How do we learn from religious traditions other than our own? How are we to assess what happens when that learning leads to affirmation and empathy, and thereafter affects how one lives one's life? We can wonder whether there is coherence in what we learn, what we think, how we feel, and how we choose to act. Optimism is not necessarily justified since it may be that due to the strictures of logic and religious commitment, religious reasoning and affective religious engagement diverge and even work at cross purposes. What is obviously and powerfully felt may not translate into explanations that observers, including theologians and scholars of religion, can understand or affirm. Conversely, the emotionally engaged practitioner who learns, feels, and acts in accord with what is learned across religious boundaries may not know what to say about this engagement, and often may not have mastered the appropriate technical language by which to explain and justify complex and extraordinary emotional engagements.

Scholars in all fields should hold themselves morally responsible for what they publish and teach. One would think that everyone would take this for granted, but Hilary Putnam, for one, has earnestly warned that we dare not. As he writes, “To-day, as we face the twenty-first century, our task is not to repeat the mistakes of the twentieth century.” He sounded this warning at the conclusion of his analysis of Jacques Derrida's philosophical works. Putnam regrets that philosophers reside among the all too numerous scholars whose publications and instruction aided and abetted the development of the “political tragedy” exemplified by the regimes of Hitler and Stalin. Derrida the philosopher counts among current scholars whose thinking raises the specter of repeating those mistakes of the twentieth century and their horrendous aftermath. Taking the renewal of philosophy as the theme for his Gifford Lectures of 1990, Putnam characterized the writings of Derrida as not only philosophically unsound, but also as dangerous and irresponsible.

Eldon J. Epp recently asserted that “the greater the ambiguity in the variant readings in a given variation unit, the more clearly we are able to grasp the concerns of the early church.” I agree with this principle and submit that the famous text-critical problem regarding the authenticity of Luke 22:43–44—the agony of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, which mentions the angel and the sweat “like drops of blood”—has not yet yielded its store of information about early Christianity, particularly in Alex-andria. This article has the modest purpose of presenting two technical notes on the complex question of the external evidence (from the manuscripts) bearing on Luke 22:43–44. These findings provide some of the groundwork for a reappraisal of the Lukan account of Jesus' prayer on the Mount of Olives. This article has the modest purpose of presenting two technical notes on the complex question of the external evidence in the manuscripts bearing on Luke 22:43–44.

In 1986, Michel van Esbroeck published a remarkable new Life of the Virgin that not only is among the most profound and eloquent Mariological writings of early Byzantium but also presents a useful compendium of early apocryphal traditions about Mary. Some of the Life's episodes are already well known from their original sources, such as the Protevangelium of James and the early dormition apocrypha, but many other extrabiblical traditions appearing in this Life of the Virgin are not otherwise attested in early Christian literature. This is true especially of the section that overlaps with the gospels, where the Life expands the canonical narratives in ways unprecedented (to my knowledge) in Christian apocryphal literature. By writing Mary into the story at key points and augmenting several of her more minor appearances, the Life portrays Mary as a central figure in her son's ministry and also as a leader of the nascent church. The result is a veritable “Gospel of Mary” in the section of the Life that emphasizes Mary's essential contributions to her son's earthly mission and her leadership of the apostles in the early Christian community: the Life gives a brief account of the same events recorded in the canonical gospels, but with the Virgin Mary brought to the fore at nearly every instance. The origins of these traditions are not entirely clear, and while they may be the work of the Life's author, it is equally possible that they reflect now lost apocryphal traditions about Mary that once circulated in late antiquity. In any case, the attention that this earliest Life of the Virgin lavishes on the activities of Mary and other women as important leaders in the formation of Christianity is rather striking and quite exceptional among the literature of Christian late antiquity. In its emphasis on the roles played by these women it represents a surprising ancient predecessor to much of the recent work in New Testament scholarship to recover the importance of women in the early Christian movement.

The scathing insults that fill texts by sixteenth-century Christian reformers can shock even a jaded modern reader. In the prefatory letter to the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), for example, Martin Luther begins by wishing for “grace and peace in Christ” before launching his attack on the “brainless and illiterate beast in papist form” and its “whole filthy pack of … asses,” and concludes by exhorting his reader to rise up against the Catholic hierarchy: “Continue courageously, noble sir; in this way the disgrace of the Bohemian name will be abolished, and the sludge of the harlot's lies and whoring shall again be taken up in her breast.” Or consider the nasty invectives by the English Lord Chancellor and future Catholic martyr, Thomas More, against not only Luther but also Matthew Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English. More calls these men the “devil's disciples”: Luther “a pimp, an apostate, a rustic, and a friar”; and Tyndale “a babbler, and a devil's ape.” Even Desiderius Erasmus, the erudite Catholic humanist, filled his writings with insults both satirical and blunt and proclaimed that theologians “are more stupid than any pig” (sue stupidiores). Fierce words commonly appear in the midst of religious controversies, and one may choose to skim past this hyperbolic outrage in search of the real message. Insulting rhetoric, however, does provide a sensitive barometer of religious concerns in the sixteenth century and yields unexpectedly complex answers to a simple question. What does negative speech accomplish?

This dissertation explores the collision of post-Tridentine Catholicism with traditional aboriginal religions through its intimate study of the single seventeenth century Innu convert, Pierre-Anthoine Pastedechouan.