This paper revisits the question of the influence of Jewish biblical exegesis on Christian scholars in twelfth-century France, by focusing in particular on Abelard's response to a question of Heloise in her Problemata about questions raised by 1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6) concerning ‘the faithful priest’ prophesied as Eli's successor, the meaning of ‘will walk before my anointed’ and the nature of the offering his household should make. Abelard's discussion of the views of an unnamed Jewish scholar illustrates a consistent movement evident in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries for certain Christian exegetes to approach Jewish scholars to resolve problems posed by the text of the Old Testament. While the passage in 1 Samuel was traditionally interpreted in a Christocentric fashion, Heloise implicitly supports a more historical reading of the text in the question she puts to Abelard. The Jewish scholar's interpretation reported by Abelard is very close to that of Rashi's twelfth-century disciples.

This article assesses the strikingly different rhetoric used in pamphlets published in 1530 by the Strasbourg Spiritualists Christian Entfelder and Johannes Bünderlin. Whilst these texts are most commonly read in light of their shared critique of Anabaptism, this article argues that Bünderlin's work also reveals his rejection of Entfelder's Spiritualist alternative, characterised by the term ‘standing still’ (Stillstand). By exploring these pamphlets, and other texts associated with the Strasbourg Anabaptist-Spiritualist debates, this article seeks to demonstrate the importance not only of fully contextualising such sources, but also of understanding the divisive and potentially destabilising nature of Spiritualist rhetoric itself.

This article seeks to uncover the origins of the ‘Ranters’ by examining Abiezer Coppe's early life and social network. It suggests that Coppe's background, experiences and milieu – particularly his Baptist phase and the associations he made during this period – are crucial to appreciate the genesis of the ‘Ranters’. As such it should be regarded as a further contribution towards the growing consensus that the origins of ‘radicalism’ in the English Revolution are to be located in the religion of the ‘hotter sort’ of Protestants lower down the social scale.

This article argues that the post-secularisation historiography of the past twenty years has erred in neglecting theological categories of analysis. Committed to challenging the explanatory power of the secularisation thesis, it has established a new paradigm of ‘survival’ and ‘redefinition’, interpreting the sub-Christian morality of the twentieth century as a robust continuation of the pervasive Christianity of the nineteenth. A more theological approach, however, demonstrates that much of the ‘success’ of Victorian religion was achieved at the cost of the soteriology that had fired the religious boom. Tracing a shift from an ‘internal’ concept of sin to an ‘external’ notion of vice, it is argued that Evangelicalism created its own mechanism of secularisation, distilled in the shift from Evangelicalism to temperance agitation.

This article examines the delegation of Monsignor Salvatore Luzio to the Irish Free State between March and May 1923, and the reactions of the Irish Catholic bishops, who had proclaimed their support for the government of the Free State, and of militant republicans, who opposed it. The bishops viewed the mission with trepidation, fearing the damage that it could do to their authority, while the republicans deemed it and Luzio potential assets. Newly-released Vatican papers also allow for the inclusion of Luzio's perspective on the mission and his strongly worded criticism of the Irish hierarchy.