The Study of Religion in the Early Christian Literature

• 作者: Georgios Gaitanos
• 来源期刊: 美中公共管理:英文版
• 学科: 政治法律
• 关键词: SCIENTIFIC STUDY of RELIGION Clement of ALEXANDRIA Lactantius vera-falsa religio superstitio
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（1）
• 页码范围: 16-22
• 页数: 7页
• 分类号: D

摘要

This paper aims to search if there was any attempt in the Early Christian Literature to apply a scientific or a regulated study of religion. A special interest through the interpretation and analysis of those texts comes up with the procedure of Clement of Alexandr ia and Lactantius, when they tried to study the subject “religion ”. The first one promoted an evolutionary line for the development of religion in the world and as a result Christianity was the pick of this evolution. However, the second one mentioned the uniqueness of the truth only in the Christian faith, deconstructing the rest of the cults and attaching to the authenticity of Christianity holy and ontological characteristics that do not have any connection with the human culture. The goal of the paper is to mention if there was any systematic study of religion in the Early Christian writers and the author comes up with the conclusion that these two ecclesiastic writers promoted and init iated a new mean in g to the terminology “religion”, diff erentiatin g themselves from the general point of view, as they started referring to religion as a concept and not just as an action of worship or a specific religious tradition.