Luis Josue Sales,
Associate Professor of Religious Studies; Chair, Faculty Executive Committee
Office Location: Miller 103
Office Hours: Thursday 11-13
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Biography
I am a native of Mexico City who specializes in premodern African, Asian, and eastern European Christianities. I largely apply postcolonial, feminist, and queer theoretical approaches to my scholarship and integrate them into my teaching. My interests center on the construction of premodern Christian identities, particularly at the intersection of sexual, religious, and ethnic difference.
Academic History
- PhD-Fordham University: History of Christianity (Early/Medieval)
- ThM-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology: Patristics
- MTS-Boston College: Early Christian Studies
- MA-Wheaton College: Systematic and Historical Theology
- BA-Wheaton College: English Writing (Poetry); Political Science (Constitutional Law)
Academic Focus
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Premodern Christianity
Women in Early Christianity
Ancient African Christianities (Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia)
Christianity in Sasanian Persia
Eastern Roman Empire
Early Christian-Muslim Relations
Postcolonial/Decolonial Theory
Early Christian Ethics
Interests
Cooking, baking, and gardening
Courses Taught
- Feminist Interpretations of the Bible
- Intro to Early Christianities
- God on Trial: Free Will and Evil
- Queer African Christianities
- Christianity, Capital, and Communism
- Early Christian-Muslim Relations
- Jesus, Paul, and Early Christian Sexualities
- Eros and Sex: Antiquity and Byzantium
- Precolonial African Christian Spiritualities
- CORE A: Christian Herstory: 4BCE-1,000CE
- CORE III: Not Your Sunday School Christianity
Books
Monographs:
Luis Josu茅 Sal茅s, Maximos the Confessor: Androprimacy and Sexual Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025). Book-length Translations:
鈥斺斺. Saint Maximus the Confessor: Four Hundred Chapters on Love. Popular Patristics Series TBD. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Seminary Press, 2025. [Greek鈥揈nglish]
鈥斺斺. Gabriel Bunge: Spiritual Fatherhood, Evagrius Ponticus on the Role of the Spiritual Father. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Seminary Press, 2016. [German鈥揈nglish]
鈥斺斺. Saint Maximus the Confessor: Two Hundred Chapters on Theology. Popular Patristics Series vol. 53. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Seminary Press, 2015. [Greek鈥揈nglish]
Luis Josu茅 Sal茅s, Maximos the Confessor: Androprimacy and Sexual Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025). Book-length Translations:
鈥斺斺. Saint Maximus the Confessor: Four Hundred Chapters on Love. Popular Patristics Series TBD. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Seminary Press, 2025. [Greek鈥揈nglish]
鈥斺斺. Gabriel Bunge: Spiritual Fatherhood, Evagrius Ponticus on the Role of the Spiritual Father. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Seminary Press, 2016. [German鈥揈nglish]
鈥斺斺. Saint Maximus the Confessor: Two Hundred Chapters on Theology. Popular Patristics Series vol. 53. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Seminary Press, 2015. [Greek鈥揈nglish]
Selected Research and Publications
Sal茅s, Luis Josu茅. 鈥淗ypostasis as Theophany in the Theology of Maximos the Confessor,鈥 in Subsidia Maximiana 4, (forthcoming).
鈥斺斺. 鈥淗er Body Is Sacred Scripture: An Eastern Orthodox Theology of Women鈥檚 Reproductive Self-Determination,鈥 in Reproductive Justice and the Bible. Jennifer Koosed and Katy Valentine, eds. Feminist Studies and Sacred Texts, vol. TBD. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (forthcoming).
鈥斺斺. 鈥淐olonial Ideology and Intellectual Hybridity in the Invention of 鈥楴eoplatonism,鈥欌 in Essays in Long Late Antiquity 1.1 (forthcoming).
鈥斺斺. 鈥淥rthodox Abortions, Catholic Contraceptives: Christian Women鈥檚 Reproductive Autonomy in the Medieval Roman Empire,鈥 in Reproductive Justice after Roe: Lessons from the Premodern Classroom. Maeve Callan and Emma Maggie Solberg, eds. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University Press, Medieval Institute Publications, vol. TBD (forthcoming).
鈥斺斺. 鈥淢aximos the Confessor鈥檚 Correspondence with Egyptian Women: A Translation of Letters 11 and 18 with Introduction and Critical Commentary,鈥 in Subsidia Maximiana 3, 2025 (at press).
鈥斺斺. 鈥淧aul and Pseudo-Paul: Authorship, Ideology, and the Difference of Androprimacy,鈥 in Religions 15.9 (2024): 1鈥15.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淩itualized Affective Drama: Syriac Etiquette Guides and Systems Intelligence in Early Christian-Muslim Encounters,鈥 in Religions 14.11 (2023): 1鈥17.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淥n the Commemoration of Saint Pelagios of Jerusalem,鈥 in Parole de l鈥橭rient 49 (2023): 191鈥 216.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淎ndroprimacy: A New Analytical Concept for the Study of Gender and Religion with Case Studies from the Ethiopic Did蓹sq蓹lya and the Greek Apostolic Constitutions,鈥 in Gender and Religion 13 (2022): 195鈥213.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淪ystems Intelligence and Byzantine Domestic Violence: The Life of Matrona of Perge as a Case Study,鈥 in Studia Patristica 124 (2021): 29鈥41.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淭imeo hiberos et cruces ferentes: Jesuit Missiology as Iberian Colonialism in Early Modern Abyssinia,鈥 in Religion and the Medieval and Early Modern Global Marketplace. Scott Oldenburg and Kristin Bezio, eds. London and New York: Routledge (2021): 151鈥171.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淨ueerly Christified Bodies: Women Martyrs, Christification, and the Compulsory Masculinisation Thesis,鈥 in The Journal of Early Christian History 10.3 (2020): 83鈥109.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淭o Kill a Matriarchy: Mak蓹dda, Queen of Ethiopia and the Specter of Pauline Androprimacy in the K蓹br盲 N盲g盲艣t,鈥 in African Journal of Gender and Religion 26.1 (2020): 49鈥76.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淭he Other Life of Maximos the Confessor: A Reevaluation of the Syriac and Greek Lives and the Case for His Alexandrian Origin,鈥 in The Journal of Late Antiquity 13.2 (2020): 407鈥439.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淕alatians 3:28 and the Ordination of Women in Second-Century Pauline Churches,鈥 in Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church: Explorations in Theology and Practice. Elena Narinskaya and Gabrielle Thomas, eds. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books (2020): 58鈥76.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淐an These Bones Live?: Gregory of Nyssa鈥檚 Appropriation of Aristotelian Psychology in On the Soul and the Resurrection,鈥 in Sacris Erudiri: A Journal of Late Antique and Medieval Christianity 56 (2017): 33鈥63.
鈥斺斺. 鈥溾楢ristotelian鈥 as a Lingua Franca: Rationality in Christian Self-Representation under the 鈥楢bbasids,鈥 in Studia Patristica 92 (2017): 453鈥464.
鈥斺斺 (with Aristotle Papanikolaou). 鈥溾楢 Power that Deifies Humanity and Humanizes God鈥: The Psychodynamics of Love and Hypostatic Deification according to Maximos the Confessor,鈥 in The International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 78.1鈥2 (2017): 23鈥38.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淰irtue Will Bind the Wounds of Your Soul: Yahy膩 ibn 鈥楢d墨 and The Love of All Humans under the 鈥楢bbasids,鈥 in Healing, Reconciliation, and Forgiveness in Eastern Orthodox Perspectives. Lev Smith, ed. New York, NY: Theotokos Press (2015): 84鈥92.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淢aximos and Neurobiology: A Neurotheological Investigation of Asceticism as Erosion of the Passions and the Gnomic Will,鈥 in Orthodox Monasticism: Past and Present. John A. McGuckin, ed. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press (2014): 324鈥331.
鈥斺斺. 鈥淒ivine Incarnation through the Virtues: The Central Soteriological Role of Maximos the Confessor鈥檚 Aretology,鈥 Saint Vladimir鈥檚 Theological Quarterly 58.2 (2014): 159鈥176.
Awards and Honors
Mary Johnson Award for Research: 2020-2021, 2022-2023