Fathers Speak The: St.Basil the Great, St.Gregory of Nazianzus, St.Gregory of Nyssa - Softcover

Georges, B

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0881410373 ISBN 13: 9780881410372

Publisher: St Vladimir's Seminary Press,U.S., 1986

Synopsis

As we, Christians of the twenty first century, study the Fathers of the Church, their writings (often in an unreadable English produced by clumsy translators) appear to us as foreboding, verbose, and somewhat closed within a world where theological contemplation replaces everyday reality. The Greek Fathers in particular have this reputation among students because they wrote relatively little about themselves, about the details of their own lives and the circumstances of daily life. Here for the first time is an anthology of texts gathered almost exclusively from the personal correspondence between St Basil the Great, his close friend Gregory "the Theologian" and his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa. These three men appear to us as real human beings, reveal the substance of their Christian vocation, uncover the program of their spiritual life, unveil the intellectual background of their use of Greek philosophy at the service of Christian theology, and explain the meaning of their ministry as monastic leaders and bishops of the Church. Readers of this book will be able to contemplate the icons of these Fathers in a new way, with a fuller understanding of the human reality which appears iconographically transfigured in frescoes and mosaics. For indeed, it is their genuinely human response to divine love and grace which has made them into "Holy Fathers," into saints of the Church.

About this title

About the Author:

Professor Georges A. Barrois, born and educated in France, served on the faculty of the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise in Jerusalem in the interval between the two world wars. An expert in Old Testament archeology, he took part in or conducted the exploration and excavation of several sites in the Middle East and wrote the important two-volume Manuel d'Archeologie Biblique. Following the outbreak of World War II, he came to the United States, where he taught at Princeton Theological Seminary. A convert to Orthodoxy, he was Visiting Professor of Old Testament at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Vladimir's Seminary Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0881410373
• ISBN 13: 9780881410372
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 225