Numerous competent studies have appeared on Christian apologetics—both Byzantine and Western Medieval—against Islam. A significant gap, however, remains. The Byzantines, of course, first encountered Islam because of the Arab conquest in the second and third quarters of the seventh century. Yet the earliest known Byzantine apologist against Islam is Saint John Damascene in the eighth century. But what initial impression did the Arab conquest and Islam make upon seventh-century Byzantine contemporaries? The seventh-century Byzantine sources on Byzantine reactions to the Arab conquest are scarce, inconveniently located, and insufficiently studied. There is no known individual Byzantine tract of the seventh century devoted specifically to the problem of Islam and/or the Arab conquest. But even though seventh-century sources are relatively rare—on any subject—by a close reading of those which are available one can glean some interesting and, in my opinion, important indications concerning Byzantine reactions to the Arab conquest. Obviously such a major historical event as the loss of Egypt, Palestine and Syria would greatly have impressed the Byzantines and would have caused them to ponder its significance.

That the seventh century Byzantine theologian Maximos the Confessor had an influence on the development of Western as well as Eastern theology is well known through the work of such scholars as Sherwood, Cappuyns, Dräseke, Gilson, and Altaner, for example, for the West, and of von Balthasar, von Ivanka, Grümel, Beck, Brilliantoff, Epifanovic, Hausherr, and Dalmais for the East. But although Maximos' works were apparently known throughout the entire period of Byzantine history, there remains a surprisingly great deal of research to be done to delineate the extent of his influence on specific Byzantine scholars and theologians such as Anastasius of the ninth century, Euthemius Zigabenos and Symeon the “New Theologian” of the eleventh, Nicetas Choniates in the twelfth, Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus and Pachymeres in the thirteenth, the Hesychasts Gregory Palamas and Nicholas Kabasilas and their opponents Nicephorus Gregoras and the Byzantine “Scholastic” John Cyparissiotes of the fourteenth, and, last of all, on the sixteenth century, post-Byzantine Bishop who lived in Venice, Maximos Margounios.

The juxtaposition of “justification” and “eschatology” in Luther's thought seems at first strikingly inappropriate. Justification is undoubtedly the central concern in Luther's theological effort. It was to Luther “the master and prince, the lord, the ruler and the judge over all kinds of doctrines; it preserves and governs all church doctrine and raises up our conscience before God. Without this article the world is utter death and darkness. No error is so insignificant, so clumsy, so outworn as not to be supremely pleasing to human reason and to seduce us if we are without the knowledge and the contemplation of this article.” Earlier he had written, “This article is the head and the cornerstone, which alone begets, nourishes, builds, serves and defends the church of God.

In 1660 not only did the institution of monarchy return to England but also the “Image of the King” was restored. The monarchy had to be defined again, but the image persisted and entered the mythology of English history. By decapitating Charles I, Parliament and the army created a myth which covered all the flaws in the king and revealed only the virtuous martyr. The Cult of the Royal Martyr was formed around this myth of the sanctified personality of Charles. Charles the Good was martyred to the factious spirit of the Puritans. He was a martyr for the church; and as such, instead of being a dead king, he became a living defender of the church and the monarchy. He was the patron saint of all who wished to criticize puritanism or to support the monarchy.

On a December day in 1676, Thomas Shepard, minister of the Church of Christ in Charlestown, passionately “discoursed of Reformation,” bemoaning the inability of the ministers and magistrates to unite against the disorderly mob of Quakers and Anabaptists. If the Quakers were suppressed, he argued, maybe the recalcitrant magistrates would “see reason to handle” the troublesome Anabaptists. His sympathic audience, Mr. Rowlandson, the Lancaster minister, Mr. Willard, pastor of the Old South Church, and Mr. Sewall, their host, listened quietly. It had not always been like this. Magistrates had once been reliable champions of the “Congregational Way.”

The history of the public school affords one significant means of discerning the pattern of evolving church-state relations in the United States. This is true because there have been frequent overlappings of the institutions of the church and the state in the public schools. However, the story deals with more than institutional encounter. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not refer to church and state; it speaks of “an establishment of religion“ and of “the free exercise thereof.” In recent years it has become quite clear that under this language the public schools are on shaky grounds constitutionally whenever they engage in any activity of a religious nature. But the public school has always been looked to as the primary institution for instilling what is common and public in national life and thought—the shared memories and aspirations, loyalties and beliefs. Hence the public school has been confronted with the difficult responsibility of passing on the common traditions and even instilling “a common faith” (Dewey), while not engaging in “an establishment of religion.”

In several articles and books published in recent years attempts have been made to examine the anti-Christian tradition in China and to seek for the causes of the failure of Christianity to substitute itself for the religious and philosophical traditions of the Chinese people. Reflective analyses of missionary policy and strategy, as well as of the Chinese milieu within which missionaries carried on their activities, have been made by theologians, historians and sociologists in order to determine what “went wrong.”

Our text is taken from one of the valuable and important articles by Hans van Campenhausen now presented in English under the title Tradition and Life in the Church. These essays deal with aspects of church life from Easter to the early middle ages and reflect their author's learning and sober judgment on such diverse topics as early Christian aceticism, church order, military service, images, and priesthood (the problem of the character indelebilis). At the beginning of an interesting study of “Augustine and the Fall of Rome.”

Even the most casual reader will be wrenched up short by the title of Giuseppe Luigi Dossetti's superb book, ll Simbolo [!] di Nicea e di Costantinopoli. How is it possible to speak as if Christendom's first two ecumenical councils produced the same creed? One automatically expects i simboli, but Dossetti insists that he means what he says, and, while he relies upon the works of Lebon, Kelly and Ritter for the primary exposition of the theory, he makes his critical edition of the texts and witnesses to the creeds of Nicea and Constantinople go far to support his title's contention.