Henri de Lubac

In 1929, de Lubac was appointed professor of fundamental theology at the Catholic University of Lyon (the required doctorate having been conferred by the Gregorian University in Rome at the behest of the Father General of the Society of Jesus, without de Lubac's setting foot there or ever submitting a dissertation). He would teach there from 1929 to 1961, though with two interruptions – first during World War II, when he was forced underground because of his activities with the French Resistance, and then from 1950 to 1958, when the Society of Jesus, under pressure from Rome, removed him from his teaching responsibilities and the Fourvière Jesuit residence. During the 1930s de Lubac spent his time teaching at the Catholic University and researching, as well as teaching (between 1935 and 1940) one course at the Jesuit seminary at Fourvière (where he also lived from 1934 onwards). His first book, the now-classic Catholicisme (English title of the current edition: Catholicism: Christ and Common Destiny of Man) was published in 1938, before the war. In 1940, he founded the series Sources Chrétiennes ("Christian Sources"), co-edited with fellow Jesuit Jean Daniélou, a collection of bilingual, critical editions of early Christian texts and of the Church Fathers that has reinvigorated both the study of patristics and the doctrine of Sacred Tradition. During the Second World War, the first interruption to this pattern came: de Lubac joined a movement of "spiritual resistance," assisting in the publication of an underground journal of Nazi resistance called Témoignage chrétien, or Christian Testimony. It was intended to show the incompatibility of Christian belief with the philosophy and activities of the Nazi regime, both in Germany and also under the cover of the Vichy government in southern France, which was theoretically independent of the Reich. De Lubac was often in hiding from the Germans and several of his co-workers on the journal were captured and executed. Even in hiding, he continued to study and write. From 1944 onwards, with the end of the Nazi occupation of France, de Lubac came out of hiding and published a number of texts (many of them begun or completed before the war but not published in the early 1940s because of the shortage of paper) which became major interventions in twentieth-century Catholic theology. These included: Corpus Mysticum, which had been ready for publication in 1939, and appeared in February 1944; Le Drame de l'humanisme athée, (The Drama of Atheist Humanism) published in December 1944; De la connaissance de Dieu published in 1945; Surnaturel: Études historiques (a book which de Lubac had started at Hastings in his student days), published in 1946 in a print run of 700 copies, because of the ongoing paper shortage.

• Publication of de Lubac's Oeuvres completes (50 vols; Paris: Cerf, 1998). • Catholicisme: Les aspects sociaux du dogme (Paris, 1938: seven editions were published, the last in 1983), translated as Catholicism, trans. Sheppard, L. & Englund, E, (London: Longman Green, 1950), and later reissued as Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988). • Corpus Mysticum: Essai sur L'Eucharistie et l’Église au moyen âge (Paris, 1944), translated as Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, trans Gemma Simmonds with Richard Price and Christopher Stephens, (London, 2006). • Le drame de l'humanisme athée (Paris, 1944), translated as The Drama of Atheist Humanism, trans. Riley, M., Nash, A. & Sebanc, M., (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995 − translation of the 1983 edition including chapters omitted from the 1949 translation). • De la Connaissance de Dieu (Paris, 1945). A greatly expanded version of this book later appeared under the title Sur les chemins de Dieu, (Paris, 1956); this later work was translated as The Discovery of God, translated by Alexander Dru with Mark Sebanc and Cassian Fulsom, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996). • Surnaturel: Études historiques (1946). A new French edition issued by (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1991) contains a complete translation into French of all Greek and Latin citations. There is not yet (2024) an English translation. However, Augustinianism and Modern Theology (1967) closely follows Part One of Surnaturel, and the conclusion is translated by David Coffey in Philosophy and Theology, 11:2, (1999), 368–80. • Histoire et esprit: l'intelligence de l'Écriture d'apres Origene (Paris, 1950), translated as History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen, trans. Anne Englund Nash with Juvenal Merriell, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007). • Aspects du bouddhisme (Paris, 1951), translated as Aspects of Buddhism, trans George Lamb, (London: Sheed and Ward, 1953). • Rencontre du bouddhisme et de l'occident (Paris, 1952). • Méditation sur l'Église (Paris, 1953), translated as The Splendor of the Church, trans Michael Mason, (London: Sheed & Ward, 1956), and later reissued by (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986). • Aspects du bouddhisme, vol. 2: Amida, (Paris: Seuil, 1955), translated as History of Pure Land Buddhism, trans. Amita Bhaka, Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, 12: 5-6 (2002); 13: 1, (2003). • Exégèse médiévale 4 vols, (Paris, 1959, 1961, 1964), translated as Medieval Exegesis, trans. Mark Sebanc (vol i), Edward M Macierowski (vols ii and iii), 4 vols, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998-). • Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Meaning, trans. Rene Hague (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965). • Augustisme et théologie moderne (Paris, 1965), translated as Augustinianism and Modern Theology, (London: G Chapman; New York: Herder & Herder, 1969), and reissued as (New York: Crossroad, 2000). • Le Mystere du surnaturel (1965), translated as The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed (London: G Chapman, 1967), 2nd edition New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998. • The Religions of Teilhard de Chardin, trans. Rene Hague (New York: Desclee Co., 1967). • Teilhard Explained, trans. Anthony Buono (New York: Paulist Press, 1968). • The Eternal Feminine: A Study on the Poem by Teilhard de Chardin, trans. René Hague (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). • Petite catéchese sur nature et grace (Paris, 1980), translated as A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace by Richard Arnauder, FSC (San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1984). • Trois jésuites nous parlent: Yves de Montcheuil, 1899–1944, Charles Nicolet, 1897–1961, Jean Zupan, 1899-1968, (Paris, 1980), translated as Three Jesuits speak: Yves de Montcheuil, 1899–1944, Charles Nicolet, 1897–1961, Jean Zupan, 1899–1968. Presented by Henri de Lubac, trans. by K. D. Whitehead (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987). • The Motherhood of the Church, trans. Sergia Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982). • Paradoxes of Faith. trans. P. Simon, S. Kreilkamp, & E. Beaumont (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987). • The Christian Faith: An Essay on the Structure of the Apostles' Creed, trans. Richard Arnandez (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986). • At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac reflects on the circumstances that occasioned his writings, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993). • Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996). • More Paradoxes. trans. A. Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002). A translation of Autres Paradoxes. • Vatican Council Notebooks, Vol. 1, trans. Andrew Stefanelli and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015). • Vatican Council Notebooks, Vol. 2, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016).