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Isaac of Stella was an English-born Cistercian who studied in the schools before entering monastic life and becoming abbot of Stella in 1147. His liturgical sermons inject a speculative philosophical inquisitiveness into imaginative meditations on scenes from Scripture. This present volume includes sermons 27-55, along with three fragments. In these sermons, while treating biblical passages corresponding to the major feasts of the Christian calendar, Isaac tackles weighty dogmatic issues such as predestination, the problem of evil, and Christ’s two natures.
Lewis White has been a professor and translator at the Language Center of the Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, Mexico, since 2009. He has translated Aelred of Rievaulx’s Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah (CF 83) and of some of the liturgical sermons from Aelred’s Durham Collection.
Elias Dietz has been a monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani since 1988. He has published studies on early Cistercian authors in various journals, including Cistercian Studies Quarterly, of which he was editor from 2003 to 2007. Since 2008 he has served as abbot of his community. With regard to Isaac of Stella, his main contributions have been a study of his biography and an edition and translation of his Letter on the Canon of the Mass. He is currently collaborating with Sources Chrétiennes on a volume of Isaac’s letters.
