The Patristic Text in the Confessional Age (16th-17th Centuries)

This volume follows the paradoxical trajectory of patristic studies in early modern Europe, from their full confessionalization in the mid-sixteenth century to the emergence of 'fringe patristics' within minority groups in the early eighteenth century. The appeal to the Fathers, which was meant to buttress established orthodoxies, powerfully contributed to their dissolution in the internal strifes of seventeenth-century churches, especially on grace and predestination. An ample English introduction, with rich notes, surveys the flourishing field of patristic reception and advocates for a historical, rather than theological or literary, approach.