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Print Price: $57.95

Format:
Paperback
496 pp.
156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780198755050

Publication date:
May 2006

Imprint: OUP UK

Nicaea and its Legacy

An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology

Lewis Ayres

The first part of Nicaea and its Legacy offers a narrative of the fourth-century trinitarian controversy. It does not assume that the controversy begins with Arius, but with tensions among existing theological strategies. Lewis Ayres argues that, just as we cannot speak of one `Arian' theology, so we cannot speak of one `Nicene' theology either, in 325 or in 381. The second part of the book offers an account of the theological practices and assumptions within which pro-Nicene theologians assumed their short formulae and creeds were to be understood. Ayres also argues that there is no fundamental division between eastern and western trinitarian theologies at the end of the fourth century. The last section of the book challenges modern post-Hegelian trinitarian theology to engage with Nicaea more deeply.

Readership : Historical theologians, especially scholars and students of the early Church and of Christian spirituality; historians of late antiquity.

I. Towards a Controversy
1. Points of Departure
2. Theological Trajectories in the Early Fourth Century I
3. Theological Trajectories in the Early Fourth Century II
4. Confusion and Controversy: AD 325-340
5. The Creation of `Arianism': AD 340-350
II. The Emergence of Pro-Nicene Theology
6. Shaping the Alternatives: AD 350-360
7. The Beginnings of Rapprochement
8. Basil of Caesarea and the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology
9. The East from Valens to Theodosius
10. Victory and the Struggle for Definition
III. Understanding Pro-Nicene Theology
11. On the Contours of Mystery
12. `The First and Brightest Light'
13. `Walk Towards Him Shining'
14. `On Not Three Gods': Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology
15. The Grammar of Augustine's Trinitarian Theology
16. In Spite of Hegel, Fire and Sword
Epilogue: On Teaching the Fourth Century

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Lewis Ayres is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology, Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University.

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Special Features

Offers a new account of the relevance of Nicene trinitarianism for modern theology
Emphasizes the spiritual and contemplative life that accompanies thinking about the Trinity