Few historical figures have earned a remembrance of so fixed and angular features as the fourth century Roman Emperor, Flavius Claudius Julianus. Yet, it is doubtful that except for one event in his short reign of less than two years, he would have aroused more than a fraction of the commentary since devoted to his rule. Having announced his defection from Christianity upon succeeding to the throne of Constantius, it was probably expected that religious terrors, like those of the third century, would immediately be loosed upon the followers of Jesus. Not until some seven months had passed, however, did anything like the expected blow descend. And this, oddly, was a nonsanguine policy intended to do no more than purge the public schools of their Christian faculties.

The third decade of the fourteenth century might well be considered a pivotal period for William of Ockham. In the first place, it witnessed his metamorphosis from theologian into political theorist. More ominously, it was during these years that he changed from a faithful son of the church into a rebel against papal authority. Both of these transformations came about largely because of his trip to Avignon to defend himself against the charges first leveled by Johannes Lutterell and then investigated by a papal commission. Having been summoned to defend his theological orthodoxy, Ockham found himself drawn into the quarrel between John XXII and Michael of Cesena. Ockham sided with Michael and eventually escaped with him in 1328, fleeing into the arms of Ludwig the Bavarian. Thus, from the papal viewpoint, the Ockham who departed in 1328 was a man with appreciably more sins to his credit than the one who had arrived approximately four years earlier.

Any one looking at Schwenckfeld through the spectacles of a historian who approaches the age of the sixteenth century Reformation with a neatly devised system will find his thought rather confusing. The strange Silesian nobleman wrote voluminous pamphlets on theology without ever aspiring to be a theologian; he preached widely and served as pastor to his adherents without ever claiming to be a clergyman (Predikant).He insisted that his expositions were in keeping with the best and most catholic of Christian thought, yet one finds it next to impossible to delineate his theology within a “system.” He was involved in too many arguments and pursued too many theological interests to allow every one of his utterances a fitting place within a well-structured theological system.

Across the landscape of liberal journalism which flourished between the two world wars, The Christian Century stands out as a salient eminence. Conveniently identified as a non-denominational magazine of religious thought, the Century also maintained a lively interest in the problems of civil liberties, political theory, constitutional change, the tactics of parties, the place of leadership in politics, and the problems of state and local administration. It was awake to many of the evils of American society since its thinking lay in the main stream of the muckraking-progressive tradition. Finally, it was interested, especially in the thirties, in policies and candidates. Indeed during the depression decade it became as much a political and social journal as a religious one.

Ernest R. Sandeen's article on fundamentalism in the March 1967, issue of Church History is a work of primary importance in the reinterpretation of a significant aspect of American religious history. Professor Sandeen corrects many of the misunderstandings contained in the hitherto “standard” treatments of Cole and Furniss. And he otherwise goes quite beyond earlier studies to provide fresh insights into the nature of fundamentalism as an especially religious phenomenon.