Theological Context Research Articles

Translational Fabric of Mission and Culture

Within theological circles Robert J. Schreiter stands out for his extensive culture theory and theology engagement. Interestingly, therein, the area of cultural translation has not figured prominently in his scholarship, despite having enjoyed a certain pride of place at the times of his early career, both in mission studies and in cultural semiotics, his favorite theory of culture. What is suggested here then is to review the missional discourse of cross-cultural translation (Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh and Kwame Bediako), on the one hand, and its critiques from contextual theology (Stephan Bevans and Robert Schreiter) on the other, explaining his reservation. Additionally, the essay elaborates on translation in cultural semiotics (Yuri Lotman) and recent translation studies with its foundational as well as fluid concept of translation, not dissimilar to Schreiter's understanding of globalized culture, suggesting it as potential terrain for future theologies of crosscultural translation.

The Theological Use of Eating and Drinking Metaphors in Origen’s De Principiis

Abstract This article focuses on the theological use of the eating and drinking metaphors in Origen’s De principiis. The work is organized in three parts: 1. Physiological convictions regarding eating and drinking, where it is briefly shown how Origen understands this process in a biological approach; this is important because these convictions operate as assumptions within which the Alexandrian constructs his theology. 2. Methodological remarks about the semantic field of eating or drinking, at a level both biblical and cultural; this is important in order to justify the use of these metaphors in theological contexts. Finally, 3. Theological uses of the metaphors, which demonstrate how Origen uses these metaphors to explain and/or clarify important theological issues.

Abolition Theology? Or, the Abolition of Theology? Towards a Negative Theology of Practice

On February 8, 1971, Michel Foucault announced the formation of Le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (the Prisons Information Group [GIP]), a group of activist intellectuals who worked to amplify the voices of those with firsthand knowledge of the prison—reflected in their motto, “Speech to the detainees!” In highlighting and circulating subjugated knowledges from within prisons, the GIP not only pursued political and material interventions, but also called for epistemological and methodological shift within intellectual labor about prisons. This essay turns to the work of the GIP, and philosophical reflection on that work, as a resource for contemporary theological methodology. Counter to the optimistic and positive trend in theological turn to practices, this essay draws on Foucault’s work with and reflection on the GIP to argue for a negative theology of practice, which centers on practice (those concrete narratives found in any lived theological context) while, at the same time, sustaining its place in the critical moment of self-reflection; this means theology exposes itself to the risk of reimagining, in the double-movement of self-critique and other-reponse, what theology is. In order to harness and tap into its own moral, abolitionist imagination, this essay argues that theology must risk (paradoxically) and pursue (ideally) its own abolition—it must consider practices outside of its own theological and ecclesial frameworks as potential sources, and it must attend closely, critically, and continually to the ways that Christian practices, and accounts of them, perpetuate and produce harm.

A New Paradigm of the Contextual Theology Confronted with the Neoliberalistic Globalization

A New Paradigm of the Contextual Theology Confronted with the Neoliberalistic Globalization

Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds

Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds

Practical Theology in Africa: Situation, Approaches, Framework and Agenda Proposition

Abstract Practical Theology’s situation in Sub-Saharan Africa is not well documented except in South Africa, despite a strong theological focus on practical ministry across the continent and considerable discussion of African contextual theologies, including African theology, Black theology, reconstruction theology and women’s theology. The article sketches the context by highlighting the gaps in the discussion of Practical Theology. It discusses embedded Practical Theological practices within contextual theologies and surveys Practical Theology’s focus and aspirations across Africa, highlighting practices in Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa and Lusophone Africa. Finally, it deduces a framework for Practical Theology in Africa and identifies the challenges and tasks that should be put on the agenda of Practical Theology.

Essays in Contextual Theology, written by Stephen B. Bevans, SVD

Essays in Contextual Theology, written by Stephen B. Bevans, SVD

ŞÎİ DÜŞÜNCEDE MÂRİFETULLAH (HİCRÎ V. YÜZYILA KADAR)

Two schools formed in the Shi’a doctrine until the fifth century, they are usulia and akhbaria. Al-Akhbaria refers to the imams in all the information. Al-Usulia is concerned with mental reasoning with an interest in rumors (hadiths). In both traditions it is seen that the issue of mariifetullah was studied in the period up to the 5th century. Al-Usuli tradition examines the issue of marifetullah on a theological basis. When the narrations are taken into consideration, it is determined that the akhbari tradition has revealed a wisdom mârifetullah beyond theological context. Many narrations about marifetullah are attributed to imams. In these narrations, it is seen that marifetullah and marifetü’l-imam are intertwined

Hopkins's Kestrel: "The Windhover," 1877–1884

Hopkins's KestrelDrafting "The Windhover," 1877–1884 Thomas Owens (bio) This article offers the first full account of the textual genesis of "The Windhover," situating the revisions made to the poem between 1877 and 1884 in their specific social and theological contexts to clarify the spiritual axis along which it was written. Tracing the poem's compositional history also has significant implications for understanding Hopkins's verse craft and the development of sprung rhythm. The seminal changes of 1884 can be dated very specifically to a fortnight between late February and early March, coinciding with the start of Lent. This time frame is consolidated by juxtaposing these changes alongside several entries particularizing Hopkins's daily meditative practices in the Dublin Notebook that are extremely pertinent to the poem and that have not hitherto been assessed in conjunction with it. Whereas the 1877 emendations to "The Windhover" record a poet's instinctive joy in the natural world, those of 1884 are predominantly determined by a priest's wish to adhere to the will of God. I Situating the revisions made to "The Windhover" between 1877 and 1884 in their specific social and theological contexts clarifies the spiritual axis along which it was written, in turn complicating William Empson's famous interpretation of the poem. Tracing in detail this compositional history also has significant implications for understanding Hopkins's verse craft and the development of sprung rhythm. There are three extant manuscripts of "The Windhover,," two in the poet's hand dating from the early and late summer of 1877 and one made by Robert Bridges, Hopkins's friend and literary executor, in the autumn of 1883.1 Both autograph manuscripts were forwarded to Bridges and mounted by him into an album, MS A, for safekeeping. The earliest autograph, MS A1, intended as a fair copy of the first version written on May 30, 1877, instead bears evidence of the energies of fresh composition (fig. 1).2 Bridges received it "before 16 July 1878" and possibly eleven months earlier.3 The second autograph, MS A2, is a bona fide fair copy with further substantive revisions to lines 2–5 thought to date from the late summer of 1877 (fig. 2). It was most [End Page 43] likely sent to Bridges "after 14 May 1880" (PW, p. 377). In 1883, Bridges transcribed many of Hopkins's autographs, including "The Windhover," into a second album, MS B, to lend to friends (fig. 2). Before loaning it out, Bridges dispatched this album to Hopkins for editing, and it arrived at Stonyhurst in mid-December 1883 for the purpose. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Facing page of the Reading Text (verso) and MS A1 (recto) of "The Windhover." From Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 144–145. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Province of The Society of Jesus. Norman MacKenzie has stipulated that Hopkins "had little leisure" for revision that Christmas and, in any case, was hampered "by having few fair copies of his own creations against which to check the Bridges transcripts" (PW, p. xxxvii). Moreover, he was anxious about his prospective life in Ireland. MacKenzie does not mention "The Windhover" as among the poems Hopkins did manage to revise before moving to Dublin on February 18, 1884, to take up his dual appointment as Professor of Classics at University College and Fellow of the Royal University of Ireland. Coventry Patmore asked to see Hopkins's poems in a letter of January 21, 1884—a solicitation that may have encouraged revision—and was in possession of MS B on March 6.4 Taking Mac-Kenzie's provision alongside Patmore's receipt of the second album, Hopkins's last amendments to "The Windhover" in MS B can be dated very specifically [End Page 44] to a fortnight between late February and early March 1884, nearly seven years after the poem was begun. Patmore returned MS B to Bridges, not Hopkins, in July 1884, and in red ink Bridges adjusted the latest autograph of the poem he had...

Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther's Reformation by Carl P.E. Springer

Reviewed by: Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther's Reformationby Carl P.E. Springer Neil Leroux Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther's Reformation. By Carl P.E. Springer. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 291 pp. Students of Luther today (and long before) have appreciated Tertullian's famous question, "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" Springer's latest monograph engages the question, "What does Athens have to do with Wittenberg?" As "the most significant and influential of all of the ancient Roman prose authors" (xviii), Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) made such an impact on Martin Luther that more than once he expressed concern about Cicero's fate in the next life. Readers hungry for more on Luther's relationship to the pagan classics, and informed by the author's previous work, including Luther's Aesop(2011), will not be disappointed by this new volume. Luther's reputation includes: "father of the German language" and "the real German Cicero." Accordingly, Springer shows readers that Luther's contributions to the Reformation and to German culture and education often came through his writings and teachings in Latin, the language of his early schooling and university training. Springer argues for the crucial role that the Latin language—and Cicero's prominence in classical Latin prose—played in Luther's career and the development of the magisterial reformation, in early modernity and far beyond. In his first chapter Springer succinctly narrates Cicero's prominence in Latin rhetoric and Christianity's relationship to Latin [End Page 231]eloquence. While familiar to historians of European rhetoric—the outline follows Cicero's dominance, Augustine's adaptation ("spoiling the Egyptians"), scholastic marginalizing, humanism's recovery, and the magisterial reformers' employment—this "art of speaking," in all its five canons, is not that well known. The following chapter explores many of Luther's citations of Cicero, paying particular attention to "how deeply … he appreciated the intensely civic-minded ancient orator" (57). Now and then Springer offers brief and careful stylistic analyses of Luther's prose, which, in De servo arbitrioand Tractatus de libertate Christiana, displays ample evidence of familiarity with the elocutio(the third of the five canons, and the most prominent feature) of Renaissance rhetoric. While Luther's style was not slavishly "ciceronian," neither does it comport with his self-deprecating remark in reference to Melanchthon, Erasmus, and Karlstadt: res sine verbis Lutherus("Luther [has] substance without words" WATR 3:460). A significant hallmark of Luther's respect for Cicero lay in his example of parrhesia—candid, bold speech, which Luther saw in many Christian martyrs (e.g., Stephen and Paul) and in Cicero, and adopted himself in theological context as confessio. Chapter three, on Cicero and Wittenberg education, not only covers the familiar ground of Luther's embrace of a humanist motto of ad fontesfor purposes of studying scripture (necessitating mastery of Greek and Hebrew), but also explicates efforts he and Melanchthon undertook to establish schools founded on the pedagogy of the liberal arts, beginning with the trivium(grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric). This chapter bolsters a growing consensus today acknowledging not only Luther's (and Melanchthon's) pedagogical programs but also Luther's kinship with humanism, which tailored liberal learning in the Latin schools and the universities for preparing young people for useful professions of all sorts, as well as in developing capable preachers of the gospel. In chapter four, "Cicero Refused to Die," Springer reveals the depth of immersion in Latin that Johann Sturm's academy in Strasbourg maintained and the degree of influence Sturm's curriculum had in the second half of the sixteenth century. Springer discusses some of the requirements students had to meet in studying Cicero's [End Page 232]works. Springer also explains Johann Sebastian Bach's training in Latin and employment of rhetorical techniques in his music. The chapter concludes by surveying how Cicero's shadow fell upon Colonial America, including some of the Founding Fathers, and migrated there via German Lutheran homileticians such as Johann Michael Reu. The fifth chapter investigates Luther's criticisms of Cicero, also providing important narration and analysis on reactions against Ciceronianism...

ET SI C'ÉTAIT PAR LA FIN QUE TOUT COMMENÇAIT? PEN BEFORE PLOT, OR TRESCH ON POE'S REVERSALS

ABSTRACTThis brief comment offers some reflections on John Tresch's “Compositor's Reversal.” Contrasting his approach with Gaston Bachelard's, I situate Tresch in the tradition of reading Edgar A. Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as a riddle to be decoded. I suggest that Tresch's analytical emphasis on material composition practices rather than Pym's content opens up insightful ways of reading both Pym itself in terms of its composition, style, and narrative voice, and also Poe's well‐known programmatic Philosophy of Composition. The key achievement of Tresch's article beyond its engagement with Poe scholarship is its contribution to the study of writing practices and media studies more broadly. By demonstrating the tight connection Poe forged between natural theology and the material practice of typography, Tresch inserts the typesetting process as an important step in the historiographical trajectory between pen and typewriter. He shows that the mid‐nineteenth‐century context of natural theology marks a decisive difference in connotation between Poe's compositional play with questions of authorship and plausibility, of truth and appearance both described in and performed by his narrative, and later concerns with the apparatus and its potential for the production of an écriture automatique.

Refiguring the Ecclesiology of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines for Filipino Catholics

The Second Plenary Counicl of the Philippines (PCP II) expresses one of the hopes and memories of Vatican II, which is to witness the emergence of world Church or the realization of the Church in a given place, time, and people. Guided by the query, “How do we live as Christians...in our situation of lights and shadows?,” the Council determined that the Church in the Philippines should be a Discipleship in Community. To understand the outcome of the Council, it helps to situate it within the broader movement during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, which saw the emergence of contextual theologies. The integration of the total human reality in doing local theology responds to the predicament of Asian theological associations during the said decades which struggled against the so-called “burden of the past” or the “petrified status quo,” referring to the western ecclesiological framework, which was viewed as hindrance in the building up of a truly local church. In light of all these, this paper proposes a refiguration of ecclesiology of PCP II. This article, looks into those experiences of Filipino Catholics where they can encounter the Church that was described by PCP II and proposes in view thereof, that our experience of sociality, e.g., bayanihan and pakikipag-kapwa, provide experiential structures that set in motion our initial experience and understanding of the Church.

Mother Teresa's Mysticism: A Christo-Ecclesio-Humano-Centric Mysticism by Robert M. Garrity

Reviewed by: Mother Teresa's Mysticism: A Christo-Ecclesio-Humano-Centric Mysticism by Robert M. Garrity Matthew L. Lamb Mother Teresa's Mysticism: A Christo-Ecclesio-Humano-Centric Mysticism by Robert M. Garrity (Hobe Sound, FL: Lectio, 2017), 208 pp. Fr. Robert Garrity has written a fine introduction to St. Mother Teresa's life of mysticism in her service of the poor. In the first part of the book, he introduces the reader to the theological contexts of [End Page 284] Catholic mysticism that influenced Mother Teresa's mysticism. In the second part, he introduces the reader to the contributions Mother Teresa has made to the development of Catholic mysticism in our times. Part I has eight chapters. In the first chapter, Fr. Garrity clarifies that mysticism is a genuinely experiential knowledge of God and his divine presence. For Mother Teresa, it was both a speculative and an experiential knowledge of God and his presence in the poor. Chapter 2 introduces the reader to mysticism understood as experiencing God's presence. It is, as John of the Cross states, an "unknowing" that is known, a docta ignorantia by which God purifies the mind and heart of the mystic. Chapters 3 and 4 further explore this in John of the Cross and his "dark night" and the mysticism of "suffering and darkness." Mother Teresa sees this in Jesus's cry of "I thirst" from the Cross. For her, this is a thirst for love, a thirst for souls to love that Jesus redeems humanity in his suffering on the Cross. Because of Mother Teresa's letters on the darkness and suffering of her own soul, Fr. Garrity devotes chapter 5 to a detailed introduction to St. John of the Cross and his insights into the dark night of the senses, imagination, and intellect as purifying the mystic's knowing and loving as she enters a mystical theology springing from God's indwelling. Chapter 6 sketches the Christological and ecclesiological dimensions of Mother Teresa's mysticism in her service of Christ and his Church among the poorest of the poor. Her mysticism is Christocentric in its love and service of the poor, thereby offering a new emphasis to the ongoing traditions of Catholic mystical theology. Chapters 7 and 8 conclude part I with a preliminary assessment of what is distinctive in Mother Teresa's mysticism as a deep appreciation of Christ as present in the poor. It is a mystical union with Christ in the poor that does not, as Fr. Garrity shows, in any way diminish the importance, emphasized in St. John Paul II's Centesimus Annus, of seeking economic, scientific, and other means of improving the lives of the poor. Catholic mystical theology is not opposed to reason and science. Part II provides eight chapters outlining the contributions Mother Teresa has made to Catholic mysticism and theology. Fundamental to these contributions is her insistence on the divine and human natures in the Person of Jesus Christ, who founded the Catholic Church with her governance, sacraments, and mission to the world. Chapter 9 shows how Mother Teresa's mystical theology both draws on the long traditions from the Catholic mystics and provides a new emphasis on the significance of these traditions in fostering service to the poor and destitute. Mother Teresa was insistent on fidelity to the Catholic Church and her hierarchy in order to reveal to the secular world that service to the [End Page 285] poor is indeed at the heart of Catholic faith and fidelity. Chapter 10 is an important clarification of Mother's experiential Christology. Fr. Garrity shows various aspects of Mother's mysticism: its intimate union with Christ on the Cross, its Marian devotion in receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, and how Mary in her earthly life excelled in faith, hope, and charity. He also warns readers that Mother now and then engaged in a "spiritual hyperbole" that resulted in misguided statements, such as that Jesus "became sin" and so was rejected by the Father (101–2). Chapter 11 acquaints the reader with the universal soteriology of Christ's "thirst" for souls. Drawing on St. Irenaeus and St. Bernard, Mother Teresa seeks to...

Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John Paul II's Anthropology by Thomas Petri

Reviewed by: Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John Paul II's Anthropology by Thomas Petri Angela Franks Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John Paul II's Anthropology by Thomas Petri, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), xiii + 338 pp. The oft-quoted "time bomb" prediction of George Weigel appears to have come true, at least in the United States: John Paul II's theology of the body has exploded into prominence, from the obscure topic of impenetrable audience talks to the foundation for sex-ed curricula. Along with this higher profile has come criticism, in particular of its perceived over-sexualization of anthropology. More measured voices have been in play, but a critical mass of careful scholarship had not arisen to nuance the popular paradigm very substantially. In the last five years or so, the scholarly treatment of the theology of the body has finally caught up with its popularization. The volume under review by Thomas Petri, O.P., is just one of several published by Catholic University of America (CUA) Press alone, which is situating itself as the foremost Anglophone publisher of monographs on John Paul II. CUA Press books tend toward contextualizing the thought of the Pope within its scholastic matrix. Along these lines, Petri states his thesis forthrightly: "An authentic understanding of this 'theology of the body' relies on an appreciation of the intersection of the thought of John Paul II and Thomas [End Page 603] Aquinas" (1). In an insightful and original move, Petri finds this intersection particularly in the Pope's idea of the "spousal meaning of the body," the realization that our bodies testify that man is made for self-gift. Before turning to his elaboration of this point, it is necessary to see more clearly why this intersection is not obvious. The first reason is John Paul II's prose, which lacks the limpid clarity of Thomas Aquinas and is heavily salted with neologisms of a phenomenological flavor. Garrigou-Lagrange, he was not, even if he was the former's student. More significantly, the English translation of Wojtyła's philosophical magnum opus, Osoba i Czyn (translated as The Acting Person), deliberately obscured his dialogue with the metaphysical tradition by phenomenologizing his language even further. The most egregious example is the word suppositum, left in the Latin in the Polish original. The English translation indefensibly translates the subtitle "Man as 'Suppositum'" as "The Person as a Basic Ontological Structure." This rendering leaves the reader confused. What exactly is a "basic ontological structure"? Why "basic"? How "ontological"? All this is a wholly unnecessary distraction, given that Wojtyła was in fact developing a metaphysical tradition, not recreating one from scratch. Given this avoidable complication, Petri's book is most welcome, and he is correct to argue that an understanding of Thomas is necessary for grasping Wojtyła. Petri's secondary, unspoken goal seems to be to evangelize the untutored reader in Thomas's thought itself. He does this in a serene and comprehensive style that echoes his master. Along the way, the reader encounters ideas that are not, strictly speaking, necessary for the argument, such as a few pages here on the virtue of hope or there on the agent intellect. Without these digressions, the book might be a hundred pages shorter but also poorer, for the way in which Petri inserts the reader into the beauty of Thomas's comprehensive world-view is one of the many delightful experiences of this lovely book. The introduction and the first two chapters provide a detailed theological context for Wojtyła's thinking on sexual ethics. Chapter 1 contrasts Wojtyła's methodology with that of the neo-Scholastic manualist tradition by ably summarizing the historical scholarship exemplified by Servais Pinckaers, O,P. If the reader finds this approach persuasive, then this chapter will illuminate. But for any reader already unconvinced by Pinckaers's genealogy, the book does not provide any new evidence. Chapter 2 lays out the twentieth-century debates on contraception within Catholic theology, focusing on the question of the end(s) of sex and marriage: procreation...

Teologi Pluralisme Dalam Pendidikan Islam Mencermati lmplikasi Pemikiran Nurcholish Madjid

The phenomena of religious plurality is like two-edge knife. The religious plurality can give advantages or us to help human life achieving the progress because of life dynamics with those differences. But, on the other hand, it can cause big disaster for human life. Of course, we do not wish religious plurality to be a destructive power. An effort to create the awareness of the plurality must be done to make the plurality become stimulant of progress not a destructive power. In this context, the idea proposed by the thinkers of pluralism, such as Farid Essack, or Nur Cholis Madjid, who have tried to propose the idea in the theological context, find its significance.

My Pilgrimage in Mission

This article traces Steve Bevans’s journey as a “global theologian,” from his first encounters with “contextual theology” through his development as a theologian and missiologist at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, and his membership in the World Council of Churches’ Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.

Migrant Workers as Marginalized People in Taiwan：A Reflection from Contextual Theology

Migrant workers are marginalized and suffering people in Taiwan at present-day. There are discussions about issue of migrant worker from economical, legal, political and cultural perspectives, but rarely from religious aspects. In this paper, the author intends to approach it from the aspect of contextual theology. Firstly, the author would analyze the marginalized situations of migrant workers in Taiwan. In a sense, they are what contextual theologian identified as marginalized and suffering people or so called “minjung.” Secondly, the author would observe how Christian churches and institutes respond to the plight of migrant workers by practicing missio Dei. Thirdly, the author would reflect the theological meaning of migrant workers by interpreting the biblical texts and the parable of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God, and point out to do justly, to be compassionate and to practice hospitality to migrant workers are imperative of social ethics of Christians at present-day.

Intermarriage in the Canonical Tradition of the Orthodox Church

Abstract My research tries to re-examine the issue of mixed marriage from the point of view of the Orthodox Canonical Tradition in the broader context of marital and baptismal theology, through an extensive interpretation of the canons of the Orthodox Church regarding intermarriage according to the historical, social, legal, doctrinal, and canonical context of the promulgation of those canons. The interpretation of the canons regarding mixed marriage will try to emphasize the definition of heretical groups in accordance with the baptismal theology and with the manner of reception of heretics into the Orthodox Church that was developed by every Council. In accordance with the Canons of the Council of Laodicea and of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, I will demonstrate that the Church did not stipulate any immediate conversion of the non-Orthodox spouse and the marriage was not grounded on immediate baptism, but on the willingness of the heterodox person to promise and accept Orthodox teachings for a future baptism. In accordance with the interpretation of Canon 72 of the Council of Trullo, I will emphasize that the canonical prohibition of mixed marriage is not a doctrinal one, otherwise the canon would reject any cohabitation between Orthodox and non-Orthodox, but rather it is a pastoral, canonical and disciplinary measurement in order to suppress the spread of heretical doctrines and teachings.

La Piedra de Ángulo del edificio educativo-pedagógico de MARTÍN LUTERO (1483-1546)

This article deals with the influence of the Protestant Reform in relation to pedagogy. Aspects such as the origins of the concept of “Christian freedom”, proposed by Luther, in jewish, early Christian and Rennaissance thought of philosophers such as Erasmus are aborded. The theological context of the Middle Ages and the critics towards it made by Luther’s pedagogical approach, based on the idea of “freedom”, are also analysed. The influence of the reformer on theology and philosophy is studied as well, leading to a reflexion on the different types of Christianity that have been brought to Latin America. In a continuous way, the work analyses the influence of Lutheran thought on the formation of Modernity.

"Who Are You, Beautiful Woman? The 'Mona Lisa' from Sepphoris in Light of Epicureanism and Neo-Platonism"

The identification of the image known as the "Mona Lisa" portrayed in the floor mosaic from the Roman Dionysian villa at Sepphoris has been an issue of debate in the study of Roman mosaics. This figure has been variously identified as Aphrodite, due to the image of Eros hovering next to her; as symbolizing the virtue of modesty, in relation to the apparent wine-drinking contest in the main emblem; as the "woman of the family of the house", reflecting a sense of proportion, modesty, chastity, and propriety; and as the embodiment of Happiness - eudaimonia, "the mother of all virtues". However, due to the tendency of ancient art to generalization, and following a new reading of the overall mosaic, the argument presented here is that this figure is connected to a theological context and not a moral one, and should thus be perceived within a broader context of Roman thought. The contention here is that the issue at stake is not the identification of this figure as a specific woman, but of the spirit that she conveys. The two main world views that seem to be embodied by this image are Epicureanism and Neo-Platonism. This argument is examined here through a discussion of Epicurean and Neo-Platonic principles; and an examination of the metaphorical significance of the image of Eros as a key figure, and its comparison with images in the Orpheus mosaic from Jerusalem exhibited in the Archeological Museum at Istanbul, as images that echo symbolically the main emblem.