Download or read book Divine Powers in Late Antiquity written by Anna Marmodoro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is power the essence of divinity, or are divine powers distinct from divine essence? Are they divine hypostases or are they divine attributes? Are powers such as omnipotence, omniscience, etc. modes of divine activity? How do they manifest? In which way can we apprehend them? Is there a multiplicity of gods whose powers fill the cosmos or is there only one God from whom all power(s) derive(s) and whose power(s) permeate(s) everything? These are questions that become central to philosophical and theological debates in Late Antiquity (roughly corresponding to the period 2nd to the 6th centuries). On the one hand, the Pagan Neoplatonic thinkers of this era postulate a complex hierarchy of gods, whose powers express the unlimited power of the ineffable One. On the other hand, Christians proclaim the existence of only one God, one divine power or one 'Lord of all powers'. Divided into two main sections, the first part of Divine Powers in Late Antiquity examines aspects of the notion of divine power as developed by the four major figures of Neoplatonism: Plotinus (c. 204-270), Porphyry (c. 234-305), Iamblichus (c.245-325), and Proclus (412-485). It focuses on an aspect of the notion of divine power that has been so far relatively neglected in the literature. Part two investigates the notion of divine power in early Christian authors, from the New Testament to the Alexandrian school (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius the Great) and, further, to the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa), as well as in some of these authors' sources (the Septuagint, Philo of Alexandria). The traditional view tends to overlook the fact that the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was at least as important as Platonic philosophical texts in the shaping of the early Christian thinking about the Church's doctrines. Whilst challenging the received interpretation by redressing the balance between the Bible and Greek philosophical texts, the essays in the second section of this book nevertheless argue for the philosophical value of early Christian reflections on the notion of divine power. The two groups of thinkers that each of the sections deal with (the Platonic-Pagan and the Christian one) share largely the same intellectual and cultural heritage; they are concerned with the same fundamental questions; and they often engage in more or less public philosophical and theological dialogue, directly influencing one another.

Download or read book The Triune God written by Edmund J. Fortman and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 1999-02-23 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ÒA primary condition for fresh thinking on the Trinity is an accurate, objective account of past and present thoughtÓ wrote one reviewer when The Triune God first appeared in 1972. ÒThis [is what] Fortman has presented sensitively, accurately, and compactly.Ó The author sets out Òto trace the historical development of Trinitarian doctrine from its written beginnings to its contemporary status.Ó Thus he treats the biblical witness, the Council of Nicea, Augustine, the Middle Ages, and the development of this doctrine from the fifteenth century to the present in the Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic traditions.

Download or read book Sunrise to Eternity written by John Joseph Stoudt and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Download or read book Tasting Heaven on Earth written by Walter D. Ray and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Church at Worship is a new series of documentary case studies of specific worshiping communities from around the world and throughout Christian history. In this second volume, Tasting Heaven on Earth, Walter Ray provides vivid descriptions of Constantinople, its history, its people, and its worship practices, which set the stage for a rich selection of primary documents that present readers with a vibrant snapshot of Byzantine Christianity in the sixth century. Some of the primary materials included here: Photos of mosaics, liturgical vessels, icons, and manuscripts Drawings, diagrams, descriptions, and photographs of Hagia Sophia Firsthand accounts of worship by Maximus the Confessor, Eutychius, and Procopius Liturgical prayers and a reconstruction of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil

Download or read book The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri written by Eleni Pachoumi and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleni Pachoumi looks at the concepts of the divine in the Greek magical papyri by way of a careful and detailed analysis of ritual practices and spells. Her aim is to uncover the underlying religious, philosophical and mystical parallelisms and influences on the Greek magical papyri. She starts by examining the religious and philosophical concept of the personal daimon and the union of the individual with his personal daimon through the magico-theurgic ritual of systasis. She then goes on to analyze the religious concept of paredros as the divine "assistant" and the various relationships between paredros, the divine and the individual. To round off, she studies the concept of the divine through the manifold religious and philosophical assimilations mainly between Greek, Egyptian, Hellenized gods and divine abstract concepts of Jewish origins.

Download or read book Jacob Boehme written by John Yost Stoudt and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2004-10-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacob Boehme, the German religious mystic of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, had an astounding influence on the history of Western philosophy. The impact of his thought left its mark on such men as Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Heidegger, and especially through his ideas concerning creation and evil, he was a power in the speculative theology of the nineteenth century. This fresh study of Jacob Boehme's life and writings not only presents a concrete and vivid picture of Boehme's personal affairs and of the spiritual situation of Protestant Germany more than three hundred years ago; it also demonstrates for the first time the development and growth of Boehme's thought. Utilizing new biographical sources and newly discovered manuscripts, the author has, in addition, analyzed Boehme's speculative system in its mature form after he had worked through his strange symbolic language to a more traditional synthesis. This is an objective examination of Boehme's life and thought. It avoids depicting him either as a heaven-blessed saint or a Baroque Faust. On the basis of the evidence now available, Dr. Stoudt offers a new portrait of Boehme as the proponent of a theology that stresses feeling and intuition instead of reason and intellect. As Paul Tillich states in his Foreword to this volume: "John Stoudt's book will be a help to all philosophers and theologians who desire an introduction to one of the most profound and strangest systems of Western thought - strange in comparison to the prevailing method of modern philosophy, profound in comparison with much theism in modern theology."

Download or read book Ascension And Ecclesia written by Douglas Farrow and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent theology offers few attempts to come to grips with the meaning and implications of the ascension of Jesus. Professor Farrow begins with a discussion of the biblical treatment of the ascension and Eucharistic celebration, from which emerges the unique ecclesial worldview. There are chapters on the treatment of these ideas by Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine, and on developments up to the Reformation. He explores the link between ideas of the ascension, cosmology and ecclesiology. Farrow goes on to examine the difficulties faced by the doctrine of ascension in the modern scientific world. In a final chapter he calls for an ecclesiology, which does not marginalise the human Jesus>

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor written by Pauline Allen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 707 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximus the Confessor (c.580-662) has become one of the most discussed figures in contemporary patristic studies. This is partly due to the relatively recent discovery and critical edition of his works in various genres, including On the Ascetic Life, Four Centuries on Charity, Two Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation, On the 'Our Father', two separate Books of Difficulties, addressed to John and to Thomas, Questions and Doubts, Questions to Thalassius, Mystagogy and the Short Theological and Polemical Works. The impact of these works reached far beyond the Greek East, with his involvement in the western resistance to imperial heresy, notably at the Lateran Synod in 649. Together with Pope Martin I (649-53 CE), Maximus the Confessor and his circle were the most vocal opponents of Constantinople's introduction of the doctrine of monothelitism. This dispute over the number of wills in Christ became a contest between the imperial government and church of Constantinople on the one hand, and the bishop of Rome in concert with eastern monks such as Maximus, John Moschus, and Sophronius, on the other, over the right to define orthodoxy. An understanding of the difficult relations between church and state in this troubled period at the close of Late Antiquity is necessary for a full appreciation of Maximus' contribution to this controversy. The editors of this volume aim to provide the political and historical background to Maximus' activities, as well as a summary of his achievements in the spheres of theology and philosophy, especially neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism.

Download or read book The Living God written by Thomas C. Oden and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1992-08-14 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Required, indispensable, and edifying reading. This book and books like it help us in the believing and living of these days".....The Circuit Rider

Download or read book Sallustius written by Arthur Darby Nock and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1926, this book contains the ancient Greek text of the fourth-century treatise Concerning the Gods and the Universe by Sallustius. Nock provides an English translation on each facing page, as well as a critical apparatus and a detailed set of prolegomena on the historical background, sources, style and transmission of the philosophical essay. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in late Roman philosophy and in the pagan response to early Christianity.

Download or read book Imitations of Infinity written by Michael Motia and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-11-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Imitations of Infinity, Michael A. Motia places Gregory of Nyssa at the center of a world filled with Platonic philosophers, rhetorical teachers, and early Christian leaders all competing over what and how to imitate. Their debates demanded the attentions of people at every level of the Roman Empire.

Download or read book The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition written by Norman Russell and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-01-21 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deification in the Greek patristic tradition was the fulfilment of the destiny for which humanity was created - not merely salvation from sin but entry into the fullness of the divine life of the Trinity. This book, the first on the subject for over sixty years, traces the history of deification from its birth as a second-century metaphor with biblical roots to its maturity as a doctrine central to the spiritual life of the Byzantine Church. Drawing attention to the richness and diversity of the patristic approaches from Irenaeus to Maximus the Confessor, Norman Russell offers a full discussion of the background and context of the doctrine, at the same time highlighting its distinctively Christian character.

Download or read book The Mystical Evolution In the Development and Vitality of the Church written by Rev. Fr. John G. Arintero, O.P. and published by TAN Books. This book was released on with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easily understood though exhaustive study of the spiritual life that is full of learning and that quotes copiously from the Bible; Saints; Fathers and Doctors of the Church and classic spiritual writers. Embued with holiness; the author makes his work come alive with its simplicity and understanding. A veritable encyclopedia of what the Saints and other mystical souls have told us. Remarkably easy to read and to understand.

Download or read book The Philosophy of the Few against the Christians written by Pier Franco Beatrice and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-13 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives us a new perspective on the Philosophy according to the Chaldean Oracles by Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 232/305 CE), demonstrating that much of what we thought we knew about this work and its fragments is mistaken. Here, for the first time, the attempt is made at reconstructing the original text by following the vicissitudes of its reception and transmission from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to modern scholarship. The extensive and painstaking study of the surviving fragments leads to the radically innovative conclusion that this encyclopedic treatise, written by Porphyry in the last decades of the 3rd century CE, consisted of fifteen books organized in various sections. After an initial discussion of the nature of theurgy and of its subordinate role with respect to philosophy, Porphyry describes the entire history of Greek philosophy from Homer up to his own teacher Plotinus, to then go on to present “introductions” to the seven encyclical disciplines whose study is required for the comprehension of theosophy, that is, the esoteric speculation on the three parts of philosophy: anthropology-ethics, physics, and metaphysics-theology. By harmonizing the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the Chaldean Oracles, Porphyry intends to present the complete and definitive philosophic system, with the aim of showing the universal way for the liberation of the souls of initiates and of contextually fighting the final battle of the Greco-Roman civilization against Christianity.

Download or read book Otto of Freising s Conception of the Future Life written by Harris Hazelton Holt and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Porphyry s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition written by A. Smith and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a slightly emended version of a dissertation presented at the University of Hull in 1972. I realise only too well the deficiencies of style, presentation and material which this involves. The title implies a more final note than I had intended in my treatment of Porphyry. On reflexion, however, it seemed the most suited to convey the general purpose of my enquiries. A more rounded assessment of Porphyry can come only after some more basic work has been completed. An edition of his philosophical fragments, to which I am now turning my attention, is a prerequisite. lowe, of course, a great deal to all those who have written on Neo platonism. I am particularly indebted to Prof. Willy Theiler under whose guidance I studied in Bern. Conversation with him always resulted in new directions of enquiry and I was constantly stimulated by his breadth of knowledge. I must also thank Prof. A. H. Armstrong who has constantly encouraged me and helped me to look more deeply into a number of problems. Welcome, too, was a detailed criticism of Part Two by Dr. R. T. Wallis. Their criticism and advice have not always been followed and the responsibility for the faults and weak nesses of this book rests on myself.

Download or read book Systematic Theology written by Thomas P. Rausch and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Systematic theology seeks to understand and render more intelligible the central doctrines of faith and to show how they are related to each other. It tries to demonstrate how these doctrines are rooted in Scripture and develop in the history of the church; most important, it strives to more adequately express and sometimes reinterpret the church's doctrinal tradition, always in the interest of better communicating the mystery of salvation and bringing it into a dialogue with culture. The present text is intended to be concise and accessible, an introduction that explores basic themes in Catholic systematic theology from a biblical, historical, and contemporary perspective, always aware of today's theological pluralism.