Politeia and Koinōnia are forms of government and citizenship, community and participation, from Sappho’s social and political status to the economic and religious activity of women, from the reforms of Solon to the French Revolution. This book by leading scholars in ancient Greek history explores the most important aspects of Greek civilization and those that stirred the most our modern curiosity and our modern perceptions of Greek antiquity. The reason to organize this unique international exchange of ideas was to celebrate the outstanding scholarly achievement of Professor Josine Blok on the occasion of her retirement in 2019.

Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He then examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper-and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals, and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history. When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece, thereby helping to inaugurate the Classical Era. Democracy led to fundamental adjustments in the basic structures of Athenian society, altered the forms and direction of political thinking, and sparked a series of dramatic reorientations in international relations. It quickly made Athens into the most powerful Greek city-state, but it also fatally undermined the traditional Greek rules of warfare. It stimulated the development of the Western tradition of political theorizing and encouraged a new conception of justice that has striking parallels to contemporary theories of rights. But Athenians never embraced the notions of inherency and inalienability that have placed the concept of rights at the center of modern political thought. Thus the play of power that constituted life in democratic Athens is revealed as at once strangely familiar and desperately foreign, and the values sustaining the Athenian political community as simultaneously admirable and terrifying.

What did citizenship really mean in classical Athens? It is conventionally understood as characterised by holding political office. Since only men could do so, only they were considered to be citizens, and the community (polis) has appeared primarily as the scene of men's political actions. However, Athenian law defined citizens not by political office, but by descent. Religion was central to the polis and in this domain, women played prominent public roles. Both men and women were called 'citizens'. On a new reading of the evidence, Josine Blok argues that for the Athenians, their polis was founded on an enduring bond with the gods. Laws anchored the polis' commitments to humans and gods in this bond, transmitted over time to male and female Athenians as equal heirs. All public offices, in various ways and as befitting gender and age, served both the human community and the divine powers protecting Athens.

The theology of communion, or Koinonia, has been at the centre of the ecumenical movement for more than thirty years. It is central to the self-understanding of the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and has been prominent in the work of the World Council of Churches. This book, based on the 1996 Hulsean Lectures, examines the significance of Koinonia for contemporary ecumenical theology, tracing the development of contemporary understanding in critical engagement with the thoughts of Plato, Aristotle, the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine. In each case, reflection on community life is related to actual communities in which texts were produced. The importance of conflict and the place of politics for the Koinonia that constitutes the Christian churches is a major theme throughout. Communion is seen as a gift to be received and a discipline to be cultivated in the continuing practice of ecumenism.

"Was Paul's relationship with the Philippians an economic partnership? Julien M. Ogereau explores the socio-economic dimension of Paul's koinonia with the Philippians from a Graeco-Roman perspective and argues that Paul maintained this partnership to provide financially for his mission."--Page 4 of printed paper wrapper.

This book innovatively explores the notion of koinonia for understanding the nature and function of the Church. Since the Scriptures assert that the Church is the Church of God, God's communal mode of existence is looked at namely, God who is a communion of three hypostases relating to one another in an interpenetrating koinonia of infinite love as a way of understanding the very being of the church as communion. Such a notion of koinonia, far from having anything to do with socio-political understandings, suggests that it is a foundational gift bestowed from above to the world as the solution par excellence to the impasse of isolationism. More often than not, however, such an ecclesiology of communion has not taken seriously the historical reality of the Church living within the fallen world along with its ceaseless temptations, divisions and even sins in history. In this way, it becomes apparent that a dialectic needs to be acknowledged in the notion of communion as both foundational gift from God, and yet one still to be fully realised. Accordingly, this work shows that the Church is not only as the gift of God's miraculous presence here on earth. The Church is also constantly striving to exist epicletically until such time as it will fully experience the final consummation in Gods eschatological kingdom. An examination of this double dimensionality of the Church is undertaken in order to assess if this is in line with the Scriptural witness of the ekklesia. Having established the gift-goal dialectic in the notion of koinonia in the New Testament Church, the study then traces the trajectory of this dynamic approach to koinonia in the Churchs worship and authoritative structures. This promises to cast both a deeper light on, and a more realistic solution to ecclesiological problems within the life of the Church today, allowing for the Churchs constant renewal.

Re-assesses the phenomenon of Greek 'local history-writing' and its role in creating political and cultural identity in a changing world.

This is the first ever documented study of the 1,035 identifiable Greek city states (poleis) of the Archaic and Classical periods (c.650-325 BC). Previous studies of the Greek polis have focused on Athens and Sparta, and the result has been a view of Greek society dominated by Sophokles', Plato's, and Demosthenes' view of what the polis was. This study includes descriptions of Athens and Sparta, but its main purpose is to explore the history andorganization of the thousand other city states.The main part of the book is a regionally organized inventory of all identifiable poleis covering the Greek world from Spain to the Caucasus and from the Crimea to Libya. This inventory is the work of 47 specialists, and is divided into 46 chapters, each covering a region. Each chapter contains an account of the region, a list of second-order settlements, and an alphabetically ordered description of the poleis. This description covers such topics as polis status,territory, settlement pattern, urban centre, city walls and monumental architecture, population, military strength, constitution, alliance membership, colonization, coinage, and Panhellenic victors.The first part of the book is a description of the method and principles applied in the construction of the inventory and an analysis of some of the results to be obtained by a comparative study of the 1,035 poleis included in it. The ancient Greek concept of polis is distinguished from the modern term `city state', which historians use to cover many other historic civilizations, from ancient Sumeria to the West African cultures absorbed by the nineteenth-century colonializingpowers. The focus of this project is what the Greeks themselves considered a polis to be.