scholarly journals Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman Empire, and the Fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy: Reassessing Byzantine Imperial Eschatology in the Age of Constantine

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-536
Author(s):  
Christopher Bonura
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The Future ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Realized Eschatology ◽  
Second Coming

AbstractModern scholarship often attributes to Eusebius of Caesarea (d. circa 340 AD) the view that God's heavenly kingdom had become manifest in the Roman Empire of Constantine the Great. Consequently, Eusebius is deemed significant in the development of Christian eschatological thought as the supposed formulator of a new “realized eschatology” for the Christian Roman Empire. Similarly, he is considered the originator of so-called “Byzantine imperial eschatology”—that is, eschatology designed to justify the existing imperial order under the emperors in Constantinople. Scholars advancing these claims most frequently cite a line from Eusebius's Tricennial Oration in which he identified the accession of the sons of Constantine with the prophesied kingdom of the saints in the Book of Daniel. Further supposed evidence has been adduced in his other writings, especially his Life of Constantine. This article argues that this common interpretation of Eusebius's eschatology is mistaken and has resulted from treating a few passages in isolation while overlooking their rhetorical context. It demonstrates instead that Eusebius adhered to a conventional Christian eschatology centered on the future kingdom of heaven that would accompany the second coming of Christ and further suggests that the concept of “Byzantine imperial eschatology” should be reconsidered.

scholarly journals Pax Romana as agtergrond van die Christelike kerugma

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frans J. Boshoff
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Global Stability ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
The Future ◽  
Pax Romana ◽  
Second Coming

Pax Romana as background of the Christian kerygma: The concept ‘kingdom of God’ is fundamental to the kerygma on the salvific meaning of Jesus Christ in New Testament times. This article aims to explore the raison d’être why this concept had been such an important element in the kerygma. It argues that the Pax Romana as the primary ideology of the Roman Empire played a significant role. The Pax Romana advocated harmony with the gods, and subsequent heavenly peace and global stability and security in the inhabited world. However, the kerygma replaced the Pax Romana as an ideology with the apocalyptic-eschatological concept ‘kingdom of God’. According to apocalyptic eschatology, an end to the known world is expected. This end was considered to be a cataclysmic catastrophe awaiting in the future, albeit indeterminate to humankind. On the contrary, the church’s kerygma proclaimed that the kingdom of God was already present. An element of Jewish apocalyptism, however, remained in the Christian religion - yet adjusted. That is, although the kingdom of God was regarded already present, the idea of a second coming of Christ as Redeemer was upheld. The article demonstrates that the Christian kerygma on the realised kingdom of God had its origins in the expectation of an utopia, as envisaged in the Pax Romana as ideology.

The Idea of Moral Duties to History

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Saul Smilansky
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
The Past ◽  
Special Obligations ◽  
Good People ◽  
The Future ◽  
Moral Duties

History is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I argue that there are duties that can be called ‘Moral duties due to history’ or, in short, ‘Duties to History’ (DTH). My claim is not the familiar thought that we need to learn from history on how to live better in the present and going forward, but that history itself creates moral duties. In addition to those obligations we currently recognise in response to the present and the future, there also exist special obligations in response to the past. If convincing, this means that our lives ought to be guided, in part, not only by our obligations to the living but by our DTH. This is a surprising result, with significant and sometimes perplexing implications. My focus is on the obligations of individuals in the light of history rather than on collective duties. I argue that there are duties that can be called ‘Moral duties due to history’ or, in short, ‘Duties to History’ (DTH). My claim is not the familiar thought that we need to learn from history on how to live better in the present and going forward, but that history itself creates moral duties. In addition to those obligations we currently recognise in response to the present and the future, there also exist special obligations in response to the past; such as obligations to good people in the past, but going beyond them. If convincing, this means that our lives ought to be guided, in part, not only by our obligations to the living but by our DTH. This is a surprising result, with significant and sometimes perplexing implications. My focus is on the obligations of individuals in the light of history rather than on collective duties.

I. The Fear of the Orient in the Roman Empire

1926 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Charlesworth
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Roman People ◽  
The Mediterranean

In September of the year 29 B.C. the citizens of Rome saw pass before them one of the most splendid triumphs ever celebrated in their city. In it Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, the heir and successor of Julius Caesar, now sole master of the Mediterranean world, displayed the spoils he had won from his campaigns in Illyria and Dalmatia, at the battle of Actium, and by the conquest of Egypt. The spectacle must have been gratifying to Roman pride and a fair omen for future security: in the young victor were centred the hopes of the Roman people for external conquest and internal peace. Octavian had now reached the summit of his desires, his word and will appeared all-powerful; yet he was already aware that he was bound to a policy imposed upon him by his own success, and as time went on he became conscious that the very completeness of his victory, though it satisfied immediate demands, presented embarrassing problems for the future. In order to defeat Antony and to secure the necessary support for himself he had utilised a sentiment which had recently grown strong in Rome, and he was now to some extent fettered by the feeling he had aroused. This feeling was a profound fear of the Orient and mistrust of all things Oriental, and Octavian had posed as the champion of Roman manners and institutions, and had thus succeeded in concentrating on himself the enthusiasm of all Italy. He was now committed to this policy; in future years there must be no suspicion of Orientalism whether in government or institutions or religion. And even though Octavian might satisfy his countrymen on this score, he himself found it difficult to throw off the anxiety and embarrassment that the possession of Egypt caused him.

On the Future of American Civilization

1940 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
John U. Nef
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Reasonable Person ◽  
The Future ◽  
Short Time

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries.… Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectively persecuted. No reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated in the Roman Empire. It spread, and became predominant, because the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism. It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake.

scholarly journals A Short Apocalyptic Text Based on the Prophecy of Ezra (Esdras Salathiel)

Aethiopica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Getatchew Haile
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Apocalyptic Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
The Law ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Second Coming

The main themes of the text, occasionally ascribed to Ezra (Salathiel), are the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the end of the world, the future rulers of Ethiopia, and the honouring of the Sabbaths. It is cast in the spirit of 4 Ezra, quoting it and Jubilees occasionally and extensively. As in 4 Ezra, its author is interested in knowing and declaring the future to call the faithful to observe the law and the ordinances. Reckoning the time by cycles, aqmar, provides him the revelation of future events ‘with exact dates’. The text, composed before the sixteenth century, is one more source of Gǝʿǝz apocalyptic literature. The article is an edition and translation of it as preserved in EMML 6429, fols 9v–39r.

scholarly journals Kristi Genkomst og kødets opstandelse. Det eskatogiske hos Grundtvig

1950 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-56
Author(s):  
C. I. Scharling
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
The Body ◽  
Essential Point ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Future ◽  
To Come ◽  
Personal Understanding ◽  
The Church ◽  
Second Coming

The Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the Body. Grundtvigs Eschatology. By C. I. Scharling. This essay shows how Grundtvig, in contrast to his contemporaries in the Church, laid great stress upon the eschatological hope of the future. He may have been partly inspired by Scandinavian mythology (the myth of Ragnarok) and partly by Schellings theories about the great drama of existence (the coming forth of ideas from the Absolute and their returning thither). But the essential point is that the eschatological hope grew forth naturally from his personal understanding of life and death, of the meaning and object of human life, and from his faith in the living, risen Christ as Lord and victor over the powers of darkness and death. It is remarkable that while after 1825 Grundtvig lived with such intensity in the experience of the realisation of the Kingdom of God here and now in the Church’s fellowship with the risen, present Saviour, at the same time, both in his hymns and in his preaching, he gives such powerful expression to the eschatological hope of the future. The author finds the explanation of this in the fact that for Grundtvig (unlike many others) it was not the need and distress of the time that gave life to the Biblical promises of the Second Coming of Christ and the setting*up of the Kingdom of Glory at the Last Day, but his very joy in God’s great Salvation, experienced in the Church. Thus the peculiar thing about Grundtvig’s eschatological expectation is that the tidings of the Second Coming of the Lord are for him an evangel in the full sense of the word; his feelings about the Last Day are far removed from the feeling of fear and horror which meets us in many of the mediaeval frescoes of the Lord’s Return to Judgment or in the old hymn, “Dies irae, dies ilia”. Characteristic of him, too, is his stress on the contin uity between the present world, which came into being at the Creation, and the world to come; the old world shall not be destroyed, but reborn and transfigured; its for this reason that he lays so much stress on faith in the resurrection of the body. On the other hand the author rejects the theory put forward by the Norwegian writer, Paulus Svendsen, that Grundtvig was a Chiliast and “believed in an external, perfect Kingdom of God on earth” ; he refutes it by reference to the fact that Grundtvig explicitly rejected Edward Irving’s conception of the millennium.

scholarly journals Komparasi Eskatologi Injil Lukas dengan Injil Sinoptik Lainnya

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elkana Chrisna Wijaya
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Gospel Of Luke ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Personal Understanding

“Komparasi Eskatologi Injil Lukas dengan Injil Sinoptik Lainnya,” adalah subyek penelitian memberikan eksplanatori mengenai pemikiran-pemikiran teologis dari Lukas selaku penulis Injil Lukas dan Kisah Para Rasul, khususnya yang membahas tentang pemikiran-pemikiran atau pengajaran mengenai doktrin akhir zaman (eskatologi) yang dikomparasikan dengan Injil Matius dan Injil Markus, sebagai serangkaian kelompok dari Injil Sinoptik. Adanya kemiripan kata-kata, dan urutan bahkan isi/peristiwa yang hampir sama di antara ketiganya, serta kepentingan daripada doktrin akhir zaman, memberikan keunikan bagi masing-masing Injil, secara khusus bagi Injil Lukas itu sendiri. Disamping bermaksud untuk menyatakan keunikan dan perbedaan dari Injil Lukas dibandingkan dengan Injil Sinoptik lainnya, penelitian ini juga bermaksud memberikan informasi atau penjelasan mengenai hal-hal yang memiliki koherensi dan relevansi dengan doktrin akhir zaman yang dimaksud dalam subyek penelitian ini, di antaranya seperti perlunya menyentuh tulisan Lukas dalam Kisah Para Rasul, dan pembahasan mengenai Kerajaan Allah dan Kerajaan Sorga serta hal-hal lainnya. Oleh karena itu, untuk mengejawantahkan maksud di atas, maka penulis melaksanakan kajian terhadap beberapa ayat Alkitab dan pandangan para pakar dalam mengadakan pendekatan terhadap ayat-ayat eskatologi yang terdapat dalam ketiga Injil Sinoptik tersebut. Dengan pendekatan tersebut, maka hasil penelitian ini menjelaskan, di antaranya adalah bahwa Lukas menyusun Injilnya serupa dengan Markus, hanya saja terdapat penambahan pemahaman Lukas secara pribadi untuk menekankan nuansa yang berbeda dari tulisannya tersebut. Adapun mengenai istilah Kerajaan Allah dan Kerajaan Sorga, jika Markus dan Lukas konsisten menggunakan frase Kerajaan Allah, sebaliknya Matius menggantinya dengan istilah “Kerajaan Sorga,” meskipun memiliki pengertian yang sama, dengan maksud untuk memberikan pemahaman yang lebih mudah bagi para pembaca asli kitab-kitab tersebut. Di samping itu, ketiga penulis juga menuliskan kedatangan Yesus pada masa yang akan datang sebagai bagian penting dalam pemenuhan janji berkat Kerajaan Allah secara sempurna, sehingga tidak ada keraguan akan masa yang akan datang mengenai kedatangan Kristus kali kedua. "Comparative Luke's Gospel Eschatology with Other Synoptic Gospels," is the subject of an explanatory study of the theological thoughts of Luke as the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles, especially those which deal with thoughts or teachings about the end-time doctrine (eschatology) which are compared with the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, as a series of groups from the Synoptic Gospels. The similarity of words, and the order and even the contents / events that are almost the same between the three, as well as the interests of the end-time doctrine, provide uniqueness for each of the Gospels, specifically for the Gospel of Luke itself. Besides intending to express the uniqueness and difference of Luke's Gospel compared to other Synoptic Gospels, this study also intends to provide information or explanations about things that have coherence and relevance to the end-time doctrine referred to in this research subject, including the need to touch writing Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, and a discussion of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven and other things. Therefore, to embody the above purpose, the author carries out a study of several Bible verses and the views of experts in approaching eschatological verses contained in the three Synoptic Gospels. With this approach, the results of this study explain, among them is that Luke composes his Gospel similar to Mark, only there is an addition to Luke's personal understanding to emphasize the different nuances of his writing. As for the terms of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, if Mark and Luke consistently use the phrase Kingdom of God, instead Matthew replaces it with the term "Kingdom of Heaven," even though it has the same meaning, with the intention to provide an easier understanding for the original readers of the books that. In addition, the three authors also write about the coming of Jesus in the future as an important part of fulfilling the promise of God's perfect blessing, so that there is no doubt about the future about the second coming of Christ.

Surviving the Furnace of History—Daniel

2019 ◽  
pp. 387-396
Author(s):  
Ellen F. Davis
Keyword(s):  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical History ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cultural Domination ◽  
Book Of Daniel

LIKE THE SCROLL of Esther, Daniel is a “hidden transcript”1 within the Bible—a serious yet playful piece of literature that speaks from the perspective of those on the underside of harsh political, military, and cultural domination. Following in a pattern of biblical history that begins with Pharaoh and reaches its acme with Haman, the enemy of Queen Esther and the Jews, the book of Daniel shows how the empire’s subjugation of this particular people turns, with remarkable ease and no clear logic, into determination to wipe them out. This book has the overt theological dimension that Esther lacks; rather than showing the mobilization of the Jews against those who seek to kill them, the book of Daniel envisions how “the Most High God” (Dan 5:18, 21; cf. 4:21, 22, 29 Heb., 4:24, 25, 32 Eng., etc.) and the heavenly powers will intervene—at some not clearly specified time in the future—on behalf of the threatened people....

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