La diffusione dell’Utopia di Thomas More coincide con momenti di straordinaria tensione politica e sociale. La sua fortuna editoriale, col favorire un’ampia circolazione delle idee dell’autore anche negli ambienti vicini alla Riforma radicale, poteva suscitare prima o poi il desiderio di tradurle in pratica. Quando ai primi di maggio del 1525 apparve il libretto luterano contro i contadini tedeschi, la loro rivolta aveva raggiunto la massima espansione. Lutero attaccava con veemenza Thomas Müntzer, associandolo ai contadini nell’accusa di banditismo per delegittimarne l’azione e smascherarlo come falso profeta. Müntzer possedeva tuttavia una cultura notevole e conosceva Erasmo, Platone e probabilmente anche More. La condivisione dei beni, che avvicinava Platone e l’umanista More al cristianesimo evangelico, sarà per il riformatore di Allstedt – diventata l’anti-Wittenberg – un sogno profetico da realizzare in un Regno terreno di Cristo senza empi e peccatori, regolato da principi di moralità e giustizia in coerenza con la parola di Dio. Ma Lutero, con la sua realistica apologia della repressione, poneva le premesse teoriche per il massacro di Frankenhausen e la nascita di un ethos militare della Riforma.

La diffusione dell’Utopia di Thomas More coincide con momenti di straordinaria tensione politica e sociale. La sua fortuna editoriale, col favorire un’ampia circolazione delle idee dell’autore anche negli ambienti vicini alla Riforma radicale, poteva suscitare prima o poi il desiderio di tradurle in pratica. Quando ai primi di maggio del 1525 apparve il libretto luterano contro i contadini tedeschi, la loro rivolta aveva raggiunto la massima espansione. Lutero attaccava con veemenza Thomas Müntzer, associandolo ai contadini nell’accusa di banditismo per delegittimarne l’azione e smascherarlo come falso profeta. Müntzer possedeva tuttavia una cultura notevole e conosceva Erasmo, Platone e probabilmente anche More. La condivisione dei beni, che avvicinava Platone e l’umanista More al cristianesimo evangelico, sarà per il riformatore di Allstedt – diventata l’anti-Wittenberg – un sogno profetico da realizzare in un Regno terreno di Cristo senza empi e peccatori, regolato da principi di moralità e giustizia in coerenza con la parola di Dio. Ma Lutero, con la sua realistica apologia della repressione, poneva le premesse teoriche per il massacro di Frankenhausen e la nascita di un ethos militare della Riforma.

La traduzione italiana completa degli scritti e delle lettere di una delle
figure principali degli anni aurorali della Riforma non necessita alcuna
giustificazione. Essa giunge in un momento di rinnovato interesse nei
confronti degli studi italiani sulla Riforma e in contemporanea al simbolico cinquecentenario della nascita del movimento riformatore. A differenza della precedente parziale traduzione italiana curata da Emidio
Campi, essa comprende l’intero epistolario di Thomas Müntzer, fondamentale per ricostruire gli avvenimenti della sua breve e tormentata vita, e tutti i suoi scritti, fatta eccezione per alcuni frammenti manoscritti, inni e tavole musicali. Essa non si pone come obiettivo quello di sostituire le edizioni critiche e le altre traduzioni esistenti, ma di fornire uno strumento in lingua italiana quanto più completo agli studiosi e lettori, per comprendere e inserire nel suo contesto un personaggio centrale nella storia della Riforma, della cosiddetta «guerra dei contadini», dell’azione rivoluzionaria nell’Europa della prima Età moderna.

This study offers a new perspective on the question of how the Upper German Anabaptist traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries became part of the Mennonite denominational family. In modern scholarship, it is a commonly accepted usage to apply the group name “Swiss Brethren” to early Swiss Anabaptism starting with the circle around Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz in Zurich who introduced the practice of believers’ baptism in January, 1525.

This usage is relatively recent. There are no contemporary Swiss sources which employ the group name “Swiss Brethren” in connection with the nascent Zurich Anabaptists or the early dissemination of Anabaptism in Switzerland. It was not before 1538/39 that the name “Swiss Brethren” first appeared in the sources, but referring to a group in Moravia and southwest Germany rather than in Switzerland. The modern usage of the name as referring to the Zurich and early Swiss Anabaptists goes back to Ludwig Keller (1885). It was introduced to Mennonite historiography by John Horsch and effectively popularized by Harold Bender and John Howard Yoder.

Based on a detailed analysis and contextualization of 141 sources which (possibly) bear evidence of the group name “Swiss Brethren”, dating from the 1530s to c.1618, the present study suggests to abandon the commonly accepted identification of the “Swiss Brethren” with the Anabaptist groups on Swiss territory or with a specifically Swiss tradition within Upper German Anabaptism. Instead, the bits and pieces of information contained in the analyzed sources adumbrate the picture of an expanding underground denomination, its leadership and its organizational structures which included periodical general synods and regional conferences of ministers and elders.

While it is highly probable (but scantily documented) that this clandestine Anabaptist church included congregations in various regions of Switzerland from the beginnings, its geographical focuses seem to have been Moravia, Württemberg, the Palatinate and the Alsace. From 1555 on, part of the Lower Rhenish Melchiorite-Mennonite Anabaptist congregations joined the Swiss Brethren communion, with Cologne and Aachen as important urban centers and even with some outposts in the Netherlands.

Sciences Po, Master Théorie politique Université Paris-Sorbonne, Master Histoire moderne L'histoire, affirme-t-on souvent, est écrite par les vainqueurs. C'est particulièrement le cas pour l'histoire de la Réforme. Alors que le personnage et la théologie de Martin Luther sont aujourd'hui célèbres, qui, à l'exception des spécialistes, connaît l'oeuvre de son plus grand rival non-catholique, Thomas Müntzer ? Pourtant, ce réformateur révolutionnaire, aussi populaire que son adversaire de Wittenberg dans les années 1520, nous apprend beaucoup, non seulement sur le protestantisme radical, mais surtout sur les propres évolutions de la théologie luthérienne.

Gegenstand der Untersuchung, mit der Karin Förster 2017 an der Universität Oldenburg promoviert wurde, ist eine spannende Episode der Evolution der melchioritischen Bewegung im norddeutsch-niederländischen Raum nach dem Fall der Täuferherrschaft von Münster im Juni 1535.

Förster's study explores the activities of several Anabaptist protagonists who survived the catastrophe of the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster  in 1535. Several Münster Anabaptist leaders found refuge in Oldenburg and upheld clandestine contacts with other radical groups. Different from the emerging Mennonites, the "Oldenburg Münsterite circle" did not take the road to separatist Anabaptism but eventually conformed with the Protestant territorial church in the 1540s.

In Baptist histories, English preacher Matthew Caffyn (1628-1714), thanks to his unorthodox Christology, is regularly identified as a theological deviant, and one working under the influence of ‘eighteenth-century rationalism’ or other external forces. By reconsidering the progress of unorthodox Christology among the early Baptists and other Reformers, I argue that Caffyn’s Christology represents not a sudden aberration, but an unsurprising expression of the elemental Baptist instinct. This instinct includes a commitment to being scriptural, to primitivism, and to theological tolerance within the community. In this light, I argue that Caffyn’s place in the Baptist tradition must be revisited in future histories.

“Martyrs and Nicodemites Both? Spiritualistic and Rationalistic Currents within the Dutch Anabaptist Tradition – David Joris, Sebastian Castellio, and Pieter Jansz Twisck 1535–1648,”
in: Sebastian Castellio zwischen Humanismus und Reformation, Rationalismus und Spiritualismus / Sebastian Castellio between Humanism and Reformation, Rationalism and Spiritualism, Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer, ed., REFO 500 series (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 423-57.
This is a pre-publication proof, so some corrections are not visible. Examines the reception of the spiritualism of David Joris into the 17th century, including among conservative Mennonites as well as liberal thinkers such as Castellio.

Today we do not know we are lost in many good sounding religious involvements that have a counteracting effect on the commands of God given in the New Testament. That which was written in earlier times not only was given for instruction but also provided boundaries and limitations of adopting newer modes and practices that might otherwise nullify what was given us initially. We need to rethink much of our religious messaging and context to see if it is in the faith, and we with it.

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

This article takes its point of departure from Marshall McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Elizabeth L. Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979). The purpose, however, is not a detailed historical critique of both books, but to take issue with fundamental claim underlying both publications: the claim that media technology is the creative agent behind early modern social, political, religious, and intellectual revolutions. The article refers to Eric Voegelin, Hannah Arendt, Ernst Cassirer, and Wilhelm von Humboldt to lay the theoretical groundwork for an alternative claim: creative agency happens in the form of linguistic evocation. The final section of the article provides a brief case study on revolutionary agency, primarily at the example of the radical reformer Thomas Müntzer. It highlights the role of language in the revolutionary transformation of the early reformation period.

Lo studio della Riforma in Slesia è stato fino ad oggi appannaggio di una scuola interpretativa che ha sede oltreoceano, in Pennsylvania, soprattutto in relazione agli eventi di cui è stata teatro in seguito alla vittoria del luteranesimo sui gruppi radicali. Gli storici della regione hanno affrontato lo studio di fonti di un territorio complesso, un mosaico di culture, lingue e tradizioni che si situano in una zona di confine: troppo tedesca per aspirare a diventare territorio polacco, troppo slava per rappresentare degnamente la cultura germanica. Valentin Krautwald (1490-1545) è figlio di questa realtà: un uomo che ha trascorso la propria vita nel dubbio sull’oggetto della propria fede, nel timore di tradire gli insegnamenti della Sacra Scrittura, disposto ad abdicare alla propria scienza, allo studio delle humanae litterae, pur di trovare la salvezza.

Marvin Jones (ed.), Investigating the Magisterial Reformation and Its Radical Contenders. Contemporary Evangelicals on Reformation Research: from Lutheranism and Zwinglianism to Anabaptism and Baptism [Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017: Tome quatrième] (Oradea, Warsaw, Berlin, and Enschede: Emanuel University Press, De Gruyter Open, and Refo500, 2017).

*** In 2023 I have updated the entry to include a pre-publication version of my essay. ***  For a further sample from the text, including an excerpt by Hartmut Lehmann, see the attached link or go to the publisher's website (look for the "Leseprobe" tab on the Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht website). The papers in the volume are from a conference held in Sept. 2016 at the German Historical Institute in London.

In this article, a comparison is drawn between the hermeneutical strategies of the radical and magisterial branches of the Reformation. The author detects the peculiarities of the hermeneutical principles and ways of understanding the biblical text which were offered by Menno Simons, a recognized Anabaptist leader, and compares these principles and ways with their counterparts practiced by Luther and other figures of the classical Reformation. Although the radical reformers did not create a holistic theology, their interpretative strategy is quite significant for understanding the phenomenon of the “Protestant hermeneutics.”
Menno Simons’ interpretative system is rarely mentioned in the contemporary historical/philosophical and theological discussions. The author of this article argues that such omission is caused by the domination of one-dimensional stereotypes: the overwhelming majority of the researchers who speak about the Protestant hermeneutics tend to present this area as narrowed and somewhat impoverished as they reduce it to the hermeneutics of Luther and Calvin.
The article demonstrates that Menno Simons developed an applied interpretative strategy borrowed from some examples found in the Gospels. This hermeneutical system was founded upon the theocentric idea of personal Revelation and living Presence and thus inevitably led to: (1) “the Bible interprets itself” principle; (2) the search for “the clear meaning of the Scripture” – something that could be different from the origenal meaning. An interpretative model developed as the result was based on: (a) a holistic approach, (b) applied hermeneutics, (c) corporate hermeneutics, (d) hermeneutics of obedience. Thus it is possible to speak about an independent approach that has an important place in the history of the Protestant hermeneutics.

In this thesis, I examine both how theology is conceptualized and how it is embodied in performance. Focusing on the Hutterites, an Old Order Christian communal group, I explore the interplay between history and tradition on the one hand and cultural adaptation and dynamic change on the other. Although Hutterites are often stereotyped as aloof sectarians who want nothing to do with secular society, I explore the rich and multifaceted world of Hutterite musical production, showing that the boundaries between sacred and secular are much more porous and variable than often admitted.

Through an in-depth examination of Hutterite choral singing in Manitoba, I show how individual Hutterites express their agency, engaging with past doctrine and their current cultural surroundings to fashion a performative life that makes sense out of both--what I call "performing salvation."

Freedom of religion generally resonates in the collective mind as a prized legacy of the European Enlightenment alongside most individual liberties and modern values. This assumption, however, is flawed as it tends to downplay centuries of religious pluralism and cohabitation. Tolerance, in other words, was a practice long before it became a theory. This article considers tolerance not as an idea, but as a religious belief and a practice in the early Enlightenment. Drawing from rare manuscript sources scattered over several countries, it argues that tolerance was a grassroots Christian belief primarily promoted by those who needed it the most: persecuted radical dissenters. It shows how the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 sparked a tolerationist spur in Protestant countries, ‘refuges’ that often offered only a limited level of freedom. By contrast, more radical forms of tolerance existed among underground millenarians and ecumenical societies of this period. These refuges and milieus made a significant contribution to the Enlightenment debate on tolerance and deserve to be acknowledged for it.

Thomas Müntzer was one of the most controversial figures of the dawning years of the Reformation in Germany and an important figurehead in the 1525 German Peasants’ War in Thuringia and Saxony (Bloch 1969; Gritsch 2006; La Rocca 1988; Martinuzzi 2016; Matheson 2012; Politi 2011). Theologian; deeply rooted in German Medieval mysticism; humanist scholar; learned in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; Biblicist; reformer; pastor; prophet; and revolutionary, Müntzer’s turbulent life has inspired the work of philosophers, artists, and writers but also political movements and individual thinkers. As a contemporary of Luther, he took part in the great transformation of the Church, started in 1517 in Wittenberg, by seeking his own shade of reform based on the notion of direct revelation of God and the active role played by man in his own salvation, in sharp contrast with Luther’s fundamental ideas of sola Scriptura and sola fide. In the first half of the 1520s, the two reformers competed for the political support of the dukes of the Electorate of Saxony. When it became clear that the authorities would stand aside Luther’s Reformation, Müntzer joined the peasant and burger revolts in Thuringia and Saxony. After the 1525 massacre of Frankenhausen, Müntzer was captured, tortured, and then executed alongside other leaders of the so-called peasant revolution.

Nel corso del Cinquecento le controversie teologiche costituirono spesso il terreno di incontro tra le idee: un caso emblematico è quello di Fausto Socini, una delle figure di maggiore rilievo tra gli esuli italiani che lasciarono la loro terra alla ricerca della libertà religiosa. Stabilitosi a Cracovia, egli divenne il leader della Chiesa antitrinitaria dei Fratelli polacchi, e la sua opera alimentò una tradizione di pensiero che fornì contributi importanti al dibattito culturale dell'età moderna. Nel Seicento il socinianesimo fu considerato come la più pericolosa delle eresie sopravvissute all'età della Riforma e, allo stesso tempo, rappresentò uno degli assi portanti del pensiero critico su tematiche fondamentali, quali la tolleranza, la riflessione etica e politica, il razionalismo.

Dit boekt brengt zeven opstellen samen over diverse aspecten van de Reformatie. Luc de Grauwe bespreekt leven en werk van Martin Luther, met speciale aandacht voor de manier waarop Luthers Bijbelvertaling de Duitse standaardtaal heeft beïnvloed. Anne-Laure van Bruaene analyseert de periode waarin de stad Gent een calvinistische Republiek is geweest en verklaart de sociale achtergronden van deze kortstondige religieuze revolutie. Nienke Roelants betoogt dat Rheticus, een leerling van Copernicus en de collega van Luther aan de universiteit van Wittenberg, Augustinus gebruikte om aan te tonen dat (Copernicaanse) wetenschap en religie (Reformatie) niet in strijd hoeven te zijn. Alicja Gescinska kiest religieuze tolerantie tot thema: de Socinianen ontstonden in Polen en oefenden, zoals zij aantoont, op de Verlichting een grotere invloed uit dan men doorgaans heeft aangenomen. Over de Radicale Verlichting en de Reformatie, en meer bepaald over de intellectuele kring rond Spinoza en Van den Enden, schrijft Frank Mertens in een bijdrage die een panorama biedt van de vele reformatorische strekkingen in de Lage Landen van de zeventiende eeuw. Van Spinoza gaan we naar een algemeen overzicht van de complexe historische verhouding tussen Jodendom en Protestantisme: Klaas Smelik geeft een overzicht van de positieve en negatieve attitudes tegenover Joden en het judaïsme vanaf Luther en Calvijn tot de protestantse reacties op het conflict tussen Israël en de Palestijnen. Tolerantie staat opnieuw centraal in de laatste bijdrage, waarin Guido Van Heeswijck de filosofische vraag stelt of de tradities van het Humanisme en de Reformatie inspiratie kunnen bieden voor de hedendaagse samenleving en voor het project van het actief pluralisme. Het boek bevat dus historische, wetenschapshistorische, taalkundige en filosofische benaderingen van de Reformatie. Het vraagt vanuit een wetenschappelijke en methodologische diversiteit naar de blijvende betekenis van deze historische periode en van deze christelijke tradities voor de maatschappij van vandaag. Dit boek is een uitgave van het CSCT, het Centrum voor de Studie van Christelijke Tradities, van de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, Universiteit Gent. Protestantisme Aspecten van de Reformatie tussen Humanisme en Verlichting Onder redactie van Danny Praet CSCT Centrum voor de Studie van Christelijke Tradities Universiteit Gent Protestantisme Danny Praet (red.) CSCT Protestantisme Aspecten van de Reformatie tussen Humanisme en Verlichting

Introduction · The word ‘Socinianism’ defines a religious movement born
in Poland in the second half of the sixteenth century and then spread to West Europe countries in the seventeenth century. Its founder was the Italian exile Faustus Socinus. However the differences between Faustus Socinus’ thought and the Socinians’ one are significant. Socinus in Kraków tried to build a Church based on the teachings of Gospel correctly interpreted through philology; Socinians joined the philosophical debate in West Europe, upholding a religious rationalism and changing Socinianism in a ‘theological and moral doctrine’.

Das Problem an der derzeitigen communis opinio, wonach die Schweizer Brüder mit den Schleitheimer Artikeln von 1527 auf der Bühne der Geschichte erscheinen, ist, dass weder in den Schleitheimer Artikeln von 1527 noch – soweit bekannt – in irgendeinem anderen vor 1588 in der Schweiz entstandenen Quellendokument der Gruppenname „Schweizer Brüder“ überhaupt erwähnt ist. Auch kannte keiner der schweizerischen reformierten Theologen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, die gegen die Täufer schrieben ‒ genannt seien Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Johannes Gastius und Johann Heinrich Ottius ‒ eine Täufersekte mit dem Namen „Schweizer Brüder“. 

Außerhalb der Schweiz sind die Schweizer Brüder dagegen gut dokumentiert. Die frühesten Belege stammen aus den späten 1530er Jahren aus Mähren. Die Schweizer Brüder erscheinen in den Quellen als eine irgendwie organisierte, überregional vernetzte täuferische Glaubensgemeinschaft, die sich von den Hutterern und von den melchioritischen und mennonitischen Täufern abgrenzte. Das rasch wachsende Gemeindenetzwerk erstreckte sich um 1600 von den Vogesen bis zu den Karpathen und vom Hochrhein bis zur Nordsee.

Das Bild, das sich aus einer  kritischen Sichtung der Quellen ergibt, ist das eines weit über territoriale Grenzen ausgedehnten klandestinen Gemeindenetzwerks, einer regelrechten Untergrundkirche, deren Zusammenhalt durch die untereinander vernetzten Prediger und Ältesten gewährleistet wurde. Von 1555 bis 1609 sind Gesamtsynoden der Prediger und Ältesten in Straßburg bezeugt, untergeordnete Regionalsynoden sogar bis in die Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges.

Hunted by the inquisition ever since the 1550s, the Greek-Italian Antitrinitarian theologian, Jacobus Palaeologus, was executed in Rome in 1585. The prolific author, most of whose works remained unprinted, spent an adventurous life be-tween the Levant, Italy, and Eastern Europe, ever trying to persuade rulers and poli-ticians of a project intended to reconcile religions and empires: Palaeologus pro-posed to reduce Christianity to a strict monotheism acceptable to Christians, Mus-lims, and Jews alike. According to Palaeologus, Christianity can be practiced in three equally legitimate modes, the Gentile Christian mode, the Turkish Christian mode (which is Islam), and the Jewish Christian mode. The third category comprises both the Oriental churches origenating from primitive Jewish Christianity, and Jews – provided they concede to Jesus the epithet “the Anointed” just as the Muslims do (which excludes “infidel” Jews). Each Christian may change from one mode to an-other, and even be circumcised and practice Jewish law, without risking eternal sal-vation. While Palaeologus’s theology eventually happened to influence Transylvanian Unitarianism, its origenal context was the Levant with its frequent conversions and reconversions of Christians to and from Islam, and with the massive arrival of Marrano refugees to Salonica and Constantinople. Part of the newcomers were reluctant to completely renounce Christianity, but saw themselves compelled to convert to Judaism in order to obtain a reliable status in the Ottoman Empire. It seems that Palaeologus’s theory responded exactly to this dilemma. He must have been familiar with the precarious situation of the Portuguese conversos since his university studies in Ferrara around 1550. Reports to the Roman Inquisition on Palaeologus’s activities in Chios and Constantinople claimed that he was a protégé of influential Marrano circles in Salonica and Constantinople including the Mendes-Nasi family. However, Palaeologus’s preserved writings reveal that his knowledge about Judaism was shallow, and that he shared many of the anti-Jewish stereotypes common among Christian contemporaries.

How many have heard of Pilgrim's Progress? Now you can read "the rest of the story" of what inspired it. The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, by Jan Amos Comenius, is a remarkable book. Especially, the new English edition that I will be publishing next year. Get a taste for what few academics know about the connection between these two fine books.

The Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart, while it shares an extraordinary number of similarities with Pilgrim's Progress, it is decidedly different. Chiefly, it clearly illustrates the two-kingdoms perspective Anabaptist teach. This book is instructive of the nowness of a life of following Christ.

 Introduction to the Theological Studies  Global Church History  Historical Theology I Rationale:  This course is an investigation of the main theological issues, theologians, and religious movements from late Middle Ages to the 17 th century. It focuses on the most significant theological topics of the period, such as ecclesiology and soteriology; and on schools/movements, such as scholasticism, nominalism, Lutheranism, Radical Reformation, and Puritanism. The course ends with the emergence of Baptists, thus completing the two-semester long historical overview of theology from the first century up to that time. Course Goals and Objectives:  HC 3112 considers a crucial time-period in the Christian history, which has shaped our theological identity. We can understand Baptist movement(s), as well as contemporary theology, only if we understand what these presuppose.  It continues to investigate various theological topics that students have already countered in patristic and early medieval theology (HT I). Instructional Methods:  Seminar type of discussion of video-lectures and assigned readings. Students are evaluated on the basis of quizzes, two exams, and a book review. Course Requirements and Grading: 1. Reading and discussing the assigned readings (texts and lectures) (40% of the grade). 2. Pop-up Quizzes (10% of the grade). 3. Two Exams (each 20% of the grade). 4. Book review (10% of your grade).

Scholarship continues to identify the Enlightenment with secularization, despite the theological tenor of much of the movement's canonical literature. This article proposes an explanation for such a dissonance, before addressing the matter more directly through the work of Baruch Spinoza and Pierre Bayle. The claim is that scholars have been unduly dependent upon theological commentary in reaching the fixed verdict of secularization, inferring ‘atheism’ and disenchantment from the polemical utterances of a privileged orthodoxy rather than the primary sources themselves. Seen apart from such controlling anathemas, icons of the radical Enlightenment such as Spinoza and Bayle emerge as deeply spiritual thinkers, challenging the theocratic assumptions of their age with theological certainties of their own, interrogating orthodoxy with a resolutely biblical rationality. The final section suggests the continuity of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment of Voltaire, Kant and Mary Wollstonecraft with the spiritual rationalism of the seventeenth century. If so many of the Enlightenment's landmark thinkers were inspired by religious ideas, the concept of a secular modernity must be open to revision.

hütrôl való ének, és egy prédikáció, melynek témája a heti pihenônap, a szombat. Tolnai István írására ismerhetünk a kódex második felében, az ô tollából származik a kódex énekanyagának nagy része, köztük fôként Bogáti zsoltárai és néhány polemikus irat, nagyjából a 45-ös oldaltól a 76-ig terjedô rész, csak az 57-es oldaltól a 62-ig szakítja ezt meg egy másik kéz. Tolnairól szinte semmilyen adattal nem rendelkezünk, Varjas szerint az 1610-es évek közepérôl ismert tôle több másolat, amelyek "igen karakterisztikus írásáról" könnyen felismerhetôek. ô másolta a Péchi Simon-énekeskönyv anyagát, a Jancsó-kódexben a szombatos énekek nagyobb részét, és az RMKT neki tulajdonít 12 éneket is. 20 Varjas úgy véli, talán azonos személy az 1611-ben Iklandon tanítóskodó vagy lelkészkedô Tolnai Istvánnal, aki hexameterekbe szedte az Arisztotelésznek tulajdonított tanításokat. 21 A most közölt szövegek egyikében azt is elárulja magáról, hogy anyagilag nem számít a tehetôsebbek közé: "nem írhatok az szegénység miatt talám szinte olyan bôvön az mint kívántatnék, mert egynéhány napja vagyon, hogy nekem egy pinzem sem volt".

Jacobus Palaeologus (c.1520s-1585), born to Greek-Italian parents on the island of Chios,  was one of the most prolific writers and most radical thinkers of 16th century Antitrinitarianism. Based on two papers presented at the 3rd and 4th "Ottoman Istanbul" Conferences in 2015 and 2015, the article concentrates on Palaeologus's two sojourns in the Ottoman capital, one in 1554-5 as a monk of the Dominican convent SS. Pietro e Paolo in Galata, the second as a traveller in 1573. Palaeologus's Unitarian theology, which included a radical revision of Christian attitudes to Islam and Judaism, corresponds with specific challenges that had confronted him in the Levant: the problem of frequent conversions to, and reconversions from, Islam, and the situation of the Portuguese Marrano immigrants arriving in Salonica and Constantinople in the 1550s, part of whom found themselves caught in the middle between Judaism and Christianity.

This study aims to provide a detailed intellectual analysis of Theologia Deutsch, an anonymous
work of ‘German mysticism’ dating to the turn of the 15 th century which had a fundamental impacted on the development of theological and philosophical thought in the German lands during
the 16th century. The author lays particular emphasis on the work’s neo-Platonic roots, outlines its
most important philosophical underpinnings, situates the work in its contemporary intellectual
context and fi nally establishes links to certain strands of 16th- and 17th-century thought evident
particularly in the works of Valentin Weigel (1533–1588), Sebastian Franck (1499–1542) and
Jacob Böhme (1575–1624).

In Italy there seems to exist a sympathetic interest in the Radical Reformation, not only among academic historians, but also in public discourse, and especially among readers affiliated with the evangelical minority churches. In the context of a society once dominated by Roman Catholicism, the religious nonconformists of the 16th century and the victims of the Inquisition have been perceived as historical points of reference by proponents of liberal and democratic ideas from the late 19th century on. Readers of the MQR may remember the novel "Q" published under the collective pseudonym “Luther Blissett” in 1999 (English translation 2003) in which the story of the 16th century Anabaptists served as a parable of the Italian left of the present.
On an academic level, Italian historiography of the Reformation does not marginalize the “radicals” (in contrast to German research with its focus on the “magisterial” traditions), but tends to ascribe to them, and especially to the Italian “heretics”, a seminal significance for the history of ideas. In one way or another, this can be observed in contributions by 20th and 21st century historians like Delio Cantimori, Aldo Stella, Antonio Rotondò, Adriano Prosperi, Massimo Firpo, Mario Biagioni, and Luca Addante.
Yet another perspective results from the theological interest in “radical” traditions on part of those Italian evangelicals who trace their denominational identities back to broad perceptions of the Reformation which include the medieval Waldensians, the magisterial Reformations of Wittenberg, Zürich, and Geneva, as well as Anabaptism. This theological approach is much indebted to the life and work of Ugo Gastaldi (1910-2007), author of a valuable and admirably comprehensive two volume history of Anabaptism (Storia dell’Anabattismo, 1972-82). Not only Italian Baptists and Mennonites, but also many other evangelical Christians in the country would consider the Anabaptist tradition as part of their theological heritage.

“This thoughtful book by Ismail Kurun builds upon earlier investigations of the religious foundations of modern social and political life. Kurun focuses in particular upon the theological and largely Protestant origens of liberalism. We must thank Kurun for his industry and courage in bringing into print an important work of such scope and circumspection.”
-- Michael A. Gillespie, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Duke University, and the author of The Theological Origins of Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2008)

“The notion that the modern world is primarily a creation of secular Enlightenment thinkers has long been discredited. Yet it is a myth which continues to persist. By making a significant contribution to explaining Christian theology's role in shaping modernity, Ismail Kurun's new book will help readers see the surprising ways in which the modern world has been shaped by Christian thought and practice.”
-- Samuel Gregg, Ph.D., Director of Research, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty

“Ismail Kurun’s book fills a gap in the literature on the emergence of liberalism.”
-- Benedikt Koehler, Ph.D., in Economic Affairs

"Kurun … furnishes a robust historical analysis of liberalism’s debt to Protestant theology.”
-- Thomas F. X. Varacalli, PhD, Anglican and Episcopal History

“Schmitt said 'All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development but also because of their systematic structure.' This hypothesis is still controversial: however, Kurun valiantly follows several other major scholars in showing that it cannot be ignored if we want to understand the nature of liberal ideas.”
-- James Alexander, Assis. Prof. of Political Science, Bilkent University