Full Description
Twelve leading scholars have collaborated on this unique volume, bringing their biblical and patristic expertise together to show how the first followers of Jesus used their own canonical scriptures to address concerns central to life in the Roman Empire. Sacred Scripture and Secular Struggles offers an overview of how early Christians approached and appropriated biblical texts in addressing wider societal issues of imperial power, slavery, the use of wealth, suicide and other fundamental issues brought about by the convergence of empire and ecclesia.
Contents
Introduction
I: The Canonical Beginnings
Nicole Kelley, The Fragmentation and Inversion of Empire in the Christian Apocryphal Acts
Jonathan Yates, Sic est uoluntas Dei: Latin Patristic views on 1 Peter 2:13-17
Clayton Jefford, Power and Tradition in Apostolic Constitutions
II: 2nd and 3rd Century Developments
Geoffrey D. Dunn, Tertullian and Military Service: The Scriptural Arguments in De corona
D. Jeffrey Bingham, Irenaeus and the Kingdoms of the World
Roberto De La Noval, The Weak God of the Gospels: Mercy, Mysticism, and Martyrdom in Origen's Contra Celsum
III: Scripture in the Service of Urban Unity
Benjamin Wayman, Psalm 2 and Kingship in Diodore of Tarsus
Alden Bass, Iustus Sibi Lex Est: The Donatist Interpretation of Rom 2:14
Stephen Hildebrand, Should a Christian Sell Everything? Patristic Interpretations of the Story of the Rich Young Man
IV: Augustine's Legacy
Melanie Webb, Abraham, Samson, and 'Certain Holy Women': Suicide and Exemplarity in Augustine's De ciuitate dei 1.26
Joseph Capizzi, From Slave to Friend: John 15, Philemon and Slavery in Augustine
David Vincent Meconi, From Potestas to Ordo: Augustine's Reading of Romans 13:1
