How usefully do distinctly Stoic ideas illuminate the meaning of first- and second-century Christian texts? This book suggests that early Christians--the authors of New Testament and noncanonical writings, including some early apologies--were often more influenced by Stoicism than by Middle Platonism. This insight sheds an entirely new light on the relationship between philosophy and religion at the birth of Christianity.  
  
"This important collection of essays will be of interest to all those concerned with seeing the early Christian movement within the broader context of the Greco-Roman world. The focus on Stoicism here opens valuable new insights into aspects of early Christianity and will be a major stimulus for future research."--__Christopher Tuckett__, Pembroke College, Oxford  
  
"This volume, a virtual compendium of important Stoic teaching, clearly illumines--through close and careful textual study--the original significance of many passages in early Christian texts that deal with personal and communal conduct, the nature of Christian freedom, mastery of the emotions, the importance of embodied life and moral progress, the relation between human freedom and divine providence, and the tension between the divine immanence and transcendence of the created order. Individually and collectively, this set of essays brings to our awareness the distinctive contribution to Christian thought of an often overlooked school of ancient thought."--__John D. Turner__, University of Nebraska  
  
"This is a book for which we have been longing for many decades! The relationship between Platonism and Christianity has dominated academic debates while the influence of Stoicism has been largely neglected. This volume deftly treats all relevant areas in which Stoic influences may shape early Christian theology and in so doing transcends the Judaism/Hellenism divide."--__Samuel Vollenwieder__, Universität Zürich

__Tuomas Rasimus__ (PhD, Université Laval; DrTheol, University of Helsinki) is research fellow in the department of biblical studies at the University of Helsinki and at the Institut d'études anciennes, Université Laval. He is the author of Paradise Reconsidered in Gnostic Mythmaking: Rethinking Sethianism in Light of the Ophite Evidence. __Troels Engberg-Pedersen__ (DPhil, University of Oxford; DrTheol, University of Copenhagen) is professor of New Testament in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author or editor of eleven books and more than a hundred articles. __Ismo Dunderberg__ (DrTheol, University of Helsinki) is professor of New Testament studies at the University of Helsinki. He is the author or editor of four books and numerous articles in the field of early Christian literature.

Highlighting the place of Stoic teaching in early Christian thought, an international roster of scholars challenges the prevailing view that Platonism was the most important philosophical influence on early Christianity. They suggest that early Christians were more often influenced by Stoicism than by Platonism, an insight that sheds new light on the relationship between philosophy and religion at the birth of Christianity.

An international roster of scholars highlights the place of Stoic teaching in early Christian thought.

__Contents__ • Introduction to philosophy between Stoicism and Platonism by Troels Engberg-Pedersen  
• Chapters on the New Testament by Runar M. Thorsteinsson (on Romans), Niko Huttunen (on Paul and the law), Stanley K. Stowers (on the Gospel of Matthew), Harold W. Attridge and Gitte Buch-Hansen (on the Gospel of John), and J. Albert Harrill (on 2 Peter)  
• Chapters on other early Christian topics and documents by John T. Fitzgerald (on slavery), Nicola Denzey (on martyrdom), Esther de Boer (on the Gospel of Mary), Ismo Dunderberg (on Valentinianism), Takashi Onuki (on the Apocryphon of John), and Tuomas Rasimus (on Sethianism and stoicizing Platonism)

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Setting the Scene: Stoicism and Platonism in the Transitional Period in Ancient Philosophy

2. Stoicism as a Key to Pauline Ethics in Romans

3. Stoic Law in Paul?

4. Jesus the Teacher and Stoic Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew

5. An “Emotional” Jesus and Stoic Tradition

6. The Emotional Jesus: Anti-Stoicism in the Fourth Gospel?

7. Stoic Physics, the Universal Conflagration, and the Eschatological Destruction of the “Ignorant and Unstable” in 2 Peter

8. The Stoics and the Early Christians on the Treatment of Slaves

9. Facing the Beast: Justin, Christian Martyrdom, and Freedom of the Will

10. A Stoic Reading of the Gospel of Mary: The Meaning of “Matter” and “Nature” in Gospel of Mary 7.1–8.11

11. Stoic Traditions in the School of Valentinus

12. Critical Reception of the Stoic Theory of Passions in the Apocryphon of John

13. Stoic Ingredients in the Neoplatonic Being-Life-Mind Triad: An Original Second-Century Gnostic Innovation?

Index of Modern Authors

Index of Subjects

Index of Ancient Sources

Notes

Stoicism in Early Christianity [eBook]

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