This is a controversial and important new examination of the origins of Christian mission, set against the background of ancient Judaism and the pagan culture of the Roman Empire. The author's startling conclusions suggest that mission was not inherent in either early Judaism or Christianity, and was only sporadically practised in antiquity by these religions. Clear, accessible, and at the same time displaying considerable scholarship, this book will provide an important challenge and a stimulus to both theologians and historians, and is likely to provoke keen and lively debate among scholars of these disciplines. It invites a total re-consideration of the grounds for religious mission in both Christianity and Judaism.

The Buddhist monk Ashva-ghosha composed Life of the Buddha in the first or second century CE probably in Ayodhya. This is the earliest surviving text of the Sanskrit literary genre called kavya and probably provided models for Kali-dasa's more famous works. The most poignant scenes on the path to his Awakening are when the young prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, is confronted by the reality of sickness, old age, and death, while seduced by the charms of the women employed to keep him at home. A poet of the highest order, Ashva-ghosha's aim is not entertainment but instruction, presenting the Buddha's teaching as the culmination of the Brahmanical tradition. His wonderful descriptions of the bodies of courtesans are ultimately meant to show the transience of beauty.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Translated here for the first time are four works written by Stephen for his monks: A Mirror for Novices, A Threefold Exercise, On the Recitation of the Divine Office, and Meditations on the Joys of the Blessed Virgin. Each expresses the devotion of his day and provides an insight into the inner life of an early thirteenth century Cistercian monastery.  A monk at Fountains Abbey and later abbot of Sawley, Stephen in his Meditations on the Gospel, on the Virgin, and on the Divine Office, delicately expresses the monastic devotion of the early thirteenth century.

The contributors, who each work with spiritual issues, either explicitly as spiritual directors or accompaniers, or as an implicit part of their therapeutic work, offer a psychologically-informed approach to Spiritual Accompaniment and Direction, and to working with others on a spiritual level more generally. They explore what it means to be attuned to the spiritual process of another, discuss what makes an effective relationship in Spiritual Accompaniment and counselling, and consider how best to work with spiritual crisis, spiritual abuse, and pain. The unconscious process informing the work, forgiveness, changing spiritual needs over the life-span, and models of supervision that can inform the practice of Spiritual Accompaniment are also explored. A case study is presented, providing psychological and theological insights into the accompaniment process. Grounded in work with the spiritual dimension of others and aspiring to improve encounters at a spiritual level, this concise book has important implications for the practice of counsellors, psychotherapists, and spiritual accompaniers and directors.

From the cleric-led Iranian revolution to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many people have been surprised by what they see as the modern reemergence of an antimodern phenomenon. This book helps account for the increasingly visible public role of traditionally educated Muslim religious scholars (the ulama) across contemporary Muslim societies. Muhammad Qasim Zaman describes the transformations the centuries-old culture and tradition of the ulama have undergone in the modern era--transformations that underlie the new religious and political activism of these scholars. In doing so, it provides a new foundation for the comparative study of Islam, politics, and religious change in the contemporary world.

While focusing primarily on Pakistan, Zaman takes a broad approach that considers the Taliban and the ulama of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and the southern Philippines. He shows how their religious and political discourses have evolved in often unexpected but mutually reinforcing ways to redefine and enlarge the roles the ulama play in society. Their discourses are informed by a longstanding religious tradition, of which they see themselves as the custodians. But these discourses are equally shaped by--and contribute in significant ways to--contemporary debates in the Muslim public sphere.

This book offers the first sustained comparative perspective on the ulama and their increasingly crucial religious and political activism. It shows how issues of religious authority are debated in contemporary Islam, how Islamic law and tradition are continuously negotiated in a rapidly changing world, and how the ulama both react to and shape larger Islamic social trends. Introducing previously unexamined facets of religious and political thought in modern Islam, it clarifies the complex processes of religious change unfolding in the contemporary Muslim world and goes a long way toward explaining their vast social and political ramifications.