Scholars@Duke
J. Warren Smith

J. Warren Smith

Professor of Historical Theology
Divinity School
warren.smith@duke.edu
Duke Box 90967, Durham, NC 27708
047 Langford, Durham, NC 27708
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Selected Publications

Ambrose, Augustine, and the Pursuit of Greatness

Book · January 1, 2020 Since Aristotle, the concept of the magnanimous or great-souled man was employed by philosophers of antiquity to describe individuals who attained the highest degree of virtue. Greatness of soul (magnitudo animi or magnanimitas) was part of the language of ... Full text Cite

Becoming men, not stones: Epektasis in Gregory of Nyssa's Homilies on the Song of Songs

Journal Article Vigiliae Christianae, Supplements · January 1, 2018 Full text Cite

Loving the many in the one: Augustine and the love of finite goods

Journal Article Religions · November 18, 2016 This is an essay in comparative ethics within the Platonist tradition. Although the primary focus is on Augustine’s account of rightly ordered love of neighbor in De vera religione, it analyzes Augustine’s account of the love of finite goods by comparing i ... Full text Cite

The Trinity in the Fourth-Century Fathers

Chapter · January 3, 2012 This article offers a nuanced account of the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies. It shows how the fundamentally exegetical controversies began with Arius' insistence on the unique divine prerogatives of the Father and continued with decades of debate ... Full text Cite

Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue: The Theological Foundation of Ambrose's Ethics

Book · January 1, 2011 Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine's preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, especially in moral theology. Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue a ... Full text Cite

Ambrose, Paul, and the conversion of the Jews

Journal Article Ex auditu · January 1, 2009 Link to item Cite

Augustine and the limits of preemptive and preventive war

Journal Article Journal of Religious Ethics · March 1, 2007 Link to item Cite

A Just and Reasonable Grief: The Death and Function of a Holy Woman in Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina

Journal Article Journal of Early Christian Studies · 2004 This paper examines the key theological views that governed fourth-century interpretations of 'the holy woman' in ascetic communities. Specifically, it looks at Gregory of Nyssa's portrayal of Macrina in De Vita Macrinae as one whose asceticism and virgini ... Full text Cite

John Wesley's Growth in Grace and Gregory of Nyssa's Epectasy: A Conversation in Dynamic Perfection

Conference Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester · 2003 Full text Cite

Youth ministry in American Methodism's mission.

Journal Article Methodist History · July 1, 1981 The article examines the development of Youth Ministry within Methodism from 1889 to the present. Citing early Epworth League journals, Souvenir Programs, Handbooks, and personal documents, the article moves from needs that brought into being The Epworth ... Link to item Cite