Development Of Ecclesiology Research Articles

Федеративная модель Церкви в западном богословии

The author attempts to reconstruct in the most general detail the history of the application of federative terminology to the description of the structure of the Christian Church. The concept of federation appeared in the 18th century in the works of Protestant church historians who believed that the formation of the initial church structure was modeled on the federative political structures that emerged in Greco-Roman antiquity. Further mastering of the relevant political terminology by church authors was facilitated by the formation of the theory of political federalism in the 19th century and its popularization in the political and public life of many states. The author shows how since the end of the 19th century the concept of federation has been applied to the church constitution at its modern stage. This practice was especially characteristic of the representatives of the Anglican Church, in whose official rhetoric the image of federation took an important and prominent place. It was in the midst of the Anglican Church that the formula of the Church as a federation was born. Thanks to Protestant influence, federative terminology enters the language of ecumenical theology, being used there in particular to denote an intermediate form of ecclesiastical union. However, federative formulas in ecclesiology were accompanied by constant criticism, mainly for allegedly bringing with them alien and profane associations. An irreconcilable position was taken by Catholic authors, who for a whole century have been developing a theological refutation of ecclesiastical federalism. Under the influence of their criticism, as well as significant historical and ideological changes, the image of federation gradually disappeared from the language of Christian theology, surviving ultimately in the form of a general and unanimous denial that the Church is not a federation. The author is trying to show that despite some artificiality in the use of federative terminology, there were certain theological insights behind its use concerning the status of particular Churches and the nature of their mutual unity. These intuitions were largely ignored by the general development of ecclesiology in the twentieth century with its main interest in the global and universal dimension of the Church.

Partisipasi Kaum Awam Dalam Bidang Politik Menurut Dekrit Konsili Vatikan Ii Apostolicam Actuositatem

Since the Second Vatican Council, the emphasis on the dignity and the role of the laity in the Church and society has been one of the important developments in ecclesiology. And given to the fact that it is proper to the laity ’s state to live both in the midst of the world and of secular transactions, the typical mark or special characteristic of the laity ’s participation in the mission of the Church is an apostolate exercised in and through direct concern with secular affairs, particularly in politics. In this regard, the decree Apostolicam Actuositatem, particularly in articles 7 and 14 has inspired the laity by stating that Catholics versed in politics, firm in the faith and Christian teaching, should not decline to enter public life.This article will examine - in the light of the teaching of the decree - how Catholic lay members can contribute to promoting the common good through their participationin politics. And in order to fully realize the mission of the laity in politics, there is need for lay formation and authentic collaboration between the clergy and the laity. It will also demonstrate how an effective transformation of the laity can be achieved through their socialization in the social teaching of the Church with regard to how they can contribute to the promotion, protection, and preservation of the common good.

'Unfortunately Romanesque' Two Churches of the 1840s in Hampshire

The nineteenth century witnessed almost unprecedented church building activity in Hampshire. New district churches appeared in rapidly expanding urban parishes and most existing structures, including those in rural areas, underwent substantial restoration, refurbishment and enlargement. This paper compares two of these churches from the 1840s: St. Peter's, Southampton and St. Nicholas', Newnham. Despite their apparent differences, they share a number of characteristics in common, most obviously their Romanesque style and inclusion of a Rhenish helm spire. The history of their construction will be examined in the context of the contemporary revival of medieval ecclesiastical architecture and developments in Ecclesiology (the study of church buildings, furnishings and decoration). Consideration will be given to how the Rhenish helm came to be adopted at both churches and to what extent St. Peter's influenced the design and arrangements at Newnham. This article will also consider whether the same architect was involved.

Free for Mission

Working at the intersection of ethnographic and missional theology, this essay argues for the central role of fieldwork for discerning missional identity in congregations. Recent developments in ecclesiology and ethnography have clarified the embodied nature of theological knowledge, disclosing the practical wisdom and cultural locatedness of the researcher and congregation. While ethnography has been used to help congregations understand their context and discern a missional vocation, the ongoing theological and formational nature of such practices are often undertheorized in relationship to missional church. Drawing from Robert Jenson’s notion of the Spirit as God’s freedom, liberating God and creature for God’s future, this essay suggests ethnographic fieldwork as a liberative practice for the congregation, freeing it to participate in the boundary-crossing and sensemaking work of missional church. In working with congregations, I’m often greeted by some version of the question: “Are we (meaning, the congregation I’m working with) missional yet?” The question comes loaded with curiosity and concern. What, they ask, is a missional church, and would we know one if we saw it? Even more significant: how will we know when the work we are doing to renew our theological imagination and develop partnerships with our neighbors will pay off? The question comes from a good place, but it also leads into a deceptive trap, for any answer will betray the dynamism that “missional” tries to name (Guder 1998, 3–5). And yet, the question also unveils a theo-practical ambiguity at the heart of the missional church. The problem is not just that missio Dei theology holds together unreconciled tensions between the God-church-world relationship, but that the boundary-crossing practices that shape the missional vocation of a congregation are viewed instrumentally, as a means to a missional end. Congregations, seeking to identify as “missionary by [their] very nature,” and reorient congregational life through practices of missional discernment, can be forgiven for thinking of “missional” as a fixed arrival point (Guder 2015, 9). In what follows, I explore the theological significance of ethnographic practices for missional congregations. A staple of many approaches to missional renewal and missional church plants, church leaders and steering committees regularly employ the basic tools of ethnographic fieldwork to better understand their own community and their context or neighborhood (Croft and Hopkins 2015; Roxburgh 2011). In descriptive terms, these practices equip congregants for deep listening, attentive observation, and disciplined curiosity. They also place congregants in new places and with new people, drawing these experiences into congregational reflection and discernment. While neither professional ethnographers nor academic theologians, congregants are given through these practices new connections to neighbors and offered new vantage points from which to reflect upon the life and ministry of the congregation. As such, they are not simply a means to a missional end, but rather practices that already participate in God’s missional future. Congregational ethnographic fieldwork can cultivate new social realities which glimpse—and perhaps even liberate—the congregation for God’s mission in its particular context.Of course, ethnographic fieldwork is not a theological practice by itself, nor can missional theology be collapsed into ethnography. At stake in this discussion is how otherness is reconciled with the missio Dei, how one envisions the relationship between God and God’s creation, the church and God’s present and coming Reign (see Swart et al. 2009). Drawing from Robert Jenson’s understanding of the Spirit as God’s freedom and God’s future, I suggest a liberative approach to missional church. Rather than a fixed identity or a future telos, the missional church is liberated for God’s mission by and through the neighbor, the stranger, the other in and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The church sent into the world recognizes and receives God’s “preferred and promised future” in the concrete relationships cultivated (Keifert 2006, 16). Ethnography, shaped by this missional intention, becomes an ongoing practice for missional theology, not only a step toward a missional identity.

Humbert of Romans on the Papacy before Lyons II (1274): A Study in Comparison with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Gregory X’s Extractiones

Humbert of Romans on the Papacy before Lyons II (1274): A Study in Comparison with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Gregory X’s Extractiones Andrew Hofer O.P. THOMAS AQUINAS’S understanding of papal power has been the subject of close theological scrutiny. It has often been compared to the thought of other Scholastics of the thirteenth century and to medieval canonists. It has been studied in the contexts of the mendicant controversies and efforts at reunion with the East, and evoked in questions about the papacy’s role in the faith, sacraments, and the unity of the Church. In studies of developments in ecclesiology, Thomas often draws attention for his articulations of the papal preservation from error when canonizing saints and the pope’s plenitudo potestatis. Special attention has been given to Thomas’s influence on subsequent theological and doctrinal formulations regarding the papacy’s jurisdiction vis-à-vis local bishops and state governments, as well as on papal teaching authority over the universal Church.1 [End Page 51] By contrast, there has been little study in ecclesiology of Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master (1254–63) of the Order of Preachers to which Thomas belonged. Humbert’s views on the papacy are known better by historians specializing in the thirteenth century than by theologians today.2 Humbert wrote a consilium in preparation for the Second Council of Lyons [End Page 52] (1274),3 which he offered probably at the personal request of Pope Gregory X, as Simon Tugwell argues, rather than as a response to one of two general letters preparing for the council.4 Of all extant reports that prepare for the council, Humbert’s Opus (or Opusculum) tripartitum is by far the most thorough.5 As its name suggests, it is divided into three parts to meet the three needs of the Church that would be discussed at [End Page 53] Lyons: crusade, union with Greeks, and reform in the Church.6 Especially remarkable is the Secunda pars, the most comprehensive extant medieval analysis of the schism written by either a Latin or a Greek. Composed in a clear Scholastic style, the consilium addresses political, theological, social, psychological, linguistic, and philosophical matters that are required in order for reunion to become a reality. Humbert is, as Burkhard Roberg says, an independent thinker.7 Humbert writes this plan under the aspect of advising the pope on what he should do and why he should do it in light of the ad hoc needs of the Church. While scholarship has given attention to Humbert’s proposal (although its effort for Christian unity is still not as well known as it deserves), no study has been devoted per se to his understanding of the pope as laid out in this treatise.8 The following study compares Humbert’s view of the pope with that of Thomas. While there is no evidence that Humbert borrowed from Thomas’s teaching on the papacy, studies of the two together can be mutually illuminative—especially for an audience much more familiar with Thomas’s teachings on the Church.9 While Humbert does not rival Thomas in genius, he [End Page 54] offers additional practical insight and frank criticism for understanding the papacy, not found in Thomas.10 The two friars wrote in different genres and contexts, with different literary emphases and perspectives: Humbert, as a highly respected retired head of the Dominicans and prolific writer for his Order; and Thomas, as a renowned master of the sacred page with several scattered treatments of the papacy in academic disputes. Some scholars, such as Leonard Boyle and Paul Murray, have shown how Thomas was likely influenced by Humbert in his own writing.11 While Humbert’s proposal for [End Page 55] Pope Gregory X seems to have been composed too late (March/April–December 1272) to have influenced Thomas’s writing on the papacy,12 it can illuminate what Thomas wrote, and did not write, on the papacy. Examining Humbert’s text against the backdrop of Thomas’s theology can also shed some light on Humbert’s own distinctiveness. Certainly, neither is sufficient to explain the other. Yet, putting Humbert alongside Thomas—two of the most...

Differentiated Consensus as a Means of Correcting Unilateral Ecclesiological Developments?

AbstractThe methodology of “differentiated consensus,” which was used to arrive at the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between Lutherans and Catholics in 1999, has led to more progress in 40 years than in the previous five centuries, through reinterpreting certain formulations that were seemingly incompatible, and allowing correction of those doctrinal developments that are unilaterally self‐referential and that reach far back in history. To assess the progress made, this article examines the type of doctrinal consensus originally required by the Catholic Church, so as to understand what is new about differentiated consensus and its potential for correcting unilateral doctrinal developments.

Non-Communio Trinitarian Ecclesiology: Furthering Neil Ormerod’s Account

As a corrective for the idealizing, romanticizing, and universalizing tendencies of communio ecclesiology, Neil Ormerod recently proposed an alternative non- communio trinitarian approach based on the ‘four-point hypothesis’ originating in Bernard F. Lonergan’s trinitarian theology. Ormerod’s account focuses on the missio rather than communio dimension of the church and thus gives primacy to ecclesial ‘operator’ over ‘integrator.’ This article aims at furthering Ormerod’s account of a non- communio trinitarian ecclesiology. In the light of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching, recent developments in ecclesiology and biblical scholarship, this essay (1) critically engages Ormerod’s account and (2) suggests a complementary route grounded in the biblical foundations of trinitarian doctrine.

DE CALVIN À ALTHUSIUS L’importance du modèle ecclésiologique réformé pour la pensée fédérale

In this article, the relationship between Johannes Althusius’ federal views of civil government – as expressed in his Politica methodice digesta – and John Calvin’s conception of the role and function of public authorities, is examined in the light of three sermons on Deuteronomy 17 preached by Calvin in 1555. The discussion takes its starting point in the consideration of the kind of politico-theological connection denied or ignored in today’s secularized France, with a particular historical reference to the regime of the Terreur in 1793-1794. The question of the influence which Calvin’s ecclesiology as well as subsequent Calvinistic ecclesiological developments in the Netherlands may have had on Althusius’ theory of government and of political life is raised in the light of the fact that Althusius not only held a degree in civil law, but also in Church law (both obtained in Basel the same year, under strong Luthero-Calvinist influence). If elements of a relation do indeed appear, they still remain to be established with more precision. Still, in their views both Calvin and Althusius clearly point towards a unified vision of society under the norm of God’s rule. With Althusius, this norm – embodied in the Decalogue – is refracted in the various spheres constitutive of human activity associated with each other in a federative way, each one retaining its own mode of operating.

A cultura do encontro na nova paróquia

The New Parish is called to gradually become “community of communities”, especially from the new developments in ecclesiology in Latin America (CELAM), Brazil (CNBB) and Francis pontificate. The New Parish is a place of listening to the Word, of the Eucharist (communion) and charity (agape). In this perspective, the article in question seeks to understand the value of Feasts and popular religiosity in the dynamics of the new parish. Jewish Feasts were beautiful moments of love, sharing with the Temple, pilgrimage, family celebration and gifts of land, community meeting, cultivate the historical memory. Today, the parish and community Feasts are invited to redeem these senses, motivated by Francis Pope’s appeal that grow in the Church the “Culture of Encounter.” The New Parish can promote, through parties and popular religiousness, the meeting and solidarity in a globalized world, which suffers from the individualism and selfishness.

Włoska eklezjologia okresu przedsoborowego

In this article has been shown the ecclesiology of the pre-council period in Italy. The twentieth century called the century of the Church. The biggest event at the time was the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II was not a random event, but preceded by a renewal, which goes back to the early twentieth century. Also in Italy, an important role to fulfill the liturgical renewal, biblical movement, the activity of the lay faithful. In the period preceding the publication of the encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Mystical Body of Christ, distinctive theology of the Italian representatives are: Giuseppe Siri, Francesco Chiesa, Antonio M. Vellico and Grazioso Ceriani. New impetus in the development of ecclesiology has become encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (29.06.1943) Pope Pius XII. For example, taken by Pietro Parente (1891–1986) Mysterium Ecclesiae study with the intent to recover its original splendor to bind legal structure of the hierarchical Church, with its inner nature. Disclosure by Pope John XXIII on 25 January 1959, just three months after his election to the See of Peter, the convening of a general council, and then consult widely on the subject of proceedings has contributed significantly not only to revive interest in the Church, but also to take the very important issues related. In developing a new concept of the Church, that is more in line with the spirit of the period immediately preceding the ecclesiology of Vatican II, the priest put a significant contribution to the Diocese of Alba Natale Bussi (1907–1988), whose lectures were recorded and issued the first time already in 1961. Also noteworthy is the emphasis on the ground of Italian interest in the phenomenon of sanctity and the cult of saints. The overall look of the ecclesiology of the Italian twentieth century, which precedes the Second Vatican Council should be noted that it is not as discovery and pioneering, as ecclesiology German or French.

A.J. Tomlinson’s Emerging Ecclesiology

AbstractThis study seeks to engage the question of how A.J. Tomlinson formulated the theological platform that influenced the ecclesiologies of various Churches of God. The cast includes R.G. Spurling and R. Frank Porter, a forgotten figure but one who, together with Spurling, organized the Holiness Church at Camp Creek in western North Carolina on May 15, 1902. I will argue that, absent the intervention of A.J. Tomlinson on June 13, 1903, the work of Spurling, Porter, and W.F. Bryant would have suffered the ill-fated demise common to hundreds of like works in Appalachia. Yet Tomlinson was more than an organizer; he was also someone who influenced the mission adopted by the early Church of God (Cleveland, TN). This article has particular relevance in the face of awakened sensitivities to Pentecostal ecclesiology in the light of the Edinburgh 1910 centenary celebrations around the world and the World Council of Churches’ working document, Nature and Mission of the Church. Here I will frame the discussion as a response to Dale Coulter’s article, “The Development of Ecclesiology in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN): A Forgotten Contribution?” in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 29, no. 1 (2007): 59-85.

The Development of Ecclesiology in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN): A Forgotten Contribution?

Recent Pentecostal theologians attempting to forge a Pentecostal ecclesiology seem to agree that early Pentecostalism lacked any significant discussion of the doctrine of the church. While that contention may be true of the free-church wing of early Pentecostalism, the current article argues that it is not true of the Church of God. Instead, ecclesiology was the most discussed topic among early Church of God theologians and this discussion led to a rather elaborate understanding of the nature of the church. The current article attempts to set forth early Church of God ecclesiology both to show how important it was to the Church of God and to suggest that current statements about the lack of any developed ecclesiology among early Pentecostals should be revised.

Toward Full Communion: Faith and Order and Catholic Ecumenism

[The author provides a summary history and theological survey of the contribution of the Faith and Order movement to the goal of full communion, with special emphasis on the participation of Catholic theologians. He addresses methodological issues and ecclesiological developments. Studies on the sacraments, the apostolic faith, Scripture and Tradition, and a variety of contextual issues have contributed to new irreversible relationships among the churches. Research by theologians of Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and historic Protestant churches have created a unique body of ecumenical literature.]

Practices and the New Ecclesiology: Misplaced Concreteness?

Abstract: Recent writing in ecclesiology has often focused on church practices and less on dogmatic accounts. Whilst welcoming this renewed awareness, there are problems in its development, demonstrated here through an analysis of the concept of ‘a practice’, and through readings of two examples of this tendency: Hütter's Suffering Divine Things and Hauerwas's With the Grain of the Universe. Resources from Thomas Aquinas are offered that might help the development of ecclesiology in this vein.

Word and sacrament as paradigmatic for pastoral theology: in search of a definition via Brueggemann, Hauerwas and Ricoeur

The current debate about the nature and parameters of pastoral theology emphasises practice as both the source and the end of theological reflection: pastoral theology as reflection on practice with a view to transforming practice. This raises issues for pastoral theologians from the Reformed tradition, which prioritises word and prizes scripture and preaching as fundamental ways in which the word is mediated to us. Current philosophical, cultural and ecclesiological developments emphasise the constructed nature of our worlds, the crucial place of language in world construction, and the ‘textured’ nature of the community of faith. Thus theologians associated with the term ‘post-liberal’ emphasise that in a time of displacement, marginalisation and identity crisis the church, like the Jewish community in exile, returns to its texts as its home and the source of its identity and its practice. Taking the theology of Walter Brueggemann as a starting point, this paper explores the relationship between proclamation and practice in the church's life, and seeks, through a Reformed paradigm of word and sacrament, a ‘post-liberal’ redefinition of pastoral theology that gives a higher profile to the church's ‘peculiar speech’.

«Strasbourg, Jean-Paul II et l'Europe»

«Strasbourg, John-Paul II and Europe» is a very interesting analysis by a group of protestant researchers of the media event, especially in the press, of John-Paul II' s visit to the european institutions in Strasbourg. It seems though that the sociological interpretation of the papal agenda does not sufficiently take into account the ecclesiological developments that are in process within catholic theology.

Eclesiología y misionología en el siglo XVIII

The author examines the place granted to the missionology in the manuals of ecclesiology in the 18th Century. So as to proceed to this inspection, it is necessary to analyse the structure and approach of these manuals. The context of the ecclesiological exposure of this epoch are conditioned by the evolution of the vera religione and de locis treties, which, born starting from the 15th and 16th Centuries, converge, at the beginning of the 18th Century and thanks to the influence of the German Jesuit, V. Pichler, into one unique treaty: the one that would later be called General or Fundamental Theology. In fact the manuals of Dogmatic Theology written along the 18Th Century were, as regards, the localization of the «de Ecclesia», be distributed in four groups: a) Some, following the tradition of the post-tridentine theology, include the study of the Church inside that of de finde; b) others, only a few, develope ecclesiology continuing form the de Verbo Incarnato; c) a third group, included in the interior of a de locis with which the manual is titled; d) a high number begin the manual with a de vera religione which is prolonged with a de vera Ecclesia Christi and a de munere infallibili Ecclesiae in proponenda doctrina revelata. This fourth form was gradually imposed. The apologetic approach, in a setting furrowed by anti-lutheran, anti-deist and anti-anglican concerns, conditions the contents of these treaties. The author moves on to analyse in a more direct manner, the three chapters in which it could be hoped that a greater presence of the missionological theme in these treaties would be apparent: the comparison of Christianity to other religions, the assertion of the Catholic Church as the true church, as opposed to the separated communities, the consideration of the possibility of salvation for those who do not belong to the Church. This inspection leads to a clear conclusion: the apologetic concern dominates the missionological one; the authors of the 18th Century, preoccupied by the danger of the indifference, do not pay attention to the problem of the mission. This verification situates before a paradox: in the epoch in which the mission do not form a part of the most outstanding happenings in the life of the Church, the manuals of Theology are ignorant about this fact. The reason for this absence cannot be blamed on the fact that the author of these manuals were insensitive to the problems then, but more likely on an exclusive attention to the above mentioned apologetic concerns. There is also another decisive factor: the conceptualization from which the theologists of the 18th Century approach the reality of the Church. Following the Bellarminian tradition, it is particularly conceived as society, and the concept of society appropriate to bring together the idea of mission. The development of ecclesiology operated along the 19th Century, will be necessary so that missiology can appear and find its own way.

The Church: Catholic and Ecumenical

“It is probably safe to say that theology will utilize religious experience as a starting-point even more than it has done in the past two decades. This will mean that the development of ecclesiology will spring from careful reflection upon the communal experience of Christians, upon their shared awareness of what it means to be the church, upon the manifestations of the Spirit as prophetic and life-giving. This will not be an entirely new approach for ecclesiology; what will be new will be some of the experiences shared in tomorrow's church.”

Ecclesiological Developments in Moltmann's Theology of Hope

JURGEN MOLTMANN has become a figure of international prominence in the world of theology as a result of the major statement of his thought, the Theology of Hope, which first appeared in 1964. Since then, Moltmann himself, as well as many others, have not ceased to marvel at the impact the work has made, not only in the United States and Europe, but in Oriental countries as well. Opinions will obviously differ as to the basis of the impact, but my own opinion is that it can be found in the fact that the Theology of Hope made the truths of the Christian revelation intelligible within the context of modern man's framework of thought. At the same time, Moltmann was able to do this, not by distorting the unique contents of the Christian message, but actually by returning to what he considered to be the truest elements of that message, basing his thought upon the conclusions of modern scriptural exegetes. The Theology of Hope is, then, a work of hermeneutics that is appearing to succeed because of the success with which Moltmann interprets the essentials of the Christian good news in the light of the spiritual and intellectual currents of today. Moltmann concluded the Theology of Hope with a chapter entitled Exodus Community, which sought to formulate certain conceptions of the Church which would follow from the application of certain principles of the theology of hope. The chapter was mainly devoted to political and sociological consequences of hope theology, it being one of Moltmann's major convictions that the absolute separation of the political world and the Christian community is not compatible with the Christian message. Apart from this chapter, Moltmann has published only a monograph and a smattering of essays and sections of other works, as teasers to what a real ecclesiology based on the theology of hope might be. And yet, if the theology of hope actually does ex1 These publications would include Gemeinde im Horizont der Herrschaft Christi: Neue Perspektiven in der protestantischen Theologie (Neukirchen Kreis Moers: Neukirchener Verlag, 1959); Die 'Rose im Kreuz der Gegenwart': Zum Verstandnis der Kirche in der modernen Gesellschaft, Monatsschrift fur Pastoraltheologie 50 (1961) 272-89 (ET in J. Moltmann. Hope and Planning, tr. Margaret Clarkson [London: SCM, 1971] pp. 130-54); Was erwarten Kirche und Gesellschaft voneinander? Der Mensch in der Wirtschaft 12 (1963) 3-17; Die Kirche als Faktor einer kommenden Weltgemeinschaft. Kirche in der Zeit 21 (1966) 307-10; Theologische Kritik der poli-

Dogma 4: The Church Its Origin and Structure by Michael Schmaus

BOOK REVIEWS 779 is an intuitive awareness of God, but only reductively. The image of God arises in the intellect slowly, laboriously, in proportion to strict fidelity to conscience, yet, in the end, never of itself represents more than a supreme Someone. It is only in and through the Christian tradition that the vague God of conscience is known clearly. Hence, for Newman, conscience can never directly impress the image of the God revealed in Christ, as Weatherby implies, nor can it be an independent judge of the content of Christian revelation. Conscience inherently needs Christian revelation, though the judgments it induces are the necessary preconditions for seeing Christian;ity as true. Hence, Newman's firm adherence to the received Catholic tradition is not a voluntaristic leap but an exigency of his own understanding of the function and limits of conscience. Professor Weatherby, then, has written a thoughtful, earnest book which defends the kind of epistemology which Newman rejected as consonant neither with empirical facts nor with the teaching on faith implies in Scripture. This is fair enough. To what extent his attribution of this view to St. Thomas is accurate, I have severe doubts. His interpretation of Newman's mind I find uncovincing, for it is based on misrepresentations which are pervasive and cumulative. Fairfield University Fairfield Connecticut RoBERT E. O'DoNNELL, S. J. Dogma 4: The Church Its Origin and Structure. By MICHAEL ScHMAus. Translated by Mary Ledderer. New York: Sheed and Ward, 197fl. Pp. 214. $3.95 (paper). Professor Michael Schmaus presents a straight-forward description of the Church which is sensitive to the contemporary theological questions of ecclesiology but avoids becoming involved in controversies. The simplicity of his arguments belies the depth at which he treats problems and the care with which he balances disputed questions. We have here the work of a master dogmatician suitable for use as a textbook in the college classroom or the adult study club. The basic research upon which this work rests is Schmaus's Die Lehre von der Kirche (Munich 1958) . This monumental 933 page treatise which includes 46 pages of bibliography, which ranks with those of Journet and Cougar as preparatory of Lumen Gentium, considers the origin of the Church from the viewpoint of God, salvation history, and the foundation in Jesus Christ. This conditions the divine-human character of the Church which is presented around the biblical images People of God, Body of Christ, 780 BOOK REVIEWS and Spouse. From the nature of the Church flows the mission and structure of the visible organization, treated in terms of services for salvation. Dogma 4 follows the outline of the De Lehre but updates the treatment to incorporate Vatican II documents and the ecclesial theses of contemporary theologians, especially colleagues and former students of Schmaus at the university of Munich. There are four parts to the work: a kind of introductory section on the Church as mystery of faith; next, the substantial treatment of the role and the relation of Christ and the Spirit in the Church; thirdly, the development of the theology of the Church; and finally, the extensive section on the structure of the Church. Schmaus shows his awareness of contemporary Protestant exegesis, e. g., that the Church was born out of the common faith of Jesus' disciples, but argues for the Roman Catholic interpretation, e. g., that Christ is the origin of the Church and the continuing ground for its life and existence. His teaching on the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church exemplifies the celebrated thesis of Schmaus's student, Heribert Muhlen, which expresses the relation of the Spirit and the Church analogously with the mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation: " One Person in many persons. " Schmaus's historical study of the development of ecclesiology follows Yves Congar's treatment of this subject and traces three periods of development: the age of the Fathers to the seventh century (Isidore), the Middle Ages, and the modern era. Ecumenists will find that Schmaus is faithful to the Vatican II documents on the unity of the Church's structure; his presentation is open to development, but it does not go beyond the Decree on Ecumenism...