Herbert McCabe taught in many ways, not least per viam provocationis. One day in the mid 1970s he provoked something far beyond his intentions with a throwaway remark about Summa theologiae I, q. 15, the question on ‘ideas’. ‘It must have been written by Saint Thomas on a platonic off day’, he declared, a comment that remained with the present writer to stimulate research in directions that might not have overly pleased Herbert. ‘Platonic’ and ‘platonist’ were not usually good words in his vocabulary, profoundly impressed as he was by Thomas’s achievement in developing Christian theology in radically new ways using the works of Aristotle, Plato’s brightest student and critic.

Thomas Aquinas himself, though, at the midpoint of his career, was convinced that the Platonists, in what they had to say about the first principle of things, were exactly right (verissima) and completely in harmony with Christian faith ‘. In fact, in a brief but potent contribution to the 1974 Thomistic Congress for the seventh centenary of Saint Thomas’s death, Andre von Ivanka asserted that as regards ‘good’, and because of the ontology supporting his understanding of it, Thomas not only ‘platonises’ but formally contradicts Aristotle. Where Aristotle argues that ‘good is not a general term corresponding to a single idea’ (.Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, 1096b25) Thomas says that ‘all things, in seeking their proper perfections, seek God himself, insofar as the perfections of all things are reflections (similitudines) of the divine being’ (Summa Theologiae I 6, 1 ad 2). Elsewhere Thomas says that ‘all things seek, as their ultimate end, to be united with God’ (Summa Contra Gentiles III. 19).

Elizabeth Jennings, who died in 2001 was ‘the most unconditionally loved poet of (her) generation,’ according to Michael Schmidt writing in the preface to her New Collected Poems’ This seems a slightly less generous accolade when Schmidt goes on to say that the other poets of her generation included Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, not themselves obviously loveable poets. One imagines that Larkin might have been rather disappointed to have discovered, posthumously, that he was unconditionally loved, whereas Elizabeth Jennings’ poetry seems to invite just this response. Indeed, so different is the poetry of Elizabeth Jennings to that of Amis and Larkin it is hard to imagine how she can ever have been seriously associated with them in the minds of critics. Whether The Movement ever existed at all has been much debated, but the mature Elizabeth Jennings that we find in New Collected Poems shows what a different trajectory she had followed from that of her laconic and wry contemporaries.

New Collected Poems begins, like her Collected Poems and Selected Poems with a dozen poems from her first collected volume of poetry (entitled tentatively Poems). First and second are ‘Delay’ and ‘Winter Love’ which seem to set the tone of everything which comes after. They are short poems — the first consisting of two quatrains, the second of a sestet, almost two halves of a divided sonnet — which address two recurrent themes of Elizabeth Jennings’ poetry: love and time, more particularly the way in which the test of love is the test of time.

‘Being as communion’ is a phrase that evokes the name of only one person, that of Bishop John D. Zizioulas. It is first and foremost within the context of the Trinity that Zizioulas elaborates his understanding of this concept. Moreover, from his trinitarian understanding of ‘being as communion’ Zizioulas has also elucidated a distinctive understanding of creation, Christology, Christian anthropology, ecclesiology, the Eucharist and eschatology. In so doing Zizioulas has made significant and insightful contributions to Christian theology. I cannot comment on the whole of Zizioulas’ thought in so short an essay, but I would like to examine briefly the topic that interests me the most — the Trinity. I want to highlight the strengths of Zizioulas’ conception of the Trinity as well as to note those aspects that I believe demand greater clarity. In attempting to clarify the ambiguities I will also offer a few suggestions as to how Zizioulas’ trinitarian thought might be further enriched. In the light of all of the above I will conclude by offering some thoughts on advancing ecumenical relations among Eastern and Western theologians.

Nearly all theories of the origin of the universe, from the early philosophers to contemporary scientists, presuppose the existence of matter. Thus they are accounts of the genesis, or generation, of the world rather than its creation. The first to say that the world was made by Mind was Anaxagoras (d. 428 B.C.). He saw that what drew things out of matter that was mixed up to begin with could not be material like it. But he presupposed the matter.

When scientists today talk about the matter of the universe having zero magnitude and infinite density at the beginning, they seem to be running up against the idea of creation out of nothing. It is as though they recognise that the world came from nothing, yet they presuppose the existence of matter. But all matter has extension and no magnitude is quite zero. If there was matter in the beginning, it had a magnitude.

There is a great deal of writing about creation at present, both within theology and in the dialogue between science and religion. This dialogue will only help us to see the truth if it works with a clear concept of creation. Amid all the views that are being put forward, it will surely be useful to look at what Aquinas has to say about creation. His patient analysis of the topic is closely linked with his philosophy of existence. He both drew on Avicenna and worked out his ideas in criticism of the Neoplatonic influences that the Arab philosopher included in his exposition of Aristotle.

In August 1670 the Privy Council in Edinburgh considered reports that ‘Mr Patrick Primrose’ had been ‘used to say messe’ in ‘the house of Kinnairdie in the paroch of Aberchardour, within the shyre of Banff’. Indeed, ‘there is usuall resort publickly to masse every Lords day’; ‘four families of the heretours in the said paroch doe upon ringing of the bell goe to a roume in the said house where there is ane altar erected and preists doe officiat’. When the sheriff of Aberdeen had verified that Mass was being said, he was ‘to make inquyrie for the preist’ and ‘to apprehend and committ him to prison, and to seize upon any vestments or other popish ornaments made use of in their superstitious worship and service’. In November the Council discussed the priest’s capture; he was by then in the tolbooth1 of Banff. On 22 December, having been informed that he was a chaplain to the Queen, Catherine of Braganza, they set him free, on condition that he went into exile, never to return, ‘under the payne of death’, without permission of the King or the Council.

Early in January 1671, being evidently too frail to travel, he was allowed to stay in Scotland until 5 February. On 4 March 1672, the sheriff of Aberdeen was instructed to back the bishop and clergy in their efforts to root out popery and quakerism, this to include demolishing the ‘superstitious monument erected upon the grave of the deceast Mr Patrick Primrose’.