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Philo to Christian Beginnings

Terryl L. Givens

in When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought

In the Hellenistic era, the center of Christian learning shifted to Alexandria. Philo effects a synthesis of Platonic and Hebraic ideas, including preexistence. The idea persists through numerous ... More

In the Hellenistic era, the center of Christian learning shifted to Alexandria. Philo effects a synthesis of Platonic and Hebraic ideas, including preexistence. The idea persists through numerous apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal traditions, associated with Enoch, Moses, Joseph, Ezra, and Solomon. It also appears in Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi, often in connection with the figure of Sophia. In Paul, the preexistent church and Christ's preexistence are important.Less

Augustine and the Formation of Orthodoxy

Terryl L. Givens

in When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought

Preexistence was often linked to immortality, a threat to orthodox conceptions of the human soul. Other problems with the doctrine were its connection with Gnostics and with Plato and its ... More

Preexistence was often linked to immortality, a threat to orthodox conceptions of the human soul. Other problems with the doctrine were its connection with Gnostics and with Plato and its incompatibility with creation ex nihilo (pushed by Basilides). Unlike Jerome, Augustine initially favors preexistence but distances himself in reaction to Pelagianism. Facing that threat, he finds it more important to defend God's grace (thereby emphasizing depravity) than to defend his justice (by emphasizing human choice and by implication, preexistence). Theodicy is largely discarded as a theological problem, and Justinian pronounces an anathema on preexistence.Less

The First Thousand Years

Gerald O'Collins SJ and Mario Farrugia SJ

in Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity

This chapter first examines the Church’s spread in the post-Pentecost situation, its early leadership, the persecutions, and the enduring contributions of Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and ... More

This chapter first examines the Church’s spread in the post-Pentecost situation, its early leadership, the persecutions, and the enduring contributions of Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian. In 312, the Emperor Constantine brought public freedom to Christianity and initiated the story of the seven general councils, which settled Catholic faith in Christ and the Trinity. The chapter ends by tracing the further spread of the Church, the rise of monasticism and doctrinal developments down to 1054, the year conventionally used to date the break between Eastern and Western Christianity.Less

Second Ennead

Paul Kalligas

in The Enneads of Plotinus: A Commentary

This chapter presents the English translation of Paul Kalligas’s commentary on the second Enneads of Plotinus. The second Ennead deals with “natural philosophy, including the physical universe and ... More

This chapter presents the English translation of Paul Kalligas’s commentary on the second Enneads of Plotinus. The second Ennead deals with “natural philosophy, including the physical universe and subjects connected with it” (VP 24.37–39). Because Plotinus is generally thought to have had little interest in the workings of the sensible world, it is not surprising that this part of his work has attracted relatively little attention on the part of modern scholarship. However, a careful reading of its contents reveals its crucial importance for understanding his philosophy as a whole. The reason is that it includes a series of detailed studies in conceptual analysis, which may serve as a kind of toolbox for reading the rest of his work and for understanding its logical structure and architecture. And, after all, both his complex metaphysical theories and his detailed treatment of psychological issues are in the last analysis meant to provide explanations of the functioning of the world of our common, everyday experience. We thus also come to appreciate better the reasons for his conflict with the Gnostics, who refused to see the sensible world as anything but a place of depravity and corruption.Less

Boundaries (Part I): Interpretation among the Heterodox

Peter W. Martens

in Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life

The interpretation of commonly held Scriptures was the principal arena in which Origen contested with his chief religious adversaries, heterodox Christians and the Jews. He often constructed an ... More

The interpretation of commonly held Scriptures was the principal arena in which Origen contested with his chief religious adversaries, heterodox Christians and the Jews. He often constructed an elaborate polemic against the exegetical practices of his two main rivals. This chapter focuses on his criticism of the Christian heterodox, particularly the Gnostics. Despite first appearances, Origen's critique of these adversaries was not fundamentally about procedural deficiencies (i.e., they were “literalists”). The chapter demonstrates how the boundaries he drew between his exegesis and that which flourished among the “Gnostics” were confined to a handful of theologically problematic readings about God and the freedom of the soul. These readings co-existed, as he saw it, with an uncritical encounter with Greco-Roman knowledge and a rejection of the church's rule of faith, neither of which ideal ecclesiastical interpreters were to emulate.Less

Restoring the Adam of Light

in The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion

This chapter turns to some of the Gnostic contours of modern critical thought. It is striking that the gnostic texts claim repeatedly that the original Adam or Human One knew more and more deeply ... More

This chapter turns to some of the Gnostic contours of modern critical thought. It is striking that the gnostic texts claim repeatedly that the original Adam or Human One knew more and more deeply than the creator-god. The goal of much gnostic ritual and speculation, moreover, was to restore humanity to its unitary source in the Pleroma (“the Full”) via what the texts call “the bridal chamber,” an initiatory or baptismal rite that may have had actual sexual components. Well before Freud or Nietzsche, Ludwig Feuerbach attempted something similar through a radical reversal of the psychological dynamic of projection. For him, religious ideas are human projections that alienate and impoverish us by denying what is best in us and projecting it into the sky. In proposing his projectionist method as a means to get at the “essence of Christianity” and help effect the incarnation of God in humanity, Feuerbach was essentially proposing a kind of mystical humanism. The chapter takes up these ideas as the historical foundations of later critical thought, particularly as it is found in Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud—those three critical thinkers whom Paul Ricoeur called our “masters of suspicion.”Less

Learning Letters

Stephen J. Davis

in Christ Child: Cultural Memories of a Young Jesus

Chapter 5 is the third and final case study on “sites of memory” related to childhood in the Graeco-Roman world. The focus is on the stories of Jesus’ interaction with teachers at school (and in the ... More

Chapter 5 is the third and final case study on “sites of memory” related to childhood in the Graeco-Roman world. The focus is on the stories of Jesus’ interaction with teachers at school (and in the Jerusalem temple), considered in the context of ancient elementary education. The “sites” investigated include educational handbooks, visual art on walls and small objects, physical evidence for classroom spaces, and school exercises preserved on papyri. In addition, the chapter calls special attention to the way that Jesus manipulates (and thereby demonstrates mastery over) letters in these stories: these alphabetic details are therefore read in relation not only to pedagogical practices such as penmanship but also to philosophical speculation, as evidenced by an early Christian gnostic community who read the stories about Jesus and his teachers in these terms.Less

Origen of Alexandria

Thomas P. Scheck (ed.)

in Christian Theologies of Salvation: A Comparative Introduction

This chapter addresses the theology of Origen. Though Origen lived through a period with little to no doctrinal consensus, he produced a rather organized and consistent theology (for his time) in the ... More

This chapter addresses the theology of Origen. Though Origen lived through a period with little to no doctrinal consensus, he produced a rather organized and consistent theology (for his time) in the face of strong opposition from the Gnostics. This chapter explains that Origen’s beliefs regarding salvation lie in the outcome of the believer’s fight in the struggle to choose virtue or vice once the divine Word has been introduced to the soul.Less

One Bible, Two Covenants

Eugen J. Pentiuc

in The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition

This chapter discusses the unity in diversity of the Old and New Testaments within the Christian Bible. The emergence of the New Testament, primarily the gospel, was preceded by the Christian ... More

This chapter discusses the unity in diversity of the Old and New Testaments within the Christian Bible. The emergence of the New Testament, primarily the gospel, was preceded by the Christian appropriation of the Jewish Scriptures as part of the apostolic proclamation (kērygma) centered on Christ’s resurrection. There have been three basic ways of looking at the Jewish Bible: (1) the early Church, or the mainstream “orthodox” or “catholic” segment, viewed the Scriptures as “proof-texts” able to demonstrate the messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth; (2) some heterodox Christian and non-Christian groups rejected (e.g., Marcionites, Manichaeans) or underestimated (e.g., Gnostics) the entire Jewish Bible; (3) Jewish Christians overestimated the value of the first testament to the point of insisting on the observance of specifically Jewish rituals and practices for all Christians. This chapter examines also the Christian supersessionism pertaining to the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.Less

Religions of Transformation

Mark Edwards

in Religions of the Constantinian Empire

Chapter 7 observes that religions which might be described as esoteric or transformative acquire an unprecedented prominence in this period. The polemic of Alexander of Lycopolis against the ... More

Chapter 7 observes that religions which might be described as esoteric or transformative acquire an unprecedented prominence in this period. The polemic of Alexander of Lycopolis against the Manichees is annotated from Manichaean sources, and it is argued that the author is likely to have been a Christian. The second section notes that, just as the Manichaeans (after Diocletian) survived as a Christian heresy, so the Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi suggest a symbiotic relationship between Gnostic thought and that of the monasteries. In the third section it is shown that the literature ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus is quoted chiefly in Christian sources of the fourth century; the fourth section maintains that Zosimus the alchemist is rightly characterized by W. B. Scott as a ‘Christian Gnostic’. Hence it appears that Christianity sometimes promoted innovation and diversity in religious practice, even outside the confines of the church.Less

Cain and Abel Christianized

Robert C. Gregg

in Shared Stories, Rival Tellings: Early Encounters of Jews, Christians, and Muslims

Several references to the Cain–Abel clash occur in the New Testament. Because of Abel’s righteousness Cain murdered him (c.f., 1 John 3:12) and in Matthew 23:29–36, Jesus predicts that scribes and ... More

Several references to the Cain–Abel clash occur in the New Testament. Because of Abel’s righteousness Cain murdered him (c.f., 1 John 3:12) and in Matthew 23:29–36, Jesus predicts that scribes and Pharisees will continue their ancestors’ murders of God-sent prophets, and recalls the “the blood of righteous Abel.” These are seeds of a Christianization of the story in which Abel the innocent victim whose voice lives on and inspires, is an ante-type of Christ, while Cain is the murderous resister of God’s will. These characterizations stimulated Irenaeus to include anti-Jewish polemics within his attacks on Marcion and others he counted as gnosticizing heretics. A considerable part of this chapter concerns the artistic Cain and Abel interpreters whose works appear in fresco paintings in Rome’s Via Latina catacomb and in sarcophagus images of the brothers’ offerings. Finally, three writings treating relations in the household of Adam and Eve are investigated.Less