This volume provides the first English translation of two important ancient Christian commentaries on St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians. The translation is accompanied by Heine's illuminating commentary and a substantial introduction sets the works in their historical context.

The ancient Dormition and Assumption traditions are a collection of over 60 different narratives, preserved in 9 ancient languages, that commemorate the end of the Virgin Mary's life. This study aims to make this collection more accessible by analyzing the liturgical, archaeological, and narrative sources of the earliest traditions of Mary's death. Several of the most important narratives appear here in English for the first time.

How did the early Church understand the relation between grace, salvation, and the person of Christ? Donald Fairbairn's persuasive study shows that, despite intense theological controversy, there was in fact a very strong consensus in the fifth century about what salvation was and who Christ needed to be in order to save people. This consensus can serve as a standard by which to judge the varied pictures of Christ which coexist in the contemporary Church.

St Maximus the Confessor is one of the giants of Christian theology. His doctrine of two wills gave the final shape to ancient Christology and was ratified by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in AD 681. This study throws new light upon one of the most interesting periods of historical and systematic theology. Its focus is the seventh century, the century that saw the rapid expansion of Islam, and the Empire's failed attempt to retain many of its south-eastern provinces by inventing and promoting the heresy of Monothelitism (only one will in Christ) as a bridge between the Byzantine Church and the...

Evagrius of Pontus (c.345-399) was one of the most prominent figures among the monks of the desert settlements of Nitria, Sketis, and Kellia in Lower Egypt. Through the course of his ascetic writings he formulated a systematic presentation of the teaching of the semi-eremitic monks of these settlements. The works of Evagrius had a profound influence on Eastern Orthodox monastic teaching and passed to the West through the writings of John Cassian (c.365-435). This is the first complete English translation of Evagrius' Greek ascetic writings, based on modern critical editions, where available,...

The Irrational Augustine takes the notion of St Augustine as rigid and dogmatic Father of the Church and turns it on its head. Catherine Conybeare reads Augustine's earliest works to discover the anti-dogmatic Augustine, who values changeability and human interconnectedness and deplores social exclusion. The novelty of her book lies in taking seriously the nature of these early works as performances, through which multiple questions can be raised and multiple options explored, both in words and through their dramatic framework. The theological consequences are considerable. A very human...

The first in-depth study of Gregory of Nyssa, this book shows how for Gregory the darkness of faith is what unites the believer with God. Through this union by faith alone, God yet speaks through the deeds and discourse of the believer. While the believer is immersed in the darkness of unknowing, they are also transformed in light. Laird alters the way in which we understand Gregory's mystical theology.

What were the historical and cultural processes by which Cyril of Alexandria was elevated to canonical status while his opponent, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, was made into a heretic? In contrast to previous scholarship, Susan Wessel concludes that Cyril's success in being elevated to orthodox status was not simply a political accomplishment based on political alliances he had fashioned as opportunity arose. Nor was it a dogmatic victory, based on the clarity and orthodoxy of Cyril's doctrinal claims. Instead, it was his strategy in identifying himself with the orthodoxy of the former...

This book provides a major reconsideration of the issue of divine suffering and divine emotions in the early Church Fathers. Patristic writers are commonly criticized for falling prey to Hellenistic philosophy and uncritically accepting the claim that God cannot suffer or feel emotions. Gavrilyuk shows that this view represents a misreading of evidence. In contrast, he construes the development of patristic thought as a series of dialectical turning points taken to safeguard the paradox of God's voluntary and salvific suffering in the Incarnation.

Contemporary scholarship recognizes in Maximus the Confessor a theologian of towering intellectual importance. In this book Adam G. Cooper puts to him a question which from the origins of Christian thought has constituted an interpretative crux for catholic Christianity: what is the place of the material order and, specifically, of the human body, in God's creative, redemptive, and perfective economies? While the study builds upon the insights of other efforts in Maximian scholarship, it primarily presents an engagement with the full vista of Maximus's own writings, providing a unique...