ΓΝΩΜΑΙ ΔΙΑΦΟΡΟΙ.: The Origin and Nature of Diversification in the History of Early Christianity

1965 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Koester
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Upper Egypt ◽  
Nag Hammadi ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian History

I. The Crisis of the Historical and Theological Criteria.Already Walter Bauer, well known as a lexicographer, but unfortunately little known as a historian of the Ancient Church, in his ingenious monograph Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), had demonstrated convincingly that such Christian groups which were later labelled “heretical,” actually dominated in the first two or three centuries, both geographically and theologically. Recent discoveries, especially those of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, have made it definitely clear that Walter Bauer was essentially right and that a thorough and extensive re-evaluation of early Christian history is called for.

Melania

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Travel Patterns ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Christian History

The lives of Melania the Elder and Melania the Younger span one of the most important periods of Christian history, reaching from the reign of Constantine through the reign of Theodosius II. They and their family members were well known to some of the most influential political and cultural figures of the period; their patronage promoted the work of major Christian thinkers from both before their time and during it. Their property and travels connected the political, economic, and religious worlds of the late antique Mediterranean. This volume examines the history of early Christianity as it was created and imagined through the lives of the two Melanias. The volume overlays the history of Christianity with a set of narratives that explore themes in the lives of the Melanias, such as constructions of gender, asceticism, orthodoxy and heresy, family and wealth, travel, patterns of memory, worship and hagiography. The resulting collaborative portrait of this family, its influence, and its interests offers a new window on to early Christian history, not by portraying Christianity as a timeless entity unfolding over centuries, but by considering in more complex ways the lives, representations, and later reception of two late ancient persons who attempted to be Christian.

The Pachomian Federation and Lower Egypt: The Ties that Bind

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Goehring
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Nile River ◽  
Upper Egypt ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way ◽  
Formative Years ◽  
Christian History

This chapter deals with the monasteries in Lower Egypt that were part of the Pachomian Federation of Upper Egypt. In the discourse of Coptic Christian history, the Pachomians retain their place as part of the golden age of monastic origins from which their movement transitions seamlessly into a more general post-Chalcedonian, post-Pachomian cenobitism. The history of this development began in the formative years of the movement. The seeds of the later Pachomian presence in Lower Egypt and their growing influence in the ecclesiastical politics of Alexandria were sown early in the movement's history in Upper Egypt. The flow of Alexandrian ascetics and ascetic wannabes up the Nile River into the Thebaid to the new Pachomian cenobia prepared the way for the later Pachomian expansion downriver to Alexandria.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 2-17
Author(s):  
Risto Uro
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pluralistic Approach ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter offers a guide to the reader for understanding the nature of ritual studies as an emerging interdisciplinary field, with particular emphasis on its relevance to the study of the history of early Christianity. Three characteristics are singled out. Ritual studies is distinguished by: (1) a pluralistic approach to the definition of ‘ritual’; (2) an increased interest in theory; and (3) the application of interdisciplinary perspectives on ritual. The chapter also responds to the criticism that has been raised against using the concept of ritual and ritual theory in the study of past rituals and argues that ritual theory enriches historical and textual analysis of early Christian materials in a number of ways. Ritual theory contributes to drawing a more complete picture of early Christian history and offers a corrective to a biased understanding of early Christianity as a system of beliefs and practices. Finally, examples from the present Handbook are taken to demonstrate how the ritual perspective creates a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration and integrative approaches which both stimulate new questions and enrich old ones.

The Earliest Example of Christian Hymnody

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 34-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. Wellesz
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Christian Music ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Musical Notation ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Hymn Singing

From Patristic writings ample evidence can be gathered about the important part which hymn-singing held in Early Christianity. Until recently, however, Early Christian hymnography was known only from documents transmitting the text but not the music. The discovery and publication of a Christian hymn in Greek with musical notation was, therefore, bound to change the whole aspect of studies concerned with the history of Early Christian music. This happened, as is well known, in 1922 when, under No. 1786 of the fifteenth volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri A. S. Hunt edited a fragment of a hymn, dating from the late third century, together with a transcript of the music by H. Stuart Jones. For the first time it became possible to realize what kind of music Greek-speaking Christians in Egypt sang in praise of the Lord.

The Archaeology of Early Christianity

2019 ◽  
pp. xv-27
Author(s):  
William R. Caraher ◽  
David K. Pettegrew
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
State Of The Field ◽  
The Catholic Church

Since the Renaissance, archaeology has played a significant albeit changing role in illuminating the history of early Christianity. This chapter surveys different historical approaches to archaeological investigations of Christianity, from early efforts to authenticate or disprove the traditions and practices of the Catholic church to the development of the field of early Christian archaeology in continental Europe and through to more recent efforts to reconstruct the social and economic contexts of early Christian sites and landscapes between the first and eighth centuries. This chapter offers a state of the field, highlighting the positive achievements of archaeologists over the last two centuries and drawing attention to problems of method, interpretation, and approach that modern scholars are working to correct. It recommends repositioning the field within the disciplinary framework of archaeology itself while also encouraging fruitful interdisciplinary conversation.

Ethnicity and Early Christianity: New Approaches to Religious Kinship and Community

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-227
Author(s):  
Todd Berzon
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Ethnic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Difference ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Sacred History

This article outlines how recent scholarly interventions about notions of race, ethnicity and nation in the ancient Mediterranean world have impacted the study of early Christianity. Contrary to the long-held proposition that Christianity was supra-ethnic, a slate of recent publications has demonstrated how early Christian authors thought in explicitly ethnic terms and developed their own ethnic discourse even as they positioned Christianity as a universal religion. Universalizing ambitions and ethnic reasoning were part and parcel of a larger sacred history of Christian triumphalism. Christian thinkers were keen to make claims about kinship, descent, blood, customs and habits to enumerate what it meant to be a Christian and belong to a Christian community. The narrative that Christians developed about themselves was very much an ethnic history, one in which human difference and diversity was made to conform to the theological and ideological interests of early Christian thinkers.

CSPS: A small but stable society

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-335
Author(s):  
Mona Tokarek LaFosse
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Academic Environment ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Nag Hammadi ◽  
Early Christian

The Canadian Society of Patristic Studies/Association Canadienne des Ètudes Patristiques (CSPS/ACÈP), founded in 1975, is dedicated to the study of early Christianity and its various contexts in Late Antiquity, drawing members from various disciplines from across Canada and internationally. The society welcomes and nurtures new scholars and seasoned members alike. Members are exposed to and discuss a broad range of patristic-related topics at the annual meeting because sessions normally run consecutively (not concurrently). Topics of particular interest in recent years include early Christian exegesis, material culture, Gnosticism (the Nag Hammadi texts, in particular), and Syrian patristics. It is a friendly, supportive, and rigorous academic environment in which to present one's work. The society strives to continue its bilingual roots as well as support new initiatives for the study of patristics in Canada.

Material Culture and Historical Analysis

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Laura Salah Nasrallah
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Vital Importance ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Scholarship

This chapter outlines and argues for the vital importance of material culture in our historiographies of early Christianity in four parts. The chapter begins by defining material culture and then shows that material culture has long been included in the history of scholarship of the New Testament. Next, it surveys some of the key trends in the use of material culture for the study of women, gender, and sexuality in antiquity, and, finally, it suggests ways in which feminist materialist philosophy and history leads us to think more expansively about what is meant by material culture, focusing on the “matter” within it and harnessing theories of materiality to deepen our historical analysis of the context for the first production and reception of New Testament and other early Christian texts.

Many deep baptisms: reflections on religious, chiefly Muslim, conversion in Black Africa

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Humphrey J. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Personal Concern ◽  
Black Africa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Christian History

The primary purpose of this paper—apart from a personal concern to offer a token of affection and respect to a friend and colleague of many years’ standing—is to consider two analytical models (one drawn from early Christian history, the other from the history of science), and to suggest ways in which these may help us to interpret the data of religious, and in particular Muslim, change in sub-Saharan Africa.

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