On March 7, 1277, the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, published 219 theses that he had compiled. In the preface, he wrote: "We excommunicate all those who teach the aforementioned heresies or any of them, or who exempt themselves from defending or upholding them in any way, as well as their listeners." With his theses, Tempier succeeded in silencing a philosophy that attempted to establish an active connection between reason and earthly happiness for two decades in Paris (though not in other places). However, the subject of Kurt Flasch's first translation of the theses into German, as well as its detailed commentary, is not the eternal struggle of faith against unbelief or the Enlightenment against its enemies, but the contingent clash of a conscientious bishop with a group of innovators against the backdrop of a conflict of contingent concepts of reason. "By invoking the 'Enlightenment' in itself, one tries to harness the power of an unstoppable historical process to their side, the right of light against darkness. However, the further one looks back into the history of thought, the more indistinct the contours become, and the more one must listen closely, as the arguments grow fainter. Flasch's brilliant book is a school of such attentive listening." (Gustav Seibt, FAZ).