This Week's Work

Here's what I'll be working on this week. Feel free to answer any of these via comment:

• How did the Decian persecution, with its requirement that Christians participate in traditional sacrifices, engage the problems of moral and ritual purity?
• Be prepared to compare the Alexandrian, Antiochene and Augustinian understandings of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and to relate each of these to the corresponding teaching on the process of salvation.
• What is the foundation in belief about Christ and the church for Augustine’s doctrine of inherited guilt?
• Compare the understanding of the initial condition of humanity, the description of the fall, its consequences, and how those consequences fit into the plan of salvation in Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine.
• Compare Tertullian’s understanding of the relation of the bishop to the apostles to that of Cyprian: in what sense does each have a theory of "apostolic succession"?
• How did the relationship between emperor and church change from Constantine to Theodosius? How did Ambrose of Milan influence this change?
• How did the missionary efforts in Ireland, England and Europe, as well as the establishment of the Carolingian Empire contribute to the expansion of the influence of the bishop of Rome?