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.

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.

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.

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.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Otto
Keyword(s):  
Early Christian ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
Christian Literature

As an allegorical interpreter who perceived some of the spiritual teachings embedded in the Hebrew scriptures, Philo did not match the image of the stereotypical Jew constructed by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius. Neither, however, did he fulfill their criteria to be considered a legitimate Christian. This chapter argues that Philo functions in early Christian writings as neither a Christian nor a Jew but is situated in between these two increasingly differentiated identities. Acting as a third term in the equation, Philo the “Pythagorean,” the “predecessor,” and the “Hebrew,” mediates between the categories of Christian and Jew while ensuring that the two identities remain rhetorically and conceptually distinct. An epilogue briefly traces the varying depictions of Philo in later Christian literature, including accounts of his baptism by the apostle John and his transformation into Philo Judaeus, Philo the Jew.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

2016 ◽  
pp. 717-738
Author(s):  
Kevin Mongrain
Keyword(s):  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Theological Aesthetics ◽  
Natural Form ◽  
Hans Urs Von Balthasar ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Natural Forms

This chapter considers the extensive corpus of Hans Urs von Balthasar by treating two architectonic themes in his thought: remembrance and beauty. In the first instance, Balthasar sees theology in modernity—especially in the form of neo-scholasticism—as marked by a failure to remember appropriately some essential principles of Christian tradition, most importantly the inseparability of theology and spirituality in an anti-Gnostic key. In the second instance, the theme of theological aesthetics is treated, initially by placing Balthasar’s conception of a true seeing of natural forms against the background of Goethe’s philosophy. The epiphanic nature of all created being, able to reveal to us the glory of God, and yet obscured from us by sin, lies at the heart of Balthasar’s theology. Ultimately, this theology is Christocentric: the crucified and risen Christ-form becomes a permanent sacramental vehicle of divine grace, restoring our sight of natural form and divine glory.

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