.........................4. Christ as Perfect Embodied Mediation 229 5. Eucharist as Sign: A Sign Theory of Language Applied to Cult 239 Chapter VI: Conclusion 256 Bibliography 261 v List of Abbreviations Abst. Porphyry, de Abstinentia agon. Augustine, De agone christiano Ascl. Asclepius C.Cels. Origen, Contra Celsum CMAG Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs cod. Photius, Bibliothecae Codices of discourse cannot endure a picture of differentiation and flux, and dictate a retrenchment to the linguistic conventions of “Christianity” and “Antiquity” as reasonably fixed quantities that can be observed in “highly intense encounters.” The relatively nebulous “discontinuity and continuity … destruction and conservation” can quickly become quickly the poles in a balanced dialectic, where Christianity and Antiquity confront us yet again, each with its strange 21 Markschies (2006) 22, who goes on to show the vagary that has often attended subsequent attempts to define the relationship between the categories, “Antiquity” and “Christianity.” For Leopold Zscharnack (1877‑1955), they are “two basic elements that have freely merged so as to become inseparable” (L. Zscharnack, Antike und Christentum, in 2RGG 1 [1927], 378‑390 [378]). For Heinrich Kraft, Christianity “experienced a radical change” in its confrontation with Antiquity: “it has itself become antiquity.” (H. Kraft, Antike und Christentum, in 1RGG 1 [1957], 436‑449 [436]). 22 Adopting the language of Jacques Fontaine, “Christentum ist auch Antike,” JAC 25 (1982) 5‑27, he observes that the process of interaction must be understood “not only as Auseinandersetzung, that is, as opposition and confrontation between the culture of the Greco‑Roman world and Christianity, but also as their Ineinandersetzung, that is, as “intraposition,” integration and new creation (1998) 6. 23 Betz (1998) 7. 25 insistence on singularity.24 It may be difficult at times to differentiate, on the one hand “merging with” or “becoming” Antiquity offered by some scholars, 25 and, on the other hand, Betz’s broad “concept of ‘Antiquity and Christianity’” that seems intent on fusing the two categories. In like manner, it may be hard to distinguish between Dölger’s “rejection” and “adjustment” and Betz’s “destruction and conservation.” But then again, merely to submerge Betz’s thought in that of his forbears may be unfair. Surely he is innocent of positing or assuming a primordial “pure” Christianity susceptible to von Harnack’s corruptions or to Dölger’s constructive engagement, just as he seems to recognize that the notion of Christianity “becoming” Antiquity runs the risk of banality. Certainly Betz can be taken to mean that insofar as we must employ the terms – and we must – we ought to do so in...Read the whole post...
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