Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic
A Study of an Early Christian Transformation of Pagan Culture
by Allen Brent
The letters of Ignatius of Antioch, whether considered genuine or pseudonymous, have been generally understood as addressing concerns and issues within the Church. Consequently, his language has been read as an expression of second century Judaeo Christianity or as a reply to Valentinianism, with little direct contact or concern with the surrounding pagan culture. Allen Brent submits Ignatius’ language to a comprehensive analysis and seeks to show that both conceptually, and in terms of the form of his arguments, his language game is clearly that of the pagan, Greek city-states of Asia Minor in the Second Sophistic. The author shows from a variety of evidence, both literary, epigraphic and iconographic, that Ignatius’ cultural background is in the world of the discourse of Hellenic autonomy against Roman imperial power, in the image-bearing mystery cults of the cities to whom he writes, in their embassies and Homonia treaties, and in their ideal of unity in a common culture expressed by their constitutions and cultural practices. Ignatius emerges as a brilliant missionary strategist, able to reshape ecclesial order in terms of secular social order and its conventions, whose work was scarcely comprehended by his more conservative Christian contemporaries and only later canonized by means of a gross distortion that obscured his original meaning.
- By (author) Allen Brent
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Religiose Philosophie und philosophische Religion der fruhen Kaiserzeit
Literaturgeschichtliche Perspektiven. Ratio Religionis Studien I
Volume 51
Beyond Conflicts
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Von Leporius bis zu Leo dem Grossen
Studien zur lateinischsprachigen Christologie im funften Jahrhundert nach Christus
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Die Kirche der Reinen
Kirchen- und sozialhistorische Studie zu den Novatianern im 3. bis 5. Jahrhundert
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STUDIA CHRYSOSTOMICA
Aufsatze zu Weg, Werk und Wirkung des Johannes Chrysostomos (ca. 349-407)
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Schenute von Atripe: Contra Origenistas
Edition des koptischen Textes mit annotierter Ubersetzung und Indizes einschliesslich einer Ubersetzung des 16. Osterfestbriefs des Theophilus in der Fassung des Hieronymus (ep. 96)
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Politics, Monasticism, and Miracles in Sixth Century Upper Egypt
A Critical Edition and Translation of the Coptic Texts on Abraham of Farshut
Volume 69
Platon und Aristoteles in der Kosmologie des Proklos
Ein Kommentar zu den 18 Argumenten fur die Ewigkeit der Welt bei Johannes Philoponos
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