Archaic Christianity

A Site Devoted to the Study of Early Christianity and Christian Origins

Category: Early Christianity

Theodore of Mopsuestia and Those Heretics

2/27/2012 -- Filed Under: Books, Church Fathers, History, Early Christianity
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Theodore is was the Bishop of Mopsuestia in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, a town in the vicinity of Antioch. He was a fellow student of the much more famous Chrysostom. He is a good representative of the interpretive method that Antioch is known for, more historical/grammatical/literal and less allegorical like their Alexandrian counterparts. He is (in)famous for his association with Nestorianism. Nestorianism’s namesake, Nestorius, was his pupil and became Archbishop of Constantinople in the year Theodore died. It was after Theodore’s death that Nestorius was condemned and Theodore with him.

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Readings in the Fathers

8/4/2010 -- Filed Under: Apostolic Fathers, Church Fathers, History, Early Christianity
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For the last several Sundays I have been taking our adult morning study group through a survey of early Christianity. It has been a lot of fun. Also, I know there are some out there in the ether that are listening to the recordings, so I've been meaning to post the readings (and discussion questions when I have them)...and here they are (or were), including the readings I'm taking the group through this Sunday. I hope someone finds this beneficial.

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Short Note on Irenaeus, Hermas and Scripture

3/22/2009 -- Filed Under: Early Christianity
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Ran across this is my reading just now. It's not surprising but is worth jotting down so I can find it later.

In Irenaeus' Against Heresies IV 20:2 says "Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says..." and then proceeded to quote the Shepherd of Hermas, Commandment 1. Like I said...not surprising. But there it is if you need a reference to something like that.

Augustine on the Septuagint

12/21/2008 -- Filed Under: Church Fathers, Early Christianity
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Some friends and I are reading through Augustine's On Christian Doctrine together. It's a pretty interesting volume. This week we met to discuss book 2 which had quite a bit to say about the Septuagint (LXX). For easy reference, here are some interesting quotes. And just because it would be exceedingly annoying to actually type these in, I'm just going to copy from ccat, at least usually.

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Not Impressed By Some Thoughts on Canon

9/11/2008 -- Filed Under: Apostolic Fathers, Church Fathers, Early Christianity
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So I was checking out some of the materials on the most recent patristics carnival over at Hyperekperissou (by the way Phil, are you aware of this other hyperekperissou blog?). As you know I have a keen interest in the development of the canon and other things in early/archaic Christian history, so the the couple articles on the topic caught my eye. One is here and the other is here.

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Themelios 33 - Nonviolence in the Ancient Church

8/17/2008 -- Filed Under: General, Church Fathers, Early Christianity
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Today I read an interesting article from the latest issue of Themelios (which can be found here in PDF). Not only does it use a nice serif font for the article text (I wonder what it is) but the article itself is interesting. If you are interested in the early church's thinking on Christianity and violence, it is certainly worth your read.

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Quick Review Of Decoding Early Christianity

3/31/2008 -- Filed Under: Books, Early Christianity
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Decoding Early Christianity: Truth and Legend in the Early Church is a book I was able to pick up off of the new books shelf at DTS. It looked interesting enough, had a cool cover (even if a bit odd for the subject matter), a great title, was short, and fell within my reading interests, so I decided to check it out. In summary, it is a book of inconsistent quality, and will not be the book I end up recommending for a good introduction to early Christianity (despite its cool name).

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Series Intro: Authority in the Apostolic Fathers

3/23/2008 -- Filed Under: Apostolic Fathers, Ecclesiology, Early Christianity, New Testament
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As I mentioned in a recent post on Ignatius, I am beginning a new series. This series discusses how the Apostolic Fathers viewed viewed authority, revelation, the New and Old Testament documents, tradition, and other related important things. This is ultimately to bring this data, along with the witness of the New and Old Testament writings, in for a discussion of church authority and Scripture in modern Christianity.

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Good Canon Visualization And The Authorship of Hebrews

2/27/2008 -- Filed Under: New Testament, Books, Gnosticism, Early Christianity
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The quixotic infidel had a very good visualization for describing the canonical status of various books by various entities in early Christianity.

Michael from Pisteuomen is in a discussion with the author of the blog on the authorship of Hebrews. I happen to agree with Quixie; Paul did not write Hebrews.

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