Oxford Early Christian Texts – serie

This book presents the first modern critical edition of the work of Gregory of Nyssa, On the Human Image of God (formerly known as On the Making of Man, De hominis opificio) and the first English translation since the nineteenth century. This treatise is one of the most important of Gregory's texts. Paralleling the structure of Plato's Timaeus, Gregory's work begins by offering two analyses of the human being. The first presents the human being as the culmination of the ascent made by nature through the various levels of life, and as made, body and soul, in the image of God. The second considers why this is not immediately apparent, the need for time to be able to grow, individually and collectively, to this status, as the body of Christ, the image of God, and the role of sexuality within this growth. The third part of the work brings both analyses together, to see the same movement in the life-span of each person. The extensive introduction provided in this volume examines the philosophical and theological background of Gregory's text, beginning with Anaxagoras, Plato (the Timaeus), Philo, and Origen, and also compares aspects of Gregory's work with that of Irenaeus of Lyons and Maximos the Confessor.

Leontius Of Byzantium (485-543) was a Byzantine monk and theologian who provided a breakthrough of terminology in the 6th-century Christological controversy over the mode of union of Christ's human nature with his divinity. He did so through his introduction of Aristotelian logical categories and Neoplatonic psychology into Christian speculative theology. His work initiated the later intellectual development of Christian theology throughout medieval culture. Brian E. Daley provides translation and commentary on the six theological works associated with the name of Leontius of Byzantium. The critical text and facing-page translation help make these works more accessible than ever before and provide a reliable textual apparatus for furture scholarship of this key writing.

This volume is the first book-length study on Prudentius' Hymn to Romanus in English, and the first full-scale commentary. Prudentius' text, written at the end of the fourth/beginning of the fifth century AD, is an inventive verse rendering of the martyrdom of St Romanus of Antioch (d. 303). Basing his verse on prose narratives regarding this saint, Prudentius transforms his source material, producing a poem that integrates Classical and Christian elements. Although printed in modern editions as part of the Peristephanon fourteen-poem collection, it differs significantly from the other poems in aspects of form and content. What is more, by creating the impression that Romanus' martyrdom takes place in Rome, Prudentius presents the martyr, whose name also means 'Roman', as a model for the ideal Roman Christian. The volume offers a detailed introduction, discussing the writer's life and works, information surrounding the manuscript tradition, the linguistic texture, the sources for Romanus, and the intertextual and generic links with both the Christian (Scriptures, biblical exegesis, martyrological literature, Christian apologetics, contemporary Christian literature) and Classical literary tradition (epic, tragedy, rhetoric, satire). The text printed in this volume improves in various ways on that in the most recent editions, and the English translation, which is faithful to the original text, will make the poem more accessible to students and scholars alike. Combined with line-by-line and often word-by-word commentary, this volume aspires to elucidate the originality of Prudentius' endeavour, and the place that this complex poem deserves in literary, intellectual, and social history.

The Life of Mashtots' is mostly praise for the inventor of the Armenian alphabet--the only inventor of an ancient alphabet known by name--and progenitor of Armenian literacy that began with the translation of the Bible. Written three years after his death, by an early disciple named Koriwn, it narrates the master's endeavors in search for letters, the establishment of schools, and the ensuing literary activity that yielded countless translations of religious texts known in the Early Church of the East. As an encomium from Late Antiquity, The Life of Mashtots' exhibits all the literary features of the genre to which it belongs, delineated through rhetorical analysis by Abraham Terian, who comments on the entire document almost phrase by phrase. Translated from the latest Armenian edition of the text (2003), this edition of The Life of Mashtots' includes a facing English translation and commentary. The extraordinary narrative parades historical characters including the Patriarch of the Armenian Church, Catholicos Sahak (d. 439), the Arsacid King of Armenia, Vramshapuh (r. 401-417), and the Roman Emperor of the East, Theodosius II (r. 408-450). Koriwn is an eminently inspiring rhetorical writer and one of the first four authors known to write in the newly invented script. The marked influence of The Life of Mashtots' is discernible in subsequent Armenian writings of the fifth century, dubbed 'The Golden Era'.

This book presents the first modern critical edition of the work of Gregory of Nyssa, On the Human Image of God (formerly known as On the Making of Man, De hominis opificio) and the first English translation since the nineteenth century. This treatise is one of the most important of Gregory's texts. Paralleling the structure of Plato's Timaeus, Gregory's work begins by offering two analyses of the human being. The first presents the human being as the culmination of the ascent made by nature through the various levels of life, and as made, body and soul, in the image of God. The second considers why this is not immediately apparent, the need for time to be able to grow, individually and collectively, to this status, as the body of Christ, the image of God, and the role of sexuality within this growth. The third part of the work brings both analyses together, to see the same movement in the life-span of each person. The extensive introduction provided in this volume examines the philosophical and theological background of Gregory's text, beginning with Anaxagoras, Plato (the Timaeus), Philo, and Origen, and also compares aspects of Gregory's work with that of Irenaeus of Lyons and Maximos the Confessor.

The De Doctrina Christiana ("On Christian Teaching") is one of Augustine's most important works on the classical tradition. Undertaken at the same time as the Confessions, is sheds light on the development of Augustine's thought, especially in the areas of ethics, hermeneutics, and sign-theory. What is most interesting, however, is its careful attempt to indicate precisely what elements of a classical education are valuable for a Christian, and how the precepts of Ciceronian rhetoric may be used to communicate Christian truth.An up-to-date translation has long been necessary, for readers of Augustine and all who study the early church, or the classical tradition, or the history of literary criticism or Biblical interpretation. This completely new translation gives a close but stylish representation of Augustine's thought and expression. A succinct introduction and select bibliography embodies the results of recent work.

This book provides an edited text, introduction, and the first English translation of a central document in the history of religious coercion in late antiquity: Severus of Minorca's Letter on the Conversion of the Jews. The Letter describes the forced conversion of the Jews of Minorca to Christianity in AD 418, allegedly under the influence of St Stephen's relics. Although ostensibly a hagiographical work, the Letter is fundamentally an anti-Jewish document, and therein lies its interest for historians. It offers a fascinating perspective on Jewish-Christian relations in a Mediterranean town, and on the motives for religious intolerance in the unsettled ages of the Germanic invasions. In addition, its wealth of information about a diaspora Jewish community in the western empire makes it unique among the surviving sources.

Contra Gentes; De Incarnatione

Oratio ad Graecos and fragments

Selected Letters

On Pascha' and Fragments Reprinted with corrections and revisions, 2012.

Eunomius of Cyzicus is virtually the only Arian theologian of whose dogmatic works a significant portion has survived. This edition contains a critical text and translation of all the extant works, apart from the Apologia Apologiae, which is presented in the form of references and summaries.

De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate were written in the same year (AD 401). In them Augustine rebuffs the Manichees, who argued that marriage was evil, and the fellowers of Jovinian, who argued that the married state was as meritorious as that of virginity. The first work analyses why marriage is good, and the second why virginity is a higher good. Both are closely related to present-day controversies amongst theologians and social historians. These two treatises have been neglected until recently, but lately there has been an outpouring of books and articles on the role of women in the societies of Rome and early Christianity. Moreover, Augustine has received and is continuing to receive enhanced attention in the English-speaking world. No new edition of these works has been published since 1900, and there is no contemporary English translation in print. This new translation and edition of the text will be of value both to readers who wish to consult the original Latin, and to those interested in the social history of early Christianity, and in the intellectual development of Augustine in his early years as bishop of Hippo.

The seven documents in this book, which appear for the first time in an English translation from Greek and Latin, constitute a unique contemporary witness to the stalwart opposition of the monk Maximus the Confessor to seventh-century imperial edicts enforcing adherence to the doctrines of monoenergism and monothelitism (the doctrines that in Christ there are, respectively, only one energy and one will). The monastic resistance led by Maximus gained the support of Popes John IV, Theodore, and Martin I and found many other followers in the West, as can be judged by the convocation of 150 bishops at the Lateran Synod in Rome in 649 to condemn imperial religious policy. The documents, which have been translated from a recent critical edition, cover events from the time of Maximus' arrival in Constantinople for his first legal trial in 655; the futile attempts to persuade him to accept an imperial compromise; to his final trial in the capital in 662, and his death under appalling conditions in Lazica, on the coast of the Black Sea, in the same year. The contents of these documents provide a rare insight into the difficult period of transition from the decentralized provincial system of government that characterized late antiquity, to a more hierarchical structure centred on the power of the emperor in Constantinople. They also shed light on some lesser-known but significant participants in the monothelite controversy, several of whom followed their master into exile in Lazica; Maximus' two disciples Anastasius the monk and Anastasius the Apocrisiarius, their friends Theodore Spudaeus, Theodosius of Gangra, and the brothers Theodore and Euprepius. The religious controversies of both East and West appear in these documents against a backdrop of political turmoil, and Arab and Persian invasions. The documents will be important for those interested in early Byzantine studies, church history, historical theology, and hagiography.

Adrian likely flourished in the early fifth century. His sole-surviving work is the Introduction to the Divine Scriptures, a Greek treatise that today survives in two recensions. The central topic of the Introduction is the Septuagint's odd stylistic features. In the first section Adrian catalogs the anthropomorphic ways in which God is portrayed in Scripture (the Psalms in particular) and then explains how such expressions ought to be understood. The second section on diction identifies peculiar word usages, offers lexicographical analyses of semantically rich terms, and discusses a handful of tropes. The third section on word arrangement contains a short list of figures of speech. The treatise concludes with a series of appendices: a catalog of twenty-two tropes, defined and illustrated from Scripture, a two-fold classification of Scripture into prophetic and narratival literature, an extended excursus on how teachers should instruct beginners in scriptural interpretation, and, finally, another classification of Scripture into prose and poetry.The Introduction contains striking verbal and thematic affinities with the exegetical writings Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350-428). This treatise also occupies a unique place in Antiochene scholarship: it is the only surviving handbook on scriptural interpretation from the leading fourth and fifth century figures of this tradition and succinctly codifies many of its guiding principles for scriptural exegesis. This volume offers the first critical edition of the Introduction (its two surviving recensions and the fragments from the exegetical catenae); the first English translation of the treatise, which is also richly annotated with explanatory commentary; a substantial prefatory study that orients readers to Adrian and a number of the important features of his work.

This ground-breaking work is a critical edition of chapter XI (The Resurrection of Lazarus) of Nonnus of Panopolis' Paraphrasis of the Gospel of St John, written in the mid-fifth century in elegant hexameters. Made available for the first time in Anglophone literature, the volume consists of an introduction discussing cultural (theological and philosophical affiliations, dialogue with contemporary art), literary (character-sketching, narrative, interaction with the Dionysiaca), and technical (paraphrastic technique, transmission, metre) aspects and places the work in its immediate and broader context. The Introduction includes an edition of chapter XI from the so-called Athous paraphrase of Nonnus' Paraphrasis.An exhaustive line-by-line commentary covers a wide range of issues arising from Nonnus' spiritualizing rendition. Konstantinos Spanoudakis identifies literary models and intertextual links with earlier traditions: epic (mainly Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, Oppian), mystic (Orphic literature, Chaldean Oracles), and philosophical (Neoplatonists, Gnostics). Dr Spanoudakis illustrates Nonnus' interaction with early Christian poetry and literature, his debt to Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel of John, his familiarity with Syriac exegesis (John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia), and the homiletic and apocryphal tradition on Lazarus. The book features a short Appendix discussing a curse against the Jews embedded as an interpolated verse in ms V.

Thomas of Edessa flourished as a teacher at the School of Nisibis, an important Christian intellectual centre in sixth-century Persia. He accompanied the later patriarch Mar Aba on his travels around the Mediterranean and followed him to Nisibis. Thomas's only surviving writings are two lectures in Syriac ('Explanations') on the feasts of the Nativity and Epiphany. These discourses were later incorporated into a collection of Explanations of the Feasts covering the whole ecclesiastical year.This volume presents an edition of Thomas of Edessa's Syriac text of Nativity and Epiphany, accompanied by a facing-page English translation. These discourses, with the editors' introduction and notes, elucidate Thomas's place in the theological development of the Church of the East. He is the earliest author after Narsai to draw extensively upon the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, but earlier Syriac traditions are also reflected in his work, and his Christology is not yet the doctrine characteristic of Babai and later East Syriac authors.

Damasus of Rome makes available in English the epigraphic poetry of Damasus, bishop of Rome from 366 to 384. The translations are accompanied by the Latin text as well as by commentary on the literary, topographic, and archaeological features of Damasus' inscribed epigrams. Antonio Ferrua published the last critical edition of Damasus' poetry in 1942. Since Ferrua's ground-breaking edition, however, much has changed. Recent scholarship has challenged the Damasan authorship of several epigrams, other pieces have been reinstated as Damasan, and archaeology has added fragments that were not known in 1942. Moreover in recent years new ways of appreciating Late Latin poetry have revolutionized thinking about many poets contemporary with Damasus. Damasus of Rome, therefore, not only offers new translations but updates the corpus and criticism of Damasus' poetry.A full introduction situates Damasus in his times by considering his troubled election and the issues that dominated Rome and his papacy. The introduction also sets the poems within the broader sweep of the history of epigraphic poetry at Rome and relates them both to the development of the Christian catacombs and to the emergence of the cults of the Roman saints. Modern scholarship readily acknowledges that the years of Damasus' episcopacy were pivotal ones in the transformation of Rome into a late antique Christian city. His poetry, much of it inscribed at the suburban tombs of the Roman saints and martyrs, played an incalculable but significant role in the redefinition of both Roman and Christian identity in this remarkable age. Damasus of Rome now makes that poetry more readily available to scholars and students alike.

Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs provides a collection, with facing-page translations, of Greek and Latin Christian martyr narratives dating from the first four centuries CE. While Herbert Musurillo's authoritative collection The Acts of the Martyrs (1972) aimed to gather the most 'authentic' and 'reliable' accounts of early Christian martyrdom, Éric Rebillard argues that modern scholarship instead calls for texts which attest to the contexts in which the memories of the martyrs were constructed. As such, this extensive volume provides a textual basis for the study of martyr narratives without making assumptions about their date of composition or their authenticity. It focuses on the ancient martyrs executed before 260, and examines which of their texts was known to Eusebius or to Augustine. Introductions describe the hagiographical dossier of each martyr with crucial information about the manuscript tradition of the different texts and provide a terminus ante quem for their composition based only on external evidence.

The Life of Saint Helia, a late ancient Latin hagiography of uncertain provenance, is a remarkable and virtually unknown text, of which a critical edition and English translation appear here for the first time, accompanied by an introduction and commentary. Written predominately in dialogue format, the Life records a lengthy and highly polemical debate between a young girl Helia and her mother regarding the relative merits of virginity and marriage, followed by a dialogue between Helia and a bishop and a debate between Helia and a judge. The arguments both for and against virginity are biblically based, and the text is notable for its citational density and exegetical creativity. The dramatic narrative that frames the dialogue appears to have been influenced by the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, while the speeches suggest familiarity with the virginity apologetics of Ambrose and Jerome; because the Life has is preserved in only two medieval manuscripts, both from northern Spain, a Priscillianist context of composition is possible. This lively work will be of great interest to students of hagiography, asceticism, women's history, and biblical exegesis.

The Letter and Prologue on Easter of Theophilus of Alexandria (385-412), the 95-year list of Paschal data compiled by Cyril (412-444), and the Prologue or Praefatio to that list written in Latin about 482 in the persona of Cyril are among the foundational documents for our knowledge of the Alexandrian Easter cycle. That cycle, through the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus, Bede, and others was the standard method for determining the date of Easter in the western churches until the end of the sixteenth century. There has been no modern critical edition of either Prologue since those of Bruno Krusch in 1880. This new edition of the texts is based on Alden A. Mosshammer's discovery or rediscovery of manuscript witnesses unknown to Krusch and overlooked by more recent scholars who have engaged these texts.The historical introduction summarizes current knowledge about the history of Easter calculations in early Christian communities, including a new hypothesis attributing the Alexandrian cycle in its final form to the mathematician and astronomer Theon of Alexandria working in the 370's. Although both texts have already been translated into English, Mosshammer's new translations are based on his new reconstruction of the texts. The commentaries address many issues currently under debate in historical scholarship, such as the origin of 21 March as the conventional date of the vernal equinox. The newly reconstructed text of the Prologue attributed to Cyril and Mosshammer's extensive commentary make that difficult text intelligible for the first time.

This is a landmark work, providing the first complete collection of the remaining excerpts from the writings of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia together with a ground-breaking study of the controversy regarding the person of Christ that raged from the fourth to the sixth century, and which still divides the Christian Church. Destroyed after their condemnation, all that remains of the dogmatic writings of Diodore and Theodore are the passages quoted by their supporters and opponents. John Behr brings together all these excerpts, from the time of Theodore's death until his condemnation at the Second Council of Constantinople (553)-- including newly-edited Syriac texts (from florilegium in Cod. Add. 12156, and the fragmentary remains of Theodore's On the Incarnation in Cod. Add. 14669) and many translated for the first time--and examines their interrelationship, to determine who was borrowing from whom, locating the source of the polemic with Cyril of Alexandria. On the basis of this textual work, Behr presents a historical and theological analysis that completely revises the picture of these 'Antiochenes' and the controversy regarding them. Twentieth-century scholarship often found these two 'Antiochenes' sympathetic characters for their aversion to allegory and their concern for the 'historical Jesus', and regarded their condemnation as an unfortunate incident motivated by desire for retaliation amidst 'Neo-Chalcedonian' advances in Christology. This study shows how, grounded in the ecclesial and theological strife that had already beset Antioch for over a century, Diodore and Theodore, in opposition to Julian the Apostate and Apollinarius, were led to separate the New Testament from the Old and 'the man' from the Word of God, resulting in a very limited understanding of Incarnation and circumscribing the importance of the Passion. The result is a comprehensive and cogent account of the controversy, both Christological and exegetical together, of the early fifth century, the way it stemmed from earlier tensions and continued through the Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople II.

This work is the most complete edition of the remains of the lost five-volume work, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, by Papias of Hierapolis, a second-century Christian commentator. In all, some ninety-eight separate mentions of Papias and his work are documented, from the second century to the age of printing in the fifteenth century, both in their original language and in English translation. This body of evidence is scattered over fourteen centuries across fifty-seven different authors writing in five different languages (Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian).This edition adopts the distinction between his fragments proper, for what we know of his work, and the testimonia, for what we know of his reception. In addition to these, Stephen C. Carlson provides a list of potential citations of Papias, potential uses of Papias, and fragments falsely attributed to Papias. The volume features an extensive introduction treating the most important instances of reception of Papias and his work.

Scholarship of the past forty years on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies has been suspicious of narratives that speak of a well-defined, monolithic, and unchanging theological parties, whether Arians or Nicenes. Against such a narrative, such scholarship has emphasized the development of multiple interrelated positions within theological alliances which exhibit significant diversity among themselves while at the same time being unified in certain fundamental tenets. Each of these traditions of Trinitarian theology emerged in different historical, theological, and polemical contexts in response to the wide variety of different impulses that shaped it. This is especially true for those theologians called "pro-Nicenes" in recent scholarship. This volume provides scholars and students with resources for studying variety among Nicene theologians in the second half of the fourth century. It presents dual-language editions of three lesser-known but seminal Nicene theological texts that are not currently available in English: Phoebadius of Agen's Against the Arians, Apollinarius of Laodicea's The Detailed Confession of the Faith, and Theodore of Mopsuestia's Debate with the Macedonians. Each text has an extensive introduction that situates the text historically and theologically. These three texts, which are different in genre, in language of original composition or preservation, and in theological focus, help us understand the complex diversity of Nicene theology in the fourth century in greater depth.

Volume II of Herbert Musurillo's critical editions, with translations and commentaries, of ancient martyr literature, surveys the development of the genre, discussing the political and historical background which produced it. These texts were written in the form of court records reporting the trials of Alexandrian heroes punished by the Roman authorities. Anti-Roman and often violently propagandist in tone, they reflect the political tensions experienced by the Greeks under German rule.

Volume I of Herbert Musurillo's critical editions, with translations and commentaries, of ancient martyr literature, surveys the development of the genre, discussing the political and historical background which produced it. These texts were written in the form of court records reporting the trials of Alexandrian heroes punished by the Roman authorities. Anti-Roman and often violently propagandist in tone, they reflect the political tensions experienced by the Greeks under German rule.

Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs provides a collection, with facing-page translations, of Greek and Latin Christian martyr narratives dating from the first four centuries CE. While Herbert Musurillo's authoritative collection The Acts of the Martyrs (1972) aimed to gather the most 'authentic' and 'reliable' accounts of early Christian martyrdom, Éric Rebillard argues that modern scholarship instead calls for texts which attest to the contexts in which the memories of the martyrs were constructed. As such, this extensive volume provides a textual basis for the study of martyr narratives without making assumptions about their date of composition or their authenticity. It focuses on the ancient martyrs executed before 260, and examines which of their texts was known to Eusebius or to Augustine. Introductions describe the hagiographical dossier of each martyr with crucial information about the manuscript tradition of the different texts and provide a terminus ante quem for their composition based only on external evidence.

Constantina, daughter of the fourth-century emperor Constantine who so famously converted to Christianity, deserves a place of her own in the history of Christianity. As both poet and church-builder, she was an early patron of the Roman cult of the virgin martyr Agnes and was buried ad sanctam in a sumptuously mosaicked mausoleum that still stands. What has been very nearly forgotten is that the twice-married Constantina also came to be viewed as a virgin saint in her own right, said to have been converted and healed of leprosy by Saint Agnes. This volume publishes for the first time critical editions and English translations of three Latin hagiographies dedicated to the empress, offering an introduction and commentaries to contextualize these virtually unknown works. The earliest and longest of them is the anonymous Life of Saint Constantina likely dating to the mid or late sixth century, reflecting a female monastic setting and featuring both a story of pope Silvester's instruction of Constantina and a striking dialogue between Constantina and twelve virgins who offer speeches in praise of virginity as the summum bonum. A second, slightly later work, On the Feast of Saint Constantia (the misnaming of the saint reflecting common confusion), is a more streamlined account apparently tailored for liturgical use in early seventh-century Rome; this text is reworked and expanded by the twelfth-century Roman scholar Nicolaus Maniacoria in his Life of the Blessed Constantia, including a question-and-answer dialogue between Constantina and her two virginal charges Attica and Artemia. These works will be of great interest to students of late ancient and medieval saints' cults, hagiography, monasticism, and women's history.

The Philocalia of Origen is a collection of texts excerpted from the third century church father Origen's numerous works. It was created sometime in the fourth century, perhaps by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus. It is of special interest to scholars of Origen because it contains several excerpts from works that are no longer extant, or from works that are no longer extant in the Greek language in which he wrote them but only in Latin translations done in the fourth century or later. The Philocalia should also be of interest to beginners in the study of Origen because it consists of rather short excerpts from a wide range of his writings-homilies, commentaries, a theological treatise, apologetics-- which cover some of the most important subjects he discussed. Many of the annotations in the work have been made especially for those unacquainted with Origen's writings.This Reader's Edition, based on the Greek text of J.A. Robinson, is the first new English translation of The Philocalia of Origen in a century.