Philology and Authorship in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis

Traditio ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 315-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Heffernan
Keyword(s):  
De Anima ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
High Regard ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Self Immolation ◽  
Continuing Revelation ◽  
The Church ◽  
Normative Status

The martyrs whose suffering and death is recorded in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis have been revered for almost two millennia. The Church has signaled its high regard with the inclusion of Perpetua and Felicitas in the canon missae. The praise for these young Carthaginian converts was immediate. Beginning with Tertullian and including luminaries like Augustine and Quodvuldeus, leaders of the African church acknowledged these youthful Christians as models of Christian self-sacrifice; their triumph, the courage of spirit over the dread of death. For Tertullian, their act of confident self-immolation was the apogee of Christian fortitude. In his discussion of the location of the eternal dwelling place for those who die in Christ, Tertullian, in De Anima, called the young Roman woman Vibia Perpetua “the most courageous martyr” of the Church. His comment, at least partly intended to stiffen the resolve of his threatened congregation, is difficult to reconcile with the normative status accorded at this time to the figure of Stephen in Acts (cf. Acts 6–7). His remark might be a flight of characteristic hyperbole. It might suggest, however, that the traditional role of the proto-martyr Stephen was not yet canonical in Carthage. Conversely, if Tertullian has already moved from orthodoxy, it might represent a deliberate attempt on his part to elevate the narrative of the Passio over the incident in Acts, thus privileging Montanist belief in the power of the Holy Spirit's continuing revelation. There is certainly evidence for the latter position in the anonymous editor's opening remarks in the Passio itself.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Mason
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Communal Experience ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Church ◽  
Francis Of Assisi

This chapter locates Rossetti in the context of the book’s ecotheological argument, which traces an ecological love command in her writing through her engagement with Tractarianism, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Church Fathers, and Francis of Assisi. It establishes her Anglo-Catholic imagining of the cosmos as a fabric of participation and communal experience embodied in Christ. The first section reads Rossetti in the context of current Victorian ecocriticism, which underplays the role of Christianity in the development of nineteenth-century environmentalism. The next sections question critical readings of Rossetti as a reclusive thinker and argue instead for an educated and politicized Christian for whom indifference to the spiritual is complicit with an environmental crisis in which the weak and vulnerable suffer most. This introduction also refers to the wider field of Rossetti studies and introduces her reading of grace and apocalypse as a major contribution to the intradiscipline of Christianity and ecology.

The Role of the Moral Theologian in the Church: A Proposal in Light of Amoris Laetitia

2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 922-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conor M. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theology ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Amoris Laetitia ◽  
The Ideal

Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia recast pastoral decisions in terms of conscience and discernment and asked moral theology to do the same. Such a request invites reforms for moral theology, requiring a shift from the traditional role of the moral theologian as an external judge to a more personalist role as a counselor for conscience. This change entails prioritizing the process of discernment ahead of the definition of rules, specifying the place of the ideal in Catholic morality, and attending to the ethics of ordinary life.

Irenaeus and Origen

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian E. Daley, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The Body ◽  
Material World ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Providence Of God ◽  
The Church

Irenaeus wrote his two extant works chiefly to distinguish right faith from the various contemporary forms of “Gnostic” Christianity, which challenged the goodness and relevance of the material world, the body, and human institutions, promising instead secret, deeper knowledge of salvation in Christ that was available only to an elite. In response, Irenaeus affirmed the unity and constant providence of God in history, the narrative and doctrinal unity of the Hebrew Bible and the chief Christian documents, the personal unity of Christ as Son of God and son of Mary, and the worldwide unity of the church and its tradition of teaching. Origen of Alexandria also focused his efforts on correcting Gnostic understandings. The role of Christ, as God’s Word made flesh, is the heart of human redemption, revealing in his own biblical “titles” his identity as mediator between the unknowable Father and a straying humanity.

scholarly journals The Role of Women in the Mexican Cristero Rebellion: Las Señoras Y Las Religiosas

1984 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Miller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Participation Of Women ◽  
Catholic Women ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Cristero Rebellion ◽  
The Church

Participation of women in the Cristero rebellion, the Catholic uprising against the anti-clerical revolutionary government of Mexico, has largely been ignored by historians. A fresh reading of the documents, and more important, conversations with the principal women in the movement, reveal that the traditional role of women in the church gave way to changed behavior in the 1920s. Not only were Catholic women of a traditionally oriented society capable of assuming leadership in a violent enterprise, but they were equally capable of falling back into their conservative patterns once the crisis had ended. Nevertheless, the vital role women played in the church-state conflict prepared them for the emerging role of women in the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Living in Communion within Anglicanism

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-235
Author(s):  
Victor Atta-Baffoe
Keyword(s):  
Inclusive Language ◽  
Independent Churches ◽  
Women's Ordination ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Theological Differences ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

AbstractIn the Anglican Communion today, stress on tendencies such as liberalism and conservatism, evangelicalism and modernism, continues to separate people in Christ from each other. Arguments over sexuality, women’s ordination, gender, inclusive language, and theological differences continue to create division and antagonism in the Church. This article develops the role of embodied community (koinonia) and sacramental participation as the vital centre of shared Anglican unity. It makes use of Paul Avis’s concept of ‘progressive orthodoxy’ as a way of articulating what is shared by the independent churches of the Anglican Communion. The radical demand of the gospel compels us to appreciate and come to terms with Anglicanism, not so much in any specific, well defined theology, nor ecclesiastical bureaucracy, but rather in our mutual participation in the one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Eph. 4.4-6).

scholarly journals A missiological reflection on African ecclesiology

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalemba Mwambazambi
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
African Ecclesiology ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian Message

The 21st century challenges African Protestant missiologists to push the boundaries of African Protestant ecclesiology beyond the current status quo by �isolating the crucial issues, mapping out the challenges and identifying past and current traps� (Maluleke 1996:3). As African theologians propose, African ecclesiology represents two major concerns for the Christian mission in Africa: firstly, to Africanise the Christian message, and secondly, to contextualise the liturgies that have prompted this need for Africanisation in order to dissociate the African tradition from faith in Christ. Indeed, it is necessary to read the Gospel with renewed attention to the comments of the Fathers of the Church and yet be indifferent to the strategic directives of Catholic ecclesiology. This article set out to analyse and demonstrate the contribution of African ecclesiology to Protestantism in order to gain a better understanding of the role of the Church today. The critical-theological research method was used.

The Way of Action: Pierre d’Ailly and the Military Solution to the Great Schism

1983 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 191-200
Author(s):  
R. N. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Partisan Conflict ◽  
The One ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Church

The traditional role of the medieval latin church in legitimising warfare tends to fall into two main categories. On the one hand, there are the secular political wars, in which the church can perhaps be seen as a third force: while called on to legitimise and support partisan conflict between supposedly Christian antagonists, it could also work as a force for peace. On the other hand, there are the religious wars, to which the church was itself a party, either in warfare against infidels, or against those who, in their obstinacy, refused to recognise and accept the authority of the Roman church.

scholarly journals Świętość Kościoła w ujęciu św. Piotra Chryzologa

2018 ◽  
pp. 353-368
Author(s):  
Bogusław Kochaniewicz
Keyword(s):  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Patristic Literature ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ontological Aspect

The article Holiness of the Church according to Sermons of St. Peter Chrysologus presents one aspect of the ecclesiology of the bishop of Ravenna. Among the most popular questions, which are evidenced in his theological reflection, it is necessary to evidence, that Church Fathers focus their attention on an ontological aspect of the Church’s holiness which finds its foundation in Christ. Frequent references to ideas of the Mystical Body of Christ or the Church as a spouse of Christ confirm our opinion. It is necessary to admit that these themes, like other questions, developed in Chrysologus’s sermons (the role of the sacrament or belief that there is no salvation outside the Church) are already known in the patristic literature. Therefore the ecclesiology of the bishop of Ravenna is not original. However, taking into consideration the pastoral dimension of his teaching, it is clear that the objective of his sermons was different than to present an ecclesiological treatise.The results of analytical researches allow to complete the picture of the doctrine of the Church by its unknown aspect, contained in the teaching of the bishop of Ravenna.

The Liturgy

2015 ◽  
pp. 262-276
Author(s):  
Pamela Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Church History ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Public Worship

Liturgy, the Church’s public worship, embodies the faith of the Church, and has been drawn on as a source for theology from the early centuries of Church history. This article considers the Church’s theology of the liturgy—how the liturgy functions as vehicle through which God extends his saving action accomplished in Christ to each generation by the power of the Holy Spirit-as well as the relationship between liturgy and theology. It then discusses elements of the outward form of the liturgy and their meaning. Finally, there is consideration of characteristics of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, including its treatment of the nature of the liturgy, the role of the Word in the liturgy, and the relationship between liturgy and conversion.

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