New Books for the New Year

My mail has been piling up while I was away in Staten Island, and I came back today to several new catalogues from various publishers alerting us to books forthcoming in 2011.

April: Robert Crummey is publishing Old Believers in a Changing World (Northern Illinois University Press, 2011), 270pp.

April: Catholic University Press is bringing out two significant works: 

i) a collection edited by Johan Leemans, Brian Matz, and Johan Verstraeten, Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for Twenty-First-Century Christian Social Thought (2011), c.288pp.

ii) a translation by Mark DelCogliano and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Against Eunomius: St. Basil of Caesarea (2011, c. 224pp). This is vol. 122 of CUAP's ongoing series on the Fathers.

 June: Catholic University Press is bringing out Gilles Emery, OP, The Trinity: an Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God, trans. Matthew Levering (c.248pp). This is the first volume of their Thomistic Ressourcement Series.

August: In August an exciting new collection is coming out from CUA Press. Edited by Robin Darling Young and Monica J. Blanchard, it is entitled To Train His Soul in Books: Syriac Asceticism in Early Christianity (2011, c. 248pp). This is volume 4 of their series Studies in Early Christianity. Contributors include:

• Joseph P. Amar
• Gary A. Anderson
• Monica J. Blanchard
• Sebastian Brock
• Alexander Golitzin
• Susan Ashbrook Harvey
• Michael J. Hollerich
• Francisco Javier Martinez
• Kathleen McVey
• Shawqi Talia
• Robin Darling Young

 The publisher provides the following information: 

Increasing interest in Syriac Christianity has prompted recent translations and studies. To Train His Soul in Books explores numerous aspects of this rich religious culture, extending previous lines of scholarly investigation and demonstrating the activity of Syriac-speaking scribes and translators busy assembling books for the training of biblical interpreters, ascetics, and learned clergy.


Befitting an intensely literary culture, it begins with the development of Syriac poetry--the genre beloved by Ephrem and other, anonymous authors. It considers the long tradition of Aramaic and Syriac words for the chronic condition of sin, and explores the dimensions of the immense work of Syriac translators with a study of the Syriac life of Athanasius. Essays consider the activity of learned ascetics, with a proposal of the likely monastic origin of the Apocalypse of Daniel; the goal and concept of renunciation; and the changes rung by the Syriac-speaking ascetics on the daily reality of housekeeping.

Also included in the volume are two essays on the influence of Syriac literary culture on Greek traditions, and in turn ascetic life. Finally, an original poem in Syriac demonstrates the continuing vitality of this culture, both in its homeland and in the Diaspora.

These essays seek to extend and honor the work of renowned scholar and pillar of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages at the Catholic University of America, Sidney H. Griffith.

Upon publication, all these books will be discussed on here, and reviewed in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies.