Religion

Falling outside of the usual categories of Patristic Christological discourse, Augustine’s Christology remains a relatively neglected area of his thought. This study focuses on his understanding of the humanity of Christ as it emerged in dialogue with his anti-Pelagian conception of human freedom and Original Sin. By reinterpreting the Pelagian controversy as a Western continuation of the Origenist controversy before it, it argues that Augustine’s reading of Origen lay at the heart of his Christological response to Pelagianism. Augustine is, therefore, situated within the network of fourth- and fifth-century Western theologians concerned to defend Origen’s orthodoxy—and the orthodoxy of a broader Christian Platonism—against their opponents. Opening with a survey of scholarship in the areas of both Augustinian Christology and Augustine’s anti-Pelagianism, it proceeds by detailing Augustine’s engagement with the issues and personalities involved in both the Origenist and Pelagian controversies. Chapter 3 examines the importance of Augustine’s understanding of Christ ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom 8.3) within his anti-Pelagian works; Chapter 4 traces the dependence of this motif on Origen’s exegesis. The fifth chapter considers Augustine’s treatment of Christ’s soul in relation to his understanding of Apollinarianism. The study concludes by exploring Augustine’s handling of the origin of the soul, suggesting that the inconsistencies in his Christology can be explained by recourse to an Origenian framework, in which the soul of Christ remains sinless in the Incarnation because of its relationship to the eternal Word after the Fall of souls to embodiment

This book investigates the relation between Creator and creation as an object of constructive theology and religious devotion in the early church. Initial chapters revisit the challenges and legacies of Greco-Roman and Hellenistic‐Jewish cosmological traditions, and the formative pre‐Nicene rules of discourse for a Christian theology of creation. Subsequent chapters engage Greek, Syriac, and Latin patristic theological interpretation of Genesis 1 and other relevant writings like the Psalms, Deutero‐Isaiah, Wisdom literature, and major New Testament texts interconnecting creation and salvation. Patristic commentators read the six‐day creation account as a “thick” prophetic narrative of the beginning and end of the world. They also developed intertextual links among diverse biblical witnesses to construct the doctrine of creation as a dramatic “script” unveiling the strategy of the triune Creator in his creative and redemptive resourcefulness. Classic issues (e.g. the nature of the “beginning”; notions of “simultaneous” creation; creation ex nihilo and ex Deo) are examined afresh, as is patristic interpretation of distinctive biblical themes. An entire chapter details patristic teaching on the concrete operations of “Christ the Creator” and the “Creator Spirit” in inaugurating the new, eschatological creation. A final chapter explores how early Christians embodied their theology of creation in actual devotional and ritual practices, including “natural contemplation,” liturgical mimesis, and the stewardship of created things. The resonant theme is that beyond cosmogony or philosophical cosmology, the engrossing cosmic theo‐drama or “drama of the divine economy” held the key to the origins and teleology of creation in early Christian understanding and experience.

The call to repentance is central to the message of early Christianity. While this is undeniable, the precise meaning of the concept of repentance for early Christians has rarely been investigated to any great extent, beyond studies of the rise of penitential discipline. In this study, the rich variety of meanings and applications of the concept of repentance are examined, with a particular focus on the writings of several key ascetic theologians of the fifth to seventh centuries: SS Mark the Monk, Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and John Climacus. It is shown how they predominantly see repentance as a positive, comprehensive idea that serves to frame the whole of Christian life, not simply one or more of its parts. While the modern dominant understanding of repentance as a moment of sorrowful regret over past misdeeds, or as equivalent to penitential discipline, is present to a degree, such definitions by no means exhaust the concept for these ascetics. The path of repentance is depicted as stretching from an initial about-face completed in baptism, through the living out of the baptismal gift by keeping the Gospel commandments, culminating in the idea of intercessory repentance for others, after the likeness of Christ’s innocent suffering for the world. While this overarching role for repentance in Christian life is clearest in the works of these ascetics, their thought is thoroughly contextualized through assessments of the concept of repentance in Scripture, the early church, apocalyptic texts, and canonical material.