Books by Jane Sloan Peters
I. T. Eschmann remarked in 1956 that Thomas Aquinas's Glossa continua super evangelia, popularly ... more I. T. Eschmann remarked in 1956 that Thomas Aquinas's Glossa continua super evangelia, popularly known as the Catena aurea, marked a "turning point in the development of Aquinas's theology as well as in the history of Catholic dogma," due to the Greek sources acquired for the project. Significant research has uncovered many of the source texts for the project, and some scholars have also shown how Thomas redeployed passages in later works and sermons. But much more research is needed into Thomas's reception of the content of these texts, and why they caused a "turning point" in Thomas's thought. This dissertation argues that Aquinas's reception of John Chrysostom, Theophylact of Ochrid, and Cyril of Alexandria is critical to understanding Aquinas's mature Christology, displayed in the Lectura super Ioannem and ST IIIa qq. 1-59. These doctores enrich Thomas's exegesis of the literal sense of the Gospels, allowing him to bring the conciliar content he was reading to bear on the interpretation of Scripture, and prompting him to include a meditation on Christ's life in his own Tertia Pars. Chapter 1 situates the Catena aurea in the context of East-West relations and argues that, while Aquinas intended the work for Latin preachers, the text presents a union between Greeks and Latins that ecclesiastical and political powers envisioned but failed to achieve. Chapter 2 argues that study of the Catena aurea is ideal for moving beyond the scholarly question of whether Aquinas allowed multiple interpretations of the literal sense. Chapter 3 challenges the "doctrine-exegesis" dichotomy by exploring Aquinas's reception of John Chrysostom's exegetical methods of θεωρία and συγκατάβασις. Chapter 4 examines Aquinas's reception of Cyril of Alexandria as exegete, attending to the Christological content of the nearly four hundred Cyrilline citations in the Catena in Lucam. Chapter 5 shows that Theophylact of Ochrid, a nearcontemporary of Aquinas and heir to the conciliar and exegetical traditions of the Greek East, is instrumental in the unfolding of Aquinas's thought in the Catena aurea and the Lectura super Ioannem. The conclusion reiterates the importance of the Catena aurea for understanding Aquinas's mature theological work.
Articles and other Academic Publications by Jane Sloan Peters
Theology and Media(tion): Rendering the Absent Present, 2023
This essay explores how social media mediates the transcendent for members of Generation Z, espec... more This essay explores how social media mediates the transcendent for members of Generation Z, especially as they attempt to make sense of suffering. When I began teaching Religious Studies at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, I joined TikTok in an effort to understand my students' lives. I was concerned with the distressing content I encountered over a short period of scrolling.
In this essay, I first review how GenZ uses TikTok and explain the issues this raises for theological education. Then, I describe one way I engaged student use of TikTok to introduce a unit on Buddhist and Christian approaches to suffering—in an assignment in which students documented the suffering they saw on social media. I also explain my pedagogy, which implemented an inquiry-based form of "unlearning" that enables students to assimilate new information. Finally, I share student responses to the assignment, which show the complex ways GenZ engages the question of suffering on TikTok, and their reasons for doing so.
Journal of Moral Theology, 2023
Part of the 2022 symposium, "Dialogue after Dobbs: Toward Reasoned Dialogue and Constructive Conv... more Part of the 2022 symposium, "Dialogue after Dobbs: Toward Reasoned Dialogue and Constructive Conversation on Abortion"
College campuses tend to nurture intractable positions on abortion, and students feel pressured not to critique the campus position, whether pro-abortion or anti-abortion. In order to cultivate reasoned reflection and civil conversation on Catholic campuses after the Dobbs decision, we must first acknowledge that overall, our students have not experienced such reflection or conversation. We have a responsibility as educators to model such experiences and foster them in our classrooms. Two dimensions of the conversation that need a great deal of care and cultivation are the role of rationality and the role of emotion in high-stakes moral discussions.
Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, 2018
Conference Presentations by Jane Sloan Peters
While Aeterni Patris is known principally for spurring a renewal in Thomistic philosophy, Pope Le... more While Aeterni Patris is known principally for spurring a renewal in Thomistic philosophy, Pope Leo XIII makes plain that Thomas Aquinas is also heir par excellence of patristic tradition. After sixteen paragraphs featuring Fathers such as Irenaeus, Augustine, Gregory Nazianzus, and Clement of Alexandria, he extols Aquinas's use of the doctors of the church, drawing on John Cajetan's observation that Aquinas "seems to have inherited the intellect of all" the Fathers: The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith (par. 17). These viri illustri whose work Aquinas received-like Aquinas himself-considered themselves first to be not philosophers, but exegetes and defenders of sacred doctrine. Thomistic exegesis, then, is an important facet of understanding Aquinas as the Common Doctor.
College Theology Society Annual Convention, 2023
Everything does not happen for a reason: social media as a resource for introducing Christian the... more Everything does not happen for a reason: social media as a resource for introducing Christian theodicy. College students encounter suffering daily-in their own lives and the lives of their family and peers. Yet students also encounter a greater quantity of suffering on social media than ever before. While community standards on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms filter out the most extreme content, it is common to encounter the trauma of strangers while scrolling. My undergraduates, tasked with combing their social media feeds for suffering, reported seeing accounts of terminal illness, relationship abuse, physical violence, mental illness, and seizures-and even a lengthy explanation of the reasons behind a suicide attempt.
Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2023
Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2022
Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2021
My dissertation studies Aquinas's reception of Greek patristic and Byzantine sources for the Cate... more My dissertation studies Aquinas's reception of Greek patristic and Byzantine sources for the Catena Aurea, his four-volume, continuous patristic commentary on the Gospels. One of my interests is in how Aquinas redeploys these sources in subsequent texts, especially the Summa Theologica. In this paper I build off the work of Louis-Jacques Bataillon by examining Aquinas's incorporation of the doctores in the objections and their replies in the Tertia Pars qq. 27-59, on the mysteries of Christ's life. I identify the synchronic and diachronic value in this practice: First, I argue that in addition to the articulation of sacred doctrine, Thomas is concerned with the proper interpretation of patristic authorities pertinent to the questions he raises. Then, I argue that these authorities, in turn, deepen Thomas's engagement with doctrinal questions (as is evident when one compares his Sentences commentary, which he wrote prior to the composition of the Catena Aurea, to the Tertia Pars). I will give an example of the synchronic element of patristic contribution in the Thomistic commonplace, "Christ's action is for our instruction," and I will give an example of the diachronic element by looking at his treatment of the transfiguration in the Sentences commentary and the Tertia Pars.
This paper explores friendship from the perspective of Raïssa Maritain: philosopher, mystic, and ... more This paper explores friendship from the perspective of Raïssa Maritain: philosopher, mystic, and wife of Jacques Maritain. Raïssa’s autobiography, Les Grandes Amitiés (1941) and her Journal (1963) offer fruitful thoughts on friendship in three domains. The first is her and Jacques’ conversion to Catholicism through their friendship with Léon Bloy, who, rather than presenting the young philosophers with apologetics, “placed before us the fact of sanctity.” The second is her life and intellectual kinship with Jacques, “the greatest of my friends.” The third domain is her maturing spiritual life, in which her love of Thomas Aquinas, and her friendship with God, cultivated through long hours of contemplative prayer and physical suffering, overflowed into her human friendships.
Studia Patristica. Vol. CXXIX - Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019
This paper argues that divine magnanimity, or makrothumia, in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies correct... more This paper argues that divine magnanimity, or makrothumia, in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies corrects John Haught’s kenotic approach to evolutionary theology. Haught describes God in relation to the evolving world by loving self-absence. But this description is not scripturally coherent or faithful to the classical divine attributes. Irenaeus’s description of a magnanimous God, relating to the world by sustaining creation in the economy of salvation, provides a helpful corrective to Haught’s thought.
This paper first outlines Haught’s kenotic model of evolutionary theology and discusses its merits and problems. Then, Irenaeus’s conception of divine magnanimity, or makrothumia is described, with emphasis on its importance to two key Irenaean concepts: the economy of salvation and Christ’s work of recapitulation. Finally, makrothumia will be proposed as a useful term for evolutionary theologians.
Theologians Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius invoke John 14:9, “The one who has seen me has se... more Theologians Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius invoke John 14:9, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father,” to discuss the Son as Image of God. This paper treats two passages –Ecclesiastical Theology 3.21 and Orations Against the Arians 3.5 – that indicate that Eusebius and Athanasius are polemically entangled with the proper interpretation of this verse. Each passage clarifies the meaning of John 14:9 with the analogy of a king and a king’s image. In this sense they are similar, but the contextual Christology is very different. This suggests that Athanasius (c. 345) was playing off of Eusebius’s analogy (c. 337-338).
Public Lectures by Jane Sloan Peters
A Lecture for the Thomistic Institute at Brown University
Teaching Documents by Jane Sloan Peters
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
College of Mount Saint Vincent (Riverdale, NY), S... more Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
College of Mount Saint Vincent (Riverdale, NY), Spring 2023
Fordham University, Fall 2019
Fordham University, Spring 2020
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Books by Jane Sloan Peters
Articles and other Academic Publications by Jane Sloan Peters
In this essay, I first review how GenZ uses TikTok and explain the issues this raises for theological education. Then, I describe one way I engaged student use of TikTok to introduce a unit on Buddhist and Christian approaches to suffering—in an assignment in which students documented the suffering they saw on social media. I also explain my pedagogy, which implemented an inquiry-based form of "unlearning" that enables students to assimilate new information. Finally, I share student responses to the assignment, which show the complex ways GenZ engages the question of suffering on TikTok, and their reasons for doing so.
College campuses tend to nurture intractable positions on abortion, and students feel pressured not to critique the campus position, whether pro-abortion or anti-abortion. In order to cultivate reasoned reflection and civil conversation on Catholic campuses after the Dobbs decision, we must first acknowledge that overall, our students have not experienced such reflection or conversation. We have a responsibility as educators to model such experiences and foster them in our classrooms. Two dimensions of the conversation that need a great deal of care and cultivation are the role of rationality and the role of emotion in high-stakes moral discussions.
Conference Presentations by Jane Sloan Peters
This paper first outlines Haught’s kenotic model of evolutionary theology and discusses its merits and problems. Then, Irenaeus’s conception of divine magnanimity, or makrothumia is described, with emphasis on its importance to two key Irenaean concepts: the economy of salvation and Christ’s work of recapitulation. Finally, makrothumia will be proposed as a useful term for evolutionary theologians.
Public Lectures by Jane Sloan Peters
Teaching Documents by Jane Sloan Peters
College of Mount Saint Vincent (Riverdale, NY), Spring 2023
In this essay, I first review how GenZ uses TikTok and explain the issues this raises for theological education. Then, I describe one way I engaged student use of TikTok to introduce a unit on Buddhist and Christian approaches to suffering—in an assignment in which students documented the suffering they saw on social media. I also explain my pedagogy, which implemented an inquiry-based form of "unlearning" that enables students to assimilate new information. Finally, I share student responses to the assignment, which show the complex ways GenZ engages the question of suffering on TikTok, and their reasons for doing so.
College campuses tend to nurture intractable positions on abortion, and students feel pressured not to critique the campus position, whether pro-abortion or anti-abortion. In order to cultivate reasoned reflection and civil conversation on Catholic campuses after the Dobbs decision, we must first acknowledge that overall, our students have not experienced such reflection or conversation. We have a responsibility as educators to model such experiences and foster them in our classrooms. Two dimensions of the conversation that need a great deal of care and cultivation are the role of rationality and the role of emotion in high-stakes moral discussions.
This paper first outlines Haught’s kenotic model of evolutionary theology and discusses its merits and problems. Then, Irenaeus’s conception of divine magnanimity, or makrothumia is described, with emphasis on its importance to two key Irenaean concepts: the economy of salvation and Christ’s work of recapitulation. Finally, makrothumia will be proposed as a useful term for evolutionary theologians.
College of Mount Saint Vincent (Riverdale, NY), Spring 2023