ABSTRACT

Christian Origins is an exploration of the historical course and nature of early Christian theology, which concentrates on setting it within particular traditions or sets of traditions.
In the three sections of the volume, Reading Origen, Reading the Fourth Century and Christian Origins in the Western Traditions, the contributors reconsider classic themes and texts in the light of the existing traditions of interpretation. They offer critiques of early Christian ideas and texts and they consider the structure and origins of standard modern readings of these ideas and texts. The contributors employ a variety of methodological approaches to analyse the interplay between ancient philosophical traditions and the development of Christian thought and to redefine the parameters between the previously accepted divisions in the traditions of Christian theology and thought.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

A project in the study of Christian origins

part |35 pages

Reading Origen

chapter |15 pages

Christ or Plato?

Origen on revelation and anthropology

part |92 pages

Reading the Fourth Century

chapter |26 pages

The Dog that did not Bark 1

Doctrine and patriarchal authority in the conflict between Theophilus of Alexandria and John Chrysostom of Constantinople

chapter |23 pages

Gregory of Nyssa

The force of identity

part |78 pages

Christian Origins and the Western Tradition

chapter |46 pages

Denys and Aquinas

Antimodern cold and postmodern hot

chapter |31 pages

Ascending Numbers

Augustine's De musica and the Western tradition