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This chapter demonstrates the concept of spiritual authority with reference to its most eloquent post-apostolic spokesmen, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and their remarks on bearers of the Spirit (pneumatophoroi) and bearers of Christ (christophoroi). It explores how individual holy men were appreciated by their contemporaries for their ability to work intercessory prayer. It then investigates a specific kind of intercessory prayer, namely, that for the remission of sins as it was offered by martyrs, holy men, and bishops. The Letters of Barsanuphius and John forcefully underscore the crucial importance of prayer in shaping the interaction between a holy man and his followers. The vicarious penance and the prayers performed by the holy men, whose ascetic authority enhanced and solidified their spiritual authority, had the effect of reconciling sinners with God and their neighbors. Spiritual authority conferred through ordination is what ultimately sets bishops apart from martyrs and holy men.

This chapter discusses Giles of Rome's work in De Regimine Principum, written in 1277–80, in response to a request from Philip III of France. It describes the work which belongs to the tradition of ‘mirror for princes’ literature. It notes that Giles' work raises two major issues: first, its particular distillation of the Politics and the Ethics is the result of Giles' familiarity with a third Aristotelian treatise, On Rhetoric. It reports that this Aristotelian treatise demonstrates to Giles how to combine rhetoric and political thought as a means of putting forward political counsel. The second issue concerns the implications of its handling of the Politics and Ethics for the relationship between the political authority of the temporal ruler and the spiritual authority of the church. It notes that Giles of Rome is influenced by much of Aquinas' work and is familiar with both the Summa Theologiae and the commentaries on the Politics and the Ethics.

Chapter 5 analyzes the multi-layered polemics between Quakers and Congregationalists over suffering and political legitimacy. Believing that suffering was a crucial weapon in the apocalyptic Lamb's War, Quakers expertly inverted corporal punishment into a platform for spiritual authority. Quickly publicizing their ordeals, they framed New Englanders as cruel persecutors and Quakers as innocent martyrs. Congregationalists in turn argued for their own status as the true persecuted church and Quakers as dangerous weapons of Antichrist, aimed at the heart of New England society. By the time Mary Dyer and three other Quaker missionaries were hanged, Congregationalists hearing Quaker claims to be the true persecuted church were deeply troubled that New England leaders were acting more like the Marian bishops than they liked to admit.

This chapter addresses inquisitors and the rise of anti-inquisitorial and antimendicant sentiments. Inquisitors were the ones who had the power to destroy the cult of a regional holy man or woman through an official condemnation of heresy. Since all inquisitors were friars, at times lay observers viewed the mainstream members of the wealthy and powerful mendicant orders as less spiritually worthy than those they prosecuted. Inquisitorial activity in local communities therefore consistently fueled the flames of acrimony. In addition, mendicant inquisitors often clashed with other members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in particular the secular clergy and the traditional monastic orders. Some of these other clerics viewed the mendicants as upstarts who interfered with their spiritual authority and received seemingly excessive and unwarranted papal favors. The chapter then details the process by which laypeople's anti-inquisitorial attitudes became antimendicant ones, as well as how other clerics' antimendicant views led them to support anti-inquisitorial actions.

This chapter traces the arrival of Catholic missionaries in Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century and the development of the complex jurisdictional situation under which they operated. Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits operated under the aegis of the Portuguese Padroado, based in Malacca and Macao (China) and the Spanish Patronato, based in Manila in the Philippines. Southeast Asia quickly became a battleground of conflicting interests and claims to spiritual authority: for example, there were conflicts between the two Iberian crowns and disagreements between members of the different religious orders over access to mission lands in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, and tensions between secular and religious authorities in colonial cities. This chapter demonstrates the importance of such jurisdictional conflicts for the shaping of missionary policy and identities.

This introductory chapter sets the stage for discussion on a period of unstructured experimentation with ideas of peace during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Between 1000 and 1200, reformers in the papal curia and monks and canons in the intellectual circles of northern France had begun to reimagine the church as a body whose task it was eventually to absorb all peoples through progressive acts of revolutionary peacemaking. They envisioned this peace as faithful community, under a just regime, directed by spiritual authority, and comprising those who had been united by a turbulent transformation of desire and perception. The chapter briefly explores this legacy of peace from late antiquity, and emphasizes the importance of thinking “with peace” for historians looking into the Christian Middle Ages.

This chapter discusses Hokkeji's relationship with Eison and his widely popular movement to revive both the Ritsu school itself and the monastic practice of upholding the vinaya laws. Hokkeji's place in Eison's order was not merely that of a token women's order created to meet certain doctrinal ideas. As an institution headed by women with powerful court and warrior government ties, Hokkeji attracted elite patrons to the Saidaiji movement. Moreover, as an order that produced and cared for a vast store of Buddha relics, Hokkeji contributed precious ritual and symbolic capital to the Saidaiji movement—increasing the Ritsu movement's claims to spiritual authority as well as its institutional visibility on all levels of society.

This chapter builds on the findings of the previous chapter to argue that Calvin believed himself to be a prophet. It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition which aligned itself with the Old Testament prophets and focused on scriptural interpretation. The chapter shows how Calvin’s self-identifying aligns him specifically and explicitly with Old, rather than New, Testament prophets. Continuing, the chapter argues that Calvin would have seen himself as possessing the same authority as Jeremiah or Ezekiel, and concludes by entertaining the idea that he may have believed himself to be infallible in matters of doctrine.