Enchantment And Creed In The Hymns Of Ambrose Of Milan

Enchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan offers the first critical overview of the hymns of Ambrose of Milan in the context of fourth-century doctrinal song and Ambrose's own catechetical preaching. Brian P. Dunkle, SJ, argues that these settings inform the interpretation of Ambrose's hymnodic project. The hymns employ sophisticated poetic techniques to foster a pro-Nicene sensitivity in the bishop's embattled congregation. After a summary presentation of early Christian hymnody, with special attention to Ambrose's Latin predecessors, Dunkle describes the mystagogical function of fourth-century songs. He examines Ambrose's sermons, especially his catechetical and mystagogical works, for preached parallels to this hymnodic effort. Close reading of Ambrose's hymnodic corpus constitutes the bulk of the study. Dunkle corroborates his findings through a treatment of early Ambrosian imitations, especially the poetry of Prudentius. These early readers amplify the hymnodic features that Dunkle identifies as "enchanting," that is, enlightening the "eyes of faith."

This work offers a critical overview of the hymns of Ambrose of Milan (c.339-397) in the context of fourth-century doctrinal hymns and in relation to his own catechetical preaching. Brian P. Dunkle, SJ, argues that Ambrose employed sophisticated poetic techniques in his hymns in order to foster a pro-Nicene sensitivity in his congregation.

Revision of the author's doctoral dissertation, "Nocturna Lux Viantibus: The Methods, Meaning, and Mystagogy of Ambrosian Hymnody," (Univ. of Notre Dame, 2015).

Ambrose, the first patrician bishop and a prolific writer of a broad range of works, presents numerous opportunities for interdisciplinary research. His participation in many social groups, sometimes at odds with each other, and sometimes overlapping, demanded flexibility. The result is a protean figure, whose motives are not always clear. His own works and those of the scholars who contribute to this volume are accordingly multidisciplinary. Fields such as theology (especially historical theology), history, classics, philosophy, linguistics, and aesthetics, among others, and the recent international research that belongs to them nuance the volume’s investigation of Ambrose’s actions and motivations. The reader will find that Ambrose’s efforts to create and to strengthen social cohesion included building relationships and erecting social structures set on the foundations of Nicaean Christianity against heresy and paganism. A fusion of Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian intellectual traditions reinforced the solidarity Ambrose promoted. These endeavors met with success then, and continue to do so now, as indicated by the modern community of scholars found within this book.

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint. Elected bishop of Milan by popular acclaim in 374, Ambrose went on to become one of the four original Doctors of the Church. There is much more to this book, however, than the captivating story of the bishop who baptized Saint Augustine in the fourth century. Trace and Aura investigates how a crucial figure from the past can return in different guises over and over again, in a city that he inspired and shaped through his beliefs and political convictions. His recurring lives actually span more than ten centuries, from the fourth to the sixteenth. In the process of following Ambrose’s various reincarnations, Patrick Boucheron draws compelling connections between religion, government, tyranny, the Italian commune, Milan’s yearning for autonomy, and many other aspects of this fascinating relationship between a city and its spiritual mentor who strangely seems to resist being manipulated by the needs and ambitions of those in power.

Two important theologians of early Christianity were Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo. Both were intellectually formed by philosophers, such as Cicero, who taught that virtue was the way to greatness. Yet they saw contradictions between Roman and Christian ethical ideals. Could these competing visions of greatness be reconciled?

Provides a new history of catechesis in early Latin Christianity that foregrounds core questions of knowledge, faith, and teaching.

This pioneering study of Christian sun symbolism describes how biblical light motifs were taken up with energy in the early Church. Kevin Duffy argues that, living in a world of 24/7 illumination, we need to reconnect with the sun and its light to appreciate the meaning of light in the Bible and Christian tradition. With such a retrieval we can appreciate Pope Francis's insistence that, like the moon, the Church does not shine with its own light, and assess the claim that the Eucharist is to be celebrated 'Ad Orientem', that is towards the rising sun in the East. Liturgy, architecture, poetry and the writings of saints and theologians such as Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Traherne offer abundant resources for a much needed ressourcement. While Christ was preached as the True Sun among sun-worshipping Aztecs, and the consecrated host was placed in a solar monstrance on Baroque altars, in the modern era solar themes have been neglected. In this accessible work, the author suggests that we rebalance a spiritual symbolism that has over-emphasised darkness and cloud at the expense of light and sun. He proposes a creative retrieval of the traditional title of Christ as the Sun of Justice. This title blends the personal, the social and the cosmic/ecological, and speaks powerfully to a secularising era that contemporaries Friedrich Nietzsche and Thérèse of Lisieux both described as one where the sun does not shine.