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Archive Early Church Fathers Ecclesiastical Polity Nota Bene Steven Wedgeworth

The Senate of the Presbyters and Early Church Bishops

The Protestant argument for church polity has consistently argued that rule by presbyters was the earlier form of church government and that mono-episcopacy was a later practical development in the early church. This may have been legitimate and beneficial but was by no means universally binding on all future churches in all other locations. The […]

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Archive E.J. Hutchinson Nota Bene

The Historical Situatedness of the Patron Saint

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 […]