From Monachos.net
Patristic Studies, Essays, Commentary and Papers
Gathered below are studies, essays, papers and talks given on various patristic themes and authors, varying in style from the semi-formal to the highly academic. Studies dealing with larger themes or issues involving multiple patristic sources are grouped in the first section, while the second section contains studies devoted principally to a single individual. Some Fathers (e.g. St Basil of Caesarea) are treated extensively in collective essays in the first section, but may not be the subject of an individually-focused paper.
Studies on Issues, Controversies and Doctrinal Themes
- A study of the Arian debate and the larger Trinitarian Controversy between AD 360-380, being principally a study of the Homoian Arians and the Neo-Arians following Aetius and Eunomius during the turbulent period before the Cappadocian response and the Second Ecumenical Council.
- A study of the Cappadocian Fathers' understanding of human knowledge of God as a process of conceptualisation (epinoia) based on the perception (ennoia) of God's energies.
- A study of the Cappadocian conception of human nature as evidenced in St Basil's 38th epistle, and their use of the human nature model as a basis for a conception of the Trinity. The study focuses upon the clarification of four key terms: ousia, hypostasis, nature (physis) and 'thing' (pragma), and attempts to expound both the strengths and weaknesses of the Cappadocian human-divine model.
- A study of the great fourth- and fifth-century debate over the person of Jesus Christ, with essays on and source texts by Cyril of Alexandria, John of Antioch, Nestorius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, the Councils of Ephesus and Alexandria, and others.
Studies on Individual Fathers
- A study on the threefold role of Christ in the salvation of humankind, as it is expounded and understood by the great bishop of Alexandria; namely, the roles of Christ as He who is sacrificed, who sanctifies, and who saves the fallen world.
- An entirely new version of the study on Dionysius the Areopagite, dealing primarily with his exposition of apophatic knowledge of God and the interaction between philosophical theology and mystical experience in the life of the Christian.
- The way of ascent into the heights of experiential knowledge of God is, for St Gregory of Nyssa, the ascent into 'luminous darkness', or genuine apophatic knowledge of and union with God. This study examines Gregory's Life of Moses and other texts as explicative of his conception of divine union.
- An historical examination of the life of St Gregory Palamas, as well as of the era and theological air in which he wrote, including the Palamite Hesychast dispute of which he played so central a part. Timeline appendices are also included for study purposes.
- In investigation into three aspects of the personal religious life as extrapolated by the greatest Orthodox theologian of the late Byzantine Empire.
- Excerpts from a short, informal talk given on the ascetical and prayerful instruction of St Hesychios, focused primarily upon his injunctions to inner stillness as the course to true prayer.
- A study on the theme of 'joy-creating sorrow' as a key element in the ascetic spirituality of St John of the Ladder, as put forth in his classic work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
- A study on the reciprocal nature of human salvation as understood through St Maximos the Confessor's lens of the two wills in Christ, with emphasis upon his notion of free will and gnomic or habitual inclination.
- An examination of St Symeon's doctrine of the divine light, or the visible manifestation of the divine energies of the Godhead, as the pinnacle of true prayer.
- An examination of several doctrinal concepts put forth by a man widely considered to be one of the most erudite scholars of the early Church, yet whose teachings were later condemned by various councils. These teachings in particular are addressed, along with the great question of heresy.