It is often claimed that the story of the Abitinian martyrs provides evidence relevant to the outbreak of the Donatist schism. However, this interpretation of the text rests upon a number of false assumptions regarding its manuscript tradition and the celebrity of the martyrs it commemorates. Rather than being written in the early fourth century, the text in its extant form was probably written after the Council of Carthage in 411, and perhaps in response to it. It thus does not cast light upon the outbreak of the schism, but rather on the way in which the events of the early fourth century were polemically reinterpreted at a much later date.

Offering a new interpretation of the sermon ‘De ordinatione beati Gregorii anglorum apostoli’, a text preserved in Eadmer's ‘personal manuscript’ (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 371), this article argues that the cult of St Gregory the Great was promoted by Archbishop Lanfranc (1070–89) and Archbishop Anselm (1093–1109) in order to undermine the pretensions to apostolic rank of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. It draws attention to the existence of a hitherto unrecognised but major conflict over apostolic authority that took place in England after the Norman Conquest; a conflict that involved the king as well as Canterbury's most important churchmen. In so doing, this essay contributes, more generally, to our understanding of the roles that the cult of saints and its rhetorical structures played in battles over status and rank order.

In her influential article, ‘The two John Knoxes: England, Scotland and the 1558 tracts’, Jane Dawson proposes a new understanding of John Knox's (1558) doctrine of resistance. Knox, she contends, argues for political insurrection in England but only clerical reform in Scotland on the basis of a theological distinction: England is a covenanted nation, while Scotland is not. Yet a close reading of Knox's Appellation seems to suggest that he considers both England and Scotland to be covenanted nations at this time. As such the difference in Knox's advice regarding rebellion seems best explained by his distinction between various categories of covenant obligation, as well as among different political spheres and pragmatic conditions in which these obligations obtain.

In autumn 1944, the British Ministry of Information sent one of its officials, the Revd Herbert M. Waddams, to Sweden and Finland. His task was to collect information about opinions in church circles in both countries and to try to persuade them to a more favourable attitude towards the Allies, especially the Soviet Union. Sweden had remained neutral throughout the war and Finland had just made peace with the Allies. Waddams's memoranda on the trip reveal how the assessment of the international situation by a representative of a British government ministry differed from that of churchmen in Sweden and Finland.

Outrageous women, outrageous god. Women in the first two generations of Christianity. By Ross Saunders. Pp. x+182. Alexandria, NSW: E. J. Dwyer, 1996. $10 (paper). 0 85574 278 X

Montanism. Gender, authority and the new prophecy. By Christine Trevett. Pp. xiv+299. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. £37.50. 0 521 41182 3

God's Englishwomen. Seventeenth-century radical sectarian writing and feminist criticism. By Hilary Hinds. Pp. vii+264. Manchester–New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. £35 (cloth), £14.99 (paper). 0 7190 4886 9; 0 7190 4887 7

Women and religion in medieval and Renaissance Italy. Edited by Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, translated by Margery J. Schneider. (Women in Culture and Society.) Pp. x+334 incl. 11 figs. Chicago–London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. (first publ. as Mistiche e devote nell'Italia tardomedievale, Liguori Editore, 1992). £39.95 ($50) (cloth), £13.50 ($16.95) (paper). 0 226 06637 1; 0 226 06639 8

The virgin and the bride. Idealized womanhood in late antiquity. By Kate Cooper. Pp. xii+180. Cambridge, Mass.–London: Harvard University Press, 1996. £24.95. 0 674 93949 2

St Augustine on marriage and sexuality. Edited by Elizabeth A. Clark. (Selections from the Fathers of the Church, 1.) Pp. xi+112. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. £23.95 (cloth), £11.50 (paper). 0 8132 0866 1; 0 8132 0867 X

Gender, sex and subordination in England, 1500–1800. By Anthony Fletcher. Pp. xxii+442+40 plates. New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 1995. £25. 0 300 06531 0

Empress and handmaid. On nature and gender in the cult of the Virgin Mary. By Sarah Jane Boss. Pp. x+253+9 plates. London–New York: Cassell, 2000. £45 (cloth), £19.99 (paper). 0 304 33926 1; 0 304 70781 3

‘You have stept out of your place’. A history of women and religion in America. By Susan Hill Lindley. Pp. xi+500. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996. $35. 0 664 22081 9

The position of women within Christianity might well be described as paradoxical. The range of practices in the early Church with regard to women, leadership and ministry indicates that this was the case from the beginning, and the legacy of conflicting biblical texts about the role of women – Galatians. iii. 28 versus 1 Corinthians xi. 3 and Ephesians v. 22–3 for example – has, perhaps, made that paradoxical position inevitable ever since. It might be argued, then, that the history of Christianity illustrates the working out of that paradox, as women have sought to rediscover or remain true to what they have seen as a strand of radically egalitarian origins for Christianity which has been subsumed by the dominant patriarchal structure and ideology of the Church. The tension of this paradox has been played out when women have struggled to act upon that thread of egalitarianism and yet remain within Churches that have been (and, it could be argued, remain) ‘patriarchally’ structured.