Asceticism and anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement

163 Pages·2000·1.79 MB·English

by  John Behr

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Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
John Behr
Print publication date: 2000
Print ISBN-13: 9780198270003
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270003.001.0001
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Source:Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
(p. ii ) THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly volumes on the thought and history of the early
Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient
historians, and specialists in the classical and Jewish worlds.
Titles in the series include:
Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism
David Brakke (1995)
Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis
Translated with an introduction and commentary by
C. T. R. Hayward (1995)
Ambrose of Milan and the
End of the Nicene–Arian Conflicts
Daniel H. Williams (1995)
Arnobius of Sicca
Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian
Michael Bland Simmons (1995)
Gregory of Nyssa’s Treatise
on the Inscriptions of the Psalms
Ronald E. Heine (1995)
Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ
The Monasteries of Palestine 314–631
John Binns (1994) paperback (1996)
John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian corpus
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Annotating the Areopagite
Paul Rorem and John Lamoreaux (1998)
Eusebius of Caesarea’s
Commentary on Isaiah
M. J. Hollerich (1999)
Ascetic Eucharists
Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals
Andrew McGowan (1999)
(p. iv ) This book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard specification in order to ensure its continuing
availability
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© John Behr 2000
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Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
John Behr
Print publication date: 2000
Print ISBN-13: 9780198270003
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270003.001.0001
Preface
Source: Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
This work explores the ways in which Irenaeus and Clement, the two earliest Christian writers with a substantial
body of extant work, reflected on the related topics of asceticism and anthropology, that is, how they understood
what it is to be human. Writing before monasticism became the dominant paradigm for Christian asceticism, these
two figures offer us fascinating glimpses of alternative approaches. Their reflections, however, are embedded within
writings concerned with larger theological issues, and can therefore only be comprehended fully from the theological
perspective of each corpus. It has thus been necessary to examine in detail the theological visions, different as they
are, of each author. While these studies can stand by themselves, they also substantiate a theological critique,
examined in the introduction and the conclusion, of those approaches to the asceticism of late antiquity which
overlook the theological perspective of the texts being used, treating them instead as raw, uninterpreted material for
their own concerns—in the cases of M. Foucault and P. Brown, tracing the genealogy of the modern (sexual) subject.
The works of these two authors might appear to be far more sensitive and sympathetic than the vitriolic pages of
Gibbon and his epigones, and the characters which populate their pages more plausible than the emaciated fanatics
who haunted earlier studies—and indeed, their works do have much to offer—but unless the texts upon which these
histories are built are first examined as what they are, the resulting mirages will be no less our own projections.
Clearly this also entails that the analyses in the present study, which examine how two writers engaged in their own
polemics reflected upon the nature and place of human beings within God’s larger scheme, can be no more than
episodes in the history of thought. The works of these writers say little, if anything, about the actual lives of real
people in the second or third century. For this, other types of evidence—economic, legal, or artistic—are needed, each
(p. viii ) requiring its own proper hermeneutic. But this is not a limitation; such reflections are capable of inspiring
real people and transforming history.
This work is a revised version of a thesis submitted to the University of Oxford in 1995. I would like to express my
gratitude to Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia for gently guiding my research and reading my work and for his constant
inspiration, and to all the others from whom I benefited so greatly while in Oxford, and to the British Academy for
making those years possible. I would also like to thank Bishop Rowan Williams and Andrew Louth, my examiners,
for their insightful suggestions about how the work might be revised, and the readers appointed by the editors of
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Oxford Early Christian Studies for their comments. I have been fortunate in being able to explore some of the
material contained here while teaching at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York; for this
opportunity, and for their comments, I thank both my colleagues and my students. Finally, the publication of this
work is the result of the diligent labours of the staff” at Oxford University Press, to whom my thanks.
I would like to point out that, without wishing to minimize the problems involved, I have used the word ‘man’
throughout this work to refer to all human beings, male and female, and the human race considered generically.
John Behr
March 1999
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Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
John Behr
Print publication date: 2000
Print ISBN-13: 9780198270003
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270003.001.0001
Abbreviations
Source: Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
primary sources
The following abbreviations are used in the course of this work. The numeration of the editions cited in the
Bibliography is followed, except where stated otherwise. For the works of Philo, I have used the abbreviations as
given after the title in the Bibliography.
AH
Irenaeus, Against the Heresies (in the numeration of Massuet)
Dem.
Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
EH
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
Exc. Th.
Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto
Paed.
Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus
Prot.
Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus
QDS
Clement of Alexandria, Quis Dives Salvetur
Strom.
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata
SVF
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. J. Von Arnim
journals and series
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ACW
Ancient Christian Writers
ANF
Ante-Nicene Fathers
BKV
Bibliothek der Kirchenvater
CSCO
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CSEL
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
ECR
Eastern Churches Review
ETL
Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
FC
Fathers of the Church
GCS
Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte
GOTR
Greek Orthodox Theological Review
Greg.
Gregorianum
HJ
Heythrop Journal
(p. xi ) HTR
Harvard Theological Review
JAAR
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JBL
Journal of Biblical Literature
JECS
Journal of Early Christian Studies
JEH
Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JRS
Journal of Roman Studies
JTS
Journal of Theological Studies
LCL
Loeb Classical Library
LV
Lumière et Vie
NAWG
Nachrichten von der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen
NPNF
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
NRT
Nouvelle Revue Théologique
OCP
Orientalia Christiana Periodica
OECT
Oxford Early Christian Texts
PG
Patrologia Graeca
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PO
Patrologia Orientalis
PTS
Patristische Texte und Studien
RAM
Revue d’Ascétique et Mystique
RB
Revue Bénédictine
REA
Revue des Études Anciennes
REG
Revue des Études Grecques
RSPhTh
Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques
RSR
Recherches de Science Religieuse
SC
Sources Chrétiennes
SJT
Scottish Journal of Theology
SM
Studia Moralia
St. Patr.
Studia Patristica
SVTQ
Saint Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly
TS
Theological Studies
TSK
Theologische Studien und Kritiken
TU
Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur
TZ
Theologische Zeitschrift
VC
Vigiliae Christianae
ZKG
Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte
ZKT
Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie
ZNTW
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der Urchristentums
ZTK
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
(p. xii )
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Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement
John Behr
Print publication date: 2000
Print ISBN-13: 9780198270003
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270003.001.0001
Introduction
Chapter: (p. 1 ) IntroductionAsceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and ClementJohn Behr
Source:
Author(s):
John Behr
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270003.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
Asceticism addresses what we are as human beings and asks questions regarding the appropriate ways of realizing
this in our lives. Christian asceticism is a significant part of modern Western civilization. Is Christian asceticism,
though, a corruption of true Christianity? Is it intrinsic to Christian existence? How is it different from other types of
asceticism? Christianity's ideals regarding virginity, abstinence, continence and other such issues have become
issues because of its different representations and interpretations; these ideals have marked Christians as a ‘third
race’. The specificity and distinctiveness of Christianity is found not in their practices, but in the ‘constitution of their
citizenship’. This book looks into the continuity or lack of continuity between pagan Christian morality through
investigating their conceptions of morality from philosophical and socio-historical viewpoints. Specifically, this book
concentrates on Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria's understandings on asceticism.
Keywords: asceticism, Christianity, ideals, third race, constitution, citizenship, morality, pagan, Irenaeus, Clement
Although the term ‘asceticism’ tends to evoke images of emaciated fanatics populating long gone and far removed
deserts, a wide range of contemporary popular culture and scholarship exhibits an intense attraction to, and interest
in, asceticism; it is perhaps no surprise that a culture whose catchword is ‘Just say no’1 should have occasioned the
first multi-disciplinary conference devoted to this subject.2 The phenomenon of asceticism is indeed a subject of
perennial and universal interest. It brings into prominence fundamental questions concerning what, as human
beings, we think we are and, intrinsically related to this, questions pertaining to what is the appropriate way, or ways,
of realizing this in our lives.
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