The Church and Her Scriptures

In the nearly two millennia since the resurrection of Jesus, can coherence be found within the ways Christians of different ethnicities have approached the Bible? How does one seek guidance in understanding the Scriptures and then draw on that experience to understand oneself and the world? In The Church and Her Scriptures the ancient diversity of Greek, Latin, and Syriac speaks through, for instance, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, and Jacob of Serugh. The witness and voices of women as recorded in the Book of Daniel and the Gospels themselves are examined. Reanimated through ancient sources, the daily prayer life and holy death of Macrina the Younger, philosopher of God, attest the contemplative power of the laity. The Psalms, so interwoven in her life, prove to be vitalizing for Christians. Their example inspired new psalms in the Epistles. Typology recurred, fed by Jesus’s teaching, and this mode of exegesis and key examples of it are likewise respected in this volume. Limning the framework for all this is Patrick Hartin’s magisterial essay on Dei Verbum, the Vatican II document on the Bible.

Catherine Brown Tkacz is the first woman to earn the PhD in medieval studies at the University of Notre Dame. She has often lectured on biblical studies and theology, especially at Blackfriars in Oxford and the Ukrainian Catholic University in L'viv. Her over 130 publications include her fourth book, Women as Types of Christ, East and West. Pope Francis has appointed her to his new commission for the study of women and the diaconate.

Douglas Kries is Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University, where he researches in political philosophy, including the political thought of St. Augustine. Among his works are The Problem of Natural Law and (with Ernest L. Fortin and Michael W. Tkacz) Augustine: Political Writings. He has previously collaborated with Catherine Brown Tkacz as co-editor of Nova Doctrina Vetusque: Essays on Early Christianity in Honor of Fredric W. Schlatter, S.J.