Poverty & Possessions: Gifts & Social Justice in the Early Church

Pappas Patristic Summer Institute 2011

Instructor: Dr. Susan R. Holman

 

Required Readings:

Syllabus, overview, and introductory readings
PDF 1 (Clement of Alexandria: The Rich Man's Salvation (excerpts)
PDF 2 (Gregory of Nyssa's sermons on love for the poor
PDF 3 (The Syriac Man of God)
PDF 4 (Harvey, "Holy and the Poor")
PDF 5 (John Chrysostom, 2nd Sermon on the Rich Man and Lazarus)
PDF 6 (Holman, "The language of social justice in early Christian homilies")
PDF 7 (Harvey, on Jacob of Sarug)

Optional Readings:

Holman, "Altared Philoptochia"
Holman, "Leitourgia and the Poor in the Early Christian World"
Holman, Journal of Lutheran Ethics article
Holman, "The Entitled Poor: Human Rights Language in the Cappadocians"
Ihssen, Gregory of Nyssa on Usury
Matz, Detachment and Basil's Homily 6
McGuckin, On the elm and the vine in The Shepherd of Hermas
Neil, Gift-Giving in Leo the Great

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above: wall fresco of a donor and beggar (Herculaneum)