St. Paul The Apostle
As we know, Muslims like to blame St. Paul for Christianity turning out how it did. In other words, if the documents that tell us about Jesus Christ and the early Church tell us something different than what a 7th century illiterate Arab from the Hijaz tells us, St. Paul is the culprit. This wasn’t always the case. Early Muslims didn’t talk negatively about St. Paul. It took a few centuries to put this narrative in place.
The fourth crusade is the crusade where the crusaders sacked Constantinople and end up occupying it for half a century. It’s a very low point in relations with the Greek Church and only added fuel to the fire of the Humbert vs. Cerularius episode in 1054. I’ve been reading primary sources on this crusade and it turns out there is another blunder that the crusaders made.
There is an argument that I’ve heard a couple times in my life in terms a supposed contradiction in the Bible. It looks really clever on the surface but deep down it’s a joke. I’m bringing this to your attention because recently a secularist tried to use this one on me. I have heard this from a Muslim apologist as well. I won’t tell you which Muslim but I’ll just add that he’s been exposed as a racist who doxxes people.
Whenever there is a bestseller I always need to read it. If a book has been on the top of the New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks or so I have to read it; even if I’ve never read anything by the author, if anything just to know what the culture is thinking. The same applies to books in the religious realm in which the book Pope Peter by Joe Heschmeyer fits the bill. Catholic and Protestant YouTubers are talking about this book and Heschmeyer is having quite a few interviews. I decided to take the plunge and read it.
I want to give a follow up on the book that I talked about in my last post; the St. Robert Bellarmine book on purgatory. To make a long story short, that book really changed me. St. Robert Bellarmine makes an airtight case for purgatory using both testaments, the Church fathers and Church councils. To make a long story short, purgatory exists and St. Robert Bellarmine has proved it beyond reasonable doubt.
I’ve been reading a lot of St. Robert Bellarmine lately thanks to the brilliant translating done by Ryan Grant at Mediatrix Press. I’ve been reading his book on Purgatory and think that it tells some pretty interesting things about Church history. I want to comment on one thing that he said and draw some other historical conclusions with other examples.
A fellow apologist that I know highly recommended The Church and the Papacy by Trevor Jalland. Jalland was an Anglican scholar who lived in the 20th century. The more I do research, the more I realize that Anglicans in the 1800s and the early 1900s wrote some pretty amazing stuff. I’ve scoffed at Anglicans before but I honestly do want to take that back because they have a rich intellectual tradition. This book was originally published in 1942. I’ve typically only reviewed newer books on this website but I couldn’t let this one go. It’s out of print but used copies are available.
I hope that all of my readers had a Merry Christmas. It’s not a normal Christmas but I think that we can agree that the last thing we can call 2020 is normal. Who knows what 2021 will bring. There is a Church Father that is extremely neglected in Church History. Most people don’t know his name and even fewer people have read his writings. In the Christian East he’s essentially unknown and in the West the situation is slightly better and do I mean slightly. His name is Optatus of Milevis and he lived in the 4th century.
I’ve tried to avoid talking about the Coronavirus and the pandemic but I’m just getting really tired of it. At the end of the day people will have lost jobs, livelihoods, savings, all because a of a bad flu season. There is no reason for this lockdown. As someone who reads a lot of Church history, I want to share some history.
When you study the early Church, you find that Peter is affiliated with three cities. Ironically these three cities became the three early Patriarchates of the Church. These are Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. Peter had a hand in the early stages of each Church.