Christian Theology and Papal Policy in the Middle Ages

Papal Policy: The Planning of Rome during the Renaissance The investigation of patronage and town planning has become increasingly important for our understanding of the history of architecture and in particular for the history of Roman Renaissance architecture. The projects of individual popes have been thoroughly analyzed, but no attempt has been made to look at papal building policy during the Renaissance as a whole, to find out its principal motives, or to distinguish between continuous and discontinuous forces. This article suggests that much of the unique beauty of Renaissance Rome is the result of the particular character of papal government.' The center of the old city of Rome differs from that of other Italian towns in that it has two centers of gravity: the Vatican and the Capitol. Until Ioo years ago both were situated on the periphery of the city. The Capitol, which since the Middle Ages had been the seat of the communal administration, only attained its present representative character during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and earlier was anything but impressive. Even before its recent isolation from the rest of the city was achieved by archaeologists and patriots seeking to preserve its character, it did not play a role comparable to that of the urban centers of Venice, Florence, Siena, or other smaller towns. The Vatican, at

This handbook surveys the long relationship between the often overlapping studies of the world around us and concepts of the Divine, from the ancient Greeks to the modern eco-theology movement. From Plato to Aquinas, from Augustine to Hildegard of Bingen, from discussions of the Hebrew Bible to the environmental sciences, this opens the field of theology and science to new concepts, voices, and futures. For the first time in a single volume, experts in theology, history, philosophy and sciences, explore how both science and theology have contributed to the long history of racism and misogyny in human society. By naming and tracing both evils, this handbook makes them a central piece of future discussions of science, theology, and Christianity. T&T Clark Handbook to Christian Theology and the Modern Sciences is divided into 5 sections, including essays on many key theological figures: ancient conceptions (3000 BCE – 200 CE), the long middle ages (300–1400), reformations and early modern sciences (1500–1800), evolution to modernity (1800–2000), and contemporary issues in Christian Theology. The book concludes with a survey chapter on the many Christian theological approaches to the environmental sciences today, defining the relationship between Christian theology and the modern sciences in the 21st century.

Reviewed by: Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe Moshe Rosman Elisheva Baumgarten . Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 275. Mothers and Children is overflowing with new sources, new information, new interpretations, and new conceptual and methodological approaches to historical questions. Utilizing an impressive array of sources—from Talmud and halakhic literature, practical Kabbalah, responsa, exegetical and ethical literature to doctors' and circumcisers' handbooks, piyutim, guides to customs, Mahzor Vitry, prayer books, Sefer Hasidim, writings of the Church Fathers, papal bulls, Christian theological, exegetical, and legal tracts, and culminating with art—Baumgarten sheds light for the first time on some of the most basic aspects of life in the past. She allows us to observe Jewish domestic life, especially from the women's perspective (yet never forgetting to explore men's roles and opinions): births, celebrations, the marital relationship, child rearing, neighborliness with Christians, and supervision of servants. Even more impressive, however, is how she succeeds in using the myriad details she adduces to weave a complex tapestry that illustrates the structure, the organization, and the tacit ideas and values that typified medieval Jewish Ashkenaz and, by extension, Latin Europe in general. Moreover, Baumgarten sets precedents and makes judgments that have ramifications for the writing of historiography at the present historical moment, and this includes Jewish historiography as well. She touches on many crucial historiographical issues that all historians—especially Jewish historians—must confront, staking out clear positions that deserve serious evaluation. The first of these is the question of the relationship between Jewish historiography and so-called general historiography. The subtitle of this book is "Family Life in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages." The author could have written a book on "family life in Germany and France in the Middle Ages." She is as completely conversant with the sources and historiography of the Christians in the Middle Ages as she is with those of the Jews and utilizes them, in this instance, to learn more about the Jews. Given [End Page e85] that most of the Jewish sources originated with one group, the male rabbinic elite, enriching the source base with Christian literature, folklore, art, and Church documents, and their concomitant varying perspectives, is essential. In addition, Baumgarten shows that primary phenomena, like the Hollekreisch ceremony (where the infant received a non-Jewish name), the Wachtnacht (the night of watching on the eve of a baby boy's circumcision), and the Sabbath of the Parturient (Shabbat yetsiat ha-yoledet, the first visit of the new mother to the synagogue, approximately a month after the birth), are linked to Christian parallels that simply must be understood if the Jewish phenomena are to be analyzed meaningfully. Similarly, topics such as widowhood, nursing, birth, and parenthood are thoroughly discussed in the existing non-Jewish historiography of the Middle Ages. Anyone seeking to relate to these subjects within a Jewish context must master this huge literature—as Baumgarten has done—or produce a superficial account. New findings and insights derived from analysis of non-Jewish historiography on the Middle Ages advance the interpretation and the argument of this book in numerous places. In contrast to some other books on medieval European history that group the Jews with marginal social groups, like the poor, the sick, and the mad,1 here the Jews appear—for all their difference—as partners in the economy, the culture, and the society. Baumgarten, however, not only establishes that the Jews confirm or illustrate things already known about medieval society. In accord with Elliott Horowitz's long ago call,2 she also utilizes Jewish sources and the differences between the behavior and the attitudes of the Jews and the Christians in order to proffer new views of general issues. For example, close examination of the phenomenon of ba'al brit (sandek, conpere, gevater [compater]) expands our understanding of the social function of co-parents (godparents) in general. Thus while it is conventionally held that the choice of co-parents by the biological parents was part of a strategy for reinforcing ties between the different...

Boniface VIII probably spent some half a million gold florins on the acquisition of lands for the Caetani. But of that money not a word is said in the Introitus and Exitus volumes, the main account books of the Apostolic Chamber. Where was it accounted for and from whence did it come? The pope had certain special sources of income which would not ordinarily be reckoned in the main account books, and of these, some could properly be termed his fortune as a private person, while others attached to his office as pope. There was the private fortune which he had before he assumed the tiara. There were the incomes of benefices personally reserved to him, gifts made him by prelates and laymen, legacies, sometimes the goods of deceased prelates, and the so-called ‘private visitations’ and ‘secret services’. Later in the fourteenth century many other sources were tapped for the benefit of a secret fund, and all in all the sums which it disposed of were formidable and sometimes enormous. The ends to which the money was directed were as various as the characters and policies of the pontiffs: it was used for nepotistic ends on a princely scale, as a mere convenient subsidiary to the main financial machine, as a war account, as a means of making enormous loans to lay rulers, or simply as a petty cash account. The earliest records of the secret accounts to survive are from the midfifteenth century, but the large sums involved, and its covert but great importance in papal policy in general make the earlier history of this institution as interesting as it is obscure.

This chapter notes the leading figures of the Antichrist in the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages, most Christian theologians after Jerome generally depicted Antichrist's Jewish connections less passionately than he did. Moreover, Augustinian eschatology invariably detracted from the prominence of any distinctive Jewish role in the drama of the end time. The chapter details the belief of eighth-century Spanish monk Beatus of Liebana, who generally understood the Jews as a typos representing Christians and evil Jews as unfaithful Christians, and French abbot Adso of Montier-en-Der, who composed the most popular Antichrist narrative of the Middle Ages. It also considers the biblical book of Daniel that nourished the apocalyptic speculation.

150 Reviews manuscript material precisely because the printed edition is self-evidently a distortion of the medieval text' (p. 93); when he agrees with Cerquiglini that an edition ecranique would be useful, given the vast amount of detailed information incorporating the visual into a 'literary' view of manuscript texts (pp. 90, 95); when he speaks in such terms, Busby tenders his credentials as a new philologist (lower case) in his own right. For he is actively participating in the process of re-evaluating the relationship between authors, scribes, and editors which lies at the core of the current debate. Here, then, is the nebulous synthesis which this volume aims to achieve. On the whole, this book is hardly seminal, but it is historically interesting in the dubious validity it confers on the 'New Philology'. Bemadette A. Masters Department of French Studies University of Sydney Cadden, Joan, Meanings of sex difference in the Middle Ages: medicine, science, and culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993; cloth; pp. xii, 310; 7 illustrations; R.R.P. A U S $ 120.00. There is nothing oblique about this superb study. The medieval medical world was itself directly interested in the differences between women and men and, by examining how questions such as 'Which sex enjoys intercourse more?', 'What dispositions and behaviours distinguish a male from a female?', 'How can you have a son?', 'How can you distinguish a male from a female embryo?' were investigated and answered in the Middle Ages, Cadden explains what meaning sex difference had for those who asked and attempted to answer such questions. This study differs from Foucault's The history of sexuality in that he was not concerned with sex difference as such but predominantly with the history of male sexuality. Of course, in this regard Foucault is like many of the medieval authors treated by Cadden. Writers on anatomy dealt primarily with men's anatomy, and she acknowledges that men as subjects were conceptually central, primary and standard, and women marginal. But such conceptual dependence, once recognized, does not trivialize the investigation of sex difference and gender, but becomes itself a subject of investigation. More importantly, Cadden's work is also distinguished from Reviews 151 Thomas Laqueur's Making sex: body and gender from the Greeks to Freud. Laqueur argues that, until the eighteenth century, male and female were thought of as different manifestations of a single sexual substratum. Though there is much that supports his position, his 'one sex' model, Cadden thinks, cannot account for all the sources. Indeed the sort of ingenious reductivism aimed at by Laqueur is something she deliberately avoids, and she constantly points up the ways in which this history is one of diversity. Her anti-reductivist treatment of the sources enables her to draw without prejudice on the whole range of medieval opinions and arguments, making her book both fascinating simply as reportage, and authoritative as scholarship. What can be gleaned from the sources about 'the significance of the sense of the feminine and the masculine conveyed by medical and scientific sources' is wide for several reasons. First, because the relationships between medicine, natural philosophy, Christian theology and doctrine, secular social concerns, and other dimensions of the medieval world was, as Cadden shows, so conceptually dynamic. Partly this is because science was less isolated than it is today from other intellectual enterprises, and intellectual enterprises themselves were less isolated from the rest of the social world. But, secondly, the sources themselves derive from socially varied backgrounds. Though much of the study naturally concentrates on the Latin texts of learned m e n such as Albertus Magnus and the medical professor Bernard of Gordon, Hildegard of Bingen is also treated at length, and even the 'women of Salerno'. It is not surprising to learn that in the medieval world, as elsewhere, women were thought of as reproductively, physically, and intellectually weaker, more prone to disease and more susceptible to pleasure than men. But Cadden's is a fascinating study of how the sciences and proto sciences of the Middle Ages provided the mechanics of such ideas. Catherine Kovesi Killerby College of Arts and Sciences University of Notre Dame, Australia ...

This chapter studies some of the fabular sources that the author transformed into Hebrew narratives, and traces the richness of their literary motifs. The history of European fables from Antiquity to the middle Ages is long and complex. The chapter mentions some of its major phases and highlights the most important notions relevant to our understanding of our twelfth century multicultural fabulist. It reviews the main biblical source associated with the fable and compare the fable with another possible source for Berechiah, derived from Christian theology. Berechiah ha-Naqdan's Mishlei Shuʿalim is a vivid testimony to the circulation of such sources throughout the Middle Ages and to the popularity of fables. The embedding of quotations from the Pentateuch, Talmudic sources, and works like Mivhar ha-peninim enabled Berechiah to bring the fables closer to his public's cultural space, to make them topical, and to endow them with a new moral meaning. Keywords: Berechiah ha-Naqdan; Christian theology; European fables; Hebrew; Mishlei Shuʿalim ; Mivhar ha-peninim

DEIFICATION IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: A STRUCTURAL INTERPRETATION OF THE PRIMA PARS A. N. WILLIAMS University ofPuget Sound Tacoma, Washington WHAT IS HUMAN DESTINY? To become God. That, at least, was the belief of the earliest Christians. Such an understanding is evident in the letters of St. Paul (Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 15:49; and 2 Cor 8:9) and the first Christians found it in the pages of the Hebrew Bible (Ps 82:6, quoted in John 10:34). Above all, the nascent theological tradition pointed to 2 Peter 1:4: "Thus has he given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from corruption that is in the world because of him, and may become participants in divine nature." As the tradition reflected on these texts, deification became the dominant model of salvation and sanctification in the patristic period, from Ignatius of Antioch to John Damascene, in the West (in the writings of Tertullian and Augustine) as well as in the East.1 Although the doctrine retained this place of pre-eminence in Eastern theology, at some point it ceased to be the prime model for salvation for the West. Conventional wisdom would 1 Good, concise accounts of deification can be found in Jules Gross, La divinisation du chretien d'apres les peres grecs: Contribution historique ala doctrine de la grace (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938); Dictionnaire de spiritualitt!, ascetique et mystique, doctrine et histoire , s.v. "divinisation"; William G. Rusch, "How the Eastern Fathers Understood What the Western Church Meant by Justification," in Justification by Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue 7 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985); and G. W. H. Lampe, "Christian Theology in the Patristic Period," in A History of Christian Doctrine, ed. Hubert Cunliffe-Jones (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978). 219 220 A. N. WILLIAMS maintain that the point of breakage occurred in the Middle Ages, when the West focused first on the doctrine of the atonement and later on justification. Like much conventional wisdom, this account contains a germ of truth; deification lost its dominance at some point, for it clearly no longer occupies such a position in our time, signs of its renascence notwithstanding. Where the conventional wisdom errs, however, is in locating the break in the Middle Ages, for the greatest of all medieval Western theologies, the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, contains a highly developed doctrine of deification. Indeed, the doctrine of deification pervades the Summa. If Western readers have failed to notice it, we may conjecture they have done so for two reasons. The first is that it is precisely pervasive and not localized: one finds no question "Whether Human Persons Are Deified?" in the pages of the Summa. Second, Western readers may be unable to see the doctrine simply because they are unfamiliar with it. Because this model of sanctification has been absent from Western theology for so long, Western readers do not recognize either the paradigmatic structure of the doctrine or the language that traditionally conveys it. To see the Summa's doctrine of deification, then, we must first describe it in its classic, which is to say patristic, form. Deification may be distinguished from other doctrines of sanctification in that it refers the question of human holiness in the first instance to the doctrine of God. Sanctification consists simply in participation in divine nature. To describe the transformation of the human person, therefore, we do not undertake principally to specify virtues like gentleness or courage, or powers like healing or levitation. Rather, the description of sanctification departs from a distinctive description of God. One of the prime characteristics of a doctrine of deification, then, lies in the integral connection between theology and anthropology. A second mark of this doctrine is the particular doctrine of God that forms its basis, balancing two conflicting impulses. On the one hand, God is the giver who not only creates, but invites the creature into communion. On the other hand, in a Christian context, which takes for granted the distinction between creature and Creator, the divine distinctiveness must be upheld, DEIFICATION IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 221 against the threat of an encroaching, albeit unwitting, pantheism ; moreover...

A Jewish Guide to Medieval Domestic Europe MOSHE ROSMAN Elisheva BAUMGARTEN. Mothers and Children: Jewish Life in Medieval Europe. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 275.Mothers and Children is overflowing new sources, new information, new interpretations and new conceptual and methodological approaches to historical questions. Utilizing an impressive array of sources - from Talmud and halakhic literature, practical Kabbalah, responsa, exegetical and ethical literature, to doctors' and circumcisers' handbooks, piyutim, guides to customs, Mahzor Vitry, prayerbooks, Sefer Hasidim, writings of the Church fathers, papal bulls, Christian theological, exegetical, and legal tracts, and culminating art - Baumgarten sheds light for the first time on some of the most basic aspects of life in the past. She allows us to observe Jewish domestic life, especially from the women's perspective (yet never forgetting to explore men's roles and opinions): births, celebrations, the marital relationship, childreanng, neighborhness Christians, and supervision of servants.Even more impressive, however, is how she succeeds in using the myriad details she adduces to weave a complex tapestry that illustrates the structure, the organization and the tacit ideas and values that typified medieval Jewish Ashkenaz and, by extension, Latin Europe m general. Moreover, Baumgarten sets precedents and makes judgments that have ramifications for the writing of historiography at the present historical moment, and this includes Jewish historiography as well. She touches on many crucial histonographical issues that all historians - especially Jewish historians - must confront, staking out clear positions that deserve serious evaluation.The first of these is the question of the relationship between Jewish historiography and so-called general historiography. The subtitle of this book is: Family Life in Ashkenaz in the Middle The author could have written a book on family life in Germany and France in the Middle She is as completely conversant the sources and historiography of the Christians in the Middle Ages as she is those of the Jews and utilizes them, in this instance, to learn more about the Jews. Given that most of the Jewish sources originated with one group, the male rabbinic elite, enriching the source base Christian literature, folklore, art, and Church documents, and their concomitant varying perspectives, is essential.In addition, Baumgarten shows that primary phenomena, like the Hollekreisch ceremony (where the infant received a non-Jewish name), the Wachtnacht (the night of watching on the eve of a baby boy's circumcision), and the Sabbath of the Parturient (Shabat yetsiat ha-yoledet, the first visit of the new mother to the synagogue, approximately a month after the birth), are linked to Christian parallels that simply must be understood if the Jewish phenomena are to be analyzed meaningfully. Similarly, topics such as widowhood, nursing, birth, and parenthood are thoroughly discussed in the existing non-Jewish historiography of the Middle Ages. Anyone seeking to relate to these subjects within a Jewish context must master this huge literature - as Baumgarten has done - or produce a superficial account.New findings and insights derived from analysis of non- Jewish historiography on the Middle Ages advance the interpretation and the argument of this book m numerous places. In contrast to some other books on medieval European history that grouped the Jews marginal social groups, like the poor, the sick, and the mad,1 here the Jews appear - for all their difference - as partners in the economy, the culture, and the society.Baumgarten, however, not only establishes that the Jews confirm or illustrate things already known about medieval society. In accord with Elliott Horowitz's long-ago call,2 she also utilizes Jewish sources and the differences between the behavior and the attitudes of the Jews and the Christians in order to proffer new views of general issues. …

Reviewed by: Medieval Thought: The Western Intellectual Tradition from Antiquity to the Thirteenth Century Willemien Otten Michael Haren . Medieval Thought: The Western Intellectual Tradition from Antiquity to the Thirteenth Century, Second Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Pp. viii + 305. $19.95 (paper); $60.00 (cloth). Michael Haren has just given us a second edition of his valuable handbook on medieval thought, the first edition of which appeared in the Macmillan series "New Studies in Medieval History" in 1985. The second edition has now been brought out in North America by the University of Toronto Press and in Great Britain by Macmillan Press. Although the main text of this second edition is essentially a reprint of the first edition, the book also contains some changes. As the author mentions in his Preface to the Second Edition (vii-viii), the epilogue of the first edition has now become a chapter in its own right (which comes down to a name change), while a new epilogue introduces the reader to new scholarship in the field which has appeared since the publication of the first edition (212-237). The bibliographies are those of the first edition, but Haren has added a supplementary bibliography with an update on the latest scholarship (291-305). When I first read the book in the late 80s, I found it a very useful introduction to the Middle Ages on matters theological and philosophical, and I see no reason now not to maintain that same positive judgment, although I will qualify my positive view with some critical remarks about the revisions. Let me begin, however, by setting out the structure of Haren's book. Medieval Thought starts out with an introductory chapter on Plato, Aristotle and Neoplatonism, which is indispensable material for medievalists. Since they do not always have a firm philological and philosophical training in this area, Haren renders a service to the field by presenting the issues lucidly, with a special eye for what will become the central problems in the medieval period. Aristotle is thus treated with more detail, which makes sense considering that Haren's forte is the treatment of the scholastic era. In the treatment of Plato the Timaeus and the role of the Ideas receives most attention, whereas his ethics figure less prominently than Aristotle's. After two more introductory chapters, one on Augustine, Boethius, and Scottus Eriugena (ch. 2), and one on Logic, Theology, and Cosmology in the Central Middle Ages (ch. 3), Haren comes to concentrate on the period of the universities, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This period is the period from which he draws the bulk of the material presented in his book. In four consecutive chapters he lays [End Page 231] out clearly the intellectual history of the high Middle Ages. Thus he analyzes the earliest rise of the universities, as Aristotle gradually became known in the West through Arabic sources and new Western translations (ch. 4), followed by a treatment of the first phase of the assimilation of Aristotle's thought (ch. 5), the incorporation of Aristotelian material in Christian theology (ch. 6) and the controversies resulting in the condemnations of 1270 and especially 1277 by Étienne Tempier (ch. 7, the former epilogue). Since the book presents itself as a second edition, it is appropriate to make some comparisons with the first edition. While the introductory chapter is adequate when seen as background for the medieval period, one of the criticisms that it drew in the first edition was that Haren was dismissive of Cicero as a Western thinker. Haren himself alludes to this (212-213). While acknowledging his own shortcomings, he does not make very serious attempts to rectify his earlier mistakes but seems to legitimize them instead by simply saying that Aristotle "compelled address" while Cicero did not (213). While the problem of selection is always a pressing one when writing a handbook, I am a bit surprised at Haren's casual judgment here, especially in light of his wish to update his book. One only needs to think of the wealth of material that has been made available by Stephen Gersh in his Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. The Latin Tradition. 2 volumes (Notre...

The Virgin Spring and The Seventh Seal: A Girardian Reading William Mishler Of his more than forty films, Ingmar Bergman has set two in the Middle Ages—The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet, 1956) and The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1959), the latter based on an early ballad and utilizing a screenplay that he co-authored with Ulla Isaksson—which together form an instructive pair. The former, of course, represents his breakthrough as a director of international reputation. Though heralded by the powerful Sawdust and Tinsel from 1953, The Seventh Seal was his first unquestionable masterpiece. It was a film that to Bergman's own amazement "swept like a forest fire across the world."1 Today it continues to maintain its preeminent position with both audiences and critics. The Virgin Spring, however, is a different matter. Compared to his best work as a director, it has been judged a relative failure, first and foremost by Bergman himself. Initially elated by the film,2 he later became sharply critical of it. In an interview from 1970, he stated: "Now I want to make it quite plain that The Virgin Spring must be regarded as an aberration. It's touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa."3 And in his autobiography, The Magic Lantern, he neglects even to mention the film4 and thus tacitly removes it from among the works by which he evidently wishes to be recognized as a director. Bergman's condemnation of The Virgin Spring is in my view excessive. Taken simply on its own terms, it possesses an undeniable power and presents sequences of great visual interest. On the other hand, it is true, the film is a far less captivating work than The Seventh Seal, less surprising to watch and less challenging to think about afterwards. Bergman locates its flaw at the conceptual level, and in my opinion he is correct to do so. After all, there is nothing amiss with the film's actors or technical resources, which are nearly identical to The Seventh Seal's. Speci106 William Mishler107 fically, Bergman locates The Virgin Spring's problem in what he intriguingly calls its "totally unanalysed idea of God."5 In the present essay I would like to open up this "totally unanalysed idea" first of all because I believe that it will hand us an important key for understanding the disparity in artistic quality between the two films and also, I hope, provide some insight into the connecting logic of Bergman's work as a director and screenwriter. To carry out this inquiry I will draw on the work of the literary critic and anthropologist René Girard, whose theories concerning the function of religion in human society strike me as offering a powerfully articulated parallel to the psychological and anthropological insights implicitly present in many of Bergman's films. I It is important in regard to the matter of religion to distinguish the two senses in which the subject is particularly relevant to Bergman—i.e., the personal and the ethical. There is on the one hand the Christianity of his childhood which shadowed him well into adulthood. As the son of a strict Lutheran pastor, Bergman grew up in an atmosphere pervaded by Christian theology and Christian habits of thought from which, as an artist, he struggled mightily to free himself. This endeavor is particularly noticeable in the films of his middle period, extending from The Seventh Seal through the so-called trilogy of Through a Glass Darkly (Sâsom i en spegel, 1961), Winter Light (Nattvardsgästern, 1963), and The Silence (Tystnaden, 1963). These last three record the progressive stages in an examination and rejection of the notion of God as a sufficient response to the ills of the world. Bergman has called the trilogy a "reduction," thereby pointing to the tight interlinkage among the films, each taking the minimal optimism of its predecessor, its faint glimmer of theistic possibility, and subjecting it to destructive scrutiny. By the end of the trilogy, the notion of God even as resonant absence or significant silence has been expunged. In The Silence the trio of the film's principal characters are carried deeper and deeper into a gritty...

It is a curious phenomenon that in spite of the tremendous development of psychiatry in English speaking countries, there is no adequate history of psychiatry in the English language. The present volume obviously intended for popular consumption almost fills the gap ; but like so many books of this type it is too specialized for the lay reader and somewhat incomplete and sketchy for the serious student. However, the author has been able to include a great deal of essential data in a relatively short, popular monograph. The author makes an interesting observation as to the cause of the delay in the development of psychiatry as compared with other branches of medicine. During the Greco-Roman period there was a much better understanding of maladjustments than in the Middle Ages or even in the Renaissance period. With the development of Christianity, the various nations of Europe did not give up their beliefs in pagan gods and these were incorporated in Christian theology as saints and devils. The opposition to Christianity found its expression in cults of devil worshippers, and the church dealt with it by taking upon itself the responsibility of ridding man of the domination of evil spirits. Mental disease was chosen as an evidence of possession by the devil; mental diseases and their cure became the province of the church. This state of affairs continued through the Middle Ages almost until the Renaissance when the first attempts were made by the Dominican monks to separate mental disease from demoniacal possession. Meanwhile the other branches of medicine already free from the influence of the church were able to develop. The author describes this evolution of psychiatry in chapters on witchcraft and mass delusion; the emancipation of psychiatry is outlined under the caption, “The Devil Loses Dominion over the Insane.” He proceeds then to the more spectacular figures in European psychiatry such as Mesmer, the various founders of hypnotism and faith healing. The last chapters are devoted to a discussion of the more rational types of therapy. This book exploits the distressing fact that we still have too many “schools” in psychiatry, too many jealous teachers and even more jealous students. It is unfortunate that the author has not demonstrated the present development of psychiatry as a biological and social science, but this may be beyond the scope of this volume. Unquestionably this work is a good beginning, and it is hoped that it may be expanded into a real history of psychiatry as the author seems to possess both the competence and imagination to do it. J. KASANIN, M. D., Mount Zion Hospital, San Francisco, Cal.

The idea that what happens to people, and what people do, are determined by forces external to themselves was current in the Middle Ages for a number of reasons. These included the vogue for judicial astrology, which suggested that the planets and the stars control both people's conduct and their experiences; people in the Middle Ages were also exposed to texts written in classical antiquity, which posited a world conditioned by the workings of Fate, or the Fates. People who wrote in the Middle Ages often combated the world view subscribed to in such systems of thought. They did so by affirming against it the lesson of Christian theology that the will possessed by human beings is free, and that it is this that determines what happens to people. Following the teachings of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae , they sometimes redefined the concept of Fate, and that of Fortune, assimilating them to Christians' understanding of what it is that determines what happens to individuals. But in some cases, what was asserted instead was God's ability to overpower anything that had been ordained by some predetermining force. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde , as this article discusses, participates in a wider late medieval engagement with the notion that events have been predetermined, associating this idea with the pagan world with which Christian theology of the patristic era identified it. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur , the article argues, contends with the same notion. Malory's text invokes the claim made by other late medieval writers that God can overrule something that has been predetermined, but it simultaneously suggests that what is to happen has been determined by the individuals to whom it is to happen, not predetermined at all. Malory's interest in the subjects of Destiny and Fortune, the essay proposes, is more complex than has been assumed.

This special issue of Modern Theology gathers together full research essays that were first presented, in summary form, at the 2021 online conference Theological Genealogies of Modernity. For both the original event and now this collection, theological genealogies of modernity serves as a term of art referring to any complex, broad-sweep narrative account of the rise of a modern Western cultural order that highlights theology's role within that process. The conference organizers deliberately employed the term in a capacious sense out of a desire to find a rubric under which to include a range of narratives and disciplinary perspectives on them. Defined broadly, the terminology extends both to stories celebrating the Enlightenment for bringing about progress and also to narratives stressing the need constantly to recur to a pre-modern cultural synthesis from which people today should continue to receive instruction. Of course, this simplistic distinction deserves to be challenged, and several of the essays here contest this stark division of options. The overall aim of the inquiry into genealogies is to help theologians understand how these narratives work, regardless of which account is attractive to them, so that they may develop a well-informed position on how (and even whether) to employ them. Suppose that we define theologians inclusively as those who speak about God. Theologians assume different stances on genealogies. Marcus Borg invokes a common story about modern progress by claiming that during the previous two centuries historical scholars have learned that the picture of Jesus emerging from the ecumenical councils of the church does not actually match up well with the life and ministry of Jesus himself, but instead is the work of the early Christian movement in the years following his death.1 Advances in historical research supersede prior understandings, no matter how firmly ensconced ecclesial tradition has become. By contrast, John Milbank argues that Christians must take their cue from a medieval participatory ontology in order properly to conceive the identity of Jesus.2 Failing to see the relevance of this ontology entails starting with another set of fundamental commitments, ones that from the outset undermine offering a non-identical repetition of what the classical creeds say about who Jesus is. Borg and Milbank employ substantively different genealogies, but each one uses a single story that conforms, more or less, to a recognizable type—progress in the first case and declension in the second, at least in the eyes of its critics. Other theologians blend these options together. Georges Florovsky, for example, works with a complicated combination of narratives. On the one hand, he insists that all Christian theology should trace itself back to the fathers of the church, who articulated the deposit of faith. Contemporary constructive theological reflection requires strict fidelity to a synthesis of patristic thought; anything else counts as defection from this standard. On the other hand, Florovsky values modern historicism and other forms of thought that were not elements of the patristic synthesis. Only by a sleight of hand is he able to mingle together a declension narrative and his appreciation for the fruit of progress.3 It is also possible to find arguments for being wary of any whole genealogy and, instead, limiting oneself to gleaning insights from several of them. Joel Rasmussen reads Søren Kierkegaard as casting suspicion on any attempt to take the measure of ourselves, the whole of recent history, and our place within it, without ideology infecting these evaluations. The best strategy, in light of these problems, is to select insights from a plurality of approaches that perpetually vie with each other. Whether theologians employ a single genealogy, whether they use multiple stories, or whether they are suspicious of any story on such a grand scale, they can hardly avoid taking some stance on genealogies of modernity. Therefore, theologians should think through the issues these accounts raise and how to deal with them. This work is worth undertaking because theologians need to make recourse to one or more genealogies in the process of sustaining their substantive claims. Those who incline toward a progress narrative press it into service to explain how entrenched traditions block the future trajectory of research and must be resisted for this reason. Those working with a decline narrative, or something like it, need a way to explain why their theological claims are not immediately believable to many in the world today, although they had greater subscription in a previous period. Those who combine stories feel pulled in both directions at once and attempt a synthesis of genealogies. And, finally, those wary of being drawn into the orbit of any large story still end up taking a position on topics they address, such as religion's role in the modern world. In one form or another, genealogical discourse is entangled in the theological task. It therefore profits theologians to consider how best to navigate such stories. That was a working hypothesis behind the Theological Genealogies of Modernity conference and remains a premise of this special issue. There are several features of these accounts, however, that make them challenging to handle skillfully. Perhaps the most obvious difficulty is their massive scope. They are indeed grand narratives, spanning whole epochs and rendering interpretive judgments upon them. As Richard Cross fittingly comments in his blistering polemic against the way Radically Orthodox theologians read Duns Scotus, “A grand narrative of this nature is dependent upon some—probably all—of the smaller stories that compose it. That some, and probably all, of these stories are truthful is necessary for the truthfulness of the analysis as a whole—for the truthfulness of the grand narrative.”4 Is it even possible for those who employ such narratives to know enough about all that they contain for their knowledge to be genuinely secure? Cross argues that while Radical Orthodoxy takes Scotus to be proposing a metaphysic when he says that the concept of being is univocal to God and creatures, he intends merely to advance a semantic theory. It would be easy for a reader of Cross's critique to feel that if the leading lights of Radical Orthodoxy are off base about Duns Scotus, then perhaps not only have they rushed in where angels fear to tread, but it would be foolhardy for anyone to lean heavily on a genealogy. Maybe caution should be the rule instead. Being wary regarding grand narratives appears to constitute the only way to avoid exposing oneself to perpetual vulnerability. One of the constituent essays in this collection responds constructively to this challenge, as discussed below. But for now, the point is simply to note that this difficulty attends grand genealogical narratives. Large-scale narrative accounts are also challenging to handle insofar as they contain a variety of material. While many major on intellectual history and refer to a wide range of primary texts, others bring within their purview material culture and social factors as well. A final challenge to handling genealogies well is that they raise fundamental questions of epistemology. Do genealogies force the theologian to choose between either a problematizing approach to knowledge (Nietzsche) or a tradition-informed stance (Aristotle)? Or is it preferable to bring these two together somehow? In this collection, Joel Rasmussen explores these questions in dialogue with Kierkegaard's corpus. Theologians face these challenges, yet standard academic arrangements throw an obstacle in the way of addressing them effectively. Due to the breadth of genealogies, it would be ideal to discuss them in an interdisciplinary setting. Theologians would profit from conversing with historians, philosophers, and literary scholars. But because academic fields are typically isolated from one another in ways that inhibit communication and cooperation between specialized areas, the sort of discussions that theological genealogies inherently deserve seldom take place. It was for this reason that the conference included practitioners with an array of expertise. As readers of their respective essays can see, both Brad Gregory and Peter Harrison bring specialist skills as historians from which theologians can glean much. Several of our contributors have knowledge of philosophy. While Thomas Pfau did not contribute an essay to this collection, his skills as a literary scholar were on display at the conference itself when he engaged in a discussion of Kierkegaard with Joel Rasmussen.5 A welcome trend in recent work on genealogies is that the discussion is diversifying. Many standard points of reference continue to receive discussion at present, but they now stand alongside more efforts to speak about and from the perspective of previously marginalized communities. The conversation about such accounts is rightly expanding to include new voices, some of which are challenging well-ensconced genealogical practices in order to create opportunities to be heard. This is evident in the essay on “Genderealogy: Erasure and Repair” within this special issue. Its authors, Christine Helmer and Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft, argue that raising the profile of women within genealogies requires a deep reconception of human agency itself. Likewise, Ragnar M. Bergem ends his essay with an appreciative assessment of two major texts on the role of race and religion in the formation of modern Western culture. It is to the benefit of the present discussion that it is less dominated by figures from a single demographic. Five of the essays brought together here interpret and assess genealogies of modernity as they currently exist. Their authors provide some guidance for how these narratives might develop in response to their interrogation, but they mainly focus on understanding and evaluating examples from the current discussion. The value of these pieces derives from how they challenge assumptions that give certain narratives greater influence than those stories perhaps deserve, how they undermine caricatures that may misconstrue some genealogies, how they highlight the achievement and limits of genealogies, and how they wrestle in explicit ways with methodological questions that are seldom satisfyingly answered in other discussions. In the modern West, the narrative enjoying the broadest cultural currency portrays history as bringing about progress, or an ever-increasing quality of life for human beings. Yet Brad Gregory points to what he sees as a significant problem with this story. The obstacle is the Anthropocene, the proposed epoch marking out the beginning of large-scale human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems. Such impact includes climate change, but it indicates broader and deeply problematic alterations to the planet's energy, water, and biochemical cycles. This difficulty pertains not only to problems that have already occurred, but even more to the trajectory that the planet is currently on. Based on observations that scientists can presently make, people's impact upon the world may well challenge the habitability of some or even all of the planet. For this reason, the onset of the Anthropocene, usually dated to around the middle of the twentieth century, poses a challenge to any narrative about human progress: if human beings cannot continue to live on the planet they currently inhabit, that decisively undermines the claim that their quality of life only improves with time. The usual, allegedly benign, attempts to include more people within a consumer capitalist culture only exacerbate the issues. They do not offer a solution to the basic problem. Western nations, in which Christianity has exerted a tremendous influence, have proven largely responsible for these difficulties—this despite Jesus’ stern and unambiguous condemnation of the greed and accumulation of wealth that ultimately drive many current threats. Nominally Christian nations have outrightly repudiated core teachings of Jesus, and this choice has brought looming planetary destruction as its consequence. Gregory holds up saintly individuals and ascetic communities as examples proving that it is indeed possible to follow Jesus’ teaching, at least on a small scale, despite the sorry display writ large that we otherwise see and with the consequences of which we must now live. Gregory's picture is admittedly gloomy. Those who seek to resist his conclusion about progress narratives would need to find a way to account for the considerable range of evidence he marshals without bursting the bounds of that common modern story. Could it be that the progress story might yet sustain itself if technological solutions were invented that could reverse the degrading effects that human beings are presently having on the planet? Only time will tell if anything like this comes to pass. While Gregory proffers the evidence of the current Anthropocene as sufficient to undermine the progress narrative, he stops short of embracing a macro-account of decline, insisting that declension accounts depend on rightly identifying a point from which decline began—a question with which he does not deal in this focused essay. In his larger work, The Unintended Reformation, Gregory disavows nostalgia for a past Golden Age, refusing to embrace a single historical period as the juncture from which subsequent history defected.6 Two other essays deal more fully with genealogies that are often understood in terms of decline. In “Neither Progress nor Regress: The Theological Substructure of T. F. Torrance's Genealogy of Modern Theology,” Darren Sarisky contends that the category of decline does not genuinely apply to the genealogy of the Scottish Reformed theologian. A brisk reading of Torrance's work might lead one to conclude that he views history as a declension from certain high points, such as the Nicene period or the Reformation. But such a conclusion overlooks his appreciation for many modern advances. And, more importantly, it fails to register what is most important for the structure of his genealogy, that is, Torrance's own deepest doctrinal commitments. Aspects of Trinitarian and Christological doctrine, rather than the idealization of any time periods, lie at the heart of his genealogy, because they determine its structure. Among other effects, they reshape how Torrance understands time. Even though nearly two millennia separate today's church from the events of Jesus’ earthly ministry, that does not entail that an unbridgeable gap opens up between him and today's ecclesial community. Rather, time is warped in the sense that it is no longer exclusively linear. The one who was crucified and resurrected then is alive even now and becomes present to the church by the power of the Spirit. Because time is not simply linear, on his view, it is erroneous to understand his genealogy as portraying history as a decline from a particular point. What is more fundamental to the genealogy than chronologically bounded periods is epistemic reconciliation between the knowing subject and the God who is the object of theological inquiry. Because the practice of theology depends upon epistemic affinity, Torrance's genealogy critiques developments in history that frustrate achieving epistemic reconciliation and lauds those that facilitate it. This focus helps Torrance prioritize which historical moments need evaluation, and it explains the angle from which he assesses any given claim. Furthermore, because God can establish epistemic affinity between humans and himself in any set of historical conditions, thereby retaining his freedom, knowledge of God does not depend ultimately on the existence of certain earthly circumstances. Torrance's genealogy certainly offers some bold assessments and can at times display carelessness with details. But it manages to avoid indulging in the most sweeping historical generalizations that other genealogies include. Torrance's work thereby contributes to the current debate by being more measured in this sense. Readers concerned about the tendency toward cavalierly evaluative periodization can turn to Torrance to find something different. The notion of decline figures less centrally in John Milbank's essay, “Genealogies of Truth,” but his piece might well nevertheless be construed as offering two important comments on this notion. The first is that whatever relevance “decline” possesses, there is also a need within Christian theology for genealogy to operate in a fundamentally different mode. Genealogy ought to function positively in the first instance. Positive genealogy builds upon the past, not simplistically, by merely repeating what others have already said, but by reflectively building upon exemplars from within a tradition in which one stands. The warrant for history in genealogy comes from less than the where Jesus is understood as the life of the church by being as as possible with its Positive genealogy doctrinal by theologians to think with their because is in the of the it within a particular of thought and theology also genealogy, in order to challenge assumptions that may be well but that nevertheless to basic Christian commitments. genealogy common assumptions and them, their the role of genealogy is to by an of the of the which turn out to be other than was and rather than and This to the that Milbank is, in in his essay. While genealogy is to be substantively it less than the genealogy of Radical which is often by with terms such as decline and Milbank insists that what he is ultimately if it is a to an that had greater influence in the past, is to to have learned from while fully to it by of with theological The use of genealogy itself an of him in this and that he is working in by this point of on Milbank's essay a and discussions of and as some of the he has In his of Modernity and Its Ragnar Bergem a of points that to both progress narratives and decline is that many of the recent genealogies that have drawn from theologians have by and work, although theologians have also theology and Radical Orthodoxy have to modernity by its and up the of challenging it. these genealogies are most they have given readers a point on sense that it is not in its our perhaps even a that there could an for life that has not by the of a modern In this these theological discussions have the sense that Christians today have no choice but to into a and to that Yet insofar as these stories point back to a their anything as of his genealogies. only to the present and to up about new genealogy to a theological to which past Bergem does not on whether theologians in the of or Radical Orthodoxy would take his as a some of them have no of within the limits of he highlights the that theological genealogies have by where their do not with that have them. While these accounts have some theologians to from modern developments that would in the past have as is in some modernity still a force within them. For because many of the genealogies in question their discussion on intellectual to the of material they have only a to the that in place the they One of the most genealogies from recent years that some accounts separate out from their cultural and problems on intellectual referring to this problematic tendency as an Furthermore, Bergem theological genealogies to modernity by periodization that in modern that its and that may even out evidence that does not the narrative genealogy of race as a category is as some of these by heavily on rather than to the historical in that race a of By contrast, work on race attends to in a more obvious overall aim is not to for the of genealogical he mainly to assess current and, to offer for that might benefit current is at his most when he that genealogies that are options are and instead, one story may depend on elements of its Readers often understand theological genealogies to be an case by starting from that not all and to be in Peter and the of The of Modern argues that several genealogies actually work in a how accounts to that are in a even though such genealogical arguments do not with Genealogies can this by basic in the stance with modern and Because they within historical these accounts a different point of as the only In this these genealogies function as This is the of the function of genealogies. Harrison in a and several genealogies that problems in the of modern For argues that cannot people to the of a as it is of the of without some form of within But the offers itself as a one that is to religion as thereby depends on what it itself not to be fully This that should receive a assessment of some though does not need to himself to a evaluative perspective to make this The conclusion simply from a analysis of the of itself. Harrison explores several other examples as well. about other major historical works to that authors such as Brad Gregory are often to be their own or claims when they are in for only that the concept of human is not well it to theological Gregory need not himself to such to make that point. The once is to how genealogical work can be and substantive without being in ways that historians consider broader discussion of major recent works a range of subject is a more of from modern The essay what is often as an obvious that modern and practices genuinely are by that they depend on theological in some piece should historians and theologians to to the form of within genealogies. offers terms that can help readers understand the nature of the at work within accounts derives from in the form of rather than from any or arguments the to on essays within this special issue whether and how genealogies ought to be of these essays is to problems with the though they to the they The first essay a to certain of with a toward common with narratives that history having a The essay for a to the common of to the final essay that our human for requires about any particular grand narrative we might tell about human history and our place in it. that genealogies which develop stances toward because assumptions at some point in the to their from the history they The problems of the present to which this history has can to be if the reader of the genealogy more with the not than with the one that has Such genealogies do not an of but something like this is a that attends these What is the best way to avoid the constructive is that genealogies should be to their in the of Those genealogies should the of their own points and They ought to be about how the stories they forms of and to the of It is for any genealogy that is of modernity to this But it is for theologians to genealogies, for declension narratives the narrative within as from within human beings and as no one can for what is with the world. There methodological and theological to genealogies. In should compose historical narratives that they as Because genealogies are narrative accounts that offer readers in the face of an otherwise of historical their authors should that their accounts have the of an They are Genealogies provide and those who receive guidance from them should to a more perspective by undertaking more specialized of of at genealogical narratives in this way has two it the tendency to any that from it the of Richard Cross's that large-scale stories are to questions from specialist of a genealogy rightly own up to the need to even as they to the they have from the story that their like in historical practice as well as within Christian The theological perspective the of human who have a not a of In its point of reference is the for with God in the new should any appreciation that a has for a past period of

0 much has been said during the last few years about an international organization which shall bring peace and order to the people of the world and so little about previous efforts of society to achieve the same result that it seems not inappropriate to sketch again the outlines of one of the most successful of those attempts. It might appear rather rash, certainly visionary, to propose that the League of Nations, or Conference on the Limitation of Armament (new style), be empowered not only to administer territories gained by joint conquest, but, also, to recruit armies and levy taxes directly from the people, without the intermediation of national governments; to act as a supreme court, with original jurisdiction in cases arising between nations or against rulers of nations, and with appellate jurisdiction in all cases whether of nations or individuals; and to execute its judgments whether against individuals or against states, even to the extent of making war upon an obstinate state. That would seem a very dangerous array of powers, indeed, and yet, you will agree, this is but a sober summary of the powers actually exercised by such an international authority through nearly two centuries of medieval history. Of the various attempts to achieve international control in the Middle Ages only one need receive our serious attention, however high the hopes and ambitions of the others. This is the one headed by the papacy in the days from Gregory VII. to Boniface VIII. It has been customary to trace its development in the evolution of papal theories and policies of temporal power reaching back all the way to Roman days. That path, however, is a rather tortuous one, like an old and abandoned road through the northern forest. Seldom smooth,