Fifth-century Christianity was a theological battlefield. With the Messalian heretics and their experientialist spirituality on the one side and the intellectualist school on the other, representatives of both extremes found themselves condemned by the Church. In this milieu of subjectivist notions of grace and negative anthropology, there appeared a true mystic, Diadochus, Bishop of Photike in Epiros. His is a theology whose two poles are God's grace and man's ability to cooperate with it by way of discernment of spirits. Diadochus's ability to salvage what was orthodox from the Messalians...
Fifth-century Christianity was a theological battlefield. With the Messalian heretics and their experientialist spirituality on the one side and the i...
Praying with Benedict explores the spirituality of the monastic tradition and draws out the essence of a way of praying that embraces the whole of the Christian's life.
Korneel Vermeiren begins by examining the spirituality of the early monastic tradition from the fourth to the sixth centuries. He looks at the central place of prayer in the Rule of St Benedict and the tradition of continuous prayer, exploring the teaching of such formative figures as Basil the Great. He then reflects on the Benedictine precept: 'nothing is to be preferred to the work of God'.
Praying...
Praying with Benedict explores the spirituality of the monastic tradition and draws out the essence of a way of praying that embraces the wh...
Perhaps the least studied of Hildegard of Bingen's writings, Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions is translated in this volume into English for the first time from the original Latin.
In this work of exegesis, Hildegard (1098-1179) resolves thorny passages of Scripture, theological questions, and two issues in hagiographic texts. Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions joins Hildegard's Homilies on the Gospels, which were directed to her nuns, as evidence of the seer's exegetical writing as well as her authority as an exegete. The twelfth-century saint wrote in...
Perhaps the least studied of Hildegard of Bingen's writings, Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions is translated in this volume into English f...
This is an annotated translation of the classic Description de l’abbaye de La Trappe, the most important eye-witness account of life at the abbey of La Trappe under Armand-Jean de Rancé. The work includes a map showing the physical layout of the abbey and detailed discussions of the monks’ daily life and practice. It was written by André Félibien des Avaux for Jeanne de Schomberg, duchess of Liancourt, in 1671, with a new and enlarged edition being published in 1689. That is the edition translated here, with copious notes to help the reader appreciate Félibien’s account.
This is an annotated translation of the classic Description de l’abbaye de La Trappe, the most important eye-witness account of life at the abbey o...
Bernard continually returns to the classical idea that the quality of desire shapes theological imagination. By attending to the multiple ways he develops and applies this insight,�Beyond Measure�uncovers a new depth of organic unity to the literary, philosophical, and theological strands densely interwoven through his writings. Bernard’s apparent iconoclasm with respect to art, affectivity, and the humanity of Jesus is revealed as an alternative mystical aesthetic, congruent with his program for monastic reform. The central movement of Cistercian spirituality from the carnal to the...
Bernard continually returns to the classical idea that the quality of desire shapes theological imagination. By attending to the multiple ways he deve...
A monk and a scholar generally recognized as the keenest philosophical and theological mind of his time, of Bec, found himself forcibly and unwillingly invested as Archbishop of Canterbury on 6 March 1093. It was the first of many sharp differences between the Norman King and an archbishop who considered the reform of the church and the improvement of the moral conduct of the kingdom his prime tasks. Among his chief weapons in fighting to establish the Gregorian Reform in his new land was the letter. Whether reporting events or asking for news, proffering advice or wheeding favors,...
A monk and a scholar generally recognized as the keenest philosophical and theological mind of his time, of Bec, found himself forcibly and unwillingl...
