Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) has been described as "the greatest and at the same time the most controversial theologian in German Protestant theology since Schleiermacher." The controversy was epitomized by a nineteenth-century British critic who wrote that his theory "makes of Christianity a thing of purely natural origin, calls in question the authenticity of all but a few of the New Testament books, and makes the whole collection contain not a harmonious system of divine truth, but a confused mass of merely human and contradictory opinions as to the nature of the Christian religion." The contributors to this volume, however, regard Baur as an epoch-making New Testament scholar whose methods and conclusions, though superseded, have been mostly affirmed during the century and a half since his death. This collection focuses on the history of early Christianity, although as a historian of the church and theology Baur covered the entire field up to own time. He combined the most exacting historical research with a theological interpretation of history influenced by Kant, Schelling, and Hegel. The first three chapters discuss Baur's relation to Strauss, Moehler, and Hegel. Then a central core of chapters considers his historical and exegetical perspectives (Judaism and Hellenism, Gnosticism, New Testament introduction and theology, the Pauline epistles, the Synoptic Gospels, John, the critique of miracle, and the combination of absoluteness and relativity). The final chapters view his influence by analyzing the reception of Baur in Britain, Baur and Harnack, and Baur and practical theology. This work offers a multi-faceted picture of his thinking, which will stimulate contemporary discussion.

John and Philosophy: A New Reading of the Fourth Gospel offers a Stoic reading of the Fourth Gospel, especially its cosmology, epistemology, and ethics. It works through the gospel in narrative sequence providing a 'philosophical narrative reading'. In each section of the gospel Troels Engberg-Pedersen raises discusses philosophical questions. He compares John with Paul (in philosophy) and Mark (in narrative) to offer a new reading of the transmitted text of the Fourth Gospel. Of these two profiles, the narrative one is strongly influenced by the literary critical paradigm. Moreover, by attending carefully to a number of narratological features, one may come to see that the transmitted text in fact hangs together much more coherently than scholarship has been willing to see. The other profile is specifically philosophical. Scholarship has been well aware that the Fourth Gospel has what one might call a philosophical dimension. Engberg-Pedersen shows that throughout the Gospel contemporary Stoicism, works better to illuminate the text. This pertains to the basic cosmology (and cosmogony) that is reflected in the text, to the epistemology that underlies a central theme in it regarding different types of belief in Jesus, to the ethics that is introduced fairly late in the text when Jesus describes how the disciples should live once he has himself gone away from them, and more.

This book examines literary analogies in Christian and Jewish sources, culminating in an in-depth analysis of striking parallels and connections between Christian monastic texts (the Apophthegmata Patrum or 'The Sayings of the Desert Fathers') and Babylonian Talmudic traditions. The importance of the monastic movement in the Persian Empire, during the time of the composition and redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, fostered a literary connection between the two religious populations. The shared literary elements in the literatures of these two elite religious communities sheds new light on the surprisingly inclusive nature of the Talmudic corpora and on the non-polemical nature of elite Jewish-Christian literary relations in late antique Persia.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha addresses issues and themes that arise in the study of early Christian apocryphal literature. It discusses key texts including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter, letters attributed to Paul, Peter, and Jesus, and acts and apocalypses written about or attributed to different apostles. Part One consists of authoritative surveys of the main branches of apocryphal literature (gospels, acts, epistles, apocalypses, and related literature) and Part Two considers key issues that they raise. These include their contribution to our understanding of developing theological understandings of Jesus, the apostles and other important figures such as Mary. It also addresses the value of these texts as potential sources for knowledge of the historical Jesus, and for debates about Jewish-Christian relations, the practice of Christian worship, and developing understandings of asceticism, gender and sexuality, etc. The volume also considers questions such as which ancient readers read early Christian apocrypha, their place in Christian spirituality, and their place in contemporary popular culture and contemporary theological discourse.

Whoever needs an act of faith to elucidate an event that can be explained by reason is a fool, and unworthy of reasonable thought. This line, spoken by the notorious 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova, illustrates a deeply entrenched perception of religion, as prevalent today as it was hundreds of years ago. It is the sentiment behind the narrative that Catholic beliefs were incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals. Catholics, many claim, are superstitious and traditional, opposed to democracy and gender equality, and hostile to science. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Casanova himself was a Catholic. In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner points to such figures as representatives of a long-overlooked thread of a reform-minded Catholicism, which engaged Enlightenment ideals with as much fervor and intellectual gravity as anyone. Their story opens new pathways for understanding how faith and modernity can interact in our own time. Lehner begins two hundred years before the Enlightenment, when the Protestant Reformation destroyed the hegemony Catholicism had enjoyed for centuries. During this time the Catholic Church instituted several reforms, such as better education for pastors, more liberal ideas about the roles of women, and an emphasis on human freedom as a critical feature of theology. These actions formed the foundation of the Enlightenment's belief in individual freedom. While giants like Spinoza, Locke, and Voltaire became some of the most influential voices of the time, Catholic Enlighteners were right alongside them. They denounced fanaticism, superstition, and prejudice as irreconcilable with the Enlightenment agenda. In 1789, the French Revolution dealt a devastating blow to their cause, disillusioning many Catholics against the idea of modernization. Popes accumulated ever more power and the Catholic Enlightenment was snuffed out. It was not until the Second Vatican Council in 1962 that questions of Catholicismas compatibility with modernity would be broached again. Ulrich L. Lehner tells, for the first time, the forgotten story of these reform-minded Catholics. As Pope Francis pushes the boundaries of Catholicism even further, and Catholics once again grapple with these questions, this book will prove to be required reading.

Moving past earlier descriptions of first-century Christ groups that were based on examining the New Testament in isolation from extant sources produced by analogous cult groups throughout Mediterranean antiquity, this book engages with underexplored epigraphic and papyrological records and situates the behaviour of Paul's Corinthian ekklesia within broader patterns of behaviour practised by Greco-Roman associations. Richard Last's comparative analysis generates highly original contributions to our understanding of the social history of the Jesus movement: he shows that the Corinthians were a small group who had no fixed meeting place, who depended on financial contributions from all ten members in order to survive, and who attracted recruits by offering social benefits such as crowns and office-holding that made other ancient cult groups successful. This volume provides a much-needed robust alternative to the traditional portrayal of Pauline Christ groups as ecclesiastically egalitarian, devoid of normative honorific practices, and free for the poor.

‘With God’s help, I, Bede … have assembled these facts about the history of the Church in Britain … from the traditions of our forebears, and from my own personal knowledge’

Written in AD 731, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People is the first account of Anglo-Saxon England ever written, and remains our single most valuable source for this period. It begins with Julius Caesar’s invasion in the first century BC and goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop government and convert the people to Christianity during these crucial formative years. Relating the deeds of great men and women but also describing landscape, customs and ordinary lives, this is a rich, vivid portrait of an emerging church and nation by the ‘Father of English History’.

Leo Sherley-Price’s translation from the Latin brings us an accurate and readable version of Bede’s History. This edition includes Bede’s Letter to Egbert, denouncing false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer.

Scholars and mainline pastors tell a familiar narrative about the roles of women in the early church: that women held leadership roles and exercised some authority in the church, but, with the establishment of formal institutional roles, they were excluded from active leadership in the church. Evidence of women's leadership is either described as "exceptional" or relegated to (so-called) heretical groups, who differed with proto-orthodox groups precisely over the issue of women's participation. For example, scholars often contrast the Acts of Paul and Thecla (ATh) with 1Timothy. They understand the two works to represent discrete communities with opposite responses to the question of women's leadership. In A Modest Apostle Susan Hylen uses Thecla as a microcosm from which to challenge this larger narrative. In contrast to previous interpreters, Hylen reads 1Timothy and the ATh as texts that emerge out of and share a common cultural framework. In the Roman period, women were widely expected to exhibit gendered virtues like modesty, industry and loyalty to family. However, women pursued these virtues in remarkably different ways, including active leadership in their communities. Read against a background in which multiple and conflicting norms already existed for women's behavior, Hylen shows that texts like the ATh and 1Timothy begin to look different. Like the culture, 1Timothy affirms women's leadership as deacons and widows while upholding standards of modesty in dress and speech. In the ATh, Thecla's virtue is first established by her modest behavior, which allows her to emerge as a virtuous leader. The text presents Thecla as one who fulfills culturally established norms, even as she pursues a bold new way of life. Hylen's approach points to a new way of understanding women in the early church, one that insists upon the acknowledgment of women's leadership as a historical reality without neglecting the effects of the culture's gender biases.

St. Boniface, the early eighth-century English cleric who became known as "Apostle to the Germans," was an important agent in the conversion of the North German tribes from paganism to Christianity. His efforts were devoted as well to organizing and concentrating all of Germanic Christendom under the leadership of Rome. He numbered among his correspondents the popes as well as colleagues in England, France, and Rome. His letters provide unique insights into the religious, ecclesiastical, political, and social history of early medieval Europe.

A comprehensive and authoritative account of the 'heretic' Marcion, this volume traces the development of the concept and language of heresy in the setting of an exploration of second-century Christian intellectual debate. Judith M. Lieu analyses accounts of Marcion by the major early Christian polemicists who shaped the idea of heresy, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius of Salamis, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Ephraem Syrus. She examines Marcion's Gospel, Apostolikon, and Antitheses in detail and compares his principles with those of contemporary Christian and non-Christian thinkers, covering a wide range of controversial issues: the nature of God, the relation of the divine to creation, the person of Jesus, the interpretation of Scripture, the nature of salvation, and the appropriate lifestyle of adherents. In this innovative study, Marcion emerges as a distinctive, creative figure who addressed widespread concerns within second-century Christian diversity.

How and when did Jesus and the Spirit come to be regarded as fully God? The Birth of the Trinity offers a new historical approach by exploring the way in which first- and second-century Christians read the Old Testament in order to differentiate the one God as multiple persons. The earliest Christians felt they could metaphorically overhear divine conversations between the Father, Son, and Spirit when reading the Old Testament. When these snatches of dialogue are connected and joined, they form a narrative about the unfolding interior divine life as understood by the nascent church. What emerges is not a static portrait of the triune God, but a developing story of divine persons enacting mutual esteem, voiced praise, collaborative strategy, and self-sacrificial love. The presence of divine dialogue in the New Testament and early Christian literature shows that, contrary to the claims of James Dunn and Bart Ehrman (among others), the earliest Christology was the highest Christology, as Jesus was identified as a divine person through Old Testament interpretation. The result is a Trinitarian biblical and early Christian theology.

Letter collections in late antiquity give witness to the flourishing of letter-writing, with the development of the mostly formulaic exchanges between elites of the Graeco-Roman world to a more wide-ranging correspondence by bishops and monks, as well as emperors and Gothic kings. The contributors to this volume study individual collections from the first to sixth centuries CE, ranging from the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline letters through monastic letters from Egypt, bishops' letter collections and early papal collections compiled for various purposes. This is the first multi-authored study of New Testament and late antique letter collections, crossing the traditional divide between these disciplines by focusing on Latin, Greek, Coptic and Syriac epistolary sources. It draws together leading scholars in the field of late antique epistolography from Australasia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Hippolytus (c.160 235 AD) occupies a unique place in Christian history as a schismatic bishop who is now honoured by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint and martyr. Originally published in 1934, this book contains an English translation of Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition, which was thought to have been composed around 215 AD, and which describes early Christian practice and liturgy in detail. Easton also includes notes on the text and a detailed introduction on the history of the text and other comparable liturgical records. This important text will be of great value to anyone with an interest in the early Church and early Christian liturgy."

In Holy Misogyny, bible scholar April DeConick wants real answers to the questions that are rarely whispered from the pulpits of the contemporary Christian churches. Why is God male? Why are women associated with sin? Why can't women be priests? Drawing on her extensive knowledge of the early Christian literature, she seeks to understand the conflicts over sex and gender in the early church - what they were and what was at stake. She explains how these ancient conflicts have shaped contemporary Christianity and its promotion of male exclusivity and superiority in terms of God, church leadership, and the bed. DeConick's detective work uncovers old aspects of Christianity before later doctrines and dogmas were imposed upon the churches, and the earlier teachings about the female were distorted. Holy Misogyny shows how the female was systematically erased from the Christian tradition, and why. She concludes that the distortion and erasure of the female is the result of ancient misogyny made divine writ, a holy misogyny that remains with us today.

Charles E. Raven (1885 1964) was a British theologian who held the position of Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University. In this book, which was first published in 1923, Raven presents a discussion of the Christology of the early Church, focusing on the idea of Christ's divinity originated by Apollinarius of Laodicea. The process of writing the text caused Raven to reassess his views on this area, moving him towards 'the conviction that Apollinarianism both in its ancient and its modern form was untenable'. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in theology, the history of Christianity and Apollinarianism."

Immediately after the Gospels, the New Testament takes up the history of the early Christian Church, describing the works of the twelve disciples, and introducing Paul, the man whose influence on the history of Christianity is beyond calculation. Teacher, preacher, conciliator, diplomat, theologian, rule giver, consoler, and martyr, his life and writings became foundations for Christianity. Paul inspired a vast, serious, and intelligent literature that seeks to recapture his meaning, his thinking, and his purpose.

In his letters to early Christian communities, Paul gave much practical advice about organization and orthodoxy. These treated the early Christian communities as something more than a group of people who believed in the same faith: they were people bound together by a common spirit unknown before. The significance of that common spirit occupied the greatest of Christian theologians from Athanasius and Augustine through Luther and Calvin.

In "The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle" Albert Schweitzer goes against Luther and the Protestant tradition to look at what Paul actually writes in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians: an emphasis upon the personal experience of the believer with the divine. Paul's mysticism was not like the mysticism elsewhere described as a soul being at one with God. In the mysticism he felt and encouraged, there is no loss of self but an enriching of it; no erasure of time or place but a comprehension of how time and place fit within the eternal. Schweitzer writes that Paul's mysticism is especially profound, liberating, and precise. Typical of Schweitzer, he introduces readers to his point of view at once, then describes in detail how he came to it, its scholarly antecedents, what its implications are, what objections have been raised, and why all of this matters. To students of the New Testament, this book opens up Paul by presenting him as offering an entirely new kind of mysticism, necessarily and exclusively Christian.

"There is at least one other point that Albert Schweitzer scores here... The hard-won recognition that divine authority and human freedom ultimately cannot be in conflict must never be taken for granted, and the irony that the thought of Paul has repeatedly been invoked to undo that recognition truly does make this insight one of 'the permanent elements.'"--from the Introduction

No Roman emperor had a greater impact on the modern world than did Constantine. The reason is not simply that he converted to Christianity, but that he did so in a way that brought his subjects along after him. Indeed, this major new biography argues that Constantine's conversion is but one feature of a unique administrative style that enabled him to take control of an empire beset by internal rebellions and external threats by Persians and Goths. The vast record of Constantine's administration reveals a government careful in its exercise of power but capable of ruthless, even savage, actions. Constantine executed (or drove to suicide) his father-in-law, two brothers-in-law, his eldest son, and his once beloved wife. An unparalleled general throughout his life, planning a major assault on the Sassanian Empire in Persia even on his deathbed. Alongside the visionary who believed that his success came from the direct intervention of his God resided an aggressive warrior, a sometimes cruel partner, and an immensely shrewd ruler. These characteristics combined together in a long and remarkable career, which restored the Roman Empire to its former glory. Beginning with his first biographer Eusebius, Constantine's image has been subject to distortion. More recent revisions include John Carroll's view of him as the intellectual ancestor of the Holocaust (Constantine's Sword) and Dan Brown's presentation of him as the man who oversaw the reshaping of Christian history (The Da Vinci Code). In Constantine the Emperor, David Potter confronts each of these skewed and partial accounts to provide the most comprehensive, authoritative, and readable account of Constantine's extraordinary life.

The writings of AElfric of Eynsham (c.950-c.1010) are among the most important to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. He was shaped by tenth-century monastic reform, and his promotion of Old English was highly influential. His earliest known works, the Sermones Catholici (c.990-5), are adaptations of Latin texts rendered in Old English. The homilies draw on the gospels, saints' lives and other doctrinal themes. They were intended to be delivered over two years. This two-volume collection, first published between 1844 and 1846, contains transcriptions of the Old English texts with facing-page translations by Benjamin Thorpe (1781/2-1870). A well-respected scholar with a strong interest in promoting the study of Old English, Thorpe produced an important edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the Rolls Series (also reissued in this series). Volume 1 of the present work contains the sermons for the first year, focusing on important events in the church calendar.

Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 CE), "the Theologian," is the premier teacher on the Holy Trinity in Eastern Christian tradition, yet for over a century historians and theologians have largely neglected his work. Christopher Beeley's groundbreaking study - the first comprehensive treatment in modern scholarship - examines Gregory's doctrine of the Trinity within the full range of his theological and practical vision. Following an overview of Gregory's life and major works, Beeley traces the central soteriological meaning of Gregory's doctrine in the spiritual dialectic of purification and illumination; the dynamic process of divinization (theosis); the singular identity of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God; the divinity and essential presence of the Holy Spirit; and the interpretation of Scripture "according to the Spirit." The book culminates in Gregory's understanding of the Trinity as a whole - which is "theology" in the fullest sense - rooted in the monarchy of God the Father and uniquely known in the divine economy of salvation. Finally, Beeley identifies the Trinitarian shape of pastoral ministry, on which Gregory is also the foundational teacher for later Christian tradition. Beeley offers new insights in several key areas, reinterpreting the famous Theological Orations and Christological epistles within the full corpus of Gregory's orations, poems, and letters. Gregory stands out as the leading ecclesiastical figure in the Eastern Roman Empire and the most powerful theologian of his age, who produced the definitive expression of Trinitarian orthodoxy from a characteristically Eastern tradition of Origenist theology, independent of the work of Athanasius and in several respects more insightful than his Cappadocian contemporaries. Long eclipsed in modern scholarship, Gregory Nazianzen is now brought into full view as the major witness to the Trinity among the Greek fathers of the Church.

The writings of AElfric of Eynsham (c.950-c.1010) are among the most important to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. He was shaped by tenth-century monastic reform, and his promotion of Old English was highly influential. His earliest known works, the Sermones Catholici (c.990-5), are adaptations of Latin texts rendered in Old English. The homilies draw on the gospels, saints' lives and other doctrinal themes. They were intended to be delivered over two years. This two-volume collection, first published between 1844 and 1846, contains transcriptions of the Old English texts with facing-page translations by Benjamin Thorpe (1781/2-1870). A well-respected scholar with a strong interest in promoting the study of Old English, Thorpe produced an important edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the Rolls Series (also reissued in this series). Volume 2 of the present work contains the sermons for the second year, focusing on doctrine and church history.

Canonizing Paul explores how ancient editorial practices utilized in the publication of corpora (e.g. preparation of texts, selection and arrangement of tracts, and composition and deployment of paratexts) were not only employed to shape editions of Paul's letters (i.e. the Marcionite, Euthalian, and Vulgate), but also their interpretation. By considering the deployment of ancillary materials alongside other editorial practices and exploring the interpretive interplay (and sometimes uneasy negotiation) of text and paratexts, this study fills an often overlooked gap in the field of New Testament textual criticism. Investigation into the Marcionite edition shows how its paratexts introduced Marcion's hermeneutic and, in some measure, justified his editorial principles. The Euthalian edition preferred instead a catechetical and pedagogical goal extending from the deployment of paratexts to the organization of the tracts and a textual arrangement for ease of comprehension. The exploration of text and sometimes disparate paratexts culminates in an investigation of Codex Fuldensis, which transmits the Vulgate textual revision of Paul's letters and its Primum Quaeritur prologue alongside numerous other paratexts such as the Marcionite prologues, Old Latin capitula, capitula drawn from the Euthalian edition, and sundry other paratexts. The incorporation of such diverse paratexts, loosed from their original editions and juxtaposed with later editorial products founded on alternative hermeneutical presuppositions, resulted in interpretive tensions that testify to the physical manuscript as a locus of authority, over which many early Christians were trying to gain interpretive control, if not by altering the text, then by furnishing paratexts. By demonstrating how these practices and interpretive concerns left their mark on these editions of the Corpus Paulinum, this study reveals that editorial practices and hermeneutics were deeply, sometimes inextricably, intertwined.

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps readers understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities. In contrast to earlier approaches that divided the evidence into groups that either allowed or forbade women's leadership, this book points to a tension that was pervasive across different groups and regions of the Roman world. Society widely viewed women as inferior to men yet applauded their active pursuit of familial and civic interests. Thus, it was not the case that some women led while others were silent; instead, women were praised for modesty at the same time as they exerted influence in their communities. Elaborating on this rich historical background, Hylen illuminates new possibilities in New Testament texts.

Originally published in 1931, The World of the New Testament by T. R. Glover was included in the Cambridge Miscellany series in 1933. It is the 'Miscellany' edition which is re-issued here. The purpose of the volume was to offer the student of the New Testament a description of the society in which the Early Church found itself, of the political conditions which had made the Roman Empire, and of the everyday life of the people.

Die Predigten Augustins finden bislang trotz ihrer zweifellos uberragenden Bedeutung fur die Kenntnis der augustinischen Pastoral sowie als Modelle moderner praktischer Theologie im deutschen Sprachraum kaum Beachtung. Vor allem fehlen UEbersetzungen und Kommentare, die sie dem zeitgenoessischen Leser erschliessen. Sie werden hier fur die Sermones 336-338 erstmals, fur die Sermones 339 und 340/A in einer grundlich uberarbeiteten Neufassung vorgelegt. Der en face abgedruckte Text gibt die grundlegende Edition der Mauriner wieder, unter kritischem Vergleich mit den spateren Editionen und Angabe der Abweichungen. Die Einleitungen und Anmerkungen erlautern das zur Einordnung und zum Verstandnis der Texte Erforderliche: Echtheit, UEberlieferung, Chronologie, Textkritik, Struktur, Stil, historische Daten, Theologie und Liturgie. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt liegt auf dem Nachweis des biblischen Gedankengutes.

In Forming Femininity in Antiquity, Vita Daphna Arbel investigates depictions of the emblematic Eve that are embedded in one of the most influential accounts of Adam and Eve after the Hebrew Bible, namely the apocryphal Greek Life of Adam and Eve (GLAE) from antiquity. Treating the figure of Eve as a culturally constructed representation of ''woman,'' Arbel examines a crucial transformative stage in the literary and conceptual discourse of Eve, with a focus on several pivotal issues that have not been looked at in previous scholarship. She offers a nuanced analysis of the GLAE's multifaceted and at times contradictory portrayals of Eve and, by extension, women. She also situates these depictions in the hybrid Greco-Roman cultural world in which they emerged, and discusses the extent to which they both reflect and construct contemporaneous overlapping and competing concepts and norms regarding Eve/women's standing, role, authority, and realms of experiences. Finally, Arbel examines how the GLAE's representations of Eve/women resonate with later Jewish and Christian traditions, which often characterize the figure of Eve in accordance with views that are embedded in the GLAE, rather than in Genesis.