The episode of the Transfiguration of Jesus plays a key role in the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels. Peter and his fellow Apostles have just acknowledged Jesus to be Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, and have been shocked by Jesus’ immediate prediction of his coming passion and death. Now Peter, James and John are allowed to share an extraordinary vision, marking him out as truly God’s own Son, radiant with divine glory. Early Christian commentators and preachers recognized the crucial importance of this incident for Christian faith and discipleship, as pointing in advance to the power of the cross and resurrection of Christ. The liturgical feast of the Transfiguration, anticipating that of the Exaltation of the Cross by forty days, came to be celebrated in the Eastern and Western Churches, beginning in the seventh century; yet since at least the third century, theologians have reflected on the significance of this event for the life of faith.
This volume brings together, in a new translation, a comprehensive collection of homilies on the Transfiguration of Christ from the Greek Patristic and Medieval Church, from Origen in the third century to St. Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth. Together they form a profound and moving set of meditations, from many perspectives and in many voices, on “the light of the recognition of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor 4.6), and on its importance for our lives.
Brian E. Daley, S.J., is the Catherine F. Husking Professor of Theology at the Univeristy of Notre Dame and also the translator of On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies (PPS18).
Table of Contents
- Foreword 9
- On Ignatius of Antioch 11
- Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians 25
- Ignatius’ Letter to the Magnesians 41
- Ignatius’ Letter to the Trallians 53
- Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans 63
- Ignatius’ Letter to the Philadelphians 75
- Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrneans 85
- Ignatius’ Letter to Polycarp 97
- On Pseudo-Ignatius 107
- Correspondence of Pseudo-Ignatius and Mary of Cassosbola 131
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Trallians 137
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Magnesians 147
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Tarsians 157
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Philippians 163
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Philadelphians 173
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrneans 183
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Polycarp 191
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Antiochenes 195
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to Hero 203
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians 209
- Ps-Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans 223
- Appendix 1: Other Antiochene material relating to Ignatius 229
- Appendix 2: The additional Latin letters of the Long Recension 251
- Further Reading 255
