Although the importance of anthropomorphic conceptions in rabbinic thought is widely recognized, their original nature and significance are still in need of clarification. A major difficulty in this task stems from the scarcity and the obscurity of some of the most important texts, which, moreover, cannot be dated with any precision.

During the middle decades of the thirteenth century, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church committed itself to a program of extensive missionizing. While converting the infidels had always been a professed ideal of the Church, rarely were significant resources allocated for a serious effort in that direction. Now, with western Christendom increasingly disillusioned with the prospect of military subjugation of Islam and increasingly confident over the rationality of its cause, ideological victory over its enemies seemed both preferable and achievable. Just as it had once called forth armies for the military crusade, now western Christendom organized its institutional and intellectual forces for a new confrontation. The Dominican and Franciscan orders became the shock troops in this battle: schools for training missionaries were organized; handbooks of argumentation were composed. The total effort was broad and impressive.

[We] should … set upon our affairs with looking up to heaven for permission, power, and sufferance. … Let us therefore in all our affairs be holy, and not bind or limit our holiness only to coming to church; but seeing at all times and in all places we are Christians, and ever in the presence of God, let us place ourselves still in his eye, and do nothing but that we would be willing God shall see. … [We] ought not to set upon anything, wherein we cannot expect God's guidance.

Richard Sibbes

In Cromwell's rebellion the cause was managed by whining hypocrites, and no wonder if they cheated.

Roger North

Much has been written about Wilfred Cantwell Smith's account of the nature of religion, particularly by those who, broadly speaking, may be called Religionswissenschaftler. Surprisingly little, though, has been written about his theology. In part at least, this can be attributed to the incipience of his theological thought within the broad parameters of his studies of religion. Theological ideas have been more imbedded in the wealth of materials aimed at the elucidation of the nature of belief, faith, religious truth, and cumulative tradition than presented in any overt and systematic way. But the recent appearance of the third volume of his trilogy, Towards a World Theology, enables us to concentrate more directly on his theological thought and, in light of this, to reflect upon the theological nuances of his earlier work.

A recent rereading of Paul Ricoeur's influential study, The Symbolism of Evil, led me to a surprising realization: the dialectic of primary symbols in that book, which superficially resembles the dialectic of subject and object found in many phenomenological studies of religion, can be extended to Ricoeur's analysis of myths and even to his hermeneutical program. The result is a systematic dialectical structure which recalls Hegel's phenomenology more than that of Husserl. This structure also suggests a solution to the problem Ricoeur encounters when he tries to understand the historical linkage between the Christian myth of Adam's fall and the Gnostic myth of the soul exiled in the body. Most significantly, the systematic structure of The Symbolism of Evil helps to illustrate the radical difference between transcendental and historical phenomenologies.

Two decades ago J. H. Waszink proposed in these pages a solution to the puzzle produced by Vergil's use of the phrase agmina sororum of the Furies at Aeneid 6.571–72. His suggestion has received the serious attention which it warranted; but on further reflection his solution to the problem is seen to be unsatisfactory

Paul's question in 2 Cor 2:16 (“Who is sufficient for these things?”) has long puzzled commentators. Many have noted the abruptness of the question in its context, but few have succeeded in relating the question specifically to the situation that Paul faced. More recently, in his monograph on the opponents of Paul in 2 Corinthians, Dieter Georgi has proposed that in this question Paul is adopting a catchword or slogan (“sufficient”/“sufficiency”) of his opponents and using it against them.

The image of the Good Shepherd was by far the most popular representation of Christ in the Church's first four centuries. In his article on the subject in the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, Henri Leclerq gives more than three hundred examples, dating to the beginning of the fifth century, and his list is by no means exhaustive. In the first half of the fifth century, however, the Good Shepherd suddenly vanishes from Christian art in both East and West, with perhaps a few relatively insignificant exceptions, to be replaced by the images of Christ as teacher and as king—images that had become increasingly important in the iconography of Christ over the course of the previous hundred years. The Good Shepherd did not reappear upon the scene until well into the Middle Ages. What was responsible for its disappearance?