Clement of Alexandria on Trial


Book Description

Drawing on Photios' synopsis of the eight errors contained in Clement of Alexandria's lost work 'Hypotyposeis', this book offers a re-examination of second-century theology . The book stresses the importance understanding Clement's work in its original Alexandrian context.




Clement of Alexandria on Trial


Book Description

Clement of Alexandria (c.150–215 CE) is one of the most significant theologians of the second-century, and his work is still the subject of intense academic debate. This book provides a new perspective on Clement’s thought, through a critical examination of the work of one of his critics, Photios (c.820–893 CE). Photios, the Patriarch of Constantinople, based his critique on Clement’s (now lost) treatise ‘Hypotyposeis’, claiming the work contained eight ‘heresies’. The book examines each ‘error’ listed in the 109th codex of Photios’ ‘Bibliotheca’ in depth, using evidence from Clement’s existing work to consider the likely accuracy of Photios’ critique. Focusing on these eight ‘heresies’ offers a unique opportunity to illuminate what in terms of post-Nicene orthodoxy are Clement’s most problematic opinions, setting them in the context of their original philosophical and theological frame.




Clement of Alexandria and his Use of Philo in the Stromateis


Book Description

Preliminary material /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- CONCEPTS AND METHODS /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- THE HAGAR AND SARAH MOTIF /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- THE STORY OF MOSES /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- THE LAW AND THE VIRTUES /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- THE TEMPLE, VESTMENTS AND THE HIGH PRIEST /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- THE SHORT SEQUENCES /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- THE ISOLATED REFERENCES /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- CONCLUSIONS /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- BIBLIOGRAPHY /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- INDEX /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- SAMENVATTING /Johanna Louise van den Hoek -- CURRICULUM VITAE /Johanna Louise van den Hoek.




Angelomorphic Pneumatology


Book Description

This book discusses the occurrence of angelic imagery in early Christian discourse about the Holy Spirit. Taking as its entry-point Clement of Alexandria s less explored writings, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, and Adumbrationes, it shows that Clement s angelomorphic pneumatology occurs in tandem with spirit christology, within a theological framework still characterized by a binitarian orientation. This complex theological articulation, supported by the exegesis of specific biblical passages (Zech 4: 10; Isa 11: 2-3; Matt 18:10), reworks Jewish and Christian traditions about the seven first-created angels, and constitutes a relatively widespread phenomenon in early Christianity. Evidence to support this claim is presented in the course of separate studies of Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Aphrahat.




Exhortation to the Heathen


Book Description

Amphion of Thebes and Arion of Methymna were both minstrels, and both were renowned in story. They are celebrated in song to this day in the chorus of the Greeks; the one for having allured the fishes, and the other for having surrounded Thebes with walls by the power of music. Another, a Thracian, a cunning master of his art (he also is the subject of a Hellenic legend), tamed the wild beasts by the mere might of song; and transplanted trees—oaks—by music. I might tell you also the story of another, a brother to these—the subject of a myth, and a minstrel—Eunomos the Locrian and the Pythic grasshopper. A solemn Hellenic assembly had met at Pytho, to celebrate the death of the Pythic serpent, when Eunomos sang the reptile’s epitaph.




The Moral Psychology of Clement of Alexandria


Book Description

In The Moral Psychology of Clement of Alexandria, Kathleen Gibbons proposes a new approach to Clement’s moral philosophy and explores how his construction of Christianity’s relationship with Jewishness informed, and was informed by, his philosophical project. As one of the earliest Christian philosophers, Clement’s work has alternatively been treated as important for understanding the history of relations between Christianity and Judaism and between Christianity and pagan philosophy. This study argues that an adequate examination of his significance for the one requires an adequate examination of his significance for the other. While the ancient claim that the writings of Moses were read by the philosophical schools was found in Jewish, Christian, and pagan authors, Gibbons demonstrates that Clement’s use of this claim shapes not only his justification of his authorial project, but also his philosophical argumentation. In explaining what he took to be the cosmological, metaphysical, and ethical implications of the doctrine that the supreme God is a lawgiver, Clement provided the theoretical justifications for his views on a range of issues that included martyrdom, sexual asceticism, the status of the law of Moses, and the relationship between divine providence and human autonomy. By contextualizing Clement’s discussions of volition against wider Greco-Roman debates about self-determination, it becomes possible to reinterpret the invocation of “free will” in early Christian heresiological discourse as part of a larger dispute about what human autonomy requires.




The Oxford Handbook of Origen


Book Description

This interrogation of Origen's legacy for the 21st Century returns to old questions built upon each other over eighteen centuries of Origen scholarship-problems of translation and transmission, positioning Origen in the histories of philosophy, theology, and orthodoxy, and defining his philological and exegetical programmes. The essays probe the more reliable sources for Origen's thought by those who received his legacy and built on it. They focus on understanding how Origen's legacy was adopted, transformed and transmitted looking at key figures from the fourth century through the Reformation. A section on modern contributions to the understanding of Origen embraces the foundational contributions of Huet, the twentieth century movement to rehabilitate Origen from his status as a heterodox teacher, and finally, the identification in 2012 of twenty-nine anonymous homilies on the Psalms in a codex in Munich as homilies of Origen. Equally important has been the investigation of Origen's historical, cultural, and intellectual context. These studies track the processes of appropriation, assimilation and transformation in the formation and transmission of Origen's legacy. Origen worked at interpreting Scripture throughout his life. There are essays addressing general issues of hermeneutics and his treatment of groups of books from the Biblical canon in commentaries and homilies. Key points of his theology are also addressed in essays that give attention to the fluid environment in which Origen developed his theology. These essays open important paths for students of Origen in the 21st century.




La Cité du Logos: L’ecclésiologie de Clément d’Alexandrie et son enracinement christologique


Book Description

Clément d’Alexandrie (150-215 Ap. J.-C.) est l’un des penseurs les plus brillants des premiers siècles chrétiens. Son enseignement, tout autant pétri de la Bible que de la pensée grecque, nous révèle la nature des débats aux premières heures de l’expansion du christianisme. Ce livre aborde un sujet peu étudié à ce jour, à savoir sa pensée sur l’Église. C’est pourtant un sujet récurent de ses ouvrages, où il réfléchit longuement sur l’Église à partir de l’être et la mission du Logos divin. L’analyse du discours de Clément sur l’Église permet donc de revisiter les intuitions principales de sa christologie tout en apportant un éclairage sur sa perception de l’identité chrétienne à une époque où celle-ci est encore en construction. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215) is one of the most brilliant thinkers of the early Christian centuries. His teaching, steeped as much in the Bible as in Greek thought, reveals to us the nature of the debates in the early days of the expansion of Christianity. This book deals with a subject little studied to this day, namely his thoughts on the Church. Yet it is a recurring subject in his works, where he reflects at length on the Church from the point of view of the being and the mission of the divine Logos. Analysis of Clement’s discourse on the Church therefore makes it possible to revisit the main intuitions of his Christology while shedding light on his perception of Christian identity at a time when it is still under construction.




Humankind and the Cosmos: Early Christian Representations


Book Description

In this volume, Costache endeavours to map the world as it was understood and experienced by the early Christians. Progressing from initial fears, they came to adopt a more positive view of the world through successive shifts of perception. This did not happen overnight. Tracing these shifts, Costache considers the world of the early Christians through an interdisciplinary lens, revealing its meaningful complexity. He demonstrates that the early Christian worldview developed at the nexus of several perspectives. What facilitated this process was above all the experience of contemplating nature. When accompanied by genuine personal transformation, natural contemplation fostered the theological interpretation of the world as it had been known to the ancients.




Les études philoniennes


Book Description

"This volume gathers the proceedings of the Paris conference in Philonic studies (2017), consisting of 23 papers by contributors from 8 countries. Fifty years after the Lyon conference, it aimed at taking a retrospective look at the intellectual contexts and the academic fields in which Philonic studies have penetrated, as well as the ways in which they evolved. The work of the Alexandrian became of major importance in the history of philosophy. It has been studied as a source of cultured Christianity, in connection with Second Temple Judaism and the Alexandrian Jewish community, but also in the context of research on rabbinic Judaism, New Testament and philosophy of the imperial era. Ce volume rassemble les actes du colloque de Paris (2017), qui râeunit 23 intervenants de 8 nationalitâes. Cinquante ans apráes le colloque de Lyon, il s'agissait de râeflâechir aux milieux intellectuels et aux disciplines universitaires dans lesquels les âetudes philoniennes avaient pâenâetrâe le monde de la recherche, les bases sur lesquelles elles avaient âevoluâe. L'¶uvre de l'Alexandrin a pris une importance majeure dans l'histoire de la philosophie; elle a âetâe explorâee comme source du christianisme lettrâe, en lien avec le judaèisme de l'âEpoque du Second Temple et la communautâe juive d'Alexandrie, mais aussi dans le cadre des âetudes sur le judaèisme rabbinique, dans le dâeveloppement des âetudes sur le Nouveau Testament et sur la philosophie de l'âepoque impâeriale"--




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