Reconfiguring Thomistic Christology

Description

In this book, Matthew Levering unites eschatologically charged biblical Christology with metaphysical and dogmatic Thomistic Christology, by highlighting the typological Christologies shared by Scripture, the Church Fathers, and Aquinas. Like the Church Fathers, Aquinas often reflected upon Jesus in typological terms (especially in his biblical commentaries), just as the New Testament does. Showing the connections between New Testament, Patristic, and Aquinas' own typological portraits of Jesus, Levering reveals how the eschatological Jesus of biblical scholarship can be integrated with Thomistic Christology. His study produces a fully contemporary Thomistic Christology that unites ressourcement and Thomistic modes of theological inquiry, thereby bridging two schools of contemporary theology that too often are imagined as rivals. Levering's book reflects and augments the current resurgence of Thomistic Christology as an ecumenical project of relevance to all Christians.

Matthew Levering holds the James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology at Mundelein Seminary. He is the author of Aquinas's Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance (2019) and Paul in the 'Summa Theologiae' (2014), and the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas (2021).

'In this book, Levering not only documents the contemporary re-emergence of Thomistic Christology. He also contributes to it significantly by underscoring the biblical and typological framework of St. Thomas' Christology. He does so while illustrating manifold connections between Aquinas' scriptural exegesis and that of many contemporary biblical interpreters, in a contribution that is both original and sorely needed, restoring unity to regions of theology that are often separated artificially. This is a bold work of theological faith and historical reason, contemporary biblical exegesis and classical scriptural theology, yet another illustration of the judicious insight and tangible charity of Matthew Levering as a central protagonist of theology in our era.' Thomas Joseph White, OP, Rector, Angelicum, Rome 'The very conception of this book a reading of Thomistic Christology through the lens of Thomas' use of biblical typologies is a brilliant and inspired breakthrough that promises to break down entrenched boundaries between systematic Christology, modern biblical exegesis, and Thomistic studies. The realization of this conception throughout this book brings this daring promise to a compelling and richly rewarding fulfillment. This is ressourcement theology at its finest, as deeply recuperative of the riches of the Christian tradition as it is creatively and impactfully responsive to the present moment.' Khaled Anatolios, John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame