The root ts-d-q found in the Old Testament has always presented its interpreters with a challenge. It is the root from which modern versions usually offer us the word ‘righteous’. Actually two problems arise over it, for from this root we have both a verb and a noun. So we must discover in the case of the noun, what the feminine form tsedaqah actually means and how it differs from its masculine counterpart, tsedeq, if at all; and, in the case of the verb, what tsedeq means in the Qal as well as in the Hiphil, as hitsdiq.

In the early Christian treatise Peri tes anastaseos ton nekron, written in the last quarter of the second century, Athenagoras of Athens drew a distinction between two kinds of theological discourse or argument (logos), ‘on behalf of the truth’ (huper tes aletheias) and ‘concerning the truth’ (peri tes aletheias), in which he clearly had in mind St Paul's missionary address to the Athenians on Mars' Hill. Owing to its nature discourse concerning the truth is of primary importance for it provides necessary knowledge of the actual subject-matter, while discourse on behalf of the truth is of secondary importance for it does not establish the truth but is useful in opening the way for it by removing the undergrowth of false and hostile opinion. It is in this light that Athenagoras' two extant works are to be appreciated, Presbeia ton Christianon which is admittedly of an apologetic nature, and Peri tes anastaseos ton nekron in which he offered a reasoned account of the truth of the resurrection.

All figures in the past suffer from their interpreters, who too often see them as the embodiment or antithesis of their own position. Zwingli is no exception in this. He has in turn been welcomed as the liberal among the reformers or repudiated as the rationalist among them. He has been portrayed as the heroic Swiss patriot dying on the field of battle or dismissed as the preacher turned politician who took the sword and deservedly perished by it.

The year 1988 is the tercentenary of the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England at the invitation of the English Parliament. In 1689 the Estates of Scotland invited them to the Scottish throne. Their accession has been called a Revolution and it made a decisive change in the constitutional and ecclesiastical situation in both countries. Henceforth, the monarchy could not claim to rule solely by divine right. The hereditary principle still operated and the panoply of coronations retained many echoes of a divine commission, but monarchs now ruled within the law and were accountable to the parliaments of the two kingdoms and after 1707 to the parliament of the United Kingdom.

In the first instalment of a seven volume series, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis offers us an extraordinary tale involving four children who enter a magical land, Narnia, a myriad of talking animals, a Christ-like lion named Asian and a satanic creature known simply as the Witch (although she claims the title of Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands). At the heart of the story is a drama of salvation, or at least saving deliverance. One of the children, Edmund, is held captive by the Witch and will be released only on the condition of Asian's taking Edmund's place. Asian is the ransom for Edmund. In rough outline, Asian's ransoming Edmund and his subsequent resurrection fits the classic ransom theory of the atonement, a theory which can hardly boast of enormous contemporary appeal. I do not think its unpopularity is altogether deserved. Versions of the theory may be found in many patristic writers including Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, St Ambrose, St Jerome, and Origen. I wish here to defend a modified ransom theory against six of the classic objections which have contributed to its neglect. As C. S. Lewis, the father of Narnia, has presented a rich story of a ransom drama which is more familiar (and sometimes more fun to read) than the Nicene and Prenicene fathers, I will use The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to set forth a bold, unsophisticated ransom theory.

When we raise the question of whether the pleasures of the human body are as valuable as those of the human mind — whether, for example, pushpin is as good as poetry — it is quite possible that people will disagree on their answers. But we would also expect most people to agree with the assertion that the death of a human being would generally be a bad thing; whilst his continuing to live would be a good thing. Furthermore, we would expect most people to concede immediately that the death of five human beings is a worse evil than the death of one single individual: all other things being equal, I hasten to add. It seems to follow now, on the basis of this commonly held view, that saving the lives of five people, who would be doomed to a certain death without an intervention on the part of another, would be morally right, if not praiseworthy, even if the action which is necessary to save those five lives would also entail the death of another person. To liven up the proceedings, if you will pardon the expression in this context, let me put to you this specific case:

organs distributed. In that case, there would be one dead but five saved.’