Abstract Index

The first seven centuries of the Christian church served as innovative periods of theological definition and clarification. This paper will examine the development of Maximus the Confessor’s Christology as it relates to his application of perichoretic language to the natures of Christ. To understand Maximus’s unique contribution to the field of Christological doctrine this paper will make three distinct moves. First, I will attempt to give a brief history of how perichoreo, as a technical theological term, has been used prior to Maximus. Second, I will illustrate how Maximus applies the work of those theologians before him to the two natures of Christ. Finally, I will attempt to demonstrate how the perichoretic relationship of the two natures in Christ serves as a foundation for Maximus’s dyothelite Christology. By drawing on Maximus’s Ambigua to Thomas, Second Letter to Thomas, and Ambigua to John I hope to demonstrate the importance of perichoretic language in Maximus’s Christology and how he uniquely applies it to affirm the presence of two wills in Christ.

A return to the study of patristic texts has enriched theological inquiry over the past century. However, the body of literature that comes to us from the early Church tends to represent the experiences of well-educated men, while the writings of Christian women of this period are almost entirely absent. This is not because literate women did not exist in the early Christian context; rather, the lack of texts authored by women illustrates how they participated in the development of the Christian tradition while simultaneously being oppressed by it. This paper therefore seeks to explore the absence of women’s voices from early Christian literature and what this could indicate about the formation of the Christian tradition. Specifically, I examine the omission of female believers’ writings from the patristic corpus of the second through sixth centuries by paying attention both to texts written by Christian women as well as to the questions posed by their exclusion. I also briefly address patristic texts about women, since these demonstrate some prevailing early Church attitudes towards women. I approach this topic from a reconstructive feminist perspective and draw from the work of Elizabeth A. Clark, which brings together patristic scholarship and feminist theorizing.

Spices—pepper, cardamom, cinnamon—that established Kerala as a significant center in the ancient world, a narrative that elucidates the dual introduction of Christianity to India. Prior to the period of Jesus, Jews, Arabs, and other ancient maritime merchants established themselves in Kerala to purchase, trade, and store spices. Contemporary Syrian Christians of Kerala, the predominant Christian demographic in India, assert that the Apostle Thomas, renowned for his skepticism towards Jesus, arrived in A.D. 52 and baptized their ancestors. Historians speculate that the vibrant commerce hub of Kerala likely attracted this Palestinian Jew of the Roman Empire seeking to disseminate the Gospel. Thousands of churches today bear his name, their rituals and theology derived from Eastern Orthodox traditions in the liturgical language Syriac.  Due to the lack of documentary evidence, the origin of Christianity in India has been the subject of controversy among historians. Numerous scholars claim that Christianity was brought to the continent by merchants, other evangelists, or Jewish settlers. This paper seeks to identify the evidence behind these claims by comparing the existing primary source documents and observable historic trends.  This paper concludes that substantial evidence supports the claim that Thomas was the first to establish Christian communities on the continent in the first century CE with the purpose of evangelization.

The notion that Scripture begins with a divine covenant is an ancient idea, but one which only came to occupy a central place in theology in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Reinvigorated by twentieth-century developments in archeology and exegesis, the creation covenant idea has come to be the focus of significant debate among biblical scholars up to the present time. But while impressive work has been done with the limited exegetical data available, final decisions on the viability of a “creation covenant” ultimately rest upon hermeneutics. In this paper, I explore the limitations of exegesis and biblical theology as well as their relationship to systematics, in order to argue that such decisions have thus far been influenced by a preconceived notion of biblical covenants as arbitrary states of affairs. By contrast, I propose that Saint Irenaeus’s theological vision of the triune economy represents an alternative hermeneutic that yields a conception of covenant that is properly relational. By this approach, Irenaeus offers us a means of reimagining the covenants as a fundamental feature of the triune God’s mediation of redemptive history, thereby lending fresh theological support to the notion that creation is covenantal.

This paper examines how Irenaeus’s theology informed his view of human dignity and how it led him to care for abused women. For Irenaeus, both men and women were equally dignified by being created by God, were equally deceived and guilty, but also equally redeemed by Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection, and will equally participate in a perfect communion with God. This equality is clear in On the Apostolic Preaching (33) when Irenaeus tries to make evident women’s redemption through a New Eve theology. Therefore, this paper argues that contrary to what some scholars affirm, Irenaeus didn’t elaborate or use stories about abused women just to discredit the Gnostics. On the contrary, Adversus Haereses (1.13) provides a test case, which reveals that behind the polemics and argumentation against the Gnostics, there was a bishop who cared for women, especially for those inside the Church. For this reason, Irenaeus accused a particular branch of the Gnostics of spiritually and emotionally abusing women under the cult-like leadership of a certain Marcus. In other words, Irenaeus condemned them for those actions because of his high view of women and moral integrity.

Significant amounts of ink have been spilled on the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and its understanding of Paul’s historical thought. However, few have attempted to resource early Christian reception of Paul’s thought and connect it to the historical claims of the New Perspective. Two early Christian apologetic works, The Epistle to Diognetus and Dialogue with Trypho, have not yet been closely read with attention to Pauline reception and genre to inquire if there are significant points of similarity between them and the NPP understanding of Pauline justification. A series of consistent questions will be asked of the NPP – represented by N.T. Wright and James Dunn – and the two aforementioned apologetic works, in order to investigate their respective emphases and applications of justification. It will be shown that while there are significant points of similarity, especially regarding Paul’s “works of the law,” the absence of covenantal qualities in justification disqualifies Diognetus. However, Justin’s covenantal emphasis allows him to receive an NPP type of justification. Such a study is important to further the conversation between biblical studies and historical theology by engaging early reception of biblical authors.

The question of how it is that a person becomes a Christian was one of great importance for the church in the 4^th century. Much energy was expended on instruction for the new and prospective members of the church. An example that we have of such instruction is to be found in the Mystagogic Catecheses of the Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in the 4^th century. In his mystagogy, Cyril outlines the church’s understanding of how one is initiated into the church through the processes of baptism and confirmation. In outlining the mystery of what occurs in these two rites of the church, the key word that Cyril uses is anti-type. The anti-type is the symbol of the type, containing the reality without being the reality. According to Cyril’s sacramental theology, Baptism is the anti-type of the paschal story of Christ’s death and resurrection. The key motif in Cyril’s mystagogy on baptism is that of participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Cyril, participation takes place through the mediating role of the anti-type. A person becomes a Christian according to Cyril, when they participate in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ through the earthly anti-type of a heavenly reality present in the rites of Baptism and confirmation.

Two of the key themes in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch are his impending martyrdom and church unity. He relates the two by way of the eucharist, in which he sees the unity of the body of Christ. Ignatius hopes, by his martyrdom, to be united with Christ and become someone worthy of imitation. This paper begins by considering Ignatius’s high view of the eucharist: he sees it as effecting the communion of the saints, and he affirms the real presence of Christ in the elements. Moreover, Ignatius hopes to find unity with Christ in the arena and describes his death in eucharistic terms. In his death, Ignatius intends to imitate not only Jesus, but also Peter and Paul; he hopes to be found worthy of following in their footsteps. Finally, Ignatius expresses an intention to benefit other Christians by his example, even after his death. This paper concludes that Ignatius uses eucharistic language to cast his martyrdom as an example of sanctity and perfect unity with Christ.

In Against Heresies, Irenaeus wrote that those who reject God’s gift of life “prove ungrateful to their Maker” and thus “deprive themselves of continuing forever and ever” (II.34.3). Does that mean the unrepentant deprive themselves of eternal bliss in favor of eternal torment? Or might existence itself be a conditional – and therefore rejectable – gift from God? This paper will discuss Irenaeus’s understanding of the fate of the reprobate, which is best understood as conditional immortality (annihilationism). This is not based on a solitary passage. Irenaeus’s entire theology is consonant with this viewpoint. Life comes only by the Spirit. God gives temporal life so that humans have the free choice to obey or reject him. At death, that choice has been irrevocably made. And as God’s purpose is to raise humanity to partake in the divine nature, immortality only makes sense in the context of a relationship. For those who reject this gift and its giver, there remains no reason in their eternal existence. All that is left is resurrection to punishment. Once that punishment has been completed in the everlasting fire, the life of the person, body and soul, will no longer be maintained. The wicked will be no more.

In earlier modern scholarship, Cyril has earned a reputation as an astute defender of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. He had been recognized primarily as a polemical theologian. However, recently another facet of Cyril has been rediscovered. Robert Wilken, for instance, fills the lacuna of not taking Cyril seriously as a biblical exegete. Following this newer strand of research, I examine Cyril’s teaching of recapitulation in his Commentary on John. I survey how Irenaeus’s recapitulation is understood (Gustav Molwitz et al.) and then argue that there are five distinctive emphases in Cyril’s developed teaching of recapitulation: First, he formulates a twofold definition of recapitulation (Jo. 14:20). Second, Christ was recapitulating Israel in addition to all of humanity (Jo. 1:9-11). Third, recapitulation is accompanied by a sustained emphasis on the renewing work of the Spirit (Jo. 1:32-3, 7:39). Fourth, the second Adam is viewed as the heavenly Man, a notion about God’s descending presence that brings forth believers toward sanctification and heaven (Jo. 16:33, 17:20-1, 18:1-2). Fifth, the forensic dimension of the atonement is understood within recapitulation (Jo. 19:19). Finally, in conversation with dogmatics, I draw out the implication of recapitulation as an integrating idea under which other facets of the atonement are subsumed.

The genre and rhetorical structure of 1 Clement remains a subject of scholarly debate. The intent of the epistle emerges explicitly in chs. 39-45, revealing dissension over the elders (44:3-5; cf. 21:6) which threatens the concord of the “steadfast and ancient church of the Corinthians” (47:6). Clement writes for the body “to be at peace with its appointed elders” (54:2), and appeals to “love” as an essential means to this end (e.g. 49:1-5). This paper will explore the reception and utilization of 1 Corinthians in the supporting argumentation of 1 Clement 46:5-54:2. The intertextual dynamics therein will be analyzed to establish a taxonomy of similarities while also highlighting divergences in context and content from 1 Corinthians. Particular attention will be paid to the overarching appeal to “love,” which Clement cultivates and applies to a later generation of the Corinthian church. As the recipients are encouraged to “take up the epistle of Paul” (47:1), so this paper seeks to trace how Clement himself “took up” the epistle in order to inculcate his appeal to love.

The universal reality of evil balks at humanity’s best attempts to explain its origin. No solution is perfectly satisfactory, and those bold or brash enough to attempt an answer find themselves staring into suffering’s dark abyss with only the faint candles of reason, religion, and experience to illuminate their minds. These candles feebly cast their rays but are ultimately incapable of exposing what lies beyond their reach. Rather than directly attempting to discern evil’s origin by staring into its abyss, Irenaeus directs our gaze toward God and challenges us to reconsider evil as a necessary (though temporary) part of creaturely existence. Specifically, he argues that imperfection must exist in mankind since he is a created being. This imperfection, however, is not immutable; rather, God Himself has taken it upon Himself to perfect the imperfect through creaturely deification. This author suggests that Irenaeus’s view of a creaturely perfective process most adequately explains the reason for evil’s existence. This paper will explore, evaluate, and defend Irenaeus’s view, and then examine its limitations.

As early Christian tradition developed in the wake of Constantine’s conversion throughout the Roman empire, Christians wrestled with the idea of pilgrimage and how it fit into the developing tradition, or if it held a place in the tradition at all. Several patristic theologians wrote on this subject, expressing a diversity of opinion on the topic. Their writings offer primary source material which shows the complexity of Christian pilgrimage from the earliest days of the tradition. One particular point of debate was the place of pilgrimage in light of each theologian’s understanding of Jerusalem. Whether Jerusalem remained a holy site in light of Christ’s resurrection is central to both praise and criticism of pilgrimage among patristic theologians. Central figures who contributed directly to this discussion are Gregory of Nyssa and Jerome. While other patristic authors offer supporting analysis, Nyssa and Jerome offer the most explicit evaluations of pilgrimage and its connection to the holy land. A critical examination of the primary source material is necessary to construct a fuller picture of the complex legacy of pilgrimage and its relationship to Christianity’s developing understanding of its relationship to Judaism. Evaluation finds a direct link between the developing understanding of pilgrimage and the holy land in patristic thought. This conversation surrounding both topics ceases after the legalization of Christian and the rise of relics in devotional practice throughout the Christianized empire.

The widely disseminated second century work left few hearts untouched. Several church fathers engaged the text, and the character of Thecla. Some highly exonerated the female “apostle” for her virginity and piety, as Gregory of Nissa, while others, as Tertullian, condemned the work for its radical gender leadership values. Evidently, the work was influential and reflects, by means of a legend, a possible historical reality. This paper will assess APAT for its depiction of women’s role of proselytization to the Christian faith during the early Christian period. In order to accomplish this, the study will assess APAT’s insights, influence, and legacy concerning women’s evangelistic roles. The work will engage APAT’s historical, literary, as well as reception issues. The argument of this paper is that APAT, while not a historical text, nor a canonical work, functions as a socio/religious/theological window, suggesting that women in the early church played significant roles in influencing and proselytizing to faith.

Augustine famously objected to Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew Bible rather than the Septuagint. Augustine’s objection and supporting arguments are criticized in both ancient and modern scholarship, especially as he appears to contradict his own hermeneutic principles. Scriptural interpretation, Augustine argues, is aided by both a variety of translations and recourse to the original language—does this not describe Jerome’s work? Noticing this contradiction, modern scholars have criticized Augustine as sentimental, illogical, and inconsistent. This paper’s purpose is to build on the contributions of Edmond Gallager and others to show that Augustine’s understanding of the LXX in its relationship to the Hebrew Bible developed over time. Rather than defending Augustine, this paper’s intention is to understand how his mature thinking about the Septuagint fits with his hermeneutic, and argues that over time, his early contradiction is resolved. Focusing primarily on Augustine’s letters to Jerome, De Doctrina Christiana, and De Civitate Dei, I suggest that Augustine incorporated his evolving understanding of the LXX into his hermeneutical principles, particularly, his distinction between signs and things, his comfort with diversity in divine speech, and his reliance on apostolic authority.

This paper aims to answer the question “How ought we to think and pray in times of crisis according to Evagrius?” in his Greek Ascetic Corpus. The Greek Ascetic Corpus of Evagrius includes various works such as Monastic Foundations, Exhortations, Chapters on Prayer, Chapters on Thoughts, and Eulogios. This paper passes through three stages. First, I define what Evagrius considers crises and how this applies to contemporary contexts. Second, I define what Evagrius means when he discusses the Nous and pure prayer. I define how  pure prayer is psychologically purifying during times of crises, offering various conclusions which include but are not limited to tears of compunction, contemplative prayer, and impassibility. For Evagrius, these latter two states are only achieved by the entire purification of the soul from its passions and the same of the mind from its images. In conclusion, Evagrius proposes that we ought to aim at and achieve an imageless, formless, rational, contemplative, and angelic state of prayer amidst times of crises. I will offer a defense of Evagrius’ proposal for contemplative prayer in times of crises rather than action and reaction in an attempt to fix any particular crisis.

The Peri Pascha (PP) attributed to Melito of Sardis remains one of our most unique and enigmatic extant early Christian texts. This paper argues that Melito’s exegetical and homiletical method—for the two must be understood as one—is rooted in his interpretation and use of inspired images. Peri Pascha represents a form of figural exegesis and figural homiletics, in which images are employed as expansive metaphors not as a means to a theological or ideological end, but as a creative representation of that end—that is, Christ, the reality (ἀλήθεια) and true image. Melito presents the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ as the image which fulfills all other images and in whom all other images coalesce. Throughout the Peri Pascha the scriptural images are presented to Melito’s hearers not as something to learn about, or even to look upon, but as overlapping scenes in which the parishioners themselves become participants. By way of conclusion, I draw upon Austin Farrer’s doctrine of inspired images and urge a renewal of Melito’s figural methodology at the most basic level—reading the Bible.

This paper explores the practice of Pilgrimage as it develops through the early Church and experiences recorded by the early Christian Fathers and Mothers. From their writings the theology of place and what is considered sacred is realized through the consideration of holy cities, shrines, people, and memory. Each of these are an integral part of the understanding and theological implications of the practice of pilgrimage and seeking sacred encounter. This practice as illustrated in the early church draws one deeper into bigger questions of holiness, seeking to experience the mystery of God, and provides an effective paradigm of spiritual formation on the eschatological journey home.

When Augustine preached, his aim was to guide those present through theological concerns. His homilies on John demonstrate a diverse use of Scripture for the sake of pastoral and theological concerns. In Tractatus 44, Augustine interprets John 9 as a way to call the catechumen congregants in his church to come to baptism as soon as possible (i.e., the next Easter). He takes the man born blind as representing all humanity and interprets his journey to sight in three stages that parallel the three stages of becoming a Fidelus. 1) blindness/rejecting Christ, 2) anointed with mud/catechumenate, and 3) washed/baptized. The common interpretation of this homily has been that Augustine presented a summary of his own journey to faith (cf. Lawless, 1996; 1997). This paper aims to critique this theory as having missed the elements that show Augustine appealing to the catechumenate in his congregation so that they should seek baptism. Thus, the thesis of this paper is that Augustine utilized John 9 allegorically for a pastoral call to baptism.

Pelagius’ Libellus Fidei includes a puzzling condemnation of “a new opinion that … everything that pertained to the deity [of Christ] migrated into the human being, and [vice versa].” This “kenotic” Christology is apparently “what no previous heresy ever appears to have dared to say,” but despite devoting so many words to this condemnation, Pelagius curiously avoids naming the particular “heresiarch.” I argue that this “new opinion” in fact belongs to Augustine. Many scholars have seen Leporius’ Libellus Emendationis, written as a result of Augustine’s instruction, as a text revealing Augustine’s own Christology. Here, Leporius writes “that … just as everything which belonged to God passed over to the human being, so too everything that belonged to the human being came to God.” This statement has a striking resemblance to what Pelagius condemns; the Latin is virtually identical. Hence, this “kenotic” Christology is indeed at the heart of this controversy. Rowan Williams helps us understand the implication of this Christology on the doctrine of free will, through the concept of persona. In short, Augustine’s anti-Pelagian anthropology is a function of his Christology, which allows God’s action to pass over to the human action in the one theandric persona of Christ.

In existing research on the work of St. Aphrahat, two main themes arise: his relationship with the Jewish context around him, and his ascetical theology. I aim to contribute to this body of scholarship by considering Aphrahat’s theology of death and resurrection and what this may reveal about his Anthropology more broadly. In this paper, I explore how St. Aphrahat writes about death and resurrection in the Demonstrations. Three things are of note in this material: his insistence on the physicality of the resurrection, his theology of a sleep of soul before the final resurrection, and his redefining of the categories of dead and alive. He expounds these ideas primarily in “The Demonstration on the Resurrection of the Dead,” and “The Demonstration on Death and the Latter Times.” I also explore St. Aphrahat’s ascetical theology, particularly how it relates to his emphasis on the physicality of the resurrection. These aspects of St. Aphrahat’s theology show a deep commitment to the physicality of human being and life and are foundational for his ethical theology.

Debates abound over the effect of Constantine’s elevation of Christianity in the Roman Empire, with questions ranging from the legitimacy of his conversion to the precedent set by his participation in church debates. Many scholars have noted that Constantine was particularly interested in the peace of his empire, and therefore his appeal to the Christian God as well as his participation in religious controversies stemmed from and were colored by his desire for harmony. This priority that is given to uniformity in the church is augmented by Eusebius, Constantine’s biographer and a notable church historian of the time, who expressed similar values in his Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine. However, this paper seeks to further these observations by exploring how for Eusebius, the encouragement of homogeneity is correlated with legitimate ecclesial authority. Constantine emphasizes homogeneity for the sake of political stability, but Eusebius imposes this value on the church by the ecclesial authority he accords the emperor in Life of Constantine. By praising Constantine for his facilitation of agreement, Eusebius imports political values into ecclesial spaces, ultimately deemphasizing orthodoxy.

As the first of its genre, Athanasius’s fourth century Life of Antony became the model for Christian hagiography and was the catalyzing agent in the transformation of desert space into the symbol of monastic life and Late Antique Christian identity. In this paper, I examine the geo-spiritual journey of Antony of Egypt and construct a socio-economic vision of the transformation of desert space in the wake of this hagiography. Athanasius located Antony’s spiritual growth with his four major geographical movements: the outskirts of the village, the tombs, the fortress, and the mountain. Thus, I argue that Athanasius’s strategic writing of Antony’s geo-spiritual journey transformed the desert into a threefold space—mindset, garden, and city. The spiritual benefits of desert asceticism could be achieved through pursuing the mental disposition of the desert; the imagined paradisiacal qualities of the desert reconfigured labor and eco-human relations in favor of an Edenic model; and the transformation of the desert into a city of monks created a society with a distinct social identity, economy, and politics. Attention is given to Athanasius’s episcopal concerns and motivations in constructing this desert model as well as the reception of Antony’s Vita and Egyptian desert space in the Middle Ages.