This book is a comprehensive survey of the history and, more particularly, of the thought of Antioch from the second to the eighth centuries of the Christian era. Dr Wallace-Hadrill traces the religious background of Antiochene Christianity and examines in detail aspects of its intellectual life: the exegesis of scripture, the interpretation of history, philosophy, and the doctrine of the nature of God as applied to an understanding of Christ and man's salvation. The community at Antioch stressed history and literalism, in self-conscious opposition to the tendency to allegorise that prevailed at Alexandria. While insisting on the divinity of Christ, they were equally adamant that no other doctrine should be allowed to compromise their central belief that Jesus was really human.

The fourth-century Christian thinker, Gregory of Nyssa, has been the subject of a huge variety of interpretations over the past fifty years, from historians, theologians, philosophers, and others. In this highly original study, Morwenna Ludlow analyses these recent readings of Gregory of Nyssa and asks: What do they reveal about modern and postmodern interpretations of the Christian past? What do they say about the nature of Gregory's writing? Working thematically through studies of recent Trinitarian theology, Christology, spirituality, feminism, and postmodern hermeneutics, Ludlow develops an approach to reading the Church Fathers which combines the benefits of traditional scholarship on the early Church with reception-history and theology.

Liberation from Empire investigates the phenomenon of demonic possession and exorcism in the Gospel of Mark. The Marcan narrator writes from an anti-imperialistic point of view with allusions to, yet never directly addressing, the Roman Empire. In his baptism, Jesus was authorized by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to wage cosmic war with Satan. In Jesus' first engagement, his testing in the wilderness, Jesus bound the strong one, Satan. Jesus explains this encounter in the Beelzebul controversy. Jesus' ministry continues an on-going battle with Satan, binding the strong one's minions, demonic/unclean spirits, and spreading holiness to the possessed until he is crucified on a Roman cross. The battle is still not over at Jesus' death, for at Jesus' parousia God will make a final apocalyptic judgment. Jesus' exorcisms have cosmic, apocalyptic, and anti-imperial implications. For Mark, demonic possession was different from sickness or illness, and exorcism was different from healing. Demonic possession was totally under the control of a hostile non-human force; exorcism was full deliverance from a domineering existence that restored the demoniac to family, to community, and to God's created order. Jesus commissioned the twelve to be with him, to learn from him, and to proclaim the kingdom of God by participating with him in healing and exorcism. Jesus expands his invitation to participate in building the kingdom of God to all those who choose to become part of his new dyadic family even today.

This book demonstrates that the Gospels originated from a sequential hypertextual reworking of the contents of Paul's letters and, in the case of Matthew and John, of the Acts of the Apostles. Consequently, the new quest for the historical Jesus, which takes this discovery into serious consideration, results in a rather limited reconstruction of Jesus' life. However, since such a reconstruction includes, among others, Jesus' messiahship, behaving in a way which was later interpreted as pointing to him as the Son of God, instituting the Lord's Supper, being conscious of the religious significance of his imminent death, dying on the cross, and appearing as risen from the dead to Cephas and numerous other Jewish believers, it can be reconciled with the principles of the Christian faith.

New edition of, and commentary on, one of the most important liturgical books to have come down to us from the late Anglo-Saxon church. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579, the so-called 'Leofric Missal', is for the most part not really a missal, but a late-ninth or early-tenth-century combined sacramentary, pontifical and ritual with cues for the sung parts of various masses by the original, possibly French or Lotharingian, scribe. Subsequently, over the course of a hundred and thirty or so years, the sacramentary-pontifical-ritual was considerably augmented, first most probably for thesuccessors of Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury (890-923), the man for whom it was probably originally compiled, then later at Exeter for Bishop Leofric (1050-72).

The political and social changes that occurred with the transformation of the Roman Empire into a Roman Christian Empire and with the bishops' new social position as imperial bishops called for new literary representations of the ideal Christian leader. In this struggle, the figure of Moses turned up as a suitable figure intimately connected with questions of authority and power and, related to this, with the risk of dissension and discord. While the portrait of Moses as a political figure was hardly applicable in Christian discourses of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, it became the centre of interest during the 4th century. This new emphasis was, however, no more new than that it actually revived traditions of 1st-century Jewish biographical and autobiographical narratives.

Chrodegang of Metz (c. 712-766) was a leading figure of the late Merovingian and early Carolingian Church. Born to one of the principal aristocratic families in Austrasia, he served as referendary of Charles Martel, and was appointed bishop of Metz in the 740s. As bishop, Chrodegang became one of the foremost churchmen in Francia, chairing councils, founding monasteries, and beginning a reform of the lives of the canons of the Metz cathedral. This book is a major study in the English language on Chrodegang, examining his preoccupation with the creation of communities of faith and concord modelled on the early Church. It explores his attempts to unite the Frankish episcopacy, his rule for the cathedral clergy in Metz - the Regula canonicorum - and his introduction of new liturgical practices that sought to transform his see into a hagiopolis, a holy city which provided a model for later Carolingian reform.

This volume presents for the first time in the Fathers of the Church series the work of an early Christian writer who did not write in either Greek or Latin. It offers new English translations of selected prose works by St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. A.D. 309-373). The volume contains St. Ephrem's Commentary on Genesis, Commentary on Exodus, Homily on Our Lord, and Letter to Publius. The translators have enhanced the volume with a general introduction, extensive bibliography, and specific introductions to each of the works. Together these features provide an overview of the major scholarship on St. Ephrem and Syriac Christianity. St. Ephrem, the "Harp of the Spirit," composed prose commentaries and sermons of skilful charm and grace, in addition to beautiful hymns, during the time he spent teaching at his native Nisibis and at Edessa in Syria. In the two commentaries presented here, Ephrem focuses only on portions of the sacred text that had a particular theological significance for him, or whose orthodox interpretation needed to be reasserted in the face of contemporary heterodox ideas. He does not provide a continuous, verse by verse exposition. The elaborate rhetorical figures and stylistic devices of the Homily on Or Lord and Letter to Publius succeed in creating language and imagery nearly as striking as Ephrem's poetry. St. Ephrem marshaled his considerable theological and rhetorical talent to challenge the appeal that the doctrines of the Arians, Manicheans, Marcionites, and the followers of Bardaisan might have had to the minds and hearts of Syrian Christians. In the face of their rational systems, his was the voice that insisted on the incomprehensibility of the divine nature.

Augustinus (354430 CE), son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste in North Africa, and his Christian wife Monica, while studying in Africa to become a rhetorician, plunged into a turmoil of philosophical and psychological doubts in search of truth, joining for a time the Manichaean society. He became a teacher of grammar at Tagaste, and lived much under the influence of his mother and his friend Alypius. About 383 he went to Rome and soon after to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric, being now attracted by the philosophy of the Sceptics and of the Neo-Platonists. His studies of Paul's letters with Alypius and the preaching of Bishop Ambrose led in 386 to his rejection of all sensual habits and to his famous conversion from mixed beliefs to Christianity. He returned to Tagaste and there founded a religious community. In 395 or 396 he became Bishop of Hippo, and was henceforth engrossed with duties, writing and controversy. He died at Hippo during the successful siege by the Vandals.

From Augustine's large output the Loeb Classical Library offers that great autobiography the "Confessions" (in two volumes); "On the City of God" (seven volumes), which unfolds God's action in the progress of the world's history, and propounds the superiority of Christian beliefs over pagan in adversity; and a selection of "Letters" which are important for the study of ecclesiastical history and Augustine's relations with other theologians.

This critical text edition of 'De anima et resurrectione' by Gregory of Nyssa (4th c.) is based on all available Greek manuscripts. Discussing ancient philosophical traditions, especially Plato's understanding of the immortality of the soul, Gregory explains the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body including apokatastasis. Diese kritische Textausgabe von 'De anima et resurrectione' des Kirchenvaters Gregor von Nyssa basiert auf allen verfugbaren griechischen Handschriften. In Auseinandersetzung mit der antiken Philophie, insbesondere Platos Unsterblichkeitslehre, begrundet Gregor die christliche Lehre von der Auferstehung des Leibes und der Apokatastasis.

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.

The theme of this volume is that of continuity and discontinuity between early Christianity and its Jewish parent. The formation of Christian thought in the context of its Jewish beginnings is the focus of much debate and controversy. These essays cover the historical and social background of Palestine and the Diaspora; the main components of the New Testament canon and early non-canonical writings, examining their relationship to the Jewish tradition; and central themes including monotheism and Christology, apocalyptism, ethics, and martyrdom. The concise treatments, with their helpful bibliographies, by an international team of experts will be of interest and value to teachers and undergraduate students of the New Testament and Christian origins. It puts an alternative complexion on the relationship between Judaism and the convictions of the early Christians, and will stimulate discussion.

The writings of the Church Fathers form a distinct body of literature that shaped the early church and built upon the doctrinal foundations of Christianity established within the New Testament. Christian literature in the period c.100-c.400 constitutes one of the most influential textual oeuvres of any religion. Written mainly in Greek, Latin and Syriac, Patristic literature emanated from all parts of the early Christian world and helped to extend its boundaries. The History offers a systematic account of that literature and its setting. The works of individual writers in shaping the various genres of Christian literature is considered, alongside three general essays, covering distinct periods in the development of Christian literature, which survey the social, cultural and doctrinal context within which Christian literature arose and was used by Christians. This is a landmark reference book for scholars and students alike.

The first Christians operated with a hierarchical model of sexual difference common to the ancient Mediterranean, with women considered to be lesser versions of men. Yet sexual difference was not completely stable as a conceptual category across the spectrum of formative Christian thinking. Rather, early Christians found ways to exercise theological creativity and to think differently from one another as they probed the enigma of sexually differentiated bodies.In "Specters of Paul," Benjamin H. Dunning explores this variety in second- and third-century Christian thought with particular attention to the ways the legacy of the apostle Paul fueled, shaped, and also constrained approaches to the issue. Paul articulates his vision of what it means to be human primarily by situating human beings between two poles: creation (Adam) and resurrection (Christ). But within this framework, where does one place the figure of Eve--and the difference that her female body represents?Dunning demonstrates that this dilemma impacted a range of Christian thinkers in the centuries immediately following the apostle, including Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage, and authors from the Nag Hammadi corpus. While each of these thinkers attempts to give the difference of the feminine a coherent place within a Pauline typological framework, Dunning shows that they all fail to deliver fully on the coherence that they promise. Instead, sexual difference haunts the Pauline discourse of identity and sameness as the difference that can be neither fully assimilated nor fully ejected--a conclusion with important implications not only for early Christian history but also for feminist and queer philosophy and theology.

Through groundbreaking analysis of early Christian texts, Candida Moss reveals that the words, actions, and deaths of martyrs are modeled on those of Christ. Moss traces this imitation through the literature of the Jesus movement and early church, then examines interpretations of the martyr's death and afterlife. Arguing against the dominant theory that the martyr's death was seen as a sacrifice, Moss finds that beyond death martyrs continue to be assimilated to Christ as intercessors, judges, enthroned monarchs, and banqueters. Though characterization of the martyr as "another Christ" ultimately conflicted with theological commitments to Christ's uniqueness, Moss shows that, for a brief period, the martyr's imitation was viewed as sharing in the status of the exalted Christ.

Lynn Cohick provides an accurate and fulsome picture of the earliest Christian women by examining a wide variety of first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman documents that illuminate their lives. She organizes the book around three major spheres of life: family, religious community, and society in general. Cohick shows that although women during this period were active at all levels within their religious communities, their influence was not always identified by leadership titles nor did their gender always determine their level of participation. The book corrects our understanding of early Christian women by offering an authentic and descriptive historical picture of their lives. Includes black-and-white illustrations from the ancient world.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c.295-373) is one of the greatest and most controversial figures of early Christian history. His life spanned the period of fundamental change for the Roman Empire and the Christian Church that followed the conversion of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor. A bishop and theologian, an ascetic and a pastoral father, Athanasius played a central role in shaping Christianity in these crucial formative years. As bishop of Alexandria (328-73) he fought to unite the divided Egyptian Church and inspired admiration and opposition alike from fellow bishops and the emperor Constantine and his successors. Athanasius attended the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea summoned by Constantine in 325 and as a theologian would be remembered as the defender of the original Nicene Creed against the 'Arian' heresy. He was also a champion of the ascetic movement that transformed Christianity, a patron of monks and virgins and the author of numerous ascetic works including the famous Life of Antony. All these elements played their part in Athanasius' vocation as a pastoral father, responsible for the physical and spiritual wellbeing of his congregations. This book offers the first study in English to draw together these diverse yet inseparable roles that defined Athanasius' life and the influence that he exerted on subsequent Christian tradition. The presentation is accessible to both specialists and non-specialists and is illuminated throughout by extensive quotation from Athanasius' many writings, for it is through his own words that we may best approach this remarkable man.

Perpetua's Passions is a collection of studies about Perpetua, a young female Christian martyr who was executed in 203 AD. Like her spiritual guide, Saturus, Perpetua left a diary, and a few years after their deaths a fellow Christian collected these writings and supplied them with an introduction and epilogue: the so-called Passion of Perpetua. The result is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic works of antiquity, which the present volume examines from a wide range of perspectives: literary, narratological, historical, religious, psychological, and philosophical viewpoints follow upon a newly edited text and English translation (by Joseph Farrell and Craig Williams). This innovative treatment by a number of distinguished scholars not only complements its unique subject, but constitutes a kind of laboratory of new approaches to ancient texts.

The First Edition of the New Testament is a groundbreaking book that argues that the New Testament is not the product of a centuries-long process of development. Its history, David Trobisch contends, is the history of a book--an all Greek Christian bible--published as early as the second century C.E. and intended by its editors to be read as a whole. Trobisch claims that this bible achieved wide circulation and formed the basis of all surviving manuscripts of the New Testament. Review: Dr. Trobisch has produced a thought-provoking and significant study that will surely challenge the traditional understanding of the formation of the canon....The First Edition of the New Testament could have relevance for years to come.--Faith & Mission

Messianism is one of the great themes in intellectual history. But for precisely this reason, because it has done so much important ideological work for the people who have written about it, the historical roots of the discourse itself have been obscured from view. What did it mean to talk about "messiahs" in the ancient world, before the idea of messianism became a philosophical juggernaut, dictating the terms for all subsequent discussion of the topic? In this book, Matthew V. Novenson gives a revisionist account of messianism in antiquity. He shows that, for the ancient Jews and Christians who used the term, a messiah was not an article of faith but a manner of speaking. It was a scriptural figure of speech, one among numerous others, useful for thinking kinds of political order: present or future, real or ideal, monarchic or theocratic, dynastic or charismatic, and other variations beside. The early Christians famously seized upon the title "messiah" (in Greek, "Christ") for their founding hero and thus molded the sense of the term in certain ways, but, Novenson shows, this is nothing other than what all ancient messiah texts do, each in its own way. If we hope to understand the ancient texts about messiahs (from Deutero-Isaiah to the Parables of Enoch, from the Qumran Community Rule to the Gospel of John, from the Pseudo-Clementines to Sefer Zerubbabel), then we must learn to think in terms not of a world-historical idea but of a language game, of so many creative reuses of an archaic Israelite idiom. In The Grammar of Messianism, Novenson demonstrates the possibility and the benefit of thinking of messianism in this way.

This book is the first monograph devoted to the life, work, and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (ca. 362-420), an important witness of Christianity in late antiquity. Palladius' Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom and his Lausiac History are key sources for our knowledge of John Chrysostom's downfall and of the Origenist controversy, and they both provide rich information concerning many notable ecclesiastical personalities such as John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, Jerome, Evagrius of Pontus, Melania the Elder, Isidore of Alexandria, and the Tall Brothers.
Demetrios S. Katos employs late antique theories of judicial rhetoric and argumentation, theories whose significance is only now becoming apparent to late antique scholars, to elicit new insights from the Dialogue regarding the controversy that resulted in the death of John Chrysostom. He also demonstrates that the Lausiac History deliberately promoted to the imperial court of Pulcheria a spiritual theology that was indebted to his guide Evagrius and more broadly to the legacy of Origen, despite Jerome's recent attacks against both. Palladius emerges from this account not merely as a peripatetic monk, his own preferred self-portrait that has prevailed in most modern accounts, but as an ecclesiastical statesman who passionately supported both the causes and ideas of his associates in the most pressing controversies of his day.
The study will also be valuable for scholars of late antiquity working in the areas of asceticism, spirituality, pilgrimage, hagiography, and early Christian constructions of gender, for all of which Palladius' works are important sources.

Studies of medieval Biblical interpretation usually focus on the printed literature, neglecting the vast majority of relevant works. Timothy Bellamah offers a groundbreaking examination of the exegesis of William of Alton, a thirteenth-century Dominican regent master at Paris whose commentaries have never previously appeared in print.
As a near contemporary of Hugh of St. Cher, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, William was an important representative of university exegesis at a time of rapidly changing methods and remarkable intellectual development. His commentaries are valuable resources for understanding Biblical study of the thirteenth century, in the schoolroom and in the pulpit. Yet study of William's work has been impeded by the dubious authenticity of numerous commentaries questionably attributed to him over the centuries.
Bellamah addresses these complex problems by unearthing evidence of authorship in each commentary's style and methodology. This inquiry employs the traits of William's commentaries as criteria for constituting a list of works that can be reliably attributed to him, which, in turn, provides a crucial basis for studying his exegesis. William was a man of his time, but even more than his contemporaries he was deeply interested in history and the literal sense, which he understood to be the intention of Scripture's authors, divine and human. He took a keen interest in Biblical history and put to use a wide array of procedures for textual, linguistic, and rhetorical analysis. At the same time, he remained aware of the spiritual senses and the diverse elements of the exegetical and theological tradition in which he stood.

In his pathbreaking Israel in Egypt James K. Hoffmeier sought to refute the claims of scholars who doubt the historical accuracy of the biblical account of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt. Analyzing a wealth of textual, archaeological, and geographical evidence, he put forth a thorough defense of the biblical tradition. Hoffmeier now turns his attention to the Wilderness narratives of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. As director of the North Sinai Archaeological Project, Hoffmeier has led several excavations that have uncovered important new evidence supporting the Wilderness narratives, including a major New Kingdom fort at Tell el-Borg that was occupied during the Israelite exodus. Hoffmeier employs these archaeological findings to shed new light on the route of the exodus from Egypt. He also investigates the location of Mount Sinai, and offers a rebuttal to those who have sought to locate it in northern Arabia and not in the Sinai peninsula as traditionally thought. Hoffmeier addresses how and when the Israelites could have lived in Sinai, as well as whether it would have been possible for Moses to write down the law received at Mount Sinai. Building on the new evidence for the Israelite sojourn in Egypt, Hoffmeier explores the Egyptian influence on the Wilderness tradition. For example, he finds Egyptian elements in Israelite religious practices, including the use of the tabernacle, and points to a significant number of Egyptian personal names among the generation of the exodus. The origin of Israel is a subject of much debate and the wilderness tradition has been marginalized by those who challenge its credibility. In Ancient Israel in Sinai, Hoffmeier brings the Wilderness tradition to the forefront and makes a case for its authenticity based on solid evidence and intelligent analysis.

Collected together for the first time in one volume are the most important critical study of Pelagius to date and a selection of his letters. Collected together for the first time in one volume are the most important critical study of Pelagius to date, together with a selection of his letters. Arriving in Rome in the late 4th century, Pelagius soon acquired a considerable reputation as a reformer and spiritual adviser. In Palestine he became embroiled with Jerome and later with Augustine who had been alerted to the Pelagian threat to orthodox doctrine. Professor Rees here re-examines the evidence for the Pelagian controversy. The second part of the book consists of Pelagius' letters, which provide the clearest and most succinct statements of Pelagian theology, but few of which have ever been translated into English before. Reissue; first published in two volumes as Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic and The Letters of Pelagius and his Followers (The Boydell Press, 1991).

Les traditions anciennes, ant rieures au VIIIe si cle, sur le sort final de Marie forment un ensemble la fois tr s tendu et fort complexe. Les traditions litt raires sur la dormition et l assomption repr sentent une pi ce majeure du dossier. Mais elles ne peuvent tre situ es et class es que si l'on consid re galement les traditions topologiques s y rapportant. Le pr sent volume, qui compl te celui publi en 1995 ("Dormition et Assomption de Marie. Histoire des traditions anciennes"), pr sente de mani re d finitive une recherche commenc e en 1986. Dans ce recueil, un certain nombre de contributions, treize, parues part du premier volume, entre 1992 et 2007, ont t regroup es. Ces diff rents travaux, corrig s et compl t s, fournissent des apports fondamentaux, d'ordre litt raire comme d'ordre doctrinal: en particulier ceux relatifs l histoire de la recherche dans ce domaine, aux "Vies de la Vierge" et aux "Apocalypses de la Vierge." The ancient traditions before the VIIIth century concerning the final fate of Mary constitute a large and very complex group. The literary traditions on the dormition and the assumption represent the major part of this dossier. We can only situate and classify them if we also study their topological traditions. The present volume completes the volume published in 1995 ("Dormition et Assomption de Marie. Histoire des traditions anciennes"). It is the final result of a research started in 1986. In the current compilation we regroup thirteen contributions published between 1992 and 2007. These different articles, rectified and completed, present a fundamental contribution, literary and doctrinal: particularly those on the history of the research, the Lives of the Virgin and the Apocalypses of the Virgin.