, of The Acts of the Apostles: A Companion (1993).

Christian Origins is an exploration of the historical course and nature of early Christian theology, which concentrates on setting it within particular traditions or sets of traditions.
In the three sections of the volume, Reading Origen, Reading the Fourth Century and Christian Origins in the Western Traditions, the contributors reconsider classic themes and texts in the light of the existing traditions of interpretation. They offer critiques of early Christian ideas and texts and they consider the structure and origins of standard modern readings of these ideas and texts. The contributors employ a variety of methodological approaches to analyse the interplay between ancient philosophical traditions and the development of Christian thought and to redefine the parameters between the previously accepted divisions in the traditions of Christian theology and thought.