Reconsidering Roger Bacon's Apocalypticism in Light of His Alchemical and Scientific Thought

2012 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Matus
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Franciscan Order ◽  
Radical Ideas ◽  
The Church

“Since you have commanded me to write on the wisdom of philosophy, I shall cite to your Clemency the opinions of the sages, especially since this knowledge is absolutely necessary to the Church of God against the fury of Antichrist.”1 So wrote Roger Bacon to Clement IV. The pope had commanded Bacon to send writings of which Roger had spoken when Clement was still Cardinal Guy Folques.2 Clement's letter does not mention Antichrist, nor does it specify the subject matter of the aforementioned conversation. Still, since Bacon mentions Antichrist in what was likely a prefatory letter to either the Opus maius or Opus minus,3 the specter of Antichrist that lurks throughout Bacon's Opera and other works may not have come as a surprise. Yet, amid the clamor of Joachite apocalypticism that quickly coiled itself around the Franciscan Order in the latter half of the thirteenth century,4 Roger Bacon's own apocalyptic opinions remain underappreciated. This is not to say that Bacon's apocalypticism has gone unrecognized. Scholars have long agreed, as Brett Whalen has said recently, that Bacon “layered his writings with a sense of apocalyptic expectation.”5 Yet the historiographical tendency to separate Bacon's scientific writings from his religious beliefs and practices appears to have obscured Bacon's own radical ideas about the end of days.6

The Festival of Encaenia Ecclesiae in the Ancient Church with special reference to Palestine and Syria

1954 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-85
Author(s):  
Matthew Black
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

Strictly speaking, there is only one festival of encaenia in the ancient Church reported by our ancient or modern authorities on the subject, the feast of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, instituted on 13 September 335 to mark the tricennalia of the emperor Constantine, and described for us by Eusebius in his Life of Constantine. The rebuilding of churches after the persecution under Diocletian, and a similar encaenia of the Church of Tyre are even more fully recorded in the tenth Book of the History. Both dedications were accompanied by a long panegyric of the emperor, delivered by Eusebius himself, extolling Constantine as a second Solomon, and were the occasion for similar festive addresses and theological discourses from other visiting ecclesiastical dignitaries: but, apart from the magnificence of the occasion, the public banquets, the vast concourse of delegates from every part of the Christian world (Eusebius seems to be as anxious as Luke in his account of Pentecost in Acts ii. to emphasise the ecumenical character of the occasion), there is nothing unexpected in any of the rites or ceremonies performed at the encaenia; in addition to the celebration of the Eucharist, they consisted for the most part of prayers for the general peace, for the Church of God and for the emperor, Scripture readings, singing of psalms, and the lavish distribution of alms.

Episcopal Visitation of Cathedrals in the Church of England

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (38) ◽  
pp. 266-288
Author(s):  
Philip Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church ◽  
Point Of Reference

In December 1994 the Revd Philip LS Barrett BD MA FRHistS FSA, Rector of Compton and Otterbourne in the Diocese of Winchester, successfully submitted a dissertation to the University of Wales College of Cardiff for the degree of LLM in Canon Law, entitled ‘Episcopal Visitation of Cathedrals in the Church of England’. Philip Barrett, best known for his magisterial study, Barchester: English Cathedral Life in the Nineteenth Century (SPCK1993), died in 1998. The subject matter of this dissertation is of enduring importance and interest to those engaged in the life and work of cathedrals, and the Editor invited Canon Peter Atkinson, Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral, to repare it for publication in this Journal, so that the author's work might receive a wider circulation, but at a manageable length. In 1999 a new Cathedrals Measure was enacted, following upon the recommendations of the Howe Commission, published in the report Heritage and Renewal (Church House Publishing 1994). The author was able to refer to the report, but not to the Measure, or to the revision of each set of cathedral Statutes consequent upon that Measure. While this limits the usefulness of the author's work as a point of reference for the present law of cathedral visitations, its value as an historical introduction remains.

LXIII. Influence of Superstition on Vocabulary: Two Related Examples

PMLA ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1033-1046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hope Emily Allen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Common Word ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Interesting Development

During the period covered by the Early Modern English Dictionary, witchcraft occupied the mind of the average man, and became the subject-matter of literature (dramatic, theological, philosophical, legal) to an extent probably not known in any other epoch. It is natural that such a predominating interest should have its effect on the vocabulary. There can now be described, with more detail than has hitherto been available, one instance in which the beliefs and practices of contemporary charlatans, pretending to supernatural connections, made an interesting development of meaning for a common word. This instance will be illustrated at length, for the sake of the analogies which it suggests as to possible starting points for studying other words. The discussion seems to indicate that elements in the problem go back to learned tradition and at the same time to primitive Teutonic folk-lore.

Recognizing Religion: Disciplinary Traditions, Epistemology, and History

Numen ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 61 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 145-165
Author(s):  
Michael Lambek
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
The Subject

AbstractQuestions of methodology hang on epistemology. I consider the conceptualization of the subject of the study of religion, arguing that the disciplines that carry out the study and also the objects or subjects of their study can be understood as traditions. I briefly review the conceptualization of religion within the anthropological tradition, noting a tension between understanding religion as socially immanent or as a set of explicit beliefs and practices constitutive of the transcendent. Religion is probably conceptualized rather differently within religious studies, especially insofar as each tradition has formulated itself in relation to secularism in its own way and in relation to, or confrontation with, other distinct traditions, whether of science or theology. Drawing on a meteorological metaphor, I suggest that both disciplines and religions qua traditions can be understood to change along historical “fronts;” these form both the conditions of our knowledge and its appropriate subject matter.

Henry M. Turner, Negro Bishop Extraordinary

1938 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Minton Batten
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Church Organization ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Group Life ◽  
Important Field ◽  
American Churches ◽  
The Church

The Negro church presents an important field of investigation to students of American social history. Many slaves found in Christianity a substitute for primitive African religious beliefs and practices and a source for the satisfaction of their religious longings. The churches offered to the American Negro his first opportunities for participation in organized group life in a new environment. Experience in church organization and activity trained thousands of slaves for the larger fields of effort which were opened to them after emancipation. Approximately one-tenth of the present total membership of the American churches belongs to this race. For more than three centuries the church has served as the most important factor in typing the institutions and ideals of our largest minority racial group.

Expansion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asonzeh Ukah
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
And Migration

Religions expand via many pathways, including mission activities, transmission of faith, conversion of non-members, and the constitution of new communities of believers. They also expand through military conquest, revival, and migration. Religions may expand geographically or doctrinally and ritually. In both ways, mission and revival activities are important strategies of expansion, which often incorporate migration and mobility of religious believers and preachers. Technologies of transportation and communication as well as a free market of goods and beliefs facilitate religious expansion. The Muslim group Tablīghī Jamā’at, founded in India in 1927, exemplify religious expansion by revival; while the Christian group Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded in Nigeria in 1952, illustrate religious expansion by evangelism. Increased democratization of religious authority means that believers generally, rather than leaders, are taking up the responsibility of spreading religious beliefs and practices around the world.

Medieval Ecclesiology and the Conciliar Movement

2018 ◽  
pp. 198-216
Author(s):  
Norman Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
People Of God ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Institutional Church ◽  
Gregorian Reform ◽  
The Church

This chapter covers ecclesiology in the Western (or Catholic) church from the beginning of the schism between the churches of East and West—between Rome and Constantinople—in 1054 until the eve of the Reformation in 1517. Ecclesiology is taken to mean the nature or constitution of the church. The topic is considered from various standpoints: how it was viewed or taught by church officials, including the popes of the period, by councils, by theologians and other writers, and by the laity. Thereby the subject is treated from the standpoints of both the institutional church and the people of God, both ‘from above’ and ‘from below’. The chapter is divided chronologically into three periods: the Gregorian reform and its aftermath, from the mid-eleventh to the late twelfth century; the ‘long’ thirteenth century; the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries including the Avignon papacy, the conciliar movement, and the early Renaissance.

These Signs Shall Follow: the serpent-handling Christians of Appalachia

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aja L. Bain
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Gifts ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
Religious Institution ◽  
Current Position ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Speaking In Tongues ◽  
Serpent Handling ◽  
The Church

This paper traces the roots and development of the Church of God with Signs Following, a charismatic Christian group of worshippers that has been increasingly investigated and publicized by the courts and media in the last half century. A Church of God with Signs Following service is much like any other within the Pentecostal Holiness tradition, utilizing spiritual gifts such as “glossolalia” (speaking in tongues) and healing, but with a few important exceptions: members regularly take up poisonous serpents and imbibe deadly toxins during the course of worship. According to members, their ways are Biblically justified and they are subject to no law but God’s. This unique tradition has caused widespread notoriety and stigmatization of the group and to their current position as one of the least understood sects of Christianity. This paper also examines their particular beliefs and practices to explain and hopefully dispel the basis of the modern-day view of the group as deviants from Christianity, or as members of a barbaric cult. The presence of the church as a uniquely rural and southern phenomenon is also explored, as well as popular opinion and litigation that the church has historically faced. Above all, we seek an understanding of how and why this particular (and undeniably peculiar) denomination has endured and staked its claim as a legitimate religious institution in a land where it has been the object of fear and ridicule for decades.

POST-AVICENNAN LOGICIANS ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF LOGIC: SOME THIRTEENTH- AND FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DISCUSSIONS

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled El-Rouayheb
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Subject

AbstractIn the thirteenth century, the influential logician Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī (d. 1248) departed from the Avicennan view that the subject matter of logic is “second intentions”. For al-Khūnajī, the subject matter of logic is “the objects of conception and assent”. His departure elicited intense and sometimes abstruse discussions in the course of subsequent centuries. Prominent supporters of Khūnajī's view on the subject matter of logic included Kātibī (d. 1277), Ibn Wāṣil (d. 1298) and Taftāzānī (d. 1390). Defenders of Avicenna's view included Ṭūsī (d. 1274), Samarqandī (d. 1303) and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1365). This article presents the outline of the development of this discussion down to the end of the fourteenth century and attempts to reconstruct the major arguments of both sides.

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