Joseph Hazzaya, On Providence: Text, Translation and Introduction

Joseph Hazzaya, On Providence: Text, Translation and Introduction
Author: Nestor Kavvadas
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2016-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004330003

The East Syriac mystic Joseph Hazzaya (8th century AD) wrote On Providence in an attempt to derive universal salvation (apokatastasis) from Theodore of Mopsuestia, the highest theological authority in the East Syriac Church, and thus to defend himself from heresy accusations coming from that Church’s Primate, Catholicos Timothy I, as Nestor Kavvadas draws out in the introduction to this first edition and translation of the treatise. At the same time, in On Providence Joseph Hazzaya reacts, by way of a remodelled Elijah-Apocalypse, to a rising wave of conversions to Islam that was to change the face of his homeland Mesopotamia as well as of the entire Middle East; thus, On Providence is a valuable addition to the scanty sources on that epochal change.

Das Konzil von Chalcedon und die Kirche

Das Konzil von Chalcedon und die Kirche
Author: Sandra Leuenberger-Wenger
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 635
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004406581

In Das Konzil von Chalcedon und die Kirche Sandra Leuenberger-Wenger offers a new perspective on the council of Chalcedon, analyzing the rich material of its acts. Leuenberger-Wenger shows the entanglement of the Christological debate with other fields of conflict concerning the status and authority of different episcopal sees and of monasticism in the church. The study emphasizes the importance of the traditionally neglected second part of the council with its canons and resolutions and argues that these regulations had a deep impact on the structures of the church as well as on the reception of the council and its definition of faith. The evaluation of a wide range of sources places the refusal of the definition of faith in the broader context of the transformation processes of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity and the rejection of an increasingly institutionalized Byzantine Church. In Das Konzil von Chalcedon und die Kirche entwirft Sandra Leuenberger-Wenger anhand der Konzilsakten ein neues Bild von der Bedeutung dieses Konzils für die Kirche. Sie zeigt die Verknüpfung des christologischen Streits mit weiteren kirchlichen Konfliktfeldern wie dem Status und der Autorität einzelner Bischofssitze und des Mönchtums. Die Untersuchung betont die Bedeutung des zweiten Konzilsteils für die Entwicklung der Kirche und macht deutlich, wie die Regulierungen auf kirchenpolitischer und struktureller Ebene die Rezeption des Konzils entscheidend mitbestimmten. Die Auswertung eines breiten Quellenmaterials verortet das Konzil und seine schwierige Rezeption in den spätantiken Transformationsprozessen des Römischen Reichs im Übergang zum Mittelalter und deutet die Konflikte um die Glaubensdefinition im Horizont der umfassenderen Ablehnung einer zunehmend institutionalisierten byzantinischen Reichskirche.

Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy

Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2020-06-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004429565

Readers of Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy will find a collection of authoritative papers from across the Neoplatonic and Eastern Christian traditions. It is only recently that scholars have started to take notice of the Eastern Christian engagement with late antique philosophical texts. This volume builds upon this new interest in order to show the dynamic nature of Neoplatonism and Eastern Christianity at a time when both faced a variety of challenges. The legacy of Greek philosophy in the Christian East fills the gap between the schools of Alexandria and Baghdad and brings into focus the intellectual history of the period. The aim of the volume is to stimulate interest in late antique philosophy and its reception in the Christian East.

The Ladder of Prayer and the Ship of Stirrings

The Ladder of Prayer and the Ship of Stirrings
Author: Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Christian literature, Early
ISBN: 9789042939189

Doubts about sacrifices, prayers, fate, and providence in the second- to fifth-century Mediterranean world produced new concepts of individual prayer for Christians and non-Christians alike. The Ladder of Prayer and the Ship of Stirrings explores the discourse on the praying self as an ascetic way of life, as an aspect of interiority, and as a path to the divine in Late Antique Eastern Christianity. It deals with the transposition of Greek ascetic literature -- mainly the writings of Evagrius Ponticus, Abba Isaiah, Mark the Monk, and the Apophthegmata patrum -- into East Syrian thought, and its assimilation with indigenous features. Specifically, the book probes the emergence of different sorts of prayer as a pivotal part of the profound religious shifts and cultural developments that unfolded in Late Antique Eastern Christianities. The chronological scope of this study ranges from the second- to fifth-century cultural world of sophists and philosophers, Iamblicus, Porphyry and Proclus, up to the East Syrian mystical authors in the fifth-eighth centuries, among them John of Apamea, Isaac of Nineveh, Dadisho' Qatraya, Shem'on d-Taybutheh, John of Dalyatha, and Joseph Hazzaya. The book presents how these figures incorporated this literary legacy into their teachings and melded it with indigenous Syriac spirituality.

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity

Divine Powers in Late Antiquity
Author: Anna Marmodoro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2017-01-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191079952

Is power the essence of divinity, or are divine powers distinct from divine essence? Are they divine hypostases or are they divine attributes? Are powers such as omnipotence, omniscience, etc. modes of divine activity? How do they manifest? In which way can we apprehend them? Is there a multiplicity of gods whose powers fill the cosmos or is there only one God from whom all power(s) derive(s) and whose power(s) permeate(s) everything? These are questions that become central to philosophical and theological debates in Late Antiquity (roughly corresponding to the period 2nd to the 6th centuries). On the one hand, the Pagan Neoplatonic thinkers of this era postulate a complex hierarchy of gods, whose powers express the unlimited power of the ineffable One. On the other hand, Christians proclaim the existence of only one God, one divine power or one 'Lord of all powers'. Divided into two main sections, the first part of Divine Powers in Late Antiquity examines aspects of the notion of divine power as developed by the four major figures of Neoplatonism: Plotinus (c. 204-270), Porphyry (c. 234-305), Iamblichus (c.245-325), and Proclus (412-485). It focuses on an aspect of the notion of divine power that has been so far relatively neglected in the literature. Part two investigates the notion of divine power in early Christian authors, from the New Testament to the Alexandrian school (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius the Great) and, further, to the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa), as well as in some of these authors' sources (the Septuagint, Philo of Alexandria). The traditional view tends to overlook the fact that the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was at least as important as Platonic philosophical texts in the shaping of the early Christian thinking about the Church's doctrines. Whilst challenging the received interpretation by redressing the balance between the Bible and Greek philosophical texts, the essays in the second section of this book nevertheless argue for the philosophical value of early Christian reflections on the notion of divine power. The two groups of thinkers that each of the sections deal with (the Platonic-Pagan and the Christian one) share largely the same intellectual and cultural heritage; they are concerned with the same fundamental questions; and they often engage in more or less public philosophical and theological dialogue, directly influencing one another.

Clement’s Biblical Exegesis

Clement’s Biblical Exegesis
Author: Veronika Černušková
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2016-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004331247

In Clement’s Biblical Exegesis scholars from six countries explore various facets of Clement of Alexandria’s hermeneutical theory and his exegetical practice. Although research on Clement has tended to emphasize his use of philosophical sources, Clement was important not only as a Christian philosopher, but also as a pioneer Christian exegete. His works constitute a crucial link in the tradition of Alexandrian exegesis, but his biblical exegesis has received much less attention than that of Philo or Origen. Topics discussed include how Clement’s methods of allegorical interpretation compare with those of Philo, Origen, and pagan exegetes of Homer, and his readings of particular texts such as Proverbs, the Sermon on the Mount, John 1, 1 John, and the Pauline letters.

Angels in Early Medieval England

Angels in Early Medieval England
Author: Richard Sowerby
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2016-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191088110

In the modern world, angels can often seem to be no more than a symbol, but in the Middle Ages men and women thought differently. Some offered prayers intended to secure the angelic assistance for the living and the dead; others erected stone monuments carved with images of winged figures; and still others made angels the subject of poetic endeavour and theological scholarship. This wealth of material has never been fully explored, and was once dismissed as the detritus of a superstitious age. Angels in Early Medieval England offers a different perspective, by using angels as a prism through which to study the changing religious culture of an unfamiliar age. Focusing on one corner of medieval Europe which produced an abundance of material relating to angels, Richard Sowerby investigates the way that ancient beliefs about angels were preserved and adapted in England during the Anglo-Saxon period. Between the sixth century and the eleventh, the convictions of Anglo-Saxon men and women about the world of the spirits underwent a gradual transformation. This book is the first to explore that transformation, and to show the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons tried to reconcile their religious inheritance with their own perspectives about the world, human nature, and God.

The Cross

The Cross
Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2017-04-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0674088808

The cross stirs intense feelings among Christians as well as non-Christians. Robin Jensen takes readers on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the two-thousand-year evolution of the cross as an idea and an artifact, illuminating the controversies—along with the forms of devotion—this central symbol of Christianity inspires. Jesus’s death on the cross posed a dilemma for Saint Paul and the early Church fathers. Crucifixion was a humiliating form of execution reserved for slaves and criminals. How could their messiah and savior have been subjected to such an ignominious death? Wrestling with this paradox, they reimagined the cross as a triumphant expression of Christ’s sacrificial love and miraculous resurrection. Over time, the symbol’s transformation raised myriad doctrinal questions, particularly about the crucifix—the cross with the figure of Christ—and whether it should emphasize Jesus’s suffering or his glorification. How should Jesus’s body be depicted: alive or dead, naked or dressed? Should it be shown at all? Jensen’s wide-ranging study focuses on the cross in painting and literature, the quest for the “true cross” in Jerusalem, and the symbol’s role in conflicts from the Crusades to wars of colonial conquest. The Cross also reveals how Jews and Muslims viewed the most sacred of all Christian emblems and explains its role in public life in the West today.

Justin Against Marcion

Justin Against Marcion
Author: Andrew Hayes
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781506423449

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--King's College London, 2015 under title: Defining Christianity: Justin's contra-Marcionite defence.