The Calvinist International
In Sermon 162C (Dolbeau 10), on Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2 (on the history of the exegesis of this passage, cf. my essay here), Augustine gives a helpful sketch of the various “levels” on which one can speak of the genesis and authorship or “voice” of Scripture, or, to put it another way, […]
Augustine is well known for the degree to which he was influenced by Neoplatonism in the first phase of his career. (It is sometimes assumed–incorrectly–that this makes his early works insufficiently “Christian.”) In the preface to his first completed extant work, for instance–the De beata vita, “On the Happy Life”–he refers in the preface, addressed […]
The folks over at Sententiae Antiquae recently posted a passage worth reading from a letter of Benjamin Rush to Ashbel Green from 1807. Therein Rush says: No more Latin should be learned in these schools than is necessary to translate that language into English, and no more Greek than is necessary to read the Greek Testament. […]
It’s time to bring our series on the identity and government of the church to a conclusion. You can find the previous installments here: Part 1: The Crisis of Rome and Its Claims of Ultimate Authority Part 2: Church Origins and Officers in the New Testament Part 3: Bishop-Elders and Bishops in the Late First […]
As we move into the third century, the relevant body of Christian literature grows considerably. The episcopalian structure of government has become more universal, and all of the writers of this period reference a singular bishop as holding a place of authority. They also largely repeat Irenaeus’ argument about bishops succeeding from the apostles and […]
God changes us over time. That change begins with the lesson–which may take a lifetime to learn in the way that it really needs to be learned–that the first thing we must do is to give up trying to justify, or vindicate, ourselves. Abandoning the desire for self-justification is the necessary precondition for receiving God’s […]
Augustine talks a lot about moms in the Confessions: particularly his own mother and the church as the mother of the faithful–though not Mary. This is unsurprising, because Augustine knows nothing of Marian devotion. But it is not only the church who is the mother of believers; Scripture is, too. (It is also a crib and […]
In response to the question, “What was God doing before he created the universe?,” one frequently encounters the claim that Augustine said, “He was preparing hell for those who ask such questions.” In other words, Augustine was owning the confused. But Augustine had more sense than to use such a strategy avant la Twittre. And so […]
Cleaning out some paperwork in my office reminded me that, after three years, I should get back to this series and finish it at some point. Lo these many months ago I started a new translation of Cardinal Gasparo Contarini’s treatise De iustificatione, “On Justification.” I was not quite halfway through it when last I paused, […]
“Literalism” frequently gets a bad rap nowadays when it comes to the Bible. The word “literal” is fraught with ambiguities, especially in its modern usages, which I have no intention of getting into here. But the practice of reading the Bible ad litteram–“according to the natural sense of the words,” perhaps–of course goes back to the […]