Many women's rights activists who worked with Stanton were opposed to the publication of The Woman's Bible; they felt it would harm the drive for women's suffrage. Although it was never accepted by Bible scholars as a major work, it became a popular best-seller, much to the dismay of suffragists who worked alongside Stanton within the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Susan B. Anthony tried to calm the younger suffragists, but they issued a formal denunciation of the book, and worked to distance the suffrage movement from Stanton's broader scope which included attacks on traditional religion. Because of the widespread negative reaction, including suffragists who had been close to her, publication of the book effectively ended Stanton's influence in the suffrage movement. -- In 1881, 1885 and 1894, the Church of England published a Revised Version of the Bible, the first new English version in over two centuries. Stanton was dissatisfied with the Revised Version's failure to include recent scholarship from Bible expert Julia Smith. ... Stanton assembled a "Revising Committee" to draft commentary on the new Bible version. Many of those she approached in person and by letter refused to take part, especially scholars who would be risking their professional reputations. Some 26 people agreed to help. Sharing Stanton's determination, the committee wished to correct biblical interpretation which was biased against women, and to bring attention to the small fraction of the Bible which discussed women. They intended to demonstrate that it was not divine will that humiliated women, but human desire for domination. The committee was made up of women who were not Bible scholars, but who were interested in biblical interpretation and were active in women's rights. Among the more famous members of the international committee were Augusta Jane Chapin, Lillie Devereux Blake, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Olympia Brown, Alexandra Gripenberg, Ursula Mellor Bright and Irma von Troll-Borostyáni. -- Reaction: At its introduction, The Woman's Bible was widely criticized in editorials and from the pulpit. Stanton wrote that "the clergy denounced it as the work of Satan ..." Some were put off just by its prejudicial, sacrilegious title, especially those who did not take the time to read the book. Others countered the book's more extreme conclusions one by one in public fora such as letters to the editor. One female reader of The New York Times wrote to decry The Woman's Bible for its radical statements that the Trinity was composed of "a Heavenly Mother, Father, and Son", and that prayers should be addressed to an "ideal Heavenly Mother". Mary Seymour Howell, a member of the Revising Committee, wrote to The New York Times in defense of the book, saying that its title could be better understood as "The Woman's Commentary on the Women of the Bible". Stanton countered attacks by women readers, writing "the only difference between us is, we say that these degrading ideas of woman emanated from the brain of man, while the church says that they came from God." -- Susan B. Anthony, Stanton's best and most faithful collaborator, concluded after years of working for women's rights that the concentration on one issue-votes for women-was the key to bringing success to the movement. The women's organizations had too varied a membership to agree on anything more complex. Stanton insisted, however, that the women's rights conventions were too narrowly focused; she brought forward a variety of challenging concepts in the form of essays for Anthony to read to the audiences. When Stanton made known her interest in completing The Woman's Bible, Anthony was unhappy at the futility of the effort, a harmful digression from the focused path which led to woman suffrage. Anthony wrote to Clara Colby to say of Stanton "of all her great speeches, I am always proud-but of her Bible commentaries, I am not proud-either of their spirit or letter ... But I shall love and honor her to the end-whether her Bible please me or not. So I hope she will do for me." -- At the NAWSA convention January 23-28, 1896, Corresponding Secretary Rachel Foster Avery led the battle to distance the organization from The Woman's Bible. After Susan B. Anthony opened the convention on January 23, Avery surprised Anthony by stating to the more than 100 members of the audience: During the latter part of the year the work has been in several directions much hindered by the general misconception of the relation of the so-called "Woman's Bible" to our association. As an organization we have been held responsible for the action of an individual ... in issuing a volume with a pretentious title, covering a jumble of comment ... without either scholarship or literary value, set forth in a spirit which is neither reverent nor inquiring. Avery called for a resolution: "That this Association is non-sectarian, being composed of persons of all shades of religious opinion, and that it has no connection with the so-called 'Woman's Bible', or any theological publication." The motion was tabled until later, and motions were made to strike Avery's comments from the official record. A complete account of Avery's remarks were reported the next day in The New York Times. The opinion of NAWSA delegate Laura Clay, expressed in her Southern Committee report on January 27 that "the South is ready for woman suffrage, but it must be woman suffrage and nothing else," was typical of responses to The Woman's Bible conflict. Most suffragists wanted only to work on the right to vote, "without attaching it to dress reform, or bicycling, or anything else ..." On the afternoon of January 28, a list of Resolutions was put to a vote. The first seven were passed without comment. The eighth was Avery's proposed dissociation with The Woman's Bible, and its presence caused an active debate. Anna Howard Shaw, Alice Stone Blackwell, Henry Browne Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt and others spoke in favor, while Lillie Devereux Blake, Clara B. Colby, and more spoke against it. Anthony left her chair to join the debate against the resolution, and spoke at length, saying "Lucretia Mott at first thought Mrs. Stanton had injured the cause of woman's rights by insisting on the demand for woman suffrage, but she had sense enough not to pass a resolution about it ..." A majority of 53 to 41 delegates approved the resolution, an action which was seen as a censure of Stanton, and one which was never repealed. Avery's opening report of January 23 was adopted with the part about The Woman's Bible expunged. -- Legacy: Stanton wished for a greater degree of scholarship in The Woman's Bible, but was unable to convince Bible scholars of her day to take part in what was expected to be a controversial project. Scholars continued to avoid addressing the subject of sexism in the Bible until 1964 when Margaret Brackenbury Crook published Women and Religion, a study of the status of women in Judaism and Christianity. Subsequent works by Letty Russell and Phyllis Trible furthered the connection between feminism and the Bible. Today, biblical scholarship by women has come into maturity, with women posing new questions about the Bible, and challenging the very basis of biblical studies. Stanton herself was marginalized in the women's suffrage movement after publication of The Woman's Bible. From that time forward, Susan B. Anthony took the place of honor among the majority of suffragettes. Stanton was never again invited to sit in a place of honor on stage at the NAWSA convention.

Family: A daughter of the early abolitionist Hezekiah Joslyn, Gage was the wife of Henry Hill Gage, with whom she had five children: Charles Henry (who died in infancy), Helen Leslie, Thomas Clarkson, Julia Louise, and Maud. Gage maintained residence in Fayetteville, New York for the majority of her life. Though Gage was cremated, there is a memorial stone at Fayetteville Cemetery that bears her slogan "There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home or Heaven. That word is Liberty." -- Maud, who was ten years younger than Julia, initially horrified her mother when she chose to marry The Wonderful Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum at a time when he was a struggling actor with only a handful of plays (of which only The Maid of Arran survives) to his writing credit. However, a few minutes after the initial announcement, Gage started laughing, apparently realizing that her emphasis on all individuals making up their own minds was not lost on her headstrong daughter, who gave up a chance at a law career when the opportunity for women was rare. Gage spent six months of every year with Maud and Frank, and died in the Baum home in Chicago, Illinois in 1898. -- Gage's son Thomas Clarkson Gage and his wife Sophia had a daughter named Dorothy Louise Gage, who was born in Bloomington, IL, on June 11, 1898 and died just five months later on November 11, 1898. The death so upset the child's aunt Maud, who had always longed for a daughter, that she required medical attention. Thomas Clarkson Gage's child was the namesake of her uncle Frank Baum's famed fictional character, Dorothy Gale. In 1996, Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, a biographer of Matilda Joslyn Gage, located young Dorothy's grave in Bloomington. A memorial was erected in the child's memory at her gravesite on May 21, 1997. This child is often mistaken for her cousin of the same name, Dorothy Louise Gage (1883-1889), Helen Leslie (Gage) Gage's child. As theosophists, both the Baums and the Gages believed in reincarnation, and thought this child might have been Matilda Joslyn Gage, whose personal spark is apparently written into the character. -- In The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story, Gage was played by Rue McClanahan, whose relationship with Frank was wrongly portrayed as antagonistic, and falsely presented Gage as the inspiration for the Wicked Witch of the West. Annette O'Toole played Maud, and Nancy Morgan and Pat Skipper played Helen and Charles, respectively.

Lyman Frank Baum, author of Ozma of Oz, didn't just write one of the most popular children's books in history. He also produced thirteen other Oz books as well as over 40 other novels, 82 short stories, hundreds of poems, and an unknown number of scripts. -- As a young man, Baum was a printer, producing several amateur newspapers, a poultry breeder specializing in the Hamburg chicken, and a theater lover. Despite working as a clerk in his brother-in-law's dry goods store, he found time to perform in plays until eventually his father, who owned numerous opera houses and theaters, built him a theater on his 24th birthday. Baum wrote plays, including the highly successful musical "The Maid of Arran," and composed music for them as well. Two years later he married Maud Gage, and moved with her a few years later to Aberdeen in the Dakota Territory, where he operated a store called "Baum's Bazaar." In 1890 the store failed, and Baum turned to newspaper writing and working as a traveling salesman. -- He believed deeply in the power of children's literature, saying "Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams - day dreams with your eyes wide open - are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization." -- Politically, Baum was a flaming liberal. His wife was the daughter of suffrage leader Matilda Joslyn Gage, author of The Women's Bible and companion to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Baum wrote editorials trying to convince the public to vote for women's suffrage and served as secretary of Aberdeen's Women Suffrage Club.

Called "The Black Pope" by many of his followers, Anton La Vey began the road to High Priesthood of the (lurch of Satan when he was only 16 years old and an organ player in a carnival: ... From that time early in his life his path was clear. Finally, on the last night of April, 1966 -- Walpurgisnacht, the most important festival of the believers in witchcraft -- LaVey shaved his head in the tradition of Ancient executioners and announced the formation of The Church Of Satan. He had seen the need for a church that would recapture man's body and his carnal desires as objects of celebration.

Have We No Tears for Revival? "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Ps. 126:5). This is the divine edict. This is more than preaching with zeal. This is more than scholarly exposition. This is more than delivering sermons of exegetical exactitude and homiletic perfection. Such a man, whether preacher or pew dweller, is appalled at the shrinking authority of the Church in the present drama of cruelty in the world. And he cringes with sorrow that men turn a deaf ear to the Gospel and willingly risk eternal hell in the process. Under this complex burden, his heart is crushed to tears. The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the blindness of the Church, grieved at the corruption in the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil. He is embarrassed that the Church folks no longer cry in their despair before a devil-ridden, sin-mad society, "Why could we not cast him out?" (Matt. 17:19).

THOUGHTS ON COMMUNION: What a sweet comfort to us that our Lord Jesus Christ was once known in the breaking of the bread. In earlier Christian times, believers called the Communion "the medicine of immortality," and God gave them the desire to pray: Be known to us in breaking bread, But do not then depart; Savior, abide with us and spread Thy table **in our heart [not just in our mind]. Some churches have a teaching that you will find God only at their table-and that you leave God there when you leave. I am so glad that God has given us light. We may take the Presence of the table with us. We may take the Bread of life with us as we go. Then sup with us in love divine, Thy body and Thy blood; That living bread and heavenly wine Be our immortal food! In approaching the table of our Lord, we dare not forget the cost to our elder Brother, the Man who was from heaven. He is our Savior; He is our Passover!

Theology: Finney was a primary influence on the "revival" style of theology which emerged in the 19th century. Though coming from a Calvinistic background, Finney rejected tenets of "Old Divinity" Calvinism which he felt were unbiblical and counter to evangelism and Christian mission. -- Finney's theology is difficult to classify, as can be observed in his masterwork, Religious Revivals. In this work, he emphasizes the involvement of a person's will in salvation. Whether he believed the will was free to repent or not repent, or whether he viewed God as inclining the will irresistibly (as in Calvinist doctrine, where the will of an elect individual is changed by God so that they now desire to repent, thus repenting with their will and not against it, but not being free in whether they choose repentance since they must choose what their will is inclined towards), is not made clear. Finney, like most Protestants, affirmed salvation by grace through faith alone, not by works or by obedience. Finney also affirmed that works were the evidence of faith. The presence of unrepentant sin thus evidenced that a person had not received salvation. -- In his Systematic Theology, Finney remarks that "I have felt greater hesitancy in forming and expressing my views upon this Perseverance of the saints, than upon almost any other question in theology." At the same time, he took the presence of unrepented sin in the life of a professing Christian as evidence that they must immediately repent or be lost. Finney draws support for this position from Peter's treatment of the baptized Simon (see Acts 8) and Paul's instruction of discipline to the Corinthian church (see 1 Corinthians 5). This type of teaching underscores the strong emphasis on personal holiness found in Finney's writings. -- Finney's understanding of the atonement was that it satisfied "public justice" and that it opened up the way for God to pardon people of their sin. This was the so-called New Divinity which was popular at that time period. In this view, Christ's death satisfied public justice rather than retributive justice. As Finney put it, it was not a "commercial transaction." This view of the atonement is typically known as the governmental view or government view. -- Princeton Theological Seminary Professor Albert Baldwin Dod reviewed Finney's 1835 book Lectures on Revivals of Religion and rejected it as theologically unsound from a Calvinistic perspective, not necessarily from a Christian perspective. Dod was a defender of Old School Calvinist orthodoxy (see Princeton theologians) and was especially critical of Finney's view of the doctrine of total depravity.

Great Awakening: On July 7, 1731, Edwards preached in Boston the "Public Lecture" afterwards published under the title "God Glorified - in Man's Dependence," which was his first public attack on Arminianism. The emphasis of the lecture was on God's absolute sovereignty in the work of salvation: that while it behooved God to create man pure and without sin, it was of his "good pleasure" and "mere and arbitrary grace" for him to grant any person the faith necessary to incline him or her toward holiness; and that God might deny this grace without any disparagement to any of his character. -- In 1733, a religious revival began in Northampton and reached such intensity in the winter of 1734 and the following spring as to threaten the business of the town. In six months, nearly three hundred were admitted to the church. The revival gave Edwards an opportunity for studying the process of conversion in all its phases and varieties, and he recorded his observations with psychological minuteness and discrimination in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (1737). A year later, he published Discourses on Various Important Subjects, the five sermons which had proved most effective in the revival, and of these, none, he tells us, was so immediately effective as that on the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, from the text, "That every mouth may be stopped." Another sermon, published in 1734, A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God set forth what he regarded as the inner, moving principle of the revival, the doctrine of a special grace in the immediate, and supernatural divine illumination of the soul. -- By 1735, the revival had spread-and popped up independently-across the Connecticut River Valley, and perhaps as far as New Jersey. However, criticism of the revival began, and many New Englanders feared that Edwards had led his flock into fanaticism. Over the summer of 1735, religious fervor took a dark turn. A number of New Englanders were shaken by the revivals but not converted, and became convinced of their inexorable damnation. Edwards wrote that "multitudes" felt urged-presumably by Satan-to take their own lives. At least two people committed suicide in the depths of their spiritual duress, one from Edwards's own congregation-his uncle, Joseph Hawley II. It is not known if any others took their own lives, but the suicide craze effectively ended the first wave of revival, except in some parts of Connecticut. -- However, despite these setbacks and the cooling of religious fervor, word of the Northampton revival and Edwards's leadership role had spread as far as England and Scotland. It was at this time that Edwards was acquainted with George Whitefield, who was traveling the Thirteen Colonies on a revival tour in 1739-1740. The two men may not have seen eye to eye on every detail-Whitefield was far more comfortable with the strongly emotional elements of revival than Edwards was-but they were both passionate about preaching the Gospel.They worked together to orchestrate Whitefield's trip, first through Boston, and then to Northampton. When Whitefield preached at Edwards's church in Northampton, he reminded them of the revival they had experienced just a few years before. This deeply touched Edwards, who wept throughout the entire service, and much of the congregation too was moved. Revival began to spring up again, and it was at this time that Edwards preached his most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741. This sermon has been widely reprinted as an example of "fire and brimstone" preaching in the colonial revivals, though the majority of Edwards's sermons were not this dramatic. Indeed, he used this style deliberately. As historian George Marsden put it, "Edwards could take for granted...that a New England audience knew well the Gospel remedy. The problem was getting them to seek it." -- **Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God, A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8, 1741, by Rev. Jonathan Edwards. Published at Boston, 1741 -- The movement met with opposition from conservative Congregationalist ministers. In 1741, Edwards published in its defense The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, dealing particularly with the phenomena most criticized: the swoonings, outcries and convulsions. These "bodily effects," he insisted, were not distinguishing marks of the work of the Spirit of God one way or another; but so bitter was the feeling against the revival in the more strictly Puritan churches that, in 1742, he was forced to write a second apology, Thoughts on the Revival in New England, his main argument being the great moral improvement of the country. In the same pamphlet, he defends an appeal to the emotions, and advocates preaching terror when necessary, even to children, who in God's sight "are young vipers… if not Christ's." He considers "bodily effects" incidental to the real work of God, but his own mystic devotion and the experiences of his wife during the Awakening (which he gives in detail) make him think that the divine visitation usually overpowers the body, a view in support of which he quotes Scripture. In reply to Edwards, Charles Chauncy wrote Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England in 1743 and anonymously penned The Late Religious Commotions in New England Considered in the same year. In these works he urged conduct as the sole test of conversion; and the general convention of Congregational ministers in the Province of Massachusetts Bay protested "against disorders in practice which have of late obtained in various parts of the land." -- In spite of Edwards's able pamphlet, the impression had become widespread that "bodily effects" were recognized by the promoters of the Great Awakening as the true tests of conversion. To offset this feeling, Edwards preached at Northampton, during the years 1742 and 1743, a series of sermons published under the title of Religious Affections (1746), a restatement in a more philosophical and general tone of his ideas as to "distinguishing marks." In 1747, he joined the movement started in Scotland called the "concert in prayer," and in the same year published An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. In 1749, he published a memoir of David Brainerd who had lived with his family for several months and had died at Northampton in 1747. Brainerd had been constantly attended by Edwards's daughter Jerusha, to whom he was rumored to have been engaged to be married, though there is no surviving evidence for this. In the course of elaborating his theories of conversion Edwards used Brainerd and his ministry as a case study, making extensive notes of his conversions and confessions.

George Whitefield and John Wesley did not see eye-to-eye on a theology of grace however. In 1740 Wesley published "Free Grace," saying that God's grace was extended to all. Wesley rejected the concept of divine election. Whitefield was a Calvinist. He once wrote, "God, himself, I find, teaches my friends the doctrine of election. If I mistake not, my dear and honored Mr. Wesley will hereafter be convinced of it also." -- The two men were never to agree on divine election. Whitefield thought Wesley's was preaching universal redemption whereas Wesley thought Whitefield's preaching implied Christians need not take moral responsibility. They parted ways but managed, in the end, to maintain a respect for each other in that their hearts were the same in terms of unity in Jesus Christ. After Whitefield's death, John Wesley preached a memorial sermon. -- Wesley said: "Let my last end be like his!" How many of you join in this wish? Perhaps there are few of you who do not, even in this numerous congregation! And O that this wish may rest upon your minds! - that it may not die away till your souls also are lodged "where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest!"

Reaching4Truth says: January 3, 2012 at 3:01 pm -- Hanna, you said: "I still keep my hopes up that we will find a church, but as I have said before..in our town it is all about who can have the biggest church, who can draw the largest crowd, who can own more hotels and claim more territory on the monopoly board. People have no idea what the Pastor is purchasing in terms of real estate and investments, and they don't really even care because they trust him completely." -- This is not just a phenomenon in your town, but is widespread everywhere. Because in this era, pastors have been given celebrity status and encouraged to build their kingdoms, their resume, on ideas borrowed from the business realm. Over time they've been seduced by numerous voices from without and within the evangelical world, to produce measurably "effective" and "successful" ministries.. Pursuing and inculcating worldly business values and methodologies and wrongly applying them to the church and the realm of ministry. And basically it turns out to be an abandonment of their allegiance to the Lord in exchange for the approval of men and the respect of men, both in the church and in the world. -- Pastors and ministry leaders have been seduced by things appealing to their pride to pursue accomplishments and a measure of renown - respectability - for themselves. To be someone that others in the community (church and beyond) look up to and speak well of. -- Through many avenues and means, Christian pastors and ministry leaders have received worldly advice dressed up in acceptable Christian language, and coming from trusted "christian" sources. I employ the quotes because to look at the nature of what has come to be accepted as wise Christian insight and counsel, through resources such as Leadership Journal and Christianity Today, just to name two among a plethora of resources with a large readership among pastors, is to find, if one compares the "wisdom" offered from such sources, they wander quite a distance from sound spiritual wisdom or true compatibility with the word of God. -- Our pastors have been drinking from poisoned wells, even from what have been in the past trusted Christian sources. But, minus the requisite discretion and discernment that is expected of those we trust, a scourge has set upon the churches. Having listened to and consulted the voices of so many Pied Pipers in the business realm, there is very little left now of truly Holy Spirit-inspired leadership. We have been in the business of exchanging the truth of God for a lie for so long that we can barely distinguish the difference. Church and ministry leaders, in their efforts to win the worldly (yes I mean "worldly") to Christ through clever means, have drunk deeply from the wells of "vain philosophy and empty deceit". And we are sadly observing the results of that exchange. -- Clever wolves have entered in, and/or risen up from our midst, and had their effect upon the churches. I have observed with great sadness and sobriety the Christian establishment being given over to a host of clever lies and the spirit of the world. -- And hero worship has had a lot to do with it. A WHOLE lot to do with it. I think it's for lack of (or for need of) a hero in our lives that we (pastors and their flocks) have become worshippers of admired Christian men, inclined to enshrine them in a sort of "holy glow" - a sort of spiritual 'static' where we assume they will always and forever continue in a faithful path, as if they can do no wrong and, like their Lord, were immaculately conceived of the Holy Spirit. -- We have been, the whole lot of us - pastors and others alike - led onto deceptive paths because of having given our unquestioning trust to men with feet of clay. I believe we have entered a time of the Lord cleaning house, and waking His people up from a long slumber, a longer slumber than we would guess, wherein the enemy has now effectively infiltrated the mustard tree and overspread the churches. -- Jesus was careful to warn us that these days would come, and tremendous deception all around us was given as a key sign of the nearness of His return. He led with "See to it THAT NO MAN DECEIVES YOU." It was much more a matter of having our eyes/hearts exercised to recognize cleverly cloaked deception and delusion than it was ever a call to make an idol of earthly Jerusalem, for instance. JESUS is to be our focus; ALWAYS JESUS. We were instructed not to put our trust in man, but only IN HIM. -- So… pastors are to blame, for having wandered from the scriptures as their sole source of spiritual light, life and guidance, and succumbing to spiritual blindness… but so are we. We are living in a time of strong hero worship, leading to strong delusion, with sobering effect. The sooner we return our affection to the LORD and away from faulty leaders, the better for all of us. -- Chuck Smith is simply one example of what hero worship - the desire to elevate a hero in our midst (besides Jesus) can lead to. By giving our indiscriminate trust to men we admire, we forget that they can be just as prone to sin and error as the rest of us. The mercy of God is a great need in all of our lives, and our relationship with Him is to be first and foremost. I need these reminders as much as the next person. --- Lord, I'm thankful for your MERCY and your GREAT, GREAT kindness to us. Help us wind our way out of this mess we find ourselves in and into singlehearted allegiance to You and affection for your word. Clean us up and restore the broken places? and rekindle our love for YOU.

Francis Schaefer shares how the society of North America has succumbed to the humanistic values and ideals. Christian values and standards according to Scripture has all become irrelevant in this type of society. There is a need more then ever to believe and live the standards of the Scriptures.

Francis Schaeffer was a Presbyterian minister with an ability to see how the questions of meaning, morals, and value being dealt with by philosophy, were the same questions that the Bible dealt with, only in different language. Once an agnostic, Schaeffer came to the conclusion that Biblical Christianity not only gave sufficient answers to the big questions, but that they were the only answers that were both self-consistent and livable. With this conviction he became a man of conversation. Schaeffer taught that God is really there and He is not silent. He had spoken to man in the Bible as and a result we could have "true truth" about God and man. Knowing the dignity of man created in God's image, he placed a high value on creativity as an expression of that image. He opened his Swiss home to travelers to discuss these things. Later he began lecturing in universities and writing a number of books. Perhaps no other Christian thinker of the twentieth century, besides C.S. Lewis, has had more influence on thinking people.

Oswald Chambers sometimes startled audiences with his vigorous thinking and his vivid expression. Even those who disagreed with what he said found his teachings difficult to dismiss and all but impossible to ignore. Often his humor drove home a sensitive point: "Have we ever got into the way of letting God work, or are we so amazingly important that we really wonder in our nerves and ways what the Almighty does before we are up in the morning!" Oswald Chambers was not famous during his lifetime. At the time of his death in 1917 at the age of forty-three, only three books bearing his name had been published. Among a relatively small circle of Christians in Britain and the U.S., Chambers was much appreciated as a teacher of rare insight and expression, but he was not widely known. Chambers was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1874, the youngest son of a Baptist minister. He spent his boyhood years in Perth; then his family moved to London when Oswald was fifteen. Shortly after the move to London, Oswald made his public profession of faith in Christ and became a member of Rye Lane Baptist Church. This marked a period of rapid spiritual growth, along with an intense struggle to find God's will and way for his life. -- A gifted artist and musician, Chambers trained at London's Royal Academy of Art, sensing God's direction to be an ambassador for Christ in the world of art and aesthetics. While studying at the University of Edinburgh (1895-96), he decided, after an agonizing internal battle, to study for the ministry. He left the university and entered Dunoon College, near Glasgow, where he remained as a student, then a tutor for nine years. In 1906 he traveled to the United States, spending six months teaching at God's Bible School in Cincinnati, Ohio. From there, he went to Japan, visiting the Tokyo Bible School, founded by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cowman. This journey around the world in 1906-1907 marked his transition from Dunoon College to fulltime work with the Pentecostal League of Prayer. During the last decade of his life, Chambers served as: • traveling speaker and representative of the League of Prayer, 1907-10 • principal and main teacher of the Bible Training College, London, 1911-15 • YMCA chaplain to British Commonwealth soldiers in Egypt, 1915-17. He died in Cairo on November 15, 1917, of complications following an emergency appendectomy. The complete story of his life is told in Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God (1993).

Youth: Müller was born in Kroppenstaedt (now Kroppenstedt), a village near Halberstadt in the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1810, the Müller family moved to nearby Heimersleben, where Müller's father was appointed a collector of taxes. He had an older brother, Friedrich Johann Wilhelm (1803 - 7 Oct 1838) and, after his widowed father remarried, a half-brother, Franz (b 1822). His early life was not marked by righteousness - on the contrary, he was a thief, a liar and a gambler. By the age of 10, Müller was stealing government money from his father. While his mother was dying, he, at 14 years of age, was playing cards with friends and drinking. Müller's father hoped to provide him with a religious education that would allow him to take a lucrative position as a clergyman in the state church. He studied divinity in the University of Halle, and there met a fellow student (Beta) who invited him to a Christian prayer meeting. There he was welcomed, and he began regularly reading the Bible and discussing Christianity with the others who attended the meetings. After seeing a man praying to God on his knees, he was convinced of his need for salvation. As soon as he got home he went to his bed where he knelt and prayed. He asked God to help him in his life and to bless him wherever he went and to forgive him of his sins. He immediately stopped drinking, stealing and lying, and began hoping to become a missionary. He began preaching regularly in nearby churches and continued meeting with the other churches. -- Early work: In 1828, Müller offered to work with Jews in England through the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, but upon arriving in 1829, he fell ill, and did not think that he would survive. He was sent to Teignmouth to recuperate and, whilst there, met Henry Craik, who became his life-long friend. When he recovered, however, he dedicated himself to doing the will of God. He soon left the London Society, convinced that God would provide for his needs as he did Christian work. Craik invited him to become a minister with him in Teignmouth and he became the pastor of Ebenezer Chapel in Devon and soon after, married Mary Groves, the sister of Anthony Norris Groves. During his time as the pastor of the church, he refused a regular salary, believing that the practice could lead to church members giving out of duty, not desire. He also eliminated the renting of church pews, arguing that it gave unfair prestige to the rich (based primarily on James 2:1-9). -- Theology: The theology that guided George Müller's work is not widely known, but was shaped by an experience in his mid twenties when he "came to prize the Bible alone as [his] standard of judgement". He records in his Narratives that "That the word of God alone is our standard of judgment in spiritual things; that it can be explained only by the Holy Spirit; and that in our day, as well as in former times, he is the teacher of his people. The office of the Holy Spirit I had not experimentally understood before that time. Indeed, of the office of each of the blessed persons, in what is commonly called the Trinity, I had no experimental apprehension. I had not before seen from the Scriptures that the Father chose us before the foundation of the world; that in him that wonderful plan of our redemption originated, and that he also appointed all the means by which it was to be brought about. Further, that the Son, to save us, had fulfilled the law, to satisfy its demands, and with it also the holiness of God; that he had borne the punishment due to our sins, and had thus satisfied the justice of God. And, further, that the Holy Spirit alone can teach us about our state by nature, show us the need of a Saviour, enable us to believe in Christ, explain to us the Scriptures, help us in preaching, etc. It was my beginning to understand this latter point in particular which had a great effect on me; for the Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the word of God and studying it. The result of this was, that the first evening that I shut myself into my room, to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously. But the particular difference was, that I received real strength for my soul in doing so. I now began to try by the test of the Scriptures the things which I had learned and seen, and found that only those principles which stood the test were really of value."

Early life: John Newton was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton Sr., a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth Newton (née Seatclife), a Nonconformist Christian. His mother died of tuberculosis in July, 1732, about two weeks before his seventh birthday. Two years later, he went to live in Aveley, the home of his father's new wife. Newton spent two years at boarding school. At age eleven he went to sea with his father. Newton sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742. Newton's father made plans for him to work at a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean Sea. In 1743, while on the way to visit some friends, Newton was captured and pressed into the naval service by the Royal Navy. He became a midshipman aboard HMS Harwich. At one point, Newton attempted to desert and was punished in front of the crew of 350. Stripped to the waist, tied to the grating, he received a flogging of one dozen lashes, and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman. Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated suicide. He recovered, both physically and mentally. Later, while Harwich was on route to India, he transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship bound for West Africa. The ship carried goods to Africa, and traded them for slaves to be shipped to England and other countries. Newton proved to be a continual problem for the crew of Pegasus. They left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer. Clowe took Newton to the coast, and gave him to his wife Princess Peye, an African duchess. Newton was abused and mistreated along with her other slaves. It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa." Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton's father to search for him. And he made it to freedom. In 1750 he married his childhood sweetheart in St. Margaret's Church, Rochester. -- Spiritual conversion: He sailed back to England in 1748 aboard the merchant ship Greyhound, which was carrying beeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to as camwood. During this voyage, he experienced a spiritual conversion. The ship encountered a severe storm off the coast of Donegal and almost sank. Newton awoke in the middle of the night and finally called out to God as the ship filled with water. After he called out, the cargo came out and stopped up the hole, and the ship was able to drift to safety. It was this experience which he later marked as the beginnings of his conversion to evangelical Christianity. As the ship sailed home, Newton began to read the Bible and other religious literature. By the time he reached Britain, he had accepted the doctrines of evangelical Christianity. The date was March 10, 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life. From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking. Although he continued to work in the slave trade, he had gained a considerable amount of sympathy for the slaves. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards." Newton returned to Liverpool, England and, partly due to the influence of his father's friend Joseph Manesty, obtained a position as first mate aboard the slave ship Brownlow, bound for the West Indies via the coast of Guinea. During the first leg of this voyage, while in west Africa (1748-1749), Newton acknowledged the inadequacy of his spiritual life. While he was sick with a fever, he professed his full belief in Christ and asked God to take control of his destiny. He later said that this experience was his true conversion and the turning point in his spiritual life. He claimed it was the first time he felt totally at peace with God. Still, he did not renounce the slave trade until later in his life. After his return to England in 1750, he made three further voyages as captain of the slave-trading ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (1752-1753 and 1753-1754). He only gave up seafaring and his active slave-trading activities in 1754, after suffering a severe stroke, but continued to invest his savings in Manesty's slaving operations." -- Anglican priest: In 1755 Newton became tide surveyor (a tax collector) of the port of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty. In his spare time, he was able to study Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. He became well known as an evangelical lay minister. In 1757, he applied to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted. Such was his frustration during this period of rejection that he also applied to the Methodists, Independents and Presbyterians, and applications were even mailed directly to the Bishops of Chester and Lincoln and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. -- Writer and hymnist: The vicarage in Olney where Newton wrote the hymn that would become "Amazing Grace". In 1767 William Cowper, the poet, moved to Olney. He worshipped in the church, and collaborated with Newton on a volume of hymns, which was eventually published as Olney Hymns in 1779. This work had a great influence on English hymnology. The volume included Newton's well-known hymns "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken", "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!", "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder", "Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare", "Approach, My Soul, the Mercy-seat", and "Faith's Review and Expectation", which has come to be known by its opening phrase, "Amazing Grace". Many of Newton's (as well as Cowper's) hymns are preserved in the Sacred Harp. He also contributed to the Cheap Repository Tracts.

At age 15 Bach joined the choir at St. Michael's church. At age 19 Bach left St. Michael's and became a professional organist at St. Boniface. Bach studied music until 1703. In 1707, when Bach was 22 he married his cousin Maria Barbara. Maria had 7 children with Bach. Three of them died. In 1716, when Bach was thirty-one, he was put in jail for thirty-one days because people didn't believe that he shouldn't be writing that kind of music at that time. In those 31 days, Bach wrote five to ten musicals. Those five to ten musicals he wrote when he was in jail turned into two hundred musicals. In 1717 Bach became the court conductor at Anhalt-Cothen. 14 years later in 1721 Maria died leaving Bach to take care of four children. Bach was thirty-six at this time. One year later when Bach was thirty-seven in 1722 he married another woman. This woman's name was Anna Magdalina. Anna had thirteen children. ... Bach wrote 300 religious and nonreligious pieces called cantatas. Some people think that bach was the best composer of all time. Bach was a very religious man. Bach showed his religions in his music. Bach joined an orchestra at Weimar as a violinist. His home town was famous for music. One time when Bach was young, he walked thirty-five miles to a town named Hamburg to hear a concert.

Plot summary: The novel depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, which is discovered by the crew of a European ship after they are lost in the Pacific Ocean somewhere west of Peru. The minimal plot serves the gradual unfolding of the island, its customs, but most importantly, its state-sponsored scientific institution, Salomon's House, "which house or college ... is the very eye of this kingdom." On arriving to Bensalem, the travellers are initially instructed to leave without landing, but are successively quarantined to "the House of Strangers", then given greater leave to explore the island, and finally granted an explanation of Salomon's House. Their conversations with the inhabitants disclose how they in such isolation came to be Christian, how they came to know so much of the outside world (without themselves being known), the history and origin of the island's government and the establishment of Salomon's House by King Solamona, the Bensalemite customs regarding marriage and family, and purpose, properties, and activities of Salomon's House. The interlocutors include the governor of the House of Strangers, Joabin the Jew, and the Father of Salomon's House. -- Only the best and brightest of Bensalem's citizens are selected to join Salomon's House, in which scientific experiments are conducted in Baconian method in order to understand and conquer nature, and to apply the collected knowledge to the betterment of society. Near the end of the work, the Father of Salomon's House catalogues the activities of the institution's members: "For the several employments and offices of our fellows, we have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations (for our own we conceal), who bring us the books and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call merchants of light. "We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call depredators. "We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call mystery-men. "We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call pioneers or miners. "We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call compilers. "We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call dowry-men or benefactors. "Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care out of them to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call lamps. "We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call inoculators. "Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call interpreters of nature." Even this short excerpt demonstrates that Bacon understood that science requires analysis and not just the accumulation of observations. Bacon also foresaw that the design of experiments could be improved.

In 1643, the English Parliament called upon "learned, godly and judicious Divines", to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. Their meetings, over a period of five years, produced the confession of faith, as well as a Larger Catechism and a Shorter Catechism. For more than three centuries, various churches around the world have adopted the confession and the catechisms as their standards of doctrine, subordinate to the Bible. -- The Westminster Confession of Faith was modified and adopted by Congregationalists in England in the form of the Savoy Declaration (1658). Likewise, the Baptists of England modified the Savoy Declaration to produce the Second London Baptist Confession (1689). English Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists would together (with others) come to be known as Nonconformists, because they did not conform to the Act of Uniformity (1662) establishing the Church of England as the only legally approved church, though they were in many ways united by their common confessions, built on the Westminster Confession. -- Evangelical Presbyterian Church: The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which broke from the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1981 in order to provide a conservative alternative to the older denomination, holds to the Westminster Confession of Faith composed of a combination of different editions, but based on the American version of the 1647 text.[4] The EPC holds to the Westminster Confession in light of a brief list of the essentials of the faith as drafted at its first General Assembly at Ward Church outside of Detroit, Michigan.

Book of Common Prayer (1548-1549) -- The 1549 Book of Common Prayer: As the use of English in worship services spread, the need for a complete uniform liturgy for the Church became evident. Initial meetings to start what would eventually become the Book of Common Prayer were held in the former abbey of Chertsey and in Windsor Castle in September 1548. The list of participants can only be partially reconstructed, but it is known that the members were balanced between conservatives and reformers. These meetings were followed by a debate on the Eucharist in the House of Lords which took place between 14 and 19 December. Cranmer publicly revealed in this debate that he had abandoned the doctrine of the real presence and believed that the Eucharistic presence was only spiritual. Parliament backed the publication of the Prayer Book after Christmas by passing the Act of Uniformity 1549; it then legalised clerical marriage. -- It is difficult to ascertain how much of the Prayer Book is actually Cranmer's personal composition. Generations of liturgical scholars have been able to track down the sources that he used, including the Sarum Rite, writings from Hermann von Wied, and several Lutheran sources including Osiander and Justus Jonas. More problematic is determining how Cranmer worked on the book and with whom he worked. Despite the lack of knowledge of whom might have helped him, however, he is given the credit for the editorship and the overall structure of the book. -- The use of the new Prayer Book was made compulsory on 9 June 1549. This triggered a series of protests in Devon and Cornwall, the Prayer Book Rebellion. By early July, the uprising had spread to other parts in the east of England. Bucer had just taken up his duties in Cambridge when he found himself in the middle of the commotion and had to scurry to shelter. The rebels made a number of demands including the restoration of the Six Articles, the use of Latin for the mass with only the consecrated bread given to the laity, the restoration of prayers for souls in purgatory, and the rebuilding of abbeys. Cranmer wrote to the king a strong response to these demands in which he denounced the wickedness of the rebellion. On 21 July, Cranmer commandeered St Paul's Cathedral where he vigorously defended the official Church line. A draft of his sermon, the only extant written sample of his preaching from his entire career, shows that he collaborated with Peter Martyr on dealing with the rebellion.

History: The three were tried at University Church of St Mary the Virgin, the official church of Oxford University on the High Street. The martyrs were imprisoned at the former Bocardo Prison near the still extant St Michael at the Northgate church (at the north gate of the city walls) in Cornmarket Street. The door of their cell is on display in the tower of the church. The martyrs were burnt at the stake just outside the city walls to the south, where Broad Street is now located. Latimer and Ridley were burnt on 16 October 1555. Cranmer was burnt five months later on 21 March 1556. A small area cobbled with stones forming a cross in the centre of the road outside the front of Balliol College marks the site. The Victorian spire-like Martyrs' Memorial, at the south end of St Giles' nearby, commemorates the events. It is claimed that the scorch marks from the flames can still be seen on the doors of Balliol College (now rehung between the Front Quadrangle and Garden Quadrangle).

To download the entire Tyndale Bible click here. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader for this file. To read a particular book, click on the appropriate link below: -- About the Wesley Center Online -- The Wesley Center Online web site is a collection of historical and scholarly resources about the Wesleyan Tradition, theology, Christianity, and the Nazarene church. Copyright © 1993-2011. Wesley Center for Applied Theology, c/o Northwest Nazarene University. All Rights Reserved.

Tyndale was the first to translate considerable parts of the Bible from the original languages (Greek and Hebrew) into English. While a number of partial and complete translations had been made from the seventh century onward, particularly during the 14th century, Tyndale's was the first English translation to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, and the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. This was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Roman Catholic Church and the English church and state. Tyndale also wrote, in 1530, The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's divorce on the grounds that it contravened scriptural law. -- In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels for over a year. He was tried for heresy, choked, impaled and burnt on a stake in 1536. The Tyndale Bible, as it was known, continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world. The fifty-four independent scholars who created the King James Version of the bible in 1611 drew significantly on Tyndale's translations. One estimation suggests the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's, and the Old Testament 76%. -- Printed works: Most well known for his translation of the Bible, Tyndale was an active writer and translator. Not only did Tyndale's works focus on the way in which religion should be carried out, but were also greatly keyed towards the political arena. "They have ordained that no man shall look on the Scripture, until he be noselled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is an clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture."

On January 3, 1521 the Vatican published the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem ([It] Befits [the] Roman Pontiff), excommunicating Martin Luther for Luther's refusal to recant. The pope [Leo X] had issued a previous bull, Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord), giving Luther 60 days to recant and another 60 days to make his recantation known to Rome. Meanwhile, Luther's books were being burned for allegedly containing heresy. On December 10, 1520 Luther responded by publicly burning his copy of Exsurge Domine. -- The Church usually handed excommunicated persons over to civil authorities to be burned at the stake. However, circumstances prevailed that spared Martin Luther this fate and paved the way for Luther's stand at the Diet of Worms in April 1521. The pure teaching of Scripture would not be snuffed out by the flames. -- Luther wasn't looking to split the Church; he wanted the Church to institute reforms and took a more conciliatory tone at first in his writings. When it became clear that the pope cared not at all for Scripture and reason, only for Luther's recantation, Luther rose to the challenge and prepared to take his stand. The truth of God's Word, long muffled or distorted by the noise of human traditions, would find a voice in Martin Luther and others willing to risk everything on the authority and benevolence of Sola Scriptura.

Calvinism was based around the absolute power and supremacy of God. The world was created so that Mankind might get to know Him. Calvin believed that Man was sinful and could only approach God through faith in Christ - not through Mass and pilgrimages. Calvin believed that the New Testament and baptism and the Eucharist had been created to provide Man with continual divine guidance when seeking faith. In Calvin's view, Man, who is corrupt, is confronted by the omnipotent (all powerful) and omnipresent (present everywhere) God who before the world began predestined some for eternal salvation (the Elect) while the others would suffer everlasting damnation (the Reprobates). The chosen few were saved by the operation of divine grace which cannot be challenged and cannot be earned by Man's merits. You might have lead what you might have considered a perfectly good life that was true to God but if you were a reprobate you remained one because for all your qualities you were inherently corrupt and God would know this even if you did not. However, a reprobate by behaving decently could achieve an inner conviction of salvation. An Elect could never fall from grace. However, God remained the judge and lawgiver of men. Predestination remained a vital belief in Calvinism.

Ulrich Zwingli was a Swiss Protestant leader in the Reformation. Ulrich Zwingli is not as famous as the likes as Martin Luther or John Calvin but he did play his part in the break with the Roman Catholic Church. Ulrich (sometimes spelt Huldreich) Zwingli was born in 1484. He attended universities at Basle and Vienna and served as a parish priest in Glarus, Switzerland. Zwingli went with soldiers from Glarus to fight in the Habsburg-Valois Wars and between 1516 and 1518 he started to question the whole issue of Catholicism as Humanism started to make an impression on him. It is possible that Zwingli did not read any Lutheran literature until he moved in 1518 to Zurich as a Common Preacher (Leutpriester) at the Great Minster. It was at the Great Minster that Zwingli stated what is called the Zurich Reformation with sermons that were based on the Bible. Zwingli soon converted the city's council to his points of view. The council pushed the city into becoming a stronghold of Protestantism and Zurich's lead was followed by Berne and Basle. -- Zwingli's '67 Articles' (1523 A.D.) were adopted by Zurich as the city's official doctrine and the city experienced rapid reform. Preaching and Bible readings - known as prophesyings - were made more frequent; images and relics were frowned on, clerical marriage was allowed, monks and nuns were encouraged to come out of their isolated existence, monasteries were dissolved and their wealth was used to fund education and poor relief. In 1525, Zurich broke with Rome and the Mass became a very simple ceremony using both bread and blood which merely represented the body and blood of Christ. The church of Zwingli attempted to control moral behaviour and strict supervision became common in Zurich. -- As with Martin Luther and John Calvin, the problem Zwingli faced was that some people were concerned that he had gone too far too soon while others, especially the Anabaptists, felt that he had not gone far enough. The Anabaptists were dealt with when Zwingli fell in with the city's magistrates and supported the move to exile the Anabaptists or if they refused to leave the city, deal with them in another way - drowning. -- Zwingli and Luther met at Marburg in 1529 in an attempt to unite the Protestant faiths. This meeting failed to do this. Both men could not reach an agreement on what Christ said at the Last Supper. Luther believed that 'this is my body' meant just that whereas Zwingli believed that 'my' meant signifies. Such disunity among the Protestant faiths only served to encourage the Catholic Church that the Counter-Reformation was having an impact. -- Though Zurich became a stronghold of Protestantism, the areas surrounding the city remained wary of a resurgent Catholic Church. They also feared that Zurich might become too powerful and assert its city powers within these regions. Also the area around Zurich was famed for the mercenaries it provided and such a 'profession' was frowned on by Zwingli. In 1529, these areas around Zurich formed the Christian Union and joined with the catholic Austrian monarchy. Zwingli preached a religious war against them and two campaigns were launched in 1529 and 1531. Zwingli was killed at the Battle of Keppel in October 1531. His work was continued by his son-in-law, Heinrich Bullinger.

Lull based his Art on the importance which Christian, Moslem [Islam], and Jew each attached to the Divine Names or Attributes, or, as he called them, Dignities. Lull mentioned nine Dignities (or Dignitaries): Bonitas (Goodness), Magnitudo (Greatness), Eternitas (Eternity), Potestas (Power), Sapientia (Wisdom), Voluntas (Will), Virtus (Virtue), Veritas (Truth), and Gloria (Glory). These are shown in the follwing diagram. ... In addition we also find the incorporation of the four elements [earth, water, air and fire] and the qualities, the seven planets and twelves [astrological] signs, medicine, alchemy, geometry, a letter notation, and so on. There is an elaborate system of correspondences, in that the nine Dignitaries have their correspondences in the celestial sphere, the human level, and the animal, plant, and material creation. In all this we see the influence, not only of Kabbalah, but also of Aristotlean categories, Augustinian Platonism (nearly all the Lullian Dignities can be found listed as Augustine's Divine Attributes), and the celestial hierarchies of angels of the Christian Neoplatonist Dionysius. [Frances A. Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, pp.9-12]. -- Renaissance Kabbalah: Renaissance Christian Kabbalah was derived from a number of sources. Firstly, the christological speculations of a number of Jewish converts from the late 13th to the late fifteenth centuries. Secondly, the philosophical Christian and Renaissance speculation concerning the Kabbalah that developed around the Platonic Acadamy founded by the Medici family in Florence. Pico della Mirandola The Florentines, headed by the renowned Renaissance hermeticist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) believed they had discovered in Kabbalah a lost divine revelation that could give the key to understanding both the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, and the Orphics, and the inner secrets of Catholic Christianity. Pico himself had a considerable amount of Kabbalistic literature translated into Latin by the scholarly convert Samuel ben Nissim Abulfaraj. Among the 900 theses Pico presented for public debate in Rome was the claim that "no science can better convince us of the divinity of Jesus Christ than magic and the Kabbalah", and he believed he could prove the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation through Kabbalistic axioms. All this caused a sensation in the intellectual Christian world, and the writings of Pico and his follower Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) led on the one hand to great interest in the doctrine of Divine Names and in practical (magical) Kabbalah (culminating in Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim's De Occult Philosophia (1531) and on the other to further attempts at a synthesis between Kabbalah and Christian theology. [Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, pp.197-8] -- Rosicrucian Kabbalah: By the late 16th century Christian Kabbalah began to be permeated with alchemical symbolism; a trend that continued through the 17th and 18th century. Well known representatives are the Rosucrucian philosopher and alchemist Robert Fludd (1574-1637) and the alchemist Thomas Vaughan (1622-1666) among others. One of the works of Fludd presents an interpretation of the Sefirotic Tree which he illustrates as a Palm (left), whose ten spreading branches raying forth from the lowest world suggest that man on earth is a microcosm or reflection of the macrocosm or universe. In the second half of the 18th century this alchemical kabbalah was combined with Freemasonic numerology and occultism, from which was ultimately to develop the extraordinary occult/magickal revival of the late 19th century known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn illustration (left) from World Trees by Hazel Minot Kircher's Tree from Oedipus Aegyptiacus published in 1652 by Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit priest and hermetic philosopher -- Occult Kabbalah: By the 19th century the occultists of the French magician revival, such as Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant; 1810-1875) and Papus (Gerard Encausse; 1868-1916) had lost all understanding of the original Jewish meaning of Kabbalah, and brought in various extraneous elements such as Tarot. Levi was an influential figure both on the Theosophy of Blavatsky and even more so the Golden Dawn Order of Mathers and Westcott, with it's unique Kabbalistic (or Qabalistic, to use the prefered spelling) formulation of Sefirot and paths, through which Kabbalah established itself in the contemporary Western Occult Tradition.

Lawrence's interpretation, however narrow and flawed, does highlight an indisputable element of Grazzini's tale of Dr. Manente: its cruelty and "monstrosity," traits that, I will argue, provide insight into the social structures of the mid-sixteenth century, particularly those that rely upon coersion and force. In Florence, how did one family--the Medici--secure their power after over a century of struggle, and how did they come to construct a myth of their own legitimacy? ... It is important to remember that, from 1494--when the friar himself gained widespread support and offered a major threat to the rule of the Medici family--until long after his execution in 1498, Savonarola bequeathed a powerful religious and political vision that was not dependent on his leadership for survival--a fact that fascinated the political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli. Savonarola's followers--called the Piagnoni first by their enemies and later, proudly, by themselves--remained politically active after his execution, through the Republic that lasted until 1513, when the first Medici pope, Leo X, used the considerable influence of this position to help his family and their allies to return to Florence, and again after the sack of Rome in 1527, which occurred during the pontificate of another Medici, Clement VII. The Piagnoni continued to be active even after the Medici, first Alessandro and then Cosimo I, openly turned Florence onto the path of absolutism [unlimited, centralized authority and absolute sovereignty] by accepting the [nobility] title of Duke. ... Lorenzo's manipulation of the Church comes into play in the next phase of the beffa. ... At this point, Grazzini emphasizes not only that many friars and priests were ignorant, but, more importantly, that the kind of people Lorenzo elevated to positions of power in the Florentine church hierarchy were either superstitious [occult] or corrupt, criticisms that Savonarola also often made of the Medici.

Medici, an Italian family of merchants and bankers who ruled the republic of Florence through economic power and personal influence. By their patronage of the arts they made Florence the center of the Italian Renaissance. The Medici were created dukes of Florence by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1531, and grand dukes of Tuscany by Emperor Maximilian II in 1575. The last Medici grand duke was deposed by the Austrians in 1737. Important members of the Medici family included the following. Giovanni De' Medici: (1360-1429) established the family fortune and made himself ruler of Florence's merchant oligarchy. Cosimo De' Medici: (1389-1464), his son, used his banking business to gain political power and led Florence in a long period of prosperity and artistic achievement. Lorenzo the Magnificent: (1449-1492), grandson of Cosimo, gained fame as a statesman and patron of arts and letters. He was recognized as a poet himself and was largely responsible for the Tuscan dialect becoming the national speech of Italy. Cosimo (I) the Great: (1519-1574) succeeded to the dukedom in 1537 and ruled as a despot. He restored the duchy of Tuscany by conquering the other republics that had been part of it.

Pope Leo X - Giovanni de'Medici, 1475 - 1513 - 1521: Giovanni de'Medici, second son of Lorenzo and younger brother of the fatuous Piero, became the first of the Medici Popes (Leo X - Leone Decimo) at the age of 38 on 11 March 1513. Prior to this his life had been a complete roller coaster. Brought up in Medici luxury alongside Michelangelo (who was included in the Medici household by Lorenzo), older brother Piero and cousin Giulio (who was adopted by Lorenzo after his father (who was Lorenzo's brother) was killed in the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478), he had access to the incomes of several wealthy monasteries, including Badia a Passignano, and was made a Cardinal at the age of 13. All this came to an abrupt end in 1494 when, in the wake of Lorenzo's death, the incompetent surrender of his brother Piero the Fatuous to the French, and the ensuing Savanorola stirred turbulence, he had to sneak out of Florence dressed as a Franciscan Friar, and then live in hiding with his cousin for the next decade, latterly being protected by the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian (who ironically was to be a major cause of the collapse of the Bruges branch of the Medici Bank) and then by the dreadful Cesare Borgia and his father Pope Alessandro VI (1431 - 1492 - 1503 (72)) in Rome. ... Pope Clement VII Giulio de'Medici, 1478 - 1523 - 1534 (56) Illegitimate son of Lorenzo's (Pazzi murdered) brother Giuliano, adopted son of Lorenzo, and companion in exile to Lorenzo's son Giovanni (Leo X), who was three years his senior, Giulio de'Medici became Pope Clement VII (Clemente Settimo). He was good looking, intellectually sophisticated, a talented musician and a political disaster. In reality he also faced the legacy of the corrupt practices of his cousin Leo X, and the impossible task of operating in the emergent nation state Europe dominated by Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII (whom he excommunicated), and threatened by Suleiman the Magnificent, plus Martin Luther dealing the protestants into the game as well - see Insight Page. He lost England, and was humiliated by having to flee in disguise from Rome when it was barbarically sacked by Charles V's rabble army after Clement mistakenly got too close to flashy Francis I of France.

Spendthrift [primarily on things not directly benefiting or advancing the Christian message and Gospel of Jesus Christ]: Leo's lively interest in art and literature, to say nothing of his natural liberality, his alleged nepotism, his political ambitions and necessities, and his immoderate personal luxury, exhausted within two years the hard savings of [Pope] Julius II, and precipitated a financial crisis from which he never emerged and which was a direct cause of most of what, from a papal point of view, were calamities of his pontificate. -- He sold cardinals' hats. He sold membership in the "Knights of Peter". He borrowed large sums from bankers, curials, princes and Jews. The Venetian ambassador Gradenigo estimated the paying number of offices on Leo's death at 2,150, with a capital value of nearly 3,000,000 ducats (about 132 million dollars in 2010 dollars) and a yearly income of 328,000 ducats ($14,432,000.00). -- The ordinary income of the pope for the year 1517 had been reckoned at about 580,000 ducats ($2,552,000.00) [around $44 each ducat coin in 2010 dollars], of which 420,000 came from the States of the Church, 100,000 from annates, and 60,000 from the composition tax instituted by Sixtus IV. These sums, together with the *considerable amounts accruing from indulgences, jubilees, and special fees, *vanished as quickly as they were received. Then the pope resorted to pawning palace furniture, table plate, jewels, even statues of the apostles. Several banking firms and many individual creditors were ruined by the death of Leo.

He opposed Jerome's translation in two vital areas. He detected that the Greek text [of the Egyptian manuscripts] had been corrupted as early as the fourth century [by the desert monks - desert fathers]. He knew that Jerome's translation had been based solely on the Alexandrian manuscript, Vaticanus, written itself early in the fourth century. He also differed with Jerome on the translation of certain passages which were vital to the claimed authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Jerome rendered Matthew 4:17 thus: "Do penance, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Erasmus differed with: "Be penitent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Erasmus was also a staunch defender of both Mark 16:9-21 and John 8:1-12. Zeal which our modern day scholars cannot seem to find. -- Possibly Erasmus's greatest gift to mankind was his attitude toward the common man. In the rigidly "classed" society in which he lived, he was an indefatigable advocate of putting the Scripture in the hands of the common man. While Jerome's Latin had been translated at the bidding of the Roman hierarchy, Erasmus translated his Latin with the express purpose of putting it into the hands of the common people of his day. A practice that the Roman Catholic Church knew could be dangerous to its plan to control the masses. Erasmus is quoted as saying, "Do you think that the Scriptures are fit only for the perfumed?" "I venture to think that anyone who reads my translation at home will profit thereby." He boldly stated that he longed to see the Bible in the hands of "the farmer, the tailor, the traveler and the Turk." Later, to the astonishment of his upper classed colleagues, he added "the masons, the prostitutes and the pimps" to that declaration. Knowing his desire to see the Bible in the hands of God's common people, it seems not so surprising that God was to use his Greek text for the basis of the English Bible that was translated with the common man in mind, the King James Bible. -- It has been said that "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched." There is probably far more truth to this statement than can be casually discerned. For the reformers were armed with Erasmus's Bible, his writings and his attitude of resistance to Roman Catholic intimidation. Of Luther he said, "I favor Luther as much as I can, even if my cause is everywhere linked with his." He wrote several letters on Luther's behalf, and wholeheartedly agreed with him that salvation was entirely by grace, not works. He refused pressure by his Roman Catholic superiors to denounce Luther as a heretic. If Erasmus had turned the power of his pen on Luther, it would undoubtedly have caused far more damage than the powerless threats of the pope and his imps were able to do. As it is, only his disagreement with Luther's doctrine of predestination ever prompted him to criticize the Reformer with pen and ink. Erasmus's greatest point of dissension with the Roman Church was over its doctrine of salvation through works and the tenets of the church. He taught that salvation was a personal matter between the individual and God and was by faith alone. Of the Roman system of salvation he complained, "Aristotle is so in vogue that there is scarcely time in the churches to interpret the gospel." And what was "the gospel" to which Erasmus referred? We will let him speak for himself. "Our hope is in the mercy of God and the merits of Christ." Of Jesus Christ he stated, "He ... nailed our sins to the cross, sealed our redemption with his blood." He boldly stated that no rites of the Church were necessary for an individual's salvation. "The way to enter paradise," he said, "is the way of the penitent thief, say simply, Thy will be done. The world to me is crucified and I to the world." Concerning the most biblical sect of his time, the Anabaptists, he reserved a great deal of respect. He mentioned them as early as 1523 even though he himself was often called the "only Anabaptist of the 16th century." He stated that the Anabaptists that he was familiar with called themselves "Baptists." (Ironically, Erasmus was also the FIRST person to use the term "fundamental.") So we see that when Erasmus died on July 11, 1536, he had led a life that could hardly be construed to be an example of what could be considered a "good Catholic." But perhaps the greatest compliment, though veiled, that Erasmus's independent nature ever received came in 1559, twenty-three years after his death. That is when Pope Paul IV put Erasmus's writings on the "Index" of books, forbidden to be read by Roman Catholics.

Johannes Gutenberg was born into a noble family of the city of Mainz, Germany. His early training was in goldsmithing. In 1428, he moved to Strasbourg for political reasons, where he remained for over 20 years. It was in Strasbourg that he probably made his first experiments with moveable type. -- Gutenberg had the idea of utilizing techniques of metalworking, such as casting, punch-cutting, and stamping, for the mass production of books. European books at this time were hand written by scribes in a gothic script with many flourishes and ligatures (interconnected letter pairs). To reproduce this "look" Gutenberg fashioned a font of over 300 characters, far larger than the fonts of today. To make this possible, he invented the variable-width mold, and perfected the blend of lead, antimony, and tin used by type foundries up to the present century. -- Many years of Gutenberg's life are lost to history, but by 1450 he was back in Mainz at work on a printing press. Between 1450 and 1455, while preparing to produce a large folio Latin Bible, Gutenberg is thought to have printed a number of smaller books, a calendar, and a papal Letter of Indulgence. The Bible of 42 lines, the oldest surviving printed book in the western world, was completed by August 15, 1456, and while it is now credited to Gutenberg, he appears to have been relieved of his supervisory position, and his press, before the time of its publication. In fact, no printed material was ever credited to Gutenberg during his lifetime. -- Gutenberg is also believed to have worked on the Catholicon of Johannes de Janua, an enormous encyclopedia: 748 pages in two columns of 66 lines each. In later years, he received a position as a courtier to the archbishop of Mainz, and was buried in the town's Franciscan church.

Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro is often given credit for first dividing the Latin Vulgate into chapters in the real sense, but it is the arrangement of his contemporary and fellow cardinal Stephen Langton who in 1205 A.D. created the chapter divisions which are used today. They were then inserted into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 15th century. Robert Estienne (Robert Stephanus) was the first to number the verses within each chapter, his verse numbers entering printed editions in 1551 (New Testament) and 1571 (Old Testament - Hebrew Bible). The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has often elicited severe criticism from traditionalists and modern scholars alike. Critics charge that the text is often divided in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points [i.e. Isaiah chapter 53], and that it encourages citing passages out of context. Nevertheless, the chapter and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.

Thomas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood. The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles. As one of the 33 Doctors of the Church, he is considered the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. Pope Benedict XV declared: "This (Dominican) Order ... acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools."

Rosslyn Chapel, just outside Edinburgh, has been a holy place for centuries. Its name means either "point of a waterfall" or "ancient knowledge down the line" depending on who you ask. -- What is the chapel's link with Freemasons? Apparently Sir William St Clair claimed patronage of the masons - a link passed and strengthened through the generations and evidenced in two seventeenth century charters. In 1736, Sir William Sinclair became the first Scottish Grand Master at the Grand Lodge of Scotland in Edinburgh. By the 1690s, the bond between the Sinclairs and the masons was commented in a celebrated letter. ... Who is the leering green man engraved more than 120 times in the chapel? Carvings of a bearded green man appear in many religious settings in much of the world, but few have as many as Rosslyn. There are many theories about who the green man was. Some say it was either John the Baptist or Hercules. He is depicted as a Robin Hood-type figure, sometimes alternatively named Jack-in-the-green or Jack-in-the-Tree. He also may have been Celtic fertility god or a tree spirit. ... Who is the man with the gash on his head? Rumour suggests that he might be the smited apprentice of pillar fame. However, he could also be Freemasonry's legendary figure, Hiram Abiff, the martyred architect of King Solomon's Temple. Academic symbologists say it could just as easily express a classic archetype of sacrifice and rebirth. ... What do the 213 mysterious cube carvings mean? The mystical symbols carved into the stone ceiling of the chapel have confused historians for generations. But recently music scientists who believe they are part of a musical notation system are making efforts to decode the signs. The series of lines and dots are thought to represent shapes created by sand on a musical instrument during the vibrations caused by sound.

the first, 1095-1101;

the second, headed by Louis VII, 1145-47;

the third, conducted by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 1188-92;

the fourth, during which Constantinople was taken, 1204;

the fifth, which included the conquest of Damietta, 1217;

the sixth, in which Frederick II took part (1228-29); also Thibaud de Champagne and Richard of Cornwall (1239);

the seventh, led by St. Louis, 1249-52;

the eighth, also under St. Louis, 1270.

Between the Fall of Rome and the dawn of the Renaissance, Europe plunged into a dark night of constant war, splintered sovereignties, marauding pagans, rabid crusaders and devastating plague. That anything of value arose from this chaotic muck - much less the Renaissance - is nothing short of miraculous. Through masterful cinematography and ground-breaking research, THE DARK AGES brings to life this amazing and mysterious time. Relive in striking detail critical turning points in the Early Middle Ages including the fall of Rome to the Visigoths, the horrors of Bubonic Plague, the rise of Charlemagne and the launching of the First Crusade.

In her book, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Dr. Crone demonstrates that Islam did not originate in Mecca. Mecca is located in the Hejaz region of what is today Saudi Arabia. It is portrayed by traditional belief as a wealthy trading center, full of merchants trading goods by caravan from Yemen in the south and Syria and the Byzantium empire in the north. Crone shows that Mecca was in fact way off the incense route from Yemen to Syria, which bypassed where Mecca is today by over 100 miles. Further, there is no mention whatever of Mecca in contemporary non-Moslem sources: ... While there may well have been a historical individual named Ubu'l Kassim who was later entitled Mohammed ("The Praised One"), who raised followers and participated in the initiation of the Arab Conquest, he likely came from northeast Arabia in what is now southern Jordan. The deity that Ubu'l Kassim chose to follow was Allah, a contraction of al-Lah, the ancient Arab God of the Moon [note: which is why the symbol of Islam to this day is the crescent moon]. Ubu'l Kassim died, however, some years before the Arab Conquest was fully underway (the traditional date is 632). Al-Rawandi summarizes what then happened:

Papal authority: Decree of Valentinian - Leo was a significant contributor to the centralisation of spiritual authority within the Church and in reaffirming papal authority. While the bishop of Rome had always been viewed as the chief patriarch in the Western church, much of the pope's authority was delegated to local diocesan bishops. Not without serious opposition did he succeed in reasserting his authority in Gaul. Patroclus of Arles (d. 426) had received from Pope Zosimus the recognition of a subordinate primacy over the Gallican Church which was strongly asserted by his successor Hilary of Arles. An appeal from Chelidonius of Besançon gave Leo the opportunity to reassert the pope's authority over Hilary, who defended himself stoutly at Rome, refusing to recognize Leo's judicial status. Feeling that the primatial rights of the bishop of Rome were threatened, Leo appealed to the civil power for support, and obtained from Valentinian III the famous decree of June 6, 445, which recognized the primacy of the bishop of Rome based on the merits of Peter, the dignity of the city, and the Nicene Creed (in their interpolated form); ordained that any opposition to his rulings, which were to have the force of ecclesiastical law, should be treated as treason; and provided for the forcible extradition by provincial governors of anyone who refused to answer a summons to Rome. Faced with this decree, Hilary submitted to the pope, although under his successor, Ravennius, Leo divided the metropolitan rights between Arles and Vienne (450). -- Dispute with Dioscorus of Alexandria: In 445, Leo disputed with Pope Dioscorus, St. Cyril's successor as Pope of Alexandria, insisting that the ecclesiastical practice of his see should follow that of Rome on the basis that Mark the Evangelist, the disciple of Saint Peter and founder of the Alexandrian Church, could have had no other tradition than that of the prince of the apostles. This, of course, was not the position of the Copts, who saw the ancient patriarchates as equals. -- Council of Chalcedon: A favorable occasion for extending the authority of Rome in the East was offered in the renewal of the Christological controversy by Eutyches, who in the beginning of the conflict appealed to Leo and took refuge with him on his condemnation by Flavian. But on receiving full information from Flavian, Leo took his side decisively. In 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, after Leo's Tome on the two natures of Christ was read out, the bishops participating in the Council cried out: "This is the faith of the fathers ... Peter has spoken thus through Leo ..." -- Battling heresies: An uncompromising foe of heresy, Leo found that in the diocese of Aquileia, Pelagians were received into church communion without formal repudiation of their errors; he wrote to rebuke them, making accusations of culpable negligence, and required a solemn abjuration before a synod. Manicheans fleeing before the Vandals had come to Rome in 439 and secretly organized there; Leo learned of this around 443, and proceeded against them by holding a public debate with their representatives, burning their books, and warning the Roman Christians against them. Nor was his attitude less decided against the Priscillianists. Bishop Turrubius of Astorga, astonished at the spread of this sect in Spain, had addressed the other Spanish bishops on the subject, sending a copy of his letter to Leo, who took the opportunity to exercise Roman policy in Spain. He wrote an extended treatise (21 July 447), against the sect, examining its false teaching in detail, and calling for a Spanish general council to investigate whether it had any adherents in the episcopate, but this was prevented by the political circumstances of Spain. -- On Dignity and Equality: In his Nativitate Domini, in the Christmas Day sermon "Christian, Remember your Dignity" Leo appears to articulate a fundamental and inclusive human dignity and equality: The saint, the sinner, and the unbeliever are all equal as sinners, and none is excluded in the call to "happiness": "Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be glad. For there is no proper place for sadness, when we keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of promised eternity. No one is kept from sharing in this happiness. There is for all one common measure of joy, because as our Lord the destroyer of sin and death finds none free from charge, so is He come to free us all. Let the saint exult in that he draws near to victory. Let the sinner be glad in that he is invited to pardon. Let the gentile take courage in that he is called to life."

Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus was born at Stridon around 347. He was not baptized until about 360 or 366, when he had gone to Rome with his friend Bonosus (who may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic) to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. He studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus. There Jerome learned Latin and at least some Greek, though probably not the familiarity with Greek literature he would later claim to have acquired as a schoolboy. As a student in Rome, he engaged in the superficial activities of students there, which he indulged in quite casually but suffered terrible bouts of repentance afterwards. To appease his conscience, he would visit on Sundays the sepulchers of the martyrs and the Apostles in the catacombs. This experience would remind him of the terrors of hell: Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist's words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell. Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Vergil, "Horror unique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. Jerome used a quote from Vergil - "The horror and the silences terrified their souls" - to describe the horror of hell. Jerome initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts such as hell that indicated both his classical education and his deep shame of their associated practices, such as pederasty. Although initially skeptical of Christianity, he was eventually converted. After several years in Rome, he travelled with Bonosus to Gaul and settled in Trier where he seems to have first taken up theological studies, and where he copied, for his friend Tyrannius Rufinus, Hilary of Poitiers' commentary on the Psalms and the treatise De synodis. Next came a stay of at least several months, or possibly years, with Rufinus at Aquileia, where he made many Christian friends. Some of these accompanied him when he set out about 373 on a journey through Thrace and Asia Minor into northern Syria. At Antioch, where he stayed the longest, two of his companions died and he himself was seriously ill more than once. During one of these illnesses (about the winter of 373-374), he had a vision that led him to lay aside his secular studies and devote himself to God. He seems to have abstained for a considerable time from the study of the classics and to have plunged deeply into that of the Bible, under the impulse of Apollinaris of Laodicea, then teaching in Antioch and not yet suspected of heresy. ... The works of Hippolytus of Rome and Irenaeus greatly influenced Jerome's interpretation of prophecy. He noted the distinction between the original Septuagint and Theodotion's later substitution. Jerome warned that those substituting false interpretations for the actual meaning of Scripture belonged to the "synagogue of the Antichrist". "He that is not of Christ is of Antichrist," he wrote to Pope Damasus I. **He believed that "the mystery of iniquity" written about by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 was already in action when "every one chatters about his views." To Jerome, the power restraining this mystery of iniquity was the Roman Empire, but as it fell this restraining force was removed. He warned a noble woman of Gaul: "He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ "shall consume with the spirit of his mouth." "Woe unto them," he cries, "that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days."... Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni, and-alas! for the commonweal!-- even Pannonians. His Commentary on Daniel was expressly written to offset the criticisms of Porphyry, who taught that Daniel related entirely to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and was written by an unknown individual living in the 2nd century BC. Against Porphyry, Jerome identified Rome as the fourth kingdom of chapters two and seven, but his view of chapters eight and 11 was more complex. Jerome held that chapter eight describes the activity of Antiochus Epiphanes, who is understood as a "type" of a future antichrist; 11:24 onwards applies primarily to a future antichrist but was partially fulfilled by Antiochus. Instead, he advocated that the "little horn" was the Antichrist: We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise, who will overcome three of the ten kings... after they have been slain, the seven other kings also will bow their necks to the victor. In his Commentary on Daniel, he noted, "Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form." In interpreting 2 Thessalonians's claim that the Antichrist will sit in God's temple, Jerome preferred the view that the "temple" should be interpreted as the Church, not as the Temple in Jerusalem. Jerome identified the four prophetic kingdoms symbolized in Daniel 2 as the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Medes and Persians, Macedon, and Rome. Jerome identified the stone cut out without hands as "namely, the Lord and Savior". Jerome refuted Porphyry's application of the little horn of chapter seven to Antiochus. He expected that at the end of the world, Rome would be destroyed, and partitioned among ten kingdoms before the little horn appeared. Jerome believed that Cyrus of Persia is the higher of the two horns of the Medo-Persian ram of Daniel 8:3. The he-goat is Greece smiting Persia. Alexander [the Great] is the great horn, which is then succeeded by Alexander's half brother Philip and three of his generals.

Priesthood: In 361 Gregory returned to Nazianzus and was ordained a presbyter by his father, who wanted him to assist with caring for local Christians. The younger Gregory, who had been considering a monastic existence, resented his father's decision to force him to choose between priestly services and a solitary existence, calling it an "act of tyranny". Leaving home after a few days, he met his friend Basil at Annesoi, where the two lived as ascetics. However, Basil urged him to return home to assist his father, which he did for the next year. Arriving at Nazianzus, Gregory found the local Christian community split by theological differences and his father accused of heresy by local monks. Gregory helped to heal the division through a combination of personal diplomacy and oratory. By this time Emperor Julian had publicly declared himself in opposition to Christianity. In response to the emperor's rejection of the Christian faith, Gregory composed his Invectives Against Julian between 362 and 363. Invectives asserts that Christianity will overcome imperfect rulers such as Julian through love and patience. This process as described by Gregory is the public manifestation of the process of deification (theosis), which leads to a spiritual elevation and mystical union with God. Julian resolved, in late 362, to vigorously prosecute Gregory and his other Christian critics; however, the emperor perished the following year during a campaign against the Persians. With the death of the emperor, Gregory and the Eastern churches were no longer under the threat of persecution, as the new emperor Jovian was an avowed Christian and supporter of the church. Gregory spent the next few years combating Arianism, which threatened to divide the region of Cappadocia. In this tense environment, Gregory interceded on behalf of his friend Basil with Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (Maritima). The two friends then entered a period of close fraternal cooperation as they participated in a great rhetorical contest of the Caesarean church precipitated by the arrival of accomplished Arian theologians and rhetors. In the subsequent public debates, presided over by agents of the Emperor Valens, Gregory and Basil emerged triumphant. This success confirmed for both Gregory and Basil that their futures lay in administration of the Church. Basil, who had long displayed inclinations to the episcopacy, was elected bishop of the see of Caesarea in Cappadocia in 370. -- Gregory at Constantinople: Emperor Valens died in 378. The accession of Theodosius I, a steadfast supporter of Nicene orthodoxy, was good news to those who wished to purge Constantinople of Arian and Apollinarian domination. The exiled Nicene party gradually returned to the city. From his deathbed, Basil reminded them of Gregory's capabilities and likely recommended his friend to champion the trinitarian cause in Constantinople. In 379, the Antioch synod and its archbishop, Meletios, asked Gregory to go to Constantinople to lead a theological campaign to win over that city to Nicene orthodoxy. After much hesitation, Gregory agreed. His cousin Theodosia offered him a villa for his residence; Gregory immediately transformed much of it into a church, naming it Anastasia, "a scene for the resurrection of the faith". From this little chapel he delivered five powerful discourses on Nicene doctrine, explaining the nature of the Trinity and the unity of the Godhead. Refuting the Eunomion denial of the Holy Spirit's divinity, Gregory offered this argument: "Look at these facts: Christ is born, the Holy Spirit is His Forerunner. Christ is baptized, the Spirit bears witness to this… Christ works miracles, the Spirit accompanies them. Christ ascends, the Spirit takes His place. What great things are there in the idea of God which are not in His power? What titles appertaining to God do not apply also to Him, except for Unbegotten and Begotten? I tremble when I think of such an abundance of titles, and how many Names they blaspheme, those who revolt against the Spirit!" -- Gregory's homilies were well-received and attracted ever-growing crowds to Anastasia. Fearing his popularity, his opponents decided to strike. On the vigil of Easter in 379, an Arian mob burst into his church during worship services, wounding Gregory and killing another bishop. Escaping the mob, Gregory next found himself betrayed by his erstwhile friend, the philosopher Maximus the Cynic. Maximus, who was in secret alliance with Peter, bishop of Alexandria, attempted to seize Gregory's position and have himself ordained bishop of Constantinople. Shocked, Gregory decided to resign his office, but the faction faithful to him induced him to stay and ejected Maximus. However, the episode left him embarrassed and exposed him to criticism as a provincial simpleton unable to cope with intrigues of the imperial city. Affairs in Constantinople remained confused as Gregory's position was still unofficial and Arian priests occupied many important churches. The arrival of the emperor Theodosius in 380 settled matters in Gregory's favor. The emperor, determined to eliminate Arianism, expelled Bishop Demophilus. Gregory was subsequently enthroned as bishop of Constantinople at the Basilica of the Apostles, replacing Demophilus.

Someone may ask, "What about the Apostles' Creed?" Traditionally, in the West, the Apostles' Creed is used at Baptisms, and the Nicene Creed at the Eucharist [AKA the Mass, the Liturgy, the Lord's Supper, or the Holy Communion.] The East uses only the Nicene Creed. I here present the Nicene Creed in two English translations, The first is the traditional one, in use with minor variations since 1549, The second is a modern version, that of The Interdenominational Committee on Liturgical Texts. Notes and comment by [James E. Kiefer] follow.

Athanasius is counted as one of the Great Doctors of the Church in Eastern Orthodoxy where he is also labeled the "Father of Orthodoxy". He is also one of the four Great Doctors of the Church from the East in the Roman Catholic Church. He is renowned in the Protestant churches, who label him "Father of The Canon". Athanasius is venerated as a Christian saint, whose feast day is 2 May in Western Christianity, 15 May in the Coptic Orthodox Church, and 18 January in the other Eastern Orthodox churches. He is venerated by the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, and the Anglican Communion. ... Athanasius' letters include one "Letter Concerning the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea" (De Decretis), which is an account of the proceedings of that council, and another letter in the year 367 which was the first known listing of the New Testament including all those books now accepted everywhere as the New Testament. (earlier similar lists vary by the omission or addition of a few books, see Development of the New Testament canon). Several of his letters also survive. In one of these, to Epictetus of Corinth, Athanasius anticipates future controversies in his defense of the humanity of Christ. Another of his letters, to Dracontius, urges that monk to leave the desert for the more active duties of a bishop. There are several other works ascribed to him, although not necessarily generally accepted as being his own work. These include the Athanasian creed, which is today generally seen as being of 5th-century Galician origin. Athanasius was not what would be called a speculative theologian. As he stated in his First Letters to Serapion, he held on to "the tradition, teaching, and faith proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers." In some cases, this led to his taking the position that faith should take priority over reason. He held that not only was the Son of God consubstantial with the Father, but so was the Holy Spirit, which had a great deal of influence in the development of later doctrines regarding the Trinity.

Historical context: According to Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic tradition, [Emperor] Constantine I adopted Christianity as his system of belief after the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 A.D. His legions, who were victorious, fought under the "labarum", a standard (flag) with the first two Greek letters of Christ's name [XP - the first two (capital) letters chi (X) and rho (P) of the Greek word Christ] {Note: Constantine replaced the cross of Christianity with the letters X and P - the letters probably had a dual occult meaning}. -- In 313 A.D., the Edict of Milan legalized Christianity {Note: without mentioning Christianity by name} **alongside other religions {specifically heretical sects of Christianity} allowed in the Roman Empire. In 325 A.D., the First Council of Nicaea signaled consolidation of Christianity under an orthodoxy endorsed by Constantine, and though this did not make other Christian groups outside the adopted definition illegal, the dissenting Arian bishops [who were in all probability occult agents working for Constantine] were initially exiled. **But Constantine reinstated Arius {the heretic} before his death ***and exiled Orthodox {Christian} Athanasius of Alexandria. In 380 A.D. Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion (see State church of the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire and the Goths) and did enforce the edict. In 392 he [Emperor Theodosius I] passed legislation prohibiting all pagan cultic worship. During the 4th century, however, there was no real unity between church and state: In the course of the Arian controversy, leading Trinitarian bishops, such as Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, and Gregory of Nyssa, were exiled by Arian emperors, as were leading Arian and Anomoean theologians such as Aëtius. Towards the end of the century [during the ongoing Church and State power struggle], **Bishop Ambrose of Milan made the powerful Emperor Theodosius do penance for several months after the massacre of Thessalonica before admitting him again to the Eucharist [Communion Supper]. On the other hand, only a few years later, Chrysostom, who as bishop of Constantinople criticized the excesses of the royal court [the Government], and was eventually banished and died while traveling to his place of exile. -- Theological Implications: Theologians critical of the Constantinian shift [Government presiding over Christianity] also see it as the point at which membership in the Christian church became associated with citizenship (in the country) rather than a personal decision (with Jesus). American theologian Stanley Hauerwas names the shift as the foundation for the expression of Christianity in the United States today that is closely associated with patriotism and civil religion.

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. AD 263 - 339) also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon. He wrote Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel, and On Discrepancies between the Gospels, studies of the Biblical text. As "Father of Church History" he produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle and On the Martyrs. ... Little is known about the life of Eusebius. His successor at the see of Caesarea, Acacius, wrote a Life of Eusebius, but this work has been lost. Eusebius' own surviving works probably only represent a small portion of his total output. Since he was on the losing side of the long 4th-century contest between the allies and enemies of Arianism (Eusebius was an early and vocal supporter of *Arius), posterity did not have much respect for Eusebius' person and was neglectful in the preservation of his writings. Beyond notices in his extant writings, the major sources are the 5th-century ecclesiastical historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and the 4th-century Christian author Jerome. There are assorted notices of his activities in the writings of his contemporaries Athanasius, Arius (Arianism heresy), Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Alexander of Alexandria. Eusebius' pupil, Eusebius of Emesa, provides some incidental information. -- By the 3rd century, Caesarea had a population of about 100,000. It had been a pagan city since Pompey had given control of the city to the gentiles during his command of the eastern provinces in the 60s BC. The gentiles retained control of the city in the three centuries since that date, despite Jewish petitions for joint governorship. Gentile government was strengthened by the city's refoundation under Herod the Great (r. 37-4 BC), when it had taken on the name of Augustus Caesar. In addition to the gentile settlers, Caesarea had large Jewish and Samaritan minorities. Eusebius was probably born into the Christian contingent of the city. Caesarea's Christian community presumably had a history reaching back to apostolic times, but it is a common claim that no bishops are attested for the town before about AD 190, even though the Apostolic Constitutions 7.46 states that Zacchaeus was the first bishop. -- Through the activities of the theologian Origen (185/6-254) and the school of his follower Pamphilus (later 3rd century - 309 AD), Caesarea became a center of Christian learning. Origen was largely responsible for the collection of usage information regarding the texts which became the New Testament. The information used to create the late-fourth-century Easter Letter, which declared accepted Christian writings, was probably based on the Ecclesiastical History [HE] of Eusebius of Caesarea, wherein he uses the information passed on to him by Origen to create both his list at HE 3:25 and Origen's list at HE 6:25. Eusebius got his information about what texts were accepted by the third-century churches throughout the known world, a great deal of which Origen knew of firsthand from his extensive travels, from the library and writings of Origen. In fact, Origen would have possibly included in his list of "inspired writings" other texts which were kept out by the likes of Eusebius, including the Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, and 1 Clement. On his deathbed, Origen had made a bequest of his private library to the Christian community in the city. Together with the books of his patron Ambrosius, Origen's library (including the original manuscripts of his works formed the core of the collection that Pamphilus established. Pamphilus also managed a school that was similar to (or perhaps a re-establishment of) that of Origen. Pamphilus was compared to Demetrius of Phalerum and Pisistratus, for he had gathered Bibles "from all parts of the world". Like his model Origen, Pamphilus maintained close contact with his students. Eusebius, in his history of the persecutions, alludes to the fact that many of the Caesarean martyrs lived together, presumably under Pamphilus.

Origen was probaby born in Alexandria, to Christian parents. Origen was educated by his father, St. Leonides, who gave him a standard Hellenistic education, but also had him study the Christian Scriptures. In 202, Origen's father was martyred in the outbreak of the persecution during the reign of Septimius Severus. A story reported by Eusebius has it that Origen wished to follow him in martyrdom, but was prevented only by his mother hiding his clothes. The death of Leonides left the family of nine impoverished when their property was confiscated. Origen, however, was taken under the protection of a woman of wealth and standing; but as her household already included a heretic named Paul, the strictly orthodox Origen seems to have remained with her only a short time. -- Eusebius of Caesarea, our chief witness to Origen's life, says that in 203 Origen revived the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had once taught but had apparently been driven out during the persecution under Severus. Many modern scholars, however, doubt that Clement's school had been an official ecclesiastical institution as Origen's was and thus deny continuity between the two. But the persecution still raged, and the young teacher visited imprisoned Christians, attended the courts, and comforted the condemned, himself preserved from persecution because the persecution was probably limited only to converts to Christianity. His fame and the number of his pupils increased rapidly, so that Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria, made him restrict himself to instruction in Christian doctrine alone. -- His own interests became more and more centered in exegesis, and he accordingly studied Hebrew, though there is no certain knowledge concerning his instructor in that language. From about this period (212-213) dates Origen's acquaintance with Ambrose of Alexandria, whom he was instrumental in converting from Valentinianism to orthodoxy. Later (about 218 A.D.) Ambrose of Alexandria {not to be confused with Saint Ambrose (337 - 4 April 397 A.D.) Bishop of Milan}, a man of wealth, made a formal agreement with Origen to promulgate his writings, and all the subsequent works of Origen (except his sermons, which were not expressly prepared for publication) were dedicated to Ambrose. In 213 or 214, Origen visited Arabia at the request of the prefect, who wished to have an interview with him; and Origen accordingly spent a brief time in Petra, after which he returned to Alexandria. In the following year, a popular uprising at Alexandria caused Caracalla to let his soldiers plunder the city, shut the schools, and expel all foreigners. The latter measure caused Ambrose to take refuge in Caesarea, where he seems to have made his permanent home; and Origen left Egypt, apparently going with Ambrose to Caesarea, where he spent some time. Here, in conformity with local usage based on Jewish custom, Origen, though not ordained, preached and interpreted the Scriptures at the request of the bishops Alexander of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea. When, however, the confusion in Alexandria subsided, Demetrius recalled Origen, probably in 216 A.D. -- Origen excelled in multiple branches of theological scholarship, including textual criticism, biblical interpretation, philosophical theology, preaching, and spirituality. Some of his teachings, however, quickly became controversial. Notably, he frequently referred to his hypothesis of the pre-existence of souls. As in the beginning all intelligent beings were united to God, Origen also held out the possibility, though he did not assert so definitively, that in the end all beings, perhaps even the arch-fiend Satan, would be reconciled to God in what is called the apokatastasis ("restitution"). Origen's views on the Trinity, in which he saw the Son of God as subordinate to God the Father, became controversial during the Arian controversy of the fourth century, though a subordinationist view was common among the ante-Nicene Fathers. A group who came to be known as Origenists, and who firmly believed in the preexistence of souls and the apokatastasis, were declared anathema in the 6th century. This condemnation is attributed to the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, though it does not appear in the council's official minutes. Few scholars today believe that Origen should be blamed, as he commonly was in the past, for tentatively putting forward hypotheses, later judged heretical, on certain philosophical problems during a time when Christian doctrine was somewhat unclear on said problems.

Clement was born probably c. 150 A.D. of heathen parentage at Athens. The circumstances of his conversion are not known. It is supposed that he was troubled, like Justin, by the problem of God and, like him, was attracted to Christianity by the nobility and purity of the evangelical doctrines and morals. His conversion, if it had not yet taken place, was at least imminent when he undertook the journeys spoken of in his writings. He set out from Greece and travelled through southern Italy, Palestine, and finally Egypt, seeking everywhere the society of Christian teachers. -- Towards 180 A.D., he met Pantaenus at Alexandria, and took up his permanent residence in that city. There he was ordained a presbyter and, from being a disciple of Pantaenus, became, in 190, his associate and fellow-teacher. In 202 A.D. or 203 A.D., he was forced to suspend his lessons on account of the persecution of Septimius Severus, which closed the Christian school of Alexandria. He withdrew into Cappadocia, residing there with his former disciple, Bishop Alexander. We meet him again in 211 A.D., carrying to the Christians of Antioch a letter from Alexander, in which are mentioned the services he, Clement, had rendered in Cappadocia.-- In 215 A.D. or 216 A.D.the same Alexander, now bishop of Jerusalem, writes to Origen and speaks of Clement as having gone to his rest. Clement must therefore have died between 211 A.D. and 216 A.D. Ancient authors speak of him as St. Clement, but his name was not admitted to the Roman Martyrology by Benedict XIV.

Tertullian lived in the ancient city of Carthage in what is now Tunisia, sometime around 200 AD. Very little is known about his life - that little comes either from writers two centuries later, or from the scanty personal notes in his works. Much of it has been asserted to be untrue anyway by some modern writers. He was born a member of the educated classes, and clearly gained a good education. Life in his times wasn't very different in some ways to the modern day - he indulged his passions as he saw fit, including sex, and like everyone else attended the games where gladiators killed each other and criminals were eaten alive, for the enjoyment of the spectators. But among the sights he saw, was that of Christians being executed this way. He was struck with the courage with which stupid and contemptible slave men and little slave girls faced a hideous death, against all nature; and after investigating, became a Christian himself, and turned his budding talents to writing in defense of this despised and victimised group. Tertullian was the first Christian writer to write in Latin, and was described three centuries later as writing 'first, and best, and incomparably', of all the writers to do so. (by the unknown author of 'Praedestinatus'). His writing is aggressive, sarcastic and brilliant, and at points very funny even after 2000 years. He was deeply conscious of his own failings, and had a burning desire for truth and integrity. He was described by Jerome as celebrated in all the churches as a speaker; and his works bear the marks of the need to keep an audience awake! His erudition was immense. Much of what he read is lost, but what remains gives a picture of wide reading, which was celebrated even in antiquity. He wrote a great number of works - how many is unknown. Thirty-one are extant; lists of known lost works are elsewhere on this site; but we have no reason to suppose this to be anything like an exhaustive list. Most of those extant have come down to us by the slenderest of threads, and the very nature of Tertullian's terse and ironic style, means that copyists made many errors, and in some cases his text is beyond certain restoration. Not all of his works were ever completed. His most important work is the Apologeticum, in defense of the Christians. Running it close must be Adversus Praxean, in which the doctrine of the Trinity comes into clear focus for the first time, in response to a heretic who was twisting the biblical balance between the persons of the Godhead. In this work, he created most of the terminology with which this doctrine was to be referred (and is still), such as Trinitas, etc. His discussion of how heretical arguments are in general to be handled in De praescriptio haereticorum also deserves wider recognition. Tertullian wrote no systematic theology; all of his works are brought forth by a local event, a persecution, or a heretic. In his time, the church finally decided to reject a movement calling itself 'The New Prophecy', and known later as Montanism. The New Prophecy made no doctrinal innovations, but said that the Holy Spirit was calling Christians to a more ascetic position. But obeying the prophets inevitably meant a problem, if the bishop did not recognise their authority. Tertullian had grown angry at what looked like compromise creeping into the church - unwillingness to be martyred, willingness to forgive more serious public sins - and aligned himself with the Montanists [it was a prophetic movement that called for a reliance on the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit and a more conservative personal ethic. Parallels have been drawn between Montanism and modern day movements such as Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement - wiki.com]. It is unclear whether this involved actually leaving the church, but his later works are avowedly Montanist, and one or two explictly attack the mainstream church on these points. As such he was not recognised as a Saint, despite his orthodoxy, and his works were all marked as condemned in the 6th Century Decretum Gelasianum. His later life is unknown, and we do not know if he was martyred or died of old age as Jerome says.

Hippolytus of Rome (170 - 235) was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome, where he was probably born. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus, who was said to be a disciple of Polycarp, and from the context of this passage it is supposed that he suggested that Hippolytus himself so styled himself. However, this assertion is doubtful. He came into conflict with the popes of his time and seems to have headed a schismatic group as a rival bishop of Rome. For that reason he is sometimes considered the first Antipope. He opposed the Roman bishops who softened the penitential system to accommodate the large number of new pagan converts. However, he was very probably reconciled to the Church when he died as a martyr. He is the person usually understood to be meant by Saint Hippolytus. Starting in the 4th century, various legends arose about him, identifying him as a priest of the Novatianist Schism or as a soldier converted by Saint Laurence. He has also been confused with another martyr of the same name.

Relatively little is known of the life of Irenaeus. As a boy he had, as he delighted to point out, listened to the sermons of the great bishop and martyr, Polycarp of Smyrna, who was regarded as a disciple of the apostles themselves. Here he came to know, 'the genuine unadulterated gospel', to which he remained faithful throughout his life. Perhaps he also accompanied Polycarp on his journey to Rome in connection with the controversy over the date of celebrating Easter (154 CE). Later he went as a missionary to southern Gaul, where he became a presbyter at Lyons. A Catholic Encyclopedia article is online at St. Irenaeus. Irenaeus was absent from the city when the persecution there reached its zenith. It seems that he had been sent to Rome by the Gallican churches in order to confer with Pope Eleutherus, perhaps as a mediator in the Montanist disputes. Evidently Irenaeus stayed in Rome for just a short time, and soon after the end of the persecution we find him again in Lyons as the successor to Bishop Pothinus (178). When and how he died is unknown to us. Jerome and others state that he died as a martyr in the persecution under the Emperor Septimus Severus (202), but there is no certainty about this tradition. In short, we know Irenaeus almost solely from his writings, and these have not been preserved in their entirety. ... The era in which Irenaeus lived was a time of expansion and inner tensions in the church. In many cases Irenaeus acted as mediator between various contending factions. The churches of Asia Minor (where he was probably born) continued to celebrate Easter on the same date (the 14th of Nisan) as the Jews celebrated Passover, whereas the Roman Church maintained that Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday (the day of the Resurrection). Mediating between the parties, Irenaeus stated that differences in external factors, such as dates of festivals, need not be so serious as to destroy church unity. Irenaeus adopted a totally negative and unresponsive attitude, however, toward Marcion, a schismatic leader in Rome, and toward the Valentinians, a fashionable intellectual Gnostic movement in the rapidly expanding church that espoused dualism. Because Gnosticism was overcome by the Orthodox Church, Gnostic writings were largely obliterated. In reconstructing Gnostic doctrines, therefore, modern scholars relied to a great extent on the writings of Irenaeus, who summarized the Gnostic views before attacking them. After the discovery of the Gnostic library near Nag Hammadi in Egypt in the 1940s (see Robinson), respect for Irenaeus increased. He was proved to have been extremely precise in his report of the doctrines he rejected. The oldest lists of bishops also were countermeasures against the Gnostics, who said that they possessed a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself. Against such statements Irenaeus maintains that the bishops in different cities are known as far back as the Apostles - and none of them was a Gnostic - and that the bishops provided the only safe guide to the interpretation of the Scriptures. With these lists of bishops the later doctrine of "the apostolic succession" of the bishops could be linked.