Fathers to tend the desert

One of my refrains to God in prayer, over the last few years, has been something along the lines of Psalm 63: “You, God, are my God, I earnestly seek you … in this dry and weary land where there is no water.” It has been thrown into sharp relief recently by the weather in …

The dangers of reading theology

It’s been a while since my last post and whilst a big part of that is down to moving, I no longer live in London, the real reason is that I’ve been at something of a low ebb since then. Moving took me out of my church and forced me to attempt to find a …

The Lord’s Supper. Part Three: The Early Church, 4th-5th Century

I previously wrote on the summary of Christian views on the Lord’s Supper dating from the 1st to the 3rd century. I couched this from the outset with the choice offered by the Anglican prelate James Ussher to consider whether the fathers not only taught that bread becomes Christ to us or that we might …

The Lord’s Supper. Part Two: The Early Church, 1st-3rd Century

In my first entry I looked at practices in scripture around the Lord’s Supper. In this entry we’ll be looking at what the earliest Father’s of the church believed on the subject.  In the 17th century the Primate of Ireland James Ussher publicly wrote in response to a Jesuit Polemicist on the subject of the …

Cults, Christianity and Creation

Cult of Saints, Urbs, and Creation A while ago I wrote a series on the rise of the Cult of the Saints and its relationship to Martyrdom, Relics and the like. One of the key texts that helped introduce me to the topic was Peter Brown’s book ‘The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and …

Talking about images and icons in the early church

I had been planning to continue my series on the Lord's Supper but this weekend I was invited by an Eastern Orthodox Youtube channel to outline my own understanding of the use of imagery in the early church. It'd been awhile since I'd thought much about the subject but I brushed off my notes and …

The Lord’s Supper. Part One: Introduction and Scripture

What follows will be a post, or posts, on the Lord’s Supper in scripture and the early church. It’s something I’ve been meaning to write for awhile but to be honest I’ve found it, as a subject, in many ways much more complicated than baptism. The first ever ‘long’ post I did early on was …

The Radical Reformation and Medieval Piety through the lens of Balthasar Hubmaier

I was out walking today and praying as I went. As I did I felt prompted to reflect on the fact that despite being raised in the Church of England I distinctly remember feeling the pull towards the radical reformation from a young age. Now that interest has varied over time but there was something …

The Impact of How Newman and Manning Read the Past on Their Tradition

Anyone who has spent any time at the intersection of various Christian traditions on Church History will likely have encountered Newman’s “To be deep into history is to cease to be Protestant.” and I’m adding nothing new really by reminding the reader that Newman’s own position here was actually quite innovative for the time. Despite …

A Confession of the Catholic Faith of Pope Damasus

A Confession of the Catholic Faith which Pope Damasus Sent to Bishop Paulinus in Macedonia when He was at Thessalonica. After the Council of Nicæa there sprung up this error. Certain men ventured with profane mouths to say that the Holy Spirit is made through the Son. We, therefore, anathematize those who do not with …