Arius

Arius is widely considered to be Rowan Williams's magnum opus. Long out of print and never before available in paperback, it has been newly revised. This expanded and updated edition marks a major publishing event. Arianism has been called the "archetypal Christian heresy" because it denies the divinity of Christ. In his masterly examination of Arianism, Rowan Williams argues that Arius himself was actually a dedicated theological conservative whose concern was to defend the free and personal character of the Christian God. His "heresy" grew out of an attempt to unite traditional biblical language with radical philosophical ideas and techniques and was, from the start, involved with issues of authority in the church. Thus, the crisis of the early fourth century was not only about the doctrine of God but also about the relations between emperors, bishops, and "charismatic" teachers in the church's decision-making. In the course of his discussion, Williams raises the vital wider questions of how heresy is defined and how certain kinds of traditionalism transform themselves into heresy. Augmented with a new appendix in which Williams interacts with significant scholarship since 1987, this book provides fascinating reading for anyone interested in church history and the development of Christian doctrine.

In this book and its companion volume, The Subordinate Substitute, Peter Carnley unpicks logical knots and entanglements of argument found today in contemporary expressions of belief in the “eternal functional submissiveness” of the Son to the Father. “Trinitarian subordinationism” and “complementarianism” is characteristically found, along with associated conservative evangelical beliefs in the subordination of women to men, and the theology of redemption known as the “penal substitutionary theory” of the atonement. This theological package is energetically promoted amongst conservative evangelical Christians—most notably members of the Southern Baptist Church, and Presbyterians of the Westminster Tradition in the United States and Britain, and very significantly, amongst conservatively minded Anglicans of the Diocese of Sydney and elsewhere across Australia. All the while the argument of this book is driven by the question of whether this popular phenomenon of contemporary evangelical Christianity is fairly and legitimately categorized as a modern form of the ancient heresy of Arianism.

This volume features a unique epitome (original summation) of Aristotelian practical philosophy. It is often attributed to Arius Didymus who composed a survey of Peripatetic thought on three closely related areas: ethics, household management, and politics. The quality of the epitome, which draws not only on the surviving treatises of Aristotle, but also on works by later Peripatetics, is excellent. In recent years the epitome has attracted increased attention as an important document for the understanding of Hellenistic philosophy. This new edition of the Greek text is much needed; the most recent edition dates from 1884 and is seriously faulty. This translation, provided by Georgia Tsouni, is based on the oldest and best manuscripts and takes account of recent discussions of difficult passages. In addition, an English translation appears opposite the Greek text on facing pages. The text-translation is followed by nine essays, which are written for a wide audience—not only philosophers and classicists, but also scholars interested in politics and social order. The essays also consider issues of a more philological nature: Who in fact was the author of the epitome? Is Theophrastus an important source? In discussing political matters, is the author intending to defend the practice of philosophy in Augustan Rome? Was there a second epitome, perhaps with a different slant, that has been lost?