The Forerunner Of All Things

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

What would a Buddhist theory of texts look like through the lens of the 5th-century thinker Buddhaghosa? In Voice of the Buddha, Maria Heim reads from the principal commentator, editor, and translator of the Theravada intellectual tradition, yielding fresh insight into all three collections of the early Pali texts: Vinaya, the Suttas, and the Abhidhamma. Buddhaghosa considered the Buddha to be omniscient, the Buddha's words to be "oceanic." Every word, passage, book--indeed the corpus as a whole--is taken to be "endless and immeasurable" in Buddhaghosa's view. Commentarial practice thus requires disciplined methods of expansion, drawing out the endless possibilities for meaning and application. Heim considers Buddhaghosa's theories of texts, and follows his practices of exegesis to discover how he explored scripture's infinity. By examining the significance of the immeasurability of scripture in commentarial practice and as a general principle, this book offers new tools to understand the huge scriptural and commentarial literature of the Pali tradition. And by taking seriously a traditional commentator's theory of texts, it beckons us to learn from commentaries themselves how we might read and interpret them and the texts on which they comment.

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

Here in this book "God, Science, and the Buddha" my genuine effort is to present the reader with some insight into the existence of life and matter within the concept of universal space-time in order to understand how and why mind is declared by the Buddha as the forerunner of all existence in eternity and infinity of the concept of space-time.Learning to understand the culmination of all the energies contained within the concept of space-time would unify theology, science and the nature in the noble name of God without division into mind based diverse theological images. The rare opportunity in human form of life is too precious to be neglected and wasted within the short span of existence in this sensual realm of life. In order to be comfortable with this understanding the author seeks to discuss scientific revelations in cosmology, physics, and physiology along with theology, religions, philosophy and Buddhism, which explains the existence of the nature in its true form.

The most profound characteristic of Western Europe in the Middle Ages was its cultural and religious unity, a unity secured by a common alignment with the Pope in Rome, and a common language - Latin - for worship and scholarship. The Reformation shattered that unity, and the consequences are still with us today. In All Things Made New, Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of the New York Times bestseller Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, examines not only the Reformation's impact across Europe, but also the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the special evolution of religion in England, revealing how one of the most turbulent, bloody, and transformational events in Western history has shaped modern society. The Reformation may have launched a social revolution, MacCulloch argues, but it was not caused by social and economic forces, or even by a secular idea like nationalism; it sprang from a big idea about death, salvation, and the afterlife. This idea - that salvation was entirely in God's hands and there was nothing humans could do to alter his decision - ended the Catholic Church's monopoly in Europe and altered the trajectory of the entire future of the West. By turns passionate, funny, meditative, and subversive, All Things Made New takes readers onto fascinating new ground, exploring the original conflicts of the Reformation and cutting through prejudices that continue to distort popular conceptions of a religious divide still with us after five centuries. This monumental work, from one of the most distinguished scholars of Christianity writing today, explores the ways in which historians have told the tale of the Reformation, why their interpretations have changed so dramatically over time, and ultimately, how the contested legacy of this revolution continues to impact the world today.

This Church’s Bible volume on the Gospel of John contains carefully selected and translated homilies and commentaries from such church fathers as Cyril of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Great, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Augustine, Athanasius, and the Venerable Bede. Ranging chronologically from the second century to the ninth, these substantial patristic selections provide an illuminating window into the breadth of the church’s interpretive tradition on John’s Gospel. Authors of Works Excerpted Ambrose of Milan Ammonius of Alexandria Aphrahat Apostolic Constitutions Athanasius of Alexandria Augustine of Hippo Basil of Caesarea Bede Caesarius of Arles Clement of Alexandria Cyprian of Carthage Cyril of Alexandria Cyril of Jerusalem Didymus the Blind Ephrem the Syrian Gregory of Nazianzus Gregory of Nyssa Gregory the Great Hilary of Poitiers Hippolytus of Rome Irenaeus of Lyons Jerome John Cassian John Chrysostom John of Damascus John Scotus Eriugena Justin Martyr Leo the Great Maximus of Turin Novatian Origen of Alexandria Peter Chrysologus Romanos the Melodist Rufinus of Aquileia Severian of Gabala Sophronius of Jerusalem Tertullian of Carthage Theodore of Mopsuestia Theodoret of Cyrus Theophilus of Alexandria