This booklet explores the Christianity of the days before it became an official religion of the Roman Empire. It considers the impact of various areas of church life in this initial state.

Throughout the Christian world, women have chosen to lead disciplined lives of prayer and asceticism. Descriptions of early role-models—Macrina, the two Paulas and Melanias, Radagunde—and others by contemporaries, usually men, provide details of their austerities, their aspirations, and their relationship with the Church and the world, not least with male authority figures.

Jastrow addresses how the final codification of the laws of Hammurapi evolved and which process the Babylonians used to get there. The Code of Hammurapi was subject to constant adjustments, providing that conditions constantly changed and new situations arose.

Burgess attempts to prove the originality of the nakshatra system to the Hindus. He proves the early existence of this system and disproves the origin of the lunar zodiac system to the Chinese and the Arabs.

In the Early Middle Ages, the irish temperament—individualistic, poetic, and deeply loyal to family—produced great and learned saints and a unique monastic literature. Before the Norman Invasion, the isolation of the island allowed the development of traditions quite different from those of the continent or Britain. The rules, maxims, litanies, and poems of early irish monks convey the spirituality of the Isle of Saints in the sixth to eighth centuries.

The Sumerian hymn K. 257 is in the Emne-sal dialect, which is the non-Semitic designation for a variation of Sumerian. The focus of the hymn is the goddess Belit. However, no conclusion was reached about her origin.

The article refutes many of the arguments Stephen Henry Langdon made in his article on the text “The Sumerian Epic of Paradise, Flood, and Fall of Man”. The essay concludes with the entire text laid out and a commentary.

I have plucked the finest flowers of the unmown meadow and worked them into a row which I now offer to you', wrote John Moschos as he began his tales of the holy men of seventh-century Palestine and Egypt. This translation offers readers contemporary insights into the spirituality of the desert.

Defining spirituality as 'the dynamic unity between the content of a faith and the way in which it is lived by historically determined human beings', Vauchez steps outside the clerical world usually studied to trace the religious mentality of the laity, the ordinary and often illiterate majority of Christians.

Tiamat was the Babylonian sea deity. The sea was affiliated with evil. Tiamat was therefore thought to be evil. As a result, the writers of Genesis 1 purposely omitted any wording relating to the word ‘sea’.

Aside from being the content of speeches by characters in narrative, how do passages of laws in the Pentateuch interact with the surrounding narratives? This book proposes that certain passages of law in Leviticus and Numbers offer direction for the interpretation of adjacent segments of narrative. This 'direction' may serve to emphasize select themes and concepts in narrative. Alternatively, it may misdirect readers, or suggest alternative options to more accessible interpretations for a stretch of narrative.

From one of the leading scholars of Islam in the last century comes this exploration of Christianity and Islam. Right from the beginning Becker notes that there are different points of view on the subject. Examining the nature of the subject and the historical connections between the religions, he turns to the meeting of the two faiths. Emerging outlooks at the time demonstrated just how much these religions affected each other. Those interested in the history of western religions will find this a refreshing resource. Also useful to students, this informative booklet is a welcome find.

Best known in the Middle Ages as a scriptural exegete, Bede here provides a running gloss on the Letters of James, Peter, John, and Jude. Why he chose these `lesser letters' for his first attempt at written exegesis no one knows; perhaps he did so because so few other scriptural commentators had glossed them. They are unique in that he inclined more to the literal interpretation of the text than he did in his more allegorical later commentaries. Preachers will find them useful; readers will find them illuminating.

Deissmann was a scholar well known for his work with the Greek of the New Testament. In this little volume he considers the Hellenization of Semitic monotheism. Primarily concerned with the changes after Alexander’s conquest, the book is a brief exploration of Greek religion in the aftermath of conquest. Semitic monotheism was, according to Deissmann, a new concept for the Greek world. Hellenistic outlooks had long been influenced by classical viewpoints. Into this cultural milieu the Judaic concept of monotheism made immediate inroads. This influence is explored primarily in linguistic form, including considerations of the Septuagint. Both Hellenists and Semitic scholars will find material of interest here. Observations made by Deissmann influenced later thought in this field. Stretching across disciplines, this study will interest cultural historians as well. Share the sense of discovery with this useful booklet.

Amadeus became a monk of Clairvaux in 1125, just about the time its abbot, Bernard, began to be noticed by the Church at large. After twenty years in the cloister, Amadeus became bishop of the troubled diocese of Lausanne. Reform and renewal did not come easily. Amid political skullduggery, as well as the demands of pastoral and administrative duties, Bishop Amadeus managed to write–perhaps to preach–these eight homilies in praise of Mary. Formed as a monk under the charismatic influence of Saint Bernard, Amadeus retained a distinctive piety which finds eloquent expression in this series of sermons, almost all that survives from his pen.

The young abbot meditates on the singular role of the Virgin Mother of Christ 'to satisfy [his] own devotion', and in doing so bequeathes his own love of Mary and of Scripture to his Order and to the Church.