Paraclete

"The romantic tale of Peter Abelard and Heloise has been widely known for centuries. The legend relates in part to the letters exchanged between the two, years after Abelard had been castrated at the behest of Heloise's vindictive uncle, Fulbert.

These "personal" letters form the basis for bestselling compilations of works by Abelard and Heloise in translation, such as the recently revised Penguin The Letters of Abelard and Heloise or the new Hackett Abelard and Heloise, The Letters and Other Writings. They hold fascination for the light they shed on the relationship between the man and woman, as teacher and student, lovers, husband and wife, monk and nun, abbot and mother superior, and much more.

The popularity of the "personal" letters has generated considerable fanfare for the publication of another set of correspondence printed under the title The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard. The authorship of all these letters has been contested repeatedly, with the last-mentioned collection being the center of a present firestorm.

Generally ignored have been nearly a dozen other letters or letter-like texts, unassailably the work of Peter Abelard. Jan M. Ziolkowski's comprehensive and learned translation of these texts affords insight into Abelard's thinking over a much longer sweep of time and offers snapshots of the great twelfth-century philosopher and theologian in a variety of contexts. One group shows him engaging with Heloise and nuns of the Paraclete, another with Bernard of Clairvaux, and a third with four entirely different addressees on four entirely different topics. Broadening our panorama of the twelfth-century Renaissance, the picture presented by these texts complements, complicates, and enriches Abelard's autobiographical letter of consolation and his personal letters to Heloise."

This booklet discusses the background and implications of the Spirit passages in John's Gospel. It examines the various interpretations of 'Paraclete'. It outlines how the 'Holy Spirit' as part of the Triune God found its way into the early Christian Creed.

From the tenth through the twelfth centuries some manuscripts containing Virgil's poems contain the musical notation known as neumes. Thereafter such notation of Virgil apparently ceases for centuries. The neumes (and singing) may have fallen by the wayside as new practices developed of singing Latin rhythmic poems or vernacular songs based on Virgil, rather than excerpts from Virgil's own quantitative poetry. In prefaces to the Paraclete Hymnbook Peter Abelard quotes observations by Heloise on the need for a more regular syllable count than in quantitative hymns. Virgilian reception and musical notation may have evolved together away from quantitative Latin.

John 15.26 has always been understood to be a continuation of the Paraclete’s testimony to the world. In this essay, the readers are urged to rethink the Paraclete’s witness not in relation to the world but in relation to the disciples and Johannine community’s context. By analyzing the literary and historical context, the relationship between testimony and faith, and the receptors of the Paraclete’s ministry in the Fourth Gospel, we will actually deduce that the ones who need the witness of the Paraclete the most are the disciples and Johannine community who are undergoing a trial of faith. The recognition of the Spirit’s role as an inner testifier is also manifested in other sources such as ancient Jewish literature and the New Testament canon.

The Use of the Johannine Paraclete Concept in the Montanist Controversy

in Csorba Dávid - Kustár György - Szatmári Emília (szerk.): "Az Úr az én erőm és paizsom" , Tisztelgő írások Enghy Sándor professzor úr 65. születésnapjára, Sárospatak, Hernád Kiadó, 2021, 49-65.

In this paper I am considering a twofold question: what role did the Paraclete have in the Johannine community and how did this concept appear in the second century New Prophecy (Montanist) movement. In the first half of the paper, I argue that the Johannine Paraclete was a reference not only to the Holy Spirit but to an actual prophetic person within the congregation who could deliver the message of the Risen Christ to the members of the community and thereby making Christ present through a living prophetic voice to the fellow Christians. According to the contemporary documents, this prophetic function was well-known in the second century Asian churches and flourished until a more legalistic and centralistic understanding of leadership (starting with Ignatius of Antioch) took up the rival role. In the New Prophecy movement, though, we can observe the continuation of the Johannine prophetic tradition. The founding prophets and their successors were regarded by their followers as the mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit who could lead the Christians to the fullness of the truth and making the more dubious ethical statements of the gospels up to date to the contemporary churches.

He avers that his starting point is the "efficacy of the Spirit." According to him, the efficacy of the Spirit is not without the efficacy of the Son, but which is its goal. And, the efficacy of the Son does not subsume the efficacy of the Spirit. He also emphasizes that the Spirit is the Subject determining the Word and hence the efficacies of the Spirit goes beyond the efficacies of the Son. He is advocating a complementary model of Christology and Pneumatology that is not in asymmetric relation to each other. Hence, he is advocating a "holistic pneumatology."