Studies On Ancient Christianity

This third collection of articles by Henry Chadwick brings together a series of studies on Augustine, written in light of the new texts now available, and on other individual Christian authors of antiquity, in other words of the age when Christianity was acquiring its now familiar shape. A number of papers published here appear in print for the first time, or make accessible to English readers studies which first saw the light in German. These include a substantial discussion of the idea of conscience, important in the highly ethical context of early Christianity, and a study of ancient anthologies, and are complemented by other essays on general themes in the history of the early Church.

Written by experts in the field, the essays in this volume examine the early Christian book from a wide range of disciplines: religion, art history, history, Near Eastern studies, and classics.

This third collection of articles by Henry Chadwick brings together a series of studies on Augustine, written in light of the new texts now available, and on other individual Christian authors of antiquity, in other words of the age when Christianity was acquiring its now familiar shape. A number of papers published here appear in print for the first time, or make accessible to English readers studies which first saw the light in German. These include a substantial discussion of the idea of conscience, important in the highly ethical context of early Christianity, and a study of ancient anthologies, and are complemented by other essays on general themes in the history of the early Church.

Over the past 45 years Professor Pieter W. van der Horst contributed extensively to the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. The 24 papers in this volume, written since his early retirement in 2006, cover a wide range of topics, all of them concerning the religious world of Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Byzantine era. They reflect his research interests in Jewish epigraphy, Jewish interpretation of the Bible, Jewish prayer culture, the diaspora in Asia Minor, exegetical problems in the writings of Philo and Josephus, Samaritan history, texts from ancient Christianity which have received little attention (the poems of Cyrus of Panopolis, the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion), and miscellanea such as the pagan myth of Jewish cannibalism, the meaning of the Greek expression ‘without God,’ the religious significance of sneezing in pagan antiquity, and the variety of stories about pious long-sleepers in the ancient world (pagan, Jewish, Christian).

It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

Perhaps more than any other cause, the passage of texts from scroll to codex in late antiquity converted the Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity and enabled the worldwide spread of Christian faith. Guy Stroumsa describes how canonical scripture was established and how its interpretation replaced blood sacrifice in religious ritual.

The particular excitement of this volume lies in its focus on the everyday realities of Christians' lives in the era of Christian ascendancy and Roman decline. Popular fiction, childrearing and toys, rituals of inclusion, the beginning of veneration of saints and shunning of heretics, the ascetic impulse, food practices—all these and more lend color and texture to the story of a "people's" Christianity in this formative stage.

A set of studies written by a major European scholar dealing with three areas: Luke-Acts, New Testament Theology, and Apocryphal and Patristic Literature.