In light of current interest in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, rediscovery of the work of John Capreolus (1380-1444) is particularly important. Known to the Renaissance theologians who succeeded him as ""prince of Thomists,"" he established a mode of Thomistic theological and philosophical engagement that has set the pattern for Thomistic thinkers after him. Twentieth-century scholarship on Capreolus tended to focus on questions concerning metaphysics, the person, and the beatific vision. The purpose of the present translation of his questions on the virtues is to bring to the fore another aspect of his thought, his theological ethics. Capreolus's great work, his Arguments in Defense of the Theology of St. Thomas, constitutes a significant juncture in the history of Western theology. In one respect it is an exercise in the traditional genre of question-commentaries on Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences, a twelfth-century work that had been the official textbook of theology at the University of Paris. In Capreolus's hands, however, the format of the traditional Sentences commentary itself becomes a pretext for accomplishing a purpose more original than that of any preceding commentator on Lombard's work, namely to defend the thought of Aquinas against his late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century adversaries, including John Duns Scotus, Durandus of St. Pourcain, and Peter Aureole. The selection from Capreolus's work represented in this translation shows him defending Aquinas's conclusions on faith, hope, charity, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the virtues against such adversaries. With a spirit of generosity in quotation, Capreolus lets each adversary have his say, but the outcome of the disputes is never in question, as Capreolus on each point leads the reader towards a view of the superiority of the Thomistic position.

Keirkegaard's Metaphors offers an explaination of a more accessible way to understand Kierkegarrd by analyzing his persistent use of metaphors.

This is a Syriac text written, in all probability, by an inhabitant of Edessa almost immediately after the conclusion of the war between Rome and Persia in 502-506 AD. Although that conflict is treated in other ancient texts, none of them can match "Joshua" in his wealth of detail, his familiarity with the region where the hostilities occurred, and his proximity in time to the events. The Chronicle also vividly describes the famine and plague that swept through Edessa in the years immediately before the war. The work is a document of great importance for both the social and military history of late antiquity, remarkable for the information it provides on Roman and Persian empires alike.

Langdon Gilkey's writings have long been profitably studied by students of theology who have discovered there illuminating insights, pioneering thoughts, and even a healthy agony with which every serious thinker can identify. Now we have a systematic and critical exposition and appraisal of the theology of Langdon Gilkey. Editors Pasewark and Pool rightly insist that this is more than a Festschrift: these essays do "celebrate the life and work of Langdon Gilkey, but specifically in the context of examining the major contours of Gilkey's own theological labors". In practical terms, these essays written by a corps of Gilkey's students comprise an insightful and helpful commentary on the work and writings of Gilkey. With these pages in hand, the next generation of students surely will find reading Langdon Gilkey on the "understanding of ourselves in time" to be even more rewarding.

For more than forty-five years, Langdon Brown Gilkey has helped shape the direction of contemporary theology. From 1963 until his retirement in 1989 he taught theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

A leading scholar offers an up-to-date articulation of the theological grounding of the missionary endeavor. Lalsangkima (Kima) Pachuau argues that theology of mission deals with God's work in and for the world, which is centered on salvation in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pachuau brings a global perspective to mission theology, explains how theology of mission is related to theology as a discipline, and recognizes recent critiques of "missions," offering a compelling response rooted in the very nature of God.

Following the hapless Hampton Court Conference, little groups of English Christians (Separatists) began to break away from the established church. As early as 1606, one group, led by John Smyth, migrated to Holland. Prominent among them was Thomas Helwys. In 1611/1612, Helwys and others returned home where they founded at Spitalfield the first General Baptist congregation in England. Helwys had with him a manuscript entitled A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity in which he proposed the notion of liberty of conscience, freedom of religion. This may have been the first such declaration in English. Helwys published the manuscript in 1612. That publication probably cost him his freedom, perhaps even his life. By the beginning of the twentieth century, only four known copies of the book survived. Now, thanks to the careful work of Richard Groves, Helwys's The Mystery of Iniquity is available in a reader-friendly edition. Groves's introduction sets the document in context, not only as an important and influential historical event but as shedding yet more light on whence we have come. Students, historians, Christians, Protestants, Baptists - all for whom freedom of conscience is important will welcome this reissue in modern dress of a religious liberty classic.

Christian Theism and Moral Philosophy addresses what may be termed a shortfall in moral philosophy from a Christian perspective with this collection of twelve essays from Christian moral philosophers and theologians who, indeed, address the fundamental questions of moral philosophy "with integrity, independence, and Christian boldness." This study of human conduct and values is in three parts. (1) The Metaphysics of Morals. What is morality about? What are the metaphysical foundations and implications of morality? (2) The Epistemology of Ethics. How are ethical propositions/judgments justified? (3) The Ethics of Love. What are the basic rules, principles, or judgments of an ultimate, adequate ethical theory? These seminal essays will be of interest to scholars and students of religious ethics, but also of interest to those of "mainstream" moral philosophy who work from a Christian worldview as well as to non-Christians with an interest in the relation between Christian theism and moral philosophy.

New Age writer of the popular Aquarian Conspiracy Marilyn Ferguson observed that many of the leading lights of the New Age movement claim Teilhard as one of the most influential persons in their lives. Other influences acknowledged include C. G. Jung, Aldous Huxley, Swami Muktananda, Thomas Merton, Werner Erhard, and Maharishi Yogi. Indeed, of the 185 New Age leaders surveyed, Teilhard was the most frequently mentioned of any person who had most influenced their thinking. If this is the case, then if we are to understand the New Age movement properly it behooves us to take a careful and critical look at Teilhard de Chardin. David Lane has done precisely this in a clear, well documented, and penetrating way.... In this crucial book David Lane lays bare the philosophical, theological, and scientific failures of Teilhard's New Age enterprise. In a highly documented and insightful scrutiny of Teilhard's cosmic evolution, Lane unveils the apostate Christian roots of one of the most important forerunners of the New Age movement. This is one of the most significant and serious treatments of the modern roots of the New Age in print.

The content of the gospel is inseparable from the context in which the gospel is proclaimed. Contemporary Gospel Accents is a collection of concise confessions by Baptist theologians addressing the theme What the Gospel Means to Us. What distinguishes this collection from other anthologies is the character of the confessing theologians. All hail from beyond the dominant theological centers of North America and Western Europe. For the first time, Baptist voices from Africa, Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America speak dearly about the gospel accents found in diverse cultures. These essays are taken from a two-day conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the August 1995 Baptist World Congress. Each writer is a participant in an international workgroup of Baptist theologians. Among the contributors are Douglas Waruta and Louise Kretzschmar from Africa; Waft Aier and Eddie Kin-ming Ma from Asia; Ken Manley and Brian Smith from Southeast Asia; and Latin Americans Guillermo Catalan and Carlos Villenueva.

In The Corner of Fourth and Nondual, a title inspired by Thomas Merton's moment of revelation 'at the Corner of Fourth and Walnut' in his celebrated essay 'A Member of the Human Race', Cynthia Bourgeault - internationally-renowned retreat leader, practitioner and teacher of Centering Prayer - describes the foundations of her theology: a cosmological seeing with the eye of the heart, and classic Benedictine daily rule informed and enlightened by wisdom from the Asian traditions. She explains the influence of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Teilhard de Chardin, Boehme, Barnhart, Keating and Gurdjieff, among others in a philosophy built on the cornerstones of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery, tied by the Trinity as a cosmogonic principle, the fundamental generative mechanism through which all things came into being.

"The end times." "The apocalypse." "The day of judgment." Terms such as these are both fascinating and frightening for any student of God's Word. They point to key questions people have wrestled with for centuries, including: What does the Bible tell us about the future? How much can we understand about biblical prophecy and its application in our lives? What signs and signals will precede the end of everything as we know it? Which of those signs and signals have already come to pass, which are we experiencing now, and which are still to come? In this landmark collection, bestselling author Dr. David Jeremiah offers answers to these questions and much more. Drawing from decades of experience as one of the world's most-respected Bible teachers, Dr. Jeremiah has updated content from previously published works in additional to writing new material on a wide variety of subjects. The result is a truly epic and authoritative guide to biblical prophecy-a must-have resource for Christians seeking to navigate the uncertainties of the present and embrace God's promises for the future.

Priest, poet and broadcaster Rachel Mann believes the world is charged with a divine spark. She explains how in our encounters with what she terms 'the spectres of God', one can become at peace with limitation, precariousness, lack of certainty, and one's fragility and fractures - and at the same time find in divine fragility the hope of the world. Drawing on her own experiences, in three short chapters (on the body, on love, and on time) Mann explores how God invites us, repeatedly, to live in a rich three-dimensional mystery that subverts the depressing flat-earth of modern life.

Bede states in the first chapter of this work (De Templo) that the building of the tabernacle and the temple signifies one and the same Church of Christ. Yet this allegorical exposition of the building of the Temple, a paradigm of the genre, is relevant not only to biblical exegetes but to readers of diverse interests, including iconographers, and those concerned with mysticism or merely desiring spiritual nourishment. Even to those primarily interested in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, it affords an understanding of that work, for its ideas are there given flesh and blood - the two books, as it were, forming a diptych.

This volume contains the first English translation of Bede's allegorical commentary on the tabernacle of Moses, which he interpreted as a symbolic figure of the Christian Church. Written in the early 720s at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria, On the Tabernacle (De tabernaculo) was the first Christian literary work devoted entirely to this topic and the first verse-by-verse commentary on the relevant portions of the Book of Exodus. On the Tabernacle was one of Bede's most popular works, appearing in a great many manuscripts from every period of the Middle Ages.