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The Philosophical Critique of Christianity in Late Antiquity and the Enlightenment
The present study, for the first time, provides a comparative analysis of the objections raised against Christianity by late antique pagan philosophers (esp. Celsus in Alethes logos, Porphyry in Contra Christianos, and Julian the Apostate in Contra Gali-laeos) and Enlightenment philosophers and freethinkers and examines the impact of pagan thinking on the critique of Christianity in the 16th to 18th centuries – in particular, on discussions concerning the authority of the Bible, biblical exegesis, the Christian concept of faith, religious coercion and the uniformity of faith, the belief in miracles, and the Christ-ian understanding of morality.
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This volume celebrates the scholarship of Professor Johan C. Thom by tackling various important topics relevant for the study of the New Testament, such as the intellectual environment of early Christianity, especially Greek, Latin, and early Jewish texts, New Testament apocrypha and other early Christian writings, as well as Greek grammar. The authors offer fresh insights on philosophical texts and traditions, the cultural repertoire of early Christian literature, critical editions, linguistics and interpretation, and comparative analyses of ancient writings.
Origen, Wisdom, and the Logic of Interpretation
In Learning the Language of Scripture, Mark Randall James offers a new account of theological interpretation as a sapiential practice of learning the language of Scripture, drawing on recently discovered Homilies on the Psalms by the influential early theologian Origen of Alexandria (2nd-3rd c. C.E). Widely regarded as one of the most arbitrary interpreters, James shows that Origen’s appearance of arbitrariness is a result of the modern tendency to neglect the role of wisdom in scriptural interpretation. James demonstrates that Origen offers a compelling model of a Christian pragmatism in which learning and correcting linguistic practice is a site of the transformative pedagogy of the divine Logos.
Providence, Dualism, and Will in Later Greek and Early Christian Philosophy
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Is God involved? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is up to us? These questions were explored in Mediterranean antiquity with reference to ‘providence’ (pronoia). In Did God Care? Dylan Burns offers the first comprehensive survey of providence in ancient philosophy that brings together the most important Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources, from Plato to Plotinus and the Gnostics.

Burns demonstrates how the philosophical problems encompassed by providence transformed in the first centuries CE, yielding influential notions about divine care, evil, creation, omniscience, fate, and free will that remain with us today. These transformations were not independent developments of ‘Pagan philosophy’ and ‘Christian theology,’ but include fruits of mutually influential engagement between Hellenic and Christian philosophers.
Eine Studie zu Ps-Dionysius-Rezeption, triplex via und analogem Weltbild bei Maximus Confessor
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In The Concept of Unity as the Principle of Coherence in Maximus Confessor Jonathan Bieler lays out the importance of the concepts of transcendent divine unity, goodness and truth for understanding the coherence of the whole of Maximus’ thought, which brings together theology, anthropology and Christology into a unified vision that is based on an analogy between creator and creation. Interpreting the concepts of Maximus’ thought remains a contentious subject in Maximian scholarship. By evaluating the interior coherence and historical situation of Maximus’ thought in general and by studying the influence of Ps-Dionysius the Areopagite’s methodology on Maximus’ Christology in particular the author shows the context in which Maximus’ well-known conceptual distinctions can be understood in a helpful way. Jonathan Bieler erläutert in Der Einheitsbegriff als Kohärenzprinzip bei Maximus Confessor die zentrale Rolle der Begriffe der göttlichen Einheit, Güte und Wahrheit für ein Verständnis der Kohärenz von Maximus’ Denken, das Gotteslehre, Anthropologie und Christologie zu einer einheitlichen Sicht versammelt, beruhend auf einer Analogie zwischen Schöpfer und Geschöpf. Die Interpretation von Maximus’ Konzepten ist ein umstrittenes Gebiet in der Forschung. Durch eine Auswertung der inneren Kohärenz und der historischen Situation des Maximus und durch eine Untersuchung des Einflusses, den Ps-Dionysius Areopagitas Methodik auf die Christologie des Maximus ausgeübt hat, zeigt der Autor den Kontext auf, in dem Maximus’ begriffliche Unterscheidungen auf eine hilfreiche Weise verstanden werden können.
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In Augustine and Plotinus: the Human Mind as Image of the Divine Laela Zwollo provides an inside view of two of the most influential thinkers of late antiquity: the Christian Augustine and the Neo-Platonist Plotinus. By exploring the finer points and paradoxes of their doctrines of the image of God (the human soul/intellect), the illustrious church father’s complex interaction with his most important non-biblical source comes into focus. In order to fathom Augustine, we should first grasp the beauty in Plotinus’ philosophy and its attractiveness to Christians. This monograph will contribute to a better understanding of the formative years of Christianity as well as later ancient philosophy. It can serve as a handbook for becoming acquainted with the two thinkers, as well as for delving into the profundity of their thought.
An English Translation with Supporting Studies
The Contra Eunomium is probably Gregory of Nyssa’s most challenging work with regards to his theological and philosophical thought, and one that continues to draw the deeper attention of contemporary scholars.
This volume devoted to Contra Eunomium I constitutes, in a certain way, a new version of the Proceedings of the 6th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (1988). It offers a revised English translation of Contra Eunomium I by S. G. Hall, accompanied by twenty-two supporting studies from a broad range of philological, philosophical, and theological perspectives. These studies include a selection of the most relevant papers of the 1988 Proceedings, supplemented with new contributions that explore relevant issues developed by contemporary research.
Analytical and Supporting Studies. Proceedings of the 13th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Rome, 17-20 September 2014)
Taken together, Gregory of Nyssa’s XV Homilies In Canticum Canticorum are at the same time – as if in unison – a work of spiritual, exegetical, and theological doctrine. The wide spectrum of the themes present in them have prompted a great interest in this work, not only among scholars of patristics or theology, but also among those interested in biblical interpretation, ancient rhetoric or Christian mystical doctrine. These Proceedings present the results of the 13th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Rome, 17-20 September 2014): a systematic commentary of Gregory’s In Canticum from a broad perspective in the form of sixteen papers and a selection of fourteen short essays devoted to various issues that represent a valuable set of supporting studies.
This first volume of the new Brill series “Ancient Philosophy & Religion” is a collection of articles by scholars of Classics, Ancient Philosophy, and Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. The articles are based on papers presented at two colloquia on the interface between Ancient Philosophy and Religion at the universities of Aarhus and Cambridge. They focus extensively on Platonic philosophy and piety and sketch an emerging religio-philosophical discourse in ancient Judaism (both in the Sibylline Oracles and 4 Maccabees). Furthermore, this volume studies Seneca’s religio-philosophical understanding of 'consolation', compares early depictions of Jesus with those of ancient philosophers, and, finally, reconsiders responses of pagan philosophers to Christianity from the second century to Late Antiquity.
Early Christian reception of Greek scientific methodology
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The so-called eighth Stromateus (‘liber logicus’) by Clement of Alexandria (d. before 221 C.E.) is an understudied source for ancient philosophy, particularly the tradition of the Aristotelian methodology of science, scepticism, and the theories of causation. A series of capitula dealing with inquiry and demonstration, it bears but few traces of Christian interests.

In this volume, Matyáš Havrda provides a new edition, translation, and lemmatic commentary of the text. The vexing question of the origin of this material and its place within Clement’s oeuvre is also addressed. Defending the view of ‘liber logicus’ as a collection of excerpts made or adopted by Clement for his own (apologetic and exegetical) use, Havrda argues that its source could be Galen’s lost treatise On Demonstration.