Early Christian Literature (Routledge Early Church Monographs) - Softcover

Rhee, Helen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415354889 ISBN 13: 9780415354882

Publisher: Routledge, 2005

Synopsis

Helen Rhee’s outstanding work is the first book to bring together The Apologies and the semi-fictional Apocryphal Acts and Martyr Acts in a single study. Filling a significant gap in the scholarship, she looks at Christian self definition and self representation in the context of pagan-Christian conflict.

Using an interdisciplinary approach; historical, literary, theological, sociological, and anthropological, Rhee studies the Christians in the formative period of their religion; from mid first to early third centuries. She examines how the forms of Greco-Roman society were adapted by the Christians to present the superiority of Christian monotheism, Christian sexual morality, and Christian (dis)loyalty to the Empire.

Tackling broad topics, including theology, asceticism, sexuality and patriotism, this book explores issues of cultural identity and examines how these propagandist writings shaped the theological, moral and political trajectories of Christian faith and contributed largely to the definition of orthodoxy.

This thorough study will benefit all students of early Christianity and Greco-Roman literary culture and civilization.

About this title

About the Author:

Helen Rhee is Assistant Professor of World Christianity at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California. She researches on the second and third century Christian literature, focusing on the diverging Christian self-identities in relation to Greco-Roman culture and society.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0415354889
• ISBN 13: 9780415354882
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284