Theology Theses Research Articles

‘No Longer Strangers and Foreigners, but Fellow Citizens’: The Voice and Dream of Jacobus Eliza Capitein, African Theologist in the Netherlands (1717–47)

In the early modern period, black European lives were and remained highly visible and exceptional. This article focuses on the experiences and reception of Jacobus Capitein and two other African men who came to Europe as children in the eighteenth century. Jacobus Capitein was enslaved when he entered the Netherlands. He came from the Gold Coast, now part of Ghana, entered higher circles and received a privileged education. Capitein wrote a thesis in theology at Leiden University. As an immigrant amongst the Dutch, his texts were attempts to translate his experiences and memories for a Dutch audience. As a theologist, he addressed the international community of scholars, writing in Latin. Capitein's eighteenth-century study in theology can be seen as a consequence of his conversion to Christianity and acceptance in Christian circles. Gratitude and apology are important elements in his personal narratives but a contrast between his positive individual African–European friendships on the one hand, and the harsh limitations he met in his working life are evident. These simultaneous and contrasting experiences marked the ambivalent reception he received, and help explain why his stay in Europe, and that of many other Africans, remained temporary.

Adoration and Annihilation: The Convent Philosophy of Port-Royal (review)

Reviewed by: Adoration and Annihilation: The Convent Philosophy of Port-Royal Ellen Weaver-Laporte Adoration and Annihilation: The Convent Philosophy of Port-Royal. By John J. Conley, S.J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 2009. Pp. xiv, 318. $50.00. ISBN 978-0-268-02296-9.) Those familiar with the history of the conflict between the members and supporters of the Cistercian monastery of Port-Royal and the Society of Jesus over St. Augustine’s theology of grace as propounded in the Augustinus by Cornelius Jansen will find this study written by a Jesuit, which features the nuns of Port-Royal as philosophers and theologians, delicately ironic. John J. Conley, Henry J. Knott Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Loyola College in Maryland, has the expertise necessary to discern the theological [End Page 310] and philosophical ideas in the diverse writings of the three Arnauld abbesses of Port-Royal. Mère Angélique Arnauld, reformer of the monastery; Mère Agnés Arnauld, her sister; and Mère Angélique de Saint Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, her niece, continued the virtual hegemony of the Arnauld family over Port-Royal. The introduction provides an excellent brief history of the convent from its foundation in 1204 up to and including the “century of the reformed Port-Royal (1609–1709).” Conley’s term for the reform of Mère Angélique, “the Angelican reform,” can be a bit confusing to those conversant with the term Anglican, referring to the Church of England. Conley’s presentation of the Jansenist controversy, relying on recent scholarship, is even handed. Turning to his thesis that the Arnauld nuns produced a literary corpus of serious philosophical significance, Conley begins with an analysis of the autobiographical Relation écrit par Mère Angélique Arnauld sur Port-Royal, massive correspondence, and conferences of Mère Angélique Arnauld. It is noted that one characteristic of her reform was its enhancement of the spiritual authority of women, illustrated by the convent chapter’s election of the abbess; the right of the abbess to appoint chaplains, confessors, and preachers; and the right of the nuns to pursue biblical and patristic study, to receive spiritual direction, and to be educated. These rights are, of course, simply the application of the Rule of St. Benedict, which was always followed by Cistercian monasteries, and the strict adherance to which was basic to the reform of Mère Angélique. The major elements of the philosophy gleaned from the writings of Mère Angélique are emphasis on the divine incomprehensibility of God—the central theological thesis of our complete dependence on God’s grace for the capacity to perform a single virtuous act, as well as for our salvation—and a moral philosophy of blunt rigorism Mère Agnès Arnauld authored a devotional treatise that became very controversial, Le chapelet secret du Saint Sacrement (1626). Each of the sixteen paragraphs celebrates an attribute of Christ in the Eucharist. Her apophatic philosophy is illustrated in the closing six attributes: inaccessibility, incomprehensibility, independence, incommunicability, illimitability, and inapplicability. In the analysis of Mère Agnès a negative connotation is given even to the positive attributes: holiness, truth, existence, liberty, existence, self-sufficiency, satiety, plenitude, eminence, possession, and rulership. Her account of the virtues proper to a nun, L’image d’une religieuse parfaite et d’une imparfaite (Paris, 1665), bears the stamp of her apophatic theology. The submission of the nun to God is central in her treatment of the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The heart of adoration lies in a mutual annihilation between Christ and the soul of the nun contemplating the sacrament. The gift of the Eucharist, in which she sees the continual immolation of Christ to his eternal Father, excites her to self-immolation. [End Page 311] Besides her works of devotion, Mère Agnès developed an ethics of resistance in her Avis donnés par la Mère Catherine Agnès de Saint-Paul sur la conduit que les réligieuses doivent garder en cas qu’il arrivait du changement dans le gouvernement de sa maison (Paris, 1663). Mère Agnès frames the strategy of resistance within...

The Soteriological Significance of the Feast of Mary's Birth

By reviewing the unique characteristics of the Byzantine feast of Mary's Birth, the article articulates the feast's significance as an integral contributor to the salvation of humankind. The article first traces the historical emergence of Mariology to establish trends in Marian soteriology, then analyzes the liturgical contents of the feast to project a theological thesis. Finally, it proposes a liturgical paradigm of encounter to provide a fresh look at Christian soteriology through the celebration of this unique Marian feast.

Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity (review)

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2nd Series, No. 162. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. 304 pp. Euro49. This volume, slightly revised (p. v) doctoral thesis in theology (University of Durham), is an attempt to establish Jewish background, as opposed to Greco-Roman background, of slavery metaphors in the New Testament. main question concerns the precise meaning of the phrase of in Paul's letters. As Byron puts the problem, The contrast between the Jewish and Greco-Roman backgrounds can easily lead toward two opposite conclusions about the Pauline metaphor (p. 3). purpose of the exegesis is to show that Paul's self-designation does not need to be interpreted exclusively against the background of secular institutional slavery in order to discover Jewish self-understanding (p. 17), theological goal. Readers unfamiliar with New Testament studies should be aware that Byron's book is reply to Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), which argues that Paul's self-designation functions as form of status-by-association, analogous to that for in Greco-Roman society who were agents of the aristocratic elite, one important example of which are the and freedmen of the Roman emperor (slaves of Caesar) who held posts in imperial administration. book is divided into two parts. Part One surveys in piecemeal fashion the of motif in Early Judaism, identified with the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israelite religion. analysis rarely rises above straightforward word study, concordance-style inventory of various terms in corpus of literature. word study finds slave of God to occur in royal and religious contexts as a form of polite language with little relationship to the actual institution of slavery (p. 29), except to evoke the Exodus or the Joseph cycle. Byron argues that the slave of God metaphor points to an overarching pattern of humiliation-obedience-exaltation, uniformly present in Early Judaism. Even Josephus and Philo exhibit this pattern, Jewish of slavery to God (pp. 76-142); their metaphors of slavery must refer to the biblical Joseph as the paradigmatic enslaved figure. Yet Byron himself admits that notion of slavery to God is not present in any of the material examined (p. 138), weakness of his thesis. Part Two turns to the main issue of the book, the of self-designation in Paul's letters. Philippians contains nothing that indicates implicitly or explicitly that Paul has institutional imagery in mind when he identifies himself, Timothy and Christ as slaves (p. …

Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks. Vol. 1: Gen 22:1-19 im Alten Testament, im Fruhjudentum, und im Neuen Testament. Vol. 2. Gen 22:1-19 in fruhen rabbinischen Texten (review)

Reviewed by: Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks. Vol. 1: Gen. 22:1–19 im Alten Testament, im Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament. Vol. 2: Gen. 22:1–19 in frühen rabbinischen Texten Günter Stemberger Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks. Vol. 1: Gen. 22:1–19 im Alten Testament, im Früh judentum und im Neuen Testament. Vol. 2: Gen. 22:1–19 in frühen rabbinischen Texten, by Lukas Kundert. WMANT 78. Neukirchener Verlag, 1998. 2 vols.; 334, 218 pp. DM 148. These two volumes, based on a doctoral thesis in theology at the University of Basle (1997), are the most comprehensive study ever published of the Aqedah tradition from the Bible to the classical midrashim. The topic has always been popular since Abraham Geiger, who considered the traditional interpretation of this biblical text as reacting against Christian soteriology, a position which has its adherents up to the present. In recent years a number of monographs and important essays have been devoted to the subject (to mention just one book frequently quoted by Kundert: Michael Krupp, Den Sohn opfern? [Gütersloh, 1995]) so that it may seem that hardly anything new can be said on it. But Kundert demonstrates that there is still much to be discovered. After the usual history of research and a rather pedestrian analysis of the Hebrew biblical text, Kundert deals extensively with the reinterpretation of this chapter in the Septuagint: here no longer Abraham, but Isaac is the main actor in the story, which is understood in the light of martyrdom and the Servant of the Lord. Here already several motifs are to be found which became prominent in later rabbinic literature. Further chapters are dedicated to the book of Jubilees and several texts of Qumran, systematically exploited here for the first time. Important is the long chapter on the figure of Isaac in the writings of Philo, who sees Isaac as preexisting logos, son of God, a sage who learned on his own and was taught directly by heaven, and as a symbol of divine joy. These ideas, but also the main lines of Palestinian tradition on Isaac, are the basis for the reinterpretation of Isaac in the New Testament to which Kundert dedicates the second half of the first volume. Here he analyzes not only texts which have become classics in this discussion, such as Romans 8:32, but also texts rarely considered systematically in this context, above all the Gospel of John and the story of the transfiguration of Jesus in Mark’s version. [End Page 161] Here one realizes the advantage of Kundert’s procedure, by which in earlier chapters he did not limit his inquiry to texts dealing directly with Gen. 22 but included all traditions about Isaac. This breadth enables him to see allusions to the theme of the Aqedah in places where others never thought of these traditions. There is a certain tendency to overinterpret the texts and to read too much into them, but this is certainly the smaller disadvantage when compared with the risk of not seeing the connections at all. In the second volume, Kundert analyzes the early rabbinic traditions of the Aqedah, here keeping closely to the interpretation of Gen. 22 and not including other traditions about Isaac. The texts he studies are the Mekhilta, Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and most extensively, Genesis Rabbah 55–56. Kundert always offers in parallel columns the Hebrew text and his translation before commenting on the texts. He is to be praised for keeping the traditions separate and not commenting on the rabbinic tradition in general, as is still far too common. He also makes every effort to get the best text possible, always quoting the best available manuscript versions. For Genesis Rabbah, he always presents the version of manuscript Vatican 60 as his basic text, but then also deals briefly with the other important manuscripts of the midrash, which he considers as separate redactions of the text which may not be conflated in search of the original text. This is not the place to discuss this concept of the creative scribe instead of the mechanical copying traditionally assumed; the theory does not really impinge on the...

El don de sabiduria sequin santo Tomas: Divinizacion, filiacion y connaturalidad by Cruz Gonzalez Ayesta

482 BOOK REVIEWS El don de sabiduria sequin santo Tomas: Divinizacion, filiacion y connaturalidad . By CRUZ GONZALEZ AYJESTA. Pamplona, Eunsa, 1999. Pp. 216. $26.50. ISBN A8431316020. A doctoral thesis in theology done at the University of Navarre, this is an interesting work on the gift of wisdom according to St. Thomas. The author develops his subject in five chapters of unequal length. The first two, historical, are followed by a three-part essay that is analytical and speculative in thrust. The author first outlines in detail some controversies among twentiethcentury theologians on the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were touched off by the challenge to the universal call to mysticism. Even though the universality of the Christian vocation to holiness was generally accepted, there were important differences of opinion as to the meaning of the word mystical, depending on whether one referred simply to baptismal grace or to extraordinary ways of union with God. The necessity of the gifts for salvation, affirmed by St. Thomas, was the occasion of a debate at the beginning of the twentieth century between the Dominican Froget and Perriot, a collaborator on the review "l'Ami du Clerge," who wrote the work, "The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Souls of the Just." Froget held that the gifts are necessary in order to go beyond the organism of the virtues, but that they are not necessary for the production of each supernatural action. Perriot, on the contrary, thought that such action proceeds simultaneously from two different moving principles, in such wise that the gifts extend their influence to the entire Christian life. After describing this original controversy, the author distinguishes two theories that formed as it were two schools. The first, promoted by GarrigouLagrange and in great part by Gardeil, following Froget's line of thought, saw the essential difference between the virtues and the gifts to be their mode of action-human and superhuman respectively, the gifrs being superior to the virtues. This theory was based on St. Thornas's Commentary on the Sentences ofPeter Lombard and supposedly found a confirmation of its intuitions in the writings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. J. de Guibert, for his part, was of the that St. Thomas's thought had evolved, and that in his maturity he saw the gifts as habitus, receptive rather than operative, disposing a person to docility to the Holy Spirit. In this perspective Guibert thought, in contrast to Garrigou-Lagrange, that not too much importance should be attached to the division into seven gifts. Later, Congar would adopt this position . As can be seen, the debate turned on the exegesis of St. Thomas's texts. Regarding question 68 of the Prima secundae, some saw in artide 2 a statement by St. Thomas that the gifts surpass the virtues, while others found in artide 8 the superiority of the theological virtues over the gifts. The author devotes twenty pages (37-58) to the question of an evolution in the thought of St. Thomas regarding the gifts: Garrigou-Lagrange saw only a verbal evolution, while Guibert attempted to show that St. Thomas broke with the immediately BOOK REVIEWS 483 preceding tradition in order to return to William of Auvergne's concept of the gifts as passive and receptive. Philipon held a middle position of moderate evolution. The historical tour ends on a note of astonishment at the fact that since the Second Vatican Council a certain disaffection has emerged in regard to this teaching on the gifts, while at the same time the Holy Spirit Himself has become the object of renewed interest. The paradox may be due to a misinterpretation of the theory. An emphasis on St. Thomas's teaching on the subject of the new law by authors such as Pinckaers, Garcia of Haro, and Mongillo, that throws light on the debated specificity of Christian ethics, may prove fruitful in getting us beyond the impasse. What is the source of the theory denounced above? The second chapter throws the blame squarely on John of St. Thomas. He is the one who maintained a real distinction between virtues and gifts on...

Das Waldenserbekenntnis von Chanforan 1532 - ein reformiertes Bekenntnis?

The Confession of the Waldensians 1532 - a Reformed Creed? The question is posed as to whether the Confession of the Waldensians (1532) belongs to the Reformed creeds. Up till now it has not been included in any collection. Read carefully, it has the exact form of theses for disputation. Every theological thesis has three steps: proposition, declaration of conformity with the Scriptures, and scriptural proof. It is also a Reformed confession, as the Zurich Theses of 1523 are. Its content is not strange. To treat ethical questions means to put aside the rigorism typical of the Waldensian lifestyle. Its relation to the Roman church was more or less clarified. The concilium generale of Chanforan decided to join the community of Reformed churches.