Rosemary Ruether
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Gregory Of Nazianzus
$16.00Add to cartThis study on the life and thought of St. Gregory of Nazianzus was written by feminist theologian and Patristic scholar, Rosemary Radford Ruether, as her doctoral dissertation and originally published by Oxford University Press in 1969. The focus of the study is the tension and conflict in the life of Gregory of Nazianzus and his contemporary Christian companions, such as Basil the Great and Gregory Nyssa, between rhetoric and philosophy.
This is a conflict that has deep roots in Greek culture, going back to the time of Isocrates and Plato. It reflects two major streams of Greek culture, the literary tradition of classical education and public argumentation, with its often specious use of language, and the philosophical search for truth which saw itself as culminating in spiritual communion with the Good, the True and the Beautiful. In the Christian context of the fourth century A.D. this conflict had been translated into a tension between classical literary education, which still shaped the socialization of Christian leaders such as Gregory and informed the patterns of their preaching, and their search for contemplative union with God. Gregory and others spoke of the ascetic life of emerging Christian monasticism as “the philosophical life,” thus incorporating this tension between rhetoric and philosophy into their own lives.
For Gregory and other Christian leader of his time, Christians should renounce worldly ambition and even Christian positions of power, such as episcopacy, to pursue the separated life of monastic discipline, yet even in this ascetic retirement they found it difficult not to continue to employ the much-loved literary culture of their youthful education. This book shows how this tension played out in Gregory’s own life, including his relation with his friend and school companion, Basil the Great, who shared the quest for the monastic life with Gregory, but later became a bishop and sought to secure his power against church rivals by forcing episcopacy upon both Gregory Nazianzus and his own brother, Gregory Nyssa.
The volume also studies the way in which Gregory of Nazianzus employs rhetorical conventions to shape his own literary style in his sermons and treatises. It then focuses on the anthropology and cosmology that underlay Gregory’s understanding of the “philosophical life” as a journey of communion with God. In the final chapter it reviews Gregory’s own struggles to find a modus vivendi between the two cultures of clas
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Wrath Of Jonah
$34.00Add to cartInternationally renowned scholar Erhard Gerstenberger here offers a radical departure from traditional treatments. Rather than a systematic approach to theological topics in the Old Testament, Gerstenberger discusses its various theological voices rooted in different social settings within ancient Israel: the family and clan, the village, the tribal group, and the kingdom. Further, he discusses the variety of Israel’s views concerning the divine – polytheism, syncretism, and monotheism. Gerstenberger concludes with his reflections on how contemporary theology is informed by the biblical witness and how it must be contextual and ecumenical in order to be authentic.
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God And The Nations
$15.00Add to cartIn a time of rapid change and global confusion, how are Christians to perceive God at work in history? The theme of God’s presence among the nations is here addressed from different perspectives by two major theologians. Douglas John Hall explores foundational theological questions: the providence of God, the relation of global to national concerns, and the role of the church in relation to God’s worldly work. Rosemary Radford Ruether raises the question of the presence of God in the context of three major crises of our times-the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global poverty and the preferential option for the poor, and the ecological crisis. This book originated as the Hein/Fry Lectures of 1994.
