Międzynarodowa konferencja "New Horizons in Early Christian Studies: Challenges and Opportunities" (26-27 marca 2021, online)

Sprawozdanie z międzynarodowej konferencji "New Horizons in Early Christian Studies: Challenges and Opportunities", która odbyła się online 26-27 marca 2021.

Contemporary Historiography on Christianity in Roman Africa

This essay follows the broad contours of patristic and ecclesiastical history relative to African Christianity. Rival Catholic and Protestant narratives of the origin and trajectory of African Christianity in the early modern period continued to influence historiography, even after the acceptance of critical historical methods in the 19th century. The advent of archeological research in the colonial period opened new vistas on African history and ushered in the sociohistorical approach which characterized early Christian studies in the 20th century. Finally, the “linguistic turn” in early Christian studies inspired by critical theory has directed recent research toward issues surrounding the identities of African Christians, rhetorical and real.

The JECS Core Journal Collection

An understanding of core journal collections is important for the development and management of periodical collections. This investigation explores the structure of a core journal collection related to the Journal of Early Christian Studies, a relatively new periodical in the sub-discipline of church history. Citations of journals extracted from three randomly selected volumes were tabulated and ranked. Library of Congress subject headings were used to categorize the subjects covered by the top-ranked cited journals. It was concluded that a core of nine journals contributed twenty-five percent of all citations. Church history journals predominated as the source of cited material; Roman and Byzantine subject journals were also highly cited. The core journal collection is concentrated around these three subject domains and, wherever early Christian studies is a prominent curricular focus, it is recommended that these nine journals be available in the library.

Defining Prophecy

This chapter examines some terminology and definitions of prophecy. It explores scholarly definitions from Classics, Ancient Philosophy, Jewish Studies, and early Christian studies before turning more specifically to Greek philosophical definitions, early Christian definitions, Origen’s own definitions, and scholars’ interpretations of Origen’s views on prophecy. It argues that while insights from various fields are relevant for understanding Origen, his definition of prophecy is highly unusual and focuses not just on future-telling, but revelation of mystic truths as well as understanding of time and the cosmos. The chapter concludes by demonstrating that previous scholarship on Origen’s view of prophecy has tended to limit itself to specific features rather than taking a wide-angled view of the topic as this book does.

Review of: Aristotle and Early Christian Thought. London: Routledge, 2019. (Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity; 6). 226 p. ISBN 978-11-38-69799-7

Данная книга представляет собой историко-философское исследование о начальном периоде освоения Аристотеля христианами и является шестым изданием, вышедшим в молодой (с 2013 г.) серии «Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity» лондонского издательства Routledge. Автор книги (он же один из редакторов упомянутой серии) — тьютор по богословию колледжа Christ Church и профессор раннехристианских исследований факультета Теологии и религии Оксфордского университета М. Эдвардс — известен в первую очередь благодаря своим популярным работам по истории раннего христианства и патристической философии. This book is a historical and philosophical study of the early Christian reception of Aristotle and is the sixth edition of the young (since 2013) series Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity published by Routledge, London. The author (who is also one of the editors of the series), M. Edwards, the theology tutor at Christ Church College and professor of Early Christian Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at Oxford University, is known primarily for his popular works on the history of early Christianity and patristic philosophy. DOI Название объекта Название объекта в переводе ФИО автора / список авторов Место работы автора ORCID Ключевые слова Аннотация

Conclusion

This concluding chapter returns to the Letter to the Philippians, considering the ways in which a framework of theo-economics helps one to better understand the letter. Theo-economics highlights the multiple transactional entanglements of human and divine beings in early Christ communities in Philippi. As comparing Paul's Letter to the Philippians and Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians helped to trace one of many afterlives of the theo-economic themes present in early Christianity, a broader study compiling evidence from several texts and contexts would begin to untangle the diverse ways in which gender, economy, and theology are intertwined in early Christianity. The chapter then looks at some of the broader implications of the book's approach for New Testament and early Christian studies, for Roman historians, and for the study of religion. By taking seriously the ways in which persons in antiquity understood themselves to be participating in transactions with the divine, one can begin to break down some of the scholarly categories that separate theology from economics.