Jesus as Philosopher: The Philosophical Sage in the Synoptic Gospels examines the possible ways in which the authors of the Synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, were inspired by contemporary philosophical traditions about the ideal philosophical sage in their description of their ideal human being, Jesus Christ. Runar M. Thorsteinsson considers the following questions: How does the author in question speak of Jesus in relation to contemporary philosophy? Do we see Jesus take on a certain 'philosophical' role in the Gospels, either by his statements and reasoning or his way of life? In what way are Jesus' words and actions analogous to that of leading philosophical figures in Graeco-Roman antiquity, according to these texts? Conversely, in what way do his words and actions differ from theirs? While Thorsteinsson discusses a number of Graeco-Roman sources, the emphasis is on the question of how these parallel texts help us better to understand the Gospel authors' perception and presentation of the character of Jesus. While the fields of theology and ethics are often intertwined in these texts, including the philosophical texts, Thorsteinsson's main focus is the ethical aspect. He argues that the Gospel authors drew in some ways on classical virtue ethics. The study concludes that the Gospel authors inherited stories and sayings of Jesus that they wanted to improve upon and recount as truthfully as possible, and they did so in part by making use of philosophical traditions about the ideal sage, especially that of Stoicism and Cynicism.

By the late second century, early Christian gospels had been divided into two groups by a canonical boundary that assigned normative status to four of them while consigning their competitors to the margins. Connecting Gospels: Beyond the Canonical/Non-canonical Divide finds new ways to reconnect these divided texts. Starting from the assumption that, in spite of their differences, all early gospels express a common belief in the absolute significance of Jesus and his earthly career, this authoritative collection makes their interconnectedness fruitful for interpretation. The contributors have each selected a theme or topic and trace it across two or more gospels on either side of the canonical boundary, and the resulting convergences and divergences shed light not least on the canonical texts themselves as they are read from new and unfamiliar vantage points. This volume demonstrates that early gospel literature can be regarded as a single field of study, in contrast to the overwhelming predominance of the canonical four characteristic of traditional gospels scholarship.

Christianity and monasticism have long flourished in the northern part of Upper Egypt and in the Nile Delta, from Beni Suef to the Mediterranean coast. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in northern Egypt over the past two millennia. The studies explore Coptic art and archaeology, architecture, language, and literature. The artistic heritage of monastic sites in the region is highlighted, attesting to their important legacies.

In this fully revised and updated second edition of his accessible account of systematic Christology, Gerald O'Collins continues to challenge the contemporary publishing trend for sensationalist books on Jesus that are supported neither by the New Testament witness nor by mainline Christian beliefs.
This book critically examines the best biblical and historical scholarship before tackling head-on some of the key questions of systematic Christology: does orthodox faith present Jesus the man as deficient and depersonalized? Is his sinlessness compatible with the exercise of a free human will? Does up-to-date exegesis challenge his virginal conception and personal resurrection? Can one reconcile Jesus' role as universal Saviour with the truth and values to be found in other religions? What should the feminist movement highlight in presenting Jesus? This integral Christology is built around the resurrection of the crucified Jesus, highlights love as the key to redemption, and proposes a synthesis of the divine presence through Jesus. Clear, balanced, and accessible, this book should be valued by any student reading systematic theology, anyone training for the ministry in all denominations, as well as interested general readers.

The Cross was present at the Eucharist in early Christianity as an idea, a gesture, and an object. Over time, these different actualizations of the quintessential symbol of Christianity have generated important questions about their meaning and function, among them: is the Eucharist a meal and/or a sacrifice? Can the sign of the Cross illuminate the absence of a Roman epiclesis? Is it pertinent -historically and theologically - to use an altar Cross? In this study, Daniel Cardo explores the relation between the Cross and the Eucharist. Offering a thorough and fresh reading of patristic and Roman liturgical texts, he identifies their emphases and common themes on the Cross and the Eucharist, and demonstrates their significance for the liturgical debates of recent decades.

First published in 1988, Peter Brown's "The Body and Society" was a groundbreaking study of the marriage and sexual practices of early Christians in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Brown focuses on the practice of permanent sexual renunciation-continence, celibacy, and lifelong virginity-in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries A.D. and traces early Christians' preoccupations with sexuality and the body in the work of the period's great writers.

"The Body and Society" questions how theological views on sexuality and the human body both mirrored and shaped relationships between men and women, Roman aristocracy and slaves, and the married and the celibate. Brown discusses Tertullian, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Constantine, the Desert Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, among others, and considers asceticism and society in the Eastern Empire, martyrdom and prophecy, gnostic spiritual guidance, promiscuity among the men and women of the church, monks and marriage in Egypt, the ascetic life of women in fourth-century Jerusalem, and the body and society in the early Middle Ages. In his new introduction, Brown reflects on his work's reception in the scholarly community.

The remarkable diversity of Christianity during the formative years before the Council of Nicea has become a plain, even natural, "fact" for most ancient historians. Until After the New Testament, however, there had never been a sourcebook of primary texts that revealed the many varieties of Christian beliefs, practices, ethics, experiences, confrontations, and self-understandings. To help readers recognize and experience the rich diversity of the early Christian movement, After the New Testament, Second Edition, provides a wide range of texts from the second and third centuries, both "orthodox" and "heterodox," including such works as the Apostolic Fathers, the writings of Nag Hammadi, early pseudepigrapha, martyrologies, anti-Jewish tractates, heresiologies, canon lists, church orders, liturgical texts, and theological treatises. Rather than providing only fragments of texts, this collection prints large excerpts-entire documents wherever possible-organized under social and historical rubrics. This unique reader's concise and informative introductions and clear and up-to-date English translations make it ideal for courses on Early Christianity, Christian Origins, or Early Church History. It will also appeal to anyone-student, scholar, and general reader alike-interested in the entire range of early Christian literature from the period after the New Testament up to the writings of the so-called father of church history, Eusebius. The Second Edition includes new and updated translations as well as considerable additions to the roster of sources, including excerpts from the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Judas, and the correspondence between Jesus and Abgar. The book also includes two brand-new rubrics of texts, one focusing on the method and practice of interpreting scripture, and the other focusing on women and gender in early Christianity.

The philosopher Philo was born about 20 BCE to a prominent Jewish family in Alexandria, the chief home of the Jewish Diaspora as well as the chief center of Hellenistic culture; he was trained in Greek as well as Jewish learning. In attempting to reconcile biblical teachings with Greek philosophy he developed ideas that had wide influence on Christian and Jewish religious thought.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the works of Philo is in ten volumes and two supplements, distributed as follows. Volume I: Creation; Interpretation of Genesis II and III. II: On the Cherubim; The Sacrifices of Abel and Cain; The Worse Attacks the Better; The Posterity and Exile of Cain; On the Giants. III: The Unchangeableness of God; On Husbandry; Noah's Work as a Planter; On Drunkenness; On Sobriety. IV: The Confusion of Tongues; The Migration of Abraham; The Heir of Divine Things; On the Preliminary Studies. V: On Flight and Finding; Change of Names; On Dreams. VI: Abraham; Joseph; Moses. VII: The Decalogue; On Special Laws Books IIII. VIII: On Special Laws Book IV; On the Virtues; Rewards and Punishments. IX: Every Good Man Is Free; The Contemplative Life; The Eternity of the World; Against Flaccus; Apology for the Jews; On Providence. X: On the Embassy to Gaius; indexes. Supplement I: Questions on Genesis. II: Questions on Exodus; index to supplements.

Is it possible we don't see God working in mighty ways because we don't ask him to work in mighty ways? Throughout history, God has used revival to build and renew his church. God-Sized Vision challenges us to pray expectantly to see his work in our own day. God can bring revival again to our community, our country, and our world. Our faith grows stronger when we learn how God worked in the past. The historical stories of worldwide revivals in this book enlarge our hearts and expand our minds as we see God at work in human history with a power that is still available to the faithful today. Here scholars Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge recount the fascinating details of world-changing revivals, beginning with biblical events and continuing through the Reformation, the Great Awakenings, the Welsh and Korean revivals, the East Africa Revival of the 1930s, and more recent revivals in North America and China. What did these revivals have in common? How can we prepare for-and expect-revival in our own culture? With accessible language and gripping examples, Hansen and Woodbridge explore these questions and more, strengthening our understanding of God's work while deepening our faith in the possibility of revival-right where we are.

Paul McKechnie explores how Christianity grew and expanded in Roman Asia over the first three centuries of the religion. Focusing on key individuals, such as Aberkios (Avircius Marcellus) of Hierapolis, he assesses the pivotal role played by Early Christian preachers who, in imitation of Paul of Tarsus, attracted converts through charismatic preaching. By the early fourth century, they had brought many cities and rural communities to a tipping point at which they were ready to move under a 'Christian canopy' and push polytheistic Greco-Roman religion to the margins. This volume brings new clarity of our understanding of how the Christian church grew and thrived in Asia Minor, simultaneously changing Roman society and being changed by it. Combining patristic evidence with the archaeological and epigraphic record, McKechnie's study creates a strong factual and chronological framework to the study of Christianization, while bringing Church History and Roman history more closely together.

The Oxford Handbook of Christology brings together 40 authoritative essays considering the theological study of the nature and role of Jesus Christ. This collection offers dynamic perspectives within the study of Christology and provides rigorous discussion of inter-confessional theology, which would not have been possible even 60 years ago. The first of the seven parts considers Jesus Christ in the Bible. Rather than focusing solely on the New Testament, this section begins with discussion of the modes of God's self-communication to us and suggests that Christ's most original incarnation is in the language of the Hebrew Bible. The second section considers Patristics Christology. These essays explore the formation of the doctrines of the person of Christ and the atonement between the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the eve of the Second Council of Nicaea. The next section looks at Mediaeval theology and tackles the development of the understanding of who Christ was and of his atoning work. The section on 'Reformation and Christology' traces the path of the Reformation from Luther to Bultmann. The fifth section tackles the new developments in thinking about Christ which have emerged in the modern and the postmodern eras, and the sixth section explains how beliefs about Jesus have affected music, poetry, and the arts. The final part concludes by locating Christology within systematic theology, asking how it relates to Christian belief as a whole. This comprehensive volume provides an invaluable resource and reference for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the study of Christology.

Rarely did ancient authors write about the lives of women; even more rarely did they write about the lives of ordinary women: not queens or heroines who influenced war or politics, not sensational examples of virtue or vice, not Christian martyrs or ascetics, but women of moderate status, who experienced everyday joys and sorrows and had everyday merits and failings. Such a woman was Monica-now Saint Monica because of her relationship with her son Augustine, who wrote about her in the Confessions and elsewhere. Despite her rather unremarkable life, Saint Monica has inspired a robust controversy in academia, the Church, and the Augustine-reading public alike: some agree with Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who knew Monica, that Augustine was exceptionally blessed in having such a mother, while others think that Monica is a classic example of the manipulative mother who lives through her son, using religion to repress his sexual life and to control him even when he seems to escape. In Monica: An Ordinary Saint, Gillian Clark reconciles these competing images of Monica's life and legacy, arriving at a woman who was shrewd and enterprising, but also meek and gentle. Weighing Augustine's discussion of his mother against other evidence of women's lives in late antiquity, Clark achieves portraits both of Monica individually, and of the many women like her. Augustine did not claim that his mother was a saint, but he did think that the challenges of everyday life required courage and commitment to Christian principle. Monica's ordinary life, as both he and Clark tell it, showed both. Monica: An Ordinary Saint illuminates Monica, wife and mother, in the context of the societal expectations and burdens that shaped her and all ordinary women.

Christian monasticism emerged in the Egyptian deserts in the fourth century AD. This introduction explores its origins and subsequent development and what it aimed to achieve, including the obstacles that it encountered; for the most part making use of the monks' own words as they are preserved (in Greek) primarily in the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Mainly focussing on monastic settlements in the Nitrian Desert (especially at Scete), it asks how the monks prayed, ate, drank and slept, as well as how they discharged their obligations both to earn their own living by handiwork and to exercise hospitality. It also discusses the monks' degree of literacy, as well as women in the desert and Pachomius and his monasteries in Upper Egypt. Written in straightforward language, the book is accessible to all students and scholars, and anyone with a general interest in this important and fascinating phenomenon.

How did second-century Christians vie with each other in seeking to produce an authoritative discourse of Christian identity? In this innovative book, Denise Buell argues that many early Christians deployed the metaphors of procreation and kinship in the struggle over claims to represent the truth of Christian interpretation, practice, and doctrine. In particular, she examines the intriguing works of the influential theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-210 c.e.), for whom cultural assumptions about procreation and kinship played an important role in defining which Christians have the proper authority to teach, and which kinds of knowledge are authentic.

Buell argues that metaphors of procreation and kinship can serve to make power differentials appear natural. She shows that early Christian authors recognized this and often turned to such metaphors to mark their own positions as legitimate and marginalize others as false. Attention to the functions of this language offers a way out of the trap of reconstructing the development of early Christianity along the axes of "heresy" and "orthodoxy," while not denying that early Christians employed this binary. Ultimately, Buell argues, strategic use of kinship language encouraged conformity over diversity and had a long lasting effect both on Christian thought and on the historiography of early Christianity.

Aperceptive and closely argued contribution to early Christian studies, "Making Christians" also branches out to the areas of kinship studies and the social construction of gender.

In our age of ecological crisis, what insights-if any-can we expect to find by looking to our past? Perhaps, suggests Virginia Burrus, early Christianity might yield usable insights. Turning aside from the familiar specter of Christianity's human-centered theology of dominion, Burrus directs our attention to aspects of ancient Christian thought and practice that remain strange and alien. Drawn to excess and transgression, in search of transformation, early Christians creatively reimagined the universe and the human, cultivating relationships with a wide range of other beings-animal, vegetable, and mineral; angelic and demonic; divine and earthly; large and small. In Ancient Christian Ecopoetics, Burrus facilitates a provocative encounter between early Christian theology and contemporary ecological thought. In the first section, she explores how the mysterious figure of khora, drawn from Plato's Timaeus, haunts Christian and Jewish accounts of a creation envisioned as varyingly monstrous, unstable, and unknowable. In the second section, she explores how hagiographical literature queers notions of nature and places the very category of the human into question, in part by foregrounding the saint's animality, in part by writing the saint into the landscape. The third section considers material objects, as small as portable relics and icons, as large as church and monastery complexes. Ancient Christians considered all of these animate beings, simultaneously powerful and vulnerable, protective and in need of protection, lovable and loving. Viewed through the shifting lenses of an ancient ecopoetics, Burrus demonstrates how humans both loomed large and shrank to invisibility, absorbed in the rapture of a strange and animate ecology.

In 2011, Frances Young delivered the Bampton Lectures in Oxford to great acclaim. She offered a systematic theology with contemporary coherence, by engaging in conversation with the fathers of the church - those who laid down the parameters of Christian theology and enshrined key concepts in the creeds - and exploring how their teachings can be applied today, despite the differences in our intellectual and ecclesial environments. This book results from a thorough rewriting of those lectures in which Young explores the key topics of Christian doctrine in a way that is neither simply dogmatic nor simply historical. She addresses the congruence of head and heart, through academic and spiritual engagement with God's gracious accommodation to human limitations. Christianity and biblical interpretation are discussed in depth, and the book covers key topics including Creation, anthropology, Christology, soteriology, spirituality, ecclesiology and Mariology, making it invaluable to those studying historical and constructive theology.

The Bible took shape over the course of centuries, and today Christian groups continue to disagree over details of its contents. The differences among these groups typically involve the Old Testament, as they mostly accept the same 27-book New Testament. An essential avenue for understanding the development of the Bible are the many early lists of canonical books drawn up by Christians and, occasionally, Jews. Despite the importance of these early lists of books, they have remained relatively inaccessible. This comprehensive volume redresses this unfortunate situation by presenting the early Christian canon lists all together in a single volume. The canon lists, in most cases, unambiguously report what the compilers of the lists considered to belong to the biblical canon. For this reason they bear an undeniable importance in the history of the Bible. The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity provides an accessible presentation of these early canon lists. With a focus on the first four centuries, the volume supplies the full text of the canon lists in English translation alongside the original text, usually Greek or Latin, occasionally Hebrew or Syriac. Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade orient readers to each list with brief introductions and helpful notes, and they point readers to the most significant scholarly discussions. The book begins with a substantial overview of the history of the biblical canon, and an entire chapter is devoted to the evidence of biblical manuscripts from the first millennium. This authoritative work is an indispensable guide for students and scholars of biblical studies and church history.

What terms would early Christians have used to address one another? In the first book-length study on this topic, Paul Trebilco investigates the origin, use and function of seven key self-designations: 'brothers and sisters', 'believers', 'saints', 'the assembly', 'disciples', 'the Way', and 'Christian'. In doing so, he discovers what they reveal about the identity, self-understanding and character of the early Christian movement. This study sheds light on the theology of particular New Testament authors and on the relationship of early Christian authors and communities to the Old Testament and to the wider context of the Greco-Roman world. Trebilco's writing is informed by other work in the area of sociolinguistics on the development of self-designations and labels and provides a fascinating insight into this often neglected topic.

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

The translated works in this volume have been dated variously either to the beginning or to the final decade of Augustine's career as Bishop of Hippo. De agone Christiano, a treatise on the challenges of the Christian life in simple Latin for unschooled believers, was composed in the late 390s, as was more than half of the De doctrina Christiana. The latter work, which was finally completed near the end of Augustine's life, includes his views on the canon of Scripture, the proper approach to biblical exegesis, and how to preach effectively, as well as his famous distinction between "use" and "enjoyment." Later works included in this volume are the Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate, which is a compendium of Augustine's doctrines, and the anti-Pelagian work De correptione et gratia. The latter asserts the necessity of divine grace while affirming the benefit of firm human guidance, including rebuke, in monastic formation.

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

Volume XXXI contains the editio princeps of the first group of Aramaic texts (4Q529-549) from Cave 4 which were originally assigned to Père Jean Starcky. They are primarily parabiblical and pseudepigraphical compositions reflecting the interest in biblical themes characteristic of Second Temple Judaism. The commentary is in French.

A comprehensive guide to the individual churches, catacombs, embellishments and artefacts of Early Christian Rome. The author describes precisely where the extant features are situated and provides details on what can be seen. The ground plans of each site studies allows the reader to compare the proportions of each church with another From the 1st-century visits of the Apostles Peter and Paul to the end of the 9th-century Carolingian Renaissance, the book also includes dates of emperors and popes, and important historical events relating to this period in Rome. A historical introduction places the monuments in the context of the Early Christian period and its development in Rome.

Since the 1830s, Holiness and Pentecostal movements have had a significant influence on many Christian churches, and they have been a central force in producing what is known today as World Christianity. This book demonstrates the advantages of analyzing them in relation to one another. The Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Methodist Church identify strongly with the Holiness Movement. The Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World identify just as strongly with the Pentecostal Movement. Complicating matters, denominations such as the Church of God (Cleveland), the International Holiness Pentecostal Church, and the Church of God in Christ have harmonized Holiness and Pentecostalism. This book, the first in the new series Studies in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements, examines these complex relationships in a multidisciplinary fashion. Building on previous scholarship, the contributors provide new ways of understanding the relationships, influences, and circulation of ideas among these movements in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Southeast and East Asia. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Kimberly Ervin Alexander, Insik Choi, Robert A. Danielson, Chris E. W. Green, Henry H. Knight III, Frank D. Macchia, Luther Oconer, Cheryl J. Sanders, and Daniel Woods.

As she examines the many misconceptions about the "Middle Ages", the renown French historian, Regine Pernoud, gives the reader a refreshingly original perspective on many subjects, both historical (from the Inquisition and witchcraft trials to a comparison of Gothic and Renaissance creative inspiration) as well as eminently modern (from law and the place of women in society to the importance of history and tradition). Here are fascinating insights, based on Pernoud's sound knowledge and extensive experience as an archivist at the French National Archives. The book will be provocative for the general readers as well as a helpful resource for teachers.

Scorned for centuries, although lauded by the Romantics, these thousand years of history have most often been concealed behind the dark clouds of ignorance: Why, didn't godiche (clumsy, oafish) come from gothique (Gothic)? Doesn't "fuedal" refer to the most hopeless obscurantism? Isn't "Medieval" applied to dust-covered, outmoded things?

Here the old varnish is stripped away and a thousand years of history finally emerge -- the "Middle Ages" are dead, long live the Middle Ages!