This article examines the historical transformation of Asmodeus across Iranian, Jewish, Christian, and early modern European religious literature. Beginning with the possible relationship between the Zoroastrian figure Aēšma and the demon Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit, it traces the development of the…
The Gospel of Thomas is frequently described in popular culture as a suppressed secret gospel that preserves an alternative Christianity based on hidden knowledge. This article argues that such descriptions flatten a far more complicated text and scholarly debate. Thomas is a collection…
Exorcism was one of the practices through which early Christians publicly distinguished their religious claims from surrounding ritual cultures. This article surveys Christian exorcistic discourse before Constantine, concentrating on Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen. It argues that exorcism functioned simultaneously as pastoral…
Melchizedek appears only briefly in Genesis, yet later Jewish and Christian texts turned this enigmatic priest-king into a major theological figure. This article traces the movement from Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 to the Qumran text 11QMelchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews.…
This article examines the Enochic Watchers tradition as one of the most influential ancient explanations of the origin of demons and the spread of corruption before the flood. Beginning with Genesis 6:1-4 and the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch 1-36, it…
This article asks when Christian theology can properly be said to have begun. Rather than locating its origins primarily in the second-century Apologists, the major patristic theologians, or the conciliar period, it argues that theological reasoning was already present within the earliest Christian…