Repentance in Late Antiquity

Repentance in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Alexis Torrance
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199665362
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This study provides a fresh perspective on the concept of repentance in early Christianity. Alexis Torrance focuses on writings by several ascetic theologians of the fifth to seventh centuries, and also examines texts from Scripture, early Christian treatises and homilies, apocalyptic material, and canonical literature.

Repentance in Late Antiquity

Repentance in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Alexis Torrance
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199665362
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study provides a fresh perspective on the concept of repentance in early Christianity. Alexis Torrance focuses on writings by several ascetic theologians of the fifth to seventh centuries, and also examines texts from Scripture, early Christian treatises and homilies, apocalyptic material, and canonical literature.

Individuality in Late Antiquity

Individuality in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Alexis Torrance
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317117093
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars documents and analyses this development. Authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human individuality.

Liturgy and the Emotions in Byzantium

Liturgy and the Emotions in Byzantium PDF Author: Andrew Mellas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Emotions in Byzantium came to life through hymnody, which invited the faithful to step into a liturgical world of compunction.

Thriving in the Face of Mortality

Thriving in the Face of Mortality PDF Author: Daniel B. Hinshaw
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666744824
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Kenosis, a Greek word meaning “depletion” or “emptying” and a concept borrowed from Christian theology, has deeply profound implications for understanding and ordering life in a world marked by suffering and death. Whereas the divine kenosis was voluntary, human beings experience an involuntary kenosis which is characterized by the inevitable losses experienced during the lives of mortal creatures. How one chooses voluntarily to respond to this involuntary kenosis, regardless of faith commitments, in effect defines us, both in our relationships with other suffering creatures and with the entire cosmos. This book offers a unique perspective on how the losses of involuntary kenosis choreograph the suffering which is such a defining aspect of the lives of persons, communities, and the environment in which they live, and how the kenotic process, rather than being a source of despair, can be a source of hope presenting opportunities for extraordinary personal growth.

She Who Loved Much

She Who Loved Much PDF Author: Kevin James Kalish
Publisher: Holy Trinity Publications
ISBN: 1942699484
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This sharply honed and well-constructed work brings to the fore and explores the New Testament story regarding the woman who entered a house where Jesus was dining and anointed him with precious oil shortly before His Passion and Crucifixion. The author unveils the intricate nature of the tradition of the Church that gives the woman a voice and elucidates her backstory through its liturgical poetry, oratory, and other writings. Scholarly consideration is given to all these sources in addressing questions such as: Who was this woman? Where did she come from? How did she acquire the precious oil? How did she enter into the house of Simon uninvited? How did she perceive her own bold actions? The reader will learn that in the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church, as found in the hymnology of Holy Week, this sinful woman is shown to be an example of repentance and unconstrained love. The intricate nature of the hymns and homilies of the Orthodox Church give greater scope and application to the biblical record primarily in Greek and Syriac manuscripts, with particular attention given to the former texts, too often overshadowed by the latter. The author shares previously inaccessible texts of late antiquity such as homilies by Amphilochius of Iconium and Ephrem Graecus found here in English for the first time. This in-depth and readable study will engage those who encounter the story of the sinful woman in the living tradition of worship within the Orthodox Church, together with those who have encountered this story in Scripture, or in the course of their academic studies.

Cultures of Compunction in the Medieval World

Cultures of Compunction in the Medieval World PDF Author:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350150398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Compunction was one of the most important emotions for medieval Christianity; in fact, through its confessional function, compunction became the primary means for an affective sinner to gain redemption. Cultures of Compunction in the Medieval World explores how such emotion could be expressed, experienced and performed in medieval European society. Using a range of disciplinary approaches – including history, philosophy, art history, literary studies, performance studies and linguistics – this book examines how and why emotions which now form the bedrock of modern western culture were idealized in the Middle Ages. By bringing together expertise across disciplines and medieval languages, this important book demonstrates the ubiquity and impact of compunction for medieval life and makes wider connections between devotional, secular and quotidian areas of experience.

Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch

Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch PDF Author: Lucy Parker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192688790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch: From Hagiography to History is a study of the authority of the holy man and its limits in times of crisis. Lucy Parker investigates the tensions that emerged when increasingly ambitious claims about the powers of holy men came into conflict with undeniable evidence of their failures, and explores how holy men and their supporters responded to this. The work takes as its central figure Symeon Stylites the Younger (c.521-592), who, from his vantage point on a column on a mountain close to Antioch, witnessed a period of exceptional turbulence in the local area, which, in the sixth century, experienced plague, earthquakes, and Persian invasion. Through an examination of Symeon's own writings, as well as his hagiographic biography, it reveals that the stylite was a divisive figure who played upon social tensions and upon culturally sensitive areas such as paganism to carve out a role for himself as prophet and spiritual authority in the face of considerable opposition. It sets Symeon's life and cult in the context of Antioch and eastern Roman society, offering a new perspective on the state of the empire in the period before the rise of Islam. It argues that hagiography is an exceptionally rich source for the historian, offering insights into debates and tensions which reached to the heart of Christianity.

Metanoia

Metanoia PDF Author: Adam Ellwanger
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271086807
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Western culture is in a moment when wholly new kinds of personal transformations are possible, but authentic transformation requires both personal testimony and public recognition. In this book, Adam Ellwanger takes a distinctly rhetorical approach to analyzing how the personal and the public relate to an individual’s transformation and develops a new vocabulary that enables a critical assessment of the concept of authenticity. The concept of metanoia is central to this project. Charting the history of metanoia from its original use in the classical tradition to its adoption by early Christians as a term for religious conversion, Ellwanger shows that metanoia involves a change within a person that results in a truer version of him- or herself—a change in character or ethos. He then applies this theory to our contemporary moment, finding that metanoia provides unique insight into modern forms of self-transformation. Drawing on ancient and medieval sources, including Thucydides, Plato, Paul the Apostle, and Augustine, as well as contemporary discourses of self-transformation, such as the public testimonies of Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal, Ellwanger elucidates the role of language in signifying and authenticating identity. Timely and original, Ellwanger’s study formulates a transhistorical theory of personal transformation that will be of interest to scholars working in social theory, philosophy, rhetoric, and the history of Christianity.

Christian Inversion of Jewish Nationalist Monotheism, and its Modern Romantic-Narcissist Betrayal

Christian Inversion of Jewish Nationalist Monotheism, and its Modern Romantic-Narcissist Betrayal PDF Author: Patrick Madigan
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527552659
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
This is a history of Western culture, divided into two parts. The first concerns the aggressive championing of monotheism by Jewish people as their distinctive national culture (although they only fell into or embraced it late in their development). Jesus offended by proposing an inversion of the divine protocols and an agenda more in harmony with international political realities: the one God proposed to use the Jews to reach (and transform) the entire human race, which was the actual object of His redemptive and creative energies. With the Renaissance widening opportunities for study, travel, learning and discovery, authorities had greater difficulty justifying limitations on individuals’ freedom of expression of heterodox artistic, political, philosophical or religious positions. This book explores the difficult modern psychological adjustment of dealing with a world with diminishing centers of authority – where it often seems as if no one is in charge – while also doing justice to one’s feelings of frustration and lack of fulfillment without becoming a radical narcissist.

Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas

Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas PDF Author: Angela Kim Harkins
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110780747
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the oldest and most well-attested Christian works. Its popularity arguably exceeded that of the canonical Gospels. Many early Christian thinkers regarded the Shepherd as authoritative and cited it in their own writings, even though its status as Scripture was controversial. The far-reaching influence of the Shepherd during the first few centuries is attested in part by the many languages in which it was copied: Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Middle Persian, and Georgian. The early dating and wide dissemination of the Shepherd of Hermas offers us access to a period when canonical boundaries were elastic. This volume treats religious experience in the Shepherd, a topic that has received little scholarly attention. It complements a growing body of literature that explores the text from social-historical perspectives. Leading scholars approach it from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including critical literary theory, anthropology, cognitive science, affect theory, gender studies, intersectionality, and text reception. In doing so, they pose fresh questions to one of the most widely read texts in the early church, offering new insights to scholars and students alike.