Ludlow, Morwenna - Gregory of Nyssa, Ancient and (Post)modern

The fourth-century Christian thinker, Gregory of Nyssa, has been the subject of a huge variety of interpretations over the past fifty years. Morwenna Ludlow analyses these recent readings, and asks: What do they reveal about modern and postmodern interpretations of the Christian past? What do they say about the nature of Gregory's writing?

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CONTENTS

Introduction
I. The Doctrine of the Trinity
1 Historical and conceptual background
2 Philosophy and the Gospel
3 The social doctrine of the Trinity
4 Reading Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian theology
II. God Became Human for our Salvation
1 Christology
2 Salvation
3 Spirituality: perpetual progress in the good
4 The Christian life: ethics
5 Reading Gregory of Nyssa on Christ, salvation, and human transformation
III. Sex, Gender, and Embodiment
1 Introduction: feminism and the Fathers
2 Creation in the image of God
3 What is virginity?
4 Macrina: in life and in letters
5 Reading Gregory of Nyssa on sex, gender, and embodiment
IV. Theology
1 Apophatic theology as `reaching out to what lies beyond'
2 God and being, beings and language: Scott Douglass
3 The gift, reciprocity and the word: John Milbank
4 Returning to the Trinity
5 Reading Gregory of Nyssa on language, theology, and the language of theology
IV. Conclusions
1 Tradition, history and historiography
2 The interpretation of ambiguity: Chritsina theology and pedagogy