Clement of Alexandria and the beginnings of Christian Apophaticism

Can humans know God? Can created beings approach the Uncreated? The concept of God and questions about our ability to know him are central to this book. Eastern Orthodox theology distinguishes between knowing God as he is (his divine essence) and as he presents himself ...

The doctrine of deification in the greek patristic tradition

Deification was not only a pagan concept, but a metaphor for a deeply Christian view of the purpose of human life. This title brings together research on the Church Fathers from the second to the seventh centuries, offering an analysis of their spiritual teaching and ...

Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian controversy

the making of a Saint and of a heretic

Susan Wessel recounts the historical and cultural process by which Cyril of Alexandria was elevated to canonical status while his opponent, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, was turned into a heretic. The associated religious controversy was to result in a permenent schism in the Eastern Churches ...

St John Damascene

tradition and originality in Byzantine Theology

John Damascene, one-time senior civil servant in the Umayyad Arab Empire, became a monk near Jerusalem in the early years of the eighth century. He never set foot in the Byzantine Empire, yet his influence on Byzantine theology was ultimately determinative, and beyond that his ...