Monopolar and dipolar are terms brought but comparatively recently into vogue in theological discussions by Charles Hartshorne, the American philosopher. The distinction intended by the two concepts has been made the basis for contrasting views of theism consequent upon man's rational reflection upon the divine Object in whom he finds satisfaction for his more fundamental emotional and practical needs and his primary worship of Him. According to certain modern philosophers of religion man has rightly interpreted the idea of God suggested by this satisfaction and this worship in theistic terms. The issue, however, concerns the correct statement of this implied theism. According to Hartshorne, historical theism has been altogether conditioned by Greek philosophy, and has become, as a result, definable exclusively according to its concepts. Classical theism, as it is called, has therefore its origin in the notions of Plato and Aristotle rather than in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. “Not the Gospels and the Old Testament,” declares Hartshorne, “but Greek philosophy was the decisive source for the Classical idea of divine perfection.”

Every diligent reader of ancient literature has encountered, sooner or later, evidences of belief in teleology, the doctrine of the deliberate adaptation of the phenomena of organic life (and even of those of the inorganic celestial system) to some definite end or purpose, as opposed, on the one hand, to the effects of blind chance, and, on the other, to those of a merely automatic survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit. Further, from reflection upon phenomena susceptible of teleological explanation, thinkers, both classical and oriental, alike ancient and modern, have not unnaturally passed to a belief that the existence of orderly or purposeful creations necessarily demands the existence of an ordering and purposing Creator.

A distinctive via media form of Christian faith and practice emerged within the structures of the Elizabethan Settlement of religion. Roman Catholic opponents of the Settlement struggled throughout the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) to undo it, while Protestant opponents persistently strove for further reform. The character of the Church of England and of what was in later years to be known as Anglicanism was largely shaped during this critical stage of its development in response to the external and internal pressures generated by these opposition parties.

Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) was a prominent Russian émigré historian, philosopher, Orthodox theologian, and ecumenist. He was also the first Orthodox theologian to teach at Harvard Divinity School (1957–1964). In the 1920s, Florovsky wrote and defended his dissertation on the leading nineteenth-century Russian public intellectual, Alexander Herzen (1812–1870). Until now, the full text of Florovsky's work had been considered lost. I recently found five documents containing a substantial portion of the dissertation in the Georges Florovsky Papers archive of the St Vladimir's Seminary Library (GFP SVS). This newly discovered material amounts to about one-half of the dissertation and contains some important clues for reconstructing the remaining half of the work. My article discusses: 1) the plan of the dissertation and the history of its composition; 2) Florovsky's defense of the dissertation in Prague in 1923, as summarized in Alexander Izgoev's report, preserved in the Georges Florovsky Papers at the Princeton University Library (GFP PUL); 3) Florovsky's preparation of the dissertation for publication; 4) the description of the newly discovered archival material; and 5) the reconstruction of the dissertation, as preserved in the redactions of 1928–1930. The dissertation is the only monographic study that Florovsky ever finished, his other book-length studies being surveys rather than monographs. The dissertation is also important for understanding the methodological presuppositions of Florovsky's magnum opus, The Ways of Russian Theology (1937).

This paper argues that the Renaissance philosopher Lorenzo Valla's De libero arbitrio (1439) appears to anticipate Luther's De servo arbitrio (1525) on several key issues. This thesis was defended in the 1940s by the well-known Renaissance scholar Charles Trinkaus, who expressed regret over the fact that modern interpreters of Valla's dialogue had “failed to see its connection with the Reformation.” As we shall see further on, however, Trinkaus's position does not seem to have had much impact on the subsequent literature.

A religion different from Islam, centring about the person and teaching of Ali, the adopted son of Muhammed, is steadily gaining ground in certain sections of the Turkish Empire. The believers are called Alevis both by themselves and by the Muslims. The name Kuzul Bash (u as in “cut”), which means “Red Head” and is often used as a term of reproach, is said to have originated at the battle of Siffin. Ali said, “Tie red upon your heads, so that ye slay not your own comrades in the thick of the battle.” In Persia the community is known by the name of Ali Ilāhi, and has commonly been regarded as a sect of Muhammedanism.

The object of this study is to investigate the true nature of this faith with as much accuracy as an oriental religion permits, and to consider the relations of the Alevi brotherhood with Islam and Christianity.

The perennial debate as to the nature of the church must always seem to those who are more interested in ideas than in institutions one of the irrelevancies with which theology is so often charged. It is not the church that matters, but religion.

Most analysts acknowledge that guilt is a pervasive element in modern society. Possessed of a strong sense of impending doom through nuclear warfare, crises of ecology or overpopulation, modern man is haunted by an overriding sense of fear and guilt, wondering what quality in himself caused such an imminence of death. But surely this sense of guilt is not a creation of the modern world. Indeed guilt in the form of sin is even more comprehensible in earlier periods of history, where the culture was religiously oriented and where the wrath of a personal God could be visited upon a population in the form of plague or famine because of the sins of the people. Theories of guilt as applied to history, however, are much too sparse. One reason for this deficiency is that in order to use the psycho-historical technique, historians would be removed from the factual world and would be forced to probe the labyrinthine internal world that is illogical, devious and intangible. A few brave souls have explored the uncharted realms of the unconscious in the study of religion, both past and present. Yet, strangely enough, no one has ever focused upon guilt as an impetus in perhaps the most important aspect of religion—at least of Christian religion—the role of witness, better known as martyrdom.

The more complete of modern lists of ancient Jewish Pseudepigrapha include the 4th and 7th Epistles of Heraclitus. The suggestion that these are of Jewish origin goes back to Jacob Bernays; it met with little favour among classical philologians, who preferred to see in these letters typically Cynic or Stoic documents, but historians of the pseudepigraphical literature of early Judaism, though they sometimes take note of this rival explanation, continue to list these works in their uncanonical canon.

Though Amos stands at the beginning of literary prophecy, the book that bears his name shows evidence of clear-cut, careful organization: (A) The great Judgment Speech against the nations (chapters 1 and 2); (B) Three addresses beginning with the phrase “Hear ye this word” (3: 1–15; 4: 1–13; 5: 1–6); (C) Three charges beginning with “Woe” (5: 7–17; 5: 18–27; 6: 1–14); (D) Five visions, four beginning with “Thus the Lord showed me” (7: 1, 4, 7; 8: 1), one with “I saw” (9: 1); and (E) An ending of consolation and hope (9: 11–15).

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.

It has commonly been taken for granted that Christianity must have had a great and beneficent influence upon the Roman Empire, within which it had its origin and whose official religion it finally became. This not unnatural assumption is, however, very difficult to substantiate. One may recognize that the religion of Christ was a great advance upon the paganism of antiquity, and that its final victory was a blessing to the world, and yet find it far from easy to show how and to what extent the Roman world was benefited by it. It is simple enough to point to individual lives within the Christian church that were purified and helped. But to prove that the common level of life within the Empire was raised, that society at large was bettered, that the general moral standard was elevated, that political principles and civil institutions and economic ideals were improved by its influence, is altogether another matter. It is not enough to content ourselves with the assumption that Christianity being in itself a good thing must have been good for the Roman world; it is incumbent upon us to show that it actually proved so.

Recent studies in religious mysticism from the standpoint of psychology have netted, inter alia, the following contributions: (1) The conceptualization of divine reality, apprehended through the peculiar spiritual experience of the mystic, is based, not upon some aboriginal idea of deity, but upon the humanization of some sacred aspect of nature. (2) Mystical intuition is not a unique form of experience, but simply a way of experiencing which involves more of consciousness than is ordinarily exercised in plain matter of fact attention to the familiar object of the world. (3) The objectivity of God aroused as a postulate in the mind under the pressure of an intensified interest in, or concentration upon, the causal meaning of holy aspirations, is but the projection of the idealized self before the retina of the actual self as though it were a disparate entity independent of any necessary connection with consciousness. (4) The ideational aspects of the mystical superself, to which is attributed extraneous being, are such as denote social rather than individual qualities of life. And further (5), this subjective creation appears more intensely real (vital) or dynamic in its manifestations than the normal self, owing of course to the heightened form of the feelings and emotions out of which it is generated. In fine, the nature of the “unchartered reality,” which makes itself felt in the excess of spiritual ecstasy, appears to overlap or transcend the natural bounds which limit human nature and to elicit potentialities of perfection.

As students in this summer's School of Theology you have attended a series of lectures on fluctuations in religious interest, on the frequent occurrence of religious declines followed soon by recoveries or regenerations both within and without the churches, on the frequent attempts to bring the prevalent religious doctrines into harmony with new tendencies in the intellectual world, on the constant struggle between conservatism and liberalism in existing churches and between idealism and materialism in society at large, on the effects of popular education and the modern spirit of inquiry on religious doctrines and organizations, on the changed views of thinking people concerning the nature of the world and of man, on the increase of knowledge as affecting religion, and on the new ideas of God. You have also listened to lectures on psychotherapy, a new development of an ancient tendency to mix religion with medicine, and on the theory of evolution, a modern scientific doctrine which within fifty years has profoundly modified the religious conceptions and expectations of many thinking people. You have heard, too, how the new ideas of democracy and social progress have modified and ought to modify not only the actual work done by the churches, but the whole conception of the function of churches.

Whoever reads the meditations of Marcus Aurelius must be impressed with the constant self-examination which the writer practised. Far on the northern boundaries of his empire, among the Quadi, on the banks of the Gran, he composed his first book, analyzing his own nature, gratefully recounting his obligations to his kin, his teachers, and his friends. All the succeeding books grow out of a similar self-examination, accompanied by self-directed exhortations to fidelity, constancy, and patience. The title which the work bears is indeed the only possible one—To Himself—for self is alike the subject and the object of the author's meditations. The emperor's simple humility, his high desire to fulfil in every way his duty, his patient humanity, shut out effectively all priggishness and offensive egotism from his pages. Marcus Aurelius was not alone in his concern for self. If we look into other ranks of life in the second century, we find the same interest. With all its peace, calm, and nobility, the age of the Antonines was an age of egoism, of valetudinarianism both of body and of soul. Aristides the rhetorician has left us an account of his long and impassioned search for health, which for him was a religious quest. Apuleius, in his anxiety for his soul, had himself initiated into all possible sacred mysteries, until he at last found rest in the holy brotherhood of the servants of Isis. The emperor, the rhetorician, and the superstitious mystic furnish three striking illustrations of the tendency of the time.