The imperial cult and the development of church order : : concepts and images of authority in paganism and early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian / / by Allen Brent.

• Superior document: Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, v. 45
• Author: Brent, Allen.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 1999.
• Year of Publication: 1999
• Language: English
• Series: Vigiliae Christianae, Supplements 45.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xxii, 369 pages) :; illustrations
• Other title: Preliminary material /; CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN CULTUS BY THE THIRD CENTURY /; THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE IMPERIAL CULT /; IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY AND THE ORIGINS OF CHURCH ORDER /; CLEMENT OF ROME AND DOMITIAN'S EMPIRE /; THE APOCALYPSE AND DOMITIAN'S ICONOGRAPHY /; IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH AND THE MARTYR'S PROCESSION /; PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN MONARCHIANISM /; THE EMERGENCE OF IMPERIAL AND CATHOLIC ORDER /; BIBLIOGRAPHY /; BIBLICAL CITATIONS /; PLATES /; SUPPLEMENTS TO VIGILIAE CHRISTIANAE /
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-343) and indexes.
• ISBN: 9004313125
• ISSN: 0920-623X
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: by Allen Brent.

Recent studies have re-assessed Emperor worship as a genuinely religious response to the metaphysics of social order. Brent argues that Augustus' revolution represented a genuinely religious reformation of Republican religion that had failed in its metaphysical objectives. Against this backcloth, Luke, John the Seer, Clement, Ignatius and the Apologists refashioned Christian theology as an alternative answer to that metaphysical failure. Callistus and Pseudo-Hippolytus gave different responses to Severan images of imperial power. The early, Monarchian theology of the Trinity was thus to become a reflection of imperial culture and its justification that was later to be articulated both in Neo-Platonism, and in Cyprian's view of episcopal Order. Contra-cultural theory is employed as a sociological model to examine the interaction between developing Pagan and Christian social order.