Within early modern Christianity the idea of church government always entailed a basic contradiction. How could a spiritual body, devoted to Christ's teachings of love and forgiveness, exercise coercive authority? Given the widely accepted need of any sixteenth- or seventeenth-century government to enforce religiously based codes of behavior, churches and church officials were inevitably involved with the secular authorities in detecting and judging offenders. Inasmuch as such judgment had to include the threat of punishment, church officials of any kind were open to the charge of violating their Christian mission, which by nature was to be persuasive and educative rather than punitive, and also their Christian character, which, even among more radical Protestant sects, was to be more otherworldly than that of the laity.

In modern scholarship, Pope Gregory I “the Great” (590–604) is often simultaneously considered the final scion of classical Rome and the first medieval pope. The letania septiformis, a procession organized into seven groups that Gregory instituted in 590 in the face of plague and disease (and performed only once thereafter in 603), has similarly been construed as the very moment when Antiquity died and the Middle Ages were born. However, his Roman contemporaries in the papal curia largely ignored Gregory and his purportedly epochal procession. In fact, memory of the procession languished in Italy until the late-eighth century when Paul the Deacon made it the center of his Life of Gregory. At Rome, remembrance of the procession lay dormant in the papal archives until John the Deacon dug it out in the late-ninth century. How then did the letania septiformis come to be judged so pivotal? Over the course of centuries, the letania septiformis was inventively re-elaborated in literature, liturgy, and legend as part of the re-fashioning of the memory of Gregory. Shorn of its context, the letania septiformis gained greater imaginative power, becoming the emblem of Gregory's pontificate, if not also of an historical era.

Although the Sancta Sanctorum preserved some of the most venerated relics in Rome and a miraculous image of Christ, until the early twentieth century strict rules limiting access to the space made a formal examination of these objects nearly impossible. The series of investigations and resulting publications of the Sancta Sanctorum and its treasure of reliquaries, relics, and icon that took place between 1903 and 1908 therefore demonstrate an important turning point in the Church's attitude toward the medieval chapel's sanctified space. The papal permission given to scholars such as Florian Jubaru, Hartmann Grisar, Philippe Lauer, and Josef Wilpert allowed, for the first time, a scientific examination and cataloging of the chapel's objects. The permission, however, also instigated an environment of intense academic competition, as noted especially in the publications of Grisar and Lauer. This article discusses the explorations of the Sancta Sanctorum's holy objects in the context of the highly charged political environment of early twentieth-century Rome. The article suggests that concerns over artistic patrimony, the financial stability of the Vatican, the relationship between the papacy and the Italian state, and shifting trends in scholarship played roles in the decision to open the “Holy of Holies” and reveal the contents of the treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum.

This article examines the close ties that developed between Desiderius Erasmus and the Polish kingdom and the implication of these relationships on our understanding of the religious landscape of late medieval and early modern Europe. Few regions embraced Erasmus as enthusiastically as Poland, and nowhere else did he have such a concentration of allies positioned at the highest levels of society including the king himself. More than any other figure from western Europe, Erasmus helped shape the intellectual and religious agenda of the Polish kingdom during this period. A close analysis of this relationship expands our understanding of Reformation Europe in a number of critical ways. It brings Poland, normally viewed peripherally in this period, into key debates and discussions of the Reformation. Erasmus's relationship with Poland also speaks to wider issues and processes of change in the Christian world. As confessional distinctions were becoming more pronounced in the 1520s and 1530s and hope for ecclesial reunion receded, Erasmus looked to Poland as a model for Christendom. He held up the kingdom as an example of how difference could be accommodated and compromise could be reached through wise leadership in church and state.

Ever since Jacob Burckhardt dismissed him as “the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity,” Eusebius has been an inviting target for students of the Constantinian era. At one time or another they have characterized him as a political propagandist, a good courtier, the shrewd and worldly adviser of the Emperor Constantine, the great publicist of the first Christian emperor, the first in a long succession of ecclesiastical politicians, the herald of Byzantinism, a political theologian, a political metaphysician, and a caesaropapist. It is obvious that these are not, in the main, neutral descriptions. Much traditional scholarship, sometimes with barely suppressed disdain, has regarded Eusebius as one who risked his orthodoxy and perhaps his character because of his zeal for the Constantinian establishment.

In recent years, the writings of Ambrose of Milan have enjoyed a revival of interest in historical and theological circles. The work of scholars like Christoph Markschies, Neil McLynn, Daniel Williams, and Marcia Colish has paved the way for a consideration of Ambrose's exegetical corpus, including his Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, as well. Readers both ancient and modern have generally remarked upon two of the commentary's features: Its derivative nature, particularly Ambrose's generous borrowings from other third- and fourth-century writers; and its pronounced anti-Jewish tenor. This article explores the latter aspect of Exp. ev. Luc. in light of the consistent rhetorical association of Jews and heretics, particularly so-called Arians, in Ambrose's commentary. Both groups are said to share a number of characteristics that Ambrose contrasts unfavorably with pro-Nicene Christianity. These include Jews' and heretics' “literary luxury” as opposed to pro-Nicene simplicity; their barrenness vis-á-vis pro-Nicene fruitfulness; and finally Jewish and heretical faithlessness in opposition to the Nicene faith that Ambrose constructs as the mark of true Christianity. Through a sustained examination of Ambrose's rhetoric in Exp. ev. Luc., this article seeks to uncover the framework Ambrose sought to create for his fourth-century audience by establishing and exploiting associations between Jews and heretics.

Three vernacular religious biographies were written by women about other women around the year 1300: Agnes of Harcourt's Francien Vie d'Isabelle de France (ca. 1283), Felipa of Porcelet's Provençal Vida de la benaurada sancta Doucelina (begun ca. 1297), and Marguerite of Oingt's Franco-Provençal Via seiti Biatrix virgina de Ornaciu (between 1303 and 1310). Although a limited number of similar texts had been composed in Latin dating back to the early Middle Ages, and a few twelfth-century women such as Clemence of Barking had refashioned existing Latin lives of early female martyr-saints into Anglo-Norman verse, the works of Agnes, Felipa, and Marguerite are the first extant vernacular biographies to have been written by European women about other contemporary women. Just as strikingly, after the three examples studied here, few if any analogous works appeared until the later fifteenth century, with most writing by women about other religious women in the intervening period instead being found in “Sister Books” and convent chronicles.

Sarah Osborn does not appear in the definitive biographical dictionary, Notable American Women. She is not in the pages of Sydney Ahlstrom's A Religious History of the American People, nor of any more recent standard American religious history text. She failed to catch the attention of the editors and authors of the recent Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience or Dictionary of Christianity in America. The great New Divinity pastor-theologian Samuel Hopkins in some measure owed his career to Sarah Osborn, but studies of him mention her only in passing or not at all. Scholars have learned of her through the work of Mary Beth Norton and in the documentary history, Women and Religion in America, but the Sarah Osborn most often mentioned in connection with early New England is the one accused as a witch at Salem who died in Boston prison 10 May 1692.

I should like to call attention once again to the old home truth that ideas, while they may not be completely independent of their environment, are still possessed of a heredity of their own that can and often does transform the material circumstances of man and affect the course of history. the course of history. I have chosen for purposes of illustration the covenant or federal theological conception, which worked a powerful influence in Scottish society during the early decades of the seventeenth century and which, in turn, was peculiarly influenced and reshaped by that society until it evolved into a symbol for the revolution which terminated in the overthrow of the monarchy of Charles I. In brief, it is my conviction that this rebellion against Charles and his government was primarily and mainly, though not solely, the result of a religious ferment that had been brewing for forty years.

There are various accounts of the origin of Christianity in Ethiopia, but most of them have no satisfactory historical basis. One tradition, found in the Royal Chronicles and other native works, claims that the Apostle Thomas was responsible for the introduction of Christianity into Ethiopia. Origen refers to the Apostle Matthew as a missionary to the Ethiopians, an association which Rufinus also gives. Gelasios of Cyzicus links the name of Bartholomew with Ethiopia. There is also the well-known account by Luke of the baptism by Philip of the Ethiopians,” around which a legend has developed. Candace, however, was a name used chiefly in Nubia and ancient Ethiopia, and not to be found among the queens of Ethiopia proper. There is actually no trustworthy record of Christianity in this country in the first century. These traditions have probably resulted, for the most part, from a confusion of terms. Early historians were not at all clear about the geographical limitations of Ethiopia and, in using the name, might have meant Nubia, or Egypt, or even India. In fact, Ethiopia was sometimes referred to as “India ulterior.” Even as late as the fifteenth century this confusion remained.

While most of the cases that led to the founding of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 1915 had to do with firings of professors who had championed controversial political views, the AAUP founders were also concerned about dismissals on religious grounds. One case especially, that of Lafayette College, is particularly revealing not only of the character of the religious issues involved but also of the attitudes toward religion of those who defined what became the standard twentieth-century American concepts of academic freedom. Reflections on the religious dimensions of the construction of academic freedom in America also have important implications for religiously oriented higher education and scholarship today.

John Orvis, Eliab W. Capron, Mary L. Cox, and Abraham Brooke were four Quakers who had much in common. Geographically they were widely separated: Orvis lived at Ferrisburg, Vermont; Capron at Walworth, New York; Cox near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; and Brooke in Clinton County, Ohio. All, however, were Hicksite Friends committed to abolition, the principles of nonresistance, and the repudiation of all coercive force. All selfconsciously patterned themselves on the early Friends by bearing witness to what they saw as truth, whether in Friends' meetinghouses or in the churches of the “world's people.” And all shared the same fate: disownment for “disunity.”

The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, which originated in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, has gone through many changes. After the exuberant, expansive early years, most Friends entered a period of quietism, in which they waited patiently for divine direction and largely withdrew from the society around them. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the majority of Friends on both sides of the Atlantic embraced the evangelical movement which had taken hold in both the Anglican church and the newer Methodist denomination. While some Quakers were caught up in such ultra-evangelical activities as revivals and the holiness movement, others turned away and accepted the new liberalism which appeared in Protestantism.

In the winter of 1771, the colonial assembly of Pennsylvania received a petition from voters in Lancaster County asking for the construction of a turnpike from the Susquehanna River to Philadelphia. Supporters of the project believed that the new road would spur economic development, and in support of this claim they cited developments in England. England's turnpikes, they argued, had made long-distance travel efficient and safe, had contributed to an expansion of commerce and manufacturing, and had increased the value of agricultural land. Shortly after these claims were published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, John Woolman, a Quaker reformer in Mount Holly, New Jersey, began hearing troubling stories about the English roads. Woolman was best known as an opponent of slavery, but in his writings and travels he had voiced concerns on an array of other economic issues, including exploitative labor relations generally, and the overwork and abuse of animals. In 1772, Woolman was planning to travel in England, and thus he had reason to pay attention to reports about the English roads.

One of the innovations of England's turnpike era was the “flying coach.” This was a carriage pulled by a team of six horses, and it achieved efficiency not so much by running fast as by starting early in the morning and going for long hours continuously. Woolman heard that flying coaches could cover one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and that they “often run over foot people in the dark.”

The School of St. Victor derived its name from the monastery, or rather priory, of St. Victor, situated near Paris. The monastery became a school when William of Champeaux, in 1108, gave up his chair of philosophy at the Cathedral school in Paris and retired there to devote his life to monastic seclusion. His reputation as a teacher was such that students followed him to the monastery and at their insistence he resumed his career as teacher, and continued to give lectures until he was promoted to the bishopric of Chalons-sur-Marne. The place, however, owes its fame as a center of philosophical studies not to William of Champeaux, but primarily to Hugh the founder of its system of mysticism and in a less degree to Richard the scholar, and to Adam the poet. Hugh of St. Victor, in the opinion of his contemporaries and of some of the most discriminating of modern writers, deserves to rank not only with the greatest of the philosophers and theologians of the twelfth century but of the entire Middle Ages. He was an indefatigable student, a man of broad culture, of independent judgment, and a scholar who influenced profoundly the course of philosophical and theological thought and speculation. Though there is considerable discussion as to his nationality it seems reasonably certain that he received his early education in the monastery of Hamersleben near Halberstadt. It was in order to become a student of William of Champeaux that he came to Paris and to the monastery of St. Victor. He commenced to teach in 1115, and from 1133 until his death in 1141 he was the head of the school. The reproach which was so frequently brought against Hugh that he was opposed to profane science is shown by Ueberweg-Baum-gartner to be utterly without foundation, and it is clearly proved that he was interested in all science, and that he was convinced that secular art and science are valuable auxiliaries in the promotion of theological knowledge. His writings embrace treatises on theology, philosophy and exegesis, together with several works dealing expressly with mysticism or contemplation. The best known of these works on the subject of mysticism are De Contemplatone et ejus Speciebus, De Meditando, De Amore Sponsi ad Sponsam, De Arca Noe Mystica, De Arca Noe Morali, De Vanitate Mundi, De Arrha Animae, De Laude Caritatis, De Modo Orandi.

By December, 1927, Church of England Prayer Book Revision was twenty-one years old. It had developed a mystique of its own. The hand of God was at once seen in its overthrow, and appeal to divine Providence does not seem far from some modern interpretations of the events of 1927-30. Anthony Howard thinks the episode reveals the Church of England “as the suffering servant of a secular state,” a curious view when the suffering Church's policy was so emphatically “‘not quite straight.’” The Liturgical Commission finds “the hand of Providence” in the failure of the bishops to carry their Book, or indeed to terminate the emergency created by this failure. Stephen Neill has another theory: that the compromises accepted in 1929-30 were, though illogical and irresolute, typical of the spirit of the nation—which had been engaged with consistency and tenacity in fierce controversy over the issue for several years before. The final proof of these appeals to national or divine wisdom is the assertion that the Book was a very poor Book anyway, though used very widely in the Church of England today.

For a man who had achieved deserved fame as a master of English allegory and had thereby become the subject of a host of biographies, Bunyan would be dismayed if he knew that, three hundred years after his initial if temporary release from the Bedford prison, the thing he had strived for most in his writings had been ignored—his attempt to clarify for his readers what he believed to be the central truths of the Christian faith. Historians have diligently sought for every piece of evidence available to fill in the unknown facts of Bunyan's life, while scholars of English literature continue to examine the style of writing of the unlettered Tinker. Yet no one has ever dealt satisfactorily with the thought of this man.

The Chicago school in American religious historiography, especially its two most distinguished representatives, W. W. Sweet and Sidney E. Mead, has emphasized the growth of religious liberty as a crucial factor in accounting for the characteristic shape of American Protestantism in the early nineteenth century. The effect of this interpretative hypothesis has been to emphasize the distinctiveness of American religious history while focusing attention so intensely upon American phenomena that evidence from European history which might have served to qualify that hypothesis has not yet received adequate attention.