The Emergence of Theology and the Parting of the Ways

Authors

  • Emanuel Fiano Fordham University - New York

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46553/teo.57.133.2020.p37-52

Keywords:

Trinitarian Controversies, Judaism, Christianity, Nicea, Rabbinism

Abstract

With this article in two parts I hope to open up an examination of the role played by the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies in the late ancient estrangement between Jews and Christians. The article proposes that new partitions emerged in Judaeo-Christiani- ty thanks to the novel practices that during the Trinitarian controversies Christians de- veloped to express their ideas about God. From the viewpoint of theological content, the Trinitarian disputes persisted within a lasting Christian-Jewish continuun: none of the theological options explored by Christians would have caused particular scandal to a contemporaneous Jew on account of its particular articulation of divine reality. Nevertheless, by disengaging from earlier modes of argumentation functioning as bridges between proto-rabbinic and proto-Christian discourses, the production of a theological field on the part of believers in Jesus was largely responsible for the sepa- rate constitution of Christianity and Judaism as intellectual traditions.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Emanuel Fiano, Fordham University - New York

Es Assistant Professor de Estudios siríacos en el Departamento de Teología de la Universidad de Fordham, en Nueva York. Su investigación se enfoca en la historia intelectual del cristianismo en la antigüedad tardía, con particular atención a las literaturas siríaca y copta, a las controversias religiosas y a las relaciones entre judaísmo y cristianismo.

References

Asad, Talal. The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Washington (DC): Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1986.

Assmann, Jan. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press, 2001 [=Translation of Ágypten. Theologie und Frommigkeit einer frühen Hochkultur. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1984].

--------, Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

Athanassiadi, Polymnia and Michael Frede, eds. Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

Ayres, Lewis. Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Boyarín, Daniel. Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion. New Brunswick (NJ): Rutgers University Press, 2018.

Bremmer, Jan N. The Rise of Christianity through the Eyes of Gibbon, Harnack and Rodney Stark. Groningen: Barkhuis, 2010.

Brennecke, Hanns Christof, Uta Heil, Annette von Stockhausen, and Angelika Wintjies. Athanasius Werke. Dritter Band. Erster Teil. 3. Lieferung. Berlín and New York: De Gruyter, 2007.

Camplani, Alberto. «Le trasformazioni del cristianesimo orienta- le: monoepiscopato e sinodi (II-IV secolo)». Annali di Storia dell'Esegesi 23 (2006): 67-114.

--------, «Setting a Bishopric / Arranging an Archive: Traces of Ar-chival Activity in the Bishopric of Alexandria and Antioch». Pages 231-272 in Manuscripts and Archives: Comparative Views on Record-Keeping. Edited by Alessandro Bausi, Christian Brockmann, Michael Friedrich, and Sabine Kienitz. Studies in Manuscript Cultures 11. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018.

Cerutti, Maria Vittoria. «Monoteismo pagano? Elementi di tipolo- gia storica». Adamantius 15 (2009): 307-330.

--------, «Unitá del divino e unicitá del principio: aspetti della rappre-sentazione dell'altro». Annali di scienze religiose 8 (2003): 179-195.

Dihle, Albrecht. Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: from Augustus to Justinian. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.

Foucault, Michel. «L'Éthique du souci de soi comme pratique de liberté». Concordia: Revista internacional de filosofía 6 (1984), 96-116.

Graumann, Thomas. «The Conduct of Theology and the 'Fathers' of the Church». Pages 539-555 in A Companion to Late Antiquity. Edited by Philip Rousseau. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley, 2009.

Guittard, Charles, ed. Le monothéisme: diversité, exclusivisme ou dialogue ? Association européenne pour l'étude des religions (EASR), Congres de Paris, 11-14 septembre 2002. Paris: Éditions Non Lieu, 2010.

Hanson, Richard Patrick Crosland. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian Controversy 318-381. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

Il Comportamento dell'intellettuale nella societa antica. Pubblicazioni dell'Isti- tuto di filología classica e medievale 67. Genua: Universita di Genova, Facolta di lettere, Istituto di filologia classica e medievale, 1980.

Jaeger, Hasso, «La preuve judiciaire d'apres la tradition rabbinique et patristique". Pages 415-594 in Recueils de la Société Jean Bo- din. Tome XVI. La preuve (antiquité). Bruxelles: Les Éditions de la Librairie Encyclopédique, S.P.R.L. 1965.

Kattenbusch, Ferdinand. «Die Entstehung einer christlichen Theologie. Zur Geschichte der Ausdrücke fisoAnyía, fisoAoysív, fisoAóyog». Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche N.F. 11 (1930): 161-205.

King, Benjamín John. Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Kraemer, David Charles. «Concerning the Theological Assumpti- ons of the Yerushalmi». Pages 355-368 in vol. 3 of The Talmud Yerushalmi in Graeco-Roman Culture. 3 vols. Edited by Peter Schafer. Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum 71, 79, 93. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2003.

Laudan, Larry. Progress and Its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

LeGoff, Jacques. Los intelectuales en la Edad Media. Barcelona: Gedisa Editorial, 1986 (transl. of Id. Les intellectuels au moyen age. Paris: Seuil, 1957).

Lim, Richard. Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press, 1995.

Luiselli, Bruno. «Dall'arianesimo dei Visigoti di Costantinopoli all'arianesimo degli Ostrogoti d'Italia». Rendiconti dell'Accade- mia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filolo- giche 16 (2005): 5-30.

Lyman, Rebecca. «Lex Orandi: Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Popular Religión». Pages 131-141 in The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine. Essays in Honour of Maurice Wiles. Edited by Sarah Coakley and David A. Pailin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.

MacIntyre, Alasdaire. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. Notre Dame (IN): University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.

MacMullen, Ramsay. «Sfiducia nell'intelletto nel quarto secolo». Ri- vista storica italiana 84 (1972): 5-16.

--------, Voting about God in Early Church Councils. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press, 2006.

Maingueneau, Dominique. Sémantique de la polémique : discours re- ligieux et ruptures idéologiques au XVIIe siecle. Lausanne (Swit- zerland): L'Age d'homme, 1983.

Markschies, Christoph. «Intellectuals and Church Fathers in the Third and Fourth Centuries». Pages 239-256 in Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land: From the Origins to the Latin King- doms. Edited by Ora Limor and Guy Gedalyah Stroumsa. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 5. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

--------, Christian Theology and Its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire:

Prolegomena to a History of Early Christian Theology. Translated by Wayne Coppins. Waco (TX): Baylor University Press, 2015 [= Translation of Christoph Markschies, Kaiserzeitliche antike christli- che Theologie und ihre Institutionen. Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte der antiken christlichen Theologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007].

Mitchell, Stephen and Peter Van Nuffelen, eds. Monotheism between Christians and Pagans in Late Antiquity. Interdisciplinary stu- dies in ancient culture and religion 12. Louvain and Walpole (MA): Peeters, 2010.

Published

12/15/2020

How to Cite

Fiano, E. (2020). The Emergence of Theology and the Parting of the Ways. Teología, 57(133), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.46553/teo.57.133.2020.p37-52