Peter Lombard 1

This volume makes available for the first time in English full translations of Book 2 of the Sentences. It consists of forty-four Distinctions and contains an introduction to Book 2, a list of the major chapter headings, and a bibliography.

The first general study of Peter Lombard (c. 1100-1160) in a century, this book places Peter's thought in the context of the intellectual debates of his time in the effort to understand the substance of Lombardian theology and the reasons why his principal work, the Sentences , immediately became a classic of early scholastic theology with a durable influence, doing more to shape the education of university theologians and philosophers than any other work of systematic theology for the next four centuries. Attention is paid to the sentence collection as a genre of theological literature, the problem of theological language with which Peter and his contemporaries wrestled, and his contribution to early scholastic biblical exegesis as well as to the development of his systematic theology in the Sentences .

Peter Lombard is best known as the author of a celebrated work entitled Book of Sentences, which for several centuries served as the standard theological textbook in the Christian West. It was the subject of more commentaries than any other work of Christian literature besides the Bible itself. The Book of Sentences is essentially a compilation of older sources, from the Scriptures and Augustine down to several of the Lombard's contemporaries, such as Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard. Its importance lies in the Lombard's organization of the theological material, his method of presentation, and the way in which he shaped doctrine in several major areas. Despite his importance, however, there is no accessible introduction to Peter Lombard's life and thought available in any modern language. This volume fills this considerable gap. Philipp W. Rosemann begins by demonstrating how the Book of Sentences grew out of a long tradition of Christian reflection-a tradition, ultimately rooted in Scripture, which by the twelfth century had become ready to transform itself into a theological system. Turning to the Sentences, Rosemann then offers a brief exposition of the Lombard's life and work. He proceeds to a book-by-book examination and interpretation of its main topics, including the nature and attributes of God, the Trinity, creation, angelology, human nature and the Fall, original sin, Christology, ethics, and the sacraments. He concludes by exploring how the Sentences helped shape the further development of the Christian tradition, from the twelfth century through the time of Martin Luther.

The focus of the contributions to this third and final volume of Brill’s handbook on the tradition of the Book of Sentences ranges from a thirteenth-century study aid to the role of the Sentences in sixteenth-century Iberia.

This modern dogmatics text is invaluable for Lutheran pastors, teachers, professors and Christians who desire to arrive at a deeper understanding of the Lutheran confession of the faith.

This volume studies how the tradition of the Sentences developed from the twelfth century up to Martin Luther. Its twelve chapters fill major lacunae in current research on the standard textbook of medieval theology.

This study shows that there has not yet been any comprehensive study of the person of the Holy Spirit in the twelfth century, and that such a study has something to add to concepts of twelfth-century thought as well as modern debates in pneumatology. The richness of debate that took place with the advent of scholasticism, and its clashes with more traditional approaches to Christian study, raised issues about western conceptions of the Spirit that were both grounded in scripture And The church fathers' writings, and thoroughly tested by reason and debate.