One of the first great events in Christian history was the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, convened to organize Christian sects and beliefs into a unified doctrine. The great Christian clergymen who wrote before this famous event are referred to as the Ante-Nicenes and the Apostolic Fathers, and their writings are collected here in a ten-volume set. The Ante-Nicenes lived so close to the time of Christ that their interpretations of the New Testament are considered more authentic than modern voices. But they are also real and flawed men, who are more like their fellow Christians than they are like the Apostles, making their words echo in the ears of spiritual seekers. In Volume IX of the 10-volume collected works of the Ante-Nicenes first published between 1885 and 1896, the series editors return to a collection that they had thought complete. Archaeological discoveries presented them with new early Christian texts that needed publication. This volume is divided into two parts: newly discovered fragments and writings from a variety of sources, and additional commentaries by Origen. These new fragments include: . the Gospel of Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter. the Diatessaron of Tatian and the Vision of Paul. the Apocalypse of the Virgin and the Apocalypse of Sedrach. The Testament of Abraham and the Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena. the Narrative of Zosimus and the Epistles of Clement. the Apology of Aristides the Philosopher. the Passion of the Scillitan Martyrs. epistle to Gregory and Origen's commentary

"This very handy introduction takes a conceptual approach to biblical law, organizing this subject in terms of its ancient legal sources, social institutions, judicial procedure, crime and punishment, property and contracts, personal rights and status, and family relationships from betrothal to inheritance. Because of its thematic arrangement, this presentation speaks to the selective reader who seeks specific information and also to the comprehensive student who seeks a broad understanding of the ancient Hebrew legal system. Long out of print, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times (1964) now appears in an improved, second edition. While retaining the original character of Falk's style and observations, this book has been edited to serve the modern reader and researcher. Falk's 1977 addenda have also been included, along with a comprehensive bibliography of his lifetime publications."

The writings of Pope Pius VI, head of the Catholic Church during the most destructive period of the French Revolution, were compiled in two volumes by M.N.S. Guillon and published in 1798 and 1800. But during the Revolution, the reign of Napoleon, and the various revolutionary movements of the 19th century, there were extraordinary efforts to destroy writings that critiqued the revolutionary ideology. Many books and treatises, if they survived the revolution or the sacking from Napoleon's armies. To this day, no public copy of Guillon's work exists in Paris.
Now, for the first time in English, these works comprising the letters, briefs, and other writings of Pius VI on the French Revolution are available. Volume I treats the first shock of the Revolution and the efforts of the Pope in 1790 and 1791 to oppose the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (which famous revolutionary and shrewd diplomat Talleyrand referred to as "the greatest fault of the National Assembly"). Volume II will be published later, and deals with the aftermath of the Civil Constitution through Pius's death in exile). Editor and translator Jeffrey Langan presents the materials leading up to and directly connected with these decrees, in which the National Assembly attempted to set up a Catholic Church that would be completely submissive to the demands of the Assembly. Volume I also covers Pius's efforts to deal with the immediate aftermath of the Constitution after the National Assembly implemented it, including his encyclical, Quod Aliquantum.
The letters will show how Pius chose to oppose the Civil Constitution. He did so not by a public campaign, for he had no real temporal power to oppose the violence, but by attempting to work personally with Louis XVI and various archbishops in France to articulate what were the points on which he could concede (matters dealing with the political structures of France) and what were the essential points in which he could not concede (matters dealing with the organization of dioceses and appointment of bishops).
Since the 1980s, with the writings and school that developed around Francois Furet, as well as Simon Schama's Citizens, a new debate over the French Revolution has ensued, bringing forth a more objective account of the Revolution, one that avoids an excessively Marxist lens and that brings to light some of its defects and more gruesome parts - the destruction and theft of Church property, and the sadistic methods of torture and killing of priests, nuns, aristocrats, and fellow-revolutionaries.
An examination of the writings of Pius VI will not only help set the historical record straight for English-speaking students of the Revolution, it will also aid them to better understand the principles that the Catholic Church employs when confronted with chaotic political change. They will see that the Church has a principled approach to distinguishing, while not separating, the power of the Church and the power of the state. They will also see, as Talleyrand himself also saw, that one of the essential elements that makes the Church the Church is the right to appoint bishops and to discipline its own bishops. The Church herself recognizes that she cannot long survive without this principle that guarantees her unity.
Pius VI's efforts were able to keep the Catholic Church intact (though badly bruised) so that she could reconstitute herself and build up a vibrant life in 19th-century France. (He did this in the face of the Church's prestige having sunk to historic lows; some elites in Europe thought there would be no successor to Pius and jokingly referred to him as "Pius the Last.") He began a process that led to the restoration of the prestige of the Papacy throughout the world, and he initiated a two-century process that led to the Church finally being able to select bishops without any interference from secular authorities. This had been at least a 1,000-year problem in the history of the Church. By 1990, only two countries of the world, China and Vietnam, were interfering in any significant way in the process that the Church used to select bishops.
Pius VI's papacy, especially during the years of the French Revolution, was a pivotal point for the French Revolution and for the interaction between Church and state in Western history. All freedom-loving people will be happy to read his distinc-tions between the secular power and the spiritual power. His papacy also was important for the internal developments that the Church would make over the next 200 years with respect to its self-understanding of the Papacy and the role of the bishop.

It is a medieval truism that the poet meddles with words, the lawyer with the world. But are the poet's words and the lawyer's world really so far apart? To what extent does the art of making poems share in the craft of making laws, and vice versa? Framed by such questions, Piers Plowman and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages examines the mutually productive interaction between literary and legal "makyngs" in England's great Middle English poem by William Langland. Focusing on Piers Plowman's preoccupation with wrongdoing in the B and C versions, Arvind Thomas examines the versions' representations of trials, confessions, restitutions, penalties, and pardons. Thomas explores how the "literary" informs and transforms the "legal" until they finally cannot be separated. Thomas shows how the poem's narrative voice, metaphor, syntax and style not only reflect but also act upon properties of canon law, such as penitential procedures and authoritative maxims. Langland's mobilization of juridical concepts, Thomas insists, not only engenders a poetics informed by canonist thought but also expresses an alternative vision of canon law from that proposed by medieval jurists and today's medievalists.

Contains the testimonials of ministers who left their different denominations for a relationship with Christ.

This is the Centennial Celebration Edition published in 1908. Thomas Campbell was born February 1, 1763 in Ireland, and migrated to the United States in 1807. A Presbyterian minister who grew tired of denominationalism, set forth in this publication the reasons why. He proclaimed that all the churches had gone astray and encouraged them to use the New Testament as their guide book. Barton W. Stone, as well as others came to the same conclusion, which started the Restoration Movement - to restore the churches to the New Testament. Today, their followers are known as Disciples of Christ, Christians and churches of Christ.

Liberty and Law examines a previously underappreciated theme in legal history - the idea of permissive natural law. The idea is mentioned only peripherally, if at all, in modern histories of natural law. Yet it engaged the attention of jurists, philosophers, and theologians over a long period and formed an integral part of their teachings. This ensured that natural law was not conceived of as merely a set of commands and prohibitions that restricted human conduct, but also as affirming a realm of human freedom, understood as both freedom from subjection and freedom of choice. Freedom can be used in many ways, and throughout the whole period from 1100 to 1800 the idea of permissive natural law was deployed for various purposes in response to different problems that arose. It was frequently invoked to explain the origin of private property and the beginnings of civil government. Several kinds of permissive natural law were identified. Permission could be positive or negative, depending on whether it was specifically conceded by a legislator or only tacitly allowed. It could free from sin or merely remit some temporal punishment that was due. It could commend some conduct without commanding it or permit some evil without condoning it. Medieval canonists used the concept of permissive natural law to harmonize the discordant texts that they found in their sources; William of Ockham found it a powerful tool in his defense of Franciscan poverty against papal criticisms; for Richard Hooker it justified both the constitutional structure and the ritual practices of the Anglican church; John Selden used it to uphold the inviolability of contracts, most importantly the contract of government; Hugo Grotius made it a central theme in his treatment of the conduct permissible in waging war; in the eighteenth century Jean Barbeyrac and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui associated the idea with the emerging doctrine of natural rights. In Liberty and Law, Tierney has presented us with a magisterial and provocative way of interpreting legal history.

In German-speaking countries, the role of the diaconate has been strongly influenced by nineteenth-century ideas of diakonia as service towards the poor. As important as the social initiatives stemming from this perspective have been, in order to correctly understand deacons and diakonia in the early church, we must go back to the sources. For this volume, focused on the first two centuries of Christianity, scholars from a range of backgrounds consider the use of diakonos and related words in the New Testament and extra-biblical sources, both Christian and otherwise. These texts reveal what deacons actually did, helping us to understand the past and giving guidance for the present, particularly in ecumenical discussions concerning the ministry.

Understanding the rules of procedure and the practices of medieval and early modern courts is of great importance for historians of every stripe. The authors and editors of this volume present readers with a description of court procedure, the sources for investigating the work of the courts, the jurisprudence and the norms that regulated the courts, as well as a survey of the variety of courts that populated the European landscape. Not least, the authors wish to show the relationship between the jurisprudence that governed judicial procedure and what happened in the court room. By the end of the thirteenth century, court procedure in continental Europe in secular and ecclesiastical courts shared many characteristics. As the academic jurists of the Ius commune began to excavate the norms of procedure from Justinian's great codification of law and then to expound them in the classroom and in their writings, they shaped the structure of ecclesiastical courts and secular courts as well. These essays also illuminate striking differences in the sources that we find in different parts of Europe. In northern Europe the archives are rich but do not always provide the details we need to understand a particular case. In Italy and Southern France the documentation is more detailed than in other parts of Europe but here too the historical records do not answer every question we might pose to them. In Spain, detailed documentation is strangely lacking, if not altogether absent. Iberian conciliar canons and tracts on procedure tell us much about practicein Spanish courts. As these essays demonstrate, scholars who want to peer into the medieval courtroom, must also read letters, papal decretals, chronicles, conciliar canons, and consilia to provide a nuanced and complete picture of what happened in medieval trials. This volume will give sophisticated guidance to all readers with an interest in European law and courts.

According to a persistent popular stereotype, early Judaism is seen as a "legalistic" religious tradition, in contrast to early Christianity, which seeks to obviate and so to supersede, annul, or abrogate Jewish law. Although scholars have known better since the surge of interest in the question of the law in post-Holocaust academic circles, the complex stances of both early Judaism and early Christianity toward questions of law observance have resisted easy resolution or sweeping generalizations. The essays in this volume aim to bring to the fore the legalistic and antinomian dimensions in both traditions, with a variety of contributions that examine the formative centuries of these two great religions and their legal traditions. They explore how law and lawlessness are in tension throughout this early, formative period, and not finally resolved in one direction or the other.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

CUA Press is proud to announce the CUA Studies in Canon Law. In conjunction with the School of Canon Law of the Catholic University of America, we are making available, both digitally and in print, more than 400 canon law dissertations from the 1920s to 1960s, many of which have long been unavailable. These volumes are rich in historical content, yet remain relevant to canon lawyers today. Topics covered include such issues as abortion, excommunication, and infertility. Several studies are devoted to marriage and the annulment process; the acquiring and disposal of church property, including the union of parishes; the role and function of priests, vicars general, bishops, and cardinals; and juridical procedures within the church. For those who seek to understand current ecclesial practices in light of established canon law, these books will be an invaluable resource.

Canon Law, Religion, and Politics extends and honours the work of the distinguished historian Robert Somerville, a pre-eminent expert on medieval church councils, law, and papal history. Reflecting the focus but also the range of Somerville's studies in medieval canon law in the era before Gratian and later, the essays explore the transmission of canonical and theological texts--in particular regarding the Eucharist--as well as the significance of the texts and their complex manuscript traditions. Several essays examine texts in their practical context, highlighting the effects of canon law on religious institutions such as monasteries and the practices at law courts of medieval western Europe. Four studies dealing with the ius commune--the conjunction of canon and Roman law in daily practice, a topic of general and perennial interest--show once again how our understanding of canonistic and civilian legal developments in medieval and late medieval religious and intellectual history is evolving with greater precision when assumptions and generalities are analysed in the light of manuscript sources. The pioneering influence of Somerville and his colleagues is evident in all of the essays. They broaden current understanding of the place of law and theology in a crucial period of history, the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. This work is written in honour of Robert Somerville, professor of history and Ada Byron Bampton Tremaine Professor of Religion at Columbia University. His scholarly honours are legion, including a fellowship in the Medieval Academy of America and the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique. He is a corresponding member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Munich as well as the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He has received numerous awards including two John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowships. He is the author of numerous books and articles.

This newest volume in the History of Medieval Canon Law series surveys the history of Byzantine and Eastern canon law. Beginning in the Patristic Age, Susan Wessel outlines the evolution of ecclesiastical law before the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.). She covers the earliest documents and councils in the Christian tradition, and concludes that the councils replaced other sources of authority as bishops moved to a more democratic model of church organisation. Heinz Ohme then offers a detailed analysis of the Greek councils and the writings of the Greek Fathers. He treats the sources of canonical material of Byzantine canon law down to the Quinisext Council (Trullanum, 692). Spyros Troianos presents a comprehensive survey of the Greek canonical collections and their compilers from the fourth to the eleventh century. In extending his coverage to 1500, Troianos provides bibliographical and biographical information about the most important Byzantine canonists who remain virtually unknown in English language literature: John Zonaras, Alexios Aristenos, and the Byzantine Gratian, Theodore Balsamon. With Hubert Kaufhold's contribution, the book also explores the wide range and variety of law in Eastern Christian communities, including Western Syrians (Jacobites), the Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians, Georgians, Nestorians, and Maronites.

The emancipation of the Jews of England was largely complete when George III came to the throne in 1760. Free to live how and where they wished, the Jews had been specifically exempted from the provisions of the 1753 Marriage Act which made Christian marriage the only legal option for all others. The effect of this exemption was to put the matrimonial causes of the Jews of England exclusively in the hands of their Rabbis and Dayanim (Jewish ecclesiastical judges) for the next one hundred years. No Bet Din (Jewish ecclesiastical court) anywhere in the world has left such a complete record of its transactions - matrimonial and proselytical - as that contained in the extant Pinkas (minute-book) of the London Bet Din from 1805 to 1855. ... In all other matters, including the offences punishable by transportation, Jews were subject to the jurisdiction of the civil courts. Of the estimated 150,000 convict transportees shipped to the Australian penal colonies, some seven hundred were Jews. Matrimonial and related matters involving twenty of these miscreants are recorded in the Pinkas. Jeremy Pfeffer recounts the history of the London Bet Din during these years as revealed by the Pinkas record and relates the previously untold stories of this group of Jewish convict transportees and their families.