Over the past several decades Leonine studies have focused attention on Pope Leo the Great's Christology, noting the influence his Tomus ad Flavianum had at the Council of Chalcedon. In fact, because of this strong influence twentieth-century scholars have studied the Tome nearly exclusively in order to identify the heart of Leo's Christology. There can be no question, of course, that the Tome should be consulted in order to understand Leo's Christology, but it marks only one phase in the ongoing development of the ways he chose to express his christological insights. In part the Tome itself precipitated this development insofar as it opened up his Christology to scrutiny in the East. The tone of Leo's insights and the language he used to express them shifted and acquired greater precision over time in his letters and sermons in direct response to the dynamics of the christological controversy in the East, of which Leo's Tome made him a part. This development is most evident in three areas: his avoidance of the “Mother of God” title for the Virgin Mary after initially using it early in his pontificate; his use of the terms homo and humanus, which Leo learned to distinguish later in his pontificate; and his adoption of the Antiochene homo assumptus formula late in his pontificate to emphasize the fullness of Christ's human nature. These phenomena reflect the pope's careful attempt to distance himself from the rising tide of the Monophysite movement in the East, as he began to channel his traditional, Western Christology more through formulae used by Antiochene theologians. These phenomena can only be observed through careful, chronological analysis of the broader corpus of Pope Leo's works.

The earliest Latin commentaries on the Apocalypse of John interpret this strange and powerful text as a revelation of the Christian community's drama as it fulfills the conditions leading to its glorious triumph in the final chapter of God's temporal plan. According to early Latin exegetes, one event—the opening of the seven seals, described in Apocalypse 6:1 through 8:1—represents a microcosm of the whole, revealing the entire purpose for the church's historical development. Throughout the first millennium of Christian history, biblical authorities analyzing the account of the seven seals for its underlying message concluded that God causes history to unfold and mature in order to allow the assembly of the elect to separate itself from its false brethren within the church. Processed and purified by history, the elect will exist in a state of readiness for their ascension into eternity.

The years surrounding the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) witnessed a historiographical revolution that transformed the study of medieval Christianity. One might say that both a new Vatican ecclesiology and the new religious history sprang from the same conceptual root. Even as the Council articulated a definition of the Catholic Church as the people of God rather than simply a hierarchical institution, a number of important scholars were rediscovering the religious history of the Christian people. Shifting their focus away from the traditional monastic treatises on the contemplative life, scholars argued that all believers, and not just clerical specialists in the sacred, had a spiritual life that constituted a proper object for historical study. This new understanding of the history of Christian spirituality rapidly proved enormously fecund, opening as it did novel and exciting prospects for the study of popular religion.

Hiram Mattison was fighting mad. Some of the holiness people in the Methodist Episcopal church had pulled a fast one. Early in 1867 the New York Preachers' Meeting had hosted a series of speeches on the question, “What are the best methods for promoting the experience of perfect love?” The discussion had been, in the words of one participant, “lengthy and pungent.” Mattison, a seminary professor and long-time opponent of the holiness movement, had weighed in with his professional theological polemics against the movement's doctrine and methods of promotion. He had expected that all the speeches would be published in a single volume. But the proponents of perfect love surreptitiously had withdrawn their manuscripts from the Methodist book room and had them published and copyrighted on their own. The original plan to publish a two-sided debate had been thus defeated, and the advocates of perfect love had scooped their opposition. What a move for people who professed to have attained Christian perfection, said Mattison. It must have paid well, he added, for three editions had been issued in just a few weeks.

Robert Greenleaf, in his classic book Servant Leadership, makes the argument that in earlier eras it was possible to make a difference in society as an individual. He writes, “Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions—often large, complex, powerful, impersonal, not always competent, sometimes corrupt [institutions]. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.” He goes on to make the case that “trustees” have a key role in creating and maintaining what he calls “servant institutions.”