The Fall and Rise of Eutychus: The Church of Paul and the Spatial Habitus of Luke

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-245
Author(s):  
Eric C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Community Meeting ◽  
The Church

Abstract The story of Eutychus in Acts 20 seems to narrate a scene of a Pauline community, meeting for a communal meal and instruction in an insula building in Alexandria Troas. Some scholars have argued, however, that this tale was borrowed by Luke and appropriated to tell the story of Paul. When read through combined theoretical lenses from Michel de Certeau and Pierre Bourdieu, the story of Eutychus provides a window not into one of Paul’s communities, but into Luke’s own spatial practice, and the habitus of community that he knew from his own late-first-century context. Luke therefore repurposed the framework of the story, but also filled the story with his own experience and expectations of space and practice in his creative reconstruction of a Pauline vignette. The tale of Eutychus provides evidence of late-first-century or early-second-century urban Christianity in Asia Minor, not of a community from the life of Paul.

scholarly journals PERSEPSI TEOLOG MASA KINI DI INDONESIA TERHADAP PIKIRAN TEOLOGI BAPAK-BAPAK GEREJA ABAD PERTAMA SAMPAI KETIGA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detty Manongko
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Church History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Church

The research of exploring the Church History have not been many studies done in Indonesia. Though this field is related to the theology, especially the development of Christian Theology for centuries. One area of Church History that needs to be examined are the Christian Thought of the Church Fathers from first to third centuries. The field is often called “Patrology” which is the study of Church Fathers from first to third centuries. Who are they, what are the results of their work, why they have produced such theological thoughts, and what they thoughts are still influencing to the contemporary theologians in Indonesia?The main problem in this research is how does the perception of contemporary theologians in Indonesia to the Chruch Father’ s theological thoughts? Through a literature review of Soteriology, Christology, and Eschatology, then this research has yielded important principles concerning to the Church Fathers’s theological thoughts at the Early Church period. And then through the field research has proven that the majority of contemporary theologians in Indonesia have a positive perception to the Church Fathers’s theological thought from first to the third centuries. Therefore, the reasons of why this research is conducted and how it is done are described in the first chapter of these book. The second chapter of this writing contains a literature review of the theological thoughts of the church fathers from the first century to the third. There are four groups of Church Fathers from the first century to the third. There are four groups of Church Fathers that are described in this chapter, i.e., The Apostolic Fathers (from the first to the middle of second century), The Aplogists (second century), The Anti-Gnostic Fathers (second and third century), and The Alexandrian Fathers (third century). The third chapter discusses the quantitative methods used in this research including statistical models to prove the validity and reliability of the data acquisition method that is used in the field of this research. It desperately needs accuracy and diligence in order to display a quality and useful research reports for the development of Church History studies. Discussion of the results of this study, along with the evidence that reinforces the result of this research is presented in the fourth chapter. Finally, the fifth chapter of this study elaborates the main thoughts that are generated in this study, which also expected to be important principles in conducting futher research.The results obtained in this study are not yet maximal on account of various constraints, such as limited time, facilities, funding, and so forth. However, the writer wishes that the results achieved in this study will give a valuable contribution to all readers of this writing and that it will be a motivation for a further research in the field of Church History in the future.

A Sub-Christian Epistle? Appreciating 2 Peter as an Anti-Sophistic Polemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 0142064X2110481
Author(s):  
David K. Burge
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Per Se ◽  
2 Peter ◽  
The Way

Drawing from recent ancient historical, New Testament and Second-Sophistic scholarship, this article proposes that the enigmatic 2 Peter can be better understood with closer reference to anti-sophistic polemical writings. Increasing light has been shed on the sophists’ interest in wisdom, display and rhetoric in contexts such as Athens, Rome, Corinth and cities of Asia Minor in the first centuries CE. After introducing historical attempts to identify a worldview compatible with 2 Peter’s polemical response, this article (1) describes the nature of the Second Sophistic in the first century with reference to two contemporary anti-sophistic polemicists, Epictetus the Stoic and Philo the Jew, (2) highlights features of 2 Peter which resonate with contemporaneous anti-sophistic writings, beginning with 2 Pet. 1.16-21 and (3) observes the way in which the Ante-Nicene Fathers, when seeking to discredit later sophistic opposition, drew heavily from 2 Pet. 2–3. It may outrun the evidence to conclude that 2 Peter’s opponents were professional σοϕισταί‎ per se. It can be affirmed, however, that 2 Peter bears significant resemblance with first- and second-century anti-sophistic polemic and may be best understood with reference to it.

scholarly journals First Century Christian Diversity

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Information ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
The One

In light of Ken Howard’s recent “religion singularity” phenomenon, this article attempts to ascertain the nature of Christian diversity during the last seventy years of the first century (roughly 30 to 100 CE). It offers an examination of the two largest Christian movements that existed before the second century, as well as when those movements may have begun and the locations they most likely flourished. The article argues that the earliest Christian tradition was the one persecuted by the Apostle Paul and that later, two breakaway movements splintered off from this tradition: the Pauline and Ebionite movements. The paper concludes that during the first century, of these two splinter movements, the Pauline movement likely preceded that of the Ebionite movement, though they both flourished in many of the same locations. Of interest is the finding that all three Christian movements (the pre-Pauline tradition, Pauline, and Ebionite) flourished in Asia Minor, a cosmopolitan sub-continent which appears to have served as a geographic information nucleus through which diverse ideas easily proliferated.

Sidi Khrebish - A Note on the Coarse Pottery

1973 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 18-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Riley
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The Body ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
The Church

The quantity of stratified coarse pottery from Sidi Khrebish has been considerable and preliminary study has of necessity been concentrated on important groups from sealed contexts which span the period from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D.The earliest group is from a cistern of second century B.C. date; the next is from excavation underneath Roman period concrete floors which produced mid-first century A.D. material, while the largest group is from the infill of Roman period cisterns and destruction levels and can be dated to the mid-third century A.D. Information is somewhat scanty for the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. but groups of pottery representing the Byzantine period were recovered in some quantity from the destruction levels of the church and its cistern. A good group of Islamic glazed fine ware and coarse ware was associated with late occupation within the church.Space does not permit more than a brief survey of the most common and distinctive coarse ware forms from the excavation.In general, throughout the period of Berenice, the locally made coarse ware form shapes seem to have been influenced from the Eastern Mediterranean, especially in the second and third centuries A.D.The commonest form of second century B.C. cooking pot is rounded, having a short neck with two vertical ‘strap’ handles from the shoulder merging with the rim (fig. 1). Another distinguishing feature of pottery from this period is a semicircular handle from the body with an indentation at the top where it has been pressed to the rim (fig. 2). Both types are of the distinctive local ‘fossil gritted ware’, the fabric of which ranges from orange brown to dark pink. The clay contains fairly large roughly circular flat flakes of bluish-grey grit, which, when split open, reveal segmented spiral fossil remains. This fabric is very common in all periods.

If I Suffer … Epistolary Authority in Ignatius of Antioch

1987 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Stoops
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Church Structure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church ◽  
Writing Activity

Sometime during the second decade of the second century CE, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was conveyed under guard to Rome where he expected to leave this world through the mouths of the beasts in the arena. Along his journey he stopped at Philadelphia and Smyrna. At each stop he received visitors from a number of churches in the area. He, in turn, wrote letters to those churches and to the church at Rome. The letters of Ignatius have been the subject of scholarly investigation for over a century. The authenticity of the middle recension of those letters is almost universally acknowledged. These letters have been studied for the light they can shed on church structure in Asia Minor at the beginning of the second century, the theology of Ignatius within its historical context, and the distinctive personality of Ignatius. One aspect of these documents which has implications for all other interests has not been satisfactorily explained, namely, how Ignatius understood his own letter writing activity. What gave Ignatius the audacity to interfere in the life of churches outside of Syria, and what kind of authority did he expect the admonitions contained in his letters to carry?

Epicurus and the Epicurean School

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-42
Author(s):  
Tiziano Dorandi
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Common Life ◽  
History Of

The school founded by Epicurus in Athens in 307/6 or 305/4 survived as an institution until the first century bce. After a period obscure to us, in the second century ce, we again have information about certain Epicurean philosophers and about the continuity of the teaching of Epicureanism in Athens and Asia Minor. In this chapter a brief biography is drawn of each of the protagonists of the history of the school and their literary and philosophical works. Particular attention is paid to Philodemus and the role that he played in the spread of Epicureanism in Italy in the first century bce. The life of the school during its long existence was not always peaceful. Inside the school there were severe incidents of division early on. While Epicurus was still living, Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, left the Garden and also began a smear campaign against Epicurus. Philodemus informs us also of a whole series of Epicureans, “dissidents” (sophistai), who lived between the second and the first century bce and were apparently active in Cos and Rhodes. In their works we read the names of some of these Epicureans and find suggestions of their doctrines. A few words on the organization and common life of the Garden of Athens conclude this chapter.

scholarly journals A newly-discovered roman altar from Surcin

Starinar ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 149-157
Author(s):  
Miroslav Vujovic
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Church

The paper publishes the recent discovery of a Roman altar built into the Church of St Petka at Surcin, Greater Belgrade. From the palaeographic features of the inscription and the dedicant?s gentile name, the altar has been dated to the second half of the second century. Examination of the published epigraphic corpuses reveals the existence of yet another, fragmented, altar from Surcin, and the author draws attention to an error in its publication. The paper offers an overview of the portable archaeological finds from Surcin which suggest an early Roman settlement (first century) in the ager of Bassianae.

The Roman Martyrs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lapidge
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).

Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2018 ◽  
pp. 324-341
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Hebrew Word ◽  
The Dead

This chapter argues that the Writings was an evolving collection of scripture used in a wide variety of ways by the Dead Sea Scrolls community at Qumran (second century bce to first century ce). Though the Hebrew word Ketuvim (Writings) does not occur in the Scroll material, all but one (Esther) of the books contained therein are found. The plentiful and varied textual evidence at Qumran, and occasionally other Judean desert sites, is presented with special attention to the number of biblical and other manuscripts and place found; textual comparisons with the biblical Masoretic text and others (e.g., Septuagint); citations; and other interpretive uses in sectarian documents. The importance of the books in the Writings for the life of the late postexilic community of Qumran and the nature of the Dead Sea Scrolls biblical collection are, together, a constant focus of the study.

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