Review on Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church, in Athenaeum 103.2 (2015). (original) (raw)
Orthodoxy and Hellenism in St. Gregory Palamas
I argue how Christianity baptized Hellenism in patristic theology. In doing so, theology transformed philosophical terms and concepts. Theology cannot do away with philosophy but must and does move beyond philosophy to enter the mystery or to be initiated into the mystery (mystagogia). I demonstrate the above points by citing St. Gregory Palamas, Maximus, and Dionysius the Areopagite.
In Masden and Ashley (eds), 'Landscapes and Artefacts: Essays in Honour of Andrew Rogerson. 'North and South Elmham in Norfolk and Suffolk respectively. Both churches of circa 1100 on episcopal manors - diocese of East Anglia
Criminal Churchmen in the Age of Edward III: The Case of Bishop Thomas de Lisle.John Aberth
Speculum, 1998
Basilides und seine Schule. Eine Studie zur Theologie-und Kirchengeschichte des zweiten Jahrhunderts. By Winrich A. Lo$ hr. (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, .) Pp. xj. Tu $ bingen : J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), . DM . ; This careful and scholarly work on Basilides, his son Isidore and his immediate circle, is Lo$ hr's Bonn Habilitation, following hard on the heels of Markschies's massive work on the-even fewer-fragments of Valentinus, and suggesting a similar need to distinguish between the man and the sect of the heresiologists, Irenaeus, Clement and Hippolytus. Even more than in the case of Valentinus the accounts of all three widely diverge, but Lo$ hr follows the scholarly consensus in accepting only Clement's fragments (as well as those of Origen and the Acta Archelai) as authentic ; the other sources, he argues, are only of value to the degree to which they can be reconciled with them. And he rightly insists on first identifying and discounting the bias at work in all the heresiologists (not sufficiently recognised in Clement's case). Thus after a chapter of testimonia (selected reports on external aspects of the life and work of the Basilidians), in the second chapter, the heart of the work, Lo$ hr presents a text, German translation and detailed commentary on the fragments in Clement (in their order in the Stromateis), Origen and the Acta Archelai. This is followed by a chapter analysing the reports in Irenaeus and Hippolytus in the light of the results of chapter ii, which concludes that, although perhaps dependent on sources emanating from Basilidian groups, these two reports cannot supply authentic information about Basilides himself. In a concluding brief chapter Lo$ hr sketches a profile of Basilides and his immediate circle in which he and his son emerge as teachers and pastoral theologians, the first to combine an eclectic use of Greek philosophy with a concern with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, focusing on ethical issues and theodicy rather than on cosmology, Christology and soteriology. Basilides's kinship with the Platonic tradition in particular is emphasised, including cautious support for the claim that Basilides taught a doctrine of transmigration of souls. His importance as a forerunner of the later great theologians of the Alexandrian school, Clement and Origen, is stressed : Clement had to consider the Basilidian interpretation in treating all his major themes in the Stromateis, and he often ends up in tacit agreement. Although the influence of Basilides and his school perhaps spread little farther than Egypt, it remains a vital element of second-century Christian theology. However, whether Basilides is still to be regarded as a Gnostic is a moot point, left open by Lo$ hr, although he does tentatively suggest how followers might have developed more dualistic, mythological versions of Basilides's ideas. This last point is perhaps a weakness of the book : can we entirely discount the information in Irenaeus and Hippolytus ? And can Clement's silence on key issues like Christology not conceal the possibility that Basilides did present a more mythological scheme, if on Platonic lines, to explain how this world came to be ? On the other hand this is a long overdue and invaluable contribution offering firm stepping stones in what was previously a quicksand. U E A H. B. L Les Romains chreT tiens face aZ l'histoire de Rome. Histoire, christianisme et romaniteT s en Occident dans l'AntiquiteT tardive (IIIe-Ve sieZ cles). By Herve! Inglebert. (Collection des E; tudes Augustiniennes. Se! rie Antiquite! , .) Pp. . Paris : Institut d'E; tudes Augustiniennes, . ; It has been said that when French historians write on a massive scale they surpass those of any other nation. This assertion-clearly a debateable one-may seem to students of early church history to be supported by the writings of Paul Monceaux, H.-I. Marrou and Pierre Courcelle. Herve! Inglebert stands in this great tradition. His study is marked by vast erudition and covers a very wide field of enquiry into factors which ultimately determined the intellectual history of the western Middle Ages. His conclusion : ' Depuis l'Antiquite! tardive, l'histoire est, pour les Occidentaux, ce qui re! ve ' le la volonte! de Dieu ou le destin des hommes ' (p. ), is not likely to be disputed. Inglebert's book demands a review article, if it is to be analysed adequately. Here, a brief exposition must suffice. The triumph of Christianity in the fourth century through the conversion of Constantine caused Christians to consider their past in the light of their present fortunes and resulted in the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, which offered a history of Christianity related to secular history, and his Ecclesiastical history, which sacralised the Roman empire under the rule of a Christian emperor, God's vicegerent upon earth for the defence of Christianity (p. ). Eusebius made the Roman empire an instrument of divine providence and saw the Christian emperor as a Messianic figure, the consummation of history (pp. -). The empire represented the final stage of human history, coinciding with the Church under Constantine. Eusebius was hostile to any form of millenarianism and saw the empire as lasting to the end of the world (pp. -). As an educated Greek Christian he had no interest in the history of the city of Rome, as opposed to the Roman empire. It was Augustus, in whose reign Christ was born, and his successors, not his predecessors, who concerned Eusebius. The influence of Eusebius, whose Chronicle was translated, with additions, by Jerome, and whose Ecclesiastical history was translated and continued by Rufinus of Aquileia, was immense, in the west no less than in the east. In the west, however, another factor supervened : an interest in the history of Rome, inspired in the s by the attempted revival of paganism and pagan culture by Julian and expressed largely by epitomes by abbreviators like Florus, Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and the Historia augusta, which expressed a view of Roman history which was overwhelmingly urban and senatorial, and praised the virtues and piety of the ancient Romans, as opposed to the Greek Christian interest, which was concerned with the peace and order brought about by the Roman empire, as contrasted with the imperialism and exactions of the Republic (pp. -). There was, however, a third attitude, which Inglebert calls the Latin (p. ), which saw the achievement of Rome in the extension of Roman citizenship to the Italian peninsula and thence to the Mediterranean world, which could be accompanied by a denunciation of unjust wars of domination, like the third Punic war, the sack of Corinth and the taking of Numantia. The urban and senatorial and the Latin views of early Roman history profoundly affected those Latin theologians who were not persuaded by the Eusebian view of the identification of the Roman empire and the Christian Church. They could use the pagan historians of Rome both against the pagans as evidence of pagan depravity, and as a rebuke to their fellow Christians who fell below the moral level of the ages which lacked the illumination of Christianity. This was the technique of Augustine, to whom Inglebert devotes a very long section (pp. -), as the outstanding representative of the anti-Eusebian reaction in the west. The De civitate Dei begins as an apologetic work against paganism but develops into a philosophy of history in which worldly success and failure provide no indication of the moral state of a society or its worth in the eyes of God. As Inglebert trenchantly puts it : ' In three days in a century of eusebianism collapsed ' (p. ). Yet the Eusebian outlook was a long time dying. Orosius, a disciple of Augustine, wrote his Histories under its influence and book of the De civitate Dei seems to be directed against his views (pp. -). What finally destroyed it in the west was the establishment of Arian Germanic kingdoms and the end of the imperial line in , which left the theology of Augustine with only one rival, in what Inglebert calls ' the heritage of Damasus ' (p. ). Under Pope Damasus, a view had developed among the Roman clergy, reflected in the Calendar of-' un bon te! moin du milieu aristocratique de Rome au milieu du e sie ' cle ' (p. )-in which belief in the dual foundation of the Roman Church by Peter and Paul had been replaced by the notion that St Peter was not only the founder, but also the first bishop of Rome. The implications of this change were reflected in the letters and sermons of Pope Leo the Great (pp. -) and in the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine (pp. -). The more spiritual theology of Augustine, which Inglebert calls ' l'hapax augustinien … une position latine sous l'empire chre! tien ' (p. ), which drew upon the pessimism of Sallust and the republicanism of Cicero, was too subtle for ordinary medieval theology, which preferred a political Augustinianism which completely misunderstood Augustine's theology. The last Roman thinker to be studied by Inglebert is Sidonius Apollinaris, a traditionalist Roman senator in a society from which the Roman empire had passed away. For him, Rome had ceased to be either a religious reality, pagan or Christian, even though he was a Catholic bishop in an Arian kingdom, or a political entity. Rather, it was a cultural heritage, which had to be preserved and passed on to future generations (p. ). It was the Petrine tradition of Damasus, Innocent and Leo the Great which was destined, according to circumstances, to complete or to oppose the Eusebian notion of the Roman empire which, however unreal in the actual historical circumstances, continued to haunt men's minds in the Middle Ages. Herve! Inglebert...
2022
This volume tries to illuminate various aspects of philosophical theology dealt with by different Jewish and early Christian authors and texts, rooted in and influenced by the Hellenistic religious, cultural, and philosophical context, and it also features studies focused on literary and cultural traditions of Hellenized Judaism and its reception. It intends not only to better understand Christianity, but also to better comprehend Hellenism and its consequences.