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It has always been understood that the central claim of
Christianity-that Jesus born of Mary is the Son of God-is as much a
declaration of the mystery of the human as it is the mystery of
God; just as the claim that in virtue of this identity he is the
Christ who restores, and more, transforms, the created order,
intensifies the mystery of the human even further. When the age of
revolution was followed by the age of science, and the effort to
shape the environment by technology was joined by an injunction to
shape societies and economies, and class conflicts became part of
world conflicts, the question about the human emerged as a crisis
in the meaning of being human. Yet the Catholic mind, preoccupied
like every other with the crisis, has conducted its reflection
within a tradition of Christian humanism, insisting on the mystery
and the tragedy, and still the dignity, of the human. This
collection of essays by thirteen Catholic scholars of philosophy,
theology, and political thought investigates a range of topics from
human sexuality and marriage to moral freedom and responsibility in
a pluralistic society, while demonstrating that the Gospel, passed
on in an ecclesial tradition, entered into through a sacramental
tradition, remains the one radical source of confidence in the
quest for human truth.
This collection, marking the centenary of Avery Dulles's birth,
makes an entirely distinctive contribution to contemporary
theological discourse as we approach the second century of the
cardinal's influence, and the twenty-first of Christian witness in
the world. Moving beyond a festschrift, the volume offers both
historical analyses of Dulles's contributions and applications of
his insights and methodologies to current issues like immigration,
exclusion, and digital culture. It includes essays by Dulles's
students, colleagues, and peers, as well as by emerging scholars
who have been and continue to be indebted to his theological vision
and encyclopedic fluency in the ecclesiological developments of the
post-conciliar Church. Though focused more on Catholic and
ecumenical affairs than interreligious ones, the volume is
intentionally outward-facing and strives to make clear the diverse
and pluralistic contours of the cardinal's nearly unrivaled impact
on the North American Church, which truly crossed ideological,
denominational, and generational boundaries. While critically
recognizing the limits and lacunae of his historical moment, it
serves as one among a multitude of testaments to the notion that
the ripples of Avery Dulles's influence continue to widen toward
intellectually distant shores.
At his Wednesday audiences during 2007 and 2008 Pope Benedict XVI
gave a series of short talks on the Fathers of the Church. He
devoted himself not only to such famous and influential Fathers as
Augustine and John Chrysostom but also to figures not venerated as
saints; one subject, Tertullian, even died outside the Catholic
communion. This volume contains thirty-six of these inspirational
teachings. / In these catecheses the Pope is not delivering
academic lectures or preaching sermons. Rather, he is instructing
Christian believers who want to have their faith confirmed and
strengthened. Pope Benedict firmly believes that the Fathers of the
Church still speak powerfully today, and his accessible
presentations will make many readers eager to look further into the
writings of these great early Christians.
Thirty-nine of Origen's homilies on the Gospel of Luke survive in
Jerome's Latin translation. Origen preached them in Caesarea,
perhaps around 234 or 240, to a congregation of catechumens and
faithful. Most of the homilies are short; on average, they treat
about six verses of the Gospel and would have lasted between eight
and twelve minutes. The first thirty-three homilies treat chapters
one through four of Luke's Gospel; the remaining six treat passages
from the tenth to the twentieth chapters. Origen's homilies are the
only extant patristic writing devoted to Luke's Gospel before
Ambrose's Exposition on Luke, written ca. 390 (and Ambrose himself
followed Oorigen, sometimes quite closely). Homilies 1 to 20 also
constitute the only existing commentary from the pre-Nicene Church
on either Infancy Narrative. Several hundred fragments of Origen's
homilies and commentary on Luke also survive, mostly in Greek.
Henri de Lubac formulated the important principle, "Observe Origen
at work," and Origen's writings on Luke's Gospel are an intriguing
place to do that. Origen, the champion of spiritual interpretation,
regulary beings with a painfully literal reading of the text. His
first unit of understanding is the word, and often the key that
unlocks the meaning of a word in the Bible for him is the use of
that same word elsewhere in Scripture. Origen assumed that each
word had a meaning that is both profound and relevant to the
reader-for the Holy Spirit is never trite and what the Holy Spirit
says must always touch the hearer. This volume, the first English
translation of the extant homilies and of fragments from the
commentary on Luke, is an important addition to the growing body of
Origen's work now available in English.
Since the early days of Christianity a tension has existed between
the authority of the Bible and the authority of the Church. This
has been further heightened by the question of Bible translation:
How does the Word stand firm and yet continue to speak to a
changing Church? Joseph Lienhard, a specialist in Early
Christianity, examines the evolution of the Christian canon by
casting this question against the life of the early Christians.
Among the topics treated are the Christian use of Jewish
Scriptures, the Catholic and Protestant Old Testaments, the
emergence of the New Testament, the struggle for the right
interpretation of the Scriptures, the problem of inspiration, and
modern attempts to explain the Church's New Testament canon
theologically. The book questions the use of historicist methods of
interpretation and appeals to the Rule of Faith as the right norm
for interpreting the Scriptures in the Church. Joseph T. Lienhard,
SJ, earned his doctorate at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau
(Germany) with two dissertations on Paulinus of Nola and Marcellus
of Ancyra. His work is in patristics. He taught at Marquette
University from 1975 to 1990, and since 1990 has been at Fordham
University, where he is also chair of the department of theology.
He has published Ministry in the Message of the Fathers of the
Church series and other titles.
Standard accounts of the history of interpretation of Paul’s
Letter to the Romans often begin with St. Augustine. As Thomas P.
Scheck demonstrates, however, the Commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) was a major work of
Pauline exegesis which, by means of the Latin translation preserved
in the West, had a significant influence on the Christian
exegetical tradition. Scheck begins by exploring Origen’s views
on justification and on the intimate connection of faith and
post-baptismal good works as essential to justification. He traces
the enormous influence Origen’s Commentary on Romans had on later
theologians in the Latin West, including the ways in which
theologians often appropriated Origen’s exegesis in their own
work. Scheck analyzes in particular the reception of Origen by
Pelagius, Augustine, William of St. Thierry, Erasmus, Cornelius
Jansen, the Anglican Bishop Richard Montagu, and the Catholic lay
apologist John Heigham, as well as Martin Luther, Philip
Melanchthon, and other Protestant Reformers who harshly attacked
Origen’s interpretation as fatally flawed. But as Scheck shows,
theologians through the post-Reformation controversies of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries studied and engaged Origen
extensively, even if not always in agreement. An important work in
patristics, biblical interpretation, and historical theology,
Origen and the History of Justification establishes the formative
role played by Origen’s Pauline exegesis, while also contributing
to our understanding of the theological issues surrounding
justification in the western Christian tradition.
Standard accounts of the history of interpretation of Paul's Letter
to the Romans often begin with St. Augustine. As Thomas P. Scheck
demonstrates, however, the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) was a major work of Pauline
exegesis which, by means of the Latin translation preserved in the
West, had a significant influence on the Christian exegetical
tradition. Scheck begins by exploring Origen's views on
justification and on the intimate connection of faith and
post-baptismal good works as essential to justification. He traces
the enormous influence Origen's Commentary on Romans had on later
theologians in the Latin West, including the ways in which
theologians often appropriated Origen's exegesis in their own work.
Scheck analyzes in particular the reception of Origen by Pelagius,
Augustine, William of St. Thierry, Erasmus, Cornelius Jansen, the
Anglican Bishop Richard Montagu, and the Catholic lay apologist
John Heigham, as well as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and
other Protestant Reformers who harshly attacked Origen's
interpretation as fatally flawed. But as Scheck shows, theologians
through the post-Reformation controversies of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries studied and engaged Origen extensively, even
if not always in agreement. An important work in patristics,
biblical interpretation, and historical theology, Origen and the
History of Justification establishes the formative role played by
Origen's Pauline exegesis, while also contributing to our
understanding of the theological issues surrounding justification
in the western Christian tradition.
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