Tolkien’s vision of the cosmos around us and of the powers that shape it is expressed in the Ainulindalë, the opening chapter of The Silmarillion. It contains a description of Tolkien’s philosophy of creation and creativity embedded in an account of God’s creation of the world, beginning with Music, and connected with various patristic and mystical writings of the Christian tradition, as well as with the Kabbalah. This holistic vision of the universe in the light of Christian teaching gives us the basis for Christian ecology, and a hint of the writer’s vocation.

Modern scholars and translators have in recent years increasingly emphasised the etymological sense of the word muscipula, particularly in the phrase muscipula diaboli, as used by St Augustine and other early Patristic writers. I consider the evidence from a range of Augustine’s writings, and from within the Vetus Latina scriptures themselves, to question whether translating muscipula as ‘mousetrap’ best serves our understanding of Augustine’s intended meaning.

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЙ И ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТЫ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ СВЯТООТЕЧЕСКОГО ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОГО НАСЛЕДИЯ 1 (НА ПРИМЕРЕ ПЕДАГОГИКИ СВТ.ФЕОФАНА ЗАТВОРНИКА) Е. Н. НИКУЛИНА В статье анализируется содержание двух различных подходов к педагогическим текстам прошлого -теоретико-ретроспективного, нацеленного на решение проблем настоящего с привлечением опыта прошлого, и историко-контекстного, изучающего эти памятники в контексте современной им эпохи.Кратко описан историко-практический подход, нацеленный на применение в современной практике воспитания тех или иных идей прошлого.Разъяснены особенности использования современной терминологии при теоретико-ретроспективном и историко-контекстном подходах.Раскрыты возможности и перспективы применения данных подходов к изучению святоотеческого педагогического наследия на примере творений свт.Феофана Затворника.Показано, что использование теоретико-ретроспективного подхода к изучению святоотеческой педагогики позволяет выявить базовые принципы христианского воспитания и педагогический потенциал Православия в целом, вводит в контекст современной педагогической мысли идеи святых отцов, способствует осмыслению проблем религиозного воспитания в наши дни.Особое внимание в статье уделено научному потенциалу историко-контекстного подхода, который практически не применялся к изучению педагогических воззрений русских святителей и потому, по мнению автора, сейчас наиболее востребован.На основании обзора педагогических сочинений конца XVIII -середины XIX в. автор показывает, каким образом использование историко-контекстного подхода позволяет существенно расширить современные представления о педагогике свт.Феофана, ее включенности в отечественную педагогическую традицию своего времени и оригинальности.Автор предполагает, что именно историко-контекстный подход, анализирующий воззрения церковного педагога на фоне его времени, открывает возможности для их эффективного представления светской науке, тогда как теоретико-ретроспективный подход, в силу присутствующей в нем мировоззренческой составляющей, нередко вызывает неприятие идей церковного педагога

Holy Scripture and the Quest for Authority at the End of the Middle Ages

The essay examines the argumentative and hermeneutical strategies by which Early Christianity adapted concepts and notions borrowed from the past to the Gospel message. In this perspective, the Author highlights the pivotal role played by the notion of the Divine Law at the intersection of Greek Philosophy and Jewish Tradition. The transformative thought which gave new substance to the oldest narratives and representations is investigated through the main works of Philo of Alexandria, St. Paul and of the Patristic writers.

Abstract This article first speaks briefly of prayer in general and its essence; and then discusses various kinds of prayer in the Orthodox Christian tradition, chief among which is personal prayer made in private, and liturgical prayer celebrated in church. There is also spontaneous prayer, less favored in Orthodoxy, where the model prayer is the Lord's Prayer. The main part of the article examines the petitions that make up the Lord's Prayer and the interpretation given to them by patristic writers. It concludes by affirming the unique character of the prayer, which can be regarded as the perfect summary of the Christian message.

The image of the Proleptic Passion – the Christ Child bearing the wounds of the crucifixion—figures in Robert Southwell's representation of time and immediacy, that is, his temporal rhetoric. This image was ceasing to be conventional in his lifetime because of Reformation attitudes toward the Eucharist and toward the mimetic possibilities of poetry itself; thus, Southwell's use of it harkens back to medieval traditions. In the “Burning Babe” and “New Heaven, New Warre,” the governing images collapse temporal sequences in Christ's life, merging his birth and death and making his sacrifice present to the meditating poet, imitating divine eternity, with the Child as nexus of eternity and time. Southwell's understanding of the unitive power of both the Incarnation and sacrifice informs the first poem more than does the emblem tradition. Medieval lyrics, patristic writings on the Incarnation that link the Eucharist and the Nativity and depict the newborn Christ as a warrior, and Flemish depictions of the Nativity no doubt familiar to Southwell lie behind both poems. In the multivalent image of the mighty Babe, Southwell is able to portray the Christ Child as both suffering redeemer and powerful judge at the end of time. (T. M. K.)

Classical oriental literatures, especially in Syriac, Arabic and Coptic lan­guages, constitute extraordinary treasury for patristic studies. Apart from the texts written originally in their ecclesiastical ambient, the oriental ancient manuscripts include many documents completely disappeared or preserved in their Greek and Latin originals in defective form only. The same refers to the Ethiopian Christian literature. In this context so-called Qerəllos anthology occupies a particular place as one of the most important patristic writings. It contains Christological treaties and homilies by Cyril of Alexandria and other documents, essentially of the anti-nestorian and monophysite character, in the context of the Council of Ephesus (431). The core of the anthology was compiled in Alexandria and translated into Ge’ez language directly from Greek during the Aksumite period (V-VII century). Ethiopic homily by Eusebius of Heraclea (CPG 6143) is unique preserved ver­sion of this document, and also unique noted text of the bishop from V century. Besides the introduction to the Early Christian patristic literature and especially to the Qerəllos anthology, this paper offers a Polish translation of the Eusebius’s Homily with relative commentary.

The patristic writers variously enumerated the ages of human life. Some counted ten, some seven, six, five or four. They took number symbolism or the opinions of ancient authors as their starting point, but in their formulation the ages of human life concern not just the physical, intellectual or moral development of man but, often, also his spiritual development. They defined stages in the development of faith or love that can be described in terms analogous to those used for defining man’s age. Moreover, the patristic authors did not usually conclude their enumeration with old age. Human life passes ultimately into the age of rest (the seventh age) or into eternity (the eighth age), which has no end. Irenaeus of Lyon used the concept of the ages of life in proving that Jesus lived about fifty years. There were, in his opinion, theological arguments for such a mature age. Christ became one of us in order to accomplish the redemption and He therefore had to know all the ages of normal human life: not just birth, childhood and youth, but also maturity and old age. But the chronological and exegetical arguments Irenaeus gives are rather stretched. The most profound description of the ages of man was given by Augustine. He makes an original parallel with the seven days of creation and the seven ages of the history of the chosen people.

Previous articleNext article No AccessSpecial Issue: The Augustinian MomentWillemien OttenWillemien OttenEditor Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 91, Number 1January 2011The Augustinian Moment Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/656603 Views: 52Total views on this site © 2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Reviewed by: Striving with Grace: Views of Free Will in Anglo-Saxon England Jonathan Wilcox Striving with Grace: Views of Free Will in Anglo-Saxon England. By Aaron J. Kleist. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. xvii + 420. $90. This is a book based on an appealing premise—to pursue a single important theological idea across the complexity of writings in Anglo-Saxon England—which is fulfilled with notable success. Teasing through the complexity of theological thought that has accrued on the distinction between striving and grace, Aaron Kleist lays out the thought of three patristic writers, Augustine, Gregory, and Bede, and four Anglo-Saxon authors they influenced. Kleist uses source study and manuscript evidence along with close reading to make a contribution to the history of ideas, uncovering the subtlety of thought of some of the most important named authors of Anglo-Saxon England—Alfred, perhaps Wulfstan, and Ælfric, as well as the lesser-known Lantfred of Winchester. The result is a deeply informed theological study that provides insight into the thought world of Anglo-Saxon England. The issue of merit vs. grace, or the role of human volition in distinction to the capacities given by the creator, is a hugely important one for Christian thought, leading quickly to consideration of the source of evil, the extent of human freedom [End Page 533] of will, and the conundrum of predetermination. Differences within the debate are often rather subtle, yet small distinctions mattered a lot with various unsuccessful views condemned as heresies. Manichean, Donatist, Pelagian, and Semi-Pelagian positions are sketched out with admirable clarity and economy by Kleist, who shows how underlying all the discussion is a delicate pas de deux between striving and grace, freedom of will and divine determinism. Kleist presents in a few pages Augustine’s evolving position, which was to become orthodoxy despite his perhaps surprising extreme emphasis on grace over merit. Gregory, Kleist shows, gives a bit more weight to human striving, while Bede, despite repeatedly stressing grace, provides yet more emphasis on human merit in striving. Kleist shows how the work of all three fathers circulated in Anglo-Saxon England and suggests they provide a range of orthodox options for subsequent writers to draw on. Bede plays a pivotal role as both a father of the church and a thinker within Anglo-Saxon England, and the remainder of this study focuses on theological positions in England. Kleist briefly moves away from explicitly Christian theological work to consider Boethius’ Neoplatonic Consolation of Philosophy, which includes prominent consideration of the source of evil and the nature of free will, a work that famously circulated in an Alfredian translation. Kleist considers how the work is Christianized through the commentary traditions, explaining in part its huge popularity in the Middle Ages, and considers anew the famous image of the axle and the idea of divine foreknowledge within the Old English translation, which turns out to present a largely Augustinian position on grace. Kleist then turns to an altogether less familiar work, Lantfred of Winchester’s Carmen de libero arbitrio, a poem on free will by a probably Frankish monk who visited Winchester in association with the Benedictine reform, which, Kleist shows, pulls away from Augustine’s emphasis on prevenient grace to embrace a Semi-Pelagian heresy in its emphasis on human volition. Kleist then considers a Latin sermon preserved in Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Gamle Kongelige Sammlung 1595, a work either composed by or strongly associated with Wulfstan the Homilist. Most of Wulfstan’s vernacular writings paint with too broad a brush to allow Kleist to position the archbishop in relation to the debates on free will, but this Latin sermon, Kleist shows, draws on a book of Cassian’s Collationes that was central to the Semi-Pelagian heresy and condemned on that account. Despite that source, the theology of the Wulfstanian sermon sounds mostly unexceptionable, apparently by simply avoiding those parts of the Collatio that had been condemned as heretical by Prosper of Aquitaine. Nevertheless, it perpetrates Semi-Pelagian thought in just the way a homilist might be expected to, by stressing the individual’s responsibility for repentance where, Kleist suggests, Augustine would have insisted...

The present article analyses the role of selected beverages in the diet of the inhabitants of the city of Constantinople between the IV and VII centuries AD. It concentrates mainly on water, phouska, wine and beer as they are pictured in medical (Dioscurides, Galen, Oribasius, Aetius of Amida, Anthimus and Paul of Aegina), culinary (De re coquinaria), agronomical (Geoponica) and other genres of literature (Athenaeus of Naucratis and patristic writings) of late antiquity and early Byzantium.

Quotations from Patristic Writings and References to Early Christian Literature in the Books of St. Yared

The author argues that embarrassment over references to divine wrath in more recent times reflects a similar embarrassment or at least ambivalence among writers, pagan and Christian, in Late Antiquity. Patristic writers were especially sensitive to the ways human rage could inform Scripture readers' understanding of divine wrath. Although insisting that God's indignation was a component of divine justice, these writers employed a range of strategies to dissociate God from forms of violence generated by anger.

The debate over the meaning of πίστις Χριστοῦ has been continuing for some time and shows no signs of abating, yet one conclusion has remained constant: the Church Fathers, generally, did not understand πίστις Χριστοῦ in the Pauline materials in the subjective sense as the ‘faithfulness of Christ’. Furthermore, there has heretofore been no text that correlates Jesus' faithfulness with his death on the cross in patristic writings. In light of that, the aim of this study is (1) to offer a critique of recent work on πίστις Χριστοῦ in the Church Fathers, and (2) to break the longstanding silence by presenting overlooked evidence from Hippolytus's De Christo et Antichristo that unambiguously relates Jesus' faithfulness to his death on the cross.

This paper reviews the fifth round of discussions in the International Roman Catholic – Pentecostal Dialogue by closely following and analyzing the final report “On Becoming a Christian: Insights from Scripture and the Patristic Writings”. Beginning with an introduction about the dialogue as a whole and some remarks regarding the selection of the subject for the fifth round, the analysis focuses on the five main sections on the report. After laying out the difficulties and differences as well as the agreements and similarities that were discovered in the fifth round, the hope is expressed that the International Roman Catholic – Pentecostal Dialogue has laid a strong foundation on which another generation of ecumenists will be able to build.

T wo tendencies played prominent role in shaping the Christian outlook on the issue of the Jewish People and the land of Israel over the centuries. These tendencies have their roots in the early centuries of Christianity. The first of these tendencies was the so-called theology of perspective with respect to the Jewish People. This theology became so imbedded in popular Western culture that even plant came to bear its name. According to the theology, Christians look upon Jews as forever relegated to the status of displaced persons among the nations of the world. A prevailing mindset is evident in many of the patristic writings. When the veil of the Temple was rent and the covenant between God and his people broken permanently as result, Jews received a bill of divorce, as it where, and from that time onwards they were doomed to roam restless over the face of the This perpetual wandering theology continued in force throughout Christian history into the modern period. The noted biblical scholar who in fact defended Nazism Gerhard Kittel and served as editor of the very influential Theological Dictionary of the New Testament viewed post-biblical Judaism as largely community in dispersion. Authentic Judaism, he wrote abides by the symbol of the stranger wandering restless and homeless on the face of the earth. And even the great Cardinal Augustin Bea, who played such central role in the development, passage

This essay explores how two nineteenth-century writers who opposed the asceticizing aspects of the Oxford Movement and Roman Catholicism appealed to patristic writings. Anglican Isaac Taylor and Episcopalian Arthur Cleveland Coxe employed different rhetorical strategies: Taylor attempted to shock unsuspecting Christians about the "true" nature of Tractarian devotion to patristic Christianity, while Coxe, conversely, sought to explain away the asceticism promoted by the Fathers and align early Christianity with nineteenth-century domesticity. Coxe, American editor of the Ante-Nicene Fathers series, advanced his cause by adding anti-Catholic footnotes and "elucidations" to the Fathers' writings.

Land as an Issue in Christian‐Jewish Dialogue John T. Pawlikowski Two tendencies played a prominent role in shaping the Christian outlook on the issue of the Jewish People and the land of Israel over the centuries. These tendencies have their roots in the early centuries of Christianity. The first of these tendencies was the so‐called theology of “perpetual wandering” perspective with respect to the Jewish People. This theology became so imbedded in popular Western culture that even a plant came to bear its name. According to the “perpetual wandering” theology, Christians look upon Jews as forever relegated to the status of “displaced persons” among the nations of the world. A prevailing mindset is evident in many of the patristic writings. When the “veil of the Temple was rent” and the covenant between God and his people broken permanently as a result, Jews received “a bill of divorce,” as it where, and from that time onwards they were doomed to roam restless over the face of the earth. This perpetual wandering theology continued in force throughout Christian history into the modern period. The noted biblical scholar who in fact defended Nazism Gerhard Kittel and served as editor of the very influential Theological Dictionary of the New Testament1 viewed post‐biblical Judaism as largely a community in dispersion. “Authentic Judaism,” he wrote “abides by the symbol of the stranger wandering restless and homeless on the face of the earth.” And even the great Cardinal Augustin Bea, who played such a central role in the development, passage and initial implementation of Vatican II’s historic Nostra Aetate, revealed continued traces of a traditional Catholic mindset regarding Jews, the covenant and the land. In a 1966 work titled The Church and the Jewish People. Bea falls into the use of language quite reminiscent of perpetual wandering theology. “The fate of Jerusalem,” he tells us, “constitutes a sort of final reckoning at the end of a thousand years of infidelities and opposition to God.” From that point onward, Bea insists, Jews and Judaism existed merely as a “witness to their iniquity and to the truth of the Christian faith.”2 It is understandable, therefore, according to Bea, why many Christian bodies reacted to the reestablishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 with considerable consternation and even outright opposition. And we also need to recall that in 1904 when Pope Pius X received Theodore Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist effort to restore a Jewish state in occupied Palestine, the Pope ultimately offered a theological explanation for his unwillingness to support this effort. In his perspective since Jews did not accept Jesus Christ he could never endorse the notion of a Jewish national homeland—clearly shades of a perpetual wandering theology—even though he indicated to Herzl that he was in no position to stop this effort.3 From the above brief sample of Christian approaches to the question of Jews and the land beginning in the Patristic era, it should be evident that a long tradition exists within Christianity of an explicitly theological approach to the land of Israel. In fact, it is fair to say that rarely, if ever, in Christian history has Israel been merely regarded as a “political” issue for the churches. Any adequate understanding of Judaism’s attachment to the land within a Christian context must begin with a clear acknowledgment that the churches basically rejected this attachment for explicitly Christian theological reasons. While chapter four of Nostra Aetate is a very brief statement in comparison to most other documents from Vatican II, it in fact contains the seeds of a major theological revolution that undercut the validity of the classical “perpetual wandering” theology of Judaism within the churches. For, in asserting that there never existed any basis for a blanket accusation of deicide and in affirming the continuing validity of Jewish covenantal participation after the Christ Event and the bondedness that Christians and Jews now share through the covenant, Nostra Aetate decisively undercut the foundation of the displacement/perpetual wandering theology of the Jewish People that had dominated Christian theological and popular thinking for two millennia. For that reason it is quite accurate to...

“Dealt with at his owne weapon”: Anti-Antiquarianism in Milton’s Prelacy Tracts David Weil Baker In his first published prose work, Of Reformation (1641), John Milton accuses “antiquarians,” along with “libertines” and “politicians,” of being the main “hinderers of reformation.”1 Whereas “politicians” support prelacy because of “reason of state” (573) or the “trimme paradox” of “no bishop, no king” (582) and “libertines” do so out of “licentiousness” (570), the hinderers to whom the first half of Of Reformation is largely addressed “over-affect Antiquity,” in particular the church fathers. In “thus calling for Antiquity, they fear the plain field of Scriptures,” preferring “muddy waters, where no plummet can reach the bottome” and “the dark, the bushie, the tangled forest” to the “transparent streams of divine Truth” (569). Milton, however, also distinguishes “antiquarians” from “antiquaries,” whose “labours are usefull and laudable” (541). By “antiquaries” he presumably means those scholars and collectors who were known for their use of documents, old coins, stone inscriptions and other fragmentary evidence to piece together the pasts of institutions, places, and peoples.2 Such scholarship was not averse [End Page 207] to legends and fables either, collecting them along with other historical remains; yet by the seventeenth century it was often associated with the discrediting of fictitious history, most notably, that of Geoffrey of Monmouth.3 As Milton himself asserts at the outset of his The History of Britain (published in 1671), “We find, that of British affairs, from the first peopling of the Hand to the coming of Julius Caesar, nothing certain ... hath hitherto bin left us. That which we have of oldest seeming, hath by the greater part of judicious Antiquaries bin long rejected for a modern fable.”4 Here, however, the doubtfulness (“nothing certain”) that seems to accompany the endeavors of antiquaries recalls the metaphors used to characterize antiquarians in Of Reformation, thus raising the question of how far apart Milton really viewed the two groups as being. [End Page 208] I want to argue that in Of Reformation as well as his other prelacy tracts Milton in fact quarrels not only with “antiquarians” but also with some “antiquaries” and that the broader issue of this quarrel is that of the ways in which—and in particular the texts by means of which—the past might best lend itself to the cause of religious reformation. In these early tracts, Milton’s sense of the history of the English Reformation is, as David Loewenstein has argued, one of “thwarted progress.”5 England was, as Of Reformation asserts, the first country to “set up a standard” for the “recovery of lost truth” and to blow the “Evangelick trumpet to the nations” (525). But it now lags behind those it inspired. Milton emphasizes that if England is to regain its primacy in the onward movement of reformation, it must seek the lost truth of an earlier and not yet corrupted Christianity in the one place in which it was to be found, i.e., its “evangelick,” or scriptural source. Thus, on the whole he has little patience for those who, by choosing to follow the streams of truth amidst a welter of confusing and conflicting evidence about the past, had the effect of demonstrating that these streams, whether divine or otherwise, rarely ran clear. With its predilection for a “tangled forest” or what Milton elsewhere terms the “labyrinth of controversial antiquity,”6 antiquarianism often figures in the prelacy tracts as an impediment to reformation. Indeed, Milton does not even maintain his initial distinction between “antiquary” and “antiquarian” throughout Of Reformation, where he later seems to slip when he notes that the “antiquary” must be “dealt with at his owne weapon,” that is, answered with other patristic citations, if he relies on the church fathers to justify prelacy (560). But patristic writings are not the only weapon that Milton turns against antiquarianism in the prelacy tracts, which also emphasize antiquarian credulity rather than its role in the debunking of the fables and legends out of which fictitious history is composed. In these tracts Milton even goes so far as to equate a certain kind of antiquarianism with an undiscriminating acceptance of all legacies, whether true...