Philip Burton explores Augustine's treatment of language in his Confessions - a major work of Western philosophy and literature, with continuing intellectual importance. One of Augustine's key concerns is the story of his own encounters with language: from his acquisition of language as a child, through his career as schoolboy orator then star student at Carthage, to professor of rhetoric at Carthage and Rome. Having worked his way up to the eminence of Court Orator to the Roman Emperor at Milan, Augustine rediscovered the catholic Christianity of his childhood - and decided that this was incompatible with his rhetorical profession. Over the next ten years, he gradually reinvents himself as a different sort of language professional: a Christian intellectual, commentating on Scripture and preaching to his flock.

This volume contains translations of four of Augustine's earliest works: De beata vita, Contra Academicos, De ordine, and Soliloquia. His embrace of Platonic certitude regarding the primacy of the unseen world of perfection and eternal truth is at the forefront of these philosophical works, which were composed in the genre of the dialogue. Writing at Cassiciacum in the year 386, the young Augustine grapples with questions of epistemology, theodicy, morality, and the soul's quest for God.

Augustine's Letters 83-130 were written between 408 and 412, during a time when North Africa was in an uproar over the necessity to resolve the Donatist schism and the imperial government's role in this process. Augustine exchanged correspondence with clergymen and laity, both Catholic and Donatist; in addition, he responded to requests for pastoral advice from ascetically minded men and women, as well as pleas for social justice.

This latest volume in the Westminster History of Christian Thought series introduces readers to the events and ideas that propelled the various religious reformations of sixteenth-century Europe. A splendid introduction to this momentous period, "Crisis and Renewal" examines the historical and theological developments that dramatically changed the religious landscape of Europe and continue to have important effects today. Discussion questions and other aids make this an excellent book for classroom use.

Designed particularly for undergraduate courses in theology and religion, the Westminster History of Christian Thought series offers reliable and accessible introductions to Christian thought for each major period in Christian history--the early church, the medieval era, the Reformation, the modern age, and the contemporary period--and concludes with a volume on American religious thought.

Bede "the Venerable," English theologian and historian, was born in 672 or 673 CE in the territory of the single monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow. He was ordained deacon (691-2) and priest (702-3) of the monastery, where his whole life was spent in devotion, choral singing, study, teaching, discussion, and writing. Besides Latin he knew Greek and possibly Hebrew. Bede's theological works were chiefly commentaries, mostly allegorical in method, based with acknowledgment on Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and others, but bearing his own personality. In another class were works on grammar and one on natural phenomena; special interest in the vexed question of Easter led him to write about the calendar and chronology. But his most admired production is his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Here a clear and simple style united with descriptive powers to produce an elegant work, and the facts diligently collected from good sources make it a valuable account. Historical also are his Lives of the Abbots of his monastery, the less successful accounts (in verse and prose) of Cuthbert, and the Letter to Egbert his pupil (November 734), so important for our knowledge about the Church in Northumbria. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Bede's historical works is in two volumes (the second of which includes Lives of the Abbots and Letter to Egbert).

Augustine wrote his famous Confessiones during the early years of his episcopate, specifically, between 397 and 400. This work, ground-breaking in its time, is a piece of introspection and personal reminiscence aimed at glorifying God in gratitude for Augustine's conversion to Christianity. Augustine lays bare his personal journey, which took him from youthful carousal through phases of Manichaean dualism, Stoic speculation, skepticism, and Neo-Platonism, to the discovery of salvation in Jesus Christ. The final three "books" of this work offer Augustine's exegesis of the creation narratives in the Book of Genesis.

Clement of Alexandria, a scholar who flourished around the turn of the third century, devoted this work to instructing Christian converts on the nature of the Christian life. Another of his books, the Protreptikos, was intended as an outreach to pagans, and this book, the Paidagogos (called here Christ the Educator), was to serve as a guide to Christian living for baptized individuals who were still young in the faith. A sober lifestyle of moderation and self-restraint should characterize every Christian, and Clement's thinking on ethics reveals the influence of Stoic philosophy.

"Deep in a northern Russian forest of jade and brown, far from any hint of civilization, Valaam Monastery sinks into the seasons of the year as it has for a thousand years before. . . ." So begins the story of John Oliver, a young evangelical American on a journey of discovery-a journey that leads him to an ancient Russian monastery, a place of peace and a place of struggle. For on Valaam, he encounters Orthodox Christianity and is reminded that the Christian life is not for the faint of heart. And on Valaam, the treasure of stillness requires a fierce guarding. Foreword by Fr. Jonah Paffhausen, abbot of the Monastery of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, in Northern California. Excerpts from book reviews: Lyrically, eloquently, and with great wisdom, this book speaks to the soul. Part spiritual autobiography, part penetrating description of what Orthodox spirituality can and should be, John Oliver's words evoke in the reader's mind and heart a longing for God, at once fierce and tender. "Great art, great architecture," he says, "always leads us inward and upward." This marvelous book does no less. It leads us inward and upward, until, for a moment at least, we even touch heaven. -Fr. John Breck, Author, professor of biblical interpretation and ethics at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris Touching Heaven is a lovely book, quiet and contemplative, and full of peaceful revelations. -Frederica Mathewes-Green, Author of Facing East, National Public Radio commentator This is a gripping and finely written account of what drew John Oliver into the deeper waters of Christianity and made him an Orthodox Christian. -Jim Forest, Author of Praying with Icons, lecturer

After Novatian's break with the Church over the treatment of Christians who had lapsed in the persecution of Decius (A.D. 250-52), Church authorities were reluctant to recognize officially his contributions to Christian theology. Because his writings were too valuable to ignore, a number of them were attributed to less controversial authors. On the basis of stylistic and other internal evidence, scholars have been able to retrieve Novatian's work from obscurity and to give him recognition as a pioneer of Roman Latin theology. This volume presents translations of all Novatian's surviving writings, which appear together in English for the first time under their author's name. The collection opens with the work that most clearly defines him as a theologian of central importance: The Trinity. This treatise refuted current heresies concerning Christ's dual nature and God's total spirituality. The collection also contains a trilogy of pastoral letters: In Praise of Purity, The Spectacles, and Jewish Foods. Novatian, absent from his community, writes to his adherents about current problems in Christian morality and encourages them to remain faithful to the Gospel. In the three Letters, written to Cyprian Bishop Carthage after the martyrdom of Pope Fabian, Novatian speaks for the Church at Rome. They are an important source for the study of Penance as practiced by the early Church. Novatian insisted that those who had denied Christ during the persecution should be most strictly dealt with. There is little in him of Cyprian's conciliatory tone. Novatian's Letters illumine a third-century controversy that offers new perspectives for modern re-examination of the sacrament.

This book examines Paul's letter to the Philippians against the social background of the colony at Philippi. After an extensive survey of Roman social values, Professor Hellerman argues that the cursus honorum, the formalized sequence of public offices that marked out the prescribed social pilgrimage for aspiring senatorial aristocrats in Rome (and which was replicated in miniature in municipalities and in voluntary associations), forms the background against which Paul has framed his picture of Jesus in the great Christ hymn in Philippians 2. In marked contrast to the values of the dominant culture, Paul portrays Jesus descending what the author describes as a cursus pudorum ('course of ignominies'). The passage has thus been intentionally framed to subvert Roman cursus ideology and, by extension, to redefine the manner in which honour and power were to be utilized among the Christians at Philippi.

Two friends of St. Paulinus of Nola introduce this miscellaneous volume. Niceta, a bishop in what is now Yugoslavia, offers five mainly pastoral works, while Sulpicius Severus, from South France, gives us in the Life of St. Martin and in the related Letters and Dialogues the basic story of the ever appealing third bishop of Tours. South France is again the source of the two remaining works here offered, the writings of two contemporaries who in some points took opposing views on the spread of St. Augustine's theology, Vincent opposing some parts of it, Prosper espousing it. Vincent's Commonitories contain the famous threefold test of Catholicity: "what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all."

Written during the time when the Roman Empire was crumbling, Augustine's De civitate Dei tackles the questions raised by the decline of the political and social order. Here, in Books One through Seven (of the total of twenty-two books in this monumental work), Augustine examines the history of the Roman Republic and Empire. Though based on a false religion and a lust for domination, the rise of Rome was nevertheless ordained by God's providence.

The two authors featured in this volume composed defenses of the Christian faith in Latin around the turn of the third century. In Rome, Minucius Felix used the genre of dialogue to confront pagan opposition to Christianity, and in Carthage, Tertullian produced an apologetical treatise as well as an open letter to a Roman governor. Tertullian, who is known for his blanket rejection of pagan philosophy, nevertheless utilized Stoic concepts in his essay De anima, which describes the nature, capability, and ultimate destination of the soul.

The letters of St. Basil, three hundred and sixty-eight in number, which comprise the most vivid and most personal portion of his works, give us, perhaps, the clearest insight into the wealth of his rich and varied genius. They were written within the years from 357, shortly before his retreat to the Pontus, until his death in 378, a period of great unrest and persecution of the orthodox Catholic Church in the East. Their variety is striking, ranging from simple friendly greetings to profound explanations of doctrine, from playful reproaches to severe denunciations of transgressions, from kindly recommendations to earnest petitions for justice, from gentle messages of sympathy to bitter lamentations over the evils inflicted upon or existent in the churches. As may be expected, the style in these letters is as varied as their subject matter. Those written in his official capacity as pastor of the Church, as well as the letters of recommendation and the canonical letters, are naturally more formal in tone, while the friendly letters, and those of appeal, admonition, and encouragement, and, more especially, those of consolation, show St. Basil's sophistic training, although even in these he uses restraint. He had the technique of ancient rhetoric at his fingertips, but he also had a serious purpose and a sense of fitness of things. To St. Basil's letters can be ascribed the qualities he attributed to the heartily approved book written by Diodorus, which qualities may be summed up as fullness of thought, clearness, simplicity, and naturalness of style. He himself disapproved of a too ornate style and carefully avoided it. His early education, however, had trained him for the use of rich diction and varied and charming figures, and, when the occasion warranted it, he proved himself a master in their use. Whether we look at them from an historical, an ecclesiastical, or a theological point of view, the letters are an important contribution.

This volume continues the translation of St. Augustine's monumental work The City of God, a product of his vast erudition. Three books in particular, viz. 8, 9, and 10, reveal Augustine's grasp of the tenets of the Platonists, Peripatetics and Cynics. The greater part of this continuation, however, is concerned with Augustine's treatment of theological and scriptural topics. There is no strictly logical sequence, however, and numerous digressions intervene. In the course of books 11 and 16, he finds occasion to discuss, among many other topics, the creation of angels and their nature, demons and evils, the age of the earth and of the human race, death and dying, and the purpose of marriage. From the discussion of such topics, he passes easily to comments on the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, the accuracy of the Septuagint and Latin translations, the discrepancies among various texts. As a product of his times, Augustine shares the opinion that Hebrew may be the oldest, and perhaps most common, language before the Tower of Babel incident recorded in Scripture. Most of Augustine's treatment of scriptural passages is concerned with allegorical interpretation. In book 14, however, the former professor of rhetoric at milan comes through again in his discussion of the semantics of the words caritas, amor, dilago, and amo

During the brief period between 412 and 414, Augustine's many theological and pastoral concerns produced an abundant correspondence (Letters 131-164) on issues ranging from the Pelagian views of grace and the soul's origin to the need for assimilating former Donatists into Catholic society with compassion and a conciliatory spirit, as well as questions of theology, social mores, and physical versus spiritual knowledge.

This is the second volume of the letters of Bishop Basil of Caesarea in the Fathers of the Church series (Letters 186-368). It includes the correspondence from the year 374 until the end of his life in 379, as well as his undated letters and some letters of dubious or spurious authorship. The majority of this collection consists of authenticated letters, many of which Basil has devoted to the details of church discipline as well as to theological questions and to his own self-defense against the informal accusations of heresy that he suffered.

Renowned for his homiletic virtuosity, Augustine has been credited with hundreds of sermons. This collection of eighty-two sermons on the holy days and seasons of the Christian calendar includes specimens of Augustine's preaching on Christmas, New Year, Epiphany, Lent, the Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, the Easter season, and Ascension, as well as exhortations to Christians who were newly baptized (at the Easter Vigil). His conversational tone and his penchant for images and symbolism are outstanding features of this collection.

This volume contains the translation of the six concluding books of The City of God. Book 17 briefly reviews significant events in the history of the chosen people down to the birth of Christ and calls attention to the prophecies that are fulfilled in Christ In summarizing the contents of the first 17 books Augustine shows in book 18 that there is a unifying theme running through the voluminous work: a comparison in the origin, development and progress of the earthly city and the city of God. A synchronizing of events in Jewish history with those in secular history brings this book to a close. Book 19 begins with a discussion of philosophical questions, e.g., the definition of the supreme good and the conditions for a just war, and concludes with an explanation of the differences between the earthly city and God's city and refutation of Porphyry's attacks on Christianity. Augustine himself says that he plans to discuss in book 20 the day of final judgment and to defend its reality against those who deliberately disbelieve in it. This purpose involves a consideration of Antichrist, the coming of Elias before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the millennium mentioned in the book of Revelations, the new heaven and the new earth. The second last book discusses in some detail the kind of punishment that the Devil and those belonging to the earthly city are to endure. Reflections on hell, the nature of eternal torments and the unquenchable fire where the worm does not die bring this book to a close. The last book, book 22, treats the eternal blessedness of the city of God

The Aramaic-speaking Christian community of late antique and early Islamic period Mesopotamia developed a school culture that persisted for several centuries. Not unlike the Rabbinic academies, the East-Syrian schools were innovative as centres of learning where study was formally institutionalized, in contrast to the informal study circles of the past. This school culture played an important role in the early translation of Greek philosophical texts into Arabic in the 'Abbasid period. The most influential and prominent of these schools was the School of Nisibis, and this volume provides an annotated translation of the major sources for the School. A polemical document composed by Simeon of Bet Arsham, a theological enemy of the School, describes the foundation of the School as a significant step in the supposed spread of 'Nestorianism' throughout the Sasanian Empire. The more extensive East-Syrian Cause of the Foundation of the Schools offers a history of learning from God's creation of the world to the time of the text's composition at the School of Nisibis in the late sixth century CE, recasting patriarchal, Israelite, 'pagan' and Christian history as a long series of schools. The last two chapters of the Ecclesiastical History describe the lives of the two most important head exegetes at the School. These sources have never been translated into English and this is the first time that any of them has received close historical, linguistic and thematic analysis.

This accessible selection of the most important and significant of the remarkable and often bizarre apocryphal stories surrounding the life of Jesus and the Early Church has established a reputation as an invaluable introduction to the genre of Christian apocryphal literature. J. K. Elliott clearly explains the scholarly importance of the genre and introduces each section of texts with reference to biblical texts and later church history. Stories found in this selection include Jesus' birth in a cave, his childhood escapades, his secret sayings, and his descent to the underworld; the torments in Hell; Saint Paul baptizing a lion; the death of Pontius Pilate and Saint Peter being crucified upside down. These all come from early Christian legends which did not get into the Bible, yet have had a profound influence on art, literature, and theology from the second century through the Middle Ages and even modern times. Some of the stories included here, especially those involving the Virgin Mary, have affected matters of doctrine; others have influenced the church's teaching on the after life, whilst from the apocryphal Acts there are some of the best examples of accounts of the lives of Christianity's earliest saints.

Although the eighty-two Letters in this volume do not themselves specifically state when they were written, the research of modern scholars leads to a fairly firm conclusion that they were composed over a span of approximately ten years, 386-405. On a basis of internal evidence, it seems that the first twenty letters date from a period prior to Augustine's priestly ordination. The addressees represent a fair cross section of society in the late fourth and early fifth centuries of our era. Bishops and priests, however, outnumber other contemporaries. Widely varied in subject matter, some of the letters deal with theological, polemical, exegetical and ecclesiastical topics, other offer moral and spiritual guidance, while still others discuss philosophical questions and touch on historical events. A surprising amount of information pertains to the life, customs, and abuses in the Church in northern Africa at this period. As one would suspect at this period in Augustine's life, the errors of the Pelagians and Donatists do not escape notice. In these Letters the modern reader can acquaint himself with some of the interests and thoughts of two towering figures that have influenced western civilization: St. Jerome and St. Augustine.

Biographical data on Lactantius are meager. In his catalogue of illustrious men St. Jerome informs us that Lactantius studied under Arnobius. Accepting an imperial invitation Lactantius taught rhetoric at Nicomedia but relinquished this professorship after the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution. In 317 Constantine summoned Lactantius to Trier to supervise the education of his son Crispus. The principal work of Lactantius is the Divine Institutes (Divinae institutions) which was written over a period of years (304-313). It is an apologetic work in seven books which bear the following titles: On False Religion, The Origin of Error, On False Philosophy, True Wisdom and Religion, Concerning Justice, On True Worship, and On the Blessed Life. From the viewpoint of literary criticism the diction of these books flows gently and pleasantly and is so reminiscent of the style of Cicero that Lactantius has frequently been styled the "Christian Cicero". This encomium can be traced back to the days of St. Jerome who wrote in a letter to Paulinus the Presbyter that Lactantius' works were like rivers of "Tullian eloquence" that demolished pagan beliefs.

This work is an examination of those environmental and political factors which have influenced the distribution of settlement types in northwest Ireland during the Early Christian period (AD 500-1000). Various site types are discussed in Chapter One; the physical geography and history of the six counties of Northern Ireland which make up the study area is the subject of Chapters Two and Three. Cultural remains and written sources, both of which give insight into how society in general and the individual farm economies functioned during this period, are discussed in Chapter Four.

This book provides a comprehensive and introductory account of the emergence of Christianity, as we know it today. Dealing with the Jewish background to Jesus and crucial issues as the Synoptic problem it is an ideal undergraduate textbook.In "Christian Origins" Jonathan Knight gives a comprehensive account of the emergence of Christianity as we know it today. Beginning with the Jewish background to Jesus and his teachings, Knight examines the different factions within Judaism at the time, ultimately identifying eschatology as the common link to Jesus' teaching. Knight presents this apocalyptic agenda as the mainstay of early Christian belief, and uses this as a lens through which to view the development of the Early Church, the writings of Paul and the further growth of the Church.In examining the birth of Christianity Knight alights on such crucial and intriguing issues as the Synoptic Problem, the historical figure of Jesus and the authorship of the Pauline epistles. These widespread investigations lead him to an enlightening examination of Pauline ethics and the development of sacramental understanding and Christian ministry, propelling the book beyond a basic exegetical reflection to a breathtaking demonstration of the foundations of a major world faith.