With a Foreword by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI

This book first appeared just over fifty years ago. It is the pilgrimatic work of one of the 20th century's greatest theologians. Deeply rooted in tradition, it breaks ground and sows seeds which will bear their fruit in the Second Vatican Council's central documents on the Church. Here, Henri de Lubac, one of the giants of 20th century theology, gathers from throughout the breadth and length of Catholic tradition elements which he synthesizes to show the essentially social and historical character of the Catholic Church and how this worldwide and agelong dimension of the Church is the only adequate matrix for the fulfillment of the person within society and the transcendence of the person towards God. This book is a classic that deserves to be read and reread by every educated Catholic.

De Lubac traces the origin of 19th century attempts to construct a humanism apart from God, the sources of contemporary atheism which purports to have moved beyond God. The three persons he focuses on are Feuerbach, who greatly influenced Marx; Nietzsche, who represents nihilism; and Comte, who is the father of all forms of positivism. He then shows that the only one who really responded to this ideology was Dostoevsky, a kind of prophet who criticizes in his novels this attempt to have a society without God. Despite their historical and scholarly appearance, de Lubac's work clearly refers to the present. As he investigates the sources of modern atheism, particularly in its claim to have definitely moved beyond the idea of God, he is thinking of an ideology prevalent today in East and West which regards the Christian faith as a completely outdated.

Originally published in French as Exégèse médiévale, Henri de Lubac's multivolume study of medieval exegesis and theology has remained one of the most significant works of modern biblical studies. Available now for the first time in English, this long-sought-after second volume of Medieval Exegesis, translated by E. M. Macierowski, advances the effort to make de Lubac's major study accessible to the widest possible audience.

The great twentieth-century theologian Henri de Lubac sought in this work to clarify the relationship between nature and grace, a relationship he thought had been greatly misunderstood by certain theologians. De Lubac's insights revolutionized the modern discussion of nature and grace, and they influenced thinkers such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as Hans Urs von Balthasar.

This book, written after the Second Vatican Council and toward the end of de Lubac's long life, summarizes and extends key ideas he sought to recover from the classical sources of early and medieval Christianity. Confronted with distortions of Christian teaching, de Lubac repudiates on the one hand the extreme of radically opposing nature and grace, as if grace were entirely alien to nature, and on the other hand, the extreme of radically confusing them.

A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace also contains appendices, including de Lubac's famous The Council and the Parachurch, in which he examines widespread misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council.

PREFACE
I.Natural and the Supernatural
1.Two Correlative Terms
2.The True Supernatural
3.Adjective or Noun?
4.Admirabile Commercium
5.A Distinction Which Remains

II.Consequences
1.Humility
2.Mystery
3.Ascesis, Transformation, Synthesis
4.Transcendence
5.The Role of the Church

III.Nature and Grace
1.Conversion
2.Allergy to Sin
3.Evil and History
4.Realism
5.Liberation and Salvation

CONCLUSION
APPENDICES
A.The Supernatural at Vatican II
B.The Sacrament of the World?
C.The Council and the Para-Council
D.The Cult of Man In Reparation to Paul VI

The Crossroad Publishing Company once again makes available this examination of the quality and quantity of the spiritual understanding of Scripture that developed during the Christian centuries. Far from believing that modern exegetical insights and abilities make earlier interpretations of Scripture naive curiosity, de Lubac communicates to the modern reader his own appreciation and knowledge of the irreplaceably creative role that exegesis of the church fathers and of medieval theologians played in the survival and formulating of Christianity. Even more fundamentally, he links the process of exegesis to the permanent foundation of Christian thought, demonstrating that all forms of scriptural exegesis are part of the ongoing reflective life of God and the process by which the human race learns to share in this mystery.

Originally published in French as Exégèse médiévale, Henri de Lubac's multivolume study of medieval exegesis and theology has remained one of the most significant works of modern biblical studies. Available now for the first time in English, this long-sought-after volume is an essential addition to the library of those whose study leads them into the difficult field of biblical interpretation.

The first volume in de Lubac's multivolume work begins his comprehensive historical and literary study of the way Scripture was interpreted by the church of the Latin Middle Ages.

Examining the prominent commentators of the Middle Ages and their texts, de Lubac discusses the medieval approach to biblical interpretation that sought the four senses of Scripture, especially the dominant practice of attempting to uncover Scripture's allegorical meaning. Though Bible interpreters from the Enlightenment era on have criticized such allegorizing as part of the naivete of the Middle Ages, de Lubac insists that a full understanding of this ancient Christian exegesis provides important insights for us today.

Considered by many the bright jewel among the many enriching books of Cardinal Henri de Lubac, this work is a hymn to the beauty of the Church, under some of whose leaders for a time he unjustly suffered. The Splendor of the Church is, in a sense, a personal testimony of the great theologian's humility and love of the Church of Christ. It is also a classic work in the theology of the Church. Indeed, de Lubac's profound insights significantly contributed to Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, especially in its treatment on the Church as mystery and as the Sacrament of Christ.

Chapters:
I. The Church as Mystery
II. The Dimensions of the Mystery
III. The Two Aspects of the Church
IV. The Heart of the Church
V. The Church in the World
VI. The Sacrament of Christ
VII. Ecclesia Mater
VIII. Our Temptations concerning the Church
IX. The Church and Our Lady

First published in 1965, this book represents a refinement and further development of the core thesis that Henri de Lubac had originally put forward many years earlier in a bold and controversial work in which he first called into question the idea of pure nature.

Origen (185-ca. 254), one of the most prolific and influential of the early Church Fathers, is best known to us for his Scripture exegesis. Henri de Lubac's History and Spirit is a landmark study of Origen's understanding of Scripture and his exegetical methods. In exploring Origen's efforts to interpret the four different senses of Scripture, de Lubac leads the reader through an immense and varied work to its center: Christ the Word.

As Hans Urs von Balthasar said in discussing this seminal work: The theory of the senses of Scripture is not a curiosity of the history of theology but an instrument for seeking out the most profound articulations of salvation history... (From the book The Theology of Henri de Lubac.)

What the reader finds on this journey is not only, then, a fascinating view of the mind and spirit of an important Father of the Church, but an essential key to a more profound understanding of the way in which Christ speaks to us through Scripture.

The Discovery of God contains the guiding thread of all of Henri de Lubac's work: the idea of God and the life of the spirit.

For many years biblical scholars were convinced that the Middle Ages was marked by a so-called pre-critical understanding of the Bible, with only a handful of isolated exceptions -- like Andrew of St. Victor -- popping up as precursors of the historical-critical method. Here, however, Henri de Lubac draws on extensive documentation to demonstrate that even among the Victorines traditional exegesis involving an interplay between the literal and spiritual senses of Scripture is a constant throughout medieval exegesis. The one exception -- a radically important one, de Lubac readily admits -- was Joachim of Flora, whose doctrine is considered in the final chapter of this volume.

This third English volume of de Lubac's monumental Medieval Exegesis covers volume 2, part 1 of his French volume and includes both the original Latin notes and an English version of the sources.

These profound pieces are the fruit of Cardinal Henri de Lubac's lifelong study of the paradoxes of the Christian faith. They are rich and thought-provoking gems, spiritual aphorisms, and meditative reflections, which explore the incongruities and the challenges of the spiritual life.

De Lubac's magnificent language, clarity, spiritual understanding, and shrewd discernment are on display in every chapter, as he discusses a variety of topics including Christian witness, incarnation, suffering, and faith. His mastery of the subjects is the result not only of intellectual study but of a life lived for Christ even in the darkest of times, as when he participated in the underground resistance to the Nazi occupation of France.

A leader in nouvelle théologie, an intellectual movement characterized by interest in the Fathers of the Church and the concerns of contemporary men and women, de Lubac was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.

The very word paradox is paradoxical. Let the paradox be. Remember, after all, the Gospel is full of paradoxes, that man is himself a living paradox, and that according to the Fathers of the Church, the Incarnation is the supreme Paradox.
-- Henri de Lubac, from the Preface

The unique insight and impressive scholarship of the eminent French theologian Cardinal Henri de Lubac are clearly evident in this volume of collected articles and essays. An article of great timeliness on the priesthood according to St. John Chrysostom as well as an important study of the long debate over the salvation of Origen are among the texts included in the first section, devoted to patristics and Christian humanism. The second section, comprised entirely of an unpublished work on tripartite anthropology tracing the body-soul-spirit distinction from St. Paul, the patristic tradition, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, up to the modern period, will prove an invaluable guide for further study and reflection. The section concludes with a beautiful text entitled The Light of Christ, a prayerful meditation written during the dark hours of Nazi domination. Section three deals with disputed theological questions such as the internal causes of the disappearance of the sense of the sacred, the mystery of the supernatural, and the development of dogma. He also has a section on Christian resistance to Nazism and anti-semitism, as well as two sections on the thought and writings of several important modern spiritual writers.

An Ignatius Press Reprint

Ignatius Press Reprints are identical in content with the most recent print edition of the original title. In order to keep important titles available at reasonable prices, we reprint them digitally in small quantities. We use high quality, acid-free paper, but the books are not smyth-sewn as is customary with our offset press print editions.

De Lubac shows that Christian Tradition is a living force and in the Apostle's Creed there is both depth and relevance for today's understanding of the Christian message.

Priests are called Father and the Church is called Mother. Our Holy Mother the Church is a traditional way of speaking among Catholics. But are these outdated, sentimental expressions? Or do they express a deep insight into the nature of the Church as a whole and of ordained ministry in relation to the Church? Is there a genuine theological meaning to the traditional reference to the Church as she?

Henri de Lubac addresses such questions with his usual profound erudition. He deeply mines the Christian tradition in examining the Motherhood of the Church. Focusing on the Church's Motherhood allows this great theologian to unite two profound truths: the Church is the Bride of Christ and the Church is Christ's Mystical Body. As de Lubac shows, the Church cannot be rightly considered apart from Christ and his saving work, both of which should be understood in light of the mystery of the Church's maternity.

The Church: a body so diverse, so manifold, often so divided, that one struggles to define her, to see her face. If I seek a glimpse of her, where will I find her? asks theologian Henri de Lubac, S.J.
In these reflections written at the end of Vatican II, de Lubac, who played a key role at the Council yet was leery of rapid reform, searches out the wrinkled, mysterious beauty of the Church he loves as his mother.
The Catholic Church is such a paradox, a unity of opposites, that many are scandalized, a fact from which de Lubac does not shrink: I am told that she is holy, yet I see her full of sinners.... I am assured that she is universal, ... yet so often I note that her members, as if by fate, huddle timidly together in closed enclaves, just like human beings everywhere. But her distinctive beauty, when he beholds it, leaves him floored, this beauty most rare, most improbable, most disconcerting ... not the complete achievement of human perfection, ... but a strange and supernatural beauty opening unknown vistas to me.
These seven brief studies on the mystery of Christ's Church illuminate the documents of Vatican II and offer nourishment and clarity to those confused by turbulence or hypocrisy among Christians. De Lubac, who was made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II before his death in 1991, reflects deeply on the nature of authentic holiness in the modern world and argues that sainthood is not only possible but already - through the work of the Holy Spirit - quite alive amidst all the storms, whether in his time or in ours.

Henri de Lubac's four-volume study of medieval exegesis and theology is one of the most significant works in modern biblical studies.
Now available for the first time in English, this volume stands on its own as an introduction and overview of the subject. It will be an essential addition to the libraries of all those studying in any field of biblical interpretation.

Translated by E. M. Macierowski
Originally published in French, de Lubac's four-volume study of the history of exegesis and theology is one of the most significant works of biblical studies to appear in modern times.

Still as relevant and luminous as when it first appeared, the series offers a key resource for the renewal of biblical interpretation along the lines suggested by the Second Vatican Council in Dei Verbum. This second volume, now available for the first time in English, will fuel the currently growing interest in the history and Christian meaning of exegesis.