Augustine's ideas of sinful desire, including its sexual manifestations, have fueled controversies for centuries. In Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence, Timo Nisula analyses Augustine's own theological and philosophical concerns in his extensive writings about evil desire (concupiscentia, cupiditas, libido). Beginning with a terminological survey of the vocabulary of desire, the book demonstrates how the concept of evil desire was tightly linked with Augustine's fundamental theological views of divine justice, the origin of evil, Christian virtues and grace. This book...
Augustine's ideas of sinful desire, including its sexual manifestations, have fueled controversies for centuries. In Augustine and the Functions of...
In Jerome and the Monastic Clergy, Andrew Cain provides the first full-scale commentary on the famous Letter to Nepotian, in which Jerome articulates his radical plan for imposing a strict ascetic code of conduct on the contemporary clergy. Cain comprehensively addresses stylistic, literary, historical, text-critical and other issues of interpretive interest. Accompanying the commentary is an introduction which situates the Letter in the broader context of its author's life and work and exposes its fundamental propagandistic dimensions. The revised critical Latin text and the new...
In Jerome and the Monastic Clergy, Andrew Cain provides the first full-scale commentary on the famous Letter to Nepotian, in which Jerome artic...
Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem's Coptic homily On the Life and the Passion of Christ is in fact a collection of apocryphal stories. Roelof van den Broek offers a critical edition of this text, with introduction, translation and notes. The text provides information about the worldly crafts of the apostles and Jesus' external appearance; it also contains a peculiar chronology of Holy Week (implying that Jesus was arrested on Tuesday evening) and a long story about Pilate's role in the trial of Jesus. The latter contains, int. al., letters by Pilate and Herod, discussions between Pilate and...
Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem's Coptic homily On the Life and the Passion of Christ is in fact a collection of apocryphal stories. Roelof van den B...
The theory of apokatastasis (restoration), most famously defended by the Alexandrian exegete, philosopher and theologian Origen, has its roots in both Greek philosophy and Jewish-Christian Scriptures and literature, and became a major theologico-soteriological doctrine in patristics. This monograph--the first comprehensive, systematic scholarly study of the history of the Christian apokatastasis doctrine--argues its presence and Christological and Biblical foundation in numerous Christian thinkers, including Syriac, and analyses its origins, meaning, and development over eight...
The theory of apokatastasis (restoration), most famously defended by the Alexandrian exegete, philosopher and theologian Origen, has its roots ...
Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil investigate crisis management as conducted by the increasingly important episcopal class in the 5th and 6th centuries. Their basic source is the neglected corpus of bishops' letters in Greek and Latin, the letter being the most significant mode of communication and information-transfer in the period from 410 to 590 CE. The volume brings together into a wider setting a wealth of previous international research on episcopal strategies for dealing with crises of various kinds. Six broad categories of crisis are identified and analysed: population displacement,...
Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil investigate crisis management as conducted by the increasingly important episcopal class in the 5th and 6th centuries. ...
The doctrine on grace, one of the most discussed themes in his later years, was regarded by Augustine as the very core of Christianity. This book traces the gradual crystallisation of this teaching, including its unacceptable consequences (such as double predestination, inherited guilt which deserves eternal punishment, and its transmission through libidinous procreation). How did the reader of Cicero and "the books of the Platonists" reach the ideas that appear in his polemic against Julian (and which remind one of Freud rather than the Stoics or Plotinus)? That is the point of departure of...
The doctrine on grace, one of the most discussed themes in his later years, was regarded by Augustine as the very core of Christianity. This book trac...
Gregory of Nyssa's Contra Eunomium, one of the major books on trinitarian theology of the 4th century, documents the exchange between Eunomius and the Cappadocian Father in the last episode of the so-called "Arian Crisis." The present volume is devoted to the third and last book of Contra Eunomium. It offers a fresh English translation with a running commentary in the form of ten studies by first-rank specialists. Seventeen shorter papers enlighten various aspects of Contra Eunomium and other writings of the same author. The contributions will be of interest for scholars...
Gregory of Nyssa's Contra Eunomium, one of the major books on trinitarian theology of the 4th century, documents the exchange between Eunomius ...
The treatise "De Graecarum affectionum curatione" (Therapeia of the Greek Maladies) is considered a highlight of Christian apologetic literature. Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus(ca AD 393 - ca AD 460) disputes the prejudice that the Christian faith was incompatible with classical education and civilization. He shows the integrating ability of globally aligned Christianity to establish peaceful local communities. The Greek tradition itself demonstrates the truth of Christianity. The text is placed in the context of Theodoret's life and works. Its literary character, place in Christian apologetics,...
The treatise "De Graecarum affectionum curatione" (Therapeia of the Greek Maladies) is considered a highlight of Christian apologetic literature. Bish...
Isaac of Nineveh (7th century AD), or Isaac the Syrian, was, among all the Syriac writers, the one to exert the greatest influence outside the Syriac-speaking world, becoming a highly venerated Father of Byzantine Orthodox spirituality and theology. In Isaak von Nineve und seine Kephalaia Gnostika, Nestor Kavvadas first draws out the frictions between East Syrian episcopacy and the anchorite mystical movement as represented by Isaac, in search of the historical context of Isaac's teaching on the working of the Holy Spirit on the monk. Then, he draws out of Isaac's writings, and...
Isaac of Nineveh (7th century AD), or Isaac the Syrian, was, among all the Syriac writers, the one to exert the greatest influence outside the Syriac-...
Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Christians were proud of this lofty teaching and tried to apply it to their persecutors and to competing religious groups. Yet at the same time they testify to their virulent verbal criticism of Jews, heretics and pagans, who could not accept the Christian exclusiveness. After emperor Constantine had turned to Christianity, Christians acquired the opportunity to use violence toward competing groups and pagans, even though they were instructed to...
Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Ch...
