This study of the largest extant source for fifth-century Antiochene Christology conclusively demonstrates that its fundamental philosophical assumptions about the natures of God and humanity compelled the Antiochenes to assert that there are two subjects in the Incarnation: the Word himself and a distinct human personality.

The Pelagian controversy has secured an enduring place for Pelagius in the history of Western Christian thought. Few of Pelagius' writings, however, have been preserved, and until recently none was available in English translation. This volume presents Pelagius' commentary on Romans for the first time in English. The commentary, one of thirteen on the Pauline epistles, dates from the time when Pelagius was active in Rome, before he became embroiled in controversy, but already there are adumbrations of the later debate and signs of different currents of thought in Italy and beyond. In his...

The study of 'Arianism' has proved one of the abiding fascinations and the abiding problems of early Christian studies in recent years. Here, Vaggione addresses the definition of the doctrine and why it generated such intense social turmoil by examining the standpoint of one of 'Arianism's' principal supporters, Eunomius of Cyzicus. Eunomius' life is used as a framework within which to discuss changes in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Baptism for the early Christians was a subject of crucial importance, and its symbolism fired the imagination of writers throughout the Christian world. Arator, the Roman sub-deacon who wrote a verse-commentary on the Acts of the Apostles in A.D. 544, was no exception. The Historia Apostolica is a work of historical importance. Written at a time of crisis, politically and theologically, it is of interest as propaganda for a papacy under threat from Constantinople. But Arator's concentration on baptismal themes offers vital evidence of the transmission of exegetical ideas in late antiquity....

Arnobius of Sicca, in North Africa, was a Christian convert writing in the time of the Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd sentury AD. His most famous work, Against the Pagans, was written shortly after his conversion (c. AD 302), and is a brilliant defense of his new religion using arguments taken from the best of pagan learning. It demonstrates exactly the nature and intensity of the conflict between pagans and Christians at this period. This book, the first major study of Arnobius, deals fully with every important aspect of his life and writing and demonstrates his significant contribution to...

This study examines the life and thought of the Christian monks of fourth- and fifth-century lower Egypt. It is based on the collections of their sayings and stories which were compiled in the late fifth century, known collectively as the Apopthegmata Patrum, which reveal the Desert Fathers' deep concern with the nature of the monastic community which they formed and the problems which might affect relationships between its members. This study reveals the value that the Desert Fathers placed on community as an integral part of their monastic ideal, and shows that they rarely regarded solitude...

Jerome was one of the very few early Christian scholars to know any Hebrew. This new edition of his Questions on Genesis includes an introduction, translation, and commentary to reveal a fascinating work showing a Christian working alongside Jews in an age very different from our own. Jerome's influence on the Church is well known--but this work is equally important for the light thrown on the history and origin of many ideas at the heart of the Jewish tradition.

From the days of antiquity to the time of the Middle Ages, intellectuals have widely assumed that stars were alive, a belief that gave the cosmos an important position not only in Greek religion, but also in discussions of human psychology and eschatology. In the third century AD, the Christian theologian Origen included such Hellenistic theories on the life and nature of the stars in his cosmology, a theory that would have important implications for early Christian theology. Moving through a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources from antiquity to medieval times, this is the first...

This provocative new study reevaluates the history of the early Church. Focusing on the struggle between Ambrose of Milan, upholder of orthodoxy and the famous Nicene' creed still used in the western Church today, and the heretical Arians who denied the divinity of Christ, Dr Williams challenges the traditional picture of the triumph of orthodoxy. His book is full of illuminating new insights on the social, political and theological entanglements of early Christianity.

In this book, Binns examines the monastic movement in Palestine during the Byzantine period, from the accession of Constantine to the fall of Jerusalem to the Persians in 614. The monasteries of the desert--in Jerusalem, Egypt, and Syria--played an influential role in Byzantine society, and the "desert fathers" are well known even today as key figures in the history of Christian spirituality. Binns uses contemporary sources to discuss both how the monks actually lived, and their contributions to doctrinal and spiritual debates.