bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Silence, Metaphor and the Communication of Religious Meaning Part I
Authors: Arthur Chris 
Published: July 2007

In his important study of The New Era in Religious Communication, Pierre Babin offers a startling juxtaposition of two very different thought- world. First, he introduces us to the practice, among some Indian tribes living in the Canadian wilderness, of plugging children’s nostrils and covering their eyes soon after birth, the better to attune them to the noises of the forest in which they will have to survive. Then, in stark contrast to these “hyperauditory” individuals, made alert to the subtlest natural sounds: the whisper of snow falling on the leafless branches of aspen and birch, the footfalls of deer in soft summer mud, the long indrawn breath of a hibernating bear and so on, Babin invites readers to consider a modem American adolescent reared in front of the brash sights and sounds of the TV screen. Such an individual will have logged some 20,000 hours of viewing by the age of sixteen. How, Babin asks, can these two individuals be supposed to have the same reference range or to have a similar idea of God and the transcendent? Is it possible that their sense of the holy could follow even remotely similar contours or be effectively explored or addressed by a single method of approach?To some extent, the hyperauditory Indian and the media-saturated American can be taken as representing two forms of consciousness and communication which Babin spends much of his book outlining. On the one hand there is the linear, analytic, and alphabetical mode.
Silence, Metaphor and the Communication of Religious Meaning Part II
Authors: Arthur Chris 
Published: July 2007

It would be fascinating to trace out in more detail the role of silence in modern thought. However, my aim here is necessarily limited to a selection of comments on silence rather than a comprehensive analysis of how this far from straightforward topic has been tackled.There are, of course, varieties of silence. In an interesting paper in which he looks at silence in the work of Rudolf Otto and Harold Pinter, Bernard Dauenhauer notes that silence “does not always manifest itself as ‘safe’ and ‘benign’. It can, for example, be terrifying, menacing or awesome. Silence can express many states of mind, both trivial and profound and in spiritual training a distinction is often made between the silence of mouth, mind and will. And Arthur Danto, in an essay on “Silence and the Tao” makes a distinction between reaching and being reduced to silence.” One way of looking at silence, though naturally it is not applicable to every manifestation of this phenomenon, is to view it as what happens when metaphor fails.If the methodology of Religious Studies is empathetic, is such empathy not likely to lead towards a situation where silence rather than words is what is encountered? And if this is indeed the case, how, if at all, can the discipline function in a situation where, apparently, metaphor cannot operate? Before attempting an answer, I think we need briefly to review something of the conceptual centrality which metaphor has claim to.
The Mysterious Affair at Mâcon: The Bishops and the Souls of Women
Authors: Nolan Michael 
Published: July 2007

The decree of the Council of Mâcon (585 AD) that women do not have a soul has the honoured place in liberal demonology given to historical events that never happened. It is a tale to treasure. As the eponymous wine is sipped at elegant tables, the misguided deeds of bishops can be recalled, and the only regret must be that no Synod of Brie or Council of Camembert offers occasion for further mirth. On these occasions, facts become such skimble-skamble stuff as puts men from their dreams.For the Council, of course, never decreed any such thing, if only for the persuasive reason that some of the bishops may themselves have been married. The penalties applied to a bishop who decrees that his wife does not have a soul are not recorded in canon law presumably as surpassing male imagination. The decrees do indeed contain stuff to fuel fires: the fifteenth requires laymen to doff their hat to a cleric the sixteenth forbids the widow of a sub-deacon to marry on pain of being confined to a convent. But neither the word ‘woman’ nor the word ‘soul’ occurs even once in the decrees.One does not hope ever to be free of the myth—but it may be interesting to trace its history, which is complex. Briefly: in the late seventeenth century some Dutch publications alleged that the Council had debated whether women are human; this was linked in nineteenth- century France with earlier satirical literature from Italy which claimed to ‘prove’ from the Bible that women do not have a soul, and the upshot was the allegation that the Council had issued a decree to this effect. The allegation was refuted by scholars but persisted as a myth which later reachcd England first, and then Ireland, where it flourishes today.
The Sound of the Analogia Ends Part I
Authors: Murphy Francesca 
Published: July 2007

Urs von Balthasar’s theology is attuned to a realism which becomes more attractive as Rahner’s engagement with Kantianism seems less pertinent. This realism ‘turns the rudder hard over’, as von Balthasar said of Barth; but how did he acquire it? Rowan Williams has suggested that von Balthasar’s seamanship originates partly with Heidegger. This article will place him within the German Catholic revival of the 1920s and 1930s. At this time, German Catholics delved into phenomenology, and into Newman’s theology. They appraised Aquinas’s thought differently than did English or French neo-Thomists.The Memoirs of the Hungarian philosopher Aurel Kolnai (1900-1973) supply some sidelights on von Balthasar’s writings. Both men attended the University of Vienna between 1922 and 1926. There von Balthasar is said to have “. . . heard the Plotinus lectures of Hans Eibl: there being was . . . interpreted as . . . the self-communicating good.” He will later say that the affinity between Thomas and Heidegger derives not from Aristotle, but from “. . . that Plotinus for whom being remains a supraconceptual mystery.. ,” Kolnai places Eibl in his time and place:
“. .. Hans Eibl, [was] a Sudeten German and violent nationalist, yet a Catholic with ... a prodigious erudition concerning St. Augustine and Patristic thought . . . During the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime, Eibl was editor of a crypto-Nazi rag ... Yet this man, essentially a ... rightminded Catholic Conservative, had little resemblance to the Nazi and none to the current... ‘Reich German’ ... type.”
Trinity and ‘the Feminine Other’
Authors: Soskice Janet Martin 
Published: July 2007

The notion of ‘the feminine Other’ is a vexed one for feminists. In the opening pages of The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir asks, ‘Are there women, really? Most assuredly the theory of the eternal feminine still has its adherents who will whisper in your ear: “Even in Russia women still are women”.’ For de Beauvoir the verbal symmetry of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine is merely a matter of linguistic form. In the real world of work and love—in life in general—man is the norm and woman is man’s ‘other’, thus her famous remark, ‘He is the Subject... she is the Other’, the ‘not man’ defined by men.Levinas may be a ‘recent read’ for many of us but already, writing in 1949, de Beauvoir quotes him; ‘Otherness’, says Levinas, ‘reaches its full flowering in the feminine, a term of the same rank as consciousness but of opposite meaning.’ T suppose’ de Beauvoir comments, ‘that Levinas does not forget that woman, too, is aware of her own consciousness. . . . But it is striking that he deliberately takes a man’s point of view. When he writes that “woman is mystery”, he implies that she is mystery for man. Thus his description, which is intended to be objective, is in fact an assertion of masculine privilege.’3 And one which, we can note with de Beauvoir, can stand in a long line of philosophical evocation of ‘the female’ and ‘the feminine’ from the pre-Socratics to Nietzsche and beyond.In the existentialist rubric of The Second Sex de Beauvoir sees the problem as this—a woman, like anyone else, is an autonomous freedom, yet she discovers herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as the ‘Other’. Woman, philosophically speaking, lacks her own subjectivity.
Israelites and Canaanites, Christians and Jews: Studies in Self‐Definition
Authors: Joyce Paul 
Published: July 2007

My concern is with the phenomenon of self-definition, and particularly with the self-definition of one group over against another group. I shall consider two test-cases, one ancient and the other modem, the selfdefinition of Ancient Israel in relation to the Canaanites as evidenced in the Hebrew Bible, and the self-definition of Christians in relation to Jews in the Christian experience of reading the Hebrew Bible as Old Testament.’Self and Other in Ancient IsraelI begin with the distinction between Israel and Canaan as presented in the Bible. This case illustrates how complex can be the mixture of reality and fantasy in the self-definition of a nation. Some words from the book of Deuteronomy:
‘You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree; you shall tear down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and bum their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name out of that place.’ (Deut. 12.2-3)Israel presented herself as being distinctive, a people set apart. This emphasis marks the biblical story from Genesis 12 onwards; in the call of Abram, Israel is effectively called to be a people, T will make of you a great nation’ (Gen. 12.2). The story of Jacob and Esau is all about Israelite identity over against others. Jacob represents Israel; through his craftiness, he triumphs over Esau, who represents the enemy Edom (See especially Genesis 27).
Identity and the Other: the Emergence of Christianity
Authors: Sawyer Deborah 
Published: July 2007

Two areas of interaction have contributed to the essential identity of Christianity from earliest to contemporary times. One relates to an external phenomenon, that is to say, Christianity as an entity encountering something it distinguishes from itself; and the other to an internal phenomenon, relating to an encounter from within which has allowed one group to be dominant The external encounter is between Christianity and Judaism, and the internal encounter is between male and female. Both are named by orthodox voices as the ‘Other’, both raise problems for Christianity today, although the solutions may be diametrically opposed.There has been growing attention given to anti-Judaism in earliest Christianity, and the contemporary implications of this have been an issue taken up by a number of scholars over die past twenty years. Furthermore, writers such as Charlotte Klein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and John Gager were also aware that the attitudes of previous generations of scholars reflected anti-Judaism in their work. Charlotte Klein, in particular, noted the pejorative use of phrases such as ‘Spatjudentum’, late Judaism’ which German scholars used to describe the Judaism of Jesus’ day. Today scholars of both Jewish studies and Christian origins would readily describe the same period as early Judaism, understanding that Judaism and Christianity both gained their essential identity during the first century c.e. What were those scholars of past generations telling us about their attitude to the Jewish people of their own day in their use of such a phrase? That Judaism was coming to an end with the advent of Christ? That Judaism should have ended with Christ? That Christianity succeeds Judaism?
The Action of God
Authors: Davies Brian 
Published: July 2007

I have a very simple point to make in what follows. For all I want to say is that God does nothing. I do not wish to deny that God brings or brought things about (e.g. that the universe continues to exist or that St Paul was converted). So my “God does nothing” has a special sense (it does not deny that action can be ascribed to God). But what I intend in saying it is, I think, something of great importance when it comes to thinking about God in a sensible way. To grasp the point I want to make will save one from following all sorts of false trails when it comes to reflection on divinity.Let’s start with what is going on when you or I act. Examples of human actions could include opening a door, wiping one’s nose, making a telephone call, baking a cake, and waving goodbye to a friend. But what is common to these examples, and to others which might be mentioned?There is at least one thing common. For they all involve people going through a process. I open a door by reaching for the door handle and exerting a continued pressure on it. I wipe my nose by transporting with my hand an object to my nose and moving it about. I bake a cake by walking around a kitchen and following a recipe. I wave good-bye to a friend by lifting my arm and going through a waving motion.
‘The Snakish Cunning of the Saints’: A Dialogue on Lying, Deception and Equivocation
Authors: Chappell T.D.J. 
Published: July 2007

‘St.Athanasius was rowing on a river when the persecutors came rowing in the opposite direction: “Where is the traitor Athanasius?” “Not far away,” the Saint gaily replied, and rowed past them unsuspected. St. Joan of Arc... used to put a cross on her letters to her commanders to show that the sentences bore the opposite of the usual French meaning. . . .She was accused of lying, but surely she had a good defence; words get their meaning by convention, and her commanders, to whom the letters were addressed, knew the convention and were not misled; if English soldiers, who had no business to read her letters or to be in her country at all, read them and were misled, that was not her affair. Such is the snakish cunning of the saints . . .’ (Peter Geach, The Virtues, p.114-115)Philip’s parents had gone out for the evening, and I had been given the job of keeping him amused. About twenty past eight he evidently had a better idea about how to amuse himself than homework, and said he was going out to see a video at a neighbour’s house. I wouldn’t have been dubious about this—if he hadn’t looked so shifty. ‘How long will you be?’ I asked. ‘Hour and a half,’ he replied. ‘So you’d be back ten minutes before your parents?’ ‘Er, yes,’ he grinned. ‘Would your parents let you go?’ Philip looked even shiftier.
Questioning the Virgin Birth
Authors: Kerr Fergus 
Published: July 2007

On a wet and windy evening last February over five hundred people gathered in a fine eighteenth century church in central Edinburgh to discuss the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Given that the population of the city is about 500,000, one need not exaggerate the significance of the event. The interior of the church, modelled on St Andrew’s in the Via Quirinale in Rome, and thus neither cruciform nor circular but elliptical, provides a good arena for discussion. It is the church to which the dissenting ministers and elders went in procession when they withdrew from the General Assembly in 1843, to constitute the Free Church of Scotland.The present controversy about the factual basis and importance of accepting the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is unlikely to split the Kirk, although the main Scottish newspapers were inundated with letters during the weeks after the Moderator of the Church of Scotland (the Right Reverend James Weatherhead) took the occasion of a Christmastide address to note that Scottish Presbyterians might believe in the doctrine of the Incarnation while being free to regard the stories in Scripture about the virginal conception of Jesus as purely ‘symbolic’.The sermon was given in St Giles Cathedral, another site of great symbolic significance in Scottish history. Only a single scallop capital survives from the original early twelfth century building, in what is now substantially a fourteenth century structure. The central tower received its famous crown spire sometime before 1500.
The Defective Male: What Aquinas Really Said
Authors: Nolan Michael 
Published: July 2007

In his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas discusses the biblical account of Creation and deals at length with the production of the body and soul of the First Man and the First Woman. The soul of each, being immaterial, was created by God. But whereas the human body is normally produced by parents from the substance of their own bodies, God himself produced both the body of Adam and the body of Eve. He produced the body of Adam from earth, the body of Eve from the body of Adam. The matter used may have been different, but Adam and Eve were equally God’s own handiwork and Eve was not a child of (and hence not a dependent of) Adam.He asks himself why God followed this (asexual) method of production and replies that it was to show that reproduction is a relatively peripheral activity in the life of the human being. The specific goal of human existence is to understand. He uses the word homo: the activities of mind are the central work of the human being qua human being, of woman therefore as of man.In accordance with medieval practice, he states objections to his own position and seeks to refute them. Perhaps God should not have made woman at the beginning of the world? The suggestion by a theologian that God should not have done something he actually did is obviously academic. But Aquinas was an academic, and academics of all centuries find that the discussion of highly theoretical issues assists them to clarify their understanding of the real world.
“Memory and Imagination in Augustine's Confessions”
Authors: Breyfogle Todd 
Published: July 2007

“Memory, like love, is an act of imagination, an abandonment and a possession.”Susan DoddHe who claims to have read all the works of Augustine, says Isidore of Seville, is a liar. Yet of all the works of the Augustinian corpus, few have received as much attention as the Confessions. One is tempted, thus, to paraphrase Isidore and say, He who claims to say something new about the Confessions is a liar. I have no desire to be called a liar, I have not read all the works of Augustine, nor do I claim to have absolutely new insights into Augustine’s great work. I do, however, wish to offer some provisional thoughts on a topic little discussed: Memory and Imagination in Augustine’s Confessions.Augustine’s theoretical treatment of memory, which has of course received extended treatment, occurs in book X of the Confessions. We cannot engage the vexing debate regarding the relationship between the first nine and final four books of the Confessions here. Suffice it to say that in writing the 13 books of the Confessions Augustine saw them as an integrated whole. It is not surprising, then, that after nine books of confessional remembrance of his life’s events and their meanings Augustine should turn to reflect on the faculty of memory itself.
The Bonfire of the Vanities and the Ecology of Preaching
Authors: White Allan 
Published: July 2007

Anybody who has been to Tuscany will have pleasant memories of the sunshine striking hilltop villages. But Florence, which is one of the two cities at the centre of this study is not a hilltop village, unlike Siena, Volterra, Cortona San Gimignano or Arezzo. What is important about Florence is the river Arno. The Arno answered all Florence’s need for water, it contributed to her hygiene, fish from the river helped to feed her whilst the river’s race turned the millwheels that ground the flour for the people’s bread. Equally important was the effect of the river on the Florentine economy. A plentiful supply of water was necessary for the washing, fulling and dying of cloth which was the basis of Florentine wealth. By the end of the thirteenth century the two pillars of Florentine political policy had been well-established: the pre-eminent cloth industry which promoted the establishment of branch houses of Florentine merchants all over Europe, and an alliance with the papacy which helped to promote the independence and security of the commune of the city.In the fifteenth century the city was dominated by an oligarchy of merchant families. The constitution was republican, but there was scope for only limited participation in government. Florence could in no way be called democratic. Government rested with the ottimati, the ‘best men’ of the community. This group itself was divided up into various parties built around family alliance systems. Over the years through marriage contracts, trading partnerships and, business ventures, patterns of association were forged which lent a certain stability to communal politics. By 1429, when Fra Angelico was about 42 years old, the leading figure in Florentine politics was Cosimo De Medici, a wealthy merchant and financier who had increased his fortune through acting as the papal banker. Cosimo’s economic activity had made him one of the richest men in Europe.
A New Interpretation of Fra Angelico
Authors: Fisher Anthony 
Published: July 2007

In part I, I examined William Hood’s recent attempt to understand Fra Angelico as a propagandist for the Observant reform in the Dominican Order. In his magisterial treatment of Fra Angelico at San Marco (Yale University Press, 1993) Professor Hood interprets each of the works against the background of its predecessors elsewhere in Dominican or other art, or elsewhere in Angelico’s own corpus. His particular concern is with the institutional tradition out of which Angelico spoke: the spaces, spirituality and devotional practices of the friars, which conditioned the subject matter and significance of the works. He persuasively argues that Angelico’s art is to be understood as an expression of a particular view of Dominican community and tradition. I proposed that Angelico’s art would be better understood if there had also been some examination of the doctrinal tradition out of which the painter preached: in particular its Scriptural and Thomistic Catholicism. Essential are some understanding of Angelico’s aesthetic (its Thomist view of beauty, light, reality, analogy, the senses ...), his understanding of the function of religious art (as worship, visualizing spiritual exercise, source of instruction, tool of preaching), and his theology of the Incarnation and the Passion as the way to the beatific vision for the various audiences to whom he preached. Admittedly very little has been written to date on Angelico’s theology. Hood’s book is a great jumping off point for such an endeavour.On the Feast of the Epiphany 1443 the high altar of San Marco was consecrated in the presence of the pope and all the cardinals, patriarchs and bishops present at the Council of Florence.