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How did Origen, one of the major Patristic thinkers, construct his philosophical theology? What are his main innovations in metaphysics, protology, Trinitarian Theology and Christology? How did he view the relation between philosophy and theology? This is a collection of over twenty essays, mostly from world-leading journals and books from outstanding publishers, besides two new ones, from Professor Ilaria L.E. Ramelli's life-long, and always continuing, research on Origen. This coherent set　of studies is grouped around Origen's metaphysics, protology, Trinitarian theology and Christology, and the relation between theology and philosophy, with reception aspects. The essays address Origen's towering figure in Patristic philosophy, Christian Platonism, and the Platonic tradition, facets of his reception of Platonism, reflections concerning the Christianization of Hellenism (vs. the Hellenization of Christianity) and the relation between philosophy and theology and between ‘pagan'and Christian Platonism; Origen's philosophical theology and connections to Platonism; the question of Origen's conversion and his lexicon of　epistrophē; a comparison between the imperial Platonist Atticus'and Origen's theories on the soul of God the Creator; Alexander of Aphrodisias as a source of Origen's philosophy and the birth of the eternity formula in reference to the Son; the problem of Origen's'subordinationism', which must be nuanced; Origen's major contribution to Trinitarian theology in the notion of hypostasis and its foundation in Scripture and philosophy; the reciprocal indwelling of the Father in the Son and its implications against Origen's'subordinationism'; Origen's influence on Augustine as paradoxical and a Christological case study; the divine as inaccessible object of knowledge in ancient and Patristic Platonism; the reception of Origen's ideas in the West; the notion of divine power in Origen: sources and aftermath; Platonist exemplarism in Origen and Plotinus; Paul's notion of nous in Origen and Evagrius; the reception of Origen in Ps.Dionysius, and Origen's heritage in the concept of matter in the Dialogue of Adamantius. The volume is rounded off by theoretical reflections on philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. This book is very relevant to the study of Origen, the foundations of Christian thought, and ancient and late antique philosophy, theology and culture.

This authoritative collection brings together the latest thinking on women's leadership in early Christianity. Patterns of Women's Leadership in Early Christianity considers the evidence for ways in which women exercised leadership in churches from the 1st to the 9th centuries CE. This rich and diverse volume breaks new ground in the study of women in early Christianity. This is not about working with one method, based on one type of feminist theory, but overall there is nevertheless a feminist or egalitarian agenda in considering the full equality of women with men in religious spheres a positive goal, with the assumption that this full equality has yet to be attained. The chapters revisit both older studies and offers new and unpublished research, exploring the many ways in which ancient Christian women's leadership could function.

Were slavery and social injustice leading to dire poverty in antiquity and late antiquity only regarded as normal,'natural'(Aristotle), or at best something morally'indifferent'(the Stoics), or, in the Christian milieu, a sad but inevitable consequence of the Fall, or even an expression of God's unquestionable will? Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery shows that there were also definitive condemnations of slavery and social injustice as iniquitous and even impious, and that these came especially from ascetics, both in Judaism and in Christianity, and occasionally also in Greco-Roman ('pagan') philosophy. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli argues that this depends on a link not only between asceticism and renunciation, but also between asceticism and justice, at least in ancient and late antique philosophical asceticism. Ramelli provides a careful investigation through all of Ancient Philosophy (not only Aristotle and the Stoics, but also the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, the Neoplatonists, and much more), Ancient to Rabbinic Judaism, Hellenistic Jewish ascetic groups such as the Essenes and the Therapeutae, all of the New Testament, with special focus on Paul and Jesus, and Greek, Latin, and Syriac Patristic, from Clement and Origen to the Cappadocians, from John Chrysostom to Theodoret to Byzantine monastics, from Ambrose to Augustine, from Bardaisan to Aphrahat, without neglecting the Christianized Sentences of Sextus. In particular, Ramelli considers Gregory of Nyssa and the interrelation between theory and practice in all of these ancient and patristic philosophers, as well as to the parallels that emerge in their arguments against slavery and against social injustice.