Reading the Church Fathers discussion
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I’m a fan of this idea. I’m open to any possible theological topic from the Trinity, to Eucharist, to Baptism, etc... as a pastor, I’m also interested in the idea of any pastoral discussions from the Fathers as well! I’m game for whatever! :)
So I’m not sure if this counts as a ‘church father’ but I just started reading Karl Bart’s Dogmatics in Outline.
John wrote: "So I’m not sure if this counts as a ‘church father’ but I just started reading Karl Bart’s Dogmatics in Outline."The focus of this group is on the Church Fathers in the first seven centuries, as is written in the Group Description.
However, you're more than welcome to share your thoughts on Bart, or anything else you're reading, with the group. There is a discussion folder for that very purpose:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
Nick wrote: "I’m a fan of this idea. I’m open to any possible theological topic from the Trinity, to Eucharist, to Baptism, etc... as a pastor, "We've had a long discussion on Eucharist, and a much shorter discussion on Baptism.
Nick wrote: "I’m a fan of this idea. I’m open to any possible theological topic from the Trinity, to Eucharist, to Baptism, etc... as a pastor, I’m also interested in the idea of any pastoral discussions from t..."On the topic of pastoral discussions: my own pastor always refers to The Book of Pastoral Rule. He says Gregory is very good at showing that some people need one type of counsel, and others almost the opposite.
As for topic suggestions: I have already read quite a bit on the trinity, right now I am more interested in incarnation. And also in human nature.
I'm currently reading On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, Vol. I which said some very interesting things on these topics.
I also started reading On the Soul and the Resurrection out of my interest in what we mean with 'soul'
Ruth wrote: "... currently reading On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, Vol. I "I myself haven't any theological topic I'm particularly interested in. However, I'm super interested in reading anything by Maximus the Confessor.
I’m open to reading any Patristic writer on virtually any subject. I will say some of our best conversations have been about evil, so if pushed, I’d ask for something concerning evil. A text id really like to read in the group would be 1 Clement or 2 Clement.
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Guys, I finished City of God 10 minutes ago, and I feel I deserve a merit badge.
Valerie wrote: "Guys, I finished City of God 10 minutes ago, and I feel I deserve a merit badge."Congrats!
Ruth wrote: "I'm currently reading On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, Vol. I which said some very interesting things on these topics.."Are the works of Maximus the Confessor available online?
The nature of the soul if a vast subject. The early Church Fathers engaged various Greek philosophers on the subject, and we cannot have a well-grounded discussion without some basic knowledge of philosophy, and perhaps more importantly, logic. Given the low participation rate in group discussions, I'm beginning to wonder whether it is worthwhile having a group read at all ...
I just started the Ante-, Nicene, and Post- challenge yesterday, myself. But I'm down to start something.
The time of lively interaction seems to have passed (temporarily?). Perhaps, for the time being, we could just let this be a place to share whatever church father we are reading separately. (As I already did sometimes, with Gregory, as well as just asking questions on Christian topics). I'd love to share some of my thoughts on Maximus the Confessor.
I have not read anything from Maximus the Confessor (that I know of), so, where would I start? What is one of his more accessible writings? Or better, for those who know, what is Cole side tend his magnum opus?
I will post a note or two about Maximus today or tomorrow. Really. Nag me if I don't.
Perhaps in a real way the most important single set of writings by Maximus were in the canons of the Lateran Council of 649 and a papal encyclical that was promulgated with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran...I rather doubt we can find them anywhere in English.
The Wikipedia article says that parts of those documents were based closely on Maximus's "Disputatio cum Pyrrho" (Disputation with Pyrrhus) that records a debate in 645 in Carthage. This seems to be available in English on Amazon, but not for free there.
I think Maximus’s ambiguities would be a phenomenal choice for 2020
Unfortunately, we can't do a group read if the book is not available online for free. The goal is to make it accessible to all members.
So, the task at hand is to find a work by Maximus the Confessor in English that can be used for free. Please post (with link) if anyone is successful.
I don't know if this helps with anything, but I just discovered that one can borrow books from archive.org see for example this https://archive.org/details/maximusco...
I spent the afternoon hunting for free downloads of Maximus's works in English.Some of his works are available on a plausible deniability, wink-wink-nudge-nudge site, epdf.pub. These include the Louth volume, the Berthold volume, and On the Cosmic Meaning of Jesus Christ (which has 14 selected pieces).
Volume 2 of the Philokalia has about 240 pages of Maximus's writings. The Philokalia is available various places online for free. The writings in this volume don't include the Ambigua.
BTW, today is St. Maximus's feast day. (He actually has two -- the other is August 13.)
The site epdf.pub has a disclaimer on each page saying that so far as they know the item was uploaded legitimately. There is also a button for a copyright holder to use to inform the site that the item is not legitimate. So one can tell oneself that the presence of the book on the site is legitimate. Below are three links which may take you to the download pages. If not, you can search.https://dl.epdf.pub/download/maximus-...
https://epdf.pub/download/religion-ma...
https://dl.epdf.pub/download/on-the-c...
I vote for “On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ” (the 3rd link).
I wonder if we'll get a group together reading exactly the same book at the same pace. But it seems we might have a group all reading Maximos the Confessor. We could probably exchange ideas/questions/recurring themes which we find in his books?
The book I recently started reading (ambigua) seems to overlap with the book in that third link mentioned above.
All three of the books I linked to have selected items, some of which are from the Ambigua. I did not find a free English translation of the Ambigua as a whole. So yes, they overlap with the Ambigua and with other works.
Clark wrote: "All three of the books I linked to have selected items, some of which are from the Ambigua. I did not find a free English translation of the Ambigua as a whole. So yes, they overlap with the Ambigu..."Thank you so much for tracking them down, Clark.
By popular demand, I've uploaded On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings to our group library.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FBG...
There are 14 pieces of writings there, about 140 pages in total. Can we read this in a month?
Ruth, would you like to lead the group discussion?
This website is a large free book source online. Here’s the url for Maximus’s ambiguahttps://b-ok.cc/s/ambigua%20Maximus%20
David wrote: "This website is a large free book source online. Here’s the url for Maximus’s ambiguahttps://b-ok.cc/s/ambigua%20Maximus%20"
Thank you, David. I'm amazed and encouraged by the resourcefulness of this group.
(I didn't know about that site. A lot of copyrighted materials. I'm surprised it is still online.)
I've uploaded two volumes of Ambigua to our group library.
Ambigua vol. 1
and
Ambigua vol. 2
It’s legal under Fair Use to download and use the documents for educational and vocational purposes. Same as scanning in books at a library.
NOW we have a decision to make: which of the following do you want to be our first group read of 2020?a) On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ
b) Ambigua (both volumes)
3) other (specify in comment)
Two volumes of Ambigua would be a huge time commitment. Judging by the title "On the Difficulties in the Church Fathers", I'm assuming that Maximus' target readers are already familiar with the Church Fathers, and can quickly look up any references his makes. Otherwise, it would take additional time to familiarize ourselves with his sources.
Personally I would prefer to read the Fathers in chronological order, and read Maximus after most of the ANF and NPNF series. On the other hand, it would be interesting to do in-depth topical studies with Maximus, and read the Fathers topic by topic.
Alternatively, we could read his selected writings first, and get a sense of whether they are interesting and helpful, and then go from there.
"legal for vocational purposes", that sounds good! I sure feel a strong call to seek the truth :-)Anyway my thoughts about which book to start with:
'Selected writings' starts with a poem by George Herbert, hence wins ten points.
Okay, all jokes aside, it seems that 'selected writings' would be the better choice, because that probably contains the most interesting texts. From what I have read so far (Ambigua 1-8), I think that Maximos is *very* difficult to read, but highly rewarding. Therefore I would opt for the shorter selection. We could always use the other one for reference, might have slightly different translation or notes.
And, yes, he writes about phrases in the Church Fathers that could be misunderstood, but I don't think it's necessary to have read those Church Fathers first. For example ambigua 7 (the first text in Selected Writings) starts with one sentence from Gregory the theologian, that might be misinterpreted to say that we have physical bodies because of the fall, and that material is inherently bad. And then he goes on at great length to explain why Gregory could never have said that, because ... and then just his own opinion, I think. It is really a wonderful text and it fundamentally changed my view of human nature and my relation to God. (But difficult, really, don't complain afterwards that I didn't warn about that).
@Nemo: You asked if I would lead a group discussion. I am certainly enthusiastic about this whole topic and I have already read bits of it, so for starters I might think of some group questions or discussion topics based on ambigua 7? Perhaps first a shared investigation of what topics it covers.
By the way, I'm quite sure that downloading books from that site is not legal (though tempting, man what a collection!) https://academia.stackexchange.com/qu...
Personally I prefer to just buy the book then, I always think of the poor writers (translators, in this case) that need a living too.
I have legit copies of the four books I posted (the three links plus the Philokalia). If we embark upon the full Ambigua I will buy the first volume, and then if we embark upon the second volume I'll buy that. But I'm not generalizing from myself to everyone. I'm rather a Maximus nerd (I'm writing a short story about some lives changed when Maximus arrives in exile in the Caucasus in 662) and I have an unused Amazon gift certificate hovering in the background.
Ruth wrote: "...But difficult, really, don't complain afterwards that I didn't warn about that..."I wonder if part of the difficulty is due our lack of familiarity with the Fathers that Maximus discusses...
I am certainly enthusiastic about this whole topic and I have already read bits of it, so for starters I might think of some group questions or discussion topics based on ambigua 7?
You're free to lead the discussion any way you see fit. I would also be very happy if Clark volunteers to co-lead the discussions. wink wink nudge nudge. You would make a great team. :)
You can start whenever you're ready...
Ambigua 7 it is! I’m down. Didn’t mean to cause an ethical stir, I use that site mostly to download very old books I can’t find anymore. I much prefer to read the printed volumes so I buy them either personally or, if applicable, as a ministry resource (I’m a priest).
I’ll be grabbing the first volume. How will we do this? Will there be a new thread, or just right here?
A new thread will be started is how we’ve done it in the past.
I volunteer, if it's okay with Ruth.
At the top of the thread could we post the link that we are using? That would be very helpful.
Clark wrote: "I volunteer, if it's okay with Ruth."Yes, wonderful!
So we're doing On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings, which contains a few texts from Ambigua, and other texts. It starts with Ambigua 7.
For those who don't quite know their way around Goodreads, the new discussion threads are here.https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
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Reading the Church Fathers
Books mentioned in this topic
On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings (other topics)On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings (other topics)
The Book of Pastoral Rule (other topics)
On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, Volume 1 (other topics)
On the Soul and the Resurrection (other topics)
What shall we read next?
I've been thinking of doing a topic study, i.e., read a series of books written by the Church Fathers on a specific topic. For example, the Doctrine of the Trinity seems to be especially relevant to our time.
What would you recommend?