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 …

Christianity and Relics. Part Two: Martyrdom

Introduction In my first entry on this series on relics I looked at several examples of how the early church treated its dead. Three of the four examples of burial I looked at were the aftermath of martyrdom. To be martyred was to be more than a confessor of the faith, it was a position …