Principalities and Powers: the Cosmic Background of Paul's Thought

1954 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. H. C. MacGregor
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Cosmic Background ◽  
Spirit World ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Christian Proclamation ◽  
The Demonic

I hope that no apology is necessary for the choice of a subject so closely akin to that of the Presidential Address by Professor William Manson last year.1 It was in fact that address which inspired the present paper. If any further justification is necessary for reverting to this theme I would remind you that a presidential address is by use and wont exempt from criticism, so that last year there was no opportunity for the discussion of a subject which should surely invite lively debate. Moreover, though Dr Manson in his address made occasional reference to Paul's thought, he deliberately confined himself in the main to the ‘Spiritual Background of the Work of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels’. Such promising exploration deserves to be followed up, for it is only with Paul that this background is filled in, in all its tremendous cosmic grandeur. As Dr Manson put it, the spirit world in Paul's thought ‘has taken on new dimensions and acquired a cosmic range and character’. Or again, whereas last year we were meeting the demonic powers ‘in the form of malignant and ghoulish beings, on the earth-level of popular demonic belief’, this year we are confronted by Paul's ‘grandiose hierarchy of cosmic spirits’. But my best justification is the sheer importance of this subject for the understanding of Paul's thought. As Professor J. S. Stewart has remarked in a notable article in the Scottish Journal of Theology (vol. IV, no. 3), we shall never get inside the mind of Paul until we take seriously what has in fact been ‘a neglected emphasis in New Testament Theology’, and cease to treat ‘as secondary and extraneous elements in the primitive Christian proclamation what in fact are integral and basic components of the Gospel’.

The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels

1982 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale C. Allison
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The question, What did Paul know about Jesus of Nazareth?, has long been debated by students of the New Testament. The debate has not issued in any consensus. Indeed, critical appraisals of Paul's relation to the Jesus of history and to traditions about him have been unusually disparate. Thus, on the one side, W. D. Davies has argued that ‘Paul is steeped in the mind and words of his Lord.’ On the other side, R. Bultmann could claim that ‘the teaching of the historical Jesus plays no role, or practically none, in Paul’. The contrast between these two assertions is puzzling, and all the more so as neither can be regarded as idiosyncratic: Davies is not alone in avowing that sayings of and traditions about Jesus were of momentous significance for Paul, and it is not difficult to find critics at one with Bultmann. Moreover, as our two quotations do not simply represent two circles of opinion but also mark poles between which appears a variety of viewpoints, matters are even further complicated.

The New Testament and Intellectual Humility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Macaskill
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Sacrificial Love ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

This book examines how the New Testament scriptures might form and foster intellectual humility within Christian communities. It is informed by recent interdisciplinary interest in intellectual humility, and concerned to appreciate the distinctive representations of the virtue offered by the New Testament writers on their own terms. It argues that the intellectual virtue is cast as a particular expression of the broader Christian virtue of humility, which proceeds from the believer’s union with Christ, through which personal identity is reconstituted by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Hence, we speak of ‘virtue’ in ways determined by the acting presence of Jesus Christ, overcoming sin and evil in human lives and in the world. The Christian account of the virtue is framed by this conflict, as believers within the Christian community struggle with natural arrogance and selfishness, and come to share in the mind of Christ. The new identity that emerges creates a fresh openness to truth, as the capacity of the sinful mind to distort truth is exposed and challenged. This affects knowledge and perception, but also volition: for these ancient writers, a humble mind makes good decisions that reflect judgments decisively shaped by the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. By presenting ‘humility of mind’ as a characteristic of the One who is worshipped—Jesus Christ—the New Testament writers insist that we acknowledge the virtue not just as an admission of human deficiency or limitation, but as a positive affirmation of our rightful place within the divine economy.

The Parousia of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels

1959 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. P. Owen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
2 Peter ◽  
Apostolic Church ◽  
Second Coming

The Second Coming (otherwise called the Parousia)1 of Christ constituted a serious problem for the apostolic Church. One of the earliest of Paul's Epistles (1 Thessalonians) shows how quickly his converts became discouraged when some of their number died before the Lord's appearing. In reply Paul repeats his promise that the Lord will soon return, although in his second epistle he has to give a reminder that Antichrist must first make a final bid for power (1 Thess. 4.15–18, 2 Thess. 2). Similarly the author of Hebrews, writing to a disillusioned and apathetic group of Christians some decades later in the first century, recalls the words of Habakkuk that ‘the Lord will come and not be slow’ (10.37). Finally 2 Peter, the latest book of the New Testament (written, perhaps, as late as the middle of the second century), continues to offer the hope of an imminent Parousia to be accompanied by the world's destruction and renewal (ch. 3). If Christians are tempted to despair they must remember that the word of prophets and Apostles is sure (v. 2) and that with God ‘a thousand years are as one day’ (v. 8).

Alessandro Gavazzi: a barnabite friar and the risorgimento (Presidential Address)

1975 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 303-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Basil Hall
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Memento Mori ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Mind

Think nowHistory has many cunning passages, contrived corridorsAnd issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,Guides us by vanities. Think nowShe gives when our attention is distractedAnd what she gives, gives with such supple confusionsThat the giving famishes the craving. Gives too lateWhat’s not believed in, or if still believed,In memory only, reconsidered passion.Historians no doubt have problems enough without setting before themselves that ‘memento mori’ from Eliot, who, though he was describing an old man seeking to understand his own past, leaves nevertheless an echo in the mind disturbing to those who practise the historian’s craft. We assume a confidence which in our heart of hearts we do not always, or should not always, possess. Eliot’s words not only demonstrate the difficulty of one man understanding his own past, but also the historian’s difficulty in understanding those whom they select for questioning from among the vast multitudes of the silent dead, whose deeds, artifacts, ideas, passions, hopes and memories have died with them. We dig into the past, obtain data from archives, brush off the objects found, collect statistics, annotate, arrange, describe, establish a chronology – but do we effectively understand the dead, especially since we are affected by our own beliefs, customs and ideologies? We are, of course, all aware of this: we silently scorn the lecturer who raises these diffident hesitations. For we know our duty: we examine all that we can, we describe our findings, we annotate them, we draw conclusions, or leave our demonstrations to speak for themselves. There are reasons, as I shall hope to show, that these considerations – Eliot’s ominous words and our determination not to be disquieted by them – bear upon the subject of this paper, the almost forgotten Alessandro Gavazzi.

scholarly journals New Testament Anthropology: Conscience as an Anthropological Phenomenon in the Context of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-124
Author(s):  
Priest Aleksiy (Razdorov) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Historical Epoch ◽  
Human Awareness

This article examines the New Testament teaching about man in the authentic epistles of Paul the Apostle. In particular, it studies the anthropological phenomenon of conscience as one of the important ethical terms in Christian worldview. In spite of the fact that this topic has been thoroughly investigated by Western biblical science, Russian theological environment has not been paying it sufficient attention. Therefore, from the position of theological and philological research within the framework of the historical and cultural approach, the article dwells on conscience expressed by Paul the Apostle through the term συνείδησις in the epistles to the Corinthians and the Romans, whose authorship as St. Paul’s is unquestioned by modern biblical studies. The research shows that Paul the Apostle used the term συνείδησις in a sense related to human awareness, without any explicit emphasis on morality as in the works by Stoic philosophers. For St. Paul, the term συνείδησις in a general sense means an autonomous anthropological instance of a person’s judgеment/assessment of his/her own behaviour in relation to the norms, laws and rules adopted by him/her. However, depending on the historical circumstances in the life of Christian communities, Paul the Apostle gave this term his own semantic connotations. According to this research, in the text of the Pauline epistles συνείδησις appears not only as a general anthropological phenomenon, but also as an independent (autonomous) personified witness to the truth, as an instance that checks the correspondence between the declared value norms in the mind and the person’s own behaviour. This instance reflects the mental activity of a conscious human as a person in any cultural and historical epoch regardless of his/her religious preferences.

Presidential Address: Maps in the Mind and the Mobility of Asia

2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 1057-1078 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ludden
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Street Gangs ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Visual Text ◽  
Real Estate Developers ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Invisible

A map is a peculiar kind of visual text. It seems a mere instrument of utility, showing us where to go and how to put things in place. Invisible ingredients, however, render every map a Pandora's box. Emotions are undoubtedly the most potent of all of the invisible elements in maps. The cartographic passions that make the headlines may be national ones, but in cities, towns, and villages, people have strong feelings about local maps. Street gangs, real estate developers, insurance companies, zoning boards, planners, and electorates invest maps with local politics. Landowners love their property lines. Universities map their campus identity. The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) signifies itself succinctly in its logo, a map of Asia. Such territorial attachments and many others have striking similarities: they infuse boundaries with iconic significance, tinged with feelings of security, belonging, possessiveness, enclosure, entitlement, and exclusion.

Decapitated Lunar Goddesses in Aztec Art, Myth, and Ritual

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Milbrath
Keyword(s):  
Solar Eclipse ◽  
Seasonal Cycle ◽  
Full Moon ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Seasonal Transition ◽  
The Earth ◽  
New Moon ◽  
The Demonic

AbstractAztec images of decapitated goddesses link the symbolism of astronomy with politics and the seasonal cycle. Rituals reenacting decapitation may refer to lunar events in the context of a solar calendar, providing evidence of a luni-solar calendar. Decapitation imagery also involves metaphors expressing the rivalry between the cults of the sun and the moon. Huitzilopochtli's decapitation of Coyolxauhqui can be interpreted as a symbol of political conquest linked to the triumph of the sun over the moon. Analysis of Coyolxauhqui's imagery and mythology indicates that she represents the full moon eclipsed by the sun. Details of the decapitation myth indicate specific links with seasonal transition and events taking place at dawn and at midnight. Other decapitated goddesses, often referred to as earth goddesses with “lunar connections,” belong to a complex of lunar deities representing the moon within the earth (the new moon). Cihuacoatl, a goddess of the new moon, takes on threatening quality when she assumes the form of a tzitzimime attacking the sun during a solar eclipse. The demonic new moon was greatly feared, for it could cause an eternal solar eclipse bringing the Aztec world to an end.

scholarly journals Finding guidelines on social change in the two-tiered narrative and diakonia in the Gospel of John

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Breed
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Gospel Of John ◽  
New Order ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Earth ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Invisible

It is shown in this article that the Gospel of John describes a battle between darkness and light, life and death, chaos and God’s new order. Although the certainty is given right at the beginning of the Gospel that the darkness will not overcome the light, God does not take the possibility of darkness away. Darkness in John is darkness of the mind, not seeing the light, not comprehending, not accepting and not believing the Word. The battle between light and darkness is described at two levels – the visible level that you can see with your eyes and the invisible level that only those who have been regenerated by the Spirit can see. Although it may seem that the contrary is true, God is in control of both levels. Jesus made the invisible visible with his words and deeds and, eventually, with his resurrection. The diakonoi (servants) of Jesus are called to follow him in his task to honour the father by speaking the words of the father and doing the work of the father. In doing this, they will make the invisible God visible by their diakonia (service). Real social change will take place in God’s time, and he will use the diakonia of his children to bring order in the chaos, like he did in the beginning when he created the heavens and the earth. The results of the research are used to suggest guidelines on social change in South Africa.

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