Paul As Homo Novus

20ths century research in St. Paul is widely impacted by Adolf Deissmann's prominent view on the apostle as a "homo novus" (1911). But where does this concept originate from, and what does it imply? This collection of articles does not only re-evaluate Deissmann's concept by tracing it back to its historical and socio-political origins in Cicero and exploring how authors from (early) Imperial Time perceive and transform the homo novus paradigm by diverse modes and strategies of literary self-fashioning. Scholars ranging the fields of New Testament Studies, Greek and Latin Philology, Ancient History, Patristics, and Comparative Literature also examine how the Ciceronian paradigm was early on transformed, disseminated, and applied as a literary concept and an authorial topos of self-molding. One of the leading questions throughout the volume thus is: How do authors like Cicero, Horace, Paul, Tacitus, Seneca, Athanasius, and Augustine fashion themselves in accordance to or in difference from the idea of being a "new man"? It is argued that by means of literary self-configuration, indeed, some of these writers – such as Paul and Augustine – want to appear as "new men" by either altering traditional social, moral, religious, or political roles, or by creating new patterns of social behavior and religious self-understanding.

The T&T Clark Handbook to the Historical Paul gathers leading voices on various aspects of Paul's biography into a thorough reconsideration of him as a historical figure. The contributors show how recent trends in Pauline scholarship have invited new questions about a variety of topics, including his social location, his mode of subsistence, his cultural formation, his place within Judaism, his religious experience and practice, and his affinities with other religious actors of the Roman world. Through careful attention to biographical detail, social context, and historical method, it seeks to describe him as a contextually plausible social actor. The volume is structured in three parts. Part One introduces sources, methods, and historiographical approaches, surveying the foundational texts for Paul and the early Pauline tradition. Part Two examines key biographical questions pertaining to Paul's bodily comportment, the material aspects of his career, and his religious activities. Part Three reconstructs the biographical portraits of Paul that emerge from the letters associated with him, presenting a series of “micro-biographies” pieced together by leading Pauline scholars.

The essays in the present volume celebrate the work of Margaret M. Mitchell (University of Chicago) by engaging, extending, and challenging her ground-breaking research in three areas: (1) the letters of Paul the Apostle, both authentic and pseudepigraphic; (2) the emergence and rapid development of early Christian literary culture over the first few centuries of the cult’s existence; and (3) Late Antique interpretive practices and perspectives, particularly among patristic readers of the scriptures.

The Lived Ancient Religion project has radically changed perspectives on ancient religions and their supposedly personal or public character. This volume applies and further develops these methodological tools, new perspectives and new questions. The religious transformations of the Roman Imperial period appear in new light and more nuances by comparative confrontation and the integration of many disciplines. The contributions are written by specialists from a variety of disciplinary contexts (Jewish Studies, Theology, Classics, Early Christian Studies) dealing with the history of religion of the Mediterranean, West-Asian, and European area from the (late) Hellenistic period to the (early) Middle Ages and shaped by their intensive exchange. From the point of view of their respective fields of research, the contributors engage with discourses on agency, embodiment, appropriation and experience. They present innovative research in four fields also of theoretical debate, which are “Experiencing the Religious”, “Switching the Code”, „A Thing Called Body“ and “Commemorating the Moment”.

A companion volume to the highly successful and widely used Ancient Greece, this Sourcebook is a valuable resource for students at all levels studying ancient Rome. Lynda Garland and Matthew Dillon present an extensive range of material, from the early Republic to the assassination of Julius Caesar. Providing a comprehensive coverage of all important documents pertaining to the Roman Republic, Ancient Rome includes: source material on political developments in the Roman Republic (509–44 BC) detailed chapters on social phenomena, such as Roman religion, slavery and freedmen, women and the family, and the public face of Rome clear, precise translations of documents taken not only from historical sources, but also from inscriptions, laws and decrees, epitaphs, graffiti, public speeches, poetry, private letters and drama concise up-to-date bibliographies and commentaries for each document and chapter a definitive collection of source material on the Roman Republic. All students of ancient Rome and classical studies will find this textbook invaluable at all levels of study.

Excerpt from St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History An Anatolian St. Paul, a man of the ancients, a homo novus, rising from the mass of the insignificant many, heeded by no man of letters among his pagan contemporaries, yet destined to be a leading personality in the world's history; a homo religiosus, at once a classic of mysticism and a most practical man of affairs; a prophet and dreamer, crucified to the world of Christ, yet for ever memorable as a citizen of the world at the present moment - such is the man whose outlines I have been seeking to portray. After long years devoted to the study of the ancient records of St. Paul and their modern interpreters it was my rare good fortune to find a new teacher to supplement those to whom I shall always look up with gratitude, the old teachers at home. This new teacher is in no sense academic: paper and paragraphs are unknown to her; all that she teaches she dispense with generous hand in the bright sunshine and open air - she is in fact the world of the South and East, the world of St. Paul. If the western stranger approach the mistress by reverently beneath the olive-trees, she will gladly, and with a mother's joy, speak to him of her great son. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The book explores ancient interpretations and usages of the famous Delphic maxim “know yourself”. The primary emphasis is on Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman sources from the first four centuries CE. The individual contributions examine both direct quotations of the maxim as well as more distant echoes. Most of the sources included in the book have never previously been studied in any detail with a view to their use and interpretation of the Delphic maxim. Thus, the book contributes significantly to the origin and different interpretations of the maxim in antiquity as well as to its reception history in ancient philosophical and theological discourses. The chapters of the book are linked to each other by numerous cross-references which makes it possible to compare the different views of the maxim with each other. It also helps readers to notice relationships and trajectories within the material. The explorations of the relevant sources are also set in the context of ongoing debates about the shape and nature of ancient conceptions of self and self-knowledge. The book thus demonstrates the wide variety of philosophical and theological approaches in that the injunction to know oneself could be viewed and how these interpretations provide windows into ancient discourses about self and self-knowledge.