Scripture, Prophecy, and Knowledge of Christ in Origen

2021 ◽  
pp. 170-191
Author(s):  
Claire Hall
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Knowledge Of Christ ◽  
Somatic Sense ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter examines why Origen focuses closely on Christ and what it means for understanding prophecy. It argues that Origen’s focus on Christ can be understood as a response to the challenges of Marcionism. Earlier chapters examined somatic prophecy: that is to say, predictions of the future. Early Christian writers interpreted Old Testament prophecies as predictions of Christ, and doing so was an important anti-Marcionite strategy. However, christological prophecies were not only read in a somatic sense, that is, as predictions of Christ’s incarnate life. Many verses in the Bible were also read as pneumatic prophecies of Christ not as an incarnate human in time, but as the second person of the Trinity, outside time. As Origen claims, prophecies of this kind can ‘teach much theology’, functioning as pneumatic revelations of Christ as Logos and of God’s triune being. In answering the Marcionites’ claims that Old Testament prophecies were unreliable, Origen had to formulate positions on scripture’s epistemological status and also on how scripture relates to knowledge of God. This chapter therefore examines both Origen’s explicit response to the Marcionites, but also his notions of time, inspiration, and revelation, and examines a case study of John the Baptist as a prophet who unites the three senses of prophecy. It concludes that Christ is at the centre of Origen’s thought about prophecy, as the ultimate content of all somatic, psychic, and pneumatic prophecy.

scholarly journals Struggling with christology: Apolinarius of Laodicea and st Gregory of Nyssa

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 243-251
Author(s):  
Robin Orton
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Significant Step ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Trinity

The argument in the 380s between Gregory and Apolinarius, as set out Gregory’s Antirrheticus adversus Apolinarium, can be seen as a significant step in the development of the Church’s Christological teaching. Apolinarius’s no­tion that the eternal Logos took the place of Jesus Christ’s human mind is de­signed to establish the unity of his person, by providing a basis for the ontic con­tinuity between the Second Person of the Trinity and Christ in his two natures. Commendably, he wants to counter any suggestion of separation between the hu­man and divine natures (“two Christs”), which he sees as inevitably leading to an “adoptionist” view of Christ as a “God-filled man”; that would put Christ on the same level as the Old Testament prophets and could not form the basis of an adequate soteriology. Gregory argues convincingly however that Apolinarius’s “enfleshed mind” Christology would mean that Jesus Christ was not fully hu­man and could not therefore save humankind. But in the face of Apolinarius’s challenge he cannot give an adequate account of Christ’s unity during his earthly career. He remains open to Apolinarius’s charge of a “divisive” Christology by in effect postponing the complete unity until after Christ’s glorification, when his divinity overwhelmed his humanity and removed all his human characteristics, in the same way as the water of the sea overwhelms a drop of vinegar dropped into it. On this basis he has, anachronistically but not unreasonably, been accused of taking a Nestorian view of Christ before his glorification and a monophysite one after it. Both Apolinarius’s stress on the unity of Christ and Gregory’s on the no­tion that ‘what is not assumed is not healed’ (Nazianzen’s phrase) were essential elements in what emerged seventy years later in the Chalcedonian definition.

scholarly journals “Varii errores qui ab origine mundi emerserunt”. The semantic scope of the term “heresy” in Philastrius’ of Brescia Diversarum hereseon liber

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 315-325
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Rule Of Faith ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Semantic Scope

The bishop of Brescia, Philastrius, author of the first Latin catalogue of he­resies, written between 380 and 388, presented in his treaty an extremely large number of heterodox movements: 28 within Judaism and 128 in early Christianity. This comes as a result of a wide understanding of the term heresis. For Philastrius this term was synonymous with the term error, recognized as any deviation from the universal truth in the history of the world, inspired by Satan as “the father of lies”, ocurring primarily in Judaism and Christianity. Among the early Christian views defined by the bishop of Brescia as heresy five groups can be distinguished. The first group includes mainly the erroneous views on fundamental theological questions contained in the rule of faith, such as the concept of a creator God and saviour Jesus Christ. The second set of he­resies, closely related with the previous one, contains the erroneous doctrines of anthropology, such as questioning the resurrection of the human body or the view of the materiality of the human soul. The third group includes the views related to the misinterpretation of Scripture, especially exaggerated literal interpretations of the texts of the Old Testament, as well as the cosmological views which do not agree with descriptions contained within the Bible. The fourth group contains the moral issues related to the based on laxism or rigorism way of life, as well as to the attitude of lack of deference to the laws of the Church, but non-threatening the primary truths of the Christian faith. The fifth group of heresies includes the movements defined by the authors of the late patristic period as a schizm, while the term schisma is not at all used by the bishop of Brescia in his work. The semantic scope of the term heresis in Philastrius’ treaty went beyond the noncompliance with the regula fidei. According to the bishop of Brescia each offense – whether in doctrinal teaching or practice of life, as well as with regard to the understanding of the text of Scripture – is a heresy because it offends God and the Church. Therefore, in Philastrius opinion one should not differentiate between superior and minor error, but equally condemn them as attitudes directed against God as the Father of Truth.

EARLY CHRISTIAN REPRESENTATIONS OF MAN BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY – THE FEATURES OF THE RELATIONSHIP

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
A. V. Laputko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
World View ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Final Design

The article examines the preconditions for the formation of Christian ideas about man. The emphasis is on the fact that the doctrine of a person has never been a separate problem of theology, and, consequently, was formed in parallel and within the basic tenets of Christianity. The author focuses attention on the contradiction in understanding the origin of representations of a person between the traditional branches of Christianity. On the whole, while remaining in common positions, each denomination identifies its own fundamental source of the origin of anthropological ideas, not taking into account the complex and contradictory path of interpenetration of the ideas of ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity. The author shows the path of formation of the main anthropological representations from the Old Testament notions to the New Testament, which receive their final design only in the works of apologists of Christianity brought up by the logic and culture of thinking of ancient philosophy. Thus, the birth of a new world-view anthropological paradigm, which remains one of the most popular and discursive in the modern world, takes place within the framework of a dialogue between ancient Greek philosophical thought and Old Testament ideas.

Tragical Mimesis and Biblical Interpretation II

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-101
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Judas Iscariot ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Sacrifice

This chapter, following on the last, expands to other case studies of dramatic interpretation and tragical mimesis in patristic exposition of tragic narratives in the Bible beyond Genesis, in Old and New Testaments alike. The horrific story of Jephthah’s fateful vow and the “sacrifice” of his daughter (Judges 11), perhaps the best single example of tragedy in the Hebrew Scriptures, vexed its patristic interpreters by its ostensive moral senselessness and resistance to theological redeemability. The flawed character of other tragic heroes such as Samson and King Saul added to the hermeneutical perplexity, while the story of Job was largely taken as a testament of pious endurance of tragic circumstances. The New Testament meanwhile presented, to its patristic interpreters, the proto-Christian “tragic heroics” of the Holy Innocents and John the Baptist, and the “tragic villainy” of Judas Iscariot and Ananias and Sapphira, each story prompting its own questions about freedom, determinism, and divine justice. Early Christian interpreters consistently put forward and even amplified the elements of tragedy in these stories in order to educate their own audiences in confronting irrevocable evil and suffering.

scholarly journals Sacred nominations in texts about national liberation movement of Ukraine: a comparative approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 140-162
Author(s):  
Liliya Bachun
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Variable Component ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
King David ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Bible ◽  
National Liberation Movement

The article describes the main provisions of the theolinguistic science, its defining criteria and objects of further research. Theoretical bases of the concept of religious discourse and its connection with ethnocentrism of the analyzed material have been stated. A comparative analysis of the peculiarities of the semantic-associative motivation for use of sacred-type coreferents in the twelve texts of works about the national liberation movement of Ukraine with their functioning in the text of the Bible have been conducted. Categorically analyzed names of the sacred coreferents have been divided according to the eschatological-ontological connotative directions, designations of religious things of use and the names of passional sacral type. Nine names of biblical anthroponyms have been singled out in the analyzed twelve texts of works about the national liberation movement of Ukraine, which determine the objectification of the sacred conceptosphere. The variable component of the biblical anthroponyms functioning (St. Peter, Joseph of Arimathea and John the Baptist) in the analyzed texts of works about the national liberation movement of Ukraine and their various translations of the Bible have been clarified. The functional and stylistic features of the writers' usage of Old Testament and New Testament precedent biblical names and their common and distinctive features of functioning in the texts of various translations of the Bible have been highlighted. The category of the sacred onyms′ functionality has been realized through the words′ connotative-associative layers (Jeremiah and lexical units of weeping, sobbing; King David ‒ psalms), comparison (Moses ‒ Ivan Franko), the characteristics of activities (betrayal of Judas) and identification of Adam with the Fall, and Christ with eternal life.

Creation

2019 ◽  
pp. 511-524
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Many ◽  
Sacred History

Early Christian interpretation of Scripture on the theme of creation not surprisingly gave considerable attention to the Genesis account of the origins of the world, in part to counter the claims of Graeco-Roman cosmology, but more importantly to expound the latent theological meaning of the many details of the biblical cosmogony. But patristic exegetes were also keen on the fact that ‘creation’ in the Bible implied far more than beginnings; indeed, it designated the whole economy (oikonomia) of the Creator’s ongoing relation to the creation as set forth in sacred history and as requiring the further interpretative lenses of Christology, soteriology, and eschatology. Early Christian interpreters plumbed a wide variety of Old Testament texts beyond Genesis (especially the Psalms, Deutero-Isaiah, and the Wisdom literature). In their New Testament commentary they focused on such motifs as the subjection of creation to ‘vanity’, the work of Jesus Christ in recapitulating God’s creative purposes, and the eschatological renewal and transformation of the created universe in its relation to human salvation.

scholarly journals Cognitive Science in the Study of Early Christianity: Why It Is Helpful – and How?

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Uro
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Human Thinking

In recent years, a number of New Testament and early Christian scholars have begun to use cognitive science approaches in their work. In this paper, I situate those efforts within the larger framework of the changing humanities, and the increased interest among humanistic scholars and social scientists in drawing on the growing body of knowledge on the cognitive and evolutionary roots of human thinking and behaviour. I also suggest how cognitive historiography can be helpful in shedding new light on issues discussed by New Testament scholars, by elaborating a case study: an analysis of the rite introduced by John the Baptist.

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