Category: Patristics
-
Evangelicalism, Protestantism, and John Damascene on the Devil
Evangelicalism is a strange thing. I have claimed elsewhere (forthcoming in Mere Orthodoxy) that it is not Protestantism. One key piece of evidence for this is Evangelicalism’s resistance to (or ignorance of) historic Protestant theology. This explains the valiant efforts of many great institutions and thinkers (e.g., the Davenant Institute) to re-Protestantize Evangelicals. Time…
-
St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Paul on the Faith of Abraham
St. Paul’s use of Abraham as the paradigm for Christian faith forever stamped the narrative of this patriarch upon the Church’s imagination. No Christian conception of faithfulness to God can ultimately escape meditation upon “the father of all who believe,” as Paul calls him in Romans (Rom 4:11). Indeed, St. Paul’s discussion in Romans…
-
Theological Discourse and the Recovery of Sacred Form
St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ 27th Oration is startling to our 21st-century ears. “Discussion of theology is not for everyone, I tell you, not for everyone.”[1] The 4th-century bishop goes on: “Nor, I would add, is it for every occasion, or every audience; neither are all its aspects open to inquiry.”[2] Theologizing, Nazianzen suggests,…
Jackson Shepard 