| John Anthony McGuckin Bible THEODORE G. STYLIANOPOULOS The Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is a rich and diverse library of sacred writings or scriptures derived from the Jewish and Christian traditions. “Bible” (from the Greek biblos meaning “document” or “book”) points to the authority of the Bible as the book of divine revelation. “Scripture” (Greek graphe, meaning “what is written”) signifies the actual content of the books proclaiming the authoritative message of salvation – the word of God. In a process lasting nearly four centuries, the ancient church preserved, selected, and gradually formed these sacred texts into two official lists or canons of the Old and New Testaments, respectively, a significant achievement that along with the shaping of the episcopacy and creed contributed to the growth and unity of the church. In Orthodox perspective, the Bible or Holy Scripture is the supreme record of God’s revelation and therefore the standard of the church for worship, theology, spirituality, ethics, and practice. The Bible is above all a book of God and about God – God himself being the primary author and the subject matter of the scriptures. The Bible bears testimony to who God is, what great acts of salvation God has accomplished, and what God’s revealed will for humanity is, communicated through inspired men and women “in many and various ways” (Heb. 1.1). These “ways” include words, deeds, rites, laws, visions, symbols, parables, wisdom, ethical teachings, and commandments. The overall message of the Bible is the narrative of salvation about creation, fall, covenant, prophecy, exile, redemption, and hope of final world renewal. The supreme revelation of the mystery of God is through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “the Lord of glory” ( 1Cor. 2.8 ), who constitutes the center of biblical revelation and marks the unity of the Old and New Testaments. However, insofar as divine revelation occurred not in a vacuum but in relationship to free, willing, thinking, and acting human beings, the Bible also reflects a human and historical side which accounts for the variety of books, authors, language, style, customs, ideas, theological perspectives, numerous discrepancies in historical details, and sometimes substantial differences in teaching, especially between the Old and New Testaments. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Judaism, Orthodoxy and EUGEN J. PENTIUC EARLY JEWISH-CHRISTIAN INTERACTION WITH SCRIPTURE In the last decades of the first century CE nascent Jewish Christianity was gradually outnumbered by the ever-growing Gentile element. From the outset, early Christianity and evolving Judaism experienced a long and intricate process of the “parting of the ways,” although there are an increasing number of scholars today who question this construct’s absolute nature, pointing to many continued interactions between the two communities of faith for many centuries. Christians have always been aware of their links with the Jewish people and interacted with them, not least through the sharing of Scripture and moral and prophetic attitudes. The Old Testament, the first part of the Christian Bible, is essentially the Jewish Scripture. The very title “Old Testament” given by Christians to the Hebrew Scripture is a phrase coined by the Apostle Paul with regard to the writings attributed to Moses ( 2Cor. 3.14–15 ) and popularized by Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century. The title “New Testament,” referring to the new collection put together by the early church, is taken from the Book of Jeremiah announcing that God will make a “new covenant” with Israel ( Jer. 31.31 ). What was the relationship between Jesus and Judaism and its Scripture? Any attempt to define this relationship should keep in mind two factors. On the one hand, Jesus places his sayings on the same level of authority as Moses’ teachings ( Jn. 5.47 ), stating that he came to fulfill the whole entirety of the law ( Mt. 5.17 ). On the other hand, Jesus relativizes several important Old Testament injunctions, among which were the Sabbath observance ( Mt. 12.8, 12 ) and ritual purity laws ( Mt. 15.11 ). This makes one think of the relation of the Old and New Testaments as being a relationship balanced between conformity and disruption: a unity under tension. The Lord Jesus stands at one and the same moment within Judaism and beyond it. Although St. Paul never removed the Jews – the heirs of biblical Israel considered as the people of God – from the salvific framework of his theology of redemption ( Rom. 9–11 ), he certainly moved them away from the center, at which axis point he located submission to Jesus, Lord of the New Covenant. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf MONASTICISM MONASTICISM. The origins of Christian monasticism are much debated, but early one may point with authority to the life of Jesus, as well as that of Joh n the Baptist and the Virgin Mary (q.v.). It is clear that ascesis (q.v.) formed a component of Christian life from the start, and that from its beginnings as a mass movement in 4th c. Egypt (q.v.), monasticism has been an essential and vital expression of Christian life. It is surely not accidental that its great popularity and the rapid spread of monasteries were simultaneous with the new status of the Church following the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (q.v.). With the disappearance of the martyr (q.v.) as a model of Christian witness, a new set of heroes emerged and were seized upon by the faithful: the ascetics of the desert. Antony of Egypt (q.v.) was the first, a hermit whose austere rule of life and extraordinary personal charismata caught the imagination of late antiquity. He was followed by Macarius of Scete (q.v.) and by Pachomius of the Thebaid (southern Egypt), whose communal organization of monks provided the first standing model of common-life (cenobitic) monasticism, indeed of monasteries in the usual sense. The elders (gerontes, startzi) of Scete gave Christianity the term, Desert Fathers (q.v.), and a median way of life between Pachomius’s strict communalism and Antony’s solitary life. All three forms of monastic life continue in force in the Orthodox oikoumene, most notably on Mt. Athos (qq.v.). Also, in the 4th c., Basil the Great (q.v.) organized the ascetics of his metropolitanate in Asia Minor (q.v.). His rule, communicated via letters addressed to specific questions on ascetic life, emphasized communal life, obedience to the abbot, and service. It was to play a significant, though not dominant, role in the later monasticism of Byzantium (q.v.). Asceticism in Syria (q.v.) remained for some time an individual effort, the “sons” or “daughters of the covenant” being attached to the local churches and active in their affairs. This form of ascetic life seems to have had roots in the Syriac Church (q.v.) well before the 4th c. A later period saw a rise in extreme-even eccentric-forms of asceticism, perhaps best known by the early 5th-c. phenomenon of the stylite saints, for example, Symeon Stylites, who subsequently appeared in Byzantium itself. |
| Chapter VI. The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church Christianity is essentially a social religion. There is an old Latin saying: unus Christianas nullus Christianus. Nobody can be truly Christian as a solitary and isolated being. Christianity is not primarily a doctrine or a discipline that individuals might adopt for their personal use and guidance. Christianity is exactly a community, i.e., the church. In this respect there is an obvious continuity between the Old and the New dispensations. Christians are «the New Israel.» The whole phraseology of Scripture is highly instructive: the Covenant, the Kingdom, the Church, «a holy Nation, a peculiar People.» The abstract term «Christianity» is obviously of a late date. From the very beginning Christianity was socially minded. The whole fabric of Christian existence is social and corporate. All Christian sacraments are intrinsically «social sacraments,» i.e. sacraments of incorporation. Christian worship is also a corporate worship, «publica et communis oratio,» in the phrase of St. Cyprian. To build up the Church of Christ means, therefore, to build up a new society and, by implication, to re-build human society on a new basis. There was always a strong emphasis on unanimity and life in common. One of the earliest names for Christians was simply «Brethren.» The church was and was to be a creaturely image of the divine pattern. Three Persons, yet One God. Accordingly, in the church, many are to be integrated into one Body. All this is, of course, the common heritage of the whole church. Yet, probably, this corporate emphasis has been particularly strong in the Eastern tradition and does still constitute the distinctive ethos of the Eastern Orthodox church. It is not _________________ «The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church» appeared in The Journal of Religious Thought, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (Autumn/Winter, 1950 – 1951), pp. 41 – 51. Reprinted by permission. to suggest that all social aspirations of Christianity had been really actualized in the empirical life of the Christian East. Ideals are never fully realized; the church is still |
| Title 130 Q. What is the Orthodox position on the indissolubility of marriage, divorce and remarriage, and why? The Orthodox Church views marriage as a holy union between a man and a woman that is established and blessed by God. Marriage therefore is “a bond of a covenant that may not be broken,” according to the words of the sacrament. And yet the Church, for certain grave reasons, permits divorce and remarriage. This seemingly paradoxical position arises out of, on the one hand, respect for biblical teaching and, on the other, compassionate concern for human weakness. The authority for the unbreakable character of marriage is Christ himself. In Mark 10:6-8, Jesus rejects divorce allowed by the Mosaic Law (Dt 24-14) and appeals to God’s order of creation: “God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Gn 1:27; 2:24). Then he commands: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mk 10:9). The same teaching is found among the radical standards of conduct proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:31-33). These principles are intended for all those who accept Christ’s saving message and commit themselves to live by the reality of God’s kingdom revealed by Christ. The Orthodox tradition has always fostered the ideal of the permanency of marriage on the basis of Christ’s teaching. For example, the great Church Father, John Chrysostom (fourth century), writes, “Both by the manner of creation and by the manner of [new] lawgiving, Christ showed that one man must dwell with one woman continually and never break off from her.” In his book “Against Remarriage,” Chrysostom goes as far as to counsel widows and widowers themselves not to remarry but to remain faithful to their deceased spouses and honor their memory. However, because of human frailty, not all people can uphold the ideal of the permanency of marriage. And the radical principles of the Sermon on the Mount must ultimately be interpreted in the light of the Gospel, not law. In cases of moral failure, the Gospel requires that we respond to people with compassion and forgiveness, not judgment and condemnation. According to the Gospel of Matthew, divorce can occur for reasons of “unchastity” (porneia, literally “fornication”), probably referring to sexual misconduct (Mt 5:32; 19:9). Similarly, though St. Paul mentions the standard of Christ’s strict teaching about marriage, nevertheless he accommodates his pastoral instructions to human weakness, including the possibility of separation and divorce (1 Cor 7:10-15). |
| Chapter III. Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert Christianity entered history as a new social order, or rather a new social dimension. From the very beginning Christianity was not primarily a «doctrine,» but exactly a «community.» There was not only a «Message» to be proclaimed and delivered, and «Good News» to be declared. There was precisely a New Community, distinct and peculiar, in the process of growth and formation, to which members were called and recruited. Indeed, «fellowship» (koinonia) was the basic category of Christian existence. Primitive Christians felt themselves to be closely knit and bound together in a unity which radically transcended all human boundaries – of race, of culture, of social rank, and indeed the whole dimension of «this world.» They were brethren to each other, members of «One Body,» even of the «Body of Christ.» This glorious phrase of St. Paul admirably summarizes the common experience of the faithful. In spite of the radical novelty of Christian experience, basic categories of interpretation were taken over from the Old Testament, of which the New Covenant was conceived to be the fulfilment and consummation. Christians were indeed «a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart» (I Peter, 2:9). They were the New Israel, the «Little Flock,» that is, the faithful «Remnant» to which it was God’s good pleasure to give the Kingdom (Luke 12:32). Scattered sheep had to be brought together into «one fold,» and assembled. The Church was exactly this «Assembly,» ekklesia tou Theou, – a permanent Assembly of the new «Chosen People» of God, never to be adjourned. In «this world» Christians could be but pilgrims and strangers. Their true «citizenship,» politeuma, was «in heaven» ( Phil. 3:20 ). The Church herself was peregrinating through this world (paroikousa). «The Christian fellowship was a bit of extra-territorial jurisdiction on earth of the world above» (Frank Gavin). The Church was an «outpost of heaven» on the earth, or a «colony of heaven.» It may be true that this attitude of radical detachment had originally an «apocalyptic» connotation, and was inspired by the expectation of an imminent parousia. |
| John Anthony McGuckin World Religions, Orthodoxy and TIMOTHY J. BECKER The Orthodox Church understands itself as the full completion of the covenant with Israel. From the outset, Orthodoxy has claimed continuity with a Jewish past, and so has assumed its monotheism, Scriptures, and critique of idolatry. Yet it has also stood in significant discontinuity with that past heritage, orienting the Jewish dispensation according to Jesus Christ, whom it proclaims as the true goal of the Law and the Prophets, and who exceeds them all (cf. Mt. 12.6; 12.41–2 ). However, most who became Orthodox Christians came from the nations surrounding Israel and, while accepting the Jewish critique of their cults, progressively resisted Jewish culture. This differentiation between cult and ethnic culture saw the emergence of the new and distinctive category of “religion,” in which cult took precedence but no longer necessarily corresponded to a particular culture. Thus, Orthodoxy has encountered the world with a restricted cult but an unrestricted attachment to culture; in this sense every culture can house Orthodoxy, while Orthodoxy can house only one cult, which it offers to all nations as the fulfilment of their own cultures. Nearly all the fathers of the church saw Judaism in a closely relational mode to Christianity. Even those hostile to it were hostile likely because of local tensions rather than systematic theological reasons. The religions of other nations around them, however, were not seen positively. St. Athanasius (296–373) taught that the pagan cults were failures (at a basic logical and moral level) at assessing the innate Image of God properly, which was a live possibility. In a very influential early 4th-century treatise on the pagan cults, he said that rather than worshipping their uncreated Master, humans were swayed by evil to establish created things as God. Evil, which lacks existence, is thus the cause of false gods, which also lack existence (Contra Gentes 1.8). For Athanasius, the religions are not just errors in religious style, they are metaphysically the undoing of the world, the deification of ontologically diminishing forms of existence. Athanasius is also clear that this practice is widespread, implicating, among others, the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians, Syrians, Indians, Arabs, Ethiopians, and Armenians (Contra Gentes 1.23). |
| The Journal of Theological Studies. — Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 (April). — Vol. 56 (New Series): 1 8 июля 2005 г. 16:03 Содержание номера Статьи Campbell D. A. Possible Inscriptional Attestation to Sergius Paul[L]US (Acts 13:6–12), and the Implications for Pauline Chronology. Mosser C. The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of PSALM 82, Jewish Antecedents, and the Origin of Christian Deification. Zachhuber J. Once Again: Gregory of Nyssa on Universals. Заметки и публикации McDonough S. M. Competent to Judge: The Old Testament Connection Between 1 Corinthians 5 and 6. Van Nuffelen P. Two Fragments from the Apology for Origen in the Church History of Socrates Scholasticus. Edwards M. J. Constantine " s Donation to the Bishop and Pope of the City of Rome’. Рецензии на книги Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Theodicy in the World of the Bible. Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology. Glimpses of a Strange Land: Studies in Old Testament Ethics Knowing the End from the Beginning: The Prophetic, the Apocalyptic and their Relationships. Stockmen from Tekoa, Sycomores from Sheba: A Study of Amos’ Occupations. Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Study. Christianity in the Making, volume 1: Jesus Remembered. Not the Righteous but Sinners: M. M. Bakhtin " s Theory of Aesthetics and the Problem of Reader-Character Interaction in Matthew " s Gospel. The Gospel of Matthew " s Dependence on the Didache. Jesus " Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark " s Early Readers. An Introduction to the Gospel of John. Creation-Covenant Scheme and Justification by Faith: A Canonical Study of the God–Human Drama in the Pentateuch and the Letter to the Romans. Das Gesetz im Römerbrief und andere Studien zum Neuen Testament. Where to Live? The Hermeneutical Significance of Paul " s Citations from Scripture in Galatians 3:1–14. Paul, Luke and the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Alexander J. M. Wedderburn. The Genre, Composition and Hermeneutics of James. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf ATONEMENT ATONEMENT. Classically defined as the reconciliation of human beings with God through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, the doctrine has received much less attention in the East than in the West, especially since the Middle Ages (with the possible exception of post-Petrine Russia). Atonement may be rooted in many Old Testament concepts, whether it be the sacrificial system, the sacrifice associated with the establishment of a covenant, or the Isaianic expectation of a “suffering servant.” These themes all reverberate in the New Testament, not only in Heb, but in relation to the sacrificial system ( Mk 10:45 : “to give his life a ransom for many”; Rom 3:25 ; IP1:18–19), the establishment of a new covenant (Eucharistie words of institution, and the Johannine parallels between the Lamb of God and the Paschal lamb), and the “suffering servant” as Jesus’ self-identification ( Lk 22:37 ), and his identification by the emerging church ( I Cor 15:3 ; Acts 8:32–35). Later, Origen, probably under the influence of gnosticism (qq.v.), developed the doctrine to include Satan: Satan had rights over humanity because of the Fall, and Christ’s death was a necessary ransom payment. Remarkably, Origen’s view of atonement was not accepted by the Cappadocians in the East, probably due to the influence of Athanasius’s (qq.v.) theology of the incarnation: God became human so that we could become divine. Origen’s view was accepted in the West, i.e., by Hilary of Poitier, Augustine (q.v.), and Leo, but with a sensitivity toward the defeat of Satan in the victory of Christ’s Resurrection (q.v.). The addition of Satan to the equation notwithstanding, the Eastern Fathers and Orthodox theologians today would prefer the balance struck between the Cross and the Resurrection-to which they quickly append the Transfiguration. Since the East holds a different theology of “original sin” (q.v.) from the West, the atonement most likely did not take on the same immediacy as in the West, which typically separated it from the Resurrection and the Transfiguration. When Augustinian original sin dictated the “necessity” of the Incarnation to satisfy conditions of redemption-someone without “original sin” must be born to satisfy the equation-the atonement fit into this “negative” description without reference to the corresponding “positive” theologies of the resurrection and the transformation of life. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf CONFESSION CONFESSION. The complex topic of confession is complicated by terminological difficulties, for example, its relationship to apostasy, repentance, and sin (qq.v.), and its history as a sacrament (q.v.) within the Church. Although it may be convenient to divide the subject into three subtopics, confession of sins, confession of faith, and confession in relation to spiritual guidance, the three items are probably all aspects of one topic. The case for a negative confession of sins, which must necessarily be complemented by a positive confession of faith, is the understanding of a particular biblical worldview. In both Hebrew and Greek “to sin” means “to miss the mark,” that “mark” being God. “Confess” in Hebrew is a form of the verb “to shoot,” thus “to hit the mark, i.e., God.” “To confess” in Greek is “to speak out, publish, divulge.” Although one can find instances of confession of sins by itself in the Old Testament ( Ps 32:5; 38:18 ), the case for confession of sins with an accompanying positive confession of faith is also found. For example, a confession of sins is a necessary precedent for sacrifice ( Lev 5:5 ; Ps. 51 ); and the “Great Confession” accompanies the reading of the Law and the covenant to support God’s house (Neh 9). Similarly, in the New Testament one may find simple confession for repentance (Mk l:4f; 1Jn l:8f.) or the (negative) confession of sins ( Mt 3:4 ), which is followed by the (positive) reception of the Holy Spirit ( Mt 4:11 ) or of healing (Jas 5:16). The most familiar New Testament citation of confession is the solely positive one, the confession of Jesus as Lord, the Christ, and so on. Represented par excellence by Peter’s words at Caesarea Philippi, this helps form the centerpiece of the three Synoptic Gospels (confession, Cross-Resurrection, Transfiguration), as well as a major theme forced back onto the reader by the Gospel of John: Who is Jesus? In the apostolic Church it describes the profession of faith made by a martyr ( 2Cor 9:13 ; 1Tim 6:13 ). Although it might go unnoticed, the theme of Peter’s confession in the Gospels is later offset by his three denials of Jesus during his trial. Peter is nonetheless a principal witness of the resurrected Lord; and John’s Gospel balances Peter’s three sinful denials with three affirmations of his love (21:15f.). The denials of Peter naturally lead to an investigation of apostasy (q.v.), which is the opposite of a positive confession of faith, and should be consulted before proceeding to sacramental confession. |
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