This historical study examines in detail the first seven years of Athanasius's career as bishop of Alexandria from the time of his election and consecration as bishop in 328 to his banishment by Emperor Constantine following the Synod of Tyre in 335. Thoroughly examining the modern historical and literary tradition, which has arrived at a negative assessment of Athanasius, as well as original contemporary documents both within and outside the Athanasian corpus, Duane W. H. Arnold evaluates their veracity and reassesses ancient and modern charges of misconduct concerning the early years of Athanasius's episcopate.In the course of this volume particular attention is given to identifying the issues and events in Athanasius's career that have been in dispute, including the reliability of the Philostorgian narratives, the controversy over Athanasius's consecration, and his reaction to the Meletian schism in Egypt especially as it relates to the material contained within London Papyrus 1914 and the documents of the Synod of Tyre. A brief study is also made of the festival oration of Gregory Nazianzen for its information about Athanasius's character and conduct.Arnold suggests that an evaluation of the charges made against Athanasius both at court and in ecclesiastical gatherings indicates that although the motives of certain opponents may have been theological, the means used to remove Athanasius from Alexandria were essentially political; the Synod of Tyre functioned as a show trial with no real concern for either justice or equity.

The early episcopal career of Athanasius of Alexandria

Problem There is a disagreement between three theological models (sacramental, functional, and ontological) of interpretation about Christ’s priesthood. One clear aspect of this disagreement is the existence of different views on the relationship between sacrifice and heavenly mediation in the priesthood of Christ. These conflicting views reveal that Christian theology does not have a consensus about the nature of the priestly work of the ascended Christ, including the conception of how Christ mediates salvation through his priesthood. This problematic situation raises the question whether there is a way to resolve this conflict of interpretations. Method The present study hermeneutically deconstructs these models of Christ’s priesthood to articulate a constructive proposal of an alternative model as a suggestion for the resolution of the conflict of interpretations regarding this doctrine. This deconstruction seeks to uncover the logic of each interpretation of Christ’s priesthood from the perspective of the macro-hermeneutical principles of reality or ontological presuppositions assumed in that interpretation. Such perspective indicates how these presuppositions inform and impact an interpretation or theory about the priesthood of Christ. This deconstruction involves three steps in this dissertation: (1) a systematic outline of the interpretations of Christ’s priesthood; (2) a description of the understanding of the macro-hermeneutical principles of reality assumed in each interpretation depicted in the first step and an indication of the implications for the doctrine of Christ’s priesthood; and (3) a transition to the construction of an alternative model derived from an interaction with Hebrews, including its pointers to the interpretation of macro-hermeneutical principles of reality, and the implications for the doctrine of Christ’s priesthood. Results With regard to the macro-hermeneutical principles of reality in the sacramental, functional, and ontological models, the research shows that divinity is a reality defined by non-sequentiality (understood as, or at least logically close to, a timeless-spaceless being), the humanity of Christ is a spatio-temporal instrument of the divine non-sequential reality, and heaven is understood as, or logically close to, a timeless-spaceless environment. When the sacramental, functional, and ontological interpretations of the priesthood of Christ are read from the perspective of these macro-hermeneutical principles of reality, the results below are generated. In the sacramental model, the priesthood of Christ refers to a Christological picture that is soteriologically concrete in spatio-temporal instruments that convey and actualize the timeless-spaceless reality of the new creation in human beings. In the functional model, the priesthood of Christ is described in a Christological language that involves sequentiality of functions (earthly cross and heavenly intercession), but it is soteriologically concrete in spatio-temporal instruments…

/pdf/toward-a-priestly-christology-a-hermeneutical-study-of-7fuvsa3ynk.pdf

Toward a Priestly Christology: A Hermeneutical Study of Christ’s Priesthood

A History of Catholic Antisemitism

SACRAMENT AND ESCHATOLOGICAL FULFILLMENT IN HENRI DE LUBAC'S THEOLOGY OF HISTORY Joseph Simeon Flipper, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2012 Henri de Lubac, S.J. (1896-1991) led one of the most important developments within twentieth-century Catholic theology, the movement known as the nouvelle théologie. De Lubac’s signature move was to return to early church sources to renew contemporary theology. This dissertation explores de Lubac's recovery of patristic eschatology for the contemporary age. While certainly responding to secularization, de Lubac also sought to respond to the “messianic” and apocalyptic shape of modern religious experience and political ideology. He argued that the source of secular messianisms was a dictotomy within Christianity between mysticism and the apocalyptic. The nouvelle théologie movement of the 1940s—from the wartime underground journal Cahiers du Témoignage chrétien (The Christian Witness Journals) to the post-war controversy over Christianity and communism—witnesses to the clash of differing eschatologies at the heart of twentieth-century Catholicism. De Lubac’s response—his recovery of a patristic exegetical hermeneutics—must therefore be examined with an eschatological lens. De Lubac borrowed from Origen to recover an eschatology that synthesizes a transcendentoriented mysticism with a future-oriented hope. De Lubac then showed how two historical developments—Pseudo-Dionysian spirituality and Joachimite history— diverged from the traditional patristic eschatology. Dionysian mysticism ejected the historical, while Joachimism’s apocalyptic theology of history evacuated authentic transcendence. Both lost a dynamic tension inherent in patristic thought. De Lubac argued that the dichotomy between the invisibilia Dei and the futura lay at the origins of rationalistic and apocalyptic ideologies in the twentieth century. In the end, this study argues, de Lubac creatively appropriated patristic “anagogy” and made eschatology the fundamental structure for his sacramental thinking, his understanding of the church, his Christology, and his mysticism. The dissertation shows that de Lubac’s “anagogical” imagination effected a rapprochement between eschatological impulses within the twentieth century and responded to the needs of a divided Catholicism.

Sacrament and Eschatological Fulfillment in Henri de Lubac's Theology of History

What is distinctive about Pentecostals’ reading of the Bible? In what way do Pentecostal people read the Bible so that they reach different conclusions than believers of other denominations? Is it possible to speak of a Pentecostal herme-neutics? In what way does it differ from the hermeneutics found in other theological traditions, such as the Catholic, Eastern and Reformed traditions? And how does their hermeneutics inform Pentecostals’ practice? These questions are discussed and some preliminary conclusions reached. Pentecostals’ religious consciousness expects an experience or encounter between God and human beings through his Spirit. This is supposed to happen in the worship service and also in the practice of Bible reading, whether individually or collectively. The presupposition is that the Word is revealed in the Bible only when people experience God, and the existential precondition leads to a Pentecostal emphasis of narratives describing such encounters in the Bible.

/pdf/attempting-to-define-a-pentecostal-hermeneutics-2jnomxl9q8.pdf

Attempting to define a Pentecostal Hermeneutics

The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 100–600: The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. I Jaroslav Pelikan Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1971. $15.00:

James S. Preus

Papers

The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 100–600: The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. I Jaroslav Pelikan Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1971. $15.00: