The book is devoted to the relationships between Nicene and Homoian Christianities in the context of broader religious and social changes in post-Roman societies from the end of the fourth to the seventh century. The main analytical and interpretative tools used in this study are religious conversion and ecclesiastical competition. It examines sources discussing Nicene–Homoian encounters in Vandal Africa, Gothic and Lombard Italy, Gaul, and Hispania – regions where the polities of the Goths, Suevi, Burgundians, and Franks emerged. It explores the extent to which these encounters were shaped by various religious policies and political decisions rooted in narratives of conversion and confessional rivalry. Through this analysis, the aim is to offer a nuanced interpretation of how Christians in the successor kingdoms handled religious dissent and how these actions manifested in social practices.

Chapter 20 reflects on Goethe’s unique way of thinking and his persistent challenges to orthodoxy. It builds on Goethe’s own assertion that he was ‘not naturally equipped to do philosophy in its proper sense’, and argues that his thought engages the figurative power of ‘improper’ (that is, poetic) language to do philosophical work. The chapter notes his criticism of the modes of, among others, Kant and Hegel, and highlights places in Goethe’s oeuvre, including in his literary works, where we can see new and unconventional pathways for thought being built.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury rose, and then rose again in its place in the twentieth, and rose again in the twenty-first century, to become, the biggest single challenge to the authority of the prime minister. No longer subordinate at all. Naked power, ambition, the knowledge that some were virtually unsackable, command over the purse and the backing of the mighty resource of the Treasury compared to the puny No. 10, ensured that Chancellors could be a power to themselves, strutting around Westminster and Whitehall at times like an overmighty baron in medieval England, making the job of prime minister at times impossible. Reaching this elevated position was not preordained, as we shall see in this chapter, and occurred through seven successive pulses, each associated with a commanding figure, usually the Chancellor, who has shaped the office, much as our landmark prime ministers have done to their own office. There are three great contemporary problems with the Treasury: its handicapping of the prime minister in shaping government strategy, its prioritising of financial over economic policy, and a diminishing role of Parliament in its oversight, have all had long roots.

The conclusion proposes alternative ways to think about Christian normativity, drawing on the concepts of polydoxy and religious autonomy from Alvin Reines, with additional support from Catherine Keller and Laurel Schneider, and the concept of theological disobedience, derived from Louis Michael Seidman’s notion of constitutional disobedience.

The last chapter recapitulates the arguments in a normative, rather than historical, mode, examining the underlying logic of orthodoxy implicit in each version of conservative Christianity’s pursuit of authentic, historic faith. The chapter argues that orthodoxy is an inherently ambiguous concept that requires an authoritarian leader to determine arbitrary boundaries by policing and punishing the heterodox. So long as orthodoxy remains the normative goal, the culture-war politics of the Christian Right will remain.

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is well accepted by child abuse paediatricians as an explanation for the triad when parents/caregivers can provide no explanation. There is mounting evidence on many fronts that SBS is not a valid or well-defined diagnosis, and that many cases of SBS have medical causes or are from accidental short falls. An incorrect SBS diagnosis has far-reaching implications for the alleged perpetrator, the family, the child, and society. The three most compelling reasons to doubt the existence of SBS are: multiple biomechanical studies show that shaking cannot produce nearly the forces needed to cause the triad; sutopsy studies of most infants with alleged SBS do not show microscopic findings of trauma, but rather of hypoxia; retinal hemorrhages - once thought pathognomonic of shaking through vitreous retraction - are seen wherever there is an abrupt and significant rise in intracranial pressure and are highly unlikely to be caused by shaking. This review also provides observations that question the existence of SBS and the underlying psychological reasons why SBS proponents do not accept the compelling evidence that puts the diagnosis of SBS into question.

The first section addresses the debate between Julian’s supporters and detractors following his sudden death in 363. Christian preachers turned Julian’s propagandistic use of his life into proof that Roman history was regulated by Christian providence. However, they also had to confront Julian’s re-assessment of the power dynamics between the ruler and the priests in the post-Constantinian empire. I argue that Julian was wary of how the identification of religious allegiance as the criterion for determining whether an emperor was a philosopher-ruler affected the interaction between the emperor, now decentred from his religious structures of choice, and the ecclesiastical leaders. The second section shows that that the episcopal engagement with philosophical ideas both provided clerics with a weapon against Julian’s attempts to re-centre the ruler in religious matters and shaped the relationship between the bishops and emperors in addressing heresy - a key challenge faced by Christianity in its self-construction as perfect system of knowledge. Episcopal appeals to an exclusive control of knowledge also affected the public role of non-conforming philosophers, which I illustrate with a case study of Synesius of Cyrene.

This chapter proposes a new framework for the study of the categories of heresy and orthodoxy in medieval Islam. It engages with scholarship on these categories in the discipline of Islamic Studies and Religious Studies more broadly, arguing that orthodoxy and heresy should not be viewed solely through the prism of theology, which emphasises belief (doxa) and practice (praxis). Instead, it highlights the discursive formation of conceptions of orthodoxy and heresy. Heresy and orthodoxy are defined as shifting categories of denunciation and approval, which provides insights into the formation of orthodoxy as a contested process. This approach allows for a more detailed and complex typology of proto-Sunni movements in the eighth to eleventh centuries, admitting more variation than previous scholarship has allowed for.

To understand Irenaeus and the canonical collection, particularly the revision of Paul’s letters, we need to look into the parallel redaction and revision of the famous collection of letters who pseudonymously were credited to Ignatius of Antioch. With him being backdated to the beginning of the second century by Eusebius of Caesarea, his collection of seven letters of which Eusebius is the first to speak, provides the cornerstone for the ancient anti-heretic, anti-Jewish and monepiscopal church history of the beginnings of Christianity. A critical reading of both, Paul’s letters and those of the spurious Ignatius, however, allows to dismantle the fictional account that served Irenaeus and his apologetic followers through the centuries to cement early Christian orthodoxy.

This chapter explores ideas about orthodoxy and powerful necessity in Spanish Counter-Reformation reason-of-state discourse. Individual authors engaged in describing pragmatic politics and ways of imagining how to put these into practice, while simultaneously taking care to avoid association with Machiavelli. Through translations of Lipsius’ Latin Politica into the Spanish and Italian vernaculars, the chapter first shows how the translators explored ways to square Lipsius’ thought with the Christian-Ciceronian framework endorsed by Catholic orthodoxy. Lipsius recovered the concept of necessity that Machiavelli had reshaped into necessità, and enlisted it once more as a force that could legitimately overrule human law. The chapter then traces how authors in the Spanish monarchy subsequently conceived of necessity as a concept or tool that could legitimize amoral political behaviour, especially in the discussion about deceit. Necessity depended on circumstances that were impossible to define in advance, and this made it orthodox yet flexible. Both the translators and the authors of ‘true’ reason of state experimented with organizing knowledge and (historical) information, and its potential for creating meaning and legitimizing amoral political behaviour, as they tailored a language of reason of state that was both orthodox, and suited to the realities of the present.

The chapter presents the two late religio-political works of Pufendorf in his role as lay theologian Pufendorf, Of the Nature and Qualification of Religion in Reference to Civil Society (1687), and The Divine Feudal Law; or, Covenants with Mankind (1695). Both tracts consider the changes in religion and politics since the revocation of the tolerance edict of Nantes in 1685 and the acceptance of Huguenots in Protestant Brandenburg-Prussia. Pufendorf’s defence of Protestant positions and severe criticism of French expansionism and Papal supremacy are explained with reference to the respective political and ecclesial theological contexts that had developed since around 1600 (1). Pufendorf’s first tract argues for political toleration of more than one Christian confession and public worship in the state. This is possible because political sovereignty, based on natural law, and religious autonomy, based on the purely religious ends of churches, can and should coexist (2). The biblical reasoning behind this is intensified in the second tract, which argues for mutual appreciation and reconciliation of the Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) confessions. Here Pufendorf integrates his concept of natural law into a new, strictly biblical covenantal theology correlating God’s promises and men’s free obedience (3).

The third chapter illustrates the nature of the second through fifth chapters. Each seeks to explore Calvin’s engagement with and use of tradition in different contexts. The third chapter takes up Calvin’s polemics with other thinkers and confessions. Through an odd quirk in the historiography surrounding Calvin, this chapter aligns most with the mainstream of Calvin interpretation. Almost every Calvin scholar or early modern analyst will admit that Calvin and other Reformers used tradition in their polemics – but it frequently is stated either as the exception that proves the rule that Calvin depended only upon scripture, or that it is a case where he and other Reforming writers had to adopt the methods of their foes. But the analysis of the material demonstrates that Calvin turned to tradition whether his foes were orthodox or heretical, Protestant, Radical, or Catholic. Calvin’s dependence on tradition and traditional sources undercuts the customary consideration of this area of his activity.

This fragment’s argument proceeds to a detailed critique of the theoretical postulates informing comparative law’s orthodox model.