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43 books match the query 'Early church, ca. 30-600'

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Adam's Sin, Our Humanity, and Christ's Redemption in Cyril of Alexandria

An Eastern Christian Theological Anthropology

Anthony Bibawy

Catholic University of America Press, 2026

As a result of the neo-patristic movement of the early twentieth century, the teachings of original sin and atonement as understood in the West were questioned and reformulated based on what was believed to be early Eastern Christian patristic thought. This new paradigm proposed that humanity inherited death and corruption, but not sin, from Adam and that the purpose of the incarnation and salvific work of Christ was to restore humanity from death and corruption, but not an inherent sinfulness. In contrast to this popular and seemingly dogmatic paradigm and false dichotomy between Western and Eastern teaching on sin and redemption, this book proposes that the writings of many Eastern fathers of the early fifth century incorporate many, if not the majority, of the terms and teachings behind what have been labeled as Western departures concerning the relationship between Adam’s sin, humanity, and its redemption in Christ. Through a comprehensive analysis of the writings of Cyril of Alexandria and some of his contemporaries in the early fifth century East during the time of the Pelagian controversy, this book demonstrates that a central and consistent theme of their soteriology revolves around the sinfulness and guilt of all humanity that is rooted in Adam’s sin and is resolved only through recapitulation into the new root, the second Adam, the impeccable Christ. Christ’s impeccability is necessary to correct the state of sinfulness and guilt in humanity through his incarnation and spotless sacrifice on the cross as a ransom and substitute on behalf of and in exchange of all to satisfy the divine justice and to restore humanity to its original state in the divine image.

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After Transformation

A Lyrical History of Christian Late Antiquity

Maia Kotrosits

Duke University Press, 2025

In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second and fourth centuries, when Rome transitioned from pagan to Christian worship, Kotrosits presents a condensed and evocative meditation on the profound effects of Christian imperialism across time and geography. She employs a collection of forms ranging from micro-essay and vignette to poem and fragment to capture human struggles with time and change, showing how the mundane and intimate details of our lives can themselves be conduits of historical knowing. Arguing for lyricism as a method, Kotrosits reclaims vulnerability, urgency, and storytelling in historical work to model new ways of writing the past and experiencing ourselves more fully in time. Above all, After Transformation is about the ironies of the ways that history is written against the reality of the ways that history is lived.

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Anti-Apollinarian Writings

Catholic University of America Press, 2016

The translation is interweaved with a commentary to provide the reader with some guidance through the complexities of Gregory's arguments. The introduction includes an overview of the history of Apollinarianism and discusses the extent to which it is possible to reconstruct, from the fragments quoted by Gregory, the arguments of Apolinarius's Apodeixis to which he is responding. It also examines the background to and the chronology of both of Gregory's anti-Apollinarian works, and looks critically at the arguments that they deploy.

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Ascetical Works

Saint Gregory of Nyssa

Catholic University of America Press, 1967

No description available

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Augustine in the Pelagian Controversy

Defending Church Unity

Andrew Chronister

Catholic University of America Press, 2024

This book examines St. Augustine of Hippo’s involvement in the Pelagian controversy and argues that this involvement was prompted not simply by his opposition to Pelagian doctrinal views but, to a significant degree, by his desire to defend Church unity. To prove this thesis, Andrew Chronister analyzes the historical context of the controversy as well as Augustine’s argumentation in his anti-Pelagian works. Attending to the historical context reveals the fact that at various moments in the controversy, Augustine was faced with what he believed to be significant threats to Church unity. For example, the beginnings of the controversy coincided with a key attempt in June 411 to end the Donatist schism that had split the African Church for a century: at the very moment when one schism was being healed, another threat to unity appeared in Caelestius and Pelagius. At the same time, internal evidence in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian works reveals his desire not only to refute Pelagian doctrinal views but also to undermine the Pelagians’ claims that they were simply teaching what the Church had always and everywhere taught. This can be seen in a particular way in Augustine’s frequent appeals to liturgical and sacramental praxis as well as in his rather novel practice of citing renowned Christian authors as evidence for the antiquity and universality of his views. Augustine in the Pelagian Controversy has two main contributions: (1) it offers a new perspective on Augustine’s involvement in the controversy that makes his prolonged and polemical engagement with the Pelagians more intelligible and (2) it provides a detailed history of the controversy itself.

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Become Like the Angels

Benjamin P. Blosser

Catholic University of America Press, 2012

Become Like the Angels explores Origen's legacy and, in particular, his teachings about the origin, nature, and destiny of the human person. By way of a historical critical approach, Benjamin P. Blosser discusses the influence of Middle Platonic philosophy on the human soul and then compares it with Origen's teaching.

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Cassian's Prayer for the 21st Century

John Levko

University of Scranton Press, 2000

Though Saint John Cassian lived and wrote centuries ago (c. 360-435), his spiritual writings continue to be important to contemporary church life and personal spirituality. The rich religious traditions of Eastern Christianity influenced the course and development of monasticism in the West. Today, all Christians can, through Saint Cassian's focus on prayer, reach a higher state.

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Didymus the Blind and His Circle in Late-Antique Alexandria

Virtue and Narrative in Biblical Scholarship

Richard A. Layton

University of Illinois Press, 2004

This is the first comprehensive study in the English language of the commentaries of Didymus the Blind, who was revered as the foremost Christian scholar of the fourth century and an influential spiritual director of ascetics.

The writings of Didymus were censored and destroyed due to his posthumous condemnation for heresy. This study recovers the uncensored voice of Didymus through the commentaries among the Tura papyri, a massive set of documents discovered in an Egyptian quarry in 1941.

This neglected corpus offers an unprecedented glimpse into the internal workings of a Christian philosophical academy in the most vibrant and tumultuous cultural center of late antiquity. By exploring the social context of Christian instruction in the competitive environment of fourth-century Alexandria, Richard A. Layton elucidates the political implications of biblical interpretation.

Through detailed analysis of the commentaries on Psalms, Job, and Genesis, the author charts a profound tectonic shift in moral imagination as classical ethical vocabulary becomes indissolubly bound to biblical narrative. Attending to the complex interactions of political competition and intellectual inquiry, this study makes a unique contribution to the cultural history of late antiquity.

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Early Syriac Theology

Chorbishop Seely Joseph Beggiani

Catholic University of America Press, 2014

Presents the insights of St. Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh, two of the earliest representatives of the theological world-view of the Syriac church.

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Forgetful of Their Sex

Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500-1100

Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg

University of Chicago Press, 1998

In this remarkable study of over 2,200 female and male saints, Jane Schulenburg explores women's status and experience in early medieval society and in the Church by examining factors such as family wealth and power, patronage, monasticism, virginity, and motherhood. The result is a unique depiction of the lives of these strong, creative, independent-minded women who achieved a visibility in their society that led to recognition of sanctity.

"A tremendous piece of scholarship. . . . This journey through more than 2,000 saints is anything but dull. Along the way, Schulenburg informs our ideas regarding the role of saints in the medieval psyche, gender-specific identification, and the heroics of virginity." —Library Journal

"[This book] will be a kind of 'roots' experience for some readers. They will hear the voices, haunted and haunting, of their distant ancestors and understand more about themselves." —Christian Science Monitor

"This fascinating book reaches far beyond the history of Christianity to recreate the 'herstory' of a whole gender." —Kate Saunders, The Independent

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Freedom and Necessity

St. Augustine's Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom

Gerald Bonner

Catholic University of America Press, 2007

This book seeks to explain this paradox in Augustine's theology by tracing how these different emphases arose in his thought, and speculating as to why he endorsed, in the end, his theology of predestination. T

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Friendship and Benefaction in James

Alicia J. Batten

SBL Press, 2017

Now available from SBL Press

Employing social description, social scientific models, and rhetorical analysis, Alicia J. Batten argues that the letter of James is conversant with the topic of friendship within Greek and Roman literature, as well as within various texts of early Christianity. She illustrates how James drew upon some of the language and concepts related to friendship with an intriguing density to advocate resistance to wealth, avoidance of rich patrons, and reliance upon God.

Features:

Use of friendship, benefaction, and patronage as lenses through which James and related texts can be viewed
A strong case for how the letter appels to the language and ideas of friendship with regard to God's relationships with humans
Exploration of the relationship between the book of James and the teachings of Jesus

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From Monastery to Hospital

Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity

Andrew T. Crislip

University of Michigan Press, 2005

From Monastery to Hospital traces the origin of the late Roman hospital to the earliest groups of Christian monastics. Often characterized as holy men and miracle-workers who transformed late antique spirituality, monks held an equally significant impact on the development of medicine in Late Antiquity. Andrew Crislip illuminates the innovative approaches to health care within the earliest monasteries that provided the model for the greatest medical achievement of Late Antiquity: the hospital.

From Monastery to Hospital draws on some of the most vibrant areas of scholarship of the ancient world, including asceticism, the study of the body, history of the family, and the history of medicine. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of early Christianity, Roman History, the history of medicine, and Catholic, Coptic, and Eastern Orthodox history and theology. It will also be of interest to the broader field of history of Christianity, especially with its connections to charitable traditions in the church through the modern period.

Andrew Crislip is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Hawaii.

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Gospels

Narrative and History

Mercedes Navarro Puerto

SBL Press, 2015

An international collection of ecumenical, gender-sensitive interpretations

In this volume of the Bible and Women Series, contributors examine how biblical studies intersects with feminist interpretive methods with regard to the Gospels. Authors examine the lives of women in Roman Palestine, named and unnamed women in the Gospels, and the role of gender in the reception of the Hebrew scriptures in the New Testament.

Features:

Essays by scholars from scholars from around the world
An introduction and twenty essays focused on women and gender relations
Coverage of power relations and ideologies within the texts and in current interpretations

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Grace for Grace

Alexander Y. Hwang

Catholic University of America Press, 2014

The contributors to Grace for Grace focus on the debates on grace and free will inspired by Augustine's later teachings on grace and the various reactions to it. In both popular and scholarly literature, the conflict has been traditionally referred to as the "Semi-Pelagian Controversy." For several decades, scholars have distanced themselves from that overly-simplistic and inaccurate portrayal. This book intends to solidify a disparate movement of scholarly thought and offer a secure basis for renewed study of the persons, texts, and events of this critical period in the reception of Augustine in the Early Middle Ages. This volume brings together new perspectives, based on fresh study of a wealth of primary sources, from an international team of scholars to explore the intra-church debates over grace and free will, after Augustine and Pelagius.

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In Search of the Triune God

The Christian Paths of East and West

Eugene Webb

University of Missouri Press, 2013

Under the broad umbrella of the Christian religion, there exists a great divide between two fundamentally different ways of thinking about key aspects of the Christian faith. Eugene Webb explores the sources of that divide, looking at how the Eastern and Western Christian worlds drifted apart due both to the different ways they interpreted their symbols and to the different roles political power played in their histories. Previous studies have focused on historical events or on the history of theological ideas. In Search of the Triune God delves deeper by exploring how the Christian East and the Christian West have conceived the relation between symbol and experience.

Webb demonstrates that whereas for Western Christianity discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity has tended toward speculation about the internal structure of the Godhead, in the Eastern tradition the symbolism of the Triune God has always been closely connected to religious experience. In their approaches to theology, Western Christianity has tended toward a speculative theology, and Eastern Christianity toward a mystical theology.

This difference of focus has led to a large range of fundamental differences in many areas not only of theology but also of religious life. Webb traces the history of the pertinent symbols (God as Father, Son of God, Spirit of God, Messiah, King, etc.) from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament through patristic thinkers and the councils that eventually defined orthodoxy. In addition, he shows how the symbols, interpreted through the different cultural lenses of the East and the West, gradually took on meanings that became the material of very different worldviews, especially as the respective histories of the Eastern and Western Christian worlds led them into different kinds of entanglement with ambition and power.

Through this incisive exploration, Webb offers a dramatic and provocative new picture of the history of Christianity.

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Inquiry about the Monks in Egypt

Catholic University of America Press, 2020

From September 394 to early January 395, seven monks from Rufinus of Aquileia’s monastery on the Mount of Olives made a pilgrimage to Egypt to visit locally renowned monks and monastic communities. Shortly after their return to Jerusalem, one of the party, whose identity remains a mystery, wrote an engaging account of this trip. Although he cast it in the form of a first-person travelogue, it reads more like a book of miracles that depicts the great fourth-century Egyptian monks as prophets and apostles similar to those in the Bible. This work was composed in Greek, yet it is best known today as Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Inquiry about the Monks in Egypt), the title of the Latin translation of this work made by Rufinus, the pilgrim-monks’ abbot. The Historia monachorum is one of the most fascinating, fantastical, and enigmatic pieces of literature to survive from the patristic period. In both its Greek original and Rufinus’s Latin translation it was one of the most popular and widely disseminated works of monastic hagiography during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Modern scholars value it not only for its intrinsic literary merits but also for its status, alongside Athanasius’s Life of Antony, the Pachomian dossier, and other texts of this ilk, as one of the most important primary sources for monasticism in fourth-century Egypt. Rufinus’s Historia monachorum is presented here in English translation in its entirety. The introduction and annotations situate the work in its literary, historical, religious, and theological contexts.

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Love Between Women

Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism

Bernadette J. Brooten

University of Chicago Press, 1996

Love Between Women examines female homoeroticism and the role of women in the ancient Roman world. Employing an unparalleled range of cultural sources, Brooten finds evidence of marriages between women and establishes that condemnations of female homoerotic practices were based on widespread awareness of love between women.

"An extraordinary accomplishment. . . . A definitive source for all future discussion of homoeroticism and the Bible."—Mary Rose D'Angelo, Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review

"[Brooten's] convincing analysis . . . not only profoundly reshapes our understanding of the past, but it should also shape the way in which that past, particularly the early Christian texts with their immense normative weight, will be used for the future."—Anne L. Clark, Journal of Lesbian Studies

"Love Between Women gives contemporary debates on sexuality a carefully delineated past. It boldly insists upon a different future, one informed by history but not tyrannized by it."—Susan Ackerman, Lambda Book Report

"Fascinating, provocative and lucid. . . . Brooten has made a fundamental contribution to women's and gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, and classics."—Elizabeth A. Castelli, Women's Review of Books

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Studies Book, 1997

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Love and Saint Augustine

Hannah Arendt

University of Chicago Press, 1995

Hannah Arendt's classic philosophical study, which Kirkus called “a revelation”

Hannah Arendt began her scholarly career with an exploration of Saint Augustine's concept of caritas, or neighborly love, written under the direction of Karl Jaspers and the influence of Martin Heidegger. After her German academic life came to a halt in 1933, Arendt carried her dissertation into exile in France, and years later took the same battered and stained copy to New York. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, as she was completing or reworking her most influential studies of political life, Arendt was simultaneously annotating and revising her dissertation on Augustine, amplifying its argument with terms and concepts she was using in her political works of the same period. The disseration became a bridge over which Arendt traveled back and forth between 1929 Heidelberg and 1960s New York, carrying with her Augustine's question about the possibility of social life in an age of rapid political and moral change.

In Love and Saint Augustine, Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott and Judith Chelius Stark make this important early work accessible for the first time. Here is a completely corrected and revised English translation that incorporates Arendt's own substantial revisions and provides additional notes based on letters, contracts, and other documents as well as the recollections of Arendt's friends and colleagues during her later years.

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Lucifer of Cagliari and the Text of 1-2 Kings

Tuukka Kauhanen

SBL Press, 2018

The most up-to-date study of the text history of 1 and 2 Kings

In this book, Tuukka Kauhanen approaches the challenging case of the textual history of 1 and 2 Kings through citations of the text found within the writings of the fourth-century bishop of Sadinia, Lucifer of Cagliari. Kauhanen presents evidence that Lucifer's Latin text sheds important light on lost Hebrew and Greek pieces of the textual puzzle in Kings. In doing so, he compares all of Lucifer's extensive quotations of Kings to extant Greek witnesses as well as Old Latin witnesses where available and subsequently analyzes the probable reasons for textual variations. In each instance he attempts to choose the best possible candidate for the Old Greek reading and where that reading might reflect a now-lost Hebrew text.

Features

Use of the most current research into the text of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, including the Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition series and the forthcoming Göttingen Septuagint edition of King
An appendix listing readings from the analysis sections arranged according to agreement patterns and other meaningful criteria
Charts comparing readings

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Mysteries of the Lord's Prayer

Wisdom from the Early Church

John Gavin

Catholic University of America Press, 2021

The Lord’s Prayer contains mysteries generally overlooked by most Christians. For the Fathers of the Church, such mysteries or “difficulties”—many of which continue to puzzle modern scholars—marked divinely inspired points for prayer and reflection. Saints Cyprian of Carthage, Augustine of Hippo, Peter Chrysologus, Maximus the Confessor and others grappled with the hidden meanings behind these questions and the fruits of their efforts can inspire contemporary readers. In this volume John Gavin, SJ explores eight mysteries of the Lord’s prayer in light of the early Church’s wisdom: How can human beings call God “Father”? Where is God the Father? How can God grow in holiness? Was there ever a time when God did not rule? Are there limitations to God’s will? Why should we seek bread? Can we make a deal with God? Does God tempt us? Without ignoring the insights of contemporary exegesis, this volume demonstrates that the responses of the Fathers to these questions have continuing relevance. Not only did they understand the issues surrounding linguistic, textual, and theological difficulties, but they also grasped the nuances of Christ’s words as illuminated by the scriptures as a whole. They provide an interpretation that challenges the mind and transforms the heart. Mysteries of the Lord's Prayer offers the general reader, as well as scholars, a chance to rediscover a prayer that unites Christians throughout the world. It also includes appendices to aid those who wish to explore the Fathers’ writings on their own for a deeper encounter with the wisdom of the early Church.

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New Narratives for Old

The Historical Method of Reading Early Christian Theology: Essays in Honor of Michel Rene Barnes

Anthony Briggman

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

Guilds and conferences have grown up around historical theology, yet no volume has ever been dedicated to the definition and illustration of the method undergirding historical theology. This volume both defines and illustrates the methodology of historical theology, especially as it relates to the study of early Christianity, and situates historical theology among other methodological approaches to early Christianity, including confessional apologetics, constructive theology, and socio-cultural history. Historical theology as a discipline stands in contrast to these other approaches to the study of early Christianity. In contrast to systematic or constructive approaches, it remains essentially historical, with a desire to elucidate the past rather than speak to the present. In contrast to socio-historical approaches, it remains essentially theological, with a concern to value and understand the full complexity of the abstract thought world that stands behind the textual tradition of early Christian theology. Moreover, historical theology is characterized by the methodological presupposition that, unless good reason exists to think otherwise, the theological accounts of the ancient church articulate the genuine beliefs of their authors. The significance of this volume lies in the methodological definition it offers. The strength of this volume lies in the fact that its definition of the historical method of studying theology is not the work of a single mind but that of over twenty respected scholars, many of whom are leaders in the field. The volume begins with an introductory essay that orients readers to various approaches to early Christian literature, it moves to two technical essays that define the historical method of studying early Christian theology, and then it illustrates the practice of this method with more than twenty essays that cover a period stretching from the first century to the dawn of the seventh.

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Patience and Salvation in Third Century North Africa

A Christian Latin Reader

Sarah Wear

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

Patience and Salvation in Third Century North Africa: A Christian Latin Reader features the entirety of Tertullian’s To Martyrs and The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, with selections from Cyprian’s On the Good of Patience and a short appendix on Augustine’s Commentary on Psalm 121.6. The Latin text has facing vocabulary and theological, historical, philosophical, and grammatical notes. In the first three centuries, Roman Carthage produced some of the earliest literature composed originally in Latin by Christians. Tertullian’s Ad Martyras (197); Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (203), and Cyprian’s De Bono Patientiae (256) all embody the force of this new genre of Latin literature. With this literature, we see a variant of Latin often denoted “Christian Latin.” Christian Latin featured linguistic elements marked by characteristics of biblical Latin, later Latin, as well as vulgarisms. In addition to converging philologically, Tertullian, the author of the Passio, and Cyprian align themselves in topos: they all ask the question of how one can endure torment and anxiety in this world. Patience (patientia), derived from the verb for “to suffer” (patior), is a virtue that allows one to endure troubles, anxieties, and physical pains with the hope of eternal happiness and salvation in heaven. In this Reader, the student will find three different literary perspectives on this theme. The book also draws parallels to the works of Seneca and Cicero on patience and suffering.

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Patristic Exegesis in Context

Exploring the Genres of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation

Miriam De Cock

Catholic University of America Press, 2023

The essays of Patristic Exegesis in Context examine the biblical exegesis of early Christians beyond the formal genre of biblical commentary. The past couple of decades have seen a broadening of perspective on the study of patristic exegesis; the phenomenon is increasingly situated within its various literary contexts and genres, and the definition of what counts as patristic exegesis is therefore widened. This volume thus situates itself within this emerging scholarly tradition, which aims not to give an account of exegetical strategies and methodologies as found primarily in exegetical commentaries and homilies, but to demonstrate the highly sophisticated nature of biblical exegesis in other genres, and the manifold uses to which this exegesis was put. Ancient Christian authors lived and breathed scripture; it served as their primary source of theological and liturgical vocabulary, their way of processing the world, their social ethic, and their mode of constructing self and communal identity. Scripture therefore permeates all ancient Christian literature, regardless of genre, and the various contexts in which interpretation of scripture took place resulted in a wide variety of uses of the church’s authoritative texts. The essays in this volume demonstrate the interpretive skill, creativity, and sophistication of early Christian authors in a myriad of other early Christian genres, such as poetry, paraphrase, hymns, martyr accounts, homilies, prophetic vision accounts, monastic writings, argumentative treatises, encomia, apocalypses, and catenae. Accordingly, the volume aims to help the modern person, who is used to hearing the Bible explained in explicitly expository situations (for example, in academic commentaries or religious sermons) to become more habituated to ancient ways of interacting with and expounding the biblical text. These essays attempt to contextualize various types of patristic exegesis, in order for us to glimpse the complex and diverse uses of the Bible in this period.

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Reading Women in the New Testament Letters

Korinna Zamfir

SBL Press, 2024

This volume explores the differing views expressed in the New Testament letters about the position of women in first- and second-generation Christian communities. Contributors place the letters in their broader Jewish and Greco-Roman cultural, religious, and social contexts to better understand how gender roles, family life, and women’s responsibilities for spreading the gospel changed over time. While some essays envision the lived realities of women as wives, mothers, and widows—both the free and the enslaved, others examine the rhetorical and theological function of female metaphors. Contributors include Bernadette Brooten, Christine Gerber, Annette Bourland Huizenga, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Beate Kowalski, Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, Peter Lampe, William R. G. Loader, Elisa Estévez López, Heidrun E. Mader, Marinella Perroni, Silke Petersen, Uta Poplutz, María José Schultz Montalbetti, Michael Sommer, Angela Standhartinger, Miklós Szabó, Korinna Zamfir, and Silvia Zanconato.

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Refutation of All Heresies

M. David Litwa

SBL Press, 2016

A reliable, readable translation for scholars and students

The Refutation of All Heresies (ca. 225 CE) is a treasure-trove of ancient philosophy, astrology, medicine, magic, Gnostic thought, numerology, heresiography, ecclesial politics, and early Christian studies in general. Offered here for the first time in almost a century is a full English translation, along with a newly-edited Greek text, extensive notes, and a thorough introduction.

Features:

A full English translation with extensive notes
Newly edited Greek text that avoids the pitfalls of the most recent edition
A thorough-going introduction that addresses the questions of authorship, date, and audience, as well as the purpose of the book, its organization, method, and importance for Gnostic studies

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Reimagining Apocalypticism

Apocalyptic Literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Writings

Lorenzo DiTommaso

SBL Press, 2023

The Dead Sea Scrolls have expanded the corpus of early Jewish apocalyptic literature and tested scholars’ ideas of what apocalyptic means. With all the scrolls now available for study, contributors to this volume engage those texts and many more to reexplore not only definitions of the genre but also the influence of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the study of apocalyptic literature in the Second Temple period and beyond. Part 1 focuses on debates about categories and genre. Part 2 explores ancient Jewish texts from the Second Temple period to the early rabbinic era. Part 3 brings the results of scroll research into dialogue with the New Testament and early Christian writings. Contributors include Garrick V. Allen, Giovanni B. Bazzana, Stefan Beyerle, Dylan M. Burns, John J. Collins, Devorah Dimant, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Frances Flannery, Matthew J. Goff, Angela Kim Harkins, Martha Himmelfarb, G. Anthony Keddie, Armin Lange, Harry O. Maier, Andrew B. Perrin, Christopher Rowland, Alex Samely, Jason M. Silverman, and Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg.

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Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul

Beyond O'Connell & His Critics

Ronnie J. Rombs

Catholic University of America Press, 2006

Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul: Beyond O'Connell and His Critics provides first a critical examination of O'Connell's theses in a readable summary of his work that spanned over thirty years.

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Sea Voyages and Beyond

Emerging Strategies in Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation

Vernon K. Robbins

SBL Press, 2018

Explore insights, methodologies, and advances in socio-rhetorical interpretation

Essays in this volume from Vernon K. Robbins merge social and rhetorical strategies of interpretation and set the stage for how socio-rhetorical interpretation has developed in the context of research into the rhetoric of religious antiquity. This book contains “By Land and By Sea: The We Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages” (1978), which initially received widespread praise and then became an object of significant criticism. The volume includes Robbins’s varied, detailed responses to both encouragement and critique of his approach.

Features:

Introduction to the collection by David B. Gowler
Twelve essays that programmatically study early Christian texts using resources from the social sciences
Reflections on the future of socio-rhetorical criticism

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Tertullian's Aduersus Iudaeos

A Rhetorical Analysis (NAPS Patristic Monograph Series, Volume 19)

Geoffrey D. Dunn

Catholic University of America Press, 2008

Geoffrey D. Dunn is the first scholar to use classical rhetoric as the interpretative tool for analyzing the question of the authorship of Aduersus Iudaeos. He argues that Tertullian structured this work according to the rules of classical rhetoric and employed arguments familiar to anyone with training in oratory

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The Augustinian Person

Peter Burnell

Catholic University of America Press, 2005

Through careful analysis of Augustine's writings, Burnell concludes that Augustine conceives of human nature as a unity at every level--socially, morally, and in basic constitution--despite very common objections that he fails to achieve such a conception

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The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology

Christopher A. Beeley

Catholic University of America Press, 2018

The past thirty years have seen an unprecedented level of interest in early Christian biblical interpretation, from major scholarly initiatives to more popular resources aimed at pastors and general readers. The fields of Biblical Studies and Patristics/Early Christian Studies each arrived at the study of early Christian biblical interpretation largely from their own standpoints, and they tend to operate in relative isolation from one another. This books aims to bring the two fields into closer conversation, in order to suggest new avenues into the study of the deeply biblical dimension of patristic theology as well as the contribution that patristic exegesis can make to contemporary views of how best to interpret the Bible.

Based on a multi-year consultation in the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology features leading scholars from both fields, who bring new insights to the relationship between patristic exegesis and current strategies of biblical interpretation, specifically with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. Following an account of how each field came to study patristic exegesis, the book offers new studies of Trinitarian theology in Old Testament, Johannine, and Pauline biblical texts and the patristic interpretation of them, combining the insights of modern historical criticism with classical historical theology. It promises to make a valuable contribution to both fields, suggesting several new avenue into the study of early biblical literature and the development of Trinitarian theology.

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The Christian Tradition

A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)

Jaroslav Pelikan

University of Chicago Press, 1971

The first volume of a magisterial survey of the entire history of the Christian tradition, this volume focusing on the emergence of Catholicism

In this five-volume opus Jaroslav Pelikan traces the development of Christian doctrine from the first century to the twentieth.

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The Didache

A Missing Piece of the Puzzle in Early Christianity

Jonathan A. Draper

SBL Press, 2015

An intriguing dilemma for those who study ancient Christian contexts and literature

This edited volume includes essays and responses from specialists in the Didache and in early church history in general.

Features:

Strategies for understanding liturgical constructions and ritual worship found in the text
Studies that apply generally to the overall content and background of the Didache
Essays on the relationship between the Didache and scripture—particularly with respect to the Gospel of Matthew

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