Early Christianity

Oi Christianoi - Sezione antica, n. 26 ----- Su Ipazia di Alessandria e su Sinesio di Cirene molti hanno già scritto: Ipazia, una nota antica scienziata e filosofia, Sinesio, un nobile, suo allievo e poi vescovo cristiano; Ipazia, da alcuni presa in considerazione unicamente come vessillo del femminismo, Sinesio, spesso trascurato a fronte di più famosi Padri della Chiesa. La peculiarità del libro, che è frutto di un accurato studio critico delle relative fonti primarie e secondarie, consiste nel tipo di approccio: le due figure e le loro opere sono esaminate sullo sfondo dei differenti ambiti culturali in cui si sono sviluppate le vicende della loro vita, pur nella contemporaneità: la differenza di ambiti culturali consente di evidenziare di questa donna e di questo uomo non solo la validità del loro lungo rapporto amicale, testimoniate da alcune lettere di Sinesio a noi pervenute, ma anche l'alto valore interculturale di tale rapporto.

The mystery of union beyond distinction is a key of the eucharistic doctrine for Cyril of Alexandria who compares it to the intra-trinitarian union and the union of Christ with his flesh. These three unions do not imply confusion nor division, but a communication of properties, thought according to different manners : substantial union for Trinity, appropriation in the case of Christ, physical participation in the eucharist. The latter permits to transform corporeality (a principle of separation between men) into a means of supreme union. It implies a double participation to God - spiritual and corporeal-, two elements we find in sacramental practices : central position of the Holy Spirit, whose presence is required to receive communion (thus the relationship between baptism and eucharist) ; realistic conversion of bread and wine, importance of the body. Facing the dilemma raised by Nestorius - does the christian eat the body or the divinity ?-, Cyril states that the flesh must belong to the Word as his own in order to preserve the power of the eucharist. 

Le mystère de l'union par delà la distinction est une des clés de la doctrine eucharistique pour Cyrille d'Alexandrie qui la compare avec l'union intra-trinitaire et celle du Christ à sa chair. Ces trois unions n'impliquent ni confusion ni division, mais une communication des propriétés, selon des modes différents cependant : union substantielle pour la Trinité, appropriation dans le cas du Christ, participation physique dans l'eucharistie. Cette dernière permet de transformer la corporéité, facteur de séparation entre les hommes, en moyen d'union suprême. Elle suppose une double participation à Dieu, spirituelle et corporelle, deux aspects qui se retrouvent dans la pratique sacramentelle : place centrale de l'Esprit Saint dont la présence est prérequise pour communier (d'où les relations entre baptême et eucharistie) ; réalisme de la transformation du pain et du vin, importance du corps. Face au dilemme posé par Nestorius - le chrétien mange-t-il le corps ou la divinité ?-, Cyrille affirme que seule l'appartenance en "propre" de la chair au Verbe préserve la puissance de l'eucharistie.

Over the past fifty years, archaeological excavations in Israel have unearthed about half a dozen ancient synagogues that were in use at different points in time between the first century BCE through the outbreak of the Bar-Kochba rebellion early in the second century of the Common Era.  In close proximity to each of these synagogues, a mikveh (ritual bath) has been discovered.  In contrast, no mikvaot have been discovered adjacent to any of the dozens of later synagogues that have been excavated and studied, with only one or two possible exceptions. 
At this point it is impossible to determine exactly when mikvaot ceased to be built in connection with synagogues, as the archaeological record reports very little about synagogues of the late second - early third century CE.  From an archaeological perspective, it is clear that at least from the second half of the third century, synagogues began to be built without regard for proximity to mikvaot.
Talmudic sources make no mention of a requirement to build mikvaot adjacent to synagogues. To date, no satisfactory explanation has been given for the evident connection between the synagogue and the mikveh in the early period, and the disappearance of such a connection in later periods of synagogue history. The objective of this paper is to present and explore a possible interpretation of this puzzling phenomenon.
  During the Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, a rabbinical enactment was in effect requiring mikveh ablutions prior to engagement in Torah study and prayer for individuals who had experienced seminal emission. Careful study of the Talmudic sources reveals that this enactment was nullified early in the Amoraic Period, sometime during the second quarter of the third century CE.
It would appear that the mikvaot built adjacent to the earlier synagogues were intended for this precise function, serving visitors to the synagogue who required ritual ablutions prior to Torah study and prayer.  Once the rabbinical enactment regarding these ablutions was nullified, there was no longer need for such mikvaot, and hence the absence of mikvaot in proximity to the later synagogues.

Obwohl die Vorstellung von einem irdischen Heiligen Land in den neutestamentlichen Schriften nicht belegt ist, wurde sie in der Geschichte des Christentums sehr wirkmächtig. Katharina Heyden zeigt in dieser Studie, dass nicht die explizite Rede von der terra sancta, sondern die Orientierung an Palästina in unterschiedlichen Bereichen – Eschatologie, Kirchenpolitik, Hagiographie und Ikonographie – zur Sakralisierung der südlichen Levante und deren Rezeption durch westliche Christen führte. Als Bedingung der Möglichkeit einer christlichen Rede vom Heiligen Land wird das „synoptische Vermögen“ identifiziert, das sich in den Diskursen der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte entwickelt hat.

© 2016 Claude Pavur: prefatory note, and the bilingual presentation of this selection of texts from the traditional Vulgate of Saint Jerome (c.400) and the revised Douay-Rheims translation (Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1899). Number of total passages cited: over 530. Word count: Over 30,000 words.

Origen’s exegesis of the Song of Songs, despite the praise it generally raised both in antiquity and in modern times, still awaits for deeper investigation as far as the literary project of the Alexandrian and its output are concerned. In this respect, it is difficult not only to exactly define the mutual relations between the Commentary and the Homilies on the Song of Songs, apart from the evident similarity of their themes, but more specifically to catch the particular nature of Origen’s interpretation at the first level of the biblical text against his well-known allegorism. Viewing the «littera» or «historia» of the Song as a theatrical piece, as especially shown in the Commentary, Origen delivers a dramatical interpretation which by its careful description of the successive scenes develops into a proper script for the stage. Though this explanation is meant to guide the reader to a further level of interpretation, the ‘letter’ cannot here be appreciated simply as the provisional step leading to the ‘spirit’, i.e. the spiritual intelligence of the Song which is in principle the only one permitted for Origen in this biblical love poetry. Instead of that, through the discourse engaged by the dramatic interpretation, on the one hand, there is an overlapping of both the ‘historical’ and the ‘spiritual’ explanation and, on the other hand, the dramatic exegesis also delivers a surplus of sense which is not totally subsumed in the spiritual interpretation. At moments the Song as ‘play’ seems therefore to gain in Origen’s perceptive reading a life of its own.

The essay concentrates on the Martyrdom of Polycarp, a script largely believed to contain the earliest extant occurrences of a Christian technical martyrdom vocabulary. On the one hand, we will lay bare the distinctively urban character of this death performance by showing how and to what extent all the components of the martyrdom apparatus relate to the city as socio-spatial condition of production and consumption, textualisation and memorialisation of an ‘urban religious event’. On the other, we will look at how the text manages to turn a Roman death spectacle into a Christian propaganda event by hijacking practices and re-routing sequences of a public urban show. For both purposes, the critical conceptual toolkit will be provided by the most quintessentially urban among the 20th-century artistic-cum-political avant-gardes: the Situationists.

Abstract
Ephrem the Syrian was well known as a teacher and hymnist of the fourth century Syriac-speaking church.  He produced hymns and commentaries on the Bible and numerous other topics, many of which have survived and demonstrate exegetical acquaintance with Jewish traditions. For example, throughout his commentaries he uses qal vehomer (a fortiori) arguments, his treatment of Genesis appeals to Jewish traditions about Paradise, and he identifies Sarah with Iscah, her name in the Midrash: Sifre to Numbers.  Aggadic traditions from the Targumim and Midrashim also abound in Ephrem’s Commentary of Exodus, which he calls a tûrgāmâ, an “explanation.”  Motifs developed in the Mekilta and Sifre to Numbers (both redacted 250-300 C.E.) and in the Targumim appear in Ephrem’s interpretation of Exodus.
Although difficult to ascertain whether these are the result of encounters with Jewish teachers and/or Jewish texts, or if they emerged from comparable modes of interpretation between Jews and Christians of Syria, it is clear that Ephrem deliberately adopted Jewish traditions that were useful to his agendas. Ephrem also innovates, presenting exegetical elements in his Commentary on Exodus not represented in Jewish Midrashim or Targumim. For example, when “Sephora” circumcised her son, she claimed that the commandment of circumcision should be sufficient reason for Moses’ release. An appeal to the power of the commandment of circumcision is similar to the emphasis of the Mekilta and Palestinian Targumim. When Ephrem’s Moses could speak, he defended his practice of sexual continence to Zipporah—he must “sanctify” himself for God who is visible to him all the time. Finding Moses’ sexual renunciation in Exod 4.24-6 and basing it on the visibility of God is Ephrem’s innovation. 
Furthermore, a study of Ephrem on this passage and the parallels with Jewish texts shows that Judaism included ascetic elements, some of which were explicitly based on the passages in the Jewish Scriptures that imply that sex and manifestations of God are incompatible (Exod 19.15 and 1 Sam 21.4). These Jewish texts and the cultures they represent may help explain the Syrian equation of sexual continence with purity, preparation, and consecration, i.e., holiness. Certain Qumran texts,  the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Philo, rabbinic Midrashim, and  writings of eastern Christians further demonstrate that early Christian celibacy was grounded in Jewish traditions.  The Neo-Platonic dualism that became popular among western Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries cannot be considered the source for influencing later Christianity with the celibate ideal.

The Confrontation between Christians and Platonists in the II-III centuries. This article analyses the objections against Christianity made by Platonists of the II and III centuries and the way Christian intellectuals replied to these objections and used Platonic thought in the construction of their theology. Platonists considered Chri-stianity a non-philosophical choice of life because of its irrationality. On their side, Christians defended the rationality of their faith and its superiority over Plato's philosophy , which they considered to be rooted in Biblical revelation. The faith on which the adherence to Christianity is based is sometimes presented as a basic level of knowledge that everybody can attain and at others as a kind of knowledge superior to philosophy , though not in disaccord with it. Consequently, doctrines that are typical of the Platonic tradition are integrated into Christian theology and at the same time their meaning is radically changed. A partire dall'antitesi tra logos e pistis, mi propongo in queste pagine di presentare sia alcune obiezioni avanzate da filosofi platonici contro la predica-zione dei cristiani, sia l'atteggiamento degli intellettuali cristiani nei confronti della tradizione platonica, considerata il vertice e la sintesi della sapienza elle-nica. Si vedrà come gli uni e gli altri, con toni e accentuazioni diversi, mettano a tema la discontinuità tra sapienza greca e rivelazione cristiana. L'arco crono-logico preso in esame è quello dei secoli II e III, il periodo decisivo per il co-stituirsi della fisionomia istituzionale e dottrinale delle chiese cristiane.

In the book we argue that 2 Cor 10, although presenting strong characteristics of polemical discourse, actually sets in motion a self-praise speech with a pedagogical, not defensive purpose. The chapter in question serves as a programmatic introduction to the Pauline boasting developed in chapters 11–13. Applying rhetorical analysis, we show that 2 Cor 10 contains an exordium (10,1-6) and a propositio for the entire speech (10,7-8); we further identify by this analysis the criteria crucial for legitimate apostolic boasting (10,12-18). The main problem of 2 Cor 10–13 expressed in the propositio (10,7-8) regards Paul’s claim to be a true servant of Christ and to have the right to boast about it. This problem is strictly connected with the accusations of the opponents which point at his weakness and ineffectiveness in dealing with the community’s problems.

Thus, 2 Cor 10 sets the stage for all of 2 Cor 10–13. This chapter is the key to a proper understanding of the rhetorical stasis of the entire speech elucidated from the Pauline inventio and dispositio. Paul’s use of the periautologia, metaphor, and irony reveals the strong position of the Apostle in Corinth but also points out the fatal infatuation the Corinthians have with newcomers. The causa of Paul ultimately revolves around the status qualitatis: he proves he is strong enough to be the leader in Corinth and paradoxically demonstrates that weakness should belong to the identity of apostle.  Such a reading of the rhetorical stasis introduces two problematic issues begun in 2 Cor 10 and continued in Cor 11–13: the relationship between power and weakness and the legitimacy of Pauline boasting. Paul’s approach to weakness in 2 Cor 10–13 challenges the standards on which the evaluation of true apostleship is made. Contemporaneously, he also recognizes infirmity as an integral part of his apostolic identity. Christ himself is the only model that enables Paul to subvert worldly standards of judgment and claim weakness as an integral part of his apostolic mission (13,3-4). Subsequently, 2 Cor 10 is crucial to understanding the legitimacy of Paul’s boast developed throughout all of 2 Cor 10 – 13. The thesis (10,7-8) and its argumentation (10,12-18) elaborate the exterior criteria of such boast including a divine call (status qualitatis) and apostolic praxis (performance), as well as the supreme rule saying that all credit for apostolic achievements should be given to the Lord (i.e. boasting en kyriô 10,17). Paul successfully responds to the first two imperatives of boasting. Problems, however, arise when he comes to the last criterion, namely, boasting in the Lord (en kyriô). The ego-centric boast based additionally on the comparison mentioned for the first time in 10,12 is the one that Paul fears and abhors and calls foolish, but he is forced, nevertheless, to undertake it for the sake of his spiritual children. The tool that ultimately enables him to transform self-aggrandizing speech into speech that is focused on Christ is his paradoxical boasting of weakness. It is being prepared in the pivotal section 11,30-33 (the entirety of 11,1-29 should be read as boasting of the apostolic achievements) and reaches its climax in 12,9-10. The careful crafting of the discourse based on Christological principles and meant for the edification of the community (10,8; 12,19; 13,10) ultimately speaks against qualifying it as a parody of the opponents’ boasting.

Preface; I. Introduction: I.1 Prelude "To Imitate the Bees"; I.2 Towards an Interpretation of Spolia: Delimitations and Methods; I.3 Reuse The Development of a New Architectural Practice; II. Translatio of Materials: II.1 Fragments and Fragmentation. The Disposition of Spolia in Church Buildings; II.2 Translations and Transferences: Christian Versions of Roman Architecture; II.3 The Aesthetics of Appropriation Eclecticism, Variety, and Antithetical Harmonies; III. Translatio of Meanings: III.1 Breaking Down the Past Rejections of Rationality; III.2 "Seeing the invisible" Towards a New Metaphorical Architecture; III.3 To "Strip Error Bare" The Rhetoric of Transformation; IV. Translatio of Time: IV.1 "Novelty in the Old and Age in the New". The Rhetoric of Renovation; IV.2 Recollecting the Past Spolia and Historical Consciousness; IV.3 Inventing the Past: Spolia and the Ideology of Classicism; Bibliography; List of Illustrations; Photo Credits; Index.

This book debunks the myth that the cross was never used as a visual symbol in pre-Constantinian Christianity, bringing together the relevant material evidence demonstrating Christian use of the cross prior to Constantine. The artifacts presented in this book interlock with literary witnesses from the same period to provide a consistent and robust portrait of the cross as a pre-Constantinian symbol of Christian devotion. The material record of the pre-Constantinian period illustrates that Constantine did not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before Constantine’s reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a dangerous world.

This paper will summarise the evidence for the development of ‘Christian’ burial places in Scotland from AD 400-1100. A body of radiocarbon dates now allows us to track developments in burial practice in unprecedented chronological detail. Scotland’s burial evidence comes mainly from field cemeteries not associated with churches, but these can now be compared with burials from recently-published excavations on early monastic sites. The material culture of death, burial and Christian worship were integrated and interacted with existing physical and mental landscapes. 'Christian' burial places did not begin as founder's graves or shrines over saint's tombs, and it is argued here that the familiar concept of a 'Christian cemetery' did not arrive fully formed with monasticism, but was formed by adapting existing burial rites to a new social setting. Only by tracing the processes of creating, maintaining and often forgetting burial places across the early medieval period can we shed new light on conversion and the eventual consolidation of Christendom in the post-Roman west.

Much scholarship has recently been done on the Satanology (Satan-concept) of New Testament books or writers. This study attends to the Satanology of early "non-canonical" Christian writings, which have been comparatively under-researched. The literature examined includes the so-called Apostolic Fathers and other texts that can be reliably dated to c. 100-150 C.E., namely Ascension of Isaiah, Apocalypse of Peter, Odes of Solomon, Gospel of Truth, Ptolemy's Letter to Flora and Justin Martyr's writings. Over 160 certain or probable references to Satan, under various designations, are identified. Analysis of this data set proceeds in two directions. The first looks at the concept's explanatory power: for what kinds of evil did Satanology help to account? The discussion traverses various loci of perceived satanic activity, from the human heart to community boundaries to earthly political authorities to a dualistic cosmos to the abstract realm of ideas. The second analytical section explores ways that Christian writers and communities incorporated Satanology into their religious life through liturgical forms, hermeneutics for reading the Jewish Scriptures, and theological debates about the nature of God and evil. Satanology is found to have been a pervasive and distinctive feature of Christianity in the early subapostolic period.

Inanna is typically the waning out of the feminine spirituality of Pre-Ice-Age Homo Sapiens to the masculine spirituality of Neolithic time. We are dealing with Sumerian mythology and it is the matrix of at least two Semitic religions, Judaism and Christianity.

Inanna is the last omnipotent goddess and she is becoming a triple goddess, the merging of three divine principles into one, which Greek mythology and other European mythologies will do whereas Christianity invest this ternary pattern directly in the trinity of the omnipotent and omniscient god.

That shift corresponds to the social development from the hunting and gathering ancient prehistoric society to the agricultural and pastoral society that completely changed the position of women.

This essay was published in The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, edited by Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, for the CUAP Studies in Early Christianity (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018); this is the uncorrected proofs. Exploring the humanity and divinity of Jesus, the Son's relation to the Father, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is one of five essays suggesting Johannine contributions to trinitarian discussions in the early church.

Current scholarly attitudes towards the historicity of Acts remain mixed, with extremist views expressed at both ends of the spectrum. However attitudes have generally become more positive since the publication of influential works by writers such as Hemer and Hengel, and historians of Rome have renewed their interest in the use of Acts as a valid source of information on the social, legal and political milieu of the empire in the first century. A number of objections to the historicity of specific events in Acts have now been dismissed conclusively, and a new consensus has emerged concerning the relationship  of the ‘we’ passages to the question of authorship.

In this volume, I tell the stories of the early Christians whom other Christians denied were Christian. the second century CE, many different Christian leaders and groups claimed to be the only or authentic version of Christianity. Over the course of twenty-six chapters, I relate what we can piece together of their histories, writings, and practices. Instead of allowing the enemies of these Christians to control the discourse, I follow a careful method in which primary sources are preferred to secondary (heresiographical) attacks. I show how countless discourses, ideas, and practices are continually recycled and adapted throughout time in the building of Christian identities. I also contextualize the histories of Christians within the larger Greco-Roman world and shows how they intersect with the traditional figures explored in church history. Furthermore, I question the notion of some Christian identities “surviving” or “perishing”, “winning” or “losing.”  By moving beyond notions of “gnostic”, “heretical” and “orthodox,” Litwa allows these “lost Christianities” to once again be found.

This paper addresses the iconographic origins of the Virgin Annunciate spinning in both text and visual culture during late antiquity.  Further, this paper promotes the original thesis that the earliest images of Mary were based on an idealized matron type as opposed to the inaccessible, semi-divine Theotokos, a title that became central to codified Orthodoxy by the fifth-century.

The following text is a response sent to an email dispatched to me by the Chairman of the exiled Oromo Parliamentarians who struggle for the Independence and Self-determination of the 5 millennia long Kushitic Ethiopian Nation of the Oromos.
The Hamitic - Kushitic Oromo Nation - due to criminal, inhuman and evil persecution conceived by the colonial powers (France, England and America) and executed by the colonially promoted barbaric and incestuous pseudo-Christian Abyssinians - lost their kingdoms and were engulfed within the Cemetery of Nations Fake Ethiopia, which consists in the world's most tyrannical realm and the location of the world's more abhorrent, more enduring, and more multifaceted genocides. There are more than 45 million Oromos in Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia) and Kenya today, despite the notorious and pathetic falsehood propagated by Wikipedia.
The present text enumerates all the major points of historical distortion and falsification carried out and diffused by the colonial academia, mass media, and diplomats, as well as by their local agents and criminal executioners, i.e. the barbaric, incestuous and Anti-Christian tribes of Amhara and Tigray (: the Abyssinians), who usurped the fair name of Ethiopia, which historically denotes the land of North Sudan and the Kushitic Nation that prospered there either in the Antiquity or in the Christian Era. Both, the Oromos and the Arabic-speaking (but not Arab) populations of Northern-Central Sudan are the descendants of Ancient Sudan's (i.e. Ancient Ethiopia's) Kushitic populations.
Representative photographic documentation was herewith added to the text in order to better illustrate the topic.

Refutation of historical forgeries propagated by European colonials and incestuous Abyssinians
First published here:
https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/kushitic-oromos-ancestry-in-ethiopia-ancient-sudan-semitic-amharas-tigrays-abyssinians-ancestry-in-yemen/