Notes from my teaching Graduate historical theology

Would you answer these questions for me.

1. Who were Xenophon,Plato, Euripides, and Ptolemy 11?

A)Xenophon (, Xenophon; c. 430 – 354 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates. He is known for his writings on the history of his own times, the 4th century BC, preserving the sayings of Socrates, and descriptions of life in ancient Greece and the Persian Empire.

B) Plato (429–347 B.C.E.) is, by any reckoning, one of the most dazzling writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy. An Athenian citizen of high status, he displays in his works his absorption in the political events and intellectual movements of his time, but the questions he raises are so profound and the strategies he uses for tackling them so richly suggestive and provocative that educated readers of nearly every period have in some way been influenced by him, and in practically every age there have been philosophers who count themselves Platonists in some important respects. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied. But he was so self-conscious about how philosophy should be conceived, and what its scope and ambitions properly are, and he so transformed the intellectual currents with which he grappled, that the subject of philosophy, as it is often conceived—a rigorous and systematic examination of ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, armed with a distinctive method—can be called his invention. Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range: perhaps only Aristotle (who studied with him), Aquinas, and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank.

C) Historians posit that Euripides, the youngest of the three great tragedians, was born in Salamis between 485 and 480 B.C.E. During his lifetime, the Persian Wars ended, ushering in a period of prosperity and cultural exploration in Athens. Of the art forms that flourished during this era, drama was the most distinctive and influential. Among Euripides’ contemporaries were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, and these four men dominated the Athenian stage throughout the fifth century B.C.E. Though scholars know little about the life of Euripides, since most sources are based on legend, there are more extant Euripidean dramas than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles combined. In his own lifetime, however, Euripides was the least successful of his contemporaries, winning the competition at the City Dionysia only four times.

Though his plays sometimes suffer from weak structure and wandering focus, he was the most innovative of the tragedians and reshaped the formal structure of Greek tragedy by focusing on strong female characters and an intelligent serving class. Although his contemporaries also depicted complex women (Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra and Cassandra; Sophocles’ Electra, Antigone, and Deianeira), Euripides concentrated on the interiority of his characters. Because of this focus on psychological motives, some have called Euripides the father of the modern psychological tragedy.

Euripides would often take a myth and delve into a problematic event or action that calls the rest of the myth’s ideology into question. In Alcestis, for example, he takes a story of a wife's goodness and transforms it into an indictment of her husband, and, by extension, an indictment of the patriarchal values that the old legend promoted. His Orestes can be seen as a brilliant anti-tragedy, a work that questions the aesthetic assumptions of Greek drama. In this work, he includes the happy conclusion of his original mythic source but leaves us knowing that the characters are undeserving of this happiness.

As one of the darkest and most disturbing of the Greek dramatists, Euripides questions authority, and, in his plays, he reveals a fascination with the oppressed, including women, barbarians, and slaves. His complex representations of perverse, violent, and monstrous women demonstrate his interest in the role of women in society. He further questions hollow or hypocritical ideals. While Aeschylus depicts a vision of history and teleology and Sophocles portrays heroes, Euripides creates real men with all-too human weaknesses. His is a voice of conscience, unafraid to reveal the world underneath Athens’ veneer of cultural and social advancement. The views expressed in Euripides’ tragedies seem almost prescient. After years of warfare (the Second Peloponnesian War began in 431 B.C.E.) and internal political strife, Athens fell to Sparta in 404 B.C.E., two years after the death of Euripides.

At the invitation of King Archelaus of Macedon, Euripides left Athens in 408 B.C.E. (although he may have faced danger in Athens for his subversive ideas). In Macedonia, he wrote The Bacchae, a complex play that depicts the destructive power of chaos and the godly wrath of Dionysus. The play is arguably Euripides' masterpiece, but he did not live to see it performed in Athens. He died in 406 B.C.E., and in 405 B.C.E., his son returned to Athens to produce Euripides’ last works at the City Dionysia. The Bacchae and its companion pieces won first prize.

D)Ptolemy XI Alexander II (, Ptolemaios Aléxandros) was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty who ruled Egypt for a few days in 80 BC.

Ptolemy XI was born to Ptolemy X Alexander I and either Cleopatra Selene or Berenice III. His uncle Ptolemy IX Lathryos died in 81 BC or 80 BC, leaving no legitimate heir, and so Cleopatra Berenice (= Berenice III) ruled alone for a time. However, Rome's Sulla wanted a pro-Roman ruler on the throne, and sent the young son of Ptolemy X to Egypt, displaying Ptolemy Alexander's will in Rome as justification for this obvious intervention.

The will also required Ptolemy XI to marry Cleopatra Berenice, who was his stepmother and half-sister (or possibly his natural mother - the ancient sources are unclear). However, nineteen days after the marriage, Ptolemy murdered his bride for unknown reasons, an unwise move since Berenice was very popular; Ptolemy was immediately lynched by the citizens of Alexandria.

Numbering the Ptolemies is a modern invention; the Greeks distinguished them by epithet (nickname). The number given here is the present consensus, but there has been some disagreement in the nineteenth century about which of the later Ptolemies should be counted as reigning. Since older sources may give a number one higher or lower, epithets are the most reliable way of determining which Ptolemy is being referred to in any given case.

He was succeeded by his cousin Ptolemy XII.

2. Would the title/term "Theologian" been used prior to the N.T.or is it a title/term that emerged subsequently to the beginning of the church after the apostolic age?

Prior to the N.T. age Homoousian ( HOM-oh-OW-see-a; Ancient Greek: from the Ancient Greek: , homós, "same" and Ancient Greek: a, ousía, "essence, being") is a technical theological term used in discussion of the Christian understanding of God as Trinity. The Nicene Creed describes Jesus as being homooúsios with God the Father — that is, they are of the "same substance" and are equally God. This term, adopted by the First Council of Nicaea, was intended to add clarity to the relationship between Christ and God the Father within the Godhead. The term is rendered "consubstantialis" in Latin and in related terms in other Latin-derived languages. It is one of the cornerstones of theology in all Churches that adhere to the Nicene Creed.

 The Gnostics were the first theologians to use the word "homoousios", while before the Gnostics there is no trace at all of its existence. The early church theologians were probably made aware of this concept, and thus of the doctrine of emanation, by the Gnostics. In Gnostic texts the word "homoousios" is used with these meanings: (1) identity of substance between generating and generated; (2) identity of substance between things generated of the same substance; (3) identity of substance between the partners of a syzygy (Gnostism). For example, Basilides, the first known Gnostic thinker to use "homoousios" in the first half of the 2nd century, speaks of a threefold sonship consubstantial with the god who is not. The Valentinian Gnostic Ptolemy claims in his letter to Flora that it is the nature of the good God to beget and bring forth only beings similar to, and consubstantial with himself. "Homoousios" was already in current use by the 2nd-century Gnostics, and through their works it became known to the orthodox heresiologists, though this Gnostic use of the term had no reference to the specific relationship between Father and Son, as is the case in the Nicene Creed.

Theology is the systematic reflection on religious beliefs. Generally, religion is first experienced and only later contemplated. The Bible is overwhelmingly a record of primary religious experience. As such it contains very little theological reflection. This is true of the first two divisions of the Jewish Bible, the Pentateuch, which is the most authoritative portion, containing the legislative core of Judaism, and the books of the Prophets. However, the last division, the Hagiographa, in which the human response is more dominant, contains the beginnings of reflection in areas where experience seems to clash with cherished religious beliefs. Although traces can already be found in the Later Prophets, it is the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and some of the Psalms that make a sustained effort to grapple with the problem of theodicy, an attempt to understand the justice of God in the face of the suffering of the righteous. 

While the Bible itself does not contain a theology, there are hints at the possibility of theology. The fact that there is no immediate Divine rejection of Abraham's (Gen. 18:25), Moses' (Ex. 32:11-13), or Job's questioning of God's moral nature indicates that God's moral will is accessible to human comprehension and to human criticism. This paves the way for theology. 

There is considerable theological reflection in the Talmud; however, it is scattered throughout the corpus and not developed systematically. Instead of engaging in formal argumentation, the sages expressed their views in terse epigrams in which fundamental religious insights are compressed into a single general saying. Thus on the question of Free Will versus Divine omniscience: "Everything is foreseen, yet permission is given; the world is judged with mercy yet the verdict is according to one's deeds" (Avot 3:15). Theological reflections were left in a fluid form and wide differences of opinion were tolerated. The basic premise of talmudic Judaism remained that the Torah represents Divine Revelation, so that all parts of biblical law, both its moral and its ritual portions, are equally binding and authoritative and are to be meticulously observed.

In certain areas of vital religious experience, the rabbis explored and broadened their understanding of basic concepts. Thus the Bible calls for both the fear and love of God (Deut. 10:12). The rabbis asked: What does that mean? How is this to be achieved? Do not fear and love conflict? Do religious deeds require proper intention and purity of motive? Even on the control principle of Divine Revelation, nuances of approach developed as the rabbis probed the mysteries of God's communication with man, having important implications for their understanding of the nature of the Torah. Sometimes they engaged in speculation unrelated to a biblical text: "For two and a half years the schools of Hillel and Shammai debated whether man would have been better off if he had not been created ..." (Er. 13b). 

The talmudic rabbis did not fix the contents of the Jewish faith in the form of dogmas. However, it was clear to them that acceptance of the Bible implies belief in a moral God, Providence, Reward and Punishment, Miracles, Repentance, revelation, and Redemption. They insisted upon these norms of faith even though their exact formulation was not reduced to a catechism. 

Beginning with Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-50 CE), new and external pressure arose to stimulate Jewish theology: contact with foreign philosophic thought. The great cosmopolitan city of Alexandria in Egypt was at that time the place where Greek-speaking Jews could receive full exposure to the rich Hellenic culture. Convinced that both Hellenic wisdom as the fruit of God-given human reason, and the Bible as the word of God, represented the truth, Philo set about to show both his fellow Jews and the Greeks that the teachings of the sacred Jewish tradition were in conformity with Greek philosophy. He did this by freely applying the allegorical method of interpretation to the biblical text in a systematic and thoroughgoing way. Thus, he developed the concept of the Divine Logos (Word) or Wisdom of God, which he identified with God's attributes of Justice and Mercy, and with the realm of the Angels, as the intermediary between the abstract, metaphysical God and the material world. Man has access to this spiritual world by means of intuition or mystical apprehension for which he can prepare himself by ascetic living. While remaining on the whole faithful to the religious principles of Scripture, such as human freedom and revelation, Philo's theology tended in the direction of a personal mystical vision. By wedding Scripture to Philosophy and its highest forms to morality, Philo made clear the universal thrust of Judaism.

Philo has been called "the first theologian." His historic significance has been characterized as follows: "Between a philosophy which knew not of Scripture and a philosophy which tries to free itself from Scripture, European thought for 17 centuries was dominated by what is generally called 'medieval philosophy.' Philo is the founder as well as the direct and indirect source of this type of philosophy" (H.A. Wolfson). 

The inclination to theologize did not arise again until the Middle Ages. This time the movement lasted from the beginning of the ninth century until the 15th century and found expression in religious poetry, biblical exegesis, and popular sermons, as well as in special philosophical works. 

Instead of being considered as simply "a handmaid" of traditional Jewish thinking, in the Middle Ages philosophy became the central Jewish value in wide circles. The stimulus to theologize was again involvement in a foreign culture, that of Islamic-Arabic civilization which through the common medium of the Arabic language brought Jews into contact with the highly developed Islamic Kalam theology and, through it, with Greek philosophy. This time, however, theology was needed to defend Judaism against direct intellectual attack from a number of different quarters. A Jewish sect called Karaism , which acknowledged only the authority of the Bible and grew popular in the ninth century, attacked the reliability of the rabbinic tradition. The expanding religions of Islam and Christianity, in order to justify their rupture with Judaism, conducted an aggressive attack on the mother religion. The fact that all three faiths were revealed religions only sharpened the controversy. Judaism had to refute the arguments that the revelation given to Israel had been abrogated by the one given to Muhammad or had been fulfilled by the appearance of Jesus.