Prophetic Gift Research Articles

The Wonders of God

In this response to Robert Menzies article “Luke’s Understanding of Baptism in the Holy Spirit. A Pentecostal Perspective” (PentecoStudies 2007/2) it is argued that that the distinction between a soteriological and a charismatic understanding of the work of the Spirit should be integrated in Reformed theology. At the same the claim is criticized that the prophetic gifts are available for every member of the new community. In opposition to this view it is emphasized that it is more biblically founded to defend and to teach a theology that begins with the sovereignty and freedom of God.

Dealing with the Fire: Early Pentecostal Responses to the practices of speaking in tongues and spoken prophecy

My introduction to Pentecostalism came in the mid-1970s at what might be seen as the twilight of classical Pentecostalism in Britain. Although much of Pentecostal practice was beginning to be challenged by the Charismatic Renewal, Iwas able to witness Pentecostal activities that had been unchanged and unchallenged since the 1920s. In particular, I was entranced by the frequent messages in tongues. Although all were encouraged to transition through the Tarrying Meeting to the place of being adept tongues speakers, the gift was normally exercised by a small handful of saints in the Sunday morning services. They would present unintelligible utterances followed by (usually) the pastor who would make sense of the message, beginning this with the words, 'Thus saith the Lord: .... ' In retrospect, it is unsurprising that the use of the prophetic gift was not as readily demonstrated. Tongues and interpretation operated as de facto prophecy. Few would have claimed to have operated in the prophetic gifting, and indeed if they had, we would have thought them a little too big for their boots. At least tongues and interpretation appeared to need more than one person for it to be used. Certainly, the thought that, within 10 years, we would have had seminars where we would be encouraged to experiment with prophetic messages would have had us reaching for our heresy detectors. It would also have made us wonder at what would happen to the redundant tongues speakers and their sidekick interpreters. The experiences raised many questions in a young teenager's mind. It would be much later that I would recognise that the questions and tensions were old ones: indeed were the ones raised in the debates at the pre-Great War Sunderland conventions.

The Art of Alarm

The Art of Alarm Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (bio) In the ancient Greek world, Cassandra was metonymic for prophecy. Apollo gave Priam's daughter her capacity for prophecy as a love gift, but when she refused his suit, so the story goes, he condemned her to be lucid but rejected. The key feature of Cassandra's story characterizes Greek prophecy: it is a truth about the future that no one benefits from. The Greek suspicion of prophecy went even further than the skepticism and incessant questioning or refusal of final Truth so characteristic of their philosophia—or at least of the domains of it not descended from Parmenides. In their stories about Apollo himself, bestower of prophetic gifts, they were also aware of how prophecy can be manipulated. Apollo had tricked the goat-legged god Pan into teaching him the prophetic art and then he had seized the Delphic Oracle to make the priestess there his own. People listening to Apollo's representatives would have had every reason to wonder whether the prophecy played a role in some quarrel among the gods. In the Judeo-Christian and Islamic monotheistic traditions, there is no god whose special province is prophecy, although there are, of course, prophets, and Mohammed is the Prophet in Islam. False prophets may appear, but no believer should ever question whether the ultimate, divine source of truth about the future is reliable or manipulative. A prophet's message is a statement of God's will, of the future as God's finished production toward which human beings, sojourning on the earth, are ultimately travelling. In these traditions, people march into the future and the prophets are guides. Since the Enlightenment the status of prophecy has become problematic again, although not in the Greek manner. When "the prophets of Paris"—Turgot, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Comte and their followers—imagined a science of society that was going to bring about mankind's future perfection, their visions were explicitly non-religious—although they, very importantly, retained the idea that the future is out there, to be marched toward. Each claimed to have a special human insight into the deeper workings of History, what we would now call a theory, and each portrayed the destination of Progress in systematic detail. They did not agree, however, on the systematic details. In the century after the French Revolution, self-appointed prophets of every conceivable sort hitched their visions of Progress to programs for nation-states. Certainly the vast majority of modern self-appointed prophets in the public realm have been prophets of Progress, invoking perfectability, most frequently in Marxist terms, but after the First World War, which was such a shock to optimism and idealism, prophetic visions of the decline and fall of civilizations in the Spenglerian manner became more common. By the mid-twentieth century, modernist self-consciousness about the unpredictability of human affairs had tempered non-religious prophetic enthusiasm generally, even in America, the land of the victorious non-Marxist ideology of Progress, the emergent superpower. But that does not mean that the modernists or even their current heirs, were not in love with theory or not given to making claims for their knowledge of either the deeper causes of history or the shape of things to come. No one trying at the mid-twentieth century to imagine the future was more circumspect and suspicious of prophecy, whether of Progress or of Doom, than Hannah Arendt, who included in the Preface to her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism these somber sentences: This book has been written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. It holds that Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal; that both are articles of superstition, not of faith. She might have written the same sentences were she living today, in our so-called post-modernist era. And in the last years of her life, in the early 1970s, she often did write specific complaints both against those who pretended to knowledge of the future and offered "deeper causes" theories about the past. As she did in "Home to Roost," her reflection in 1975 on the American bicentennial, Arendt cautioned that those...

„Sentire cum Ecclesia” - Arcybiskup Oscar Romero w ogniu podziałów

W filmie pt. Karol. Papież, który pozostał człowiekiem, w reżyserii G. Battiato, wprowadzono motyw abp. San Salwadoru Oscara Romero i jego spotkania z Janem Pawłem II. Wątek ten jest kluczem do nakreślenia w ekranizacji skomplikowanej sytuacji w Ameryce Łacińskiej. Kościół nie mógł pozwolić, by religia utraciła swe społeczne znaczenie na kontynencie ogarniętym przez skrajne podziały polityczne i ekonomiczne. Pragnął być „pierwszym, który reaguje na ludzkienieszczęście” . Ale zadanie to było trudne i wymagało osobistej ofiary, co przedstawia scena rozmowy abpa Romero z Ojcem Świętym. Metropolita wyznał, że jest „wzięty w dwa ognie” podzielonego świata i kraju, a „uzbrojony tylko w Słowo i modlitwę”.

Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe (review)

Reviewed by: Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe Robin B. Barnes Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe. Edited by Helen Parish and William G. Naphy . (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. 2002. Pp. x, 239. $24.95.) This collection of nine essays purports to offer a discussion of "superstition," both as a historiographical concept and as a matter of religious debate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While one might presume such a loaded term to be a historiographical dead horse, Parish and Naphy warn against its lingering power. Unfortunately, their introduction confuses as much as it clarifies; they fail to supply solid conceptual background such as one might gain from Dieter Harmening's Superstitio. Moreover, the essays gathered here have no common theme beyond a concern with Reformation issues; they do not meaningfully explore the scope and significance of this general concept among early modern thinkers and polemicists. Basic questions regarding links between Reformation attacks on "superstition" and emerging Enlightenment attitudes remain unraised. Hence despite scattered points of value, the volume as a whole is disappointing. [End Page 784] Bridget Heal's essay on the Virgin Mary in Protestant Nuremberg shows that beneath apparent continuity, a genuine reform of Marian devotion occurred. Characterizing such shifts in understanding as "word games," the editors come close to misrepresenting Heal's perspective. Jason Nye discusses efforts by Catholic reformers of Rottweil to build a sense of Catholic identity by highlighting differences between traditional sacramental and devotional practices and those of Protestants. Maria Craciun argues that the ill-fated Jesuit mission to Transylvania was "militantly restorationist" rather than genuinely reformist. Both Nye and Craciun find Catholic reformers who preferred to denounce Protestantism as heresy rather than as superstition, a conscious perversion of truth rather than ignorant idolatry, but the editors muddy this distinction by maintaining that "heresy" was for Catholics "'superstition'... in the broadest sense." Eric Nelson argues that the "Jesuit legend," the dark image of a conspiratorial order threatening all Christendom, was created by both Catholics and Protestants. For Protestants, however, the threat had apocalyptic implications, while for Catholic critics it was mainly political and social. Are we meant to conclude that Protestant versions were more "superstitious?" Where "superstition" is a synonym for "myth," Protestant prophecy offers easy targets. Ute Lotz-Heumann finds increasingly explicit references to Archbishop James Ussher's presumed special prophetic gifts in the generation following his death (1656), and finds that such imagery "could be used to heighten Protestant national identity in times of crisis" (p. 129). Dale W. Johnson's essay on John Knox is predicated on the misleading assertion that "almost without exception" the Protestant reformers believed that prophetic dreams and similar secondary revelations had ceased with the age of the apostles. Johnson's ahistorical approach leads him to stress the "inconsistency" between the doctrine of sola scriptura and Knox's claims to prophetic insight. Nowhere is there any hint of possible connections between Protestant prophetic mentalities and the evolution of European self-criticism. Luc Racaut challenges the argument of Denis Crouzet that in sixteenth-century France, "Protestants rejected astrology whereas Catholics embraced it" (p. 154). No doubt Crouzet's picture is oversimplified; yet Racaut's denial of significant confessional differences regarding astrology is untenable. He points out that each side accused the other of reviving ancient superstitions, but fails to analyze adequately the bases of these perceptions. P. G. Maxwell-Stuart wishes to show that Protestant demonologists were no more enlightened than their Catholic counterparts: the variances lay "in the details and emphases, not in the principal thesis" (p. 182). But the key questions are precisely about matters of emphasis. Finally, Peter Marshall's discussion of ghosts in Protestant England acknowledges the Reformation's attempt to eradicate such beliefs, but argues that in daily experience and pastoral practice ghosts posed serious problems; neither learned nor popular culture was ready to abandon the traditional imagery altogether. The volume is partly successful as a contribution to the rapidly-expanding historiography showing that early modern reformers met with countless frustrations [End Page 785] in their campaigns against all they considered unscriptural and superstitious. But these essays do not help sort out the various meanings of the term...

San Gregorio Magno esegeta della Bibbia

After having recalled several bio-bibliographical notes on Gregory the Great, the author then points out the spiritual dimension of Gregoryʼs biblical exegesis. The key to all of Gregoryʼs exegetical works is the importance of the compunction of heart within the context of an imminent eschatology. The fruit of this compunction is the removal of the “veil” of reading the Scriptures that permits the contemplation or vision of God. It also opens a prophetic gift which enables the exegete to read history and to interpret it as “salvation history”. Both subjective and objective elements come into play in the dynamics of exegesis, always under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Exegesis has as its only goal the inclination to and formation of the love of God. All this, Gregory thought, comes under the common denominator of the Sacred Books whose reading produces a judgement which will bring either entry into or exclusion from the eternal beatitude.

MIRACLE HEALING AND EXORCISM: THE SOUTH INDIAN PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF POPULAR HINDUISM*

MICHAEL BERGUNDER [**] a country dominantly shaped by the different traditions of Hinduism, Indian Christianity is statistically rather insignificant. Nevertheless, in south India, where nearly two thirds of Indian Christians live, Christianity represents a relatively strong minority and, within the south Indian Christian population, the percentage of Pentecostals is relatively high with a growing trend. The author's conservative estimate is that 20% of south Indian Protestants are now Pentecostals. [1] south India, similar to what can be observed in many other parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, [2] miracle healing and exorcism have a prominent place within the congregational practice of the Pentecostal movement. As a result, especially in the case of exorcism, south Indian Pentecostalism shows many phenomenological parallels to popular Hinduism. Pentecostal pastors and evangelists often work in direct competition with the designated exorcists of Hinduism and thereby have a very effective point of contact with the context of the people. Pentecostal promises of healing are acceptable to people because of the experimental approach of Hindus and Christians from mainline churches to offers of this kind. These kinds of contextual interfaces will be analyzed below. Overview and testimonies the south Indian Pentecostal movement, the practice of miracle healing usually consists of a prayer with the laying on of hands, often no more than the short sentence, In the name of Jesus, be healed! addition, quite often the sick person is anointed with oil. Fasting in preparation for the prayer lends greater power. big rallies, but less often in ordinary worship, the healing will be announced through prophetic gifts. all this, the practices associated with prayer for healing are not very spectacular. The case of exorcism is somewhat more complicated, [3] and here elements from popular Hinduism are most influential. The Pentecostal exorcist and the Mantiravati (which is the designation commonly used in Tamil) in popular Hinduism claim the same professional competence, as shown in the following testimony from an evangelistic rally of Iyecu alaikkirar. My husband drank too much and was breaking up the family. I used all my money on a Mantiravati to bring him to his senses. There are no bounds to what I have suffered in the last 16 years. Will the Lord not bring a freeing to my husband? With this wish I came to the rally. As brother Paul Dhinakaran prayed for me, implored the Lord with tears. I was amazed to see Jesus with his crown of thorns close to me. He said to me, Since you have truly sought me during your time of anxiety, I will change your husband's life. Then I had a good feeling in my heart. I came to believe that Jesus would change my husband. With that I was filled with a happiness I had never known. [4] Between the Mantiravati and Pentecostal exorcists there are striking phenomenological parallels. The former seeks to influence the world of evil spirits by means of an effective incantation, called a mantra; this influence can be greater or lesser according to his capability. The calling on Jesus, e.g. In the name of Jesus, come out! has certain external similarities to a mantra. There is no lack of impressive associated phenomena with Pentecostal exorcism. Thus, a recognized exorcist, a well-known Tamil Pentecostal leader's wife, says that she seeks a visible sign from the evil spirit that it has really gone out. Such a sign could be, for instance, that the branch of a tree breaks off of its own accord. popular Hinduism, when spirits are driven out they often pass into trees. [5] A person from whom an evil spirit has been expelled by calling on the name of Jesus with the laying on of hands often falls immediately to the ground in a kind of faint and then revives after a little while. This also has parallels in Hindu popular religiosity. …

Prophecy in Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian by Cecil M. Robeck, Jr.

494 BOOK REVIEWS spective or orthogonal drawings of buildings, and mosaic floors. The first four chapters are devoted to the evidence of synagogues, while the last six describe the finds relative to churches. Thus the survey is tipped in favor of church remains . The author explains that the purpose of the book is to fill out the reader's understanding of ancient Judaism and Christianity by showing how Jewish and Christian beliefs came to expression in the construction ofplaces of worship. Not only does the author lead the reader through the architectural remains of these buildings,but he introduces the reader to preliminary issues in synagogue and church building research. The issues for synagogue research include theories of the origins of the synagogue,"activities" in the sense of worship, and theories of synagogue design. He introduces the reader to recent studies of the effect of"regionalism" on religious practice. This is one of the few places in the book where the author opens the door to understanding Judaism—and therefore Christianity—as a multiplex entity with various expressions in various places. The issues for church building research include theories of the origins of the church building, the architectural style of the church building, typical features of a church building, the regional distribution of churches before Constantine, and churches before Constantine (caves, private homes, and synagogues, none of which are extant). The book is equipped with a glossary and a brief bibliography. The "Sources of Illustrations" on pages 140-141 serves as an adjunct to the bibliography, which is noticeably obsolescent. For instance, one should not list M. Avi-Yonah and E. Stern (editors),Encyclopedia ofArchaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (1977), but its successor: E. Stern et al. (editors), The New Encyclopedia ofArchaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (4 vols;Jerusalem, 1993). In all fairness to the author, it is listed on page 140 as the source for illustration 6. This is a very valuable little book and should be required reading for students embarking upon the study of churches and synagogues, be they undergraduate or graduate students. It is also valuable for scholars not conversant with the material culture of either ancient Judaisms or Christianities who hope to update their knowledge in this area. James E Strange The University ofSouth Florida, Tampa Prophecy in Carthage:Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian. By Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. (Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press. 1992. Pp. xii,329. $29.95.) The phenomenon of prophecy in the New Testament and early Christian literature has not always received its due. That imbalance is beginning to receive correction through such good research as that by David Aune, David Hill, and BOOK REVIEWS 495 Christopher Rowland. We may now also add the name of Cecil Robeck, who in this book undertakes the task of providing a historical and theological account of prophetic gifts in North African Carthage during the first half of the third century. Robeck investigates the Passion ofPerpetua and the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian to determine what factors gave rise to the visions and oracles reported by these authors, what backgrounds account for their symbolism, and what factors influenced their interpretations and applications. Robeck, wisely (I think), eschews any attempt to explain psychologically the prophetic gifts mentioned in these signal figures of early North African Christianity. In his introduction he distinguishes between "prophetic function" (interpretation, application , and effect on other Christians) from the "prophetic person," and he makes clear that this book concerns itself only with "prophetic function" (p. 4). In the conclusion, however, Robeck contends that certain psychological factors were at work in the visions and oracles and that further work"in psycho-history and/or psychoanalysis would be helpful." Having read a little ofthat already,I am not so sure. Overall Robeck presents an insightful and balanced analysis of the prophetic material found in the writings of Perpetua,TertuIlian, and Cyprian. He evinces a thorough familiarity with the primary sources and the secondary scholarship and is judicious in his own argument and conclusions. While he certainly at times engages other scholars in debate, a strength of the book is Robeck's concentration on the texts themselves. Since the author declares himself to be...

Mikhail Fokine in St. Petersburg 1912-18

But it was an incomplete return. Fokine had already left Russia inwardly and would never be able to return wholeheartedly. Essentially, Fokine's last Petersburg period was a breathing-space before he continued his wanderings in pursuit of that extraordinary and uplifting sense of fulfilment and happiness which he discovered in the Paris seasons and would never again recapture. Diaghilev had helped him to find his wings. With Fokine, he soared upon a wave of triumphal successes during the initial seasons. But thereafter Diaghilev preferred to soar alone and make his own decisions about where to go. He could be enraptured by the talent of someone else, particularly if he could be party to the triumphs attained; above all he prized his own prophetic gift for discovering talent. His mysterious gift was for awakening creative powers in people, but he liked to control these powers he brought into life.

Supernaturalism and the Vernacular Style in A Farewell to Arms

AbstractMuted allusions to second sight and revenants are crucial to the method and meaning of A Farewell to Arms. Like Joyce, Pound, and Eliot, Hemingway draws on European sources—particularly ballads—for his folkloristic motifs; like them, he uses these motifs to invest chaotic contemporary scenes with order and universal significance. For him to adapt the “mythical method” of these writers, however, is a formidable problem, since his vernacular rhetoric cannot accommodate their open, bookish allusions. Consequently, his references to prophetic gifts and returns from the dead, while undeniably present, are not prominent enough to have attracted the critical attention they deserve. For they point and contribute to an unresolved dialectic, between skeptical male and “croyante” female, that is characteristic not only of the Catherine-Frederic relationship but, Hemingway implies, of all love relationships between men and women.

Acerca de la verdad contenida en la Sagrada Escritura: una "quaestio" de Santo Tomás citada por la Constitución "Dei Verbum"

Towards the end of the past century, the divine gift of biblical inspiration begun to be considered as an aspect of the gift of prophecy, which St. Thomas explains in the questions 171-174 of the secunda secundae of the Summa Theologiae, as well as in other texts. Hence, the nature of the gift of biblical inspiration was understood as a case of prophecy in which God gives to the hagiographer the lumen divinum ad iudicandum, as speculative judgment; but at the same time that this lumen is not accompanied by the infusion of the species on the part of God. Biblical inspiration was then considered as revelatio late dicta. A few decades ago, serious objections came up opposing this form of explaining the divine gift of inspiration above all with arguments based on a clearer distinction between revelation and inspiration. The eminently practical character of biblical inspiration oriented towards writing is accentuated. This notion of inspiration is considered foreign to the formulation of the problem made by St. Thomas on the subject of prophetic gift. The essence of the gift of inspiration is placed not in the speculative judgment, which distinguishes the divine gift of revelation, but rather in the practical judgment which deliberates on the convenience of writing and the manner of doing it. In this context, it is highly significant that the Const. Dei Verbum of the II Vatican Council makes rejerence, in note 5 of paragraph 11, to a text of St. Thomas in which he studies the gift of prophecy: De Veritate q. 12, a. 2 c. In the last moments of the composition of Dei Verbum, this quotation of St. Thomas is inserted in order to clarify the correct meaning of biblical truth, one of the most discussecl topics of the mentioned conciliar Constitution. The truth, quam Deus nostrae salutis causa Litteris Sacris consignari voluit, understood (according to the orientation of note 5) under the light of Thomistic doctrine, supposes that the gift of inspiration involves on the part of the hagiographer an act of the speculative judgment. All the affirmations of the Sacred Scripture have been placed in script for our salvation. But at the same time, these are all true in themselves because they correspond to reality. They are salvific truths (salutares) that always maintain their true and salvific character. The very close relation between both concepts -truth and salvation- should not lead to a loss of the proper meaning of the former. This supposes that the gift of divine inspiration of the Holy Scripture includes an act of speculative judgment, in the manner of prophetic gift, as well as an act of practical judgment, which is also considered, in an analogous manner in the thomistic doctrine of the divine gift of prophecy.

El modo del conocimiento profético y escriturístico en Santo Tomás de Aquino

In the most recent studies on the treatise De Inspiratione there is a tendency to reject the use of the notion of prophetic gift and of what St. Thomas says about prophecy, in order to focus its treatment from the psychological point of view or the philosophy of language. The study presented here, without entering in polemics with the alluded currents of thought, pretends to point out that the elements contained in the works of the Angelic Doctor, and specially the short treatise De Prophetia of the Summa (II-II, qq. 171-174), as well as in parallel texts (for example, De Veritate q. 12), can serve to clarify the nature, finality and properties oj the hagiographic gift. The demonstration is carried out in two steps. In the first place, the parallelism between prophecy and inspiration is studied. The most important factor which is established is that the prophecy is a cognoscitive gift, which consists essentially in an illumination of the intellect (lumen propheticum), in order to judge of the truth of something apprehended naturally or supernaturally. In this sense, it is not essential that the species present in the mind of the hagiographer be infused: the most important element of knowledge is the judgment (judicium est perfectivum cognitionis), and for that matter, one could talk of a natural human knowledge (memory, fantasy, etc.). From this point of view, which corresponds to the notion of prophecy in the broad sense, the scriptural inspiration and prophecy can be considered identical. Moreover, the prophecy is a grace gratis data, which is given ad loquendum, that is to say a manifestative gift. But then, inspiration is also a manifestative gift, although ad scribendum. Between the denuntiatio prophetica and the composition of an inspired book, there is an evident analogy, even though there exists some difference. For that reason, the Angelic Doctor says in some texts that Solomon was a prophet simply for the composition of the books of wisdom even though he had never foreseen the contingent future things. The second part of the investigation tries to find out whether St. Thomas, in fact, utilized the notions of lumen propheticum, of gratia locutionis and of denuntiatio prophetica while speaking of inspiration. The examination of the texts related to inspiration does not resolve the problem. On the other hand, it is quite evident that the Common Doctor has the notion of inspiration present when he speaks of prophecy. As conclusion, according to the texts of St. Thomas inspiration pertains to prophecy as a species to its gender. What characterizes inspiration (its specific difference) is that the hagiographer does not necessarily receive the intellectual species by supernatural infusion. This could be given, but not necessarily. One characteristic of inspiration is that of being a gift destined to put in script and in a truthful manner (apte infallibili veritate) what the writer knows or receives from God.

The Genesis of the Strozza Subplot in George Chapman's The Gentleman Usher

AbstractGeorge Chapman's source for every important incident in the Strozza subplot of The Gentleman Usher was Chapter x of De Abditis Nonnullis ac mirandis morborum & sanationum causis liber, a collection of medical case histories written in Latin by Antonio Benivieni, a fifteenth-century Florentine physician and associate of Ficino. Both works are informed with Neo- Platonism. Chapman took from Benivieni's work several key phrases and in cidental details. Possibly echoing Italian political names, he added a villain, Medice, and changed the name of the protagonist from Gaspar to Strozza; to establish a Platonic parallel with Vincentio and Margaret of the main plot, he replaced Gaspar's spiritual counselor, a friend named Marioctus, with a wife, Cynanche, who serves the same function. The names Strozza and Cynanche contribute significant lexical meanings to the play: strozza is Italian for “throat,” and κυνάγχη Greek for both “sore throat” and “dog collar”; primarily, Cynanche is a collar to her husband in the common Renaissance symbol of discipline. Poetic elaboration aside, Chapman's only other important alteration was to allow Strozza to retain, in an apparently weakened form, the prophetic gift which Gaspar lost immediately after his miraculous cure.

Catholics and the Universities

I have been asked to write some account of the place of theology in the new universities, not simply as an academic discipline but as an interpreter of the whole academic process. This is a matter which I have long considered of the highest importance, not only for the Church but for the maintenance of integrated learning in the secular universities. Newman’s writings on this very matter, both in The Idea ofa University and elsewhrre, are too well known to need recapitulation. Indeed his prophetic gifts are only beginning to be realized in this as in so many other matters. The age of the Second Vatican Council is in many ways a Newmanic age and the principles for which he stood, no less than the ethos of true learning which he breathed, interpret, almost magically, the needs of our age.The whole problem which forms the scope of this article has been admirably delineated this year in a book already reviewed in these columns, Theology and the University, ‘an ecumenical investigation,’ edited by John Coulson. It is a documentary of the first order, and I may be forgiven if I begin by a recapitulation of some of the things which it has to say. The editor himself, sums up the discussions in one sentence : ‘Theology can choose; it can remain dead and neglected, or take the pressure of the times and live; but if it chooses life it has need of three things: a university setting, lay participation, and the ecumenical dialogue’.

On United Nations Economics

The United Nations has made a vital contribution to economic intelligence and analysis through the publications of its Bureau of Economic Affairs as well as those of its regional commissions. The prestige of its professional staff is so high that their pronouncements find a respectful audience all over the world. This well-merited recognition, however, burdens the staff with heavy responsibilities. An academic economist may well indulge in political advice or economic forecasting, even though proficiency in economic theory guarantees neither sound political judgment nor the possession of prophetic gifts. It is different with staff members of a public agency, and especially with those of one of the foremost international institutions. Any advice they give should be based on generally accepted theories and values rather than on controversial hypotheses or partisan opinions. And, since they are as unable to foresee the future as other human beings, they should withstand the temptation to make predictions.