It is customary to describe and interpret the history of Christianity as church history. To be sure, most church historians do not emphasize the special importance of the “church” in the Christian life they study and analyse; indeed, they deal with the idea of the church, with ecclesiological doctrines and with ecclesiastical practices as if they represented special phases of the Christian life. But, nevertheless, the fact that all aspects of Christian history are subsumed under the name and title of the “church” indicates that the character of Christianity is held to be inseparable from that of the “church”; the very custom of regarding Christian history as church history indicates that the Christian mind is marked by a special kind of self-consciousness induced by the awareness that the Christian faith is not fully actualized unless it is expressed in the special social context suggested by the term “church.”

In spite of all the hermeneutic research, the allegorizing of the Alexandrians, and above all the exegetical work of Origen, remains a strange phenomenon of the early church. Historians have often smiled indulgently, if they have not scoffed, at those childhood steps of biblical interpretation within ancient Christian theology, from Thomasius more than a century ago up to our present. The possibility of a complete understanding is hindered by the lack of many of Origen's texts in the original language. Many of his commentaries are lost. And yet there are certain indications from which we can learn that Origen did have his sound reasons for his exegetical undertaking. For this, one has to examine the tenth chapter of his Commentary on John.

Celio Calcagnini's active career falls in a period marked by many men of note and by a number of significant events. He touched some of these directly or indirectly. He was involved in an imperial and in a papal war, in an imperial election, in the controversy stirred up by Luther, in the divorce question precipitated by Henry VIII. He fanned into flame the conflict over the imitation of Cicero. He took an interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Independently of Copernicus, Calcagnini made a curious and not altogether ridiculous contribution toward creating an attitude of mind favorable to the new conception of the solar system for which Copernicus was to become famous. He was personally acquainted with the painter Raphael, with Jovius, with Manardi the physician, with Ziegler, the poet Ariosto, the humanist Erasmus. In his home-town of Ferrara he enjoyed a place of honor as university professor, as apostolic prothonotary, as an excellent dinner host. He was considered to be one of the most learned men of Italy. Yet his importance was always that of a bridesmaid rather than of a bride. It has its uses, however, to look at a wedding from a bridesmaid's angle. To see an era reflected in the career of a minor actor may prove rewarding.

The object of this article is to suggest an interpretation of Roger Williams' thought different from that which is found in most of the literature on the founder of Providence, and to point out some neglected and important aspects of his system of ideas. To summarize it briefly, this interpretation holds that far from being a humanist Roger Williams believed in the radical depravity of man and the necessity of Grace; that far from being a rationalist Williams was a Biblicist; that far from being an optimist in history, Williams was a Millenarian; and rather than being a democratic Baptist Williams believed in the prophetic ministry free from any congregational limitations—in short, that rather than being a man of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment Roger Williams was a Puritan. The orthodox attitude to Roger Williams is misleading because it either distorts, or overlooks, or denies a primary religious concern in his thought and life, as a review of the historiography will readily show.

The study of church history in the Pacific Northwest—that is, in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia—would seem, at first glance, to be less rewarding than similar study in another region. The Pacific Northwest has never been the center of great religious excitement, or the place of origin for consequential and sustained doctrinal viewpoints. The region did produce one of the important latter-day Indian cults, the Ghost Dance, or Messiah craze, and the region does harbor “Psychiana,” in Moscow, Idaho. At one time there were religious communistic societies in the area, best known of which is probably the Aurora colony, in Oregon. But by and large, the Pacific Northwest cannot be styled a center of religious originality.