Art Craft And Theology In Fourth Century Christian Authors
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Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors by Morwenna Ludlow Pdf
Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors analyses Christian Greek literature in the fourth century in order to emphasise the style, ingenuity, and craftsmanship demonstrated by the authors of such texts. It considers the way these 'wordsmiths' used classical literature techniques to strengthen their theological writings.
Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors by Morwenna Ludlow Pdf
Ancient authors commonly compared writing with painting. The sculpting of the soul was also a common philosophical theme. Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors takes its starting-point from such figures to recover a sense of ancient authorship as craft. The ancient concept of craft (ars, techne) spans 'high' or 'fine' art and practical or applied arts. It unites the beautiful and the useful. It includes both skills or practices (like medicine and music) and productive arts like painting, sculpting and the composition of texts. By using craft as a guiding concept for understanding fourth Christian authorship, this book recovers a sense of them engaged in a shared practice which is both beautiful and theologically useful, which shapes souls but which is also engaged in the production of texts. It focuses on Greek writers, especially the Cappadocians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nysa) and John Chrysostom, all of whom were trained in rhetoric. Through a detailed examination of their use of two particular literary techniques—ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia—it shows how they adapt and experiment with them, in order to make theological arguments and in order to evoke a response from their readership.
What can we know about the everyday experiences of Christians during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries? How did non-elite men and women, enslaved, freed, and free persons, who did not renounce sex or choose voluntary poverty become Christian? They neither led a religious community nor did they live in entirely Christian settings. In this period, an age marked by "extraordinary" Christians--wonderworking saints, household ascetics, hermits, monks, nuns, pious aristocrats, pilgrims, and bishops--ordinary Christians went about their daily lives, in various occupations, raising families, sharing households, kitchens, and baths in religiously diverse cities. Occasionally they attended church liturgies, sought out local healers, and visited martyrs' shrines. Barely and rarely mentioned in ancient texts, common Christians remain nameless and undifferentiated. Unfinished Christians explores the sensory and affective dimensions of ordinary Christians who assembled for rituals. With precious few first-person accounts by common Christians, it relies on written sources not typically associated with lived religion: sermons, liturgical instruction books, and festal hymns. All three genres of writing are composed by clergy for use in ritual settings. Yet they may also provide glimpses of everyday Christians' lives and experiences. This book investigates the habits, objects, behaviors, and movements of ordinary Christians by mining festal preaching by John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, and Romanos the Melodist, among others. It also mines liturgical instructions to explore the psalms and other songs performed on various feast days. "Unfinished," then, connotes the creativity and agency of unremarkable Christians who engaged in making religious experiences: the "Christian-in-progress" who learns to work with material and bring something into being; the artisans who attended sermons; and, more widely, the bearers of embodied knowing.
Christianity and the Contest for Manhood in Late Antiquity by Nathan D. Howard Pdf
In this book, Nathan Howard explores gender and identity formation in fourth-century Cappadocia, where pro-Nicene bishops used a rhetoric of contest that aligned with conventions of classical Greek masculinity. Howard demonstrates that epistolary exhibitions served as 'a locus for' asserting manhood in the fourth century. These performances illustrate how a culture of orality that had defined manhood among civic elites was reframed as a contest whereby one accrued status through merits of composition. Howard shows how the Cappadocians' rhetoric also reordered the body and materiality as components of a maleness over which they moderated. He interrogates fourth-century theological conflict as part of a rhetorical battle over claims to manhood that supported the Cappadocians' theology and cast doubt on non-Trinitarian rivals, whom they cast as effeminate and disingenuous. Investigating accounts of pro-Nicene protagonists overcoming struggles, Howard establishes that tropes based on classical standards of gender contributed to the formation of Trinitarian orthodoxy.
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by Andrew Louth Pdf
Uniquely authoritative and wide-ranging in its scope, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church is the indispensable reference work on all aspects of the Christian Church. It contains over 6,500 cross-referenced A-Z entries, and offers unrivalled coverage of all aspects of this vast and often complex subject, from theology; churches and denominations; patristic scholarship; and the bible; to the church calendar and its organization; popes; archbishops; other church leaders; saints; and mystics. In this new edition, great efforts have been made to increase and strengthen coverage of non-Anglican denominations (for example non-Western European Christianity), as well as broadening the focus on Christianity and the history of churches in areas beyond Western Europe. In particular, there have been extensive additions with regards to the Christian Church in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, and Australasia. Significant updates have also been included on topics such as liturgy, Canon Law, recent international developments, non-Anglican missionary activity, and the increasingly important area of moral and pastoral theology, among many others. Since its first appearance in 1957, the ODCC has established itself as an essential resource for ordinands, clergy, and members of religious orders, and an invaluable tool for academics, teachers, and students of church history and theology, as well as for the general reader.
Austin Farrer for Today by Richard Harries,Stephen Platten Pdf
Austin Farrer is often called the one genius the Church of England produced in the 20th Century. His innovative ideas crossed a host of theological disciplines. Assessing his continuing importance and introducing him to a new generation of readers, Austin Farrer for Today brings together a stellar collection of writers to reflect on Farrer’s contribution to biblical theology, philosophy, language, doctrine, prayer and preaching. Chapters include: •Rowan Williams on Farrer as a doctrinal theologian •Morwenna Ludlow on Farrer's language and symbolism •Jane Shaw on Farrer as preacher •John Barton, on typology in Farrer
Thecla was one of the most venerated saints in late antiquity. One of her followers created the Life of Thecla as an act of devotion in the fifth century, rewriting the popular Acts of Thecla and transforming it into the heroic saga of a saint. Replete with long speeches, dramatic flourishes, and literary flamboyance, the Life of Thecla gives modern readers insight into the ways a gender-bending apostolic saint could be reframed and reimagined for later audiences. This first modern English translation of the Life explores its relationship with the earlier Acts as well as its place in fifth-century concerns about miracles, healing, sainthood, and sexuality.
Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity by Richard Flower,Morwenna Ludlow Pdf
Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity takes an interdisciplinary approach to the question of how individuals and groups ascribed religious categories during late antiquity. Particular focus is given to the role of rhetoric in the expression of religious identity, in order to give mutual illumination to both phenomena in this period.
The Lyric Voice in English Theology by Elizabeth S. Dodd Pdf
In this book, Elizabeth S. Dodd traces the contours of a lyric theology through the lens of English lyric tradition. She addresses the dominance of narrative and drama in contemporary theological aesthetics by drawing on recent developments in lyric theory. Informed by the work of critics such as Jonathan Culler, Dodd explores the significance of lyric for theological discourse. Lyric is presented here as a short, musical, expressive and personal form that is also fragmentary, embodied, socially located and performative. The main chapters address key moments in English lyric tradition. This selective approach aims to expand the theological gaze beyond the monochromatic features of the traditional canon. It covers Anglo-Saxon hymns, medieval lullaby carols, early-modern sonnets and the prophetic poetry of Romanticism, but also Grime and hip hop, performance poetry, social media poetry and Geoffrey Hill.
Jerome's Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles and the Architecture of Exegetical Authority by Andrew Cain Pdf
In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, during a fifty-year stretch sometimes dubbed a Pauline "renaissance" of the western church, six different authors produced over four dozen commentaries in Latin on Paul's epistles. Among them was Jerome, who commented on four epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, Titus, Philemon) in 386 after recently having relocated to Bethlehem from Rome. His commentaries occupy a time-honored place in the centuries-long tradition of Latin-language commenting on Paul's writings. They also constitute his first foray into the systematic exposition of whole biblical books (and his only experiment with Pauline interpretation on this scale), and so they provide precious insight into his intellectual development at a critical stage of his early career before he would go on to become the most prolific biblical scholar of Late Antiquity. This monograph provides the first book-length treatment of Jerome's opus Paulinum in any language. Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach, Cain comprehensively analyzes the commentaries' most salient aspects-from the inner workings of Jerome's philological method and engagement with his Greek exegetical sources, to his recruitment of Paul as an anachronistic surrogate for his own theological and ascetic special interests. One of the over-arching concerns of this book is to explore and to answer, from multiple vantage points, a question that was absolutely fundamental to Jerome in his fourth-century context: what are the sophisticated mechanisms by which he legitimized himself as a Pauline commentator, not only on his own terms but also vis-à-vis contemporary western commentators?
Christ, the Spirit, and Human Transformation in Gregory of Nyssa's in Canticum Canticorum by Alexander L. Abecina Pdf
This book provides a comprehensive literary and theological analysis of Gregory of Nyssa's theology of union with God, culminating in a fresh reading of his final written work, In Canticum Canticorum (c.391), a collection of fifteen allegorical homilies on the Song of Songs. Part I gives the essential background for the study of In Canticum Canticorum by analysing several of Gregory's earlier works (c.370--385), tracing the main contours of his account of the human transformation and union with God. Author Alexander Abecina explores topics such as Gregory's theology of virginity and spiritual marriage, his theology of baptism, his trinitarian theology, and his Spirit-based Christology. In Part II Abecina builds on his key findings in Part I to structure a detailed analysis of In Canticum Canticorum. Engaging with the latest contemporary scholarship on Gregory of Nyssa, the author shows how Gregory's allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs represents a corresponding account of human transformation and union with God from the perspective of subjective experience of this reality. Rather than marking a new development in Gregory's mature thought, Abecina demonstrates that the subjective experience gained from Gregory's reading of the Song of Songs recapitulates the key elements of his objective account and therefore renders coherent his earlier soteriological doctrine.
Clement of Alexandria and the Judgement of Taste by J. M. F. Heath Pdf
Clement of Alexandria and the Judgement of Taste: Pedagogical Rhetoric and Christian Formation provides a new account of Clement of Alexandria's Paedagogus as a programme in the formation of the judgement of taste, situating it in critical dialogue with modern approaches to the judgement of taste and aesthetics. The book's key questions are framed considering Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction (1979): a landmark in twentieth-century scholarship on the theory of taste. J. M. F. Heath studies Clement's rhetoric and theology in the context of the Christian Second Sophistic, when Christians were experimenting with new ways of inhabiting the rhetorical and philosophical culture of the Greco-Roman world. The Paedagogus shows Clement's pedagogical method and rhetorical strategy at the early stages of Christian formation when his audience are not yet ready for abstract philosophical argument. This was a time for forming people's habits of judgement and preferences of 'taste', so as to ground their daily lives in deeper desires and aversions that are structured through a relationship with God. This was an immensely important stage of Christian formation: many people never got beyond this to any sort of philosophical curriculum, and yet, through engaging the 'tastes' of a wide audience, Christian leaders sought to spread the gospel--and succeeded in doing so. Even for the intellectual elites, personal formation through preferences of taste was part of how they embodied their desire for God, and the way they inhabited it through the sacramental and ascetic life of the church. Bourdieu's sociological and anthropological approach proves fruitful for understanding aspects of Clement's rhetorical method and purpose, but the study of Clement's theological rhetoric in its cultural context also, in turn, points the way to a theological response to Bourdieu's theory of taste.
In the late-second century, Tatian the Assyrian constructed a new Gospel by intricately harmonizing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Tatian's work became known as the Diatessaron, since it was derived 'out of the four' eventually canonical Gospels. Though it circulated widely for centuries, the Diatessaron disappeared in antiquity. Nevertheless, numerous ancient and medieval harmonies survive in various languages. Some texts are altogether independent of the Diatessaron, while others are definitely related. Yet even Tatian's known descendants differ in large and small ways, so attempts at reconstruction have proven confounding. In this book James W. Barker forges a new path in Diatessaron studies. Covering the widest array of manuscript evidence to date, Tatian's Diatessaron reconstructs the compositional and editorial practices by which Tatian wrote his Gospel. By sorting every extant witnesses according to its narrative sequence, the macrostructure of Tatian's Gospel becomes clear. Despite many shared agreements, there remain significant divergences between eastern and western witnesses. This book argues that the eastern ones preserve Tatian's order, whereas the western texts descend from a fourth-century recension of the Diatessaron. Victor of Capua and his scribe used the recension to produce the Latin Codex Fuldensis in the sixth century. More controversially, Barker offers new evidence that late medieval texts such as the Middle Dutch Stuttgart harmony independently preserve traces of the western recension. This study uncovers the composition and reception history behind one of early Christianity's most elusive texts.
The Metaphysics of Light in the Hexaemeral Literature by Isidoros C. Katsos Pdf
This volume critically re-evaluates the received interpretation of the nature of light in the ancient sources. Isidoros C. Katsos contests the prevalent view in the history of optics according to which pre-modernity theorized light as subordinate to sight ('oculocentrism') by examining in depth the contrary textual evidence found in early Christian texts. It shows that, from Philo of Alexandria and Origen to Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, the Jewish-Christian commentary tradition on the hexaemeral literature (the biblical creation narrative) reflected deeply on the nature and physicality of light for the purposes of understanding the structure and purpose of material creation. Contemplation of nature allowed early Christian thinkers to conceptualize light as the explanatory principle of vision rather than subordinated to it. Contrary to the prevalent view, the hexaemeral literature necessitates a 'luminocentric' interpretation of the theory of light of Plato's Timaeus in its reception history in the context of late antique cosmology. Hexaemeral luminocentrism invites the reader of Scripture to grasp not only the sensible properties of light, but also their causal principle as the first manifestation of the divine Logos in creation. The hexaemeral metaphysics thus provides the missing ground of meaning of the early Christian language of light.
