The Cross Before Constantine

The Cross Before Constantine PDF Author: Bruce W. Longenecker
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
ISBN: 1451490305
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Upending a longstanding consensus, Bruce W. Longenecker presents a wide variety of material artifacts to illustrate that Christians made use of the cross as a visual symbol of their faith long before Constantine appropriated it to consolidate his power in the fourth century. Constantine did not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before Constantines reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a dangerous world.

The Cross Before Constantine

The Cross Before Constantine PDF Author: Bruce W. Longenecker
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
ISBN: 1451490305
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Upending a longstanding consensus, Bruce W. Longenecker presents a wide variety of material artifacts to illustrate that Christians made use of the cross as a visual symbol of their faith long before Constantine appropriated it to consolidate his power in the fourth century. Constantine did not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before Constantines reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a dangerous world.

What Does the Bible Really Teach?.

What Does the Bible Really Teach?. PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Biblical theology and doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Constantine's Sword

Constantine's Sword PDF Author: James Carroll
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618219087
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 774

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Book Description
A rare book that combines searing passion with a subject that has affected all of our lives. "Chicago Tribune" Novelist, cultural critic, and former priest James Carroll marries history with memoir as he maps the two-thousand-year course of the Church s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has sparked in his own life. Fascinating, brave, and sometimes infuriating ("Time"), this dark history is more than a chronicle of religion. It is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture to create a deeply felt work ("San Francisco Chronicle") as Carroll wrangles with centuries of strife and tragedy to reach a courageous and affecting reckoning with difficult truths."

The Cross

The Cross PDF Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674088808
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The cross stirs intense feelings among Christians as well as non-Christians. Robin Jensen takes readers on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the two-thousand-year evolution of the cross as an idea and an artifact, illuminating the controversies—along with the forms of devotion—this central symbol of Christianity inspires. Jesus’s death on the cross posed a dilemma for Saint Paul and the early Church fathers. Crucifixion was a humiliating form of execution reserved for slaves and criminals. How could their messiah and savior have been subjected to such an ignominious death? Wrestling with this paradox, they reimagined the cross as a triumphant expression of Christ’s sacrificial love and miraculous resurrection. Over time, the symbol’s transformation raised myriad doctrinal questions, particularly about the crucifix—the cross with the figure of Christ—and whether it should emphasize Jesus’s suffering or his glorification. How should Jesus’s body be depicted: alive or dead, naked or dressed? Should it be shown at all? Jensen’s wide-ranging study focuses on the cross in painting and literature, the quest for the “true cross” in Jerusalem, and the symbol’s role in conflicts from the Crusades to wars of colonial conquest. The Cross also reveals how Jews and Muslims viewed the most sacred of all Christian emblems and explains its role in public life in the West today.

The Non-Christian Cross; An Enquiry Into The Origin And History Of The Symbol Eventually Adopted As That Of Our Religion

The Non-Christian Cross; An Enquiry Into The Origin And History Of The Symbol Eventually Adopted As That Of Our Religion PDF Author: John Denham Parsons
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3387323670
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

Paganism Surviving in Christianity

Paganism Surviving in Christianity PDF Author: Abram Herbert Lewis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christianity and other religions
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description


The Cross

The Cross PDF Author: George Willard Benson
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486440540
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Facts, legends, customs, and superstitions related to Christianity's most prominent symbol appear in this unique book. It begins centuries before the Christian era, when crosses were pagan emblems, and traces their association with notable events and people. In simple, direct language, the author describes the cross's many forms and uses. 27 black-and-white illustrations.

Defending Constantine

Defending Constantine PDF Author: Peter J. Leithart
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830827226
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Peter Leithart weighs what we've been taught about Constantine and claims that in focusing on these historical mirages we have failed to notice the true significance of Constantine and Rome baptized. He reveals how beneath the surface of this contested story there lies a deeper narrative--a tectonic shift in the political theology of an empire--with far-reaching implications.

Constantine Versus Christ

Constantine Versus Christ PDF Author: Alistair Kee
Publisher: Wipf and Stock
ISBN: 9781498295734
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The subject of this book is politics and religion, the relationship between Constantine and Christianity. Something happened in the reign of the Emperor Constantine that transformed both politics and religion in Europe, and anyone who seeks to understand modern Christianity must analyze this transformation and its consequences. The reign of Constantine is remembered as the victory of Christianity over the Roman Empire; the subtitle of the book indicates a more ominous assessment: ""the triumph of ideology."" Through a careful analysis of the sources, Dr. Kee argues that Constantine was not in fact a Christian and that the sign in which he conquered was not the cross of Christ but a political symbol of his own making. However, that is only the beginning of the story. For Constantine, religion was part of an imperial strategy, and the second part of this book shows just what that strategy was. Here is the development which marks a transition to a further stage, the way in which by using Christianity for his own ends, Constantine transformed it into something completely different. Constantine, Dr. Kee argues, along with his biographer and panegyrist Eusebius, succeeded in replacing the norms of Christ and the early church with the norms of imperial ideology. Why it has been previously thought that Constantine was a Christian is not because what he believed was Christian, but because what he believed came to be called Christian. And that represents ""the triumph of ideology."""

Constantine

Constantine PDF Author: Paul Stephenson
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468303007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
This “knowledgeable account” of the emperor who brought Christianity to Rome “provides valuable insight into Constantine’s era” (Kirkus Reviews). “By this sign conquer.” So began the reign of Constantine. In 312 A.D. a cross appeared in the sky above his army as he marched on Rome. In answer, Constantine bade his soldiers to inscribe the cross on their shield, and so fortified, they drove their rivals into the Tiber and claimed Rome for themselves. Constantine led Christianity and its adherents out of the shadow of persecution. He united the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire, raising a new city center in the east. When barbarian hordes consumed Rome itself, Constantinople remained as a beacon of Roman Christianity. Constantine is a fascinating survey of the life and enduring legacy of perhaps the greatest and most unjustly ignored of the Roman emperors—written by a richly gifted historian. Paul Stephenson offers a nuanced and deeply satisfying account of a man whose cultural and spiritual renewal of the Roman Empire gave birth to the idea of a unified Christian Europe underpinned by a commitment to religious tolerance. “Successfully combines historical documents, examples of Roman art, sculpture, and coinage with the lessons of geopolitics to produce a complex biography of the Emperor Constantine.” —Publishers Weekly