Ambrosiaster's Political Theology
The
works of Ambrosiaster, a Christian writing in Rome in the late fourth
century, were influential on his near contemporaries and throughout the
Middle Ages. In the first half of her study, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
addresses the problem of the author's mysterious identity (which
scholars have puzzled over for centuries) and places him in a broad
historical and intellectual context. In the second half she addresses
Ambrosiaster's political theology, an idea which has been explored in
other late Roman Christian writers but which has never been addressed in
his works. She looks at how Ambrosiaster's attitudes to social and
political order were formed on the basis of theological concepts and the
interpretation of scripture, and shows that he espoused a rigid
hierarchical and monarchical organization in the church, society, and
the Roman empire. He also traced close connections between the Devil,
characterized as a rebel against God, and the earthly tyrants and
usurpers who followed his example.
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