This is another of Brill's substantial ‘companion’ volumes which will be of especial interest to scholars of humanism and early modern scholastic theology. It looks in depth at the theological work of the Scottish philosopher, John Mair (also known as John Major) who lived in the overlap of the medieval and early modern worlds (c.1466–1550), coming into contact at various points with key players such as Erasmus, Wolsey, Calvin, Loyola and Knox. Though in many ways a transitional figure and not easy to pin down in any one school of thought, he is sometimes considered the epitome of scholasticism, and the focus of this volume is on his Sentences commentary, that most traditional form of medieval theologising. This proves a fruitful way to approach the topics in question, though Philip Melanchthon's devastating assessment of Mair's commentary from a reformer's point of view must be borne in mind – ‘What waggon loads of trifles!’ he said of it in 1521.

The book is divided into ten chapters and four parts examining Mair's historical background and method, his Trinitarianism and understanding of the incarnation, his moral theology, and finally his soteriology and sacramentology (thus following the general order of things as established by Peter Lombard). The historical introduction contains a brief biography of Mair, unpacking some of his formative educational and relational influences in Britain and in France. In part ii, Mair's Christology and Trinitarianism is located within the debates of his world vis-à-vis Ockham and Scotus and the various theories of late medieval Trinitarian theology. In the opening chapter of part iii, Severin Kitanov makes the remarkable claim that Mair's treatment of beatific enjoyment is perhaps the most comprehensive ever written by a scholastic theologian; while Pekka Kärkkäinen focuses on his understanding of the psychological structures underlying human moral reasoning. Part iv examines Mair's doctrine of justification against the backdrop of both Duns Scotus and Martin Luther, though it rightly notes that at the time he was writing on the subjects of interest to the early reformers (‘Mair was a respected theologian on one of the most prestigious theological faculties in Western Christendom; Luther was an obscure German monk from an upstart university on the edge of literate civilisation’, p. 239), and there is no evidence that he had any direct involvement with proceedings against the Reformer (or any particular sympathy with him either). It is a shame that he did not publish anything in the last two decades of his life to give us a clearer picture of his response to Protestantism. The final chapter explores the largest and most developed part of Mair's work, on the sacraments, demonstrating how he forged a kind of via media between Nominalists, Realists and Humanists on this most contentious area of doctrine.

Three useful appendices round out the volume, which promises to become an indispensable starting point for any future research on this fascinating theologian.