Eingeordnete Freiheit

Eingeordnete Freiheit
Author: H.S. Benjamins
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004312951

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.

Demonstrative Proof in Defence of God

Demonstrative Proof in Defence of God
Author: Nils Arne Pedersen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047405455

This is the first extensive study of a major Patristic work, showing its importance for the history of Church and theology, Manichaean studies and the use of ancient philosophy. It includes a critical text and translation of central passages.

Augustine's Confessions

Augustine's Confessions
Author: Annemaré Kotzé
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2004-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047405692

This book is about the communicative purpose and the audience of the Confessions. It illuminates the degree to which the communicative purpose of the work is to convert its readers, i.e. a protreptic purpose, and the degree to which the target audience may be identified as Augustine's potential Manichaean readers. A brief survey of possible literary antecedents points to the existence of other works that consist of the same combination of an autobiographical section (a conversion story) with a polemical and exegetical section (an argument that aims to convince the reader of the merits of a specific point of view) that characterizes the Confessions. The book provides a new perspective on the meaning and structure of Augustine's often misunderstood masterpiece.

Anonymi Monophysitae Theosophia

Anonymi Monophysitae Theosophia
Author: Pier Franco Beatrice
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004313222

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.

A Greek Thomist

A Greek Thomist
Author: Matthew C. Briel
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2020-04-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268107513

Matthew Briel examines, for the first time, the appropriation and modification of Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of providence by fifteenth-century Greek Orthodox theologian Gennadios Scholarios. Briel investigates the intersection of Aquinas’s theology, the legacy of Greek patristic and later theological traditions, and the use of Aristotle’s philosophy by Latin and Greek Christian thinkers in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. A Greek Thomist reconsiders our current understanding of later Byzantine theology by reconfiguring the construction of what constitutes “orthodoxy” within a pro- or anti-Western paradigm. The fruit of this appropriation of Aquinas enriches extant sources for historical and contemporary assessments of Orthodox theology. Moreover, Scholarios’s grafting of Thomas onto the later Greek theological tradition changes the account of grace and freedom in Thomistic moral theology. The particular kind of Thomism that Scholarios develops avoids the later vexing issues in the West of the de auxiliis controversy by replacing the Augustinian theology of grace with the highly developed Greek theological concept of synergy. A Greek Thomist is perfect for students and scholars of Greek Orthodoxy, Greek theological traditions, and the continued influence of Thomas Aquinas.

God in Early Christian Thought

God in Early Christian Thought
Author: Andrew McGowan
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2009-05-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047427580

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.

Angelomorphic Pneumatology

Angelomorphic Pneumatology
Author: Bogdan Bucur
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2009-05-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047444485

This book discusses the occurrence of angelic imagery in early Christian discourse about the Holy Spirit. Taking as its entry-point Clement of Alexandria’s less explored writings, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, and Adumbrationes, it shows that Clement’s angelomorphic pneumatology occurs in tandem with spirit christology, within a theological framework still characterized by a binitarian orientation. This complex theological articulation, supported by the exegesis of specific biblical passages (Zech 4: 10; Isa 11 : 2-3; Matt 18:10), reworks Jewish and Christian traditions about the seven first-created angels, and constitutes a relatively widespread phenomenon in early Christianity. Evidence to support this claim is presented in the course of separate studies of Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Aphrahat.

Die Lehre von der Oikonomia Gottes in der Oratio catechetica Gregors von Nyssa

Die Lehre von der Oikonomia Gottes in der Oratio catechetica Gregors von Nyssa
Author: R.J. Kees
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004312978

This volume deals with Gregory of Nyssa's († 394 C.E.) soteriology as set forth in his handbook for catechetes. In part I-III the aim, method and structure of the Oratio catechetica are examined and the results are compared with Gregory's examples (Origen, Athanasius). Part IV presents the relationship between his theology (theologia) and soteriology (oikonomia) as well as the interrelated topics of that soteriology, thus describing the concept of oikonomia in the Oratio catechetica. Part V contrasts this concept with earlier works of Gregory and shows the developments of his thought. Part VI compares the teachings of Gregory with those of Methodius and Athanasius. The book is important for all those interested in early Christian thought and literature.

The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity

The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity
Author: J. den Boeft
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004313117

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.

Apelles und Hermogenes

Apelles und Hermogenes
Author: Katharina Greschat
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004313141

This volume deals with the intellectual and social context of two Christian teachers living in the second half of the second century. It presents a coherent reconstruction and interpretation of their teaching, often considered to be marginal within the development of early Christian doctrine. The first part of the book seeks to understand the Marcionite Apelles as a cultured person, who shaped his understanding of Christian doctrine in the context of the philosophical background and in permanent discussion with other Christian schools. In this respect Apelles coincides with the Christian Platonist Hermogenes. His opinions are described in the second part of the book. The author points out that teachers like Apelles and Hermogenes had to answer the questions of the educated in order to defend and to define their understanding of Christian faith.