Methodius of Olympus († ca. 311 CE) is regarded as a key author in 3rd c Christian theology. In recent years, his works have become objects of intense research interest on the part of Church historians, classical Greek and Paleoslavic philologists, and scholars of Armenia. The essays in this volume examine the current state of research, enhance our understanding of Methodius with valuable new information, and open up new research perspectives.
This book sheds light on a relatively dark period of literary history, the late third century CE, a period that falls between the Second Sophistic and Late Antiquity. It argues that more was being written during this time than past scholars have realized and takes as its prime example the understudied Christian writer Methodius of Olympus. Among his many works, this book focuses on his dialogic Symposium, a text which exposes an era's new concern to re-orient the gaze of a generation from the past onto the future. Dr LaValle Norman makes the further argument that scholarship on the Imperial period that does not include Christian writers within its purview misses the richness of this period, which was one of deepening interaction between Christian and non-Christian writers. Only through recovering this conversation can we understand the transitional period that led to the rise of Constantine.
While the diversity of early Christian thought and practice is now generally assumed, and the experiences and beliefs of Christians beyond the works of great theologians increasingly valued, the question of God is perennial and fundamental. These essays, individually modest in scope, seek to address that largest of questions using particular issues and problems, or single thinkers and distinct texts. They include studies of doctrine and theology as traditionally conceived, but also of understandings of God among the early Christians that emerge from study of liturgy, art, and asceticism, and in relation to the social order and to nature itself.
This book is the first study to focus on the reception of Paul's link between resurrection and salvation, revealing its profound effect on early Christian theology - not only eschatology, but also anthropology, pneumatology, ethics, and soteriology. Thomas D. McGlothlin traces the roots of the strong tension on the matter in ancient Judaism and then offers deep readings of the topic by key theologians of pre-Nicene Christianity, who argued on both sides of the issue of the fleshliness of the resurrected body. McGlothlin unravels the surprising continuities that emerge between Irenaeus, Origen, and the Valentinians, as well as deep disagreements between allies like Irenaeus and Tertullian.
"At the height of the tumultuous developments taking place in Central and Eastern Europe in the ninth century, two Greek missionaries from Thessalonica came to the fore. Their work of acculturation among the Slavs, had far-reaching and lasting changes upon European life. This book looks back over the life and work of these two outstanding figures and analyzes their ecclesiastical and cultural mission. Their presence in the Crimea was closely bound up with several aspects of Byzantium's ecclesiastical policy and programs of acculturation, and also with the Russians' first encounter with Christianity." "In presenting the Slavs with an alphabet and the written work, the brothers transmitted to them the world, and thus it was in Cyril and Methodius' time, and thanks to their work, that Great Moravia reached the height of its vigor and prosperity as a central European state. The Cyrillo-Methodian tradition lived on, spreading among the Slavic peoples and laying the foundation of their spiritual life."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Methodius of Olympus (d. ca. A.D. 310) played a significant role in the theological developments of the late third and early fourth centuries. His writings constitute the largest body of Greek Christian works to survive from the late third century--other than those of Eusebius of Caesarea--and provide important insight into Christian thought from an otherwise poorly documented period. Surprisingly, however, Methodius' writings have been studied only incidentally and mainly for their influential criticism of Origen's views. Little interest has been shown in Methodius himself or in his place in the theological trends of his time. Going beyond the ""incidental"" interests commonly analyzed, this book studies Methodius the person and provides a much-needed framework for reconsidering Methodius' contribution to the issues of the period. L. G. Patterson offers a close analysis of Methodius' writings with respect to their literary style, their use of earlier writers--particularly, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen--and their unfolding theological preoccupations. In considering Methodius' criticism of Origen, Patterson expands the traditional scope of analysis and reflects on the origin and context of the misrepresentations of Origen underlying this criticism. Patterson attributes these misrepresentations to Methodius' growing conviction that Origen, by whom he was profoundly influenced, had unwittingly embraced a dualistic cosmology of the sort which Methodius himself opposed. Patterson explains the underlying issues of Methodius' work--divine sovereignty, human freedom, and life in Christ--in light of his commitment to the ascetic life as central to Christian existence, and discusses Methodius' influence on major figures of the fourth century, mainly Arius and Gregory of Nyssa. The book is a significant contribution to the study of early Christian theology. It will be of particular interest to scholars studying Origen, early Arianism, the Cappadocian fathers, and the later Origenist controversies, as well as to students of early Christian asceticism. L. G. Patterson, a priest in the Episcopal Church, is professor of historical theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His long-standing interest in Methodius has been reflected in articles published in the proceedings of Colloquium Origenianum and theInternational Conference on Patristic Studies, as well as in papers presented to the North American Patristic Society. ""The study is not only informative but also enjoyable, and it sheds much light on an important but not widely known author of early Christianity.""--Vigiliae Christianae Table of Contents: Preface Introduction 1. The Author of the Writings 2. De libero arbitrio: Dualism and the Problem of Evil 3. The Symposium: Chastity and the Plan of Salvation 4. Origen in the Symposium 5. De resurrectione and the Initial Criticism of Origen 6. De creatis and the Later Criticism of Origen Conclusion Appendix 1: The De lepra among Methodius' Writings Appendix 2: The Hymn of Thecla and the Purpose of the Symposium Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects
Amidon offers the first English translation of Books 10 and 11 of Rufinus' Church History. Books 1-9 comprise a Latin translation of Eusebius' history. Books 10 and 11 are Rufinus' own continuation, covering the period 325-395. As the first Latin church history, this work exerted great influence over the subsequent scholarship of the Western Church.
This book addresses a particular and little-known form of writing, the prose dialogue, during the Late Antique period, when Christian authors adopted and transformed the dialogue form to suit the new needs of religious debate. Connected to, but departing from, the dialogues of Classical Antiquity, these new forms staged encounters between Christians and pagans, Jews, Manichaeans, and "heretical" fellow Christians. At times fiction, at others records of, or scripts for, actual debates, the dialogues give us a glimpse of Late Antique rhetoric as it was practiced and tell us about the theological arguments underpinning religious differences. By offering the first comprehensive analysis of Christian dialogues in Greek and Syriac from the earliest examples to the end of the sixth century CE, the present volume shows that Christian authors saw the dialogue form as a suitable vehicle for argument and apologetic in the context of religious controversy and argues that dialogues were intended as effective tools of opinion formation in Late Antique society. Most Christian dialogues are little studied, and often in isolation, but they vividly evoke the religious debates of the time and they embody the cultural conventions and refinements that Late Antique men and women expected from such debates.
In A Threat to Public Piety, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser reexamines the origins of the Great Persecution (AD 303–313), the last eruption of pagan violence against Christians before Constantine enforced the toleration of Christianity within the Empire. Challenging the widely accepted view that the persecution enacted by Emperor Diocletian was largely inevitable, she points out that in the forty years leading up to the Great Persecution Christians lived largely in peace with their fellow Roman citizens. Why, Digeser asks, did pagans and Christians, who had intermingled cordially and productively for decades, become so sharply divided by the turn of the century? Making use of evidence that has only recently been dated to this period, Digeser shows that a falling out between Neoplatonist philosophers, specifically Iamblichus and Porphyry, lit the spark that fueled the Great Persecution. In the aftermath of this falling out, a group of influential pagan priests and philosophers began writing and speaking against Christians, urging them to forsake Jesus-worship and to rejoin traditional cults while Porphyry used his access to Diocletian to advocate persecution of Christians on the grounds that they were a source of impurity and impiety within the empire. The first book to explore in depth the intellectual social milieu of the late third century, A Threat to Public Piety revises our understanding of the period by revealing the extent to which Platonist philosophers (Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus) and Christian theologians (Origen, Eusebius) came from a common educational tradition, often studying and teaching side by side in heterogeneous groups.
