Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought is an investigation into two basic concepts of ancient pagan and Christian thought. The study examines how activity in Christian thought is connected with the topic of participation: for the lower levels of being to participate in the higher means to receive the divine activity into their own ontological constitution. Torstein Theodor Tollefsen sets a detailed discussion of the work of church fathers Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas in the context of earlier trends in Aristotelian and Neoplatonist philosophy. His concern is to highlight how the Church Fathers thought energeia (i.e. activity or energy) is manifested as divine activity in the eternal constitution of the Trinity, the creation of the cosmos, the Incarnation of Christ, and in salvation understood as deification.
| ISBN: | 9780199605965 |
| Publication date: | 12th January 2012 |
| Author: | Torstein Theodor Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Arts and Ideas, University of Oslo Tollefsen |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 240 pages |
| Series: | Oxford Early Christian Studies |
| Genres: |
Christianity History of religion Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy Theology |