The Calvinist International
One often sees the question in my title posed, and also regularly sees generically affirmative or negative answers given to it. However, the question–like many others of its kind–is nonsensical as framed. There is no answer to it. Or, rather, there is an answer; and that answer is, “It depends.” I would submit that the […]
Larry Hurtado reports that the concept of Jesus receiving attributions of divinity and religious devotion in the years immediately following his crucifixion is now something of a consensus position among scholars of the field. He gives some further commentary and explanation here, concluding with these remarks: But the earliest clear indications of believers treating Jesus […]
In his classic introduction to late antiquity, Peter Brown notes that the idea of the “patron saint” is an outgrowth of the social dynamics of the late Roman Empire, in which common people – clients – needed advocates at a distant court to which they did not have access. It was, then, not an outgrowth […]