Eingeordnete Freiheit compares Origen's notion of freedom of choice with the concepts of contemporary philosophers. The first chapter deals with the philosophical problem of freedom of choice throughout the history of Greek philosophy. In the second chapter Origen's writing on this topic is assembled, translated, analyzed and commented upon. The comparison between Origen and his contemporaries leads in chapter three to the conclusion that Origen's concept of freedom differs especially from the philosophical perspective, since human freedom does not stand in opposition to the inevitable pattern of the pronoia or heimarmene but to Gods care for every individual. Chapter four shows that the notion of oikonomia in Christian theology is based on the concept of providence in Origen.
The Theosophy, written by an anonymous Monophysite theologian in the early years of the sixth century CE, is a work in four books with a final world chronicle. Heir to a long apologetic tradition, it aims at demonstrating that there is a basic harmony between Christian faith and pagan theology. For this reason its author quotes at length numerous pagan prophecies of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. This volume proposes the first comprehensive critical edition of all the extant fragments of this work, in an attempt to reconstruct the general framework and to understand the inner logic of its composition. Thanks to this edition, which is bound to become the starting point for any future investigation, the Theosophy has now been put in circulation and made available for further research.
One of the most conspicuous innovations of early Christianity within Greco-Roman culture is its reliance upon a collection of authoritative texts. The ultimate author of Scripture was thought to be God Himself, whose will could and should be sought and found in these holy writings. For this reason it is not surprising that very soon these texts not only became the object of careful attention and scholarly study, but also put their stamp on the various forms and manifestations of early Christian life, such as martyrdom, asceticism, liturgy, art, and literature. This multifarious influence of Scripture is the subject of The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity. It contains fourteen contributions, predominantly in English, by Belgian and Dutch scholars which have been gathered in a thematically ordered collection.
This volume deals with the christology of fifth-century pastor and theologian Cyril of Alexandria, particularly as it relates to Apollinarianism and Nestorianism. More specifically, it explores the use of a plethora of images to illustrate his understanding of the mystery of Christ. The book traces the background of his analogies in the philosophers and the Scriptures. Included are sections on Cyril’s understanding and use of the Scriptures, and the intended force of images in his theology. The final part is a re-reading of his christology through the lens of his christological imagery. Historians of Christian theology and dogma will find a unique look into the word pictures Cyril uses and the picture of Christ the reveal.
Even though the theology of Origen of Alexandria has shaped the Christian Tradition in almost every way, the controversies over his legacy have been seemingly endless. One major interpretative trend, for example, has suggested Origen’s theology is really akin to the heterodox Gnostics against whom he wrote than the actual teaching of the Gospel, since he (supposedly) had a disdainful attitude towards Creation and ultimately saw little redemptive meaning in the Passion. In Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria, Mark Therrien offers an original interpretation of Origen’s theology. Focusing on some of Origen’s most important works (especially On First Principles and the Commentary on John, but ultimately making reference to his writings more broadly), this book retrieves and examines some of the foundational pillars of Origen’s theology through close readings and re-examinations of those texts. It examines eight of these theological foundations: God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the end, the soul, the world, the cross, and deification. Moreover, by showing the connections between Origen’s understanding of these foundational pillars, it also shows the coherence of his theology as a whole. Taken collectively, what emerges from these eight chapters is that two doctrines specially shape Origen’s theology: Cross and Creation. As Therrien shows, Origen did not hold contempt for Creation. Rather, Origen thinks that Creation emerges from the very life of God as eternally foreknown and provided for in the person of Christ, the Wisdom of God the Father. Moreover, he also holds that, though fallen, Creation will be restored according to its original, eternal intention in God precisely through the Passion of Jesus Christ on the Cross. The Cross is thus not minimalized in Origen’s theology; it is rather its very center.
Origen was the most influential Christian theologian before Augustine, the founder of Biblical study as a serious discipline in the Christian tradition, and a figure with immense influence on the development of Christian spirituality. This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into Origen's life and writings. An introduction analyzes the principal influences that formed him as a Christian and as a thinker, his emergence as a mature theologian at Alexandria, his work in Caesarea and his controversial legacy. Fresh translations of a representative selection of Origen's writings, including some never previously available in print, show how Origen provided a lasting framework for Christian theology by finding through study of the Bible a coherent understanding of God's saving plan.
Predestination has been the subject of perennial controversy among Christians, although in recent years theologians have shied away from it as a divisive and unedifying topic. In this book Matthew Levering argues that Christian theological reflection needs to continue to return to the topic of predestination, for two reasons: Firstly, predestinarian doctrine is taught in the New Testament. Reflecting the importance of the topic in many strands of Second Temple Judaism, the New Testament authors teach predestination in a manner that explains why Christian theologians continually recur to this topic. Secondly, the doctrine of predestination provides a way for Christian theologians to reflect upon two fundamental affirmations of biblical revelation. The first is God's love, without any deficiency or crimp, for each and every rational creature; the second is that God from eternity brings about the purpose for which he created us, and that he permits some rational creatures freely and permanently to rebel against his love. When theologians reflect on these two key biblical affirmations, they generally try to unite them in a logical synthesis. Instead, Levering argues, it is necessary to allow for the truth of each side of the mystery, without trying to blend the two affirmations into one. Levering pairs his discussion of Scripture with ecumenically oriented discussion of the doctrine of predestination in through the ages through the figures of Origen, Augustine, Boethius, John of Damascus, Eriugena, Aquinas, Ockham, Catherine of Siena, Calvin, Molina, Francis de Sales, Leibniz, Bulgakov, Barth, Maritain, and Balthasar. He concludes with a constructive chapter regarding the future of the doctrine.
The Paedagogus of Clement of Alexandria is almost completely preserved almost completely in a single manuscript, the famous Codex Arethae, copied in the second decade of the tenth century for Arethas, the Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. The text was copied from an exemplar in poor shape, to the extent that the codex (P) is full of textual corruptions. Most of the first book of the Paedagogus is lost in P. For this part the author had to rely on two old apographs of P. The only extant critical edition of the text was provided by Otto Stählin in 1905. Although in later editions (1936, 1972) corrections and additions were appended, the author was of the opinion that this predecessor was not attentive enough to the meaning of Clement's text and to the textual problems involved. As a result scholars still lack a reliable critical text of the treatise. Marcovich has tried to improve Stählin's remarkable edition by emending the transmitted text wherever it did not make sense, while relying on Clement's sources and on his lexicon and expression employed elsewhere in his opus.
Around 392 Theodore of Mopsuestia delivered his homilies to candidates for baptism. Using Theodore's homilies, this work studies the reception and influence of the Nicene Creed in the imperial church since Theodosius. Passed at Nicæa in 325 the Creed became an official dogma of the empire in 380/81. What was its role in the life of the church and in the theological controversies of the subsequent years? At which point did the people start to pay attention to its exact original wording? To which extent were Theodore's theological teachings influenced by the trinitarian dogma of Nicæa? The text of Theodore's Baptismal Creed is reconstructed in both its Syriac and Greek versions. It proves to be one of the most important sources of the Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.
