Faculty

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Jonathan Bieler

Assistant Professor of Patrology and Systematic Theology
Jonathan Bieler portrait
202-526-9734
  • McGivney Hall 211

RESEARCH AREAS

  • Maximus the Confessor
  • Thomas Aquinas
  • Bonaventure
  • Origen
  • Ferdinand Ulrich

Jonathan Bieler

Assistant Professor of Patrology and Systematic Theology
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Education

Dr. Theol., University of Zürich
M.Th., University of Zürich
M.A., Thomistic Theology, Dominican House of Studies, Washington D.C.
B.A. (Propädeutikum), Theology, University of Zürich.

Bio

Dr. Bieler received his doctoral degree in theology at the University of Zürich (2017), with a dissertation in Patristics on the coherence of Maximus the Confessor’s thought, which is published by Brill (2019). He taught in the theological faculty at the University of Zürich and assisted the chair of Patristics with teaching and research. He collaborated in the production of a new critical edition of Theodoret of Cyrus’ Compendium haereticarum fabularum. He also works on the Scholastic period, especially Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, and published articles on Thomas Aquinas, Maximus Confessor, and Origen. In his work he is striving to combine the usage of historical-critical methods with faithfulness to the Church’s living tradition. He is currently engaged in research concerning sacramentality in the Church Fathers, especially Origen. Dr. Bieler is a member of the North American Patristics Society.

Courses

JPI 623/853

Mystery of the Church

This course looks at the grand themes of the Church—One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic—through the themes of the “communio ecclesiology” …

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JPI 646/865

Sacramentality in the Fathers

As we can see in the writings of the New Testament and of the Fathers, the person of Christ was …

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JPI 869

Bonaventure: Wisdom and Trinitarian Theology

Over against the Dominican Thomas Aquinas, who was Bonaventure’s most important contemporary and proceeded according to a more Aristotelian methodological …

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JPI 870

The Desire to See God in Gregory of Nyssa

For Gregory of Nyssa man desires to see God, because he is made for God. The fact that this desire …

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JPI 1002

Maximus Confessor: God and Man as Mutual Paradigms

Maximus the Confessor reflected deeply on Christology as well as the metaphysical question of the relation between God and His …

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JPI 1004

Origen: Theologian of the Logos

Origen of Alexandria lived from c. 180AD – c. 254AD and was one of the most influential theologians of the …

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JPI 1005

Boethius: Mediator between Antiquity & the Middle Ages

Boethius is considered to be the most important mediator between classical antiquity and the philosophy and theology of the Middle …

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JPI 1008

The Desire to See God in Gregory of Nyssa

For Gregory of Nyssa man desires to see God, because he is made for God. The fact that this desire …

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Books

Der Einheitsbegriff als Koharenzprinzip bei Maximus Confessor book cover

Der Einheitsbegriff als Kohärenzprinzip in der Theologie des Maximus Confessor: Eine Studie zu Ps-Dionysius-Rezeption, triplex via und analogem Weltbild bei Maximus Confessor. (Brill, 2019).


Select Articles

“The Upward Pursuit of Happiness in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum.” Communio: International Catholic Review 47.2 (Summer 2020): 300-315.

“Body and Soul Immovably Related: Considering an Aspect of Maximus the Confessor’s Concept of Analogy.” In Studia Patristica LXXV, edited by Markus Vinzent, 223-236. Leuven, BE: Peeters Publishing, 2017.

“Maximus the Confessor on Christ's Human Will.” Communio: International Catholic Review 43.1 (2016): 55-82.

“Origen on the Goodness of the Body.” In Sacrality and Materiality: Locating Intersections, edited by Giselbrecht, Rebecca and Kunz, Ralph, 91-100. Göttingen, DE: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016.

“What Kind of ‘Proofs’ are Aquinas’s Demonstrations of God’s Existence?” Analecta Hermeneutica 2 (2010): 1-14.


YouTube video

New Trinitarian Ontologies Conference - Panel 10: Reception & Development of the Patristic Tradition