History of Spirituality

The Pure Flame of Devotion: The History of Christian Spirituality, edited by G. Stephen Weaver, Jr. and Ian Hugh Clary, was published recently. It is a collection of essays on the history of Christian spirituality in honor of Dr. Michael Haykin. My contribution to this book is Chapter 6 entitled “Apocalyptic Spirituality in the Early Middle Ages: Hope for Escaping the Fire of Doomsday through a Pre-conflagration Rapture.”

We have all heard of the pre-tribulation rapture view, popular with many evangelical Christians, which says that seven years before Christ returns, the church will be caught up to be with Christ to escape the Great Tribulation. The view which I hold is that the “catching away” of 1 Thess 4 is simply the resurrection of those Christians who are still living at the time of Christ’s Second Coming. The purpose for this is so that the living as well as the resurrected dead will stand before the Last Judgment in both body and soul. For, after the judgment, they will spend eternity in body and soul either in heaven with Christ or in eternal torment.

The essay “Apocalyptic Spirituality…” presents a view of the rapture, held by many Christians in the early middle ages, called the “pre-conflagration rapture.” This view says that one of the purposes of the catching up of the saints is to protect Christians from the grand conflagration, a big word for a big fire: the burning up on the present heaven and earth that accompanies the Second Coming of Christ. I hope you enjoy the essay.

Read the complete article in PDF.

To order a copy of The Pure Flame of Devotion follow these links:

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Happy reading.

Frank

NEW ARTICLES: Under the sidebar “Published Articles by the Author” are two new articles. The first is “I Will Show Wonders in the Heaven Above” published in Trinity Journal. It examines the eschatology of an eighteenth century Baptist community in Pennsylvania, called Ephrata, and how they viewed certain comets, which had appeared at that time, as signals of end time events.

The second is “Arnobius the Younger against the Predestined One” published recently in Augustinian Studies. Arnobius had many negative things to say in his Psalms commentary and Praedestinatus about a certain person whom he called pejoratively “predestined one.” This article makes a case that his predestinarian opponent was the defender of Saint Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine, who resided in Rome at the same time as Arnobius.

NEW CONFERENCE PAPERS: Four new conference papers were posted recently on this website. These include papers on the theology of grace of Prosper of Aquitaine, the interpretation of the 144,000 in Revelation 7 & 14, an 8th century predestination controversy in Spain, and an early Christological heresy called Nestorianism.

FORTHCOMING is my review IN Augustinian Studies of the first English translation of Fulgentius of Ruspe’s “On the Truth of Predestination” in the Fathers of the Church series.

CURRENT PROJECTS: On the Latin to English translation of Tyconius’ Exposition of the Apocalypse, I have finished the translation, and am going over it one more time. David Robinson is working on the introduction and footnotes. I have also finished translations of the Apocalypse commentary in the Reference Bible, another by pseudo-Jerome, and one by Theodulph of Orleans, all from around 650-810 AD. I am going over them one more time, and then I need to write the introduction, before sending it to publication.