In a vigorous historical analysis, Meeks (Biblical Studies/Yale;
The First Urban Christians, 1983) offers new perspectives on the
early clays of Christian morality. Conventionally, Christian morals
are understood as a set of principles to which each believer must
adhere, or at least struggle toward, in the depths of his or her
conscience. But Meeks redefines morality in the first Christian
centuries as a communal activity in which members of the new faith
adopted not only a creed but a way of life with its own
revolutionary language, customs, and stories. To be a Christian was
to undergo a thorough conversion of moral and social dimensions - a
transformation in which a new kind of human being was forged. This
conversion, Meeks shows, produced an ambiguous relationship toward
the world at large, ranging from gnostic rejection by Valentinus to
ambiguity on the part of St. Paul and his followers. To help
converts, moral directives were promulgated in the form of maxims,
rules of thumb ("gnomes"), teaching tales, letters, testaments, and
lists of virtues and vices. A new "grammar" was developed through
rituals like baptism and the Eucharist, as well as through the
practice of almsgiving and hospitality. Evil became personified in
Satan and his demons; a hierarchy of fallen creatures warred with
God's ministers for human souls. Complex views of the body evolved,
leading to a "democratized asceticism." Perhaps the most dramatic
innovation was the struggle "to do God's will," often through
suffering - a radical surrender that lay at the heart of Christian
morality. Learned and lucid: an important piece of sociohistorical
research. (Kirkus Reviews)
By the time Christianity became a political and cultural force in
the Roman Empire, it had come to embody a new moral vision. This
wise and eloquent book describes the formative years-from the
crucifixion of Jesus to the end of the second century of the common
era-when Christian beliefs and practices shaped their unique moral
order. Wayne A. Meeks examines the surviving documents from
Christianity's beginnings (some of which became the New Testament)
and shows that they are largely concerned with the way converts to
the movement should behave. Meeks finds that for these Christians,
the formation of morals means the formation of community; the
documents are addressed not to individuals but to groups, and they
have among their primary aims the maintenance and growth of these
groups. Meeks paints a picture of the process of socialization that
produced the early forms of Christian morality, discussing many
factors that made the Christians feel that they were a single and
"chosen" people. He describes, for example, the impact of
conversion; the rapid spread of Christian household
cult-associations in the cities of the Roman Empire; the language
of Christian moral discourse as revealed in letters, testaments,
and "moral stories"; the rituals, meetings, and
institutionalization of charity; the Christians' feelings about
celibacy, sex, and gender roles; and their sense of the end-time
and final judgment. In each of these areas Meeks seeks to determine
what is distinctive about the Christian viewpoint and what is
similar to the moral components of Greco-Roman or Jewish thought.
General
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