Drama of the Divine Economy Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety Oxford Early Christian Studies Series

The theology of creation interconnected with virtually every aspect of early Christian thought, from Trinitarian doctrine to salvation to ethics. Paul M. Blowers provides an advanced introduction to the multiplex relation between Creator and creation as an object both of theological construction and religious devotion in the early church. While revisiting the polemical dimension of Christian responses to Greco-Roman philosophical cosmology and heterodox Gnostic and Marcionite traditions on the origin, constitution, and destiny of the cosmos, Blowers focuses more substantially on the positive role of patristic theological interpretation of Genesis and other biblical creation texts in eliciting Christian perspectives on the multifaceted relation between Creator and creation. Greek, Syriac, and Latin patristic commentators, Blowers argues, were ultimately motivated less by purely cosmological concerns than by the urge to depict creation as the enduring creative and redemptive strategy of the Trinity. The 'drama of the divine economy', which Blowers discerns in patristic theology and piety, unfolded how the Creator invested the 'end' of the world already in its beginning, and thereupon worked through the concrete actions of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to realize a new creation.

1. Introduction. 2. Legacies of Greco-Roman Cosmological Wisdom. 3. Legacies of Hellenistic Jewish Cosmological Wisdom. 4. The Shaping of Normative Discourse about Creator and Creation in Pre-Nicene Christianity. 5. Creation in the Mirror of Scripture I: Patristic Approaches to the Genesis Creation Story. 6. Toward a Christian Theology of the Beginning (and End) of the World. 7. Creation in the Mirror of Scripture II: Patristic Approaches to the Biblical Witnesses beyond Genesis. 8. Christ the Creator and the Creator Spirit: The Drama of the Incarnation and the Remaking of Creation. 9. Performing Faith in the Creator: The Drama of the Divine Economy as the Framework of Devotional and Ritual Practices in the Early Church. Epilogue: Drama of the Divine Economy.

Paul M. Blowers holds the Ph.D. in patristics and early Christian studies from the University of Notre Dame, and since 1989 has taught church history and historical theology at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in Johnson City, Tennessee, where he is currently the Dean E. Walker Professor of Church History. He is principally a scholar of Greek and Byzantine patristics, and particularly of the theology of Maximus the Confessor, but he has also taught broadly in the field of church history and Christian thought. He is a Past President of the North American Patristics Society and is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies. Author, editor, or translator of six books in early church history, he has published numerous journal articles.