Australian Catholic University is seeking researchers of outstanding potential and demonstrated achievement to contribute to the research of the Centre for Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Researchers will be expected to contribute to a major five-year project, Modes of Knowing and the Ordering of Knowledge in Early Christianity. This international project, led by Prof. Lewis Ayres (ACU/Durham) and four others from ACU, Durham and Notre Dame, investigates 'modes of knowing' constructed by Greek, Latin and Syriac Christians c.100-700 CE. A particular focus is the manner in which developing Christian thought was shaped by classical intellectual discourses (such as grammar, philosophy, rhetoric and medicine), institutions, social practices, and material culture.

This project builds on research across the Centre in areas such as the social and cultural history of early Christianity, the cultural and intellectual transformation of Classical antiquity, strategies of Christian identity formation, and intersections between Christianity and ancient philosophy, rhetoric, medicine, and education.

Within the 'Modes of Knowing' project, we envisage individual projects that will relate early Christian modes of knowing to at least one of: a) contemporary philosophical, medical and rhetorical discourses; b) social practices of early Christianity and late antiquity (e.g. asceticism, pilgrimage, liturgies); c) imperial and institutional power structures; or d) and the material world of early Christianity and late antiquity (e.g. relics, sacred texts). Researchers will also have opportunities to pursue other individual and collaborative research beyond the Modes of Knowing project.