One of the more intriguing developments in Protestant theology over the past several decades has been the increasing interest in recovering a doctrine of theosis (or deification) for the contemporary church.1 In nearly every branch of the Protestant tree, theologians are making a case for theosis as integral to their theological tradition. There are proposed projects for Lutheran,2 Wesleyan,3 Reformed,4 and distinctively Evangelical5 accounts of theosis, all of which attempt to ground theosis within the overarching model of salvation that their given backgrounds affirm. In light of this, it is not surprising that Jonathan Edwards is touted as a key resource. More surprising is how little is written on Edwards’s doctrine of theosis as such. Instead, the focal point has been on themes in Edwards’s thought that allow for ecumenical bridge-building.6

I like tennis—both to play and to watch it.1 Nothing is more pleasant than watching an exchange between Federer and Nadal. There is a similar kind of exchange that has been going on in this country in recent years. On one side, there are evangelical New Testament scholars; on the other, liberal scholars working on early Christianity. In the camp of the evangelicals, Ben Witherington,2 Craig A. Evans,3 and Darrell L. Bock4 are playing a defensive game, accusing the others of constituting a “new school,”5 one that prefers heresy over orthodoxy and promotes diversity where unity once was. In the camp of the critics, Elaine Pagels promotes the spirituality of the Gospel of Thomas; 6 Bart D. Ehrman's Lost Christianities flies in the face of his opponents;7 and Marvin Meyer considers the Gospel of Judas a valuable work that reveals in the mind of the dark apostle knowledge of the divine realm.8

Loss acquires meaning and generates recovery.1

I have done much rebuilding. To reconstruct is to collaborate with time gone by, penetrating or modifying its spirit, and carrying it toward a longer future.2

Adorno's late work has often been compared to negative theology, yet there is little serious discussion of this comparison in the secondary literature.1 In most of the existing discussions virtually nothing is said about negative theology, as if it is obvious what it is and what the parallels with Adorno's ideas are. The truth is that negative theology is not self-evident, and neither are the parallels with Adorno at all obvious. To find out what they are would require a detailed account of both. In this article I shall make a start in this direction.

Professor Hanan Eshel, in memoriam

Ancient and modern readers have offered two basic interpretations of the “[One like a] Son of Man” () in Dan 7:13. One line of interpretation holds that the One like a Son of Man is a symbol of a collective, namely, the faithful Israelites at the time of the Maccabean revolt.1 The other basic line of interpretation sees the One like a Son of Man as a divine figure of one sort or another, a second God, a son of God, or an archangel.

In his recent book, Seth Schwartz explores “[t]he tension between egalitarian solidarity and competitive reciprocity” in the late Second Temple period and in rabbinic Judaism.1 As Schwartz's characterization of reciprocity implies, it stands at odds with egalitarianism because exchange, outside the boundaries of the market, is ordinarily structured by asymmetry, and thus by the hierarchical relationships of patronage and dependence.2 For Schwartz, Judaism's “natural” proclivity, at least as enshrined in the Torah, is toward egalitarian solidarity. To obviate the need for the “dependence-generating gift,” the Torah mandates wealth transfer to the poor through charitable donation (leaving unharvested the corner of one's field, etc.). Charity, unlike the gift, does not generate the obligation to reciprocate: “[t]he pauper, like the priest, is meant to feel no gratitude—at least not toward the donor.”3 Given this innate preference for solidarity, the problem for late antique Judaism in a patronage-dominated Mediterranean society lay specifically in “how to come to terms, Jewishly, with the practical inevitability of social institutions founded on reciprocal exchange.”4

Over the past several decades historians have turned a critical eye to the complicity of the German churches in fostering poisonous societal attitudes towards Jews on the eve of the Holocaust.1 Emerging from this research has been the disputed relationship between Christian anti-Judaism and the intense race-based anti-Semitism of the Nazi era. Separating the content and motivation of these two forms of disparagement has allowed Christians to remove themselves from the genocidal equation linked to radical, racist attacks on Jews.2 Susannah Heschel’s The Aryan Jesus tackles this issue by examining the historical backdrop and explicit content of racially motivated attacks on Jews by German Protestants in the years preceding and during the Holocaust. Targeting the Eisenach Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life together with the Institute’s leader, Walter Grundmann, her findings may well render obsolete any theoretical dichotomy between religious anti-Judaism and racial anti-Semitism.3

When Oliver Cromwell died on 3 September 1658, addresses of sympathy poured in from across the country. Formal ceremonies channeled sincere anxiety about what would happen to England now that the binding force of the Lord Protector was absent. Yet Gilbert Burnet tells us, in a piece of clerical gossip, that the scene taking place inside Whitehall Palace was, at times, comical.

Origen, far from being a precursor of “Arianism,” as he was depicted during the Origenist controversy and is often still misrepresented today, was the main inspirer of the Nicene-Cappadocian line.1 The Trinitarian formulation of this line, which was represented above all by Gregory of Nyssa, is that God is one and the same nature or essence in three individual substances and that the Son is to the Father. Indeed, the three members of the Trinity share in the same 2 This formulation was followed by Basil in his last phase; Didymus, Gregory of Nazianzus from 362 onwards; Evagrius; and numerous later authors.3 Origen himself had already maintained both things: that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have the same but are three different and Gregory of Nyssa closely followed him.4 As I set out to argue, Origen’s thought represented a novel and fundamental theorization with respect to the communality of and the individuality of conceived as individual substances, in the Trinity. He influenced not only subsequent Trinitarian theology, but perhaps even “pagan” Neoplatonism. (Likewise, on the christological side, Annewies van den Hoek5 has insightfully demonstrated the importance of Origen in asking—and endeavoring to answer—the question of the unification of humanity and divinity in Christ, and Origen’s influence on later formulations.)

Many consider the political thought of Rabbi Nissim ben Reuben of Girona (RaN, ca. 1310–1380) to be innovative and daring, especially in comparison with other political theories in medieval Jewish thought. It has been argued that in his homily no. 11 RaN recognizes a secular politico-legal system headed by the king, which parallels the halakic-religious legal system under the control of the judicial authority.

In the place where penitents stand even the wholly righteous cannot stand.(R. Abahu)1

I prefer a man who hath sinned and done wickedly and repented to the man who hath not sinned and hath not manifested repentance; for the former possesseth a humble mind and the latter esteemeth himself in his thoughts a just man. (Abba Poemen)2

The question of how much apocryphal Gospels were rebutted, suppressed or even destroyed in antiquity is a question of perennial interest, both popular and scholarly. The present article makes no attempt at any sort of complete answer to this question, but has the rather more modest aim of analyzing the various testimonia—from antiquity into the middle ages—that make explicit reference to a “Gospel of Thomas.” This article will not touch on the numerous allusions to, or quotations of, the contents of this Gospel, but will be confined to treatments of the title (hence “named testimonia”). The impetus for this particular investigation is of course the presence, at the end of the second tractate of Nag Hammadi Codex II, of a colophon reading “The Gospel according to Thomas.”1 Given the controversial contents of this Gospel, and the equally controversial place that it occupies in scholarly reconstructions of Christian origins, Thomas's reception in antiquity has been widely discussed since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices (see n. 2 below).

The surprise find of a portion of the lost Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus, to be presented below, was made inside another text discovery. In the course of searching for manuscripts containing works by Sophronius, the seventh-century patriarch of Jerusalem, one of the authors (JD) came across, in the collection of St. Catherine's monastery at Mt. Sinai, a book that consists exclusively of extracts from a variety of patristic, chronographic, and heresiological sources. The original purpose of this codex was, among other things, to gather evidence for the time and dating of important Christian events.1 For example, the first extract discusses a method for calculating the date of Easter, and the second is concerned with identifying the years and days of the week on which Christ's birth, baptism, and passion occurred. Other extracts are focused on an assortment of different topics ranging from the nature of God to the origin and meaning of certain philosophical or theological concepts, such as “beginning” (ajrchv) and “eternity” (aijwvn).

The difficulties with the red cow ritual have long exercised readers of the book of Numbers. The ritual in Num 19:1–22 describes how cleansing from corpse impurity is to be effected. A red cow is burned in a manner carefully prescribed in order to produce ash. Mixed with water, the ash is then sprinkled upon the corpse-impure individual on the third and seventh day of his or her impurity. To some of the rabbis and many subsequent interpreters, the automatic efficacy of the rite appears to be tantamount to pagan magic. In addition, it has long been observed that the red cow ritual has a number of anomalies when compared to other rituals in the Old Testament. The red cow is designated a “purification offering” 1 but is unlike the purification offerings described in Leviticus 4–5 or, indeed, any other sacrifice: the entire animal, including the blood, is burned outside the camp, and the goal of the ritual is the production of ash for the treatment of future and not past impurity.2 Finally, there is what Jacob Milgrom describes as the “paradox of the red cow”: the red cow ritual makes the pure impure and the impure pure.3

The Apologies of Justin Martyr are among our most important sources for the state and development of early Christianity in the second century. In the Apologies, Justin, who is often said to have initiated the first serious dialogue between Christianity and Greco-Roman philosophy, attempts to define and explain to the outside world what the Christian teaching and way of life are, and what they are not. Because of this normative tenor of the writings, modern readers sometimes tend to approach their content as more-or-less timeless articulations that are only vaguely connected to the historical circumstances in which they were written. But as with most writings from antiquity, the content of Justin's Apologies, including questions of theology, philosophy, and ethics, is intimately bound to their historical context, as recent scholarship on Justin has shown very well. However, the historical questions of the literary genre, intended audience, occasion, and purpose of the Apologies are still debated among scholars, including the question of the exact relationship between the First and the Second Apology. To critically deal with these questions, all of which are interrelated, is of utmost importance for our understanding of Justin Martyr and his writings, and thus of second-century Christianity in general.

“Since you have commanded me to write on the wisdom of philosophy, I shall cite to your Clemency the opinions of the sages, especially since this knowledge is absolutely necessary to the Church of God against the fury of Antichrist.”1 So wrote Roger Bacon to Clement IV. The pope had commanded Bacon to send writings of which Roger had spoken when Clement was still Cardinal Guy Folques.2 Clement's letter does not mention Antichrist, nor does it specify the subject matter of the aforementioned conversation. Still, since Bacon mentions Antichrist in what was likely a prefatory letter to either the Opus maius or Opus minus,3 the specter of Antichrist that lurks throughout Bacon's Opera and other works may not have come as a surprise. Yet, amid the clamor of Joachite apocalypticism that quickly coiled itself around the Franciscan Order in the latter half of the thirteenth century,4 Roger Bacon's own apocalyptic opinions remain underappreciated. This is not to say that Bacon's apocalypticism has gone unrecognized. Scholars have long agreed, as Brett Whalen has said recently, that Bacon “layered his writings with a sense of apocalyptic expectation.”5 Yet the historiographical tendency to separate Bacon's scientific writings from his religious beliefs and practices appears to have obscured Bacon's own radical ideas about the end of days.6

Hubert Wolf's subtle and understated book shows that the writing of good history requires access to good sources. In 2006 Benedict XVI opened to researchers all files in the Vatican Secret Archives relating to the pontificate of Pius XI (February 1922 to February 1939). This is a vast cache: by Wolf's estimate, it includes about 100,000 “archival units, each containing up to a thousand pages” (17). Of course Wolf could not examine all or even much of this enormous collection, but he saw enough to present what he calls a “double perspective” on relations between the Vatican and Germany in the prewar years of National Socialist rule: “the view from Rome and the consultations within the Vatican about German affairs” (18). By sticking close to his sources Wolf uncovers many surprises and reveals that the devil in its modern, totalitarian guise is, as ever, in the details.

During the initial decade of the Protestant Reformation, the German Anabaptist theologian Balthasar Hubmaier (1480–1528)1 functioned as a transitional figure between radical and magisterial reform. This observation is seen most clearly in the fact that Hubmaier, while concurring with his Anabaptist coreligionists on the necessity of believers’ baptism, dissented from their anti-statism and strict pacifism.2 Earning his doctor theologiae from the University of Ingolstadt under famous Catholic polemicist John Eck in 1512, Hubmaier was an essentially independent thinker who employed his academic training in an attempt to formulate doctrine that not only transcended the controversies of his day but also pointed Christians to the necessity of spiritual formation within a life of common discipleship. With this approach, Hubmaier turned to the Eucharist, second only to justification as the most divisive doctrine of the sixteenth century.3 Hubmaier objected to Roman Catholic transubstantiation, Lutheran consubstantiation, and Zwinglian sacramentarianism on the grounds that all of them, in their concern with the status of the elements, had lost sight of the internal transformation that Christ accomplishes in the faithful during the meal.

A concise study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant Hebraica does not immediately suggest a provocative contribution to contemporary debates about secularization, religion, and politics. But that is what Eric Nelson’s learned yet accessible book about the Jewish sources of early modern republicanism provides.1 According to Nelson, Professor of Government at Harvard University, the distinctive authority of the Hebrew Republic made possible the Protestant development of three central ideas: republican liberty, care for equality, and religious toleration. Nelson’s rehabilitation of the neglected Christian Hebraism of the late Renaissance and Reformation seeks to challenge historiographies which characterize modern political thought in terms of a rationalist independence from theology. These dominant narratives roughly describe a transition from political theology to political science that excludes religious conviction from political argument.2 Nelson invokes (but does not engage) Mark Lilla’s description of “the Great Separation” of religion and politics as one expression of this threshold of disenchantment.3 He also associates this narrative with figures as diverse as Hans Blumenberg, Leo Strauss, C. B. Macpherson, Michael Oakeshott, John Rawls, and Jonathan Israel. The book, therefore, contributes to scholarship that complicates the primacy of the “Enlightenment” origins and character of Western politics. It also raises complex questions about our relation to these origins. Much like Nelson’s own argument about the way Jewish sources helped reorganize accepted categories, his book opens new spaces for scholarly conversation across multiple fields of study. This review briefly raises normative implications of Nelson’s book for scholars of theology, ethics, and religious studies. I examine stronger and weaker versions of Nelson’s historical narrative as well as his gestures at their implications.

The Popes against the Jews. This declarative statement certainly makes for a scintillating title, as David Kertzer no doubt appreciated when he chose it for his book on the papacy's role in the emergence of modern anti-Semitism. Published in 2001, Kertzer's The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism quickly emerged as one of the most critically acclaimed and contentious books of its genre and generation. It took direct aim at a thesis being proffered at the time by the Vatican positing a fundamental distinction between the traditional “religious” anti-Judaism of Christian provenance, and the modern, politicized racial anti-Semitism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which constituted the catalytic element of a noxious brew of ideas and resentments that led to the Final Solution. The anti-Judaism / anti-Semitism distinction, Kertzer argues, “will simply not survive historical scrutiny.”1 While acknowledging that the Catholic church could not be held responsible per se for the Holocaust, even less for having approved the exterminatory policies of the Hitler regime and its collaborators, Kertzer imputes to the modern popes—especially those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a significant degree of responsibility for having contributed to the social and cultural milieu in which the Final Solution was conceived and attempted. Although the Vatican never sanctioned the campaign to eliminate European Jews, Kertzer writes, “the teachings and actions of the Church, including those of the popes themselves, helped make it possible.” In fact, Kertzer maintains that the Vatican was one of the major “architects” of a new and distinctly modern form of anti-Semitism that drew inspiration and moral authority from traditional religious apologetics to buttress a radical secular politics of anti-Jewish repression and exclusion. The Holocaust, he concludes, “came at the end of a long road…. [I]t was a road that the Catholic Church did a great deal to help build.”2