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Gnosticism, Christianity and late antique philosophy are often studied separately; when studied together they are too often conflated. These articles set out to show that we misunderstand all three phenomena if we take either approach. We cannot interpret, or even identify, Christian Gnosticism without Platonic evidence; we may even discover that Gnosticism throws unexpected light on the Platonic imagination. At the same time, if we read writers like Origen simply as Christian Platonists, or bring Christians and philosophers together under the porous umbrella of "monotheism", we ignore fundamental features of both traditions. To grasp what made Christianity distinctive, we must look at the questions asked in the studies here, not merely what Christians appropriated but how it was appropriated. What did the pagan gods mean to a Christian poet of the fifth century? What did Paul quote when he thought he was quoting Greek poetry? What did Socrates mean to the Christians, and can we trust their memories when they appeal to lost fragments of the Presocratics? When pagans accuse the Christians of moral turpitude, do they know more or less about them than we do? What divides Augustine, the disenchanted Platonist, from his Neoplatonic contemporaries? And what God or gods await the Neoplatonist when he dies?
The Christians, Gnostics, and Platonists of late antiquity all shared that era’s dislike of matter and the body. The first part of this book looks at key words like ethos, aiōn, and saeculum. The second part investigates the Neoplatonists, the Platonists of late antiquity. In the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, the dislike of matter and the body was boldly expressed. The third part shows that Gnosticism was second to none in its insistence that matter and the body were evil. It was elitist, suspicious of the political world, and often filled with an interest in magic and immorality. Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and Valentinus are only a few of the Gnostics who are considered. The last part discovers dislike of matter and the body in the early Christians, although with less consistency to their worldview. It was especially notable in the attempt of Origen and Arius to place God the Son at a lower metaphysical level than God the Father in order to protect God from the evil entity of matter. The desert fathers, the Arians, Ambrose, and Augustine are all included.
Christianity began as a little-known Jewish sect, but rose within 300 years to dominate the civilised world. It owed its rise in part to inspired moral leadership, but also to its success in assimilating, criticising and developing the philosophies of the day, which offered rationally approved life-styles and moral directives. Without abandoning their allegiance to their founder and to Holy Scripture, Christians could therefore present their faith as a 'new philosophy'. This book, which is written for non-specialist readers, provides a concise conspectus of the emergence of philosophy among the Greeks; an account of its continuance in early Christian times, and its influence on early Christian thought, especially in formulating the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation; and finally a brief critical assessment of the philosophy of St Augustine - arguably the greatest philosopher of the first millennium.
Gnostic religion is the expression of a religious worldview which is dominated by the concept of Gnosis, an esoteric knowledge of God and the human being which grants salvation to those who possess it. Roelof van den Broek presents here a fresh approach to the gnostic current of Late Antiquity within its historical and religious context, based on sources in Greek, Latin and Coptic, including discussions of the individual works of preserved gnostic literature. Van den Broek explores the various gnostic interpretations of the Christian faith that were current in the second and third centuries, whilst showing that despite its influence on early Christianity, gnostic religion was not a typically Christian phenomenon. This book will be of interest to theologians, historians of religion, students and scholars of the history of Late Antiquity and early Christianity, as well as specialists in ancient gnostic and hermetic traditions.
Ai?on -- Ante-Nicene fathers -- Arianism -- Asceticism -- Christ -- Christian -- Donatism -- Early church -- Ethos -- Gnosticism -- Late antiquity -- Neoplatonism -- Plato -- Platonist -- Post-Nicene fathers -- Saeculum.
This Festschrift contains essays on a broad range of topics that deal with Sethian, Valentinian and other early Christian thought, as well as with Platonism and Neoplatonism, including especially the interaction between Greek philosophy and Gnosticism in late antiquity.
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity comprises over forty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of the period 200–800 CE. Designed as a successor to The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (edited by A. H. Armstrong), it takes into account some forty years of scholarship since the publication of that volume. The contributors examine philosophy as it entered literature, science and religion, and offer new and extensive assessments of philosophers who until recently have been mostly ignored. The volume also includes a complete digest of all philosophical works known to have been written during this period. It will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in this rich and still emerging field.
The Apocriticus purports to be the record of a four-day public debate between a pagan philosopher, whom the text calls simply the "Hellene", and the author, Macarius, a Christian rhetor. The text is a rich, though often neglected, source for the history of intellectual and cultural conflict between Christian and Hellene intellectuals in the fourth century CE. While the Apocriticus has frequently attracted the attention of scholars as a possible source of fragments from Porphyry's Against the Christians, the text as a whole is significant in its own right. Macarius defends the allegorical reading of scripture and presents interesting discussions concerning ascetic practice and the cult of the martyrs. The philosophical and theological eclecticism of the text should also be of interests to scholars of early Christianity and later ancient philosophy. The fictitious dialogue weaves together philosophical and theological arguments, often in a "popularized" form. The text thus represents an interesting contrast to more formal "high" philosophical and theological texts of the period. As well as a new English translation of an important text, this volume includes notes and introductory essays setting the work in its historical and intellectual contexts.
Ferdinand Christian Baur's Die Christliche Gnosis, first published in 1835, is considered by many to be the most important book on Gnosticism published in the nineteenth century and is a pivotal work within Baur's canon. Baur's unique thesis of a link between ancient and modern religious philosophy, as well as his conception of Gnosticism - developed through dialogues with his predecessors and contemporaries - consolidate Christian Gnosis as an important contribution to Christian theology. In this seminal work, written over a hundred years before the manuscript discovery at Nag Hammadi, Baur classifies the gnostic systems in terms of how they conceive the relationship of Christianity to Judaism and paganism, describing them in detail. He then goes on to describe the criticism of and reaction to gnosis in church history, before contending with the modern religious philosophy of his time, discussing Boehme, Schelling, Schleiermacher and Hegel. Christian Gnosis is Baur's first great religio-historical study, and Robert Brown's masterful translation ensures the work is as impactful today as it was on its first publication.
First published in 2014. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.