Tim Vivian | |
---|---|
Born | 1951 |
Nationality | American |
Academic background | |
Education | Church Divinity School of the Pacific (M.Div.) |
Alma mater | University of California, Santa Barbara (Ph.D.) |
Thesis | Saint Peter of Alexandria: Bishop and Martyr (1985) |
Doctoral advisor | Birger A. Pearson |
Academic work | |
Institutions | California State University,Bakersfield |
Main interests | Early Christianity,Coptic Christianity,Desert Fathers |
Tim Vivian (born 1951 [1] ) is an American scholar of early Christianity,Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at California State University,Bakersfield (or CSUB),and a retired priest of the Episcopal Church (United States).
Vivian received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California,Santa Barbara,a Master of Arts in American literature from California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo),and a Master of Arts in comparative literature from the University of California,Santa Barbara. He then earned an interdisciplinary Doctor of Philosophy degree in classics,history,and religious studies from the University of California,Santa Barbara with a doctoral dissertation titled Saint Peter of Alexandria:Bishop and Martyr in 1985 under the direction of Birger A. Pearson. He next earned an M.Div. from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and went on to do research from 1988 to 1990 as a Henry R. Luce Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale Divinity School. [2]
Vivian taught at CSUB from 1990 to 2022. He has published over 25 books,50 journal articles,and 100 scholarly book reviews. He won the Faculty Scholarship &Creative Activity award at California State University,Bakersfield,in 2007/2008. [3] He serves on the board of advisors for Cistercian Studies Quarterly and on the editorial board of Coptica.
Vivian is a priest of the Episcopal Church. [4] He served as vicar of Grace/St. Paul's from 2007 to 2017. On April 26,2018,Vivian was granted professor emeritus status at California State University,Bakersfield. [5] On October 11,2018,he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific for his scholarship and work for social justice. [6]
Although Vivian's research emphasis is on early Christianity,especially Coptic studies and early Christian monasticism,he has published broadly in religious history. He is the recipient of the 2015 Nelson R. Burr Prize of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC) for his article “Wake the Devil from His Dream:Thomas Dudley,Quincy Ewing,Religion,and the ‘Race Problem’in the Jim Crow South”published in the December 2014 issue of Anglican and Episcopal History. [7]
Vivian is also a published poet with published collections including Other Voices,Other Rooms (Eugene,OR:Wipf and Stock,2020),Poems Written in a Time of Plague:Further Reflections on Scripture (Eugene,OR:Wipf and Stock,2020),and A Doorway into Thanks:Further Reflections on Scripture (New York:Austin Macauley,2023). [8]
Anthony the Great was a Christian monk from Egypt,revered since his death as a saint. He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony,such as Anthony of Padua,by various epithets:Anthony of Egypt,Anthony the Abbot,Anthony of the Desert,Anthony the Anchorite,Anthony the Hermit,and Anthony of Thebes. For his importance among the Desert Fathers and to all later Christian monasticism,he is also known as the Father of All Monks. His feast day is celebrated on 17 January among the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches and on Tobi 22 in the Coptic calendar.
Macarius of Egypt was a Christian monk and grazer hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder or Macarius the Great.
Saint Macarius of Alexandria was a monk in the Nitrian Desert. He was a slightly younger contemporary of Macarius of Egypt,and is thus also known as Macarius the Younger.
Aelred of Rievaulx,O Cist.;also Ailred,Ælred,and Æthelred;was an English Cistercian monk,abbot of Rievaulx from 1147 until his death,and known as a writer. He is venerated by the Catholic Church as a saint and by some Anglicans.
The Desert Fathers were early Christian hermits and ascetics,who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt,beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns,in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes,and the most well known was Anthony the Great,who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in AD 356,thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example,leading his biographer,Athanasius of Alexandria,to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
A skete is a monastic community in Eastern Christianity that allows relative isolation for monks,but also allows for communal services and the safety of shared resources and protection. It is one of four types of early monastic orders,along with the eremitic,lavritic and coenobitic,that became popular during the early formation of the Christian Church.
Apostolos N. Athanassakis is a classical scholar,and the former Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California,Santa Barbara (UCSB). Professor Athanassakis,or "Professor A" as he is often referred to by students,served as the faculty in residence in Manzanita Village. Athanassakis taught at UCSB for nearly 30 years in the Classics Department. From 1984 to 1986 he served as head of the Humanities Division at the University of Crete,in Greece.
Saint Anastasia the Patrician was a Byzantine courtier and later saint. She was a lady-in-waiting to the Byzantine empress Theodora. Justinian I,Theodora's husband,may have pursued her,as Theodora grew jealous of her. Anastasia,to avoid any trouble,left for Alexandria in Egypt. She arrived at a place called Pempton,near Alexandria,where she founded a monastery which would later be named after her. She lived with monastic discipline and wove cloth to support herself.
John the Dwarf,also called John Colobus,John Kolobos or Abba John the Dwarf,was a Coptic Desert Father of the early Christian church.
Wadi El Natrun is a depression in northern Egypt that is located 23 m (75 ft) below sea level and 38 m (125 ft) below the Nile River level. The valley contains several alkaline lakes,natron-rich salt deposits,salt marshes and freshwater marshes.
The Monastery of Saint Macarius The Great also known as Dayr Aba Maqār is a Coptic Orthodox monastery located in Wadi El Natrun,Beheira Governorate,about 92 km (57 mi) north-west of Cairo,and off the highway between Cairo and Alexandria.
Saint Paphnutius the Ascetic,also known as Paphnutius the Hermit,was an Egyptian anchorite of the fourth century. He is most famous for his accounts of the lives of many hermits of the Egyptian desert,such as Saint Onuphrius.
The Lausiac History is a seminal work archiving the Desert Fathers written in 419–420 AD by Palladius of Galatia,at the request of Lausus,chamberlain at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II.
Coptic monasticism was a movement in the Coptic Orthodox Church to create a holy,separate class of person from layman Christians.
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is the name given to various textual collections consisting of stories and sayings attributed to the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers from approximately the 5th century AD.
Desert Mothers is a neologism,coined in feminist theology as an analogy to Desert Fathers,for the ammas or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt,Palestine,and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time,though sometimes they lived as hermits. Monastic communities acted collectively with limited outside relations with lay people. Some ascetics chose to venture into isolated locations to restrict relations with others,deepen spiritual connection,and other ascetic purposes. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers.
Saint George of Choziba,also called George the Chozibite or Chozebite,was a Greek Cypriot monk and leader of the monastery of Choziba in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Today,the monastery is named after George.
Longinus was the hegumenos of the Enaton,a monastic community outside Alexandria in Roman Egypt. He is the subject of a Sahidic Coptic hagiography,the Life of Saints Longinus and Lucius the Ascetics,and a Sahidic homily,In Honour of Longinus,by Bishop Basil of Oxyrhynchus.
Serapion of Nitria,Serapion of Thmuis,also spelled Sarapion,or Serapion the Scholastic was an early Christian monk and bishop of Thmuis in Lower Egypt,born in the 4th century. He is notable for fighting alongside Athanasius of Alexandria against Arianism.
The Historia monachorum in Aegypto,also called the Lives of the Desert Fathers,is a combination travelogue and hagiography from the late 4th century AD. It recounts the travels of a band of seven Palestinian monks on a pilgrimage through Egypt between September 394 and January 395. They travelled from south to north,stopping in monasteries and meeting hermits and holy men. The Historia is in essence a collection of stories about these men and their miracles.