The Oldest Monastery in Europe?
Does new research push the date of a monastery in Bulgaria, founded by St. Athanasius himself, back to 344 AD? Definitely maybe: Bulgarian archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is the oldest...
View Article“New life in God”: Irenaeus on Pentecost
“When the Lord told his disciples to go and teach all nations and to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he conferred on them the power of giving men new life...
View ArticleThe Tunics of St. Ambrose
The Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, first consecrated in 379, was built by St. Ambrose at a site where Christians had been executed. For at least a thousand years (and almost certainly longer) the...
View ArticleAncient Christian Text “Charm” Found
A 1500 year old fragment of papyrus was discovered University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library. One side is a piece of “scrap paper”: a receipt for payment of a grain tax. On the other side of the...
View ArticleGhostly Visions in the Early Church
The early church fathers were acquainted with ghosts and ghostly visions, as the previous entries on ghosts in Old and New Testaments make clear. Two notable examples of ghosts in the literature of the...
View ArticleTertullian’s Deceiving Devils [Ghosts and the Church]
In De anima, Tertullian acknowledges the extensive literature about ghosts, but rejects it as a “fraud.” He has specific pagan lore in mind: the idea that some could “call back from Hades the souls of...
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