Christ the Good Shepherd, sarcophagus, Praetexta Catacomb, 390s.

1. CLASSICAL FOUNDATIONS: Visions of Heaven and the Ascent to God. Plato, “The Parable of the Caves” and “The Myth of Er” (Republic).

2. JEWISH FOUNDATIONS: The Scriptures and Salvation. Philo of Alexandria on the Therapeutae and the Essenes. The Book of Enoch.

3. JEWISH CHRISTIANITY: The Early Christian Church. Clement of Rome and The Letter of Barnabas.

4. THE MISSIONARY CHURCH: Christian and Roman Visions of Truth.
Cicero, “The Dream of Scipio” (Republic); Justin Martyr
.

5. THE PERSECUTED CHURCH: The Christian Witness to the Roman World.
Ignatius of Antioch; Pliny and Trajan on the Punishment of Christians; Polycarp of Smyrna; Abericius; The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicity; Cyprian of Carthage.

6. THE CHURCH as a DEVELOPING INSTITUTION: Intellectual Challenges and Emerging Orthodoxy. The Didache; Hippolytus; Tertullian; Apostolic Constitutions

7. THE BEGINNINGS of MYSTICAL THEOLOGY: Christian Neo-Platonism: Irenaeus, Plotinus; Clement of Alexandria; Origen.

8. THE VICTORY of CONSTANTINE: The Council of Nicea and The Arian Christian Empire. Athanasius.

9. THE TRIUMPH of NICENE ORTHODOXY: The Union of Dogmatic and Mystical Theology. Basil; Gregory Nazianzen; Gregory of Nyssa.

10. SYRIAN CHRISTIANITY: The Harp of the Spirit. Aphraates of Persia; Ephrem the deacon; Isaac of Ninevah.

11. CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM : The Desert and the City. Antony, Pachomius, Evagrius; The Sayings (Apophthegmata) and Lives of the Desert Fathers; John Cassian.

12. CHRISTOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES: The Origenist Crises. The Councils of Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon.  Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great.

13. THE DEVELOPMENT of LATIN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT: Christians - Barbarian and Roman. Ambrose, Augustine, Benedict, Cassiodorus, Caesarius of Arles.

14. THE ISOLATION of the WEST: the Papacy, and the Rise of Byzantium. Columban, Gregory the Great, Justinian.

15. CHRISTIAN ART and LITURGY: the Further Development of Mystical Theology. The mosaics of Ravenna and St. Katherine's Monastery, Sinai. Diadochus of Photike; John Climacus; Dionysius the Areopagite; Maximus Confessor.


This Webpage was created for a workshop held at Saint Andrew's Abbey, Valyermo, California in 1990....x....   “”.