The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen: Comprising a History of the Church From A.D. 323 to A.D. 425.

The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen: Comprising a History of the Church From A.D. 323 to A.D. 425.
Author: Salminius Hermias Sozomenus
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Total Pages: 665
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1465607862

My mind has been often exercised in inquiring how it is that other men are very ready to believe in God the Word, while the Jews are so incredulous, although it was to them that instruction concerning the things of God was, from the beginning, imparted by the prophets, who likewise made them acquainted with the events attendant upon the coming of Christ, before they came to pass. Besides, Abraham, the founder of their nation and of the circumcision, was accounted worthy to be an eye-witness, and the host of the Son of God. And Isaac, his son, was honored as the type of the sacrifice on the cross, for he was led bound to the altar by his father and, as accurate students of the sacred Scriptures affirm, the sufferings of Christ came to pass in like manner. Jacob predicted that the expectation of the nations would be for Christ, as it now is; and he likewise foretold the time in which he came, when he said “the rulers of the Hebrews of the tribe of Judah, the tribal leader, shah fail.” This dearly referred to the reign of Herod, who was an Idumean, on his father’s side, and on his mother’s, an Arabian, and the Jewish nation was delivered to him by the Roman senate and Augustus Caesar. And of the rest of the prophets some declared beforehand the birth of Christ, His ineffable conception, the mother remaining a virgin after His birth, His people, and country. Some predicted His divine arid marvelous deeds, while others foretold His sufferings, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into the heavens, and the event accompanying each. But if any be ignorant of these facts it is not difficult to know them by reading the sacred books. Josephus, the son of Matthias, also who was a priest, and was most distinguished among Jews and Romans, may be regarded as a noteworthy witness to the truth concerning Christ ; for he hesitates to call Him a man since He wrought marvelous works, and was a teacher of truthful doctrines, but openly calls him Christ; that He was condemned to the death of the cross, and appeared alive again the third day. Nor was Josephus ignorant of numberless other wonderful predictions uttered beforehand by the holy prophets concerning Christ. He further testifies that Christ brought over many to Himself both Greeks and Jews, who continued to love Him, and that the people named after Him had not become extinct. It appears to me that in narrating these things, he all but proclaims that Christ, by comparison of works, is God. As if struck by the miracle, he ran, somehow, a middle course, assailing in no way those who believed in Jesus, but rather agreeing with them.

Basil of Caesarea (Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)

Basil of Caesarea (Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
Author: Stephen M. Hildebrand
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2014-03-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441245294

Fourth-century church father Basil of Caesarea was an erudite Scripture commentator, an architect of Trinitarian theology, a founder of monasticism, and a metropolitan bishop. This introduction to Basil's thought surveys his theological, spiritual, and monastic writings, showing the importance of his work for contemporary theology and spirituality. It brings together various aspects of Basil's thought into a single whole and explores his uniqueness and creativity as a theologian. The volume engages specialized scholarship on Basil but makes his thought accessible to a wider audience. It is the third book in a series on the church fathers edited by Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering.

Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation

Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation
Author: Helen L. Parish
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351950991

"This study sets the debate over clerical marriage within the context of the key debates of the Reformation, offering insights into the nature of the reformers' attempts to break with the Catholic past, and illustrating the relationship between English polemicists and their continental counterparts. The debate was not without practical consequences, and the author sets this study of polemical arguments alongside an analysis of the response of clergy in several English dioceses to the legalisation of clerical marriage in 1549. Conclusions are based upon the evidence of wills, visitation records, and the proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts."--Jacket

Sources for Byzantine Art History: Volume 3, The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081–c.1350)

Sources for Byzantine Art History: Volume 3, The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081–c.1350)
Author: Foteini Spingou
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1683
Release: 2022-04-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108643906

In this book the beauty and meaning of Byzantine art and its aesthetics are for the first time made accessible through the original sources. More than 150 medieval texts are translated from nine medieval languages into English, with commentaries from over seventy leading scholars. These include theories of art, discussions of patronage and understandings of iconography, practical recipes for artistic supplies, expressions of devotion, and descriptions of cities. The volume reveals the cultural plurality and the interconnectivity of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean from the late eleventh to the early fourteenth centuries. The first part uncovers salient aspects of Byzantine artistic production and its aesthetic reception, while the second puts a spotlight on particular ways of expressing admiration and of interpreting of the visual.

Christianity, Empire and the Spirit

Christianity, Empire and the Spirit
Author: Néstor Medina
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2018-05-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004363092

In Christianity, Empire and The Spirit, Néstor Medina uncovers the cultural processes that play a crucial role in influencing how people understand reality, express the Christian faith, and think about God. He uses decolonial thinking, Latina/o theology, and Pentecostal theology to show how the cultural dimension is a central feature in the biblical text; was the force that coopted Christianity from the imperial era of Constantine onwards; and undergirded Western European colonialism and the missionary project. He engages with Protestant and Catholic articulations on “culture” and demonstrates how most theologians perpetuate Eurocentric frames for considering the relation between Christianity and the cultural dimension. Alternatively, he offers a theological proposal that recognizes the Spirit at work in the phenomena of cultures.

Routledge Handbook on Early Islam

Routledge Handbook on Early Islam
Author: Herbert Berg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 795
Release: 2017-08-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317589203

The formative period of Islam remains highly contested. From the beginning of modern scholarship on this formative period, scholars have questioned traditional Muslim accounts on early Islam. The scholarly fixation is mirrored by sectarian groups and movements within Islam, most of which trace their origins to this period. Moreover, contemporary movements from Salafists to modernists continue to point to Islam’s origins to justify their positions. This Handbook provides a definitive overview of early Islam and how this period was understood and deployed by later Muslims. It is split into four main parts, the first of which explores the debates and positions on the critical texts and figures of early Islam. The second part turns to the communities that identified their origins with the Qurʾān and Muḥammad. In addition to the development of Muslim identities and polities, of particular focus is the relationship with groups outside or movements inside of the umma (the collective community of Muslims). The third part looks beyond what happened from the 7th to the 9th centuries CE and explores what that period, the events, figures, and texts have meant for Muslims in the past and what they mean for Muslims today. Not all Muslims or scholars are willing to merely reinterpret early Islam and its sources, though; some are willing to jettison parts, or even all, of the edifice that has been constructed over almost a millennium and a half. The Handbook therefore concludes with discussions of re-imaginations and revisions of early Islam and its sources. Almost every major debate in the study of Islam and among Muslims looks to the formative period of Islam. The wide range of contributions from many of the leading academic experts on the subject therefore means that this book will be a valuable resource for all students and scholars of Islamic studies, as well as for anyone with an interest in early Islam.

Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries

Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries
Author: Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317076419

Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries forges a new conversation about the diversity of Christianities in the medieval eastern Mediterranean, centered on the history of practice, looking at liturgy, performance, prayer, poetry, and the material culture of worship. It studies prayer and worship in the variety of Christian communities that thrived from late antiquity to the middle ages: Byzantine Orthodoxy, Syrian Orthodoxy, and the Church of the East. Rather than focusing on doctrinal differences and analyzing divergent patterns of thought, the essays address common patterns of worship, individual and collective prayer, hymnography and liturgy, as well as the indigenous theories that undergirded Christian practices. The volume intervenes in standard academic discourses about Christian difference with an exploration of common patterns of celebration, commemoration, and self-discipline. Essays by both established and promising, younger scholars interrogate elements of continuity and change over time – before and after the rise of Islam, both under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire and in the lands of successive caliphates. Groups distinct in their allegiances nevertheless shared a common religious heritage and recognized each other – even in their differences – as kinds of Christianity. A series of chapters explore the theory and practice of prayer from Greco-Roman late antiquity to the Syriac middle ages, highlighting the transmission of monastic discourses about prayer, especially among Syrian and Palestinian ascetic teachers. Another set of essays examines localization of prayer within churches through inscriptions, donations, dedications, and incubation. Other chapters treat the composition and transmission of hymns to adorn the liturgy and articulate the emotions of the Christian calendar, structuring liturgical and eschatological time.

Imagining the Arabs

Imagining the Arabs
Author: Webb Peter Webb
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2016-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474408281

Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs' role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history by marshalling the widest array of Arabic sources employed hitherto, and by closely interpreting the evidence with theories of identity and ethnicity, Imagining the Arabs proposes new answers to the riddle of Arab origins and fundamental reinterpretations of early Islamic history. This book reveals that the time-honoured stereotypes which depict Arabs as ancient Arabian Bedouin are entirely misleading because the essence of Arab identity was in fact devised by Muslims during the first centuries of Islam. Arab identity emerged and evolved as groups imagined new notions of community to suit the radically changing circumstances of life in the early Caliphate. The idea of 'the Arab' was a device which Muslims utilised to articulate their communal identity, to negotiate post-Conquest power relations, and to explain the rise of Islam. Over Islam's first four centuries, political elites, genealogists, poetry collectors, historians and grammarians all participated in a vibrant process of imagining and re-imagining Arab identity and history, and the sum of their works established a powerful tradition that influences Middle Eastern communities to the present day.

Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai
Author: George Manginis
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1910376515

A mountain peak above Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt, Mount Sinai is best known as the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments in the biblical Book of Exodus. Mount Sinai brings this rich history to light, exploring the ways in which the landscape of Mount Sinai’s summit has been experienced and transformed over the centuries, from the third century BCE to World War I. As an important site for multiple religions, Mount Sinai has become a major destination for hundreds of visitors per day. In this multifaceted book, George Manginis delves into the natural environment of Mount Sinai, its importance in the Muslim tradition, the cult of Saint Catherine, the medieval pilgrimage phenomenon, modern-day tourism, and much more. Featuring notes, a bibliography, and illustrations from nineteenth-century travelers’ books, this deft blend of historical analysis, art history, and archaeological interpretation will appeal to tourists and scholars alike.