Ekklesiologie der sanften Macht. Der 1. Timotheusbrief und die antike Fürstenspiegel-Literatur

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-305
Author(s):  
Matthias Becker
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Central Elements ◽  
Specula Principum ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Mirrors For Princes

Abstract Did early Christian church leaders and political rulers share common characteristics? By reading the First Epistle to Timothy through the lens of Greek and Roman “mirrors for princes” (specula principum) written in the first and early second centuries AD, this article intends to make a new contribution to this issue. The study’s interpretative focus lies on the idealized depiction of Timothy as a role model for early Christian officeholders as well as on the qualifications for bishops and deacons (1 Tim 3:1–13). The comparison of the features of the ideal ruler with those of ideal church leaders shows that central elements of the ecclesiology of First Timothy tap into the Greco-Roman discourse concerning ideal rulership. Yet not only that, it also helps to understand that the power that is undeniably attributed to officeholders is ultimately meant to be a soft power that serves the cause of “preservation” and “salvation” (σωτηρία).

Awaking to Mutual, Reciprocal Need in Plague and Epidemic Disease: The Origins of Early Christian Health Care

2020 ◽  
pp. 002436392096295
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Communicable Disease ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Physical Suffering ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Human Need

While the early Christian Church demonstrates a deep desire to relieve physical suffering, the Greco-Roman world in which it developed lacked the same impetus to respond to human need, especially in the context of epidemic or communicable disease. Christianity’s dedication to health care, and its belief that assisting the sick constituted an absolute obligation, distinguished early Christianity from its contemporary cultural milieu which regularly ignored and excluded the sick. The novelty of the Christian approach to healing can be traced to the early church’s unique recognition of human need. This vision of human need, which ultimately replaced the secular Greco-Roman emphasis on reciprocal philanthropy and providing assistance only to the worthy, is clearly exemplified in the life of Christ, in responses to plague and in the writings of John Chrysostom and the Cappadocian Fathers Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. An analysis of these sources demonstrates that the early Christian Church viewed the sick not only as persons to be assisted insofar as they shared a common human nature but also individuals necessary for the salvation of the broader community as a whole. The early church’s emphasis on reciprocal interdependence between healthy and sick eliminated the boundaries traditionally established between these two groups and transformed long-standing notions of contagious disease. Ultimately, the development of these attitudes toward the sick originates in a deeper truth which underlies the Christian healthcare tradition both in the ancient world and in the modern era: humanity’s profound and mutual need of God, before whom all are spiritually ill.

The Ideal of the Christian Couple: Ign. Pol. 5.1–2 Looking Back to Paul

1994 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Margaret Y. Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Married Couple ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Petty Bourgeoisie ◽  
Apostolic Fathers ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

Reflecting upon ethical ideals upheld by the Apostolic Fathers scholars have noted the presence of a ‘positive attitude towards pagan society’, ‘ideas comparable to those of nineteenth-century petty bourgeoisie’, a vision of the church made up of ‘generous householders, well-disciplined children, submissive wives, and reliable slaves’. Commenting on the renunciation of Paul's preference for virginity by the beginning of the second century, Elizabeth A. Clark concludes that ‘… the ordering of the household deemed normal by late ancient pagan society tended to prevail in Christianity as well’. Recent work on the implications of remaining unmarried for the lives of early Christian women has perhaps allowed the tipping of the scale away from the preference for the privileges of virginity towards the ideal of wifely submission to stand out in even fuller relief. The obvious question is why the Christian ideal of the married couple with its apparent openness to Greco-Roman ethics emerges so boldly at the turn of the century. The attractive solution most frequently proposed is, as Clark puts it, that wives exhibiting the characteristic virtues of good domestic order, discretion and modesty, stood as ‘apologists for the new faith’.

Conflict and Financial Scandal on History, Culture, and Politic

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (03) ◽  
pp. 20628-20638
Author(s):  
Anik Yuesti ◽  
I Made Dwi Adnyana
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The World ◽  
Financial Scandals ◽  
Financial Transparency ◽  
The Church ◽  
Transparency And Accountability

One of the things that are often highlighted in the world of spirituality is a matter of sexual scandal. But lately, the focus of the spiritual world is financial transparency and accountability. Financial scandals began to arise in the Church, as was the case in the Protestant Christian Church of Bukti Doa Nusa Dua Congregation in Bali. The scandal involved clergy and even some church leaders. This study aims to describe how the conflict occurred because of financial scandals in the Church. The method used in this study is the Ontic dialectic. Based on this research, the conflict in the Bukit Doa Church is a conflict caused by an internal financial scandal. The scandal resulted in fairly widespread conflict in the various lines of the organization. It led to the issuance of the Dismissal Decrees of the church pastor and also one of the members of Financial Supervisory Council. This conflict has also resulted in the leadership of the church had violated human rights. Source of conflict is not resolved in a fair, but more concerned with political interests and groups. Thus, the source of the problem is still attached to its original place.

What's Divine about Divine Law?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Western Idea ◽  
Jewish Writers ◽  
Divine Law

In the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present. This book untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law and shows how early adherents to biblical tradition—Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo, the community at Qumran, Paul, and the talmudic rabbis—struggled to make sense of this conflicting legacy. This book shows that for the ancient Greeks, divine law was divine by virtue of its inherent qualities of intrinsic rationality, truth, universality, and immutability, while for the biblical authors, divine law was divine because it was grounded in revelation with no presumption of rationality, conformity to truth, universality, or immutability. The book describes the collision of these opposing conceptions in the Hellenistic period, and details competing attempts to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance. It shows how Second Temple and Hellenistic Jewish writers, from the author of 1 Enoch to Philo of Alexandria, were engaged in a common project of bridging the gulf between classical and biblical notions of divine law, while Paul, in his letters to the early Christian church, sought to widen it. The book then delves into the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism to reveal how the talmudic rabbis took a third and scandalous path, insisting on a construction of divine law intentionally at odds with the Greco-Roman and Pauline conceptions that would come to dominate the Christianized West. This book sheds critical light on an ancient debate that would shape foundational Western thought, and that continues to inform contemporary views about the nature and purpose of law and the nature and authority of Scripture.

Understanding the Importance of Community Practice for Christian Social Workers

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-15
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Brown ◽  
Gaynor Yancey
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Change Process ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Planned Change ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Work Skills ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Book Of Acts ◽  
Acts 2

The start of the early Christian church is recounted in the book of Acts.  In Acts 2 (NKJV) shares that after the outpouring of the Spirit of God, over 3,000 believers gather themselves together, where they “held everything in common, shared their resources, and that each person’s needs were met (Acts 2:42, The Message). The following article takes a bird’s eye view that assists us, as social workers, in understanding the importance of community practice. Community calls us to a sense of belonging and inclusion with a group of people.  Community also calls us to consider again our shared values and resources.  This article grounds us in the Biblical narrative, moves to our social work skills and knowledge base, and then concludes with thoughts that encourage us to address the “wicked problems” by being disruptive forces in the planned change process which is at the heart of community practice.

Sexual Defilement in Early Christian Texts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Family ◽  
Main Target ◽  
Christian Society

Chapter 7 demonstrates that sexual sin became the main target for purity discourse in early Christian texts, and attempts to explain why. Christian imagery of sexual defilement drew from a number of traditions—Greco-Roman sexual ethics, imagery of sexual sin from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple texts, and both Jewish and pagan purity laws, all seen through the lens of Paul’s imagery of sexuality and sexual sin. Two broad currents characterized Christian sexual ethics in the second century: one upheld marriage and the family as the basis for a holy Christian society and church, while the second rejected all sexuality, including in marriage. Writers of both currents made heavy use of defilement imagery. For the first, sexual sin was a dangerous defilement, contaminating the Christian community and severing it from God. For the second, more radical current, sexuality itself was the defilement; virginity or continence alone were pure.

Early Christian Attitudes Towards Dietary Impurity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Normal Order ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Individual

This chapter describes how purity and defilement were practiced and discussed in diverse cults throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Empires and in contemporary Judaism. There were several types of purity and defilement. The first, a “truce” impurity perception, was temporary and mundane, a defilement occurring when there was an obstruction to the normal order or when categories were mixed up. A second type, the “battle” impurity perception, followed exceptional actions, typically deliberate, such as murder or adultery. Here purification required both punishment by the community and ritual actions, such as sacrifice. A third type became more and more significant in the first centuries CE. This was the defilement of the individual by his or her evil actions and dispositions, conceptualized at times as a “defilement of the soul,” and its purification through asceticism, philosophy, or repentance. Though purity and defilement also featured in Greco-Roman religion, it received an unusually central role in Judaism.

Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Christian Practices ◽  
Dietary Laws ◽  
New Religion

This book examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. Concepts of purity and defilement were pivotal for understanding human nature, sin, history, and ritual in early Christianity. In parallel, major Christian practices, such as baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, felt, and shaped as instances of purification. Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, formed the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was substantive: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion. The second was polemic: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagans, or “heretics”) as false. The book traces the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing dietary laws, death defilement, sexuality, and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses. There are three central arguments. First, purity and defilement were central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those of contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document