"Let books be your dining table, / And you shall be full of delights. / Let them be your
mattress,/
And you shall sleep restful nights" (St. Ephraim the Syrian).


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Eastertide to Ecclesia

As I noted before, the greatest man of 19th-century Christian letters (at least in the anglophone world), John Henry Newman, remains singular for many reasons, not least that he was the only Western theologian of his time translated into modern Greek. His influence by and on the Greek Fathers is increasingly well documented, including in Benjamin King's recent book, Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England

Another book has recently been drawn to my attention: Donald Graham, From Eastertide to Ecclesia (Marquette UP, 2011, 231pp.).


About this book we are told:
Donald Graham substantiates the claim made by many, but rarely demonstrated, that Newman anticipated concerns that preoccupy the Church today and supplied theological resources that allow us to address them in a fresh and intelligent manner. In this book Graham establishes that Newman was a pioneering thinker who must be exempted from the charge that nearly all modern theology is characterized by neglect or forgetfuless of the Holy Spirit. Grahams thoroughgoing and comprehensive exploration of Newmans ecclesial pneumatology is much more than an account of Newman's thought. It is an invitation to rethink, with Newman, the nature and mission of the sacramental community of the Church. 
In communication with the author, I am further told that he draws extensively on one of the most important of the Nicene Fathers, viz., the great Athanasius of Alexandria.  

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