Ad Fontes

After a general introduction Thomas J. Kraus points out the value of assessing original manuscripts for a profound knowledge of early Christianity. This is done with the help of seventeen of his essays previously published in diverse journals or books now translated into English, enlarged by the current status quo of research, and set in a logical sequence.

After a general introduction Thomas J. Kraus points out the value of assessing original manuscripts for a profound knowledge of early Christianity. This is done with the help of seventeen of his essays previously published in diverse journals or books now translated into English, enlarged by the current status quo of research, and set in a logical sequence.

This volume is divided into four sections: late medieval devotion in the Netherlands; medieval Christian pilgrimage; the medieval cult of St. James the Great and Erasmiana. Variety and coherence sound the keynote in the title and the contents of the book. Religious concepts and expressions of religious faith such as pilgrimages and indulgences are representative of late-medieval Christianity. In this book they refer specifically to the medieval cult of St. James the Great, while for Erasmus they were an object of his critical consideration. The whole book can be read in the light of the debate about the tension between an appreciation for outward signs of faith, and the inward experience of religious belief, which Erasmus considered an absolute necessity.

Did the Bible transition from the medieval Vulgate to the vernacular forms of the Protestant Reformation? What about from Erasmus’s Greek text? Were there significant differences in the various vernacular Bibles of the Protestant Reformation? How did this or didn’t this come to be? Utilizing the unique Greek text of 1 Corinthians 6:9, this book explores the relationships between culture, location, theology, and the art of biblical translation within the Protestant Reformation. Far from a simplistic transition from their previous forms, this work details the differences even one singular text of translation might find within the various locales of the early modern period. Ultimately, the text details that, in addition to faithful thought, location, culture, and community necessities drove the art of biblical translation in the Protestant Reformation and early modern period.

In The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience, Simeon Zahl presents a fresh vision for Christian theology that foregrounds the relationship between theological ideas and the experiences of Christians. He argues that theology is always operating in a vibrant landscape of feeling and desiring, and shows that contemporary theology has often operated in problematic isolation from these experiential dynamics. He then argues that a theologically serious doctrine of the Holy Spirit not only authorizes but requires attention to Christian experience. Against this background, Zahl outlines a new methodological approach to Christian theology that attends to the emotional and experiential power of theological ideas. This methodology draws on recent interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion, which has shown that affects are powerful motivating realities that saturate all dimensions of human thinking and acting. In the process, Zahl also explains why contemporary theology has often been ambivalent about subjective experience, and demonstrates that current discourse about God's activity in the world is often artificially abstracted from experience and embodiment. At the heart of the book, Zahl proposes a new account of the theology of grace from this experiential and pneumatological perspective. Focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation and sanctification, he retrieves insights from Augustine, Luther, and Philip Melanchthon to present an affective and Augustinian vision of salvation as a pedagogy of desire. In articulating this vision, Zahl engages critically with recent emphasis on participation and theosis in Christian soteriology, and charts a new path forward for Protestant theology in a landscape hitherto dominated by the theological visions of Barth and Aquinas.