Church History

In 1801, the United Kingdom was a semi-confessional State, and the national established Churches of England, Ireland and Scotland were vital to the constitution. They expressed the religious conscience of the State and served as guardians of the faith. Through their parish structures, they provided religious and moral instruction, and rituals for common living. This book explores the struggle to strengthen the influence of the national Churches in the first half of the nineteenth century. For many, the national Churches would help form the United Kingdom into a single Protestant nation-state, with shared beliefs, values and a sense of national mission. Between 1801 and 1825, the State invested heavily in the national Churches. But during the 1830s the growth of Catholic nationalism in Ireland and the emergence of liberalism in Britain thwarted the efforts to unify the nation around the established Churches. Within the national Churches themselves, moreover, voices began calling for independence from the State connection — leading to the Oxford Movement in England and the Disruption of the Church of Scotland.

John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman is widely known to have been devoted to reading the Church Fathers. By exploring which Fathers interested Newman most and when, using both published and archive material, this book demonstrates the influence of the various Alexandrian theologians in different periods of Newman's life. In each of these periods, the book draws a causal connection between the patristic theology Newman was reading and his own developing theology, revealing how key events in these periods changed the theologian's interpretation of the Fathers. The book argues that ultimately Newman tailored his reading of the Church Fathers to fit his own needs. Seemingly ‘trying on’ the ideas of different Fathers in turn, Newman began with those who predated the Council of Nicaea in the late 1820s, moving on to the post-Nicenes during his research into Christological controversies in the mid-1830s, and finding Athanasius the best fit in the 1840s. By the 1870s, his reading of Athanasius was tailored to Catholic tastes and, measuring Origen up with the interpretations made by Aquinas, Newman found him a better fit than he had in the 1840s. A careful comparison of Newman's translations of Athanasius from 1842–44 and 1881, not previously undertaken, demonstrates that in 1881 it is not so much Aquinas as the neo-Thomism of the teachers of Leo XIII whom he read back into Athanasius.

In the decades leading up to the Second Vatican Council, the movement of nouvelle théologie caused great controversy in the Catholic Church. The interpretation of the movement continues to be a matter of scholarly debate. This book argues that a return to mystery was the movement's deepest motivation. Countering the modern intellectualism of the neo-Thomist establishment, Jesuits from Lyons–Fourvière and Dominicans from Le Saulchoir turned to the Great Tradition for inspiration. There they found an approach to theology that did not suffer from the later neo-scholastic separation between nature and the supernatural. The nouvelle theologians were convinced that a ressourcement of the Church Fathers and of medieval theology would point the way to a sacramental reintegration of nature and the supernatural. This book begins by setting the historical context for nouvelle théologie with discussions of significant theologians and philosophers like Möhler, Blondel, Maréchal, and Rousselot. The exposition then moves to some of the most characteristic elements of the ressourcement movement: its reintegration of nature and the supernatural (de Lubac, Bouillard, Balthasar, and Chenu), its reintroduction of the spiritual interpretation of Scripture (de Lubac and Daniélou), its approach to Tradition as organically developing in history (Daniélou, Charlier, de Lubac, Congar), and its communion ecclesiology that regarded the Church as sacrament of Christ (de Lubac and Congar). Boersma argues that in each of these areas, the nouvelle theologians advocated a return to mystery by means of a sacramental ontology.

Written both for the non‐specialist and for the specialist seeking a survey of the subject and wishing to know something of a Church that was one of the main vitalizing forces in the East Roman Empire. It attempts: to trace the mediaeval history of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (c.600–1453)—a formative period for the Church—in terms of challenge and response; to outline the organization of the Byzantine Church, indicating its essential role in the imperial polity and in Christendom; and finally to suggest the way in which its members tried to achieve what was, and still is, the heart of Orthodoxy, i.e. the gradual theosis or deification of each individual Christian. The short introduction to the book is preceded by a list of rulers (Byzantine Emperors), popes, and patriarchs of Constantinople. Part I is the main part of the book, and discusses the landmarks in ecclesiastical affairs within the Empire as well as the creative influence exercised on the Slavs and the increasing contacts with westerners, particularly after 1204. It is arranged in eight chapters that address successive periods of development of the Church. Part II gives a brief account of the structure of the mediaeval Orthodox Church, its officials and organization, its monasticism, the development of the eucharist and the liturgical year, and the spirituality of laity, monks, and clergy.

This book is an exploration of the remarkable odyssey of Thomas Aquinas in the Orthodox Christian world. It centres on the surprisingly enthusiastic welcome which Aquinas received across the theological spectrum of the late Byzantine world. By contrast with the Byzantine era, modern Orthodox readings of Aquinas have been resoundingly negative, routinely presenting Aquinas as the archetype of a specifically Western form of theology against which the Orthodox East must set its face. This study rejects such hackneyed dichotomies, arguing instead for a properly catholic or universal construal of Orthodoxy — one in which Thomas might once again find a place. In its probing of the East–West dichotomy, this book also questions the widespread juxtaposition of Gregory Palamas and Thomas Aquinas as archetypes of opposing Greek and Latin theological traditions. Indeed, Palamas' own Byzantine scholastic inheritance and sympathy with Latin theology prepared the way for many Palamites to embrace Thomas. Close attention is also paid to those Orthodox theologians who struggled against union with Rome but remained devoted to Aquinas. The long period between the Fall of Constantinople and the Russian Revolution, conventionally written off as an era of sterility and malformation for Orthodox theology, is also viewed with a fresh perspective. Study of the reception of Thomas in this period reveals a theological sophistication and a generosity of vision that is rarely accounted for. The book radically re-thinks the history of Orthodox theology through the prism of the fascinating and largely untold story of Orthodox engagement with Aquinas.

This book examines the life, work, and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (ca. 362–420), an important witness of late antique Christianity and author of the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom and the Lausiac History. These compositions provide rich information concerning the downfall of John Chrysostom, the Origenist controversy, and many notable personalities such as John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, Jerome, Evagrius of Pontus, and Melania the Elder. The book examines Palladius' role as an advocate on behalf of John Chrysostom, and it employs late antique theories of judicial rhetoric and argumentation (issue or stasis theory), the significance of which is only now becoming apparent to late antique scholars, and elicits new insights from the Dialogue regarding the controversy that resulted in the death of John Chrysostom. The book also demonstrates that the Lausiac History promoted to the imperial court of Pulcheria the ascetic practices of his ascetic colleagues, whom Jerome had recently decried as Origenists. The book delineates Palladius' understanding of asceticism, Scripture, contemplation, prayer, human freedom, and theodicy to demonstrate a dependence upon the spirituality of his mentor Evagrius of Pontus, and upon the broader theological legacy of Origen. What emerges from these pages is the self‐portrait, rather than a polemicist's caricature, of an Origenist at the turn of the fifth‐century, who has profoundly influenced Christian history, hagiography, and piety for nearly 1,600 years.

Although the Victorians were awash in texts, the Bible was such a pervasive and dominant presence that they may fittingly be thought of as ‘a people of one book’. They habitually read the Bible, quoted it, adopted its phraseology as their own, thought in its categories, and viewed their own lives and experiences through a scriptural lens. This astonishingly deep, relentless, and resonant engagement with the Bible was true across the religious spectrum from Catholics to Unitarians and beyond. The Scripture-saturated culture of nineteenth-century England is displayed in this volume in a series of lively case studies of representative figures ranging from the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry to the liberal Anglican pioneer of nursing Florence Nightingale to the Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon to the Jewish author Grace Aguilar. Even the agnostic man of science T. H. Huxley and the atheist leaders Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were thoroughly and profoundly preoccupied with the Bible. Serving as a tour of the diversity and variety of nineteenth-century views, this volume presents the distinctive beliefs and practices of all the major Victorian religious and sceptical traditions from Anglo-Catholics to the Salvation Army to Spiritualism, while simultaneously drawing out their common, shared culture as a people of one book.

This book situates Acts’ story of Stephen’s death within the emerging discourse of early Christian martyrdom, challenging the historicity of this narrative and arguing for its significance in constructing a social group of Christians, distinct from “the Jews.” It analyzes Stephen as the perfect martyr in terms of rhetorical fittingness, noting key aspects of the story perfectly suited to the rhetorical aims of Luke-Acts to denigrate nonbelieving Jews, to affirm Roman imperial views on security, and to introduce “marcionite” identity claims concerning the distinctiveness of Christian mercy. It also analyzes the Christian tradition that Stephen was perfected through his dying forgiveness prayer. This distinctive prayer proved more radical than Gospel teaching on enemy love since the plea for forgiveness of undeserving persecutors, more so than the enemy love exhortation, posed a challenge to notions of cosmic justice. The prayer was frequently read intransitively, as idealizing the one who so prays, without having any effect on the prayer’s object, thereby functioning analogously to the Roman discourse of clemency. Those who read the prayer otherwise landed upon this radical challenge, which explains the prayer’s complicated reception history. The book also introduces related extracanonical narratives of the martyrdom of James in Hegesippus, Josephus, and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions to disrupt the perfect coherence and singularity of the canonical narrative and to evoke a more complex historical narrative of violence, solidarity, and resistance among Jews and Christians under empire.