Despite the pervasive early Christian repudiation of pagan theatrical art, especially prior to Constantine, this monograph demonstrates the increasing attention of late-ancient Christian authors to the genre of tragedy as a basis to explore the complexities of human finitude, suffering, and mortality in relation to the wisdom, justice, and providence of God. The book argues that various Christian writers, particularly in the post-Constantinian era, were keenly devoted to the mimesis, or imaginative re-presentation, of the tragic dimension of creaturely existence more than with simply mimicking the poetics of the classical Greek and Roman tragedians. It analyses a whole array of hermeneutical, literary, and rhetorical manifestations of "tragical mimesis" in early Christian writing, which, capitalizing on the elements of tragedy already perceptible in biblical revelation, aspired to deepen and edify Christian engagement with multiform evil and with the extreme vicissitudes of historical existence. Early Christian tragical mimetics included not only interpreting (and often amplifying) the Bible's own tragedies for contemporary audiences, but also developing models of the Christian self as a tragic self, revamping the Christian moral conscience as a tragical conscience, and cultivating a distinctively Christian tragical pathos. The study culminates in an extended consideration of the theological intelligence and accountability of "tragical vision" and tragical mimesis in early Christian literary culture, and the unique role of the theological virtue of hope in its repertoire of tragical emotions.

Visions and Faces of the Tragic: The Mimesis of Tragedy and the Folly of Salvation in Early Christian Literature (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

History

BLOWERS, Paul M.

World

Oxford University Press

The theology of creation interconnected with virtually every aspect of early Christian thought, from Trinitarian doctrine to salvation to ethics. Paul M. Blowers provides an advanced introduction to the multiplex relation between Creator and creation as an object both of theological construction and religious devotion in the early church. While revisiting the polemical dimension of Christian responses to Greco-Roman philosophical cosmology and heterodox Gnostic and Marcionite traditions on the origin, constitution, and destiny of the cosmos, Blowers focuses more substantially on the positive role of patristic theological interpretation of Genesis and other biblical creation texts in eliciting Christian perspectives on the multifaceted relation between Creator and creation. Greek, Syriac, and Latin patristic commentators, Blowers argues, were ultimately motivated less by purely cosmological concerns than by the urge to depict creation as the enduring creative and redemptive strategy of the Trinity. The 'drama of the divine economy', which Blowers discerns in patristic theology and piety, unfolded how the Creator invested the 'end' of the world already in its beginning, and thereupon worked through the concrete actions of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to realize a new creation.

Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

This study contextualizes the achievement of a strategically crucial figure in Byzantium's turbulent seventh century, the monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor (580-662). Building on newer biographical research and a growing international body of scholarship, as well as on fresh examination of his diverse literary corpus, Paul Blowers develops a profile integrating the two principal initiatives of Maximus's career: first, his reinterpretation of the christocentric economy of creation and salvation as a framework for expounding the spiritual and ascetical life of monastic and non-monastic Christians; and second, his intensifying public involvement in the last phase of the ancient christological debates, the monothelete controversy, wherein Maximus helped lead an East-West coalition against Byzantine imperial attempts doctrinally to limit Jesus Christ to a single (divine) activity and will devoid of properly human volition. Blowers identifies what he terms Maximus's "cosmo-politeian" worldview, a contemplative and ascetical vision of the participation of all created beings in the novel politeia, or reordered existence, inaugurated by Christ's "new theandric energy". Maximus ultimately insinuated his teaching on the christoformity and cruciformity of the human vocation with his rigorous explication of the precise constitution of Christ's own composite person. In outlining this cosmo-politeian theory, Blowers additionally sets forth a "theo-dramatic" reading of Maximus, inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar, which depicts the motion of creation and history according to the christocentric "plot" or interplay of divine and creaturely freedoms. Blowers also amplifies how Maximus's cumulative achievement challenged imperial ideology in the seventh centurythe repercussions of which cost him his life-and how it generated multiple recontextualizations in the later history of theology.

Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World (Christian Theology in Context)

Ancient Civilizations

Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor: An Investigation of the Quaestiones Ad Thalassium (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity) (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity, 7)

Maximus the Confessor (580–662) is recognized by historians of Christian thought for his contributions to philosophical theology in the Eastern Christian tradition. His second largest work, the Quaestiones ad Thalassium, is a collection of his responses to a wide variety of questions on problematic or obscure scriptural texts that his friend the Libyan monk Thalassius had posed to him. Earlier studies of Maximus’s theology have used and cited the Quaestiones ad Thalassium as a source, but this book is the first specialized study of this comprehensive work in its own right. Paul M. Blowers examines Maximus’s role as an expositor of scripture and spiritual father in the Byzantine monastic tradition, illuminating the relationship between Maximus the philosopher-theologian and Maximus the monastic pedagogue. The first two chapters break new ground in exploring the genre, history, and monastic context of the Quaestiones ad Thalassium. The book then outlines Maximus’s hermeneutical theology and exegetical methodology as shaped within his larger system of thought. Translated excerpts from the Quaestiones ad Thalassium are interwoven into this study to give the reader greater access to Maximus’s own discourses.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

University of Notre Dame Press

Maximus the Confessor (580–662) is recognized by historians of Christian thought for his contributions to philosophical theology in the Eastern Christian tradition. His second largest work, the Quaestiones ad Thalassium, is a collection of his responses to a wide variety of questions on problematic or obscure scriptural texts that his friend the Libyan monk Thalassius had posed to him. Earlier studies of Maximus’s theology have used and cited the Quaestiones ad Thalassium as a source, but this book is the first specialized study of this comprehensive work in its own right. Paul M. Blowers examines Maximus’s role as an expositor of scripture and spiritual father in the Byzantine monastic tradition, illuminating the relationship between Maximus the philosopher-theologian and Maximus the monastic pedagogue. The first two chapters break new ground in exploring the genre, history, and monastic context of the Quaestiones ad Thalassium. The book then outlines Maximus’s hermeneutical theology and exegetical methodology as shaped within his larger system of thought. Translated excerpts from the Quaestiones ad Thalassium are interwoven into this study to give the reader greater access to Maximus’s own discourses.

In 1906, the religious fellowship known as the churches of Christ formally separated from the Disciples of Christ. The schism within the Disciples came as a result of growing dissatisfaction that conservative and progressive Disciples had with each other. It's an oversimplification, but the separation was mainly along geographical lines that corresponded with the North-South division the United States suffered which led to the Civil War. Ninety years after the formal separation, the Disciples of Christ Historical Society invited scholars Anthony L. Dunnavant (Disciples) and Richard T. Hughes (churches of Christ) to participate in the 1995 and 1997 Reed Lectures "to explore the distinctive perceptions of the founding vision and how that vision has evolved in the two fellowships." The book is a recording of those lectures.

Founding Vocation & Future Vision: The Self-Understanding of the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ

Hughes, Richard T.

Dunnavant, Anthony L.

Chalice Pr

A field guide for travelers and a reference book for the home library, this authoritative reference work is an indispensable guide to Australia's wildflowers. Including a remarkable 590 wildflowers from all parts of the continent, this handy manual uses unique visual keys to make identification fast and simple for wildflower enthusiasts. Each species is beautifully illustrated and described in clear, concise language and come buttressed with distribution maps for comprehensive understanding of their distinct regions.

Reference

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BLOWERS, Paul M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by BLOWERS, Paul M.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BLOWERS, Paul M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Visions and Faces of the Tragic: The Mimesis of Tragedy and the Folly of Salvation in Early Christian Literature (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World (Christian Theology in Context)

Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World (Christian Theology in Context)

Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor: An Investigation of the Quaestiones Ad Thalassium (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity) (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity, 7)

Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor: An Investigation of the Quaestiones Ad Thalassium (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity) (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity, 7)

Founding Vocation & Future Vision: The Self-Understanding of the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ

Founding Vocation & Future Vision: The Self-Understanding of the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ