In his Advice to the Bride and Groom, Plutarch famously pronounces: “A married woman should therefore worship and recognize the gods whom her husband holds dear, and these alone. The door must be closed to strange cults and foreign superstitions. No god takes pleasure in cult performed furtively and in secret by a woman.”1 These comments represent a patriarchal ideology that the wife (along with the whole household) should follow the worship practices of the husband. It also suggests the possibility that this counsel was not always followed and that wives might bring their own gods into a marriage, attempting to maintain ritual practices in their honor, perhaps secretly.

In the late nineteenth century, the British writer Lewis Carroll published a nonsensical poem called The Hunting of the Snark in which an unlikely alliance hunts a fictional animal, which Carroll named the “snark.” Despite the alliance's intense search for the snark and their questions about how to describe and classify it (apparently, “a Boojum”), they do not find it. I want to suggest that any effort to locate “emotions” in the Hebrew Bible or the ancient Near East is comparable to hunting the snark. If we want our hunt to be successful, we will turn away from “the emotions” and toward something more like the psychological taxonomy that the emotions displaced in the late-modern period: namely, the taxonomy of “passions and affections.” “The emotions” are simply not to be found in the Hebrew Bible or in the historical contexts behind its emergence.

Most students of history or literature have had at some time the experience of encountering statements or generalizations made by a writer of an earlier generation and then finding them repeated without question by his successors working in the same field of inquiry. What is more, if dissentient voices have been raised, they have often been overlooked or disregarded. The prevailing estimate of Cassiodorus' Ecclesiastical History affords an excellent example of the manner in which erroneous opinions have been repeated ad nauseam from one generation to the next, although more than thirty years have passed since two scholars of the first rank, Bidez and Parmentier, provided at least some of the evidence needed for a more just evaluation of Cassiodorus' book. There are two essential questions which seem to call for fresh investigation. The first is concerned with the value and accuracy of the compilation, the second with its diffusion during the Middle Ages and its popularity as a work of reference.

Through publication in The Interpreter's Bible the theory is being given wide currency that Paul's collected letters were published originally in the form of two papyrus rolls, the first containing Ephesians and I and II Corinthians, the second comprising Romans, I and II Thessalonians, Galatians, Colossians-Philemon, and Philippians.

One of the most controverted questions in the study of the Epistle to the Hebrews is the nature of the eschatological perspective which it represents, and a focal point of the debate about this issue is the passage on the “rest” which awaits the addressees (4:1–11). The two ends of the spectrum of recent interpretation are represented by Theissen on the one hand, who sees Hebrews here as developing a “Gnostic” tradition paralleled by materials in Philo, and by Buchanan and Hofius on the other, who see Hebrews as working wholly within the framework of Jewish apocalyptic expectations. Parallels adduced by these interpreters are, to one degree or another, illuminating, but the concentration on these parallels may obscure the dynamics of Hebrews' argument, which should serve as the fundamental criterion by which to assess the work's eschatology. This brief paper will attempt to illuminate those dynamics.

In my essay, “The Genesis of St. Augustine's Idea of Original Sin,” published in this Review (1917, pp. 159–175), I advanced the theory that Augustine's doctrine of original sin and its transmission was not derived from the teaching of Ambrose, as Harnack holds, but rather from the commentary on the Epistle to the Romans by the unknown writer commonly referred to as Ambrosiaster. From this fourth-century writer Augustine borrowed his final formulation of the doctrine of the universal participation of mankind in the sin of Adam and his interpretation of the most discussed passages of the Epistle to the Romans, as well as the notions of man “servus culpae” and “servus gratiae.”

In composing his history of the monarchy the Chronicler incorporated material from the canonical Books of Samuel and Kings into his text. Although the Hebrew text of Chronicles in these parallel passages is not identical in every respect with the Hebrew text of Samuel and Kings, the correspondence of the two Hebrew texts is very close. Since the Greek translation of Samuel and Kings undoubtedly preceded that of Chronicles, the question arises whether the translator of Chronicles into Greek made use of the Greek translation of Samuel and Kings, and if so, in which text form or recension. The present investigation is confined to a comparative study of the synoptic parallels in the Greek texts of I Paraleipomena and I–II Reigns.

Among the votive inscriptions of magistrates in Greek cities there exist a number of dedications to the goddess Aphrodite. J. and L. Robert in Rev. ét. gr. 72 (1959), 229–230, draw attention to these singular pieces of evidence and explain them in reference to a characteristic of Aphrodite as a patroness of friendship and of harmony. The devotion of magistrates to the goddess of love, apart from all that we know about her in the life of antiquity, displays such an astonishing singularity that a further approach and investigation seem to be expedient.

1. The present state of the discussion.

Fifty years ago Bernhard Duhm, in the introduction of his book Israels Propheten, wrote: “Prophecy has its history. It is not a timeless revelation of a supernatural truth. Again, its task is not to ‘prophesy’ events of a distant future in order to allow a simple faith to enjoy the consistent agreement of promise and fulfillment. The prophets are God's messengers. They are charged to proclaim to their contemporaries firstly God's decisions and, furthermore, his demands. Whereas divination in various forms occurs among all nations, the prophets with whom we are dealing here are a distinct Israelite phenomenon.”

The Judeo-Christian dialogue — be it conducted in the fashion of ordinary human contact or within the discipline of strict scholarly procedure — suffers often from a disturbing pattern: the two partners not only emphasize the elements and features common to both of them, but find themselves confronted in polarity. This emphasis of polarity may prove convenient for the colloquists. Each can assume a polite vantage ground overlooking the position of the opposite religion, yet feel quite content in the assured knowledge of one's own religion because it now bears none of the qualities which distinguish the polar opposite.

Although evangelicalism is “spiritual” and empiricism is “natural,” the great principle of empiricism, that one must see for oneself and be in the presence of the thing one knows, applies as well to evangelical faith. Each of these two methodologies operates along a continuum that joins emotion to intellect; each joins externality to words through “ideas/ideals of sensation,” that is, through either perception or grace-in-perception or both. While empiricism refers to immediate contact with and direct impact from objects and subjects in time and place, evangelicalism entertains the notions that religious truth is concerned with experiential presuppositions and that experience need not be nonreligious. On the basis of the experiential common denominator between empiricism and evangelicalism, through the “both/and” logic of philosophical theology, I argue that John Wesley (1703–91), founder of British Methodism, and Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), leader of the American Great Awakening, theologize empiricism. They ground transcendentalism in the world, balance religious myths and religious morality with scientific reverence for fact and detail, and ally empirical assumptions with “disciplined” spirit. Above all, they share the simultaneously rational and sensationalist reliance on experience as the avenue to both natural and spiritual knowledge.

Prayer is the intercourse of the human spirit with a reality, or being, realized as greater-than-human and either conceived or treated as personal. This definition, it will be observed, leaves open the question whether the object of religion is always reflectively known to be personal; yet it regards prayer, the characteristic religious experience, as a personal and personifying consciousness, the worshipper's awareness of superhuman reality in vital connection with him, the worshipper. As William James has said, “The religious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact, and apart from ecclesiastical or theological complications has shown itself to consist, everywhere and at all its stages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related.” Or, to quote Jevons, “rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and altars exist” for the sake of “the prayer in which man's soul rises or seeks to rise to God.”

This paper considers the nature of prayer thus conceived as the expression of intercourse with God—or with the gods.

Since the discovery at Pompeii of specimens of the ROTAS-SATOR rebus scholarly investigation into the origin of the “magic square” has been bedevilled by a fundamental problem. Is it or is it not sheer chance that the letters of the square can be rearranged in two intersecting PATER NOSTER's with two A's and two O's remaining to be positioned at will?

In the year in which we commemorate the centennial of both the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society of Biblical Literature, it may be appropriate in the pages of the Harvard Theological Review to offer an appreciation of one of Harvard's own faculty, the only American scholar who was a leading theoretician in both the fields of biblical theology and biblical archaeology, the late G. E. Wright.

When in 1825 Bishop Charles Sumner published the text and his translation of Milton's long-lost theological study, the Christian Doctrine, the results were in a way disastrous for the reputation of the poet. Instead of being the great composer of the orthodox epic of Protestantism, Milton became in the eyes of the nineteenth century and even of our own day the heretic who advocated the belief in an unequal Trinity—a heresy originally associated with the fourth century church leader Arius. In the light especially of the fifth chapter of the Christian Doctrine, critics reread Paradise Lost and discovered that this same doctrine was implied in passages of the poem which had been accepted for a century and a half as entirely orthodox. The shock to critical and religious sensibilities was considerable; Milton's fame underwent an eclipse from which it perhaps has never really recovered. Although our own century may be less susceptible to disturbance from the presentation of heterodox views, much the same conception of Milton continues; all critics echo Masson's stern judgment that Milton's views of the nature of Christ “are expressly and emphatically those of high Arianism.”

During the middle decades of the thirteenth century, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church committed itself to a program of extensive missionizing. While converting the infidels had always been a professed ideal of the Church, rarely were significant resources allocated for a serious effort in that direction. Now, with western Christendom increasingly disillusioned with the prospect of military subjugation of Islam and increasingly confident over the rationality of its cause, ideological victory over its enemies seemed both preferable and achievable. Just as it had once called forth armies for the military crusade, now western Christendom organized its institutional and intellectual forces for a new confrontation. The Dominican and Franciscan orders became the shock troops in this battle: schools for training missionaries were organized; handbooks of argumentation were composed. The total effort was broad and impressive.

Although Schleiermacher's Christology is one of the most commented-upon doctrines of his dogmatic system, little scholarship exists on its relation to patristic Christology.One exception is an article by Richard Muller (“The Christological Problem as Addressed by Friedrich Schleiermacher,” in Perspectives on Christology [ed. M. Shuster and R. Muller; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991] 141–62) that shows how “the doctrinal intention behind Schleiermacher's way of affirming the divinity of Christ evidences common ground with the dogmatic intention” of Chalcedon (p. 142). Muller's main objective is to demonstrate that Schleiermacher's Christology does not violate what he calls “patristic orthodoxy.” He does not explore in detail how Schleiermacher's doctrine of Christ may draw (whether intentionally or not) on the Christologies of specific patristic figures or schools. George Hunsinger, in an article outlining Karl Barth's debt to Martin Luther, makes a very brief comparison between Schleiermacher's Christology and that of Theodore of Mopsuestia, labeling both as “spirit-oriented” because they hold that “Jesus points us to the Holy Spirit” and not vice versa. Thus, in Hunsinger's view, these Christologies are focused only formally on Christ, but substantively on the Holy Spirit. See “What Karl Barth Learned from Luther,” Lutheran Quarterly 13:2 (1999) 129. Given Schleiermacher's view of the church, as well as his conception of the dependence of the believer and the community upon Christ, Hunsinger's interpretation is not convincing. To many this gap in scholarship will seem understandable and even appropriate, given Schleiermacher's famous rejection of two-natures language in his major dogmatic work, Der christliche Glaube.Henceforth Gl. All references to passages from Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche in Zusammenhange dargestellt follow the English translation of the second German edition offered in The Christian Faith (ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928). Occasionally I supply in parentheses the German original, from the standard critical edition edited by Martin Redeker (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1960). In this essay, I shall identify parallels between Schleiermacher's Christology and some of the Christologies “behind” Chalcedon—those conflicting Christologies that Chalcedon attempted to mediate. By examining the way in which certain emphases of Cyril of Alexandria, on the one hand, and Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, on the other, are present in Schleiermacher's own doctrine of Christ (especially in Gl. §§93–99), I shall argue that Schleiermacher does not simply reject Chalcedon, but rather reconfigures its combination of apparently disjunct christological traditions in a new and creative way.

It was demonstrated elsewhere that after a visit to Rome in 1886–87 a small group of American Catholic bishops, later known as Americanists, came to hold a number of religious convictions which accounted for the reformatory activity of these men between that visit and the papal condemnation of Americanism in 1899. Briefly, a faith or myth was born alongside the standard Catholic orthodoxy of the period, one which affirmed God as rearranging the world, determining the decline of Europe and the emergence of the United States of America as a “New World,” destined, as in the puritan dream, to shed its influence around the world. The unique features of this American Catholic reinterpretation of the puritan myth were that it was housed within an international religious institution, and its object was not exactly the spread of political liberty or a purified Christianity, but a modernized or Americanized Catholicism.

During the last twenty or thirty years evidence has been rapidly accumulating to prove that the codex was in general use for books at a much earlier time than was formerly supposed. The definite testimony of Martial and others on the subject could be misinterpreted, discounted, or overlooked so long as there was no clear corroborating archaeological evidence. Papyrus and the roll had taken firm hold upon the classicistic imaginations of modern students of ancient literatures, especially after the nineteenth-century discoveries of papyri in Egypt, and no one dreamed that the New Testament documents could have been written originally on anything but papyrus sheets and papyrus rolls.

On May 8, 1847, The Literary World—the newly founded vehicle in New York City for the program of “nativist” literature—reviewed an exhibition at the National Academy. The magazine had just undergone an editorial revolution and the new management was endeavoring to tone down the strident nationalism of the first few issues; still, the exuberant patriotism of the reviewer could not be restrained, for he had just beheld two exciting landscapes of Staten Island painted by J. F. Cropsey.