Legal Roots of Christian Anthropology

Purpose of the article is to reconstruct the legal sources of Christian anthropology. Theoretical basis. The methodological basis of the article is the understanding of the fundamental foundations of Christian anthropology in the context of Roman legal understanding. Originality. From the point of view of the Christian religion, man is a dual being: his body is part of the material world, but his soul is not from this world, he is born directly from God. The transcendent origin of the soul gives it the right to communicate with God, but this right can be realized only with the help of the Church, which is seen as the "bride of the Lamb" and the mystical "body of Christ". Interpretations of the essence of church organization correlate with the principles of organization of the Roman community. The principle of universal priesthood correlates with the idea of "post-Tarquinian democracy", recognizing the people of Rome as the supreme bearer of the empire of Jupiter; catholicity – with the idea of the senate as a meeting of the most deserving leaders of the community; apostolic succession – with the institution of republican magistrates, who even though received their power from the community, but through "consultations with the gods" (auspices). In essence, Christian dogmatism is Roman law applied to the Middle Eastern religion; the Bible was interpreted as a legal document, and theologians acted as lawyers. Conclusions. In the ancient Churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, etc.) the ideal of Roman law was realized as the right of impersonal law, standing outside and above the individual. The latter has no ontological value, it is a "servant of God", but the union of men into the mystical "body of Christ" makes the latter empowered to represent God on earth and to act on his behalf. The Renaissance paved the way for the Reformation, in which a powerful "Greek" ("philosophical") lobby declared itself. Despite the fact that many leaders of the Reformation had a personal dislike for philosophy, they were spontaneous philosophers, believing themselves entitled to interpret the will of God independently, regardless of the authority of the councils. They were strict rationalists who only changed the object of their reason: if the ancient Greeks tried to comprehend the world rationally, the Protestants set themselves the goal of rationally comprehending the Book. Ultimately, the main question of Christian theology is the question of man’s attitude to God, and the differences between the anthropological systems within Christianity are the options for answering this question.

Benjamin Hoadly, Samuel Clarke, and the Ethics of the Bangorian Controversy: Church, State, and the Moral Law

The Bangorian controversy has been described as ‘the most bitter ideological conflict of the [eighteenth] century’ (J.C.D. Clark). However, while its impact is widely recognised, there are few studies dedicated to the controversy itself. Moreover, the figure at the centre of it all—Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor—has not always been taken seriously. Such scholars as Norman Sykes, G.R. Cragg, and B.W. Young have dismissed Hoadly as an opportunistic ‘political bishop’, rather than an adept theological thinker. By contrast, this article demonstrates that Hoadly’s Bangorian writings were embedded within the ethical rationalist moral theology of Isaac Newton’s friend, and defender against Gottfried Leibniz, Samuel Clarke. As a follower of Clarke, Hoadly objected to the doctrine of apostolic succession, and to the existence of religious conformity laws in Church and state, because they prevented Christianity from being what he thought it ought to be: a religion of conscience.

Back to the Future: The Fathers Refounded and the Recovery of Early Christianity

The Fathers Refounded, Elizabeth Clark's magnificent sequel to Founding the Fathers, describes in abundant detail how the overlapping disciplines of early church history and patristics became established in several American universities. It examines the work of three historians of early Christianity and their accomplishments and difficulties—and along the way it reminds its readers more than once that historical investigation poses a danger to the security of religious dogmatists. Take, for instance, the work of George LaPiana: As an Italian exile and historical scholar whose investigations of early Christian associations in Rome undermined the accustomed Roman Catholic story of apostolic succession and episcopal authority, his work could be ignored during his lifetime by the triumphalist representatives of seemingly unquestioned dogma. An example is the work of LaPiana's American contemporary, Monsignor Joseph (“Butch”) Fenton, writing only a few years before the Second Vatican Council would vindicate the historical approach when it endorsed patristic theology as an inspiration for aggiornamento, the “updating” of Catholic thought.

Treści ideowe polskich nowożytnych konfesjonałów jako wyraz potrydenckiego nauczania Kościoła

SUMMARY The issue of the presence of confessionals in the interior of the post-Trent church has not yet been addressed by Polish researchers. Brief references in encyclopaedic or dictionary works focus primarily on the evolution of the form of furniture. Therefore, this text will be an attempt to extract the wealth of ideological content, which has so far been omitted or treated marginally, and which is carried by old Polish confessionals. The proposed study includes confessionals located within the borders of today’s Poland and dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries, on which there are paintings or woodcarving images of penitents and confession patrons (sometimes enriched with text), as well as emblematic representations – a total of about 140 modern confessionals in not quite 60 towns and cities. The decoration of “penitential furniture”, as permanent elements of the church’s furnishings, harmonised closely with its whole interior design. On the one hand, it was supposed to complement it, and on the other, it was supposed to be a transmitter of autonomous content. They wereaddressed not only to penitents (e.g. through the presence of images of converted expiators), but also to confessors (images of martyrs of the mystery of confession). Considering the form of the confessional and its iconographic setting in a broader context, it is necessary to indicate the points which expressed the Catholic Church’s response to the errors of the Reformation. This includes the need for individual sacramental confession, based on the apostolic succession, the ruthless presence of a clergyman forgiving sins with the “power of the keys” and the negation of predestination emphasising the truth that man himself consciously chooses good or evil. The ideational richness of the confessional was also greatly influenced by the fact that the three sacraments were concentrated in the confessional: it was the place where one of them was celebrated and the necessary point on the way to receive the Eucharist, at the same time as the necessary presence of an ordained priest. The aim of this article is, therefore, to look at the modern confessional who, in its formal and content layer, visually realises – on an equal footing with other elements of the church’s equipment – the counter-reformation doctrine of the postTrent Church.

The Apostolic Succession of the Episcopate as the basis for an informal theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches in 1889-96

Под первым этапом неофициального диалога между Римско-Католической и Англиканскими церквями следует понимать отрезок времени, в течение которого богословская дискуссия между католиками и англиканами осуществлялась исключительно частным образом и строилась вокруг обсуждения вопроса благодатности англиканского клира. Временные рамки данного периода выглядят следующим образом: 1889 г. (дата знакомства лорда Галифакса и аббата Порталя) - 1896 г. (дата публикации папской буллы “Apostolicae Сurae”). Благодаря стараниям двух церковных энтузиастов - Чарльза Линдли Вуда, лорда Галифакса, и аббата Фернанда Порталя - была начата активная богословская дискуссия, ход которой вынудил Папу Римского окончательно определить позицию Рима по отношению к англиканским клириками. Данная позиция, выраженная в булле “Apostolicae Curae”, стала для Галифакса и Порталя, а также остальных сторонников дела объединения католиков и англикан, неутешительной. Под влиянием консервативно настроенных католических иерархов, особенно кардинала Герберта Вона, Лев XIII отверг любую возможность признания легитимности англиканских рукоположений. Данное решение было обусловлено, скорее всего, не причинами богословского и канонического характера, а влиянием на Папу ультрамонтанистской партии, желавшей присоединения Церкви Англии к Католической Церкви через её полное «поглощение». The first phase of informal dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches should be understood as a period of time during which the theological discussion between Catholics and Anglicans took place in a purely private way and revolved around the question of the grace of the Anglican clergy. The time frame of this period is as follows: 1889 г. (date of introduction of Lord Halifax and Abbot Portal) to 1896. (date of publication of the papal bull Apostolicae curae). Through the efforts of two church enthusiasts, Charles Lindley Wood, Lord Halifax, and Abbot Fernand Portal, a vigorous theological debate was initiated, the course of which compelled the Pope to finally determine Rome's position on Anglican clerics. This position, expressed in the Bull Apostolicae Curae, was disappointing for Halifax and Portale, as well as the rest of the proponents of the cause of unification between Catholics and Anglicans. Under the influence of conservative Catholic hierarchs, especially Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, Leo XIII rejected any possibility of recognising the legitimacy of Anglican ordinations. This decision was probably not due to theological or canonical reasons, but to the influence of the ultramontane party on the pope, who wanted the Church of England to join the Catholic Church through its complete "absorption".