Letter & Spirit, Vol. 5: Liturgy and Empire: Faith in Exile and Political Theology

Letter & Spirit is a journal of Catholic biblical theology for the new millennium. It seeks to foster deeper understanding of sacred Scripture and the divine liturgy of the Church.

This is the fifth annual volume of the remarkably popular journal of biblical theology edited by Scott Hahn and his St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. This volume features important new works by Hahn, Brant Pitre, Matthew Levering, and Robert Barron, among others. The issue explores the biblical themes of Church and state; idolatry and power; religion and violence; worship and sacrifice; the Kingdom of God; and the Eucharist. Highlights include Hahn’s new essay on the “prophetic historiography” of 1 and 2 Chronicles; and Pitre’s essay on “Jesus, the Messianic Banquet, and the Kingdom of God.” The journal, which always seeks to reprint classic texts alongside groundbreaking new works, this time includes a new translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Lectures on 2 Thessalonians”—the first time this work has been translated into English. Also included are an influential work by Louis Bouyer on “Satan and Christ in the New Testament and Early Tradition.” The volume concludes with a classic homily by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI on “the morality of exile.” 

About the Series: Letter & Spirit seeks to foster a deeper conversation about the Bible. This new journal of biblical theology, published in collaboration with Scott Hahn and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, takes a crucial step toward recovering the fundamental link between the literary and historical study of Scripture and its religious and spiritual meaning in the Church’s liturgy and Tradition.