Marcion and his Critics

2019 ◽  
pp. 365-382
Author(s):  
H. Clifton Ward
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Jewish Scriptures ◽  
Editorial Work ◽  
The Church ◽  
Critical Methods ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

Marcion of Sinope was active in Rome in the middle of the second century ce. Marcion’s views on Scripture and hermeneutics led to a separation from the Church in Rome and the creation of a concurrent Marcionite community. This chapter examines Marcion’s legacy within subsequent early Christian biblical interpretation, seen most clearly in his role as an early practitioner of philological reading techniques to interpret Scripture. This chapter considers Marcion’s conception of the diversity of two gods—the Creator and the unknown God—in light of contemporary philosophy, and it suggests that Marcion’s literary-critical methods were deployed to confirm this philosophical understanding of deity. After an analysis of Marcion’s philology, seen in both his hermeneutical stance towards the Jewish Scriptures and his editorial work on the New Testament, this chapter concludes by arguing that writers like Tertullian and Epiphanius rejected Marcion’s philosophical conclusions while coming to terms with the validity of the methods of philology for biblical interpretation.

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.

A Taxonomy of Sin in the New Testament Worlds

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Siker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Jewish Scriptures

Understanding the contextual worlds within which the New Testament perceptions of sin arose is crucial. The immediate context for early Christianity was the Jewish world out of which Jesus also operated, which included Jewish understandings of sin especially as delineated in the Jewish Scriptures and as addressed within the sacrificial cult of the Jerusalem Temple. But in turning to the Apostle Paul and other later New Testament writers, it is equally important to understand the moral worlds envisioned in Greco-Roman religiosity and philosophy. In this realm, sin as moral failure was much less prominent than sin as ignorance or error in judgment. As Christianity moved into the second century and beyond we find understandings of sin that retain both Jewish and Greco-Roman sensibilities regarding human sin.

The Power of God in Some Early Christian Texts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edwards
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
Philosophical School ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Power Of God

This chapter delineates a typology of the power of God in early Christian sources, including the New Testament, Justin Martyr, and other apologists of the second century, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Athanasius. It argues that any investigation of the concept of dunamis in early Christian writings must begin with an acknowledgement of the Scriptures, maintaining that late antique Christianity should be considered as a distinct philosophical school, which had its own first principles, interpreted its own texts, and gave its own sense to terms that it used in common with other schools. Thus, a specifically Christian notion of divine power could have been born of reflection on the common ‘reservoir’ of Christian thought, any other influence being strictly secondary.

‘Race’, ‘Nation’, ‘People’: Ethnic Identity-Construction in 1 Peter 2.9

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Horrell
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
1 Peter ◽  
Jewish Scriptures ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

1 Peter 2.4–10 is a significant passage within the letter, rich in material from the Jewish scriptures. Verse 9 is particularly significant for the construction of Christian group-identity in that it uniquely applies three words from the vocabulary of ethnic identity to the Church: γένος, ἔθνος, and λαός, widely translated as ‘race’, ‘nation’, and ‘people’. A survey of these words in pre-Christian Jewish literature (especially the LXX), in the NT, and in other early Christian literature, reveals how crucial this text in 1 Peter is to the process by which Christian identity came to be conceived in ethnoracial terms. Drawing on modern definitions of ethnic identity, and ancient evidence concerning the fluidity of ethnic identities, it becomes clear that ‘ethnic’ and ‘racial’ identities are constructed, believed, and sustained through discourse. 1 Peter, with both aggregative and oppositional modes of ethnic reasoning, makes a crucial contribution to the construction of an ethnic form of Christian identity.

Christian Apocrypha

2019 ◽  
pp. 284-294
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Shoemaker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Parallel Development ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Canonical Texts

This chapter focuses on the production of early Christian apocryphal writings as an act of biblical interpretation. Particular attention is given to the ‘parabiblical’ nature of many such writings—that is, the ways in which these texts often reflect parallel development of traditions that came to be included in the biblical canon. Many early Gospel traditions and Pauline apocrypha preserve independent, even rival versions of the earliest Christian traditions. For the historian, these texts frequently share equal importance with the canonical traditions in the effort to understand the earliest formation of the Christian biblical traditions. Other early Christian apocrypha relate to the canon in a more supplementary fashion. These serve to fill major gaps in the New Testament tradition, some having a more direct connection to the canonical texts than others.

scholarly journals The Doctrine of Apostolic Succession in the Church of England

1894 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
Henry C. Vedder
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Apostolic Succession ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Adequate Evidence

A definition of terms is essential at the outset of this investigation, but I am not aware of a definition of Apostolic Succession that would be accepted as authoritative by those who profess the doctrine, In this paper the term will be held to mean the doctrine that the order of bishops exists in the Church jure divino; that the first bishops were ordained by the Apostles as their successors, and that these orders have been transmitted by an unbroken succession to the present time; and furthermore, that without bishops there can be no valid orders, no valid sacraments, in short, no Church. It is not proposed in this paper to question the truth of this theory—to inquire whether there is adequate evidence in its favor either in the Scriptures of the New Testament, in the early Christian literature, or in the institutions of the Church of the first two centuries. Assuming that the doctrine rests on the sure foundations of Scripture teaching and institutional Christianity—or, at least, allowing that this may be the case—our task is to trace the effects of this doctrine upon the external history and internal life of the Church of England.

scholarly journals The Iconography of the Sarcophagus in S. Ambrogio. Hope for Salvation through the Word of Christ

1970 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 283-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Steen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
City Gates ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

The sarcophagus in the church of S. Ambrogio in Milan is dated to about 390. The lid of the sarcophagus shows scenes and symbols connected to the New Testament. On the front and rear sides, we find Christ represented among the Apostles. Figures from the Old Testament are shown on the two short sides. In this way, the narrative scenes are well arranged, and the arrangement differs from other early Christian sarcophagi in which scenes from the Old and New Testament are places together without any apparent connection between the scenes. Rows of city-gates run around all four sides, forming the background for the reliefs. The city-gates invite the beholder to read the images not as isolated scenes, but as parts of a connected whole. In this paper, I will argue that the iconography of the sarcophagus can be interpreted as a complete programme. The programme emphasizes the teaching of Christ and the Apostles’ teaching-mission given by Christ. Taking into consideration the monument’s funerary context, the programme of the sarcophagus focuses on the Word or the teaching of Christ as the way to salvation.

scholarly journals Two Aspects of Early Christian Faith

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 6-31
Author(s):  
Teresa Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Steady Growth ◽  
The Church

‘Faith’ is one of Christianity's most significant, distinctive and complex concepts and practices, but Christian understandings of faith in the patristic period have received surprisingly little attention. This article explores two aspects of what Augustine terms fides qua, ‘the faith by which believers believe’. From the early second century, belief in the truth of doctrine becomes increasingly significant to Christians; by the fourth, affirming that certain doctrines are true has become central to becoming Christian and to remaining within the church. During the same period, we find a steady growth in poetic and imagistic descriptions of interior faith. This article explores how and why these developments occurred, arguing that they are mutually implicated and that this period sees the beginning of their long co-existence.

scholarly journals Herezje wczesnochrześcijańskie – zagadnienia wprowadzające

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Bogdan Czyżewski
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Times ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

In the times of the Church Fathers the notion of heresy was related to the false doctrine what became the cause of derogations from the unity of the Church. It was a false tenet about God, hence the Fathers of the Church tried to define not only mistakes created within the Church, but also to develop orthodox doctrine. Due to the vastness of the this subject authors and texts defining heresies were se­lected. Firstly, attention was drawn on the Greek term a†resij contained in pagan literature and the writings of the New Testament, which allowed to see what was the impact, especially the biblical definition of heresy, on the understanding of the early Christian writers, especially before the first Council of Nice in 325. It was also necessary to ask about the origin of heresy and its characteristics. Fathers af­firmed unequivocally that their creation were associated mainly with making the wrong choices. The result of this were incorrect relations of heretics to the truth and to the Church, wrong image of God and abiding in stubbornness. Fathers also attempted to define more precisely the scope of meaning of schism and heresy, which are concepts often used as synonyms.

scholarly journals Tell us no secrets: St. Irenaeus’ contra-gnostic doctrine of communion

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Don W. Springer
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Church

Discussion related to the potential for mystical union with God was largely absent from the writings of the Church Fathers prior to the late-second century. Toward the end of that century, however, the concept of communion with God emerged as a topic of interest in both early Christian and Gnostic literature. St. Irenaeus of Lyons was among the earliest Christian writers to critically reflect on the subject. He argued that participation with the divine was possible only in the “orthodox” churches and required three key elements: a life lived in connection to the Spirit of God, in community with the true people of God, while bearing evidence of godly piety and virtue. Whereas Gnostic conceptions of communion frequently included an emphasis on the reception of an exclusive, secret gnosis, Irenaeus’ paradigm offered a public, progressive path of ascent to God.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document