Contextualizing Cassian

Contextualizing Cassian
Author: Richard J. Goodrich
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2007-08-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199213135

A study of how John Cassian, a fifth-century Gallic author, tried to direct and reshape the development of Western monasticism. Richard J. Goodrich focuses on how Cassian's ascetic treatises were tailored to persuade a wealthy, aristocratic audience to adopt a more stringent, Christ-centred monastic life.

Jerome's Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles and the Architecture of Exegetical Authority

Jerome's Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles and the Architecture of Exegetical Authority
Author: Andrew Cain
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2021
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192847198

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?

The Letters of Jerome

The Letters of Jerome
Author: Andrew Cain
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2009-02-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199563551

In life Jerome's authority was frequently questioned, yet following his death he was venerated as a saint. Andrew Cain systematically examines Jerome's idealized self-presentation across the extant epistolary corpus, exploring how and why Jerome used letter writing as a means to bid for status as an expert on the Bible and ascetic spirituality.

Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great

Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great
Author: Thomas L. Humphries Jr.
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019150808X

Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great presents three interconnected arguments. The first argument concerns scholarly readings of antiquity: there are developments in 5th and 6th century Latin pneumatology which we have overlooked. Theologians like John Cassian and Gregory the Great were engaged in a significant discussion of how the Holy Spirit works within Christian ascetics to reform their inner lives. Other theologians, like Leo the Great, participate to a lesser extent in a similar project. They applied pneumatology to theological anthropology. Thomas L. Humphries, Jr. labels that development "ascetic pneumatology," and beings to track some of the late antique schools of thought about the Holy Spirit. The second argument concerns the reception of Augustine in the two centuries immediately after his death: different people read Augustine differently. Augustine's theology was known and understood to varying degrees in various regions. Humphries demonstrates significant engagements with Augustine's theology as it was relevant to Pelagianism (evidenced in Prosper of Aquitaine), as it was relevant to Gallic Arians (evidenced with the Lérinian theologians), and as it was relevant to African Arians and certain questions posed of Nestorianism (evidenced with Fulgentius of Ruspe). Instead of attempting to rank various theologians as better and worse "Augustinians," Humphries argues that there were different kinds of "Augustinianisms" even in the years immediately after Augustine. The third argument concerns Gregory the Great and his sources. Once we see that ascetic pneumatology was a strain of thought in this era and see that there are different kinds of Augustinianisms, we can see that Gregory depends on both Augustine and Cassian. In the closing chapters, Humphries argues that Gregory uses Cassian's ascetic pneumatology, and this allows Gregory's synthesis of Cassian and Augustine to stand in greater relief than it has before. The study begins with Cassian, ends with Gregory, and is attentive to Augustine throughout.

The Text and Contexts of Ignatius Loyola's "Autobiography"

The Text and Contexts of Ignatius Loyola's
Author: John M. McManamon
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2013-01-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0823245047

This refreshing re-evaluation of the so-called autobiography of Ignatius Loyola (c. 1491-1556) situates Ignatius's Acts against the backgrounds of the spiritual geography of Luke's New Testament writings and the culture of Renaissance humanism. Ignatius Loyola's So-Called Autobiography builds upon recent scholarly consensus, examines the language of the text that Ignatius Loyola dictated as his legacy to fellow Jesuits late in life, and discusses relevant elements of the social, historical, and religious contexts in which the text came to birth. Recent monographs by Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle and John W. O'Malley have characterized Ignatius's Acts as a mirror of vainglory and of apostolic religious life, respectively. In this study, John M. McManamon, S.J., persuasively argues that an appreciation of the two Lukan New Testament writings likewise helps interpret the theological perspectives of Ignatius. The geography of Luke's two writings and the theology that undergirds Luke's redactional innovation assisted Ignatius in remembering and understanding the crucial acts of God in his own life. This eloquent, lucidly written new book is essential reading for anyone interested in Ignatius, the early Jesuits, sixteenth-century religious life, and the history of early modern Europe.

Jerome's Epitaph on Paula

Jerome's Epitaph on Paula
Author: Saint Jerome
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 601
Release: 2013-07-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199672601

Composed in 404, Jerome's Epitaph on Saint Paula (Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae) is an elaborate eulogy commemorating the life of Paula (347-404), a wealthy Christian widow from Rome who renounced her senatorial status and embraced an ascetic lifestyle and in 386 co-founded with Jerome a monastic complex in Bethlehem.

Ascetic Practices in Japanese Religion

Ascetic Practices in Japanese Religion
Author: Tullio Federico Lobetti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2013-09-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134472730

Ascetic practices are a common feature of religion in Japan, practiced by different religious traditions. This book looks at these ascetic practices in an inter-sectarian and inter-doctrinal fashion, in order to highlight the underlying themes common to all forms of asceticism. It does so by employing a multidisciplinary methodology, which integrates participant fieldwork – the author himself engaged extensively in ascetic practices – with a hermeneutical interpretation of the body as the primary locus of transmission of the ascetic ‘embodied tradition’. By unlocking this ‘bodily data’, the book unveils the human body as the main tool and text of ascetic practice. This book includes discussion of the many extraordinary rituals practiced by Japanese ascetics.

From Polis to Empire--The Ancient World, c. 800 B.C. - A.D. 500

From Polis to Empire--The Ancient World, c. 800 B.C. - A.D. 500
Author: Andrew G. Traver
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2001-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313016569

Covering the very beginnings of Western civilization, this biographical dictionary introduces readers to the great cultural figures of the ancient world, including those who contributed significantly to architecture, astronomy, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, painting, sculpture, and theology. While focusing on great cultural figures of the Mediterranean basin, such as Homer, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, the volume also includes those who impinged on Greco-Roman Civilization such as Hannibal Barca and King Darius of Persia. Showing how the era's intellectual milieu was interwoven with its political agenda, the book also includes entries on major political and military figures, pointing to their cultural as well as their political contributions. With 480 entries, the book is an excellent basic reference for students seeking an understanding of the ancient world. Going from polis to empire, the years from 800 BC to AD 500 include the archaic period of the eastern Mediterranean, the Greek classical period, the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, and Rome's evolution from a republic to an empire dominating the entire Western world. A Jewish carpenter, living at the edge of the Roman Empire, preached a message with profound implications for the Roman State and Western religion. Providing a quick and easy reference to people who lived in this world, this book profiles the men and women who contributed to the development, growth, and culture of Western civilization. Most of the subjects were native to the Mediterranean basin, including Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, North Africa, and Phoenicia, but the book also includes important Persians, Celts, Germanic peoples, and Huns. The book provides valuable background information for anyone interested in the birth of Western culture.

Introducing Early Christianity

Introducing Early Christianity
Author: Laurie Guy
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2011-09-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830839429

Laurie Guy provides an illuminating, broad-brush survey of the early church in its first four centuries. Readers get to witness the emergence of Great Tradition Christianity as themes unfold over time regarding women, persecution and martyrdom, asceticism and monasticism, eucharist and baptism, doctrine and the ecumenical councils.