Master Of Theology Research Articles

John Wyclif’s Principium Biblicum Revisited

Abstract John Wyclif’s principium biblicum, that is to say, his inception speech as a Master of Theology at Oxford, dating from 1372/1373, has received scant scholarly attention. Discovered and edited in the 1960s by Beryl Smalley, it has long been considered a typical representative of its genre. A closer look at Wyclif’s text in the light of current principia-scholarship, and in particular of Robert Grosseteste’s recently identified inception speech, shows, however, that Wyclif’s principium biblicum is all but traditional. Its far-reaching claims concerning the importance of a thorough philosophical training as a prerequisite for the study of the Bible, as well as for that of theology, make this principium stand out amongst medieval inception speeches.

Профессора церковного права в российских университетах и духовных академиях в 1906–1917 гг.

The article examines the scientific potential of higher schools of the Russian Empire, universities and theological academies, in the field of ecclesiastical law during the active discussion of church reforms in 1906-1917. The author comes to the conclusion that at the beginning of the XX century it is necessary to talk about three developed scientific schools of ecclesiastical law: the St. Petersburg University school of M.I. Gorchakov, associated with it the Moscow University school of N.S. Suvorov and the Kazan School of I.S. Berdnikov. At the same time, only the latter one can be described as having preserved a close connection between the academy and the university. Universities were aimed at replacing the staff of the departments of ecclesiastical law with their graduates. In St. Petersburg and Moscow, it was possible to do this at the beginning of the XX century: V.N. Beneshevich and P.V. Gidulyanov, university graduates, became professors of the Department of Ecclesiastical Law. And the statistics of doctoral dissertations reveal the special role of Moscow University in the training of secular specialists in ecclesiastical law and shows that university scientific schools should be recognized as dominant in science. Strict administrative control and frequent changes of professorial staff at the departments of ecclesiastical law in the St. Petersburg and Moscow Theological Academies in the examined period obviously hindered the development of their own stable scientific traditions. Some stagnation is also noticeable in the Kiev Academy, where M.I. Mishchenko, the Master of Theology, was permanently at the similar department during this period. The inclusion of ecclesiastical law in the list of legal sciences has significantly expanded the scope of research: in addition to the actual study of history or the interpretation of the canons, church-state relations, problems of freedom of conscience, the relationship of the church court and state jurisdiction, as well as civil and family law began to be studied. Scientific achievements turned out to be relevant in the preparation of church reform in pre-Council forums, where university professors were invited mainly.

Simon of Tournai's Stroke: The Image of an Irate Unbeliever

For centuries after his death in the late twelfth century, Simon of Tournai, a master of theology in the Parisian schools, had a reputation for being an unbeliever punished by God with a stroke. This article gathers the eight known medieval sources for his stroke and examines them from a mythogenetic perspective to demonstrate how different authors writing with different purposes, genres, and biases recast the image of Simon as an unbeliever for their own moral or polemical programs. I argue that since Simon's stroke was interpreted as divine action, presenting him as sinful was required to preserve divine goodness. The article also discusses the representation of Simon as irate as an element of didactic intent against unbelief, blasphemy, pride, anger, and luxuria. The article revises the date of Simon's stroke from c. 1201 to the 1180s or very early 1190s.

Lorenzo Opimo of Bologna, Teaching Doctor of the Servites during the Reformation, and His Sentences Lectures at the University of Paris in 1370–71 (Part I)

The beautiful Latin MS 198 of the John Rylands Library preserves one of two currently known manuscript copies of the Servite Lorenzo Opimo of Bologna’s Scriptum on the Sentences, the only such text by a Servite that survives. In 1494, the Chapter General of the Servite Order made Lorenzo the order’s teaching doctor, since the representatives declared that his work, primarily his questions on the Sentences, would be required reading for Servite students and masters of theology. No doubt as a result, Lorenzo’s Scriptum was printed in Venice in 1532. To most medieval intellectual historians, the printing, the author, and even the religious order are virtually unknown. This two-part article puts this unique text in its doctrinal and institutional context. Part I argues that Lorenzo delivered his Sentences lectures at the University of Paris in 1370–71, presents and analyses the tradition of the three textual witnesses, and offers a question list.

Archbishop Pecham and an Annotated Fragment of Peter Lombard’s Commentarius in Psalmos Davidicos at Tulane University

In 2015, the Special Collections Department of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University acquired from Bernard Quaritch a parchment bifolium, formerly used as a pastedown, from a thirteenth-century copy of Peter Lombard’s Commentarius in Psalmos Davidicos, written c.1148. The bifolium contains three annotations that shed new light on a momentous event in medieval Oxford—the 1286 condemnation by Archbishop John Pecham of several heresies, as he called them, related to the teaching of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Pecham’s condemnation restated an earlier one by his predecessor, Robert Kilwardby, in 1277. His rhetoric, however, was much stronger than Kilwardby’s and contributed to the hardening of opposition to Aquinas’s philosophy in England. Most of the documents associated with the condemnation have been known and published for some time: Pecham’s own register at Lambeth Palace; the annals of Oseney Abbey, where the archbishop convened a meeting with Oxford’s masters of theology before issuing his condemnation; and the annals of Dunstable Priory, which record the condemnation and its unfortunate sequel, the death by suicide of one of Pecham’s opponents. The Tulane bifolium is a new contribution to the archive that illustrates how an unprepossessing fragment can alter our knowledge of a major event in late medieval intellectual history. This article describes the bifolium, correcting significant errors in the Quaritch catalogue description, provides editions of the annotations, traces their sources, and discusses their wider intellectual context.

The Dimensions of the Kingdom of Heaven in Saint Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Matthew

The Dimensions of the Kingdom of Heaven in Saint Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Matthew Matthew L. Martin In his inaugural lecture as a Master of Theology at the University of Paris, Saint Thomas Aquinas states that the three Synoptic Gospels "are distinguished according to the three dignities which relate to Christ the man. Of these, Matthew defines what pertains to the royal dignity; hence, in the beginning of his Gospel he shows that he had descended from kings according to the flesh, and shows him adored by the royal Magi."1 Thus, Aquinas's commentary on Matthew makes a natural place to start investigating the Angelic Doctor's treatment of the theme of the Kingdom of God. Earlier scholarship dated the Lectura super Mattheum to Thomas's first period as a Magister in Sacra Pagina at the University of Paris from 1256 to 1259.2 However, more recent work has concluded that it belongs to the second Parisian period, most likely during the academic year of 1269–1270.3 This means that the Matthew commentary is an immediate predecessor to Aquinas's better-known commentary on John, and as Jeremy Holmes points out, it is the work of "Aquinas at the height of his powers, with the entire patristic [End Page 871] tradition at his fingertips and a complete command of scholastic theology."4 Unfortunately, the text available to us may not represent Aquinas at his full brilliance. As Holmes notes, "the lectura come down to us through reportationes, that is, notes taken down by person in the audience and later filled out from memory or other sources to look more like the actual transcript of a lecture."5 Unlike the commentary on John, Thomas does not appear to have reviewed these notes for publication.6 In addition, the manuscript tradition is limited—only four manuscripts, from two sources, survive. "Peter [d'Andria] seems to have written down the comments on chapters 1–12 of Matthew, while Leodegar [of Besançon] recorded the lectures from 6.9 through to the end of the Gospel."7 The tradition is further complicated by the fact that the manuscripts are "not only incomplete but erroneous."8 Key portions of the text of chapters 5 and 6—dealing with the Sermon on the Mount—were missing from all the manuscripts available until recently; the commentary's first editor, Bartholomew of Sina, filled in the gaps with a commentary by Peter de Scala, a late-thirteenth-century Dominican.9 Fortunately for scholars of Thomas, in 1955, a copy of Peter d'Andria's reportatio containing the missing material was discovered in a library at Basel.10 Until recently, only fragments of this text were available to the public.11 However, as of September 2013, the Aquinas Institute of Lander, Wyoming, has published a Latin–English edition of the commentary on Matthew which, though primarily based on the earlier Marietti text, uses the Basel manuscript to correct the lacunae and replace the interpolated portions. While a final critical edition awaits the work of the Leonine Commission, for the first time, the academic community has easy access to a complete and uncorrupted version of the commentary text. Whatever faults remain in what has come down to us, this remains a valuable [End Page 872] commentary and source of insight into Aquinas's biblical theology, and thus to his doctrine on the Kingdom, which is harder to derive from his more famous systematic works. We should briefly address this commentary's relationship to Thomas's other major work on the Evangelists, the Catena aurea. Thomas began this collection of patristic commentary on the Gospels "at the request of Urban IV toward the end of 1262 or the beginning of 1263"12 and had the volume on Matthew ready to offer to that Pope before his death in October 1264.13 The rest of the text took somewhat longer to complete, but it was finished "between 1265 and 1268, before Thomas returned to Paris."14 Thus, it predates the commentary on Matthew, and Holmes, having selected the passage on the Transfiguration as "typical" of the commentary, concludes that "those parts of Thomas' text which are directly dependent...

Rituals for the Dead: Religion and Community in the Medieval University of Paris by William J. Courtenay

Reviewed by: Rituals for the Dead: Religion and Community in the Medieval University of Paris by William J. Courtenay Tori Schmitt William J. Courtenay, Rituals for the Dead: Religion and Community in the Medieval University of Paris (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), xi + 201 pp., 43 ills. In his latest book, Rituals for the Dead: Religion and Community in the Medieval University of Paris, William J. Courtenay offers enticing new perspectives on the religious functions of the early university. Scholarship on medieval higher learning has long centered on investigating the university as a singular, corporate entity, mapping out its precise legal origins, privileges, and curricula. Instead, Courtenay's volume—developed from Conway Lectures given at the Medieval Institute of University of Notre Dame in 2016—sheds light on a particular facet of university life: the obligation of its scholars to enact religious care for their dead, which, as Courtenay notes in the introduction, "if … observed, took up between 20 and 30 percent of their time" (5). Drawing from several decades of expertise, Rituals for the Dead offers seven succinct chapters, covering both visual and textual sources, which demonstrate the great significance of memorialization in daily life of magistri et scolares Parisienses. In the first and second chapters, "Death in Paris" and "Allocating Spiritual Rewards," Courtenay examines statutes concerning burials and funerary masses. In 1215, Robert of Courson, papal legate and former regent master of theology, recorded that any student or master of the university who died in Paris was entitled to burial with mandated attendance by his peers. For masters or significant donors, reoccurring masses could also be endowed, ensuring a "twofold benefit, remembrance among the living and reduction of pain and time in purgatory" for the deceased (17). As Courtenay points out, the concept of virtus missae, or the [End Page 234] notion that both the living and dead could benefit from prayers, alms, and masses given for the deceased, clearly reflected contemporaneous theological debates at the university and cathedral chapter concerning the nature of purgatory. In the third chapter, "Candles For Our Lady," attention shifts to the commemorative practices of individual nations. By the second quarter of the thirteenth century, all masters and students at the university held affiliation with one of four nations: French, Picard, Norman, and English. Affiliation within these nations loosely corresponded to geographic origins, though in many cases students also came from elsewhere in Europe. Sources such as the Proctors' Book of the English nation, which dates to the early 1330s, provide lists of expenditures for services, such as candles in the celebration of nostra Domina, the Virgin Mary. In the final section of the chapter, Courtenay builds on the observations of Nathalie Gorochov, arguing that the benefits of belonging to a nation bore similarity to membership in a lay confraternity, as both afforded the kinds of funerary benefits, "normally available only to the wealthy in medieval society" (49). In the fourth chapter, "Gaudy Night: Colleges and Prayers for the Dead," Courtenay highlights the inherently commemorative function of medieval colleges. While the terms "hall" and "college" are frequently used interchangeably to discuss student residences, Courtenay points out a key difference in that colleges "were endowed institutions and incorporated," principally for the benefit of the soul of their founder (55). Consequently, statutes, such as those from the Collège de Hubant, also known as the Collège de l'Ave Maria, outlined that students must carry out charitable acts and religious piety on a recurring basis in memory of the college's founder. In the final three chapters of the book, Rituals for the Dead moves to consider those often overlooked in discussion of the medieval university. Though women were barred from official enrollment, the chapter "A Hidden Presence" discusses the significant contributions made by women patrons, founders, wives of married students and faculty, grammar school teachers, shop owners, and tradeswomen to the scholarly community of the Left Bank. In "The Growth of Marian Devotion," Courtenay presents the profusion of Marian imagery on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century seals for faculty, nations, and individual scholars as visual evidence of the growing cultural importance of Marian piety. The concluding chapter, "Balancing Inequality," acknowledges the...

STEPHEN OF BESANÇON'SPRINCIPIUM IN AULA(1286): AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE RELATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

The inception speeches delivered by graduating masters of theology during the thirteenth century are of paramount interest for the study of the history of theology. Much like the introductions to philosophy written within the Faculty of Arts at Paris during the same period, the so-calledprincipiaarticulated the image that theology entertained of itself at that time. Interestingly enough, some graduating masters took the opportunity to present a detailed discussion of the relation between philosophy and theology in an attempt to demonstrate the preeminence of the latter. Thus, they reflected not only upon the epistemological status of theology, but also — and sometimes in considerable detail — upon that of the secular sciences. One very eloquent example of such a comparative inception speech is theprincipiumby Stephen of Bensançon (1286), who later became Master General of the Dominican Order. In this article, I focus on Stephen's discussion of the relationship between philosophy and theology, and show that the epistemological criteria he applied to both were drawn directly from one of the most important introductions to philosophy of the thirteenth century, that is, Robert Kilwardby'sDe ortu scientiarum. Stephen's case yields further evidence, therefore, of the interconnectedness of both genres, that is, philosophical introductions and theological inception speeches, and confirms the productive intellectual exchanges between philosophical and theological discourse at the University of Paris during the thirteenth century.

Pierre Leduc, Victorine Master of Theology, and the Parisian Sententiarii in 1382

Hormis Gérard de Saint-Victor, actif au début du xiv e siècle, très peu d’informations sur les maîtres victorins en théologie de Paris nous sont parvenues. La présente contribution explore et discute l’œuvre de Pierre Leduc (1352/53-1400), conservée dans le manuscrit BnF, lat. 14800, en même temps qu’elle identifie les bacheliers en théologie qui lisaient les Sentences en 1382-83. Le manuscrit fait l’objet d’une description détaillée.

Mechanisms of Regulating Parish Communities and Forming the Identity of the Parishioner in Medieval Paris

Since the end of the 12th century the number of Parisian parishes grew rapidly, as it was in many cities of the French kingdom. This process went hand in hand with the city's territorial and demographic growth. During the next century, parish communities became an important factor of urban life. At the time, due to the University, there was a large number of priests and monks of various orders in Paris. Most of them were well educated and fluent in eloquence. Under the circumstances, preaching became an important instrument in the struggle for the flock. According to different sources, there was an incredible upsurge in preaching in the 13th century. The homilies reflect the aspiration of parish priests to create a local urban community, to unite Parisians around a particular parish and to form a special parish identity. This problem is studied on the basis of the sermons of Ranulphe de la Houblonnière (c. 1225—1288), a master of theology, canon, then bishop of Paris and, without doubt, one of the most significant preachers of the last third of 13th century.

Pemikiran Ekonomi Ibnu Al-Qayyim al-Jauziyyah

This article uses a review of the literature on medieval Arab professor/ economic thought Syamsuddin Abdullah Muhammad bin Abi Bakr Al Zar'i or known as Ibn Qayyim. An approach that focuses on explaining how the concept of usury is in the view of Ibn al-Qayyim al-jawziyyah. as a master of theology and translator of Islamic scriptures, he was one of the leading jurists from the Hambali school in four schools of Islamic law that emerged between the eighth and fourteenth centuries (after the other three, Hanafi, Maliki and Syafii, respectively, the names were pioneers ) There are economic ideas discussed, namely: Islamic economic philosophy, comparison and difference between wealth and poverty, economic interests of zakat, interest in usury al-fadl and riba al-nasi'ah, market mechanisms and the need for public sector intervention.

"Containing Heresy and Errors": Thomas of Bailly and the Condemned Extracts of the Mirror of Simple Souls

This article analyzes the involvement of Thomas of Bailly (d. 1328), secular master of theology and penitentiary of the diocese of Paris, in the examination of extracts taken from Marguerite Porete's "Mirror of Simple Souls." To date, no one has examined the precise theological formulations that led Thomas and twenty other theologians to recommend that the Mirror be consigned to the flames. By examining Thomas's career and writings, this article unearths the theological scaffolding that the extracts brushed aside, enriching our understanding of one of the most famous heresy trials of the Middle Ages.

Fatal Embrace? A Critical Reflection on Carl Raschke’s Proposal, Why Conservative Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity?

At the turn of the millennium, recent debates within evangelical Christian circles on ‘appropriating’ postmodern thinking into evangelical Christian theology raised a number of issues on whether postmodern thinking can provide a suitable standpoint that offers a philosophical critique on modern dualistic thinking, for some, that is imbedded in modern evangelical Christian theology. Carl Raschke, an evangelical scholar, critically contends that evangelical Christian scholars must embrace postmodernity (postmodernism) as a new form of Reformation. At first glance, Raschke ask whether evangelical Christians have such reason to embrace postmodern thinking, eventually, he critically presented why evangelical Christians do have good a reason for ‘appropriating’ postmodern thinking. In this paper, firstly, I will introduce Carl Raschke as a Christian Evangelical postmodern thinker. Secondly, I will provide an exposition of Raschke’s main argument and criticism on evangelical Christian theology from his popular book, The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity (2004). Lastly, I will provide concluding comments.
 References
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 Barthes, Ronald. “The Death of the Author” trans. Richard Howard. Aspen 5/6. Online Edition. Fall/Winter, 1967.
 Bassara, Czeslaw. Postmodern Hermeneutics and the Evangelical Response, A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology, From the Evangelical Theological Faculty-Leuven, Belgium. September,1967.
 Cook, Deborah. “Symbolic Exchange in Hyperreality.” In D. Kellner (ed.), Baudrillard: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994:150–167, 1994.
 Groothuis, Douglas. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity against the Challenges of Postmodernism. USA: InterVarsity Press, 2000. 
 Habermas, Jürgen. “Modernity versus Postmodernity,” translated by Seyla Ben-Habib, New German Critique, No. 22, Special Issue on Modernism.Winter, 1981: 3-14, 1981.
 Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Tanslation from the French by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi Foreword by Fredric Jameson, Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10, USA: Manchester University Press: 71-84, 1984.
 Michener, Ronald T. Postliberal Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed. (UK: Bloomsbury Publication, 2013.
 Lee, Hock Siew. “Christianity and the Postmodern Turn: A Critique of Postmodern Epistemology,” A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Master of Theology at the South African Theological Seminary, May 2009.
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Medicine and Religion in Early Dominican Demonology

The article explores the theories of Roland of Cremonaop(†1259), the first Dominican master of theology in Paris and a practising physician, regarding demonic influence on body and soul. Roland uses contemporary neurological theories of voluntary motion and cognition to explain how precisely demons might move the bodily members of possessed subjects, induce seductive images and implant scientific knowledge. The complex interaction of fields of knowledge demonstrated in his unique theories sheds light on the intellectual climate of the early thirteenth century in general, and of the early Parisian Dominican school in particular.

A Structural Analysis of Bonaventure's Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia

A Structural Analysis of Bonaventure's Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia Catherine A. Levri (bio) Introduction In the field of medieval studies, principia or inaugural sermons, sermons delivered at the ceremony which inaugurated a new master of theology, have recently received focused attention.1 The new masters at the University of Paris preached these sermons in two parts. The first part typically offered a praise of Scripture and is known as a commendatio or commendation. When the master later resumed his preaching in a second part known as a resumptio or resumption, he often divided the canon of Scripture. Together these two parts form a sermon united at least by the occasion, if not also by topic, and known as a principium. One newly discovered and edited inaugural sermon is Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia, delivered by Bonaventure at the University of Paris in 1254.2 The commendation studies Scripture according to Aristotle's four causes, and the resumption divides the canon of the arts and returns it to God through Scripture. This sermon has a unique textual history in that, at some point, its resumption was separated from its commendation and became known under its own title, De reductione artium ad theologiam. [End Page 67] The commendation was lost, but the Quaracchi editors document dozens of manuscripts of De reductione, a text which became regarded as Bonaventure's most important statement on the relationship of the arts and sciences to theology. Thus in reading Omnium artifex, scholars encounter not only Bonaventure's 1254 principium, but also the original context of De reductione, a context which has been missing for years. As a result, a study of Omnium artifex may contribute to the final resolution of the controversy surrounding Bonaventure's authorship of De reductione. Dieter Hattrup has proposed Roger Bacon (d. 1292) as the author.3 In four articles published in 2009, Joshua C. Benson, Timothy J. Johnson, Jay M. Hammond, and Kevin L. Hughes convincingly responded to Hattrup's proposal,4 but two of Hattrup's theological challenges still remain. First, Hattrup argues that De reductione lacks the robust Christological mediation (i.e., that the metaphysical emanation of the lights or sciences from God flows through Christ) characteristic of Bonaventure's other texts. Second, Hattrup suggests that De reductione treats the secular sciences more extensively than theology, a seeming incongruity with Bonaventure's other works. Hattrup's theological concerns may be answered by considering the original context of De reductione. At first glance, the two halves of the sermon appear to be totally unconnected. The first is a focused investigation of the four causes of Scripture, and the second half describes the secular sciences and then exegetes them allegorically, tropologically, and anagogically. The first half uses patterns of four, but the second half relies primarily on patterns of six (six sciences) and three (three spiritual senses). The first half does not seem to anticipate the second, and the second seems to be only loosely connected to the first as an expansion of the material cause of Scripture. Are these two halves, so different in content and pattern, related? The answer to this question is essential to a proper interpretation of Omnium artifex and thus to evaluating the history of interpretation of De reductione. If the resumption is not intrinsically related to the commendation, then the commendation is unnecessary for a proper reading of the resumption, and interpretations like Hattrup's could stand. Further, the [End Page 68] text as a whole can be called a sermon – and indeed, a text – only in an analogous fashion and would perhaps be better identified as two sermons or two texts. To demonstrate the unity of the text and thereby respond to Hattrup's critique, I will examine the sermon's structure. Specifically, I propose that a pattern of ortus-modus-fructus unites and governs the sermon as a whole and its halves. Bonaventure's attention to and use of structure in his texts has been well documented.5 These patterns often illuminate Bonaventure's meaning. Although he does not explicitly identify the ortus-modus-fructus form in this sermon, there are textual clues that suggest that this pattern guides the text...

The Early Career of Gerard of Abbeville

Abstract Gerard of Abbeville (†1272) was a secular master of theology at the University of Paris and a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure. In the context of reviewing Stephen Metzger’s new two-volume book on Gerard, this paper first adds some new information about Gerard’s early career, notably concerning benefices he claimed in Saint-Omer, Tournai, and Amiens. Afterwards, the salient features of Metzger’s volumes are presented: his placement of Gerard in his institutional context; his characterization of Gerard’s doctrines of wisdom, knowledge, and contemplation in comparison with those of Gerard’s contemporaries; and his editions of texts. In the end, the chronological repercussions of maintaining that Vat. lat. 1015 reflects the original sequence of Gerard’s Quodlibeta, Metzger’s future focus, are discussed.

Spencer E. Young, Scholarly Community at the Early University of Paris: Theologians, Education and Society, 1215–1248. (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series 94.) Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. x, 260. $95. ISBN: 978-1-107-03104-3.

Spencer E. Young, <i>Scholarly Community at the Early University of Paris: Theologians, Education and Society, 1215–1248</i>. (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series 94.) Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. x, 260. $95. ISBN: 978-1-107-03104-3.

Cursus: An Early Thirteenth-Century Source for Nocturnal Flights and Ointments in the Work of Roland of Cremona

This article considers a demonological tractate authored in the 1230s by Roland of Cremona, a learned physician who became the first Dominican master of theology in Paris. The core of the article is an analysis of the interaction of the popular and the learned through his original, hitherto overlooked account of a popular practice he names cursus, a nightly orgiastic flight induced by smearing a certain ointment. Antedating by two hundred years the first known sources to mention flying ointments, and independent of earlier sources about the nightly ladies, I delineate its importance to the study of the medieval origins of the witches' sabbat.

Incarnating the Feminine Genius in the Contemporary Catholic Church

As Western society has seemingly become apathetic about faith and religion [1] , many within the Catholic Church have simultaneously become concerned with issues of relevance. The call from Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis has been to examine the fruits of the Second Vatican Council, with a view to evangelisation, emphasising the role of the Church in modern society. Responses to this call on a pastoral level, however, often fail to recognise the specific needs of women in society and in the Church today. The goal of this article is to examine practical movements in the contemporary Church that are instigated by women, addressing the distinct needs of women in our communities in terms of vocation, spiritual motherhood and the ‘feminine genius’ (Edith Stein), with receptivity and empathy for others, including the disenfranchised and excluded. Is the Church on a local level utilising women’s ‘care thinking’ [2] in the practical outpourings of its faith and charity? In answer to this question, this article discusses the emergence of grassroots movements that exemplify the incarnation of the feminine genius in the contemporary Catholic Church. [1] Roy Williams, Post God Nation? How religion fell off the radar in Australia – and what might be done to get it back on, (Sydney, Australia: ABC Books, 2015) 28. [2] Carol Gilligan, In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development , (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.1983). Leonie Westenberg Associate Lecturer, Theology University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney campus 104 Broadway (P.O. Box 944) Broadway NSW 2007 E: leonie.westenberg@nd.edu.au T: (02) 8204 4175 (School) Degrees: Masters of Theology, Charles Sturt University, Australia. Postgraduate Diploma Theological Studies, Flinders University, Australia. Postgraduate Certificate Theological Studies, Flinders University, Australia. Diploma Teaching, Edith Cowan University, Australia. Biographical information: Leonie Westenberg is an Associate Lecturer in Theology at Notre Dame University Australia, Sydney campus. She lectures in theology in the Logos programme, the university’s core curriculum. She has been the author of and contributor to several books on education and has written for The Conversation on ‘The paradox of work over the summer season’, and “Blessed are the Hunger Games? Katniss Everdeen lives the Beatitudes’. She has presented papers at the Society for the Study of Theology April 2015 conference at the University of Nottingham on ‘Thinking the Church Today: What are the implications of the Second Vatican Council, fifty years, on for women, in light of the discussion of Mary in Lumen Gentium ?’, and at the 2016 Marian Conference at Notre Dame University Australia on Literary Apologetics. Email address: leonie.westenberg@nd.edu.au

Expert conclusion on the book M.A. Dorohoho "Biblical Philosophy. A short essay on the main problems of philosophy about the origin of nature, life, man (Philosophy, the Bible, Science). Comparative Review.

The book by MA Doroho (Master of Theology), intended for the most diverse circle of readers who, as the author points out, "seek Absolute Truth" is the author's vision of epistemology, ontology, anthropology and sociology. The specificity of reading the cognitive, ontological, anthropological and sociological problems of the author is due to his ideological beliefs.