Early Christian Ethics

This course will (1) look at the key texts and themes in the NT on ethical matters; (2) see how the early church (100-450) worked with these but also how it related the NT teaching to that of the OT, Jewish ethics and the classical philosophical ethics, and how it adapted its moral theology to its ever-changing circumstances; (3) assess the question of authority and interpretation of scripture and early Christian writings for church and society today. The course will cover a number of major themes present in the New Testament’s ‘ethical teaching’ across a range of the canon and will continue (in each second half of the session) with how the thinking changed and/or remained constant, was weakened or intensified by the likes of the Apostolic Fathers, the Apologists, Alexandrian and North African theologians, early Byzantine and Latin fathers.