Divine Generation and Human Potentiality

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-54
Author(s):  
Jarred A. Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
John 1 ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Eternal Generation ◽  
Human Potentiality

Chapter 1 demonstrates that divine generation is the beginning of Hilary of Poitiers’s trinitarian anthropology. This chapter frames the discussion of divine generation within the boundaries of early Christian interpretation of John 1:1–4, Hilary’s favored text for the discussion. This illuminates the importance of divine generation in fourth-century Christianity and also Hilary’s unique contributions and the significant anthropological implications therein. In his reading of the passage (in polemical engagements with Homoian theology) the nature of God as eternally generative is seen to directly implicate humanity in that productivity. Hilary argues that in the eternal generation of the Son all things are potentially created, so that the nature of humanity is directly dependent upon the eternal generation of the Son, as this is where it finds its origin. This chapter also provides a trenchant reading of third-century ideas of divine generation (in Origen, Tertullian, and Novatian), which provide the foundation on which Hilary builds.

Some North African Turning Points in Christian Apologetics

2006 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
W. H. C. FREND
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The North ◽  
The Face ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Christian Apologetics

Apologetics take their place beside miracles of healing and courage in the face of persecution as an important means of furthering the early Christian mission. In the first two centuries AD, when the popular perception was that Christianity was closely allied to Judaism, the argument from Old Testament prophecy was important. In the third century, however, as the Church gained ground among the educated classes in east and west, the emphasis changed to an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity over its pagan rivals as a philosophy with a more convincing understanding of the role of providence. Apologists in the north African tradition, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Arnobius and Lactantius, all played their part in this process. The prophecies of the Old Testament had to be confirmed by other prophecies, notably the Sibylline oracles and the sayings of Hermes Trismegistus. Finally, in the fourth century, many north Africans who, like Augustine for ten years, adhered to Manichaean Christianity relied wholly on these authorities, rejecting the Old Testament altogether.

The Date of the Muratorian Fragment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-172
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
First Time ◽  
Objective Methodology

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.

Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Christian Practices ◽  
Dietary Laws ◽  
New Religion

This book examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. Concepts of purity and defilement were pivotal for understanding human nature, sin, history, and ritual in early Christianity. In parallel, major Christian practices, such as baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, felt, and shaped as instances of purification. Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, formed the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was substantive: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion. The second was polemic: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagans, or “heretics”) as false. The book traces the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing dietary laws, death defilement, sexuality, and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses. There are three central arguments. First, purity and defilement were central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those of contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.

Influence on Early Christian Worship

2020 ◽  
pp. 377-391
Author(s):  
Paul F. Bradshaw
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Ritual Practices

This chapter traces the various ways in which the cultic language and imagery of the Hebrew Scriptures influenced and shaped the liturgical thought and ritual practices of early Christianity, from the first to the fourth century ce. At first, this was primarily through the metaphorical or spiritual application of such concepts as priesthood and sacrifice, but eventually there are indications of the beginnings of the adoption of a more literal correspondence between some elements of the Temple cult and aspects of Christian worship. Both corporate and individual practices of prayer are covered, including the use of the canonical psalms, as well as the appropriation of traditional ritual gestures and the emergence of Christian holy days out of biblical festivals.

Aphrahat and Pauline Reception: 1 Corinthians 7 and Baptismal Reasoning in East and West

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-423
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Edsall
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Latin West ◽  
East And West ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Present Argument ◽  
Greek East

In studies of Pauline reception, most scholars limit themselves to works in the second or early third century (often ending with Irenaeus or the Acts of Paul) and to material from the Latin West and Greek East. Although later Syriac sources are rarely engaged, those who do work on this material have long recognised the importance of Paul's letters for that material. The present argument aims to help broaden the dominant discourse on Pauline reception by attending to early Syriac sources, principally the work of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. I focus in particular on his discussion of baptism and marriage in Dem. 7.18–20, which has confounded scholars over the years. This passage displays a kind of Pauline ‘logic’ indebted to 1 Cor 7.20, which can be discerned among other early Christian applications of that passage in similar contexts, in both East and West.

THE DATING OF PHILIPPOS OF AMPHIPOLIS (BNJ 280 T2)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Brent Arehart
Keyword(s):  
Short Note ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third

Abstract On the basis of two neglected testimonia, this short note argues that the terminus ante quem for Philippos of Amphipolis (BNJ 280) should be moved forward to the third century or to the early fourth century c.e. if not earlier.

The Romano-British Shrines at Brigstock, Northants

1963 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Greenfield
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Polygonal Shape

SummaryTwo shrines of circular and polygonal shape, probably part of a larger group, were erected early in the second half of the third century A.D., and occupied until late in the fourth century. The shrines occur in an area of widespread settlement dating from the late Iron Age until the end of the fourth century. Many objects of bronze and iron of ritual significance, together with a large number of votive deposits and coins, were recovered from the circular shrine. Miss M. V. Taylor's discussion of the principal objects appears on pp. 264–8.

scholarly journals From Commentary to paribhāṣās: Kātyāyana and Patañjali vis-à-vis Vyāḍi

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-566
Author(s):  
Maria Piera Candotti ◽  
Tiziana Pontillo
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

Abstract The present paper is targeted on three landmarks in the long story of the paribhāṣās’ development. Two of these landmarks descended from the earliest testimony of Vyākaraṇa meta-rules, i. e. those included in Pāṇini’s grammar (fifth–fourth century BCE), and one which has been handed down as the first independent collection of paribhāṣās and attributed to Vyāḍi. In particular a shift is highlighted between Kātyāyaṇa’s (third century BCE) integrative approach (vacana) and Patañjali’s (second century BCE) recourse to implicit paribhāṣās in the Aṣṭādhyāyī as a powerful hermeneutical tool. A shift that helps in interpreting the need for a validation and collection of implicit pāṇinian paribhāṣās as carried out by authors such as Vyāḍi.

The Material Circumstances

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-50
Author(s):  
Lucy C. M. M. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century

Chapter 1 brings together the evidence for when and where dramatic choruses danced in the fourth century, providing an historical base for the later discussions of fourth-century dramatic choral activity. After establishing the certain and likely locations for dramatic performances in Athens, Attica, and the wider ancient Mediterranean (and beyond), the chapter considers the question of who the choral performers were, and what their choral training might have involved. Through this focus on the choral performer, and the practicalities of producing so many dramatic productions in each year, the chapter can begin to draw together a new picture of choral industry in the fourth century, an industry that clearly had its roots in the fifth century. Considering the theory that ‘local’, ‘amateur’ choruses would be recruited for travelling groups of actors, it suggests that the evidence supports, instead, a class of skilled choral performers in line with the industry’s professionalizing turn.

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