Download or read book Markell von Ankyra Die Fragmente Der Brief an Julius von Rom written by Markus Vinzent and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marcellus of Ancyra (ca. 285/290 - ca. 374) was one of the prominent bishops who fought against the Eusebians at the council of Nicaea. After this council, he was the first to attack them, and especially Asterius of Cappadocia. Only fragments of his work were preserved. These fragments, together with a letter which he wrote in 341 to Julius of Rome, the only undisputed works of Marcellus, are collected in this volume. The book opens with an introduction, contains the edition with German translation, notes and indices. In contrast to the former editions of Marcellus' works, this edition follows substantially the new order of the fragments established by K. Seibt (1994). As a result, Marcellus' fragments give an idea of how his work was originally structured.

Download or read book Anonymi Monophysitae Theosophia written by Pier Franco Beatrice and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theosophy, written by an anonymous Monophysite theologian in the early years of the sixth century CE, is a work in four books with a final world chronicle. Heir to a long apologetic tradition, it aims at demonstrating that there is a basic harmony between Christian faith and pagan theology. For this reason its author quotes at length numerous pagan prophecies of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. This volume proposes the first comprehensive critical edition of all the extant fragments of this work, in an attempt to reconstruct the general framework and to understand the inner logic of its composition. Thanks to this edition, which is bound to become the starting point for any future investigation, the Theosophy has now been put in circulation and made available for further research.

Download or read book Ignatius adversus Valentinianos written by Thomas Lechner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses the authenticity of the seven letters, handed down under the name of Ignatius of Antioch, and explores the wider theological context at the time of their composition. The author first examines the chronological foundations of current scholarly consensus, which on the whole favours an early second-century date for the composition of these letters, during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117). On the basis of his findings the author next addresses the question raised by the title of the volume: do some of the polemic passages in these letters specifically attack Valentinian gnosis? After a detailed discussion of chapters 16-20 of the Letter to the Ephesians it is shown that the Ignatian Star Hymn (Eph. 19) should be seen as a parody of Valentinian myth. The volume concludes with a study of the Regula fidei (Eph. 18,2).

Download or read book The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order written by Revd Allen Brent and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies have re-assessed Emperor worship as a genuinely religious response to the metaphysics of social order. Brent argues that Augustus' revolution represented a genuinely religious reformation of Republican religion that had failed in its metaphysical objectives. Against this backcloth, Luke, John the Seer, Clement, Ignatius and the Apologists refashioned Christian theology as an alternative answer to that metaphysical failure. Callistus and Pseudo-Hippolytus gave different responses to Severan images of imperial power. The early, Monarchian theology of the Trinity was thus to become a reflection of imperial culture and its justification that was later to be articulated both in Neo-Platonism, and in Cyprian's view of episcopal Order. Contra-cultural theory is employed as a sociological model to examine the interaction between developing Pagan and Christian social order.

Download or read book Apelles und Hermogenes written by Katharina Greschat and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with the intellectual and social context of two Christian teachers living in the second half of the second century. It presents a coherent reconstruction and interpretation of their teaching, often considered to be marginal within the development of early Christian doctrine. The first part of the book seeks to understand the Marcionite Apelles as a cultured person, who shaped his understanding of Christian doctrine in the context of the philosophical background and in permanent discussion with other Christian schools. In this respect Apelles coincides with the Christian Platonist Hermogenes. His opinions are described in the second part of the book. The author points out that teachers like Apelles and Hermogenes had to answer the questions of the educated in order to defend and to define their understanding of Christian faith.

Download or read book The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity written by J. den Boeft and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most conspicuous innovations of early Christianity within Greco-Roman culture is its reliance upon a collection of authoritative texts. The ultimate author of Scripture was thought to be God Himself, whose will could and should be sought and found in these holy writings. For this reason it is not surprising that very soon these texts not only became the object of careful attention and scholarly study, but also put their stamp on the various forms and manifestations of early Christian life, such as martyrdom, asceticism, liturgy, art, and literature. This multifarious influence of Scripture is the subject of The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity. It contains fourteen contributions, predominantly in English, by Belgian and Dutch scholars which have been gathered in a thematically ordered collection.

Download or read book Nicaea and its Legacy written by Lewis Ayres and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-10-29 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first part of Nicaea and its Legacy offers a narrative of the fourth-century trinitarian controversy. It does not assume that the controversy begins with Arius, but with tensions among existing theological strategies. Lewis Ayres argues that, just as we cannot speak of one `Arian' theology, so we cannot speak of one `Nicene' theology either, in 325 or in 381. The second part of the book offers an account of the theological practices and assumptions within which pro-Nicene theologians assumed their short formulae and creeds were to be understood. Ayres also argues that there is no fundamental division between eastern and western trinitarian theologies at the end of the fourth century. The last section of the book challenges modern post-Hegelian trinitarian theology to engage with Nicaea more deeply.

Download or read book Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical History written by Eusebius (of Caesarea, Bishop of Caesarea) and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first English translation of the last two theological works of Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology. The first text was composed after the deposition of Marcellus of Ancyra in 336 to justify the action of the council fathers in ordering the deposition on the grounds of heresy, contending that Marcellus was “Sabellian” (or modalist) on the Trinity and a follower of Paul of Samosata (hence adoptionist) in Christology. Relying heavily upon extensive quotations from a treatise Marcellus wrote against Asterius the Sophist, this text provides important information about ecclesiastical politics in the period before and just after the Council of Nicea, and endeavors to demonstrate Marcellus’s erroneous interpretation of several key biblical passages that had been under discussion since before the council. In doing so, Eusebius criticizes Marcellus’s inadequate account of the distinction between the persons of the Trinity, eschatology, and the Church’s teaching about the divine and human identities of Christ. On Ecclesiastical Theology, composed circa 338/339 just before Eusebius’s death, and perhaps in response to the amnesty for deposed bishops enacted by Constantius after the death of Constantine in 377 and the possibility of Marcellus’s return to his see, continues to lay out the criticisms initially put forward in Against Marcellus, again utilizing quotations from Marcellus’s book against Asterius. However, we see in this text a much more systematic explanation of Eusebius’s objections to the various elements of Marcellus’s theology and what he sees as the proper orthodox articulation of those elements. Long overlooked for statements at odds with later orthodoxy, even written off as heretical because allegedly “semi-Arian,” recent scholarship has demonstrated the tremendous influence these texts had on the Greek theological tradition in the fourth century, especially on the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. In addition to their influence, they are some of the few complete texts that we have from Greek theologians in the immediate period following the Council of Nicea in 325, thus filling a gap in the materials available for research and teaching in this critical phase of theological development.

Download or read book Evil Freedom and the Road to Perfection in Clement of Alexandria written by Peter Karavites and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study deals with Clement of Alexandria's interpretation of evil and free will in the context of the rising Christianity, the influence of Near Eastern and Greek thought on him, his differences from St. Augustine, and how his interpretation affected the rise of the Eastern Christian thought. The book also treats briefly the subject of man's personal aim in life perceived by Clement as the supersession of his nature. Failure to realize this personal aim in life leads to alienation from God, and death. The moral dilemma of Clement's interpretation of evil as failure of life's aim is not a conventional explanation of good and evil but something much more: the option between real life and death. Consequently, Clement's idea of evil refers to existential problems and ontological realities.

Download or read book The Lamb s High Feast written by A. Stewart-Sykes and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this work is to determine the place of Melito's Peri Pascha in the paschal liturgy of the Quartodecimans at Sardis. Its conclusion is that Peri Pascha constitutes the two parts of the Quartodeciman liturgy. The first part of the work is a liturgical homily on Exodus 12 which was delivered on the eve of Pascha, and the second half is the text of a commemorative ritual which constituted the celebration of Pascha itself. This conclusion is based on a formal examination of the text in the contexts of Graeco-Roman rhetoric and of Jewish and Christian paschal liturgy and theology. This is the first full-length study of Peri Pascha to be published, and the first extensive study of the Quartodecimans since 1953.

Download or read book Gregory of Nyssa Homilies on the Beatitudes written by Hubertus Drobner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These proceedings present the first English translation of Gregory's Homilies on the Beatitudes by Stuart Hall, accompanied by a thorough commentary by Anthony Meredith, Andreas Spira, Françoise Vinel, Lucas Mateo-Seco, Thomas Böhm, Karl-Heinz Uthemann, Claudio Moreschini, and Robert Wilken. Eight more contributions by Monique Alexandre, Peter Bruns, Judith Kovacs, Salvatore Lilla, Friedhelm Mann, Alden Mosshammer, Elias Moutsoulas, and Lucian Turcescu focus on further general and particular topics of the homilies as their eschatology, the meaning of the word makarios in all of Gregory's works, the notion of justice, and Gregory's Theology of Adoption, as well as their relationship to Syriac theology, Clement of Alexandria, Neoplatonism, and Gregory's Homilies on the Song of Songs. The third and fourth part add ten studies reflecting the present overall state of Gregorian research.

Download or read book Die Eucharistie ist Jesus written by Herbert Schmid and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-09-30 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the concept of salvation through knowledge in Valentinian Gnosis, which is basically anti-materialist, one would not expect concrete physical rituals to play a large role in its practice. The Nag Hammadi Gospel of Philip is widely recognized as a Valentinian text, yet it contains portions of a treatise on the value of baptism, anointing, and the eucharist. The text, which arguably comes from the end of the second century, presents the first developed theory and justification of these sacraments in Early Christianity. The present study reconstructs this theory from the fragmentary text and considers its consequences for the organization of the community. Thus, the book is also an attempt to address the problem of institutionalization in early Christian communities.

Download or read book Christology and Scripture written by Andrew Lincoln and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2008-03-20 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Christology and Scripture leading biblical scholars and theologians explore the relation of theological thought to the reading of Scripture. The focus is on three inter-related issues. The first is how theologians appropriately read Scripture around Christ, and what contribution, if any, historical-criticism makes to this endeavour. The second is that of the person and work of Christ in relation to Scripture. In interaction with specific texts, contributors engage with the related questions of who Christ is and how his benefits are communicated. This leads on to the final issue of responsiveness to our current context of reading, and contributors reflect on how Christological models relate to contemporary cultural and political concerns.

Download or read book Against Eunomius written by St. Basil of Caesarea and published by Catholic University of America Press. This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basil of Caesarea is considered one of the architects of the Pro-Nicene Trinitarian doctrine adopted at the Council of Constantinople in 381, which eastern and western Christians to this day profess as ""orthodox."" Nowhere is his Trinitarian theology more clearly expressed than in his first major doctrinal work, Against Eunomius, finished in 364 or 365 CE. Responding to Eunomius, whose Apology gave renewed impetus to a tradition of starkly subordinationist Trinitarian theology that would survive for decades, Basil's Against Eunomius reflects the intense controversy raging at that time among Christians across the Mediterranean world over who God is. In this treatise, Basil attempts to articulate a theology both of God's unitary essence and of the distinctive features that characterize the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--a distinction that some hail as the cornerstone of ""Cappadocian"" theology. In Against Eunomius, we see the clash not simply of two dogmatic positions on the doctrine of the Trinity, but of two fundamentally opposed theological methods. Basil's treatise is as much about how theology ought to be done and what human beings can and cannot know about God as it is about the exposition of Trinitarian doctrine. Thus Against Eunomius marks a turning point in the Trinitarian debates of the fourth century, for the first time addressing the methodological and epistemological differences that gave rise to theological differences. Amidst the polemical vitriol of Against Eunomius is a call to epistemological humility on the part of the theologian, a call to recognize the limitations of even the best theology. While Basil refined his theology through the course of his career, Against Eunomius remains a testament to his early theological development and a privileged window into the Trinitarian controversies of the mid-fourth century.

Download or read book Augustine s Confessions written by Annemaré Kotzé and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2004-08-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the communicative purpose and the audience of the Confessions. It illuminates the degree to which the communicative purpose of the work is to convert its readers, i.e. a protreptic purpose, and the degree to which the target audience may be identified as Augustine's potential Manichaean readers. A brief survey of possible literary antecedents points to the existence of other works that consist of the same combination of an autobiographical section (a conversion story) with a polemical and exegetical section (an argument that aims to convince the reader of the merits of a specific point of view) that characterizes the Confessions. The book provides a new perspective on the meaning and structure of Augustine's often misunderstood masterpiece.

Download or read book Angelomorphic Pneumatology written by Bogdan Gabriel Bucur and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the occurrence of angelic imagery in early Christian discourse about the Holy Spirit. Taking as its entry-point Clement of Alexandria s less explored writings, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, and Adumbrationes, it shows that Clement s angelomorphic pneumatology occurs in tandem with spirit christology, within a theological framework still characterized by a binitarian orientation. This complex theological articulation, supported by the exegesis of specific biblical passages (Zech 4: 10; Isa 11: 2-3; Matt 18:10), reworks Jewish and Christian traditions about the seven first-created angels, and constitutes a relatively widespread phenomenon in early Christianity. Evidence to support this claim is presented in the course of separate studies of Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Aphrahat.

Download or read book The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria written by Hans Van Loon and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The formula one incarnate nature of the Word of God has often been depicted as a summary of Cyril of Alexandria s (ca 378-444) christology. But no systematic study into his christological works has been published. Besides, there is no consensus regarding the meaning of the key terms and expressions in these works. This book addresses this deficiency by an integral investigation of the archbishop s christological writings during the first two years of the Nestorian controversy, and comes to the conclusion that his christology is basically dyophysite. This re-appraisal of his christology bears on the understanding of the Council of Chalcedon and on contemporary ecumenical relations, especially those between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox.