Search results for ""Catholic University of America Press""

In an era in which the internet has made pornography readily accessible, Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart offers a theological critique of pornography and retrieves from the Christian tradition an alternative visual culture. This visual culture is constituted by both the character of the images we behold and the manner in which we see. Contributors include psychologists William M. Struthers and Jill Manning, who address the neurological effects of pornography and its influences on personal, familial, and social life. Their professional analysis is complemented by the testimony of a young man in recovery from pornography addiction. In an exposition of Christian visual culture, Orthodox iconographer Randi Sider-Rose describes the spiritual discipline of icon writing, Danielle M. Peters, S.T.D., surveys the iconography and art of Marian traditions, and art historian Dianne Phillips elucidates the meaning of divine desire as evident in Catholic visual culture of the late medieval and early modern periods. Catholic theologians Ann W. Astell, Nathanial Peters, Boyd Taylor Coolman, and Nicolas Ogle discuss specific practices and dimensions of the Catholic tradition that can contribute to the cultivation of sacramental vision, and David W. Fagerberg, Kimberly Hope Belcher, Jennifer Newsome Martin, and John C. Cavadini offer reflections on sacramental imagination and the healing of vision. Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart is a work of scholarship composed with pastoral care and concern, and it will be serviceable to both classroom teachers and pastoral ministers. A special feature of the book is an inset of seventy-two full-color plates featuring both classic and contemporary works of Christian iconography and art. The essays and images invite readers to behold in beauty the truth that we are created by the triune God not for sexual objectification but with a sacramental vocation to deification through Christ and the Holy Spirit of love.

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This book provides a fundamental introduction to Aquinas's theology of the One Creator God. Aimed at making that thought accessible to contemporary audiences, it gives a basic explanation of his theology while showing its compatibility with contemporary science and its relevance to current theological issues. Opening with a brief account of Aquinas’s life, it then describes the purpose and nature of the Summa Theologica and gives a short review of current varieties of Thomism. Without neglecting other works, it then focuses primarily on the discussion of the One God in the first part of the Summa Theologica. God's transcendence and immanence is a recurrent theme in that discussion. Evidence of God's immanent causality in the natural world grounds Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God (the Five Ways) which then open onto God's transcendence. The subsequent discussion of the divine attributes builds on the modes of God's causality established in the Five Ways. It also shows the need for a language of analogy to preserve God's transcendence and prevent us from reducing God to the level of creatures, even as qualities such as ""goodness"" and ""love,"" which we first know from creatures, are applied to God. The discussion of God's providence and governance establishes that the transcendent Creator God is most intimately present in creation. God acts in all creatures in a way that does not diminish their proper causality, but is rather its source. As there is no contradiction between God's transcendence and immanence, so there is no competition between the primary causality of God and the secondary causality of creatures. Empirical science, which is limited by its method to the secondary causality of creatures, is shown to be compatible with the broader discipline of theology which also embraces the primary causality of the Creator.

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Pope Benedict XVI memorably remarked that the Christian faith is a lot like a Gothic cathedral with its stained-glass windows. From the outside, the Church can appear dark, dreary, and worn with age—the crumbling relic of an institution that no longer speaks to men and women living in our modern world. Indeed, for many people today, Christian morality with all of its commandments appears to be a source not of life and joy but instead of suffering and oppression. Even within the Church, many wonder: why should I submit to ancient doctrines and outdated practices that restrict my freedom and impede my happiness?In this timely and original book, his third exploring the riches of Benedict XVI’s vast corpus, theologian Matthew Ramage sets out to meet this challenge with an in-depth study of the emeritus pontiff’s wisdom on how to live Christian discipleship in today’s increasingly secularized world. Taking as his starting point Benedict’s conviction that the truth of Christianity—like the beauty of a cathedral’s glorious windows—can be grasped only from the inside, Ramage draws on Benedict’s insights to show how all Christians can make the “experiment of faith” by living the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity in daily life. Along the way, he shares his personal reflections on how Benedict’s wisdom has helped him to navigate difficulties in embracing the faith and provides a way forward to those struggling to live as disciples in a way that is intellectually serious without remaining merely intellectual. In so doing, he also presents a highly nuanced yet accessible approach to defending the truth of the gospel in a world where life in Jesus Christ tends to be seen as unfulfilling, irrelevant, or just one lifestyle choice among others.

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A record of a teacher’s lifelong love affair with the beauty, wit, and pro­fundity of Paradise Lost, celebrating John Milton’s un-doctrinal, complex, and therefore deeply satisfying perception of the human condition. After surveying Milton’s recurrent struggle as a reconciler of conflicting ide­als, this Primer undertakes a book-by-book reading of Paradise Lost, re­viewing key features of Milton’s “various style,” and why we treasure that style. Cavanagh constantly revisits Milton the singer and maker, and the artistic problems he faced in writing this almost impossible poem.This book is emphatically for first-time readers of Milton, with little or no prior exposure, but with ambition to encounter challenging poetry. These are readers who tell you they “have always been meaning to read Paradise Lost,” who seek to enjoy the epic without being overwhelmed by its daunting learning and expansive frame of reference. Avoiding the narrowly specialized focus of most Milton scholarship, Cavanagh deals forthrightly with issues that recur across generations of readers, gather­ing selected voices—from scholars and poets alike—from 1674 through the present. Lively and jargon-free, this Primer makes Paradise Lost accessible and fresh, offering a credible beginning to what is a great intellectual and aesthetic adventure.

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The chief aims of Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human In­tellect are to provide a comprehensive interpretation of Aquinas’s oft-repeated claim that the human intellect is immaterial, and to assess his arguments on behalf of this claim. Adam Wood argues that Aquinas’s claim refers primarily to the mode in which the human intellect has its act of being. That the human intellect has an immaterial mode of being, however, crucially underwrites Aquinas’s additional views that the hu­man soul is subsistent and incorruptible. To show how it does so, Wood argues that the human intellect’s immateriality can also be put in terms of the impossibility of explaining its operations in terms of coordina­tion between bodily parts, states and processes. Aquinas’s arguments for the human intellect’s immateriality, therefore, can be understood as attempts to show why intellectual operations cannot be explained in bodily terms. The book argues that not all of them succeed in this aim and also proposes, however, a novel interpretation of Aquinas’s argu­ment based on human intellect’s universal mode of cognition that may indeed be sound. Wood concludes by considering the ramifications of Aquinas’s position on matters pertaining to the afterlife.Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect represents the first book-length examination of Aquinas’s claim that the human intellect is immaterial, and so—given the centrality of this claim to his thought—should interest any scholars interested in understanding Thomas. While it focuses throughout on careful attention to Aquinas’s texts along with the relevant secondary literature, it also positions Thomas’s thought alongside recent developments in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Hence it should also interest historically-minded metaphysicians interested in understanding how Thomas’s hylomor­phism intersects with recent work in hylomorphic metaphysics, philos­ophers of mind interested in understanding how Thomas’s philosoph­ical psychology relates to contemporary forms of dualism, physicalism and emergentism, and philosophers of religion interested in the possi­bility of the resurrection.

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An important milestone of 20th Century philosophy was the rise of personalism. After the crimes and atrocities against millions of human beings in two World Wars, especially the Second, some philosophers and other thinkers began to seek arguments showing the value of each human being, to expose and denounce the folly of political structures that violate the inalienable rights of the individual person.Karol Wojty?a appeals to the ancient concept of 'person' to emphasize the particular value of each human being. The person is unique because of their subjectivity by which they possesses an unrepeatable interior world in the history of humanity. Their rational nature grants them a special character among living beings, among which is the transcendence to the infinite. Wojty?a magisterially shows how each human being's personhood is rooted in a conscious and free subjectivity, which is marked also by personal and social responsibility. Wojty?a's original philosophical analysis takes for its starting point the human act, in which consciousness and experience consolidate voluntary choices, which are objectively efficacious. By their acts, the person determines their own personhood. This self-dominion manifests the person and enables them to live together in a community in which one's neighbor can be a companion on the voyage of life.This work provides a clear guide to Karol Wojty?a's principal philosophical work, Person and Act, rigorously analyzing the meaning that the author intended in his exposition. An important feature of the work is that the authors rely on the original Polish text, Osoba i czyn, as well as the best translations into Italian and Spanish, rather than on a flawed and sometimes misleading English edition of the work.Besides the analysis of Wojty?a's masterwork, this volume offers three chapters examining the impact of Wojty?a's anthropology on the relationship between faith and reason.

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The study of the vocabulary of the Catholic religion may be taken as a definition of the liberal arts. Origins of Catholic Words is a work of reference organized like a lexicon or encyclopedia. There is an entry for each word of importance having to do with the Catholic Church. Anthony Lo Bello gives the etymology of the word, describes what it means, and then adds whatever further discussion he feels is needed; in some cases this amounts to several pages.Lo Bello has assembled, over a number of years, lucid and wide-ranging remarks on the etymology and history of the words that occur in the study of the Catholic religion. A true labor of love, this sophisticated, one-of-a-kind dictionary will delight those who take pleasure in learning. Anyone interested in words and language—indeed, in culture, will find something interesting on every page. This is a book one may read and not just consult.The author has been ecumenical in his choice of authorities. J. B. Bury, Lord Chesterfield, Mandell Creighton, S. R. Driver, Ferdinand Gregorovius, Dr. Johnson, Henry Charles Lea, Bishop Lightfoot, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Stuart Mill, Henry Hart Milman, Leopold von Ranke, and Bertrand Russell find their places alongside Alban Butler, Denzinger, Ignaz Döllinger the Abbé Duchesne, Adrian Fortescue, Bishop Hefele, Cardinal Gasparri, Msgr. Ronald Knox, Msgr. Horace K. Mann, John Henry Newman, Ludwig von Pastor, Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward, and Evelyn Waugh.There have been many changes in the Catholic Church since 1962, and one of the goals of this book is to describe what will soon be missing from the memories of all living people. The Origins of Catholic Words may, Lo Bello hopes, make its small contribution so that the situation not arise, which would convict John Henry Newman of error when he wrote, “What the Catholic Church once has had, she never has lost.”

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Constantine Bohachevsky was not a typical bishop. On the eve of his unexpected nomination as bishop to the Ukrainian Catholics in America, in March 1924, the Vatican secretly whisked him from Warsaw to Rome to be ordained. He arrived in America that August to a bankrupt church and a hostile clergy. He stood his ground, and chose to live simple missionary life. He eschewed public pomp, as did his immigrant congregations. He regularly visited his scattered churches. He fought a bitter fight for the independence of the church from outside interference – a kind of struggle between the Church and the state, absent both. He refashioned a failing immigrant church in America into a self-sustaining institution that half a century after his death could help resurrect the underground Catholic Church in Ukraine, which became the largest Eastern Catholic church today.This trailblazing biography, based on recently opened sources from the Vatican, Ukraine and the United States, brings the reader from the placid life of the married Catholic Ukrainian clergy in the Habsburg Empire to industrial America. The Ukrainian Catholic Church, formalized in 1595, melds Eastern religious practices with Western hierarchic structure, thus healing the 1054 Christian divide. While there is doctrinal unity, Eastern Catholic practice differs so markedly from that of the Latin Rite that Ukrainian immigrants in the US created their own churches. The death of the first bishop in 1916 and the long hiatus in naming a replacement led to widespread unrest. Yet, under Bohachevsky's forceful leadership, within a decade, the church developed a network of parishes, schools, colleges, and eventually a seminary, cultivating its clergy and its understanding of Eastern Catholicism. In 1958, the Pope erected the Ukrainian Catholic Archbishopric of Philadelphia and appointed Bohachevsky its Metropolitan/Archbishop.

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Spirituality and gift are notions that are en vogue. Topics such as spirituality at the workplace, spirituality management, spirituality in leadership, organizational spirituality and other related topics are trending in management literature. The “logic of gift” is also appearing more frequently, especially in attempts to rethink the way our economy works in order to include the marginalized.The expression “logic of gift” was introduced into official Catholic social teaching by Pope Benedict XVI, who presented it in association with the principle of gratuitousness, which in turn is an expression of fraternity. However, before Caritas in Veritate and ever since Marcel Mauss’s groundbreaking work The Gift, the importance of gift for human relationships and for the cohesion of society had been increasingly recognized. Alain Caillé and Jacques T. Godbout further fleshed out the implication of gift for contemporary society in the context of secular social sciences, striving to overcome utilitarianism. It was the “civil economy” movement, however, that exercised greatest influence on Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate.This present volume reflects on the general scope of these notions for business and society. This is done by structuring the book in two parts, each dedicated to one of the two concepts. Each part has two general chapters and two that apply the notions to business and to business education. The authors are a mix of well-known emeritus professors and younger talented emerging scholars. We have also been careful to combine European with American authors.A Catholic Spirituality for Business: The Logic of Gift does not seek to provide a definitive answer to all social challenges, but to make a contribution to a better understanding of Christian spirituality and gift in connection with business organizations. The authors in this book are convinced that markets can be ethical and social, that moral change towards ethical capitalism is possible.

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The purpose of A Catechism for Family Life: Insights from Church Teaching on Love, Marriage, Sex, and Parenting is to present the teachings of the Catholic Church as they relate to specific questions in marriage and family life. Many Catholics are under-catechized and have trouble both understanding and articulating Church teaching on sexuality and marriage to an increasingly challenging culture. Pope Francis, along with the fathers of the two recent Synods on the Family, have called for better formation for those who work in the area of marriage and family life (see Amoris Laetitia, 202).To address this need, we gathered pertinent questions facing men, women, and pastoral workers in marriage and family life. We then found passages relevant to these questions by researching Church documents on marriage and family from the past one hundred years. These include papal encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, and addresses, Vatican II documents, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.Mainstream media coverage of Church events and Church teaching leads many to misunderstand Catholic positions on marriage and family life. While the Catholic Church has developed a rich, detailed, and positive teaching on marriage, family, and sexuality, many Catholics do not have access to this teaching, buried as it is in lengthy Church documents which many find intimidating. Finding the relevant teaching to address specific questions is not always a simple task, either. This book's main contribution is to present Church teaching relevant to marriage and family in one volume clearly organized by topic and question.

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Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide is a study of the phenomenon of suicide in modern and post-modern society as represented in the major fictional works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Walker Percy. In his study, suicide is understood in both a literal and spiritual sense as referring to both the actual suicides in their works and to the broader social malaise of spiritual suicide, or despair. In the 19th century Dostoevsky called suicide ""the terrible question of our age"". For his part, Percy understood 20th century Western culture as ""suicidal"" in both its social, political and military behavior and in the deeper sense that its citizenry had suffered an ontological ""loss of self"" or ""deformation"" of being. Likewise, Thomas Merton called the 20th century an ""age of suicide"". John Desmond examines the cultural ethos of suicide as it is developed in eleven major works of fiction?Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov; and Percy's The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot, The Second Coming and The Thanatos Syndrome. His study is analogical and progressive in that it demonstrates how Percy ""furthered"" Dostoevsky's prophetic insights and intuitions about suicide as they evolved in modern Western culture. It reveals how the spiritual, moral and ideological conditions that Dostoevsky analyzed in the latter 19th century came to prophetic?and dire?fulfillment in the 20th century, as Percy observed. The study develops its argument through a close analysis of themes, characters, actions and images that reveal both correspondence between and development from Dostoevsky to Percy. In the Epilogue, Desmond offers a Christian counter-vision to the suicidal ethos of the age.

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What is a deacon? More than fifty years since the restoration of the permanent diaconate by the Second Vatican Council, the office of deacon is still in need of greater specificity about its purpose and place within the mission and organizational structure of the Church.While the Church is more than a social reality, the Church nonetheless has a social reality. Our understanding of the diaconate therefore benefits from a theological discussion of the divine element of the Church and a sociological examination of the human element. Understanding the Diaconate adds the resources of sociology and anthropology to the theological sources of scripture, liturgy, patristic era texts, theologians, and magisterial teachings to conclude that the deacon can be understood as “social intermediary and symbol of communitas” who serves the participation of the laity in the life and mission of the Church. This research proposes the deacon as a servant of the bond of communion within the Church (facilitating the relationship between the bishop/priest and his people), and between the People of God and the individual in need. Thus authentic diaconal ministry includes a vast array of many concrete contexts of pastoral importance where one does more than simply serve at Mass.Understanding the Diaconate will undoubtedly be useful in the formation of permanent deacon candidates. But by shedding light on the unique ministry of deacons, the book also reveals how every member of the Church can be better supported and understood. Transitional deacons will come to understand the service-identity that lays the foundation for their future presbyteral character; the laity will appreciate their own vocational call in the world when they find a cleric accompanying them into the temporal sphere; the bishop will have the means to extend and enhance his care for his flock; and a world that is sick unto death will find the Church’s healing arm reaching out to it in word, liturgy, and charity. In these ways, W. Shawn McKnight makes clear the uniqueness of the deacon.

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This is the first English translation of the last two theological works of Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology. The first text was composed after the deposition of Marcellus of Ancyra in 336 to justify the action of the council fathers in ordering the deposition on the grounds of heresy, contending that Marcellus was “Sabellian” (or modalist) on the Trinity and a follower of Paul of Samosata (hence adoptionist) in Christology. Relying heavily upon extensive quotations from a treatise Marcellus wrote against Asterius the Sophist, this text provides important information about ecclesiastical politics in the period before and just after the Council of Nicea, and endeavors to demonstrate Marcellus’s erroneous interpretation of several key biblical passages that had been under discussion since before the council. In doing so, Eusebius criticizes Marcellus’s inadequate account of the distinction between the persons of the Trinity, eschatology, and the Church’s teaching about the divine and human identities of Christ.On Ecclesiastical Theology, composed circa 338/339 just before Eusebius’s death, and perhaps in response to the amnesty for deposed bishops enacted by Constantius after the death of Constantine in 377 and the possibility of Marcellus’s return to his see, continues to lay out the criticisms initially put forward in Against Marcellus, again utilizing quotations from Marcellus’s book against Asterius. However, we see in this text a much more systematic explanation of Eusebius’s objections to the various elements of Marcellus’s theology and what he sees as the proper orthodox articulation of those elements.Long overlooked for statements at odds with later orthodoxy, even written off as heretical because allegedly “semi-Arian,” recent scholarship has demonstrated the tremendous influence these texts had on the Greek theological tradition in the fourth century, especially on the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. In addition to their influence, they are some of the few complete texts that we have from Greek theologians in the immediate period following the Council of Nicea in 325, thus filling a gap in the materials available for research and teaching in this critical phase of theological development.

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The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola give shape to the spiritual lives of Jesuits and many other Christians. But might these different ways of praying, meditating, and reading scripture be helpful to members of other faiths as well? In response to the call of Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, the thirtieth Superior General of the Jesuits (2008-2016) to explore how the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises can be fruitfully appropriated by non-Christians, A World on Fire analyzes the prospects for adapting the Spiritual Exercises in order to make them accessible to members of other faith traditions while still maintaining their core meaning and integrity. Erin Cline examines why this ought to be done, for whom, and what the aims of such an adaptation would be, including the different theological justifications for this practice. She concludes that there are compelling reasons for sharing the Exercises with members of other religions and that doing so coheres with the central mission of the Jesuits. A World on Fire goes on to examine the question of how the Exercises can be faithfully adapted for members of other religions. In outlining adaptations for the Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian traditions that draw upon the traditional content of the Exercises supplemented by the texts of these religious traditions, Cline shows how Ignatian spirituality can help point the way to a different kind of inter-religious dialogue – one that is not bound up in technical terminology or confined to conversations between theologians and religious leaders. Rather, in making the Spriitual Exercises accessible to members of other faith traditions, we are as Pope Francis puts it, “living on a frontier, one in which the Gospel meets the needs of the people to whom it should be proclaimed in an understandable and meaningful way.” A World on Fire will be of interest to comparative theologians and scholars working on inter-religious dialogue, religious pluralism, contemplative studies, and spirituality, as well as Jesuit priests and other practitioners who employ the Spiritual Exercises in their ministry.

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The number of open and controversial questions in contemporary Heidegger research continues to be a source of scholarly dialogue. There are important questions that concern the development, as it were, of his thought and the differences and similarities between his early main work Being and Time and his later so-called being-historical thought, the thinking of the event, or appropriation, of Being. There are questions that focus on his relation to important figures in the history of ideas such as the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, the German idealists, and Nietzsche. Other questions focus on his biography, on his rectorate and on his relation to politics in general and to National Socialism in particular or on his influence on subsequent philosophers. The contributions to this volume, written by leading scholars in the field of Heidegger research, address many of these questions in close readings of Heidegger’s texts and thus provide sound orientation in the field of contemporary Heidegger research. They show how the different trajectories of Heidegger’s thought—his early interest in the meaning of Being and in Dasein, his discussion of, and involvement with, politics, his understanding of art, poetry, and technology, his concept of truth and the idea of a history of Being—all converge at one point: the question of Being. It thus becomes clear that, all differences notwithstanding, Heidegger followed one very consistent path of thinking.

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Albert the Great wrote On the Body of the Lord in the 1270s, making it his final work of sacramental theology. A companion volume to his commentary on the Mass, On the Body of the Lord is a comprehensive discussion of Eucharistic theology. The treatise is structured around six names for the Eucharist taken from the Mass: grace, gift, food, communion, sacrifice, and sacrament. It emerges from the liturgy and is intended to draw the reader back to worship. The overall movement of the treatise follows the order of God’s wisdom. Albert begins by discussing the Eucharist as a gift flowing from the goodness of the Trinity. He touches on its relation to redemption and the Church, including a rigorous Aristotelian analysis of Eucharistic change and presence before ending with a discussion of Mass rubrics. The most significant theological emphasis is on the Eucharist as food given to feed the people of God. The style varies to suit the content: certain sections are terse; others are devotional, allowing the reader to enter the saint’s own prayer. Perhaps most characteristically Albertine is an extended meditation that compares the process of digestion to the incorporation of the Christian into the Body of Christ. The mixed style allows this work to integrate rigorous aspects of scholastic thought with a fervent love for God, making On the Body of the Lord one of Albert’s most human as well as one of his most beautiful works. On the Body of the Lord was well received, particularly in areas that came to be influenced by the devotio moderna. By 1484, three separate Latin editions had been printed, two of which were the inaugural works on new presses. In the following century the Protestant Reformation brought an end to its popularity. On the Body of the Lord is here translated into English for the first time.

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The Exposition of the Apocalypse by Tyconius of Carthage (fl. 380) was pivotal in the history of interpretation of the Book of Revelation. While expositors of the second and third centuries viewed the Apocalypse of John, or Book of Revelation, as mainly about the time of Antichrist and the end of the world, in the late fourth century Tyconius interpreted John’s visions as figurative of the struggles facing the Church throughout the entire period between the Incarnation and the Second Coming of Christ. Tyconius’s “ecclesiastical” reading of the Apocalypse was highly regarded by early medieval commentators like Caesarius of Arles, Primasius of Hadrumetum, Bede, and Beatus of Liebana, who often quoted from Tyconius’s Exposition in their own Apocalypse commentaries. Unfortunately no complete manuscript of the Exposition by Tyconius has survived. A number of recent scholars, however, believed that a large portion of his Exposition could be reconstructed from citations of it in the aforementioned early medieval writers; and this task was undertaken by Monsignor Roger Gryson. Gryson’s edition, a reconstruction of the Expositio Apocalypseos of Tyconius, was published in 2011 in Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. The present translation of that reconstructed text, with introduction and notes, exhibits Tyconius’s unique non-apocalyptic approach to the Book of Revelation. It also shows that throughout the Exposition Tyconius made use of interpretive rules that he had laid out in an earlier work on hermeneutics, the Book of Rules, strongly suggesting that Tyconius wrote his Exposition as a companion to his Book of Rules. Thus, the Exposition served as an exemplar of how those rules would apply to interpretation of even the most intriguing of biblical texts, the Apocalypse.

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Hans Urs von Balthasar’s vast corpus of theological, philosophical, literary, and pastoral writings remains one of the most impressive achievements in 20th century thought. In light of liberation theology and now the papacy of Francis, however, a theological affirmation of the option for the poor remains dangerously weak in Balthasar’s corpus. Von Balthasar and the Option for the Poor offers a sympathetic reforming of Balthasar’s account of the drama of salvation—what he calls “theodramatics”—in response to this weakness. Balthasar argues that his theodramatics intends to do justice to human existence as personal, social, and political, but his regular inattention to God’s concern for and solidarity with the oppressed undercuts his own intentions. Von Balthasar and the Option for the Poor strongly affirms Balthasar’s most fundamental theological commitments, but then reimagines his theodramatics in light of a strong recognition of the option for the poor within divine revelation and oppression as a force within the drama of salvation. The first half of the book offers a clear account of Balthasar’s most fundamental philosophical and theological commitments as a foundation for developing a liberating theodramatics. The second half offers a creative reworking of Balthasar’s Christology, anthropology, and ecclesiology in light of the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Oscar Romero, and Jon Sobrino as well as seldom engaged texts in Balthasar’s corpus. In so doing, Von Balthasar and the Option for the Poor provides a rich and unmatched dialogical engagement between Balthasar and Latin American liberation theology—an engagement that brings greater consistency to Balthasar’s thought, increased attentiveness to the shape of divine revelation, and greater responsiveness to the challenges facing the Church in the modern age. As a liberating theodramatics, Balthasar’s theological vision is opened to and reformed by a robust affirmation of God’s merciful partiality towards the poor and oppressed, the option for the poor as an essential dimension of the Christian life, and the recognition that oppressive structures are theodramatic realities that oppose God’s gift of life.

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A substantial historiography has emerged across national and linguistic boundaries documenting the Second Vatican Council. And yet virtually no attention has been devoted to the links between the Council and the Catholic faithful who had found themselves living behind an iron curtain by the end of the 1940s. Historians of the Catholic Church have, in fact, mostly rejected the possibility that Communist countries played a role in the Council’s story, or that the Council in turn shaped the subsequent paths of those countries.The goal of this volume is to begin writing Central and Eastern Europe back into the story of the Second Vatican Council, its origins, and its consequences. This volume assembles—for the first time in any language—a broad overview of the place of four different Communist-run countries—Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia—in the story of the Council. Framing these is an account of how the Cold War impacted the Council and its reception. The book engages with both English-language scholarship and the national historiographies of the countries that it examines, o ering a global lens on the present state of research (covering all relevant languages) and seeking to propel that research forward. All of the chapters draw on both non-English secondary literature and original primary sources—some published, some archival.In all four countries, religious aggiornamento went hand in hand with waves and spurts of political liberalization. Though short-lived in their initial form, civic aggiornamenti magnified the impact of religious aggiornamento. Every country behind the Iron Curtain was different, yet even across such diverse situations, one finds evidence that societies engaged with Vatican II—and, moreover, that the Council furnished a set of norms and aspirations that would play a significant role in the final years of the Cold War. The election of St. John Paul II in 1978†…, a pope from behind the Iron Curtain, lit a match, but the tinder had been set much earlier for modernization, reform, and an embrace of pluralism—even among Catholics living behind the Iron Curtain.

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At the dawn of the ’20th Century, several writers who were to become famous under the title of “Modernists” were advancing a deep agenda for reform in the faith and praxis of the Roman Catholic Church. But their agenda met with serious and scholarly opposition from another group of writers, whose essays are here made available in English. They include the historian and university rector Pierre Battifol, the biblical exegete M.J. Lagrange, OP, the Jesuit historical theologians Eugène Portalié and Léonce de Grandmaison, and the philosophers Eugène Franon and Joannès Wehrlé. All welcomed the historico-critical methods of research, and far from thinking them fatal to orthodoxy (as the Modernists did), they thought the Church’s faith would survive and be strengthened by rigorous scholarship. These thinkers, then, are the true predecessors of Pius XII (Divino a‚ante Spiritu) and Vatican II (Dei Verbum). At the same time, these men thought outside the boxes drawn by 19th Century Positivism (Loisy), anti-intellectualist pragmatism (LeRoy), and romantic mysticism (Tyrrell). Their concerns hold new significance in the light of John Paul II’s 1990 encyclical Fides et Ratio. Reading these too-long forgotten writers, then, deepens in a new way one’s understanding of the Catholic Church’s decision to decline and even condemn the Modernists’ agenda, whether one ultimately applauds that decision or deplores it.

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Augustine of Hippo is one of the most well-loved and most thoughtprovoking writers of the early church. He is also one of the most quotable. In this slim volume, some of the saint’s memorable, pithy, controversial, and oŸen feisty sayings are gathered in topics that range from war to peace; grief to happiness; vice to virtue; and from heaven to hell. He speaks—and speaks out—on things theological, such as sin and salvation, but also on the life of the mind—on books, education, teaching, and knowledge. This book is ideal for those who wish to read some of the wisest and most wonderful sayings of Augustine. It will help all those who wish to pepper a speech, or a sermon, or an essay with the wisdom of Saint Augustine. The book is a valuable resource, too, for anyone who wants tofind out “Did Augustine really say that?” and, if he did, in which of his voluminous writings it appeared. Drawn from the internationally acclaimed and successful series, the ‘Fathers of the Church,’ The Quotable Augustine presents a wide-ranging sample of the writings of a towering figure of the early church.

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Originally published in French in 2000, The Spirituality of Martyrdom is a brief and accessible yet sweeping study of the spiritual significance attached to martyrdom in the early centuries of the Christian Church. Although studies of early Christian martyrdom have proliferated in recent decades, this book stands out by conveying to a wider audience the essence of this spirituality in its relevance to both theology and the life of every astute Christian today.Pinckaers looks at the period from the New Testament through Augustine, with a concluding chapter tying in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. The volume is generally arranged chronologically, but also includes chapters on the ‘Definition of Martyrdom,’ ‘Martyrdom as Eucharist’ and ‘Martyrdom and Eschatology’ as well as more author-focused studies of the theologies of martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Tertullian, and Augustine. An up-to-date bibliography on the topic is also provided by the translators to supplement the original citations.This book aims to illuminate the intelligibility of the Church’s veneration of martyrs in relation to its fundamental beliefs and practices, and seeks to relate this intelligibility to the broader Catholic moral tradition. The introduction by Patrick Clark highlights how this volume is specifically oriented towards the fields of moral theology and Thomistic ethics in light of the other key contributions that the late Fr. Pinckaers has made to those disciplines.

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Theology Needs Philosophy brings together essays by leading theologians and philosophers on the fundamental importance of human reason and philosophy for Catholic theology and human cultures generally. This edited collection studies the contributions of reason, with its acquired wisdom, science, and scholarship, in five sections. Those sections are: (1) the inevitable presence and service of philosophy in theology; (2) the metaphysics of creation, nature, and the natural knowledge of God; (3) the history of Logos as reason in the fathers, in St. Thomas Aquinas, and Medieval Biblical commentaries; (4) the role of reason in Trinitarian theology, Christology, and Mariology; and finally (5) reason in the theology of Aquinas. The general reader, as well as students and faculty, will be introduced to a constant, but sometimes neglected, element of Catholic intellectual traditions. Pope Francis follows Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II in emphasizing the light of faith in his first encyclical Lumen Fidei, showing how human reason is healed and elevated by faith. Not to act according to reason is contrary to the nature of God, as Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Lecture reminded the world. An abandonment of Catholic faith, and its incorporation of the ancient discoveries of reason, has led to a darkening of reason in secularist modernity. The light of reason is from the Word (Logos) who is God (John 1:9), calling everyone to live attentive to the cultivation of reason. Modern popes have therefore called for a recovery of reason since faith in Jesus Christ heals and intensifies the light of reason so fundamental to the God-given dignity of every human being.

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The Vatican and the Emergence of the Modern Middle East examines the originality of Pope Benedict XV’s diplomacy (1914–1922) during the First World War and the immediate post-war period in the modern Middle East emerging after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. A thorough exploration of the pontiff’s statecraft regarding Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine serves as the case study and emphasizes Pope Benedict’s participation in preparing the Catholic Church for an active role in the new world order.Benedict XV was a far-sighted geopolitical master whose diplomaticvision went beyond local circumstances so as to equip the Church forfuture protection of Catholic interests and communities worldwide. Pope Benedict anticipated the geopolitical revolution that would take place in the wake of the Great War and discerned the first tremors that would initiate the decolonization movement and the self-determination of national minorities. After the war, the pontiff, who had acquired a new moral authority, initiated a policy that shifted the Holy See away from its past Eurocentric vision of the world. This implemented a supple diplomacy that would adjust to any political environment as long as the independence of the Holy See and the protection of Catholic interests would be guaranteed. This far-seeing diplomacy had repercussions at the regional and international level that lasted long after his death. The recent celebration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak ofWorld War One, which coincides with the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Benedict’s reign makes this book timely and relevant given the current, and not to abate soon, events in the Middle East. It draws attention to an underappreciated pontificate and remedies the absence of detailed and comprehensive regional foreign policy studies relative to Benedict XV’s pontificate. Finally, the volume provides a larger historical context to understanding the current welfare and survival of Christian communities in an overwhelmingly Muslim Middle East.

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St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote two works during the 380s attacking the Christological teaching of Apolinarius of Laodicea and his followers. These are the substantial treatise Refutation of the Views of Apolinarius (the Antirrheticus) and the short letter to the Bishop of Alexandria, To Theophilus, Against the Apollinarians. The Antirrheticus is a hostile commentary on Apolinarius’s work entitled The Demonstration (Apodeixis) of the Divine Enfleshment according to the Likeness of a Human Being. The Apodeixis has not survived independently, and our knowledge of it depends almost completely on Gregory.The Antirrheticus is a neglected work, and this is the first English translation to be published. It has had a poor reputation among many modern scholars. Gregory is accused of being prolix and repetitive and of having misrepresented or misunderstood many of Apolinarius’s Christological ideas. It is argued here that the work is nevertheless of considerable theological interest. It is able in fact successfully to identify the principal problems raised by Apolinarius’s central concept ofChrist as an “enfleshed mind,” and also provides an essential insight into Gregory’s own Christology and soteriology.The translation is interweaved with a commentary to provide the reader with some guidance through the complexities of Gregory’s arguments. The introduction includes an overview of the history of Apollinarianism and discusses the extent to which it is possible to reconstruct, from the fragments quoted by Gregory, the arguments of Apolinarius’s Apodeixis to which he is responding. It also examines the background to and the chronology of both of Gregory’s anti-Apollinarian works, and looks critically at the arguments that they deploy.

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At a time when good editions of drama in English are prohibitively expensive and online texts are unedited and lack the apparatus necessary for students to understand and contextualize the plays, this anthology affordably illustrates every significant genre of drama in the English language from the late fourteenth century to the early twentieth century, with plays from England, Ireland, and the United States of America.The mystery and morality plays of the Middle Ages, Renaissance comedy, tragedy and meta-theater, Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy, tragedy, and ballad opera, nineteenth-century melodrama, and early twentieth century realism and naturalism are all presented with the introductions, glossaries and notes suitable for a college level reader by an editor with a quarter of a century of experience teaching courses onthe history of drama in English. The plays both reflect their times and critique them, while remaining stageable today. The Wakefield Master, The York Realist, Marlowe, Jonson, Dryden, Wycherley, Gay, Boucicault, Synge, and Shaw are some of the playwrights in this representative collection of plays that reveal both the popular appeal of the English language theater and the dazzling dramatic artistry it embodied over a period of six centuries. Further the collection is in “old spelling” and is thus a useful sourcebook for those interested in the history of the English language.

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Many people believe that when it comes to moral questions, anyone’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s. Teachers of philosophy, by exposing students to the full panoply of moral theory, can reinforce this prejudice towards skepticism even when they intend to challenge it. Gary Michael Atkinson has taught introductory courses in philosophy for decades, and he has developed an effective approach to show that widespread skepticism based on the existence of persistent moral disagreement is mistaken. Our Search with Socrates for Moral Truth will appeal not only to students and teachers of philosophy but to any educated reader seeking to ascertain or defend the existence of moral truth.Atkinson’s method is to uncover the traits necessary for a person’sbeing qualified to examine moral issues in a capable and competent manner. In the process he also discovers features which hinder a person being a competent thinker about moral questions. The reader is guided through this search by engaging Socrates as he appears in Plato’s dialogues, not merely as a historical figure, but as an interlocutor. This path proceeds without begging any questions; its argument begins with no assumptions about which moral beliefs might be true, which false, or even if moral truth exists. On the contrary, the book begins only with the supposition that there might be moral truth. And yet, by following Socrates on the attempt to ascertain its existence, the reader is brought into the realm of moral knowledge and becomes acquainted with the ideal of a genuine seeker of moral truth, an ideal which can be embraced as a guidepost to becoming a better and more fulfilled human being.The fundamental achievement of Our Search with Socrates for Moral Truth is to show that there exists a set of qualities which every moral thinker needs to possess, and that the necessity of this set of qualities can be recognized by everyone.

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Renewing Islam by Service offers a theological account of the contemporary Turkish faith-based service movement started by Fethullah Gülen, and placed against the backdrop of changes in modern Turkish society. The life and works of Gülen are analyzed against the background of developments in Turkish society, and of spiritual Islamic tendencies in the transition from the Ottoman empire to the secular republic. Pim Valkenberg includes stories of his personal experiences with supporters of this movement, in a number of different countries, and analyzes the spiritual practices and the faith-based service of this movement that is also compared to some important Christian religious movements.Fethullah Gülen (born 1941 in Erzurum) is sometimes mentioned as one of the most influential Islamic scholars of the twenty-first century. During his work as a scholar-preacher in Izmir in the 1970s he started to provide learning opportunities for his students. He attracted many supporters and inspired them to form communities that put their Islamic faith into practice by serving others. When the political and economic situation of the Turkish republic improved, Gülen and the Hizmet (service) Movement began to take initiatives in order to overcome ignorance, disunity and poverty.At the beginning of the 21­st century the Hizmet Movement ormed one of the most influential networks of Muslims, not only in Turkey but in Europe and the United States as well. Gülen now lives in the United States where he still inspires many groups to engage in dialogue initiatives, excellent schools, public media and service organizatons. However, these initiatives are often met with suspicion by a number of different groups - secularists as well as radical Muslims. While the Hizmet Movement has thus far mainly been studied from a social scientific perspective, this book claims that Gülen and the Hizmet can best be understood by researching the religious drive that empowers them. Since this book has been written by a Christian theologian, this is done in a comparative theological approach that not only shows how Gülen and the Hizmet Movement renew Islam by service, but also how Christians can be inspired by such a religious renewal movement.

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In this volume, a distinguished group of philosophers offers new insight into Platonic studies. Combining cutting-edge research with innovative analysis, the authors present fourteen essays on various dimensions of Plato's thought. Most of Plato's dialogues are examined, from such conspicuously Socratic texts as Protagoras, Euthyphro, and Crito to the allegedly late Sophist, Statesman, and Laws. Several essays explore specific philosophical problems raised in a single Platonic dialogue. Some offer in-depth analysis of one dialogue-for instance, the volume includes two very different but highly provocative essays on Timaeus. Others pursue a topic or theme that runs throughout a number of dialogues, and still others speak about the Platonic heritage and the thought of ancient philosophers who regarded themselves as faithfully preserving and transmitting the doctrines of their master. The major subject divisions of philosophy are covered, with considerable attention being paid to issues of Platonist methodology.The studies themselves reflect the varied backgrounds and allegiances of the many authors. Both Anglo-Saxon and continental traditions of philosophy and philosophical scholarship are represented in spirited, combative, and potentially controversial discussions. In several cases the point of departure is not a primarily historical question but a contemporary issue on which Plato is probed for his contribution along with the greatest philosophers of later periods. This leads to radical reevaluations of Plato's contribution to fields as diverse as epistemology and political philosophy.In addition to the editor, the contributors are: R. E. Allen, Ronna Burger, Kenneth Dorter, Thérèse-Anne Druart, Charles L. Griswold, Jr., Fred D. Miller, Jr., Mitchell Miller, Dominic J. O'Meara, Kurt Pritzl, O.P., John M. Rist, Stanley Rosen, Daryl McGowan Tress, and Anne M. Wiles.

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Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308) is one of a handful of figures in the history of philosophy whose significance is truly di”fficult to overestimate. Despite an academic career that lasted barely two decades, and numerous writings left in various states of incompletion at his death, his thought has been profoundly influential in the history of western philosophy.The Questions on Aristotle’s ‘Perihermenias’ is an early work, probably written at Oxford in the closing decade of the thirteenth century. The questions, which have come down to us in two sets (‘Opus I’ and ‘Opus II’), most likely originated from Scotus’s classroom lectures on Aristotle’s text, a work now known by its Latin name, De interpretatione.The Perihemenias was understood in the medieval university as a work of dialectic or logic, although the text itself deals with subjects we would nowadays consider to belong to the intersection of metaphysics and the philosophy of language: the semantics of time, existence, modality, and quantification. At its heart is the important and still philosophically relevant question of how we can talk about things which no longer exist, or which do not yet exist. The topics covered include reference and signification; existence and essence; truth and its relation to things. What is the relationship between existence in reality and existence in the understanding? Does the meaning of a name depend on the existence of the objects falling under it? Is the present time all that exists? If a proposition about the future can be true now, what now makes it true?The English translation includes an extensive commentary explaining and elaborating on some of the more di”cult ideas Scotus develops in the work, placing them in the context of the teaching of logic andmetaphysics in late-thirteenth century Europe.

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What validated or invalidated baptism in the eyes of medieval Christians?The answer to this question is neither simple nor straightforward. As this fascinating contribution to medieval intellectual history shows, medieval ideas on baptism, though seen as necessary for salvation, were far from unanimous. Marcia Colish demonstrates persuasively that, from the patristic period through the early fourteenth century, there was vigorous debate surrounding baptism by desire, fictive baptism, and forced baptism.Drawing on a wide and interdisciplinary range of sources that goes well beyond the writings of theologians and canonists to include liturgical texts and practices, the rulings of popes and church councils, saints' lives, chronicles, imaginative literature, and poetry, Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates illuminates the emergence and fortunes of these three controversies and the historical contexts that situate their development. Each debate has its own story line, its own turning points, and its own seminal figures whose positions informed its course. The thinkers involved in each case were, and regarded one another as being, members of the orthodox western Christian communion. Thus, another finding of this book is that Christian orthodoxy in the Middle Ages was able to encompass and accept disagreements both wide and deep on a sacrament seen as fundamental to Christian identity, faith and practice.

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Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, is one of the most studied but least understood popes of the twentieth century while his pontificate remains the most turbulent and controversial. Although there is a general consensus that he faced serious problems during his tenure—fascist aggression, the Second World War, the Nazi genocide of the Jews, the march of communism, and the Cold War—there is disagreement on his response to these developments. Applauded by some as an “apostle for peace” for his attempt to prevent the outbreak of war, he has been denounced by others as an “advocate of appeasement” for this same effort. Praised by both Christian and Jews for his “Crusade of Charity” during the war, he was denounced by many for his “silence” during the Holocaust. These conflicting interpretations, dubbed the Pius Wars, are often narrow in focus, lack objectivity, and have shed more heat than light. Written by one of the foremost historians of Pius XII, the present biographical study, unlike the greater part of the vast and growing historiography of Pope Pius XII, is a balanced and nonreactive account of his life and times. Its focus is not on the pope’s silence during the Holocaust, though it does address the issue in a historical and objective framework. This is a biography of the man as well as the pope. It probes the roots of his traditionalism and legalism, his approach to modernity and reformism in Church and society, and the influences behind his policies and actions. This book is the first biography of Eugenio Pacelli to appear in English since the opening of the papers of the pontificate of Pius XI (1922-1939), in which Pacelli served as nuncio to Germany and secretary of state, along with the publication of the memories of figures close to Papa Pacelli.

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In his newest work, distinguished philosopher Jude P. Dougherty challenges contemporary empiricisms and other accounts of science that reduce it to description and prediction. Dougherty argues that a philosophy of science is but a part of one’s overarching metaphysical outlook, itself painstakingly derived from considerations of nature, law, intelligibility, causality, and inference. This book critically examines several well-known philosophical positions from a time-transcending Aristotelian point of view. It defends an Aristotelian or “realist” interpretation of science, employing the textual Aristotle as commented upon and amplified through the centuries. The book shows that although modernity has offered a significant challenge, only a realist interpretation of science is compatible with the advances made in theoretical physics since the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Dougherty discusses the so-called “sciences of man,” their starting points, and limitations.

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The Common Good of Constitutional Democracy offers a rich collection of essays in political philosophy by Swiss philosopher Martin Rhonheimer. Like his other books in both ethical theory and applied ethics, which have recently been published in English, the essays included are distinguished by the philosophical rigor and meticulous attention to the primary and secondary literature of the various topics discussed. Rhonheimer takes up the unfinished agenda of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis humanae, and makes many significant philosophical contributions relating the Catholic tradition to modern and contemporary political philosophy. He begins with an argument for why political philosophy is necessary, especially in light of the democratic constitutional state and the culture of human rights. He addresses many disputed questions, including ones about autonomy, the common good, secularism, multiculturalism, the relationship between authority and truth in civil law, and the role of the state in the economic sector. In so doing, Rhonheimer engages the entire tradition from ancients like Plato and Aristotle through contemporaries including Rawls, MacIntyre, and Taylor. The volume includes a detailed introduction by William F. Murphy Jr., locating this collection in Rhonheimer’s broader body of work and within the field of political philosophy. This book will be an invaluable resource for Catholic philosophers, moral theologians, political philosophers, and other religious thinkers looking for philosophical resources to relate their traditions to the modern state.

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How is the church to understand the Eucharist? Historically, the church has thought in terms of Christ’s sacrifice that atones or makes satisfaction for our sins. Today, many theologians hold that Christ’s death is primarily a self-gift, and they de-emphasize atonement or satisfaction. According to Michon M. Matthiesen, the early twentieth-century Jesuit Maurice de la Taille offered a theology that is relevant to this contemporary debate because it accounts for both the sacrifice and gift aspects of the Eucharist. De la Taille’s three-volume masterpiece, Mysterium Fidei, published in 1921, generated theological excitement and controversy. Some praised the work as a new theological method that overcame post-Tridentine immolationist Eucharistic theories of sacrifice. Others objected to his view of Trent and were offended by his mystical-theological synthesis. Sacrifice as Gift retrieves de la Taille’s magisterial thought, presenting him as an early nouvelle théologie thinker who recovered patristic and medieval insights that lost prominence after Trent. The volume also demonstrates his role in the liturgical movement in Europe. According to Matthiesen, de la Taille did not claim to offer a “new theory” about the sacrifice of the Mass. Rather, he carefully read the tradition, weaving “the voices of the pages”—from scripture and the Fathers (East and West), to the scholastics, and the mystics of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. This study captures the remarkably integrated nature of de la Taille’s thought on eucharistic sacrifice. Matthiesen argues that de la Taille’s theology of eucharistic sacrifice cannot be properly understood apart from his theology of grace and contemplative prayer. Besides providing a new appreciation of the depth of de la Taille’s theological contribution, Sacrifice as Gift is a timely presentation of a forgotten vision of eucharistic sacrifice, one that reconfigures the current philosophical and theological divide between sacrifice and gift.

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Surveying many of Plato's dialogues from the early, middle, and late periods, prominent philosopher John M. Rist shows how Plato gradually came to realize the need for metaphysics to support his ethical position and that a rigorous ethics required a secure metaphysics grounded in universal values. Plato came to realise that his earlier attempts to construct the relevant metaphysics, culminating in the Republic, were incomplete and his argumentation was insufficiently rigorous. Rist explains Plato's ongoing refinement of the theory of Forms and his hesitant attempts to relate claims about Forms to ideas about a divine mind (or god), which could offer an account of a transcendent reality as not only a formal and final cause of cosmic goodness and providence, but also an efficient cause. Rist concludes the book by considering what more would be needed to complete Plato's theory without making damaging compromises to the basic principles of his metaphysics of morals. He sketches how Plato might reply to various contemporary approaches to moral reasoning and especially moral obligation.

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This book explores the contested place of metaphysics since Kant and Hegel, arguing for a renewed metaphysical thinking about the intimate strangeness of being. There is a mysterious strangeness to being at all, and yet there is also something intimate. Without the intimacy, argues William Desmond, we become strangers in being; without the mystery, we take being for granted. The book locates the origin of metaphysics’ contested place in recessed equivocations in Kantian critique and Hegelian dialectic, equivocations that keep from view the more original sources of metaphysical thinking. It takes issue with contemporary claims about the “overcoming of metaphysics” associated with Heidegger, the “deconstruction of metaphysics” associated with Derrida, as well as with claims that a new “post-metaphysical thinking” is necessary. The book begins with an exploration of the status of metaphysics in light of equivocations in Hegelian dialectic. It then offers an assessment of metaphysics in light of critique and deconstruction. Finally, it proposes an affirmative rethinking of the constant perplexities of being in terms of a metaxological metaphysics. This metaphysics involves a thinking of the between (metaxu) that characterizes Desmond’s singular approach. Addressing the problematic state of metaphysics in recent centuries, this metaxological metaphysics tries to be true to both the strange mystery and the intimacy, to be faithful to the constant perplexities of being, and to recuperate appreciatively some of the rich resources of the longer philosophical tradition.

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Mary, Mother of the Word, became an icon for excellent communication during the English Middle Ages. This engaging work explores the literature that established Mary as headmistress of the liberal arts and exemplar of perfected speech. Given England’s rich and extended practices of Marian piety, Georgiana Donavin focuses her research solely on English writers, from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Late Middle Ages. In the writings of John of Garland, John of Howden, Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Margery Kempe, and several anonymous lyricists and playwrights, Donavin illuminates Mary’s position as the great teacher of trivium studies and muse of various discourses.Scribit Mater begins with a survey of medieval English representations of the Virgin Mary as a wise and studious woman. It demonstrates how diverse authors imagined the Virgin’s holy speech to be the highest sign of her wisdom. These authors venerated Mary as a Christian Lady Rhetorica because they were taught to read and compose by studying Marian services and hymns, they heard Mary’s mellifluous speech in renderings of the Magnificat and other popular lyrics, or they saw the Virgin Birth as the purest articulation of the Word. They appropriated Mary’s rhetorical powers in many forms: in university textbooks teaching students to imitate the Virgin’s oratory, in meditations describing the Virgin’s body as a holy grammar, in short lyrics extolling the Virgin’s beautiful voice, in long narrative verse seeking the Virgin’s inspiration and illumination, and more.While Scribit Mater highlights different medieval English understandings of the Virgin’s sapient eloquence according to class, education, and gender, it demonstrates long-standing and widespread traditions acknowledging and celebrating the Mother’s verbal prowess.

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Thomas Aquinas and the Philosophy of Punishment explores how Aquinas’s understandings of natural law and the common good apply to the contemporary philosophical discussion of punitive justice. It is the first book-length study to consider this question in decades, and the only book that confronts modern views of the topic.Peter Karl Koritansky presents Thomas Aquinas’s theory of punishment as an alternative to the leading schools of thought that have dominated the philosophical landscape in recent times, namely, utilitarianism and retributivism. After carefully examining each one and tracing its roots back to Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, Koritansky concludes that neither approach to punitive justice is able to provide a philosophically compelling justification for the institution of punishment. He explains how St. Thomas approaches the same philosophical questions from a markedly different set of assumptions rooted in his theory of natural law and his understanding of the common good.Not without its own difficulties, Aquinas’s approach offers a rationale and justification of punishment that is, Koritansky argues, much more humane, realistic, and compelling than either contemporary school is able to provide. Koritansky distinguishes his reading of the Angelic Doctor from that of other interpreters who tend to conflate Aquinas’s teaching with various aspects of recent thought. A final chapter considers the death penalty in John Paul II’s Gospel of Life and debates whether current Catholic teaching about the death penalty conflicts with Aquinas’s arguments in favour of the death penalty.

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Representing the highest quality of scholarship, Gilles Emery offers a much-anticipated introduction to Catholic doctrine on the Trinity. His extensive research combined with lucid prose provides readers a resource to better understand the foundations of Trinitarian reflection. The book is addressed to all who wish to benefit from an initiation to Trinitarian doctrine.The path proposed by this introductory work comprises six steps. First the book indicates some liturgical and biblical ways for entering into Trinitarian faith. It then presents the revelation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the New Testament, by inviting the reader to reflect upon the signification of the word "God." Next it explores the confessions of Trinitarian faith, from the New Testament itself to the Creed of Constantinople, on which it offers a commentary. By emphasizing the Christian culture inherited from the fourth-century Fathers of the Church, the book presents the fundamental principles of Trinitarian doctrine, which find their summit in the Christian notion of "person."On these foundations, the heart of the book is a synthetic exposition of the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their divine being and mutual relations, and in their action for us. Finally, the last step takes up again the study of the creative and saving action of the Trinity: the book concludes with a doctrinal exposition of the "missions" of the Son and Holy Spirit, that is, the salvific sending of the Son and Holy Spirit that leads humankind to the contemplation of the Father.

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Examines the motley shape of the pope’s territorial domain, the institutions found there, and the relationships between Rome and its outlying cities. Microhistories of how things worked form a clear picture of relations between the sovereign and his subjects.

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The volume brings together some of the most prominent scholars from the US and abroad, specializing in different areas of patristic studies, to address tradition and the rule of faith.

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A rigorous introduction to process theology and philosophy, its genesis and importance. It analyzes perhaps the most ambitious and robust system of process thought developed from a Roman Catholic perspective, that of Joseph A. Bracken.

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This volume offers a comprehensive portrait of St. Augustine (354-430) drawn from the breadth of his writings and from the long course of his career. One chapter is devoted to each of his masterpieces (Confessions, On the Trinity, and City of God) and one to each of his best-known controversies (against Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians). It also explores his everyday work as a bishop, preacher and interpreter of the Bible.

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The period from 1200 to 1500 laid the intellectual and institutional foundations for the Scientific Revolution that would occur in the seventeenth century. During this time, the spirit of inquiry motivated natural philosophers more than did substantive content or arguments. Natural philosophers posed hundreds of questions about nature and weighed the pros and cons of each. In the process, they developed a philosophical approach to nature that may be characterized as 'probing and poking around' - they used their imaginations guided by reason. In this volume, distinguished scholar Edward Grant identifies the vital elements that contributed to the creation of a widespread interest in natural philosophy, which has been characterized as the 'Great Mother of the Sciences'. He discusses how natural philosophy emerged in Western Europe in the Middle Ages with Latin translations of Aristotle's treatises on natural philosophy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; with universities devoting arts curriculums to Aristotle's rationalistic natural philosophy; and, with Christian religious authorities coming to accept and even defend that philosophy. Medieval natural philosophers, contrary to a common perception, did not slavishly follow Aristotle. Grant shows that they quite frequently disagreed with Aristotle and proposed their own solutions to many problems he raised. They did this by rejecting many of Aristotle's explanations about real physical phenomena and replacing them with radically different interpretations. The product of many years of extensive research, the essays included in this volume offer a significant contribution to the nature of natural philosophy and its influence on the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. This title uncovers how reason and imagination in the Middle Ages laid the foundations of modern science.

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Is it ever morally right to procure an abortion, to help procure one, or to perform one? Patrick Lee surveys the main philosophical arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of abortion and refutes them point by point. In a calm and philosophically sophisticated manner, he presents a powerful case for the pro-life position and a serious challenge to all of the main philosophical arguments on behalf of the pro-choice position. Lee's method is strictly philosophical, with special attention given to authors in the broadly analytical school of thought. He contends that what is killed in abortion is indeed an individual human being. Attempts to argue otherwise are carefully presented and criticized, as are other attempts to justify abortion morally. Since 1996 when the first edition of Abortion and Unborn Human Life appeared, the debate about the morality of abortion has not subsided. From the standpoint of philosophy many issues have become clearer. Accordingly, Patrick Lee confirms his position that unborn human beings have an equal and inherent dignity and are subjects of basic rights from the moment of fertilization. In this second edition, Lee provides significant updates in view of recent developments. Lee argues that what is at stake in this debate about how to treat unborn human beings is whether we will or will not recognize the fundamental equal dignity possessed by every human being, simply by virtue of being the kind of being he or she is. This is a significantly updated edition of Lee's bestselling book on the moral questions of abortion.

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Philosophers of the Renaissance introduces readers to philosophical thinking from the end of the Middle Ages through the sixteenth century. International specialists portray the thought of twenty-one individual philosophers, illustrating their life and work and highlighting the importance of their thinking. Best known among the personalities discussed are Nicholas of Cusa, who combined mathematics with theology; Pico della Mirandola, the first to introduce Hebrew wisdom: Marsilio Ficino, who made the works of Plato accessible to his contemporaries; Pietro Pomponazzi, who challenged the Church with unorthodox teachings; and, Tommaso Campanella, who revolutionized philosophy and science while imprisoned. Philosophers of this period explored a great variety of human knowledge: Greek scholars who had emigrated from Byzantium spread ancient and patristic learning; humanists applied their skills to art, architecture, and the text of the Bible (Leon Battista Alberti and Lorenzo Valla); some debated about methods of scientific research - always with religion in their mind (Raymond Lull, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Philipp Melanchthon, Petrus Ramus, Bernardino Telesio, Jacopo Zabarella); others pondered the ethical implications (Michel de Montaigne, Luis Vives); or they confronted a radical overturn of the traditional worldview (Francesco Patrizi, Giordano Bruno, Francisco Suarez). The book weaves together the stories of these thinkers by emphasizing the unity of Renaissance philosophy. Originally published in German in 1998, the chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated. There is a chapter on Luis Vives that was written specifically for this English edition. This is a rich and accessible introduction to the philosophical thought that shaped modernity.

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