A Poetic Christ

A Poetic Christ is a demanding book, but its demands are worth the effort ... It is a book that not only commends, but also embodies, Venard's calls for theology to be thought anew as 'a reasoned history of the poetics of faith practiced by a concrete community'. * Modern Theology * Biblical scholars and Thomists have long been aware of the towering works of Olivier-Thomas Venard; but for many English-speaking readers, the sheer density and interdisciplinary virtuosity of his thought - while richly stimulating - have made assimilation through a foreign language too daunting. This translation of key portions of his trilogy comes in the nick of time. When paired with Cyril O'Regan's brilliant foreword, we now have a gateway into the thought of one of the world's greatest interpreters of God's Word. * Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary, USA * Unambiguously centred on the Word of God, Venard claims that Christ is the only possible ground of human speech and significance. The result is a learned and profound Thomist meditation on the implications of incarnation, cross, and resurrection for language, literature, and biblical studies. A debt of gratitude is owed to Kenneth Oakes and Francesca Murphy for the many long hours spent on making Venard's work available to the English-speaking world. * Hans Boersma, Regent College, USA * Olivier-Thomas Venard is among the most original and most brilliant Catholic thinkers writing in French today, and is far too little known in the Anglophone world. This volume is a splendid, even scintillating distillate of his most important work and most illuminating ideas. * David Bentley Hart, University of Notre Dame, USA *

Olivier-Thomas Venard is Deputy Director at Ecole Biblique et Archeologique, Israel. Francesca Aran Murphy is Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Kenneth Oakes is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Notre Dame, USA.

Author's Acknowledgments Translators' Acknowledgments Abbreviations Foreword - Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame, USA Translators' Preface I. Scripture 1. A Poetic Gospel? 2. Towards a Poetic Christology II. Theology and Literature 3. 'I am not a writer': Is There a Literary Vocation? 4. 'To Contemplate and to Hand On': The Literary Drama of the Theologian's Vocation 5. The Idea and Poetics of the Summa theologiae 6. Language That Wanted to Make Itself as Strong as the Word 7. In Search of the Lost Word III. Language as a Theological Question 8. Little Thomasian Semiology 9. A Thomist Response: The Metaphysics of the Word 10. The Existence of Language as a Theological Question IV. Word, Cross, Eucharist 11. The Cross of Jesus, the Summit of the Word of God 12. The Cross of Jesus, Source of Theological Speech 13. The Eucharist, the Exercise in Adoration - Glosses on 'Adoro Te' V. Conclusion 14. 'The Hour Comes and Has Come...' Appendix Bibliography Index of Names