The Origenist Controversy – the Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton Legacy Library) - Hardcover

Clark, Elizabeth A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691031738 ISBN 13: 9780691031736

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1993

Synopsis

Around the turn of the 5th century AD, Christian theologians and churchmen contested each other's orthodoxy and good repute by hurling charges of "Origenism" at their opponents. Although orthodoxy was more narrowly defined by that era than during Origen's lifetime in the 3rd century, his speculative, Platonizing theology was not the only issue at stake in the Origenist controversy: "Origen" became a code word for nontheological complaints as well. Elizabeth Clark explores the theological and extratheological implications of the dispute, using social network analysis to explain the personal alliances and enmities of its participants, and suggesting how it prefigured modern concerns with the status of representation, the social construction of the body, and praxis vis-a-vis theory. Shaped by the Trinitarian and ascetic debates, and later to influence clashes between Augustine and the Pelagians, the Origenist controversy intersected with patristic campaigns against pagan "idolatry" and Manichean and astrological determinism. Discussing Evagrius Ponticus, Epiphanius, Theophilus, Jerome, Shenute and Rufinus in turn, Clark concludes by showing how Augustine's theory of original sin reconstructed the Origenist theory of the soul's pre-existence and "fall" into the body.

About this title

Review

"This is a distinguished book by a first-class scholar who has mastered a huge mass of material and tells a story where both the religious ideas and the human interest are gripping stuff. The densely packed information is skillfully presented so that one never loses sight of the shape of the whole."--The Times Higher Education Supplement

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691031738
• ISBN 13: 9780691031736
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300