Grayden McCashen is an Assistant Professor at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Coming to Hamilton from the University of Notre Dame, where he was a visiting researcher with the History of Philosophy Forum and staff member of the Jacques Maritain Center, Grayden has also taught a variety of undergraduate and seminary courses in history, philosophy, and the humanities. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Oxford and Emory University, where he studied the history and religious and intellectual landscape of the Mediterranean world in roughly the fist through fifth centuries, CE. His work focuses on big questions and ideas in the ancient and late antique worlds. His first book, Faith, Piety, and Salvation in Irenaeus of Lyons (Oxford, 2026), asks, What is the relationship between what we believe, what we do, and our flourishing? To answer this question, the book examines the thought of Irenaeus, a foundational figure in the history of Christian thought, alongside literary, philosophical, and legal texts from Greek, Roman, and Jewish sources. In addition, Grayden has published over a dozen articles in leading journals, including Journal for Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge UP), Journal of Early Christian Studies (Johns Hopkins), Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford), and Journal for the Study of Judaism (Brill).
Grayden is currently writing a book on the beginnings of philosophy of mind in the Christian intellectual tradition. The study will examine how second-century Christians inherited teachings about the nature and functions of the soul and the mind from Greek and Roman philosophers. Interpreting these philosophical ideas in light of their own worldviews and sacred texts, they forged a unique approach to a number of significant questions: Is the soul material or immaterial? Temporal or eternal? How does the mind impact the body? Are emotions good, or bad? The study will also look at the relationship between these philosophical ideas and what the same writers have to say about who can participate in their emerging communities. In addition to this study, Grayden is also working on a project studying the relationship between the Church and State in the years following the death of the first Christian emperor of Rome, Constantine, and on an introduction to Irenaeus (with accompanying translations).
Faith, Piety, and Salvation in Irenaeus of Lyons
2026 McCashen, Grayden. “Reception of 1 Thess. 5:23 in Irenaeus’ Philosophical Anthropology: A Diachronic Approach.” Vigiliae Christianae.
https://doi.org/10.1163/15700720-bja10119
2026 McCashen, Grayden. “Christ’s Piety: 1 Tim 3:16 in Light of Early Christian Tradition.” Journal of Biblical Literature 145.1. https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1451.2026.8
2026 McCashen, Grayden. “Eve and Mary in the Second Century: A Case Study in Irenaeus’ Sources and Legacy.” Studia Patristica. In press.
2025 McCashen, Grayden. “Homer in Irenaeus.” Harvard Theological Review 118: 264-84. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816025100692
2025 McCashen, Grayden. “Philosophical Epistemology in Irenaeus.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 33.1: 55-87. https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2025.a954623
2024 McCashen, Grayden. “Prolegomenon to Irenaeus’ Epistemology: The Source of Adversus haereses 2,13,2 and the Five Powers of the Mind Tradition.” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28: 367-90. https://doi.org/10.1515/zac-2024-0022
2024 McCashen, Grayden. “Justin’s Apologetic Pneumatology.” Nova et Vetera 22.4: 1135-1160. https://archive.stpaulcenter.com/04-nv-22-4-mccashen/
2024 McCashen, Grayden. “Irenaeus’ Theology in Second-Century Platonism and
Christianity.” Journal of Theological Studies 75: 148-69.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flae007
2023 McCashen, Grayden. “The Impious and Their Impiety in Wisdom of Solomon.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 54: 187-219.
https://doi.org/10.1163/15700631-bja10066
2023 McCashen, Grayden. “Liberius on Athanasius at Arles, Milan, and in Constantius’ Court.” Journal of Theological Studies 74: 673-705.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flad034
2023 McCashen, Grayden. “Victorinus of Pettau and Angelomorphic Theological Traditions.” Vigiliae Christianae 77: 257-83. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700720-bja10059
2023 McCashen, Grayden. “Liberius, Athanasius and the Roman Synod.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 74: 1-17.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046922000446
2022 McCashen, Grayden. “The Apocryphon of John’s Father Discourse as Christian Theology.” Journal of Theological Studies 73: 611-48.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flac123
2021 McCashen, Grayden. “The Date and Context of Fortunatianus of Aquileia’s Gospels Commentary.” Studia Patristica 127: 135-45.
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