Notes on the use of Irenaeus and Justin Martyr in Isaac Newton’s Of the Church*

2017 ◽  
pp. 250-262
Keyword(s):  
Justin Martyr ◽  
The Church

scholarly journals Tertullian on the Trinity

Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Bryan M. Litfin
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
New Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Generation Theory ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
Eternal Generation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Abstract Tertullian is often portrayed as a prescient figure who accurately anticipated the Nicene consensus about the Trinity. But when he is examined against the background of his immediate predecessors, he falls into place as a typical second-century Logos theologian. He drew especially from Theophilus of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons. At the same time, Tertullian did introduce some important innovations. His trinitarian language of ‘substance’ and ‘person’, rooted in Stoic metaphysics, offered the church a new way to be monotheistic while retaining the full deity and consubstantiality of the Word. Tertullian also significantly developed the concept of a divine oikonomia, God’s plan to create and redeem the world. The Son and Spirit are emissaries of the Father’s will—not ontologically inferior to him, yet ranked lower in the way that the sent are always subordinate to the sender. For this reason, Tertullian denied that a Father/Son relationship was eternal within the Trinity, seeing it rather as a new development emerging from God’s plan to make the world. Such temporal paternity and filiation distances Tertullian from the eventual Nicene consensus, which accepted instead the eternal generation theory of Origen. While Tertullian did propose some important terms that would gain traction among the Nicene fathers, he was also marked by a subordinationist tendency that had affinities with Arianism. Tertullian’s most accurate anticipation of Nicaea was his insistence on three co-eternal and consubstantial Persons. Historical theologians need to start admitting that Tertullian was a far cry from being fully Nicene. Rather, he offered a clever but still imperfect half-step toward what would become official orthodoxy..

Penal substitutionary atonement in the later ante-Nicene period

2015 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-346
Author(s):  
Peter Ensor
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
Penal Substitution ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
The Church

This article surveys passages from the writings of Hippolytus, Cyprian, Methodius, Lactantius and Alexander of Alexandria with a view to elucidating their implied understanding of the significance of the death of Christ on the cross. It is argued that the authors whose works are reviewed held the belief that Christ died in our place, bearing the punishment for sin we deserved, with the result that those who trust in him might receive forgiveness, eternal life, and all the other blessings of salvation. The evidence adduced in this article, together with that adduced in the previous articles on Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, combine to show that the doctrine of penal substitution was not an invention of the Protestant Reformation, as has recently been alleged, but was present already in the thinking of the Church during the post-apostolic period.

The Sanctus and the Pattern of the Early Anaphora: a note on the Roman Sanctus

1951 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-23
Author(s):  
Arthur H. Couratin
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
The People ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
Eucharistic Prayer ◽  
The Church

In his second article on the Pattern of the Early Anaphora Professor Ratcliff claims that the Eucharistic Prayer in the first ages of the Church ended with the singing of the Sanctus; and in a footnote on pages 130–1 he claims that ‘although the singing of the Sanctus by the people was a general usage in the fourth century, there is no reason to suppose that it was universal in the earlier centuries. “Amen” is the people's sole utterance according to Justin Martyr (Apol. 65, 67)’. But is there any positive evidence which would lead us to think that the Sanctus was sung, like the passage about Angels and Archangels which presumably preceded it, by the celebrant alone, and that the people merely sang ‘Amen’ at its conclusion? It is the purpose of this note to suggest that such evidence does exist, and that it supplies further evidence with regard to the text of the Sanctus in the Roman Eucharistic Prayer.

Justin Martyr in Recent Study

1969 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-164
Author(s):  
L. W. Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Outstanding Contribution ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Church

Justin Martyr was one of the most important of the second-century Christian Apologists. He made an outstanding contribution to the intellectual tradition of Christian thought by his interpretation of the logos and was also the first thinker after St. Paul to grasp the universalistic element in Christianity and to sum up the history of civilisation as finding its consummation in Christ. Yet Justin was far more than a Christian intellectual for his approach is biblical, pastoral and evangelistic and firmly based on God's care and love for men revealed supremely in Jesus Christ. And, as has long been recognised, the information that he gives about Christian worship and sacraments is of high value as being the fullest account to have come down from the ante-Nicene period of the Church.

Patristic Arguments against the Eternity of the World

1966 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry A. Wolfson
Keyword(s):  
New Method ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
Theodoret Of Cyrrhus ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
The Church

According to Aristotle himself, all the philosophers before him are agreed that the world was generated, which implies that he was the first to introduce the conception of an ungenerated world; but, according to John Philoponus, Aristotle was only the first among the natural philosophers who discovered a new method to establish the principle that the world had no beginning. Among the Church Fathers, Lactantius sometimes attributes the belief in the eternity of the world explicitly to Aristotle, but sometimes he refers it vaguely to “those who say that the world always existed.” Vague references to a belief in the eternity of the world, or to such a belief described as held by some people or by some philosophers, are to be found also in the works of such Fathers as Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Origen, Arnobius, Basil, Augustine, and Diodorus Tarsus. Two pre-Socratic philosophers are mentioned by some Fathers as exponents of the belief in the eternity of the world: Xenophanes by Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus; Pythagoras by Tertullian. Various arguments are used by the Fathers in their refutation of this view. These arguments, selected and grouped into six types, are the subject of discussion of the present paper.

Spiritual Healing, Sick Kids and the Law: Inequities in the American Healthcare System

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 269-299
Author(s):  
Janna C. Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Medical Science ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Religious Minority ◽  
Human Need ◽  
East End ◽  
The Church

Main Street in Sarasota, Florida. A high-tech medical arts building rises from the east end, the county's historic three-story courthouse is two blocks to the west and sandwiched in between is the First Church of Christ, Scientist. A verse inscribed on the wall behind the pulpit of the church reads: “Divine Love Always Has Met and Always Will Meet Every Human Need.” This is the church where William and Christine Hermanson worshipped. It is just a few steps away from the courthouse where they were convicted of child abuse and third-degree murder for failing to provide conventional medical care for their seven-year-old daughter.This Article is about the intersection of “divine love” and “the best interests of the child.” It is about a pluralistic society where the dominant culture reveres medical science, but where a religious minority shuns and perhaps fears that same medical science. It is also about the struggle among different religious interests to define the legal rights of the citizenry.

Ideas and Leaders in Contentious Politics: One Parish Priest in El Salvador's Popular Movement

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 76-101
Author(s):  
PETER M. SANCHEZ
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Parish Priest ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Resource Mobilisation ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis paper examines the actions of one Salvadorean priest – Padre David Rodríguez – in one parish – Tecoluca – to underscore the importance of religious leadership in the rise of El Salvador's contentious political movement that began in the early 1970s, when the guerrilla organisations were only just beginning to develop. Catholic leaders became engaged in promoting contentious politics, however, only after the Church had experienced an ideological conversion, commonly referred to as liberation theology. A focus on one priest, in one parish, allows for generalisation, since scores of priests, nuns and lay workers in El Salvador followed the same injustice frame and tactics that generated extensive political mobilisation throughout the country. While structural conditions, collective action and resource mobilisation are undoubtedly necessary, the case of religious leaders in El Salvador suggests that ideas and leadership are of vital importance for the rise of contentious politics at a particular historical moment.

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