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Author: Bernard Green
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2008-04-10
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 0199534950
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Green offers a historical study of the development of the thought of Leo the Great, showing the influence of Augustine and his own role in the promotion of the papacy in Rome and in the wider world. Includes a fresh reading of Leo's Tome and discussion of his participation in the great theological controversies of the age.
Author: Bernard Green
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2008-04-10
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 0191560111
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Leo the Great was the beneficiary of the consolidation of the power of the papacy in Rome and the Christianization of the city over the course of the preceding century. In this carefully nuanced study Bernard Green demonstrates the influences at work on this celebrated pope's development as a theological thinker, including two of the most reknowned theological names of the period, Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo. Green charts Leo's theological journey from his first encounters with the Pelagian and Nestorian controversies, where he engaged Cassian as an advisor. Leo took an admiring though limited view of Cyril of Alexandria but misunderstood the weaknesses in Nestorius' thought. As pope, Leo preached a civic Christianity, accessible to all citizens, baptising the virtues of the classical and civic past. The study then examines Leo's recently dated sermons and reveals the evolution of his thought as he worked out a soteriology that gave full value to both the divinity and humanity of Christ, especially in reaction to Manichaeism. In the crisis that led to Chalcedon, Leo's earlier misunderstanding of Nestorius affected the content of his Tome, which was atypical of the Christology and soteriology he had developed in his earlier preaching. Green persuasively concludes that its emphasis on the distinction of the two natures was an uncharacteristic attempt to respond to both Eutyches and Nestorius, as this pope understood them. In the light of Chalcedon, Leo produced a revised statement of Christology, the Letter to the Palestinian monks, which is both more accomplished and better aligned with his characteristic thought.
Author: E. Jerome Van Kuiken
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-07-13
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 0567675572
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Was Christ's human nature fallen, even sinful? From the 18th century to the present, this view has become increasingly prominent in Reformed theological circles and beyond, despite vigorous opposition. Both sides on the issue see it as vital for understanding the nature of salvation. Each side's advocates appeal to or critique the Church Fathers. This book reviews the history and present state of the debate, then surveys the connections, distinctions, and patristic interpretations of five of the modern fallenness view's proponents (Edward Irving, Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, Colin Gunton, and Thomas Weinandy) and five of its opponents (Marcus Dods the Elder, A. B. Bruce, H. R. Mackintosh, Philip Hughes, and Donald Macleod). The book verifies the views of the ten most-cited Fathers: five Greek (Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, and Cyril of Alexandria) and five Latin (Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, Augustine, and Leo the Great). The study concludes by sketching the implications of its findings for the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception, sin, sanctification, and Scripture.
Author: Bronwen Neil
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-05-19
Total Pages: 200
ISBN-13: 1135284083
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this brief introduction to the life and works of this important leader of the early church, we gain a more accurate picture of the circumstances and pressures which were brought to bear on his pontificate. A brief introduction surveys the scanty sources which document Leo’s early life, and sets his pontificate in its historical context, as the Western Roman Empire went into serious decline, and Rome lost its former status as the western capital.
Author: Kevin Duffy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-02-24
Total Pages: 192
ISBN-13: 0567700119
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This pioneering study of Christian sun symbolism describes how biblical light motifs were taken up with energy in the early Church. Kevin Duffy argues that, living in a world of 24/7 illumination, we need to reconnect with the sun and its light to appreciate the meaning of light in the Bible and Christian tradition. With such a retrieval we can appreciate Pope Francis's insistence that, like the moon, the Church does not shine with its own light, and assess the claim that the Eucharist is to be celebrated 'Ad Orientem', that is towards the rising sun in the East. Liturgy, architecture, poetry and the writings of saints and theologians such as Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Traherne offer abundant resources for a much needed ressourcement. While Christ was preached as the True Sun among sun-worshipping Aztecs, and the consecrated host was placed in a solar monstrance on Baroque altars, in the modern era solar themes have been neglected. In this accessible work, the author suggests that we rebalance a spiritual symbolism that has over-emphasised darkness and cloud at the expense of light and sun. He proposes a creative retrieval of the traditional title of Christ as the Sun of Justice. This title blends the personal, the social and the cosmic/ecological, and speaks powerfully to a secularising era that contemporaries Friedrich Nietzsche and Thérèse of Lisieux both described as one where the sun does not shine.
Author: Jonathan Hill
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
Published: 2010-03-25
Total Pages: 591
ISBN-13: 0227179064
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An exhaustive guide to every significant Christian theologian who lived from the first century to 1308, the year in which John Duns Scotus died. The dictionary encompasses the Catholic, Orthodox, Nestorian and Monophysite traditions, including information not previously available in English. Thoroughly indexed, the dictionary incorporates common variants of names and concepts which will help and direct the reader. The main criterion for inclusion has been contribution to the development of Christian theology. Sub-criteria by which that is measured include, above all, originality and influence on later figures. With over 290 entries, the dictionary provides a handy summary of theologiansi lives and writings together with recent scholarship,as well as an up-to-date, definitive bibliography listing primary texts, translations and secondary literature in the major western European languages. Useful for all levels of academia; no other text matches the depth of the dictionaryis bibliographies. The unprecedented thoroughness of Hill's compilation provides an essential resource for studies at all levels on such a large and varied range of Church thinkers.
Author: Daniel C. Cochran
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2020-11-17
Total Pages: 331
ISBN-13: 197870769X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In Building the Body of Christ, Daniel C. Cochran argues that monumental Christian art and architecture played a crucial role in the formation of individual and communal identities in late antique Italy. The ecclesiastical buildings and artistic programs that emerged during the fourth and fifth centuries not only reflected Christianity’s changing status within the Roman Empire but also actively shaped those who used them. Emphasizing the importance of materiality and the body in early Christian thought and practice, Cochran shows how bishops and their supporters employed the visual arts to present a Christian identity rooted in the sacred past but expressed in the present through church unity and episcopal authority. He weaves together archaeological and textual evidence to contextualize case studies from Rome, Aquileia, and Ravenna, showing how these sites responded to the diversity of early Christianity as expressed through private rituals and the imperial appropriation of the saints. Cochran shows how these early ecclesiastical buildings and artistic programs worked in conjunction with the liturgy to persuade individuals to adopt alternative beliefs, practices, and values that contributed to the formation of institutional Christianity and the “Christianization” of late antique Italy.
Author: Geoffrey D. Dunn
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-09
Total Pages: 297
ISBN-13: 131704035X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →At various times over the past millennium bishops of Rome have claimed a universal primacy of jurisdiction over all Christians and a superiority over civil authority. Reactions to these claims have shaped the modern world profoundly. Did the Roman bishop make such claims in the millennium prior to that? The essays in this volume from international experts in the field examine the bishop of Rome in late antiquity from the time of Constantine at the start of the fourth century to the death of Gregory the Great at the beginning of the seventh. These were important periods as Christianity underwent enormous transformation in a time of change. The essays concentrate on how the holders of the office perceived and exercised their episcopal responsibilities and prerogatives within the city or in relation to both civic administration and other churches in other areas, particularly as revealed through the surviving correspondence. With several of the contributors examining the same evidence from different perspectives, this volume canvasses a wide range of opinions about the nature of papal power in the world of late antiquity.
Author: Jared Ortiz
Publisher: Studies in Early Christianity
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 329
ISBN-13: 0813231426
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"Contributors to this volume refute the widely held perception that the doctrine of deification primarily belonged in the Eastern Church, and that the Western Church reduced the rich biblical and Greek patristic understanding of salvation to a narrow view of redemption. To the contrary, these essays provide evidence of the wide-ranging use of deification themes in major Latin patristic sources, showing that deification was a native part of early Latin theology that was consitently and creatively employed"--
Author: Humphries Jr.
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2013-10-24
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 019150808X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great presents three interconnected arguments. The first argument concerns scholarly readings of antiquity: there are developments in 5th and 6th century Latin pneumatology which we have overlooked. Theologians like John Cassian and Gregory the Great were engaged in a significant discussion of how the Holy Spirit works within Christian ascetics to reform their inner lives. Other theologians, like Leo the Great, participate to a lesser extent in a similar project. They applied pneumatology to theological anthropology. Thomas L. Humphries, Jr. labels that development "ascetic pneumatology," and beings to track some of the late antique schools of thought about the Holy Spirit. The second argument concerns the reception of Augustine in the two centuries immediately after his death: different people read Augustine differently. Augustine's theology was known and understood to varying degrees in various regions. Humphries demonstrates significant engagements with Augustine's theology as it was relevant to Pelagianism (evidenced in Prosper of Aquitaine), as it was relevant to Gallic Arians (evidenced with the Lérinian theologians), and as it was relevant to African Arians and certain questions posed of Nestorianism (evidenced with Fulgentius of Ruspe). Instead of attempting to rank various theologians as better and worse "Augustinians," Humphries argues that there were different kinds of "Augustinianisms" even in the years immediately after Augustine. The third argument concerns Gregory the Great and his sources. Once we see that ascetic pneumatology was a strain of thought in this era and see that there are different kinds of Augustinianisms, we can see that Gregory depends on both Augustine and Cassian. In the closing chapters, Humphries argues that Gregory uses Cassian's ascetic pneumatology, and this allows Gregory's synthesis of Cassian and Augustine to stand in greater relief than it has before. The study begins with Cassian, ends with Gregory, and is attentive to Augustine throughout.
