Patristics and Catholic Social Thought: Hermeneutical Models for a Dialogue

List of Abbreviations

x Acknowledgments Christian social thought such that like-minded scholars may carry the work to even greater heights. As for this particular text, it took shape during an important three days of conversation between members of our research staff and nearly twenty scholars invited to participate in a seminar in September 2007 at Catholic University of Leuven. I need not mention all their names here, for most of them later published revised versions of their remarks in the volume Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for Twenty-First-Century Christian Social Thought, ed. Johan Leemans, Brian J. Matz, and Johan Verstraeten , CUA Studies in Early Christianity (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2011). In addition to these scholars, I have been grateful for conversations with colleagues both in ethics and in patristics at annual meetings of the Society of Christian Ethics and of the North American Patristics Society. I am also grateful to the assistance of the staff of the Maurits Sabbe Bibliotheek of the Faculty of Theology in Leuven and of the staff of the interlibrary loan desk at the Catholic University of Leuven Central Library. With the conclusion of this project, surely some measureable percentage of their workload over the past few years gave way to newfound time and energy for other researchers and their projects. I thank them very much. Thanks are due to Michael Deckard, Colby Dickinson, and our weekly meetings together over cups of strong coffee at a local shop in Leuven during which we read together Gadamer’s Truth and Method and Ricoeur’s hermeneutical essays. They were remarkably patient with this novice in the field of twentieth-century hermeneutics. I am also grateful to Shawn Keough, with whom I shared an office at the Catholic University of Leuven. His near-religious zeal for unearthing hidden treasures for scholarly study among the many fields of oriental Christian studies was an inspiration, although I remain convinced he would have enjoyed his work more if he took many more coffee breaks with me. Thanks are due also to the many friends who gave me more than enough reasons to balance work with the pleasures of living in Europe. Thanks to Lucrèce de Becker, Jim and Krista Slagle, Jean Jacobs and Lies Vanoorle, John and Julia Dennis, Acknowledgments xi David Pratt, Michael and Julianne Funk Deckard, Shawn and Myrna Keough, Colby Dickinson, and Elisabeth Bayley. As well, thanks are due to my department chair at Carroll College, John Ries, who organized my teaching schedule during 2009–2010 in a way that enabled completion of this manuscript. Furthermore, thanks are due to Philip Gerard Holthaus, my copy editor for this book, whose many corrections improved the text very much, and to Taylor Stewart, my research assistant, who helped with the preparation of the indexes. Doubtless, errors remain for which I am entirely responsible. Finally, I thank my wife Heidi for her understanding and support during the many hours of work that were required in order to complete this manuscript. Fellow parents of toddlers will know that she bore the brunt of the hard work needed to raise our boys during these delightful but challenging years. It is to her I dedicated this book. xiii List of Abbreviations KL Other abbreviations are introduced in the text, such as titles of encyclicals. ACW Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff ANL Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum FOTC The Fathers of the Church GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte GNO Gregorii Nysseni Opera LCL Loeb Classical Library NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers PG Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne PL Patrologia Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne PTS Patristische Texte und Studien SC Sources Chrétiennes WSA Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament xv List of Tables KL Table 1. CST Documents and Their Patristic Sources: 10 Summary Table 2. Patristic Sources in the CST Documents 11 Table 3. Density of Patristic Source Citations in the CST 17 Documents Table 4. Frequency of Rhetorical Function according to 21 Citation Category Table 5a. Jerome’s Dialogue, Homily 86, ll.110–24 115 Table 5b. Jerome’s...