Brian E. Daley

The Empire Strikes Back: The National Public Radio Dramatization contains the original, unabridged script of the radio adaptation of Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. It also includes an introduction written by Brian Daley, which recounts the production of the radio play.

"The essays in this volume, honoring the scholarship and teaching of Brian E. Daley, S.J., Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, explore the christological and trinitarian views of early Christian writers and theologians from the second through the seventh century. They include a study of the apocalyptic motifs and Christology in the second-century Letter to the Churches of Lyons and Vienne; of the Chalcedonian creed, viewed as a restatement of Christ's mystery and an expression of praise; and comparative analyses of the christological and trinitarian views of Athanasius, Hilary of Poiters, Gregory of Nazianzus, Eustathius of Antioch, Marcellus of Ancyra, Augustine, Origen, sixth-century theologians of the Theopaschite controversy, Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor. Running through the arguments of various essays is the theme, reflecting a strongly held conviction of Brian E. Daley, that patristic Christologies cannot be appreciated only in terms of conciliar debates and responses to theological and ontological problems, but must be interpreted in the largest possible context of concerns about Christian practice and discipleship, scriptural interpretation, martyrdom, salvation, the love between Christ and believers, and the ultimate mystery of the incarnation."--Jacket.

This work considers the early development and reception of what is today the most widely professed Christian conception of Christ. The development of this doctrine admits of wide variations in expression and understanding, varying emphases in interpretation that are as striking in authors of the first millennium as they are among modern writers. The seven early ecumenical councils and their dogmatic formulations are crucial way-stations in defining the shape of this study. Brian E. Daley argues that the scope of previous enquiries, which focused on the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 that Christ was one Person in two natures, the Divine of the same substance as the Father, and the human of the same substance as us, now seems excessively narrow and distorts our understanding. Daley sets aside the Chalcedonian formula and instead considers what some major Church Fathers-from Irenaeus to John Damascene-say about the person of Christ.

"Leontius of Byzantium' (485-543) Byzantine monk and theologian who provided a breakthrough of terminology in the 6th-century Christological controversy over the mode of union of Christ's human nature with his divinity. He did so through his introduction of Aristotelian logical categories and Neoplatonic psychology into Christian speculative theology. His work initiated the later intellectual development of Christian theology throughout medieval culture. Brian E. Daley provides translation and commentary on the six theological works associated with the name of 'Leontius of Byzantium'. The critical text and facing-page translation help make these works more accessible than ever before and provide a reliable textual apparatus for future scholarship."--Back cover.