The Interpretation of Kenosis from Origen to Cyril of Alexandria: Dimensions of Self‐Emptying in the Reception of Philippians 2.7. Oxford Early Christian Studies. By Michael C. Magree, SJ. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. Pp. xi, 315. £90.00.

Following Paul Nimmo and Keith Johnson's important collation of contemporary studies on the Pauline concept of kenosis (Eerdmans, 2022) we now have a fine volume considering in close detail the development of the patristic tradition of kenosis exegesis in the broad Alexandrian school, dominated by Origen's early and masterful indications as to what Paul's deeper meaning was in the renowned Philippians passage (Phil. 2:5-11). The author is patristics professor at Boston College and the text represents the substance of his Notre Dame University doctoral dissertation. It has been very well prepared for publication in the excellent OECS series, and reads fluently and persuasively. The work opens with a (brief) consideration of how the theme of kenosis has played out in contemporary exegesis and systematics, but the deep substance of the monograph, is undoubtedly provided by a sustained and very detailed engagement with a series of patristic writers on the theme of kenosis, all of whom engage with it through the Pauline lens. It is the close exegesis and very intelligent analysis of those primary texts that make this an essential volume for any library. By opening with a welcome discussion of the shape of kenosis exegesis in modern biblical criticism, the author not only grounds his work thoroughly, but reminds his readers how fundamentally all patristic theology is, at root, a question of exegesis. The major sections which follow are devoted first to the doyen of all ancient exegetes, Origen of Alexandria, who positions the kenosis theme centrally in his work, to stand for the philanthropy of the saviour God. The pressure to react to Celsus the philosopher's attack on Christianity—namely that Christians who believe in the suffering of a god cannot understand the basic concept of divine immutability—shapes the substance of Origen's two-fold approach: firstly that the source of one's theological knowledge has to be questioned a priori. Celsus is using material and highly limited human logic to discourse invalidly about God's ineffable being. Christians, however, follow the guidance of the inspired apostolic literature. So Paul's teaching in Philippians is key to the understanding of basics; and thus: secondly, as Paul indicates, the two-fold morphe of the Son of God (his human and divine states) explain how he can both suffer mutably in his morphe of humanity, and remain immutable in his morphe of divinity. This fundamental double-stranded exegesis dominates much of what will follow in the later fathers. The next section discusses the rapid and heated crisis over the basic notion in the prelude to and aftermath of the Nicene Christological crisis. We have good and succinct studies of the exegesis of the kenosis hymn in Athanasius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, and the Cappadocian fathers. The text shows how the Cappadocians, especially Gregory the Theologian, move the idea forward out of metaphysical apologetics towards understanding the implications: not of how the divinity might have been diminished by assuming human characteristics, but rather how the Word enfleshed deliberately extended the fallen human nature into a new ontological condition by ascribing to it qualities of his own divine existence: the salvific power of the divinisation (theosis) of our race. We then have a treatment of one of the great synthesisers of the later era, Cyril of Alexandria, who develops the ideas found centrally in his great predecessors, Origen, Athanasius, and Gregory Nazianzen, but now clarifies the ‘how’ of the incarnate mystery; using the concept of kenosis to such an extent that it comes, more or less, to stand in his theology as a cipher for the entire dynamic of incarnational soteriology. At the end of the book the author reprises his initial consideration of contemporary systematicians: this time re-examining how they evaluated the patristic theology in the light of their own theses. For this reviewer it suggested, perhaps, how the criticisms of the ancients, often designed to cast a light on how much greater is the wisdom of the present, were too often built on narrow source-readings and sweeping generalisations from tired secondary sources of historical theology. Fr Magree, on the other hand, is to be congratulated for an intensely accurate and illuminating engagement. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.