T.J. Lang: Paul the Allegorist and Early Christian Exegesis

When early Christian interpreters searched Israel’s sacred writings for allegorical meanings, they usually justified such an endeavour by appeal to Paul: “These things are an allegory” (ἅτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα) (Gal 4:24), so says Paul of his revisionary reading of Sarah and Hagar as a story of two covenants corresponding to two Jerusalems (and a few other binaries, as well). Impressed by Paul’s allegoresis, subsequent Christian interpreters took Paul’s exegetical offerings as orders to go and do likewise. Simply put: these interpreters thought Paul had taught them how to scrutinize newly revealed meanings in received Judean writings, an exegetical pedagogy with apostolic authorisation. From the Pauline perspective, this essay explores how near or far this is from true. And, whatever the verdict, why? The aim is to reconnect Paul with his afterlife in order to re-theorize the idea of a “Pauline hermeneutics” and its relation to the idea that biblical texts mean in multiple, non-literal ways—an idea eventually codified in the medieval quadriga, which resembles Pauline reasoning in ways not often appreciated.

John-Paul Lotz: ΑΝΘΡΟΠΟΣ ΕΙΣ ΕΝΩΣΙΝ ΚΑΤΗΡΤΙΣΜΕΝΟΣ: Ignatius of Antioch and the origins of orthodoxy

This paper will attempt to lay out some reasons why Ignatius may be a useful source to revisit when reflecting on renewed interest in Marcion, Gnosticism and ‘early Christianities’.  It will also take into account briefly Gregory Vall’s re-assessment of Ignatius’ theology which makes it more likely that the middle recension be viewed as authentic. Can it be that Ignatius, of whom so little is conveyed to us in the writings of his near contemporaries Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, Origen or Hippolytus, was none the less the first to lay down the defending arguments for the key theological and ecclesiological issues that the church would encounter in Marcion’s docetism, Montanus’ libertinism and the growing question of the role of persecution and martyrdom that Irenaeus and Tertullian contended with? Perhaps he was, in his own words, “speaking with a loud voice, God’s voice” as he was doing his part as “a man set on unity” (Phld. 7-8). This paper may be a useful addition to the conference because it will seek to test some larger ideas and movements that appeared in the middle to late second century and which led to an unprecedented level of unity in the great Church up to that time in the confined context of the middle recension. Essentially, did Ignatius anticipate danger in little ways that would one day threaten the church in great ways, and not just generally, but specifically (episcopal authority, schism, Docetism, the role of prophecy, and the gospel oracles).

Timothy J. Lang, Hauna Ondrey, Silke-Petra Bergjan, Mark Elliott: Workshop: Behind and Beyond the Alexandrian-Antiochene divide in biblical interpretation.

1.Paul the Allegorist and Early Christian Exegesis
Impressed by Paul’s allegoresis, subsequent Christian interpreters took Paul’s exegetical offerings as orders to go and do likewise. These interpreters thought Paul had taught them how to scrutinize newly revealed meanings in received Judean writings, an exegetical pedagogy with apostolic authorisation. In what way is Patristic exegesis Pauline?
2.Reframing Greek Patristic Interpretation: Minor Prophets Commentaries as a Case Study.
A comparison of intepreters yields support for the abandonment of the critiqued-but-enduring Alexandria/Antioch paradigm as well as cautions against alternate reductions evident in the rhetorical explanations of Young et al. Commitment to the historicity of biblical narratives will be used as a test theme.
3. Questions of Christian Identity in the interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The parable was read by those who wanted to refer the criticism directed in the parable at the worthies to the contemporary official church with bishops and presbyters. Correspondingly there are few interpretations of the parable from the early church. The jumping-off point is a writing to be ascribed to the Antiochene realm.: Pseudo-Chrysostom’s De non anathematizandis vivis vel defunctis.The sharp Alexandrian-Antiochene divide will be questioned.
4.Augustine: doctor of grace as doctor of laws. 
In the light of the admission by Augustine that it took a while for the penny to drop in terms of the importance of a non-docetic account for the incarnation, the place of law as of real importance in the Christian life and community should not be so surprising.

Maria Lidova: Rome and Byzantium: Migration in Light of Art Exchange in Late Antiquity

This paper explores various attestations of migration in late antiquity as they are reflected in works of art. The constant exchange of objects, diplomatic gifts and luxury items was an integral element of communication and interaction between different states, social groups and religious entities. Migrating artefacts not only attest to the movement of people and the existence of well-established channels of communication, but also act as important transmitters of knowledge, tastes and foreign habits. The topic of migration, when studied through the prism of material culture, can be analysed from a number of possible perspectives. The perspectives explored in this paper focuses on the individuals that were responsible for the transportation of artworks and goods exchange. Diplomats, private owners, merchants and refugees carried with them objects of particular monetary, artistic or simply personal value. The destiny of these artefacts varied depending on the context of use, intended recipient, or subsequent appropriation. A second category within migrating groups is that of artists. Craftsmen, master builders, mosaicists, and painters not only actively travelled in late antiquity but often accompanied their artworks on long-distance journeys. The results of their activity can still be seen across large territories, serving as a spectacular attestation of movement and of moments of encounter. Finally, the wide range of objects found in Rome which had been brought to the city from Constantinople or Christian East can, itself, be treated as a manifestation of migration, reflective of numerous instances of people’s movement otherwise not attested in written sources.   

Vito Limone: The Soul of Christ in Origen of Alexandria

Origen of Alexandria played a key role in the formulation of the theological perspective of the Cappadocians, in particular of their Christology. Though some doctrines of the Alexandrine related to Christ were restated in the IV century, for instance the theory of the intertwining of human and divine natures in Christ, there is at least one idea which was introduced by Origen, but did not meet the approval of the IV century theological debate, namely, his conception of the soul of Christ as the subject of incarnation. The chief aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the main texts in which Origen outlines his notion of the soul of Christ, in particular PA. II 6 and CIo. XXXII 4, and to explore it in light of both his controversy with the Gnostics and his relationship with the philosophical backdrop, especially the Middle Platonism, and the Jewish tradition. As result of this investigation, the paper will point out that Origen's conception of the soul of Christ evidences the so called doctrine of the pre-existence of the souls, on the one hand, and contributes to a re-thinking of the traditional view of free will, on the other.

Agnès Lorrain: Fragments of Works or Working with Fragments? Towards a literary approach to the Pauline Chains

Until recently, exegetical chains were considered little more than a mine from which to extract otherwise lost patristic works. Since the 1970’s, however, scholars have come to view them as textual units in their own right and have made significant progress in studying the history of their composition and development. G. Dorival has done valuable work in establishing a system that classifies chains according to the kinds of sources used by the catenist and by tracing out filiations. Beyond statistical descriptions of the sources and the important (but binary) question of whether they are modified or not, a promising avenue of research lies in defining the literary practices exemplified in each chain. This would include not only a careful study of the methods and practices of excerption but also of the subsequent composition and structuring of the excerpted material. The emerging patterns could help determine what sort of exegetical agenda underpinned the formation of different chains and how the catenist conceptualized his ‘project’. Furthermore, from an intertextual perspective, what can be said about the ‘polyphony’ which arises from the joining of disparate fragments of texts and placing them in apposition to the biblical text? Is it possible to discern encyclopedic, hermeneutical and/or theological principles that govern the composition of such chains through the choice and arrangment of extracts? This presentation will offer some examples of this kind of analysis in the context of a wider study I intend to conduct on the Greek chains of the Pauline Epistles.

Andrew Louth: Division of Being in Maximos and Eriugena

Eriugena’s principal work, Periphyseon, has as its subtitle: De Divisione Naturae. It is generally agreed that, in its first draft, Periphyseon, introduced two fundamental distinctions—uncreated and created, and creating and not creating—which produced a fourfold division: quae creat et non creatur, quae et creatur et creat, quae creatur et non creat, quae nec creat nec creatur. Originally this distinction prefaced a discussion of the categories, but in the final version of Periphyseonwhat had originally been a logical division became a metaphysical one. The reason is not far to seek, for Maximos, following Gregory of Nyssa, had made a metaphysical ‘division of natures’ (Amb. 41, also in his Mystagogia), beginning with uncreated–created, then dividing created into the intelligible and the sensible, the sensible into heaven and earth, earth into paradise and the inhabited world, in which there was finally a distinction between male and female among its inhabitants. Eriugena certainly knew this series of divisions, as it is part of Maximos’ early Ambigua, which he translated into Latin. The divisions of nature in Maximos and Eriugena are very different, though both of them serve to explicate an understanding of the created order as constituting a movement of procession and return. This paper will explore Eriugena’s radical rethinking of Maximos’ division of natures, which entails a very different metaphysical system.

Morwenna Ludlow: Eunomius’ literary style and use of rhetoric

To date, most scholarly work on Eunomius has focussed on his theology and philosophy of God, especially in relation to doctrine of the Trinity as taught by his challengers Basil and Gregory of Nyssa (Barnes, 2001; Vaggione, 2000; see especially Karfíková et al., 2007; DelCogliano, 2010; Leemans and Cassin, 2014; Brugarolas, 2018; Radde-Gallwitz, 2009, 2018). Studies of his use of language have tended to focus on the accusations laid against him, rather than analysing his own texts (Cassin, 2008, 2012; Ludlow, 2014); some studies have taken a step back to set these accusations in their socio-historical context (Vaggione, 1993; Lim, 1995). In this paper, I will ask two questions. First, to what extent is it possible to attain a plausible assessment of Eunomius’ use of rhetoric and literary style, given the state of the sources? Secondly, if a plausible assessment is possible, how might one characterise Eunomius’ writing? In answering these questions, I will draw on recent rich developments in the study of the so-called ‘second sophistic’ and its influence, and critiques of the concept of ‘Asianism’ as constructed both in antiquity and by modern scholars (e.g. Wisse, 1995; Jonge, 2008; Kim, 2017; Richter and Johnson, 2017; Whitmarsh, 2005, 2001). I will endeavour to avoid reducing ‘rhetoric’ to either argument or the use of rhetorical figures or tropes; in matters of style I will attend to e.g. vocabulary, mood/tone, syntax and rhythm.

Josef Lossl: Demonology in Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos: Jewish and Greek influences

In orat. 7.4-5 Tatian explains the existence of demons from “the transgression and folly” of “the firstborn”, whom men followed and declared a god because of his status as firstborn. Tatians account leaves much room for interpretation. However, considering the important role Tatian attaches to the “Barbarian” (i. e. biblical) Scriptures, it is probable that behind his account is an early Jewish tradition of the fall of the angels (cf. 2Enoch 29). Yet Tatian blends this tradition with Middle-Platonist explanations to such a degree that his demonology has been branded “one of the most complex” in early Christianity (Timotin). This paper aims to focus on particular aspects which show how Tatian puts together the Jewish (biblical) and Greek (mythological and philosophical) traditions in a (not always successful) attempt to produce a demonology that is consistent with his theology, cosmology and anthropology.

Johan Leemans: Diatribe and Scripture: the Power of Asterius of Amaseia

Sermons were (and still are!) a great medium for communicating the Christian message to a large and diverse audience. The first flowering of preaching in quantity of extant texts, we encounter in the fourth and fifth centuries. In my paper I will focus on a lesser-known Greek preacher who was active at the turn of the fourth to the fifth century: Asterius, bishop of Pontic Amaseia. Of him we have sixteen sermons extant. They show that Asterius was a powerful, vigorous homilist who preferred to be very clear to his congregation about what he thought was right or wrong in belief, doctrine or ethical practice. Soft and subtle communication was not his forte. Yet, his sermons also
clearly show him to have been a pastoral bishop, genuinely concerned about the
well-being of his flock. Sermons were vital in his self-understanding as a
bishop: he calls them "schoolrooms for the souls" of his audience.In my paper I will focus on Asterius' use of the diatribe, a rhetorical means with a long history. Drawing on some examples, I
will demonstrate how the combination of the classical diatribe and the use of
Scriptural quotations gave Asterius' preaching a unique sound. This is
especially relevant as Asterius is one of the few Greek preachers we know of
that were active in middle-sized cities, not in metropoleis like Antioch or
Constantinople. Thus, my contribution will also help to understand better Greek
patristic sermons and the modes of knowledge they display and construe.

Eric Lopez: Ascetic Knowledge and Anagogical Knowing in Maximus the Confessor

In the post-Justinian era of the Byzantine Empire, Maximus the Confessor (580-662 CE), a Christian ascetic and theologian, sketched out his conception of Christian ascent. This paper examines Maximus' vision of Christian ascent with special attention to his understanding of knowledge and theological epistemology in order to demonstrate how his engagement with Origenist and Neoplatonic cosmologies led him to explore the nature of knowledge, union, and the intelligible function of the Logos. The intersection of these three areas define not only what is knowable concerning God and creation but also what kind of knowledge is possible in each case. Entailed in his description is a rich set of terms that describe the phenomenological and psychological processes of human knowledge and deification. Correlative to Maximus’ conception of ascent is an ordered portrayal of the cosmos and the wisdom available from it. While accessible to all and commencing from various vantage points, ascent is nevertheless an ordered progression of one’s attention through kinds of knowledge and unknowing that governs the ascetic’s ability to understand Scripture, creation, liturgical acts, and God. This attention is not merely a pursuit of knowledge but rather a process that engenders a specific disposition toward God and creation which illuminates a proper understanding and engagement with all things. Consequently, knowledge is not the end goal to ascent but a necessary stage on the way to union. While there are limits to these processes, Maximus explains a means of transcending them as far as is possible.

Marilyn Lewis: Henry Hallywell (1641-1703): A Cambridge Origenist in Parochial Sussex

Henry Hallywell was a pupil at Christ’s College, Cambridge, of George Rust, the probable author of A Letter of Resolution concerning Origen (1661). Hallywell fully accepted Rust’s Origenism, and his writings also demonstrate the influence of Henry More, Ralph Cudworth and Benjamin Whichcote. Writing from a succession of parochial livings in rural Sussex, Hallywell’s Origenism was expressed in a series of short books aimed at a general educated readership. Drawing on these publications, as well as on his six unpublished letters to Henry More, this paper will explore Hallywell’s Origenism in four areas of his soteriological thought: 1) the pre-existence of souls; 2) the doctrine of accommodation; 3) deiformity, with an emphasis on participation in the absolute goodness of God; and 4) the final judgement and millennium. Hallywell’s rejection of Calvinist double predestination, his emphasis on personal responsibility and freedom, and his affirmation of God’s loving desire to save all creation will be explored. Despite recent scholarly doubts concerning the existence of Cambridge Platonism as a distinct strand in seventeenth-century theological/philosophical thought, Hallywell will be presented as an exemplary member of this circle, who has only recently received sustained attention.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe: Early Christian cursing of (and with) the devil

Powerful daimones of various types (from corpse daimones to assistants) were regularly invoked in texts of ritual power in the Greco-Roman / Egyptian tradition on papyrus and other materials, to help lovelorn and ambitious clients achieve their goals. Daimones were also - albeit less often - sometimes the targets of 'magic', in texts and rituals of exorcism and protection. This paper will examine a range of late antique textual and material evidence for both the deployment and the targetting of the devil and his daimones in curses by Christians, both within the ecclesiastical sphere by clerics and monks in pedagogical and liturgical contexts, as well as in a broader cultural context of ritual practice. It will explore the varying degrees to which the devil was directly cursed, invoked as an archetype of cursing or being cursed, or invoked - directly or not - to help in the cursing of others. As such, it will contribute to our understanding of the range of contemporary Christian attitudes to Satan, from the archetypal enemy to a hostile but limited power. It will also illuminate the structures and agency of Christian cursing itself, in relation to a broader set of cultural and ritual practices; what kinds of creatures were the targets of cursing, and what were the intended aims and techniques involved in cursing them? In so doing, I hope also to explore some of the benefits and problems of examining an etic category such as 'cursing' in this context.

Jaime De Miguel López: Leonid Empresses' attitude towards Paganism within Christian sources

The Edict of Milan in first place and the Edict of Thessalonica in second, represent the definitive insertion of Christianity in the society and institutions of the Empire, leaving the paganism in a second place, even being pursued by the Roman law. Despite this and the political rise of the various Christological doctrines –facing each other for the control of the Church-, we know that at the end of the Vth century, important redoubts of paganism are still remaining inside the Roman World, showing themselves especially in the most important knowledge centres in those moments, like the Schools of Alexandria, Athens and Syria.
Being conscious of this continuity of the Paganism in the Eastern Roman Empire, in this paper we aim to study the attitude towards this former religion kept by the Empresses Verina and Ariadne (and other women of the Imperial family) and their interactions with this forbidden practices. These interactions are especially interesting if we consider that during the reigns of these Empresses the Empire suffered several convulsive moments with different political and religious confrontations. To do that, we will focus especially in how the Christian sources reproduced this attitude of the Leonid Empresses towards the traditional paganism.

Lillian Larsen: Evagrius in the Classroom

In introducing his summative collection of Progymnasmata – a spectrum of school compendia that flowered in late antiquity (Atlanta 2003), George Kennedy argues that in order to understand the structural character of emergent ancient literature, one must begin in the classroom. Following Kennedy, this presentation examines the gnomic sentences attributed to Evagrius within a wider didactic and rhetorical frame. Highlighting the integral role accorded gnomic content in ancient education, it explores the particular merits of reading extant compilations of Evagrian source material through a classroom lens.

Nikolai Lipatov-Chicherin: The place of the ‘Commentary on the prophet Isaiah’ within the corpus of works of St Basil the Great.

The place of the ‘Commentary on the prophet Isaiah’ within the corpus of works of St Basil the Great.The paper makes a new contribution to the ongoing debate about the question of authorship of the ‘Commentary on the prophet Isaiah’ attributed by manuscripts to St Basil the Great. It starts with outlining objections raised by Erasmus, Garnier and their followers and proceeds to demonstrate their basic errors. Then the paper evaluates the text in terms of its language, style, theological ideas, historical background and reflections of the author’s personality. From the point of view of the speaker the book not only meets formal criteria for a genuine work of Basil but occupies an important and organic position within his oeuvre. It provides a focal point for the development of many of his ideas reflected in subsequent writings and as such it is indispensable for understanding of the evolution of Basil’s personality and theological thinking.

Joseph Lenow: The Mystical Agency of Christ in the Letters of Cyprian

Cyprian of Carthage displays a clear understanding of the church as the mystical body of Christ (ep.63.13). Joined to this understanding of Christ’s mystical body is a sense of Christ’s mystical agency—his continued work in the world as mediated through the activity of this community. This paper considers the theology of Christ’s mystical agency as encountered in Cyprian’s letters, with special attention to how shifting emphases in his deployments of this theme may be attributable to the ecclesial circumstances of his writing. In the relatively early ep.10, written to the confessors of the Carthaginian church likely before the controversy with the laxists, Cyprian exhibits a strong sense of Christ actively struggling and conquering in the witness of the martyrs and confessors (ep.10.3-4). Later letters generally move away from a direct identification of Christ’s work with the activity of the martyrs and confessors, likely so as to undercut the belief that the readmission to the fellowship of peace by Lucian and other confessors was itself properly identifiable as Christ’s own work of forgiveness. Instead, later letters tend to emphasize Christ’s agency as (i) spectator of the martyr’s combat, rather than himself an active combatant; (ii) continuing to legislate the church’s communal life through the commands delivered in scripture; (iii) mystically active in the work of the bishops and clergy, to whom he has entrusted the care of his body the church; and (iv) patiently awaiting his return in judgment.

Brendan Lupton: Gregory the Great's Development of the Virtue of Patience

A steady current in the Latin patristic tradition was the virtue of patience. Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine all devoted specific treatises to this virtue. Some even claim that Tertullian was the first to develop the Christian understanding of patience. Scholars, such as Robert Louis Wilken, David Harned, and Alan Kreider have studied the development of this virtue within this western stream. Gregory the Great’s understanding and development of patience, however, has not been explored in detail, perhaps since he himself did not pen a separate treatise on the topic unlike his predecessors. This omission in scholarship is a little surprising, since the protagonist of Gregory’s magnum opus, The Moralia,is Job, whom many consider to be an archetype of patience. Further, Thomas Aquinas will pepper his articles on patience with quotations from the last of the Latin fathers. This paper will explore Gregory’s development of patience and how the two currents of monastic theology and the fall of the West contributed to his articulation of this virtue.

Hugo Lundhaug: The Book of Thomas and Early Egyptian Monasticism

While the texts of the Nag Hammadi Codices have traditionally been interpreted as expressions of “Gnosticism,” this contribution will draw on recent research indicating a monastic provenance for the Nag Hammadi Codices and analyze the Book of Thomas, the final text of Nag Hammadi Codex II, as an example of early monastic literature. The preserved Coptic text will be approached as a piece of Coptic literature, and compared with other monastic texts roughly contemporary with the Nag Hammadi Codices, including parts of the Pachomian corpus and the writings of Shenoute. Moving beyond traditional questions of the authorship and composition of the hypothetical original, and taking into account the textual fluidity and scribal creativity inherent in the production and dissemination of such literature in Coptic, it will be demonstrated that the Book of Thomas deals with questions of theology and ascetic praxis that were of major interest to Egyptian monks.

Elizabeth Dively Lauro: Origen's Relational Trinity: A Study of His Fourth Homily on Isaiah

Overshadowed
by accusations of proto-Arianism throughout the centuries, Origen’s Trinitarian
theology has yet to be assessed with clarity.
However, in his fourth homily on Isaiah, Origen describes the activities
of the Father, Savior and Holy Spirit as a dynamic and intimate interrelationship
that seems to be dependent upon a single, shared nature and reflect roles of
equal power. First, I analyze the relational
portrait of the Trinity that Origen draws, showing that he understands the
Father, Savior and Holy Spirit to play key roles in each of the periods of time,
to which he refers as the “beginning,” “middle,” and “end.” Within and throughout these periods, they
continually communicate with each other, sharing in and reflecting all of the
virtues as if they are one in the Divine nature. This analysis reveals that Origen views the
Father, Savior and Holy Spirit in an active intimacy that is simultaneously
community and oneness. Having set forth
this trinitarian portrait, I demonstrate that Origen’s meaning is clear despite
any assessment of interpolation by Latin translator Jerome. I also set forth how other works by Origen show
with consistency this portrait of the Father, Savior and Holy Spirit sharing an
active intimacy grounded in the virtues.
What we discover is an eloquent explanation by Origen of the Father, Savior
and Holy Spirit sharing intimately and equally in the virtues, as they
characterize one Divine nature, and reflecting them with equal power to
humanity.