This thesis will look at the changes brought about in the perception of women's role in society by the advent of Christianity. The early chapters will discuss the actual status of women in ancient Graeco-Roman and Jewish society, so far as that can be discovered; followed by St Paul's views on women, which heavily influenced St Augustine. I shall then examine the status assigned to women and slaves by Plato in his two outlines for ideal societies, the Republic and the Laws, and shall finish with an examination of Augustine's attitudes to women and slavery. Plato believed that intelligent women were just as capable as men of achieving the philosophical ideal, and he believed that there would be many intelligent women in any given society. Many of Augustine's Letters are addressed to 'holy women", though he was reluctant to accept that these women were not exceptional. Augustine had many female correspondents, most but not all of whom were consecrated virgins or chaste widows. It is quite clear that Augustine believed that these women could achieve salvation on their own account, and also that he respected the intellect of some of them. However, even these women were to live subdued, enclosed lives. In the City of God he follows Paul in circumscribing the actions of women, but his estimation of their intellect is consistently higher than Paul's. The major difference between Plato and the Christians on this issue was that for Plato, sex was a part of normal life, and indeed essential to the continuation of the State; whereas for Christians it had become a problem and a hindrance to salvation. Neither Paul nor Augustine considered it necessary to combat slavery, probably because they were more concerned with securing the afterlife than with correcting conditions in this life.

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The central concept in this thesis is the Encaenia, particularly the Jerusalem Encaenia of the Martyrium Basilica and the anniversary feast of the same name, but also other, lesser known, inaugurations of churches which occurred in the fourth century. The thesis commences with a review of the recent scholarship on early Christian buildings, the Holy Land, and the Jerusalem Encaenia feast. Chapter two discusses the appearance of "εγκαίυια" in the Septuagint and early Christian literature before considering the first documented occasion of an encaenia feast, the inauguration of the basilica in Tyre. Chapter three is a detailed study of Constantine’s 'New Jerusalem' from the finding of the Cross to the inauguration of the Martyrium basilica in 335. A distinction is drawn between the work of Constantine and the interpretation of Eusebius. The subsequent chapter draws attention to the growth and uniform pattern of imperial involvement in the inauguration of churches under Constantius, paying particular attention to the alleged Encaenia of an Alexandrian basilica by Athanasius without imperial consent. The study of the Jerusalem Encaenia, the anniversary of the Martyrium inauguration, commences in chapter five with an analysis of the feast m the Journal of Egeria and the brief account recorded by Sozomen. Both writers portray the Encaenia as a pilgrim feast. Chapter six examines the liturgical content of the feast reconstructed from the earliest Jerusalem lectionaries and calendar. The theology of the feast is discerned from the biblical texts prescribed for the liturgy. Many of the observations made in previous chapters are drawn together in chapter eight which proposes the Encaenia as a Christian interpretation of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles. The conclusion to the thesis discusses the prominence of the Jerusalem Encaenia in the liturgical calendar, and locates the rite and feast of the Encaenia within the wider context of the dedication of churches in the east and western liturgy. Further avenues of research are outlined regarding the rites and surviving homilies for the dedication of a church.

<p>My dissertation analyzes early Christian representations of Jewish sexuality and explores how early Christian writers attacked opponents by depicting them as subjects of perverse or excessive sexual desires. Beginning with the New Testament, I examine how Paul employed sexual stereotypes to distinguish the community of believers in Christ from the wider Gentile world. In the decades after Paul, Greek writers such as Justin Martyr and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas turned accusations of sexual licentiousness and literalist interpretive practices against the Jews. Origen of Alexandria, moreover, utilized accusations of carnality, fleshliness, and sexual licentiousness to produce Jewish-Christian difference; he drew on dichotomies of "flesh" and "spirit" in Paul's letters to support his argument for the superiority of Christian "spiritual" exegesis over Jewish "carnal" exegesis. Examining the writings of major Christian writers such as Origen and John Chrysostom, I argue that Christian sexual slander against Jews intensified as Christian exegetes endeavored to claim Jewish scripture for Christian use in the third and fourth centuries. My research examines these literary constructions of Jewish sexuality in early Christian writings of Greek Fathers and illuminates how these constructions function in relation to the development of Christian biblical hermeneutics, the formation of Christian practices of self-mastery, and the expansion of Christian imperial power. By exploring how early Christian writers appealed to categories of gender and sexuality to produce Jewish-Christian difference, I aim to contribute to recent scholarship on the variety of strategies by which early Christians negotiated identity and defined Otherness.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis will attempt to gauge the accuracy of Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem, particularly in the area of theology. Sources other than Tertullian, mostly his fellow heresiologists, will be used to form a picture of Marcionite thought, against which I will compare Tertullian's representation in the Adversus Marcionem. From this comparison I hope to be able to shed some light on how accurate Tertullian is in his discussion of Marcionite theology. The thesis will focus mainly on books 1-3 of the Adversus Marcionem.

Previous attempts at understanding Revelation have stressed the common links between it and the rest of the New Testament writings, or else have tended to ignore entirely its distinctive perspective on the world. This thesis illuminates the content of John's unique message in respect to its particular life-situation. There are nine chapters and the first deals with a review of the date and authorship of the Apocalypse while the second looks at how genre criticism can help us understand the audience's predispositions and the author's strategy. The third chapter is also concerned with literary criticism in that it looks at how John presents himself to his audience and how this gives us clues to his social standing within the seven assemblies named in the text. Chapters four and five look in detail at John's use of two important titles, God as 'the Almighty' and Jesus as 'the Lamb'. Chapter six deals with the usefulness of sociology in helping us understand the dynamics of the life-setting in Asia Minor by reference to research on sects and millenarian movements. Chapter seven covers the manner in which Rome ruled and compares this to the brutal and vindictive images in Revelation. Chapter eight looks at how the Apocalypse differs from the indigenous religions of Asia Minor (especially the cult of Ephesian Artemis), the Jews in Sardis and the early Christian works of 1 Peter and Ignatius of Antioch. The ninth chapter forms our conclusions. John of Patmos wrote an apocalypse to seven named assemblies in Western Asia Minor. This was a genre with which his audience was familiar. He attempted to gain their confidence in Rev 1-5 by using a number of literary devices which stressed that he was a legitimate bearer of a transcendent message. The message was so unusual in its malevolent imagery that he needed to assure his audience that they could be confident in accepting his analysis of the world around them. John and his followers can be best characterised as a revolutionist sect and even a millenarian movement. Such groups separate themselves from the wider world and expect its imminent end. They tend to come from marginalised groups deprived of power and status. John's message was unique among the early Christian texts in that it presents Jesus in the role of a theriomorphic avenger and God is seen as the Almighty who wreaks indiscriminate torture and then utterly destroys his enemies. Such images are drawn as a counterpoint to John's understanding of Roman rule as violent and repressive. In response to this understanding he forms a theology based on brutality, vengeance and cruelty and desires power, honour and wealth, the crucial values in the Roman world, for the Almighty God and his most ardent followers.

This project examines the prevalence of acclamation formulas inscribed on late Roman amulets. It argues that acclamations in amuletic form were believed to have the power to protect due to the powers that people in late antiquity attributed to actual acclamatory performance. Crowds shouted acclamations in public gatherings and liturgical processions for a variety of pragmatic reasons, including voicing dissent against an emperor or in response to natural disasters. Late antique texts also demonstrate that crowds were thought to possess extraordinary, even miraculous, qualities when shouting acclamations. Crowds chanted “Kyrie Eleison” to ward off plagues. Chanting “Holy, Holy, Holy” was believed to invoke angelic presence. This late antique culture of attributing efficacy to acclamatory performance should direct how we interpret the appearance of acclamations on amulets. These amulets illustrate the range of acclamations that constituted a veritable repertoire of efficacious formulas which could be materialized in portable or visual form for protection. Whereas prior scholarship on such acclamations focused primarily on their political and theological meanings, this thesis demonstrates how their functions extended well beyond communication. Inscribing an amulet with a popular chant recalls the memory of these powerful performances and extends that power in material form. This thesis further illustrates that this material efficacy of amulets could be integrated into the built environment when inscribed on monumental building stones or as graffiti in the streets of late antique towns.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The recent discovery of documents at Qumran has provoked renewed interest in the possibility of Jewish influence on primitive Christianity in several areas. The purpose of this dissertation is to describe historically Jewish and Christian disciplinary procedures, particularly excommunication, in order to determine whether the practice of the church indicates indebtedness to pre-Christian Judaism. Since an important excursus, der Synagogenbann, in the Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch by H. Strack and P. Billerbeck is frequently referred to in works on church discipline, a secondary purpose of the dissertation is to examine the methodology and results of the excursus. The investigation covers the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Document, rabbinic literature, the New Testament, and the Apostolic Fathers. The curses alah, arar, qalal, and especially herem, were used (often by intimidation)in the Old Testament to maintain moral and spiritual standards. Since anathema is the usual translation in the Septuagint for berem, its use in its classical setting is examined. In addition to the curse, the threat of immediate punishment or future divine judgment was employed to guard the purity of the worship of Yahweh. In the literature of the Intertestamental period, all traces of punishment have disappeared from the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, except for the mention of the curse in a few poetic passages. However, an elaborate system of punishment is found in the Qumran literature. Further evidence of the practice of excommunication in this period is revealed in the rabbinic material. In IQS and CD the punishment for sins generally depended on whether the sins were considered to be against an individual or the community as a whole. Mild punishment was reserved for social infractions against one's neighbor, but irrevocable expulsion was the sentence for sins thought to have been prompted by an attitude that was not sympathetic with the ideals of the group. The conclusions of the excursus, der Synagogenbann, must be revised by giving closer attention to the problem of chronology. The synagogue at the time of Jesus knew of only one ban, the niddui. The shammatha, as a disciplinary measure, was an interchangeable term with niddui, but was confined to the Babylonian Jews. Herem probably did not appear as a term for excommunication in the synagogue until the third century. The principal reason for the pronouncing of the niddui was to safeguard the halakhah. The practice of excommunication in the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers scarcely appears, and the use of the curse as a means of discipline does not occur at all. The first Gospel shows that even though Matthew conceived of the church as a corpus mixtum, judgment was properly a (divine) matter for the future. The mark of a Christian in the church was a readiness to forgive an offending brother. In the crucial Pauline passages excommunication has no prominent place. Paul's use of anathema bore little relationship to church discipline. In the remainder of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers a spirit of restraint with regard to excommunication characterized the early Christian movement. Thus, members in good standing were to take note of offenders, rebuke them, pray for them, invite and receive them back if they repented. Despite the conclusion that Judaism and the church exercised considerable restraint in the matter of discipline, one cannot claim with certainty the dependence of the church on known Jewish disciplinary practices.

This thesis analyzes the Apostle Paul’s approach to his own death. The term “approach” is deliberately vague and is intended to encompass a number of questions: What was Paul’s attitude toward his death? How did he act and what did he say and write in view of it? What hopes did he hold for himself beyond death? These questions are explored through a close reading of three Pauline letters that look forward to Paul’s death and other relevant texts in the first two generations after Paul’s death (A.D. 70–160). Thus, this thesis is a study of Paul’s death in prospect and retrospect. Starting with the latter, the first half of the thesis examines portraits of the departed Paul in Acts 20:17–38; 1 Clem. 5.1–6.1; Ign. Eph. 12.2; Rom. 4.3; Pol. Phil. 9.1–2; and the Martyrdom of Paul. It is argued that these portraits exhibit a complicated network of similarities that may be described using Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblances.” Viewed as a part of Paul’s early effective history, these early portraits of Paul offer substantial resources for the interpretation of his letters. The second half of the thesis examines portraits of the departing Paul in 2 Cor 1:8–14; 4:16–5:10; Phil 1:18d–26; 2:16b–18; 3:7–14; and 2 Tim 1:12; 4:6–8, 17–18. The “decision of death” referred to in 2 Cor 1:9 is highlighted as a religious experience and one which goaded Paul to formulate his approach to death. It is argued that his death did not primarily present an existential challenge, but a pastoral one. Although touching upon three areas of recent scholarly interest (Paul’s theology of death and beyond; Paul’s religious experience; and Pauline reception), this thesis sets forth a new research question and fresh interpretations of early Christian and Pauline texts.

This study addresses the question of formative early Christian preaching and teaching. Unlike previous approaches, I eschew synthesis across a broad range and focus instead on the earliest extant Christian source: the letters of Paul. My method draws on ancient communication practices, primarily represented in ancient rhetoric, wherein communicators rely on knowledge they presume their interlocutors to possess. Passages are analyzed according to the type of appeal to Paul's initial teaching: (1) explicit reminders of previous teaching, (2) direct appeals to knowledge not explicitly linked to previous teaching, and (3) indirect appeals to knowledge about practices, beliefs, conventions, etc. The reconstruction focuses on 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians and Romans. 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians represent neophyte and well-established Pauline communities, respectively, while Romans is of interest because it represents non-Pauline believers. I proceed with a comparative analysis of 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians. Chapter 4 lays out the rhetorical situation for these letters while chapters 5-7 investigate the three types of appeal respectively, each closing with a comparison of similar material in each letter. Chapter 8 summarizes and concludes this discussion, providing the basis for my subsequent analysis of Romans. Finally, I compare the picture from the Thessalonian and Corinthian communities with Paul's letter to the Romans (chapter 9). Topics he expects his Roman audience to know indicate points of expected congruence between Paul's own teaching and that of others. By contrast, topics that receive significant expansion in Romans suggest perceived potential for conflict. In this dissertation I identify consistent elements of early Christian instruction, ranging from Christology to apocalyptic cosmology, while also noting possible conflict. My approach places the reconstruction of early Christian teaching on firmer methodological footing than previous attempts have done and offers a rhetorically sensitive account of the teaching and how it was used.