Rhetoric and Tertullian's De Virginibus Velandis

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

AbstractTertullian's de Virginibus Velandis is not simply a somewhat neglected ascetic treatise but a rhetorical treatise about asceticism. The use of classical rhetoric as a modern interpretative tool for early Christian literature is common, although, as witnessed in an article recentlyin this journal, not without its critics. In this deliberative treatise Tertullian argued from Scripture (3.5c-6.3), natural law (7.1-8.4) and Christian discipline (9.1-15.3) that from puberty Christian female virgins ought to be veiled when in public. The custom of some Carthaginian virginsnot being veiled when the church gathered was attacked as being contrary to the truth. What we find is Tertullian's overwhelming concern for fidelity to the regula fidei. The presence of a well-developed rhetorical structure in de Virginibus Velandis is an argument for datingit after de Oratione, where Tertullian made some similar points, though in a less cohesive and more rudimentary manner.

Christianity and the Classics

1944 ◽  
Vol 13 (37) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
W. B. Stanford
Keyword(s):  
Christian Schools ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Classical Education ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ cries Tertullian of Carthage when the Christian Church was barely two centuries old, ‘what harmony is there between Plato's Academy and the Church?’ Then, with all the mastery of eloquence that he had learned in the school of classical rhetoric, he denounces non-Christian literature as pernicious—‘We have no need of curiosity going beyond Christ Jesus, nor of inquiry beyond the Gospel.’The question might still be crudely asked to-day—Why teach pagan literature in Christian countries and Christian schools? Some may answer that the problem and the conflict are past; none of the greater Christian churches opposes classical education now; on the contrary the clergy mostly encourage it, while it is the scientists that object. But Christianity and the classics meet each other with different facets in different epochs. Sometimes these facets seem less adjustable than those before them. And some of the defences made for pre-Christian literature by Christians, and some of the uses they recommend for it, deserve attention still.What follows here is mainly an historical survey, and necessarily a very sketchy one. It must begin long before our Lord's time, at the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. By that time Palestine and Egypt, the two great centres of Judaism, had come under Greek rule. After Alexander's death both these regions were taken over by Ptolemy. He and his namesake successors were enlightened and tolerant monarchs. Under their rule Hellenism gained ground among the Jews both at Jerusalem and at Alexandria.

‘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.

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.

An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Economic Life, Property, Work, and Business Ethics

2001 ◽  
pp. 143-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley S. Harakas
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Moral Tradition ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Internet Ethics ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
The Church

Eastern Orthodox Christianity carries forward a moral tradition from the earliest Christian period, in the belief that scriptural and patristic teaching remains applicable to the contemporary economic sphere of life. The Church Fathers focused on the ownership of property and the ethical acquisition of wealth and its use; they stressed special concern for the poor and disadvantaged. Carried forward through the Byzantine and modern eras, these early Christian understandings now can be applied through a basic and elementary natural law morality to business activities. The Orthodox approach embodies traditional virtue and character ethics as well. The essay concludes by applying these Orthodox approaches to two current issues: the charging of interest and internet ethics.

The Virgin, the Bride, and the Church: Reading Psalm 45 in Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Past ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Christian Discourse ◽  
The Church

Within the past decade or so, historical studies of early Christianity have been affected by what has been called the “linguistic turn.” This development has entailed a new appreciation of the varied forms of Christian “discourse” and their importance in shaping the cultural, political, and social worlds of late antiquity. For example, historians of religion and culture, such as Judith Perkins and Kate Cooper, have drawn attention to the way in which narrative representation in early Christian literature functioned to construct Christian identities and to negotiate power relations both within the church and in society at large. It has become increasingly difficult for historians to ignore the power of rhetoric in shaping the imaginative (and, therefore, real) worlds of late ancient Christians.

„Mein Gott, mein Gott, zu dir erhebe ich mich in der Früh‟ – Zwei Psalmpassagen in Inschriften aus Tyros und in der patristischen Tradition

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-255
Author(s):  
Andreas Victor Walser
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

A revision of several painted inscriptions discovered in a late antique chamber tomb in Tyre shows that they recorded verses from two Psalms (3, 6 and 62, 2-3), both not otherwise attested epigraphically. The article subsequently examines how these verses were received and interpreted in early Christian literature and by the Greek Fathers of the Church: The popular verse 6 of Psalm 3, with its reference to sleep and awakening, was understood by most—but not all—commentators as a reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The less famous first verses of Psalm 62 were usually just read as an expression of the longing for God. The juxtaposition of these two Psalms, which share the liturgical role of Morning Psalms, suggests that the verses from Psalm 62 as well as the one from Psalm 3 were understood as referring to the resurrection and used to express the deceased’s belief in salvation.

Petrarch's Defense of Secular Letters, the Latin Fathers, and Ancient Roman Rhetoric

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Brenda Deen Schildgen
Keyword(s):  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Rhetorical Situations ◽  
Epistolary Form ◽  
The Church ◽  
Roman Rhetoric

Abstract: Like the Church Fathers before him, Petrarch was forced to defend secular learning against its detractors, and his defenses draw on many of the same arguments that Augustine and Jerome had used. In these defenses he blends classical rhetoric and Christian values, and his procedures also follow the traditions of classical rhetoric, relying on the epistolary form and utilizing the Ciceronian manner of debating all topics from opposite standpoints. Perhaps, however, because his indecisiveness complemented the classical rhetorical premise that many issues present many possible resolutions, Petrarch also rejects secular learning in some of his writings. His arguments are therefore conclusive only within their unique rhetorical situations.

The Missing Rhetorical History Between Quintilian and Augustine

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-376
Author(s):  
Mike Duncan
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical History ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Rhetorical Force ◽  
Apostolic Church

Current histories of rhetoric neglect the early Christian period (ca. 30–430 CE) in several crucial ways–Augustine is overemphasized and made to serve as a summary of Christian thought rather than an endpoint, the texts of church fathers before 300 CE are neglected or lumped together, and the texts of the New Testament are left unexamined. An alternative outline of early Christian rhetoric is offered, explored through the angles of political self-invention, doctrinal ghostwriting, apologetics, and fractured sermonization. Early Christianity was not a monolithic religion that eventually made peace with classical rhetoric, but as a rhetorical force in its own right, and comprised of more factions early on than just the apostolic church.

Christus Virgo

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Sissel Undheim
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The description of Christ as a virgin, 'Christus virgo', does occur at rare occasions in Early Christian and late antique texts. Considering that 'virgo' was a term that most commonly described the sexual and moral status of a member of the female sex, such representations of Christ as a virgin may exemplify some of the complex negotiations over gender, salvation, sanctity and Christology that we find in the writings of the Church fathers. The article provides some suggestions as to how we can understand the notion of the virgin Christ within the context of early Christian and late antique theological debates on the one hand, and in light of the growing interest in sacred virginity on the other.

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