This volume brings together a rich and varied collection of essays by Gilles Quispel (1916-2006), Professor of the History of the Early Church at Utrecht University from 1951 until his retirement in 1983. During his illustrious career, Professor Quispel was also visiting Professor at Harvard University in 1964/65, and visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven from 1969 until 1974. The fifty essays collected in this volume testify to most of the prominent themes from Professor Quispel’s scholarly career: the writings of the Nag Hammadi library in general and the Gospel of Thomas in particular; Tatian’s Diatessaron and its influences; the Hermetica; Mani and Manichaeism; the Jewish origins of Gnosticism; and Gnosis and the future of Christianity. This volume also makes a number of his less known earlier publications (mainly presented under the heading ‘Catholica’) available to the international community. Until shortly before he died, Professor Quispel remained active in his study of the Gospel of Thomas. He had been one of the first to acquire the Coptic text of the Gospel of Thomas, of which he published the first translation in 1959 and his final translation in 2005. He was also active in researching the Diatessaron, and Valentinus ‘the Gnostic’. One of his most recent essays – published for the first time in this volume – is on ‘the Muslim Jesus.’

This study examines how Cyprian of Carthage, the most significant bishop in the early Latin tradition, appropriates the canonical Paul. Cyprian, like Paul, is a pastoral theologian, so his pastoral concerns provide a helpful lens through which to study his use of the apostle. These include divine truth and eternal glory; the church’s unity, ministry and sacraments; discipline and repentance; and wealth and welfare. Examining Cyprian’s use of Paul in these areas allows us to move beyond a simple literal/allegorical paradigm to appreciate the wide range of reading strategies used by Cyprian: model, image, maxim, title, contextual exegesis, direct application, prophetic fulfilment and qualification. It also provides a different perspective on Paul than the one arrived at by privileging a handful of texts. This study of Cyprian’s appropriation of Pauline texts therefore illuminates the interplay between text, context and theology in his exegesis. It also deepens our understanding of the early North African hermeneutical tradition and the early reception of Paul.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have expanded the corpus of early Jewish apocalyptic literature and tested scholars’ ideas of what apocalyptic means. With all the scrolls now available for study, contributors to this volume engage those texts and many more to reexplore not only definitions of the genre but also the influence of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the study of apocalyptic literature in the Second Temple period and beyond. Part 1 focuses on debates about categories and genre. Part 2 explores ancient Jewish texts from the Second Temple period to the early rabbinic era. Part 3 brings the results of scroll research into dialogue with the New Testament and early Christian writings. Contributors include Garrick V. Allen, Giovanni B. Bazzana, Stefan Beyerle, Dylan M. Burns, John J. Collins, Devorah Dimant, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Frances Flannery, Matthew J. Goff, Angela Kim Harkins, Martha Himmelfarb, G. Anthony Keddie, Armin Lange, Harry O. Maier, Andrew B. Perrin, Christopher Rowland, Alex Samely, Jason M. Silverman, and Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg.

A translation from Coptic and Greek texts of the Gospel of Thomas, with an in-depth study of the intellectual and historical circumstance of the text, including mystic Jewish and early Christian sources.

Explores how Shakespeare uses global wisdom literatures to encourage spiritual and moral growth and the arts of living in a connected world Invites readers to consider Shakespeare as a wisdom writer Welcomes readers into a wisdom ecology reflecting the ongoing interactions of agents from ecumenical, ecological, ethico-political, emotional and experiential angles Explores Shakespeare’s plays transhistorically in conversation with the pre-modern Indo-European lifeworld as well as Indigenous ways of being Shows how eco-logic replaces ego-logic in this sapient lens, poised to confront the challenges of homo sapiens in the Ecocene Highlights Shakespeare’s women as curators of knowing and agents of communal care This volume interweaves Shakespeare’s wisdom with ancient spiritual practices and the insights of a post-secular age in order to explore a transhistorical space of sapient knowing and living. Pursuing the delight of heart, soul and understanding in the synaesthetic experience of theatre and the meditative space of poetry, sapiential Shakespeare explores knowledge, love, beauty, nature, will and power in conversation with multiple wisdom traditions, tapping into a global sensus communis rooted in energetic knowing-with. This collection of essays begins in the Mediterranean with classical, biblical and Egyptian wisdom, moves to the East to consider Sufi and Buddhist wisdom and then turns to the West to reflect on Indigenous science and ways of knowing. Sharing a common root in oikos, meaning home, the ecumenical and the ecological converge in an embodied ethics and politics of care premised in an ecological rather than ego-logical way of being.

Based on several newly discovered texts, Augustine and Manichaean Christianity provides groundbreaking discussions of the relationship between the most influential church father of the West and the religion of his formative years. Augustine’s connection with Manichaean Christians was not only intense, but also enduring. This book unearths the essential background of writings such as Augustine’s Confessiones, De ordine and De vera religione, and discloses many a hidden Manichaean source of his powerful concepts of memory and the vision of God. Contributions by, among others, Iain Gardner, Therese Fuhrer, Jason BeDuhn, Majella Franzmann, Josef Lössl, Annemaré Kotzé and Nils Arne Pedersen.

The Christian Reception of the Hebrew name of God has not previously been described in such detail and over such an extended period. This work places that varied reception within the context of early Jewish and Christian texts; Patristic Studies; Jewish-Christian relationships; Mediaeval thought; the Renaissance and Reformation; the History of Printing; and the development of Christian Hebraism. The contribution of notions of the Tetragrammaton to orthodox doctrines and debates is exposed, as is the contribution its study made to non-orthodox imaginative constructs and theologies. Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Hermetic and magical texts are given equally detailed consideration. There emerge from this sustained and detailed examination several recurring themes concerning the difficulty of naming God, his being and his providence.