Piety/Godliness in Early Christianity and the Roman World

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.

Sharing On Suffering Experiences As The Secularity Of Incarnation

The changing context of the Christian life brings Christian life at a crossroads, the first whether to remain in a comfort zone or the second whether to enter into the realm of profane daily life. The urge to get out of selfness and deal with the public world makes the Church deal with questions about its own identity. In this article, I want to explore the question of incarnation in Johan Baptist Metz's secularity. However, the concept of incarnation is applied solely to Jesus Christ as the Divine Word became flesh. Ricoeurian hermeneutics could help explain the term secularity on incarnation to immediate. And corporeal suffering of the others. The turn to Ricoeur as a methodological resource for theology provides a philosophical account of the methodology behind critical theology. The article concludes that the human being in their relationship its suffering experience is an experience of encounter.

WhatsApp Group Sebagai Ruang Percakapan Pastoral di Masa Pandemi Covid-19

This study discussed pastoral activities during the Covid-19 pandemic through WhatsApp group as pastoral space. It investigated group-based communication in WhatsApp based on a survey toward the Catholic Family Ministry in the Diocese of Malang. The result was that the conversations in the WhatsApp group in form of reflections, shared links, inspiration, prayers, and information showed that the ecclesiastical community has the courage to be present and involved in human life today. Conversations in WhatsApp groups taught and shared Christian values that opposed to individualism, consumerism, and hedonism, as well as to be a space to proclaim the values of Christian life, namely: love, care, fellowship, justice, peace, solidarity, sharing and living hopefully to God the source of life.Abstrak. Penelitian ini mendiskusikan aktivitas pastoral selama masa pandemi Covid-19 yang menggunakan WhatsApp group sebagai ruang pastoral. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode survey. Studi ini mensurvey percakapan yang terjadi di Whatsapp group komunitas Catholic Family Ministry Keuskupan Malang. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa percakapan dalam WhatsApp group berupa renungan, share link, inspirasi, doa, dan informasi menunjukkan bahwa komunitas gerejawi berani hadir dan terlibat dalam hidup manusia pada masa kini. Percakapan dalam WhatsApp group menampilkan nilai Kristiani yang melawan individualisme, konsumerisme dan hedonism di ruang digital, dan sebaliknya, menjadi ruang menyuarakan nilai-nilai kehidupan Kristiani, yaitu: cinta kasih, perhatian, persekutuan, keadilan, perdamaian, solidaritas, berbagi serta hidup penuh pengharapan kepada Allah Sang Sumber Hidup.

Christians in and from the Middle East: Lessons from the World Christian Encyclopedia

This article considers the history and contemporary reality of Middle Eastern Christianity in light of new demographic information available from the World Christian Encyclopedia. For readers interested in church history and World Christianity, it identifies key lessons to be learned about Christians in and from the Middle East today. It focuses on understanding the region’s Christian diversity, the complexities of recent demographic decline, the relationship between Middle Eastern and global Christianity, and the interreligious realities of Christian life in the region.

The Spirit in 2 Corinthians

The Holy Spirit plays an indispensable role in Paul’s configuration of the Christian life. This article briefly examines the significance of the Spirit in Paul’s overall argument in 2 Corinthians. The eleven Spirit texts are explored under three main themes: the Spirit as a seal and deposit; the Spirit and the New Covenant; and the Spirit and the Trinity.

Moral Calls Resulting from the Gift of the Eucharist in the Teaching of Pope Benedict XVI

The role of the Eucharist in shaping the moral life is enormous and in fact, thanks to the Eucharist, the essence of Christian life can be read. Therefore, it is not surprising that Pope Benedict XVI has often addressed the Eucharist in his teachings. In this way, he wanted to deepen and revive the worship of Eucharistic Jesus. In his teachings, he showed the Eucharist as the greatest treasure given to man for shaping the moral life. He constantly reminded us of the obligations arising from the participation in the Eucharist. Because of its specificity, the Eucharist contains moral calls: to sacrifice, to feeding on the bread of life, to praise and giving thanks, and to living in faith and love. Fulfilling all these attitudes and moral calls in everyday life is a way to progress in the Eucharistic life.

Life of Christopher

Christopher, a native of Baghdad who became patriarch of Antioch in about 349/960, was assassinated by Muslim rebels in 356/967 because of his loyalty to their Muslim ruler. When the Byzantines conquered Antioch two years later, his story was told in a variety of ways by those with different and competing interests. Christopher was mentioned in Byzantine histories and in Antiochian liturgies. However, by far the most extensive and detailed version of the story comes to us in the Life of Christopher, written by Ibrāhīm b. Yūḥannā, a Byzantine bureaucrat and translator who grew up in Antioch and knew Christopher when he, Ibrāhīm, was a young boy. The hagiography was originally composed in Greek and translated by its author into Arabic, but only the Arabic survives. Here I provide, for the first time, both a critical edition of the two known Arabic manuscripts and a full English translation. This text is a valuable testimony to Christian life in Antioch under both the Ḥamdānids and the Byzantines, and to the difficulties of life along the constantly shifting frontier of medieval northern Syria.

What Is the New Testament?

This chapter reviews the origin of the term “New Testament” and then surveys the contexts, various literary forms, and contents of its twenty-seven “books.” It also sketches the historical context in which the New Testament writings developed, beginning with the historical, political, and social context of the life and mission of Jesus of Nazareth, and the extension of early Christianity from its original Jewish milieu out into the Gentile world. While the New Testament exhibits great diversity in its literary components and in the variety of the theological perspectives found in its individual writings, the New Testament also finds a unifying factor in its focus on the identity and mission of Jesus and his normative significance for Christian life. This unifying factor is a major reason for considering the New Testament writings “sacred.”