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Epiphanius, monastic founder and bishop of Salamis on Cyprus for almost forty years of the fourth century, threw heart and soul into the controversies of the time and produced the Panario or Medicine Chest, a historical encyclopedia of sects and heresies and their refutations. Book I deals with material that is also found in Nag Hammadi, other Gnostic writings, and in such patristic authors as Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Students of Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism, patrologists, historians of religion, church historians, and Judaism have found this translation useful.

Features:

• Paperback format of an essential Brill reference set
• Coverage of Gnostic and Jewish Christian groups
• Documents not available elsewhere in paperback

This book is an introduction to three questions on love according to St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I–II, qq. 26–28). These three questions reflect on the nature of love (q. 26), the causes of love (q. 27), and the effects of love (q. 28). It is thus an introduction to the entire phenomenon of love, both as a bodily passion and an act of the will. The purpose is to present the Thomistic and broadly scholastic account of human and divine love from a philosophical and theological perspective. It aims to be a theological and philosophical study of the topic, useful both for a graduate/professional audience, as part of an undergraduate or graduate course, and perhaps for the educated reader. The thesis of the book is that, contrary to contemporary conceptions, not all loves are created equal. Some loves perfect us and some loves corrupt us. The worth of a love depends on its object and end. St. Thomas thus presents an objective and teleological account of human and divine love that is of philosophical and theological interest. The method is broadly exegetical, presenting a careful reading of the text and supplying the philosophical and theological background which the text of Aquinas assumes. The scope of the work is limited to three questions (ST I–II, qq. 26–28). References to interpretative disputes of Aquinas and references to further resources in the secondary literature will be mostly limited to the footnotes, making the body of the text accessible to more readers.

Most of the literature concerning the momentous challenges facing Irish American Catholics in the first two decades of the twentieth century pay but scant attention to the role played in addressing them by the American Church. Among the myriad political, social, cultural and economic issues confronting Irish American Catholics none stand out as prominently as the unabated burden of combatting scurrilous attacks upon them by nativist forces, the task of proving themselves as loyal American citizens, and navigating the perilous waves in advancing the course of directing Irish American nationalism and the cause of Ireland’s freedom. Patriotism is a Catholic Virtue ferrets out the impact the institutional Church played in affecting the course of action Irish American Catholics took regarding these three crucial missions. Whereas the task of confronting the assaults of nativism, seemingly the natural task for the institutional Church, this study provides extensive evidence of the relentless defense of Catholic virtue conducted by diocesan newspapers. Similarly, the mission of promoting Catholics as loyal American citizens was largely left in the hands of the American hierarchy, its clergy, newspapers and Catholic societies and affiliates. Lastly, this book provides evidence that the Church may well have played the decisive role in guiding its Irish American faithful along paths that, while conservatively promoting Irish nationalism, did not jeopardize an “American First” policy for Catholics. All of this was accomplished in the crucible of an emerging worldwide war.

The essays of Patristic Exegesis in Context examine the biblical exegesis of early Christians beyond the formal genre of biblical commentary. The past couple of decades have seen a broadening of perspective on the study of patristic exegesis; the phenomenon is increasingly situated within its various literary contexts and genres, and the definition of what counts as patristic exegesis is therefore widened. This volume thus situates itself within this emerging scholarly tradition, which aims not to give an account of exegetical strategies and methodologies as found primarily in exegetical commentaries and homilies, but to demonstrate the highly sophisticated nature of biblical exegesis in other genres, and the manifold uses to which this exegesis was put. Ancient Christian authors lived and breathed scripture; it served as their primary source of theological and liturgical vocabulary, their way of processing the world, their social ethic, and their mode of constructing self and communal identity. Scripture therefore permeates all ancient Christian literature, regardless of genre, and the various contexts in which interpretation of scripture took place resulted in a wide variety of uses of the church’s authoritative texts. The essays in this volume demonstrate the interpretive skill, creativity, and sophistication of early Christian authors in a myriad of other early Christian genres, such as poetry, paraphrase, hymns, martyr accounts, homilies, prophetic vision accounts, monastic writings, argumentative treatises, encomia, apocalypses, and catenae. Accordingly, the volume aims to help the modern person, who is used to hearing the Bible explained in explicitly expository situations (for example, in academic commentaries or religious sermons) to become more habituated to ancient ways of interacting with and expounding the biblical text. These essays attempt to contextualize various types of patristic exegesis, in order for us to glimpse the complex and diverse uses of the Bible in this period.

Who are the people beside Paul, and what can we know about them?

This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars with a broad range of expertise and a common interest: Philippi in antiquity. Each essay engages one set of contextual particularities for Paul and the ordinary people of the Philippian assembly, while simultaneously placing them in wider settings. This 'people's history' uses both traditional and more cutting-edge methods to reconsider archaeology and architecture, economy and ethnicity, prisons and priestesses, slavery, syncretism, stereotypes of Jews, the colony of Philippi, and a range of communities. The contributors are Valerie Abrahamsen, Richard S. Ascough, Robert L. Brawley, Noelle Damico, Richard A. Horsley, Joseph A. Marchal, Mark D. Nanos, Peter Oakes, Gerardo Reyes Chavez, Angela Standhartinger, Eduard Verhoef, and Antoinette Clark Wire.

Features

• An examination of the social forms and forces that shaped and affected the Philippian church
• Essays offer insight into standard questions about the letter s hymn and audience, Paul's 'opponents,' and the sites of the community and of Paul's imprisonment
• A focused exploration of more marginalized topics and groups, including women, slaves, Jews, and members of localized cults

This monograph encompasses the first critical edition, translation, and historical study of a series of lectures from the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, Peter Comestor’s Glosses on the Glossed Gospel of John. Delivered in Paris in the mid-1150s, Comestor’s expansive lecture course on the Glossa ordinaria on the Gospel of John has survived in no fewer than seventeen manuscript witnesses, being preserved in the form of continuous transcripts taken in shorthand by a student-reporter (reportationes). The editor has selected the fifteen best witnesses to produce a critical edition and translation of the first chapter of Comestor’s lectures on the Gospel of John. In addition to the text of the original lectures, the edition includes appendices containing accretions to the lecture materials added by Comestor and his students, as well as the corresponding text of the Glossa ordinaria from which Comestor lectured. The Latin text and translation of Peter Comestor’s lectures are preceded by a wide-ranging critical study of the historical and intellectual context of Peter Comestor’s biblical teaching. This study begins with an outline of Comestor’s scholastic career and known works, with a detailed introduction to his Gospel lectures and the relevant historiography. Subsequently, a survey is made of the intellectual landscape of Comestor’s lectures: namely, the tradition of biblical teaching originating at the School of Laon, preserved in the Glossa ordinaria, and developed in the classroom by Peter Lombard and a succession of Parisian masters, notably Comestor himself. The following section examines the portion of the lectures presented in this book, encompassing an overview of its contents and structure, a description of Comestor’s teaching method and scholastic setting, a study of the text’s sources, and a consideration of Comestor’s participation and reception in the scholastic tradition. The final chapters contain a careful description of the manuscripts and editorial principles adopted in the Latin edition and translation.

Pagan rhetor, (Neo-)Platonist philosopher, Christian theologian

This collection of essays is devoted to the rhetoric, Neoplatonic philosophy, and Christian theology of Marius Victorinus, a mid-fourth-century professor of rhetoric and philosopher who converted to Christianity late in life. Scholars from eight different countries, some of whom have not previously published in English, reflect on debates about his writings and theological development. These topics include Victorinus's deployment of philosophical sources for trinitarian theology, possible connections in his work to Origen, Augustine, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Gnosticism, as well as his contributions to Latin rhetoric and dialectic. Contributors include Jan Dominik Bogataj, Michael Chase, Nello Cipriani, Stephen A. Cooper, Volker Henning Drecoll, Lenka Karfíková, Josef Lössl, Václav Němec, Thomas Riesenweber, Guadalupe Lopetegui Semperena, Miran Špelič, Chiara O. Tommasi, John D. Turner, and Florian Zacher. The chapters in this volume are of great interest to students of late antique philosophy, Christian theology, and Latin rhetoric.

This is the first ever book in English solely devoted to one of the most important reliquary shrines of the Mosan Rhineland, the Heribert Shrine. Carolyn M. Carty investigates how liturgy, history, politics, and geography all converge to influence the creation and the message of a work of art in the aftermath of the Investiture Controversy between the Church and the Holy Roman Empire. She argues that the Heribert Shrine's images and inscriptions support the supremacy of the Church over the State with consequent implications for the shrine's intended viewers.

In Tutti Fratelli, Pope Francis has called again for a “culture of encounter,” But how should his theology, pastoral practice, and social message be understood and applied in the Church of the Americas, a single but complex reality that extends from South to North? This volume offers analyses from experts looking back to the Argentine pontiff’s first fateful encuentros in the Americas as a help for understanding the present reality of the Church in the Western Hemisphere. The group includes theologians, historians, and political scientists, and the unique contribution of the volume lies in the panoramic perspective offered by the book as a whole. The initial essays set the stage for the volume as a whole, offering rich insight into Argentine and Latin American history, the world from which the Pope came and to which he returned in 2015, as well as surveying the impact of the Latin American “theology of the people” on the Pope’s visit to the U.S. Additional essays address theological, historical, and pastoral engagements that cut across several of the visits. The final group of essays is dedicated to the visits themselves and is arranged in the order that they occurred. Pope Francis and the Search for God in América is offered to all the members of the Church in América, South and North, old and young, with the hope that it will spur even more thought, reflection, prayer, and service.

As Cardinal Hugo and as pope, Gregory was one of the dominant figures in the history of the papacy of the High Middle Ages. Coming to prominence under Pope Innocent III, Hugo played an important political role, particularly as legate on various occasions, as well as being a major promoter of the new religious orders. As pope, his battle with Emperor Frederick II is one of medieval history’s most absorbing conflicts. But he also acted as peacemaker, promoter of the Crusades, instigator of mission for the sake of conversion, refomer of the Curia, patron of arts and liturgy, and as a passionate advocate of Church reform. His decretal collection, the Liber Extra, was the most influential of the Middle Ages. A full examination of Gregory’s pontificate is very long overdue. The current volume brings together a team of international scholars, each of them expert in dealing with a particular aspect of the pontificate, and provides what will be a collection of studies of lasting scholarly value on a central figure of the medieval papacy.

When Paul III was elected in 1534, hopes arose across Christendom that this pope would at last reform and reunite the Church. During his fifteen-year reign, though, Paul's engagement with reform was complex and contentious. A work of cultural history, this book explores how cultural narratives of honour and tradition, including how honour played out in politics, significantly constrained Pope Paul and his chosen reformers in framing strategies for change. Indeed, the reformers' programme would have undermined the culture of honour and weakened Rome's capacity to ward off current threats of invasion. The study makes a provocative case that Paul called the Council of Trent to contain reform rather than promote it. Nevertheless, Paul and the Council did sow seeds of reform that eventually became central to the Counter-Reformation. This book thus sheds new light on a pope whose relationship to reform has long been regarded as an enigma.

A hundred years ago Catholic believers young and old, rich and poor, would fill churches on holy days, drawn together in prayer and in the conviction that they, the laypeople, needed the clergy and patron saints to mediate between them and their God. Today a Catholic believer in America is as likely as not to find God for herself.

This book traces dramatic changes in the practice of faith among American Catholics through evolving ideas about prayer. Where so many have seen the movement of American Catholics away from traditional devotional practices as a symptom of encroaching secularism, author James P. McCartin shows how the changing practice of prayer itself was the primary catalyst behind Catholics’ growing sense of spiritual independence.

Prayers of the Faithful reveals how, over the decades, Catholics’ ways of praying underwent a significant shift alongside the larger transformations of American society and culture. The book documents the novel ways of praying that transcended the formal rites of earlier generations. Whether “praying in tongues” or working on behalf of social justice or participating in public protests as outpourings of prayer, lay Catholics consistently expanded their notions of praying. And in doing so, McCartin suggests, they reshaped and redefined American Catholicism. By examining the spiritual life of prayer over the twentieth century, this book thus opens up new ways of understanding Catholics, their church, and their place in American life.

An updated and expanded version of the original edition, published in 1998. That original edition went up through 1245. This new version extends to 1317 and adds two important prefaces. Praise for the First Edition “Both students and specialists can be grateful to the authors for this major contribution in English to the study of medieval canon law. It is a clear statement--one emphasized by the late John Gilchrist-that because of its critical importance in medieval life and culture canon law should not remain the obscure domain of specialists, but should be shared with students and non-specialists alike.” – The American Journal of Legal History “[A] learned and useful book, which for the first time assembles a body of canonistic prefaces, presents them in an accessible form, and provides students of medieval canonical thought with a valuable new resource for study and teaching.” – The Catholic Historical Review “This volume is an important and welcome addition to a field of studies where translations into English are few and far between. The breadth of the works selected, the quality of the translations, and the attention to detail that has long characterized the work of both editors make this a valuable resource for specialist and student alike.” – Church History “A welcome combination: a text that is informative for students and professionals alike. The translations succeed in rendering accessible to a general audience some otherwise highly inaccessible material. Somerville and Brasington are to be greatly commended for undertaking this very original enterprise and bringing it to successful parturition.” – Journal of Law and Religion “Somerville and Brasington have chosen to let their compilers and commentators speak for themselves. In doing so, they have had to wrestle with often obscure Latin and frequently less than satisfactory editions. That they succeed in making these texts intelligible through translation and annotation is no small feat.” – Sixteenth Century Journal “This is a significant, elegantly presented contribution to the field of theology, cultural history, and canon law.” – Theological Studies