The authorship of De Resurrectione traditionally ascribed to the apologist Athenagoras, and its dating are controversial to this day. Nikolai Kiel proves in this study that the resurrection treatise is pseudonymous. By positioning the text within the intellectual-historical context of early resurrection debates, its origin can be dated to the first half of the 3rd century. The discourse horizon of the discussed tractate has been determined more precisely by means of a reconstruction of the constituent opposing position. Through his interpretative survey of De Resurrectione, the...

The 'Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae' series was launched in 1987 with the publication of Tertullianus, De Idololatria, a critical text with translation and commentary by J.H. Waszink and J.C.M. van Winden (partly based on a manuscript left behind by P.G. van der Nat). It seems appropriate, therefore, that the 100th volume to appear in the 'Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae' series should be an updated reprint of J.H. Waszink's monumental and authoritative edition of Tertullian's De Anima. This volume contains the complete contents of the first edition, to which we have...

Les traditions anciennes, anterieures au VIIIe siecle, sur le sort final de Marie forment un ensemble a la fois tres etendu et fort complexe. Les traditions litteraires sur la dormition et l'assomption representent une piece majeure du dossier. Mais elles ne peuvent etre situees et classees que si l'on considere egalement les traditions topologiques s'y rapportant. Le present volume, qui complete celui publie en 1995 (Dormition et Assomption de Marie. Histoire des traditions anciennes), presente de maniere definitive une recherche commencee en 1986. Dans ce recueil, un certain nombre...

This general survey of early Christian baptismal iconography and architecture integrates visual depictions and physical settings of baptism with textual evidence for its practice and purpose. An opening overview of pictorial art (paintings, relief sculpture, mosaics, and ivories) prompts questions about components of the actual ritual which are treated in the literary sources. The study's second half considers selected baptismal structures, examining the symbolism, purpose, and possible meaning of their spatial design and decorative programs. In most instances the synthesis of documentary and...

These proceedings present the results of the 11th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa held in Tubingen in 2008. The Trinitarian thought of Gregory deserves special attention because of its importance for the ending of the Trinitarian controversy in the late fourth century, paving the way for the widely accepted Trinitarian theology in the fifth century. This volume (which does not include Contra Eunomium) offers a contribution to the research on Gregory's Trinitarian theology as it is present notably in his so-called minor treatises. It provides a German translation of Ad...

This collection of essays approaches the role of demons and the devil in ancient and medieval Christianity from a variety of scholarly perspectives: historical, philosophical, and theological as well as philological, liturgical, and theoretical. In the opening article Gerd Theissen presents a wide-ranging overview of the role of the devil, spanning the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and patristic literature. The contributions that follow address texts on the devil, demons, and evil, and are drawn from ancient philosophy, the New Testament, early Christian apologetics, hagiography, and...

The mystery of lost, apocryphal Jewish-Christian gospels has intrigued scholars for centuries. Scholars have also debated whether the Ebionites with their low Christology or the more "orthodox" Nazarenes are the genuine successors of the early Jerusalem church. This book provides a fresh assessment of the patristic sources and the scholarly theories on the number and contents of Jewish-Christian gospels. A new approach, the study of indicators of Jewish-Christian profiles, shows the artificial nature of the church fathers' heretical discourse, bringing forth previously neglected connections...

This is a critical analysis of texts included in Codex 573 (ninth century, Monastery of Metamorphosis, Meteora, Greece), which are published along with the present volume, in the same series. The Codex, entitled 'The Book of Monk Cassian the Roman', reveals a sixth-century heretofore unknown intellectual, namely, Cassian the Sabaite, native of Scythopolis, being its real author. By means of Medieval forgery, he has been eclipsed by a figment currently known as 'John Cassian of Marseilles', native of Scythia. Exploration reveals critical aspects of the interplay between Hellenism and...

This is a critical edition of texts of Codex 573 (ninth century, Monastery of Metamorphosis, Meteora, Greece), which are published along with the monograph identifying The Real Cassian, in the same series. They cast light on Cassian the Sabaite, a sixth century highly erudite intellectual, whom Medieval forgery replaced with John Cassian. The texts are of high philological, theological, and philosophical value, heavily pregnant with notions characteristic of eminent Greek Fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa. They are couched in a distinctly technical Greek language, which has a...

Examining the usage of the term ἐνυπόστατος both in the trinitarian debates before Chalcedon and especially the Christological ones afterwards, this study illustrates the gradual, yet profound change in its meaning initiated by Leontius of Byzantium: In distinguishing between the hypostasis and the ἐνυπόστατον Leontius initiates a crucial shift in that an ἐνυπόστατον is no longer straightforwardly considered as a proper,...