Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman Empire, and the Fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy: Reassessing Byzantine Imperial Eschatology in the Age of Constantine

Modern scholarship often attributes to Eusebius of Caesarea (d. circa 340 AD) the view that God's heavenly kingdom had become manifest in the Roman Empire of Constantine the Great. Consequently, Eusebius is deemed significant in the development of Christian eschatological thought as the supposed formulator of a new “realized eschatology” for the Christian Roman Empire. Similarly, he is considered the originator of so-called “Byzantine imperial eschatology”—that is, eschatology designed to justify the existing imperial order under the emperors in Constantinople. Scholars advancing these claims most frequently cite a line from Eusebius's Tricennial Oration in which he identified the accession of the sons of Constantine with the prophesied kingdom of the saints in the Book of Daniel. Further supposed evidence has been adduced in his other writings, especially his Life of Constantine. This article argues that this common interpretation of Eusebius's eschatology is mistaken and has resulted from treating a few passages in isolation while overlooking their rhetorical context. It demonstrates instead that Eusebius adhered to a conventional Christian eschatology centered on the future kingdom of heaven that would accompany the second coming of Christ and further suggests that the concept of “Byzantine imperial eschatology” should be reconsidered.

Dante’s theology and contemporary thought: Recovering transcendence?

This article outlines how Dante’s philosophy and theology turn on issues that are being debated in broader philosophical, theological, and theoretical milieus today. It emphasizes, in particular, how the new horizon opened by certain postmodern—and more specifically post-secular—turns in philosophy shifts the light falling on the interface between the concepts of transcendence and immanence. As a result, Dante’s attempt, in the twilight of the Middle Ages, to renegotiate the relations between the two shows up as acutely relevant and potentially groundbreaking for current philosophical and theological inquiry. The areas of inquiry traversed include realized eschatology as theorized by Agamben; Foucault’s archeological model of knowledge; Patristic and medieval hexameral exegesis; the tension between hermeneutics and deconstruction; political theology; the theological turn in phenomenology; secularism and humanities as crypto-theological forms of thought. All are examined as prefigured in embryo by Dante’s comprehensive, poetic approach to knowing.

The Eschatological Aspects of the Monastic Life in St. Jerome’s Letters

In the year 1953, a New Testament scholar named Charles Harold Dodd published a book titled The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel which revolutionized the way of thinking about Christian eschatology. In his opus vitae, Charles Dodd argued based on the Gospel of John that apocalyptic realities are in fact already realised through Jesus and His Apostles’ ministry. On this premise, he coined the term “realized eschatology”, in which all announcements concerning the Kingdom of God had already been realized according to Dodd. This “realized eschatology” can be seen through various realities of everyday life of the community of believers. In the case of Saint Jerome of Stridon, he saw the eschatological reality in the monastic lifestyle. This article aims to show what eschatological signs are present in the description of the monastic community found in the letters of Saint Jerome. For in his letters many times he refers to eschatological realities already present in monastic life, which is for him a kind of paradise on earth and the fulfilment of Christ’s eschatological prophecies.

A Synthetic Proposal about the Corinthian Resurrection Deniers

Most standard analyses of the identification of the deniers of the resurrection and the nature of their denial in 1 Cor 15:12 evaluate three sets of options: denial of any post-mortem fate, over-realized eschatology, or dualistic anthropology from Greco-Roman philosophy. The author argues that all of these theories are inadequate, and proposes a theory that identifies the Corinthian resurrection deniers as a cross-section of members from upper and lower classes, with varying levels of education, whose denial of the general resurrection emerges from a variety of sources in philosophy and the myths of popular religion.

John 11 in the Book of Mormon

In a 1978 study, Krister Stendahl traced the use of Johannine theology in the Book of Mormon’s most central narrative: the climactic story of the resurrected Jesus visiting the ancient Americas. According to Stendahl, the reproduction of the Sermon on the Mount with occasional slight variations suggests an attempt at deliberately recasting the Matthean text as a Johannine sermon. Building on Stendahl’s work, this essay looks at the use of John earlier in the Book of Mormon, in a narrative presented as having occurred almost a century before the time of Jesus. In an inventive reworking of the narrative of John 11, the story of the raising of Lazarus, the Book of Mormon suggests that it bears a much more complex relationship to the Johannine theology than its unhesitant embrace at the book’s climax indicates. Broad parallels and unmistakable allusions together make clear that the Book of Mormon narrative means to re-present the story from John 11. But the parallels and allusions are woven with alterations to the basic structure of the Johannine narrative. As in John 11, the reworked narrative focuses on the story of two men, one of them apparently dead, and two women, both attached to the (supposedly) dead man. But the figure who serves as the clear parallel to Jesus is unstable in the Book of Mormon narrative: at first a Christian missionary, but then a non-Christian and racially other slave woman, and finally a non-Christian and racially other queen. But still more striking, in many ways, is the fashion in which the Book of Mormon narrative recasts the Lazarus story in a pre-Christian setting, before human beings are asked to confront the Johannine mystery of God in the flesh. Consequently, although the Book of Mormon narrative uses the basic structure and many borrowed phrases from John 11, it recasts the meaning of this structure and these phrases by raising questions about the meaning of belief before the arrival of the Messiah. The Book of Mormon thereby embraces the Johannine theology of a realized eschatology while nonetheless outlining a distinct pre-Christian epistemology focused on trusting prophetic messengers who anticipate eschatology.

“Of His Fullness Have All We Received”

Michael J. McClymond traces Johannine themes in Jonthan Edwards’ theology. He first introduces some such themes in Edwards’ writings, particularly the notion of God’s continually increasing grace into eternity. Then he explores how Edwards understood the Gospel of John as a book that emphasizes spiritual meanings. He goes on to consider “the logic of fullness” in Edwards’ theology as seen in his Johannine exegesis, a logic that highlights the work of the Holy Spirit and the inexhaustible, ever-increasing grace that comes in Christ. McClymond highlights how Edwards’ treatments of Johannine themes cross multiple theological subdisciplines and thus defy neat categorization. Instead, Edwards integrated (at least) three Johannine themes into his theology—realized eschatology, interpersonal indwelling, and dynamic union—using the original concept of “the eternal and yet ever-increasing union of blessed creatures with God.”

Structures of Violence and the Denigration of Law in Christian Thought

This article examines three major patterns of violence in Christian theological thought traditions: supersessionism (the idea that Christianity replaced Judaism), realized eschatology (the presentation of a promised future of reconciliation as basically already present in the world today), and inclusivism (the Christian impulse to integrate others as a universalist aim). Previous scholars have examined these patterns separately, but they have not previously been discussed in a comprehensive effort to analyze Christian thinking habits of degrading others, in particular Judaism.The author's inquiry into structures of thought suggests methodologically that interreligious violence is a highly complex phenomenon that can actually be reduced or increased. Indeed, much progress has been made in the last third of the twentieth century by mainstream churches to renounce supersessionism. But while the discourse with regard to realized eschatology and inclusivism still needs to be developed, one of the key findings here is that all three patterns entail a denigration of law, which in itself still remains at play in Christianity’s relation to Judaism but also in its relation to Islam.

The Deutero-Pauline Letters in Contemporary Research

The chapter begins with a discussion of the preoccupation with authorship in the study of the disputed Pauline epistles. The concept of pseudepigraphy is defined and the recent scholarship on the relationship between the undisputed and disputed letters is examined, pointing to a move away from a distinction between an 'authentic' Paul and a 'false' deutero-Paul. The chapter explains how the reinforcement of the authority of Paul's fellow workers in the disputed Pauline epistles has been central to theoretical constructs of a Pauline school and pays particular attention to the comparison between the Pauline school and philosophical schools in the ancient world. With respect to eschatology, the realized eschatology of Colossians and Ephesians is compared to 2 Thessalonians with its exclusive interest in the parousia as a future event. The relationship between eschatology and the interest in Paul's martyrdom which has emerged in recent scholarship on 2 Timothy is examined. Discussions of community organization and household codes are informed by recent scholarship on Gender, Early Christian Families, and Paul and Empire.