Dr John Petruccione (Department of Greek and Latin) received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, which enabled him to pursue his research February-April at the American Academy in Rome.

Professor Philip Rousseau (Director) published an article, “Human Nature and its Material Setting in Basil of Caesarea’s Sermons on the Creation,” Heythrop Journal 49 (2008): 222-39.

January 2008

Edward Naumann (Mellon-Helis Fellow in the Department of Greek and Latin) attended the Twenty-third Annual Symposium on Exegetical Theology (devoted to the topic, "Atonement for Sin in the Scriptures: Challenging the Modern Dismissal of this Biblical Theme") at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, TX, where he gave a paper entitled, "Just Rewards for Works: an Exposition of Romans 2."

Several faculty and graduate students attended the recent meeting of the American Society of Church History in Washington, DC.

Dr Chrysi Kotsifou (Research Fellow and Visiting Associate Curator in ICOR) gave a paper (in the session devoted to "Early Christianity and Material Textuality," organized by Andrew Jacobs and Catherine Chin) entitled "Christianizing Texts: Theory and Practice in Egyptian Asceticism."

The session was chaired by Professor Philip Rousseau (Director), who also gave a paper (in the session devoted to "Creating Patristics in Modern Cities: the Old World and the New," organized by Elizabeth Clark) entitled "Patristics in Washington, DC."

December 2007

Dr John Petruccione (Department of Greek and Latin) published the first two volumes of the new Library of Early Christianity, of which he is Editor: Theodoret of Cyrus, The Questions of the Octoteuch, 2 vols, Greek text revised by John Petruccione, English translation with introduction and commentary by Robert C. Hill (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007).

Dr Anne Seville (Mellon-Helis Fellow in Early Christian Studies) successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation, “Ascetics and Society in Nilus of Ancyra: Old Testament Imagery as a Model for Personal and Social Reform,” directed by Professor Philip Rousseau (Director).

Professor William E. Klingshirn (Department of Greek and Latin), Associate Director of the Center, has been appointed an Editor of the journal Traditio.  He also recently published an article, "Comer y beber con los muertos: Mónnica de Tagaste y la Adivinación de los Sueños Bereber,” Augustinus 52 (2007): 127-31.

November 2007

October 2007

Edward Naumann (Mellon-Helis Fellow in the Department of Greek and Latin) attended the Centennial Meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States in Washington, DC, where he gave a paper entitled, "Bite-sized Lucretius: Passages of Repetition and Echo."

Rev. Professor Frank J. Matera (School of Theology and Religious Studies) recently published a new monograph, New Testament Theology: Exploring Diversity and Unity (Westminster John Knox Press).

September 2007

Dr Leonora Neville (Department of History), Associate Director of the Center, was joint recipient of the 2007 Nikolaos Panagiotakis Memorial Prize (sponsored by the Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, the Greek Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, the Fondazione di Venezia, and the Associazione Italia-Grecia of Venice) for her essay “Power-Hungry Byzantine Empresses and Theodora’s Rhetorical Legacy: the Functions of Women in Byzantine Historical Narrative.”

August 2007

A number of faculty and students attended the International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford, and the following gave papers, which have been submitted for publication:

Professor William E. Klingshirn (Department of Greek and Latin), Associate Director of the Center: “The Paradox of Christian Divination: Patristic Views and Everyday Practice.”

Dr Susan Wessel (School of Theology and Religious Studies), Member of the Center’s Executive Committee (two papers): “Mind and Sensation in Gregory of Nyssa”, and “Human Actions and the Passions in Nemesios of Emesa.”

Erik Kolb (Mellon-Helis Fellow in Early Christian Studies): “Eunuchs and Virgins at the White Monastery: Exegesis and Ascetic Formation in Shenoute’s ‘Abraham our Father’.”

Jonathan Loopstra (Mellon-Helis Fellow in Early Christian Studies): “The Collected Letters of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen in the Syriac Manuscript Tradition.”

 

We were also pleased to host a small party for CUA alumni attending the conference, and were able to welcome (in addition to the four speakers) Bishop Everard de Jong of Roermond, Netherlands (Philosophy), Marina Bazzani (Greek and Latin), Gerald Bonner (former Distinguished Professor), Clark Carlton (Early Christian Studies), Andrew Dinan (Greek and Latin), Sr Gertrude Gillette (Early Christian Studies), Fr Francis Kelly (Theology), Robert Kitchen (Semitics), Robert Markus (former Distinguished Professor), Jane Merdinger (former Assistant Professor), John O’Keefe (Early Christian Studies), Stan Rosenberg (Early Christian Studies), Pete Steiger (Theology), and Tarmo Toom (Theology).  The following were present at the conference, but regretted that they were unable to attend: Jane Baun (Medieval and Byzantine Studies), Catherine Chin (former Assistant Professor), David Hunter (Greek and Latin), and Ronnie Rombs (Greek and Latin).  We are particularly grateful to Stan Rosenberg for arranging a delightful venue.

July 2007

Dr Janet Timbie (Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures), Member of the Center’s Executive Committee, has recently published three papers: "Shenoute's Sermon The Lord Thundered: an Introduction and Translation" (with Jason R. Zaborowski), Oriens Christianus 90 (2006): 91-123; “Coptic Christianity,” in The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, ed. Ken Parry (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); and "Non-Canonical Scriptural Citation in Shenoute," in Actes du huitième congrès international d’études coptes, ed. Nathalie Bosson and Anne Boud’hors, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 163, (Louvain: Peeters, 2007), pp. 625-34.

Professor Philip Rousseau (Director) published a paper: "The Desert Fathers and their Broader Audience," in Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late-Antique Monasticism, ed. Alberto Camplani and Giovanni Filoramo, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 157 (Louvain: Peeters, 2007), pp. 89-107.

June 2007

We have been greatly saddened by the loss of Professor Michael O'Connor, who died on June 16 after a short and unexpected illness.  Michael was a distinguished scholar in his special field of Hebrew language and literature, and an unstinting supporter of the Center, always interested and involved and generous with his wise counsel.

Jonathan Loopstra (Mellon-Helis Fellow in Early Christian Studies) gave a paper at the North American Syriac Symposium in Toronto, entitled "Glossing the Glossators: Preserving the Biblical Reading Traditions of Tubono, Teodosi, and the Monks of the Skull Monastery."

May 2007

We were pleased to announce the publication of the first two volumes in our new series "CUA Studies in Early Christianity."  Professor William E. Klingshirn (Department of Greek and Latin), Associate Director of the Center, collaborated with our former colleague Dr Linda Safran (University of Toronto) in editing the first, The Early Christian Book, and Dr Janet Timbie (Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures) collaborated with Professor James E. Goehring (Mary Washington University) in editing the second, The World of Early Egyptian Christianity, to which she also contributed the chapter "Reading and Re-reading Shenoute’s I Am Amazed: More Information on Nestorius and Others.”

March 2007

Jonathan Loopstra (Mellon-Helis Fellow in Early Christian Studies) and Jared Ortiz (Mellon-Helis Fellow in the School of Theology and Religious Studies) both attended the Archbishop Iakovos Graduate Student Conference in Patristic Studies and the History of Christianity in Late Antiquity at the Stephen and Catherine Pappas Patristic Institute, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Boston.  Mr Loopstra gave a paper entitled "CliffsNotes to the Cappadocians: Handbooks for the Correct Reading of Gregory Nazianzus in the Syriac Tradition," and Mr Ortiz gave a paper entitled "St Irenaeus and the Primacy of Rome."

February 2007

Erik Kolb (Mellon-Helis Fellow in the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures) attended the graduate student conference at the University of Maryland (College Park), “History as Text, Text as History.”  He gave a paper entitled “Intertextuality and Gender Discourse: Ascetic Female Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity.”

January 2007

Professor William E. Klingshirn (Department of Greek and Latin), Associate Director of the Center, published a paper, "Inventing the sortilegus: Lot Divination and Cultural Identity in Italy, Rome, and the Provinces," in Religion in Republican Italy, edited by Celia E. Schultz and Paul B. Harvey, Yale Classical Studies, 33 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 137-161.

November 2006

Dr Chrysi Kotsifou (Research Fellow and Visiting Associate Curator in ICOR) gave a lecture at King's College, London, at the invitation of Professor Judith Herrin, entitled, "New Considerations Regarding Egyptian Monasticism and Pilgrim Sites."

Professor Philip Rousseau (Director), in connection with the Freer-Sackler exhibition, "In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000," gave a lecture to the Smithsonian Associates entitled "Monks, Books, and Learning."

October 2006

Dr Monica Blanchard (Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures) assisted in the setting up of the Freer-Sackler exhibition, “In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000”, contributed an essay to the accompanying catalogue entitled “The Christian Orient”, and gave an address, to the two-day symposium that preceded the opening of the exhibition, on the work of the distinguished Copticist and long-serving professor at CUA, Henri Hyvernat.

September 2006

Rev. Professor Sidney H. Griffith (Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures) published a paper, “Answers for the Shaykh: a ‘Melkite’ Arabic Text from Sinai and the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation in ‘Arab Orthodox’ Apologetics,” in The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, edited by E. Grypeou, M. Swanson, and D. Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 277-310, and, with Zeki Saritoprak, “Fethullah Gülen and the ‘People of the Book’: a Voice from Turkey for Interfaith Dialogue,” Muslim World 95 (2005): 329-40.

Professor Michael Patrick O’Connor (Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures), Member of the Center’s Executive Committee, published two papers: “The Onomastic Evidence for Bronze-Age West Semitic,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (2004): 439-70 (the volume appeared in 2006), and “The Human Characters’ Names in the Ugaritic Poems: Onomastic Eccentricity in Bronze-Age West Semitic and the Name Daniel in Particular,” in Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic Context: Typological and Historical Perspectives, edited by Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2006), pp. 269-83.

Jonathan Loopstra (Mellon-Helis Fellow in Early Christian Studies) attended the Sixth International Syriac Conference held at the St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute in Kottayam, Kerala.  He gave a paper, “Patristic Selections in the ‘Syriac Massorah’ Collections,” which will be published in a future number of The Harp.

On his way back to the United States, Mr Loopstra will be teaching, at the direct invitation of Archbishop Javier Martinez, a short course in Syriac Patristics at the International Center for the Study of the Christian Orient in Grenada.

Dr Edward Strickland (Graduate Student in the Department of Greek and Latin) successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, “Christian Leadership in Late Antique Ancyra (284-450),” directed by Professor William E. Klingshirn (Department of Greek and Latin).  Dr Strickland is Assistant Professor of Classical and Early Christian Studies at Christendom College, Front Royal, VA.

August 2006