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Sermons on the Christian Year, Volume One

Sermons on the Christian Year, Volume One

This item is a print on demand title and will be dispatched in 1-3 weeks.

Paperback / softback

£27.95

Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 9780879071110
Number of Pages: 270
Published: 26/04/2016
Width: 14 cm
Height: 21.6 cm

Two great institutions sprang from the self-confident ground of twelfth-century Europe: the University and the Cistercian Order. Isaac of Stella participated in both. Born in England in the opening years of the century, he seems to have moved to France for his education. His works reveal his mastery of the very technical vocabulary of the cathedral schools there and their love for subtle logic. Not long after 1140, he entered the austere monastic life of the White Monks, and seven years later became abbot of Stella (L ’Étoile) near Poitiers. 

An intractable animosity between monks and schoolmen has been posited by some modern scholars. In Isaac's mind, contends Bernard McGinn in his introduction to this first English translation of his sermons, "the relation of these two great movements of the twelfth century, the world of the Schools, and the world of Citeaux was complimentary, not antagonistic. It is hard not to think that his theological studies had been a contributing factor in the search that led him to Citeaux; his sermons and treatises are evidence of the fact that his experience of the monastic life provided an ideal situation for theological meditation, while his duties as abbot saw to it that these meditations were communicated to others." 

Isaac of Stella was an English-born Cistercian who studied in the schools before entering monastic life and becoming abbot of Stella in 1147. His liturgical sermons inject a speculative philosophical inquisitiveness into imaginative meditations on scenes from Scripture. Isaac combined the increasingly technical vocabulary of the cathedral schools with the spiritual tradition of the monastery. Dialectic is here combined with meditative reflection.

Table of Contents
Introduction   ix
Sermon One   3
Sermon Two   11
Sermon Three   21
Sermon Four   29
Sermon Five   37
Sermon Six   47
Sermon Seven   57
Sermon Eight   65
Sermon Nine   73
Sermon Ten   83
Sermon Eleven   91
Sermon Twelve   99
Sermon Thirteen   107
Sermon Fourteen   113
Sermon Fifteen   121
Sermon Sixteen   129
Sermon Seventeen   139
Sermon Eighteen   149
Sermon Nineteen   157
Sermon Twenty   165
Sermon Twenty-One   171
Sermon Twenty-Two   179
Sermon Twenty-Three   189
Sermon Twenty-Four   197
Sermon Twenty-Five   205
Sermon Twenty-Six   211
Appendix
Observations by the Translator   219
Abbreviations   233

Isaac of Stella, Hugh McCaffery, OCSO, Bernard McGinn

Isaac's moral-mystical exposition of scripture can serve as an introduction to "spiritual interpretation" at its best, combining theological depth, psychological insight, and free use of speculative concepts-plus close attention to the texts!Religious Studies Review His sermons, more rhetorical essays to be studied than homilies to be delivered, give modern readers some examples of how questions of philosophical theology could become part of a monastic spirituality by means of scriptural allegoriesChurch History

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