Mysticism is on the rise as a topic of cultural interestand as a part of the burgeoning interest in “spirituality” that has defined the cultural temperament of our times. This shift has had a predictable effect on the kinds of students enrolling in mainline Protestant seminaries, as well on as the interests they bring. All this would have surprised faculty members of an earlier generation. If mysticism was touched upon at all in the seminary curriculum of, say, 1980, it was a topic left to the historians; survey courses in systematic theology generally would not have ventured into such arcane territory. When referred to, sources categorized as mystical—for example, Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich—were relegated to a shaky status at the fringes of theology; the “real” theological contributors included such great scholastics as Anselm, Aquinas, and Bonaventure. The textbooks used during this period illustrate the point: Williston Walker's standard History of the Christian Church, which appeared in its first edition in 1918 and was in steady use in many theological schools, was significantly revised by a team of historians from Union Theological Seminary only for the fourth edition of 1985. Until that time, the narrative focus moved rather quickly from an exploration of Christian origins and the early fathers to the great Protestant reformers with a relatively cursory overview of the Middle Ages and almost no reference to medieval mystics.

As a concluding comment, I should like to return to the point raised by Ayres, that it is not enough simply to tell a better version of the fourth-century history in the expectation that modern theologians will finally get it straight! This is a valid point: if we want to have Christianity's fourth-century heritage taken seriously, we need to be in dialogue with modern writers. But, if there is to be a dialogue, both sides must be allowed to speak, and so we are also responsible for expounding the historical material on its own terms. As Heidegger put it, “[O]nly when we think through what has been thought will we be of any use for what must still be thought.” Perhaps studying the figures from a distant era will open up for us possibilities we would never have dreamed of within our own modern presuppositions, so that we can recognize differences even beyond those which lie within our own horizon or tradition. If I am right in affirming that there is a different style of doing theology prior to Augustine and after him in the East than that which we find in the theological and scholarly tradition in which Ayres's book stands, then we must ask whether we need to address the question of the legitimacy of each (and ponder how one might even answer that) or whether a plurality of approaches is possible without reducing one to the other. In a way, this would be a further step toward deconstructing monolithic notions of “Orthodoxy” in recognition of genuine and legitimate diversity within early Christianity and among modern Christians. Might it be better not to speak of Nicaea and its legacy, but of the legacies of Nicaea—or better—“Christ and him crucified” (2 Cor 2:2) and the ways in which Nicaea and its interpreters affirm the true divinity of this one?

The publication of this work in 1892 made de Régnon the most influential and yet least known of Catholic historians of doctrine.

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.

It is generally held by systematic theologians that Augustine more or less radically shifts the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity found in his Greek sources, and that, at least in part, this shift is a consequence of his failure fully to understand these sources. His own testimony of puzzlement provides some strong prima facie evidence in favor of such readings.

What is often termed the modern crisis of the Western self—the problems associated with the proto-Cartesian and proto-Kantian conceptions of the self—has given rise to attempts not only to confront the crisis constructively, but also to trace its origin. In one philosophical reading of the development of the crisis in the Western self, Augustine stands as one of its forefathers. In this reading, Augustine's anthropology is anchored firmly within Platonism and is viewed as a key precursor of the tradition leading to the modern, autonomous self of Descartes and Kant. Such a reading often focuses on Augustine's somewhat idiosyncratic self-analysis in Confessionum libri [Conf.] XIII, and points to his so-called psychological model of the Trinity found in De Trinitate [Trin.]. It is argued that his method of inward movement, which involves the utilization of the structures of individual consciousness as an analogy to the immanent Trinity, in conjunction with his analysis of the individual self in Conf., becomes a basic foundation for the modern private, autonomous self.