First, to all of our readers and visitors, I wish you a blessed New Year.
Concerning books and articles to be published in 2019, this spring I look forward to the release of The Carolingian Commentaries on the Apocalypse by Theodulf and Smaragdus published by Medieval Institute Press. It will contain English translations of the Apocalypse commentary of Theodulf of Orleans from the year 810 and three homilies on the Apocalypse of Smaragdus from the year 812. Both served under King Charlemagne. Hopefully this year an essay I wrote on “Tenth-Century Exegesis of the Apocalypse” will be published in the Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature edited by Colin McAllister. It treats Arethas of Caesarea, the Catechesis Celtica, and an anonymous Gloss on the Apocalypse of John. These are discussed further under the “Forthcoming” tab on this site.
The “Current Projects” tab has also been updated. Concerning current writing projects, this year I look forward to finishing and submitting two books of translations of sixth and seventh-century writings on the Apocalypse. This spring I also plan to write three articles: “Spiritual Gifts: Patristics through Reformation Era,” “Predestination: Greek and Latin Patristics and Orthodox Churches,” and “Sin and Its Effects on the Human Will in Early Medieval pseudo-Augustinian Literature on Predestination.” All three of these I agreed to write for various books edited by others and they are due in June and July.
Finally, I would like to recommend a few books by others that I have read recently. On eschatology The Donatist Church in an Apocalyptic Age by Jesse Hoover (Oxford, 2018), Robert Wilken’s The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (Yale University Press, 1992), and 40 Questions about the End Times by Eckhard Schnabel (Kregel, 2011). On the theology of grace and much more, there is the first English translation of Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae in the Ancient Christian Writers series, Vol. 73 (Newman, 2018), which I thoroughly enjoyed. Also the text “On the Hardening of Pharoah’s Heart,” probably written by Pelagius, came out in a first English translation by Bryn R. Rees in Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture 6 (2012):1-54.
My prayer for myself and for you in 2019 is that in holiness and humility we would serve our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and died for us. Frank