Patristic Studies Research Articles

Robert Wilde, The Treatment of the Jews in the Greek Christian Writers of the First Three Centuries. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. LXXXI) Washington, D.C.: the Catholic University of America Press, 1949. Pp. XVIII + 239. No price stated.

Robert Wilde, The Treatment of the Jews in the Greek Christian Writers of the First Three Centuries. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. LXXXI) Washington, D.C.: the Catholic University of America Press, 1949. Pp. XVIII + 239. No price stated.

Sister Mary Tarcisia Ball: Nature and the Vocabulary of Nature in the Works of Saint Cyprian. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. 75.) Pp. xix+303. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1946. Paper.

Sister Mary Tarcisia Ball: Nature and the Vocabulary of Nature in the Works of Saint Cyprian. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. 75.) Pp. xix+303. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1946. Paper.

Richard B. Sherlock: The Syntax of the Nominal Forms of the Verb, exclusive of the Participle, in St. Hilary. (Patristic Studies, Vol. LXXVI.)Pp. xix+365. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1947. Paper.

Richard B. Sherlock: The Syntax of the Nominal Forms of the Verb, exclusive of the Participle, in St. Hilary. (Patristic Studies, Vol. LXXVI.)Pp. xix+365. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1947. Paper. - Volume 63 Issue 3-4

Sister M. Jamesetta Kelly, O.P., A.M., Life and Times As Revealed In The Writings of St. Jerome Exclusive of His Letters. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. LXX.) Washington, D.C.: the Catholic University of America Press, 1944. Pp. XVIII + 173.

Sister M. Jamesetta Kelly, O.P., A.M., Life and Times As Revealed In The Writings of St. Jerome Exclusive of His Letters. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. LXX.) Washington, D.C.: the Catholic University of America Press, 1944. Pp. XVIII + 173. - Volume 39 Issue 1-2

SisterThomas Aquinas Goggin: The Times of Saint Gregory of Nyssa as reflected in the Letters and the Contra Eunomium. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. lxxix.) Pp. xxiv+218. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947. Paper.

SisterThomas Aquinas Goggin: The Times of Saint Gregory of Nyssa as reflected in the Letters and the Contra Eunomium. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. lxxix.) Pp. xxiv+218. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947. Paper.

The Christology of Zeno of Verona by Rev. Martin F. Stepanich (review)

168BOOK REVIEWS The Christology of Zeno of Verona. By Rev. Martin F. Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.L. The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology. Second series, No. 9. Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 1948. Pp. 68. Father Stepanich's dissertation is a worthwhile contribution to the studies of the Fathers. St. Zeno, though he is one of the minor Latin Fathers, nevertheless holds a place of importance among the Latin ancient Christian waters, because his Tractatus are the oldest specimens of sermons of the Latin Church, and because they are written in elegant style. Moreover, he is thought to have influenced the liturgy of the West. But most of all, his doctrine on the nature of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, though not quite as clearly voiced in some points as by the great opponents of the Arians, is nevertheless an improvement on his sources, Tertullian, Lactantius, and Novatian. The author begins with an introduction that treats of the life of St. Zeno, of the authenticity and editions of the Tractatus, of the sources and style. The Tractatus are ninety-three sermons. The sixteen of the first book are chiefly on moral topics, the seventy-seven of the second book are doctrinal and exegetical. Most of them are short; some are mere fragments of sketches. Some are short talks given to candidates for baptism. Father Stepanich's dissertation originally contained five chapters: 1) On the Trinity, 2) On the eternal divine coequality of the Son of God, 3) On the generation of the Son, 4) On the Incarnate Christ, 5) On soteriology . Only the third chapter is printed in full; the others are summarized at the end. Thus the third chapter begins rather abruptly. I should like to have seen the summary of the first two chapters printed before the third chapter. A conclusion to the whole book would be appreciated too. The third chapter is by tar the most important section of the dissertation . In it Father Stepanich proceeds in scholarly fashion to exegetize the texts of St. Zeno and evaluate the solutions of other authors in regard to the seeming contradictions of Zeno's Christology. His method rightly includes a comparative study of Zeno's predecessors and contemporaries . Father's own solutions are quite satisfactory. He thinks that Zeno considered the Son as merely conceived from all eternity but born in BOOK REVIEWS169 time through creation and the Incarnation. But I wonder whether it cannot be said that some of the Fathers looked upon birth more from the viewpoint of material births as an external manifestation. For Zeno, then, the manifestation of the Son through creation and the Incarnation would be a more complete birth. But that does not mean that he would deny that the Son was born in some fashion from the Father within the Trinity eternally. He was Son eternally; that obviously implies some kind of birth; a conception is something temporal, not eternal. At any rate Zeno had the correct idea, even though he might have hesitated to speak of the birth of the Son within the Trinity. The expression "incarnate Christ" (pp. V and 62) does not seem too happy. The name "Christ" does not belong to the pre-existent Word. Though Christ as God pre-existed the Incarnation, there never was a nonincarnate Christ. "Christ" is peculiar to the God-Man as such. In the copious footnotes the author betrays genuine scholarship and painstaking consultation of the best literature on the varied subjects that need to be treated in a study of this nature. We can only wish that the other four chapters had been printed in full. You would then want this book still more as part of your collection of patristic studies. DOMINIC J. UNGER, O.F.M. CAP. Capuchin Monastery, Washington, D.C. L'Église Canadienne Glorifie S. Antoine de Padoue. Le Des.1îut Evangelique . Edited by Rev. P. Ferdinand Coiteux, O.F.M. Montreal, Canada: Editions Franciscaines, 1947. When on January 16, 1946 St. Anthony of Padua was declared a Doctor of the Church by the present gloriously reigning Pope Pius XII all nations of the world not...

The Language of the Greek Fathers

As the catalogues of the publishers show there is a great revival of interest in the study of the Fathers, especially the Greek Fathers, so long overshadowed by their better known and more accessible Latin brethren. If we read that the Editions du Cerf have already brought out translations of authors as comparatively little known as the apologist Athenagoras, the Cappadocian Gregory of Nyssa, John Moschus and Maximus Confessor, a new spring of patristic studies seems indeed to be upon us, and from America there come the translations of St Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians and of the Seven Letters of St Ignatius. Will England, whose interest in the Greek Fathers has always been particularly keen (we need only remember the work of Newman and Pusey, of Lightfoot and Prestige) take no part in this renaissance?It is hoped that, in a few years’ time, there will be brought out in this country a great and fundamental work, which has been in preparation for about forty years. We are referring to the Lexicon of Patristic Greek, begun in Cambridge in 1906 under the editorship of Dr H. B. Swete, and transferred to Oxford in 1915, for which material has been steadily collected throughout these years. Under the editorship of Dr F. L. Cross, the present Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, assisted by a small and harmonious team of Catholic and Anglican collaborators, this work has now entered on its final stage, in which the immense material, assembled in a large room in the New Bodleian Building, is being sifted and put into shape.

Sister M. Jamesetta Kelly, O.P.: Life and Times as Revealed in the Writings of St. Jerome Exclusive of His Letters. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. lxx.) Pp. xviii+176. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1944. Paper.

Sister M. Jamesetta Kelly, O.P.: Life and Times as Revealed in the Writings of St. Jerome Exclusive of His Letters. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, vol. lxx.) Pp. xviii+176. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1944. Paper. - Volume 60 Issue 1

Sister Rose de Lima Henry: The Late Greek Optative and its Use in the Writings of Gregory Nazianzen. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. LXVIII.) Pp. xx+108. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1943. Paper, $2.

Sister Rose de Lima Henry: The Late Greek Optative and its Use in the Writings of Gregory Nazianzen. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. LXVIII.) Pp. xx+108. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1943. Paper, $2. - Volume 58 Issue 2

An Anglican on the ‘Two Witnesses’

In August and October, 1926, the Anglican Quarterly, Theology, published two remarkable articles written by the Ireland Professor of Exegesis at Oxford (C. H. Turner) and entitled ‘St. Peter in the New Testament.’ Their writer was a scholar of such competence in Biblical and Patristic studies that his advocacy of the Petrine claims made his articles the most important work on Anglo-Roman controversy since Newman’s Development.One point especially was almost a startling innovation which might have identified an anonymous writer not with England but with Rome. Let the writer make the point in his own words :‘It cannot be reasonably questioned that the thought of Rome, the imperial city, the stronghold of the anti-Christian power, is very close to the mind of the seer (i.e. St. John in writing the Apocalypse) in certain points of his vision.‘The Beast is the emperor and the head slain to death and his death-wound was healed (Apoc. xiii, 3) can be no other than Nero, the expectation of whose return from the East was so vivid till the end of the first century.

José C. Pando: The Life and Times of Synesius of Cyrene as Revealed in His Works. Pp. xix + 186. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies. Vol. LXIII.) Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1940. Paper, $2.

José C. Pando: The Life and Times of Synesius of Cyrene as Revealed in His Works. Pp. xix + 186. (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies. Vol. LXIII.) Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1940. Paper, $2. - Volume 55 Issue 1

D. T. Gimborn: The Syntax of the Simple Cases in St. Hilary of Poitiers. Pp. xviii+190. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. LIV.) Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1939. Paper, $2.

D. T. Gimborn: The Syntax of the Simple Cases in St. Hilary of Poitiers. Pp. xviii+190. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. LIV.) Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1939. Paper, $2. - Volume 53 Issue 4

D. C. Fives: The Use of the Optative Mood in the Works of Tkeodoret, Bishop of Cyrus. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. L.) Pp. xxiii+106. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1937. Paper, $2.

D. C. Fives: The Use of the Optative Mood in the Works of Tkeodoret, Bishop of Cyrus. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. L.) Pp. xxiii+106. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1937. Paper, $2.

Patristic Revival

For a Thomist the validity of any method in patristic study can be gauged by the effort to attain to an objective knowledge of patristic thought. It is only for its own sake that truth is to be sought for if we are to chance to find it. The theologian who brings his own preconceptions to the study of the Fathers will only rediscover what he has himself preconceived. The controversialist who uses patristic texts as missiles will find them both as malleable and as harmless as snowballs. It is a futile thing to read the Fathers in relation to problems and to controversies that were beyond their imagining, for their writings can only be intelligible in terms of their own setting, not of ours. Hesitatingly and clumsily we must try to place them in the time context and the cultural pattern of their lives.It is only gradually that such a method is becoming possible. It would be naive to ignore the value of the labour of the past. French and German Catholicism have maintained a record of continuous achievement in patristics which is only paralleled by the high tradition of Anglican scholarship. But of their nature such traditions cannot be static. Our knowledge of Hellenistic cultural factors is as new as the science of Byzantine palaeography and both are critically significant for the reading of Greek texts. The study of Hadrianic culture has been transformed since 1906, scientific Byzantinism is not yet forty years old, but Hadrianic and proto-Byzantine culture formed the setting of two out of the three decisive epochs in patristic thought.

Sister Mary Emily Keenan: The Life and Times of St. Augustine as Revealed in His Letters. Pp. xx + 221. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. XLV.) Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1935. Paper, $2.

Sister Mary Emily Keenan: The Life and Times of St. Augustine as Revealed in His Letters. Pp. xx + 221. (The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Vol. XLV.) Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1935. Paper, $2.

Patristic Studies and the Literature of Mediaeval England

Previous articleNext article No AccessPatristic Studies and the Literature of Mediaeval EnglandJ. M. CampbellJ. M. Campbell Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 8, Number 4Oct., 1933 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2855888 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1933 The Mediaeval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: George Sanderlin Usk's Testament of Love and St. Anselm, Speculum 17, no.11 (Oct 2015): 69–73.https://doi.org/10.2307/2856607

The Reputation of Herod in Early English Literature

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Reputation of Herod in Early English LiteratureRoscoe E. ParkerRoscoe E. Parker Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 8, Number 1Jan., 1933 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2846849 Views: 8Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1933 The Mediaeval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: SUSAN ZIMMERMAN Animating Matter: The Corpse as Idol in "The Second Maiden's Tragedy", Renaissance Drama 31 (Sep 2015): 215–243.https://doi.org/10.1086/rd.31.41917371Diana Whaley Voices from the Past: A Note on Termagant and Herod, (Jan 1997): 23–39.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26003-4_2 Roscoe E. Parker `Pilates Voys', Speculum 25, no.22 (Oct 2015): 237–244.https://doi.org/10.2307/2848928 Robert Withington Braggart, Devil, and `Vice', Speculum 11, no.11 (Oct 2015): 124–129.https://doi.org/10.2307/2846879 J. M. Campbell Patristic Studies and the Literature of Mediaeval England, Speculum 8, no.44 (Oct 2015): 465–478.https://doi.org/10.2307/2855888

SisterMarie Madeleine Getty: The Life of the North Africans as revealed in the Sermons of Saint Augustine. Pp. xvi+158. Sister Mary Dorothea Diederich: Vergil in the Works of St. Ambrose. Pp. xvi + 130. (Catholic University of America, Patristic Studies, Vols. XXVIII, XXIX.) Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1931. Paper, $3 each.

SisterMarie Madeleine Getty: The Life of the North Africans as revealed in the Sermons of Saint Augustine. Pp. xvi+158. Sister Mary Dorothea Diederich: Vergil in the Works of St. Ambrose. Pp. xvi + 130. (Catholic University of America, Patristic Studies, Vols. XXVIII, XXIX.) Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1931. Paper, $3 each. - Volume 46 Issue 1

The Pagan Divinities and their worship as depicted in the works of St. Augustine exclusive of the City of God. By M. D. Madden. (Vol. xxiv of the Patristic Studies of the Catholic University of America.) Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1930. Pp. vii, 135. $3.00.

The Pagan Divinities and their worship as depicted in the works of St. Augustine exclusive of the City of God. By M. D. Madden. (Vol. xxiv of the Patristic Studies of the Catholic University of America.) Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1930. Pp. vii, 135. $3.00.

S. Ambrosii de Helia et Ieiunio: A commentary, with an Introduction and Translation. [The Catholic University of America, Patristic Studies, vol. xix.] A Dissertation. By Sister Mary Joseph Aloysius Buck. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1929. Pp. xi + 233. $3.50.

S. Ambrosii de Helia et Ieiunio: A commentary, with an Introduction and Translation. [The Catholic University of America, Patristic Studies, vol. xix.] A Dissertation. By Sister Mary Joseph Aloysius Buck. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1929. Pp. xi + 233. $3.50. - Volume 19 Issue 1