scholarly journals „Non intelligis stultitiam tuam impudentiae copulatam”. Św. Hieronim contra Pelagiusz

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 399-407
Author(s):  
Magdalena Jóźwiak

Reading the ancient scriptures of Christians of the first centuries, one can easily notice numerous invectives. From among the Fathers of the Church there are three who in particular deserve the title of “fathers of Christian invectives”. One of those who best can be described as such is St. Jerome of Stridonius. It should not come as a surprise, because in ancient times one did not reach only for intellectual arguments when defending their views. A logical elucidation was merely a part of argumentation. The other part, of no less importance, were arguments ad homi­nem, including also invectives. Verbal insults were integral part of argumentation and the lack of them would decrease the value of debate. In this article, based on St. Jerome’s of Stridonius writings, I portrayed his reactions to the phenomenon of pelagianism, as well as to the person of Pelagius himself. This subject has been analysed in many articles, but I presented it from a different angle. Namely, I em­phasized varied interesting invectives that St. Jerome – well-known for his sharp tongue – directed to Pelagius, basing on argumentum ad personam.

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Sissel Undheim

The description of Christ as a virgin, 'Christus virgo', does occur at rare occasions in Early Christian and late antique texts. Considering that 'virgo' was a term that most commonly described the sexual and moral status of a member of the female sex, such representations of Christ as a virgin may exemplify some of the complex negotiations over gender, salvation, sanctity and Christology that we find in the writings of the Church fathers. The article provides some suggestions as to how we can understand the notion of the virgin Christ within the context of early Christian and late antique theological debates on the one hand, and in light of the growing interest in sacred virginity on the other.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-355
Author(s):  
Colin Buchanan

I am grateful to the Society for the opportunity to mark the centenary of the Enabling Act and the beginning of the Church Assembly with some reflection on an often ignored but highly valuable feature of that inauguration: the Single Transferable Vote or STV. I tried on one respected registrar recently an illustration of what the task must be like for those who do not welcome it. Was it, I suggested, like a blind person doing a jigsaw where the pieces were all shaped differently from each other – in other words, where the blind person could ensure that it was put together accurately, but on the other hand never saw the picture? The response was that that picture reflected accurately how it had in fact felt to that registrar. That might suggest that this lecture should be explaining and commending STV as general good practice, but in the event the process and virtues of STV have here to be largely taken for granted. I offer here one short commendation of STV.


Archaeologia ◽  
1866 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-224
Author(s):  
Alexander Nesbitt

It will doubtless be generally admitted that the ecclesiastical buildings of the earlier centuries of the Christian era merit careful study, as well from the investigator into the history and antiquities of the Christian Church, as from the architectural antiquary. The style and ornamentation of the church and the baptistery must necessarily reflect something of the tone of feeling towards religious matters which prevailed at the time of their erection, whilst the form of the structure, and even more those fittings and arrangements by which it was adapted to ritual purposes, must obviously have been planned and modified in accordance with the views of the age as regarded liturgical and ritual observances, ecclesiastical discipline, and even articles of faith. To the architectural antiquary, on the other hand, these buildings are interesting as enabling him to study the decline of Roman art, and as links in the great chain of architectural progress.


1973 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-375
Author(s):  
Helen Matzke McCadden

In the Presbyterian burying ground at George Washington's encampment in Morristown, New Jersey, on April 29, 1780, Roman Catholic burial rites were performed for a distinguished emissary from Cuba. Dr. James Thacher, army surgeon, recorded the obsequies in his Journal thus:His Excellency General Washington, with several other general officers and members of Congress, attended the funeral solemnities, and walked as chief mourners. The other officers of the army, and numerous respectable citizens, formed a splendid procession, extending about one mile. The pall-bearers were six field officers, and the coffin was borne on the shoulders of four officers of the artillery in full uniform… A Spanish priest performed service at the grave, in the Roman Catholic form. The coffin was inclosed in a box of plank, and all the profusion of pomp and grandeur were deposited in the silent grave, in the common burying-ground, near the church at Morristown.


1943 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Kenneth Scott Latourette

A strange contrast exists in the status of the Christian Church in the past seventy years. On the one hand the Church has clearly lost some of the ground which once appeared to be safely within its possession. On the other hand it has become more widely spread geographically and, when all mankind is taken into consideration, more influential in shaping human affairs than ever before in its history. In a paper as brief as this must of necessity be, space can be had only for the sketching of the broad outlines of this paradox and for suggesting a reason for it. If details were to be given, a large volume would be required. Perhaps, however, we can hope to do enough to point out one of the most provocative and important set of movements in recent history.


1906 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
B.D. John Willcock

The idea that at the Restoration the Government of Charles II. wantonly attacked a Church that otherwise would have remained at peace and in the enjoyment of hardly-won liberties is not in accordance with facts. The Church was divided into two warring factions—that of the Remonstrants or Protesters and that of the Resolutioners. The former were the extreme Covenant party and had as their symbol the Remonstrance of the Western army after the Battle of Dunbar, in which they refused to fight any longer in the cause of Charles II. The Resolutioners were the more moderate party, which accepted him as a Covenanted King, and they derived their name from their support of certain Resolutions passed in the Parliament and General Assembly for the admission of Royalists to office under certain conditions. The Protesters—who numbered perhaps about a third of the Presbyterian clergy—claimed, probably not without reason, to be more religious than their opponents. They were very eager to purge the Church of all those whose opinions they regarded as unsatisfactory, and to fill up vacant charges with those who uttered their shibboleths. In their opposition to the King they naturally drew somewhat closely into sympathy with the party of Cromwell, though, with the fatal skill in splitting hairs which has afflicted so many of their nation, they were able to differentiate their political principles from what they called ‘English errors.’ The Resolutioners, on the other hand, adhered steadily to the cause of Charles II., and came under the disfavour of the Government of the Commonwealth for their sympathy with the insurrection under Glencairn and Middleton which had been so troublesome to the English authorities.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams

ABSTRACTFor Hooker's opponents, sacraments could only be human actions designed to further the homogeneity of that community of uniform spiritual achievement which is the holy congregation. Hooker, on the other hand, affirms the possibility of uneven, confused faith, even the confused ecclesial loyalties of the ‘church papist’, as something acceptable within the reformed congregation. This is entirely of a piece with the defence of a liturgy that is more than verbal instruction. Hooker traces these two issues to a Christology which is centred upon divine gift and ontological transformation, and a consequent sacramental theology which affirms the hiddenness but effectiveness of divine presence and work in the forms of our ritual action.


Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ivanova ◽  
Michelle R. Viise

The most well-known practitioner of dissimulation among early modern Christians of the Eastern Rite is Meletii Smotryts'kyi (ca. 1577–1633), the Orthodox archbishop of Polatsk (in modern-day Belarus), who was suspected of being a Uniate for several years before he was openly charged with apostasy during a council of the Orthodox hierarchy of Poland-Lithuania in August of 1628. For the previous year Smotryts'kyi had lived a double life, outwardly an Orthodox archbishop but secretly a Uniate, having formally accepted the Union with Rome on July 6, 1627. In this period of clandestine Uniatism and the years leading up to it, during which he flirted with conversion, Smotryts'kyi fulfilled his official duties, playing a leading role in Orthodox synods and risking exposure that would bring public disgrace and even physical harm. Smotryts'kyi had a positive reason for keeping his conversion secret: he argued that the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition should allow him to remain in office as an Orthodox bishop so that he might convene a council of the Orthodox hierarchy and elite and, “received as a schismatic [an Orthodox], would be able to set forth and to explain the twofold causes of the present discord of the Church & and to cause doubt for them in the schismatic faith (through the reasons that had taught him himself that there was no contradiction in thing [essence], only in words, between the holy Greek and Latin fathers).” Smotryts'kyi concluded his request for secrecy by comparing his situation with that of Jesuits engaged in mission work with non-Christians: “Wherefore, indeed, if the fathers of the Society of Jesus and the other priests in India can live with the heathens in secular habit, this should cause no one scandal, especially since, with God’s help, we will hope for the much greater fruit of holy Union from his hidden Catholicism & than if he were now known by all.”


Author(s):  
Svetlana M. Klimova ◽  

The article examines the phenomenon of the late Lev Tolstoy in the context of his religious position. The author analyzes the reactions to his teaching in Russian state and official Orthodox circles, on the one hand, and Indian thought, on the other. Two sociocultural images of L.N. Tolstoy: us and them that arose in the context of understanding the position of the Russian Church and the authorities and Indian public and religious figures (including Mahatma Gandhi, who was under his influence). A peculiar phenomenon of intellectually usL.N. Tolstoy among culturally them (Indian) correspondents and intellectually them Tolstoy among culturally us (representatives of the official government and the Church of Russia) transpires. The originality of this situation is that these im­ages of Lev Tolstoy arise practically at the same period. The author compares these images, based on the method of defamiliarisation (V. Shklovsky), which allows to visually demonstrate the religious component of Tolstoy’s criticism of the political sphere of life and, at the same time, to understand the psychological reasons for its rejection in Russian official circles. With the methodological help of defamiliarisation the author tries to show that the opinion of Tolstoy (as the writer) becomes at the same time the voice of conscience for many of his con­temporaries. The method of defamiliarisation allowed the author to show how Leo Tolstoy’s inner law of nonviolence influenced the concept of non­violent resistance in the teachings of Gandhi.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 244-252
Author(s):  
Brahim BOUKHALFA

The yearning for a journey towards the places of strangers, the longing to mingle with them and immerse themselves in their lives, and to record everything that is strange and wondrous about their lifestyle, their ways of thinking, their customs and traditions, that is the nature that characterizes man, since ancient times. The lives of the prophets, may blessings and peace be upon them, were frenetic migrations, and a constant movement, length and breadth, in search of a place of intimacy, a comfortable life, and a bright truth. Western poets, writers, philosophers and travelers have also been fond of the journey to the Naked and Islamic East, from the Middle Ages to the present day; The desire to get to know the Easterners closely, to mix with them, and then to dominate them, was evident in the so-called travel literature. It is the writing emanating from the experiences of travelers in the eastern "One Thousand and One Nights". However, these travelers have always hidden the true intentions that drove them on the journey, which, as we will present in the body of this study, are colonial motives deposited in the political consciousness of Western governments that stand behind the colonial phenomenon. It is from this perspective in the research that urgent questions come to the surface, which we are trying to answer. What are the real motives for the trip for Western writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What is their relationship with the Western governments that were colonizing large areas of the Arab countries? What are the representations of Arabs and Muslims in so-called travel literature? The answer to these questions is to reveal to us the colonial nature of the modern West, and the extent of its contempt for non-Westerners, which is supported by myths of racial superiority and self-centeredness in that. It is a belief that has not been affected by the tremendous development in the field of human sciences that our time has witnesse


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