Adamites (original) (raw)

A. Di Berardino (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (review)

Augustiniana 66, 3-4, 2016

Review of: Di Berardino, Angelo (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove (Il.) 2014, ISBN 978-08-308- 2943, ISBN 978-08-308-2940-8, ISBN 978-08-308-2941-5, ISBN 978-08-308-2942-2, I: xxxviii + 937 pp., II: xxxiv + 1020 pp., III: xxxiv + 994 pp. (Translation and revision of the Nuovo dizionario patristico e di antichità cristiane, Casa Editrice Marietti, Genova-Milano 2006-2008.)

Adam's Holiness in the Alexandrine and Athonite Traditions

Doru Costache, Philip Kariatlis and Mario Baghos (eds), Alexandrian Legacy: A Critical Appraisal. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015: 322-68, 2015

The chapter considers a particular interpretive strand within patristic tradition, for which the paradise narrative in Genesis constituted a metaphor of the spiritual life with Adam as a hesychast saint – virtuous, directly connected with God and transformed by this experience. The authors and the texts discussed herein, from St Silouan the Athonite’s diary to a Palamite chapter, from St Cyril of Alexandria’s Against the Anthropomorphites and St Athanasius’ Against the Gentiles to the Sayings of the Fathers, represented the experience of Adam both contextually and in various terms, such as image and likeness, vision, union and the breath of life, all converging toward the notion of the paradise narrative as signifying the experience of holiness in general. This contextual interpretation of Genesis, from the vantage point of holiness, reveals uncommon aspects of the traditional construal of Adam and likewise says something about the personal character of the interpreters.