A source-book of theological and historical passages from the writings of St. Augustine to the end of the patristic age. Taken together, these three volumes represent a basic English-language reference book of patristic works. Volume 3 ends with St. John of Damascene (d. 749).
Cyril of Alexandria is one of the major intellectuals of the early Byzantine Christian world. His approach to Christ is at the core of the classical Christian tradition, however, because his works were not translated into English in the post-Reformation environment, the precise implications of his "science of Christ" have been extensively misunderstood. This work seeks to reposition Cyril in the precise philosophical context to which he belonged, seeking, as he did, for a deliberate bridge-building between ecclesiastical biblical presuppositions and the semantic terms central to the Late Antique philosophical Academy, with which he understands the Church must communicate. This book seeks to lay bare the fundamental philosophical axioms of Cyril’s metaphysics of the Incarnation. To illuminate this, it investigates the fifth-century curriculum of metaphysical studies as followed in the academies of both Alexandria and Athens. Common to both Cyril and his Hellene contemporaries are the terms of theological speculation prevalent in the Commentaries on the Parmenides. This monograph applies the schema of theological analysis offered by the Commentators to Cyril’s metaphysics of the Incarnation to see how well it accounts for the precise terms of the Incarnational doctrine posited by Cyril. This study also endeavors to expound and evaluate the many previous (and heavily conflicting) scholarly accounts of Cyril’s intellectual agenda. It outlines various cognitive gaps associated with the macro arguments of the different positions, which by and large have underestimated Cyril’s philosophical acumen and ignored his own immediate academic context.
The so-called extra Calvinisticum-the doctrine that the incarnate Son of God continued to exist beyond the flesh-was not invented by John Calvin or Reformed theologians. If this is true, as is almost universally acknowledged today, then why do scholars continue to fixate almost exclusively on Calvin when they discuss this doctrine? The answer to the “why” of this scholarly trend, however, is not as important as correcting the trend. This volume expands our vision of the historical functions and christological significance of this doctrine by expounding its uses in Cyril of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas, Zacharias Ursinus, and in theologians from the Reformation to the present. Despite its relative obscurity, the doctrine that came to be known as the “Calvinist extra” is a possession of the church catholic and a feature of Christology that ought to be carefully appropriated in contemporary reflection on the Incarnation.
St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy describes the turmoil of 5th century Christianity seeking to articulate its beliefs on the person of Christ. The policies of the Theodosian dynasty and the conflicting interests of the patriarchal sees are set as the context of the controversy between Nestorius of Constantinople and Cyril of Alexandria, a bitter dispute that racked the entire oecumene. The historical analysis expounds the arguments of both sides, particularly the Christology of Cyril which was adopted as a standard. Many major texts are presented in new translations, some of which have never before appeared in English. These writings are essential reading in the history of doctrine. The work will be an indispensable resource for all students of the period: theologians and Byzantinists.
The formula ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’ has often been depicted as a summary of Cyril of Alexandria’s (ca 378-444) christology. But no systematic study into his christological works has been published. Besides, there is no consensus regarding the meaning of the key terms and expressions in these works. This book addresses this deficiency by an integral investigation of the archbishop’s christological writings during the first two years of the Nestorian controversy, and comes to the conclusion that his christology is basically dyophysite. This re-appraisal of his christology bears on the understanding of the Council of Chalcedon and on contemporary ecumenical relations, especially those between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox.
What words from our Christian vocabulary would you miss if you could no longer use them? If you pronounced them and no one understood? If you spoke and people gave them a meaning at odds with your conviction? What words do you fear are falling into misuse? If you could save some word or phrase from disuse or misuse what would it be? Saving Words is a collection of personal, provocative essays by lay people, clergy, poets, theologians, musicians, and scholars on words they want to preserve and proclaim, urgent and important reflections on the language we need for the facing of these days. Open this volume and find saving words that matter.
Resistance to Christianity: A Chronological Encyclopaedia of Heresy from the Beginning to the Eighteenth Century reveals the hidden story behind the modern-day edifice of Christianity. Raoul Vaneigem’s landmark study provides a compelling account of the falsifications and political agendas that shaped what we now know as the canonical Bible and such pillars of Christian doctrine as the Resurrection and the Holy Trinity. It also traces alternative pathways that have been opened up the many individuals and groups that have departed from the Church’s teachings: from the remarkably modern first-century thinker Simon the Magus, to the libertarian mystics of the Middle Ages, to the Jansenists of the seventeenth century. This is, in short, an exceptionally wide-ranging history of the forms of thought and belief that orthodox religion has mischaracterized and suppressed over the course of the centuries. Resistance to Christianity is far more, however, than a study of religious movements and ideas; indeed, Vaneigem is bracingly unapologetic in his ambition “to examine the resistance that the inclination to natural liberty has, for nearly twenty centuries, opposed to . . . Christian oppression”. The story of how men and women have again and again resisted the authoritarian implications of religious orthodoxy is, above all, a crucial strand of the history of human freedom. Bill Brown’s translation makes available in English a major work by one of the preeminent thinkers of our time. A remarkable feat of historical scholarship that deserves to be widely read, Resistance to Christianity represents radical thought at its most exciting, incisive, and compelling.
No period of history was more formative for the development of Christianity than the patristic age, when church leaders, monks, and laity established the standard features of Christianity as we know it today. Combining historical and theological analysis, Christopher Beeley presents a detailed and far-reaching account of how key theologians and church councils understood the most central element of their faith, the identity and significance of Jesus Christ. Focusing particularly on the question of how Christ can be both human and divine and reassessing both officially orthodox and heretical figures, Beeley traces how an authoritative theological tradition was constructed. His book holds major implications for contemporary theology, church history, and ecumenical discussions, and it is bound to revolutionize the way in which patristic tradition is understood.
"Early Christian Greek and Latin literature examines early Christian writings with particular attention paid to their literary characteristics and their effect on the development of Western culture."--Cover.