Monnica Kloeckener: The Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well (Jn 4) as an Example for Gaining Knowledge

In his 13th book of the Commentary on John, Origen deals with the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman
at Jacob’s well (Jn 4). Origen was requested by Ambrose to rebut Heracleon’s commentary
on John. Heracleon argued that people remain for their lifetime on the same
level of knowledge and areincapable of gaining further knowledge.Origen interprets the Samaritan woman as an image for the
thoughts of the heretics studying Scripture, and the water from the well as Scripture.
The living water that Jesus is able to give represents Jesus’ teaching, which
leads to a higher and eternal life.The Samaritan woman first misunderstands the biblical texts. After asking Jesus for the living water, she receives some, which in Origen’s interpretation is salutary teaching. Thus, the woman no longer needs to come to the fountain. In fact, she now contemplates the truth as the angels do. The Samaritan woman leaves her vessel, which in Origen’ interpretation represents wrong teaching, at the fountain, and goes into the town in order to tell the people about Jesus. By doing this, she gives them the opportunity to leave the town (i.e. wrong teachings) and receive salvific teaching.

Dominika Kurek-Chomycz: “For it is not a blemish of the body that can defile him” (CA 8.47): Disability and Early Christian Ministry

The role of healing in early Christian ministry and a more positive attitude towards the bodily impaired attested in Jewish and Christian sources, as opposed to other ancient attitudes, have been subject of much scholarly attention. Yet also in Christian sources agency is predominantly presumed among the able-bodied, with disabled characters more likely to be instrumentalised. In this contribution I analyse select early Christian documents, focusing on the aspect which tends to be overlooked, namely what implications the above would have for the criteria and expectations regarding ecclesiastical office holders in the early church, and how those with bodily impairments in leadership positions would have been perceived by others. Just as in the case of illness and disability more generally, early Christian writings display a variety of approaches, and more explicit prescripts come mainly from later, composite documents. According to the “apostolic” canons (CA8.47), certain types of bodily impairments, such as being maimed in an eye, or lame, do not constitute an impediment to episcopal ordination, but blindness and deafness do. Yet this is not because they defile a person, but because they hinder “ecclesiastical affairs.” Both this text, and other passages where Lev 21:17-21 is alluded to or quoted explicitly, show a complex relationship between Christian ministry and the Hebrew Bible priesthood. Applying the lens of disability studies to the question of early Christian ministry not only sheds light on our understanding of the developments in early Christianity, but also complicates the different models used by contemporary disability theorists.

Ben Kolbeck: Living in the castra tenebrarum: Were Christian soldiers persecuted?

A celebrated figure appears in third-century Christian literature: the virtuous Christian soldier executed by the military hierarchy. This is often presented as persecution, culminating in the statements by Eusebius and Lactantius that Diocletian’s persecution began in the army. However, even in these Christian texts, the soldiers are always prosecuted individually, on the basis of some transgression of military discipline occasioned by their Christianity – rather than their faith itself. As these transgressions normally concern religious matters, the key to understanding the nature of ‘persecution’ in the army lies in the religious life of the military, the nature of ritual observance expected of soldiers, and the manner of enforcement. This paper will present a sketch of the religious life of the third-century Roman army, and examine the ways that Christians navigated it, taking account of varied levels of commitment to the faith. A firm picture is difficult to glean, since much of our evidence for the religious life of the army comes from these same Christian narratives, but I will argue that for the majority of Christians, the army was an inhospitable, though not an impossible religious environment. As military discipline and religion were intertwined, elements of religious policing necessarily pervaded camp life; at the same time, most of our examples of military martyrs concern officers and provocative dissenters, suggesting that agency was a complicated issue. Establishing a proper historical context allows us to peer behind the literary elements of the martyr narratives, and qualify their descriptions of ‘persecution’.

Robert Kitchen: Teaching Perfection Monastic Education in Dadisho‘ Qatraya’s Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers

An unmined source for Syriac asceticism is found in the Commentary on the
Paradise of the Fathers by Dadisho‘ Qatraya (Church of the East; late 7th c.), organized into 399 questions and answers from the brothers or monks to an elder, in most cases Dadisho‘, centering around the stories and sayings of the Egyptian Desert Fathers (translated into Syriac), which were compiled by an older contemporary ‘Enanisho‘, and used for the monastic education of Syriac and later Ethiopian monks.Two aspects of this educational document will be examined. First, this Commentary is a rare witness to the continued existence of the ascetical level of Perfection (gmīrūtā) and its
practitioners, the Perfect (gmīrē), along with the lower consecrated
level of Uprightness/Upright (kēnūtā/kēnē), generally limited to The
Book of Steps and The Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug. Second, while the questions and answers roughly follow the order of Enanisho‘’s Paradise,
a pattern becomes discernible through the answers of a gradual progression for
the monks towards the status of Perfection, a spiritual and physical way of
life that is the result of the grace of education.

Taras Khomych: Origins of Ministry in First Clement

The aim of this presentation is to explain several ambiguities embedded in key passages dealing with ministry in an early Christian epistle known as First Clement, challenging at the same time a widely accepted scholarly paradigm on the beginnings and early developments of Christian ministries. As a precious witness to the origins of Christian reflection on Church offices, this first century letter has been the subject of much scholarly attention. In particular, modern scholars have tended to interpret First Clement as a turning point between an office-free, pneumatic and prophetic Christian communities, on the one hand, and later more formal but less charismatic ecclesial structures, on the other. Entering in dialogue with recent studies by John Kloppenborg and Alistair Stewart on this subject matter, this contribution seeks to dispute the dominant paradigm and explain some of the ambiguities in light of the letter’s internal evidence. It will be argued, more specifically, that First Clement sets up concrete principles for the building of a viable Christian community by using creatively ancient Jewish prophetic tradition, which has not been sufficiently considered before.

Bart J. Koet: Deacons in the writings of Jerome and Augustine

After having investigated the role of deacons in the early church and in Augustine's writings in earlier research, I then looked at how the writings of Jerome refer to deacons. In this lecture I would like to briefly present the results of this research.After a first assessment of data in Jerome, I will discuss the differences between Jerome and Augustine.A first observation is that in Jerome’s writings there are less references to deacons or diaconate than in those of Augustine. While Augustine's writings reveal a vivid picture of deacon performance, Jerome's deacon is more often a prototype of certain behaviour. These differences naturally reflect the different contexts of these two church fathers. The bishop of Hippo and the priest of Bethlehem have in common that they do not mention deaconesses. Therefore, a comparison of Jerome and Augustine is only a first step. Eventually, the works of John Chrysostom, for example, will also have to be examined to gain further insight into the role of deacons and deaconesses in the early Church.

Maria Konstantinidou: The double tradition of John Chrysostom’s exegetical works: revisions revisited.

The paper proposed here addresses the issue of a double manuscript tradition, evidence for which is found in most of St John Chrysostom’s exegetical works. One of these recensions has been traditionally viewed as a deliberate revision of the other—more ancient—one. It is suggested that it is an undertaking by a single person or scriptorium that affects all these works.The lack of modern critical editions of most of Chrysostom’s exegetical works, hinders the task of identifying the homilies involved and complicates any further investigation of the two recensions. However, it is still possible to draw valuable conclusions both regarding the works involved and—somewhat less accurately—regarding the nature of the revisions.This paper is primarily concerned with studying the interventions of the reviser(s) and determining whether they follow a pattern across John’s exegetical works (and, therefore, they are possible to attribute to the same source). Ultimately, the aim is to investigate the purpose and aims of such a project.

William Klingshirn: "Reclaiming the possibility of a Christian divination"

One of the most persistent themes in the apologetic literature of the second and third centuries, well illustrated in Origen's Contra Celsum, is the Christian reliance on prophecy for belief in Jesus and his message. But distinguishing true from false revelation posed a serious problem in cultures as pervasively divinatory as those of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. One solution, already evident in the Pentateuch (Deut. 18) and greatly assisted by a skeptical philosophical tradition going back to Carneades, was to reject divination as untrue, base. or fraudulent, while accepting prophecy as divine. This distinction between prophecy and divination persists in large areas of modern scholarship despite obvious continuities between the two. This paper argues that reclaiming the possibility of a Christian divination, hinted at in some early Christian writings and increasingly accepted by scholars of divination, can help to explain the Christian reshaping of divination in late antiquity at the same time as it accounts for differences in scope, motivation, and authority in the wide variety of practices we label as divinatory.

Jennifer Knust: Where Did John Baptize? A Tale in Two Maps

Living in exile in Caesarea, Origen was certain that the evangelist John intended to identify Bethabara as the place where John was baptizing. Defending an emendation of “Bethany” to “Bethabara” in the Gospel of John, he connected place to name and map to etymology. In Byzantine contexts, this recommendation became the dominant view; by the sixth century imperial cartography and institutional entrenchment had transformed the banks of the Jordan, including the village of Bethabara, into a Christian sacred landscape. In eighteenth-century Protestant Europe, however, the Bethabara reading was overturned: no longer persuaded by church traditions and extant Byzantine texts, editors and scholars came to regard Bethabara as an unreliable conjecture and the reading “Bethany” was restored. Such shifts in the understanding of where John was baptizing are not innocent of political and social consequences; these debates expressed not only the critical judgments of scholars but also fantasies of belonging that mirrored broader colonial schemes. Once added to Christian maps, Bethabara became capable of proving, as John Chrysostom put it, that Gospel truth can be proven “by the very names of the places,” a claim with significant implications for the non-Christian residents of Palestine. Similarly, the eighteenth-century quest to locate “Bethany beyond the Jordan,” among other sites, worked to produce the topographical surveys of Palestine that facilitated colonial occupation. In both late antiquity and Protestant modernity, textual emendation and territorial ambition have resonated with the ideas, institutions, and activities that justify emplacement for some and displacement for others.

Jesse Keskiaho: Annotations and the early reception of Augustine’s major works

This paper discusses the late ancient and early medieval annotations made before the tenth century in the manuscript copies of some of Augustine’s major works, his Confessiones, De ciuitate Dei, De doctrina Christiana and De Genesi ad litteram. These early annotations, numbering in thousands, can tell us how these works were approached and read during the first five hundred years of their circulation. I will discuss the nature of this evidence, and its use in studying the early reception of these works. I focus especially on annotations that appear designed to direct the reading of others, and the interests reflected in such designs.

Markus Kirchner: "The Greatest Example of Endurance" - Paul's Death in Early Christian Memory

From a modern perspective, the significance of the apostle Paul for early church history is based particularly on his contribution to the expansion of Christianity and his theology of justification through faith instead of law, whereas the circumstances of his death appear to be a less important issue. However, a close look at the deutero-Pauline writings, but also at the Apostolic Fathers (especially 1 Clement and the Ignatian letters) suggests a different view: The first generations after Paul seem to have considered the death of the apostle as a key to understanding his life and work. It will be examined, on the one hand, how the images of the apostle’s death influenced the early church’s view on the apostle himself, on the other hand which function the memory of Paul’s death might have had for early Christian communities in constructing their collective identity.

• In this workshop, speakers will only give brief summaries of their papers. The draft papers will be circulated in advance to all participants. Please contact the organiser to have the PDFs sent to you by late July/early August.

Elga Kanaeva: The Patristic sources of Barlaam’s «Against Latins» (with a comparison to the St. Gregory Palamas’ «Apodictic Treatises»)

In my paper, I intend to show how Barlaam the Calabrian deals with Holy Fathers’ texts while speaking in anti-Latin context. To make his attitude more clear, I propose a comparison between Barlaam’s and St. Gregory Palamas’ approaches. Both authors have written texts on the same topic, in the same context, of the same size but not of the same structure. I analyze first versions (available only in church-Slavonic) of «Against Latins» by Barlaam and «Apodictic Treatises» by Palamas. The latest version of Barlaam’s treatise (Tractatus B, in Greek) is also considered. Some numeric comparative data (total amount of quotations, quantity of involved authors and works, etc.) is proposed. This analysis indicates a very low level of overlap in Barlaam’s and Palamas’ basis and more broad use of Holy Fathers by Barlaam. While Palamas uses tradition almost only for polemic and rhetoric purposes, Barlaam claims that his methodology is also based in tradition. At the same time Barlaam appears to use almost no texts from Holy Scripture in his work. The most favorite Father of Barlaam, the source of his methodological inspiration, is St. Gregory the Theologian. Barlaam’s treatise is the imitation of St. Gregory’s Antieunomian Orations by form and content. He presents Thomas Aquinas as Eunomius and refute his rational theological program using St. Gregory’s argumentation without mentioning his source. Although the main emphasis in «Against Latins» is made on the unknowability of God, Barlaam incorporates some features of St.Gregory’s positive theology.

Onnik Kiremitlian: Newly-discovered gems from Syriac literature: Armenian translations of Syriac works by Marutha of Tagrit.

During the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia (1080-1375), a long period (11th-13th cc., and notably from ca. 1103 to 1271) saw a renaissance of intellectual and cultural activities among Armenians, including a special interest and translation of the works of Syriac authors into Armenian, for which we can delineate four phases. Through the collaborative efforts of Syriac and Armenian intellectuals and ecclesiastics numerous works from Syriac literature were translated into Armenian. Among the works of authors translated in this period was Marutha of Tagrit (7th century), to whom a series of homilies are ascribed in the Armenian manuscript tradition. Among these homilies the one on the New Sunday has a complete Syriac original, while the others, except for few fragments in Garshuni Arabic, are not attested in Syriac manuscripts, and the conjecture is that they are preserved only in Armenian, such as the homily on the Resurrection of Christ.The comparison of the Armenian homily on New Sunday with that of the Syriac original reveals idiosyncrasies of the Armenian translated text, where we witness special translation techniques adopted by the Armenian and Syriac translators.Armenian manuscript evidence would point to the high probability that these translations were achieved in the fourth and last great phase of the translation activities thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Armenian erudite scholar, ecclesiastic and court envoy Vardan Areweltsi and an unknown Syriac scholar who was active in the period’s intellectual life in Cilician Armenia.

Elga Kanaeva: The Patristic sources of Barlaam’s «Against Latins» (with a comparison to the St. Gregory Palamas’ «Apodictic Treatises»)

In my paper, I intend to show how Barlaam the Calabrian deals with Holy Fathers’ texts while speaking in anti-Latin context. To make his attitude more clear, I propose a comparison between Barlaam’s and St. Gregory Palamas’ approaches. Both authors have written texts on the same topic, in the same context, of the same size but not of the same structure. I analyze first versions (available only in church-Slavonic) of «Against Latins» by Barlaam and «Apodictic Treatises» by Palamas. The latest version of Barlaam’s treatise (Tractatus B, in Greek) is also considered. Some numeric comparative data (total amount of quotations, quantity of involved authors and works, etc.) is proposed. This analysis indicates a very low level of overlap in Barlaam’s and Palamas’ basis and more broad use of Holy Fathers by Barlaam. While Palamas uses tradition almost only for polemic and rhetoric purposes, Barlaam claims that his methodology is also based in tradition. At the same time Barlaam appears to use almost no texts from Holy Scripture in his work. The most favorite Father of Barlaam, the source of his methodological inspiration, is St. Gregory the Theologian. Barlaam’s treatise is the imitation of St. Gregory’s Antieunomian Orations by form and content. He presents Thomas Aquinas as Eunomius and refute his rational theological program using St. Gregory’s argumentation without mentioning his source. Although the main emphasis in «Against Latins» is made on the unknowability of God, Barlaam incorporates some features of St.Gregory’s positive theology.

Maijastina Kahlos: Handmaid’s tale in a fourth-century format: Ausonius and Bissula

One form of migration in Late Antiquity was the traffic with slaves and captives of war. My paper will discuss one individual case that is conveyed by the poet Ausonius in fourth-century Gaul. Ausonius composed a small set of poems to his alumna Bissula who had probably been taken as captive during Valentinian I’s expedition in the Rhine region against the Alemanni in 368. Ausonius mentions Bissula as a spoil of war and of Suebian origin. Ausonius’ set of poems praise her as delicium, blanditiae, ludus, amor, voluptas (Aus. Biss. 4.1). Who was Bissula and what was her role in Ausonius’ household? Was she a foster child or a concubine? Was she even a historical person? The perspective to Bissula, the booty of war, is inescapably Ausonius’, the learned Roman aristocrat. Therefore, what we eventually can discuss is the Roman colonial gaze in Late Antiquity. In his delight of the Suebian girl, Ausonius depicts her as better than Roman ones – with exotic colouring of Occidentalism. I will also analyse the poem from the viewpoint of Romanization: Bissula becomes ambigua, by her origin and looks Rheno genita, by her language – and, it is implied, the adopted culture – Latin.

Judith Kovacs: Counsels of perfection: the place of Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews in Clement of Alexandria’s reading of Pauline theology

In the twenty-first century, a scholar asked to give a précis of the theology of Saint Paul might offer the following, based on the seven letters generally accepted as Pauline: Jesus came as the messiah long expected by the Jews, who now, by his death and resurrection, offers freedom from sin and death and reconciliation with God to all people. What began in these two earth-shattering events will soon be consummated in the resurrection of all who trust in Jesus and the full realization of God’s kingdom in a redeemed creation. Clement of Alexandria, who champions Paul as ‘the divine apostle’ and quotes constantly from his letters, might offer a rather different summary, emphasizing knowledge of God as the Christian’s most important concern, the pursuit of perfection, and the hope of ascent through the heavenly spheres to the perfect end of everlasting contemplation of God. To some extent this interpretation reflects the Platonic background that Clement brings to his reading of the Bible. This paper explores another factor: that Clement is reading a larger corpus of ‘Pauline’ letters. It explores how Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews encourage Clement to focus on themes that receive only brief mention in the seven-letter corpus. These include an emphasis on heavenly realities, celebration of the mysteries of divine knowledge (Col 1-2; Eph 3, Heb 5), and reflections on Christ’s pre-existence as creator of all (Col 1:15-20) and his role as forerunner in the believer’s heavenly ascent (Heb 4:14; 6:20).

Lenka Karfikova: Souls of Stars and Ideas of Individuals: Origenian material in Augustine’s Ep. 14?

In his letter 14 addressed to Nebridius, Augustine answers two questions of his philosophically interested friend: (1) Why human individuals make many of the same things, whereas the Sun does not do the same as the other stars; (2) Whether God’s Wisdom contains onlythe form (ratio) of man in general, or also of each one of us in particular. These questions very probably have their source in Plato’s Timaeus and Plotinus’ Enneads (esp. V,7) respectively, but they also find very interesting parallels in Origen’sDe orat.7,1; De princ.I,7,3; III,5,4 and De princ. I,2,3; I,4,4-5; Comm. Ioh.I,19,111.113–115 respectively. My aim is not to speculate about any possible reading of Origen by the young Augustine but to explore the meaning of these topics in both Christian authors and to explain the prima facie incomprehensible connection of both Nebridius’ questions.

Mihail Mitrea: “Hail, glory of the fathers!” Patristic sources and references in the hagiographical works of Philotheos Kokkinos

A seminal figure of the hesychast movement, Philotheos Kokkinos played a leading role in orchestrating its societal breakthrough, both through his ecclesiastical authority and writings. If a comprehensive analysis of Kokkinos’ theological works is yet to be undertaken, his hagiographical compositions have recently made the subject of thorough and systematic study. The vitae Kokkinos composed for contemporary figures, including his spiritual fathers (Sabas the Younger, Germanos Maroules) and friends and fellow combatants in the hesychast debates (Isidore Boucheir, Gregory Palamas), reflect the ecclesiastical climate and polemics ongoing at the moment of their composition, and are permeated with numerous hesychastic elements. These include extensive visions of the divine and Tabor light, invectives against the anti-hesychasts and (dream) visions which foretell or legitimize their condemnation, as well as excursuses on hesychast theology, with references and allusions to Church Fathers such as Gregory Nazianzen, Maximos the Confessor, and John of Damascus. Moreover, in his saints’ lives, Kokkinos translates hesychast theology into living examples of the hesychastic way of life. He often compares his heroes with patristic figures and even includes Church Fathers as characters in the narrative in order to legitimize the (contested) figures of his heroes and promote hesychast theology. Furthermore, Kokkinos fashions Palamas’ theological works as a synthesis and explanation of patristic theology. This paper will offer a detailed exploration of Kokkinos’ use of the Church Fathers in his vitae in support and for the promotion of hesychast theology, thus contributing to the research on patristic sources in the hesychast debates.

Francisco Lopez-Santos Kornberger: Empress Catherine's role in John Skylitzes’ Continuation.

The historical narrative known as the Continuation of Skylitzes is one of the most understudied eleventh-century Byzantine historical accounts. For the most part, scholars considered the Continuation a mere rework of Michael Attaleiates' History. Researchers assumed that Skylitzes avoided producing propaganda towards a given ruler in his work. However, Catherine Holmes has suggested that the Synopsis performs a discreet propaganda of emperor Alexios Komnenos without even mentioning him explicitly. The election of specific characters and topics when presenting the reign of Basil II in the Synopsis would suffice for Skylitzes to subtly praise the contemporary policies of the Komnenian family and their allies.In my research, I have found similar traits of discreet Komnenian propaganda in other sections of the Synopsis and in the Continuation. The depiction of Isaak Komnenos, Emperor Alexios’ uncle, in the Continuation becomes significant to determine the narrator’s position towards the Komnenian family. The Continuation mostly worked with the Attaleiates' account on Isaak, which is mostly critical towards him. However, the Continuation successively subverts Attaleiates’ negative depiction of Isaak, simplifying the most critical sections of Attaleiates’ account while fitting additional, more positive information about Isaak’s reign.One of the most significant changes in the Continuation is the new focus on Empress Catherine. This paper discusses Empress Catherine’s insertion in the narrative as a means for ameliorating the depiction of both Isaak and the Komnenian family. I will also connect Catherine’s role in the Continuation with other cases of strong female imperial characters in nearly contemporary sources.

VASSA KONTOUMA: The Understanding of the Sacraments in John of Damascus’ Theology

The final chapters of John of Damascus’ Ekdosis akribēs tēs orthodoxou pisteōs (CPG 8043) are usually considered incoherent. In the Latin Middle Ages, they were part of Book IV of the Ekdosis, an artificial division inspired by Peter Lombard’s fourth book of Sentences, De Doctrina Signorum – that they also aroused in a certain way. In a first paper published in Bose in 2006 and translated into English under the title “The Fount of Knowledge between conservation and creation” (Ashgate 2015, V), I had suggested some ways of interpreting these chapters within the theological project of John of Damascus. More specifically, concerning chs. 82-92, I had argued that they constituted a whole related to the “means of Salvation bequeathed by the Lord”. That is the subject I wish to explore further in the present paper, in the framework of a more general reflection on the place accorded by our author to the notion of sacrament. Inter alia, my contribution is intended to illustrate with a particular example the general theme of the workshop “John of Damascus: more than a Compiler”.