Bøger udgivet af The Catholic University of America Press

Demonstrating that religion can and should play a role in restoring a cultural openness to transcendence, the author considers such questions as how we should understand God's presence in the universe, what form religion should take in the public square, what role liturgy plays in orienting us toward God in the universe, and what it means for religion to be in but not of the world.

Modern philosophy has long dismissed the traditional moral notion that some actions are inherently good or evil, claiming rather that actions lack clear boundaries and have no set nature, whether good, evil, or anything else. This title tackles the Thomistic debate surrounding the inherent good and evil of human actions.

Argues that Western culture had become increasingly defined by a set of economic and political preoccupations ultimately hostile to its larger spiritual end. This title also argues that Western civilization can only be saved by redirecting its entire educational system from its increasing vocationalism and specialization.

What is 'mysticism' and, most importantly, how do the great mystical writers understand it? This book seeks to answer this question by looking closely at the writings of two of the most prominent medieval mystical writers: the Muslim, Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) and the Christian, Meister Eckhart (1260-1328).

Focuses on how Christianity changed the lives of children in the ancient world. This book explores the hidden lives of children at the origins of Christianity. It draws on insights gained from comparisons of children's experiences in ancient Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world.

Describes the earliest people to arrive in Bohemia, the first rulers and the origins of the Premyslid dynasty, the founding of Prague, and the early phases of Christianization. This title covers the period from 1037 to 1092, the age of Duke Bretislav I and his five contentious sons. It provides the oldest history of a Slavic people.

Biographical data on Lactantius are meager. In his catalogue of illustrious men St. Jerome informs us that Lactantius studied under Arnobius. Accepting an imperial invitation Lactantius taught rhetoric at Nicomedia but relinquished this professorship after the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution. In 317 Constantine summoned Lactantius to Trier to supervise the education of his son Crispus. The principal work of Lactantius is the Divine Institutes (Divinae institutions) which was written over a period of years (304-313). It is an apologetic work in seven books which bear the following titles: On False Religion, The Origin of Error, On False Philosophy, True Wisdom and Religion, Concerning Justice, On True Worship, and On the Blessed Life. From the viewpoint of literary criticism the diction of these books flows gently and pleasantly and is so reminiscent of the style of Cicero that Lactantius has frequently been styled the "Christian Cicero". This encomium can be traced back to the days of St. Jerome who wrote in a letter to Paulinus the Presbyter that Lactantius' works were like rivers of "Tullian eloquence" that demolished pagan beliefs.

This volume contains seven works of the zealously ascetical Christian writer of third-century Carthage, Tertullian. The first five works, composed during his Catholic period, offer detailed, strict instruction on Christian conduct, demeanor, and dress, as well as exhortations to persevere. Participation in the pagan entertainments of Roman society is ruled out. The final two essays in the volume are products of Tertullian's Montanist years, that is, his final phase. In them he rejects absolutely any possibility of Christians in public service, whether military or civil, as well as any attempt to escape from persecutors.

This is the second volume of the letters of Bishop Basil of Caesarea in the Fathers of the Church series (Letters 186-368). It includes the correspondence from the year 374 until the end of his life in 379, as well as his undated letters and some letters of dubious or spurious authorship. The majority of this collection consists of authenticated letters, many of which Basil has devoted to the details of church discipline as well as to theological questions and to his own self-defense against the informal accusations of heresy that he suffered.

This volume contains the translation of the six concluding books of The City of God. Book 17 briefly reviews significant events in the history of the chosen people down to the birth of Christ and calls attention to the prophecies that are fulfilled in Christ In summarizing the contents of the first 17 books Augustine shows in book 18 that there is a unifying theme running through the voluminous work: a comparison in the origin, development and progress of the earthly city and the city of God. A synchronizing of events in Jewish history with those in secular history brings this book to a close. Book 19 begins with a discussion of philosophical questions, e.g., the definition of the supreme good and the conditions for a just war, and concludes with an explanation of the differences between the earthly city and God's city and refutation of Porphyry's attacks on Christianity. Augustine himself says that he plans to discuss in book 20 the day of final judgment and to defend its reality against those who deliberately disbelieve in it. This purpose involves a consideration of Antichrist, the coming of Elias before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the millennium mentioned in the book of Revelations, the new heaven and the new earth. The second last book discusses in some detail the kind of punishment that the Devil and those belonging to the earthly city are to endure. Reflections on hell, the nature of eternal torments and the unquenchable fire where the worm does not die bring this book to a close. The last book, book 22, treats the eternal blessedness of the city of God

Clement of Alexandria, a scholar who flourished around the turn of the third century, devoted this work to instructing Christian converts on the nature of the Christian life. Another of his books, the Protreptikos, was intended as an outreach to pagans, and this book, the Paidagogos (called here Christ the Educator), was to serve as a guide to Christian living for baptized individuals who were still young in the faith. A sober lifestyle of moderation and self-restraint should characterize every Christian, and Clement's thinking on ethics reveals the influence of Stoic philosophy.

Augustine wrote his famous Confessiones during the early years of his episcopate, specifically, between 397 and 400. This work, ground-breaking in its time, is a piece of introspection and personal reminiscence aimed at glorifying God in gratitude for Augustine's conversion to Christianity. Augustine lays bare his personal journey, which took him from youthful carousal through phases of Manichaean dualism, Stoic speculation, skepticism, and Neo-Platonism, to the discovery of salvation in Jesus Christ. The final three "books" of this work offer Augustine's exegesis of the creation narratives in the Book of Genesis.

During the brief period between 412 and 414, Augustine's many theological and pastoral concerns produced an abundant correspondence (Letters 131-164) on issues ranging from the Pelagian views of grace and the soul's origin to the need for assimilating former Donatists into Catholic society with compassion and a conciliatory spirit, as well as questions of theology, social mores, and physical versus spiritual knowledge.

Augustine's Letters 83-130 were written between 408 and 412, during a time when North Africa was in an uproar over the necessity to resolve the Donatist schism and the imperial government's role in this process. Augustine exchanged correspondence with clergymen and laity, both Catholic and Donatist; in addition, he responded to requests for pastoral advice from ascetically minded men and women, as well as pleas for social justice.

This volume continues the translation of St. Augustine's monumental work The City of God, a product of his vast erudition. Three books in particular, viz. 8, 9, and 10, reveal Augustine's grasp of the tenets of the Platonists, Peripatetics and Cynics. The greater part of this continuation, however, is concerned with Augustine's treatment of theological and scriptural topics. There is no strictly logical sequence, however, and numerous digressions intervene. In the course of books 11 and 16, he finds occasion to discuss, among many other topics, the creation of angels and their nature, demons and evils, the age of the earth and of the human race, death and dying, and the purpose of marriage. From the discussion of such topics, he passes easily to comments on the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, the accuracy of the Septuagint and Latin translations, the discrepancies among various texts. As a product of his times, Augustine shares the opinion that Hebrew may be the oldest, and perhaps most common, language before the Tower of Babel incident recorded in Scripture. Most of Augustine's treatment of scriptural passages is concerned with allegorical interpretation. In book 14, however, the former professor of rhetoric at milan comes through again in his discussion of the semantics of the words caritas, amor, dilago, and amo

The letters of St. Basil, three hundred and sixty-eight in number, which comprise the most vivid and most personal portion of his works, give us, perhaps, the clearest insight into the wealth of his rich and varied genius. They were written within the years from 357, shortly before his retreat to the Pontus, until his death in 378, a period of great unrest and persecution of the orthodox Catholic Church in the East. Their variety is striking, ranging from simple friendly greetings to profound explanations of doctrine, from playful reproaches to severe denunciations of transgressions, from kindly recommendations to earnest petitions for justice, from gentle messages of sympathy to bitter lamentations over the evils inflicted upon or existent in the churches.As may be expected, the style in these letters is as varied as their subject matter. Those written in his official capacity as pastor of the Church, as well as the letters of recommendation and the canonical letters, are naturally more formal in tone, while the friendly letters, and those of appeal, admonition, and encouragement, and, more especially, those of consolation, show St. Basil's sophistic training, although even in these he uses restraint. He had the technique of ancient rhetoric at his fingertips, but he also had a serious purpose and a sense of fitness of things. To St. Basil's letters can be ascribed the qualities he attributed to the heartily approved book written by Diodorus, which qualities may be summed up as fullness of thought, clearness, simplicity, and naturalness of style. He himself disapproved of a too ornate style and carefully avoided it. His early education, however, had trained him for the use of rich diction and varied and charming figures, and, when the occasion warranted it, he proved himself a master in their use.Whether we look at them from an historical, an ecclesiastical, or a theological point of view, the letters are an important contribution.

The two authors featured in this volume composed defenses of the Christian faith in Latin around the turn of the third century. In Rome, Minucius Felix used the genre of dialogue to confront pagan opposition to Christianity, and in Carthage, Tertullian produced an apologetical treatise as well as an open letter to a Roman governor. Tertullian, who is known for his blanket rejection of pagan philosophy, nevertheless utilized Stoic concepts in his essay De anima, which describes the nature, capability, and ultimate destination of the soul.

Written during the time when the Roman Empire was crumbling, Augustine's De civitate Dei tackles the questions raised by the decline of the political and social order. Here, in Books One through Seven (of the total of twenty-two books in this monumental work), Augustine examines the history of the Roman Republic and Empire. Though based on a false religion and a lust for domination, the rise of Rome was nevertheless ordained by God's providence.

This volume contains translations of four of Augustine's earliest works: De beata vita, Contra Academicos, De ordine, and Soliloquia. His embrace of Platonic certitude regarding the primacy of the unseen world of perfection and eternal truth is at the forefront of these philosophical works, which were composed in the genre of the dialogue. Writing at Cassiciacum in the year 386, the young Augustine grapples with questions of epistemology, theodicy, morality, and the soul's quest for God.

The name "Apostolic Fathers" was first applied in 1672 to a group of five writers who were taken either to have been in touch directly with some of the original Twelve Apostles or, in the next generation, to reflect the teaching of their immediate successors: Clement of Rome (fourth in the list of Popes), Ignatius (second bishop of Antioch), Polycarp of Smyrna (recorded as a disciple of the evangelst John), "Barnabas" (reputedly St. Paul's co-worker), and a Hermas, associated, though wrongly, with Hermas of Romans 16.14. With the later addition of Papias of Hierapolis and the unknown writer of the Epistle to Diognetus, the number of the Apostolic Fathers rose to seven; a final addition to the group was the Didache, a brief, early manual on morals and Church practice. Anything but homogenous in origin, form, and purpose, and ranging widely in all of these respects, these writings are of prime importance for the understanding of the Church around the year 100 A.D. Unless it be the Apostles' Creed itself, nothing precedes them in the development of Patrology.

Presents the history of the Gregorian chant restoration. This book describes the strenuous efforts of personalities like Dom Joseph Pothier, Dom Andre Mocquereau, Fr Angelo de Santi, and Peter Wagner to carry out the wishes of the pope.

A collection of essays that exemplifies the Catholic mind. It respects what can be known by faith alone. It also considers what is known by faith to be itself intelligible to a mind actively thinking on political and philosophical things.

This second and final volume of the letters of St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (412-444), takes up in medias res the great Christological controversy about the term Theotokos and the events which lead up to its resolution at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Defending the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ in the Alexandrian tradition of St. Athanasius these letters reveal Cyril's brilliant theological acumen and deep personal faith. Letters 51 to 61 are concerned with the question of John of Antioch and the bishops who, with him, supported Nestorius in the tradion of the Antiochene School, set up a rival council, and this went so far as even to depose Cyril. Of this group Letters 50 and 55 are exceptional for their theological content. Letter 66 to 74 deal with the extension of the Nestorian heresy by eastern bishops who, although they agreed to the deposition of Nestorius and the anathemas against him, began to uphold the ideas of his teachers Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Letters 77 to 79 and 85 are purely administrative and, as such, are noteworthy examples of Cyril's patriarchy. Letter 89, an exegetic explanation of the punishment of Cain, is a partial copy of letter 260 of St. Basil. Three letters are spurious; 86 and 87, which deal with the date of Easter, and 88, a supposed letter from Hypatia to Cyril. Perhaps the most unusual letter is 96, a breve or catalog of treasures sent from Alexandria as bribes to the imperial court at Constantinople, not an uncommon practice it would seem since Cyril writes about it quite openly. The translator has appended five letters to the corpus. The first four are addressed to Cyril and are important for the light they shed on the Nestorian controversy. The last, an alternate version of letter 85 translated from the Latin text, contains a response to the synod at Carthage concerning the date of Easter, different in the two versions.

Presents a collection of essays that examines the central themes of natural law, moral action, and virtue emphasized by John Paul II's 1993 encyclical ""Veritatis Splendor"". This work argues against aspects of more traditional interpretations of the Angelic Doctor.

Gratian has long been called the father of Canon Law. This volume covers the period from Gratian's initial teaching of canon law during the 1120s to just before the promulgation of the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX in 1234.

Raised in the splendid court of Mantua, wealthy even by the standards of Renaissance cardinals and an active participant in Italian and European politics, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga (1505-1563) was in many respects a typical Renaissance prelate from a noble family. Thsi book provides a study of this influential and paradoxical figure.

This volume contains what remains of Books 13-32 of Origen's Commentary on the Gospel according to John, and thus completes the publication of the first full English translation of this work that stands as the beginning of Christian scriptural exegesis. Ronald Heine introduces his translation with a discussion of the times and circumstances within which the commentary was composed. He also provides a survey of the major theological questions with which the commentary is concerned. These include Origen's thought on the nature of God, the person and work of Christ, his relation to the Father and to the created order, his teaching on the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection, and eschatology, and his ideas on the devil.Beginning with the conversation between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well and ending with Christ's discourse to his disciples at the Last Supper, the commentary displays Origen's attention to the literal meaning of the passages but moves beyond them to try to grasp their spiritual significance, providing us with the opportunity to examine Origen's mystical thought. Origen also refutes the Gnostic reading of the Gospel presented by Heracleon, but this polemic is subordinate to his own investigation of the theological, philosophical, historical, and etymological questions raised by the Gospel.Because it treats many of the same passages of the Gospel of St. John for which St. Augustine provides a commentary in The Fathers of the Church, volume 88, this volume provides a worthy companion to it and invites a comparison of the thoughts of these two great exegetes upon what both regarded as the greatest of the Gospels.

Examining empirical resilience research, this book offers - at philosophical and theological levels - a basis for a hearty understanding of the human person in terms of the virtues that enable human beings to overcome difficulty when they are faced with fear and suffering, or when they are in need of imaginative daring and hope.

After setting forth different attitudes toward proofs of God's existence and outlining the difference between belief and knowledge, this work examines the texts in which Thomas Aquinas uses and explains the phrase ""preambles of faith."" It then focusses on the work of twentieth-century Thomists and chronicles their abandonment of the preambles.

Most of the works of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) have been extant and studied for centuries by Christians throughout the world. Since this Doctor of the Western Church has long been the best known and most widely read of the Latin Fathers, it is so much more unexpected that a previously unknown work should be found. Johannes Divjak found not only a single work but in fact a whole collection of letters, which he published in a critical Latin edition in 1980.This volume contains the first English translation of these newly discovered letters. The letters range in size from short memoranda to long treatises on various subjects. In addition, there are three other previously unknown letters: two written to Augustine by Consentius, a North African rhetorician, and one written by Saint Jerome to Aurelius of Carthage.These letters, taken as a whole, present a vivid and fascinating view of life in North Africa at the beginning of the fifth century. In addition to the comments about ecclesiastical and episcopal affairs, there are also letters on various threats to peace and security common in this period of the late empire, on slavery and the growth of the slave trade, and on Roman involvement in African affairs, both ecclesiastical and civil.There are letters dealing with moral questions and pastoral problems, in both marriage and the family, as well as in larger areas of doctrine and discipline in the Church. The conflict resulting from the end of the Donatist schism becomes clearer, as does the refrain of desperation stemming from an inadequate supply of clergy for parishes needing to be served. A large number of these letters illustrate the day-to-day worries of a fifth century North African bishop: clerical scandals, Church finances, people seeking sanctuary in a church (and the ensuing problems with the civil authorities), and disputed episcopal succession.Until the time as scholars agree on a numbering system that will integrate these letters into a previously known corpus of Augustinian letters, they are numbered 1*-29*, with the asterick added to distinguish them from letters 1-29 of the traditional body of letters.