Basic Questions:

1. What passage(s) in the readings did you find particularly interesting? Why? What passage(s) did you not understand?

2. What do the readings reveal about what it meant to be a Christian?

3. What do the readings reveal about the nature of Christianity at the time in which they were produced?

Specific Questions:

4. What is the central conflict in Act 15: 1-35 and in Paul's letter to the Galatians? How is the conflict resolved in both texts?

5. Why does Paul sound irritated in Galatians? What does his irritation tell you about early Christians in Galatia?

6. What is the significance of the allegory of Hagar and Sarah (Galatians 4: 21-31)?

A note on terminology. In Galatians, Paul uses the verb "to be justified" seven times. Another way of saying that a person is justified is that a person is made upright or reckoned as righteous. The noun "justification" does not appear in Galatians, only twice in Romans. The concept of justification in the noun or more frequently in the verb is primarily a Pauline understanding of salvation. Paul is using legal language, referring to a court case in which an accused person is acquitted. Translated into theology, this signifies God's act to pronounce the sinner as upright in God's sight.

7. What Christian ideals manifest themselves in Jerome's biographical sketches of Marcella and Paula?

8. What role does the Bible, especially the New Testament, play in the two letters by Jerome? Most of the passages in quotation marks are quotations from the Bible. You can find the precise sources in the notes on pp. 238-43. Notice when, how, and why Jerome quotes the Bible. What can we learn about reading the Bible on p. 103.

9. In the late fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa wrote of "being drawn into distressing controversies because the churches had been thrown into confusion" (36). These controversies undoubtedly had to do with matters of belief and / or worship. We notice the prominence of doctrinal controversies in the early fifth-century world of Jerome. See pp. 63, 66-68, 98-103. What are the historical dimensions of these controversies? In other words, what effect did they have on Christians? How did Christians respond?

A note re: p. 66. Origen of Alexandria was arguably the first great Christian exegete and theologian. He remained influential long after his death in the middle of the third century. In the fourth and fifth centuries, a controversy raged over the interpretation of his writings, especially his book On First Principles, which, among other things, discussed the relation of God the Father to Son. Some denounced him as a heretic. Others defended his views as orthodox (i.e. doctrinally correct). Jerome began his exegetical career as an admirer of Origen but over time became more critical. His writings and actions exacerbated what historians call the Origenist Controversy.