JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES最新文献

{"title":"The Shepherd of Hermas: A New Translation and Commentary by Michael J. Sviegel and Caroline P. Buie (review)","authors":"Chance E. Bonar","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936768","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Shepherd of Hermas: A New Translation and Commentary</em> by Michael J. Sviegel and Caroline P. Buie <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Chance E. Bonar </li> </ul> Michael J. Sviegel and Caroline P. Buie, translators<br/> <em>The Shepherd of Hermas: A New Translation and Commentary</em><br/> Foreword by Carolyn Osiek<br/> Apostolic Fathers Commentary Series<br/> Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2023<br/> Pp. xxxv + 423. $55.00. <p>Michael Sviegel and Caroline Buie’s translation and commentary of the <em>Shepherd of Hermas</em> dares to offer a deep dive into a text that scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity often briefly explore before turning their attention elsewhere—due to boredom or confusion, and other times due to a brief expedition in order to mine the text for details related to Christology, history of the canon, or Roman ecclesiastical history. In doing so, Sviegel and Buie offer a robust analysis of the <em>Shepherd</em> that will ideally assuage boredom with the 114-chapter text, clarify points of perplexity, and offer accessible sections of relevant comments for readers who are focusing their attention on particular passages or themes.</p> <p>Sviegel and Buie’s <em>Shepherd of Hermas</em> is divided into two main sections: a set of introductory articles (3–55), and an intertwined translation and commentary (61–370). Unlike other volumes in the Apostolic Fathers Commentary Series, they note that the <em>Shepherd</em> is too long to be broken effectively into a translation and subsequent commentary. Accordingly, Sviegel and Buie offer comments after each of the five <em>Visions</em>, ten <em>Mandates</em>, and twelve <em>Similitudes</em> that constitute the <em>Shepherd</em>.</p> <p>The introductory articles have three main foci: an introduction to the <em>Shepherd</em> itself, a discussion of how the <em>Shepherd</em> uses other Jewish and Christian writings, and the theology of the <em>Shepherd</em>. These subsections explore a range of typical topics asked about the <em>Shepherd</em>: its manuscript history, readership in antiquity, canonicity, date, authorship, genre, theology, Christology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. Sviegel and Buie provide a history of scholarship on each of these topics, as well as their own stances. For example, they suggest that the <em>Shepherd</em>’s composition was in response to first-century <small>c.e.</small> persecution in Rome (34), as well as follow through with the hypothesis that Hermas was Pope Pius I’s brother to date Hermas’s first visionary experiences to the 90s <small>c.e.</small> (21). The introduction’s strengths are, simultaneously, its potential weaknesses. It rehearses and answers traditional questions that plague <em>Shepherd</em> studies raised by theological and canonical concerns, but it does not explore with the ","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity by Jeremiah Coogan (review)","authors":"Carl Johan Berglund","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936766","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity</em> by Jeremiah Coogan <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Carl Johan Berglund </li> </ul> Jeremiah Coogan<br/> <em>Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity</em><br/> Cultures of Reading in the Ancient Mediterranean<br/> New York: Oxford University Press, 2022<br/> Pp. xvi + 234. $110.00. <p>Among early Gospel readers, a select few have had a disproportionate influence over how subsequent readers approached the stories of Jesus. Matthew’s rewriting of Mark became so dominant that it threatened to erase its predecessor from historical memory. Origen’s literary-critical interpretations of the Gospels provided the standard commentary pattern for many centuries. And Eusebius’s early fourth-century apparatus continues to impact how the fourfold Gospel is read.</p> <p>As Eusebius explains himself in his letter to Carpianus, he divided the Gospels into suitable sections and numbered them with black ink in the margins. To each section number he added a reference in red ink to one of ten tables, or “canons,” that gave the section numbers for any similar patterns in the other Gospels. A Matthean reader finding a red beta (Greek numeral 2) in the margin could conclude that this passage had parallels in Mark and Luke, but not in John, and consult the second canon to find which sections in those Gospels to look for. Eusebius’s system was an early example of organizing data in rows and columns, constitutes the first ever set of textual cross-references, and is included in most medieval manuscripts and modern editions of the Gospels. Scholars have often dismissed the Eusebian apparatus as primitive, inadequate, and generally inferior to a modern synopsis, but Jeremiah Coogan argues in his revised PhD dissertation (2020, University of Notre Dame) that it offers an innovative textual framework that established the fourfold Gospel as a unified conceptual space and found many uses through the centuries.</p> <p>To organize data in columns and rows may seem mundane today, but it was much rarer in Eusebius’s time. Possible precedents include Ptolemy’s regnal canon (a list of kings and their dates) and his more advanced <em>Handy Tables</em> (a set of interlocking tables to calculate the locations of heavenly bodies). Origen’s <em>Hexapla</em> is basically an enormous table with parallel texts in six columns, and Ammo-nius the Alexandrian had apparently tried to arrange the Gospels in a similar way: four parallel columns based on the order found in Matthew. But Eusebius found it unsatisfactory to break the sequence of three out of four Gospels. In his <strong>[End Page 467]</strong> <em>Chronological Tables</em>, he emulated Ptolemy’s regnal canon by organizing historical eras, events, and empires by time (horizontally)","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar by Jacob A. Lollar (review)","authors":"Eva María Rodrigo Gómez","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936765","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar</em> by Jacob A. Lollar <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Eva María Rodrigo Gómez </li> </ul> Jacob A. Lollar<br/> <em>The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar</em><br/> Westar Tool and Translations: Early Christian Apocrypha 10<br/> Eugene: Cascade Books, 2023<br/> Pp. xvi + 146. $23.00. <p>Jacob A. Lollar furnishes us with a handy English translation of the mythical (in more than one sense) <em>Doctrine of Addai</em> and the correspondence between Jesus and King Abgar. This book starts with a useful introduction, where Lollar presents the work, giving a summary; the main theories about the provenance, date, and authorship; a diagram with a proposal of the transmission of the Addai legend; the historical context in which it was written and transmitted; its use of scripture; a description of the manuscripts that preserve the text, together with other witnesses of this tradition; and finally mention of modern translations, <strong>[End Page 477]</strong> of which this would be the fifth one in English, the previous one published as recently as 2021 by J. E. Walters in his <em>Eastern Christianity: A Reader</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021).</p> <p>The introduction is well structured and gives a general view of the <em>status quaestionis</em>, which seems to need still further study to elucidate the state of the text at its different stages, from the early Syriac version, before Eusebius of Caesarea’s mention, to the final phase, probably around the time of Rabbula, bishop of Edessa between 411 and 435 <small>c.e.</small> Here Lollar addresses the key questions about origin, development, and religious controversies in which the text was created. He explains the different theories scholars have made over the years and offers his opinion, often with caution, as most of the time solid information is scarce, and the theories proposed are slightly hypothetical. Among them, the most intriguing may be the possible influence of Nisibean refugees, among whom Ephrem was present (as a consequence of Jovian ceding the city to Shapur II on 363 <small>c.e.</small>), who pass on the tradition of the divine protection of their city: Nisibis was besieged three times during Ephrem’s lifetime, always prevailing against its enemy’s hands. That would explain the presence of Jesus’s promise of protection to the city of Edessa, which does not appear in Eusebius, but does in Egeria (around twenty years after the arrival of the Nisibeans) and in the following tradition, becoming even a token to put on the walls of the cities or on amulets with apotropaic intention, as we see in Appendix A, 3, and 4.</p> <p>Because of this probable influence, “Edessa is presented as the true heir of Nisibis’s glorious Christian past” (11, a quote from Drijvers, “Syr","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire by Volker L. Menze (review)","authors":"Mark DelCogliano","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936771","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936771","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire</em> by Volker L. Menze <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Mark DelCogliano </li> </ul> Volker L. Menze<br/> <em>Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire</em> Oxford Early Christian Studies<br/> Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023<br/> Pp. 240. $90.00. <p>Dioscorus of Alexandria was the immediate successor of Cyril, a tough act to follow. He took center stage at the second Council of Ephesus in 449, the so-called <em>Latrocinium</em> (“Robber Synod”), but only two years later he was deposed and exiled at the Council of Chalcedon. While the miaphysite tradition has revered him as a saint from the immediate aftermath of the council to the present day, Chalcedonians have vilified him as a heretic (along with Eutyches), even though, as Menze points out repeatedly, Chalcedon did not condemn him as such. Menze’s book, the first English-language monograph on Dioscorus, attempts to reconstruct the historical Dioscorus and rescue him from caricatures on both sides. Why did Dioscorus fail so miserably when Cyril succeeded so spectacularly? Menze <strong>[End Page 479]</strong> holds that politics rather than theology is the key to understanding Dioscorus and his times. He does not see Chalcedon as inevitable because of some sort of unfinished christological business; rather, it was only made possible by the accession of Emperor Marcian, for whom reconciliation with Rome was a top priority. Menze argues that Dioscorus was not a savvy politician like Cyril and was sucked into the christological quarrels of his era reluctantly, more a pawn of Theodosius than an instigator. Dioscorus, furthermore, was no mere epigone of Cyril, but a prelate with his own concerns, an able administrator, and an ecclesiastical reformer: a Cyrillian theologically, but anti-Cyrillian politically. Menze also contends that there is no indication that Marcian ever wanted Dioscorus deposed; this is due solely to the bishop’s own political blunders.</p> <p>Menze begins with the Cyrillian legacy that Dioscorus inherited. He spends the bulk of the first chapter investigating the bribes that Cyril is known to have paid in Constantinople, arguing that these were paid in 432 (not earlier as is often held) because he remained theologically exposed by his Twelve Chapters. His goal was to get officials to cease making further demands on him and the Easterners regarding this issue. In this way, Cyril outmaneuvered John of Antioch and avoided retracting the Twelve Chapters. Menze calculated that the amount of gold Cyril paid would have exceeded the annual income of the Alexandrian church for several years, and so Cyril must have spent the accumulated savings of the church. In othe","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"180 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Christian Metaphysics of St. Maximus the Confessor: Creation, World-Order, and Redemption by Torstein Theodor Tollefsen (review)","authors":"Carl Vennerstrom","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936770","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Christian Metaphysics of St. Maximus the Confessor: Creation, World-Order, and Redemption</em> by Torstein Theodor Tollefsen <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Carl Vennerstrom </li> </ul> Torstein Theodor Tollefsen<br/> <em>The Christian Metaphysics of St. Maximus the Confessor: Creation, World-Order, and Redemption</em><br/> Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia: Research on the Inheritance of Early and Medieval Christianity 90, Subsidia Maximiana 2<br/> Turnhout: Brepols, 2023<br/> Pp. 260. €70.00. <p>“We may, however, speculate . . .” (234). This line from the final chapter of Torstein Theodor Tollefsen’s work on the metaphysics of Maximus the Confessor is in a way typical of the work as a whole. This is not to say that Tollefsen is blasé in his interpretation of Maximus. Quite the opposite; his speculations are hard-won and soundly based on a masterful command of the Maximian corpus and the wider field of ancient and late ancient philosophy. And indeed it is certainly to Tollefsen’s credit that he does speculate. He is not content with a mere reconstruction of Maximus’s metaphysics. Instead, he often gives his focus to what is unresolved in the texts before him and judiciously offers and argues for reasonable solutions.</p> <p>The impetus for this book, according to Tollefsen, is that while everyone writing on Maximus mentions and rehearses the metaphysical doctrines at the heart of Maximus’s system, that is, while “one uses and refers to metaphysical topics,” all the same, “they are seldom investigated as such” (20). It is this investigation that Tollefsen himself undertakes. But what are the “metaphysical topics” that he has in mind? In turn, Tollefsen addresses epistemology, knowledge of God, creation, the Logos and the <em>logoi</em>, <em>logoi</em> and activities, universals, and incarnation and deification. Throughout, he is keen to emphasize the indivisibility of these elements of Maximus’s thought, that these topics are not discrete building blocks fitted together. He puts it this way: “The elements are not simply brought together, they are <em>thought</em> together, thought together systematically into a unified structure” (19). Tollefsen makes good on this statement by incorporating all elements of Maximus’s thought, including his ascetic and mystagogical theories, into an ordered whole. This emphasis on the wholeness of Maximus’s thought receives special attention in Chapter Six, where Tollefsen unfolds what he calls the <em>holomerism</em> (whole-partism) of Maximus, with careful and detailed attention to Maximus’s adaption of Porphyrian logic.</p> <p>Perhaps the most interesting and contentious part of the book comes in Chapter Five on the <em>logoi</em> and the activities, where Tollefsen gives a rebuttal to the standard distinction between essence and energies as seen in John ","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation by Alex Fogleman (review)","authors":"Geoffrey Dunn","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936762","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936762","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation</em> by Alex Fogleman <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Geoffrey Dunn </li> </ul> Alex Fogleman<br/> <em>Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation</em><br/> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023<br/> Pp. xiv + 256. $110.00. <p>The catechumenate in early Christianity was the time a person who wished to become Christian spent in preparation, which consisted of catechesis and liturgical experiences. Fogleman’s volume seeks to explain the changing form of catechesis during those centuries by considering the writings of eleven key figures of the Latin West. This follows an introductory chapter on the educational landscape in antiquity. The aim is to understand the differing ways in which catechesis led to knowledge of God. The work offers an epistemological approach to catechesis, investigating the relationship between catechesis and pedagogy, thereby differentiating itself from liturgical, historical, or pastoral studies of the topic, such as the <strong>[End Page 475]</strong> late Bill Harmless’s <em>Augustine and the Catechumenate</em>. It asks how knowledge of God is described and taught. One should note, however, that a portion of each chapter is devoted to such liturgical and historical matters before attention is turned to the epistemological. Overall, I would say that to present the catechumenate solely in terms of knowledge of God, although important, is limiting in that a wider consideration of learning how to experience God is downplayed.</p> <p>Irenaeus is seen as offering an aesthetic way of knowing God in that the <em>regula fidei</em> offered an initiate a principle of unity to connect all scripture harmoniously together. Tertullian is regarded as highlighting the importance of ritual in its simplicity as shaping knowledge. The Hippolytan school stressed both the hiddenness and openness of knowledge of God through mystery language. Cyprian pointed to the fact that knowledge of God was inseparable from participation in the true church. Ambrose, the first of the post-Nicene fathers considered, wrote specifically catechumenal and mystagogical works that accentuate training the senses, particularly the visual, for a spiritual perception. The fact that Ambrose emphasized learning through liturgical experience for the newly initiated cannot be overlooked. The next chapter considers Zeno of Verona, Gaudentius of Brescia, Rufinus of Aquileia, and Peter Chrysologus, suggesting that the first two offered cosmological knowledge (true Christian knowledge of the world and time) to their catechumens, while the second two offered apophatic knowledge. Augustine of Hippo is understood in terms of how love leads to the knowledge of God through the illumination of the memory. Yet love is not merely to be understood intellectually but experienced.","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disfigurement and Deliverance: Eusebian Portrayals of Martyrdom and the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne","authors":"James M. Petitfils","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936758","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This study examines Eusebius’s physical portrayals of martyrs, situating them within his moral and rhetorical agenda in his <i>Ecclesiastical History</i>. To bring the contours of his discourse into greater relief, I first compare Eusebius’s martyr portrayals with those of the <i>Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne</i> (one of the longest ostensibly non-Eusebian martyr narratives in the <i>History</i>). After noting several minor differences between the descriptions in Eusebius’s martyr stories and those populating the <i>Letter</i>, I highlight one significant discursive disparity: namely, the physiognomic and sartorial details in the <i>Letter</i> tend to emphasize the martyrs’ divine physical restoration and glorification during their ordeals, while Eusebian martyr stories place greater emphasis on the martyrs’ gruesome disfigurement. Having made a case for the <i>Letter</i>’s distinct deployment of physical details—further suggesting its authorial independence from Eusebius—the remainder of the article focuses on one particular historiographic and pedagogical aim to which Eusebius deploys these grisly martyrological images: amplifying the irrationality and cruelty of persecuting imperial leaders. From the early books of the <i>History</i>, Eusebius frequently catalogues imperial leaders as either pious respecters of the Christians, in step with traditional Roman <i>mores</i>, or impious persecutors, exemplifying their irrationality and lack of imperial virtue. The mangled bodies of the martyrs adorn Eusebius’s <i>History</i>, I argue, at least in part as gruesome monuments to immoral, barbaric leaders. These evil <i>exempla</i>, in turn, provide both an effective foil for the virtuous leadership of Christian-favoring leaders and a stern moral warning for future leaders. At various points in this article, I also bring Eusebius’s earlier narrative, <i>Martyrs of Palestine</i>, into the conversation to demonstrate further the relative stability of Eusebius’s physiognomic portrayals of martyrs. </p></p>","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Text to Relics: The Emergence of the Scribe-Martyr in Late Antique Christianity (Fourth Century–Seventh Century)","authors":"Sabrina Inowlocki","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936760","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936760","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This paper delves into the conflation of two prominent figures of authority in the early Christian world: the scribe-scholar and the martyr. While previous scholarship has largely examined these figures separately, this study focuses on their association and argues that they were meaningfully combined to establish a new form of textual authority. The motif of the scribe-martyr is explored in a series of Christian texts, from Pseudo-Pionius to John Moschus and late ancient hagiographic texts, tracing its origins to the fourth century. This development emerged from the growing association between the authority of written texts as physical objects and the rise of the cult of saints and their relics. In parallel with Foucault’s concept of the author-function, a distinct Christian “scribe-function” emerged within this context, i.e., discourses of authority, fictitious or historical, involving the individuals who reproduced or corrected texts. The paper posits that the motif of the scribe-martyr was then strategically employed in legal, scholarly, and institutional contexts to express faithfulness, resistance, authorization, and legitimation. As a result, this conflation contributed significantly to the attribution of holiness and authority to texts, sacred places, and religious institutions. Thus, the scribe-martyr, connected to the revered relic-texts, assumed a particularly potent role as a figure of theological authority within late ancient Christianity. </p></p>","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reconfigured Relations: A New Perspective on the Relationship between Ambrose's De sacramentis and the Roman Canon Missae","authors":"Matthew S. C. Olver","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936761","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>The earliest certain witness to an anaphora that bears many obvious similarities to the Roman Canon Missae is found in Book 4 of Ambrose’s <i>De Sacramentis</i>. Scholars have characterized the relationship between the two texts, however, in remarkably contradictory ways. In this article, I demonstrate that Ambrose and the Roman Canon contain both earlier and later versions of a shared, core text. Through a careful examination of these two texts, I demonstrate that in each section of the respective anaphoral texts, distinct developments are clearly evident. This can be seen most clearly in the institution narrative, where there is a move to make the bread and cup narratives more symmetrical, but in ways that show both continuity and discontinuity to each other. We can no longer simply treat the text provided by Ambrose in <i>De sacramentis</i> as the earlier version of what became the Roman Canon. Instead, it is evidence of what was likely a wider phenomenon: the parallel development of Latin anaphoral texts that are based on both Greek Alexandrian sources and different biblical manuscripts. The evolution and redaction of the individual sections of each anaphora underwent independent redactions.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Library of Paradise: A History of Contemplative Reading in the Monasteries of the Church of the East by David A. Michelson (review)","authors":"Jacob A. Lollar","doi":"10.1353/earl.2024.a936764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2024.a936764","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Library of Paradise: A History of Contemplative Reading in the Monasteries of the Church of the East&lt;/em&gt; by David A. Michelson &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Jacob A. Lollar &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; David A. Michelson&lt;br/&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Library of Paradise: A History of Contemplative Reading in the Monasteries of the Church of the East&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022&lt;br/&gt; Pp. xxviii + 329. $105.00. &lt;p&gt;As the landscapes of the history of Christianity continue to expand with increasing attention devoted to non-western literatures and cultures, more unexplored pastures appear. David Michelson’s book serves as a kind of land bridge between well-wandered country to one that remains foreign and untrodden to a west-centered field of scholarship. Monasticism, reading, and contemplation in Christian traditions have been studied by scholars for generations, but their manifestations in traditions of the near and far east have been comparatively neglected. Michelson’s book is one step in the direction of rectifying that situation.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This study focuses on “contemplative ascetic reading” practices in the Church of the East (4). Michelson wishes “to reconstruct the origins of contemplative reading as a monastic discipline in the Church of the East” between the fourth and seventh centuries (13). The book is divided into two parts (Chapters One to Three; Chapters Four to Six). Chapter One addresses methods, beginning with the work of Robert Darnton regarding studying reading practices, including identifying ideals and assumptions; assessing how reading was learned and taught; information about teachers; reader-response criticism and reception history; and attention to the physical objects. These approaches break down into the “why, how, who, when, and what” of reading practices. Michelson broadly defines reading as an “encounter with a text” and seeks to develop throughout the book a definition of “Syriac contemplative ascetic reading” (7).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Chapter Two addresses the neglect of Syriac ascetic reading. Michelson turns to manuscript catalogues and argues that views of Syriac book culture in general (and of Syriac ascetic reading in particular) were conditioned by the catalogues by William Wright and William Cureton, whose work provided the foundation of Syriac studies. Michelson analyzes their descriptions of books and book culture and argues that their devaluing of Syriac literature was due to perceived “relevance to British and European readers” (31). This is evident from their disregard for Syriac service books in their surveys. We thus cannot begin with the perspectives &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 469]&lt;/strong&gt; of people like Wright and Cureton but should go directly to the sources to get beyond such prejudices.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;To his credit, Michelson acknowledges that they were products of their time and social loc","PeriodicalId":44662,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}