This handbook situates early Christian meals in their broader context, with a focus on the core topics that aid understanding of Greco-Roman meal practice, and how this relates to Christian origins. In addition to looking at the broader Hellenistic context, the contributors explain the unique nature of Christian meals, and what they reveal about early Christian communities and the development of Christian identity. Beginning with Hellenistic documents and authors before moving on to the New Testament material itself, according to genre - Gospels, Acts, Letters, Apocalyptic Literature - the handbook culminates with a section on the wider resources that describe daily life in the period, such as medical documents and inscriptions. The literary, historical, theological and philosophical aspects of these resources are also considered, including such aspects as the role of gender during meals; issues of monotheism and polytheism that arise from the structure of the meal; how sacrifice is understood in different meal practices; power dynamics during the meal and issues of inclusion and exclusion at meals.

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics offers, for the first time, a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy. It shows how it took its distinctive shape in the late fourth century and gives an account of its subsequent development until the time of John of Damascus. The book falls into three main parts. The first starts with an analysis of the philosophical project underlying the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. This philosophy, arguably the first distinctively Christian theory of being, soon became near-universally shared in Eastern Christianity. Just a few decades after the Cappadocians, all sides in the early Christological controversy took its fundamental tenets for granted. Its application to the Christological problem thus appeared inevitable. Yet it created substantial conceptual problems. Parts two and three describe in detail how these problems led to a series of increasingly radical modifications of the Cappadocian philosophy. In part two, Zachhuber explores the miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, while in part three he discusses the defenders of the Council from the early sixth to the eighth century. Through this overview, the book reveals this period as one of remarkable philosophical creativity, fecundity, and innovation.

Although the theme of bloodied nuptial sheets seems pervasive in western culture, its association with female virginity is uniquely tied to a brief passage in the book of Deuteronomy detailing the procedure for verifying a young woman's purity and seldom, if ever, appears outside of non-Abrahamic traditions. In Signs of Virginity, Michael Rosenberg examines the history of virginity testing in Judaism and early Christianity, and the relationship of these tests to a culture that encourages male sexual violence. Deuteronomy's violent vision of virginity has held sway in Jewish and Christian circles more or less ever since, but Rosenberg points to two authors-the rabbinic collective that produced the Babylonian Talmud and Augustine of Hippo-who, even as they perpetuate patriarchal assumptions about female virginity, nonetheless attempt to subvert the emphasis on sexual dominance bequeathed to them by Deuteronomy. Unlike the authors of earlier Rabbinic and Christian texts, who modified but fundamentally maintained and even extended the Deuteronomic ideal, the Babylonian Talmud and Augustine both construct alternative models of female virginity that, if taken seriously, would utterly reverse cultural ideals of masculinity. Indeed this vision of masculinity as fundamentally gentle, rather than characterized by brutal and violent sexual behavior, fits into a broader idealization of masculinity propagated by both authors, who reject what Augustine called a "lust for dominance" as a masculine ideal.

Cyril was bishop in Jerusalem from c.350-351 AD until 386 AD. His writings are an important source for the history of early Christian doctrine. This book provides full English translations, with explanatory commentary, of his most important works. The introduction covers Cyril's life; his historical and archaeological context; his theology; and contemporary doctrine and practice. This will be essential reading for students and scholars of patristics, and those studying the history of the early Church and late antiquity.

In his writings and his career Gregory of Nyssa assumes many roles. He is a Christian Platonist, a spiritual guide for ascetics and those seeking the vision of God, as well as one of those who shaped the Trinitarian doctrine of God espoused at Constantinople in 381. But he is also a popular preacher and, paradoxically, someone unafraid of deeper speculations regarding the meaning of the Christian ideal. The translations in Part One illustrate these various concerns, but are not a sufficient basis for the thesis of Part Two, one that attempts to answer the question of how to describe the coherence of a thinker far from systematic. One solution is to appeal to Gregory's conviction that after this world all Christians, indeed all humans, will be united in diversity, and that this means that all are now on the one path to their destiny, however much their progress may differ. This answer does not pretend to solve all problems, nor does it rule out other approaches to Gregory's thought. But it locates Gregory's work in the liturgical and sacramental life of the church that includes ordinary as well as elite Christians.

Boethius (Boetius)--Anicius Manlius Severinus--Roman statesman and philosopher (ca. 480-524 CE), was son of Flavius Manlius Boetius, after whose death he was looked after by several men, especially Memmius Symmachus. He married Symmachus's daughter, Rusticiana, by whom he had two sons. All three men rose to high honours under Theodoric the Ostrogoth, but Boethius fell from favour, was tried for treason, wrongly condemned, and imprisoned at Ticinum (Pavia), where he wrote his renowned "The Consolation of Philosophy," He was put to death in 524, to the great remorse of Theodoric. Boethius was revered as if he were a saint and his bones were removed in 996 to the Church of S. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, and later to the Cathedral. The tower in Pavia where he was imprisoned is still venerated.

Boethius was author of Latin translations of Aristotle, commentaries on various philosophical works, original works on logic, five books on music, and other works. His "The Consolation of Philosophy" is the last example of purely literary Latin of ancient times--a mingling of alternate dialogue and poems. His "Theological Tractates" are also included in this volume.

Steve D. Fraade offers a new translation, with notes, and detailed commentary to the Dead Sea Scroll most commonly called the Damascus Document, based on both ancient manuscripts from caves along the western shore of the Dead Sea, and medieval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza. The text is one of the longest and most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its importance derives from several aspects of its contents: its extensive collections of laws, both for the sectarian community that authored it and for the rest of Israel; some of the oldest examples of scriptural interpretation, both legal and narrative, both implicit and explicit, with important implications for our understanding of the evolving status of the Hebrew canon; some of the clearest expressions, often in hortatory form, of the community's self-understanding as an elect remnant of Israel that understands itself in dualistic opposition to the rest of Israel, its practices, and its leaders; important expressions of the community's self-understanding as a priestly alternative to the sacrificial worship in the Jerusalem Temple; expressions of an apocalyptic, eschatological understanding of living as the true Israel in the "end of days;" important expressions of attitudes toward woman, sexual activity, and marriage; importance for our understanding of ancient modes of teaching and of ritual practice; importance for the study of the history of the Hebrew language and its scribal practices. The volume contains a substantial introduction, dealing with these aspects of the Damascus Document and locating its place within the Dead Sea Scrolls more broadly as well as the historical context of ancient Judaism that gave rise to this text.

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

During the late second and early third centuries C.E. the resurrection became a central question for intellectual commentary, with increasingly tense divisions between those who interpreted the resurrection as a bodily experience and those who did not. The relationship between the resurrected person and their mortal flesh was also a key point of discussion, especially in regards to sexual desires, body parts, and practices. Early Christians struggled to articulate how and why these bodily features related to the imagined resurrected self. The problems posed by the resurrection thus provoked theological analysis of the mortal body, sexual desire and gender. Resurrecting Parts is the first study to examine the place of gender and sexuality in early Christian debates on the nature of resurrection, investigating how the resurrected body has been interpreted by writers of this period in order to address the nature of sexuality and sexual difference. In particular, Petrey considers the instability of early Christian attempts to separate maleness and femaleness. Bodily parts commonly signified sexual difference, yet it was widely thought that future resurrected bodies would not experience desire or reproduction. In the absence of sexuality, this insistence on difference became difficult to maintain. To achieve a common, shared identity and status for the resurrected body that nevertheless preserved sexual difference, treatises on the resurrection found it necessary to explain how and in what way these parts would be transformed in the resurrection, shedding all associations with sexual desires, acts, and reproduction. Exploring a range of early Christian sources, from the Greek and Latin fathers to the authors of the Nag Hammadi writings, Resurrecting Parts is a fascinating resource for scholars interested in gender and sexuality in classical antiquity, early Christianity, asceticism, and, of course, the resurrection and the body.

Heresy is a central concept in the formation of Orthodox Christianity. Where does this notion come from? This book traces the construction of the idea of 'heresy' in the rhetoric of ideological disagreements in Second Temple Jewish and early Christian texts and in the development of the polemical rhetoric against 'heretics,' called heresiology. Here, author Robert Royalty argues, one finds the origin of what comes to be labelled 'heresy' in the second century. In other words, there was such as thing as 'heresy' in ancient Jewish and Christian discourse before it was called 'heresy.' And by the end of the first century, the notion of heresy was integral to the political positioning of the early orthodox Christian party within the Roman Empire and the range of other Christian communities. This book is an original contribution to the field of Early Christian studies. Recent treatments of the origins of heresy and Christian identity have focused on the second century rather than on the earlier texts including the New Testament. The book further makes a methodological contribution by blurring the line between New Testament Studies and Early Christian studies, employing ideological and post-colonial critical methods.

Popular Patristics Series Volume 29 These are the only three existing ante-Nicene treatises on the Lord's Prayer, and they became the starting point for many other commentaries. Of the three, however, only the discourse of Cyprian is an address to catechumens. Tertullian's treatise contains additional material on the conduct of worship and on prayer in the assembly, and Origen's commentary is a vast work on the whole subject of prayer, as much suited to advanced learners in the school of Christ as to those preparing for baptism. These are the only three existing ante-Nicene treatises on the Lord's Prayer, and they became the starting point for many other commentaries. Of the three, however, only the discourse of Cyprian is an address to catechumens. Tertullian's treatise contains additional material on the conduct of worship and on prayer in the assembly, and Origen's commentary is a vast work on the whole subject of prayer, as much suited to advanced learners in the school of Christ as to those preparing for baptism.

This volume brings together writings from early and late stages of Augustine's involvement in the Pelagian controversy. On Nature and Grace and On the Proceedings of Pelagius both date from A.D. 415-16 and constitute two of Augustine's most extensive treatments of the actual words of Pelagius. On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance were probably written in A.D. 428, near the end of Augustine's life. Augustine's opponents in his writings, he admits, are not really Pelagains at all. They were monks of Provence, led by John Cassian, who were disturbed by the more extreme consequences of the theology of grace and predestination that Augustine had worked out in his controversy with the Pelagians. Since the sixteenth century, they have been labeled "semi-Pelagians." Taken together, these writings provide an occasion to examine the continuity and development of Augustine's theology of grace. They also afford much insight into the fifth-century status of many theological questions that are alive today, such as the extent of the damage done to human nature by sin, the theology of original sin, the effects of baptism, and the true meaning and scope of God's salvific will. These treatises include some of Augustine's most significant statements on grace. Intended for scholars and students of theology and philosophy, this edition includes three treatises translated for the first time from modern critical texts. William Collinge's trenchant introductions offer detailed accounts of the historical and critical work done over the hundred years since the last publication.

How did Christianity make its remarkable voyage from the Roman Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent? By examining the social networks that connected the ancient and late antique Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, central Asia, and Iran, this book contemplates the social relations that made such movement possible. It also analyzes how the narrative tradition regarding the apostle Judas Thomas, which originated in Upper Mesopotamia and accredited him with evangelizing India, traveled among the social networks of an interconnected late antique world. In this way, the book probes how the Thomas narrative shaped Mediterranean Christian beliefs regarding co-religionists in central Asia and India, impacted local Christian cultures, took shape in a variety of languages, and experienced transformation as it traveled from the Mediterranean to India, and back again.

From John of Apamea to Mark's Gospel: Two Dialogues with Thomasios: A Hermeneutical Reading of Horao, Blepo, and Theoreo combines two theological fields of investigation. The first is related to the Patristic theology of Eastern Syrian Christianity and the second resides in the field of Biblical theology. The research articulates the two fields, which complement each other through a logic exposition in that the theological conceptions of John of Apamea serve as the hermeneutical reading of the verbs of visual perception in the Markan Gospel. The first part expounds the problem related to the quest of the historical John of Apamea, an overview of the problem of his identity based upon the most important critical works attributed to him, proposing a plausible solution. The notion of the spiritual perception of the soul is intrinsically connected with the notion of "spiritual exegesis" and "spiritual senses", essential thoughts in the theology of the dialogues with Thomasios. Applying this methodological approach to the Scripture, the second part expounds the topic of the spiritual seeing in Mark's Gospel. The section follows four expositive stages. The first consists of the semantic analysis of the Markan terminology and its psychological implications; the second analyzes the narrative portrait of the seeing of Jesus; the third examines briefly the seeing of the demons; the last stage considers the contemplative attitude of the women in the context of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. From John of Apamea to Mark's Gospel is essential reading for scholars in Eastern Patristic theology, Biblical theology, and spiritual theology.

From earliest times, angels have been seen as instruments of salvation and retribution, agents of revelation, and harbingers of hope. In effect, angels are situated at the intersections of diverse belief structures and philosophical systems. In this book, Meredith J. Gill examines the role of angels in medieval and Renaissance conceptions of heaven. She considers the character of Renaissance angelology as distinct from the medieval theological traditions that informed it and from which it emerged. Tracing the iconography of angels in text and in visual form, she also uncovers the philosophical underpinnings of medieval and Renaissance definitions of angels and their nature. From Dante through Pico della Mirandola, from the images of angels depicted by Fra Angelico to those painted by Raphael and his followers, angels, Gill argues, are the touchstones and markers of the era's intellectual self-understanding, and its classical revival, theological doctrines, and artistic imagination.

This study brings three different kinds of readers of the Gospel of John together with the theological goal of understanding what is meant by Incarnation and how it relates to Pascha, the Passion of Christ, how this is conceived of as revelation, and how we speak of it. The first group of readers are the Christian writers from the early centuries, some of whom (such as Irenaeus of Lyons) stood in direct continuity, through Polycarp of Smyrna, with John himself. In exploring these writers, John Behr offers a glimpse of the figure of John and the celebration of Pascha, which held to have started with him. The second group of readers are modern scriptural scholars, from whom we learn of the apocalyptic dimensions of John's Gospel and the way in which it presents the life of Christ in terms of the Temple and its feasts. With Christ's own body, finally erected on the Cross, being the true Temple in an offering of love rather than a sacrifice for sin. An offering in which Jesus becomes the flesh he offers for consumption, the bread which descends from heaven, so that 'incarnation' is not an event now in the past, but the embodiment of God in those who follow Christ in the present. The third reader is Michel Henry, a French Phenomenologist, whose reading of John opens up further surprising dimensions of this Gospel, which yet align with those uncovered in the first parts of this work. This thought-provoking work brings these threads together to reflect on the nature and task of Christian theology.

Jerome (c. 345-420) was one of the greatest biblical scholars of antiquity. He produced the first Latin translation of the Bible which was made not from Greek but directly from the Hebrew. This translation came to be called the Vulgate, the standard Bible of Latin Christendom. In this book, the author considers the origins of this project through an analysis of the "Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim", a commentary on the book of Genesis published at about the same time as the translation. He looks at Greek scholarship at the time of Jerome, and discusses to what extent Jerome's work represented a new departure. This book should be of interest to scholars and students of the Bible, especially of Old Testament texts and versions, classicist and patristic scholars of early Christianity, and historians of the medieval church.

When Near Becomes Far explores the representations and depictions of old age in the rabbinic Jewish literature of late antiquity (150-600 CE). Through close literary readings and cultural analysis, the book reveals the gaps and tensions between idealized images of old age on the one hand, and the psychologically, physiologically, and socially complicated realities of aging on the other hand. The authors argue that while rabbinic literature presents a number of prescriptions related to qualities and activities that make for good old age, the respect and reverence that the elderly should be awarded, and harmonious intergenerational relationship, it also includes multiple anecdotes and narratives that portray aging in much more nuanced and poignant ways. These anecdotes and narratives relate, alongside fantasies about blissful or unnoticeable aging, a host of fears associated with old age: from the loss of physical capability and beauty to the loss of memory and mental acuity, and from marginalization in the community to being experienced as a burden by one's children. Each chapter of the book focuses on a different aspect of aging in the rabbinic world: bodily appearance and sexuality, family relations, intellectual and cognitive prowess, honor and shame, and social roles and identity. As the book shows, in their powerful and sensitive treatments of aging, rabbinic texts offer some of the richest and most audacious observations on aging in ancient world literature, many of which still resonate today.

There is no book in English that treats the whole of Cyril's theological thought. In the past scholars have normally focused on Cyril's Christology and left largely unexamined the remainder of his theological thought. Thus the English-speaking scholarly community has never fully appreciated the breadth, the depth and the immense significance of Cyril's theology. This book is therefore unique.

The editor has brought together many of the foremost experts on Cyril. This international team examines all the major facets of his theology, and here for the first time reveals the theology of Cyril of Alexandria as a magisterial whole.

"Arguably the most distinctive feature of the early Christian literature," writes Bart Ehrman, "is the degree to which it was forged." The Homilies and Recognitions of Clement; Paul's letters to and from Seneca; Gospels by Peter, Thomas, and Philip; Jesus' correspondence with Abgar, letters by Peter and Paul in the New Testament--all forgeries. To cite just a few examples.
Forgery and Counterforgery is the first comprehensive study of early Christian pseudepigrapha ever produced in English. In it, Ehrman argues that ancient critics--pagan, Jewish, and Christian--understood false authorial claims to be a form of literary deceit, and thus forgeries. Ehrman considers the extent of the phenomenon, the "intention" and motivations of ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish forgers, and reactions to their work once detected. He also assesses the criteria ancient critics applied to expose forgeries and the techniques forgers used to avoid detection. With the wider practices of the ancient world as backdrop, Ehrman then focuses on early Christian polemics, as various Christian authors forged documents in order to lend their ideas a veneer of authority in literary battles waged with pagans, Jews, and, most importantly, with one another in internecine disputes over doctrine and practice. In some instances a forger directed his work against views found in another forgery, creating thereby a "counter-forgery." Ehrman's evaluation of polemical forgeries starts with those of the New Testament (nearly half of whose books make a false authorial claim) up through the Pseudo-Ignatian epistles and the Apostolic Constitutions at the end of the fourth century.
Shining light on an important but overlooked feature of the early Christian world, Forgery and Counterforgery explores the possible motivations of the deceivers who produced these writings, situating their practice within ancient Christian discourses on lying and deceit.

Diese oeffentliche Vorlesung wird jahrlich veranstaltet im Andenken an den Kirchenhistoriker Hans Lietzmann (1875-1942), den Nachfolger Adolf von Harnacks als Leiter des Akademienunternehmens Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte (GCS). Es wird dazu jeweils ein international bedeutender Referent aus dem Bereich der Altertumswissenschaften eingeladen. Die Vortrage behandeln zentrale Themen der antiken Religionsgeschichte mit einer Bedeutung fur die Gegenwart.

Christianity is commonly held to have introduced an entirely new and better morality into the ancient world, a new morality that was decidedly universal, in contrast to the ethics of the philosophical schools which were only concerned with the intellectual few. Runar M. Thorsteinsson presents a challenge to this view by comparing Christian morality in first-century Rome with contemporary Stoic ethics in the city. Thorsteinsson introduces and discusses the moral teaching of Roman Stoicism; of Seneca, Musonius Rufus, and Epictetus. He then presents the moral teaching of Roman Christianity as it is represented in Paul's Letter to the Romans, the First Letter of Peter, and the First Letter of Clement. Having established the bases for his comparison, he examines the similarities and differences between Roman Stoicism and Roman Christianity in terms of morality. Five broad themes are used for the comparison, questions of Christian and Stoic views about: a particular morality or way of life as proper worship of the deity; certain individuals (like Jesus and Socrates) as paradigms for the proper way of life; the importance of mutual love and care; non-retaliation and 'love of enemies'; and the social dimension of ethics. This approach reveals a fundamental similarity between the moral teachings of Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism. The most basic difference is found in the ethical scope of the two: While the latter teaches unqualified universal humanity, the former seems to condition the ethical scope in terms of religious adherence.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130 - 202) is heralded as one of the greatest theologians of the post-apostolic church. The spiritual grandson of the apostle John, for his instructor in the faith was himself taught by the apostle, his writing stresses the importance of apostolic teaching and faithfully handing on the apostolic tradition. Irenaeus's magnum opus Against Heresies offers an unparalleled insight and interpretation of John's own writing and an exposition of the Christian faith. Payton's compendium is a careful distillation of Irenaeus's masterpiece. He presents St Irenaeus's writings as a collective and seminal point in the development of Christian theology, from its genesis in the first century, and as a compelling exploration of the Christian doctrines of the early church. For years James Payton has studied Irenaeus's most important work: the result is an extremely accessible and yet still erudite condensation of Ireneus's theology; the essential companion to a work founded in a thorough knowledge of Scripture and steadfastly rooted in the apostolic tradition of the early church. Payton's examination of patristic theology is vital for those interested in learning what the early Christian church received and passed on from the apostles.

This volume assembles written versions of lectures presented and discussed at the conference "Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation - Discursive Fights Over Religious Traditions In Antiquity" held at Aarhus and Ebeltoft in Denmark in the spring of 2010. Most of the religious texts studied in the contributions were drawn from Early Judaism and Early Christianity. The interest in these was on the one hand elucidating different aspects of the role they played in the formation and transformation of the religions, and on the other hand investigating the role these same texts played in cooperation and conflict between these two religions. The topics of the essays focus on four particular themes, namely Reuse, Rewriting and Usurpation of Biblical and Classical Texts, Invention and Maintenance of Religious Traditions, Orthodoxy and Heresy, and Formation of the Biblical Canon.