What Remains?

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-182
Author(s):  
Ellen Muehlberger
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Physical Punishment ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Moment

Chapter 4 considers the wealth of images of death as a fund of Christian thinking about the nature of humanity and argues that by putting more effort toward imagining death, Christians invented a new stage of human experience: the postmortal. While some early Christian literature speaks formally of death as the moment of separation between an eternal soul and a mortal body, the picture that emerges from the evidence in this book is far more complex. What remained was not just a soul, or a mind, but was often also a body that received physical punishment. The chapter argues that in the Christian imagination about death we can access an informal anthropology that stands at odds with formal theological teachings about humanity from late antiquity. Once established, thinking about death as a moment of reckoning shifted how Christians thought of a person and his life.

Some Recent Receptions of Early Christian Literature in Bulgaria and Their Ethnical Connotations

Proglas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Christov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
God's Grace

In this paper, when I use the concept of ‘early Christian literature’ I mean the body of texts from Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages that affects the controversies around the issue of God’s Grace and the role of free human will in the context of making a choice in a strict ethical sense. For that reason, firstly, here I analyze the problems that arose with relation to the doctrine of Pelagius. Secondly, in this paper, by ‘recent receptions of this early Christian literature in Bulgaria’ I mean those receptions – in a theological, literary, and ethical sense - that we encounter in current studies of Christian Latin literature done by the promising young researcher Rosen Milanov. Thirdly, the present study attempts to answer the question of the ethical connotations of those same receptions in the present-day moral controversies in Bulgaria – a country rich in conservative views of Eastern Orthodox nature, concerning contemporary ethical issues such as those related to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention last year. In this way it may be possible to obtain a more clear outlook on how such distant historical events as the Pelagian controversy about the value of free moral choice could still influence the modification processes in the sociocultural layers of modern Bulgarian society with its Eastern Orthodox heritage.

The Theological Scope of Early Christian Tragical Vision

2020 ◽  
pp. 219-253
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Hans Urs Von Balthasar ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Divine Wisdom ◽  
Interpretive Paradigm ◽  
Dark Comedy ◽  
Christian Literature

This last full chapter confirms, first of all, that tragical vision and mimesis constituted a theological artform in early Christian literature, whereby literary, rhetorical, and dramatic artistry were vital to the eminently theological interests of patristic tragical visionaries and not mere artifices. The “theodramatic” interpretive paradigm of the modern theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar is introduced as a lens through which to reevaluate the compatibility of theology and tragedy in early Christian authors. Other modern Christian tragical visionaries besides Balthasar are also brought into “conversation” with patristic interpreters of the tragic character of creaturely existence, in an effort to demonstrate the theological intelligence and accountability of early Christian tragical mimesis in its various forms, and to highlight the criteria by which “the tragic” has come to be identified in the Christian tradition. It is shown that patristic interpreters often played up human experience of intractable evil and “fateful” suffering in order, paradoxically, to enhance the depths of the divine wisdom and providence operative in creation. Tragical mimesis ultimately integrated “dark” comedy in dramatizing the “folly” of the economy of salvation.

The Virgin, the Bride, and the Church: Reading Psalm 45 in Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Past ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Christian Discourse ◽  
The Church

Within the past decade or so, historical studies of early Christianity have been affected by what has been called the “linguistic turn.” This development has entailed a new appreciation of the varied forms of Christian “discourse” and their importance in shaping the cultural, political, and social worlds of late antiquity. For example, historians of religion and culture, such as Judith Perkins and Kate Cooper, have drawn attention to the way in which narrative representation in early Christian literature functioned to construct Christian identities and to negotiate power relations both within the church and in society at large. It has become increasingly difficult for historians to ignore the power of rhetoric in shaping the imaginative (and, therefore, real) worlds of late ancient Christians.

The Syrian–Palestinian Milieu in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-262
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Anti Jewish

This chapter focuses on a unique corpus of early Christian literature in Syriac that reflects a synthesis of older patristic views of the Calf episode with specific themes that seem to have circulated widely in the Eastern Christian milieu, shared in common between communities of Jewish and Christian exegetes in this period. While continuing the tradition of anti-Jewish arguments predicated on the abiding impact of Israel’s sin with the Calf, authors such as Ephrem, Aphrahat, and Jacob of Serugh also developed a unique view of Aaron that dictated a more apologetic position regarding his culpability; this precisely paralleled the development of similar views of Aaron in Jewish tradition. This material provides us with a lens through which to examine the phenomenon of exegetical approaches that are held in common by different communities, yet deployed for opposite purposes. The chapter concludes by considering a possible historical context to Syrian Christian polemic against Jews based on the Calf narrative: the revival of priestly leadership, or at least interest in the priesthood and its role, among contemporary Jewish communities, especially in late antique Palestine.

THE IMPOSSIBLE ART OF DRESSING TO PLEASE: JEROME AND THE RHETORIC OF DRESS

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 531-547
Author(s):  
Mary Harlow
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Over Time

This paper uses the letters of Jerome as a case study for examining the rhetoric of dress in early Christian writing, and considers how far such a language of dress can be useful in creating a catalogue or chronology of female dress in Late Antiquity. The paper will argue that discourses about dress and gender in the western empire show striking continuity over time and across the boundary between classical and Christian literature.

scholarly journals Galen and his treatise on grief

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature

Throughout his career, Fika Janse van Rensburg has rightly insisted on the importance of the socio-historical context in interpreting early Christian literature. Although New Testament scholars have given careful attention to many aspects of this context, they have generally neglected writings by physicians. This neglect includes the numerous works of the philosopher-physician Galen (129-ca. 216 or 217 CE), who was one of the Roman Empire’s most prolific writers. As a corrective, this article focuses on Galen, with attention given to his life and to a recently discovered treatise on distress or grief (lype¯), known as De indolentia [Avoiding Distress or On Freedom from Distress]. Galen discusses grief from both a physiological and philosophical perspective, and his treatment of this emotion and common human experience provides an important context for the statements about lype¯ found in the New Testament and other early Christian documents.

The Virgin Mary in the Ministry of Jesus and the Early Church according to the Earliest Life of the Virgin

2005 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Shoemaker
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Canonical Narratives ◽  
Protevangelium Of James

In 1986, Michel van Esbroeck published a remarkable new Life of the Virgin that not only is among the most profound and eloquent Mariological writings of early Byzantium but also presents a useful compendium of early apocryphal traditions about Mary. Some of the Life's episodes are already well known from their original sources, such as the Protevangelium of James and the early dormition apocrypha, but many other extrabiblical traditions appearing in this Life of the Virgin are not otherwise attested in early Christian literature. This is true especially of the section that overlaps with the gospels, where the Life expands the canonical narratives in ways unprecedented (to my knowledge) in Christian apocryphal literature. By writing Mary into the story at key points and augmenting several of her more minor appearances, the Life portrays Mary as a central figure in her son's ministry and also as a leader of the nascent church. The result is a veritable “Gospel of Mary” in the section of the Life that emphasizes Mary's essential contributions to her son's earthly mission and her leadership of the apostles in the early Christian community: the Life gives a brief account of the same events recorded in the canonical gospels, but with the Virgin Mary brought to the fore at nearly every instance. The origins of these traditions are not entirely clear, and while they may be the work of the Life's author, it is equally possible that they reflect now lost apocryphal traditions about Mary that once circulated in late antiquity. In any case, the attention that this earliest Life of the Virgin lavishes on the activities of Mary and other women as important leaders in the formation of Christianity is rather striking and quite exceptional among the literature of Christian late antiquity. In its emphasis on the roles played by these women it represents a surprising ancient predecessor to much of the recent work in New Testament scholarship to recover the importance of women in the early Christian movement.

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