Patristics: Essays from Australia

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2023) | Viewed by 1301

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia
Interests: the idea of historical recurrence in Western thought; religions in Melanesia and Oceania; retributive logic in comparative religion and changing societies; Biblical and Patristic studies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Patristics, or the Study of the Writings and Practices of the early Fathers and Mothers of the Christian Church (in the period running from after New Testament times up to the coming of Islam (ca. 100–700 CE/AD)) is an enormous and venerable subject for international research. Patristics has been mainly concerned with how the doctrines and the rites of the early Christian Church(es) were ironed out and how the challenges of false accusations, and of opinions other than those generally accepted, prompted the formulation of Creeds, theological schools, different liturgical patterns and mystic styles, as well as distinctive regional traditions. While the chief agenda for Patristics (or Patrology) remains firm, modern research has increasingly refined methodologies for engaging with it, both by thinkers intensely engaged with Christian faith and newer brands of scholars more affected by secular methodologies. Over recent centuries, many important studies have been carried out on the changing historical context in which ancient Christian authors of Late Antiquity operated, with the weakening of Rome in the West and the creation of Constantinople and the Eastern Byzantine Empire, or the vulnerability of Persia and the rise of Islam. More recently, fitting for our questioning times, issues have been raised about patriarchalism and gender relations, socio-religious conflict and its management, ties between Church and the State, etc. Over the last hundred years, Australian academics have been making important contributions to Patristics, and this volume is to consolidate their continued involvement.

Prof. Garry Trompf
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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20 pages, 264 KiB  
Essay
The Origins of the Christian Idea of Trinity: Answering Jewish Charges of Heresy; Exhorting Pagans against Polytheism; Countering False Gnostics
by Keith Thompson
Religions 2024, 15(4), 402; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040402 - 26 Mar 2024
Viewed by 611
Abstract
In this essay I explain that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was first developed as a response to Jewish claims of Christian apostasy and polytheism. At the beginning of Christianity, most of its converts were observant Jews. The Jewish authorities took steps [...] Read more.
In this essay I explain that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was first developed as a response to Jewish claims of Christian apostasy and polytheism. At the beginning of Christianity, most of its converts were observant Jews. The Jewish authorities took steps to reclaim their lost sheep and to stem the flow of departures. Their primary intellectual ammunition in that effort was the claim that the Christians were polytheists, because they claimed to believe in two Gods–the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. The Christians’ apostasy was manifest by simple referring to the Mosaic commandment that righteous Israel should have only one God. This Jewish accusation of polytheism also neatly answered the inflammatory Christian charge that the Jews had crucified God and raised significant doubt about their claims of a special resurrection. The doctrine of the Trinity answered all those criticisms. God and Jesus Christ together were the one true God. But the nature of that oneness took some time to work out, and it is within a process of contending with pagan philosophical arguments and intra-Christian heretical positions, that a Christian doctrine of the Trinity begins to congeal. The work of Ante-Nicene Fathers—Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, and others—whose voices we allow to be heard below—contain a trajectory of ideas that explain how the tri-unity is expressed in the momentous Creeds of Nicaea (AD 325) and Constantinople (381). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Patristics: Essays from Australia)
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