bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Thirty Years of Calvin Study
Authors: McNeill John T.
Published: April 2006

Since the close of World War I the study of Calvin has been advanced by the labors of many scholars. This article presents a classified bibliography of what in the writer's judgment are the materials of chief importance in this enlarging field of research. A similar treatment of the historical literature concerned with the Reformed churches of Europe to the opening of the Thirty Years' War is in preparation.
Father Tyrrell's Dogmas
Authors: Bella Julius I.
Published: April 2006

Father Tyrrell is one of the foremost exponents of Roman Catholic Modernism, the attempt to reconcile Roman Catholicism and modern culture. Roman Catholic Modernism is not a system, a coherent whole proceeding from a philosophical foundation, not a body of doctrine, but rather an “orientation,” a “method.” It does not form a school, but rather consists “of a number of individual attempts to set forward a revision of traditional orthodoxy.” Such attempt is made by Laberthonnière, LeRoy, Loisy in France, by Murri, Fogazzaro in Italy, and von Hügel and Tyrrell in England.
Evolution of Mormon Doctrine
Authors: Arbaugh George B.
Published: April 2006

The intricacies of Mormon polytheism are a perpetual surprise to the student of American thought. But a second surprise awaits the historian who attempts to trace the roots of this American polytheism. It is that Mormon doctrine moved not from ordinary Trinitarian thought but from an original position in which extreme monistic tendencies were dominant. There are three stages in this transition: an original monism, a reversal to tritheism, and the expansion of this into polytheism.
The Reformation from a New Perspective
Authors: Schwiebert Ernest G.
Published: April 2006

All too frequently writers have been tempted to over-simplify the German Reformation. The literature in the field is enormous, contradictory, kaleidoscopic, and infinitely complex, requiring decades to master the more important sources and standard works. Such labels as “Reformation,” the “Protestant Revolt,” and the “Protestant Revolution” are, in a large measure, propaganda terms presupposing fundamental assumptions and lines of reasoning not entirely supported in fact. Often the casual reader in this field receives the impression that Reformers like Wyclif, Hus, Savonarola, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were merely out of step with the accepted, centuries-old teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. He is not aware of the fact that he is reading history in reverse.
The Anthropomorphic Controversy in the Time of Theophilus of Alexandria
Authors: Shepherd Massey Hamilton
Published: April 2006

It was the long-established custom of the Alexandrian patriarch to write each year a paschal letter to the faithful of his province. In the letter of the year 399 the Patriarch Theophilus, an ecclesiastic of great ability but few scruples, inveighed rather severely against those who taught that God was corporeal, or in other words that God had bodily form. This opinion was by no means extraordinary. For over two centuries Alexandria had been the leading center of Christian theology, and for a much longer period a pre-eminent seat of philosophic learning as well. The repudiation of anthropomorphic conceptions of God had long been a matter of common acceptance by pagan and Christian theologians alike who laid any claim to a liberal education.
The American Colonial Environment and Religious Liberty
Authors: Sweet W. W.
Published: April 2006

There is nothing inherent in Christianity itself which calls for a close relationship with the state. Primitive Christianity “demanded the complete separation of church and state,” asserting that each must be recognized as having its own distinct and independent mission to perform. For the first three hundred years of Christian history the church existed entirely apart from the state, and indeed had not even a legal status. Then came a time during which the church became little more than a branch of the state, and in this period it lost practically all independence of development, and was largely diverted from its proper work to serve political ends. It was as a result of this danger that the church developed, during the next period in its history, the doctrine of its independence of state control, and in the great investiture struggle, maintained it with success, against Roman emperors and German kings. Then the church having secured its independence of state control, and having perfected its organization to a high degree, and having grown strong and aggressive, it went a long step further and asserted the right of the church to control the state. But it needs no argument to prove that both the control of the church by the state and the control of the state by the church are equally foreign to the teaching of Christianity as such.
The Role of the Church in Trans-Missouri
Authors: Holter Don W.
Published: April 2006

With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 the region we have chosen to call trans-Missouri became a potential American frontier. Settlement began in Missouri with the opening of the nineteenth century, but it was not until after 1850 that the remainder of the region was thrown open to allow the restless flood of western-moving people to pour into Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota. Protestantism came into the new region as a part of this vast conquest.
The Bradford Manuscript
Authors: Gee Clarence Stafford
Published: April 2006

The record of Governor William Bradford, in his own hand, presenting the story of the founders of Plymouth from 1606–1646, originally bore only the title, “Of Plimoth Plantation.” Now it is referred to as the “History of Plymouth Plantation,” or “The Bradford History,” or “The Bradford Manuscript.” This important document has had an eventful career. For many years it was lost, and then under strange circumstances it was found not in some hidden place in this country but in England. It is the purpose of this paper to unfold the steps in that discovery, and to follow the events which led finally to the return of the valuable holograph to the United States.
The Parvin-Brigham Mission to Spanish America, 1823–1826
Authors: Oliphant J. Orin
Published: April 2006

Slowly during the years just preceding our War of 1812, and rapidly during the decade that followed the Peace of Ghent, the vast reaches of Latin America swam within the ken of the people of the United States. Of this “discovery” of our southern neighbors and of our relations with Latin America before 1830, we have learned much from a volume recently brought out by a distinguished historian of the United States, Professor Arthur P. Whitaker. Professor Whitaker's informing study was intended to be nothing less than a well-rounded history of the impact of Latin America upon the United States to 1830; and such it has proved to be—with one exception. Professor Whitaker completely overlooked the religious phase of the subject he otherwise treated so skillfully. Upon this neglected part of the history of our early relations with Latin America this paper will endeavor to throw some light.
The Anabaptist Vision
Authors: Bender Harold S.
Published: April 2006

“Judged by the reception it met at the hands of those in power, both in Church and State, equally in Roman Catholic and in Protestant countries, the Anabaptist movement was one of the most tragic in the history of Christianity; but, judged by the principles, which were put into play by the men who bore this reproachful nickname, it must be pronounced one of the most momentous and significant undertakings in man's eventful religious struggle after the truth. It gathered up the gains of earlier movements, it is the spiritual soil out of which all nonconformist sects have sprung, and it is the first plain announcement in modern history of a programme for a new type of Christian society which the modern world, especially in America and England, has been slowly realizing—an absolutely free and independent religious society, and a State in which every man counts as a man, and has his share in shaping both Church and State.”
A Comment on “Savonarola, Florence, and the Millenarian Tradition”
Authors: Becker Marvin B.
Published: April 2006

It appears to me that the strength of Professor Weinstein's inquiry is predicated upon the concreteness of his approach and his unwillingness to take refuge in those abstractions which are not infrequently found in the realm of Medieval and Renaissance studies. Therefore, the hypothesis that he advances stems from data, rather than from an unverifiable assumption about the nature of man or of thought in the Quattrocento. Another quality which is evident in his paper is his commitment to a type of research which is essentially an adventure. This figure of speech is intended to suggest that he is trying to isolate and then delineate a problem. In this instance, the unknown quantity is the boundary line that separates the historical from the a-historical. As a result of his search, he is compelled to modify the interpretations of Garin and Cantimori. His explanation is based upon the decisive role that historical circumstance and Florentine tradition (possibly two facets of a single entity) played in forging the prophetic message of Savonarola. Therefore, he locates the center of gravity of the Dominican's teachings “in tempore,” rather than in the a-historical “world of ideas.” For Professor Weinstein, the boundaries of Savonarola's prophecies are generated by “the fervor of daily events.” Not only does this view appear to be valid, for the reasons advanced by the speaker, but there are also factors that are peripheral to his central argument which lend it further authenticity.
Motives in Protestant Missions, 1890–1917
Authors: Varg Paul A.
Published: April 2006

In terms of the number of missionaries, financial contributions, and amount of home front propaganda, the missionary movement reached its peak in the United States in the years from 1890 to 1917. Only during this period did the foreign missions of the Protestant churches enjoy sufficient popular support to warrant use of the term “crusade.”

This raises the question as to why Christian missions should have had such a strong appeal to the generation which elected Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, embarked on a crusade to liberate the Cubans, and later sent its sons to Europe allegedly to defend the moral principles of democracy. Nothing could have been more quixotic than the slogan adopted by the Student Volunteers: “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.” This motto expressed the vision of the thousands of college and seminary students who joined the Student Volunteers. It was also the goal of the hosts of women's missionary societies and the Laymen's Movement, the organization which marshaled the support of more than 100,000 men in the churches in behalf of foreign missions.
Major Volumes and Selected Periodical Literature in Luther Studies, 1956–1959
Authors: Dillenberger John
Published: April 2006

In the last years, a number of surveys on Luther have appeared. Some of these will be continued. With the re-appearance of the Luther-Jahrbuch and the regular “Zeitschriftenschau” by Gunther Franz in various issues of the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, an ongoing medium for references to articles and reviews of books is at hand. All major German books are reviewed in the Luther-Jahrbuch and in the Theologische Literaturzeitung. The 1957 issue of the Luther-Jahrbuch, the first volume in the resumed series after a fifteen year interval, contains a summary Luther-Bibliography for 1940- 1953, and a more extensive survey for the year 1954. The 1958 volume contains a bibliography for 1955; the 1959 one, for 1956; the 1960 one, for 1957. The disadvantage of the time lag in publication does provide the possibility of a comprehensive listing. Apart from the book reviews, the materials are listed without evaluation.
Trends in Canadian Church History
Authors: Walsh H. H.
Published: April 2006

A dual culture and geographical barriers which foster regional development have made writing Canadian history a difficult task. One historian regards it as ‘an act of faith, the substance of things hoped for.’ All the problems which the secular historian faces as he tries to organize his material into a connected story are intensified in the field of Canadian church history, and up to the present no one has ventured to do more than to trace ‘certain general movements of religion in Canadian sociological development’.
The Nature of English Puritanism: Three Interpretations
Authors: Brauer Jerald C.
Published: April 2006

Several recent scholars appalled by the seemingly impossible task of defining Puritanism have contented themselves with the supposedly easier task of describing the movement. But, a really accurate description is actually a good definition. To the extent that a description enables one to identify and thus partially to understand a man or a movement, it serves as a definition. Thus, whether one wishes to engage in a definition of or a description of the nature of Puritanism makes little difference. The basic problem is that of so delineating the Puritan movement that its differences from other contemporary movements are clearly discernible. Only in that way can one assess its role in its own epoch and its contributions to the ongoing stream of history.
Americanization of Karl August Rauschenbusch, 1816–1899
Authors: Schneider Carl E.
Published: April 2006

An interest in August Rauschenbusch may be motivated by the hope that perchance in the life of the father we could discover factors which would illuminate the social-gospel interests of his more famous son. The importance of Rauschenbusch in the early history of German Baptists in North America, particularly as founder and virtual head of the “German Department” of Rochester Theological Seminary for thirty-two years (1858–90), should alone, it could be urged, establish his significance for the religious history of that day. However, it is the primary and less ambitious purpose of this paper to place Rauschenbusch within the framework of the German and American religious situation of the mid-19th century on the basis, largely, of twenty-two of his unpublished letters and a smaller number addressed to him, running from April 12, 1845 to September 27, 1854. These were recently discovered in the archives of the Rhenish Missionary Institute, Wuppertal-Barmen, Germany.
Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Development of “Muscular Christianity”
Authors: Winn William E.
Published: April 2006

The Broad Church movement, of which “muscular Christianity” was one of the most influential expressions, represented a type of liberalism within the Church of England. Benjamin Jowett claimed that the name “Broad Church” was first proposed in his hearing by Arthur Hugh Clough and that it had become a familiar term in circles at Oxford a few years before 1850. In July 1850, A. P. Stanley, writing on the Gorham controversy in the Edinburgh Review, said that the Church of England was “by the very conditions of its being, not High or Low, but Broad.” The term “Broad Church”, however only began to be used generally from October 1853, when an unsigned article by W. J. Conybeare, entitled “Church Parties,” appeared, also in the Edinburgh Review. F. D. Maurice believed that Conybeare invented the name.
The Anabaptists and the Civil Authorities of Strasbourg, 1525–1555
Authors: Kreider Robert
Published: April 2006

Since the dawn of the Christian era the relationship between church and state has been one of the pivotal issues of western civilization. Men have offered a variety of answers to this problem. The much- persecuted Anabaptists of the 16th century presented one set of answers, radical for their age, which called for a decisive separation of the church from the state and complete freedom for the church to pursue its vocation in the world. The Anabaptists were a distressing annoyance to the civil authorities. This movement posed for the 16th century the acute problem: how should religious dissent be handled?
Paul Kravař and the Lollard-Hussite Relations
Authors: Spinka Matthew
Published: April 2006

It is not generally known that during the late fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries, England and Scotland were in fairly close cultural relations and religious contacts with Bohemia. But such was the case. The earliest such connection is traceable to the endowment established by Vojtěch Ranků of Ježov (Adalbertus Ranconis de Ericinio) for Czech students wishing to study at Oxford or Paris. Vojtěch was one of the most learned Czech Masters of the University of Paris, where in 1355 he had served as Rector. Later he had taught at Oxford. Furthermore, this initial tie between Bohemia and England was greatly strengthened when in 1382 King Richard II married Anne, the daughter of Emperor Charles IV and sister of the Czech King, Wenceslas IV. She was an unusually cultured young lady who read her Bible assiduously in three languages—Czech, German, and Italian. Many Czechs, among them Lord Peter of Wartenberg, accompanied her, and some of them even settled in England. Furthermore, a considerable number of Czech students matriculated at the English universities. Those who studied at Oxford became acquainted with the writings of John Wyclif, and upon their return home brought copies of them to Prague. At first, only the philosophical works of Wyclif were thus made available; but after 1400 his theological treatises were extant in Bohemia as well. Among those who introduced Wyclif's doctrines into Bohemia, the most important was Jerome of Prague. He returned from Oxford in 1401 and influenced Hus by his fervent Wyclifism. Hus transcribed many of Wyclif's works for his own use. Later, similar services were rendered by two Czech students, Nicholas Faulfiš and George of Kninice. They visited the Lollard centers, such as Kemerton near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire and Braybrook in Northamptonshire. There they copied many of Wyclif's works which were apparently no longer available in Oxford, and upon their return to Bohemia brought them along. They also delivered a document from the University of Oxford testifying to Wyclif's orthodoxy—although this was probably a forgery.
The Negro and Methodist Union
Authors: Carter Paul A.
Published: April 2006

The schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, and her reunion in 1939, fall into a pattern remarkably similar to that of the great schism and reunion of the United States. The antislavery movement possessed religious overtones of the same evangelical temper characteristic of Methodism; and the centralized—constitutional, if you will— structure of Methodism exposed it to federal-versus-regional stresses similar to those that divided the nation. There is the significant difference that the Northern and Southern Methodists parted amicably, and did not become involved in partisan bitterness until after the adjournment of their last General Conference together, but otherwise the parallel is complete: general acceptance of the principle of emancipation by the founders both of church and nation; with the renascence of slavery, the recession of this view, marked by a series of compromises in General Conference as in the Congress; the rise, and unpopularity, of militant abolitionism; a dramatic revival of partisan concern, marked by an acute constitutional debate growing sectional irreconcilability: schism; conflict—and an eventual resolution of the breach in terms of the tacit recognition by the North of the principle of segregation.
The Finnish Church and Russian Imperialism
Authors: Kantonen T. A.
Published: April 2006

Of all the nations which during the second World War took up arms against Russia, Finland alone has escaped military occupation and retained her independence. An American visitor to this farthest European out post of Western democracy against Soviet expansion Worship, and of the press, which prevails there, especially when he bears in mind the fate of the nations on the southern side of the Gulf of Finland. The Finns, to be sure, exert every effort to maintain diplomatically “correct” relations with their powerful eastern neighbor. Their most recent treaty of peace with Russia forbids them to enter into foreign alliances such as the Atlantic Pact Which are objectionable to the Russians, and the Finns realize that their geographical position does not permit them to violate the treaty.
Learning in Austria About 1300—Notes and Suggestions
Authors: Fowler George Bingham
Published: April 2006

This paper is limited to a brief critique of current opinion regarding the state of learning in Austria about 1300, to a survey of the most important recent developments in the study of the subject, and to suggestions for future study.
Wenceslas Budovec's Defense of the Brethren and of Freedom of Conscience, in 1604
Authors: Bartoš F. M.
Published: April 2006

The year 1602 put the Unity of the Brethren to a severe test. Three years before, the long and systematic efforts of the papal nuncio in Bohemia had resulted in the fall of Chancellor Charles Želinský, and the highest offices of the realm had passed into the hands of Catholics— representatives, for the most part, of the new aggressive generation, who made no secret of their intention to wipe out the evangelical faith in Bohemia, and who had indeed begun energetically to work in that direction. Zdeněk Lobkovic, more of a Spaniard than a Czech, had been put at the head of the government, and at his side were Jaroslav Martinic and the convert William Slavata.
Research in Northwest Church History
Authors: Schmitt Martin
Published: April 2006

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.
The Ruthenian Uniate Church in its Historical Perspective
Authors: Nemec Ludvik
Published: April 2006

To consider the Ruthenian Uniate Church in its historical perspective, and to encompass its complex phenomenon in a few pages is difficult for the historian who must treat this matter as an exception to the rule rather than an isolated historical event. It stands in sharp contrast to the historical precedent of the Kievan state whose inception and development, always represented politically, culturally, and ecclesiastically, the unity of all Russia. The division of Kievan Russia into principalities governed by members of the Rurik dynasty did not inhibit the cultural evolution, nor did it cut Russia off from contact with Western Europe. Rather, the cultural evolution developed in the general direction it had been given by Kiev, and contact with the West was further intensified in the principalities of Galicia-Volhynia and Novgorod. In addition to Kiev, several new centers of Russian political life developed in proportion to the number of principalities which increased as fathers divided their appanages among their children.
A Russian Mystic Faces the Age of Rationalism and Revolution: Thought and Activity of Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin
Authors: Lipski Alexander
Published: April 2006

It is generally accepted that even though rationalism was predominant during the eighteenth century, a significant mystical trend was simultaneously present. Thus it was not only the Age of Voltaire, Diderot, and Holbach, but also the Age of St. Martin, Eckartshausen and Madame Guyon. With increased Western influence on Russia, it was natural that Russia too would be affected by these contrary currents. The reforms of Peter the Great, animated by a utilitarian spirit, had brought about a secularization of Russian culture. Father Florovsky aptly summed up the state of mind of the Russian nobility as a result of the Petrine Revolution: “The consciousness of these new people had been extroverted to an extreme degree.” Some of the “new people,” indifferent to their previous Weltanschauung, Orthodoxy, adopted the philosophy of the Enlightenment, “Volter'ianstvo” (Voltairism). But “Volter'ianstvo” with its cult of reason and belief in a remote creator of the “world machine,“ did not permanently satisfy those with deeper religious longings. While conventional Orthodoxy, with its emphasis on external rites, could not fill the spiritual vacuum, Western mysticism, entering Russia chiefly through freemasonry, provided a satisfactory alternative to “Volter'ianstvo.”
The Early Church and the World
Authors: Grant Robert M.
Published: April 2006

Our text is taken from one of the valuable and important articles by Hans van Campenhausen now presented in English under the title Tradition and Life in the Church. These essays deal with aspects of church life from Easter to the early middle ages and reflect their author's learning and sober judgment on such diverse topics as early Christian aceticism, church order, military service, images, and priesthood (the problem of the character indelebilis). At the beginning of an interesting study of “Augustine and the Fall of Rome.”
Khomyakov's Critique of Western Christianity
Authors: Wieczynski Joseph L.
Published: April 2006

Although frequently overlooked by Western scholars of Church history, theology and ecumenism, Aleksei S. Khomyakov (1804–1860), one of Russia's most original thinkers and most prolific and diverse writers of the nineteenth century, merits attention as one whose religious writings not only occupy a prestigious place in the history of Orthodox thought but greatly influence Orthodox thinkers today. If the nineteenth century can be regarded as the Renaissance of the Russian Empire, Khomyakov is an example of its Renaissance men. A poet of no little talent, historian, essayist, dramatist, inventor, philosopher, theologian and founder of the Slavophile school that undertook to discover and define Russia's cultural and historical significance, Khomyakov was indeed a man of many parts. But his pioneering efforts to delineate the essence of Russian Orthodox Christianity from that of its Western counterparts remain perhaps most noteworthy in the eyes of his countrymen. His theological accomplishments have led some modern Orthodox writers to regard him as the most important figure in Orthdox thought since the Patristic age; some of his ardent admirers have, in fact, named him a Father of the Russian Orthodox Church. His work to divine the natural strengths of the Russian people by exploring the special character of their national faith not only elicited Russian national self-consciousness but helped to foster the sentiment of religious exclusiveness that did much to prepare the way for a comprehensive system of Russian nationalism. These achievements prompt one of his biographers to rank him with Peter the Great, Lomonosov and Pushkin as one of the four most important men in all Russian history.
American Catholic Historiography: A Post-Conciliar Evaluation
Authors: O'Brien David J.
Published: April 2006

Papers on historiography, reviewing and assessing recent literature in a particular field, have become commonplace and no one questions their value or utility. A report of this sort would be useful today on the subject of American Catholicism for, in the ten years since Henry J. Browne last surveyed the field, a number of high quality monographs have appeared. Nevertheless there is a second type of historiographical analysis more relevant today. Historiography can be seen as a category of intellectual history which relates historical works to the periods in which they were written and attempts to uncover their basic assumptions, revealing more immediately the limitations of the historical discipline, suggesting new questions to be asked, new avenues to be explored, new techniques, new metaphors, new models to be utilized. Bernard Weisberger's well known article, “The Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography,” for example, pointed out the influence of changing social conditions and intellectual fashions on historical views of the reconstruction period and suggested new questions and modes of interpretation arising quite self-consciously out of the needs and anxieties of the present.
Christian Approval of Epicureanism
Authors: Jungkuntz Richard P.
Published: April 2006

In view of the rancor and vehemence which characterize much of the patristic condemnation of Epicureanism, it seems remarkably incongruous that there should be in the Fathers any expressions of approval at all for the philosophy of the Garden. Nevertheless, such expressions do occur and with reference to all three divisions of Epicurus's system, canonic, physics, and ethics. No doubt the best explanation for this apparent inconsistency of attitude is suggested by Clement's definition of philosophy and the tolerance that it implies: “By philosophy I do not mean the Stoic nor the Platonic, or the Epicurean and Aristotelian, but everything that has been well said by each of the schools and that teaches righteousness along with science marked by reverence; this eclectic whole I call philosophy” (Strom., i. 7. 732CD).
Lutheran and Catholic Reunionists in the Age of Bismarck
Authors: Fleischer Manfred
Published: April 2006

Religious division has determined Germany's destiny. In the Middle Ages, it was the struggle between Emperor and Pope which doomed the Holy Roman Empire. During the Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War, it was Protestantism as well as the anti-Imperial diplomacy of the Pope and the French cardinals, which prevented the emergence of a national state and a centralized government. “From the split of the church dates all our misfortune,” complained in 1846 the Lutheran historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, editor of a major medieval source collection.
Christianization in the Fourth Century: The Example of Roman Women
Authors: Yarbrough Anne
Published: April 2006

At the beginning of the fourth century the Roman aristocracy was, for the most part, pagan in its religious attitude. By the end of that century the aristocracy had undergone what Peter Brown has described as a “sea change”: its pagan values had become redefined within the context of Christianity. This “drift into respectable Christianity” was the result of the process of socialization in the households of the Roman senatorial class over several generations. Brown suggests that the fourth-century Christianization of the aristocracy was the achievement of those upper-class Roman women who, by continuing to practice their Christian religion in the households of their pagan husbands, established the syncretistic milieu which would influence the religious attitudes of the next generation. But the apparent calm of Brown's anonymous culture-bearers is disturbed by a small group of women whose religious extremism delineates them sharply from their peers. Rejecting wholly the society into which they were born, they fled the cloying Roman atmosphere for the harsh air of the desert. The “respectable Christianity” that Rome was adopting offered them no satisfaction.
The View of Man Inherent in New Measures Revivalism
Authors: Sweet Leonard I.
Published: April 2006

It has been almost exiomatic to speak of Charles G. Finney as the religious spokesman for “the Age of Jackson,” and to see the optimistic view of man supposedly inherent in Finney's “new measures” revivalism as the religious equivalent of the Jacksonian faith in the worth and dignity of the common man. Finney's ablest interpreter, William G. McLoughlin, has contended that “Finney and Jackson, each in his own way, were striving for much the same kind of free, individualistic, and equalitarian society.” Expanding upon this contention, McLoughlin viewed the “‘revolutionary’ theology and revival measures” of Charles G. Finney as a congenial and compatible counterpart of the more general political, social, and intellectual revolution of Jacksonian America.
A Biographical Footnote to Newman‘s “Lead, Kindly Light”
Authors: Capps Donald
Published: April 2006

Newman's famous poem “Lead, Kindly Light” (originally titled “The Pillar of the Cloud”) was written on his return trip to England from Italy in 1833. He had been touring the Mediterranean countries for eight months, the last three of which were spent battling a near-fatal illness in Sicily. On recovering from this illness, he returned to England rejuvenated by his trip and eager for some pending ecclesiastical project. Immediately on his return to Oxford he became involved in the early organizational discussions from which the Oxford Movement evolved. In light of this intensified engagement in reform activities on his return to England, his poem “Lead, Kindly Light” has impressed his biographers as a revealing statement of his resolve to engage in those activities from which he had shrunk only months before. The lines “I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou shouldst lead me on” and “Pride ruled my will; remember not past years” seem especially to express this shift in resolve. The autobiographical thrust of the poem has therefore seemed quite unmistakable.1
Voluntaryism: An Irish Catholic Tradition
Authors: Carey Patrick
Published: April 2006

Oscar Handlin noted some years ago that most immigrants to the United States found the voluntary practices of American religious institutions “unfamilar and disturbing.” This was not the case with the Irish Catholic immigrants in this country. They had little difficulty adjusting to these practices in America since they had developed them in Ireland before coming to the United States. Thus, many American Irish Catholics viewed voluntaryism not as a uniquely Protestant or American experience; they saw it as part of their Irish Catholic tradition.
The Place in Papal History of the Roman Synod of 826
Authors: Noble Thomas F. X.
Published: April 2006

The ecciesiological problem posed by the authority of the pope in the Roman church is almost as old as the church itself. Likewise, the bases for the exercise of authority by the pope have long been a matter of dispute not only among churchmen but also among scholars. However, it can be stated with certainty that during the most critical years in papal history, the period from the mid-eleventh to the late fourteenth centuries, the papacy gained, and then lost, a considerable measure of leadership in western Europe. Most of the gains came as the popes affirmed what they interpreted to be their spiritual prerogatives—mention may be made, for example, of the priestly power to judge a penitent even if that penitent were a German emperor or a king of England—in a world which called its states regni Christianissimi and imperii Christianorum and assigned to its rulers similarly religious appellations.1 The losses resulted from an increasing secularization of the affairs of state and from a loss of the urgency once attendant upon the appeals and protestations of the papacy.2
Melanchthon's Role in the Reformation of the University of Tübingen
Authors: Harrison Richard L.
Published: April 2006

When Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, regained his ducal throne in May of 1534, he immediately took steps to institute the Reformation in Württmberg. Probably because of his own divided loyalties, he asked both Lutherans and Swiss-Reformed Protestants to come to Württemberg. From the outset, however, their mutual opposition, combined with determined Roman Catholic resistance in some areas, led to difficulties beyond Ulrich's expectations. The ducal commissioners for the Reformation in the southern half of Württemberg was Ambrosius Blarer, the reformer of Constance and a firm ally of both Martin Bucer and Zurich. Part of his responsibility was the University of Tübingen, a center of particularly strong Roman Catholic opposition to the Reformation. Blarer appealed to Duke Ulrich for assistance, asking for the Basel Greek scholar Simon Grynaeus, another Swiss partisan. Ulrich, however, took far more dramatic steps to reform the University of Tübingen. Under instructions from Ulrich, Chancellor Knoder and Erhard Schnepff, Blarer's counterpart in northern Württemberg, wrote to Philip Melanchthon, requesting that he return to his homeland to teach in the University of Tübingen, his alma mater.
Mennonites, Revivalism, Modernity—1683–1850
Authors: Schlabach Theron F.
Published: April 2006

In his Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter portrayed eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revivalism in America as part of a “revolt against modernity.” Others, however, have suggested the opposite. For instance, Timothy Smith in his Revivalism and Social Reform saw revivalism as fundamental to much nineteenth-century American benevolence, a progenitor of the very social gospel that Hofstadter associated with modernity. And Donald G. Mathews saw in the Second Great Awakening of 1780 to 1830 an “organizing process” that fostered institutional structuring, mobilization of people for action, and their nationalization—ingredients central to theories of modernization, although Mathews himself did not use the term.1
Country Churches, Clerical Inventories and the Carolingian Renaissance in Bavaria
Authors: Hammer Carl I.
Published: April 2006

In the early ninth century Bishops Gerbald of Liège and Haito of Basel described the qualities of the ideal country priest.1 Many of his virtues were negative. For example, he was to shun all questionable contacts with women; drunkenness was condemned, and he was to avoid taverns with their salacious amusements; he was not to ape the laity by bearing arms; commerce and usury were forbidden to him as were, of course, all simoniacal practices. More positively, he was admonished to be diligent in his sacramental functions, especially baptism and anointing, as well as celebration of the Mass, and to observe the canonical hours. Finally, he was to instruct his flock in the rudiments of the faith, the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer, and to exhort them to lead the Christian life. The desire to attain these modestly ambitious goals during the Carolingian period resulted in an increased concern for clerical qualifications. Manuscripts from St. Emmeram at Regensburg and Freising in Bavaria, for example, contain detailed lists of subjects for ecclesiastical examination,2 and the sorts of episcopal statutes or capitularies which Gerbald's and Haito's works represent seem to have been distributed widely throughout the Empire3.
Humanists, Puritans and the Spiritualized Household
Authors: Todd Margo
Published: April 2006

The stress of Elizabethan and early Stuart Puritans on the significance of the family as the fundamental spiritual unit of society has led historians to the apparent but perhaps simplistic conclusion that the origins of this doctrine are to be found in Protestant theology. The concomitants of the doctrine—an exaltation of the marriage relationship, a demand for household religious education and discipline and a slight but noteworthy elevation of the position of women within the household—are therefore attributed to Protestantism and particularly to Protestantism of “the hotter sort.” We are told, for example, that “the Reformation, by reducing the authority of the priest in society, simultaneously elevated the authority of lay heads of households” and that the stress on household religious instruction and discipline “was part of the protestant inheritance.”
Other Pilgrims in Leiden: Hugh Goodyear and the English Reformed Church
Authors: Sprunger Keith L.
Published: April 2006

When the citizens of seventeenth-century Leiden spoke of “the English church here,” they referred in most cases to the English Reformed Church, not to the historically-famous church of the Pilgrim Fathers. In the first decades of the seventeenth century, the Dutch city of Leiden included a sizable English and Scottish community, but one divided into two distinct religious factions, namely the Separatist Pilgrims and the non-separating Reformed Church. The enthusiasm to celebrate the deeds of the Mayflower Pilgrims may obscure Leiden's larger community of British strangers and sojourners; and not Leiden alone, for the English churches of Leiden were but two of more than two dozen such churches in early seventeenth-century Netherlands. John Robinson and his congregation arrived at Leiden in 1609, two years after the older English-Scottish community of the city had begun its own church life.
Indian Slaveholders and Presbyterian Missionaries, 1837–1861
Authors: McLoughlin William G.
Published: April 2006

Founded in 1837 to provide a denohinational foreign mission board for the Old School Presbyterians, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (PBFM) had from the outset a very different outlook toward mission work among slave-holding Indians than did its closest rival, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which served the New School Presbyterians and New England Congregationalists. The difference increased until 1859 when the latter organization, unable to reconcile its antislavery conviction with the determined proslavery position of the southern Indians, withdrew from that field. The PBFM, headquartered in New York City, thereupon took under its patronage most of those ABCFM missionaries who had been abandoned by their Boston-based board for refusing to expound and practice an antislavery position among the Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks.
Kairos and Cosmic Sympathy in the Church Historian Socrates Scholasticus
Authors: Chesnut Glenn F.
Published: April 2006

The concept of Fortune (Tychē) had lain at the very center of traditional pagan thought about history. Herodotus thought that the gods intervened in history to control the course of men's fortunes. His successor Thucydides completely rejected any notion of divine intervention in history, but nevertheless used the word tychē twenty-eight times in his speeches, and eleven times in his narrative sections. He did not imply anything which we today would call supernatural by his use of the word, simply unforeseen chance occurrences which disrupted human plans. Polybius' use of the concept of Fortune was particularly notorious, and a vast literature exists on the question of what this historian in fact meant by the term, and whether he thought of Fortune in different ways at different stages in his own intellectual development.
Daniel Neal and the ‘Puritan Revolution’
Authors: Okie Laird
Published: April 2006

Daniel Neal's The History of the Puritans was a standard eighteenth-century source for modern historians and, as will be shown, prefigured nineteenth-century Whig conceptions of Puritanism. Published in four volumes between 1732 and 1738, Neal's work went through at least twenty-one editions or reprints; the last one was done in 1863. New editions were printed in London, Bath, Dublin, New York, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the History was twice expanded by continuators in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. The History of the Puritans was not a narrowly religious or sectarian study: Neal strove to elucidate the Puritan contribution to the state. A Congregationalist minister, Neal produced the closest thing we have to an official Dissenting history of England, one which glorified the role of Puritanism in fostering English liberty. To study Neal's History is to gain insight into the historical and political ideology of early eighteenth-century Dissent.
Elie Benoist, Historian of the Edict of Nantes
Authors: Johnston Charles
Published: April 2006

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 resulted in the immediate exile of all ministers of the French Reformed churches not amenable to conversion, the illegal flight of several hundred thousand of their fellow-believers to neighboring Protestant lands, and the nominal conversion under duress of the rest of the Roman Catholic church. It also precipitated a literary polemic in which Protestant writers protested vigorously the injustice of revoking an “irrevocable” edict—and the cruel and oppressive measures preceding and accompanying it. Catholic counterparts asserted that, on the contrary, the Edict had been a temporary expedient to end civil strife, extorted forcibly by a naturally rebellious and turbulent minority.
Abbatial Elections at Saint Florent-de-Saumur (ca. 950–1118)
Authors: Ziezulewicz William
Published: April 2006

Research into the origins of bishops is not new, but it has taken on increasing importance within the last twenty years. In 1965 an important introductory study of the social origins of French bishops between the years 1150 and 1350 appeared under the auspices of the Institut de Droit Canonique de Strassbourg. Since then, other studies on the origins of the French episcopate have followed. Despite the fact that these studies possess intrinsic value as manifestations of interest in the family and social origins, the method employed in them raises questions. It is the scope of the studies—not so much in terms of chronology as in numbers of bishops considered—that is problematic. The large numbers of candidates considered render scrutiny of individual candidates and electoral processes impossible.
John Carroll and the Appeal to Evidence: A Pragmatic Defense of Principle
Authors: McShane Joseph M.
Published: April 2006

Throughout his career John Carroll supported the American religious settlement with surprising and consistent enthusiasm. Indeed, his enthusiasm for the religious liberty of the new republic seemed to be boundless. Thus he never tired of celebrating and advertising its benefits. He assured American Catholics that it was “a signal instance of [God's] mercy” and a product of the active intervention of Divine Providence and the Holy Spirit, who have “tutored the minds of men” in such a way that Catholics could now freely worship God according to the “dictates of conscience.” Flushed with pride, he even predicted that if America were wise enough to abide by the terms of this providential arrangement, the nation would become a beacon to the world, proving that “general and equal toleration…is the most effectual method to bring all denominations of Christians to an unity of faith.” Finally, confident that the extraordinary freedom accorded American Catholics would make the American church “the most flourishing portion of the church,” he urged European states and churches to follow America's inspired lead.
Body and Soul: The Record of Mormon Religious Philanthropy
Authors: May Dean L.
Published: April 2006

Some years ago, as part of his Rotary International commitments, Mormon General Authority Marion D. Hanks spent several holiday afternoons ringing the bell over a Salvation Army charity kettle on Main Street in Salt Lake City. Though he never was approached directly on the matter, rumors spread that other high church officials were not happy with his participating so publicly in the activities of another religious organization. The incident suggests that there are ambiguities in the principles and practice of philanthropy by the Latter-day Saint church which may not be fully understood. It is the purpose of this paper in an exploratory and suggestive way to unravel these ambiguities.