Reception of the Septuagint in the early church

The aim of this paper is to portray the reception of the Septuagint in the early Church. Firstly, the synagogue view of the translation is provided, from the reports in which the origin of the translation is enthusiastically discussed, to the rejection of the Septuagint. A particular emphasis is placed on theological argumentation attempting to prove the divine inspiration of the translation of the Seventy. In this process, the prominent figures are: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Pseudo-Justin, Epiphanius of Salamis, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom and Augustine. The paper deals with two textual disputes over the authenticity of the Septuagint text as the legitimate successor of the original Hebrew consonant text. Textual deviations were often a reason for such confrontations. The first dispute is between Julius Africanus and Origen. Within it, Origen clarifies textual issues of certain Old Testament books. Jerome and Augustine took part in the second dispute. Jerome leaned more towards the Hebrew truth (Hebraica Veritas), while Augustine put more stock into the translation of the Seventy. These confrontations clearly reflect the status of the Septuagint in the early Church. Finally, a concise review of the further status of the Septuagint in the Western and Eastern Churches is provided.

The Early Church through Constantine (100–337)

This chapter examines Christian growth and conversion in the early church period. Due to the lack of textual, inscriptional, and archaeological evidence, the second and third centuries are perhaps the most difficult period to account for the spread of Christianity and the nature of conversion. Nevertheless, historians have proposed and debated the many external and internal factors that contributed to Christian growth to the point where, by the mid-fourth century, Christians constituted a majority population in the Roman Empire. Following a general discussion of reasons for Christian growth and expansion, the chapter turns to the varied conversion experiences in the lives of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Cyprian of Carthage and concludes with an analysis of the much-debated conversion of Emperor Constantine.

Rational Theology in Polemic Strategies of Early Christian Apologues

The texts of early Christian apologists are an example of a clear argumentative reaction to a number of external and internal challenges. The internal ones included changes in the size and structure of the community, increased heterodoxia, and a decrease in eschatological moods. Among the external – on the one hand, the growth of hostility and systematic persecution on the part of Rome, on the other, the specific atmosphere of the “age of the Antonines”, age of imperators who practiced, at least formally, a policy of mercy. All this stimulated the development of rhetoric in Christian literature, the formation of the genre of Christian apology, as well as specific apologetic strategies, in which early Christian rational theology was reflected. Its most important element was the formation of ideas about a righteous life as the root condition of philosophical wisdom. It is this approach that helps, for example, Justin Martyr find a way to convert ancient wisdom into a rational-theological toolkit of apologetics