Process theology is generally defended in one or more of three ways: In some cases it is proposed as the only coherent and consistent way to satisfy the requirements of a constructive, systematic metaphysics. In other cases it is presented as the only way to avoid the fatal paradoxes inherent in the classical notion of an unchanging God. In still other cases it is urged as the only view compatible with the God of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and the Christian religious experience.

The first two considerations quite naturally exercise whatever appeal they have on minds of a certain philosophical bent and background. The third consideration is attractive to a far wider audience. For it seems to rest on a reading of the Scriptures and a lived religious experience shared by large numbers of people with limited philosophical interest or expertise.

The historical reconstruction of biblical events represents a difficult and often speculative task, which is well demonstrated by the various scholarly attempts to understand the reform of Hezekiah and to establish defensible conclusions concerning its historicity. A wide range of scholarly opinion has grown out of fundamental disagreements concerning the accuracy and intent of the two biblical sources which describe Hezekiah's reform. The Deuteronomistic book of 2 Kings and the priestly-oriented later work of 2 Chronicles diverge mightily in their handling of Hezekiah's whole reign and especially the reform. In the early years of critical inquiry, the historicity of pre-Exilic events exclusively reported by the Chronicler was entirely dismissed in most circles. The description of Hezekiah's reform in the Book of Kings was dubbed “a mixture of the general and specific that does not inspire much confidence.” Consequently, it became fashionable to dismiss Hezekiah's religious changes as anachronisms inserted by later writers to parallel the reform of Josiah.

Although it is widely agreed that the phylacteries mentioned in Matt 23:5 are tĕfîllîn, this equation has not gone entirely unquestioned. L. Blau stated that only the words těfîllâ (singular) and tĕfîllîn (plural) are used in Talmudic literature, and that conclusions based on the word phylacteries are without foundation, “since this name was not used in truly Jewish circles.” G. G. Fox argued that since Greek phylaktēria refers to charms or amulets, and since for the Pharisee the tĕfîllîn were truly spiritual symbols rather than magical amulets, Matthew's use of the term must be a misrepresentation, probably intentional, expressing his contempt for tĕfîllîn.

Among the cults of classical antiquity, the worship of the Greek god Dionysus is one of the most intriguing, ranging in form from rural agricultural festivals in Greece and Asia Minor to complex mystery rites established throughout the Roman Empire. While various aspects of Dionysiac religion have received detailed scholarly treatment, existing studies have paid surprisingly little attention to the extent to which women appear to predominate in the cult as it may be reconstructed from the available sources. The frequent references to the involvement of women in the mythographers and historiographers have usually been explained away in modern scholarship by unsubstantiated appeals to the “emotional” needs of women, and by the association with fertility themes and fertility magic which are considered more appropriate to women than to men.

The claim that all the virtues are somehow one is advanced in different ways by Socrates and Plato, by Plotinus and Augustine, and by Aquinas. The doctrine of the unity and the interconnection of the virtues is thus common to a number of major thinkers in both ancient and medieval philosophy. But it has hardly been a fashionable view in recent philosophy, and it is apt to seem paradoxical. The purpose of this essay is to indicate the structure of the doctrine as Augustine expounds it and to indicate its relevance to clarifying and making plausible certain other ethical doctrines in Augustine's thought.

“The Decline of the Diaconate” was a title given by T. G. Jalland to the addendum to his well-known article, “The Doctrine of the Parity of Ministers.” In this addendum Jalland showed that in the late patristic Church, at the very time when the presbyter's office was being equated with that of the episcopate, the deacon's office was being minimized. In the ante-Nicene Church the deacon had basked in the reflected glory of the bishop and had wielded administrative and consultative powers great enough to make any presbyter envious, but by the fourth century this prestige and power had begun to slip.

John Donne's “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward” is justly regarded as one of the finest devotional poems of the English Renaissance period. It is likewise significant for what it reveals about the theology of a major English poet and divine and, more broadly, for what it reveals about the spiritual psychology of his time. The personal nature of the poem, which was written during the troubled years before his ordination in 1615, underscores the force of its ideas for Donne. At the thematic center of the poem is a necessary connection between Godgiven corrective affliction and the sinful soul's turning to God.

The nadir of the Tridentine papacy occupied those years which spanned the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 and the imprisonment of Pius VII by Napoleon from 1809 to 1814. The suspension of the Church's most distinguished organ of Ultramontane sentiment alleviated the further spread of Febronian or Josephist principles throughout the Netherlands and the German and even Italian sections of the Empire. Yet, Pius VI's concern with the Punctuation of Ems or the Synod of Pistoia paled in comparison with the challenge to spiritual and temporal papal authority contained in the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and other doctrines and consequences of the French Revolution.