Scholars today are largely agreed that the Epistle to the Hebrews circulated independently for a lengthy period before gaining admission to the canon, which came about only through the fiction of Pauline authorship. The view that the Pauline corpus and Hebrews were known and used independently of one another prior to the latter's incorporation in the former is so widely accepted that one hesitates to question it. Yet, when the basis of this position is examined, it is a bit surprising to find how slender is the evidence on which the present consensus is based. Moreover, such evidence as there is does not point unequivocally to the conclusions now so commonly drawn, or is capable of other interpretations. Therefore, there may be grounds for a review and reappraisal of the evidence of the sources.

Paul Tillich and I arrived at Harvard Divinity School in the fall of 1955. It is the 50th anniversary of Tillich's inaugural year (1955–1956) as University Professor at Harvard University and my 50th anniversary as one of the first women students to attend the Harvard Divinity School. It is no accident that we came at the same time, for I chose to come to Harvard for my ministerial studies just so I could be part of its renewal, and study with professors such as Paul Tillich.

In the opening of Gos. Thom. 37, the followers of Jesus ask, “When will we see you?” Jesus answers, “When you strip without being ashamed and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then.…” At this point the manuscript is damaged and the published reading is problematic. An examination of photographs of the manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas at logion 37 supports a continuation of “then you will come to,” not “then you will see,” which is printed in the published versions of Guillaumont, Layton, and Meyer.

Several philosophers have observed an affinity between a role that an understanding of God has in Christian ethics and a role of an ideal observer in their own ethical theory. R. M. Hare has even gone so far as to assert that, “Since for many Christians God occupies the role of ‘ideal observer,’ the moral judgments which they make may be expected to coincide with those arrived at by the method of reasoning which I am advocating.” Now, Hare is correct in observing that God and an ideal observer have certain characteristics in common. But God is not simply an ideal observer. And some of the differences between God and an ideal observer may be as important as the similarities for the way in which Christians make moral judgments. It is therefore somewhat hasty of Hare to assume that his method of reasoning is identical to the method of reasoning appropriate in Christian ethics.

“The most ancient of the philosophers,” wrote Clement of Alexandria, “were not carried away to disputing and doubting, and much less are we who are attached to the really true philosophy, and on whom the Scripture enjoins examination and investigation…. The point proposed for inquiry and answer knocks at the door of truth…. To those who thus ask questions in the Scriptures is granted that at which they aim, the gift of God-given knowledge, by way of comprehension, through the true illumination of their intellectual search…. It becomes him who is at once a lover and a disciple of truth to be pacific even in investigation, advancing by intellectual demonstration, without love of self but with love of truth, to the knowledge of comprehension.”

“Since you have commanded me to write on the wisdom of philosophy, I shall cite to your Clemency the opinions of the sages, especially since this knowledge is absolutely necessary to the Church of God against the fury of Antichrist.”1 So wrote Roger Bacon to Clement IV. The pope had commanded Bacon to send writings of which Roger had spoken when Clement was still Cardinal Guy Folques.2 Clement's letter does not mention Antichrist, nor does it specify the subject matter of the aforementioned conversation. Still, since Bacon mentions Antichrist in what was likely a prefatory letter to either the Opus maius or Opus minus,3 the specter of Antichrist that lurks throughout Bacon's Opera and other works may not have come as a surprise. Yet, amid the clamor of Joachite apocalypticism that quickly coiled itself around the Franciscan Order in the latter half of the thirteenth century,4 Roger Bacon's own apocalyptic opinions remain underappreciated. This is not to say that Bacon's apocalypticism has gone unrecognized. Scholars have long agreed, as Brett Whalen has said recently, that Bacon “layered his writings with a sense of apocalyptic expectation.”5 Yet the historiographical tendency to separate Bacon's scientific writings from his religious beliefs and practices appears to have obscured Bacon's own radical ideas about the end of days.6

Despite the persistence of significant differences over the interpretation of humilitas in Luther's early works, an apparent consensus is afoot on both the nature of the problem which drove him to his Reformation theology and the nature of the discovery which forms the heart of this theology. As the picture now comes into focus in the secondary literature, the problem Luther apparently confronted so despairingly might be summarized as the viator-status of Christian life within the traditional medieval ordo salutis.

In the official formulation of Tillich's theology, the ontological polarity of dynamics and form, together with the other polarities, provides the basic symbolic material for the description of the divine life. In that life dynamics and form are balanced, with the tensions and disruptions characteristic of finite life wholly overcome. “Being comprises becoming and rest, becoming as an implication of dynamics and rest as an implication of form. If we say that God is being-itself, this includes both rest and becoming, both the static and the dynamic elements” (ST I 247). At the same time, however, we find that Tillich identifies God or being-itself with the power of being (ST I 110, 180, 2O5f., 230, 236f., 272; ST II 10f.). Although he does not and perhaps would not identify dynamics with the power of being, we find that they have extremely similar characteristics. In fact we are driven to ask why the element of dynamics within the divine life is not identified with the power of being, and to speculate on the consequences of such an identification. It is our contention that the internal logic of Tillich's analysis of this polarity is such that he cannot finally avoid identifying divine dynamics with the creative power of being. This, in turn, entails that God is a being rather than beyond being, himself an instance of the power of being pervasively inherent in all beings. In the first section we shall consider the polarity of dynamics and form as it functions in finite beings. Then we shall examine its role in the divine life and its relationship to the power of being.

I thank Margaret M. Mitchell for her thoughtful criticisms of my article on the interpretation of Paul's Epistle to Philemon. She has pointed out certain limitations of my arguments, both on the culpability of John Chrysostom as the earliest disseminator of the familiar interpretation that Onesimus is a slave and runaway, against which I have inveighed, and also in other areas where, in her parlance, my constructive arguments seem vulnerable. I am gratified that my admittedly unconventional reading has been engaged seriously and thoughtfully by a colleague well versed in both the Pauline corpus and patristic exegesis.

On 12 July 1969, Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, wrote “Prison, Where Is Thy Victory?,” a socialist critique of America’s penal system that focused on its inability to rehabilitate prisoners. Beyond its explicit rejection of American capitalism, his essay, with its very title, also invokes two passages from the Bible—Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:55) and the book of the prophet Hosea (Hos 13:14) —although Newton never elaborates on their allusive force. Intertextually bound to Newton’s title, these biblical passages function as a type of guiding lens through which “full-knowing readers” can engage Newton’s treatment of mass incarceration. This essay provides such an intertextual reading of “Prison” vis-à-vis 1 Cor 15 and Hos 13, with particular attention to the ways Newton’s biblical models simultaneously enrich and complicate interpretations of “Prison.”

This article investigates an uncharted facet of Martin Luther’s Hebrew translation method. It is one of the more fascinating aspects of his translation, which demonstrates both the complexity of how he translated Hebrew and the lasting impact of the Hebrew on his German, neither of which has been fully appreciated by scholars. This article demonstrates how he sometimes blended Hebrew and German idioms in his translation of the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the Minor Prophets. It further shows how he used this translation method to convey various linguistic features of the Hebrew language to his German audience. Finally, it shows how this has a number of important implications for Luther studies, Hebrew and German linguistics, and medieval and early modern history.

Contemporary philosopher David Benatar has advanced the self-evidently controversial claim that “coming into existence is always a harm.” Benatar’s argument turns on the basic asymmetry between pleasure and pain, an asymmetry he seeks to explain by the principle that those who never exist cannot be deprived. Benatar’s import is almost incredible: humans should cease to procreate immediately, thereby engendering the extinction of the species—a view known as “anti-natalism.” According to many of his readers, the ancient Hebrew sage Qoheleth expresses a pessimistic nihilism that runs as thick as Benatar’s. Prima facie grounding for this assertion is that Qoheleth, like Benatar, raises the issue of whether coming into existence may be a harm—and gives an affirmative answer. In two passages, Eccl 6:1–6 and 4:1–3, Qoheleth declares that an unborn hypothetical person is “better off” than their existent counterpart. Yet the meaning and implication of these words is far from obvious. Does Qoheleth imply that the non-exister’s state, and non-existence in general, is universally superior to existence? Or is he instead speaking exceptionally, of particular persons in rare circumstances? By examining the two “better”-statements in their literary context, I will argue that Qoheleth intends these examples as exceptions. He does not go so far as to make the supremely nihilistic claim that coming into existence is always, or even generally, a net harm; yet, he does concede that in certain cases, it can be. Beyond this, I will explore how the two thinkers’ divergent conclusions can be traced to a deeper difference of philosophical method. This question concerning non-existence opens a window to Qoheleth’s broader scheme of values and therefore serves as a surprisingly useful entry point by which to engage his philosophy. The paper utilizes the methodology Jaco Gericke has recently termed “philosophical criticism,” but specifically applied to Qoheleth.

The fragment which is described and published in the present article was bought in Cairo in February, 1931, for Yale University. It is known as P. Yale Inv. 415, and in the late Professor Gregory's list of New Testament manuscripts it is designated P49. It seems safe to assume that the fragment was copied somewhere in Egypt, but it cannot be assigned to any particular locality. Furthermore, nothing is known as to the place where it was found.

Aristides 15, 1–16, 1 has been recovered from the British Museum Papyrus 2486, and was published by H. J. M. Milne in the Journal of Theological Studies, October 1923, pp. 73–77. Some conclusions may be arrived at by comparing J. R. Harris's translation of the Syriac into Greek, as found in Text and Studies, vol. i, p. 25, with the Greek of the papyrus.

The following Armenian text of Athanasius's Letter to Epictetus is found in two manuscripts of the Mechitarists at Vienna:

A. Cod. 629, ff. 66a–73b, 19th century, notragir, copied from an 18th century archetype at Ispahan.

B. Cod. 648, ff. 102b–105b, paper, 14th century, bolorgir, without word division and badly worm-eaten.

The version is different from that published by Tajezi, and belongs to an Armenian corpus of Athanasian writings compiled early in the eighth century. I have added a collation with Ludwig's edition of the Greek, but have deliberately refrained from discussing at length its relation to other textual authorities.

The time may appear to many persons inopportune for the launching of a Journal of Theology. The tide of theological interest may seem to have ebbed so low as to leave no channel for such a venture; the profession of the ministry fails to win recruits; the queen of the sciences is deposed from her throne; critics are announcing the rout of the theological schools. The machinery of the churches, it is true, revolves with energy, but it does not seem to be geared into the wheels of the working world; and the deliberations of the theologians are frankly regarded by great numbers of people with indifference, if not with contempt. A distinguished railway president, on being informed that a promising youth had undertaken the study of theology, remarked, “Why does not so gifted a man devote himself to something that is real?”

A small gem in the possession of Mr. Henri Seyrig, Director of the French Archaeological Institute in Beyrouth, may be briefly described as follows:

Obverse. Inscription in five lines, μέγα τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου Σάραπις. Crescent moon under the last line.

Reverse. Inscription in six and a half lines,μεγάλη τύχη τῆς ἀνικήτον νεωτέρας. Star after the last letter.

Brown and dark green jasper. Upright oval, 18 × 13 mm.

The obverse inscription, without κυρίου, encircles a bust a Sarapis engraved on a jasper in the British Museum; see British Museum Quarterly, 11, 33-34. Several more examples, all omitting κυρίου, are cited by Peterson (Heis Theos, 208 f.). Almost all of them treat the name Σάραπις as indeclinable. Evidently the sentence is a common acclamation, which requires no further comment.

The inscription on the reverse, which has not been found elsewhere in just this form, needs closer examination.

Because the title of this article is ambiguous, I will begin by sharpening the issue of the justification of prayer. The point, in the first place, is to see how Calvin and Barth, as Reformed theologians, answer the question, “Why pray?” A second interest emerges in the discussion: prayer provides a case for illustrating the significant differences in the reasoning of Calvin and Barth on matters of ethics. In particular, the case of prayer indicates the way that Calvin's ruledeontology allows an important (albeit circumscribed) role for teleological appeals in the justification of prayer. Barth's act-deonotological theory consistently eschews such appeals. And this fact leads to a third interest of the paper: what are the strengths and weaknesses of the Reformed tradition for discussions of “spirituality” and ethics? If “spirituality” entails, as some would argue, a notion of “spiritual exercises” aimed at the cultivation of certain dispositions/virtues requisite to the vision of God, can Reformed theology have a “spirituality”? I argue that it can, but only if it is possible to preserve the teleological dimensions of Calvin's justification for acts such as prayer, which (as he would have it) is the “chief exercise of faith.”

A New era in Septuagint studies began in the autumn of 1891. In November of that year Hort drew up a scheme for the larger Cambridge edition: a few days later Lagarde, just before the operation from which he died on December 22, showed to his young pupil Alfred Rahlfs the works on which he was engaged, and explained his plans for their completion and publication. In these two schemes three scholars have found an arduous and self-sacrificing life-work. When A. E. Brooke and Norman McLean undertook the preparation of the Cambridge edition in 1895, they hoped that the Octateuch might be completed in five years: the final part of this first volume did not appear until 1917. But strenuous and untiring as their toil was through long years, it is now bearing rapid fruit. It is astonishing that the intricate editions of Samuel and Kings should have been published within the four years 1927–30, and Chronicles at the beginning of 1932.