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A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation Introduction: The Debate Over the Priesthood of Believers Few phrases in the history of Christian thought have been repeated as often, or understood as differently, as "the priesthood of believers." The words sound familiar and even comfortable, but the moment we ask what they actually mean, we discover that earnest people have meant very different things by them, and that the differences matter a great deal for how we understand our calling before God....

The Retainer Reflex: Why Freelance Artists Treat One-Time Commissions as Standing Contracts, and How Client-Reputation Networks Govern the Commission Economy Abstract. A writer who purchases a single illustration sometimes finds that the artist afterward behaves as though a continuing obligation had been created: expecting renewal, treating non-renewal as a breach, occasionally raising the prospect of legal action, and conveying a sense of claim over the buyer's future work....

When the Fear Is Warranted: The Victorious General as Usurper, with the Chaco War as Its Case 1. Why the suite needs this appendix The thirteen papers of this suite have argued that the destruction of a national deliverer by the regime he saved is, in case after case, an injustice rooted in a fear that was groundless in fact....

The Logic of Devouring the Savior: On the Nature of the Phenomenon 1. The task of the synthesis The eleven case studies have established, across a span of nearly three thousand years and through the histories of ancient Israel, classical Greece, Republican and late Imperial Rome, Byzantium, China, medieval France, Vietnam, Korea, and the Soviet Union, that the destruction of a national deliverer by the regime he saved is a recurring and structured phenomenon rather than a series of unrelated misfortunes....

The Marshal and the Bloodstained Confession: Tukhachevsky and the Modern Purge 1. Why the phenomenon's survival into the modern age matters The cases examined to this point belong to the ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds, to monarchies, city-states, and dynastic empires whose institutions and assumptions are remote from those of the modern age....

Tortured by the Court He Saved: Yi Sun-sin and the Imjin War 1. Why this case is the suite's most acute instance of the central cruelty The phenomenon, in most of its instances, completes its work after the deliverance is accomplished, the regime turning on the savior once the danger has passed and the deliverer's capability is no longer needed....

The Mat of Lychee Garden: Nguyễn Trãi and Extermination to the Third Degree 1. Why this case extends the phenomenon into collective punishment The cases examined to this point have concerned the destruction of the deliverer as an individual, the spear aimed at one man, the potsherds cast against one citizen, the tribunal convened for one general, the fire kindled for one woman....

The King She Crowned: Joan of Arc and the Abandonment of a Deliverer 1. Why the abandonment variant belongs in the suite The cases examined to this point share a common structure in which the regime that destroys the deliverer is also the regime that wields the instrument of destruction, the spear, the potsherd, the prosecution, the tablet of gold, the executioner's sword....

Twelve Tablets of Gold: Yue Fei and the Judicial Murder of a Deliverer 1. Why this case is the suite's archetype of judicial murder The phenomenon expresses itself through many instruments....

The Reconqueror Disgraced: Belisarius and the Suspicion of Justinian 1. Why this case requires the historian to separate fact from legend Every case in the suite obliges the historian to distinguish the true motive of a destruction from the charge that disguised it....

Two Hands of a Dying Empire: Stilicho and Aetius in the Late Roman West 1. Why this case is the suite's clearest demonstration of self-defeat Every case in the suite illustrates the phenomenon's self-defeating character to some degree, for the destruction of a deliverer always removes a capability the regime may later need....

When the Hares Are Dead the Hounds Are Cooked: Han Xin, Bai Qi, and the Chinese Founding Pattern 1. Why the Chinese cases are the suite's analytical center The cases examined so far have required the historian to name the phenomenon's logic from outside, drawing it out of the events because the sources, however clear about the facts, did not themselves articulate the principle at work....

“Ungrateful Fatherland”: Scipio Africanus and Ingratitude Without the Axe 1. Why a case without an execution belongs in the suite The suite to this point has examined two destructions that ended, or sought to end, in the death of the deliverer....

The Wall of Wood and the Shard of Exile: Themistocles and the Athenian Pattern 1. Why this case, and what it adds The scriptural archetype examined in Paper 2 displays the phenomenon under a monarchy, where the fear that destroys the deliverer resides in a single sovereign and acts through his personal command....

The King’s Spear and the Deliverer’s Harp: Saul and David as the Scriptural Archetype 1. Why the suite begins here The phenomenon this suite examines is documented in Greek, Roman, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Soviet history, and a reader might reasonably expect a study of military history to open with one of those secular cases....

The Anatomy of Lethal Gratitude: Defining the Phenomenon and Its Boundaries 1. The problem stated A nation stands at the edge of ruin. An enemy fleet commands the sea, or an invading army has broken the frontier, or a usurper threatens the throne, and the ordinary instruments of the state have failed....

When Insulation Becomes Priestcraft: A Theological White Paper on Protected Authority: White Paper No. 10 of Counterweights of Institutional Health Abstract This concluding paper examines the deepest form of institutional insulation, for which the older theological vocabulary supplies the exact word: priestcraft....