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Christian Apologetics
Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in the early church and Patristic writers such as Origen, Augustine of Hippo, Justin Martyr and Tertullian, then continuing with writers such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Anselm of Canterbury during Scholasticism. Blaise Pascal was an active Christian apologist during the 17th century. In the modern period, Christianity was defended through the efforts of many authors such as John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis, as well as G. E. M. Anscombe. History Jewish precursors According to Edgar J. Goodspeed in the first century CE Jewish apologetic elements could be seen in works such as The Wisdom of Solomon, Philo's ''On the Contemplative Life'' and more explicitly in Josephus' ''Against Apion''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Theology
Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake the study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to: * help them better understand Christian tenets * make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions * defend Christianity against objections and criticism * facilitate reforms in the Christian church * assist in the propagation of Christianity * draw on the resources of the Christian tradition to address some present situation or perceived need * education in Christian philosophy, especially in Neoplatonic philosophyLouth, Andrew. The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Christian theology has permeated much of non-eccl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican ministry, Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and Cardinal (Catholic Church), cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s, and Canonisation of John Henry Newman, was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019. Originally an Evangelical Anglicanism, evangelical academic at the University of Oxford and priest in the Church of England, Newman became drawn to the high-church tradition of Anglicanism. He became one of the more notable leaders of the Oxford Movement, an influential and controversial grouping of Anglicans who wished to return to the Church of England many Catholicity, Catholic beliefs and liturgical rituals from before the English Reformation. In th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contra Celsum
''Against Celsus'' ( Greek: Κατὰ Κέλσου ''Kata Kelsou''; Latin: ''Contra Celsum''), preserved entirely in Greek, is a major apologetics work by the Church Father Origen of Alexandria, written in around 248 AD, countering the writings of Celsus, a pagan philosopher and controversialist who had written a scathing attack on Christianity in his treatise ''The True'' ''Word'' (Λόγος Ἀληθής ''Logos Alēthēs''). Among a variety of other charges, Celsus had denounced many Christian doctrines as irrational and criticized Christians themselves as uneducated, deluded, unpatriotic, close-minded towards reason, and too accepting of sinners. He had accused Jesus of performing his miracles using black magic rather than actual divine powers and of plagiarizing his teachings from Plato. Celsus had warned that Christianity itself was drawing people away from traditional religion and claimed that its growth would lead to a collapse of traditional, conservative valu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The True Word
''The True Word'' (or ''Discourse'', ''Account'', or ''Doctrine''; grc-gre, Λόγος Ἀληθής, ''Logos Alēthēs'') is a lost treatise in which the ancient Greek philosopher Celsus addressed many principal points of Early Christianity and refuted or argued against their validity. In ''The True Word'', Celsus attacked Christianity in three ways: by refuting its philosophical claims, by marking it as a phenomenon associated with the uneducated and lower class, and by cautioning his audience that it was a danger to the Roman Empire. All information concerning the work exists only in the extensive quotations from it in the ''Contra Celsum'' ("Against Celsus") written some seventy years later by the Christian Origen. These are believed to be accurate as far as they go, but may not give a fully comprehensive picture of the original work. Criticism of Christianity before Celsus Celsus was only one writer in a long tradition of Roman writers and philosophers who wrote and spoke out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celsus
Celsus (; grc-x-hellen, Κέλσος, ''Kélsos''; ) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity. His literary work, ''The True Word'' (also ''Account'', ''Doctrine'' or ''Discourse''; Greek: grc-x-hellen, Λόγος Ἀληθής),Hoffmann p.29 survives exclusively in quotations from it in ''Contra Celsum'', a refutation written in 248 by Origen of Alexandria. ''The True Word'' is the earliest known comprehensive criticism of Christianity. Hanegraaff has argued that it was written shortly after the death of Justin Martyr (who was possibly the first Christian apologist), and was probably a response to his work.Hanegraaff p.22 Origen stated that Celsus was from the first half of the 2nd century AD, although the majority of modern scholars have come to a general consensus that Celsus probably wrote around AD 170 to 180.Chadwick, H., ''Origen: Contra Celsum'', CUP (1965), p. xxviii. The arguments for the date depend on factors such as the state of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians during late antiquity. He wrote ''Demonstrations of the Gospel'', '' Preparations for the Gospel'' and ''On Discrepancies between the Gospels'', studies of the biblical text. As "Father of Church History" (not to be confused with the title of Church Father), he produced the '' Ecclesiastical History'', ''On the Life of Pamphilus'', the ''Chronicle'' and ''On the Martyrs''. He also produced a biographical work on Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, who was ''augustus'' between AD 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadrian
Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania Baetica and he came from a branch of the gens Aelia that originated in the Picenean town of Hadria, the ''Aeli Hadriani''. His father was of senatorial rank and was a first cousin of Emperor Trajan. Hadrian married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina early in his career before Trajan became emperor and possibly at the behest of Trajan's wife Pompeia Plotina. Plotina and Trajan's close friend and adviser Lucius Licinius Sura were well disposed towards Hadrian. When Trajan died, his widow claimed that he had nominated Hadrian as emperor immediately before his death. Rome's military and Senate approved Hadrian's succession, but four leading senators were unlawfully put to death soon after. They had opposed Hadrian or seemed to threaten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quadratus Of Athens
Saint Quadratus of Athens ( grc-gre, Κοδρᾶτος) was a Greek Apostolic Father, bishop of Athens. He is counted among the Seventy Apostles in the tradition of the Eastern Churches. Ministry According to the early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea he is said to have been a disciple of the Apostles (''auditor apostolorum''). In his ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book IV, chapter 3, Eusebius records that: ''1. After Trajan had reigned for nineteen and a half years Ælius Adrian became his successor in the empire. To him Quadratus addressed a discourse containing an apology for our religion, because certain wicked men had attempted to trouble the Christians. The work is still in the hands of a great many of the brethren, as also in our own, and furnishes clear proofs of the man's understanding and of his apostolic orthodoxy.'' ''2. He himself reveals the early date at which he lived in the following words: But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gospel Of Peter
The Gospel of Peter ( grc, κατά Πέτρον ευαγγέλιον, kata Petron euangelion), or the Gospel according to Peter, is an ancient text concerning Jesus Christ, only partially known today. It is considered a non-canonical gospel and was rejected as apocryphal by the Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon. It was the first of the non-canonical gospels to be rediscovered, preserved in the dry sands of Egypt. A major focus of the surviving fragment of the Gospel of Peter is the passion narrative, which ascribes responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus to Herod Antipas rather than to Pontius Pilate. Composition Authorship The Gospel of Peter explicitly claims to be the work of Saint Peter: However, scholars generally agree that the Gospel of Peter is pseudepigraphical (bearing the name of an author who did not actually compose the text). The true author of the gospel remains a mystery. Although there are paralle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apostolic Fathers
The Apostolic Fathers, also known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, were core Christian theologians among the Church Fathers who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles or to have been significantly influenced by them. Their writings, though widely circulated in early Christianity, were not included in the canon of the New Testament. Many of the writings derive from the same time period and geographical location as other works of early Christian literature which came to be part of the New Testament. Background The label ''Apostolic Fathers'' has been applied to these writers only since the 17th century, to indicate that they were thought of as representing the generation that had personal contact with the Twelve Apostles. The earliest known use of the term "Apostolic(al) Fathers" was by William Wake in 1693, when he was chaplain in ordinary to King William and Queen Mary of England. According to the ''Cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Against Apion
''Against Apion'' ( el, Φλαΐου Ἰωσήπου περὶ ἀρχαιότητος Ἰουδαίων λόγος α and ; Latin ''Contra Apionem'' or ''In Apionem'') is a polemical work written by Flavius Josephus as a defense of Judaism as a classical religion and philosophy against criticism by Apion, stressing its antiquity against what he perceived as more recent traditions of the Greeks. One of his main sources was Menander of Ephesus. ''Against Apion'' cites Josephus' earlier work Antiquities of the Jews, so can be dated after C.E. 94. It was possibly written in the early second century. Text ''Against Apion'' 1:8 also defines which books Josephus viewed as being in the Jewish Scriptures: In the second book, Josephus defends the historicity of the Jewish Bible against accusations made by Apion (who Josephus states is not Greek), arguing that Apion in fact rehashes material of Manetho's, though there was apparently some confusion between Manetho's references to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. He initially fought against the Romans during the First Jewish–Roman War as head of Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in 67 AD to Roman forces led by Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat. Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish–Roman War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response, Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and presumably interpreter. After Vespasian became Emperor in 69 AD, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperor's family name of Flavius.Simon Claude Mimouni, ''Le Judaïsme ancien du VIe siècle avant notre ère au IIIe siècle de notre ère : ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
