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The Cult of Christ and the Cult of the Saints*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

William Horbury
William Horbury
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge CB2 1RH, UK
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Extract

In ancient apologetic and polemic and in modern scholarship the cult of Christ and the cult of the saints in the early church have both been derived from Greek and Roman veneration of divinities, heroes, and rulers (see section I). Here it is argued that a case for a Jewish factor in the origins of the cult of saints can be made on lines slightly different from those most generally followed, beginning from rich NT material (section II). Ancient Jewish commemoration of biblical and post-biblical saints is discussed, and its potential is underlined by instances of invocation; background conceptions of an assembly of saints are illustrated, and their appearance in legend and vision is noted (section III). The cult of Christ can then be perceived as interconnected with the cult of saints, which provided a favourable setting for its development; both were rooted in the Judaism of the Greek and Roman world (section IV).

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 1998 , pp. 444 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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