Catholic University of America Press

The debates in Christian history on the theology of grace have intrigued me for many years. I was recently asked to contribute a chapter in a new book about the debates that happened after Augustine over his theology of grace. The book is entitled Grace for Grace: The Debates After Augustine and Pelagius and was published by Catholic University of America Press.
The Semi-Pelagian debates were a series of discussions on the dynamics of salvation between the years 426 and 529. They include many issues and many players. My chapter is on one episode in the early sixth century which involved bishops including Possessor, John Maxentius, and Fulgentius of Ruspe and of which even the emperor Justinian was well aware.

Around 518 John Maxentius and his Scythian monks found that some in Constantinople, led by Possessor, were teaching that personal faith and a good will have their origin in humans, and that when people exercise faith and a choice for Christ, God then rewards them with grace. They had a slogan, “It is of us to choose, but of God to help.” Maxentius believed that they had the cart before the horse. Faith, he taught, is a divine gift (Phil 1:29). Concerning the choice to come to Christ, that too is done only because God’s grace precedes, enabling the person to choose rightly; for as the Apostle said, “It is God who works in you to do and to will of His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).

Possessor, to support his view of how individual salvation works, used 1 Timothy 2:4 which says that God “wills that all men be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Through letters, Maxentius appealed to Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe in North Africa; and Fulgentius responded at length, supporting Maxentius’ view. This is the subject of my chapter entitled “Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God.”

Those interested in patristics, North African exegesis, the employment of classical rhetoric in early Christianity, church-state relations, Justinian, the Semi-Pelagian controversy, the extent of God’s saving will, and the doctrine of salvation, will find Grace for Grace a helpful tool containing the latest scholarship from a variety of experts in the field of early Christian studies.

See the Table of Contents.

To order a copy from Amazon, click here.

Below are some announcements of ancient commentaries on the Apocalypse in English translation that either have been published recently or are scheduled to appear soon.

Nerses of Lambron. Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John. Translation of the Armenian Text, Notes, and Introduction by Robert W. Thomson (Leuven: Peeters, 2007). Nerses, archbishop of Tarsus, wrote this commentary in 1180 AD in the Armenian language. It is an adaptation of the Apocalypse commentary on Andrew of Caesarea from the seventh century. Thomson’s translated text is excellent reading. A full review of it by me appears in the May 2011 issue of Kerux journal. Click here to read my review of Nerses of Lambron-Commentary on the Revelation of St. John.)

An English translation of the aforementioned Greek commentary on Revelation composed by Andrew of Caesarea in Cappadocia, from 609-614 AD, appeared in Part 2 of the 2008 doctoral dissertation of Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou at the Universite Laval in Quebec entitled “Andrew of Caesarea and the Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East.” It is available for free download at www.revelation-resources.com. Constantinou’s translation of the commentary is scheduled to appear soon in the Fathers of the Church series from Catholic University of America Press. Another English translation of Andrew’s commentary completed by Dr. William Weinrich is scheduled for publication in InterVarsity’s new series Ancient Christian Texts.

The Turin fragments of Tyconius of Carthage’s lost Apocalypse commentary are translated in an excellent dissertation completed in 2010 by David Charles Robinson at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto entitled “The Mystic Rules of Scripture: Tyconius of Carthage’s Keys and Windows to the Apocalypse.”

An English translation of the massive Commentary on the Apocalypse of Peter John Olivi, composed in 1297, is scheduled for release this summer by Franciscan Institute Publications.

The Apocalypse commentaries of Victorinus, Apringius, Caesarius of Arles, and Bede, translated by William Weinrich, are projected for publication in a volume of the Ancient Christian Texts series by InterVarsity.

Bede’s Apocalypse commentary from the early middle ages was translated into English by Edward Marshall in the 1800s in England and for years it was difficult to obtain in the States because so few libraries carried it. But it has now been reprinted in paperback and is available for purchase at www.fledby.com or www.whitcoulls.co.nz. The commentary is also available in electronic version on line at www.apocalyptic-theories.com and at the medieval sourcebook webpage at www.fordham.edu. Besides the aforementioned translation of Bede’s Apocalypse commentary by Weinrich, a new translation by Faith Wallis of McGill University is scheduled to appear in the Translated Texts for Historians series published by Liverpool University Press.

Two other items not related to Apocalypse commentaries, but that may be of interest to our readers:

Steven Cartwright’s English translation of Peter Abelard’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans is scheduled for release this April in the Mediaeval Continuation Series of Fathers of the Church from Catholic University of America Press. Abelard wrote the commentary in the mid 1130s.

Probably the most comprehensive book on Gottschalk of Orbais in English is the 2009 dissertation of Matthew Bryan Gillis entitled “Gottschalk of Orbais: A Study of Power and Spirituality in a Ninth-Century Life.” I read it last summer. It was one of those books you never want to be over. Gottschalk’s views on predestination sparked a heated controversy in Europe in the mid-ninth century. Most American doctoral dissertations can be purchased from proquest.com.

I would encourage institutional libraries, those who wish to learn more about how the Scriptures have been interpreted throughout Christian history, those interested in the Book of Revelation, and those who work with medieval texts, to add the aforementioned titles to their stacks as they become available.

Have a great day.
Frank

Grace for Grace, a new book on the Semi-Pelagian debate

More Ancient Apocalypse Commentaries in Translation