Die Bedeutung der kirchlichen Konzile des 5. und 6. Jahrhunderts kann gar nicht hoch genug eingeschätzt werden. Sie geben wichtige Einblicke in das spätrömische Reich und die Rolle der Kirche zu jener Zeit. Das Konzil von Chalcedon (AD 451) ist aufgrund seiner reichen Quellenlage, des dramatischen Ablaufs und seiner historische Bedeutung das herausragende Ereignis jener Zeit. Die Beschlüsse des Konzils führten in der Griechischen Kirche zu schweren Verwerfungen, die bis heute andauern. Hagit Amirav untersucht erstmals die sozialen Dynamiken und die unterschiedlichen Rollen der Akteure, die Machtspiele der kaiserlichen Abgeordneten und der Bischöfe, ihre Gesten und Rhetoriken, die der Konsensfindung dienen sollten. Im Zentrum der Analyse steht dabei Markian in seiner Doppelrolle als Oströmischer Kaiser und als zentrale Figur der Griechischen Kirche.

In addition to the classical literary corpus, Chrysostom, like many other educated Christians, relied upon the Scriptures as an equally important source. Focusing on the use which writers made of the Scriptures in order to convey their moral, social, and theological ideas, this study is unique in that it offers a detailed analysis of patristic rhetoric against the background of the scriptural corpus. A close examination of a wide range of Greek exegetical and homiletic writings, in particularly the newly-available edition of the Greek Catena, reveals that the Fathers wrote and preached in accordance with well-established literary conventions. Chrysostom, his Antiochene colleagues and his Alexandrian rivals approached the biblical text with a full appreciation of the methods formulated by their predecessors. The evidence of the exegetes' meticulous and calculated use of the biblical text contradicts the present scholarly tendency to describe the homiletic literary output as spontaneous and free-flowing. For the first time, Chrysostom is examined not in an isolated way, but in the wider context of Antiochene and Alexandrian exegesis, and their respective theological ideologies. When studying the wider aspects of the Fathers' methods of interpretation, it becomes clear that the study of ideas cannot be separated from the study of their modes of expression.

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.

The present volume contains the proceedings of the fourth symposium of the Novum Testamentum Patristicum project (NTP), an international re-search project on the reception history of the New Testament in the early Church. The symposium was held in October 2012 at the University of Leuven. It was organised by Joseph Verheyden, Tobias Nicklas, and An-dreas Merkt, the coordinators of NTP. The topic of the meeting was the reception of the resurrection and empty tomb stories and the development of the belief in resurrection in the early Church.The belief in the resurrection constitutes the core issue of Christianity and of Christian tradition. The earliest references to the resurrection and witnesses to such a belief are found in the canonical gospels and in the letters of Paul, but the topic obviously remained of the utmost importance all through the early Church. Contributions to this volume offer studies on reception of the resurrection and empty tomb stories and the development of the belief in resurrection in the early Church by examining the most important early references on this topic.