An eighth-century iconodule tract claims that the iconoclasts have “perpetuated the work of the Jews,” and compared the iconoclasts to Jewish priests conspiring against Christ. Like many other ironodule treatises, it accused the Jews of corrupting the minds of iconoclast emperors. It would be interesting to explore to what degree the iconodule position was affected by anti-Jewish rhetoric and polemic. Read more
Constantine has often been blamed for mistreatment of Jews in the Roman empire, but that blame has been misplaced. He did little to change the legal status of Jews or tighten restrictions on them. Guy Stroumsa, however, has suggested that Constantine had a more subtle role in a “radicalization” of polemics against Jews and in the increasing legal restrictions on them: “To use Weberian parlance, one can speak here of Politisierung . Weber referred to Entpolitisierung as the process through... Read more
In the same 2003 article, Cameron comments on the iconodule use of heresiological methods in dealing with the iconoclasts after the Second Council of Nicea: ”the victorious iconophiles hada strong interest in endorsing their council as the seventh and culminating representative of a series already formally recognized. They wanted to have it all ways: thus Tarasius termed the iconoclasts ‘Jews and Saracens, Hellenes and Samaritans, Manichaeans and phantasiasts, equal to Theopaschites.’ Naming was all important, for it was far from clear... Read more
Epiphanius’s Panarion or Medicine Chest was a compendium of heresies and their cures, and inspired an entire genre of “heresiologies.” The book is often dismissed with some hostility by Byzantine historians, but Averil Cameron notes that it displays some literary skill. He claims to have modeled his lists of heresies on the number of concubines mentioned in the Song of Songs, “reaching the number of eighty in all by listing seventy-five heresies and five ‘mothers of heresies,’” the latter category being... Read more
Bulgakov writes, “By nourishment in the broadest sense we mean the most general metabolic exchange between the living organism and its environment, including not just food but respiration and the effects of the atmosphere, light, electricity, chemistry, and other forces acting on our organism, insofar as they support life. Nourishment understood even more broadly can include not just metabolism in the indicated sense but our entire ‘sensuality’ (in the Kantian sense), that is, the capacity to be affected by the... Read more
INTRODUCTION Parenting is future-oriented. You are raising children to be faithful disciples of Jesus in the next generation. We can do that well only when we parent in the Spirit, since the Spirit is the Spirit who makes future. THE TEXT “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our... Read more
Colossians 2:20-23: If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch! (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) – in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? Today is the first Sunday of the Trinity season. Trinity season might seem like the “off-season,” since there are no major feasts, but... Read more
For both parents and children, sexual purity is essential to Christian living and to Christian family life. Paul tells the Thessalonians that God wants His people to be holy. This means avoiding adultery, pornography, sodomy, pre-marital sex, lust and all other forms of sexual sin (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8). Lust characterizes Gentiles who do not know God. Christians, by contrast, should know how to possess the “vessels” of our bodies in sanctification and honor. Paul reinforces this exhortation with stern warnings. ... Read more
In a provocative 2006 article in the Intercollegiate Studies Review , Remi Brague asks whether non-theocratic polities are possible. If “theocracy” means “rule by clerics,” the answer is obviously Yes. But Brague doesn’t think that’s the most helpful way to think about theocracy. Western political systems were “theocratic” in the wider sense of being grounded on theological claims: “Although we modern Westerners commonly look down on ‘theocracies,’ our systems of legislation are, or were, in some sense theocratic too. They are, or were, founded... Read more
John R. Levison’s Filled with the Spirit challenges “two-tiered” readings of biblical pneumatology such as that found in Hermann Gunkel: “The activity of the Spirit is . . . not an intensifying of what is native to all. It is rather the absolutely supernatural and hence divine.” Levison wants to now where this leaves the “spirit of life, the spirit that gives breath.” The “most ambitious” thesis of his book is “the redefinition of inspiration in such a way that... Read more
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