Michael Bland Simmons
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 5628131 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Michael Bland Simmons |
| NOMBRES | Michael Bland |
| APELLIDO | Simmons |
| FIRMA | SIMMONS M B |
| AFILIACIONES | Auburn University at Montgomery |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 20 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 30 |
| OBRAS COMO AUTOR | 20 |
| OBRAS COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1995 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2023 |
| ÍNDICE H | 1 |
Johannes Breuer
Historical Context
Setting Porphyrian universalism in its historical, social, political, economic, and cultural milieu, this chapter analyzes the development of universalist notions of salvation specifically in the context of the Third Century Crisis of the Roman Empire. Of the three main components of the imperial infrastructure, the emperor and his administration, the army, and Roman religion, only the latter surfaced as a viable unifying agent during hard times.…
Conclusions
Christianity blended particularism and universalism more effectively and seems to have begun to win over the masses at the critical moment of crisis in their collective history when a search for spiritual intimacy with the divine power(s) in the heavens was perceived increasingly as a way to prevent the imploding of a world once thought to be imperishable. Porphyry devised a counter-argument to Christian universalism which coincided with two impo…
The Meaning of Salvation in a Greco-Roman Milieu
This chapter begins Section II of the book, which sets soteriological universalism in the historical, social, political, economic, and religious and philosophical context of the Third Century Crisis. By analyzing a plethora of epigraphic data to show the reader the nuances of the views on salvation in the Greco-Roman world of Porphyry’s period, religious and philosophical paganism is soteriologically categorized into four main groups: Salvation f…
Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity
This book explores the background to the effort of the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry (c.A.D. 232–305) to devise a system of universal salvation as a means of countering the Christian soteriological challenge, and the Christian reactions to this, notably from Eusebius of Caesarea. The main arguments are that Christianity received an enormous boost, despite efforts at suppression, from the economic, social, and political troubles, including fam…
Getting the Blues
GETTING THE BLUES: WHAT BLUES MUSIC TEACHES US ABOUT SUFFERING AND SALVATION . By Stephen J. Nichols . Grand Rapids, MI : Brazos Press , 2008 . Pp . 192 . Paper, $20.00 . The great lessons of human existence are often found in the midst of pain and anguish. Referring to the Blues as “theology in a minor key,” Nichols creatively interweaves the stories of early Blues artists like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters with such themes as sin, forgiveness…
Porphyrian Universalism
In recent years scholars from a broad spectrum, including classicists, patristic and biblical scholars, ancient historians, and specialists in ancient Judaism, 1 have demonstrated an increasing interest in universalism. There has been very little written, however, on Porphyry's search for universal salvation, and whether Eusebius of Caesarea's understanding of universalism 2 —here defined as the universality of a particular cult's soteriology (or…
The Mortality of the Gods
This chapter demonstrates the specific manner in which the response to Porphyry's rejection of Christ's deity is developed in the Adversus nationes. There is one grand thème littéraire in the work related to the pagan gods of the myths: in respect of their anthropomorphic depictions and anthropopathic behaviour, all pagan religious literature accentuates the humanness, and therefore the mortality, of the deities. The discussion of divine anger se…
Arnobius and the Age of Diocletian
This chapter presents an introduction to Arnobius, his work, and the main issues of the age in which he lived. The first section examines to what extent, based upon Jerome's testimony and the Adversus nationes itself, Arnobius can be described as a representative of the Church. The second section provides a panoramic view of the pagan intellectual background to the Great Persecution. It surveys Porphyry of Tyre and Hierocles as the main leaders o…
Divinity of Christ and the Mortality of the Gods Arnobius’ Response to Porphyry’s Hecatean Oracle and Commentary
This chapter considers the question of whether Porphyry might be the principal opponent in Adversus nationes I. The Hecatean Oracle and Porphyry's commentary upon it served a useful purpose in the anti-Christian propaganda disseminated in Roman North Africa during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the Diocletianic Persecution. Although scholarship has traditionally focused upon the Contra Christianos as the most important work repr…
God and the Gods
This chapter explores Arnobius' understanding of the relationship between God and the gods. One of the most controversial debates related to Arnobiana concerns the exact meaning of the relationship between the Supreme God and the gods of Graeco-Roman paganism. Some have suggested that Arnobius develops a hypothetical argument about the existence of the gods. Others believe that their existence is affirmed only for polemical purposes. A good numbe…
Epilogue
This chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. Arnobius was a professor of Latin rhetoric who taught in the North African city of Sicca Veneria during the reign of Diocletian. These two conclusions are significant for several reasons. First, they are significant for the history of Christianity in Roman North Africa specifically, and in the Roman Empire in general. Second, the work of Arnobius, the Adversus nationes, is to be u…
The Date of the Adversus Nationes
Beginning with Conrad Orelli's Arnobii afri disputationum adversus gentes libri vii in 1816 and continuing to the present, modern scholars have not reached a consensus concerning the date in which Arnobius of Sicca Veneria wrote his Adversus nations in seven books. The suggested dates of the work have ranged from ad 295 to 320. Most historians and classicists who have studied the work in any detail are usually content with the general chronologic…
The Argument Concerning Animal Sacrifice
No one has yet analysed Adversus nationes 7 to see if there is any connection between Arnobius' argument concerning animal sacrifice and Porphyry's philosophical doctrines on the same subject found in his Abstinentia. This is what this chapter sets out to do. Porphyry's disqualification of Christ as the via universalis animae liberandae, and his attempt to offer such a way to the non-philosopher, appears to have been a principal reason why Arnobi…
A Biographical Evaluation
Jerome is the only ancient author who provides any biographical information about Arnobius, and two important passages related to this form the basis of this chapter.
God and the World
Arnobius' understanding of God takes into account the relationship between the deity and the world, including humanity, man's natural environment, and the great cosmos beyond him. Two main subdivisions are discernible. First, a significant number of passages focuses upon a divine concern for mankind's temporal and nontemporal (eschatological) welfare. Arnobius believed in a God who initiates a beneficial association with mankind which sometimes h…
The Supreme God and Saturn
The Adversus nationes was written during a period of great religious conflict and competition. Two very powerful forces were simultaneously confronting the Christian Church in North Africa: the Roman Empire and the cult of Saturn. This chapter suggests that in Arnobius, one can glimpse a few impacts which resulted from the most cataclysmic event in North Africa up to his time. God depicted as the lord of nature and the agrarian processes, who sen…
God and Christ
This chapter explores Arnobius' understanding of the relationship between God and Christ, the second main category of Arnobius' concept of deity. Because he is writing as a new convert not sufficiently educated in the doctrines of the Christian faith to provide an exposition of the ontological relationship between God and Christ, Arnobius is usually found discussing Christ's revelation of God and of his mission to the world as the High God's emis…
The Soteriological Argument Christ the ‘Via Universalis Animae Liberandae’
This chapter analyzes the various salient features of the Porphyrian–Chaldaean soteriological propaganda which formed the centrepiece of the great literary campaign against the Christians before and during the emperor Diocletian's persecution. Porphyry, who was writing as probably the most erudite philosophical and religious authority of the period, and was probably supported officially by the Roman government, developed a twofold system of argum…
Arnobius of Sicca
Arnobius of Sicca, in North Africa, was a Christian convert writing in the time of the Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century ad. His most famous work, Against the Pagans, was written shortly after his conversion (c.ad 302), and is a brilliant defence of his new religion using arguments taken from the cream of pagan learning. It demonstrates exactly the nature and intensity of the conflict between pagans and Christians at this period. This book st…
Arnobius of Sicca
Arnobius of Sicca, in North Africa, was a Christian convert writing in the time of the Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century ad. His most famous work, Against the Pagans, was written shortly after his conversion (c.ad 302), and is a brilliant defence of his new religion using arguments taken from the cream of pagan learning. It demonstrates exactly the nature and intensity of the conflict between pagans and Christians at this period. This book st…
Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity
This book explores the background to the effort of the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry (c.A.D. 232–305) to devise a system of universal salvation as a means of countering the Christian soteriological challenge, and the Christian reactions to this, notably from Eusebius of Caesarea. The main arguments are that Christianity received an enormous boost, despite efforts at suppression, from the economic, social, and political troubles, including fam…
The Mortality of the Gods
This chapter demonstrates the specific manner in which the response to Porphyry's rejection of Christ's deity is developed in the Adversus nationes. There is one grand thème littéraire in the work related to the pagan gods of the myths: in respect of their anthropomorphic depictions and anthropopathic behaviour, all pagan religious literature accentuates the humanness, and therefore the mortality, of the deities. The discussion of divine anger se…
Arnobius and the Age of Diocletian
This chapter presents an introduction to Arnobius, his work, and the main issues of the age in which he lived. The first section examines to what extent, based upon Jerome's testimony and the Adversus nationes itself, Arnobius can be described as a representative of the Church. The second section provides a panoramic view of the pagan intellectual background to the Great Persecution. It surveys Porphyry of Tyre and Hierocles as the main leaders o…
Divinity of Christ and the Mortality of the Gods Arnobius’ Response to Porphyry’s Hecatean Oracle and Commentary
This chapter considers the question of whether Porphyry might be the principal opponent in Adversus nationes I. The Hecatean Oracle and Porphyry's commentary upon it served a useful purpose in the anti-Christian propaganda disseminated in Roman North Africa during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the Diocletianic Persecution. Although scholarship has traditionally focused upon the Contra Christianos as the most important work repr…
God and the Gods
This chapter explores Arnobius' understanding of the relationship between God and the gods. One of the most controversial debates related to Arnobiana concerns the exact meaning of the relationship between the Supreme God and the gods of Graeco-Roman paganism. Some have suggested that Arnobius develops a hypothetical argument about the existence of the gods. Others believe that their existence is affirmed only for polemical purposes. A good numbe…
Epilogue
This chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. Arnobius was a professor of Latin rhetoric who taught in the North African city of Sicca Veneria during the reign of Diocletian. These two conclusions are significant for several reasons. First, they are significant for the history of Christianity in Roman North Africa specifically, and in the Roman Empire in general. Second, the work of Arnobius, the Adversus nationes, is to be u…
The Date of the Adversus Nationes
Beginning with Conrad Orelli's Arnobii afri disputationum adversus gentes libri vii in 1816 and continuing to the present, modern scholars have not reached a consensus concerning the date in which Arnobius of Sicca Veneria wrote his Adversus nations in seven books. The suggested dates of the work have ranged from ad 295 to 320. Most historians and classicists who have studied the work in any detail are usually content with the general chronologic…
The Argument Concerning Animal Sacrifice
No one has yet analysed Adversus nationes 7 to see if there is any connection between Arnobius' argument concerning animal sacrifice and Porphyry's philosophical doctrines on the same subject found in his Abstinentia. This is what this chapter sets out to do. Porphyry's disqualification of Christ as the via universalis animae liberandae, and his attempt to offer such a way to the non-philosopher, appears to have been a principal reason why Arnobi…
A Biographical Evaluation
Jerome is the only ancient author who provides any biographical information about Arnobius, and two important passages related to this form the basis of this chapter.
God and the World
Arnobius' understanding of God takes into account the relationship between the deity and the world, including humanity, man's natural environment, and the great cosmos beyond him. Two main subdivisions are discernible. First, a significant number of passages focuses upon a divine concern for mankind's temporal and nontemporal (eschatological) welfare. Arnobius believed in a God who initiates a beneficial association with mankind which sometimes h…
The Supreme God and Saturn
The Adversus nationes was written during a period of great religious conflict and competition. Two very powerful forces were simultaneously confronting the Christian Church in North Africa: the Roman Empire and the cult of Saturn. This chapter suggests that in Arnobius, one can glimpse a few impacts which resulted from the most cataclysmic event in North Africa up to his time. God depicted as the lord of nature and the agrarian processes, who sen…
God and Christ
This chapter explores Arnobius' understanding of the relationship between God and Christ, the second main category of Arnobius' concept of deity. Because he is writing as a new convert not sufficiently educated in the doctrines of the Christian faith to provide an exposition of the ontological relationship between God and Christ, Arnobius is usually found discussing Christ's revelation of God and of his mission to the world as the High God's emis…
The Soteriological Argument Christ the ‘Via Universalis Animae Liberandae’
This chapter analyzes the various salient features of the Porphyrian–Chaldaean soteriological propaganda which formed the centrepiece of the great literary campaign against the Christians before and during the emperor Diocletian's persecution. Porphyry, who was writing as probably the most erudite philosophical and religious authority of the period, and was probably supported officially by the Roman government, developed a twofold system of argum…
Arnobius of Sicca
Arnobius of Sicca, in North Africa, was a Christian convert writing in the time of the Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century ad. His most famous work, Against the Pagans, was written shortly after his conversion (c.ad 302), and is a brilliant defence of his new religion using arguments taken from the cream of pagan learning. It demonstrates exactly the nature and intensity of the conflict between pagans and Christians at this period. This book st…
Porphyrian Universalism
In recent years scholars from a broad spectrum, including classicists, patristic and biblical scholars, ancient historians, and specialists in ancient Judaism, 1 have demonstrated an increasing interest in universalism. There has been very little written, however, on Porphyry's search for universal salvation, and whether Eusebius of Caesarea's understanding of universalism 2 —here defined as the universality of a particular cult's soteriology (or…
Getting the Blues
GETTING THE BLUES: WHAT BLUES MUSIC TEACHES US ABOUT SUFFERING AND SALVATION . By Stephen J. Nichols . Grand Rapids, MI : Brazos Press , 2008 . Pp . 192 . Paper, $20.00 . The great lessons of human existence are often found in the midst of pain and anguish. Referring to the Blues as “theology in a minor key,” Nichols creatively interweaves the stories of early Blues artists like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters with such themes as sin, forgiveness…
Historical Context
Setting Porphyrian universalism in its historical, social, political, economic, and cultural milieu, this chapter analyzes the development of universalist notions of salvation specifically in the context of the Third Century Crisis of the Roman Empire. Of the three main components of the imperial infrastructure, the emperor and his administration, the army, and Roman religion, only the latter surfaced as a viable unifying agent during hard times.…
Conclusions
Christianity blended particularism and universalism more effectively and seems to have begun to win over the masses at the critical moment of crisis in their collective history when a search for spiritual intimacy with the divine power(s) in the heavens was perceived increasingly as a way to prevent the imploding of a world once thought to be imperishable. Porphyry devised a counter-argument to Christian universalism which coincided with two impo…
The Meaning of Salvation in a Greco-Roman Milieu
This chapter begins Section II of the book, which sets soteriological universalism in the historical, social, political, economic, and religious and philosophical context of the Third Century Crisis. By analyzing a plethora of epigraphic data to show the reader the nuances of the views on salvation in the Greco-Roman world of Porphyry’s period, religious and philosophical paganism is soteriologically categorized into four main groups: Salvation f…
Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity
This book explores the background to the effort of the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry (c.A.D. 232–305) to devise a system of universal salvation as a means of countering the Christian soteriological challenge, and the Christian reactions to this, notably from Eusebius of Caesarea. The main arguments are that Christianity received an enormous boost, despite efforts at suppression, from the economic, social, and political troubles, including fam…
Johannes Breuer
Philosophy (18 obras) · Classical Antiquity Studies (15 obras) · Art (12 obras) · History (12 obras) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (11 obras) · Literature (9 obras) · Theology (9 obras) · Ancient history (8 obras) · Christianity (8 obras) · Law (8 obras)