Paul's use of military imagery in 2 Cor 10:3–6 deserves closer attention than it has received. Moffatt's translation vividly reflects the descriptions of ancient sieges which underlie Paul's statements:

I do live in the flesh, but I do not make war as the flesh does; the weapons of my warfare are not weapons of the flesh, but divinely strong to demolish fortresses-I demolish theories and any rampart thrown up to resist the knowledge of God, I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ, I am prepared to court-martial anyone who remains insubordinate, once your submission is complete.

In 1940 and 1944 F. P. Magoun published two articles that commented in detail on part of the pilgrim itinerary of a mid twelfth century Icelander who is identified in the text as “Abbot Nikulás.” The first of Magoun's articles deals with Nikulás’ stay in Rome; the second with his journey from Iceland to Rome, and for both parts of the itinerary Magoun provided, for the first time, a translation into English. Nikulás went on from Rome to Jerusalem before returning to Iceland, where he dictated the account of his travels, which survives in a fourteenth-century manuscript.

From 1906–13, Abbot Aelred Carlyle (1874–1955) enjoyed immense popularity as an Anglo-Catholic, and, according to some, could have easily become the spokesman for this section of the Anglican Church. Through perseverance and diplomacy, he singlehandedly founded the first Benedictine monastery in the Church of England since the Reformation. Unlike others who sought and failed to bring Roman Catholic practices into the Established Church, Abbot Carlyle enjoyed the explicit ecclesiastical sanction of an Archbishop of Canterbury for his work, and with this seal of approval he could dismiss critics and disbelievers. By 1910, Abbot Carlyle and his community on Caldey Island, South Wales, had become a paradise for High Churchmen. The Abbot's charismatic and hypnotic personality attracted many who nostalgically longed for the glories of a medieval and united Christendom. Armed with a High Church theory of Benedictinism, Caldey became an enclave of ritualism, the “naughty underworld” of the Edwardian Anglican Church. Caldey was, at its peak, an exemplar of pre-Reformation Roman Catholic monasticism. In 1913, the experiment was in ruins. Carlyle refused to yield to the reforming zeal of the Bishop of Oxford and his attempts to force Caldey to conform to the comprehension of the Anglican Church. The result was sensational: a group of monks renounced the church of their baptism and sought admission to the Church of Rome.

Theodicy, in its classical form, requires the adherent of a theistic faith to reconcile the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect God with the existence of evil. The so-called problem of evil has a venerable ancestry, extending beyond the Christian era, and was apparently first formulated by Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) in the form of a dilemma which perhaps receives its most succinct formulation in the words of David Hume:

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

Among the outstanding scholarly careers of the Jewish Middle Ages, none seems so dominated by polemic as that of Saadya Gaon (882–942). His intellectual environment was crowded with a bewildering array of rival religious groups and philosophical creeds engaged in vigorous debate. The chaotic variety and aggressiveness of intellectual life in Saadya's Baghdad are frequently illustrated by the account of some remarkable theological debating societies given by a contemporary Muslim visitor:

At the first meeting there were present not only people of various [Islamic] sects, but also unbelievers, Magians, materialists, atheists, Jews and Christians, in short, unbelievers of all kinds. Each group had its own leader, whose task it was to defend its views, and every time one of the leaders entered the room, his followers rose to their feet and remained standing until he took his seat. In the meanwhile, the hall had become overcrowded with people. One of the unbelievers rose and said to the assembly: we are meeting here for a discussion. Its conditions are known to all. You, Muslims, are not allowed to argue from your books and prophetic traditions since we deny both. Everybody, therefore, has to limit himself to rational arguments. The whole assembly applauded these words. So you can imagine … that after these words I decided to withdraw. They proposed to me that I should attend another meeting in a different hall, but I found the same calamity there.

The Ethiopic text of the second-century Apocalypse of Peter may be divided into two parts. The first section (chaps. 1–6) begins with aprediction by Jesus while on the Mount of Olives about the coming of false Christs and is evidently based on Matthew 24. Next, Jesus shows his disciples the future in the palm of his right hand, revealing events typical of Jewish eschatology: resurrection, judgment, and eschatological woes.

Morgan MS 775 is a volume of various items assembled on behalf of Sir John Astley (ob. 1486), well known during the middle years of the fifteenth century as a leading figure in the tournament field. It comprises various ordinances of chivalry, heralds' regulations and similar items of interest to a gentleman at arms. As commonly in such MSS, blank pages at quire-ends and elsewhere were utilized to copy down brief recipes and other minor memoranda.

One of the most arresting characters in medieval literature, appearing in the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus, is seo hell, an apparently female chthonic figure who engages in a memorable flyting with Satan and orders him out of “her” dwelling (ut of mýnre onwununge) Her vivid personification in a dramatically excellent scene suggests that her gender is more than grammatical, and invites comparison with the Old Norse underworld goddess Hel and the Frau Hölle of German folklore, to say nothing of underworld goddesses in other cultures.