Rufinus’ Bloody Pagan Tyrants

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael P. Hanaghan
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Blood Sacrifice ◽  
The Temple

Abstract This article analyses how Rufinus alters and then extends Eusebius’ church history to draw a narrative continuum of pagan idolatry, tyranny and blood sacrifice across the fourth century. It begins with a taxonomy that illustrates the various ways that Rufinus’ text differs from Eusebius’ and then analyses how Rufinus enhances the levels of cruelty and bloody carnage in his Eusebian source, especially with regards to the tyrannical behaviour of the pagan emperors Maximinus, Maxentius, and Licinius. Lastly, it turns to Rufinus’ account of Eugenius’ uprising and the destruction of the temple of Serapis and shows how Rufinus’ repeated criticism of pagan imperial persecution acts to justify Theodosius’ actions.

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.

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.

Paschal Politics: Deploying the Temple's Destruction against Fourth-Century Judaizers

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Shepardson
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
The Temple

AbstractThe fourth-century Syriac writings of Aphrahat and Ephrem, and Greek homilies by the Syrian John Chrysostom, warn Christian congregants against joining Jewish festival celebrations such as Passover. In light of the respected age of Judaism's scriptures and traditions, not all of these authors' church attendees were easily convinced by supersessionist claims about Judaism's invalidity. These authors surpass earlier Christian claims that the Temple's destruction revealed God's rejection of the Jews, by arguing that Jewish scripture requires ritual sacrifices that were confined to the Jerusalem Temple. us without the Temple sacrifices, fourth-century Jewish festivals, these authors claimed, defied God's biblical commands, a declaration with sharp implications for Judaizing Christians. Demonstrating the nuances of this argument, which crossed eastern linguistic and political boundaries, contributes to complex discussions regarding these texts' audiences, highlights distinctive elements that their contexts shared, and reveals an unrecognized role that the Temple's destruction played in fourth-century anti-Judaizing discourse.

The Archeology of Divine Guidance in Corinth

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
John A. Jillions
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Healing Cult ◽  
Household Shrines ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Divine Guidance

This chapter looks at some of the archeological discoveries in Corinth that reflect popular attitudes toward the gods, religious experience, and divine guidance. The most prominent was the healing cult centered in the Temple of Asklepios, where interpretation of dreams was a key feature. Other sites and household shrines would have brought to mind Fortuna, family ancestors, the oracle of Delphi, and mythical stories of divine intervention with a Corinthian slant (Venus, Medea, Glauce, Bellerophon, Sisyphus, Dionysus). But for an alternative point of view, there was the tomb of Diogenes the Cynic (fourth century BCE), who settled in Corinth “to be where fools were thickest.” He was highly critical of superstitious piety and advised instead to follow the inscription at Delphi, “Know Thyself.” He concluded that oracles are deceptive not because the gods are deceitful but because human beings are incapable of properly understanding the gods.

scholarly journals Exegesis Integrative Review of Salvation Because The Love Of God Is The Basic of The Church As The Unity of The Body of Christ (Ephesians 2:11-22)

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-29
Author(s):  
Tonny Andrian
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Church History ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Shed Blood ◽  
Major Subject ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Church

The subject of the unity of the church has appeared several times during the period of church history as a major subject. Even in the 20th century, differences of opinion on the subject of unity led to divisions. This point cannot be ignored. That is why the researcher conducted an integrated exegessa study on the meaning of the Church as the unity of the body of Christ Ephesians 2: 11-22. Ephesians 2: 11-22 is not a separate passage, but integrative, with other passages in the book of Ephesians. (this would be integrative both with Ephesians 2: 1-10 and Ephesians 4: 1-6) The conjunction "therefore" in Ephesians 2.11, describes the preceding verses that speak of grace. The suffering of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross, and His shed blood, are manifestations of grace that saves sinners. A demonstration of grace, which is free gift. It is the grace that saves people from sin. Thus Ephesians 2: 11-22 must be seen as a context that comes from grace. The saving or salvation based on the grace of God, as a building body of Christ, which is a union, which was previously "distant", ie those who are without Christ, not belonging to the citizens of Israel, become one body of Christ as intended by God. Ephesians 2: 11-22 explains that the unification of the body of Christ is a reflection of the journey of a Christian individual who has been saved by the grace of Christ God, is united or united with other Christian individuals to move towards the unity of building the body of Christ, as the Temple of God. the church as the unified Body of Christ, is built on the teachings of the Apostles and Prophets. Thus, the church, which has a government, a doctrine that may not be the same as one another, but the church is a unity in the bonds of the Spirit of peace, one faith, one Baptism, one god, one GOD the FATHER of all God, as salt and The light of the world, brings transformation and restoration for the world, through the carrying out of the task of the grace of Christ, namely the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, so that all knees will kneel and all tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the heavenly Father.

From Jerusalemite Spoils to Roman Relics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galit Noga-Banai
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sacred Objects ◽  
Visual Correspondence ◽  
Indirect Impact ◽  
Failed Attempt ◽  
The Law ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The Temple

This chapter, composed in three sections that complete one another, deals with the direct and indirect impact of the nonexistence of the Temple in Jerusalem on the art and architecture in fourth-century Rome. The first section brings together the translation of sacred objects from old (Jewish) and new (Christian) Jerusalem to Rome. The second illustrates how the visual initiative of Dominus legem dat (The Lord gives the Law) was conceivable through the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem and the presence of its relics in Rome. The third section describes the visual correspondence between the scene of Dominus legem dat and the representative Jewish composition of the ark between two menorot, as an outcome of Emperor Julian’s failed attempt to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

Paestan Addenda

1959 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
A. D. Trendall
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Opening Up

Since the publication of my Supplement to Paestan Pottery and the short Post-script covering the finds of 1952, some 300 new red-figured vases have come to light as a result of further excavations by Dr. P. C. Sestieri at Paestum in the area around the so-called Basilica and the Temple of Poseidon and of the systematic opening up of the huge fourth century necropoleis to the south of the city at Fuscillo, Spinazzo and Tempa del Prete and to the north in the Gontrade Arcioni, Andriuolo, Laghetto and Gaudo. Some of these sites have yielded painted tombs of the highest importance for our knowledge of fourth-century painting and for the parallels they offer in both subject and style to contemporary vase decoration, and the quantity of pottery they have produced increases more than fivefold the number of vases of certain Paestan provenience and establishes beyond question the location of this fabric at Paestum. Most of the vases belong either to the workshop of Asteas and Python or to the later workshops of the Painters of Naples 1778 and 2585, but one completely new artist—the Floral Painter—has emerged, as well as a good deal more in the Apulianising style of the end of the fourth century, the existence of which was first noted as a result of the finds in 1952.

Jews and Christians in the Byzantine Empire: Problems and Prospects

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 15-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. R. M. de Lange
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject

Heartening as it is for someone like myself, for whom the study of relations between Christianity and Judaism is a central concern, to see the Ecclesiastical History Society devote its annual conference to this subject, it is proper to recall that it has not been wholly neglected in the past. The very first volume of Studies in Church History (1964) contains a contribution by James Parkes under the title of Jews and Christians in the Constantinian Empire’, which is a short but well-judged summary of the attitudes to Judaism emerging from a reading of the Christian authors, Roman laws, and conciliar canons of the fourth century. I should like to begin now by paying tribute to James Parkes, partly because he was my own mentor, someone who encouraged and influenced my study of our subject, and also because he occupies an important place as a pioneer in the study of Jewish-Christian relations as a whole, and specifically in the part of the subject that concerns me today, the Byzantine phase.

The Place of Kastabos in Greek Architecture

1963 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 10-21
Author(s):  
W. H. Plommer
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Short Duration ◽  
Forest Fire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
North West ◽  
One Stage ◽  
The North ◽  
Greek Architecture ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Temple

The following article forms the conclusion to my chapter in a projected work on the Temple of Hemithea at Kastabos. The sanctuary is described by Diodorus in Book v, 62—3, and lies about a thousand feet above sea-level on the north-west slopes of the Carian Chersonese, overlooking from the south-east the more easterly isthmus on the long Cnidian Peninsula. It is the first Greek sanctuary of any importance and the first peripteral temple to be explored in the Rhodian Incorporated Peraea (see Fraser and Bean, The Rhodian Peraea and Islands, pp. 123 ff.), of which the whole Chersonese formed part.Our excavation, primarily salvage-work in remote country after a forest-fire had uncovered the remains, formed one stage in the mapping of ancient cities and demes of this neighbourhood by Professor John Cook and Professor George Bean. It established, from a stamped vase-handle and an inscription on a subsidiary building, that this was indeed, as surmised by Cook, the shrine of Hemithea, a local healing-goddess evidently, as Diodorus shows, of considerable local repute. We found that its greatness virtually began in the late fourth century, and was perhaps of fairly short duration.

Old and New Faiths, AD 1–450

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Mother Goddess ◽  
Unleavened Bread ◽  
Jewish Prayer ◽  
Continuous Use ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

As in any port city of the Roman world, the population of Ostia was very mixed. An extraordinary discovery was made on the outskirts of Ostia in 1961, while a road was being constructed linking Rome to its new door to the world, Fiumicino airport: the synagogue of Ostia, the oldest synagogue structure to have survived in Europe. The earliest part dates from the first century AD, but the building was repaired or partly rebuilt in the fourth century. It was in continuous use for Jewish prayer for at least 300 years. An inscription from the second century commemorates the building of the Ark for the scrolls of the Law, at the expense of a certain Mindis Faustos; the inscription is mainly in Greek, with a few Latin words, for the Jews of Rome, with their connections to the East, continued to use Greek as their daily language. The building and its annexes have an area of 856 square metres, and everything suggests that this was the major synagogue of a prosperous community of hundreds of Jews. More than a synagogue, by the fourth century the complex contained an oven, possibly for the baking of unleavened bread for Passover, and a ritual bath. There were side rooms that were probably used for teaching and for meetings of the Jewish council and of the rabbinical court. A carved architrave portrayed the great candlestick that had stood in the Temple, the ram’s horn blown at New Year, and the symbols of the Feast of Tabernacles, the citron and decorated palm branch. Nor was Judaism the only eastern cult with many followers in Ostia. A small brick-built temple elsewhere in the city has been identified as a shrine of Sarapis. Within the precinct there was a courtyard paved with a black-and-white mosaic of Nile scenes. Plenty of inscriptions refer to the cult of Isis; there were several shrines to Mithras, much favoured in the Roman army; during their wild ecstasies, male devotees of the mother-goddess Cybele, who was also worshipped at Ostia, were said to castrate themselves.

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