As is well known, the Corpus Dionysiacum (CD) first appeared on the stage of history in the first quarter of the sixth century; what is less well known is that within a generation of its appearance the CD was commented upon by an Orthodox author, John of Scythopolis (d.c. 548). Thereafter, the CD was circulated in a much expanded format—prefaced with John's Prologue and annotated with his Scholia. John's interpretive work, so close in time to the composition of the CD itself, holds forth the promise of great insight into the earliest stage of the reception of the Areopagite's works in the Christian East. Unfortunately, with the passing of time, John's remarks became so intermingled with the comments of later authors (such as Maximus the Confessor and Germanus of Constantinople) that until quite recently modern scholars have been unable to isolate John's Scholia with any degree of certainty. However, investigations of the Scholia are now entering a new stage, thanks in large part to the labors of Beate Regina Suchla. As she has demonstrated in a series of recent publications, it is possible to recover John's work through an early Syriac translation of the Scholia and a shorter Greek recension, both of which preserve the earliest version of the Scholia, that authored by John. To date, however, she has published results for the scholia on the Divine Names alone. Using a similar approach, the authors of this article have tentatively identified John's comments on the rest of the CD as well. It is now possible to begin examining thematic aspects of John's Scholia and to understand something of his intentions in commenting upon the CD. With this goal in mind, we here investigate John's comments on a number of intertwined issues, chiefly, the Christology of Apollinaris and the authenticity of the works of Dionysius.

During the past two decades, a spate of interpretive studies has addressed the spirituality of regular canons in the twelfth century. Caroline Bynum's Docere Verbo et Exemplo, most notably, has established that there was a distinctive canonical perspective on medieval religious reform. In Bynum's work in particular, the works of two Augustinian canons of the Order of Prémontré, Anselm of Havelberg (d. 1158) and Philip of Harvengt (d. 1183), figure importantly. Both Anselm and Philip—the one a bishop on the Slavic frontier and the other abbot of a double community in Brabant—were prominent apologists for their order's place among a proliferation of new religious groups. But recent scholarship has so far suggested no particular community of ideas between these two eminent twelfth-century Premonstratensians. Nor, more generally, has the ideology and spirituality of canons of their order, founded in 1121 by the Belgian nobleman Norbert of Xanten, been set clearly apart in more than name from the thought and practice of other groups of contemporary Augustinians.

In the nineteenth century the West truly rediscovered Palestine. A land many western observers had long considered fallen from its former glory was roused amid its Ottoman occupation to abide the hopes, dreams, and designs not only of aspiring Jewish nationalists but of British and American diplomats, explorers, archaeologists, adventurers, Christian pilgrims, missionaries, and others in that great entourage which Naomi Shepherd has dubbed the “zealous intruders.” Protestant missionaries in the Levant, to the extent that they established an early and enduring physical presence in the Holy Land and a living link with evangelical churches in Europe, Britain, and America, played a memorable, if limited, role in this modern reopening of Palestine to the West.

Protestant churches in the early twentieth century were vexed by dwindling attendance, a clear sign of their declining social authority. The Reverend William C. Skeath complained about “the masses of the passively religious who have closed their ears to the sermon subject and their doors to pastoral visitation.” Likewise, in How to Fill the Pews, Ernest Eugene Elliott said that because no more than two-fifths of church members went to church on any given Sunday, the church had ceased to be the chief forum in American public life.

Discussion about theological developments in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s has focused on the influence of European “crisis theology” and Reinhold Niebuhr. This approach, however, has overlooked the cooperative work carried out by the theologians and churchmen who pushed American Protestant thought towards neo-orthodoxy. At the core of this movement stood a group of young theologians who shared a generational identity, having known each other as student leaders in the YMCA, Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM), and the World's Student Christian Federation (WSCF). Among them were men and women who later held academic positions at America's most prestigious Protestant seminaries: Henry P. Van Dusen, John C. Bennett, the Niebuhr brothers, Walter M. Horton, Edwin E. Aubrey, Georgia Harkness, Robert L. Calhoun, John Mackay, Samuel McCrea Cavert, and the layman Francis P. Miller.