Theological Matters Research Articles

Sobór chalcedoński. Kontekst historyczny, teologiczny, następstwa

The article presents the Council of Chalcedon; its theological and historical context and its consequences. The author starts with the theological context of this Council. In that time the question of relation between humanity and divinity in Christ was discussed. Apollinarius of Laodicea taught that in the person of Christ there were two elements: the Logos and the body. The Logos replaced the soul. He propagated the formula mia physis tou theou logou sesarkomene. Others theologians were not agree with his opinion. Generally, there were two theological schools which worked on this matter: school of Alexandria and of Antioch. In the first one, the Christ was seen especially as God who became man. In the second one, He was seen as the man who was God’s Son. With other words, in Alexandria the starting point of reflection was the Divinity of Christ. In Antioch the starting of reflection was His humanity. The author mentioned Eutyches whose ideas on Christology produced a lot of trouble. In such a context, the Council of Chalcedon was organized (451). It was the proposal of Emperor Marcjan. The Council, after having condemned Eutyches and Dioskur of Alexandria because of their position on theological matter, proclaimed a new definition of the catholic faith. The base of this definition was the Letter of Pope Leo the Great Ad Flavianum. The most important point of this definition was the statement that Divinity and humanity meet in Christ, and both form one person. Such a declaration seems to be clear, but it did not satisfy Greek theologians. They did not want to accept the formula two natures (duo physeis) in one person, because in their opinion it signifies a separation between the Divinity and the humanity of Christ. They preferred to speak about mia physis tou Theou Logou sesarkomene. Surely, by the term physis they did not understand nature, but a being. While saying mia physis they did not mean one nature, but one being. In their conception, Jesus Christ was a Being in which met Divinity and humanity. Many theologians were suspicious of the term person (prosopon); they supposed that it had a modalistic meaning. The main opinion of Modalists is: there is only One God who appears sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometime as Holy Spirit. There were also other reasons of contesting the definition of Chalcedon. It was known that that this definition was imposed by the Greek emperor, influenced by the Bishop of Rome (Pope). Many theologians, especially in monastic milieu, did not want to accept the intervention of the civil authorities in religious matter. They did not have a very good opinion about Latin theology. In the fifth century there were some anti-Hellenic tendencies in the eastern part of the Empire. Many Oriental theologians rejected the definition of Chalcedon because it was „a for­mula of Rom and Constantinople”. In such circumstances, a lot of Christians separated themselves from the Catholic Church, forming Monophysite Churches. Those who remained in unity with Rome and Constantinople, keeping the defini­tion of Chalcedon, were called Melchites. Another problem was the canon 28, which gave some privileges to the bishop see of Constantinople. Pope Leo the Great did not approve this canon. Anti-Hellenic tendencies were so strong that in the time of Islamic invasions the people of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt welcomed Arabic soldiers as liberators from Byzantine domination. It is to be said that Arabic authorities, after having taken power in a country, were friendly towards Monophysites and persecuted Melchites. So, the contestation of the definition of Chalcedon prepared the ground for the victory of Islam in the East. The article is ended by an observation of a French theologian Joseph Moingt: declaration that Divinity and humanity make union the person of Jesus Christ produced division not only in the Church, but also in the Roman Empire. This is one of great paradoxes in the history of Christianity.

St. Erkenwald und die Verfügbarmachung des Unverfügbaren

Abstract This article is concerned with the narrative strategies of staging the miraculous in St. Erkenwald (c. 1400). The text explores the different degrees to which the divide between life and death remains exempt from the grasp of humans. In so doing, St. Erkenwald responds to complex late medieval debates involving historical, political and theological matters.

Neopentecostalismo e sociedades abertas na América Latina: uma nova visão sobre a religiosidade no processo de globalização, conforme uma leitura de Popper

By analyzing the concept of open society, established by Karl Popper, it is intended to observe the growth of neo-Pentecostalism, and especially of religious institutions as the church universal and similar organizations considering its ramifications in Latin America, plus a paradoxical growth of dogmatism and the preaching of an absolute truth imposed under no more of a universal brotherhood, but a theology of prosperity, along the lines of a Pentecostal religiosity. Thus, the aim is to demonstrate how such preaching is in line with the marks of a consumer society, postindustrial, and no more religious discourse of the Catholic matrix, present at once authoritarian and dictatorial regimes present in Latin America, thirty years ago. Through a philosophical and sociological concepts decoding certain theological matters in this study, we use the thoughts of Popper, see to what extent the conservatism and maintenance of social status, characteristic of closed societies, might find fertile ground to grow, now in open societies, through the gaps left by the state in their public policies in the period of democratization of Latin American nations, the emergence and growth of religious associations that unite the liberal discourse of capitalist prosperity to the maintenance of religious dogmatism in a under the customs, which reflect a new political neoconservative, to be developed with the globalization process, responsible for new integrations between regional states and religious groups.

Bad Priests and the Valor of Pity: Shusaku Endo and Graham Greeneon the Paradoxes of Christian Virtue

Bad Priests and the Valor of PityShusaku Endo and Graham Greeneon the Paradoxes of Christian Virtue Christopher A. Link (bio) Introduction: Endo, Greene, and the Figure of the “Bad Priest” Shusaku Endo has frequently been described—and not least of all by his own publishers and publicists—as “the Japanese Graham Greene.”1 In private correspondence with Greene, Endo once referred to himself as the British author’s “faithful Japanese disciple.” 2 Greene, for his part, warmly replied that he was Endo’s “faithful English admirer.”3 In the summer of 1969, Endo had sent Greene an inscribed copy of his novel Silence in an English translation that, at the time, had been published only in Japan. The French inscription in the book, now in the Graham Greene Collection at Boston College, reads: “A mon maître G. Green [sic] avec mes grands respects, Shusaku Endo.”4 Here Endo explicitly, albeit privately, admitted the direct influence of Greene—his “teacher” or “master” (maître)—upon his own work and offered Silence as evidence of this mentorship. This initial gift by Endo prompted a very friendly, lifelong correspondence between the two Catholic authors that was based, above all, on tremendous mutual respect. Indeed, upon reading Silence, Greene proclaimed it “far better than all the Japanese novels I have read” and thought it “a much better book” than his own [End Page 75] thematically similar novel, The Power and the Glory, published almost thirty years earlier.5 Both novels—each considered a central masterpiece among the works of its respective author—feature hunted, outlaw priests, struggling with matters of faith in the midst of bloody, politically motivated religious persecution. The priestly protagonists of Endo’s Silence and Greene’s The Power and the Glory, however, both fall woefully short of their spiritual duties, even as they risk, evade, and otherwise confront the terrifying demands of Christian martyrdom. As these two novels demonstrate, Endo and Greene shared remarkably similar theological and literary views, despite significant differences in cultural background and personal experience. Underlying their great affection and admiration for each other was not only their common religious faith—both minority Catholics living in countries with histories of severe Catholic persecution—but also a shared seriousness of purpose with regard to the aims and stakes of fiction. Both authors, for example, seem to suggest in their works that, at its best, fiction can supplement and perhaps even surpass Church doctrine in getting to the heart of many fundamental theological matters, including especially the reality of sin, the difficulty of redemption and forgiveness, and the inscrutable mystery of divine mercy. Without a doubt, the two authors regularly explored rather difficult questions of faith in their controversial fictions—novels and short stories grounded, more often than not, in the grim realities of human existence at its squalid worst. For all the genuine despair and darkness of their works, however, both Greene and Endo repeatedly succeeded in rendering spiritually compelling tales of woe and ethical failure that ultimately lead the reader toward a kind of hope, however hidden or unlikely, for a saving grace beyond the ugliness and frailty of the human condition. The various landscapes of Greene’s fiction have long been subsumed by critics under the flag of what has been dubbed “Greeneland”—a continent well known to his readers as a murky territory of vice and corruption, shot through with an insurmountable [End Page 76] guilt owing, it is always reckoned, to the author’s conflicted Catholicism. Much of the same could be said of what might be called “Endoland,” which, for its part, is best characterized through the author’s persistently recurring metaphor of the “mudswamp called Japan”6—that country where “Christianity simply cannot put down roots.”7 As the rather diabolical, anti-Christian inquisitor from Silence, Inoue, says in Endo’s play The Golden Country (a dramatized prequel to Silence featuring several of the same characters), “Sometimes I get to dislike this country of ours. Or, more than dislike, to fear it. It’s a mudswamp much more frightening than what the Christians call hell—this Japan. No matter what shoots one tries to transplant here from another...

Editing Modernism, Editing Theology:

In this essay, I trace the presence of Protestant neo-Orthodox theology within the pages of the Criterion. In particular, I show that Karl Barth, whose radical Protestantism would appear to be at odds with Eliot's orthodox Anglo-Catholicism, was in fact one of the Criterion's major theological interlocutors from 1934 onward. Recovering Barth's presence helps us to see two facts: first, that the Criterion was not as close-minded in theological matters as we tend to imagine; and second, that interwar theology, and in particular Barth's dialectical theology, bears interesting resemblances to the literature of the same period.

Science Rather Than God: Riccioli's Review of the Case for and against the Copernican Hypothesis

... [he was] an enemy to the Copernican system, and has the discredit of having measured the evidence for and against that system, not by the weight but by the number of the arguments.... '. . . Riccioli put forward a series of arguments in contradiction of the Earth's movement . . . marvellously absurd. Would the birds . . . dare to rise in the air if they saw the earth passing away from beneath them? From such a specimen we may judge of the rest of the egregious structure. . .. 2. . . Riccioli's treatment of the cosmological controversy was a sterile exercise. Astronomical issues could no longer be settled by a preponderance of scientific and scriptural authority or by any number of decrees from Rome.3 In Riccioli's ultimate acceptance of the immobility of the earth, biblical and theological arguments proved decisive.4[Riccioli] produced forty-nine arguments that were in favour of heliocentrism, and seventy-seven that were against, and thus the weight of the argument favoured an earth-centred cosmology!5These quotations, dating from the early nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, illustrate the long-standing reputation of the Italian Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671), as concerns his analysis of the case for and against the Copernican hypothesis in his 1651 Almagestum novum. This reputation is undeserved. Contrary to these statements, Riccioli's analysis was not based on the number of arguments but on their weight; it was not absurd; it was not dependent on either authority or scripture. Rather, it hinged on two key arguments - both scientific in nature, both difficult to refute at the time, and both destined to be matters of scientific investigation into the nineteenth century, long after the debate over the world system hypothesis was settled. Riccioli's work illustrates an interesting aspect to that debate: that the geocentric hypothesis, in the form advocated by Tycho Brahe, was backed by real and strong arguments in 1651.Riccioli discusses 126 arguments in his analysis in Almagestum novum: 49 proCopernican, 77 anti-Copernican.6 For each argument, Riccioli provides the opposing side's response to that argument, if he believes a valid response exists, as is usually the case. Thus, while Riccioli does note the issue of birds keeping pace with a moving Earth as an anti-Copernican argument, he also notes that there is a simple response to argument - that the Earth, the birds, and the air all share a common motion.7 Thus Riccioli is not presenting the birds issue as an argument having real weight, but as simply an argument that has been proffered in the world system debate.Such is the case with those arguments Riccioli presents that relate to matters of theology, scripture, or religious authority. Perhaps surprisingly, only two of the 126 arguments relate to such matters. Both are anti-Copernican. One states that if Earth is not the centre of the Universe, then Hell is not at the lowest place, and someone going to Hell could, conceivably, ascend in so doing!8 The other states that, according to Scripture, the eclipse of the Sun at the death of Christ was total for three hours (see Mark 15:33), yet if the Earth had a diurnal rotation, such an eclipse would not be possible: the diurnal rotation would quickly have carried Palestine out of the Moon's shadow, so ending the eclipse.9Riccioli says there are valid responses for both of these. The response to the first is to note that Hell is a place defined by comparison, to this world on which men travel and to God's and the relationship between Heaven, Hell, and the world of men is not affected by whether Earth moves.10 The response to the second is simply that the motion of the Moon could have been altered so as to compensate for the Earth's rotation, as it presumably would have been altered so as to produce a three-hour eclipse even were the universe geocentric. Riccioli presents neither of these anti-Copernican arguments as having any weight. …

Avignon sous Jean XXII, l’Eldorado des théologiens

A peculiar aspect of the church government under John XXII is the large number of theological commissions convened by the pope on theological matters, either in order to prepare doctrinal definitions or to condemn controversial authors. More than a hundred prelates have been involved in those debates. The analysis of their careers shows that many among them obtained important rewards for their advice. It is confirmed that around the fifth year of his pontificate, the attention of the pope turned from jurists to theologians, who were better equipped to deal with the ecclesiological debates at stake.

On Some Motifs in Moyshe-Leyb Halpern: A Benjaminian Meditation on Yiddish Modernism

Walter Benjamin’s writings on Charles Baudelaire offer one of the most influential accounts of the challenges facing the poet of modern urban experience. Had he known the work of the Yiddish poet Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Benjamin would have discovered striking parallels to the motifs and attitudes he traced in Baudelaire, including the emphasis on the crowd, the figure of the flâneur, and the deflation of the role of lyric poet. By reading Halpern’s urban poetics alongside Benjamin’s writings on Baudelaire, we can bring Halpern’s modernism out of the exclusively Yiddish context in which it is generally read. Such a reading also helps us identify the unique resources available to the poet writing in Yiddish, resources that Halpern drew upon to project a different vision of the individual’s fate in the modern city than the one Benjamin finds in Baudelaire. Through a close reading of Halpern’s poems about the New York subway, it is possible to see how the Yiddish language summons memories of the landscape of East European Jewish life, providing an alternate frame of reference and a partial imaginative refuge for the Jew in the modern city. Halpern’s representation of the modern city is thus palimpsestic (bearing traces of earlier times and places), whereas Benjamin describes Baudelaire’s urban poetry as allegorical, pointing to a world of experience that has been irretrievably lost. Benjamin’s meditations on Jewishness were largely restricted to matters of theology, but Halpern’s poetry provides a model for a specifically Jewish modernist literature. By recovering Halpern’s Jewish modernism, we can correct for the blindness about Yiddish culture that characterized Weimar-era German Jewish intellectuals such as Benjamin.

Thinking about Forgiveness: A Philosophical Preamble to its Cultivation in Schooling

In this article I explore and clarify issues fundamental to an understanding of and its justification. I do so as a necessary preliminary to a related project falling beyond the scope of the present study, one that will examine the idea of nurturing a culture or spirit of in public (state) schooling from a wider and more inclusive perspective than what has been typically advanced in the educational literature, (2) what this might entail, and why those directly concerned with schooling should take the cultivation of forgiving attitudes or dispositions seriously. This present work is divided into three sections. The first identifies what I take to be the central features or characteristics of forgiveness insofar as its morally relevant uses are concerned. (3) Some of these features are formal in nature, others substantive. Most are presented with relatively moderate analysis and argument, and none are exactly new in the sense of not having been discussed in the philosophical literature on before, though my selection and treatment may vary at times from that of others. The second section examines the reasons or grounds on which the act of extending might be defended, as well the conditions under which might be limited, inappropriate, or objectionable. The final section briefly identifies some issues and questions for further study that my analysis raises with respect to the practice of nurturing a culture or spirit of in schooling. Forgiveness is a complex and contestable notion, one easily given to popular misconception, e.g., that it returns a situation between two parties back to normal, that it lets culprits off the hook or condones what they do, as well as to much derision, e.g., that it is only for the weak, the sentimental, or the religious, or that it smacks of new-age mushiness, and so on. Yet is an extremely powerful idea, one critical to an understanding of the human condition, of our vulnerabilities, fallibilities, and capacities for doing both good and ill. How should we see and respond to others whose words and deeds hurt or wrong us in some way? How should we respond to ourselves when our own thoughts and attitudes are self-damaging or self-deceiving, and when we say or do things we regret? What role should play in our flourishing as human beings, in our becoming persons more fully and, consequently, in schooling insofar as its basic purpose is (or ought to be) the preparation of students to lead as flourishing lives as possible? (4) In this work I focus primarily on interpersonal rather than self-forgiveness or social-political forgiveness. (5) Interpersonal seems particularly relevant to the contexts of schooling I have in mind, not withstanding the importance and value of the other two. My approach to interpersonal is from a secular-philosophical perspective rather than a religious or theological one. Hannah Arendt once opined that modern societies tend to overlook or under-estimate the importance of because it was presumed to be a purely theological matter (in Govier, 2002, pp. 42-43). In taking a secular-philosophical approach I acknowledge the multicultural character of our liberal and democratic society, the separation of church and state reflected in the practice of public (as distinct from faith-based) schooling, and the rational belief that in order to forgive or seek one need not be religious or a person of faith any more than to be moral is it necessary that one be religious or a person of faith. A transcendent reality, in other words, is not a necessary presupposition of and forgiving, though much of the history of at least in the context of Western civilization has been closely associated with such a reality. (6) I follow the lead of those (e.g., Holmgren,1993; 2002; Govier, 2002; Roberts-Cady, 2003; Wolfendale, 2005) generally sympathetic to a Kantian ethic of respect and its ability to provide a secular-philosophical underpinning for forgiveness, (7) though I acknowledge this is not the only such secular basis to be advanced. …

Nurturing the Indwelling Protest: Max Horkheimer and the Dialectic of Religious Resistance and Betrayal

AbstractThis article critiques and assesses Max Horkheimer’s lifelong interest in matters of religion and theology. He rehearses a theme throughout his work that strengthens in his later years: an authentic Christianity or Judaism owes its allegiance to and longing for a “totally other” and not any temporal power such as the state. Indeed, in the name of this other – understood in either ontological or temporal terms – Christians would do well to remember the trenchant criticisms of vested power and wealth and Jews would do equally well to remember the basic impulse of not being conformed to this world. In short, such a religious standpoint is one of persistent and incorruptible resistance to the world in every fibre of one’s being. The problem is that religions like Judaism and Christianity have betrayed that resistance in the name of the totally other and made deals with the world – with the state, with wealth, with influence and with the economic systems of the day. This betrayal shows up, for example, in the way Christianity has often become an established religion, in the establishment of a Jewish state and in liberal theology. I am not taken with this grand opposition, which trades on the distinction between authentic and inauthentic, the latter functioning as a betrayal of the former. Far more interesting are the moments when Horkheimer sets his dialectical skills to work on this opposition. When this happens, we find him arguing that the “betrayal” was often a necessary process for the survival of the religion in question, for any religion that followed the precepts of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels would soon have been ground into the dust.

The Livingness of God; or, the Place of Substance and Dynamism in a Theology of the Divine Perfections

AbstractTheological reflection on the divine character is serviceable to the extent that it prevents the livingness of the triune God – and so the subject matter of theology – from disappearing behind rigorous consideration of the perfections themselves. The topic of God's livingness, in other words, informs the locus de Deo as a whole. The present article begins with a biblical‐dogmatic proposal for the form and content of this livingness: God's life in and for the world, it is proposed, is at every point rooted in the life which God has from himself as Father, Son and Spirit. Two clarifications are subsequently offered. An appeal to the livingness of God should be distinguished both from an abstract rejection of ‘substance’ language and from a conceptualization of reality under a general theory of the forward advancement of the world process.

Scholarly consensus:Ijma‘: between use and misuse

Some conception of consensus is essential for ascertaining the bedrock teachings of the Islamic faith. There is an operative presumption that the normative tradition was defined by such a notion. This presumption, however, is complicated by the fact that historical discussions of the scholarly concept of legal consensus (ijma') can be traced roughly to the 2nd century subsequent to the advent of Islam, more than a century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Shiite rejection of the legal concept further vitiates Sunni claims of the authoritativeness and binding yields of unanimous consensus. Sunni jurists and legal theorists themselves from the earliest of times have also casts aspersions on the validity of claims of unanimous consensus while generally acknowledging its theoretical possibility. Despite these considerations, many significant scholarly personalities throughout Islamic history have claimed unanimous consensus on a number of legal and theological matters. When a ruling is the result of un...

Equality of religions: a preliminary response

Different religion perceives Truth differently and conceptions of that Truth may even be tangential, let alone identical. Islam is both exclusive and inclusive. As far as theological or creedal matters are concern, Islam is exclusive. The creedal matters pertaining to question of God, His nature or attributes, Muslims should not compromise with conception or perception of other religions, except in a very general rubūbiyyah manner. In other word, we cannot dilute the concept of God with that of other religions. As for moral and ethical values, the door is wide open for polite conversation, dialogue and cooperation. In fact, noble ethical principles of interpersonal relationship found in most religious teachings serve as source of guidance for human relationship. For the crux of all religions are peace, balance and harmony not violence and aggression. The concept of universalism in the religion of Islam manifests itself in inclusively aspect of its teaching particularly in dealing with other religion adherents. Even though Islam is exclusive towards its unique tawḥīd, however the treatment is based on the humanity that is to make no distinction between all different nations as the creations of God. Therefore, there is no such thing to discriminate or degrade others since all are Gods creations that receive blessings or graces from Him alone. In this respect, Islam comes out with several principles deal with the diversity of religion or belief as well as race and nations.

Pericles , Paul, and Protestantism

Thanks to decreasing concerns that its episodic plot contains stale, moldy relic, Pericles has been lately rehabilitated. Its design now seems right for play that prioritizes politics and political theory over psychological and dramatic consistency, as in nondramatic romances. (1) However, questions of politics and power remind us that theology framed early modern discussions of political theory. (2) Feminist analyses and studies of specific female characters also bring us to theological matters. (3) Marina's speech marks her as saintly figure of eloquentia derived not just from Senecan Controversiae but also from Christian hagiography. (4) The recent surge of speculation about Shakespeare's Catholic roots has made readers sensitive to latent Catholic discourses in the plays. (5) Indeed, with sources in medieval (Catholic) chivalric romance, similarity to saints' plays, possible Marian references, and depictions of effective rituals by Cerimon, some tones in Pericles sound like the old religion. (6) However, more than one kind of theology circulates throughout the play, most likely because the sixteenth century nurtured imprecise, mixed belief systems. Perhaps because, as literary scholars turned to cultural history, Eamon Duffy showed that ongoing Catholic practices persisted after the Reformation, we have focused more on material than on theological continuities. (7) In fact, Protestant anxieties about the relationship between word, image, and meaning derive from Christian traditions as old as Augustinian thought. (8) The pre-Reformation cult of the Holy Name becomes the Protestant emphasis on one's personal relationship with the savior; medieval traditions that see the crucifix as the central Christian truth become the Reformation focus on direct communication with the Word. (9) In Alexandra Walsham's words, both articulations of Christianity reinforce the idea of sacramental and moralized universe. (10) And both draw extensively on Paul's writings. For example, although doctor of the Church, Augustine's conversion in book 8 of Confessions explicitly follows the narrative of Paul's experience in Acts 9, fact made clear by Augustine's praise of Paul and extended engagement with Romans. (His ultimate conversion comes after he hears child's voice, rushes into his house, and reads that epistle from his Bible.) Continuities also exist because the consequences of Catholic and Protestant positions do not always diverge widely, especially if we see Paul and many early modern Protestants influenced by him less as dualists than as universalists (rhetorically bridging texts from multiple faiths to envision the fulfillment of God's all-inclusive design), as Gregory Kneidel does. (11) In general, Shakespeare's romances engage rhetorically with more than one theological design. (12) Although comparing parts of Pericles to medieval saints' plays, Howard Felperin could be describing Protestant saints like those in John Foxe when he says that unlike tragic heroes, who try until the end to redeem themselves, heroes in romance stripped of all hope or illusion of redeeming themselves ... and this is essential to their redemption. (13) If Felperin's statement is indeed true of romance heroes, then that essentially medieval, Catholic form shows surprising compatibility with Reformation arguments that individuals can do little to shape their fate. As he does for other issues, such as power, in Pericles Shakespeare often uses perspectives like those of the old religion to critique the new. (14) It is not just overlap between medieval and early modern theology that makes the theology of Pericles difficult to categorize. Among Reformation theologians there was considerable variation on issues that concerned Paul. Even an emphasis on providence need not be specific marker for Calvinism; as Walsham says, it was not a monopoly of the hotter sort of Protestants. (15) There are variations, too, within individual writers, even one as consistent as Calvin. …

Blurred vision: Marion on the ‘possibility’ of revelation

In this paper I challenge Merold Westphal’s claim that Jean-Luc Marion’s hermeneutical phenomenology is especially useful for theology. I argue that in spite of his explicit allegiance to Husserl’s “principle of all principles,” Marion fails to embody a commitment to phenomenological seeing in his analyses of revelation. In the sections of Being Given where he discusses revelation, Marion allows faith-based claims to bleed into his phenomenological analyses, resulting in what I call his ‘blurred vision’—the pretension that phenomenological seeing can be extended to theological matters. This pretension undermines Marion’s phenomenological aspirations, because it invests his analyses with a theological content that phenomenological intuition cannot account for or clarify. At the same time, this blurring of the line between theology and phenomenology also makes Marion’s work theologically ineffective. For it furnishes the theologian and believer with the false assurance that faith-based commitments can be grounded in phenomenological knowledge—a claim that he simply cannot make good on. In light of these problems, I propose an alternative Heideggerian approach that maintains the boundary between philosophical and theological discourse and thereby safeguards the integrity of both.

Ulrike Enke (ed.), Die Medizinische Facultät der Universität Giessen: Institutionen, Akteure und Ereignisse von der Gründung 1607 bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2007, pp. 450, illus., €72.00 (hardback 978-3-515-09041-4).

Ulrike Enke (ed.), Die Medizinische Facultät der Universität Giessen: Institutionen, Akteure und Ereignisse von der Gründung 1607 bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2007, pp. 450, illus., €72.00 (hardback 978-3-515-09041-4). - Volume 54 Issue 1

Tobit: The Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus. By ROBERT J. LITTMAN.

This volume offers a very useful commentary, mostly solid but not ground-breaking, on a once neglected Septuagintal book. After a list of more than 30 major manuscripts (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac), plus a map of the Assyrian empire in the eight century bce, the volume begins with a 30-page introduction, covering topics such as textual witnesses, canonicity, original language (probably Aramaic), date of origin (third or second century bce), place of composition (uncertain), plot, historical setting, themes (e.g. kinship), Ancient Near Eastern parallels (the Assyrian story of Ahiqar and the Egyptian tale of Khons), Greek dialect, and modern commentaries. Thereafter the volume provides the Greek text of Tobit from Codex Sinaiticus with an English translation on each facing page. The main part of the volume (the next 120 pages) consists of commentary on the Sinaiticus text, dealing with both linguistic and theological matters. Near the end of the volume Littman presents the shorter Greek text of Tobit from Codex Vaticanus, again with an English translation on each facing page, but without a separate commentary. The volume ends with a bibliography, plus indexes of topics and biblical references.

The materiality of hell: the christian hell in a world religion context

ABSTRACTHell is traditionally understood as a theological and eschatological matter concerned with the destiny of the dead in an otherworld even until eternity. Although the beliefs and characteristics of the various hells in the world religions share many similarities, there are nevertheless some striking differences. In a comparative perspective the Christian hell is the worst, but the belief that hell is solely an eternal abyss of fire torturing the damned is a late construct. Apart from theological explanations, in order to understand how these beliefs have developed a perspective emphasizing historical processes and the role of materiality in religion may add new knowledge to why the different hells have various characteristics. With regards to the Christian hell, it became physically manifest on earth in several ways. The burning of witches alive on pyres illuminated the gruesome pains the sinners faced and thus visualized the suffering in hell. Various places were also ascribed the characteristics of hell and purgatory creating a “topography of hell” in this world. Hence, as will be argued, these visualizations and materializations of hell on earth had an important role in the process of developing ideas of hell as an eternal and torturing abyss of fire.

Basil Mitchell

This brief account of Mitchell's life and work concentrates on his return to Anglicanism and his contribution, as an Oxford philosopher working against the stream, to metaphysics and Christian ethics. The influence on him of Austin Farrer and the key role he played in ‘The Metaphysicals’ and in C. S. Lewis's ‘Socratic Club’ are emphasized. There follows an account of Mitchell's main publications in the fields of natural theology, faith and reason, and moral philosophy. Mention is also made of his work on purely theological matters, his contribution to Church of England working parties on ethical issues, and his involvement in the life and worship of the Church.

Thinking about Thinking in the Fowre Hymnes

The Fowre Hymnes contain Spenser’s most discursive poetry, andin them his handling of philosophical and theological matters ismore doctrinaire than in other poems. Most scholarship on theHymnes has concentrated on tracing Spenser’s thought tolearned sources and deciding, on that evidence, how to labelhis mixture of courtly, Christian, and Platonic or Neoplatonicthemes. While it considers one instance of Spenser’s borrowingsfrom Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium, this essay ismore concerned to relate the content of the Hymnes to “thinkingmoments” in other parts of his poetic oeuvre. Ideas aboutthe heavenly source of physical beauty and its power to inspirea refined, intellectual love, explained at length in the first pairof hymns, can be found more succinctly expressed in Spenser’searlier poetry, dating back in at least one instance to the briefperiod, circa 1580, when he was associated with Philip Sidney.The second pair of hymns echoes the religiosity of Book I inThe Faerie Queene; the fourth hymn, especially in its vision of“Sapience … /The soueraine dearling of the Deity” and itsworld-renouncing conclusion, also invites comparison toSpenser’s posthumous Cantos of Mutabilitie.