Early Christian Studies

The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus: Antiochene Christology from the Council of Ephesus (431) to the Council of Chalcedon (451)

Paul B. Clayton, Jr.

Theodoret of Cyrus (c.393-466) was the most able Antiochene theologian in the defence of Nestorius from the Council of Ephesus in 431 to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. While the works ... More

Theodoret of Cyrus (c.393-466) was the most able Antiochene theologian in the defence of Nestorius from the Council of Ephesus in 431 to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. While the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius are extant today only in translations or in fragments, Theodoret's voluminous works are largely available in their original Greek. This study of his writings throws light on the theology of those councils and the final evolution and content of Antiochene Christology. This book demonstrates that Antiochene Christology was rooted in the concern to maintain the impassibility of God the Word and is consequently a two-subject Christology. Its fundamental philosophical assumptions about the natures of God and humanity compelled the Antiochenes to assert that there are two subjects in the Incarnation: the Word himself and a distinct human personality. This Christology is not the hypostatic union of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Less

Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian Apophaticism

Henny Fiskå Hägg

Apophatic theology claims that God is unknowable, and this book investigates the earliest stages of Christian apophaticism. It focuses on the writings of Clement of Alexandria (around AD ... More

Apophatic theology claims that God is unknowable, and this book investigates the earliest stages of Christian apophaticism. It focuses on the writings of Clement of Alexandria (around AD 200): his view of language and esotericism, various aspects of his concept of God, his Logos-theology as well as his epistemology in relation to God. Clement holds that God is unknowable. God’s unknowability, however, concerns only his essence, not his energies, or powers. The traditional view today is that the distinction between essence and energies is first developed by the Cappadocian Fathers in the late 4th century. It is the author’s claim, however, that an apophatic view of God as well as the distinction between essence and energies can already be found in Clement. In order to understand better Clement’s theological priorities and emphases, his social, religious, and philosophical milieu in ancient Alexandria is also taken into consideration. In addition, Clement’s thinking is seen against the background of Middle Platonism and its concept of God. Less

The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians

Ronald E. Heine

It has long been known that Jerome depended on Origen to some extent in producing his own commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. Several excerpts from Origen's commentary on ... More

It has long been known that Jerome depended on Origen to some extent in producing his own commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. Several excerpts from Origen's commentary on Ephesians have been preserved in Greek. This book demonstrates the extent of Jerome's dependence on Origen by placing English translations of these excerpts from Origen's Commentary on Ephesians parallel to the English translation of Jerome's commentary on Ephesians. These parallels show that in every case where Jerome's commentary can be compared with Origen's, Jerome has followed Origen, either by translating his text or paraphrasing his thought. By this and other means, all the passages that can be attributed in some degree to Origen have been identified in Jerome's commentary in order to allow Origen's comments on Ephesians to be heard again, even if muffled at times, through the words of Jerome. This is important because Origen's commentary, in all probability, was the first complete commentary ever composed on the Epistle to the Ephesians. Origen's comments are sometimes philological, discussing the meaning of Greek words in the text and the syntax of the phrases in the Greek sentences of Paul. His comments deal also with theology, for Ephesians provided many texts that were key elements in some of his theological views, such as the pre‐existent church, the constitution of the foundation of the material world after the fall, God's foreknowledge, the unity of revelation based on the ancient prophets’ knowledge of God's future work in Christ, and the Christian struggle against hostile spiritual powers. Less

Communities of the Blessed: Social Environment and Religious Change in Northern Italy, AD 200-400

Mark Humphries

This book is a study of religious change in northern Italy under the Roman empire, focusing on the origins and development of Christianity down to the end of the 4th century. It aims to ... More

This book is a study of religious change in northern Italy under the Roman empire, focusing on the origins and development of Christianity down to the end of the 4th century. It aims to liberate that history from the conventional models of ecclesiastical narrative, by demonstrating the unreliability of many of the traditional sources and by constructing a new methodology that locates the development of the Church in the context of what is termed the north Italian human environment. In other words, it is an attempt to understand the growth of Christianity in the social and cultural context of a region of the Roman Empire. Less

Contextualizing Cassian: Aristocrats, Asceticism, and Reformation in Fifth-Century Gaul

Richard J. Goodrich

This book examines the attempt by the 5th-century ascetic writer John Cassian to influence and shape the development of Western monasticism. The book's close analysis of Cassian's ... More

This book examines the attempt by the 5th-century ascetic writer John Cassian to influence and shape the development of Western monasticism. The book's close analysis of Cassian's earliest work (The Institutes) focuses on his interaction with the values and preconceptions of a traditional Roman elite, as well as his engagement with contemporary writers. By placing The Institutes in context, the book demonstrates just how revolutionary this foundational work was for its time and milieu. Less

Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt

Stephen J. Davis

This book is a study of ancient and medieval Christology. Employing a range of interdisciplinary methods derived from the fields of social history, discourse theory, ritual studies, and ... More

This book is a study of ancient and medieval Christology. Employing a range of interdisciplinary methods derived from the fields of social history, discourse theory, ritual studies, and the visual arts, the book demonstrates how Christian identity in Egypt was shaped by a set of replicable ‘christological practices’. It traces the fascinating lines of the Coptic church's theological and cultural transition from late antiquity to Dar al-Islam. The book includes translations of Coptic and Arabic texts which allow non-specialists access to these important documents for the first time. Less

Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies

Jennifer Glancy

Drawing on representations of bodies in sources from Paul to Augustine, this book focuses on the question of what is known in the body and demonstrates why that question is significant ... More

Drawing on representations of bodies in sources from Paul to Augustine, this book focuses on the question of what is known in the body and demonstrates why that question is significant for a cultural history of Christian origins. The inevitable cultural habituation of bodies influenced Christians of the first centuries to replicate the habitus of the wider culture—that is, the hierarchical patterns of social relations familiar throughout the Roman Empire, despite the seeming incompatibility of those embodied patterns of relations with the good news of Christian preaching. A study of corporal epistemology, this volume builds on a sequence of in-depth analyses of texts, historical problems, and theological questions. How does Paul manage to position his whippable body as a source of knowledge and power? How did the corporal conditioning of the Roman slaveholding system infiltrate Christian moral imagination and sexual ethics? What do primitive images of Mary in childbirth suggest about ancient—and modern—understandings of maternal epistemology? The book is informed by the work of theorists of corporeality, including Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Pierre Bourdieu, and Linda Martín Alcoff. What is known in the body is informed by but ultimately exceeds the grid of social location. Framing questions about corporal knowledge offers new insights into bodies, identities, and early Christian understandings of what it means to be human. Less

Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic

Susan Wessel

What were the historical and cultural processes by which Cyril of Alexandria was elevated to canonical status while his opponent, Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, was made into a ... More

What were the historical and cultural processes by which Cyril of Alexandria was elevated to canonical status while his opponent, Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, was made into a heretic? In contrast to previous scholarship, this book concludes that Cyril's success in being elevated to orthodox status was not simply a political accomplishment based on political alliances he had fashioned as opportunity arose. Nor was it a dogmatic victory, based on the clarity and orthodoxy of Cyril's doctrinal claims. Instead, it was his strategy in identifying himself with the orthodoxy of the former bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, in his victory over Arianism, in borrowing Athanasius' interpretive methods, and in skillfully using the tropes and figures of the second sophistic that made Cyril a saint in the Greek and Coptic Orthodox Churches. Less

De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate

St Augustine

P. G. Walsh (ed.)

The Good of Marriage and On Holy Virginity are separate treatises but closely interconnected as comparing these modes of Christian commitment. They were composed in the ... More

The Good of Marriage and On Holy Virginity are separate treatises but closely interconnected as comparing these modes of Christian commitment. They were composed in the same year, a.d. 401. Augustine had personal experience of both states, having had two concubines (he fathered a son by the first) and having lived a celibate life following his conversion in a.d. 386. His treatment of marriage and consecrated virginity is rooted in the New Testament, above all in Paul's I Cor. 7, and is indebted to earlier Christian discussions, especially those of Ambrose. The two works are directed against the Manichees on the one hand, who argued that marriage and procreation were evil, and on the other, to repair the damage done by the controversy between Jovinian (arguing that the married state was as meritorious as virginity) and Jerome (who in exalting virginity denigrated marriage). Less

De Doctrina Christiana

Saint Augustine

R. P. H. Green (ed.)

This is a completely new translation of the work that Augustine wrote to guide the Christian on how to interpret Scripture and communicate it to others, a kind of do‐it‐yourself manual ... More

This is a completely new translation of the work that Augustine wrote to guide the Christian on how to interpret Scripture and communicate it to others, a kind of do‐it‐yourself manual for discovering what the Bible teaches and passing it on. Begun at the same time as his famous Confessions, but not completed until some thirty years later, it gives fascinating insight into many sides of his thinking, not least on the value of the traditional education of which the Confessions gives such a poor impression. Augustine begins by relating his theme to the love (and enjoyment) of God and the love of one's neighbour, and then proceeds to develop a theory of signs with which he can analyse the nature of difficulties in scripture. In studying unknown signs, Augustine finds a place for some disciplines enshrined in traditional culture and the school curriculum but not all; as for ambiguous signs, he carefully explores various kinds of problems, such as that of distinguishing the figurative from the literal, and has recourse to the hermeneutic system of the Donatist Tyconius. In the fourth and last book, he discusses how to communicate scriptural teaching, drawing on a lifetime of experience but also making notable use of the writings on rhetoric of Cicero, the classical orator. The translation is equipped with an introduction that discusses the work's aims and circumstances, outlines its contents and significance, commenting briefly on the manuscripts from which the Latin text – which is also provided in this volume – is derived, and also brief explanatory notes. There is a select bibliography of useful and approachable modern criticism of this important work. Less