The Parousia of Paul at Iconium

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 225-251
Author(s):  
Trevor Luke
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Body ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Creative Production

AbstractThis article explores the parousia reception, instead of the arena, as a locus for spectacle production in the Roman Empire, specifically in certain passages of early Christian literature. Not only did Christians apply the familiar image of parousia to their eschatology, but they also produced new truths about empire and the location of legitimate authority through their creative production of distinctive parousia spectacles. Through these literary spectacles, old truths about the body and authority were challenged as Christians developed a cosmology for the parousia spectacle that both transformed parousia and also served as a new hermeneutic for interpreting such ceremonies. The arrival of Paul at Iconium represented a radical reinterpretation of parousia in that it shifted the locus of spectation from the emperor to the individual Christian. In producing and consuming their own parousia spectacles, Christians participated in imperial discourse.

scholarly journals Postacie kobiece Starego Testamentu w alegorycznej egzegezie Orygenesa

Vox Patrum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
Spiritual Warfare ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
Bodily Feelings ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Church

The article systematises the metaphors ascribed by Origen (185-253/254) to the well-known female characters of the Old Testament utilising the method of allegorical exegesis of the text of Scripture. Females appearing on the pages of the historical books of Bible are – according to the Alexandrian – allegories of hu­man virtues or defects. They embody the spiritual warfare between the spirit and the body, between the mind and the feelings. In the collective sense they symbo­lize the synagogue or the church chosen from the Gentiles, and in the individual sense – the human soul in its relation to God. Origen refers to the telling names of women, translating them and embedding into the spiritual context often giving the several different allegorical meanings to the same biblical person. Despite the often-quoted in his writings beliefs characteristic to the ancient world, procla­iming that the woman is a symbol of bodily feelings and the man – a symbol of the intellectual abilities, majority of allegorical interpretations relating to the Old Testament women indicates a personification of the virtues worthy of imitation. This phenomenon is conditioned with the meaning of the names of those persons and the role attributed to them by the biblical authors, but Origen’s interpretations are original and based on his own concept of spiritual life. They deny opinions of misogyny of Origen and the early Christian writers in general.

Piety/Godliness in Early Christianity and the Roman World

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Hellenistic Judaism ◽  
And Function

By the beginning of the 1st century ce, piety/godliness (Greek: εὐσέβεια; Latin: pietas) came to entail the dutiful fulfilment of one’s obligations to one’s household, homeland, and gods. It could also describe one’s respectful attitude toward and treatment of the dead, guests, hosts, and supplicants as well as describe keeping an oath. Numerous studies on the use of piety in the New Testament have been concerned about identifying the cultural backgrounds that influenced the biblical authors’ deployment of the term and whether such use retains its Greek and Roman meanings, derives from Hellenistic Judaism, or reflects a “Christianization” of the term to encapsulate the complete Christian life, including both proper belief and practice. Outside of the field of biblical studies, philologists in classics have studied the evolution and use of the term εὐσέβεια and its cognates in ancient Greek literature, where the term had significant purchase in philosophical literature. The Latin virtue of pietas gains significant prominence in political discourse near the dusk of the Roman Republic and at the dawn of the Roman Empire with the publication of Virgil’s Aeneid and Augustus’s restoration of priesthoods and temples. Although the term εὐσέβεια and its cognates occur in Acts and 2 Peter, the majority of attention to the significance of this term in early Christian literature has centered around its meaning and function in the canonical Letters to Timothy and Titus, also known as the Pastoral Epistles. In particular, scholars have been concerned about whether the use of the term in the Pastorals reflects the respective author’s accommodation to Greek society (and thus a further development away from the earliest/more authentic/Pauline articulations of the Christian faith) or rather reflects enculturation within Hellenistic Jewish thought. Neither the historical Jesus nor Paul in his undisputed letters describe the ideal Christian life in terms of piety—thus it remains a fascinating topic to consider the social and political implications of early Christians utilizing this terminology which held significant cultural capital and prestige in its Greek and Roman cultural contexts.

Some Recent Receptions of Early Christian Literature in Bulgaria and Their Ethnical Connotations

Proglas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Christov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
God's Grace

In this paper, when I use the concept of ‘early Christian literature’ I mean the body of texts from Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages that affects the controversies around the issue of God’s Grace and the role of free human will in the context of making a choice in a strict ethical sense. For that reason, firstly, here I analyze the problems that arose with relation to the doctrine of Pelagius. Secondly, in this paper, by ‘recent receptions of this early Christian literature in Bulgaria’ I mean those receptions – in a theological, literary, and ethical sense - that we encounter in current studies of Christian Latin literature done by the promising young researcher Rosen Milanov. Thirdly, the present study attempts to answer the question of the ethical connotations of those same receptions in the present-day moral controversies in Bulgaria – a country rich in conservative views of Eastern Orthodox nature, concerning contemporary ethical issues such as those related to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention last year. In this way it may be possible to obtain a more clear outlook on how such distant historical events as the Pelagian controversy about the value of free moral choice could still influence the modification processes in the sociocultural layers of modern Bulgarian society with its Eastern Orthodox heritage.

scholarly journals Meditatio mortis meditating on death, philosophy and gender in late antique hagioraphy

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-193
Author(s):  
Maria Munkholt Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Body ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Female Figures ◽  
And Gender ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Ideal

According to Socrates, as he is described in Plato?s Phaedo, the definition of a true philosopher is a wise man who is continuously practicing dying and being dead. Already in this life, the philosopher tries to free his soul from the body in order to acquire true knowledge as the soul is progressively becoming detached from the body. Centuries after it was written, Plato?s Phaedo continued to play a role for some early Christian authors, and this article focuses on three instances where Christian women mirror Socrates and/or his definition of philosophy. We find these instances in hagiographical literature from the fourth and fifth centuries at different locations in the Roman Empire - in the Lives of Macrina, Marcella and Syncletica. These texts are all to varying degrees impacted by Platonic philosophy and by the ideal of the male philosopher Socrates. As women mastering philosophy, they widened common cultural expectations for women, revealing how Christian authors in certain contexts ascribed authority to female figures.

scholarly journals St. Athanasius of Alexandria. About the temple in Athens

2015 ◽  
pp. 380-392
Author(s):  
Феодор Юлаев ◽  
А. Г. Пернбаум
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Temple

Публикуется перевод апологетического сочинения «О храме в Афинах», которое входит в корпус псевдоэпиграфических сочинений свт. Афанасия Александрийского и включает в себя пророчества древнегреческих мудрецов о Христе. Текст перевода предваряется предисловием, в котором дается краткий обзор параллелей этого сочинения с другими памятниками христианской древности. Использование пророчеств, содержащихся в этом памятнике, рассматривается в контексте бытования пророчеств в ранней христианской литературе. В примечаниях к переводу также отмечаются разночтения по различным рукописям этого памятника и его параллельным изданиям. This is a publication of the translation of an apologetic work called “On the temple in Athens”, which is part of the body pseudepigraphical works by st. Athanasius of Alexandria and includes Ancient Greek sages’ prophecies about Christ. The translation is preceded by a preface, which provides a brief overview of this work parallels with other works of Christian antiquity. Using the prophecies contained in this work, we considered the context of the existence of the tradition of prophecy in early Christian literature. The notes to the translation also note discrepancies in various manuscripts of this work and its parallel editions.

New Testament Christianity in the Roman World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry O. Maier
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Context Specific

The book explores the social contexts of New Testament writings from Acts onward, along with other relevant Jewish and Christian literature. Moving from large to increasingly smaller spheres, the study examines how at each level beliefs and practices related to the gods and the cosmos, the empire, the city, and the household shaped a shifting and context-specific Christian faith and a set of affiliated identities. In each case, the discussion considers intersections with the New Testament and other early Christian and Jewish literature. The introduction discusses theories of canon formation, the history of the Roman Empire relevant to New Testament study, and the concept of lived religion as a means to understand ancient Christianity. Chapter 2 discusses the gods, sacrifices, festivals, divine epithets, temple architecture, magic, neighborhood religion, demonology, pagan and Christian ritual, and Greco-Roman and Jewish views of the cosmos. Chapter 3 examines the empire’s political and administrative structure, urbanization, taxation, nomenclature, patronage, and emperor worship. Chapter 4 treats the organization and governance of cities, liturgies, urban demography, poverty, mortality, economic production, trade associations, and integration of Jews in city life. Chapter 5 considers terms and definitions of the ancient household and family; architecture; domestic rituals; rites of passage; slavery and manumission; expectations of men, women, children, and slaves; funerary practices; and fictive kinship. Chapter 6 discusses the self; the social constitution of identity; physiological understandings of the body; Greco-Roman gender construction; philosophical theories concerning the interrelationship of body, soul, and ethics; and Jewish and early Christian conceptualizations of the self.

The Emergence of Sin

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Croasmun
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Supervenience Base ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Real Person ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Neurological System

This book aims to solve an age-old problem in New Testament scholarship: namely, how to understand the relationship between “sins” as human misdeeds, and “Sin/Hamartia, ” the cosmic tyrant, in Romans. It appropriates the critical framework of emergence in philosophy of science to describe the emergence of cognition and agency at the individual, social, and mythological levels. The cosmic tyrant Sin is described as a real person, emergent from a complex system of human transgressions. The work argues that this emergence is analogous to the emergence of mind from the complex neurological system that is the brain. The dominion of Sin is described as downward causation exercised on Sin’s supervenience base (individual sinners), in dialog with liberationist accounts of social sin. This interdisciplinary engagement sets the table for placing Paul’s discourse of the “Body of Sin” within the context of various ancient discourses regarding the social body. The Roma cult in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire serves as an instance of an ancient collective “person” emergent from a complex social system to compare with Paul’s description of Sin/Hamartia. This comparison allows for a discussion of Sin/Hamartia in Paul in terms of ancient political and gender ideology.

Erzählungen von Leben und Tod

Millennium ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
Felix John
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Close Affinity ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Exceptional Character

Abstract While a narratological reading of the Gospels is relatively well accepted, their characterisation as parts of the genre of ancient biography was much antagonised in former times. Although things have changed thanks to seminal monographs on the problem from the second half of the 20th century and to continuing work, some questions remain open. Therefore, a narratological comparison of Gospels with concrete representatives of the ancient bios could possibly help to clarify the relations between both. In what follows, the oldest Gospel is read simultaneously with Plutarch’s Biography of the Younger Cato. Three observations are made: a) The structures of the narratives of Cato and of Jesus match to a high degree. Both protagonists carry out certain duties while operating in public. In most instances, they achieve great successes. From a certain point on, however, they irrevocably approach failure and ruin. This structure of story seems to form the basis both of the Gospel and of the biography of Cato, written ca. three decades later. b) Obviously, both works narrate the life of a man, his exceptional character, his extraordinary operations in public and his non-natural violent dead. In Plutarch’s version, the Younger Cato fails in the end. At first sight, also Mark’s Jesus fails to accomplish his mission. By God’s action he is turned into the saviour of the faithful however. This claimed unsurpassed relevance of the story is contrasted with the laconism of the narration. c) Both narrations are composed out of both factual and fictional elements. Thus, readers cannot separate both elements precisely in every instance. Both stories are imagined worlds designed for the in narratology so called game of fiction. As can be learned in Plutarch, authors of stories like the Life of Cato or the Gospel of Mark guarantee a certain sense of responsibility in their work. Summed up, the narratological comparison has illustrated both the close affinity and the individual specifications of both narratives. It thus helps to clarify the position- fixing of the Early Christian literature within its Graeco-Roman context.

scholarly journals Transformation of Early Christian Ideas about Judaism (Based on the Analysis of Christian Polemic Literature of the II-III c. and its Historical and Cultural Context)

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Anna Luneva
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Ancient Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Intersection Points ◽  
Time Borrowing

II–III c. gave the world what is now called “Judaism” and “Christianity”. Two religions, which are now perceived as original and separate from each other, at that time had many intersection points. Christianity had not yet rid itself of its Jewish past, and in the Jewish environment there were many people who accepted Jesus’ messianism and converted to a new faith. However, more gentiles people in the II c. come to the Christian community, while the Jewish are closing themselves from the outside world. Christian literature directed against the Jews (Adversus Judaeos) contributed to this. Although studying the treatises created in this period from in different provinces of the Roman Empire, we can see how much more refined and reasoned these works become. However, it is evident that, in the process of the development of the Adversus Judaeos texts Christian authors rarely invest their own knowledge of Judaism, but only draw us the image of the Jew of that time, borrowing arguments from the writings of their predecessors. In this article we will trace the transformation of the image of the Jews and the emergence of the concept of “Judaism” in the Christian environment on the basis of three polemic works — Justin’s “Dialogue with Trypho” (mid-2nd c.), “On the Passover” by Melito (160–170) and Tertullian’s “Against the Jews” (2nd half of 3rd c). At the same time, the analysis of the historical and cultural context of the places there the treatises were created, shows that the extent to which the image of Judaism was perceived in the Christian anti-Judaic treatises was influenced by the position of these two communities in ancient society. Furthermore, the notion “Judaism” emerges in the Christian environment, which Christian authors counter posed to “Christianity”, creating a counterculture, through which they indicated the distinctive features of their religion, showed its advantage.

scholarly journals The notion of faith (πιστισ) in the first epistle to the Corinthians of St Clement of Rome

2018 ◽  
pp. 195-205
Author(s):  
Zdravko Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Hierarchical Order ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theological Thought

The First Epistle to the Corinthians of St Clement of Rome is one of the most ancient patristic documents from the body of texts of Christian literature. It reflects diversified theological and cultural issues from the turbulent transitional period, from the apostolic to the post-apostolic era of the primitive Christianity. What triggered the writing of the epistle was the unrest and upheaval in the Corinthian community of Christians caused by the illegitimate deposal of some of the local presbyters. In the epistle, the subject of respect for the ecclesial structures and the hierarchical order is directly connected to the notion of the authentic faith. In this context, the present paper offers a presentation of an early Christian attitude of connecting the faith (??????) with a distinct ethos which the author of the Epistle illustrates by means of exegesis of paradigmatic Old and New Testament texts. The resolution of conflict, which is Clement?s primary goal, is reconstructed by means of examining his mode of combining the faith with works or with practical manifestation which implies sociological and not merely individual and intro?spective connotations. A faith put in practice should unequivocally be manifested by the strive for concord and peace, by a practice of humility, gentleness, hospitality, obedience, and other virtues which build cohesion, instead of destruction, in the community of Christians. A contribution of the present paper is to be found mainly in the analysis of Clements?s theological interpretation of tension between faith and works which was prominent in the earliest New Testament and Patristic writings, but also in the contemporary theological thought as well.

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