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For almost three hundred years there were those in England who believed that an Italian translation of the Book of Common Prayer could trigger radical change in the political and religious landscape of Italy. The aim was to present the text to the Italian religious and political elite, in keeping with the belief that the English liturgy embodied the essence of the Church of England. The beauty, harmony, and simplicity of the English liturgical text, rendered intoItalian, was expected to demonstrate that the English Church came closest to the apostolic model. Beginning in the Venetian Republic and ending with the Italian Risorgimento, the leitmotif running through the various incarnations of this project was the promotion of top-down reform according to themodel of the Church of England itself. These ventures mostly had little real impact on Italian history: as Roy Foster once wrote, "the most illuminating history is often written to show how people acted in the expectation of a future that never happened." This book presents one of those histories. Making Italy Anglican tells the story of a fruitless encounter that helps us better to understand both the self-perception of the Church of England''s international role and the cross-cultural and religious relations betweenBritain and Italy. Stefano Villani shows how Italy, as the heart of Roman Catholicism, wasΓÇöover a long period of timeΓÇöthe very center of the global ambitions of the Church of England.

Recently there has been a revival of interest in the views held by Reformed theologians within the parameters of confessional orthodoxy. For example, the doctrine known as ''hypothetical universalism''ΓÇöthe idea that although Christ died in some sense for every person, his death was intended to bring about the salvation only for those who were predestined for salvation. Michael Lynch focuses on the hypothetical universalism of the English theologian and bishop JohnDavenant (1572-1641), arguing that it has consistently been misinterpreted and misrepresented as a via media between Arminian and Reformed theology. A close examination of Davenent''s De Morte Christi, is the central core of the study. Lynch offers a detailed exposition of Davenant''s doctrine of universal redemption in dialogue with his understanding of closely related doctrines such as God''s will, predestination, providence, and covenant theology. He defends the thesis that Davenant''s version of hypothetical universalism represents a significant strand of the Augustinian tradition, including the early modern Reformed tradition.The book examines the patristic and medieval periods as they provided the background for the Lutheran, Remonstrant, and Reformed reactions to the so-called Lombardian formula (''Christ died sufficiently for all, effectually for the elect''). It traces how Davenant and his fellow British delegates at the Synod ofDordt shaped the Canons of Dordt in such a way as to allow for their English hypothetical universalism.

In popular thought, Christianity is often figured as being opposed to dance. Conventional scholarship traces this controversy back to the Middle Ages. Throughout the medieval era, the Latin Church denounced and prohibited dancing in religious and secular realms, often aligning it with demonic intervention, lust, pride, and sacrilege. Historical sources, however, suggest that medieval dance was a complex and ambivalent phenomenon. During the High and Late Middle Ages,Western theologians, liturgists, and mystics not only tolerated dance; they transformed it into a dynamic component of religious thought and practice. This book investigates how dance became a legitimate form of devotion in Christian culture. Sacred dance functioned to gloss scripture, framespiritual experience, and imagine the afterlife. Invoking numerous manuscript and visual sources (biblical commentaries, sermons, saints'' lives, ecclesiastical statutes, mystical treatises, vernacular literature, and iconography), this book highlights how medieval dance helped shape religious identity and social stratification. Moreover, this book shows the political dimension of dance, which worked in the service of Christendom, conversion, and social cohesion. In Ringleaders ofRedemption, Kathryn Dickason reveals a long tradition of sacred dance in Christianity, one that the professionalization and secularization of Renaissance dance obscured, and one that the Reformation silenced and suppressed.

The extra Calvinisticum, the doctrine that the eternal Son maintains his existence beyond the flesh both during his earthly ministry and perpetually, divided the Lutheran and Reformed traditions during the Reformation. This book explores the emergence and development of the extra Calvinisticum in the Reformed tradition by tracing its first exposition from Ulrich Zwingli to early Reformed orthodoxy. Rather than being an ancillary issue, the questionssurrounding the extra Calvinisticum were a determinative factor in the differentiation of Magisterial Protestantism into rival confessions. Reformed theologians maintained this doctrine in order to preserve the integrity of both Christ''s divine and human natures as the mediator between God and humanity. Thisrationale remained consistent across this period with increasing elaboration and sophistication to meet the challenges leveled against the doctrine in Lutheran polemics. The study begins with Zwingli''s early use of the extra Calvinisticum in the Eucharistic controversy with Martin Luther and especially as the alternative to Luther''s doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ''s human body. Over time, Reformed theologians, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli and Antione de Chandieu, articulated the extra Calvinisticum with increasing rigor by incorporating conciliar christology, the church fathers, and scholastic methodology to address the polemical needs ofengagement with Lutheranism. The Flesh of the Word illustrates the development of christological doctrine by Reformed theologians offering a coherent historical narrative of Reformed christology from its emergence into the period of confessionalization. The extra Calvinisticum was interconnected to broader concernsaffecting concepts of the union of Christ''s natures, the communication of attributes, and the understanding of heaven.

History has long viewed French Protestants as Calvinists. Refusing to Kiss the Slipper re-examines the Reformation in francophone Europe, presenting for the first time the perspective of John Calvin''s evangelical enemies and revealing that the French Reformation was more complex and colorful than previously recognized. Michael Bruening brings together a cast of Calvin''s opponents from various French-speaking territories to show that opposition to Calvinismwas stronger and better organized than has been recognized. He examines individual opponents, such as Pierre Caroli, Jerome Bolsec, Sebastian Castellio, Charles Du Moulin, and Jean Morély, but more importantly, he explores the anti-Calvinist networks that developed around such individuals. Each group had its own origins and agenda, but all agreed that Calvin''s claim to absolute religious authority too closely echoed the religious sovereignty of the pope. These oft-neglected opponents refused to offer such obeisance-to kiss the papal slipper-arguing instead for open discussion of controversial doctrines. They believed Calvin''s self-appointed leadership undermined the bedrock principle of the Reformation that the faithful be allowed to challenge religious authorities. This bookshows that the challenge posed by these groups shaped the way the Calvinists themselves developed their reform strategies. Bruening''s work demonstrates that the breadth and strength of the anti-Calvinist networks requires us to abandon the traditional assumption that Huguenots and other francophoneProtestants were universally Calvinist.

Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-430) studied and taught rhetoric for nearly two decades until, at the age of thirty-one, he left his position as professor of rhetoric in Milan to embark upon his new life as a Christian. This was not a clean break in Augustine''s thought. Previous scholarship has done much to show us that Augustine integrated rhetorical ideas about texts and speeches into his thought on homiletics, the formation of arguments, and scriptural interpretation.Over the past few decades a new movement among scholars has begun to show that Augustine also carried rhetorical concepts into areas of his thought that were beyond the typical purview of the rhetorical handbooks. In Rhetorical Economy in Augustine''s Theology, Brian Gronewoller contributes to this new wave of scholarship by providing a detailed examination of Augustine''s use of the rhetorical concept of economy in his theologies of creation, history, and evil, in order to gain insights into these fundamental aspects of his thought. This study finds that Augustine used rhetorical economy as the logic by which he explained a multitude of tensions within, and answered various challengesto, these three areas of his thought as well as others with which they intersect-including his understandings of providence, divine activity, and divine order.

Font of Pardon and New Life is a study of the historical development and impact of John Calvin''s doctrine of baptism, both adult (or believer) baptism and infant baptism. Did Calvin intend to teach a kind of baptismal forgiveness and regeneration, that is, did he believe that the external sign of baptism actually conveys the spiritual realities it signifies? If baptism does serve in some way as an instrument of divine grace for Calvin, what then are theroles of the Word, the Holy Spirit, divine election, and individual faith? Are spiritual blessings conferred only in adult (believer) baptism or also in the baptism of infants? Did Calvin''s teaching on baptismal efficacy remain constant throughout his lifetime, or did it undergo significant change? What impactdid it have on the Reformed confessional tradition that followed him?Lyle D. Bierma approaches these questions by examining Calvin''s writings on baptism in their entirety, proceeding chronologically through Calvin''s life and writings including his Institutes, commentaries on the Bible, catechisms, polemical treatises, and consensus documents. Bierma concludes that Calvin understood baptism as a means or instrument of both assurance and grace. His view underwent some change and development over the course of his life but not to the extent that some inthe past have suggested. The overall trajectory of his baptismal theology was one of increasing clarity and refinement of basic themes already present in incipient form in the Institutes of 1536.

John Owen was a leading theologian in 17th-century England. Through his association with Oliver Cromwell in particular, he exercised considerable influence on central government, and became the premier religious statesman of the Interregnum.

This book offers a new account of the origins of modern biblical criticism. Focusing on the scholarship of J. D. Michaelis (1717-1791), it shows how critics created a post-theological academic Bible to replace Europe's scriptural Bibles and assimilate biblical scholarship to the social goals of the Enlightenment.

Ed Siecinski examines how the Church has viewed the procession of the Holy Spirit throughout its history, beginning with the Trinitarian controversies of the early Christian centuries. The first comprehensive study of the key controversy separating the Eastern and Western churches.

In this book Susan Schreiner analyzes the pervading questions about certitude and doubt in the terms and contexts of a wide variety of thinkers during Europe in the sixteenth century.

This work attempts to understand Calvin in his16th-century context, with attention to continuities and discontinuities between his thought and that of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors.

This is a study of the life, monastic writings and spiritual theology of John Cassian (c.365-430). Cassian's writings were the bridge between eastern monasticism and the developing Latin monasticism of Southern Gaul, and exerted a major influence on the Rule of Benedict and the theology of Gregory the Great.

While Augustine's understanding of will is constantly invoked in secondary literature, it rarely receives analysis in its own right. In this book, Han-luen Kantzer Komline provides such an analysis, demonstrating that Augustine's view is "theologically differentiated," comprising four distinct types of human will, which correspond to four different theological scenarios.

The aim of this book is to decide between the two rival assessments regarding Article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy that have continued over the centuries. Tony Lane offers both a wide-ranging study of the article's history and a line-by-line analysis of its content. The book includes the original Latin text together with an English translation and running commentary.

In this book, Shaun Blanchard uses a close study of the Synod of Pistoia (1786) to argue that the roots of the Vatican II reforms must be pushed back beyond the widely acknowledged twentieth-century forerunners of the Council, beyond Newman and the Tubingen School in the nineteenth century, to the eighteenth century, in which a variety of reform movements attempted ressourcement and aggiornamento.

The "Awakening" was the last major Protestant reform and revival movement to occur in Germany. This book examines the Awakening as a product of the larger social changes that were re-shaping German society during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Awakened Protestants were traditionalists who rejected the changes that Enlightenment thought had introduced into Protestant theology and preaching. But, Kloes argues, their efforts to spread their religiousbeliefs were only successful because of the new political freedoms and economic opportunities that the Enlightenment had introduced.

The place of Hilary of Poitiers in the debates and developments of early Christianity is tenuous in contemporary scholarship. In this book, Jarred A. Mercer makes a case for understanding Hilary not only as an important historical figure, but as a significant and independent thinker. Divine Perfection and Human Potentiality offers a new paradigm for understanding Hilary's work De Trinitate as a trinitarian anthropology.

During the mid-seventeenth century, Baptists existed on the fringes of religious life in England. Matthew C. Bingham examines this early group and argues that they did not see themselves as a part of a larger, all-encompassing Baptist movement. Rather, their rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans. Orthodox Radicals is a much needed complication of ourunderstanding of Baptist identity, setting the early English Baptists in the cultural, political, and theological context of the wider puritan milieu out of which they arose.

This book explores the extent to which artists of sixteenth-century Europe were influenced by ideas of religious reform. Analysing the content of major works by eight prominent artists, noted reformation scholar John Dillenberger argues that these artists' productions provide a fascinating map of the evolution and influence of major theological currents of their time.

This is the first study in any language dedicated to the seminal theological works of the French Reformed pastor, professor, and master of genres Antoine de Chandieu 1534-1591.

The Reformation of Prophecy illuminates the significant shifts in the Protestant reformers' engagement with the prophet and biblical prophecy-shifts from advancing the priesthood of all believers to strengthening Protestant clerical identity and authority to operating as a site of polemical-confessional exchange concerning right interpretations of Scripture.

In Augustine, the Trinity, and the Church, Adam Ployd argues that the anti-Donatist sermons of 406-407 reveal Augustine's theologies of the Trinity and of the church as mutually informing rather than discrete topics, as they are usually considered.

Debating Perseverance recognizes struggles with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints as emblematic of the Church of England's troubled pursuit of a Reformed and ancient catholicity.

The Bohemian preacher and religious reformer Jan Hus has been celebrated as a de facto saint since being burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415.

Morality after Calvin examines the development of ethical thought in the Reformed tradition immediately following the death of Calvin, using Theodore Beza's Cato Censorius Christianus (1591) as a point of departure.

The Papacy and the Orthodox examines the history of the centuries-long debate over the primacy and authority of the Bishop of Rome, especially in relation to the Christian East.

Gerald P. Boersma examines Augustine's early theology of the image of God, or imago dei, and shows that he affirms that both Christ and the human person are the imago dei. Boersma contextualizes Augustine's theology prior to his ordination (386-391) by demonstrating that it represents a significant departure from earlier Latin pro-Nicene theologies of image.