Volume 2, Issue 1 -

Any consideration of the development of Christology in Reformation and post-Reformation thought would ultimately seek to situate itself in the steady stream of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century confessions and dogmatics. This article therefore pursues a reflection on the advent of the particular brand of Reformed Christology and its subsequent codifications by tracing three movements. First, this study shall examine the emergence of the Reformed notion of Christology against the backdrop of the Lutheran–Zwinglian Eucharistic debate. Second, there will be a gesture toward the use of the communicatio idiomatum in the dogmatic work of John Calvin and Zacharias Ursinus. Third, this article will outline the classic seventeenth-century Reformed orthodox doctrine, which builds on the sixteenth-century notion, with the addition of the idea that the person of the union indirectly mediates between the natures. This study therefore concludes with several affirmations of the mature seventeenth-century Reformed notion regarding God as the one who accomplishes creaturely redemption.

In the fourteenth century a huge change took place in thinking about death: the kingdom of the beyond became full of dreadful suffering. This new mentality derives from the belief in Purgatory that took hold in the twelfth century, but reached its high point only in the fifteenth: the judgement of the dead would take place immediately after death. Prayers and money invested in order to obtain remission of sins encouraged the expansion of a true “economy of death” manageable from earth. The birth of the Observance movement inside the Mendicant Orders may be connected with this new sensibility, in which the faithful are more concerned with their personal salvation. The “death-spectacles” evoked by Girolamo Savonarola became lenses through which to look at life, but even before him many authors of laude – vernacular religious songs mainly composed for civic confraternities – express the same modern thought on death inspired by Holy Scripture, but excluding high poetic models. The common practice of “ cantasi come …” – the reuse of music known with a different text now turned to fear of death – confirms the strong contiguity between life and death, read as a true “extension” of life.

The present contribution offers an analysis of the Oratio de interioris hominis reformatione (1628), a sermon written by Cornelius Jansenius (1585–1638), professor of exegesis at the university of Leuven, for the introduction of a new monastic rule in the monastery of Affligem (Southern Netherlands). The text was reprinted several times and gained a certain popularity in the seventeenth century, especially through its French translation by Robert Arnauld d’Andilly (1642). This contribution focuses on the historical circumstances which lead to the genesis of the Oratio . By means of introduction, a summary of the text’s content is given, focusing on Jansenius’ presentation of the Augustinian exegesis of 1 John 2:16 on the threefold concupiscence. Our proper analysis of the historical context of the Oratio is threefold. In first instance, we analyze Jansenius’ relations with the different protagonists in the reform of Affligem, which culminated in the introduction of a new monastic rule in 1628. Thereafter, we focus on the history of the Benedictine monastery itself, from its foundation until the seventeenth century. We end our analysis with a close examination of the pronuntiatio of the Oratio on 18 October 1628 and the immediate impact of the text.

This essay studies the figure of Franciscus Toletus and in particular, his biblical hermeneutic. Covering his background, his education, his entry into the Jesuit order, his career at Rome and finally his commentary on the Gospel of John, the essay seeks to introduce the reader to a key figure of Catholic biblical studies in the early modern period.

On 3 December 1563, the fathers of the Council of Trent made provision for the enclosure of nuns: “the Holy Council command all bishops they made it their special care that in all monasteries subjected to their authority the enclosure of nuns be restored wherever it has been violated and that it be preserved wherever it has not been violated”. In 1566, the constitution Circa pastoralis completed that reform and obliged every religious order of women to the enclosure. The communities of nurses or teachers had to make a choice between enclosure or apostolate. Nevertheless, the ursulines successfully adapted their way of life, and continued to teach young girls. Some religious orders drew up plans in order to manage the observance of the rule and the enclosure thanks to an appropriate spatial organization. The ursulines of the Congregation of Bordeaux did not produce such a document, but the architecture of their convents in Brittany reveals that the communities transmitted the plans to each other. This detailed analysis of plans and facades of their convents in Brittany prepares the ground for the history of the architectural practices of a female order that is still little known in France.