Early Christian Studies

This book examines the ways in which Irenaeus and Clement understood what it means to be human. By exploring their theological perspectives through their writings, the author also offers a theological critique of the prevailing approach to the asceticism of Late Antiquity. For Irenaeus, asceticism is the expression of man living the life of God in all dimensions of the body, that which is most characteristically human and in the image of God. Human existence as a physical being includes sexuality as a permanent part of the framework within which males and females grow towards God. In contrast, Clement depicts asceticism as man's attempt at a godlike life to protect the rational element, that which is distinctively human and in the image of God, from any possible disturbance and threat, or from the vulnerability of dependency, especially of a physical or sexual nature. Here, human sexuality is strictly limited by the finality of procreation and abandoned in the resurrection.

This book explores anti-Chalcedonian asceticism in Palestine, an area that has so far been relatively neglected in academic studies. Anti-Chalcedonian asceticism in Palestine is significant because it was in Jerusalem in the middle of the 5th century that monks who opposed the Council of Chalcedon first attempted to establish a dissenting anti-Chalcedonian ecclesiastical hierarchy. The monk Peter the Iberian, in particular, was a key force in this project because of his high-level political connections to the members of the imperial court in Constantinople. The beginnings of anti-Chalcedonian history in Palestine constitute the fist tangible manifestation of the schism between the adherents and opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, a schism which endures until today. This study also offers a further contribution in the field work carried out on site in the Middle East, which traced the footsteps of Peter the Iberian and his followers into the regions of modern Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Sinai/Egypt.

The ascetic tracts of 7th century writer Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian) provide a wealth of material to better understand early Christian asceticism. The study focuses on the role of the body in various ascetic techniques, such as fasting, vigils and prayer, and on the way the ascetic relates to the society. For Isaac, the ascetic is to function as something like an icon, an image that showed the world the reality of God's Kingdom already in this life, by clearly indicating the difference between God's ways and men's. The study reviews the scholarly discussion on asceticism and early monasticism of the last three decades, and then proceeds to analyse the texts of Isaac to reveal an emphasis on asceticism as a practice that is at the same time performative, transformative and bodily. This contrasts with the long‐established conception of asceticism as based on a negative view of the body. Isaac displays a profound understanding of the way body and soul are related, demonstrating how the body can be used to transform the personality of the ascetic, and to communicate the change to the world, without the use of words. By giving a thorough overview of Isaac's ascetic thinking, the study brings Isaac's fresh perspective to bear on an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of the Christian tradition, showing that asceticism is and important ecclesiological theme and that a theology of asceticism should be a political theology.

St. Augustine, the North African bishop of Hippo (AD 354–430), has been much studied. But there has been no systematic attempt to consider the context which shaped his life and thought. Augustine's long and controversial career and his vast literary output provide unrivalled evidence for understanding the diverse ways in which Christianity confronted, assimilated, and finally transformed the traditional society of late antiquity. This book sets Augustine in his cultural and social context showing how, as a Christian, he came to terms with the philosophical and rhetorical ideals of classical culture, and, as a bishop, with the ecclesiastical, ascetic, and political structures of late antique society. According to Augustine, the Fall of man and Original sin fracture and vitiate mankind's ability to know or to will the good. This is revealed as the keystone of his theology, effecting a decisive break with classical ideals of perfection and shaping the distinctive theology of Western Christendom.

This book takes its cue from Augustine's theory of the liberal arts to explore the larger question of how the Bible became the focus of medieval culture in the West. Augustine himself became increasingly aware that an ambivalent attitude towards knowledge and learning was inherent in Christianity. By facing the intellectual challenge posed by this tension he arrived at a new theory of how to interpret the Bible correctly. One of the topics investigated here is Augustine's changing relationship with the ‘disciplines’ as he moved from an attempt at their Christianisation (in the philosophical dialogues of Cassiciacum) to a radical reshaping of them within a Christian world-view (in the De Doctrina Christiana and Confessions). The book also considers the factors that prompted and facilitated his change of perspective and the ways in which Augustine's evolving theory reflected contemporary trends in Christian pedagogy.

Here translated into English for the first time, Augustine's Commentary on Galatians is his only complete, formal commentary on any book of the Bible, and it offers unique insights into his understanding of Paul and of his own task as a biblical interpreter. In addition to an English translation with facing Latin text, the present volume provides a comprehensive introduction, copious notes, appendices, a bibliography, and four indices. Since Galatians is the only book of the Bible commented upon by all the ancient Latin commentators—including Jerome, Pelagius, Ambrosiaster, and Marius Victorinus, as well as Augustine—it provides a basis for comparing them and for identifying Augustine's special concerns and emphases. Although Augustine's Commentary contains implicit polemic (against Manicheism and Donatism, for example), it is not essentially a polemical commentary but rather a pastoral commentary intended to aid Augustine in his endeavour to lead, strengthen, and unify the Catholic community at Hippo in North Africa. This pastoral purpose flows naturally from Augustine's dual role as parish priest and spiritual director of his own monastic community. One of the most important ways Christians build community is by correcting one another. Augustine reads Galatians as a model of Christian correction for three main reasons: first, Paul wrote his letter to correct the Galatians; second, in the letter, Paul recounts how he once corrected Peter at Antioch; and third, Paul concludes his letter with instructions on how the Galatians should correct one another. Augustine believes that Christian correction should always be given and received in a spirit of humility and love—the very spirit that Jesus exemplified, commended, and bestowed as a gift.

Augustine's Commentary has crucial links to other works he wrote at the time, especially his monastic Rule and De Doctrina Christiana. Augustine's emphasis on Galatians as a pastoral letter designed to preserve and strengthen Christian unity links the Commentary to his monastic Rule, while his method and sources link it to, and indeed pave the way for, the theory of biblical interpretation set forth in De Doctrina Christiana.