Religion

Four centuries ago the title of Dalai Lama was conferred on a Tibetan abbot by a Mongol sovereign, writes George Woodcock. Fourteen incarnations of the Compassionate Bodhisattva have since ruled Tibet as priest-kings.

According to the ancient religions of the Near East, every man possessed a double nature, compounded of physical and psychical elements, each an essential adjunct of his life.

S.G.F. Brandon suggests the influence of the idea of the Devil in Christian culture has been profound, inspiring both noble works of art and the most degrading superstitions.

S.G.F. Brandon explains how, from the religious conceptions of the ancient Hebrew people, sprang the traditional idea of how mankind originated.

Kate Cooper reassesses Brent Shaw’s 1994 article on women in the early Church, which reveals a key historical principle.

Modern paganism is an invented tradition, says Tim Stanley. So why is the Church of England offering it a helping hand?

The relationship between religion and rationality was an intimate one in 17th-century England. Christopher J. Walker looks at the arguments and controversies of the time, which helped to forge a more open society.

For nearly two hundred years Jesuit missionaries held a privileged position at the court of the Chinese Emperors, C.R. Boxer writes, where they laboured not only as fishers of men, but as astronomers, mathematicians, portrait-painters and skilful architects.

S.G.F. Brandon describes how the Roman conquest of Jerusalem marked a crisis in the early development of Christianity, and paved the way for a general acceptance of the Pauline message.

E.E.Y. Hales profiles Pope Pius IX (1846-78), who saw the end of the Papacy as a temporal power as the opening of a new era in its world-relationships.