Johannes Zachhuber

Anna Marmodoro

This book presents Gregory of Nyssa's On the Six Days of Creation (In Hexaemeron) as a specimen of Early Christian philosophy. It comprises Gregory of Nyssa's text in its Greek original accompanied by a new English translation, and seven accompanying essays by international specialists from diverse backgrounds. Each essay focuses on a section of the text and the arising philosophical issues. The essays complement each other in offering multiple perspectives on how Gregory's text may be approached philosophically and positioned in relation to other, more or less contiguous, philosophical theories, including the early Greeks Anaxagoras and Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Rather than presenting a definite and exhaustive state of the art study of Gregory's text, this volume aims to open new pathways for research into In Hexaemeron.

Text, Translation, and Essays

Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaemeron

Julia Meszaros

Sacrifice has always been central to the study of religion yet attempts to understand and assess the concept have usually been controversial. The present book, which is the result of several years of interdisciplinary collaboration, suggests that in many ways the fascination with sacrifice has its roots in modernity itself. Theological developments following the Reformation, the rediscovery of Greek tragedies, and the encounter with the practice of human sacrifice in the Americas triggered a complex and passionate debate in the sixteenth century which has never since abated. Contributors to this volume, leading experts from theology, anthropology, and literary and cultural studies, describe and discuss how this modern fascination for the topic of sacrifice has evolved, how it has shaped theological debate, the literary imagination, and anthropological theory. Individual chapters discuss in depth major theological trajectories, theories of sacrifice including those of Marcel Mauss and René Girard, and current feminist criticism. They engage with sacrifice in the context of religious and philosophical thought, works of literature and film. They explore different yet overlapping aspects of modernity's obsession with sacrifice. The book does not intend to impose a single narrative over all these diverse contributions but brings them into a conversation around a common centre.

Sacrifice and Modern Thought

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics offers, for the first time, a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy. It shows how it took its distinctive shape in the late fourth century and gives an account of its subsequent development until the time of John of Damascus. The book falls into three main parts. The first starts with an analysis of the philosophical project underlying the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. This philosophy, arguably the first distinctively Christian theory of being, soon became near-universally shared in Eastern Christianity. Just a few decades after the Cappadocians, all sides in the early Christological controversy took its fundamental tenets for granted. Its application to the Christological problem thus appeared inevitable. Yet it created substantial conceptual problems. Parts two and three describe in detail how these problems led to a series of increasingly radical modifications of the Cappadocian philosophy. In part two, Zachhuber explores the miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, while in part three he discusses the defenders of the Council from the early sixth to the eighth century. Through this overview, the book reveals this period as one of remarkable philosophical creativity, fecundity, and innovation.

Patristic Philosophy from the Cappadocian Fathers to John of Damascus

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics

This study in the thought of Gregory of Nyssa seeks to demonstrate in what sense and to what extent the philosophical notion of universal human nature functions as the systematic backbone of this church father's theology.

Philosophical Background and Theological Significance

Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa

Wolfe, Judith

Joel Rasmussen

Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought

Richard Schröder

Versuch einer Bilanz nach zwei Jahrtausenden ; eine interdisziplinäre Vorlesungsreihe

Was hat uns das Christentum gebracht?

Lenka Karfíková

Scott L.. Douglass

The volume offers a new English translation of the "Second Book Against Eunomius" by Gregory of Nyssa and a series of papers providing introduction and commentary on the text focusing on the theory of language and the problem of naming God.

Contra Eunomium II

Scot Douglass

The volume offers a new English translation of the Second Book Against Eunomius by Gregory of Nyssa and a series of papers providing introduction and commentary on the text focusing on the theory of language and the problem of naming God.

An English Version with Supporting Studies - Proceedings of the 10th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Olomouc, September 15-18, 2004)

Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium II

This book brings together leading specialists from various academic disciplines to elucidate the modern debate about sacrifice for the first time. This debate has been fed by theological concerns, by the influence of literary and musical works, and by the encounter with non-European cultures since the Age of Discovery. While ritual sacrifice has been all but absent in European modernity, ideas, images, theories, and stories about sacrifice have been at the centreof academic, artistic, and public interest since the sixteenth century. Individual chapters discuss anthropological theories, theological controversies, philosophical interpretations, and literary usesof sacrifice. They result not in a single narrative but in a representation of the diverse factors and aspects that have contributed to modernity's obsession with the topic of sacrifice.

The book offers the first in-depth treatment in English of a theological movement that is generally recognized as crucial for all later theology. The author shows the groundbreaking historical work of the two major theological schools in nineteenth century Germany, the Tübingen School and the Ritschl School, as part of a broader theological and intellectual agenda. This agenda draws on the fundamental tenets of historicism and German Idealism that historygenerally holds the key to an understanding of reality. Using a wealth of primary sources, many of which have never been used in English speaking scholarship before, the author embeds this essentiallytheological story within broader intellectual developments in nineteenth century Germany. In spite of its eventual disintegration, the project of theology as science in nineteenth century Germany is here described as a paradigmatic intellectual endeavour of European modernity with far-reaching significance beyond the confines of a single academic discipline.

Johannes Zachhuber

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