Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?

Ignatius adversus Valentinianos?
Author: Thomas Lechner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004313133

This volume discusses the authenticity of the seven letters, handed down under the name of Ignatius of Antioch, and explores the wider theological context at the time of their composition. The author first examines the chronological foundations of current scholarly consensus, which on the whole favours an early second-century date for the composition of these letters, during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117). On the basis of his findings the author next addresses the question raised by the title of the volume: do some of the polemic passages in these letters specifically attack Valentinian gnosis? After a detailed discussion of chapters 16-20 of the Letter to the Ephesians it is shown that the Ignatian Star Hymn (Eph. 19) should be seen as a parody of Valentinian myth. The volume concludes with a study of the Regula fidei (Eph. 18,2).

The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch

The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch
Author: Jonathon Lookadoo
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2023-08-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666770701

The letters of Ignatius of Antioch portray Jesus in terms that are both remarkably exalted and shockingly vulnerable. Jesus is identified as God and is the sole physician and teacher who truly reveals the Father. At the same time, Jesus was born of Mary, suffered, and died. Ignatius asserts both claims about Jesus with minimal attempts to reconcile how they can simultaneously be embodied in one person. This book explores the ways in which Ignatius outlines his understanding of Jesus and the effects that these views were to have on both his immediate audience as well as some of his later readers. Ignatius utilizes stories throughout his letters, describes Jesus with designations that are at once traditional and reinvigorated with fresh meaning, and employs a dizzying array of metaphors to depict how Jesus acts. In turn, Ignatius and his audience are to respond in ways befitting their status in Christ because Jesus forms a lens through which to look at the world anew. Such a dynamic Christology was not to cease development in the second century but continued to inspire readers in creative ways through late antiquity and beyond.

Matthew and His Christian Contemporaries

Matthew and His Christian Contemporaries
Author: David C. Sim
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 056704453X

A comprehensive comparison of the author of Matthew's Gospel with a selection of contemporary Christian authors and/or texts.

Intertextuality in the Second Century

Intertextuality in the Second Century
Author: D. Jeffrey Bingham
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004318763

This volume offers an appreciation of the value of intertextuality—from Greek, Roman, Jewish, and biblical traditions—as related to the post-apostolic level of Christian development within the second century. Not least of these foundational pillars is the certain impact of the Second Sophistic movement during this period with its insipient influence on much of early Christian theology’s formation. The variety of these strands of inspiration created a tapestry of many diverse elements that came to shape the second-century Christian situation. Here one sees biblical texts at work, Jewish and Greek foundations at play, and interaction among patristic authors as they seek to reconcile their competing perspectives on what it meant to be “Christian” within the contemporary context.

The Apostolic Fathers

The Apostolic Fathers
Author: Michael W. Holmes
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 832
Release: 2007-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 080103468X

A contemporary version of important early Christian texts that are not included in the New Testament. The translation, Greek texts, introduction, notes, and bibliographies are freshly revised.

The Apostolic Fathers in English

The Apostolic Fathers in English
Author: Michael W. Holmes
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0801031087

A reliable translation of important early Christian texts not included in the New Testament.

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch
Author: Allen Brent
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2007-08-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567032000

This book is an account of the cirumstances and the cultural context in which Ignatius constructed what became the historic church order of Christendom. Allen Brent defends the authenticity of the Ignatian letters by showing how the circumstances of Ignatius' condemnation at Antioch and departure for Rome, fits well with what we can reconstruct of the internal situation in the Church of Antioch in Syria at the end of the first century.

Justification in the Second Century

Justification in the Second Century
Author: Brian J. Arnold
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2017-02-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110478234

This book seeks to answer the following question: how did the doctrine of justification fare one hundred years after Paul’s death (c. AD 165)? This book argues that Paul’s view of justification by faith is present in the second century, a thesis that particularly challenges T. F. Torrance’s long-held notion that the Apostolic Fathers abandoned this doctrine (The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers, 1948). In the wake of Torrance’s work there has been a general consensus that the early fathers advocated works righteousness in opposition to Paul’s belief that an individual is justified before God by faith alone, but second-century writings do not support this claim. Each author examined—Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Diognetus, Odes of Solomon, and Justin Martyr—contends that faith is the only necessary prerequisite for justification, even if they do indicate the importance of virtuous living. This is the first major study on the doctrine of justification in the second century, thus filling a large lacuna in scholarship. With the copious amounts of research being conducted on justification, it is alarming that no work has been done on how the first interpreters of Paul received one of his trademark doctrines. It is assumed, wrongly, that the fathers were either uninterested in the doctrine or that they misunderstood the Apostle. Neither of these is the case. This book is timely in that it enters the fray of the justification debate from a neglected vantage point.

Torah Praxis after 70 CE

Torah Praxis after 70 CE
Author: Isaac Wilk Oliver
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 551
Release: 2023-06-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666773107

In Torah Praxis after 70 CE, Oliver challenges conventional views of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as well as the Acts of the Apostles. He reads the works not only against their Jewish “background” but also as early Jewish literature. In doing so, he questions the traditional classification of Luke-Acts as a “Greek” or Gentile-Christian text. To support his assertions, Dr. Oliver’s literary-historical investigation explores the question of Torah praxis in each book, citing evidence that suggests several ritual Jewish practices remained fixtures in the Jesus movement and that Jewish followers of Jesus played key roles in forming the ekklesia well into the first century CE.

Desiring Martyrs

Desiring Martyrs
Author: Harry O. Maier
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2020-12-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 311068263X

Martyrs create space and time through the actions they take, the fate they suffer, the stories they prompt, the cultural narratives against which they take place and the retelling of their tales in different places and contexts. The title "Desiring Martyrs" is meant in two senses. First, it refers to protagonists and antagonists of the martyrdom narratives who as literary characters seek martyrs and the way they inscribe certain kinds of cultural and social desire. Second, it describes the later celebration of martyrs via narrative, martyrdom acts, monuments, inscriptions, martyria, liturgical commemoration, pilgrimage, etc. Here there is a cultural desire to tell or remember a particular kind of story about the past that serves particular communal interests and goals. By applying the spatial turn to these ancient texts the volume seeks to advance a still nascent social geographical understanding of emergent Christian and Jewish martyrdom. It explores how martyr narratives engage pre-existing time-space configurations to result in new appropriations of earlier traditions.