Since its publication in 2000, The Early Christian World has come to be regarded by scholars, students and the general reader as one of the most informative and accessible works in English on the origins, development, character and major figures of early Christianity. In this new edition, the strengths of the first edition are retained. These include the book’s attractive architecture that initially takes a reader through the context and historical development of early Christianity; the essays in critical areas such as community formation, everyday experience, the intellectual and artistic heritage, and external and internal challenges; and the profiles on the most influential early Christian figures. The book also preserves its strong stress on the social reality of early Christianity and continues its distinctive use of hundreds of illustrations and maps to bring that world to life. Yet the years that have passed since the first edition was published have seen great advances made in our understanding of early Christianity in its world. This new edition fully reflects these developments and provides the reader with authoritative, lively and up-to-date access to the early Christian world. A quarter of the text is entirely new and the remaining essays have all been carefully revised and updated by their authors. Some of the new material relates to Christian culture (including book culture, canonical and non-canonical scriptures, saints and hagiography, and translation across cultures). But there are also new essays on: Jewish and Christian interaction in the early centuries; ritual; the New Testament in Roman Britain; Manichaeism; Pachomius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. This new edition will serve its readers for many years to come.
Author(s): Philip F. Esler
Series: THE ROUTLEDGE WORLDS
Edition: 2
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 1280
City: London
The Early Christian World- Front Cover
The Early Christian World
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of figures
Notes on contributors
Preface to the Revised Edition
PART I:
The context
Chapter 1: The Mediterranean context of early Christianity
Introduction
The Mediterranean as a physically distinctive region
Cultural aspects of context
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Armies, emperors and bureaucrats
The armies
Emperors
Bureaucrats
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Graeco-Roman philosophy and religion
The Graeco-Roman world
Hellenistic philosophies
Hellenistic religions
Conclusions
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Jewish tradition and culture
The distribution of Jewish communities
The Jews under Roman rule
The rabbinic movement
Jewish literature
Proselytes and godfearers
Synagogues and services
The Bible and its interpretation
Contact and controversy
Julian and the Jerusalem Temple
The end of the patriarchate
Notes
Bibliography
PART II:
Christian origins and development
Chapter 5: The Galilean world of Jesus
The ecological setting of Hellenistic-Roman Galilee
Galilean social systems and conflicting interests
Jesus in his Galilean world
Developments after Jesus
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Early Jewish Christianity
Jewish Christianity in the history of scholarship
Toward a definition of Jewish Christianity
Points of origin
Patristic representations
Jewish Christian texts
Rabbinic evidence
Archeology
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 7: From the Hellenists to Marcion: early gentile Christianity
The first mission to gentiles
Paul: persecutor, convert and missionary
Gentile mission, anti-Judaism, and the afterlife of Galatians in Marcionism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 8: The Jesus tradition: the gospel writers’ strategies of persuasion
The social location of Mark’s story
Mark’s story of Jesus
Alternative stories of Jesus
Later correspondence in the Johannine community
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 9: The second and third centuries
Introduction
Separation from Judaism
Scripture, canon, and authority
Geographic spread of Christianity
Christianity and the Roman empire
Movements and controversies
Unity in diversity and division
Bibliography
Chapter 10: From Constantine to Theodosius (and beyond)
The Great Persecution (303–311) and its consequences
Constantine and the Church
Constantine’s achievement
The christianization of the empire
The persistence of paganism
Paganism in the Roman aristocracy
Gratian, politics and the senate (375–383 ce)
Theodosius and the triumph of Catholic orthodoxy
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 11: Jewish and Christian interaction from the first to the fifth centuries
Studying Jewish and Christian interaction: problems and procedure
Interaction in public civic settings: local, national, imperial
Interaction in and between associations and association-like institutions
Interaction in private/domestic settings
Concluding reflections: the so-called parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity
Notes
Bibliography
PART III:
Community formation and maintenance
Chapter 12: Mission and expansion
Some preliminaries
Early Christian spread
Conversion
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 13: The development of office in the Early Church
The charismata and the threefold ministry
Popes and councils
Monks and priests
Bibliography
Chapter 14: Christian regional diversity
Introduction
Christian geographical diversity
Christian theological diversity
Bibliography
Chapter 15: Monasticism
Ways of approach
Syrian asceticism
Monastic Egypt
International monasticism in Palestine
Cappadocian domestic and communal asceticism
Italian asceticism and monasticism
Gaul: native and imported monastic cultures
Augustine
Bibliography
PART IV:
Everyday Christian experience
Chapter 16: Reading the New Testament in Roman Britain
Reading the New Testament in Roman London: the Bloomberg tablets
Reading the New Testament in a frontier fort: the Vindolanda Tablets
Reading the New Testament in the temples of Roman Britain: the so-called curse tablets
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 17: Sex and sexual renunciation I
Overview
Issues of theory and method
Sexuality in the Graeco-Roman world
Jewish and New Testament perspectives on sexuality
Early Christian discourses of sexuality
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 18: Sex and sexual renunciation II: developments in research since 2000
Theoretical framings revisited and revised
Supplementing the archive: Coptic and Syriac sources
Sex and sexual renunciation in ancient and late ancient Jewish sources
Masculinity
Sex and the limits of renunciation: the example of slavery
Future work
Note
Bibliography
Chapter 19: Women, children and house churches
Gendered rhetoric, modern readers and a cross-cultural endeavour
Households and house churches
Roles of women: real and ideal
Children in context
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 20: Worship, practice, and belief
Worship, practice and belief before the Council of Nicea
Worship, practice and belief from the Council of Nicea to the death of Augustine of Hippo
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 21: Ritual and the rise of the early Christian movement
Introduction
Ritual theory and early Christian studies
Ritual and the rise of Christianity: examples
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 22: Communication and travel
The slowness of communication
The reasons for travel
The experience and infrastructure of travel and communication
Conclusion
Bibliography
PART V: Christian culture
Chapter 23: Christian realia: papyrological and epigraphical material
Papyri
Texts of ritual power: amulets, lamellae, and gems
Epigraphy
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 24: Scriptures in early Christianity
The first bibles: fourth and fifth centuries
The Jewish ‘Bible’ in the late Second Temple period
Jewish scriptures in early Christianity
The emergence of Christian scriptures
Letters of Paul
Gospels
Other texts: acts and letters of the apostles, apocalypses
Who read and used early Christian scriptures?
Concluding remarks: canon formation as part of inter-Christian polemics
Bibliography
Chapter 25: Saints and hagiography
Saints and society in Christian late antiquity
From martyrs to ascetics
Writings on the saints
The development of cult: saints, place and power
Additional note: accessing hagiography in English translation
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 26: Translation and communication across cultures
Bi- and multilingualism in early Christianity
The case of Egypt
Bibliography
PART VI: The intellectual heritage
Chapter 27: The Apostolic Fathers
Introduction
The writings
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Second Letter of Clement to the Corinthians
The Didache
The Epistle of Barnabas
The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch
The Letter of Polycarp
The Martyrdom of Polycarp
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 28: The Apologists
Apologies and Apologists: a brief definition
Main content of the apologetic writings
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 29: Early theologians
Greek writers
Latin writers
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 30: Later theologians of the Greek east
Introduction
Nicæa and the doctrine of God
The Cappadocian Fathers
Being and person: ousia and hypostasis
The Christological controversy
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 31: Later theologians of the west
Western theology from 312–430 in context
The Donatists
Arianism
Hilary of Poitiers
Ambrose of Milan
Jerome
Augustine
Pelagianism
In retrospect
Bibliography
Chapter 32: Creeds, councils and doctrinal development
Introduction
The emergence of Christian scriptures and identity
Arius: when scriptures called for a larger theological overview of salvation
The way to Chalcedon
Doctrinal development: final observations
Dedication
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 33: Biblical interpretation
Introductory remarks
The Jewish context
The distinctively Christian ‘proof from prophecy’
Biblical interpretation: from the scriptures to two testaments
Scripture as platonic allegory: the Alexandrian tradition
Allegory or theoria? The Antiochene school
Augustine’s programme for the formation of an interpreter
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
PART VII: The artistic heritage
Chapter 34: Early Christian architecture: the first five centuries
The architectural environment: public and private
From ‘houses’ to church buildings: Paul to Constantine
The domus ecclesiae and architectural adaptation
The aula ecclesiae
The birth of the basilica: the fourth and fifth centuries
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 35: Art
Origins and development
Chronological periods
Provenance and context
Wall painting
Relief sculpture on sarcophagi
Sculpture in the round
Mosaics and ivory carving
Manuscript illumination
Other artworks
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 36: Music
The musical context of early Christianity
The substance of early Christian music
Concluding remarks
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 37: Imaginative literature
Introduction
The Protevangelium of James
The narrative
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
Bibliography
PART VIII: External challenges
Chapter 38: Political oppression and martyrdom
Greco-Roman and Jewish influences
Political oppression in the empire
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 39: Graeco-Roman philosophical opposition
The hostile environment
The case of philosophical opposition
Celsus
Sossianus Hierocles
Porphyry of Tyre
The themes of Discourse of Celsus
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 40: Popular Graeco-Roman responses to Christianity
Evidence from the later New Testament
Evidence from other sources
Why were the Christians resented?
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
PART IX: Internal challenges
Chapter 41: Internal renewal and dissent in the early Christian world
Insiders and outsiders
Early Christian trajectories
Re-visioning the past
Something old, something new, something borrowed: which is true?
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 42: Gnosticism
Introduction
The Gnostics, their beliefs and practices
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 43: Montanism
The beginnings of Montanism
Ardabau and Pepouza
Its character
Montanus, Priscilla, Maximilla
Montanism in North Africa
Montanism in Rome
What writers have said about Montanism
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 44: Donatism
Introduction: Victor’s perspective, Christianity in North Africa
Sources
The origin of the Catholic-Donatist schism
An outline of the history of the schism with an emphasis on violence
Debate and polemic
Main issues in the Catholic-Donatist conflict
Conclusion: a derogatory term and rich legacy
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 45: Arianism
Contemporary interest/scholarship in ‘Arianism’
Arius and early ‘Arianism’ (318–325)
Later ‘Arianism’: Arians, Semi-Arians and Neo-Arians (337–381)
Arian and Neo-Arian documents of the later period
Conclusions
Bibliography
Chapter 46: Manichaeism
Introduction
Jesus in Manichaeism
Mani the ‘apostle of Jesus Christ’
Manichaean biblical interpretation
Manichaean ecclesial life and organization
Manichaean ritual
Manichaean eschatology
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
PART X: Profiles
Chapter 47: Origen
Survey of Origen’s life
Survey of Origen’s surviving works
The Hexapla
Origen’s speculations and dogmatic errors
Origen’s homilies
Excursus: the fidelity of the Latin translations of Origen
Against Celsus
Origen’s method of exegesis: Old Testament
Origen’s exegesis of the Gospels
Origen’s exegesis of Paul’s writings
Origen’s understanding of Romans
Origen’s legacy in the west
Bibliography
Chapter 48: Tertullian
Life of Tertullian
Interpretation of Tertullian
Tertullian and the world around him
Tertullian and heretics
Tertullian and Christian practice
Bibliography
Chapter 49: Perpetua and Felicitas
Introduction
Synopsis of the Passio
Assessing the historicity of the Passio and other Perpetua traditions
Perpetua and Felicitas: a provisional profile
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 50: Constantine
Introduction
Constantine the politician
The conversion of Constantine
Constantine and the Church
Constantine and the empire
Note
Bibliography
Chapter 51: Anthony the Great
Whose Anthony?
Principal sources
The story
Sacred geography
Anthropology and asceticism
Thoughts and demons
Monk and minister
Legacy
Bibliography
Chapter 52: Pachomius the Great
The sources
Pachomius and his monasteries
The federation after Pachomius
The end of Pachomian monasticism
General observations
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 53: Athanasius
An age of controversies
Ascetic champion and pastoral father
The Word of God
The Athanasian legacy
Bibliography
Chapter 54: John Chrysostom
John in context
John Chrysostom’s social interactions
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 55: Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory’s life
Gregory’s writings
Gregory’s theology
Gregory of Nyssa and the science of his time
Nyssen and language
Gregory of Nyssa and Byzantium
Scholarly afterlife of Nyssen’s ideas
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 56: Jerome
Life and context
Jerome and asceticism
Jerome as biblical interpreter and translator
Jerome the controversialist
Jerome the person and his legacy
Bibliography
Chapter 57: Ambrose
Context, formation and election
Devising an episcopal role
Creating an ecclesial community
Bibliography
Chapter 58: Augustine
Conversion of the mind, heart and will
Priest, bishop and monk
Scripture and preaching
Christianity and paganism
The unattainability of perfection
The two cities
Doctrine
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 59: Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem: life, character and importance
Ephrem’s theology of the presence of God in the world
The Incarnation: lynchpin of Ephrem’s theology
The ongoing, individualized presence of God to each human being
Spiritual progress and sanctification or theosis
Biblical symbols and the presence of God in historical events
The sacred dimension of all of history
Human beings in the divine image and divine presence in all of nature
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 60: Julian the Apostate
Themes of the Contra Galilaeos
Notes
Bibliography
Index of biblical references
Index of classical references
Index of Jewish references
Index of patristic references
Subject index
