Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, i. 13.29, accessed April 27, 2017, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes/.
49. Margherita Guarducci, The Primacy of the Church of Rome: Documents, Reflections, Proofs, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 27–28.
50. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans, 4, trans. James A. Kleist, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1946), 82.
51. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, 8. Catholic is derived from the Greek term for “universal.” Many mistakenly believe the Church’s name is the Roman Catholic Church. That term is a Protestant one developed in the nineteenth century by Anglican (Church of England) theologians studying ecclesiology who posited the Church was one tree with several branches (their teaching is known as the “branch theory”), which they identified as Anglo-Catholic (Church of England and Episcopalians in the United States), Orthodox, and Roman Catholic, or those united with the pope. The term “Roman Catholic” from this theory became the standard English language term for the Church in the twentieth century, but it is not a Catholic term and is never used officially by the Church.
52. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians, 4.
53. Saint Ignatius’a death is usually cited as A.D. 107, but Warren Carroll supports, convincingly, a later date of 116. See Warren H. Carroll, The Founding of Christendom: A History of Christendom, vol. 1 (Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press, 1985), 480.
54. The eradication of heresy is a difficult task, as the history of the Church illustrates. Heresies that are refuted and condemned in one century arise and return with a vengeance in later centuries, making heresy akin to the carnival/arcade game Whack-a-Mole. The Church addresses the false teaching definitely and “whacks” it down, but it reappears later in a mutated form. Gnosticism is a prime example, as it is refuted in the second century but returns in the form of Manichaeism in the fourth century, and then as Albigensianism (or Catharism) in the thirteenth century, and even makes an appearance in the twentieth century with the Heaven’s Gate cult.
55. Benedict XVI, Wednesday General Audience on Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, March 28, 2007, in Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 22.
56. The original title was An Exposition and Refutation of What is Falsely Called Knowledge.
57. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I, 10, 1–2.
58. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 3.2; translation in Guarducci, The Primacy of the Church of Rome, 19.
59. Carroll, The Founding of Christendom, 460.
60. Ibid., 461.
61. Chadwick, The Early Church, 53.
62. The heresy was also known as Monarichianism, Patripassianism, or Sabellianism (for Sabellius, the main proponent of the heresy in Rome in the early third century). A Modalist, for example, believed that God the Father appeared in the mode of God the Son on earth.
63. It was believed that as a slave Callistus had embezzled his master’s money.
64. The pontificates of Saint Callistus I (r. 217–222), Saint Urban I (r. 222–230), and Saint Pontian (r. 230–235).
65. Justin, Dialogue 8, 1, quoted in Benedict XVI, Wednesday General Audience on Saint Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, March 21, 2007, in Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 19.
66. Ibid.
67. Chadwick, Early Church, 78.
68. Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 66, accessed September 18, 2018, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm.
69. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 2. He was also the first Church Father to write in Latin rather than Greek.
70. See Mike Aquilina, The Fathers of the Church: An Introduction to the First Christian Teachers, Expanded Edition (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2006), 92.
71. Ibid.
72. Tertullian, Apology 37, 39, 42.
73. Ibid., 50:13.
74. Chadwick, The Early Church, 109.
75. Ibid.
76. There is much debate about Origen’s alleged self-mutilation. Eusebius of Caesarea records a story that Origen, taking the Lord’s explication of chastity in Matthew 19:12 literally, castrated himself in order to ensure chastity while catechizing women. Other accounts indicate Origen did not castrate himself, but that he took drugs to maintain celibacy.
77. See Adrian Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 158.
78. The Church adopted the imperial structure and retained the name for administrative regions when the Empire collapsed in the West in the late fifth century.
79. Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell, 164.
80. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 76.
81. Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society, 692.
82. Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 70–71.
83. Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. G. A. Williamson (New York: Penguin, 1965), Book VIII, 9, p. 265.
84. Ibid., VIII, 8.
85. Michael Grant, Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), 137.
86. Tertullian, Apology 37, 39, 42.
Three
Conversions
“Jesus Christ, you who Clotilda maintains to be the Son of the living God … I beg the glory of your help. If you will give me victory over my enemies … then I will believe in you and I will be baptized in your name. I have called upon my own gods, but, as I see only too clearly, they have no intention of helping me. I therefore cannot believe that they possess any power, for they do not come to the assistance of those who trust in them. I now call upon you. I want to believe in you, but I must first be saved from my enemies.” 1
Clovis, King of the Franks
The dream confirmed his deepest desires. As a little boy, he had wandered off from his parents and gone missing for several days. But to the surprise of his pagan parents, he was found inside a Christian church. The curious boy, son of a Roman soldier stationed in Gaul, had been enamored with the stories he heard of Christian monks and their unique lifestyle. Now, after giving half his military-issued cloak to a freezing beggar who had been ignored by other passersby, the young soldier received confirmation in a dream that his future would be guided by service to the poor as a Christian. However, the young man would soon learn that what he wanted to do was not exactly what the Lord required of him. He found solace as a hermit,
