The Idea of the Ecclesia Primitiva in the Writings of the Twelfth-Century Canonists

Traditio ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 61-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn Olsen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

Much recent scholarship on the period of the Investiture Struggle and the reform of the Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries has suggested that the origins of these reforms lay not merely in the desire for moral regeneration, but in the conscious wish to return to the antique, Biblical, patristic, and Roman models of the Christian life represented by the early, pre-feudal Church. What modern historians have sometimes called ‘Germanic Christianity’ or ‘feudal Christianity’ was felt to be a pattern of institutions which had at least partly corrupted the life of the early Church. This explains the great concern of the Hildebrandine Party to rid the Church of those abuses which they felt had grown ‘especially since the time when the government of our church passed to the Germans. … But we, having searched out the Roman Order and the ancient custom of our church, imitating the old Fathers, have ordered things to be restored as we have set out above.’ The reaction against the immediate past in favor of a more perfect antique model manifested itself in the notion, expressed throughout the period, that custom must always be judged by natural law and by truth: ‘the Lord said: “I am the Truth.” He did not say: “I am the custom”; but “I am the Truth.” The reformers became impassioned to restore the ancient discipline, to rediscover the ancient laws of the Church, to bring monasticism back to its original purity, and in all this to use what they believed to be the ancient forms of the Christian life as a model by which to compare and criticize the Christianity of their own times. An extensive and varied literature appeared dealing with the problem of what the ancient ideal of the Christian life had been, a literature which began both to speak frequently of the ecclesia primitiva, and to use this idea as a model by which to reform the Church. Often this literature passed beyond the use of the idea of the ecclesia primitiva as a tool of reform to the use of the idea as a basis for the discussion of the more basic problem of what the perfect form of the Christian life had been or should be. In this regard, ‘reform’ signified not only the restoration and reestablishment of the forms of the Christian life of the past, but also the search for the continuing perfection of both the individual and the Church. The nexus of ideas associated with the Augustinian reformatio in melius was in this respect close to the idea of ‘renewal.’ Men not only returned to the forms of the past, but also explored ways of introducing new structures and forms of life into the Church.

Practising piety in a (post-) pandemic time: A spatial reading of piety in Psalm 66 from the perspectives of memory and bodily imagery

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lodewyk Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Body Imagery ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Exodus Narrative ◽  
The Church

Situated in the larger collection of Psalms 51–72, also known as the second Davidic Psalter, the smaller group of Psalms 65–68 is found. This smaller collection of psalms can be classified mostly as psalms of praise and thanksgiving. The relation and compositional work in this cluster of psalms become apparent on many points in the pious expressions between groups and persons at prayer, especially in the universal praise of God, and in the imagery referring to the exodus, the Jerusalem cult and blessing. Such piety becomes most discernible in the imagery and expressions in Psalm 66. The psalm’s two main sections may be described as praise, with verses 1–12 being praise by the group or the ‘we’, and verses 13–20 being praise by the individual or the ‘I’. Personal or individual piety and private piety are expressed by the desire of the ‘we’ and the ‘I’, and the experienced immediacy to God by transposing the past into the present through the memory of the exodus narrative, the Jerusalem cultic imagery and the use of body imagery. In this research article, an understanding of piety in Psalm 66 in terms of the memory of past events and body imagery is discussed from a perspective of space and appropriated for a time of (post-) pandemic where normal or traditional ecclesiological formal practices cannot take place.Contribution: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution based on knowledge from the Psalms in the Old Testament, social anthropology, literary spatial theories and practical theological perspectives on the church in order to contribute to the relevance and practice of theology today, during a time of turmoil and a global pandemic.

scholarly journals Evolution of the Concept of Citizenship in the Islamic Thought: An Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Osama Sami AL-Nsour
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

The concept of citizenship is one of the pillars upon which the modern civil state was built. The concept of citizenship can be considered as the basic guarantee for both the government and individuals to clarify the relationship between them, since under this right individuals can acquire and apply their rights freely and also based on this right the state can regulate how society members perform the duties imposed on them, which will contributes to the development of the state and society .The term citizenship has been used in a wider perspective, itimplies the nationality of the State where the citizen obtains his civil, political, economic, social, cultural and religious rights and is free to exercise these rights in accordance with the Constitution of the State and the laws governing thereof and without prejudice to the interest. In return, he has an obligation to perform duties vis-à-vis the state so that the state can give him his rights that have been agreed and contracted.This paper seeks to explore firstly, the modern connotation of citizenship where it is based on the idea of rights and duties. Thus the modern ideal of citizenship is based on the relationship between the individual and the state. The Islamic civilization was spanned over fourteen centuries and there were certain laws and regulations governing the relationship between the citizens and the state, this research will try to discover the main differences between the classical concept of citizenship and the modern one, also this research will show us the results of this change in this concept . The research concludes that the new concept of citizenship is correct one and the one that can fit to our contemporary life and the past concept was appropriate for their time but the changes in the world force us to apply and to rethink again about this concept.

Ritual Settings II

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-79
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ousterhout
Keyword(s):  
Sacred Space ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Popular Piety ◽  
Church Building ◽  
Cult Of Saints ◽  
Private Devotion ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

How did the church building become sacred space? This chapter examines the second model: sanctity as represented by the presence of relics or the tombs of martyrs and saints. The popularity of the refrigerium in the fourth century provides ample testimony to the attraction of the tombs of saints and martyrs to the early church. And although the official celebrations ad sanctos were terminated by the end of the century, the cult of saints continued, finding an outlet in the practice of pilgrimage and the veneration of relics. While both were accepted customs, neither was officially sanctioned by the church. They may be best understood as manifestations of popular piety or of private devotion, satisfying the spiritual needs of the individual.

The Truth About Japan

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 9-12
Author(s):  
Donald Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Academic Interest ◽  
The Past ◽  
Japanese Music ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Coffee Shops

Ron McLean is a hangover from another era, an aging hippie who still does his hair in a graying pony-tail nearly a decade after he first carried placards and shouted slogans denouncing Japan's support for U.S. policy in Vietnam. For the past eight years of his existence in Japan, though, McLean waged a different kind of crusade—this one against an official ruling that finally forced him to leave the country and return to Hawaii to pursue his academic interest in classical Japanese music.“The government of most countries is intended to protect the rights of the individual,” he said with the didactic air of one who has just discovered a basic truth. “In Japan it's to protect the government.” He was talking in the half light of one of those glittering little coffee shops that purvey a small cup for the equivalent of nearly two dollars and a piece of cake for twice as much.

Episcopal Unrest: Gallicanism in the 1625 Assembly of the Clergy

1974 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Large Measure ◽  
Holy See ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aggressive Action ◽  
Chief Minister ◽  
The Government ◽  
King Of France ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ambiguous Position

A major problem in assessing the ecclesiastical policies of the government of Louis XIII is the equivocal reputation of its chief ministers as a churchman. Cardinal Richelieu enjoys an uncertain reputation as churchman in large measure because of the inherent ambiguities of his position as both prince of the church and chief minister of the king of France. Further compounding this ambiguous position was Gallicanism, the peculiar stance of the French church on matters of church-state and Franco-papal relations. A classic example of how Gallicanism could introduce complex and independently derived factors into Richelieu's policies was the decennial meeting of the Assembly of the Clergy of 1625. At that meeting, early in Richelieu's tenure as chief minister, the French clergy demonstrated with great vigor that Gallicanism was not a doctrine of the past and that it had wellsprings quite independent of the crown and Richelieu. Even in 1625 most people, including the papal curia, found it difficult to believe that the behavior of the Assembly of the Clergy was not dictated by Richelieu. We shall see, however, that the Assembly adopted measures well calculated to irritate the Holy See at a time when Cardinal Richelieu had every desire to placate Urban VIII. In 1625 Richelieu was negotiating feverishly to extricate Louis XIII from war in the Valtellina without losing the fruits of his aggressive action there. Richelieu's plan called for a papal garrison to be placed in the valley to keep it neutral and closed to Spain. Necessarily, the pope's cooperation was vital, which meant that it was not the moment to offend Urban VIII by attacking papal authority at home.

The Power to Alter Personal Provisions in Collective Agreements

1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Raday
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Tax Reform ◽  
The Other ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
The Past ◽  
Important Quality ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual

On two notable occasions in the past two years, it was found necessary to use legislation in order to buttress the potency of general collective agreements. The first of these occasions was when legislation was used to give overriding legal force to a general collective agreement between the Histadrut and the Government incorporating the tax reform recommendations of the Ben Shachar Committee. The second was a similar use of legislation with regard to the general collective agreement between the Histadrut and the Government incorporating the special increments recommendations of the Barkai Committee. The two collective agreements concerned shared one important quality: They both purported to derogate from rights previously enjoyed by employees under existing collective agreements. One of the reasons for legislative intervention to support these agreements was the existence of doubt as to the legal effectiveness of their attempt to derogate from the individual employees' rights.The source of the doubt as to the legal effectiveness of such agreements lies in the existence of two distinct levels at which a collective agreement functions: the collective and the individual levels. At the collective level, conditions are determined by the collective bargaining parties, the employer or employers' organisation on one hand and the employees' organisation on the other; at this level, the collective agreement is a consensual arrangement between the parties to it, the parties fix the terms and have a contractual right to demand their enforcement. The terms fixed at the collective level take effect, however, also at the individual level; the individual employees of an employer bound by the agreement are both bound by the agreement and entitled to enjoy the rights bestowed by the agreement. The Collective Agreements Law gives forceful expression to the effect of the collective agreement's personal provisions at the individual level, giving them immediate and mandatory effect as part of each individual employee's employment contract.

An Intellectual Portrait of Pope John Paul II

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
George Huntston Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
The Past ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Lay Women ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Patron Saints ◽  
Santa Maria ◽  
The Church ◽  
First Words

Appearing on the balcony of St. Peter's, his first words as supreme pontiff were: “May Jesus Christ be praised!” At the close of the installation eucharist John Paul II lifted high the papal crozier, redesigned by Pope Paul as a staff surmounted by the crucified Christ. In all his utterances to date the new pope has emphasized Christ as the hope of the world but has also lifted up the mankind Christ came to save. He has illuminated the variousness of this mankind, from the individual in all his loneliness, even his alienation, to persons in collectivities of family, class, race, and nation. He has described many Christians too as people often filled with doubt about their ultimate meaning to themselves or for others, both on the level of social relations of all kinds and in the redemptive community of the Church. John Paul closed his installation homily: “I appeal to all men—to every man (and with what veneration the apostle of Christ must utter this word, ‘man’)—pray for me.“Some days later John Paul visited Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and declared that he dedicated his pontificate to the Dominican tertiary St. Catherine of Siena (d. 1380). This was one further gesture of his identification with the Italian people as their national primate, for St. Catherine and St. Francis of Assisi are the two patron saints of Italy. But he was also signaling his intention, in his choice of a lay woman, a reformer, a crusader, a mystic, and a doctor of the Church (so proclaimed in 1970), to assign high positions of decisionmaking to lay women and to female religious of all orders in recognition of the prominent role women have played in the past and of the much greater role, short of the priesthood, they would be playing under his pontificate.

The Construction of Paul’s Self in His Writings: Narrative Identity, Social Memory and Metaphorical Truth

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-265
Author(s):  
Simon Butticaz
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Construction Of Self ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Narrative Mode ◽  
The Church

The article aims to investigate – in two autobiographical fragments of the Pauline writings (1 Cor. 15:8-10 and Gal. 1:13-24) – how the narrative mode enables the apostle to grasp the continuity and coherence of his identity, while integrating in the construction of his self disparate and discordant elements (like the Damascus event) which continually threaten the “narrative unity of a human life” (MacIntyre). Furthermore, since “collective memory” precedes and shapes the individual representation of the past (Halbwachs; Assmann), the article also examines how Paul integrates and negotiates in his construction of self-identity the “communal memories” shared by his social group, and in particular his past as persecutor of the Church. Finally, we shall describe the integration of these autobiographical fragments within their respective literary contexts and explore the “metaphorical truth” – or the “refiguration” of reality – which is produced by these different “configurations” of Pauline identity (Ricoeur).


Patristic Theologies of Salvation

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Systematic Theory ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

Part I, on patristic theologies of salvation, covers Origen, Irenaeus, Augustine, Athanasius, and the Cappadocians. This overview chapter demonstrates that although the patristic era of the church never produced a unified or systematic theory of salvation, the ancient writers were diligent to articulate pastoral and practical doctrine helpful to their congregations, which certainly included teaching about salvation. Williams overviews the differing approaches regarding salvation early theologians constructed, while explaining how the early church writings focused primarily on the giver of salvation through Christ rather than on the receiver of salvation in the individual.

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