The Power of God in Some Early Christian Texts

Abstract

This chapter delineates a typology of the power of God in early Christian sources, including the New Testament, Justin Martyr, and other apologists of the second century, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Athanasius. It argues that any investigation of the concept of dunamis in early Christian writings must begin with an acknowledgement of the Scriptures, maintaining that late antique Christianity should be considered as a distinct philosophical school, which had its own first principles, interpreted its own texts, and gave its own sense to terms that it used in common with other schools. Thus, a specifically Christian notion of divine power could have been born of reflection on the common ‘reservoir’ of Christian thought, any other influence being strictly secondary.