This work provides the texts and translations of three ancient Jewish-Christian dialogues: The Dialogue of Athanasius and Zacchaeus (Greek, 4th c.); The Dialogue of Simon and Theophilus (Latin, 5th c.); and The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (Greek, 6th c.). This is the first published translation of each of these texts.

The second volume in this two-volume work studying the initial developments of anti-Judaism within the church examines the evolution of the Christian faith in its social context as revealed by evidence such as early patristic and rabbinic writings and archaeological findings.

Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium offers the first overall discussion of the literary and philosophical dialogue tradition in Greek from imperial Rome to the end of the Byzantine empire and beyond. Sixteen case studies combine theoretical approaches with in-depth analysis and include comparisons with the neighbouring Syriac, Georgian, Armenian and Latin traditions. Following an introduction and a discussion of Plutarch as a writer of dialogues, other chapters consider the Erostrophus, a philosophical dialogue in Syriac, John Chrysostom’s On Priesthood, issues of literariness and complexity in the Greek Adversus Iudaeos dialogues, the Trophies of Damascus, Maximus Confessor’s Liber Asceticus and the middle Byzantine apocryphal revelation dialogues. The volume demonstrates a new frequency in middle and late Byzantium of rhetorical, theological and literary dialogues, concomitant with the increasing rhetoricisation of Byzantine literature, and argues for a move towards new and exciting experiments. Individual chapters examine the Platonising and anti-Latin dialogues written in the context of Anselm of Havelberg’s visits to Constantinople, the theological dialogue by Soterichos Panteugenos, the dialogues of Niketas ‘of Maroneia’ and the literary dialogues by Theodore Prodromos, all from the twelfth century. The final chapters explore dialogues from the empire’s Georgian periphery and discuss late Byzantine philosophical, satirical and verse dialogues by Nikephoros Gregoras, Manuel II Palaiologos and George Scholarios, with special attention to issues of form, dramatisation and performance.

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This volume contains papers on the ancient Christian use of potentially anti-Jewish New Testament texts. Martin Albl gives a general introduction to the opinions that ancient Christian authors held on Jews and Judaism. James Carleton Paget focuses on the Epistle of Barnabas and its critical position towards the Jewish religion. Wolfgang Grünstäudl discusses Justin Martyr's non-reception of two apparently anti-Jewish texts: Matt 27:25 (»His blood be on us and on our children«) and John 8:44 (»You are from your father the devil«). Harald Buchinger analyses Melito of Sardes' Paschal homily, in which the Jews are blamed for the death of Christ. Riemer Roukema and Hans van Loon investigate, respectively, Origen's and Cyril of Alexandria's use of NT texts in relation to the Jews and their Scriptures. Hagit Amirav and Cornelis Hoogerwerf focus on the form of polemical discourses in Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom. Maya Goldberg studies Theodore of Mopsuestia's ideas on divine paideia in his commentary on Paulös epistle to the Galatians, and his view that the NT was intended to finalize – not replace – the Old Testament. Alban Massie focuses on Augustine's interpretation of John 1:17, »The Law was given through Moses, grace and the truth came through Jesus Christ.« Brian Matz deals with Jesus' warning against the leaven, i.e. teaching, of the Pharisees (Matt 16:6, 12), and Martin Meiser focuses on patristic reception of Matt 27:25. By way of comparison with ecclesiastial authors, Gerard Luttikhuizen deals with the alleged anti-Jewish interpretation of Scripture in Gnostic texts. This volume demonstrates that potentially anti-Jewish texts were indeed used against Jews, but also toward Christians, sometimes without applying them to Jews.

This book addresses a particular and little-known form of writing, the prose dialogue, during the Late Antique period, when Christian authors adopted and transformed the dialogue form to suit the new needs of religious debate. Connected to, but departing from, the dialogues of Classical Antiquity, these new forms staged encounters between Christians and pagans, Jews, Manichaeans, and "heretical" fellow Christians. At times fiction, at others records of, or scripts for, actual debates, the dialogues give us a glimpse of Late Antique rhetoric as it was practiced and tell us about the theological arguments underpinning religious differences. By offering the first comprehensive analysis of Christian dialogues in Greek and Syriac from the earliest examples to the end of the sixth century CE, the present volume shows that Christian authors saw the dialogue form as a suitable vehicle for argument and apologetic in the context of religious controversy and argues that dialogues were intended as effective tools of opinion formation in Late Antique society. Most Christian dialogues are little studied, and often in isolation, but they vividly evoke the religious debates of the time and they embody the cultural conventions and refinements that Late Antique men and women expected from such debates.