This paper explores the life, apologetic, and polemic impact of Hippolytus of Rome, reviewing his historical impact and considering how his approach applies today. It highlights his background, ideological perspective, and selections from Hippolytus’ main extant apologetic work, The Refutation of All Heresies. Looking at his historical context suggests he acted at a critical time … Read more
Around 394 or 395, Augustine and Paulinus of Nola engaged in a correspondence in which they appealed to Augustine’s former student Licentius, calling on him to commit himself fully to the Christian faith. This “Licentius Correspondence” (Letters 26, 27, 31, and 32) provides a window into the nature of the liminal space between Christianity and … Read more
The Scriptures were central to the life of the early church. This is apparent from the teaching of the fathers. As a guide to liturgy, the Scriptures played an essential role in the church’s worship; as a manual for catechism, they functioned as a resource to formulate creedal statements; as a text for preaching, they … Read more
Gregory the Great, pope from 590 to 604, served during a time of swift transition with the breakdown of the Empire. Taking his cue from Augustine, Gregory read the events of his time to indicate that the world was moving swiftly to a close. His rich eschatology impacted a number of different aspects of his … Read more
Today’s scholarship has mostly arrived at a consensus on atonement in the early church—there was no unified theory of the atonement (Pelikan, Kelly, Johnson). While we can grant that there were no clearly articulated theories of atonement, let alone a dominant one, it does not follow that there are no recurrent and leading pieces of … Read more
This paper explores the life, apologetic, and polemic impact of Hippolytus of Rome, reviewing his historical impact and considering how his approach applies today. It highlights his background, ideological perspective, and selections from Hippolytus’ main extant apologetic work, The Refutation of All Heresies. Looking at his historical context suggests he acted at a critical time … Read more
Since the Colossian Haustafel assumes the continuation of slavery in the Christian community, most modern commentators promptly dismiss the possibility that τὴν ἰσότητα τοῖς δούλοις παρέχεσθε (Col 4:1a) is a command to grant slaves equality. Likewise, since the Ephesian Haustafel assumes the continuation of slavery, most modern commentators promptly dismiss the possibility that τὰ αὐτὰ … Read more
Among the most significant theologians in the history of the church, Thomas Aquinas surely stands near the top. Producing a massive corpus of biblical, theological, and philosophical material, few thinkers have left the church such a vast collection of writings. While he is most known for his magisterial Summa Theologica, Aquinas authored a large number … Read more
While the Church fathers throughout the entire patristic era manifested common concern to defend and remain within the shared faith of the Church as handed down by the apostles through the generations since their time, Irenaeus of Lyons and Vincent of Lérins paid special, detailed attention to that unity in the faith. In Against Heresies, … Read more
This is a co-authored proposal. The co-author is Hannah Turrill. In Confessions, Augustine presents two vignettes (3.2.2-4; 8.6.14-7.17) that, in important ways, parallel our interactions with social media. Both involve Augustine’s interaction and response to narratives, and both serve as smaller stories within the grand story of Confessions itself. Placing these two vignettes alongside one … Read more