Nearly everything that is recorded about the early history of Alexandrian Christianity lies in the Church History of Eusebius. Many Alexandrian theological writings are preserved, but as might be expected they cast little light on historical events. Now the basic difficulty with Eusebius' work is that it has to be classified as “official history.” It therefore contains a judicious mixture of authentic record with a good deal of suppression of fact and occasional outright lies. He wrote it in defence of himself and his friends and their outlook toward the nascent imperial church establishment under God's messenger Constantine.

The treatise De area Noe morali by Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) contains a short but significant piece of literal exegesis concerning Noah's Ark. This seemingly slight example of Victorine exegesis is of considerable intrinsic merit for in it Hugh ventured to criticize an accepted exegetical “authority” and offered in its place his own interpretation of the passage. It is the purpose of this article to examine Hugh's criticism of the traditional exegesis and his positive contributions through the correlation of reason, auctoritas, and a fresh examination of the literal sense of Genesis VI.

When, after their decade of studies in Athens, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus returned to Cappadocia, one of the first things they did was to compile a collection of the exegetical works of Origen and publish them under the title Philokalia. This fact might lead the historian to conclude that Basil and Gregory subscribed to, or at least were in sympathy with, the allegorical method of exegesis. But such is hardly the case, for in their later writings (and this holds true for the third member of the Cappadocians, the younger Gregory of Nyssa) there can be discovered no one prevailing approach to the interpretation of scripture. Allegory is indeed used, and often, but so too we find typological and anagogical exegesis, as well as frequent examples of naive literalism. That the Bible formed the basis of theological reflection for the Cappadocians can in no way be denied, but that they held to any particular style or styles of exegesis cannot be demonstrated.

One of the major strengths of a political and technological system is its ability to absorb into itself and to direct toward social purposes the aspirations and abilities of diverse groups and peoples. Empire, as opposed to despotism, traffics in the relentless proclivity of societal man to find contentment in the culture's values and personal advancement within the society's political, social, and economic structures. To paraphrase an old political maxim, a man who can be rewarded by the social system can be ruled by it. In this proclivity of societal man to make a place for himself in the social structures lay one of the major dangers to the church of Tertullian's day. Tertullian's attempt to lay the foundations for a divine community which could withstand the “pull” of society's “success” or “status” ethic on Christians is the focus of this article. It goes without saying that Tertullian's understanding of the essentially unique and separate character of the Christian community was also formulated against the heretics' theological “push,” but I would like to concentrate on the social problem in keeping with the theme of the meeting.

Modern scholars are well aware of the role played by Petrus Iohannis Olivi in the so-called spiritual Franciscan movement. They are equally aware that his adherence to that movement was partly inspired by a theology of history which attributed eschatological significance to the Franciscan order, a theology of history based at least in part upon the views of Joachim of Fiore. On the other hand, in the last few decades Olivi's role in the development of Scholastic thought has been appreciated by an increasing number of scholars. While few scholars portray him as the equal of Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, or Ockham, many are willing to place him among the handful of medieval thinkers who stand just outside that charmed circle.

“It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.” Whatever relevance this gnomic saying of Jorge Luis Borges may have to universal history, it can serve as the motto for the following investigation of the relationship between mysticism and the Free Spirit heresy in the later Middle Ages. Scholars are accustomed to regard the socalled heresy of the Free Spirit as sui generis, an aberrant and scandalous religious deviation preached by nihilists, lechers, and megalomaniacs, but this interpretation is not borne out by the sources, as we will see in the story of a simile.

Historians generally have concerned themselves with the reliability of the Vita Constantini of Eusebius, while ignoring an important contribution of the panegyricist, namely, the image of Constantine he projects to his readers. This image, or the “Eusebian Constantine,” involves four major elements: (1) all success and benefit derive from the favor of the divinity; (2) only the pious receive divine favor; (3) the most important indication of divine favor for a pious ruler is military victory; and (4) with the victory secured, divine favor will produce peace and unity for the realm. Constantine, being close to Eusebius, helped to mold his own image which is more than a representation of the first Christian emperor—it is a key to understanding the nature of Eusebius' panegyric as well as his notion of Constantine's relationship with the Christian God.

From Alphonse Aulard to Peter Gay historians have been fascinated with the attitudes of the philosophes toward religion.1 In the present essay attention falls on a neglected aspect of the question, the impact of the philosophes' ideas on the dechristianization movement in the French Revolution. Dechristianization means the attempt to suppress Christianity either by legislation or by force. In the Revolution, dechristianization took the following forms: aggressive anti-clericalism, prohibition of any Christian practice or worship either in public or private life, closing of the churches, the formation of a revolutionary calendar to replace the Christian one, and the establishment of new religious cults—the Cult of Reason and the Cult of Supreme Being. It is argued here that a direct influence can be traced from the philosophes to the dechristianizers of the Revolution. The dechristianizer did not belong to any clearly defined sociological group. He was an aristocrat like Anacharsis Cloots, or bourgeois such as Jacques René Hébert and Pierre Chaumette.2 Their ideas were nurtured from the deistic and atheistic writings of the philosophes.

William Pitt's decision to seek the abolition of the independent Irish parliament and the union of the established churches in Ireland and England ended a quarter century experiment in Irish legislative independence. During this brief period the penal system had been substantially modified, and the traditional Protestant ascendancy partially dismantled by liberal Protestants themselves. The Church of Ireland, however, had not shared in the enthusiasm of this Irish “renaissance”; parliamentary spokesmen had demanded abolition of the tithe, enforcement of clerical residence, endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy and elimination of abuses in ecclesiastical patronage. Anticlericalism had increased, tithe resistance had infected even Protestant tenants, and pamphlets condemning the Church of Ireland as the unholy wonder of Christendom were penned by Protestants themselves. The alarm of Irish churchmen only too aware of the fundamental weaknesses of the established church, the clamor of British peers with large Irish landholdings and the outbreak of rebellion in 1797, finally convinced British statesmen that the crisis could be relieved only by the abolition of the Irish legislature.

Perhaps the most succinct introduction to the life of Anthony Gilby is found in the famous decree of the University of Oxford in 1683 which denounced “pernicious books and damnable doctrines, destructive to the sacred persons of princes, their state and government, and of all human society.” Among the collection are Gilby's writings.

“Why are these fools awaiting the end of the world?” This remark, said to have been made by Pope Boniface VIII during the perusal of a Joachite treatise, typifies what must have been the reaction of many thirteenth century popes to the eschatological groups of the time. With some notable exceptions, the popes of the century were men from a single mold: lawyers, administrators, dynasty builders—men trained to expand the interests of the best organized and most efficient government in Europe, the church. Though it would be a serious error to see the concerns of these men as purely political, for religion and politics were mingled in the thirteenth century in inextricable fashion, there was a practicality and a sense of reality to the lawyer popes that shines through Boniface's impatient outburst at the visionary mutterings and interminable squabbles of those who thought the end was near.

Much has been written on the political behavior of the Stuart Church of England. And much too has been written on its monotonous reiteration of the divine right of kings' doctrine—with its ancillary ideas of passive obedience and non-resistance to the commands of authority. Indeed, for this perspective on the institution there exists abundant evidence: seventeenth century sermons and treatises were filled with “church politics.” Morever, Figgis' study remains indispensable: before, and perhaps even more clearly and vehemently after the Puritan Revolution, insistence on absolute obedience to existing authority—especially to the king—reverberated in the parish churches of England. Thus, at this point in time little doubt exists as to the political attitudes of clerics; and indeed a consensus exists also on the probable motives for those clerical attitudes: they followed unavoidably upon the second great conquest in English history, the conquest of the church by Henry VIII. But the church was not unwillingly conquered: it both bound itself and was bound to the destiny of the monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—its newly-granted constitutional legality protected it while it nourished the hope that the Crown would act as sponsor of reform in Christian society. In a word, the institution of the church, keenly aware of both its relative impotence and its relative strength with regard to the monarchy, made the best of circumstances by offering virtually unqualified support to Stuart kingship, with certain unintended consequences for the church. Given this perspective, it is easy to understand why, apart from special problems and issues, the thought of Anglican clerics commands little attention today. But perhaps another view of clerical thought will yield as much or more understanding than the traditional perspective has so far yielded: it is the purpose of this essay to offer another view.

In his essay, “From the Covenant to the Revival”, Perry Miller suggested that after the Revolution America's traditional concept of the Covenant between Jehovah and His people gradually changed. No longer did a calamity bring abject self-debasement and pleas for mercy in the face of well-deserved punishment. No more would Americans look upon a crisis in their national affairs as an occasion for jeremiads, for confessing their sins and begging relief from the retribution they merited. Miller wrote,

A theology which for almost two centuries had assumed that men would persistently sin, and so would have to be recurrently summoned to communal repentance, had for the first time identified its basic conception with a specific political action. Then, for the first time in the lite of the conception, the cause was totally gained. Did not a startling inference follow: these people must have reformed themselves completely, must now dwell on a pinnacle of virtuousness?

In recent years American historians have seriously challenged the early twentieth-century liberal interpretation of the American Revolution. It now seems probable that the revolution was “an elitist movement with only a modest amount of explicit striving among either the people at large or any of the dominant political factions for a wider diffusion of political power.” One of the persistent themes of the liberal view has been that of the striving for and winning of religious liberty. This topic easily lent itself to the epic of the “common man” combining against the aristocracy to force substantial social and political changes.Even the terms “dissenters” and “establishment” carried the emotional impact inherent in the interpretation and made the whole process seem self-evident. Just as the reexamination of the American Revolution as a whole has made possible a more plausible understanding of the events in America after the revolution, a reassessment of the events leading to disestablishment and the legal adoption of a policy of religious liberty could lead to a fresh understanding of the role of religion in American national life.

Current attitudes of religious organizations toward the civil rights movement prompt the raising of various historical questions. These concern, among others, the attitude of the churches toward the slave trade and the use of slave labor in the American colonies. Did the churches ignore slavery or did they object to it but were unable to change it because of vested economic interests? Were there any individual clergymen who raised particularly loud voices of protest against the use of slave labor and the buying and selling of human beings? Did the churches make any effort to convert the Negroes to Christianity? The examination of such questions with reference to a specific religious denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church, sheds light on this subject.

Only four decades ago one of the present leading medievalists in this country was not allowed to write a dissertation in the area of Catharism. In turning down the request, the director referred to the paucity of sources for undertaking such a study. In view of the materials currently available one nearly finds it unbelievable that such a delimited area of research has been given so much attention in the interim, in the manuscript finds, translation work, and multifold secondary source interpretations which have touched on everything from sex to song to diet! And whenever a topic in the field of history edges out biblical studies, contemporary theology, and the latest witless fad in religion in Time (the whole religion section, no less), perhaps it can be said that that topic has indeed arrived. Sparkling brilliance has been added to Catharism in the studies of the likes of Runciman, Söderberg, Borst, Dondaine, Manselli, Roché Nelli, Russell, and Wakefield. And yet, as is obvious, there are still unanswered questions and the necessity for continuing scholarship which will engage even more facets of Catharism.

Advancement in contemporary world missions has not come without heart-break, failure, defeat—prior to victory. One dramatic illustration of manifold blunders—and then success—is Thomas Coke's heroic attempt to establish missions in Africa.

Africa was coming more and more to the attention of thinking Englishmen. Abolition of the nefarious slave trade was being seriously discussed in humanitarian circles. The dark and mysterious continent caught Dr. Coke's imagination. In March, 1787, while in Charleston, South Carolina, he noted: “… Since my visit to the islands [West Indies], I have found a peculiar gift for speaking to the Blacks. It seems to be almost irresistible. Who knows but the Lord is preparing me for a visit in some future time to the coast of Africa?”

This article, which continues the survey, “Methodist Historical Studies 1930–1959,”, covers both British and American fields, includes the most significant literature, and emphasizes strong developments, but does not attempt exhaustive listing of all items, and does not deal with missionary and global aspects. Moreover, it does little more than recognize the addition of “United” to the title of the major denomination involved as a result of merger in 1968 with the former Evangelical United Brethren. This article deals with a historical movement, not a denominational category.

The volume of literature on the Kirchenkampf is expanding at an accelerating rate. Several bibliographical articles have already appeared, the most recent of which is by the Canadian scholar, John S. Conway. Of the 63 titles of books, articles, and collections discussed by Conway, 47 were published in the 1960s. Nearly all studies of the Kirchenkampf either defend or criticize the church in varying degrees. Most of the older accounts, as Conway points out in the introduction to his own comprehensive study, were written by clergymen and historians who actually participated in the Kirchenkampf. These scholars selected those facts which demonstrated that the church steadfastly, if not always effectually, opposed National Socialist tyranny in word and deed. The larger volume of Protestant works emphasized the activity of the Confessing Church, while the unaccountably smaller number of Roman Catholic accounts focused upon particular bishops and priests who protested courageously and suffered imprisonment or martyrdom. During the past ten years, however, a small group of mostly younger historians have published works sharply critical of the Roman Catholic Church in particular. These historians, the most prominent of whom are Gordon Zahn, Hans Müller, and Guenter Lewy, assert that the Roman Catholic Church failed to exert the kind of moral and political leadership which might have mitigated the horrors of National Socialism.

With Marx's assertion that social existence determines the consciousness of men rather than the reverse, the ancient debate concerning freedom and necessity entered a new phase. Yet another dimension was added when Freud discovered the unconscious powers of the psyche. Subsequently, although thought has vacillated between the sociological and the psychological modes of analysis, both have underscored the deterministic sources of human behavior. Meanwhile, as if this were not enough, the assimilation of human behavior to nature, and thus also to the empirical methods of science and technology, has assured the total triumph of determinism.