Description
This book offer a new edition of Yves Congar’s A History of Theology, which was originally published in the 1960s. This work began as a lengthy article appearing in the multi-volume Dictionnaire de Théologie in 1946 entitled ‘Théologie’. Congar wrote that he, Fr M-D Chenu OP, and Fr Henri-Marie Féret OP in the 1930s planned to write a history of theology. Their work load, World War II, and Chenu’s teaching in Canada interfered. He used some of his notes for that project and begun in 1938. The manuscript was completed by the Dominican priest as he was mobilised for service in the French army because World War II was beginning. After being captured by the Germans he attempted to escape; that was punished by internment in the stricter camps of Lübeck and Colditz. Those experiences of repression prepared him—he later observed—for the censorious measures to come in the 1950s from the Vatican because of his advocacy of ecumenism and historical approaches to ecclesiology. Later he did not hesitate to compare the Holy Office with the Gestapo. Returning from the war, Congar looked at what had been published in the Dictionnaire and found that his text had been cut considerably. He edited and improved the original text, restoring many of the deletions; that work was translated into English in 1968, but was never published in French.
Thomas F O’Meara OP
Professor Emeritus of the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, USA
