Evening Prayer

McNiell, John Thomas. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Dr. McNeil comments on one eminent Italian who settle in Geneva, Galeazzo Caraccioli (d,1586). This Italian was rich, married, and was the nephew of Pope Paul IV, the brutal and murderous Caraffa of Naples. As a result of the Inquisition of Protestants, he studied Protestantism and converted. He left behind estates, tried to convert his wife who refused to follow him, and refused the efforts of family and the Pope to return to Italy and Romanism. He was warmly received and supported by Calvin and became a leading citizen in Geneva (184). Greg Allison’s “Historical Theology:” After dealing with the decadent, anti-Chalcedonians of the 20th-21st centuries, including the crew from the Jesus Seminar, Prof. Allison provides quotes from Thomas Morris from his “The Logic of God Incarnate (Cornell, 1985), an evangelical defense of Chalcedonian Christology (386). Soon enough, we’ll hear form Pagel, Bauer and Erhman and the Gnostic Gospels. Edward Cairns’s “Christianity Through the Centuries:” Prof. Cairns outlines the developments of the modern nation-states with their varied forces. France’s Capetian line and Estates General had more centralized powers than England. The Spanish nation-state had a religious hue due to the Reconquista and the expulsion of the Moors. But, all hated the Church’s sovereignty with subjects loyal to Rome but half-loyals to the state. Also, rich merchants and others hated seeing monies going to the Papal exchequer and controlling lands inside their own nations. Prof. Cairns is doing a fly-over at high altitudes. Millard Erickson’s “Christian Theology:” Prof. Erickson notes that Barth called attention to two political instances of wrongful approaches to immanence. First, some Christians immanentized the Kaiser’s political policies as divine providence in WW1. Second, the same happened as some pious Christians immanentized God in Hitler’s Nazi regime in WW2. Erickson provides his cautions. He’ll develop those implications shortly (310). Justo Gonzalez’s “History of Christianity: Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation:” Prof. Gonzalez traces Augustine’s conversion and baptism in Milan by Ambrose, including his son, Adeodatus, and his journey back to Northern Africa via Ostia, Italy, where his mother, Monica, dies. He and friends spend several months there. Augustine, Adeodatus, and friends return to North Africa. Where’s his concubine of many, many years? A stain on Augustine for failure to marry her. Augustine finally fleets up as a Bishop of Hippo. A retreat center of study, prayer and reflection is established as well (246). Augustine, the sinner, should have married his concubine, but she’s to have disappeared from the narrative.