Jonathan Gardner is an American PhD candidate currently writing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Strasbourg in France on Gregory Nazianzen's synthesis of the Greek classical tradition of paideia with Christian theology. He completed his BA in Religious Studies at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, Mass., and his MA in theology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he wrote his thesis in Modern Greek while volunteering as a shepherd. He is an avid reader of every chapter of Greek history, from Homeric and classical times through the Hellenistic and Roman periods to Byzantium and beyond. While living in Greece he translated various theological texts from the late Byzantine period, including works in the Philokalia by Ignatios and Kallistos Xanthopouloi and Kallistos Kataphygiotes.