The presbyter is the same as the bishop, and before parties had been raised up in religion by the provocations of Satan, the churches were governed by the Senate of the presbyters. But as each one sought to appropriate to himself those . . . Continue reading →
Ancient Church
Augustine On Justification, Salvation, And Assurance
Our predestination is not wrought in ourselves, but in secret with Him, in His foreknowledge. But we are called by the preaching of repentance. We are justified in the calling of mercy and fear of judgment. He feareth not judgment, who hath . . . Continue reading →
Fifth-Century Church: Instruments Were For Moses
Q: If songs were invented by unbelievers with a design of deceiving, and were appointed for those under the law, because of the childishness of their minds, why do they who have received the perfect instructions of grace, which are most contrary . . . Continue reading →
The Didache Calls Abortion Murder
You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion . . . Continue reading →
What Do We Mean When We Say “Holy Catholic Church”?
Clinton writes to ask what we mean when we say, in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe a holy catholic church.” He reports that some of his friends will not read the Apostles’ Creed, the Athanasian Creed, or the Heidelberg Catechism because they . . . Continue reading →
A Seventh-Century Opinion On Every-Member Ministry
It does not befit a layman to dispute or teach publicly, thus claiming for himself authority to teach, but he should yield to the order appointed by the Lord, and to open his ears to those who have received the grace to . . . Continue reading →
A Brief History Of Christmas
CHRISTMAS The Feast of the Nativity of Christ was called in OE Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ; the first appearance of this term in extant writing dates to the 11th cent., and parallels Dutch Kerst-misse. (The Latin term Dies natalis lies . . . Continue reading →
Contra Natalis Solis Invictis
CHRISTMAS (from Old English Cristes maesse “Christ’s mass”).† Observance commemorating the birth of Jesus. In the Western church, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord was first celebrated on December 25 ca. A.D. 336, the date apparently chosen to counter the . . . Continue reading →
Chiliasm And Soul Sleep
Our study began with Irenaeus’ contention that the belief in an immediate removal of the soul to the presence of God and Christ at death was a stumbling block to orthodox acceptance of chiliasm, and with his counter proposal that the chiliastic . . . Continue reading →
Bullinger: We Are Critically Sympathetic To The Fathers
Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises concerning sacred matters as far as they agree with the Scriptures; but we modestly dissent from them when they are found to . . . Continue reading →
Between Hagiography And Cynicism
Telling the truth about the past is more difficult than it might seem but we can appreciate the difficulties by reflecting for just a moment on the controversy in Ferguson, Missouri. It’s a contemporary event of which there are at least two . . . Continue reading →
Catechism And Catechesis In The Early Church
The earliest known example of a Catechetical work is the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” which Athanasius names among the “books not included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who are just recently coming to . . . Continue reading →
An Ogre Minding Long Term Developments
Because of this emphasis on mentalités, Le Goff preferred to speak of birth and genesis rather than origins, decline, or decadence. Hence he wrote The Birth of Purgatory (1981) and The Birth of Europe (2003) (the French title posed a question: L’Europe . . . Continue reading →
The Gospel To Diognetus (c. 150 AD)
[God] himself took on him the burden of our iniquities, he gave his own Son as a ransom for us, the Holy One for transgressors, the blameless one for the wicked, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the incorruptible one for the . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Who Is Faithful To The Church Fathers?
Moreover, they unjustly set the ancient fathers against us (I mean the ancient writers of a better age of the church) as if in them they had supporters of their own impiety. If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, . . . Continue reading →
Did Luther And Calvin Favor Evangelical Monasticism?
I was clicking around the internets recently and (probably via Twitter) and found a fascinating essay by Greg Peters, Associate Professor of Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University. The burden of the essay is to introduce the reader to and to commend the . . . Continue reading →
Maybe Darryl Had A Point? Driscoll v. Catholic Creeds
I don’t know why people are not debating whether Driscoll should even be writing books. —Darryl Hart, “Tribalists All” Second, the Apostles’ Creed [sic] defines the Son as “begotten, not made.” The point was that something begotten was of the same substance . . . Continue reading →
The Synagogue As Pattern For Early Christian Worship
When comparing the worship of the early church with that of the synagogue, we labour under this disadvantage, that, if the primitive church had any liturgy, it has not been handed down to us; still, as far as we can ascertain anything . . . Continue reading →
Subjectivism As Scholarship
The epistle to Diognetus is an anonymous writing of an uncertain date. …Its claim to be include among the apostolic fathers rests on custom rather than right, for it is probably later than any of the other writings in this group, and . . . Continue reading →
The Church’s Closed Canon By The Latter Half Of The Second Century
This is enough to show that it is quite wrong to contend that there was no concern for marking out or keeping inviolate the contents of the new covenant Scriptures in the second century, or to claim that there was no generally . . . Continue reading →