Christian Authors Research Articles

Monastic Jargon and Citizenship Language in Late Antiquity

ABSTRACT This article pursues the changing significance associated with the ancient Greek city state (polis) in language used among Greek Christian authors of the fourth to sixth centuries CE. In classical Greek writing, the language of the polis and related terms (politeia, politeuma) play an important role in articulations of the societal contexts for the actions of the individual. Christian authors highlight the communal aspects of belonging to a polis to explain the significance of joining the Church through baptism. In the context of early monastic writing, by contrast, it is the personal ascetic achievement of the individual that comes to the fore. The polis as a point of reference is transposed to access rights to the Heavenly City that are promised as a reward at the end of time.

Pagan Readers of Christian Scripture: the Role of Books in Early Autobiographical Conversion Narratives

Abstract Most scholars agree that “pagans” did not read Christian scripture. This critical consensus, however, places inordinate weight on a decontextualized quotation from Tertullian and neglects a body of evidence to the contrary. In particular, the role of books in early autobiographical conversion narratives suggests that early Christian authors and copyists could sometimes work with a reasonable expectation of pagan readership. Against traditional notions of the restricted appeal and circulation of Christian literature, pagan and Christian sources alike indicate that Christian writings found an audience among philo-barbarian thinkers and that certain Christians promoted their books in pagan circles.

Melchior Inchofer, Giordano Bruno, and the soul of the world

ABSTRACTFollowing Galileo's trial of 1633, the Jesuit theologian Melchior Inchofer, author of the most negative reports used by the Roman Inquisition against Galileo, repudiated the Copernicans for the ‘heresy’ of the soul of the world (anima mundi), in an unpublished manuscript. I show that Inchofer's arguments applied far more to the beliefs of Giordano Bruno than to those of Galileo. Since antiquity, various Christian authorities had repudiated several beliefs about the anima mundi as ‘heretical’, hence I review their critiques against Pythagoras, Origen, and Peter Abelard, for allegedly asserting animistic beliefs about the Earth, or a universal spirit, or that souls move the heavenly bodies. Still, in the Renaissance such beliefs were defended by several advocates of Copernicus, including Bruno, William Gilbert, Johannes Kepler, and Philips Lansbergen, who all claimed that Earth moves because it has a soul. By comparing Inchofer's works and some of the Roman Inquisition's earlier censures against Bruno, I argue that the repudiation by many prominent Catholic theologians of pagan notions of the anima mundi as heretical contributed partly to the later theological opposition to the Copernicans.

As Light Lingers: Basking in the Word of God

In her recent book, aptly named As Light Lingers: Basking in the Word of God, Nina Atcheson follows many other Christian authors in tackling the topic of how to study the Bible. Atcheson has written this book in a refreshingly honest and sensitive manner. There are many books on how to study the Bible, but I found a number of features set this book apart.

Irony in the New Testament. (A Review of the English-language literature of the 20th–21st centuries)

The problem of the presence of irony in sacred texts has been raised by Christian authors since the II century ad. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, this problem acquires a new urgency due to the obvious loss of religious values by a significant part of society and the resulting tension between religious and non-religious social groups, as well as the problem of observance of ethical boundaries for both. Until the question of the place of irony in sacred texts is clearly resolved within religious groups, there can be no question of building a dialogue on this issue between persons of religious and non-religious worldview. This study is an overview of English-language research on biblical studies devoted to the study of irony in the New Testament. The research texts are grouped according to the thematic and chronological principle and cover the period from the beginning of the XX century to 2017. The main trends in the development of the topic and the growth of meanings are identified, the main research approaches are identified, as well as existing flaws and shortcomings in the topic. The article involved more than 50 research papers in English. The main purpose of this work is to fill in the missing material on the topic for the Russian-speaking reader, as well as to highlight the main areas of research in the field of biblical irony for the domestic biblical studies, where the development of this topic is almost zero.

El cuento en la literatura edificante española del siglo XIX

Aunque la literatura recreativa y de ficción suscitó la desconfianza de la Iglesia y de determinados sectores del catolicismo, el auge de la prensa y la existencia de una sólida red de librerías y editoriales católicas favorecieron la producción y la difusión de una literatura edificante en la que coexistían distintos géneros como las leyendas, la novela corta, la novela y el cuento. Escritores católicos como Antonio de Trueba, María Pilar Sinués de Marco, Manuel Polo y Peyrolón, el Padre Coloma recogieron la tradición del cuento con las debidas reelaboraciones. La literatura edificante también supo aprovecharse de las traducciones y adaptaciones de la producción cuentística europea y autores como Louis Veuillot, Alphonse Daudet, Mathilde Bourdon y el canónigo Cristóbal Schmid se convirtieron en referencias ineludibles. En casi todos los casos, la preocupación por la ejemplaridad de las narraciones llevaron a estos autores a supeditar el argumento folklórico y la construcción literaria a la finalidad moral.

From the End to the Beginning: Socrates as Iconoclast in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa and the Contestation of His Biography in Greek and Arabic Sources

From the moment of his death in 399 BCE, Socrates has had a remarkable impact on the history of political and philosophical thought. Although we have no writings from Socrates’s own hand, his characterization in the works of both Plato and Xenophon has irrevocably shaped our modern conception of his life, ideas, and ultimate execution. Yet, there were alternative trajectories for and transmutations of Socrates’s life and death circulating in the premodern Mediterranean. In this article, I will analyze Socrates’s appearance as a religious iconoclast in the work of the thirteenth-century biographer Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa and trace the history of this idea in early Arabic sources. I will then explore views of Socrates in early Christian authors and late antique hagiographical literature, before arriving at Byzantium during the Iconoclast Era, with the aim of illuminating potential points of contact between the Greek and Arabic Socrates.

To Live Like a Moor: Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

To Live Like a Moor: Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity. By Christine Schenk

Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity. By Christine Schenk

A New Stream of Spiritual Literature: Bei Cun’s The Baptizing River

This essay traces the emergence of new categories of “spiritual writing” in Chinese literature, before offering an interpretation of Bei Cun’s 1992 novel The Baptizing River (Shixi de he 施洗的河) as an exemplar. Bei Cun’s first novel as a “Christian author” attracted much critical attention, given the contrast with the author’s prior works and its message of spiritual salvation at a time of political change and metaphysical searching. A psychosocial biography of its anti-hero Liu Lang, set in wartime China, the novel charts the protagonist’s criminal livelihood, descent into moral depravity, and gradual questioning of life and purpose. This essay foregrounds the structure of the novel and explores how narrative form and theological meaning interact. To do this, it traces the course of the river journeys that mark the different stages of Liu Lang’s life and which culminate in his unorthodox baptismal rebirth.

Satul românesc din Bărăganul Brăilei, între tradiție și modernism

The Romanian village preserved, throughout the ages, the practices, traditions, magical rituals and superstitions inherited from the Dacian-Roman ancestors. Gathered in part and often linked to the great Christian celebrations and liturgical practices of the church, they became, together with the authentic Christian traditions, a constituent part of Romanians’ identity. Under the pressure of modernism, the development of large cities at the expense of the rural environment, the process started after World War II and aggravated by the destruction of many villages in the last period of the communist regime, some of these traditions began to fade. The opening of Romania to the West after the fall of the communist regime, from 1989, brought with it a rapid change in the attitudes of Romanians to the traditions and habits preserved and transmitted from ancient times in the Romanian villages, which began to appear compared to some of the events encountered in the sunset, which they borrowed without any discernment, accelerating the process further. Aware that the loss of these traditional values of the Romanian village can become irreparable with the passage of time, the Orthodox Romanian Church, in turn retaining an important cultural and spiritualtreasure created by the Romanian people in Around Christian values, he ordained that the year 2019 be the “Tribute year of the Romanian village”, a suitable opportunity to bring to the collective memory these lost traditions and customs, or about to be abandoned at the expense of some “imported” from the west, in Vogue Now especially in the great urban agglomerations, where they tend to migrate to rural communities as it is. The present study puts in light, punctually, some traditions that I have known and practiced in the village of Brăila’s Steppe where I lived my childhood, such as those related to the great religious celebrations over the year, by the important events in human life – birth, marriage and death – or those related to domestic life, social-community, etc., A general approach requiring a space that would exceed the frameworks of a study, due to the diversity and particularities. These traditions and customs, differ not only from an ethnographic area of the country to another, but also from one community to another.

Источниковедческие проблемы критики языческого пантеона у христианских авторов

Источниковедческие проблемы критики языческого пантеона у христианских авторов

The Role of Faith-Based Organizations and Faith Leaders in the 2014–2016 Ebola Epidemic in Liberia

Since the time of Christ, caring for the sick and the poor has been a core distinctive of authentic Christianity. The response of Christians during many of the great plagues of antiquity played an important role in the spread of Christianity. In modern history, response to epidemics have been professionalized and, to a certain extent, secularized. The 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa offers an important illustration of the role that faith leaders and faith-based organizations still play in providing a trusted link between communities and international relief workers. During the latter half of 2018, the world was faced with another outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is vital to build upon the lessons of prior epidemics as we support local efforts to prepare for, detect, and respond to inevitable future outbreaks.

Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity. By Christine Schenk CSJ. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017. xx + 459 pages. $29.00.

Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity. By Christine Schenk CSJ. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017. xx + 459 pages. $29.00.

Justin som bibelteolog

Justin Martyr (dead ca. 165) is the earliest known Christian author to develop a Biblical theology. At the same time, he is the last one to acknowledge the Old Testament as Scripture. Especially in his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, but already in the two Apologies Justin quotes Jewish Holy Scripture extensively. He is the first Christian author to refer to the Septuagint legend about the translation of the Pentateuch, which he extends also to include the translation of the other parts of the Old Testament. Justin is not only convinced about the infallibility of Scripture: he also maintains that the Christians are alone competent to know its real meaning because only they possess the Holy Spirit. The article looks upon Justin as a Bible theologian, focusing on what the Old Greek translation, the Septuagint, contributed to the development of his theology. The rendering ‘virgin’ in Isaiah 7,14 became a point of departure for his distinguishing in a series of Old Testament stories between the eternal, invisible God and another god, an ἕτερος θεός, who acted in a figure visible to humans and who was the pre-existent Christ. In his selection of Old Testament texts, Justin seems to have aimed at giving content to the saying in Luke 24,44. Thus, he delivers proof from Scripture for the belief that the promised Messiah must be identified with Jesus. As to the question of how Justin became acquainted with Old Testament Scripture, the article defends the view that it was mainly through independent reading. Thus, he did not use any already existing collections of testimonia. Rather, he created one. To the old question of how Justin could quote the same text in different versions, the preferred answer in this article is that the Dialogue mainly consists of older manuscripts, which Justin had, in an old age, mechanically worked together, not so much in order to convince Jews as to offer a manual for Christians who might be tempted by a Jewish understanding of Scripture.

Razumevanje temeljev vzgoje in izobraževanja v pravoslavni Cerkvi

Authentic Christianity has its own concept of upbringing and education, based on the Biblical perspective of man and of entire reality, and developed and elaborated during past centuries through practice and experience. The upbringing offered by the modern culture has always been and still is predominantly humanistic. The ideal of upbringing and its goals, as well as the methods of education, depend on basic presumptions of such culture. Like everything else, pedagogical thought depends on the apprehension of the world, of man and of their final goals. The term “education” comprehended this way gets completely new, different contents and meaning. It is not just a mere acquisition of knowledge from one or several fields, but it has more of an anthropological and ethical and even deep spiritual meaning. Educational – to put it differently – formation means renewal of God’s image in man, its discovery and further development. Simple people, uncontaminated by superficial experience of solely intellectual upbringing, have never forgotten that deep ethical meaning of the world image which also implies organic relation between education and ethics, education and spiritual life in general.

Esegesi patristica di Gv 4,21–24 e il vero culto a Gerusalemme (II parte)

The patristic exegesis of Joh 4:21–24 and the true worship in Jerusalem (part II)We continue the presentation of reflection on Joh 4:21–24. (The first part of the study devoted to this theme appeared in “Biblica et Patristica Thoruniensia” 9(2016)4, p. 75–97). The Christian literature indicates that this passage allowed the development of various problems. The pericope in question had many interpretations in the history of exegesis. The writings of Christian authors have intertwined not only the questions of biblical interpretation. We have seen the authors of Antiochene provenance in the various historical-doctrinal contexts (John Chrysostom, Teodor of Mopsuestia and Teodoret of Cyrrus). Instead, on the other side, Cyril of Alexandria was found. Augustin of Hippo is approached to the Eastern Fathers. The use of the terms present in Joh 4:21–24 shows that this text was able to catalyze issues of decisive importance. It was not only exegetical or ritual problems, but also philosophical, historical and spiritual questions. Commentators of this period pointed to the cult “in the spirit and truth” as a characteristic feature of Christianity. However, the early Christian writers also saw the specific implications of this truth and its impact on the Christian’s life.

Syrian Christians and Arab-Islamic Identity: Expressions of Belonging in the Ottoman Empire and America

This essay examines the ways that Arab Christian immigrants in the late-nineteenth-century United States understood religious, cultural and national belonging. Focusing on migrants from Ottoman Syria (present day Lebanon and Syria) who referred to themselves as Syrians, it uses publications from the Arab renaissance in Beirut and early Arab American newspapers in New York to consider how these Christians grappled with their identities as subjects of the Ottoman Sultan, as Christians from various denominations, as citizens in an Islamic society and as newcomers to America. Defying Protestant missionaries’ simplistic depictions of Middle Eastern Christianity, such Syrian Christian authors expressed a sense of belonging in an interreligious environment and sought to inform American readers about the riches of Arab-Islamic heritage.

Patrystyczny przedsiębiorca. Pojęcie działania przedsiębiorczego w świetle pism wybranych pisarzy wczesnochrześcijańskich

W bogactwie i różnorodności myśli patrystycznej znajdujemy wiele odniesień do życia gospodarczego i przedsiębiorczego. Problematyka ta, mimo że nie zyskała u autorów wczesnochrześcijańskich spójnej formy, w postaci traktatów ekonomicznych czy nawet teologicznych, to jednak nie była im obca.W swoich pismach autorzy ci prezentują szerokie odniesienie do problemów ekonomicznych i polityki gospodarczej współczesnego im społeczeństwa. Kreślą także pewną ideę działania przedsiębiorczego, typową dla kupców i ludzi bogatych. Dostrzegają płynące z tej aktywności zarówno niebezpieczeństwa, jak i korzyści.Podkreślają, że konieczne jest nie tyle zreformowanie owego ekonomicznego mechanizmu działania kupieckiego – przedsiębiorczego, który ze swej natury był im obcy, ile bardziej dostrzeżenie potrzeby przemiany moralnej i etycznej kupca, bogacza – przedsiębiorcy, który działa w strukturze owego mechanizmu. Chodzi zatem o pogodzenie ze sobą naturalnej tendencji jednostki do bogacenia się i pomnażania dóbr z troską o jej osobiste uświęcenie i o dobro wspólne. „Patrystyczny przedsiębiorca” ma być człowiekiem cnoty, który kieruje się zasadą wzajemności, solidarności i pomocniczości. Więcej, wydaje się, że dynamizm przedsiębiorczy nie może być obcy żadnemu wierzącemu. Każdy bowiem winien mieć coś z kupieckiego, przedsiębiorczego ducha, tj. posiąść tajemnicę inwestowania, ryzyka, zysku, aby pomnażając i rozdając hojnie swoje bogactwa materialne, wzrastać w bogactwie duchowym, w cnocie i w ten sposób przemieniać gospodarczą rzeczywistość rynku.

The Concept of polytheism in the Religious Studies as a Result of lingual misunderstanding

In 1921 was published the book of the famous Austrian-British philosopher and funder of the analytic philosophy Ludwig Johann Wittgenstein, in which he wrote, that the big part of our philosophical problems, which were subject of the thinking of the thousands philosophers, are created not by the difficulty of reality but by the complication of the language. When a philosopher analyzes a language he uses, he will find that the biggest part of the philosophical problems is illusory. Following Wittgenstein's advices, in this article we probe to analyze what means the concept "polytheism" and to answer the questions: did the phenomenon, what is with this word described, anytime exist, or it is only a phantasies' fabrication, and all attempts to think about it are wandering in the dark labyrinths without exit. The first problem we have in our way is absolutely darkness in this question. We could not find any research, in which the concept of polytheism is analyzed in this way we changed. So we must get through the forest of an unknown ourselves without opportunity to have support from the experience of the predecessors. We hope our mistakes might be useful for the following researches. The Greek word "doxa polytheos" was first time used by Philo of Alexandria and after them many Judaic and Christian authors repeated this word opposing own religion to the paganism. Jan Bodin 1n 16th Century used this word in the modern mean as a France word "polythéisme". The Greek word "doxa polytheos" and the France one "polythéisme", though they are constructed of the same Greek word "Θεός", based on the different concepts, because in 16 centuries the word "Θεός" changed its means. In Greek-speaking society this word was used to detonate any being who overstate the material world. When Thales of Millet wrote, that "the world is full of gods", he did not mean that there is an Absolut in every small part of the world. When he used the word "Θεός" in this mean, Thales thought about different objects, as we called "God" now. The mean of the term "polytheism" is unclear and is the cause of many researches problems in the religious studies. The Greek word "Θεός" detonated every sacral being, which was the object of the worship, but not the Absolut. When this word went in the term "polytheism", its mean was changed, and it was used for the calling Absolut in the Christian meaning. This transformation of the meaning created the wrong conception that in the world there were or are religions, the members of them believes in the existence of some or many Absolutes. The problem of using concept "polytheism" is not a real academic problem but an illusions problem, what is caused by the wrong and incorrect using of the term. The Greek word "Θεός", of them are created the terms "monotheism" and "polytheism", is used in both terms in different meanings. In the term "monotheism" the word "Θεός" means God-Absolut, and in the term "polytheism" – any beings, what are the objects of the religious worship. The monotheism and polytheism are not two different phase of the entvelopment of the religious consciousness. These ideas are created by the wrongness of Hegel's philosophy and must be uprooted from the lexicon of the religious studies.