As Iain Torrance noted in the previous issue of this journal, editorials have quite deliberately not been a feature of the Scottish Journal of Theology. But in light of his and Bryan Spinks's retirement from their longstanding place at the top of the masthead, I think it appropriate not only to acknowledge – with more gratitude than I can express – Iain's generous and gracious welcoming of me into the role of editor, but also to say something about how I envision the journal going forward.

Gregory Nazianzen spoke of a suffering Christ ‘who became weak for us’ in the context of an oration, On Love of the Poor, which dealt at length with the extreme suffering the lepers had endured. The outcasts of the ancient world, lepers figured prominently in Jesus’ ministry as recorded in the Gospels. By juxtaposing their human suffering with divine weakness, Gregory implied that Christ had suffered with the lepers. The comparison not only gave meaning to the human experience of suffering, it also explored the extent of Christ's suffering in the divine economy. There was no affliction too grotesque for Christ to have assumed.

Throughout his life, Gregory developed a notion of collective suffering which is relevant to understanding the magnitude of the suffering of Christ. It made the limitless suffering of humanity seem manageable and contained. It normalised the overwhelming sense of misery by expanding individual suffering into the suffering of the group, the suffering of the group into the suffering of neighbours and finally the suffering of neighbours into the collective suffering of the body of Christ. Christ then experienced the fullness of the human condition as the head of this body.

The lepers served a purpose in this vision of collective suffering. By making the lepers a synecdoche for all human suffering, Gregory allowed Christ to assume their misery without his listeners having to imagine Christ suffering every aspect of their physical and emotional distress. This transference of collective suffering to the body of Christ worked in the following way: the individual suffering of the leper flowed into the collective suffering of the group, which connected with, and was incorporated into, the collective suffering of the Christian body. The result was a relationship of mutual imitation between Christ and humanity. It implied that human beings suffered with Christ, and that Christ suffered with human beings.

By integrating literary techniques and contexts into theological analysis, this article examines the various ways in which Gregory construed the suffering of Christ.

The christological hymn in Philippians 2, rich as it is in theological potential, has always been a fruitful locus in the history of biblical interpretation for engaging in a number of doctrinal disputes which revolve around questions of the nature of Christ. Thus, an analysis of any chapter in the history of interpretation of the hymn (or at least parts of it) is necessary for understanding the ways in which Paul's text has informed christological discourse or, vice versa, how certain ways of thinking about Christology inform interpretations of the passage. In the sixteenth century, the hymn also serves as a jumping-off point for discussions of the authority of scripture in matters of doctrine, for whether Paul provides sufficient doctrinal fodder to ground an orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (particularly of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son) will be brought into question, in particular, by Erasmus. Erasmus’ understanding of the passage, as it appears in his Annotations, was criticised by numerous Catholics, and the ensuing debate (especially between Erasmus and Lefèvre) is fairly well known. The response Erasmus (and the surrounding debate) elicits from John Calvin, however, has scarcely been mentioned and, to my knowledge, never been examined in depth – this, despite the fact that Calvin's engagement with Erasmus on Philippians 2:6–7 departs from his usual method of perspicua brevitas in commentary writing, and constitutes a significant digression on an array of christological and hermeneutical issues. These two verses, and their reception in the sixteenth century, provide a useful lens for analysing the christologies and the hermeneutical strategies of two biblical humanists who, perhaps, are not often enough considered alongside one another. A close reading of these two exegetes’ interpretations of Philippians 2:6–7 will be followed by a consideration of the significance of their emphasis on the radical humility of Christ, which emphasis serves as a departure from the bulk of the antecedent exegetical and theological tradition.

The present article examines John Calvin's trinitarian and christological interpretation of Old Testament theophanies in his Praelectiones on Ezekiel 1. The first section of the article treats Calvin's exegetical principles. It is noted that Calvin defends a strict set of rules for how to interpret Old Testament theophanies: in short, Calvin argues that if a passage presents the divine nature in the form of a human person, that given theophany must be interpreted as a representation of the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God (i.e. Jesus Christ). In defending this position, Calvin examines in great detail various rules for how to interpret Old Testament passages which indicate a plurality within the divine nature (i.e. the Trinity). He defends his exegetical approach to these texts with numerous passages from the New Testament.

This examination of Calvin's exegesis is contextualised in two ways. First, it is noted that Calvin's exegesis of these passages is uncharacteristically more ‘strict’ in its trinitarian and christological reading than one finds in earlier thinkers such as Augustine and Jerome. For example, Augustine argued that Old Testament theophanies which present God in the form of a human being could be understood as the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit. Augustine, in short, does not think one can definitively determine which member of the Trinity is ‘present’ in a theophany. Second, it is noted that this surprising development in Calvin's final work is the result of the rising threat of anti-trinitarianism in Transylvania. Thus, the article argues that the rise of Polish anti-trinitarianism not only contributed to Calvin's renewed interest in trinitarian and christological interpretations of the Old Testament, but it also pushed him to develop a more strict set of exegetical rules which govern how such passages are interpreted.

Therefore, the article presents a reading of Calvin which strongly suggests that any complete analysis of Calvin's alleged ‘Judaising’ must develop a historically nuanced methodology. While it is often argued that Calvin hesitates from interpreting Old Testament passages in a strictly trinitarian or christological way, it must be acknowledged that towards the end of his career he radically began to alter his exegetical rules/method given the renewed threat of the anti-trinitarians.

The article re-examines Karl Barth's claim that his 1931 book on Anselm of Canterbury's proof of the existence of God from Proslogion 2–4, the Fides Quaerens Intellectum, provides a ‘vital key’ for understanding the rationality of his later theology. The article takes up the question of what ‘dialectics’ denotes in Barth's theology. Re-engaging the issue of dialectics in Karl Barth's theology, particularly in light of the developments of his thought, leads to a critical revision of Bruce McCormack's influential interpretation of Barth's dialectical theology.

Through a close reading of the section, ‘The manner of theology’, from the first of the two parts of Fides Quaerens Intellectum the article sheds light on how Barth envisions the construction of the theoretical concepts of theology in light of his concrete exegetical praxis. By focusing on the relationship between theory and praxis, an understanding of Barth's dialectical theology as a form of ‘speculative reading’ emerges. This notion of dialectics as developing in light of a practice of speculative reading allows us to compare certain aspects of concept-formation in the theology of Karl Barth and the dialectical philosophy of the German Idealist, G. W. F. Hegel. Drawing explicitly on Hegel's analysis of infinite judgement from the second volume of his 1812 Science of Logic, Barth's use of the tautology ‘God is God’ in his second commentary on Romans from 1922 is shown to provide important insight into the structure of Barth's dialectical thinking. This explicitly relates to the important issue of the relationship between faith and reason in Karl Barth's theology, which sheds a new light on how his understanding of the rational basis of the theory and praxis of theology developed from his second Romans commentary onwards.

Finally, Barth's use of dialectics and his account of the rationality of theology as a form of ‘speculative reading’ permits some final reflections on the significance of pneumatology for constructive theology by underscoring how Barth insists on the priority of praxis over theory. To understand Barth's theology and the way it changes over the years is to understand the rationality of its concrete praxis.

Theologians seeking to respond to the ecological crisis seldom turn to the theology of Karl Barth as a resource. In fact, some suggest that his doctrine of God is too monarchical and leads to unnecessary hierarchies between God and humans, or between humans and the rest of nature. This article counters this trend and begins a dialogue with Barth, especially on the place of non-human nature in his thought. While agreeing with the substance of Barth's theology, it is argued a number of critical additions and revisions are appropriate, especially concerning his doctrine of election. The article first briefly outlines Barth's doctrine of election and then, second, examines various New Testament passages on election and non-human nature. This second section will examine the prologue of John's Gospel, Colossians 1:15–20 and Romans 8:18–23. As key texts in Barth's exposition, it will be noted how he passes over important connections between election and nature found in them. Guided by the green exegesis of Richard Bauckham, it will be argued that nature is not merely the stage for the drama between God and humanity but that it is also an object of God's election and thereby participates in reconciliation and redemption. The third part of the article suggests various points of commensurability, correction and addition to Barth's theology arising from the biblical material examined. This includes points concerning theological epistemology, the atonement, anthropology and the theology of nature. For example, Romans 8 suggests that creation groans in anticipation of redemption. Barth's view of the cross, especially the Son's taking up of human suffering, is extended to suggest that the cross is God's way of identifying with the suffering of nature and its anticipation of redemption, and not just human sin and salvation. The most important revision, however, is to be made to Barth's doctrine of election. It may be summarised as follows: in Jesus Christ, God elects the Christian community and individuals for salvation within the community of creation. The article concludes by suggesting areas of dialogue with other types of ecotheology, especially ecofeminist forms.

The question of the fate of Paulinism in late antiquity, a point of controversy in early Christian studies especially since Adolf von Harnack, has benefited from fresh attention in recent research, even as, simultaneously, there is ever less agreement among New Testament scholars on the question of what Paulinism actually is. This state of affairs comes sharply into focus in Todd Still and David Wilhite's edited volume Tertullian and Paul, the first in a new series from T&T Clark on the reception of Paul in the church fathers. Reading and assessing Tertullian and Paul is a sometimes dizzying experience of intertextuality. The reader encounters, for example, Margaret MacDonald reading Elizabeth Clark reading Tertullian reading Paul. What is more, Paul himself is reading, for example, Second Isaiah, who is reading First Isaiah, who is reading parts of the Pentateuch, and so on. One thinks of Derrida's notion of différance, in which any given text refers to other texts, which refer to still other texts, which refer to still other texts, and so on, ad infinitum.