On 31 October 2001, Professor Michael Welker delivered the Horace De Y. Lentz Memorial Lecture at the Harvard Divinity School. The founding bequest of the triennial lectureship specifies that “some outstanding Christian priest, minister or layman” should speak “upon the inspiring things he may discern in the words: ‘Christo et Ecclesiae’ which appear upon the Harvard Seal.” An edited transcript of Professor Welker's lecture follows.*The author is grateful to Dr. John Hoffmeyer for translating this lecture, and to Dr. Gene McGarry for his editorial assistance.

In August of 1790, the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, received George Washington's justly famous letter on religious liberty. Responding to the Jews' congratulations on his presidency, Washington offered a concise but stirring enunciation of the novelty of American liberty: The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.George Washington, Writings (ed. John H. Rhodehamel; New York: Library of America, 1997) 766. Washington drew a sharp distinction between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies the “indulgence of one class of people” toward another. It implies that a majority (or, alternatively, those who hold the balance of power in a polity) gives a minority (or a politically powerless group) the privilege of following their own way of life unmolested. For many centuries, toleration was the best that one could hope for, not just in Europe, but in the Muslim and pagan empires as well. Regimes of toleration, such as the millet system of the Ottomans or the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, allowed their subjects a generous latitude of belief and traditional behavior in the interest of civil peace, commercial prosperity, and so on. But “now no more” was toleration to be spoken of. The American experiment introduced a radical project of religious liberty. If toleration was, at best, an expression of enlightened statecraft, religious liberty was to be an expression of moral truth. Toleration was an act of prudence. Liberty was a requirement of conscience, of fixed moral principle. Toleration was grounded in politics, liberty in ethics.

Five of these inscriptions on stone in Hebrew were excavated in the Roman synagogue at Sardis, sixty miles northeast of Izmir in Turkey, during the excavation seasons of 1962 and 1963; the sixth is a stray find from near the Temple of Artemis. Other Hebrew inscriptions or joining fragments may well lurk in the piles of hundreds of marble revetment pieces stored in the depots outside of the north wall of the synagogue.

This paper and the two responses to it were presented as part of “Evangelical Perspectives on Biblical Authority,” a conference held at Harvard Divinity School on 9 and 10 March 2001. The conference was sponsored by the School under the auspices of the Alonzo L. McDonald Family Visiting Professorship of Evangelical Theological Studies.

According to Isaiah 45:1, Cyrus is YHWH's anointed, his Messiah: Thus says YHWH to his anointed, to Cyrus whom I took by his right hand. Scholars have long disputed this passage. Many agree with Charles Torrey and argue that all references to Cyrus should be removed as later additions; the prophet himself did not write them.Charles C. Torrey, The Second Isaiah (New York: Scribner's, 1928) 3–52; idem, “Isaiah 41,” HTR 44 (1951) 121–36; James D. Smart, History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40–66 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964) 115–34; Jurgen van Oorschot, Von Babel zum Zion (New York: de Gruyter, 1993) 88. Other scholars assert that the name Cyrus is original, but admonish their readers not to interpret the title “anointed” as more than was intended. The act of anointing simply indicates a commission: Cyrus is to perform the office of king.Christopher R. North, The Second Isaiah (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964) 150; Roger N. Whybray, Isaiah 40–66 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975) 104; Karl Elliger, Jesaja 40,1–45,7 (BKAT XI/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978) 492; John D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34–66 (WBC 25; Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1987) 156; Antti Laato, The Servant of YHWH and Cyrus: A Reinterpretation of the Exilic Messianic Programme in Isaiah 40–55 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992); idem, A Star is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Theology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) 173–85; Hugh G. M. Williamson, “The Messianic Texts in Isaiah 1-39,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East (ed. J. Day; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998) 238–70; Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000) 353–54. Still others take a third position and assert that references to Cyrus are central to the theory of history presented in the Book of Isaiah.Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66 (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969) 10, 159; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology (trans. D. M. G. Stalker; 2 vols.; United Kingdom: Oliver and Boyd, 1965) 2:238–62; John L. McKenzie, Second Isaiah (AB; Garden City: Doubleday, 1968) lxvi; Antoon Schoors, I Am God Your Saviour: A Form-Critical Study of the Main Genres in Is. XL–LV (VTSup 24; Leiden: Brill, 1973) 270; Rheinhard G. Kratz, Kyros im Deuterojesaja-Buch (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991) 15–17; Peter D. Miscall, Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993) 110; Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period (trans. J. Bowden; 2 vols.; OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 2:414; John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah 40–66 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 197. Cyrus is the promised redeemer of the Jews. Yet, even these scholars argue that Cyrus's anointing confers a temporary office, and does not evoke a permanent relationship; Cyrus has not converted to YHWHism, and the title should not be translated “Messiah.”Westermann, Deutero-Isaiah, 160–61; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 2002) 248–49. Some do admit that the anointing does mean the end of the Davidic monarchy, however. What God once did through David, he now does through Cyrus.E.g., Westermann, Deutero-Isaiah, 160–61; Watts, Isaiah 34–66, 156.

Five of these inscriptions on stone in Hebrew were excavated in the Roman synagogue at Sardis, sixty miles northeast of Izmir in Turkey, during the excavation seasons of 1962 and 1963; the sixth is a stray find from near the Temple of Artemis. Other Hebrew inscriptions or joining fragments may well lurk in the piles of hundreds of marble revetment pieces stored in the depots outside of the north wall of the synagogue.

While it is de rigueur for commentators to contrast the epistle of James with the epistles of Paul on matters of faith and works,E.g., Martin Dibelius, James (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 174–80; Ralph P. Martin, James (WBC 48; Waco: Word, 1988) 82–84; cf. Richard Bauckham, James (New Testament Readings; London: Routledge, 1999) 113–40. it is often overlooked that both writers also found occasion to delve into the mysteries of “the human problem,” of how it is that sin corrupts human existence. In fact, comparison of the two reveals a number of basic similarities.For the latter, see, e.g., David E. Aune, “Two Pauline Models of the Person,” in The Whole and Divided Self (ed. David E. Aune and John McCarthy; New York: Crossroad, 1997) 89–114. They agree, for instance, that the failure of human moral experience is attributable to a struggle between competing elements of the human personality, a struggle understood to be in some fashion continuous with a more pervasive conflict between antithetical metaphysical realities, conceived in terms familiar from Jewish apocalypticism. Given this mutual impingement of the psychological and the cosmological, it follows for both authors that the inner structure of the human personality is susceptible to the deceiving, destructive power of certain quasi-personal entities (sin, flesh, desire) associated with supernatural evil, while the solution to this predicament resides in the possibility of participation in a reality that is determined by a divine victory over evil, again conceived in apocalyptic terms.

Professor Abraham has given us a stimulating paper on the central and prophetic nature of revelation. I thank him for it. Several years ago at a meeting of a theological society Professor Gabriel Fackre gently chided David Tracy and myself by asking: “Why do Roman Catholic theologians neglect the work of Evangelical theologians?” This neglect was regrettable, he suggested, for Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics have much in common theologically. Moreover, although they are numerically very large denominations in society, they both share a certain minority status in the academic community. They should, therefore, pay attention to one another's writings. His admonition has weighed heavily upon me.

Let me thank Professor Abraham for such an interesting and engaging presentation on the status and character of the epistemology and logic of divine revelation. The humility he calls for, and the spirit animating his desire for critical, open, conversation, is, I think, to be emulated and strongly admired.

The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (TA) is an anonymous, Jewish and Christian dialogue situated in Alexandria during Cyril's episcopacy (412–444 C.E.). It is preserved in eight Greek manuscripts, the earliest of which is an eighth- or ninth-century C.E. palimpsest,manuscript R, whose underwriting is sparse and difficult to decipher. The remaining manuscripts fall into two groups: those preserving the longer form of TA, manuscripts P and O from the eleventh century and manuscript V from the twelfth, and a group of three shorter recensions: manuscript Z from the twelfth century, and manuscripts M and E from the fifteenth century. Robert Robertson identified an eighth witness to TA, manuscript A from the twelfth century, which preserves unacknowledged excerpts of TA previously believed to be a corrupt witness to Epiphanius's Weights and Measures. While Angelo Mai published the first excerpts of TA in 1843,Angelo Mai, “Praefatio: De Quodam Dialogo,” in Spicilegium Romanum 9 (Rome: Typis Collegii Urbani, 1843) xi–xiii. Mai described TA as “aetatis ambiguitas” and did not identify his manuscript source. He printed only a title, the first half of verse 1.1a, and the last 16 verses (57.4–20). Reprinted in PG 86.1.l.251–54. and F. C. Conybeare presented the first unabridged edition in 1898,F. C. Conybeare, The Dialogues of Athanasius and Zacchaeus and Timothy and Aquila (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Classical Series 8; Oxford: Clarendon, 1898). it was not until 1986 that Robertson established a critical edition.Robert G. Robertson, “The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila: A Critical Text, Introduction to the Manuscript Evidence, and an Inquiry into the Sources and Literary Relationships” (Th.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986) 1–49, provides a text-critical analysis of TA's manuscripts. Sigla (except Z) and versification follow Robertson's edition. See Pastis, “Representations,” 29–67, for additional discussion of the manuscripts and for a description of manuscript Z (not included by Robertson). He identified two principal manuscript families in his stemma of manuscripts.Robertson, “A Critical Text,” 47. In the AOM family, A, O share an exemplar that is prior to and directly related to the exemplar of manuscript M. In the PVE family the exemplar of E is also prior to and directly related to the exemplar of P, V.Ibid., 19: “There is no question … that in many places the text of O is definitely superior to that of PV.” Further (p. 48), “In a substantial number of readings,however, E agrees with O (M) against PV, thus demonstrating that E's archetype had not yet suffered the corruptions exhibited by the exemplar of PV.” He tentatively placed manuscript R “near the center of the textual tradition, between the archetype of O(M) and PVE, probably no more than one step removed from (a) [the archetype of all manuscripts].”Ibid., 48. Thus according to Robertson, the most trustworthy witnesses to TA are R, O, and E.

The inscriptions in Hebrew found in the Sardis Synagogue are few and fragmentary in comparison with the rich deposit of Greek inscriptions. One may compare the coeval synagogue in Hammath-Tiberias with its similar proportion of Greek and Hebrew inscriptions—despite its Palestinian locale. The Hebrew inscriptions were found, save one, in the Synagogue near the southern shrine in the east side of the Main Hall, and originally, no doubt, were built into or attached to the walls of the Synagogue.See A. R. Seager, “The Building History of the Sardis Synagogue,” AJA 76 (1972) 432–33. The inscription from outside the Synagogue, the graffito of Shemaryah, was found in a fill north of the Expedition camp.

The seven letters written by Ignatius in the early decades of the second century C.E. offer a fascinating if enigmatic glimpse at the internal life of the churches of western Asia Minor.Helpful introductions to Ignatius are P. Nautin, “Ignatius of Antioch,” in Encyclopedia of the Early Church (ed. Angelo Di Berardino; trans. A. Walford; 2 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) 1.404–5, and Christine Trevett, A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1992). For surveys of Ignatian scholarship, see William R. Schoedel, “Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch,” ANRW II.27.1 (1993) 272–358 (hereafter “Schoedel, ANRW”), and Charles Munier, “Où en est la question d'Ignace d'Antioche?” ANRW II.27.1 (1993) 359–484. On the date of the letters, see Schoedel, ANRW, 347–49 (“anywhere between A.D. 105 and A.D. 135”) and Munier, “Ignace,” 380 (“entre les années 110–135”). Throughout this essay the translations of Ignatius are drawn from William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) (hereafter “Schoedel, Ignatius”). I have used the Greek text edited by Joseph B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Part II, Ignatius and Polycarp (London: Macmillan, 1889–1890; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1989; 3 vols.) (hereafter “Lightfoot, Ignatius”) which I have verified against F. X. Funk, K. Bihlmeyer, and W. Schneemelcher, Die apostolischen Väter (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1970). I have also consulted J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (ed. and rev. Michael Holmes; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992). Note the typographical distinction between the Pauline epistles to the Romans (Romans, Rom) and to the Ephesians (Ephesians, Eph) and the Ignatian epistles To the Romans (Romans, Rom.) and To the Ephesians (Ephesians, Eph.). I assume that in his letters, five of which are addressed to churches in Asia Minor, Ignatius is referring to phenomena that he observed, or heard about, while in Asia Minor. Ignatius condemns various errors and heresies, and pleads with his fellow Christians to maintain unity by accepting the leadership of their bishops. Remarkably brief, florid, and allusive, the letters are frequently obscure; as a result the nature and identification of Ignatius's opponents are much debated in contemporary scholarship.Recent discussion includes Schoedel, ANRW, 301–30; Munier, “Ignace,” 404–7 (on the “judaizers”) and 407–13 (on the “Docetists”); Jerry Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him’: The Opponents of Ignatius of Antioch,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993) 345–65; Mark Edwards, “Ignatius, Judaism, and Judaizing,” Eranos 93 (1995) 69–77; Judith Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996) 23–56; Michael Goulder, “Ignatius's ‘Docetists,’” Vigiliae Christianae 53 (1999) 16–30; Wolfram Uebele, ‘Viele Verführer sind in die Welt ausgegangen’: Die Gegner in den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien und in den Johannesbriefen (BWANT 151; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2001). Among the much-discussed opponents are the targets of the polemic in To the Philadelphians (6.1–2), in which Ignatius exhorts his flock not to listen to anyone who expounds “Judaism.”

In India the term “minorities” refers to religious communities present in much smaller numbers than Hindus—Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Parsis/Zoroastrians. According to a 1991 census of India, out of the total Indian population of 846 million, there are 687.6 million Hindus of various sects, 101.6 million Muslims, 19.6 million Christians, 6.3 million Buddhists, 3.3 million Jains and 3.1 million adherents of other traditions. Christians are thus less than 3 percent of the total population whereas Hindus number about 83 percent. “Minorities” may also allude to those communities that have traditionally been kept outside the Hindu-based caste system—Dalits and Adivasis (or Tribals). Dalits number between 180 and 200 million and Adivasis number between 85 and 90 million in a population that has now crossed the one billion mark. While they are now included into the general category of Hinduism, these groups have been treated with overt hostility and repression, and have been the target of concerted and calculated attacks from the majority community. Christianity is also targeted violently and systematically in contemporary India, especially Christians who have been identified as Dalits and Adivasis. An analysis of the ideology and agenda of Hindu nationalism in an historical perspective will reveal the way in which the Dalits and Adivasis are perceived to present a threat to the fulfilment of this nationalist agenda. The Hinduization of India manifests itself with a propensity to eradicate all forms of variant plurality.

If Emerson was correct that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” then the mind of the Wisdom of Solomon's author may be considered both supple and expansive, since an ongoing theme of scholarship on the book has been the effort to reconcile in one way or another its real or seeming inconsistencies. The field has tacitly agreed to categorize the Wisdom of Solomon as a wisdom book, which in some ways seems obvious, not least because of the broad hint offered by its Greek title.The title found in the Septuagint actually provides two hints: the word “wisdom” itself, and its attribution of the work to the hero of the sapiential tradition, Solomon. The Latin translations call it “The Book of Wisdom.” The book's ancient designation may not be the title provided by the original author, but it does attest that the work was received by early readers as an example of wisdom literature. Nevertheless, an undercurrent of unease with the common classification has also emerged. In one widely respected collection of essays on Second Temple period texts, the author of the chapter on the Wisdom of Solomon states bluntly that “there is no type of literature in the Bible into which Wisdom as a whole fits,”Maurice Gilbert, “Wisdom Literature,” in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (ed. Michael E. Stone; CRINT, section 2; Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud 2; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 307. although the book is, for want of a better location, discussed in the collection's section on wisdom literature. Another scholar does not shrink from saying that it “is clearly a wisdom book,” although he also notes that by “focusing on only one or another aspect of the book, one could make a case for a variety of literary genres.”Lester L. Grabbe, Wisdom of Solomon (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 25. A third simply comments that the text is “elusive.”John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 B.C.E.–117 B.C.E.) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996) 181.

A prominent feature of post-Reformation English theology is a strong tradition of plebeian heresy. English people, men and women, without knowledge of learned languages or the theological canon, derived original religious ideas from their own experiences or personal study of the Bible, as well as from an eclectic miscellany of other texts.England did not, of course, have a monopoly on plebeian heresy. The most celebrated early modern plebeian heretic known to us today is probably the Italian miller Menocchio, the subject of Carlo Ginzburg's study: The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (Trans. John and Ann Tedeschi; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). Plebeian heretics often emerged from the artisan classes, possessing literacy and access to at least a small collection of books, always including the Bible. They elaborated their individual theologies outside both the dominant orthodoxy of the Anglican church and that of the major dissenting bodies.

[squf ] Introduction

As the Christian church spread into the Gentile world, one of the most prominent facets of its teaching and of the worship-experience of Christians was their understanding of the Holy Spirit. A great deal has been written during the past century on the Spirit in early Christianity, particularly in association with Paul's letters to the Corinthians. Yet surprisingly little has been done even in the last quarter century either to investigate the pagan conceptual world into which this preaching was introduced—in regard to this topic, that is—or to apply insights from earlier studies. This is true despite an increasing awareness of the importance of studying late Hellenistic and Roman culture for understanding early Gentile Christianity. What was the pre-Christian understanding of by pagan Greek-speakers? What was the shape of their religious conceptions? How did their worldview compare to the Christian message at this point? Aside from short notes in theological dictionaries and a few earlier studies,E.g., Ernest DeWitt Burton, Spirit, Soul and Flesh: The Usage of Pneuma, Psuche, and Sarx in Greek Writings and Translated Works from the Earliest Period to 180 A.D.; and of their Equivalents Ruach, Nephesh, and Basar in the Hebrew Old Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918); Hermann Kleinknecht, “ in the Greek World,” TDNT 6.334–359; Eberhard Kamlah, “Spirit, Holy Spirit” NIDNTT, 3.689–90; Marie Isaacs, The Concept of Spirit: A Study of Pneuma in Hellenistic Judaism and its Bearing on the New Testament (Heythrop Monographs 1; London: Heythrop College, 1976), though as the title indicates this last work devotes little space to non-Jewish Greek writers, and when it does there is no discussion of the evidence. Isaacs does make a number of comparisons between the Stoic use of and Hellenistic Judaism, depending on secondary works for the former, since the latter is her main focus. Generally overlooked by biblical scholars is Geérard Verbeke, L'Évolution de la Doctrine du Pneuma: du Stoïcisme à S. Augustin (Paris: Descleée de Brouwer, 1945). David Aune also has some useful notes on Greco-Roman prophecy and oracles in Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), though he is not concerned to compare the conception of the Spirit in Christianity to pagan notions of divine intermediaries. The recent study by Franz Dünzl (Pneuma: Funktionen des theologischen Begriffs in frühchristlicher Literatur [JACSup 30; Münster: Aschendorf, 2000]) is concerned only with early patristic usage. one looks in vain in commentaries and monographs for an answer to these questions. Interest generally lies in the influences on Paul and what he thought about the Spirit, or to a lesser extent the postconversion views of his churches, but not their preconversion Gentile conceptions. And since the current trend in Pauline studies is (rightly, in my opinion) to look for the Jewish roots of his thought, there seems little incentive to pursue Greco-Roman notions. Yet the answer to these questions may give some insight into the early Gentile Christians' own understanding and, in addition, shed light on the process of cross-cultural communication of the gospel message in the first century.

The most recent addition to the corpus of ancient Christian gospels first became known to scholars from a lecture presented by Charles W. Hedrick at the Sixth International Congress of Coptic Studies in 1996.Charles W. Hedrick, “A Preliminary Report on Coptic Codex P.Berol. Inv. 22220,” in Ägypten und Nubien in spätantiker und christlicher Zeit. Akten des 6. Internationalen Koptologenkongresses, Münster, 20.–26. Juli 1996, vol. 2: Schrifttum, Sprache und Gedankenwelt (ed. Stephen Emmel, Martin Krause, Siegfried G. Richter, and Sophia Schaten; Sprachen und Kulturen des Christlichen Orients 6.2; Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1999) 127–30. Some months later, the international press took a brief interest in the subject: see, for instance, Sächsische Zeitung, 15–16 March 1997, p. 33; Der kleine Bund (Bern), 14 June 1997, pp. 3–4 (article by Ulrich Luz). Three years later, the new text became available in a critical and photographic edition together with an accompanying English translation and commentary by Hedrick, in collaboration with Paul A. Mirecki,Charles W. Hedrick and Paul A. Mirecki, Gospel of the Savior: A New Ancient Gospel (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 1999); hereafter: HM or editio princeps. and in a German translation by Hans-Martin Schenke that included his own observations on the text.Hans-Martin Schenke, “Das sogenannte ‘Unbekannte Berliner Evangelium’ (UBE),” ZAC 2 (1998) 199–213 (this is the text of the 1998 Alexander Böhlig Memorial Lecture, Halle). Schenke, who called the newly recovered work the “Unknown Berlin Gospel” because the manuscript belongs to the Berlin Papyrussammlung,Ägyptisches Museum der Staatlichen Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, P.Berol. inv. 22220. Schenke's abbreviation for the new gospel is UBE. had become familiar with the text when asked by Hedrick to make comments on a nearly finished draft of his edition and translation.Schenke, “Unbekanntes Berliner Evangelium,” 199–200; compare HM, vi, where it is also stated that Hedrick was primarily responsible for the transcription and translation, and Mirecki for the commentary and indexes, but that the whole work was collaborative, with both being responsible for the introduction. At that time, the American editors were referring to the new work as “A Forgotten Gospel, Fragments of an Unidentified Gospel Text,”As reported by Schenke, “Unbekanntes Berliner Evangelium,” 200. whereas in their published edition they have entitled it the Gospel of the Savior,On the assignment of this title to the work, see HM, 16–17. which I abbreviate here as Gos. Sav.Modelled on the internationally recognized English abbreviations for the works in the Nag Hammadi codices and related literature: see The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices: Introduction (Leiden: Brill, 1984) 96–100; or, see HTR 80 (1987) 253.

In two earlier articles published in Harvard Theological Review,“Richard Hooker's Via Media Doctrine of Justification,” HTR 74 (1981) 211–20, and “Richard Hooker's Via Media Doctrine of Repentance,” HTR 84 (1991) 59–74. I argued the thesis that the thought of Richard Hooker (1544–1600) represents a distinctive via media way of doing theology that immeasurably influenced what would later become known as “Anglicanism.” This thesis has recently been vigorously challenged by a certain group of scholars who constitute what may now well be regarded as a “new school” of Hooker interpretation.The leader of this new school is W. J. Torrance Kirby, whose revisionist interpretation is clearly set forth in Richard Hooker's Doctrine of the Royal Supremacy (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1990) 33–37, 126–27; “Richard Hooker as an Apologist of the Magisterial Reformation in England,” in Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community (ed. Arthur Stephen McGrade; Tempe, Ariz.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1997) 220–23; and “Richard Hooker's Theory of Natural Law in the Context of Reformation Theology,” Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1999) 681–703. See also Nigel Atkinson, Richard Hooker and the Authority of Scripture, Tradition and Reason: Reformed Theologian of the Church of England (Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster, 1997); and “Hooker's Theological Method and Modern Anglicanism,” Churchman 114 (2000) 40–70. These scholars argue that the via media understanding of Hooker's thought, along with his anachronistic association with what only much later became known as “Anglicanism,” were largely creations of “Catholicizing” leaders of the nineteenth-century High Church Oxford Movement—including Hooker's editor, John Keble, and most notably John Henry Newman in his pre-conversion Anglo-Catholic guise. These scholars then set forth their counterthesis that Hooker is to all intents and purposes a faithful English exponent of all the basic “orthodox” doctrines of the Magisterial Reformers, namely, Luther and especially Calvin.

Louise A. Breen. Trangressing the Bounds: Subversive Enterprises among the Puritan Elite in Massachusetts, 1630–1692. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 292 pp. Sargent Bush, Jr., ed. The Correspondence of John Cotton. Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 548 pp. Michael P. Winship. Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636–1641. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. 322 pp. In the midst of an entangled “crisis” that appeared to threaten the very being of newly founded Massachusetts, one close observer of the situation in 1636 and 1637 felt that little of substance separated the warring parties: “few could see where the difference was; and indeed it seemed so small, as (if men's affections had not been formerly lienated, when the differences were […] stated as fundamental) they might easily have come to reconciliation.” Other contemporaries painted the crisis in starker colors, invoking, as John Wheelwright did in a fast-day sermon of January 1637, the combat between the forces of Christ and the followers of the Anti-Christ and summoning the “children of God” to “prepare for a spirituall combate” against their enemies.The Journal of John Winthrop, ed. Richard S. Dunn et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996) 216 ; David D. Hall, ed., The Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638: A Documentary History (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1968) 158–59. By and large, modern historians have sided with Wheelwright in emphasizing the seriousness of the “Antinomian controversy,” as the crisis is conventionally termed. Its modern interpreters disagree, however, on what was at issue and on the relationship of the controversy to the underlying dynamics of the Puritan movement. Two new books by young historians add to this debate in important ways, and a third volume, a scrupulously edited collection of the letters of the Reverend John Cotton, advances our understanding of a minister whose sermons to his Boston congregation helped precipitate the crisis.

A recurring issue in analyzing the work of the critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno (d. 1969) is how to understand his professed adherence to the biblical commandment that prohibits the manufacture of images of the divine—referred to as the “image ban” or Bilderverbot (Exod 20:4–5). Adorno writes, “I see no other possibility than that of extreme asceticism toward any faith in revelation, and extreme allegiance to the Bilderverbot.”Theodor W. Adorno, “Vernunft und Offenbarung,” Gesammelte Schriften (20 vols.; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970–1993) 10:616. See also Gesammelte Schriften 6:207, 293–94; idem, Negative Dialectics (trans. E. B. Ashton; New York: Continuum, 1994) 207, 298–99. Gesammelte Schriften 3:40; idem and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (trans. John Cumming; New York: Continuum, 1994). Adorno also prohibits pronunciation of the divine name; see Gesammelte Schriften 6:394; Negative Dialectics, 402. Some readers' interest in the significance of Adorno's allegiance to the Bilderverbot is primarily theological. Others' interest, particularly that of his successors in critical theory, is primarily political. In their estimation, Adorno's allegiance to the Bilderverbot undermines any contribution he might make to contemporary formulations of an emancipatory praxis.