Christianity and Greek Paideia

Mon étude vise à comparer paideia et adab, et à étudier leurs rapports. Un des problèmes auxquels une telle étude se heurte est l’imparité chronologique entre les deux systèmes. Non seulement ils ont subi des transformations internes au fur et à mesure des siècles, mais ils sont partiellement décalés entre eux dans le temps : la paideia a existé mille ans avant que l’adab ne devienne un modèle répandu que l’on puisse percevoir dans les sources historiques. Il serait sans doute très intéressant de comparer les deux systèmes à leurs époques de formation et d’essor, mais la présente étude sera d’un type différent : elle comparera la paideia dans sa forme prise sous l’Antiquité tardive et durant le Haut Moyen Âge (IIIe-VIe siècles, et dans une moindre mesure VIIe-Xe siècles) avec l’adab des périodes préislamique et « classique » de l’islam (surtout VIe-Xe siècles). Je choisis cette envergure temporelle parce qu’elle permet non seulement d’énumérer les similarités et les différences, mais aussi d’essayer de tracer les canaux sociaux d’interactions possibles.

Much scholarly discussion by conservative and liberal theologians focuses on 1 Pet 3:1–6. The submission of wives to their husbands, the exhortation’s descriptive or prescriptive nature, whether Sarah addressed Abraham as “Lord” and obeyed him, the extent of the obedience or submission of wives to their husbands, the abuse that this passage has fostered throughout church history, the function of the participles, the silent witnessing of the wives, whether wives are supposed to teach, and how to live with an unbelieving husband—all these topics have generated discussions and even heated debates.

However, these important conversations seem to neglect the equally crucial following verse: “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers” (1 Pet 3:7; NIV). If it is picked up at all, the discussion of this verse is usually confined to the meaning of the “weaker partner” or “weaker vessel.” As such, this article will show the responsibility of Christian husbands concerning their wives and investigate whether in this text Peter accommodates the Greco-Roman culture to promulgate the oppression of wives. The passage will be analyzed in its social/historical, theological, and literary contexts. This will be followed by a lexical analysis of 1 Pet 3:7. Finally, we consider the theological implications of the passage.

This review article discusses Dominique Côté’s innovative insights into Pseudo-Clementine scholarship over the past 25 years. These insights have recently been collected in his edited volume, "Pseudo-Clément et Vrai Prophète. Itinéraire d’Athènes à Jérusalem". My brief discussion is not so much a discussion of his "Itinéraire d’Athènes à Jérusalem" as such, but rather a reconsideration of the original aspects of Côté’s own itinerary in Pseudo-Clementine scholarship. In the past century, much attention has been paid to complex source-critical theories and hypotheses of second-century, even first-century, (Jewish)Christian sources that potentially, but implausibly, underlie the various traditions. These possible reconstructions did not reveal much of the extant Pseudo-Clementines as such, but were rather quests to uncover the earliest but hypothetical foundations of Christianity that scholars believed were hidden in the supposedly less original extant versions. The original voices of the various Pseudo-Clementine traditions have still not been fully heard, especially in the fields of rhetorical, literary, and philosophical studies. It is precisely here that Côté has laid a strong foundation for future scholarship on the Pseudo-Clementines, especially with regard to late ancient Neoplatonic philosophy in dialogue with Jewish and Christian philosophical and religious voices.

The ephebeia (Gk ἐφηβεία; "ephebate") was a statecontrolled institution of citizen education and military training for young men in the ancient Greek world. The institution continued to play a signi cant role in the culture of cities in the Greek East during the Roman imperial period.

Since the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted in 1989, awareness, interest and concern for children have grown globally, stimulated by the work of children’s rights organisations and other child-focused organisations like the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Over the past 30 years, the CRC has introduced and enhanced a broadening understanding of childhood (cf. https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/ frequently-asked-questions).

In the Pauline communities, ethics, ethos and identity were closely intertwined. This essay analyses the way in which Paul emphasised the mental boundaries of the Christ communities to turn them into moral boundaries. In this process, the fencing off of these communities over against their past and their present was a fundamental feature of Paul’s reasoning. The communities thus became fenced off from their past, because the Christ event was seen as causing a major change in history. This change affected both Gentile and Jewish believers. At the same time, Paul stressed the boundaries with the outside world: he characterised the inside world as the loyal remnant of Israel, consisting of Jews and Gentiles alike, and pointed out that this group is the group of the elect ‘saints’. The perspective with which Paul looked at ethics and morality inside this group was strongly coloured by the assumed identity of this group as ‘Israel’. Even though the Mosaic Law was no longer the focal poin...

In the Pauline communities, ethics, ethos and identity were closely intertwined. This essay analyses the way in which Paul emphasised the mental boundaries of the Christ communities to turn them into moral boundaries. In this process, the fencing off of these communities over against their past and their present was a fundamental feature of Paul’s reasoning. The communities thus became fenced off from their past, because the Christ event was seen as causing a major change in history. This change affected both Gentile and Jewish believers. At the same time, Paul stressed the boundaries with the outside world: he characterised the inside world as the loyal remnant of Israel, consisting of Jews and Gentiles alike, and pointed out that this group is the group of the elect ‘saints’. The perspective with which Paul looked at ethics and morality inside this group was strongly coloured by the assumed identity of this group as ‘Israel’. Even though the Mosaic Law was no longer the focal poin...

This paper wants to be a reading on the works of Justin (martyr and apologist of II century BC) and the assimilation of the classical culture, giving emphasis to Socrates as a factor of union between the classical 'paideia' and the message of Jesus. Furthermore, the paper makes explicit the background of classical readings and the sources of the first apologists, in which Plato and his works were essential.

The paper explores the dynamic of New Testament households and their codes of conduct. It focuses on the reconfigured husband/wife relationship in the household code of Ephesians 5:21–6:9 in view of the code’s ambivalent relation to the rest of the letter as well as its complex history of interpretation. Since Christianity’s foundational documents originated from (and are often read) within patriarchal societies, influenced by the hierarchical ethos of empire, a major challenge is whether and how a text such as the Ephesians code provides a lens through which it may be reimagined (in Africa) today—even against its patriarchal grain and history of interpretation. In view of feminist and postcolonial criticism, it is argued that the code serves as an ongoing invitation to resist any form of exploitative power in contemporary as well as ancient empire. 1 Household as Primary Context for Moral Formation Through the ages, households served as a primary space for the affirmation and devel...

A norma del codice civile italiano, è vietata la riproduzione, totale o parziale (compresi estratti, ecc.), di questa pubblicazione in qualsiasi forma e versione (comprese bozze, ecc.), originale o derivata, e con qualsiasi mezzo a stampa o internet (compresi siti web personali e istituzionali, academia.edu, ecc.), elettronico, digitale, meccanico, per mezzo di fotocopie, pdf, microfilm, film, scanner o altro, senza il permesso scritto della casa editrice.

Ep. 5 von Synesios wird diesmal als Zeugnis von einem Teil des spätantiken geistigen Lebens interpretiert. Synesios hat die auf hoher See erlebte Todesgefahr (auch wenn es nur sein Laieneindruck war) durch auswendig gekannten Homer nicht nur später verarbeitet, sondern hat das Erlebnis vor allem unmittelbar, automatisch durch Homer vernommen. So sehr der Brief seine stark literarisch geprägte Seite hat, trotzdem ist die Rolle Homers sowohl in unmittelbarem Empfehlen als auch im Nachhinein aussagekräftig im Hinblick auf Synesios´ christlichen Glauben.

The theme for this year’s TGSA Conference, “The Role of the Bible in Theological Studies,” allows us an opportunity to discuss, and perhaps debate, an important issue facing theology faculties today. Namely, what role, if any, should scripture have in theological education? For many, the answer would be something like “very little” outside of Biblical Studies programs. For others, the answer would be something like “a very central role.” The purpose of this paper is not to provide an answer. Rather, as a historian, it is necessary to include in this discussion reflections on the role of scripture in theological education in history. Thanks to a discovery in Tura, Egypt, during the Second World War, scholars have a transcript of lectures on the Psalms which Didymus the Blind delivered in fourth-century Alexandria, Egypt. This transcript gives us access to the inner-workings of an early Christian school, especially the interactions between teacher and students. We also see the exegetical and theological concerns occupying the attention of Didymus’ classroom. I will look specifically at the lectures on Psalm 40(41), in which Didymus attempted to demonstrate how the speaker in this Psalm was Christ himself. This prosopological move, however, created certain problems for his readers as demonstrated by student questions to which Didymus had to reply. The content of these discussions reveals not only the exegetical method of prosopology, but how this school’s reading of scripture was situated within the intellectual climate of competing schools of thought in fourth-century Alexandria.

Examen del Método de Jaeger.  Análisis del programa metodológico esbozado en el Prólogo de 1944 a la edición castellana de la obra y  los seis pasos sinópticos de averiguación  resumidos por el autor veintisiete años después de la primera edición de Paideia en sus conferencias de Harvard de 1960 reproducidas luego en "Early Christianity and Greek Paideia" (Harvard University Press, 1961).

[JAEGER, Werner. Cristianismo primitivo e paideia grega. Trad. Daniel da Costa. Santo André (SP): Academia cristã, 2014 (128p)] Luís Gabriel Provinciatto 1 O que se encontra na obra Cristianismo primitivo e Paideia grega de Werner Jaeger não é uma longa elucidação aos moldes de sua primorosa obra Paideia: a formação do homem grego, mas tão somente alguns pontos fundamentais para compreender o encontro de dois grandes sistemas culturais, a saber: o cristianismo em seus primeiros passos e a cultura grega amplamente difundida. Isso, no entanto, não desqualifica a obra, pelo contrário: a sutileza, cuidado e qualidade de escrita desenvolvida por Jaeger neste texto revelam sua enorme capacidade elucidativa, além de proporcionar ao leitor a possibilidade de investigações posteriores, dadas algumas indicações que aparecem, mesmo que implicitamente, ao longo da escrita. Destaca-se, a princípio, que esta resenha se justifica visto que há pouco tempo foi publicada uma tradução brasileira da referida obra (2014), embora haja outra tradução publicada pela Edições 70 (2002) de Portugal. Não se pode deixar de mencionar que há algumas mudanças entre as publicações: a versão brasileira contém um sumário que traz um título para cada capítulo, o que não há na outra versão; há ainda dois índices ao final desta edição: um de assuntos e outro de autores. Tudo isso facilita a incursão, por parte do leitor, em trechos específicos da obra. No entanto, o que aqui se pretende não é comparar ambas as traduções, mas apresentar o conteúdo da obra e suas peculiaridades. Permitem-se, desde já, possíveis indicações de pesquisas posteriores, uma vez que o próprio Jaeger, durante o Prefácio, adverte para o fato de que esta obra é um "pequeno" contributo devido aos descobrimentos que estão acontecendo sobre este período histórico.

In the second century Christians began to educate and instruct their children in a Christian fashion. This new form of paideia signifies a step in the formation of Christianity as an independent social movement. It originated as an interpretatio christiana of existing cultural patterns, and had its roots in both the family discourse that from the outset was constitutive for the early Christian movement and the instruction of newcomers to that movement. Existing cultural patterns were incorporated into the new movement, and thus a new, Christian practice of paideia came about.

Much of the history of scholarship on " hell " has been devoted to tracing genetic relationships between older texts and more recent ones, typically based upon generic elements or the specific features of hell's landscape. This paper suggests a new direction for classics and New Testament study, focusing instead on the rhetorical function of hell in antiquity. This paper argues that the ancient conventions of descriptive rhetoric were at work in the depictions of Hell that we find in the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. It begins with a definition of these rhetorical devices by examining the Progymnasmata as well as Quintillian's work on rhetoric and discusses the role of the rhetoric of description in the overall Greek and Roman programs of paideia. Next, this paper demonstrates that these rhetorical devices were at work in various ancient depictions of Hades (with examples chosen from Greek and Latin authors such as Homer, Plato, Virgil, Lucian and Plutarch). Finally, this paper shows that this rhetorical technique was also at work in the early Christian apocalypses and concludes that apocalyptic authors, like the Greeks and Romans before them, used these rhetorical techniques to " emotionally move " their audiences toward " right behavior. "

The question of the monophysism of St. Cyril of Alexandria is a debated one. He uses frequently phrases like "united according to nature" to indicate the union of divinity and humanity in Christ, against the council of Chalcedon which dogmatized two natures. Here proof is given that St. Cyril has been declared orthodox by the dogmas of the Church. The problem of his mophysism is solved with the aid of aristotelian philosophy to which St. Cyril refers. This paper is opposed to what the jesuit A. Grillmeier  writes about St. Cyril in his book Jesus the Christ in the Faith of the Church, vol I part. II.