Anders-Christian Jacobsen – författare

This book contains the contributions to a workshop on apologetics in early Christianity which took place at the Fifteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford in the summer of 2007. The workshop was arranged by scholars from Germany, Finland and Denmark who had for some time worked together in a project on early Christian apologetics. The aim of the workshop was thus to present and discuss some of the results and still unsolved problems which arose from this project. The book presents the contributions to the workshop. Hereby the editors hope to reach a larger audience and thus to be able to further the discussion of the topic of early Christian apologetics.

In Defence of Christianity examines the early Christian apologists in their context in thirteen articles divided in four parts. Part I provides an introduction to apology and apologetics in antiquity, an overview of the early Christian apologists, and an outline of their argumentation. The nine articles of Part II each cover one of the early apologists: Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, the author of the Letter to Diognetus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Minucius Felix. Part III contextualises the apologists by providing an English translation of contemporary pagan criticism of Christianity and by discussing this critique. Part IV consists of a single article discussing how Eusebius depicted and used the apologists in his Ecclesiastical History.

This volume assembles written versions of lectures presented and discussed at the conference «Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation – Discursive Fights Over Religious Traditions In Antiquity» held at Aarhus and Ebeltoft in Denmark in the spring of 2010. Most of the religious texts studied in the contributions were drawn from Early Judaism and Early Christianity. The interest in these was on the one hand elucidating different aspects of the role they played in the formation and transformation of the religions, and on the other hand investigating the role these same texts played in cooperation and conflict between these two religions. The topics of the essays focus on four particular themes, namely Reuse, Rewriting and Usurpation of Biblical and Classical Texts, Invention and Maintenance of Religious Traditions, Orthodoxy and Heresy, and Formation of the Biblical Canon.

This book analyses early Christian texts on prayer. These texts provide a rich perspective on the formation of Christian identity in the early church. The primary sources investigated are the four earliest known treatises on prayer in Christian history, written by Clement, Origen, Tertullian and Cyprian in the beginning of the third century. Prayer and identity have both individual and collective expressions, and theological treatises reveal an interplay between these phenomena. The book examines the relational character of Christian prayer: how prayer establishes a relationship between the individual and God; how other social relations are reinforced by prayer in direct and indirect ways; and how individual Christians are connected to their own self in prayer.

What is a human being according to Augustine of Hippo? This question has occupied a group of researchers from Brazil and Europe and has been explored at two workshops during which the contributors to this volume have discussed anthropological themes in Augustine’s vast corpus. In this volume, the reader will find articles on a wide spectrum of Augustine’s anthropological ideas. Some contributions focus on specific texts, while others focus on specific theological or philosophical aspects of Augustine’s anthropology. The authors of the articles in this volume are convinced that Augustine’s anthropology is of major importance for how human beings have been understood in Western civilization for better or for worse. The topic is therefore highly relevant to present times in which humanity is under pressure from various sides.

Progress is a structural and systematic concept in the thought of Origen of Alexandria, which represents one of the most advanced syntheses of the Christian reading of the Old and the New Testaments’ legacy and the classical paideia, as well as a rational critique towards every kind of static objectification of the religious. Origen’s legacy was capable of radiating its influence through Western theology and philosophy, thus shaping its idea of theological, moral, intellectual, social and political progress. The volume follows the intellectual dynamism generated by the reception of Origen’s thought through seventeen articles, which span through the centuries, from the analysis of Origen’s thought to its reception history in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern Age, up until the 20th century.

As indicated by the title, this volume focuses on an area of conflict that became decisive for the development of Christianity, i.e. which group of texts should be regarded as normative for the preaching of the Christian faith, and how these texts should be interpreted. Several centuries were to pass however before there was consensus in the Church on this matter. There were no foregone conclusions and a great number of disputes arose. The most viable opinions therefore are reflected in the texts that, together, form the New Testament canon. Through many, years Christians as a religious and social group established their own identity, giving preferential treatment to a certain collection of texts which became normative for the lives and world-view of the believers. Frictions can arise however, even in a religious community that agrees on the delimitation of the texts that form the basis of their faith. These frictions were expressed in interpretations of the canonical texts. The aim of this volume is to elucidate the processes in the history of early Christianity that became important for the formation and interpretation of the New Testament canon. The first part of the book deals with theoretical questions, while the second part provides examples of concrete discussions about the formation and interpretation of the normative biblical canon. The last chap-ter in addition presents a process parallel to the formation of the biblical canon, namely the formation of the Mandaean corpus of normative texts.