Amulo, one of the earliest western witnesses for the Toledot Yeshu, uses ‘adulterata’ to describe the mother of Jesus. Some scholars have claimed that the word ‘adulterata’ implies that she was raped either by force or by deception. Forcible rape is questionable based on a linguistic argument: Latin usage of ‘adultero’, both classical and Christian, normally refers to a woman with the accusative case or the passive voice and distinguishes clearly between adultery and violent rape. It is possible that narratives such as the one about Jesus’ mother played a role in the conversion of the palace deacon Bodo to Judaism.

During the 1130 schism, the Anacletian Cardinal Pandulf wrote three Lives of Gelasius II, Calixtus II and Honorius II. Historiography has usually read these Lives literally, as biographies. However, if they are considered in the light of the context in which they were written, our working hypothesis is that Pandulf created these Lives in order to support Anacletus and delegitimate his enemies. They therefore function as propaganda rather than as biographies. In this article passages from each Life will be presented that are significant in reading these works from the point of view of an Anacletian supporter in the context of the schism.

This article argues that the liturgical tradition of celebrating Christmas on 25 December travelled from the Latin West to the Greek East at the behest of Theodosius I upon his arrival in Constantinople in AD 380. From there it made its way to Cappadocia, Pontus and Syrian Antioch by means of travelling clerics who belonged to a pro-Nicene network. The essay also makes the larger methodological point that in late antiquity liturgical traditions did not travel of their own accord; rather, they were often carried by networks of travelling bishops and ‘radiated out’ from major sees to minor ones.

Scholars have rightly identified the roles of literal/historical interpretation and noetic/spiritual interpretation in Cyril of Alexandria's exegesis of Scripture. This article argues that narrative contributes to both methods by using events in the past to explain Scripture's meaning. He applies concepts established historically by Exodus’ recount of the Israelites’ presence in Egypt to his interpretation of the prophetic books. On the one hand, his literal interpretation draws from the Israelites’ return to idolatry, detailed in Exodus xxxii. On the other hand, his noetic interpretation relates the Egyptians’ oppression of the Israelites detailed in Exodus i to humanity's limitations under the devil.

Agimund's Homiliary is extant in two eighth-century manuscripts in BAV, Vat. lat. 3835 and 3836 and is one of the very few Roman texts actually written in Roman script surviving from the early Middle Ages. This article argues that the Homiliary is a crucial piece of evidence for early medieval Roman liturgical and cultural life and the patristic resources of Rome. Agimund's Homiliary, and the late eighth-century additions which are actually part of another, hitherto unidentified Roman Homiliary, together constitute evidence of the degree to which patristic theology and exegesis were embedded in Roman culture, of the interchange between the Latin- and Greek-speaking communities in Rome and the Lateran in the early Middle Ages, and of the intellectual productivity and cultural versatility of early medieval Rome.

This article examines the use of child-mediums in divination and magic as a specific medieval understanding of child abuse. Medieval authors believed that children were used in this way by learned men, particularly churchmen. They believed the practice was abusive, causing physiological and psychological harm. Many also thought, for different reasons, that it could produce revelations. This topic provided medieval authors with an opportunity to theorise about a specifically clerical form of child abuse, and it is an example of the kind of ritual magic extant in clerics’ own social worlds that fuelled paranoid conspiratorial fantasies, such as witchcraft.

Papal bulls transferring jurisdiction over the Channel Islands from the bishopric of Coutances (Normandy) first to the diocese of Salisbury and then to Winchester have an important place in the historiography of the allegedly centripetal forces of royal and ecclesiastical authority under Henry VII. This article corrects the chronology, and questions the disruptive impact of international tensions and the role of English bishops’ or governors’ ambitions. Instead, it points to the influence of Breton clergy. Further, that Henry abandoned the initiative for a financial contribution from the islanders sheds light on his policy towards his rights over the Church and beyond.

Jocelin of Brakelond's chronicle provides a remarkably detailed account of conflict within the monastic community of Bury St Edmunds over the course of two decades in the late twelfth century, tracing the convent's division into factions following the death of the negligent Abbot Hugh, the controversial election of his successor Samson, and the community's subsequent difficulty negotiating its relationship with him. This article examines the position of conflict within Jocelin's narrative, and argues that it played a fundamental role in shaping the monastic experience by mediating relationships within the convent and between the convent and the abbot.

This article presents a new account of Richard Simon's work as a biblical translator. Having first contextualised Simon's views on the vernacular Bible in the contested world of late seventeenth-century French Catholic biblical translation, it then examines how they were engaged with and disputed by contemporaries (in particular, Antoine Arnauld). It contends that Simon's novelty did not consist in applying history and philology to the Bible in order to reach a confessionally neutral version, but rather in reconceptualising the relationship between multiple legitimate biblical translations to craft a new form of Catholic vernacular Bible.

This article examines how the Castilian conquest of Granada and the conversion of its inhabitants to Christianity affected the Catholic Church; specifically, it analyses the role played by parish churches as recipients and administrators of religious donations, first from Muslims and later from converts. This study shows that the Church was not the only beneficiary of the donations it received, since these gifts were part of a strategy on the part of converts to be accepted as legal members of Castilian society and on the part of the Crown in its campaign for the unity of the kingdom.

This article explores the politics which lay behind the Presbyterian petitioning campaigns in Lancashire and Cheshire during 1646. Focusing particularly upon clerical activists, this article traces the linkages back to the petitioning campaigns of 1641-2 and highlights the continuities in both personnel and an impulse for accommodation. The article unravels the networks which stretched between London and north-western England, and investigates how Presbyterian politics in London in 1646 might have influenced the Lancashire and Cheshire campaigns for a Presbyterian settlement of the Church. Finally, the article comments upon why the Lancashire campaign succeeded when the Cheshire campaign did not.

In 1653, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith created a secular mission for Scotland that initially struggled with finances and provision. Its Prefects argued that the Jesuits exacerbated these problems by failing to prepare students at the Scots College Rome intellectually for the mission. This article examines the resulting campaign for curricular reform that Scottish secular priests waged, one intended to improve missionaries’ pastoral skills and undermine the college's Jesuit administration. It ultimately demonstrates the significance of education to wider conflicts between Propaganda Fide and the Society of Jesus regarding missions and resources in the seventeenth century.

The history of the sermon that Matthew Parker preached at the funeral of Martin Bucer is more complicated than has been thought. It is generally known that the first printing of 1551 was subsequently translated from English into Latin for a European audience in 1562 (printed in that year and again in 1577), and then published in English a second time, in a 1587 imprint that is thought to be a second edition. What is not generally known is that the second English printing was a translation of the 1562/1577 Latin version, and that in the process of translation and re-translation, Parker's original sermon was stripped of nearly 60 per cent of its content, as a eulogy that followed the sermon was misattributed to Walter Haddon at some point just prior to 1562. The present article seeks to explain how this came to pass, and argues that the 1551 imprint should replace the 1587 as the primary text for what Parker said of Bucer.

This article argues that Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846), the founder of the British campaign to abolish the slave trade, was a heterodox Anglican. Suspected of ‘Unitarian opinions’ in his youth, his religious writings in old age, including neglected notes on his copy of the New Testament, display a deep commitment to critical study of the Bible and a broadly Arian view of Christ. Knowing that Clarkson was a life-long but heterodox member of the Church of England challenges the conventional focus on Quakers and Evangelicals in the study of religion and abolitionism.

This article examines the English translations of works by Johann August Neander (the reputed father of modern church history) in order to consider his transatlantic influence. American editions of Neander's work supported the development of church historiography in nineteenth-century America, and influenced the direction of mediating theology at American academic and religious institutions. Besides identifying the agents who championed these translation efforts, the article explores how translations of church history texts supported knowledge transfer from Germany to America. Neander's books received positive attention in the translation culture of the 1830s, and he gained a reputation as a model scholar of church history.

This paper examines the correspondence of Li Zibiao (1760–1826), a Chinese Catholic priest trained in Naples who worked as a missionary in North China. Whereas existing studies of Chinese theology mainly focus on contextualisation, Li responded to persecution by thinking in global terms and de-emphasising differences between Europe and China. Using developments in casuistry and the moral theology associated with Alphonso de Liguori he was able to avoid the strictures of the Chinese Rites Controversy. His story enriches the history of indigenous clergy in China and suggests some of the roots of China's resilient rural Catholicism.

This article explores the convergences and divergences between the Salvation Army, Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof up to 1939. While the secondary literature makes passing reference to the influence of the Salvation Army on Arnold, no study has examined what it was about this movement which initially attracted him to it and would lead to lifelong appreciation of the Booths and their Army. This article addresses this gap in the literature. It argues that it was the Salvationist presentation of a living, Spirit-filled Christianity as opposed to a dead and establishment-oriented faith in Arnold's mind that best constitutes this relationship.

After their ejection from the Church of England, it is said that the English Presbyterians split into two factions. The ‘Dons’, led by Richard Baxter, pursued comprehension and reunion with the national Church, whilst the ‘Ducklings’ petitioned for an indulgence of their separation. In this article, it is argued that this twofold distinction is largely false. Rather, all English Presbyterians sought unity; their divergence in terms of practical policy stemmed from subtly different conceptions of catholicity. Thus, paradoxically, indulgence came to be seen as a pathway towards comprehension. Conventicle preaching, meanwhile, became a curious form of curacy, operating in tandem with the parish ministry.

In the early twentieth century, Korean Catholic and Protestant Churches found themselves in a period of significant power transition, from a neo-Confucian dynasty to a colonial regime. Imperial Japan and Christianity thus posed a mutual challenge: church leaders worked to sustain and increase their Evangelical mission field within Korea's new socio-political environment, while, simultaneously, the Japanese depended on the cooperation of the Korean Christian communities to fulfil their colonial project. In this dynamic of State-Church relations, Catholics and Protestants constantly vied for ascendancy. This article examines how the two Christian denominations engaged with each other and with Korea's coloniser, as imperial Japan's policies varied and its international status fluctuated.

Studies of Christian worship understandably present churches as institutions that minister to human communities. The article shows that worship in the Church of England has a non-human history. Key developments between 1900 and 1950, notably war, the growth of pet-keeping and heightening concerns about the countryside, encouraged groups, inside and outside the Church, to push for rituals and liturgies that engaged with animals and animal issues in varied ways. The incorporation of animals in worship is an unappreciated aspect of broader changes in cultures of prayer, and an overlooked element in Anglican efforts to reconnect worship with the natural world.