BMCR REVIEW:
Robert J. Daly (ed.), Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity. Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009. Pp. 303. ISBN 9780801036279. $32.99 (pb).
Reviewed by Oleh Kindiy, Ukrainian Catholic University (okindiy@ucu.edu.ua)
[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
Since its inauguration in 2003, the Pappas Patristic Institute has embarked on a weighty project of annual patristics conferences and publications exploring specific topics in the field of patristic studies. The present volume is the second book in the series of the Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History, edited by Robert J. Daly. It is comprised of fourteen individual papers each dedicated to early Christian authors, theological themes, and iconographies of early Christian perceptions of the Apocalypse.
[...]
The volume is full of interesting essays. These two in particular caught my eye:
Alexander Golitzin discusses how apocalyptic metaphors influenced the development of the articulation of mystical experience in the early period of the monastic practice. He analyzes texts of Aphrahat and Macarius as interacting with the contemporaneous Jewish mystical tradition of merkavah. Both authors are eager to embark on a spiritual ascending journey to God. However, this ascent was indeed not only a way up, but also a step ad intra, which was a direct imitation of the apocalyptic solution of the Second Temple Judaism amplified by the eschatological enthusiasm stirred by the Christ-event.
Lorenzo DiTommaso surveys the chief issues in the study of the Daniel apocalyptica, which only recently received serious attention from modern scholars. DiTommaso redefines an “apocalypse” as a genre and adds to it apocalyptic oracles and testaments. Written in the post-Nicene and Byzantine period, these texts assure audiences that history is under God’s control. Some compositions do depend on the Greek Apocalypse of Daniel, but most of them, against the standard view, absorbed contemporaneous phobias and beliefs of a later period independently, reflecting political tensions and fears of Islamic invasion.
Professor DiTommaso is editing some Daniel material for the
More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.
