St. Gregory the Theologian on the Life of Christ

For decades now, Western scholarship has been fascinated with one of the most important and influential of the Cappadocians. A new book by a Dominican theologian continues that trend: Andrew Hofer, Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford UP, 2013), 304pp. 

About this book we are told:

Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus is the first full-length book devoted to an overview of the Christology of this fourth-century Father of the Church. Andrew Hofer examines the breadth of Gregory's corpus--orations, letters, and poems (often neglected in doctrinal studies)--to argue that Gregory's writing on Christ can be best understood in tandem with his autobiography.

This study begins with an articulation of Gregory's theology of the Word in which words come from the Word who became incarnate. Hofer then offers a close reading of how Gregory writes to or about Christ in the poetry known as "on himself." Within a three-part study of "autobiographical Christology," Hofer explores the philosophical background of Gregory's rhetoric for what he calls the "mixtures" of Christ and himself. He then elucidates this autobiographical concern in Gregory's famous Ep. 101, a landmark text in the Christological controversies. Thirdly, Hofer considers how Gregory celebrates the mysteries of Christ in the festal orations. Before the book's epilogue, a chapter describes how Gregory wrote of Christ for his pastoral ministry. Throughout the work, Hofer demonstrates the importance in Gregory's writings of the language of blending (such as in the Greek word krasis, rejected by the Council of Chalcedon to describe the Incarnation). This book thus offers a unique perspective on the one known as "the Theologian" in Chalcedon's acts and in subsequent Christian tradition.

Divine Eloquence and Human Transformation: How to Read Scripture

Fortress Press recently sent me their fall catalogue. One of their imprints is the Emerging Scholars series, largely featuring recent dissertations in theology, including this one with a nod to one of the greatest theologians of the Christian East, St. Gregory the Theologian: Ben Fulford, Divine Eloquence and Human Transformation (Emerging Scholars, 2013), 256pp.

About this book we are told:

Key to a theology of scripture and how theology functions in relation to the interpretation of Christianity's religious texts is the important issue of faith and history. Seeking to address a critical problem in theology and the interpretation of scripture raised by modern historical consciousness, Ben Fulford argues for a densely historical and theological reading of scripture centered in a Christological rubric. The argument herein uncovers a pattern of triune action and presence in the rhetorical use of Christian sacred texts, one which draws readers into fuller participation in the shaping of history in Christ. Tracing the problem through the modern theological heritage, the author turns to a comparative account of theologically patterned reading represented by patristic theology in Gregory of Nazianzus and postliberal theology in its pivotal founder, Hans Frei. The book addresses the challenge of historicity and historical consciousness, argues for the relevance of pre-modern approaches to scripture, and offers a fresh and extensive account of two salient figures from the early and contemporary tradition, thus enacting a theology of retrieval as a resource on a present issue of vital importance.

Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church

If you move in academic circles, you know that "political theology," broadly conceived, has been all the rage for some time now, and shows no sign of letting up. Part of that discussion involves competing understandings of how early Christians related to the Roman Empire--was it unhelpful and unhealthy accommodation to "Constantinianism" as Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, and others allege? Was it "symphonia" as Orthodox apologists for Byzantium claim? Was it something else? A new book may shed light on these questions: Susanna Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (University of California Press, 2012), 558pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

This groundbreaking study brings into dialogue for the first time the writings of Julian, the last non-Christian Roman Emperor, and his most outspoken critic, Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, a central figure of Christianity. Susanna Elm compares these two men not to draw out the obvious contrast between the Church and the Emperor's neo-Paganism, but rather to find their common intellectual and social grounding. Her insightful analysis, supplemented by her magisterial command of sources, demonstrates the ways in which both men were part of the same dialectical whole. Elm recasts both Julian and Gregory as men entirely of their times, showing how the Roman Empire in fact provided Christianity with the ideological and social matrix without which its longevity and dynamism would have been inconceivable.

Re-Reading Gregory of Nazianzus

Christopher Beeley, a patristics scholar of Yale and author of such previous studies as Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, 2008) has recently gathered together an impressive list of prominent scholars to contribute to a new volume about Gregory: Christopher Beeley, ed., Re-Reading Gregory of Nazianzus: Essays on History, Theology, and Culture (Catholic University of America Press, 2012), vii+319pp.)

About this book the publisher tells us:

Re-Reading Gregory of Nazianzus offers a collection of cutting-edge research on one of the leading figures in the early church. Long recognized as a chief architect of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the definitive articulator of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gregory "the Theologian" has been strangely neglected in modern patristic research. In recent decades Gregory has become the subject of careful study by scholars in a variety of humanistic disciplines, including theology, church history, classics, art history, and literature, and has attracted the renewed attention of Eastern and Western theologians and church leaders as well. This book, the newest volume in the CUA Studies in Early Christianity, presents original works by leading patristics scholars on a wide range of theological, historical, and cultural topics. It offers illuminating new readings of Gregory's writings, ranging from the systematic theology of Gregory's poetry to the Trinitarian doctrine found in his Festal Orations, and from his artful self-presentation in the mode of classical historiography to his later influence on Byzantine theologians and emperors. The book honors the work of American scholar Frederick W. Norris, who led the way in revitalizing the study of Gregory among English-speaking scholars.

Among the nearly twenty contributors, several are well known to and as Eastern Christians, including Brian Daley, Verna E.F. Harrison (whom I interviewed here), Andrew Louth, and John McGuckin, whom I interviewed here.

Also included in this volume are essays by  Christopher A. Beeley, Paul M. Blowers, Susanna Elm, Everett Ferguson, Ben Fulford, Vasiliki Limberis, Brian J. Matz, Neil McLynn, Claudio Moreschini, Suzanne Abrams Rebillard, Andrea Sterk, and William Tabbernee.