J. den Boeft – författare

During the past forty years J.C.M. van Winden OFM, Emeritus Professor of Early Christian Literature at Leiden University and editor of Vigiliae Christianae, has built up an impressive body of published research on early Christian thought and related areas of Greek and Jewish philosophy.In this volume in honour of his 75th birthday his more important contributions, originally published in a wide range of journals and other publications, have been collected together. These are grouped together in five categories: The archè in early christian thought, Essays on the Church Fathers, Philonica, Plotiniana, Essays on the relation between Greek and Patristic Thought.The volume includes a hitherto unpublished survey article on early Christian exegesis of 'the beginning' in Gen. 1:1 (in German), English translations of five contributions originally published in Dutch, and a complete bibliography of Pater van Winden's scholarly work.

One of the most conspicuous innovations of early Christianity within Greco-Roman culture is its reliance upon a collection of authoritative texts. The ultimate author of Scripture was thought to be God Himself, whose will could and should be sought and found in these holy writings. For this reason it is not surprising that very soon these texts not only became the object of careful attention and scholarly study, but also put their stamp on the various forms and manifestations of early Christian life, such as martyrdom, asceticism, liturgy, art, and literature. This multifarious influence of Scripture is the subject of The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity. It contains fourteen contributions, predominantly in English, by Belgian and Dutch scholars which have been gathered in a thematically ordered collection.

During the past forty years J.C.M. van Winden OFM, Emeritus Professor of Early Christian Literature at Leiden University and editor of Vigiliae Christianae, has built up an impressive body of published research on early Christian thought and related areas of Greek and Jewish philosophy.In this volume in honour of his 75th birthday his more important contributions, originally published in a wide range of journals and other publications, have been collected together. These are grouped together in five categories: The arche in early christian thought, Essays on the Church Fathers, Philonica, Plotiniana, Essays on the relation between Greek and Patristic Thought.The volume includes a hitherto unpublished survey article on early Christian exegesis of 'the beginning' in Gen. 1:1 (in German), English translations of five contributions originally published in Dutch, and a complete bibliography of Pater van Winden's scholarly work.