Syllabus
The course will broadly be divided in 5 blocks of lessons on the following topics:
1. Introduction, historical notions related to the topics of the course, dotrinal controversies and ecumenical councils, the documents of the early christianity (literary genres, texts, disciplines involved).
2. The Bible in the Late Antiquity: the formation of the canon, exegetical works, philological works and translations (with special attention to Origen and Jerome).
3. Early christian literature in Greek and Latin: Tertullian, Ireneaeus of Lyon, Ambrose of Milan; the Cappadocian Fathers (Basile of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianz, Gregory of Nissa), John Chrysostom
4. Philosophy and Theology: focus on Augustine of Hippo and Severinus Boethius
5. The medieval reception of the late ancient christian authors.
Annotation
The early centuries of the history of Christianity are characterized by a dynamic and fluid doctrinal situation. This fluidity is essentially given by the circulation of various versions of the biblical texts, by the existence of various doctrinal traditions and by the uncertainties of a not yet structured theological language. Some theologians, such as Origen and Jerome, work on the biblical texts with commentaries, translations, and philological works with the aim to put order in the various traditions, and to reduce the distance between the authenticity of the doctrinal concepts, and the possibility to express them in Greek and Latin. Authors like Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo are able to absorb the old Greek and Latin culture as a set of rhetorical, philosophical, and literary tools to be used for the establishment of a new Christian system of ideas. Another author, Boethius, with his Latin translations of Aristotle’s works, and his desire to fully incorporate the philosophy of Stagira in his own philosophical and theological works, shows a properly medieval sensitivity that will represent, some centuries later, the core of the Scholasticism and of the medieval university knowledge.
During the course, through the reading of selected texts of relevant authors from the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, we will outline the main features of the early Christian thought under a historical, philosophical and literary perspective. We will highlight the elements of continuity and discontinuity with the old pagan culture, and will also see how the patristic intellectual speculation provides the theological categories for the medieval Scholasticism. Attention will also be paid to the medieval reception of some early Christian thinkers.