scholarly journals The Apocryphal Paul as Divided Martyr: The Rhetoric of Schism and Legitimacy in Early Christian North Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Eastman
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Major Point ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Apocryphal Acts ◽  
Donatist Controversy

Neither the epistles of Paul (authentic or disputed) nor the Acts of the Apostles address the death of the apostle, but this is a focus in the later apocryphal acts. This article examines the importance of this image of Paul as a martyr for the development of early Christianity in North Africa. Evidence from Tertullian, from texts describing the death of Cyprian of Carthage, and from the writings of Augustine, demonstrates that Paul was the model martyr for the African church. Paul’s status as such became a major point of contention in the competing claims to authority and legitimacy during the Donatist Controversy. The article analyses rhetorical claims to the Pauline legacy from the Caecilianist side (the writings of Optatus of Milev and Augustine) and the Donatist side (a mosaic from Uppenna and the Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs). Each side claimed that their martyrs were the true successors of Paul, and therefore they were the true Christians in Africa.

EIN UNERKANNTER QUAESTIONESKOMMENTAR (EXC.THEOD. 4F) UND DIE DEUTUNG DER VERKLÄRUNG CHRISTI IN FRÜHCHRISTLICHEN TEXTEN

2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Scholten
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Christian Schools ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Specific Interest ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
Apocryphal Acts ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractThere are traces of attempts at a methodical explanation of biblical texts before the appearance of full-scale commentaries on Holy Scripture. The use of exegetical technical forms arose in Christian schools from the necessity to understand the contents of the Bible as coherent. In Clement of Alexandria, exc. Theod. 4f, a hitherto overlooked fragment of an early Christian Quaestiones-commentary has been preserved. The specific interest in Christ's transfiguration concerns his identity with God and the comprehension of his disciples. The differences between heretical and orthodox exegesis do not depend on the choice of methods, as Marc the Magician and Clement demonstrate. The narrative of the transfiguration in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles testifies to exegetical expertise. Origen considers his own scholarly exegesis as basically debatable.

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.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Otto
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Text Production ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Intellectual Formation ◽  
The Relationship

Between the second and the sixteenth centuries CE, references to the Jewish exegete Philo of Alexandria occur exclusively in texts written by Christians. David T. Runia has described this phenomenon as the adoption of Philo by Christians as an “honorary Church Father.” Drawing on the work of Jonathan Z. Smith and recent investigations of the “Parting of the Ways” of early Christianity and Judaism, this study argues that early Christian invocations of Philo reveal ongoing efforts to define the relationship between Jewishness and Christianness, their areas of overlap and points of divergence. The introduction situates invocations of Philo within the wider context of early Christian writing about Jews and Jewishness. It considers how Philo and his early Christian readers participated in the larger world of Greco-Roman philosophical schools, text production, and the ethical and intellectual formation (paideia) of elite young men in the Roman Empire.

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.

Reading Asceticism: Exegetical Strategies in the Early Christian Rhetoric of Renunciation

1997 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-104
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Cultural Project ◽  
The Difference

AbstractWhen in early Christianity the ascetic body came to occupy a central discursive position, exegetes needed to find in Scripture ballast for their changing cultural project. This essay identifies three strategies by which patristic exegetes appropriated for their own purposes an apparently "underasceticized" Hebrew and early Christian past. The writings of John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Origen, respectively, provide the textual base. Chrysostom minimized the difference separating ancient Hebrew from contemporary Christian values: Hebrew patriarchs and Christian ascetics were not to be hierarchically positioned in relation to each other. Rather, "difference" and "distinction" were signalled through an exegetically established and maintained hierarchy of husband over wife. A second interpretive option, represented by Jerome, accentuated the difference between the "carnality" of the Hebrew past and the "spirituality" of the Christian ascetic present. Although Jerome rejected the charges of "Manicheanism" hurled against him, he nonetheless accorded "distinction" to the ascetics of his own day through ingenious intertextual readings of Scripture. A third exegetical model, represented by Origen, circumvented the debate over the "difference in times" by abandoning any chronological trajectory between Hebrew past and Christian present. Here it was not ascetic bodies that were distinguished from marital ones, but reason from sense, virtue from vice-a choice open to both the celibate and the married. The essay thus seeks to correlate modes of exegesis with the debates over asceticism that were prominent in early Christian writing. It also suggests the usefulness of contemporary theory for appreciating the rhetoric of these Fathers' exegesis.

Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Udo Schnelle
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Urban Congregations ◽  
Intellectual Level

Early Christianity is often regarded as an entirely lower-class phenomenon, and thus characterised by a low educational and cultural level. This view is false for several reasons. (1) When dealing with the ancient world, inferences cannot be made from the social class to which one belongs to one's educational and cultural level. (2) We may confidently state that in the early Christian urban congregations more than 50 per cent of the members could read and write at an acceptable level. (3) Socialisation within the early congregations occurred mainly through education and literature. No religious figure before (or after) Jesus Christ became so quickly and comprehensively the subject of written texts! (4) The early Christians emerged as a creative and thoughtful literary movement. They read the Old Testament in a new context, they created new literary genres (gospels) and reformed existing genres (the Pauline letters, miracle stories, parables). (5) From the very beginning, the amazing literary production of early Christianity was based on a historic strategy that both made history and wrote history. (6) Moreover, early Christians were largely bilingual, and able to accept sophisticated texts, read them with understanding, and pass them along to others. (7) Even in its early stages, those who joined the new Christian movement entered an educated world of language and thought. (8) We should thus presuppose a relatively high intellectual level in the early Christian congregations, for a comparison with Greco-Roman religion, local cults, the mystery religions, and the Caesar cult indicates that early Christianity was a religion with a very high literary production that included critical reflection and refraction.

scholarly journals Readings Behind the Early Christian Queer Experiences

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-124
Author(s):  
Larisa Orlov Vilimonović
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Gender Fluidity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
Body Modifications

This paper deals with the ideas of queer experiences in the Early Christian movement, seen through early Christian epistemologies of gender and patristic thought focused on sex differences. The lives and passions of transgender nuns are used in discussing various aspects of gender fluidity in early Christianity. Theoretically, the paper rests on the idea of the performativity of gender, that is, on the ways gender was constructed and how body modifications enabled renegotiation of gender categories. It also focuses on the social context of queer experiences in the late antique period with regard to Roman social norms.

Paul as a Character in Early Christian Narratives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Letter Exchange

The apostle Paul is featured as a character in a wide variety of early Christian narratives. This chapter considers first how Paul is portrayed in a number of different story-style narratives, including the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Thecla, the Ephesus Act, and two different accounts of Paul’s martyrdom. Attention is drawn to the creative energy storytellers poured into telling tales about the famous apostle. The chapter argues that many storytellers seem to have felt free to shape their stories according to their own ingenuity and interests, rather than being preoccupied with producing ‘historically accurate’ accounts. It also highlights a range of factors that may have influenced how Paul is portrayed in any given narrative, including plot concerns, pre-existing traditions about other characters with whom Paul shares the stage, and recourse to stock motifs and story templates. In addition to this exploration of story-style narratives, the chapter examines how Paul functions as an authoritative voice in two narratives of slightly different genres, a fictional letter exchange known as 3 Corinthians or the Corinthian Correspondence, and a tour of the afterlife known as the Apocalypse of Paul.

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