We should like to have Josephus's history of the Jews from the great revolt to the thirteenth year of Domitian (Ant. 20.267), if he ever managed to write such a work. Since we do not have it, we are compelled to depend on a few scattered references in Josephus and other writers, and on our ingenuity, for our knowledge of Jewish political history after August 70. Nonetheless, the first few years of the period after 70 are slightly less obscure than the succeeding years because we possess, in book 7 of Josephus's Bellum Iudaicum, an account, albeit sketchy, of the aftermath of the revolt. It is therefore somewhat surprising that book 7, with the exception of the Masada episode (252–406), has been neglected by modern scholarship. Those scholars who have discussed the book at all have limited their comments to general statements on the book's poor style, unusual in Bell., or its date of composition. In fact, Bell. 7 is problematic throughout. In the first part of the book, until Titus's return to Rome (119), Josephus introduces extraneous material into its main account with exceptional crudeness.

In Frazer's Golden Bough the leading instance of the central figure whom he called “the dying god” was Adonis, famous from Greco-Roman literature and art but firmly localized in Semitic Phoenicia, Syria, and Cyprus. Since Frazer wrote, his other Near Eastern instances have been so transformed by increasing knowledge that it can be doubted whether they severally belong to the same type or indeed whether any general type exists. Adonis has hardly shared in these discoveries and debates, for research has emphasized instead the large developments which overtook his worship within the Greco-Roman world. Most of this research does not bear at all on the origins of Adonis, but scholars have sometimes been so bemused by the Greek elements as to forget or deny the Semitic. Everything has been called into question at different times. Such features of his myth as the boar and the myrrh tree and the incest are discounted as Greek embroidery; his peculiar festival, with mourning women and miniature gardens of lettuce, is traced to the preoccupations of Greek urban society; even the Semitic derivation derivation of his name is disputed. This Greek exclusivism cannot be sustained. All accounts of Adonis' life and lineage, and all analogies for his worship converge in the Levant — not in a single site or land, but in Phoenicia, coastal Syria and Cyprus together, lands which from the Late Bronze Age onward display a distinctive common culture, above all with respect to religion. This is where Adonis is at home, and where we may look for evidence to explain the figure of the dying god.

Most of the objects to be discussed in this paper belong to the class known as “Gnostic” amulets. That term has been so widely accepted that there is something to be said for retaining it; for even those who recognize its inaccuracy find it a convenient designation for things that cannot easily be brought under any other descriptive name.

A number of recent studies have drawn attention to how the study of religion and religious seeking were intertwined in European and American cultures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ann Taves, Leigh Schmidt and Hans Kippenberg, for example, have pointed to ways that particularly Protestant anxieties and dilemmas shaped scholarly thinking about categories such as experience and “mysticism.” Scholars have been less interested, however, in the other side of the exchange—less interested, in other words, in how scholarship has reshaped religious belief and practice. The first Americans to study religion scientifically, American psychologists of religion, serve as a particularly useful illustration of how scholarly methods influenced modern ways of believing, but there is still little historical scholarship on the key figures involved. There remain few critical works, for example, on the pioneer psychologists of religion—Edwin Starbuck (1866–1947), George Coe (1862–1951), James Bissett Pratt (1875–1944), and G. Stanley Hall (1844–1924)—and their ways of studying and attempting to reform religion. The notable exception is, of course, the literature on William James, which includes an enormous number of dissertations and monographs, including several important studies examining the Varieties of Religious Experience and James's other efforts to help fashion a science of religion. But even the scholarship on James does not consider how he and others used the sciences to reform religious belief and revitalize American culture. Given the fact that James identified himself as a psychologist, engaged a wide range of neurological, physiological and psychological thinkers in his work, and drew extensively on psychologists like George Coe and Edwin Starbuck, it is remarkable that these contexts have been overlooked. His debt to the psychologist Edwin Starbuck is particularly striking. In his Varieties, he uses or refers to Starbuck's empirical work twenty-six times, he draws from Starbuck's questionnaire data thirty-seven times, and he mentions Starbuck by name a total of forty-six times, which is roughly the equivalent of once in every six pages of text.

In this article, I discuss the Song 宋 Neo-Confucian Cheng Yi's 程頤 (1033–1107) interpretation of two related controversial passages in the Analects, the recorded sayings of Confucius. The term “neo-Confucianism” was coined by Western scholars to refer to the Confucianism of the period from the Song dynasty to the Ming 明 dynasty (and sometimes through the Qing 清 dynasty). Among Chinese scholars, neo-Confucianism is most commonly referred to as the Learning of Principle (li xue 理學). Although before Cheng Yi and his brother Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085) there were three other philosophers who are normally also regarded as neo-Confucians— Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077), Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073), and Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077)—we can justifiably regard the Cheng brothers as the real founders of neo-Confucianism in the sense that principle becomes the essential philosophical concept for the first time in their works. There is no consensus among scholars as to the relationship between the philosophies of these two brothers. The traditional view regards them as substantially different due to the two different schools of neo-Confucianism that developed from their teachings, the realistic school synthesized by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) from the teachings of Cheng Yi and the idealist school culminating in Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) from the teachings of ChengHao. I, however, tend to think that the philosophical positions of the two brothers are largely similar. Unfortunately, since Cheng Hao did not live as long as Cheng Yi, there is insufficient material to create a systematic picture of his view of the Analects passages with which this article will deal.

The history of Persia from its very beginning until today, from Cyrus the Great to Riza Khan Pehlevi — a history covering twenty-five centuries equally divided by the Arab conquest of the year 642 into a pre-Islamic and an Islamic period — has seen an uninterrupted and continuous association between Iran and Israel. Jews have been living on Iran's soil from the dawn of the first Persian empire on, as an inseparable part of Iran's national destiny and development. Jews were the eye-witnesses of all the historical events in Persia under every dynasty — the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids, the Omayyads and the Abbasids, the Seljuks, Mongols, Safavids, and Kajars, under every ruler, Caliph, Sultan, Il-Khan, Emir or Shah. Jews were the contemporaries of all the manifold religious movements and sects that were born on Persian soil, such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Shiʻa, Sufism, Bahaism; they were companions of the great classical poets, of a Firdūsī, Ḥāfiz, Saʻadī, Jāmī, and of all the other great Persian masters of art, literature and philosophy who made their everlasting contributions to world culture.

Dans un article paru il y a dix-neuf ans, j'ai tenté de prouver que le prétoire où Pilate condamna Jésus doit être cherché dans l'ancien palais d'Hérode, à la limite occidentale de l'antique Jérusalem, près de l'actuelle Porte de Jaffa, plutôt que dans la forteresse de l'Antonia, sise à l'angle nord-ouest de l'enceinte du Temple, aujourd'hui le Haram esh-Sherif. Ma démonstration s'appuyait sur les témoignages littéraires. Dans l'article simultané où il défendait la position contraire, mon vénéré maître le P. Vincent déclarait que “le meilleur, sinon l'unique moyen efficace” de combattre sa théorie serait de “démontrer avec quelque précision technique les erreurs dont (serait entachée son) interprétation des faits archéologiques.”

Lactantius, in his shrill polemical pamphlet De mortibus persecutorum, made the following observation while attacking his principal adversary, the emperor Galerius: “There was no mild punishment with him, not islands, not mines, not prisons; but fire, the cross, and wild beasts were daily and ready at hand.” More than a sign of the times, it is also a measure of his fury that Galerius could make exile, hard labor, and imprisonment seem to be lenient sentences. While one must resist succumbing immediately to credulity, one also must admit that even such hyperbole may have a kernel of truth in it. Lactantius probably assumed—as did many others—that the myriad adjustments to the complex relations between the church and the empire, which were in the process of being engineered by Constantine and his associates, would eliminate the need to inflict such punishments on Christians for religious reasons.

During the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, as the Principate slowly developed, certain qualities and attributes of the emperor tend to become personified or regarded as permanent elements in the character of the ruler: it may be Clementia, or Indulgentia, or Munificentia, it may be the Greek Philanthropia or Euergesia. In this way they tend to acquire a special meaning, or rather a complex of special meanings. Two such words are Providentia and Aeternitas, and the object of the present study is to review some of the evidence (it would be difficult to collect all) and elucidate the significance which the word Providentia or the word Aeternitas might convey to a citizen of the Empire in the second century.

For some two hundred years now, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) has been the subject of intense interest and heated debate among Christian theologians. As the author of a seminal work in the theory of religionFriedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (trans. Richard Crouter; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). as well as a treatise in Christian doctrine that ranks second to none for its originality, methodological self-consciousness, and systematic stringency,Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (trans. H. R. MacIntosh and J. S. Stewart; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928). In 1839 Johannes von Kuhn of the Catholic Tübingen school rightly observed that “among all the theologians of later and contemporary times, only Schleiermacher can be compared to [Thomas Aquinas] so far as scientific force and power are concerned.” Cited in Robert Stalder, Grundlinien der Theologie Schleiermachers: I. Zur Fundamentaltheologie (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz 53; Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1969) ix. Schleiermacher's significance in the history of modern theology is secure. By his liberal Protestant sympathizers he has been hailed as the “Reformer of theology,” the pioneer of a style of theologizing that is as peculiarly suited to the distinctively Protestant understanding of faith as it is capable of meeting the intellectual demands of the modern world.This honorific title was widespread in the second half of the nineteenth century and prior to the rise of dialectical theology in the twentieth. Representative is Wilhelm Herrmann, “Die Lage und Aufgabe der evangelischen Dogmatik in der Gegenwart” (1907), in ibid., Schriften zur Grundlegung der Theologie (ed. Peter Fischer-Appelt; 2 vols.; Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1966–1967) 2:16–20. To his equally numerous and vocal theological critics, Schleiermacher represents the enslavement of the Word of God to a pagan mysticism and speculative philosophy,Emil Brunner, Die Mystik und das Wort: Der Gegensatz zwischen moderner Religionsauffassung und christlichem Glauben dargestellt an der Theologie Schleiermachers (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1924). the subjectivistic collapse of Christian theology into anthropology,Karl Barth, introduction to Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (New York: Harper, 1957). or, more recently, the classic exemplar of a linguistically naïve and apologetically motivated “experientialist-expressivist” misunderstanding of the nature of religious doctrine.George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984). To friend and foe alike, however, he remains—for better or worse—the undisputed “father of modern theology.”In the English-speaking world, the work of B. A. Gerrish remains the best introduction to, and most sophisticated treatment of, Schleiermacher's theological achievement. See B. A. Gerrish, A Prince of the Church: Schleiermacher and the Beginnings of Modern Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984) and the essays devoted to Schleiermacher in Continuing the Reformation: Essays on Modern Religious Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), and Tradition and the Modern World: Reformed Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).

Gregory Nazianzen's doctrine of the Trinity has had a most unusual reception in modern times. Since the Council of Chalcedon in 451 Gregory has been honored with the title “the Theologian” for his definitive teaching on the Trinity in the late-fourth century. His influence was then strongly felt in the christological developments that continued through the eighth century, and his stature in Greek Christian tradition is comparable only to that of Augustine in the West, although his influence is felt there as well. Yet despite his acknowledged ecumenical significance, Gregory's theological achievement has often eluded modern patristic scholars and systematic theologians. Even the most recent wave of specialized work on Gregory and the current synoptic studies of patristic doctrine have tended to overlook major aspects of his work. One of the most acute points of confusion in current scholarship—and a matter of no little significance for Nicene theology—is Gregory's doctrine of divine causality and the monarchy of God the Father within the Trinity. The recent debate over this topic, I would suggest, reflects the extent to which Gregory's doctrine has yet to be assimilated in contemporary historical and systematic theology. In this article I will seek to clarify Gregory's doctrine of divine causality in light of its current reception and to give some indication of its wider significance.

Historians of ancient Christianity derive a certain satisfaction from the fact that Athanasius of Alexandria, the fervent architect of Nicene Christianity, should also be the first known ecclesiastical authority to “list precisely the twenty-seven books that eventually formed the generally accepted canon of the New Testament.” This intersection of canon and creed abets the notion that Christianity matured and solidified in the latter half of the fourth century; henceforth heresy and extracanonical reading would together constitute evidence of theological backsliding, or, worse, deliberate and malicious distortion of an agreed-upon truth. If Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century is frustratingly vague on what is and is not “canonical,” his reticence from within a period of dogmatic flux is understandable. In contrast, Athanasius toward the century's end is reassuringly firm, scripturally and doctrinally. From Easter of 367 onward, according to such a narrative, heresy and apocrypha would become coterminous, and a messy chapter of Christian history could be closed.

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?

One of the central aspects of Jewish theology, and Jewish mysticism in particular, is the conception of the nature of God's being and the appearance of the divine before humanity. No one view has dominated the spectrum of Jewish interpretations, since the biblical text is the only common frame for the wide variety of speculations. At issue is whether the one God depicted in the Hebrew Bible is manifest to humans directly or through the agency of a divine, semidivine, or created power. Even the nature of angelic figures in the Bible remains a matter of debate, both in its original context and through later interpretations. Does the angelic figure physically represent God's form, or is it a literary device that metaphorically describes God's presence? The same is true of divine anthropomorphism in the Bible. Do the descriptions of God's hands or feet imply that God possesses a definite shape similar to that of human bodies, or should these descriptions also be viewed metaphorically, reinforcing a similar view to that expressed about angelic figures: no physical characteristics can be attributed to anything heavenly or divine? Finally, how does this accord with the spatial manifestation of God in the tabernacle through his kavod or glory?

The Black church, historically, is the most significant institution in the Black community.

I. History and Development of the Black Church

A. There were differences of opinion with respect to whether slaves should be Christianized.

B. The Christian religion was accepted by the slaves because it offered hope and salvation.

C. Although at first religious instruction was given the slaves, this was later discontinued, then renewed after the Revolutionary War.

D. Three major denominations split over the question of slavery.

E. Independent churches were established by free Negroes in the North.

I first became acquainted with Richard Niebuhr's scholarship and thought in a German graduate seminar on Friedrich Schleiermacher and Ernst Troeltsch. Niebuhr's book, Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion, was a required text for the course and was regarded as the most significant study on Schleiermacher. My interest in Karl Rahner's theology had led me to go to Germany for doctoral studies. Once there, I discovered that much of what I had admired in Rahner had already been anticipated a century and a half earlier in Schleiermacher's work. Professor Niebuhr's study on Schleiermacher was the source of this insight. It influenced my decision later to translate into English Schleiermacher's On the Glaubenslehre: Two Letters to Dr. Lücke. My topic for this article, the theological retrieval of the category of religion, is obviously suggested by Niebuhr's study of Schleiermacher, which sought to overcome the dichotomies associated with the category of religion by the then-dominant Neo-orthodoxy. This topic is also a theme of Niebuhr's ensuing book, Experiential Religion, in which he elaborated his own constructive account of religion and experience. In addition, this topic appropriately relates to Niebuhr's activity at Harvard University, where he helped establish a program of studies in religion within the Committee on the Study of Religion.

The Immortality of Man was one of the fundamental creeds of the philosophical religion of Platonism that was in part adopted by the Christian church and that thus became one of the foundations of the Christian civilization of the Eastern and Western world. Ever since Paul in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians made resurrection the cornerstone of the Christian faith the Church has had a profound interest in the ancient philosophers who taught that man's soul is immortal and does not perish along with its mortal companion the body. Although this belief in the immortality of the soul, the ψυχή, is not the same as the Christian idea of man's resurrection in the flesh or in a transfigured body, both religious ideas have a natural affinity with each other; and it is therefore easy to understand that the Platonic belief in immortality was regarded as an anticipation of the Christian resurrection and helpful to the faithful who might wish to check their emotional expectations of a future life after death by rational reflection. Thus we find attempts to compare both things or to look for natural phenomena that could be interpreted as analogies of resurrection in nature.

For a long time, Lucien Febvre was obsessed by an arduous problem in cultural history: how could some brilliant intellectuals of the Renaissance have believed in witches? Influenced by the parallel that Lucien Lévy-Bruhl drew between child and primitive mentalities,Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, La mentalidad primitiva (Madrid: Akal, 1982). The original French edition was published in 1922. the French historian proposed an answer: in early modern times many beliefs could be upheld because a real Sense-of-the-Impossible did not exist. Febvre declared: “men in 1541 never said impossible.”Lucien Febvre, El problema de la incredulidad en el siglo XVI: La religión de Rabelais (México: Uthea, 1959) 382. Six years later he returned to the same issue, explicitly stating the dilemma in the title of an almost forgotten paper, “Sorcellerie, sottise ou révolution mentale?” How could Jean Bodin reconcile the publication of his Six Books of the Commonwealth with the ridiculous witchcraft stories included in his Dèmonomanie des Sorciers? In Febvre's view, Bodin could believe in the sabbat because until the middle of the seventeenth century there was no real Sense-of-the-Impossible in Western culture.Lucien Febvre, “Sorcellerie, sottise ou révolution mentale?” Annales 3 (1948) 15. See also Alexandre Koyré's 1949 article, “La aportación científica del Renacimiento,” reprinted in Estudios de historia del pensamiento científico (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1988) 43.