Books in the Oxford Early Christian Studies series

A major study of the work of St Maximus the Confessor, covering all the important areas of his thought, from Trinitarian theology to cosmology and spirituality.

Jerome was one of the very few early Christian scholars to know any Hebrew. This is an introduction, translation, and commentary of his questions on Genesis - showing a Christian working alongside Jews in an age very different from our own.

This book studies the life and thought of the Christian monks of 4th and 5th century lower Egypt, whose views have been influential at many points in the subsequent history of Christianity.

John Damascene, one-time civil servant in the Umayyad Arab Empire, became a monk near Jerusalem in the eighth century. This book presents an account of John's life and work. It sets John's theological work in the context of the process of preserving, defining, defending, and celebrating the Christian faith of the early synods of the Church.

Recounts the historical and cultural process by which Cyril of Alexandria was elevated to canonical status while his opponent, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, was turned into a heretic. Argues that it was Cyril's mastery of rhetoric and ecclesiastical politics alike which ensured his victory over his adversary.

How did the early Church understand the relation between grace, salvation, and the person of Christ? Donald Fairbairn's persuasive study shows that, despite intense theological controversy, there was in fact a very strong consensus in the fifth century about what salvation was and who Christ needed to be in order to save people.

In this new edition, Hamilton Hess has updated his account of The Canons of the Council of Sardica, AD 343 in the light of recent literature, included new material and the full texts of the canons, and translated all quotations into English. Three new opening chapters make a fresh contribution to the study of early church history.

This work considers ideas about the legitimacy of slavery in ancient Greek, Jewish, New Testament, and Early Christian thought, as well as the actual practices with regard to slave ownership employed by these thinkers.

This work offers a critical overview of the hymns of Ambrose of Milan (c.339-397) in the context of fourth-century doctrinal hymns and in relation to his own catechetical preaching. Brian P. Dunkle, SJ, argues that Ambrose employed sophisticated poetic techniques in his hymns in order to foster a pro-Nicene sensitivity in his congregation.

This book examines how Gregory of Nazianzus, a fourth-century Greek writer famed as 'the Theologian' in the Christian tradition, expressed the mystery of Christ in terms of his own life. It studies Gregory's three genres of writing (orations, poems, and letters) and shows how Gregory developed an 'autobiographical Christology'.

The first major study in English of the 'heretic' Jovinian and the Jovinianist controversy. David G. Hunter examines early Christian views on marriage and celibacy and the development of an anti-heretical tradition. Hunter sheds new light on the origins of Christian asceticism, and the formation of 'orthodoxy' and 'heresy' in early Christianity.

This study examines the sixth century formation of the Syrian Orthodox Church. Menze shows that the separation of the Syrian Orthodox Christians from Western Christianity occurred due to the divergent political interests of bishops and emperors. Discrimination and persecution forced the establishment of an independent church.

John Cassian (d. c.435) brought the teachings of the Egyptian desert fathers to the Latin West. A. M. C. Casiday offers a revisionist account of his work, restoring the stories he tells to a position of importance as an integral part of his monastic theology.

This study of the largest extant source for fifth-century Antiochene Christology conclusively demonstrates that its fundamental philosophical assumptions about the natures of God and humanity compelled the Antiochenes to assert that there are two subjects in the Incarnation: the Word himself and a distinct human personality.

Comprises an English translation and studies, which examine the emergence of monasticism in Asia Minor. This book compares "The Regula Basilii", translated by Rufinus from Basil's "Small Asketikon" with the Greek text of the longer edition, as a means to tracing the development of ideas.

A study of how Christians understood the Holy Spirit in the 5th and 6th centuries. Humphries argues that we can see various schools of thought within Christianity in this period, but that many of them are occupied with similar questions about how to understand human life and how to understand divine life.

The ancient Dormition and Assumption traditions are the earliest accounts of the Virgin Mary's departure from this life. They first developed in the eastern Mediterranean during the early Christian period. This book presents a systematic study of these traditions and it is intended as an introduction to the earliest traditions.

The monasteries of the Jerusalem desert were famous throughout the Byzantine Christian world. This book provides a study of the monastic movement in Palestine during the Byzantine period, from the accession of Constantine to the fall of Jerusalem to the Persians in 614.

Intellectuals in antiquity and into the Middle Ages assumed that the stars were alive, and this had a great impact on philosophy, religion, and science. In the third century AD, Origen's development of this idea was not only an interesting episode in its history, but had important implications for early Christian theology.

A study of the mystical nature of tradition, and the traditional nature of mysticism, and of St Symeon as both a highly personal and very traditional ecclesiastical writer. This book examines St Symeon's attitude to Scripture and to church worship, his relations with his spiritual father, Symeon the Studite, and the Studite tradition in general.

Can humans know God? Eastern Orthodox theology affirms that we cannot know God in his essence, but may know him through his energies. Henny Fiska Hagg investigates the beginnings of Christian negative (apophatic) theology, focusing on Clement of Alexandria in the late second century.

The first translation into a modern language of an important patristic text, Gregory of Nyssa's treatise on the inscriptions of the Psalms. The book shows Gregory's indebtedness to classical culture as well as to Christian tradition, and compares his early understanding of the stages of the spiritual life with that in his later treatises.

This study examines the relationship between Augustine's account of God's judgment and his theology of grace in his early works.

Drawing on textual and rhetorical analysis, Peter Van Nuffelen proposes a major revaluation of The Histories Against the Pagans of Orosius, arguing that it is a much more subtle and complex text than usually assumed. Van Nuffelen uses Orosius as a lens to consider fourth- and fifth-century historiography.

Maximus the Confessor (580-662) was an important Byzantine thinker, the 'father of Byzantine theology'. This study describes his metaphysical world-view. The discussion covers Maximus' doctrine of creation, the Logos and the logoi, the cosmic order, the activities or energies of God, and how created beings may participate in God.

This study develops a methodology for approaching homilies that draws on a broader understanding of audience as both the physical audience and the readership of sermons. It then offers a case study on the Syriac preacher Jacob of Serguh whose metrical homilies form one of the largest sermon collections in any language from late antiquity.

This study presses beyond the pervasive early Christian aversion to pagan theatrical art in all its forms and investigates the growing critical engagement with the genre of tragedy by Christian authors, especially in the post-Constantinian era.

Deification was not only a pagan concept but a metaphor for a deeply Christian view of the purpose of human life. This is the first book on the subject for over sixty years. It brings together much recent research on the Church Fathers from the second to the seventh centuries, offering an analysis of their spiritual teaching and setting it within the context of the times.

This book examines the way Christians in Jerusalem prayed and how their prayer changed in the face of foreign invasions and the destruction of their places of worship.