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. |
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