While it has often been recognised that the development of Christian orthodoxy was stimulated by the speculations of those who are now called heretics, it is still widely assumed that their ...contribution was merely catalytic, that they called forth the exposition of what the main church already believed but had not yet been required to formulate.
This book maintains that scholars have underrated the constructive role of these “heretical” speculations in the evolution of dogma, showing that salient elements in the doctrines of the fall, the Trinity and the union of God and man in Christ derive from teachings that were initially rejected by the main church. Mark Edwards also reveals how authors who epitomised orthodoxy in their own day sometimes favoured teachings which were later considered heterodox, and that their doctrines underwent radical revision before they became a fixed element of orthodoxy.
The first half of the volume discusses the role of Gnostic theologians in the formation of catholic thought; the second half will offer an unfashionable view of the controversies which gave rise to the councils of Nicaea, Ephesus and Chalcedon. Many of the theories advanced here have not been broached elsewhere, and no synthesis on this scale had been attempted by other scholars. While this book proposes a revision in the scholarly perception of early Christendom, it also demonstrates the essential unity of the tradition.
Die Herausforderung religionsgeschichtlicher Forschung besteht darin, die Erschließung von Quellen in ihren Kontexten und ihre theoriegeleitete Erklärung mit einer historisch-kritischen Reflexion der ...Wissensproduktion selbst zu verknüpfen. Die Reihe Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten (RGVV) will dieser Komplementarität von historischer Kontextualisierung, theoretischer Verdichtung und disziplinärer Positionierung Rechnung tragen. Studien zu kulturspezifischen Sachzusammenhängen stehen neben vergleichenden Arbeiten, in Form von Monographien oder thematisch fokussierten Sammelbänden.
This book collects ten of Sandra Huebenthal’s most important contributions to the application of Social Memory Theory in Biblical studies. The volume consists of four parts, each devoted to a ...particular field of research. Part one addresses the general impact of Social Memory Theory for the New Testament. The second part analyzes how Social Memory Theory adds to exploring the phenomenon of (biblical) intertextuality as a strategy for negotiating Early Christian identity and the third part investigates how New Testament pseudepigraphy provides a different approach for understanding the negotiation and formation of Christian identities. Finally, part four provides an outlook how the hermeneutical approach can enhance Patristic research. The ten essays originate from discussions about Social Memory Theory and the New Testament at international conferences, three of them are translations of German contributions, while two are published for the first time in this volume.
The historical separation between Judaism and Christianity is often figured as a clearly defined break of a single entity into two separate religions. Following this model, there would have been one ...religion known as Judaism before the birth of Christ, which then took on a hybrid identity. Even before its subsequent division, certain beliefs and practices of this composite would have been identifiable as Christian or Jewish.InBorder Lines, however, Daniel Boyarin makes a striking case for a very different way of thinking about the historical development that is the partition of Judaeo-Christianity. There were no characteristics or features that could be described as uniquely Jewish or Christian in late antiquity, Boyarin argues. Rather, Jesus-following Jews and Jews who did not follow Jesus lived on a cultural map in which beliefs, such as that in a second divine being, and practices, such as keeping kosher or maintaining the Sabbath, were widely and variably distributed. The ultimate distinctions between Judaism and Christianity were imposed from above by "border-makers," heresiologists anxious to construct a discrete identity for Christianity. By defining some beliefs and practices as Christian and others as Jewish or heretical, they moved ideas, behaviors, and people to one side or another of an artificial border-and, Boyarin significantly contends, invented the very notion of religion.
For too long, the study of religious life in Late Antiquity has relied on the premise that Jews, pagans, and Christians were largely discrete groups divided by clear markers of belief, ritual, and ...social practice. More recently, however, a growing body of scholarship is revealing the degree to which identities in the late Roman world were fluid, blurred by ethnic, social, and gender differences. Christianness, for example, was only one of a plurality of identities available to Christians in this period.
InChristians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450 CE, Éric Rebillard explores how Christians in North Africa between the age of Tertullian and the age of Augustine were selective in identifying as Christian, giving salience to their religious identity only intermittently. By shifting the focus from groups to individuals, Rebillard more broadly questions the existence of bounded, stable, and homogeneous groups based on Christianness. In emphasizing that the intermittency of Christianness is structurally consistent in the everyday life of Christians from the end of the second to the middle of the fifth century, this book opens a whole range of new questions for the understanding of a crucial period in the history of Christianity.
One route to understanding the nature of specifically religious violence is the study of past conflicts. Distinguished ancient historian Brent D. Shaw provides a new analysis of the intense sectarian ...battles between the Catholic and Donatist churches of North Africa in late antiquity, in which Augustine played a central role as Bishop of Hippo. The development and deployment of images of hatred, including that of the heretic, the pagan, and the Jew, and the modes by which these were most effectively employed, including the oral world of the sermon, were critical to promoting acts of violence. Shaw explores how the emerging ecclesiastical structures of the Christian church, on one side, and those of the Roman imperial state, on the other, interacted to repress or excite violent action. Finally, the meaning and construction of the acts themselves, including the Western idea of suicide, are shown to emerge from the conflict itself.
A comprehensive and authoritative account of the 'heretic' Marcion, this volume traces the development of the concept and language of heresy in the setting of an exploration of second-century ...Christian intellectual debate. Judith M. Lieu analyses accounts of Marcion by the major early Christian polemicists who shaped the idea of heresy, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius of Salamis, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Ephraem Syrus. She examines Marcion's Gospel, Apostolikon, and Antitheses in detail and compares his principles with those of contemporary Christian and non-Christian thinkers, covering a wide range of controversial issues: the nature of God, the relation of the divine to creation, the person of Jesus, the interpretation of Scripture, the nature of salvation, and the appropriate lifestyle of adherents. In this innovative study, Marcion emerges as a distinctive, creative figure who addressed widespread concerns within second-century Christian diversity.
A fascinating new study of the symbolic power of food and its role in forming kinship bonds and religious identity in early ChristianityScholar of religion John Penniman considers the symbolic ...importance of food in the early Roman world in an engaging and original new study that demonstrates how "eating well" was a pervasive idea that served diverse theories of growth, education, and religious identity. Penniman places early Christian discussion of food in its moral, medical, legal, and social contexts, revealing how nourishment, especially breast milk, was invested with the power to transfer characteristics, improve intellect, and strengthen kinship bonds.
For the past hundred years, much has been written about the
early editions of Christian texts discovered in the region that was
once Roman Egypt. Scholars have cited these papyrus
...manuscripts--containing the Bible and other Christian works--as
evidence of Christianity's presence in that historic area during
the first three centuries AD. In Early Christian Books in
Egypt , distinguished papyrologist Roger Bagnall shows that a
great deal of this discussion and scholarship has been misdirected,
biased, and at odds with the realities of the ancient world.
Providing a detailed picture of the social, economic, and
intellectual climate in which these manuscripts were written and
circulated, he reveals that the number of Christian books from this
period is likely fewer than previously believed. Bagnall explains
why papyrus manuscripts have routinely been dated too early, how
the role of Christians in the history of the codex has been
misrepresented, and how the place of books in ancient society has
been misunderstood. The author offers a realistic reappraisal of
the number of Christians in Egypt during early Christianity, and
provides a thorough picture of the economics of book production
during the period in order to determine the number of Christian
papyri likely to have existed. Supporting a more conservative
approach to dating surviving papyri, Bagnall examines the dramatic
consequences of these findings for the historical understanding of
the Christian church in Egypt.
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