Doctrinal Controversies Research Articles

The 1619 Dordrecht Synod’s decision on corruptio totalis: A missional challenge for the church in terms of media reporting on corruption in South Africa

The doctrinal controversy, which led to the formal Synod in Dordrecht (1618–1619), had many stakeholders. The different European countries and its governments also had much at stake in terms of how the issue would have been dealt with by the Reformed Church. Although for different reasons than now, the controversy and the ultimate decision taken at the renowned Synod still has significance for the church and society in the 21st century and even beyond. Therefore, a recent study on the reporting of four South African newspapers on corruption (as a form of sin) is telling in terms of the way such cases are presented. Their reporting displays a different way of presenting ‘sin’ mainly as an actual sin and not as a human condition which calls for the church, in response to the missio Dei, to reflect theologically on contemporary media discourse on ‘sin’ if it wants to address the root cause of corruption in South Africa. Although I realise that there is other ways for the church to respond to widespread corruption, this article focuses mainly on a theological contribution in terms of a broader discussion on ‘sin’.

George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word: Poetry and Scripture in Seventeenth-Century England. Gary Kuchar. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. xv+288.

<i>George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word: Poetry and Scripture in Seventeenth-Century England</i>. Gary Kuchar. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. xv+288.

The application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU in Poland

The paper aims at summarizing the experience in application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU by Polish courts. From the perspective of the Polish Constitutional Court EU law, including the Charter, has a universally binding character on Poland and it has priority over national law with a statutory and subordinate status, but not over the Constitution. The scope of protection guaranteed by the Charter is generally consistent with that provided for in the Constitution. Due to the fact that Poland has acceded to the British and Polish Protocol, the binding force and scope of applicability of the Charter are the subject of controversy in doctrine and case law. Nevertheless, the Polish Constitutional Court as well as common and administrative courts generally do not question the validity of the Charter, referring in different ways to its provisions in their rulings. The Charter is generally applied not as the main basis for the ruling, but as an additional element justifying the position adopted on the basis of Polish law. The Polish Constitution and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms are more likely to be chosen by the parties and by the courts as sources of fundamental rights invoked in the proceedings than the Charter. References to the Charter either by parties to the proceedings or courts themselves are often inadequate due to the lack of fulfilment of the conditions specified in Article 51 (1) of the Charter. In several cases invoking the provisions of the Charter outside the scope of application of EU law led to inadmissibility of preliminary references based on the Charter addressed to the CJEU by Polish courts.

Itinerari moderni di Simon Mago. Su alcuni aspetti della ricezione cinquecentesca di Recognitiones

This paper aims to analyse some aspects of the sixteenth-century reception of the pseudo-clementine novel Recognitiones. On the one hand, the paper focuses on the doctrinal controversies between Catholicism and the Reformation ; on the other, it examines the relation between confessional dogmatisms and humanistic philosophies. Through a new analysis of the data collected by Irena Backus, some additional contextual elements are investigated. Ultimately, the reception of the Recognitiones in Johann Wier’s work is connected to the genesis of the Faust legend.

Les controverses doctrinales de l’église antique. Un cas de la « démocratisation de la culture » dans l’Antiquité tardive ? À propos d’un nouveau livre de M.-Y. Perrin

The new monograph of Michel-Yves Perrin offers a new and original perspective on ancient Christianity by focusing on the involvement of the Christian laity in the doctrinal controversies about the Trinity, Christology or the Church (ca. 180 C.E. until 430 C.E.). Exploiting a rich dossier of sources, including episcopal letters, histories of the Church, sermons, acts of church councils and inscriptions, Perrin is able to analyse in great detail the various modes of involvement, their media, their causes and motives, and their limits. Taking his cue from an observation by Edward Gibbon, Perrin explores the hypothesis that the doctrinal controversies of late antique Christianity which effected the participation of larger parts of the emerging Christian society in public debates about doctrinal topics such as the doctrine of God can properly be understood as a case of the “democratization of culture” in Late Antiquity, as postulated by Santo Mazzarino in 1956.

BREVE ANÁLISE DA INSTRUÇÃO PROBATÓRIA DO JUIZ CRIMINAL BRASILEIRO SOB A ÉGIDE DO SISTEMA ACUSATÓRIO

This work brings an analysis of the Brazilian Criminal Judge in the course of evidential instruction and it’s instructor action under the accusatory criminal system with constitutional understanding adopted in the country after the promulgation of the civil constitution of 1988. The Accusatory, Inquisitorial and mixed Criminal Systems will be demonstrated as the doctrinal controversies related to their core with basis on evidence management. Following, the subject of evidence in the accusatory system will be addressed, as its conception under the rules in this system, the roles given to the magistrate during the evidence production phase and the problems arisen from allowing the judge to produce them and the principles related to evidence management. It is important to mention that it is the Prosecutor’s Office role to gather evidence and not the magistrate’s, since the defense has no “Equality of arms” when it comes to gathering evidence. However, the Brazilian Magna Carta, which includes such system, must be respected together with the criminal law procedures under the judge’s tutelage due its supremacy in the hierarchy of laws, safekeeping the defendant’s fundamental rights.&#x0D;

Manuscript and Print in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Case of Morgan Library, MS MA 4431, British Library, MS Egerton 2570, and Richard Baxter's An end of doctrinal controversies (1691)

The leading Puritan divine, Richard Baxter (1615-1691), left behind a complex range of manuscripts at his death. Preparatory work for the forthcoming Oxford University Press editions of his autobiography, Reliquiae Baxterianae, and of his complete correspondence has uncovered a lacuna in this manuscript collection and its subsequent cataloguing. This has implications for our understanding of Baxter’s manuscript legacy, his intellectual interests, and his writing and publishing practices in the final decades of his life. It also provides a glimpse into authorial and press practice in the late seventeenth century, enriching our understanding of book history and the relationship between manuscript and print at that time.

Prison, Penance or Purgatory: The Interpretation of Matthew 5.25–6 and Parallels

Scholarship on Matt 5.25–6 has focused on the question of whether the saying offers mundane wisdom or threatens divine judgement, with the majority concluding that it refers to eternal punishment in hell. This article examines debt-prison and related phenomena before turning to the illuminating history of ancient interpretation. The article concludes that the ‘eternal damnation’ gloss widely favoured today is an overinterpretation first inspired by the exigencies of fourth- and fifth-century doctrinal controversy. Instead of eternal perdition, Matt 5.25–6 and its parallels suggest a time of straits followed by possible release.

Analiza ewolucji zdatności arbitrażowej tzw. sporów uchwałowych w świetle prawa niemieckiego

The subject of this article is the thorough analysis of the evolution of the objective arbitrability of corporate disputes under German law. The German legal system, which was initially very opposite to any liberal approach towards arbitration, has lately undergone substantial changes which led to broad arbitrability of intra-corporate disputes regarding challenging the shareholder’s resolutions. The latest German liberal approach is the consequence of the widespread opinion that corporate arbitration constitutes the best alternative to mis7t and fossilized system of the regular courts. The aim of the article is to present the newest practical solutions as well as doctrinal controversies that still stand in a way of full recognition of the arbitration courts’ jurisdiction over the corporate disputes. This paper also deeply analyzes the role of the DIS (German Institution of Arbitration) as well as its corporate regulations DIS-SRCoLD (DIS Supplementary Rules for Corporate Law Disputes).

Nueva mirada sobre antiguas cuestiones acerca de las Comisiones de Investigación Parlamentarias

La recepción del instituto de las Comisiones de investigación parlamentarias en el derecho español, a partir de su introducción por la Constitución de 1978, ha suscitado tradicionalmente un vivo y recurrente debate, no solo en la esfera política sino también en la doctrinal, acerca de su alcance y virtualidad. En particular este trabajo aborda tres aspectos concretos: la controversia doctrinal suscitada por el alcance de la obligación de comparecer a requerimiento de las cámaras legislativas autonómicas, en particular cuando ésta se cursa en relación a servidores públicos estatales; la prestación de falso testimonio por parte de los comparecientes; y la delicada convivencia de la regla de la mayoría parlamentaria con el conveniente privilegio de las minorías en la creación de las encuestas en las cámaras legislativas, tanto en la creación como en su desarrollo y desenlace.

Opodatkowanie umowy przelewu wierzytelności podatkiem od towarów i usług

The issue of taxation of assignment of receivables in the light of tax on goods and services produces some doctrinal controversy. Decisions of tax authorities are patchy. On the one hand, this study raises the issue of taxation of assignment of receivables with tax on goods and services understood as factoring, including debt collection and other specified. On the other hand, exclusion of tax exemptions of assignment of receivables understood to mean other services in debt sphere. Furthermore, included will be information about where the current problems arise. The acts of universally binding law will form the basis for this study.

'Love Me, Love Me Not'. The Complicated Affair between Classical Economics and American Corporations during the Gilded Age

In the last quarter of the 19th century, several economists and jurists raised their voices against the growing corporatization of the American economy. Among them, featured also classical economists and classical jurists – a surprising circumstance given the unconditional favor that scholars imbued with classical ideas should allegedly bestow on any manifestation of business freedom and entrepreneurial spirit. Most law historians frame the troubled relationship between classical economics and the corporation in terms of the doctrinal and jurisprudential controversies about the true nature of corporations that surrounded the Supreme Court’s ruling in Santa Clara (1886). The paper casts new light by making recourse to the history of economic thought to uncover those aspects of classical economics that made it almost impossible for its supporters to unreservedly love the corporation.

Canon Law and Episcopal Authority: The Canons of Antioch and Serdica by Christopher W. B. Stephens

Reviewed by: Canon Law and Episcopal Authority: The Canons of Antioch and Serdica by Christopher W. B. Stephens David Wagschal Christopher W. B. Stephens Canon Law and Episcopal Authority: The Canons of Antioch and Serdica Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015 Pp. xi + 288. $105.00. The post-Nicene church, until at least the 350s, was much less occupied by purely doctrinal controversies than the traditional narrative allows; the canons of Serdica should be seen as a direct response to the canons of Antioch; and the rise of Constantine provided an entirely new, universal model of leadership that would be taken up in different ways by both East and West, foreshadowing much future conflict. These are the central theses of Stephens’s Canon Law and Episcopal Authority, a work that has the unusual distinction of being of interest to historians, theologians, and canonists alike. The starting point for Stephens’s analysis is the venerable problem of the dating of the canons of the “Council of Antioch.” The traditional connection of the canons with the Dedication Council in Antioch in 341 has long been questioned. Following the research of Eduard Schwartz in the early twentieth century, scholarly opinion today tends to fix the canons ca. 330, or even a little earlier—while Constantine was still alive and in the context of the deposition of Eustathius of Antioch. Stephens re-opens this debate in the first two chapters of his study through a careful re-examination of the historical accounts of the council, the subscription lists, and the canons themselves. He argues that if we understand the “Dedication Council” as a later conflation of a series of local Antiochian councils from 337 to 342—a kind of collective council—then the most likely date for the canons is 338. This would place them immediately following the death of Constantine, when the Eastern church was struggling with the return of the Nicene exiles. This context, Stephens contends, fits the content of the Antiochian canons exceptionally well. If we accept that the Antiochian canons were composed in 338, then the situation of the church immediately following the death of Constantine (337) suddenly comes into new focus. This is the subject of the third and fourth chapters. For Stephens, the Antiochian canons represent a manifesto of eastern conciliarism: ultimate authority rests with provincial and supra-provincial councils. The Serdican canons, much more securely connected with the status of the exiled Nicene bishops and issued only four years after Antioch (in 342), represent a western rejoinder: ultimate authority rests with the bishop of Rome. Traditionally, both councils have been read as primarily concerned with doctrinal matters, but Stephens contends that this is a later and partisan reading. Joining the chorus of scholars who are attempting to free themselves from traditional Athanasian accounts, Stephens notes that Antiochian gatherings did not in fact see themselves as anti-Nicene in any way, and that the Serdican councils were only minimally concerned with theology. If the creeds and accounts associated with either set of councils are examined closely, we discover that doctrine was simply not a high priority for either. [End Page 651] Instead, Stephens contends, the real issue in the years following Constantine’s death was authority. Constantine, in his very person, had introduced to the church the possibility of a universal authority. Nicaea (but not Nicene theology) symbolized this universalism, and this was the real reason for the council’s enduring appeal at the mid-century. With Constantine’s death, however, and the empire divided, the church was faced with an institutional dilemma: how could this new universal authority continue to be exercised? Antioch and Serdica provided two very different answers as bishops, east and west, experimented with the new medium of ecclesiastical law. In the final two chapters, Stephens places Antioch and Serdica into the broader context of the development of law and authority in the fourth century. Here Stephens draws on much recent legal-historical literature as he struggles with the perennial issue of late antique law’s apparent ineffectiveness. Stephens is keenly aware of how the modern expectation for law as a universally enforced and binding system is constantly frustrated in the sources. He looks to...

Doctrinal Controversies of the Carolingian Renaissance: Gottschalk of Orbais’ Teachings on Predestination

The article attempts to characterize three key doctrinal controversies in the Carolingian Renaissance, namely: the disputes over the Eucharist, the so-called trina deitas, and predestination. The core of the article is an exposition of the controversy concerning predestination, whose main protagonist is Gottschalk of Orbais. The article discusses four crucial issues related to the problem: (i) the concept of God, (ii) the understanding of grace, nature and free will, (iii) the relation of foreknowledge to predestination, and (iv) the doctrine of redemption, i.e., specifically the relationship between justice and mercy. The article is largely an attempt at an interpretation of the texts of the epoch, mainly those of Gottschalk of Orbais and his adversary, Hincmar of Reims. The conclusions point to difficulties in the issues discussed and outline what attempts at solving this problem have taken place in the coming centuries.

LEGITYMACJA PROCESOWA UMOWNEGO ZARZĄDCY NIERUCHOMOŚCI

Judicial Ticket of a Contractual Real Estate ManagerSummary The aim of this article is to explain all doubts referring to a judicial ticket of a contractual real estate manager, which has been legislated in a co-owners’ contract. The issue mentioned above arouses controversy in doctrine but also in judicature. One has adopted a stance in the article, that the real estate manager has got the title to bring the action before the court, which is based on the article 201 of the civil code. A contract connected with entrusting management does not deprive the owners of the rights, including claims consisting of property law. Co-owners allow third parties to carry out entitlements connected with management of a common property. The article consists of three parts. The first one contains concise deliberations about the notion of legitimization. The problem of a judicial ticket of a manager, who was legislated in a contract by co-owners of a common property (article 199-202 of the civil code) was discussed in the second part. The third part of the article is connected with a judicial ticket of a real estate manager, which was mentioned in an act of proprietorship of premises.

The Emergence of New States in International Law: The Insights from Complexity Theory

Doctrinal controversies and the disputed international status of Kosovo and Palestine suggest that it is difficult for us international lawyers to know with any certainty when a new State has emerged in the international community. The contention here is that we should look to systems theory thinking—specifically complexity theory—to make sense of the law on statehood. Systems theory directs us to conceptualize the State in terms of patterns of communications adopted by law and politics actors and institutions and applied to subjects. Complexity tells us that these patterns develop without any central controller or guiding hand and that they exist only as a consequence of the framing of law and politics communications by a third party observer. The argument developed in this article is that these insights can provide the intellectual “scaffold” around which we can build our model of the international law on statehood.

Matthew Caffyn Revisited: Cooperation, Christology, and Controversy in the Life of an Influential Seventeenth-Century Baptist

Matthew Caffyn (1628–1714) is most prominently remembered as a divisive personality who spread unorthodox beliefs about the Trinity and person of Christ among seventeenth-century General Baptists, eventually causing a denominational schism in 1696. However, these memorable features of Caffyn's career do not adequately characterize his place in Baptist history. Important details regarding the doctrinal controversies surrounding Matthew Caffyn have been inadequately treated in the secondary literature, largely because Baptist historians have overlooked Caffyn's early years of involvement in the General Baptist community. I trace the origins and development of Caffyn's doctrinal disputes, focussing particularly on the progression from Caffyn's initial cooperation with other General Baptist leaders to his later controversies with the same ministers. Finally, I demonstrate that Matthew Caffyn was a well-connected, influential minister, especially in Kent and Sussex, and that he remained so even as he became an increasingly polarizing figure on the national stage.

Paul Eber (1511–1569): Humanist und Theologe der zweiten Generation der Wittenberger Reformation ed. by Daniel Gehrt and Volker Leppin (review)

Reviewed by: Paul Eber (1511–1569): Humanist und Theologe der zweiten Generation der Wittenberger Reformationed. by Daniel Gehrt and Volker Leppin Jason D. Lane Paul Eber (1511–1569): Humanist und Theologe der zweiten Generation der Wittenberger Reformation. Edited by Daniel Gehrt and Volker Leppin. Leucorea-Studien zur Geschichte der Reformation und der Lutherischen Orthodoxie (LStRLO). Band 16. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014. 622 pp. This important collection of essays on the life and work of Paul Eber came together on the 500th anniversary of Eber’s birth (8 November 1511). An international conference, organized by Daniel Gehrt (Gotha) and Volker Leppin (Tübingen), met in Gotha to honor this gifted and enigmatic churchman with ground-breaking research from German and American scholars. Readers are invited to observe in Eber the intersection of scholarly, political, and congregational life in Wittenberg during the tumultuous second half of the sixteenth century. Perhaps more than anyone in the second generation of reformers, Eber was characteristically a man of Wittenberg, a close student of Melanchthon in politics, poetry, and theological tendencies, yet also one who bore the marks of Luther’s preaching and teaching. Luther’s influence on Eber can be seen most prominently in the English-language contributions: Robert Kolb’s essay, “Paul Eber as Preacher” and Gerhard Bode’s essay, “Preaching Luther’s Small Catechism.” Eber’s central place in Wittenberg, especially after the death of Melanchthon in 1560, makes him a critical figure for understanding the controversies, culture, and ecclesiastical life in the mid- sixteenth century. Readers will certainly find a thorough and extensive analysis of Eber as humanist and theologian, but more importantly they will discover through these essays the culture and controversies in which he operated. The volume functions as a handbook to Eber research and includes essays on five aspects of his life and work: his engagement in ecclesiastical culture, his education, his labors as a humanist, his contributions as a theologian and pastor, and the impression he and his work left to posterity. (An appendix also includes the most comprehensive bibliography of Eber’s published works to date.) Readers are invited to consider the complexities of Eber’s character and of Lutheran academic and ecclesial culture. The first [End Page 82]section evaluates Eber’s church politics and his efforts to bring concord and peace to the doctrinal controversies within Lutheranism. As Volker Leppin’s essay argues, Eber’s irenic character and gentle approach to disputes, such as the contention for the Lord’s Supper, often left him misunderstood by his peers and standing on the outside of the controversies looking in (63). Daniel Gehrt’s article, which sifts through the correspondence between the Universities of Wittenberg and Jena, advances the thesis that after Melanchthon’s death Eber held de factothe highest rank of any academic at the University of Wittenberg (125). The second section covers Eber’s academic training and teaching. Both Meinolf Vielberg’s article on Eber’s education, his rise within the university, and his philosophical lectures and Andreas Gössner’s article on Eber’s work on the theological faculty demonstrate how a professor of Latin grammar could also be a pastor, become a professor of physics, join the theology faculty, and be involved with all the theological controversies of his day. Although it was not the direct purpose of those essays, the historical account of Eber’s education and the breadth of his learning—something not entirely unique in the sixteenth century—may serve as a powerful apology in support of liberal arts curricula at modern universities. In sections three through five, essays on Eber’s poetry and hymn writing, his lectures in astronomy, his interest in history, and his correspondence with friends and colleagues paint a rich portrait of Wittenberg’s own theologian and humanist. Yet, as these essays admit, the portrait is not complete. In Lucas Cranach’s famous portrait of the vineyard, painted for Eber’s epitaph and still on display on the east wall in the Stadtskirchein Wittenberg, Eber is pruning vines next to Luther, who, with a long rake in hand, is pulling through a clump of weeds. Eber is thus remembered not only as one...

Cristiani entro e oltre gli Imperi: Saggi su Terre e Chiese d’Oriente by Giorgio Fedalto

GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS Cristiani entro e oltre gli Imperi: Saggi su Terre e Chiese d'Oriente. By Giorgio Fedalto. (Verona: Casa Editrice Mazziana. 2014. Pp. 991. euro68,50. ISBN 978-8897243-16-8.)Giorgio Fedalto, a priest of the Patriarchate of Venice, was a professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Padova from 1975 to 2003. His scholarly output over the years has been prodigious: since 1963, he has published some 38 books in addition to a much larger number of monographs and reviews. Many of these shorter works appeared in relatively obscure publications that are not widely accessible. The present volume brings together sixty-two of these articles and notes that cover a vast range of topics. It should be noted at the start that the focus of Fedalto's work is the Byzantine Empire and secondarily in the churches to the east of its borders; there are no articles that treat the East Slavic churches in what is now Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus.The collected articles have been gathered together in seven sections. The first of these is devoted to general questions that include studies on the Eastern churches during the first millennium and doctrinal controversies of the time including Christology and the theology of icons. Another article deals with the importance of constructing a reliable list of bishops of all the dioceses in the East, a topic to which he returns at various places in the book because he believes that such a list is essential for assessing the presence of churches in specific places over the centuries.The second section is the largest and treats the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the fall of the city to the Turks in 1453 to the present day. Here Fedalto is at his best, supplying detailed studies of the fate of the city in the days following the Turkish breach of the city walls, the repopulation of the city, the effects of the millet system imposed by the Ottoman authorities, and a brief but fascinating speculative article about the possible influence on the twenty-year-old Sultan Mehmet II of Mara Brankovic, his Christian stepmother, which may explain his tolerant policy toward Christians and his intense theological discussions with Gennadios Scholarios, the new Greek patriarch appointed by the sultan only three days after the Conquest. Other articles explore the situation of churches within Constantinople's orbit under Turkish rule in Serbia, Bulgaria, Dalmatia, and Albania.Articles devoted to the Latin Church in the East are included in the third section. This is a particularly sensitive area for relations between Catholics and Ortho- dox, because the memory of the domination of the Latin Church in the East following the Fourth Crusade has poisoned the atmosphere between the churches ever since. …

The Carolingian World through Hagiography

AbstractHagiographic texts – including the lives of saints, accounts of relic translations, miracle collections, and deeds of abbots and bishops – are plentiful and rich sources for investigating the Carolingian world. The recognition that hagiography offers a great deal of information about the author's time has led scholars to use these texts to shed light on a variety of topics. Hagiography's similarity to history as well as literature means that scholarship on history and literature can contribute to our understanding of hagiography and the world that produced it. Works comparing earlier versions of saints' lives with their Carolingian‐era revisions and investigating hagiography alongside works of other genres have contributed to some of the biggest debates in Carolingian history: the reform of the church, monasticism, and society; the renaissance of learning, the impact of doctrinal controversies, and views of kingship and reactions to political change.