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Chapter 1 takes up the question of the origins of the early Christian heresy catalogue. If the earliest followers of Jesus did not make use of this polemical genre, where then did it come from? Scholars often point to the Greek doxographic or “tenet writing” tradition as the literary forerunner of the Christian heresy catalogue. Yet although heresy catalogues resemble lists of philosophers and philosophical views in form, they function quite differently. Therefore, this chapter directs attention away from doxographies, to an earlier group of Christian writings composed in the name of the apostle Paul. The anonymous authors who produced texts like the Pastoral Epistles, the Epistle to the Laodiceans, and the Apocryphal Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians initiated important shifts in the ways that Christians conceived of their opponents and thus paved the way for the introduction of the heresy catalogue a generation later.

Although the New Testament does not contain an explicit theology of the Spirit’s procession (as later theology would understand it), the Bible does contain several important pneumatological principles that would later guide East and West in their respective claims vis-à-vis the filioque. This chapter examines those principles and the proof texts that both sides used to support their thinking on the procession. If East and West came to read these texts differently, it is perhaps understandable given the fact that very often the authors of the New Testament did not always express themselves with a great deal of precision, and that the various “movements” of trinitarian revelation contained in Scripture, read in isolation, easily lend themselves to diverse, and even incompatible, understandings of relationships within the Trinity.

This chapter discusses the famous full page crucifixion miniature in Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek M.p.th.f. 69 in relation to the text it was intended to introduce, namely, the letters of St. Paul. The chapter argues that the key figures in the image (the large central figure amid a group in a boat, and the figure on the large central cross) represent both Paul and Jesus. The chapter identifies the many sources of inspiration used by the Kitzingen theologian-artist, including the Dittochaeon of Prudentius, Origen’s Homilies on Numbers, and a version of the Visio Pauli (Vision of St. Paul) very likely written at Kitzingen and certainly present in its library collection. A gendered analysis of this image shows how the theologian-artist generally emphasized the universal and thus gender-egalitarian nature of the message of Pauline Christianity, but also expressed views designed to support professed women’s central and active role in the ecclesiastical life of the Main Valley.

This chapter attempts to look at young Milton’s formative negotiation of Pauline theology, idiom, and authorial self-representation in his early poetry and anti-prelatical political writings. Specifically, the chapter argues that the classical-Christian tension so often commented on in Milton’s early poetry and prose is not an abstract productive tension between classical humanism and Protestant theology but instead a specific authorial tension between Milton’s competing admiration above all for his two favourite writers—Ovid and Paul. In channelling and synthesizing the erotic creativity of the former with the spiritual teachings on sin and redemption of the latter, Milton slowly developed a unique poetic-spiritual stance that in time formed the basis of his future mature work, as an exploration of ‘peculiar grace’ always struggling in the world for poetically creative inward liberty.

Chapter thirty-nine explores the Hodge family has it finally breaks up from its central Princeton location. With the marriages of A. A. and Mary, Hodge’s family began to disperse. Archie left with his wife for missionary work in India and Mary left with her husband as he took a seminary teaching position in Kentucky. When Mary got pregnant, Sarah Hodge made the long trip to Kentucky to help with the baby’s arrival. She did this against Hodge’s wishes, and in so doing illustrated the tension between Hodge’s biblical views on the role of women and the realities of having powerful women in his life.

This chapter gathers together the earliest evidence for book ownership and production in the Main Valley, demonstrating the association of these activities with women. The chapter also shows that we possess (in Basel, Öffentliche Universitätsbibiliothek F III 15a) a copy of the library catalogue of the women’s community of Kitzingen, compiled around 800; this booklist had been attributed to the men’s house of Fulda. The chapter then describes in detail nine of the manuscripts on the Kitzingen booklist, some originally produced at Karlburg (the Guntza group), others originally produced at Kitzingen (the Abirhilt group). These nine books form the core of the study. They are Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek M.p.th.f. 69 (Letters of Paul), Würzburg, UB M.p.th.f. 17 (Augustine’s Commentary on the Gradual Psalms), Würzburg, UB M.p.th.f.45 (Gregory I’s Homilies on the Gospels), Würzburg, UB M.p.th.f. 78 (Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles), Würzburg, UB M.p.th.q.28b part 1 (the booklet Deus per Angelum, a collection of texts primarily concerning the Virgin Mary and female martyrs), Würzburg, UB M.p.th.q.28b part 3 and Würzburg, UB M.p.th.q.28a (both copies of Isidore of Seville’s Synonyma), Würzburg, UB M.p.th.f.13 (the Liber Scintillarum), and Würzburg, UB M.p.th q.28b part 2 (a collection of homilies).