The mystery of the Holy Trinity in the fathers of the church

D. Vincent Twomey, SVD & Lewis Ayres, editors

'This beautifully produced volume is very encouraging, above all for those who had begun to suppose that patristic scholarship was a dying profession. Of the nine contributors five are from Ireland, one from England, two from America, and one from Germany ... All the papers are both rich in content and thought-provoking, especially those by Twomey and Clancy. The present importance of both Peterson and Congar is persuasively argued. This means that the way we think about God should have a very important influence upon our attitudes to both politics and the Church, though in different ways. Belief in the doctrine of the Trinity should emancipate us from any slavish attitudes to civil society; and the way we think about the Church, above all if we take the Augustinian dictum (used by Congar) ecclesia ab Abel (cf. City of God 15.1) seriously, may make us more prepared to look outside the visible body of the Church for the City of God. In general the tone of these stimulating articles is narrative and exploratory rather than critical. The width and character of all the contributions is impressive,' Anthony Meredith, SJ, Journal of Theological Studies (October 2008)

'The papers explore the Trinity from perspectives as broad-ranging as politics and contemplation to Christian life and thought – all with exemplary scholarly acumen…This Conference is a distillation of honest enquiry and clear presentation on the part of people who have given a lifetime of intellectual curiosity to the search for greater understanding of the being of God and the persons of the Trinity,' Michael Jackson, Search: A Church of Ireland Journal.