Download or read book Constantine written by Paul Stephenson and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “knowledgeable account” of the emperor who brought Christianity to Rome “provides valuable insight into Constantine’s era” (Kirkus Reviews). “By this sign conquer.” So began the reign of Constantine. In 312 A.D. a cross appeared in the sky above his army as he marched on Rome. In answer, Constantine bade his soldiers to inscribe the cross on their shield, and so fortified, they drove their rivals into the Tiber and claimed Rome for themselves. Constantine led Christianity and its adherents out of the shadow of persecution. He united the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire, raising a new city center in the east. When barbarian hordes consumed Rome itself, Constantinople remained as a beacon of Roman Christianity. Constantine is a fascinating survey of the life and enduring legacy of perhaps the greatest and most unjustly ignored of the Roman emperors—written by a richly gifted historian. Paul Stephenson offers a nuanced and deeply satisfying account of a man whose cultural and spiritual renewal of the Roman Empire gave birth to the idea of a unified Christian Europe underpinned by a commitment to religious tolerance. “Successfully combines historical documents, examples of Roman art, sculpture, and coinage with the lessons of geopolitics to produce a complex biography of the Emperor Constantine.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Introduction to the Spiritual Life written by Brant Pitre and published by Image. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling exploration of the biblical foundations, contemplative practices, and spiritual path of Jesus himself—from the bestselling author of The Case for Jesus “What happens when a biblical theologian explores classic spirituality? This book. Pitre’s students have asked, Why have we never heard this before? The reader wonders the same.”—Dr. David Fagerberg, author of Liturgical Mysticism The path of following Jesus is an ancient and storied spiritual tradition. Yet many believers are not familiar with the three major forms of prayer and the three stages of spiritual growth that exist to bring them closer to God. In his most personal book yet, Brant Pitre, PhD, draws on the riches of the Bible, the words of Jesus, and the writings of mystics across the centuries to shed light on the mystery—and wonder—of the spiritual life. Starting with the age-old belief that the path of prayer is not only informative but transformative, Dr. Pitre explores • the scriptural roots of the major forms of prayer: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplation • the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of spiritual growth • the spiritual exercises of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving • the Jewish roots of the Lord’s Prayer • Lectio Divina: how to pray with the Bible • seven vices and their seven opposing virtues • the battle of prayer: how to deal with difficulty and distractions • the “dark night of the soul” in the Scriptures Full of sacred truths, contemplative insights, and practical steps, Introduction to the Spiritual Life is a biblical road map of the spiritual landscape that enables us to follow Jesus as our primary guide.

Download or read book Creating Christ written by James S. Valliant and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2016-09-07 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exhaustively annotated and illustrated, this explosive work of history unearths clues that finally demonstrate the truth about one of the world’s great religions: that it was born out of the conflict between the Romans and messianic Jews who fought a bitter war with each other during the 1st Century. The Romans employed a tactic they routinely used to conquer and absorb other nations: they grafted their imperial rule onto the religion of the conquered. After 30 years of research, authors James S. Valliant and C.W. Fahy present irrefutable archeological and textual evidence that proves Christianity was created by Roman Caesars in this book that breaks new ground in Christian scholarship and is destined to change the way the world looks at ancient religions forever. Inherited from a long-past era of tyranny, war and deliberate religious fraud, could Christianity have been created for an entirely different purpose than we have been lead to believe? Praised by scholars like Dead Sea Scrolls translator Robert Eisenman (James the Brother of Jesus), this exhaustive synthesis of historical detective work integrates all of the ancient sources about the earliest Christians and reveals new archeological evidence for the first time. And, despite the fable presented in current bestsellers like Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus, the evidence presented in Creating Christ is irrefutable: Christianity was invented by Roman Emperors. I have rarely encountered a book so original, exciting, accessible and informed on subjects that are of obvious importance to the world and to which I have myself devoted such a large part of my scholarly career studying. In this book they have rendered a startling new understanding of Christianity with a controversial theory of its Roman provenance that is accessible to the layman in a very powerful way. In the process, they present new and comprehensive archeological and iconographic evidence, as well as utilizing the widest and most cutting edge work of other recent scholars, including myself. This is a work of outstanding and original scholarship. Its arguments are a brilliant, profound and thorough integration of the relevant evidence. When they are done, the conclusion is inescapable and obviously profound. Robert Eisenman, Author of James the Brother of Jesus and The New Testament Code "A fascinating and provocative investigative history of ideas, boldly exploring a problem that previous scholarship has not clearly or credibly addressed: how (and why!) the Flavian dynasty wove Christianity into the very fabric of Western civilization." -Mark Riebling, author of Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler

Download or read book Constantine Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age written by Jonathan Bardill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. The book explores the emperor's image as conveyed through literature, art, and architecture, and shows how Constantine reconciled the tradition of imperial divinity with his monotheistic faith. It demonstrates how the traditional themes and imagery of kingship were exploited to portray the emperor as the saviour of his people and to assimilate him to Christ. This is the first book to study simultaneously both archaeological and historical information to build a picture of the emperor's image and propaganda. It is extensively illustrated" --Provided by publisher.

Download or read book On the Person of Christ written by Justinian I (Emperor of the East) and published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the opening of the sixth century, large segments of the Roman Empire had fallen to barbarian warlords. The Churches of Rome and Constantinople were locked in a schism rooted in different attitudes towards the decrees and definitions of the Fourth Ecumenical council held at Chalcedon in 451. The emperor Justinian (527-565) dreamed of reunifying and restoring the Empire; but to accomplish this he needed a unified Church. Before Justinian ascended the throne the schism between Rome and Constantinople had been healed, largely due to Justinian's influence, but a significant segment of the Eastern population (dubbed monophysites) would not accept the union and the imperial church remained divided.

Download or read book Christ and the Emperor written by Gilbert van Belle and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the proceedings of an international symposium held at Leuven University on November 30 - December 2, 2011. The contributors are I. Dunderberg, J. Frey, S. Freyne, P. Herz, N. Huttunen, J.S. Kloppenborg, D.-A. Koch, M. Labahn, A. Lindemann, T. Nicklas, C.M. Tuckett, S. Witetschek, and T. Witulski. They deal with various aspects of this fascinating topic that has received much attention in recent years. Among the topics addressed are: the influence of the emperor cult in the Galilee, the similarities and differences between the Roman emperor cult and the New Testament evidence, the concept of universalism as understood by Roman and Christian authors, the notion of the divine judge, the ritual of proskynesis, and methodological problems in dealing with the emperor cult and the New Testament evidence. Several essays deal with specific passages from the gospels - the Son of David title, the controversy on paying taxes, Jesus and the emperors as miracle workers, the notion of conquering and victory in John, and Roman characters in the Gospel of John (the basilikos, the centurion, Pilate).

Download or read book An Illustrated Life of Christ Presented to the Chinese Emperor written by Nicolas Standaert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renewed attention to visual culture is one of the recent developments in the study of cultural contacts between China and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The subject of this book is the illustrated Life of Christ presented to the Chinese emperor in 1640 by the Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell S.J. (1592-1666). The origin of the work is a small parchment booklet with coloured miniature paintings based on a wide variety of prints by well-known European engravers (e.g., H. Goltzius, J. Stradanus). It was compiled in Munich in 1617 and a Chinese version with the title Jincheng shuxiang was published in Beijing more than twenty years later in a nicely illustrated edition. "An Illustrated Life of Christ is a fascinating analysis of one of the earliest artistic encounters between Europe and China...Standaert has, once again, demonstrated his scholarly foresight, workmanship and authority." John T.P. Lai in Journal of the History of Christianity in Modern China This book is composed of two parts. Part I traces the complex history of production of Jincheng shuxiang, from its European origin to its Chinese reception. It also analyses the illustrations and the text. Part II contains the reproduction of the Chinese text and 48 illustrations, the reproduction of the identified original European prints and a translation of the Chinese text. It is hoped that the wider diffusion of this rare primary source, which is now reprinted for the first time since the seventeenth century, will further stimulate the study of visual culture in Sino-Western relations. The book will be of interest to a broad range of scholars, from art historians of China and Europe to scholars interested in print history, and theologians.

Download or read book Constantine the Emperor written by David Stone Potter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and vibrant new account of the extraordinary life of Constantine.

Download or read book The Son of God in the Roman World written by Michael Peppard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-18 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2013 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise Michael Peppard examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term ''son of God'' has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of ''begotten''and ''adoptive'' sonship. Peppard focuses on social practices and political ideology, revealing that scholarship on divine sonship has been especially hampered by mistaken assumptions about adopted sons. He invites fresh readings of several early Christian texts, from the first Gospel to writings of the fourth century. By re-interpreting several ancient phenomena - particularly divine status, adoption, and baptism - he offers an imaginative refiguring of the Son of God in the Roman world.

Download or read book The Last Pagan Emperor written by H. C. Teitler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flavius Claudius Julianus was the last pagan to sit on the Roman imperial throne (361-363). Born in Constantinople in 331 or 332, Julian was raised as a Christian, but apostatized, and during his short reign tried to revive paganism, which, after the conversion to Christianity of his uncle Constantine the Great early in the fourth century, began losing ground at an accelerating pace. Having become an orphan when he was still very young, Julian was taken care of by his cousin Constantius II, one of Constantine's sons, who permitted him to study rhetoric and philosophy and even made him co-emperor in 355. But the relations between Julian and Constantius were strained from the beginning, and it was only Constantius' sudden death in 361 which prevented an impending civil war. As sole emperor, Julian restored the worship of the traditional gods. He opened pagan temples again, reintroduced animal sacrifices, and propagated paganism through both the spoken and the written word. In his treatise Against the Galilaeans he sharply criticised the religion of the followers of Jesus whom he disparagingly called 'Galilaeans'. He put his words into action, and issued laws which were displeasing to Christians--the most notorious being his School Edict. This provoked the anger of the Christians, who reacted fiercely, and accused Julian of being a persecutor like his predecessors Nero, Decius, and Diocletian. Violent conflicts between pagans and Christians made themselves felt all over the empire. It is disputed whether or not Julian himself was behind such outbursts. Accusations against the Apostate continued to be uttered even after the emperor's early death. In this book, the feasibility of such charges is examined.

Download or read book Christ the Emperor written by Nathan Israel Smolin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman Empire of the fourth century AD, ruled by the Emperor Constantine the Great, was a society marked by social, religious, and political transformation as the empire came under the influence of the Christian Church. To understand how this period's emperors and bishops, among other political and social actors, thought about and enacted political theory, Nathan Israel Smolin turns to theological sources, revealing an age of profound political, social, and religious ferment, in which ideas and structures fundamental to the history of the following millennia were developed and contested--ideas that continue to shape our world today.

Download or read book Jesus Wars written by John Philip Jenkins and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-02-20 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fifth-Century Political Battles That Forever Changed the Church In this fascinating account of the surprisingly violent fifth-century church, PhilipJenkins describes how political maneuvers by a handful of powerful charactersshaped Christian doctrine. Were it not for these battles, today’s church could beteaching something very different about the nature of Jesus, and the papacy as weknow it would never have come into existence. Jesus Wars reveals the profoundimplications of what amounts to an accident of history: that one faction ofRoman emperors and militia-wielding bishops defeated another.

Download or read book The Emperor s Vision and Other Christ Legends written by Selma Lagerlöf and published by Turtleback. This book was released on 2003-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously published as Christ Legends and Other Stories, Lagerlvf's classic storytelling draws vividly on the colorful history and landscape of the Holy Land, from the time of Jesus to the Crusades. From the surly shepherd of Bethlehem to the war-hardened soldier at Herod's feast; from the unhappy suppliants in the Temple to the cruel Emperor Tiberius, the human drama and divine mystery of the events of Christ's life are woven together in visionary tales.

Download or read book The Art of Empire written by Lee M. Jefferson and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, art historians such as Johannes Deckers (Picturing the Bible, 2009) have argued for a significant transition in fourth- and fifth-century images of Jesus following the conversion of Constantine. Broadly speaking, they perceive the image of a peaceful, benevolent shepherd transformed into a powerful, enthroned Jesus, mimicking and mirroring the dominance and authority of the emperor. The powers of church and state are thus conveniently synthesized in such a potent image. This deeply rooted position assumes that ante-pacem images of Jesus were uniformly humble while post-Constantinian images exuded the grandeur of power and glory. The Art of Empire contends that the art and imagery of Late Antiquity merits a more nuanced understanding of the context of the imperial period before and after Constantine. The chapters in this collection each treat an aspect of the relationship between early Christian art and the rituals, practices, or imagery of the Empire, and offer a new and fresh perspective on the development of Christian art in its imperial background.

Download or read book Christ the Emperor written by Nathan Israel Smolin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This project focuses on the intersection of Roman Imperial politics and Christian theology in the 4th century AD. It contends that during this period, Christian theology became the principal realm in which political structure and theory were debated. Chapters 1-2 argue that the Emperor Constantine possessed a consistent theological viewpoint centered on the justification of his legitimacy in religious terms, as a charismatic "Man of God" appointed by a monarchical deity to supreme rule. This theology in later stages was developed in dialogue with that of Eusebius of Caesarea, also profiled in Chapter 2, which posited a chain of monarchical powers extending from heaven to Earth. Chapters 3-4 provides a narrative of the reign of Constantine's son Constantius II, whose interventions focused on the urgent need to repair the failing Constantinian Settlement and justify his rule against dynastic and episcopal rivals. The final two chapters focus on the development, by an alliance of bishops including Lucifer of Cagliari and Hilary of Poitiers, of a consensus "Nicene" political theology centered on the assertion of equality among divine and human persons and a theory of legitimacy whereby bishops, not Emperors, represented the divine in human society. As described in the Epilogue, this conflict ultimately gave way to a more collaborative settlement under Theodosius I, requiring the Emperor to construct his legitimacy not as a privileged agent within a fixed cosmic order, but as a holder of essentially temporary, "secular" power within the structures and rituals of the Christian Church"--

Download or read book The Christians as the Romans Saw Them written by Robert Louis Wilken and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans.

Download or read book Christianity Book Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity written by Dirk Rohmann and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.