Roy Donovan ACP Leadership Team responds to Bishop Coll on Synodality…
Bishop Coll is quoted in an Irish Catholic article (see below)
Michael Sean Winters writes in NCR that ‘the documents and the historical event of Vatican II were the result of twin impulses, aggiornamento, or bringing the church up to date, and ressourcement, returning to the sources’. Surely Synodality seeks to continue those same impulses by listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying through all the baptised?
At the recent launch of Transformative Renewal in the Catholic Church written by Fr John O’Brien CSSp, Bishop Niall Coll spoke of integrating Synodality and tradition. Yet, Mary T. Malone, in her book, The Elephant in the Church, argues that Vat 11 did not go back far enough into the tradition. She suggests it needed to go back to St Paul when women shared leadership and ministries alongside men, before a patriarchal model of Church took hold and became dominant. Is Bishop Coll willing to revisit that earlier tradition, prior to the emergence of the patriarchal model? His emphasis on doctrinal certainty seems to suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, women are increasingly being placed at the top of the agenda in global Synodal listening processes, with calls for greater participation in decision-making, policy, ministries, to challenge long-standing patriarchal structures.
Bishop Coll spoke about the ‘I-Gen’ young Catholic generation not demanding doctrinal change but wanting doctrinal solidity. Little is said about the many Catholics who have left and are leaving the Catholic Church, and who may never return under its present structures. He stresses formation and catechesis but one must ask if this is more conditioning into the patriarchal system? Many Catholics who attend Mass every weekend want a quick Mass – the best of luck with catechising them!
Are certainty and doctrinal solidity just another form of cultural Catholicism? Where does faith fit in? Where in all of this is Jesus whose relationship to God is to a God of unending compassion? Is faith reduced to satisfying God through doctrinal precision?
Does Bishop Coll’s position echo that of other Irish Bishops on Synodality – that Synodality might threaten episcopal authority by requiring genuine listening to the laity? Does he want an episcopal-led Synodality with controlled outcomes firmly enmeshed in the safety of the pyramidal, patriarchal model of the Church?
Bishop Coll: Young Catholics seek ‘doctrinal solidity, not adaptability’
Garry O’Sullivan February 26, 2026
While Church debates continue about synodality and reform in preparation for an Irish Synod in October, Bishop Niall Coll of Raphoe has delivered a clear and sometimes firm message: the next generation of Catholics is not looking for endless discussion or progressive experimentation — they are looking for truth.
Speaking to a gathering of over 100 people at Kimmage Manor for the launch of Transformative Renewal in the Catholic Church, by Fr John O’Brien CSSp, Bishop Coll spoke about what he called the “I-Gen” — young Catholics born from 1995 onward and “Gen-Z”.
Far from demanding doctrinal change, Bishop Coll said this generation is showing signs of renewed seriousness about the faith. “Growing up (since 1995) entirely in a post-Christian, digital, morally fragmented culture they have no inherited memory of Catholic Ireland. Paradoxically, this leads many of them to seek clarity, coherence and tradition. Often converts they are drawn to doctrinal solidity, sacramental depth and continuity with the Church’s tradition. For them the Church lies in truth that is intelligible in body and demanding, not adaptability”, he said.
The Bishop suggested that while synodal conversations often focus on structures and processes, many young Catholics are asking a more basic question: What does the Church actually believe? “Having grown up amid constant choice, information overload and moral ambiguity, they are less interested in conversation and more in formation that produces conviction and confidence.”
In a pointed remark, Bishop Coll observed that the Catholics he encounters are not consumed by progressive agendas. “If you are in a leadership position today, most people you meet are not on fire with progressive questions and it is hard for me to say that to you.”
Instead, he warned that synodality detached from doctrine risks drifting into directionless debate. “And this leads me to propose that synodality, if not anchored in scripture and doctrine risks endless discussion without direction. This highlights one of the most pressing challenges: catechesis and catechist formation. Renewal cannot be sustained without formation.”
He pointed to weak catechesis as a central factor in the Church’s present fragility, warning that many young Catholics now encounter the faith online — often through fragmented and polarised sources — rather than through structured teaching in parishes or schools. “A synodal church requires not only participation but understanding, not only voice but formation. The People of God cannot discern together unless they can articulate what they believe and why.”
Bishop Coll said that the book’s author offered a framework that seeks to hold tensions together. “His emphasis on mutual learning with integrity indicates a framework by which the hunger among i-Gen Catholics for coherence and tradition might be received as a gift to the Church not a problem to be managed. Synodality must hold together listening and teaching, discernment and authority. The task is not to choose between synodality and tradition but to integrate them.”
And he issued a sober reminder to those expecting quick fixes. “Renewal will be slow and sometimes uneven. It requires sustained theological clarity and spiritual depth.”
And he concluded: “Transformative Renewal in the Catholic Church offers the Irish Church and indeed the Church in Britain, a welcome, hopeful and realistic vision beyond institutional collapse and I’m delighted to be part of its launch. Its reception must include serious attention to formation, catechesis and the theological instincts of i-Gen Catholics, while situating ecclesial failure within a wider societal crisis. The future of Irish Catholicism will depend on whether the Church can become both synodal and coherent: a church that listens deeply, teaches clearly, forms intentionally and bears warm witness in a wounded world.”
Well said, Roy an excellent response to our new bishop in my home diocese of Raphoe sounding less than positive about what is surely the Spirit led initiative/ process that is synodality.
Back to the writing of St. Paul indeed.
For example, Andronicus and Junia “prominent among the apostles” to quote Paul and they were husband and wife, imagine that!!
The sad fact of the matter is that most young people – even those brought up in the faith, like my children —- couldn’t give two hoots whether it’s back to tradition or renewal. They are seriously browned off with our institutional church though still retaining their faith in the good news expressed by Jesus in the Gospels.
Doctrinal tradition, for example, the continued vilification of men and women and boys and girls with a homosexual orientation and the continued belittling of women, will not stop the exodus of young people and older people too from the church.
The Synod at least presents the opportunity of reversing the medieval instincts that still seem to blight our church.
Thanks, Roy.
Does Bishop Coll’s ‘doctrinal solidity’ include the YouCat assertion that Christ’s death “did not come about through tragic external circumstances” but solely through the will of God – inevitably compromising the Father in the plotting, cruelty and violence of the Crucifixion? (YouCat Q98)
It is one thing to claim that young people are looking for ‘solid doctrine’. It is something else entirely to claim that Catholic doctrine as outlined in this standard Catechism for Catholic youth is clear or ‘solid’, and likely to appeal to young people. Especially because YouCat totally lacks a framework within which young people can make the vital intellectual connection between SIN and VIOLENCE.
What Catholic tradition calls the root of all sin and all violence – superbia, traditionally translated as ‘pride’ – is totally missing from this work, and ‘pride’ is not even indexed. Inevitably also there is no explanation of the shameful covering up – by the magisterium – of clerical sexual abuse, a grave and violent sin that was also obviously a result of ecclesiastical pride. Every intelligent young person has a right to that explanation of the historical disaster that has totally undermined the authority of the magisterium to which Bishop Coll belongs.
As personally a committed and observant Catholic aged 84 I could not at this moment recommend any of my grandchildren (all female and in their teens) to consider joining the church until doctrinal clarity and integrity (holiness) has been recovered by the magisterium, including St Paul’s belief in the radical equality of all Christians and the inclusion of women – by Jesus Christ himself – in the apostolic call, charism and office.
Mary T. Malone’s comment “that Vat II did not go back far enough into the tradition” prompts the thematic synodal question “what did the Lord expect from the early post-Pentecost Church” regarding the ordination of women? The primary promoters of synodality repeatedly posit that this was a synodal church.
That Church as purportedly synodal, had to develop three integrated theologies among others: – on the subject matter of the New Testament, on the Sacrifice of the Mass and on the ordained priesthood.
One of the tests for the canonisation of a New Testament writing was its accord with the reality of the Eucharist which predated the completed New Testament. At the same time The New Testament document was itself written to enable the people of God to celebrate the Eucharist.
The command “do this in remembrance of me” necessitated a completely new ordained priesthood whose principal purpose was the Consecration of the Eucharist itself. Its definition had to emerge in consort with the theologies of the Eucharist and New Testament. All three theologies had to be grounded on the facts of revelation, on the words and deeds of Jesus as remembered and interpreted by the authors inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus understood/understands womanhood as it is in itself. In his dealings with women, he elevated their status and dignity significantly beyond that granted them in Jewish culture. He knew that priestesses existed in the gentile cultures soon to be evangelised. He foresaw the present disputes about priesthood including the modern recourse to historicism. His goodness precluded/precludes his regarding women as inferior to men. His ordinance “Mother behold thy son” provided for her inspiration of the fledgling Church either directly or through St John. Did she advocate “whatever He says, do ye”?
But in His ministry to the Father, He called only men for the Twelve. The Apostles called only men for the “Seven.” (Acts 6). The Jewish tradition of male priesthood continued. Had Jesus advocated the ordination of women should the Holy Spirit not have ensured its accomplishment within the completion of the New Testament writings? Jesus had turned Jewish culture on its head. Why delay the ordination of women?
The word “solely” is not in YouCat 98. Would it help if the text had said “Q 98. Did God will the death of his only Son?”
“The violent death of Jesus did not come about ONLY through tragic external circumstances.” That might have caused another problem, making the saving even sound like a mishmash of external event and hidden inner causes, as if God had lost the plot at one level.
The trouble is that there is a logic of divine action taken for granted by biblical authors and that we see in the phrase “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). How can we correct or improve on this?
Predestination has deep roots in Christian theological thinking but it never means that predestination is the ONLY cause, since that would abolish human freedom. The “plotting, cruelty, and violence” can be illuminated all you want by Schwager and by the dynamics of sacrifice a la Frazer, Burkert, Girard, at the human level, but at the divine level it all turns out to have been foreseen and predestined by the divine Father. The Father upholds the Son’s human self-sacrifice to the point of making it the agent of transforming the human violence into a divine act of redemption. That is why we talk about “the Paschal MYSTERY” and the “HOLY Sacrifice of the Mass.”
YouCat 98
Q. Did God will the death of his only Son?”
A. The violent death of Jesus did not come about through tragic external circumstances. Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). So that we children of sin and death might have life, the Father in heaven “made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). The magnitude of the sacrifice that God the Father asked of his Son, corresponded to the magnitude of Christ’s obedience: “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). On both sides, God’s love for men proved itself to the very end on the Cross.
Also well said, Seán, infact incredibly well said.
And thank you for alerting us to YouCat— well me, anyway, as I knew nothing about it.
Now, reflecting on your last paragraph, Seán, not feeling you could recommend our church to your grandchildren despite being a committed member of our church.
I am also a committed and very active member of our church in many ways but I am relieved that my children, now thinking young adults, all university educated young adults, have had the presence of mind and basic intelligence to reach the correct conclusions about what is not acceptable in our church teaching.
It took me so so much longer to reach the same conclusions and I spent an embarrassingly long part of my life trying to defend the indefensible.
Thank you, Seán.
Reading Fr James McTavish’s horrendous article on “same-sex attraction” (the current Vatican jargon for what it called “homosexualitatis problema” forty years ago) in September’s Gregorianum, I well understand that one would not wish to place one’s children in such hands. The article, relying heavily on a 7 pages article in the extreme rightwing Linacre Quarterly, proposes one contrarian view after another, affecting superior scorn for “secular” medicine and psychology. It makes much of the supposedly wise distinction between transitory and deep-seated SSA (recalling some notably embarrassing utterances of Cardinal Grocholewski), and then pleads with the Magisterium to clarify the distinction and to consider that there could be conditions located between the two, and which would be neither transitory nor deep-seated. How does a seminarian prove that his SSA is merely transitory? Apparently, by admitting that SSA is not an innate but an acquired condition (and therefore curable?), due to poor relations with his father or to an incapacity for sports and the wholesome male camaraderie they promote. Seminarians must not be so dishonest as to hide their SSA and the help of professionals may be invoked to discern whether it is really deep-seated whether they merely think they are gay–while at the same time the author protests against a secular culture that puts pressure on gays to “come out.” Against the common view that the peak of male sexuality is in the late teens and early twenties, the author declares that 30-50 is the peak — which might apply to clerics. All of this is codology under the guise of jejune moral theology and pseudo-scientific psychology. But more seriously, it is calculated to do great damage to those who take it seriously. Enough of this trafficking in neurosis! The author denounces especially gay men who consider themselves perfectly normal. Happily there are plenty of normal men, whether straight, gay, or bi, who can expose Fr McTavish’s hole-in-corner ruminations to the light of day.
“Predestination has deep roots in Christian theological thinking but it never means that predestination is the ONLY cause” (Joe O’Leary)
Isn’t the term ‘predestination’ itself problematic, as a logical non-sequitur of ‘foreknowledge’? To understand the Father as having foreknowledge of the opposition to Jesus is not at all the same thing as believing that he willed or predetermined or ‘predestined’ that opposition.
Everything could be resolved simply by distinguishing between the positive and determinative will of God on the one hand, and the merely permissive will of God on the other. He permitted but did not predetermine the violence of the Crucifixion, but did positively will Jesus’ non-violence, to associate the Trinity with resistance to violence rather than the perpetration of it.
All Catholic Catechisms could and should make that distinction – including YouCat. They also need to make that connection between pride – ‘superbia’ – the desire for superiority – and violence – because that too is part of Catholic ‘solid doctrine’.
To the extent that the magisterium baulks at admitting ‘superbia’ in the cover-up of abuse it currently lacks credibility re the teaching, ruling and sanctifying authority claimed in CCC 886-896. It is not accidental that YouCat blanks ‘superbia – ‘pride’ – altogether, given its date of publication – 2011 AD.
The Catholic Church is and always has been a complex organism. Its practising members would prefer if the range of Catholic behaviours spanning the atrocious to the less negative had not have occurred in the past, nor continue today or into the future. Practising Catholics know of the goodness that has characterised countless numbers of its members heretofore and will do so again. Informed aspiring practitioners of the faith today are aware of the growing vibrant pockets of Catholic revival among younger people in many settings in the Anglo-European-American world. Many Catholics see the grass as “greener” on their “side” whose unearned graces these younger people are attracted to despite Catholics’ failings.
Some would view this revival sceptically. Feuerbach would view it as the young divinising the essence of humanity, creating a God whose attributes are really human attributes projected in an idealised form. Marx would in this instance have accused religion as a process of mystification hiding otherwise dehumanising ideologies to dominate humanity.
Feuerbach would have demystified the notion of the passion of Christ as a withdrawal from the test of reason. To some extent he was correct. Those without faith are mystified by the said Passion. Those with faith find the whole concept beyond the powers of reason. How does one blame the Father? Faithful Catholics were once trained to blame themselves individually because they were reminded repeatedly that The Blessed Trinity regarded the Passion, with Christ as sacrificial victim and priest as necessary for the salvation of each. It’s in the Bible.
The priesthood of Christ is central to the mystery. The ordained priesthood is a derivative of the mystery. Has Mary T Malone unwittingly sought to demystify it, a la Marx inspired by Feuerbach?
I spent some of my Childhood years in the Archdiocese of Westminster where I made my first Holy Communion.
Back in those far off days, the Archbishop of Westminster was the late Cardinal John Heenan. He gave his imprimatur to the old Red Westminster Penny Catechism which I learned at School in Fulham.
This Catechism is characterized by two virtues in short supply in our Church today: Brevity and Clarity.
I don’t know Bishop Coll. Based on my reading of his adduced remarks, young people will find the Doctrinal Solidity they seek in the Heenan Red Westminster Penny Catechism.
Published by TAN USA, it retails for €8 in Knock Shrine Bookshop, well within the pocket money of young people. It is selling like Hotcakes.
A Priest of Allen Hall Seminary in the Archdiocese of Westminster has confirmed to me that this Catechism remains in force and hasn’t been abrogated.
Keep the Faith devastatingly Traditional and Simple.
As the old Trappist saying goes: “All for Jesus, through Mary, with a smile.”
Neal Bray:
“What did the Lord expect from the early post-Pentecost Church?” Probably not a rigid code of law and dogma. He urged that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven” (Mt 16:19 and 18:18). This suggests that he expected his disciples to use their own wits and freedom.
“That Church as purportedly synodal, had to develop three integrated theologies among others: – on the subject matter of the New Testament, on the Sacrifice of the Mass and on the ordained priesthood.” There are huge opportunities for anachronism in this list of topics.
One of the tests for the canonisation of a New Testament writing was its accord with the reality of the Eucharist which predated the completed New Testament. At the same time The New Testament document was itself written to enable the people of God to celebrate the Eucharist.
“a completely new ordained priesthood whose principal purpose was the Consecration of the Eucharist itself. Its definition had to emerge in consort with the theologies of the Eucharist and New Testament. All three theologies had to be grounded on the facts of revelation.” “Consecration” is out of sync with the eucharist as described in 1 Corinthians. Here we find no caste set aside to perform this quasi-magical act at an isolated moment, but rather a joyful meal in which all take part, breaking the loaf and sharing the cup of blessing. “Ordained priesthood” is an odd way of describing the presbyters of the earliest church — there is in fact no recognizable ordained priesthood in the New Testament, where the word “priest”‘ is used in reference to Christ, not to the presbyters. In any case all “three theologies” are obviously in fieri and attain stability of a sort only late in the second century. The question is whether this stability must exclude any further development.
“He foresaw the present disputes about priesthood including the modern recourse to historicism.”– actually there is no evidence for this.
“Had Jesus advocated the ordination of women should the Holy Spirit not have ensured its accomplishment within the completion of the New Testament writings? Jesus had turned Jewish culture on its head. Why delay the ordination of women?” Well, surely a more urgent matter was the abolition of slavery, which did not happen until the pontificate of Leo XIII. So this is a useless argument.
Sean:
I agree we need to query or overcome the notions of predestination and even of foreknowledge, since they suck up too much energy for mental riddles leaving too little over for closer appreciation of what is afoot in the story of salvation. Christ’s nonviolence in the Passion is surely the supreme manifestation of his character, his virtue as the Lamb of God. And that God is with him, and in him, in this event, is another bedrock reality. YouCat nicely says: “On both sides, God’s love for men proved itself to the very end on the Cross.” I suspect that YouCat is targeting views of the Passion that would reduce it to naturalistic proportions, which they fear would make Jesus just another nonviolent martyr and would downplay the idea that by laying down his life he effected the salvation of the world (or God effected it through him). I think they would be loth to say that Christ’s death was not positively willed by God, since it is what produces salvation. (John’s Gospel affirms this in such positive tones that cross and resurrection almost fuse: “If I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.”) I am a bit uneasy with the language of divine will, and so on, because it too is our human way of thinking. It already strays from the vivid concreteness of Jesus’s nonviolence. (It also leads to attempting to discern between what God positively wills and what he permissively allows in the story of the Passion, which might create the “mishmash of external event and hidden inner causes” I mentioned above). Anthropology takes us a long way in making sense of the passion, but theology attempts to take us further. But to keep our theologizing sober and effective, we need to get the anthropology right. (Last night I watched Hitchcock’s “I Confess”, a much better film than I’d remembered, and genuinely edifying. I saw it on the big screen as a boy and I saw a video around 1990, before the idea of clerical crime had become so prominent; the movie perhaps had more shock value at the time of its creation. The story is also much denser and closeknit that I remembered, and of course there is the factor of Hitchcock’s cinematic magic — no matter how often you’ve seen a movie such as Rebecca, The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train it turns out to be gripping every time.)
It seems to me that Joe O’Leary’s attempt to provide a credible answer is damaged by his recourse to a tit-for-tat response which doesn’t serve his purposes.
No scientific evidence of this is necessary to show Christ’s ability to foresee the future. Just as He described certain aspects of the general judgement on the last day, so also did He foresee whatever happened in “Kilkenny, Christ, as God, exists in an eternal “now.” Foreseeing the future is part of his nature. Otherwise He would have been incapable of speaking of the day of final judgement as He did. Scientific evidence of this is not necessary. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
This latter phrase (Hebrews 13:8) emphasizes that Jesus remains unchanged and unchanging throughout time. This verse reassures believers that His teachings, love, and character are constant, providing stability and reliability in their faith. It serves as a reminder of God’s unchanging nature, encouraging believers to trust in His promises and faithfulness, regardless of life’s changes. (A quote from the internet!)
Post Pentecost, in a synodal church we have to assume that the apostles “did use their wits and freedom” (as Joe O’Leary says) in accord with Christ’s promise regarding “the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” And we have to assume that the “binding on earth” followed suit in a synodal church.
In terms of Christ’s will it is more appropriate to focus on what He actually did, rather than on what He didn’t do. Jesus appointed an all male priesthood. Slavery is a very important issue but Christ did not set up a sacrament directly pertaining to it.
Joe O’Leary’s reference to 1 Corinthians is very much at odds with the text of 1 Cor 11, 23-26 in terms of liturgy. The sacrifice of the Mass is the reenactment of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. It builds community as individuals pray with and for each other while availing together of Christ’s invitation to offer to the Father all the honour and glory he is ever likely to want.
Catholic teaching shows that the Catholic priesthood sacrament was instituted at the Last Supper. If one wishes to use the term “presbyter,” fine. The Apostles were ordained priests.
Since when has the canonisation of the books of the New Testament and the formation of the sacrifice of the Mass become and “anachronism” as Joe O’Leary describes them?
Development of teaching has always been a feature of the Catholic Church. Some have tried to do it to fit their own way of thinking, sometimes in critical thinking mode, in pursuit of an objective more attractive to the person concerned.
I find the following passage from St Augustine’s ‘City of God’ hugely interesting and clarifying on the Kingdom of God as distinct from ‘the world of men’ – and on ‘superbia’ (pride) as ‘the seeking of glory from men’:
“Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, You are my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, I will love You, O Lord, my strength. And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,— that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride —they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Romans 1:21-25 But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, that God may be all in all. 1 Corinthians 15:28”
In another work (De libero arbitrio), echoing this, Augustine insists that “The beginning of all sin is pride.”
How come then that YouCat became totally blind to the beginning of all sin, and to what Augustine calls the ‘libido dominandi’ – the ‘lust to be overlord’ in the violence of the Crucifixion?
The opposition to Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom, and the backing of that unjust opposition in the end by the Roman governor, can only have been sinful – and it is clear and solid Catholic doctrine that God cannot will that anyone should sin. That Jesus was ‘delivered up’ for crucifixion, by God’s will, does NOT mean or PROVE that God the Father willed or approved the Crucifixion. In the light of the Resurrection it means instead that God the Father was and is bent on proving that MIGHT is NOT RIGHT, and will not win in the end.
Jesus humility points up by contrast – and overthrows on the Cross – the pride – ‘superbia’ – of his enemies and of Rome as well. It is the city and kingdom of God that will prevail, through the penitence and humility of those who humbly serve, in honour of Christ.
The Cross of Christ is God’s Victory over Violence – proving that Pride cannot overpower Virtue, even when it does its worst.
Joe@10, I really admire how you have dealt with Neil Bray’s various points/questions in such a theologically intelligent way.
However, in response to the first question, “What did the Lord expect from the early post-Pentecost Church?” perhaps the answer should be that Jesus had no expectations at all as he did not foresee a new religious movement separate from his own Jewish faith.
I thought this might be a good time to share once again, for Neil’s benefit, Fr. Kieran O’Mahony’s excellent letter to the Tablet some years ago, not his most recent one.
This is up to date, modern exegesis explained to us by a great scripture scholar and a view shared by most contemporary scholars.
👨🏫 The opening of Fr. Kieran’s letter asks: “Has the Holy Father made a mistake in not permitting the ordination of women, even initially only to the diaconate? The exclusion of women from ministry can be traced not only to tradition but also to an erroneous reading of the evolution of “church” and its ministries. In common with many other biblical scholars, I would affirm the following. Firstly, the historical Jesus encountered very few non-Jews. His ministry was “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. Jesus did not foresee a separate religious movement, later given the name Christianity. Much less did he foresee a Church (the term is found in the Gospels in Matthew alone), with specific structures and ministries. In the New Testament, varieties of ministries are indeed evident, in particular in Paul, Matthew and Luke-Acts. Towards the end of the first century, these settled into servants, elders and overseers (the later deacons, priests and bishops). The Council of Trent, in affirming that all seven sacraments were somehow instituted by Jesus, made the mistake of accepting the way the Reformers posed the question. This was unnecessary (though understandable in pre-critical times) and brings with it insurmountable historical difficulties. If the above is substantially accurate, then the historical Jesus “ordained” nobody at all and the Last Supper was not an ordination service, simply because the historical Jesus did not reckon with a body separate from his own Jewish faith. As a result, the argument from the Last Supper that only men can be ordained makes no sense. What we have inherited, across the Christian centuries, is the Spirit-guided tradition, reflecting a graced evolution. There is no reason to think that the Holy Spirit has stopped guiding us in these critical times. Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches!” (DR) KIERAN J. O’MAHONY OSA BIBLICAL STUDIES COORDINATOR, HOLY CROSS DIOCESAN CENTRE, DUBLIN, IRELAND
PS I wonder has our new bishop in Raphoe, Neil Coll got a subscription to the Tablet.
A number of years ago I too felt the need to respond to Neil when he was shocked that Tom O’Loughlin never mentioned sacrifice in his wonderful book, “Eating Together, Becoming One”.
“However, in response to the first question, ‘What did the Lord expect from the early post-Pentecost Church?’ perhaps the answer should be that Jesus had no expectations at all as he did not foresee a new religious movement separate from his own Jewish faith.”
Doesn’t a huge question loom there straight away, Paddy? If Jesus was not bent on providing a new centrality to ‘the Jewish faith’ – to replace the centrality of the Temple – what was the point of the dramatic episode in the Temple that provoked his arrest and led then to his condemnation and death and – in apparent anticipation of this denouement – the institution of the Eucharistic memorial celebration?
Secondly, what would be the point of ordaining anyone to celebrate the Eucharist – male and/or female – if we were to adhere to the idea that Jesus did not intend it to be a central unifying ritual for his followers? Wouldn’t we logically need to return to the centrality of Jerusalem Temple priestly worship, and look to rebuilding that?
Self-giving everywhere on earth – promoted by a dispersed Eucharist – was a perfectly logical – and most beautiful – answer to the question of what sacrifice or ‘offering’ is most pleasing to God – a question that Jesus did pose explicitly – so what would have been the central focus of the reform within Judaism that Jesus intended if not the dispersed Eucharist, as a reminder of the call to self-giving emphasised in Matthew 25?
Doesn’t one get to the point of throwing out so much that one has to look closely to be sure that something worth retaining – or even debating – remains?
“Doesn’t one get to the point of throwing out so much that one has to look closely to be sure that something worth retaining – or even debating – remains?”
Seán, I totally agree with you. A learned friend said exactly the same thing to me when I shared with her recently that the words of consecration cannot be traced directly back to the historic Jesus but rather they were attributed to Jesus as Eucharistic practice developed during the decades following Jesus’ death.
I, myself, was shocked when I learned that and I really thought I couldn’t be shocked anymore.
So, I had to remind myself of the famous words of our greatest poet: “never look upon knowledge as a threatening bird of prey but rather as a beautiful butterfly”.
A few weeks ago I was listening carefully to the words of consecration at Mass and it dawned on me that since Vatican II and the introduction of the vernacular in the liturgy of the Mass we were led to believe that Jesus said in the words of consecration…. this is the cup of my blood which will be poured out for you and for all….
Now, apparently, Jesus said no such thing.
Now, we are asked to believe that He said.. “this is the chalice of my blood which will be poured out for you and for many…”
It might be that the most important agent of crisis and change in our religion will turn out to have been the historical-critical approach to the Gospels. David Strauss was its launcher in Protestant Germany in 1835 and it hit our church like a bomb with Alfred Loisy’s LÉvangile et lÉglise in 1902. Both books are online. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65436950.texteImage https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64037/64037-h/64037-h.htm
“‘Jesus preached the Kingdom, but it was the Church that came” was the one-liner that sealed Loisy’s fate and plunged the church into the Modernist Crisis, fifty years of acrimony and fear. Loisy is echoing another pivotal book, Johannes Weiss’s Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (“Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God”), 1892.
Sean is right to ask if this can do justice to the church-founding implications of the Last Supper. Also, the Gospel of Matthew has a whole culture of churchhood that may go back to Jewish traditions. The teaching of the historical Jesus must have had quite a lot on how to live in community — the Kingdom must have entailed a style of community. I imagine that Loisy would agree, since his fateful book was a defence of Jesus as church-founder (though leaving the heavy lifting to his post-paschal disciples) against Harnack’s too spiritualized conception of the “essence of Christianity”. Between the preaching of Jesus and the full-fledged structures of the mid-second century the Gospel of Matthew is a key stage.; L. Michael Is there any good book that retrieves Loisy’s project by tracing firmly the lines of the evolution? ChatGPT recommends: Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Orbis, 2000); L. Michael White, From Jesus to Christianity (HarperCollins, 2004).
In St. Matthew’s Holy Gospel, Christ our King makes it very clear what he expects of the Apostles.
Douay-Rheims Mt 28: 18-20
“18 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. 19 Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”
The Mention of each specific Divine Member of the most Holy Trinity in relation to Holy Baptism makes it clear he intended to found a new Religion, as no faith other than Christianity prays to the most Holy Trinity.
Those of you who have ever visited a Monastery, will note that the Gloria Patri is used as the primary Doxology at the end of each Psalm in the Monastic Office.
In terms of Paddy’s response to my comment. I thank him for putting forward a theory.
In essence, the Israelites were meant to be a missionary nation. God promised Abraham He would bless all nations through him (Genesis 12:1-3). Jumping ahead St Paul (Rom 11:25) states: “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in.” This verse emphasizes the mystery of Israel’s hardening and the inclusion of Gentiles in the faith. Christ Himself commanded the Apostles to teach all nations. It was not a case of His NOT foreseeing a new religious movement separate from his own Jewish faith. This latter statement is one of a number of unsubstantiated claims in the comment.
I responded to Joe O’Leary because, contrary to Paddy’s impression, I did not think he dealt with my efforts in an adequate way. But like Paddy I recognise Joe’s intelligence but do not agree with his conclusions.
In terms of postulating the Godman Christ’s inability to foresee the future Jesus is recorded as saying: “Thou are Peter and upon this rock I WILL build my Church;” “I WILL be with you all days until the end of the world;” “the gates of hell SHALL NOT prevail against it.” St Peter became very aware of Jesus’s ability to foretell future events. It is often said that Christ’s sufferings in Gethsemane were occasioned by his identification of those for whom his sufferings would be in vain in the future.
It might be useful to reflect that Christ has also foreseen all the activities of individuals. Importantly as God He was during his ministry aware of events in “Kilkenny.” That is an important consideration for all participants.
His address to St Paul – “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” referred to the members of his Mystical Body, His Church “built on” Peter. Christ hardly formed The Twelve into a disorganised community intending to leave them disorganised after the Ascension. He was hardly so irrational as not having a plan for human salvation. His promised “the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” This anticipated a future organised community involving The Papacy, bishops, priests, deacons and laity constructed to His liking to safeguard truth, love, and order. “I pray for you Peter that being once converted you WILL confirm the brethren.”
Whereas I am open to the suggestion that I commented on “Tom O’Loughlin” at some stage, I express my gratitude to Paddy for having once contacted me on foot of his perception that Tom had shocked me by his ignoring the sacrificial nature of the Mass. I probably wasn’t shocked, but critical. But I consider myself lucky at not having ever had to partake of Tom’s “loaf” at Mass.
While I accept the huge changes historical-critical study of Scripture has brought, I also resist its extremes (Dominic Crossan, the Jesus Seminar, for example).
1 Corinthians 11 states:
23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way, he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
This is already 25 years after the event, but I see no reason not to accept that Jesus spoke some such words. The book that was most prominent in post-Vatican II seminary teaching was Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, which can be read online: https://archive.org/details/eucharisticwords0000jere_o1v9 .
This book dates from 1935. Chat GPT says:
Major theses of Jeremias: what survived and what did not
1. The Last Supper tradition is extremely early
Jeremias’s claim:
The tradition quoted by Paul the Apostle in First Epistle to the Corinthians 11:23–26 goes back to the earliest Jerusalem church and probably within a few years of Jesus’ death.
Status today:
✅ Largely accepted.
Many scholars agree that Paul is transmitting a very early liturgical tradition.
Supported by later scholars such as:
James D. G. Dunn
John P. Meier
2. The words of institution go back to Jesus himself
Jeremias’s claim:
Despite liturgical shaping, the sayings “This is my body” and “This is my blood of the covenant” originate with Jesus.
Status today:
⚠️ Many scholars still accept some authentic core, but with more caution.
Modern scholarship generally says:
Jesus probably performed a symbolic meal action
The exact wording in the Gospels is liturgically shaped
3. The Last Supper was a Passover meal
Jeremias argued strongly that the meal described in the Synoptics reflects the Passover seder.
Status today:
❌ Widely disputed.
Problems:
chronology conflict with Gospel of John
several Passover elements are missing.
Many scholars now think it was:
a festive covenant meal
held near Passover but not the seder itself
This is the position of:
Raymond E. Brown
John Dominic Crossan
though scholars like N. T. Wright still keep Passover symbolism central.
4. Aramaic reconstruction of Jesus’ words
Jeremias reconstructed the supposed Aramaic original behind the Greek texts.
Example:
“this is my body” explained via Semitic idiom meaning “this represents my body”.
Status today:
⚠️ Methodologically outdated.
Reasons:
reconstruction of hypothetical Aramaic originals is now viewed as too speculative
we cannot reliably reverse-translate Greek Gospel traditions.
5. “Do this in remembrance of me” (anamnesis)
Jeremias interpreted the phrase as drawing on Jewish memorial sacrifice language.
Status today:
⚠️ Debated but still influential.
Some scholars accept the connection with Jewish memorial language.
Others think the interpretation is too liturgical and cultic.
6. The cup saying echoes Exodus covenant language
Jeremias connected “blood of the covenant” with:
Book of Exodus 24:8
covenant sacrifice imagery.
Status today:
✅ Still widely accepted.
Many scholars see a deliberate echo of covenant theology here.
“Those with faith find the whole concept beyond the powers of reason. How does one blame the Father? Faithful Catholics were once trained to blame themselves individually because they were reminded repeatedly that The Blessed Trinity regarded the Passion, with Christ as sacrificial victim and priest as necessary for the salvation of each. It’s in the Bible.” (Neil Bray)
What is also in the Bible – very clearly – is the psychology of those who rejected the kingdom offered by Jesus – their envy and resentment of Jesus’ critique of religious ostentation and petty legalism – and Pilate’s insecurity faced by the protests of those same enemies.
This is not lust on anyone’s part – and yet this fact was ignored in all of our younger days by a penitential preaching that focused even on miniscule breaches of the 6th commandment as the ‘Sin’ that put Jesus on the Cross, via the Father’s ‘dissatisfaction’.
From the murder by Cain of Abel, through the murder of Uriah by David to the opposition to Jesus by the Herods and the Jewish elites of his time, a consistent human weakness is exposed: the fragility of human self-respect – especially on the part of those wielding power – and their consequent fear and intolerance of the negative judgement of others. This is well captured in Proverbs 29:25:
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
Even the mandatory priestly celibacy rule speaks of the misidentification of sexuality as the prime moral danger. No bishop anywhere has yet identified the ‘fear of man’ as the snare that trapped the hierarchy in the cover up of clerical abuse. Nor do we ever hear it preached that Jesus overcame this same fear, in accepting the Cross, as he tells us himself in John 16:33.
YouCat itself ‘blames the Father’ by denying the role of anything but the will of God in the death of Christ. It is surely no accident that YouCat also blanks ‘superbia’ throughout, given that 2011 – the year of first publication – was also the year of the Vatican visitation of Ireland. That visitation ignored the ‘superbia’ of hierarchs but still found scapegoats for the Ryan and Murphy reports’ revelations of 2009.
Yes, God willed Jesus’ acceptance of the cross but for the reason given by Simeon – so that the hidden thoughts of many would be revealed (Luke 2:34-35). To dismiss the ‘tragic external circumstances’ that reveal those hidden thoughts in scripture is to prefer oblivion on the roots of all violence and concealment and scandal. This is a betrayal of both biblical revelation and the young.
In his book on Maurice Blondel Robert Coerpel spends a significant time dealing with the relationship between Firmin Loisy and Blondel. They had a common issue with Scolasticism. Blondel synpatised with Loisy but seriously disagreed with his orientation. Coerpel translates the aphorism written in French “Jesus preached the Kingdom, but it was the Church that came” in two different ways. He substitutes the word “parousia” for kingdom in one translation. Blondel linked the statement to the oft held opinion among the first century Christians that the final judgement (parousia) was imminent. When it didn’t materialise they had to continue cooperation with God to found the Church.
I adapted the following from a French article somewhere referencing Loisy.
Loisy’s aphorism in fact can serve as a reminder of something important.
Whatever Loisy intended his words remind people that as soon as Jesus proclaims the coming of the Kingdom, He calls disciples to follow Him, whom He will gradually teach, before entrusting the flock to them. In other words, from the beginning of His preaching, Jesus summons what is already the Church, even in its visibility and, in an inchoate way, its institutional character. The Church is not a last resort, to which Jesus would have resigned Himself because he did not see the arrival of the Kingdom he announced. The Church is not an intermediary reality between Jesus and the Kingdom to come. The Church is, as the Second Vatican Council affirms, “the Kingdom of God already present in mystery” (Lumen Gentium, n. 3).
When Jesus proclaims to His contemporaries that the Kingdom of God is among them, he is equally affirming that He, Jesus, is among them, and that the Church which is His body is among them. It is because Jesus is, in His own person, the Kingdom that he proclaims, that He can call the disciples with this laconic invitation: “Follow me!” Jesus is the only one who can say: “Follow me!” with this authority, because Jesus is the only one who can legitimately say like YHVH to the burning bush (Ex 3:14): “I am.”
As some Irish Synodal leaders say, Jesus calls people to a new life in his Kingdom, but it is Catholics, with their personal history and all that they are, that He is calling. And the Kingdom is indeed a completely different reality because it is a reality of grace, but the Kingdom flows into the reality of people’s lives.
Joe@19, that is a really wonderful overview and analysis of the history of scriptural study and debate and we all should be so grateful to you for your great learning and for continuingly sharing it with us. Where else would we find such indept analysis?
I have read your post @19 once and I am sure I will read it again and again. Definitely something for the archives.
Seán@20, thank you as well. You have both contributed so much to us in your conversations on this ACP site.
Joe, I have read the three books by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, The First Christmas, The Last Seven Days and the First Paul and I thought they were absolutely wonderful. They certainly brought my theological education to a new level just as you yourself have been doing for many years on this site.
I wonder is John Dominic still with us.
He was born in Nenagh two years before my mother-in-law, Agnes Meelam, who was 90 last week. She had never heard of John Dominic Crossan.
Some scholars are now convinced that the Last Supper was not a Passover Meal because there is no way the Sanhedrin would have convened to discuss Jesus or anyone else if it was the Passover.
One of the first scholars to express this point of view was an eminent German called Joseph Ratzinger.
Paddy, ChatGPT rules the roost now, and we are all instant experts. Neal Bray makes a good point: the very fact of calling disciples (and surely it is a fact?) sets the church in motion. The relation of church and kingdom is another quagmire. Lumen Gentium calls the church “the seed and beginning of the kingdom” which sounds more modest than the text Neal quotes from the same document. I find Augustine on the City of God quite confusing. The psychological and moral contrast of the two cities that Sean quoted is all very well, but how it relates to the historical reality of the church is unclear. The institutional church not only contains a mixture of wheat and tares but publicly acted in ways incompatible with the city of God, so that the presence of the kingdom in the church (not to speak of ‘as’ the church) became quite obscure. Should I consult ChatGPT?
“The institutional church not only contains a mixture of wheat and tares but publicly acted in ways incompatible with the city of God, so that the presence of the kingdom in the church (not to speak of ‘as’ the church) became quite obscure. Should I consult ChatGPT?”
I see Richard Rohr as helpful here – and true to life – in emphasising the importance of the experience of complete powerlessness – which he calls ‘suffering’ – in what I would call ‘transitioning’ or ‘relocation’ from the City of Men to the City of God.
It is in the midst of that experience – precipitated by some kind of unanticipated crisis – such as a diagnosis of cancer and a prognosis of possible demise – that we are most likely to pray with complete attention – and then to realise the ever-presence of the Lord – and then to realise that all of the ‘issues’ that have preoccupied us previously – to do with ‘making our way’ in the ‘city of men’ – don’t matter.
For me therefore the Church is an experiential bridge between the two cities, in which those who have ‘succeeded’ can ‘look to one another for Glory’ – in Jesus’ pinpoint diagnosis – but also tell the rest of us to pray and to read the Gospel. Usually all that’s missing is our full attention, because we drift along in the illusion of control. It takes disaster to ‘ground’ us, and disaster is what we try to avoid at all costs.
Disaster for the Jewish Temple system always loomed in Jesus’ time, given Roman expansion and ruthlessness. What would happen to God’s people if the temple of Herod was simply erased? Are we all not, Jews and Christians alike, actors in the historical answer, poised somewhere between the two cities?
Now that the Temple of Hierarchical Grandeur in the RCC has come tumbling down – with ‘secularism’ also in deep crisis – the experience of suffering – of powerlessness – must be more widespread. Who knows what will follow, given that God is never somewhere else?
The fall of the Roman Empire was a real catastrophe, not a peaceful transition to medieval civilization. This point is made by Bryan Ward-Perkins (against Peter Brown) in his lectures at which he allows the audience to feel pieces of British pottery from before and after the catastrophe. People thought that the city of Rome could never fall (with the exalted language of Cicero and Virgil singing in their ears), just as Pius IX must have imagined Rome would never be lost to the pope’s rule, and just as we thought that Rome could never be so daft as to ruin the translation of Roman Missal to such a degree that no one can recite Eucharistic Prayers I and IV any longer). The fall of the city with Alaric’s invasion in 410 was a massive scandal, and some were saying the Christians were to blame — an old prejudice, to which Augustine replied by reviving the old genre of Christian apologetics.
The fact that it was erected in face of such devastation certainly adds both nobility and existential impact to Augustine’s monumental fresco. He does not gloat over the demise of Greco-Roman civilization, but summarizes its merits while noting its limits, in the first ten books. Platonism, including Plotinus, the philosopher who brought him to God before he could convert to the Catholic Church, shines forth as the best vision of the ancient world. Then in the next eight books, he looks back to the history of the City of God, including a long trawl through the history of Israel. The last four books are a grandiose eschatological vision.
Very touching is the remark Augustine made to Possidius shortly before his death (in 430), when the Vandals were destroying his own city of Hippo: “Et se inter haec mala cuiusdam sapientis sententia consolabatur, dicentis: Non erit magnus magnum putans, quod cadunt ligna et lapides, et moriuntur mortales.” (“Amid these evils he consoled himself with the saying of a certain wise man: He is not great who thinks it a great matter that wood and stones fall and that mortals die.”) The “wise man” is none other than his old soul-friend Plotinus. Enneads I 4.7: “Why should he think that falling from power and the ruin of his city are great matters? If he thought they were great evils, or evils at all, he would be laughed at for his opinion; there would be no virtue left in him if he thought that wood and stones, and, (God help us!) the death of mortals, were important.” Both Plotinus and Augustine are in Stoic mood here.
Catastrophe remains catastrophic no matter what noble dispositions of soul it may activate. Like Plotinus, Augustine always kept his eyes fixed on ultimate reality, and perhaps more than any person of his time he was immunized against the shock of radical catastrophe. That he could raise his voice so majestically in this hour of crisis is something to rejoice in. In this work, even more than the others such as the De Trinitate, he lays the foundation of the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages.
In his brief prologue to The City of God Augustine strikes two notes: superbia and libido dominandi (claiming the earthly city is “dominated by its drive to dominate”). He quotes a proud line from the Aeneid (the poem that shaped his life, as the Confessions show): Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos (Aen. VI, 853). Augustine suggests that it is a divine prerogative to “spare those who submit and overthrow the proud”—but we may ask it he would not see it as a prerogative of the Church as well? The Papacy, at least from the time of Gregory VII, was no stranger to the libido dominandi. Humility, Augustine promises, reaches a height (celsitudo) far above the fragile and impermanent attainments of earthly powers.
The first five Books make a set (perhaps modelled on the sets of five in which Livy arranged his History), on the uselessness of the Roman gods and on the Roman Empire as a gift of the true God. To the casual reader, these books may seem a collection of dusty relics, but when Augustine replays the memories of imperial Rome and its legendary past he is doing so in a new perspective that changes everything. The downfall of Rome and the hope provided by the Christian Church prompt a reassessment of everything that Roman politics and religion had cherished.
I wondered @22 above if John Dominic Crossan is still with us.
Well, he obviously is. I found this below in Commonweal drawing our attention to a new book he has co-authored on his favourite subject, Jesus.
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Of interest surely to Sean and to everyone else here is Crossan’s book “In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom”, 2004 (co-authored with Jonathan L. Reed). I picked it up for nothing but have not yet read it — it’s historically dense and richly illustrated and is lauded as “an inspiring synthesis of history and theology, politics and religion.”
I see that the bookshop quarter of Tokyo, Jimbocho, has been voted the coolest quarter in the whole world! Surely hyperbolic, though it has several universities as well. My area, Koenji, used to be called the “poor man’s Jimbocho” but has lost its best secondhand bookstores. However, there is a sort of garage sale held in a huge shed every weekend. Today I picked up Kenneth Clark, Looking at Pictures (1960) for 150JPY = .82 Euro, and I am reading the gripping work of Jean Strouse, Alice James, A Biography (1982), which I bought for 200 JPY (1.10 Euro). The problems of space and time which these purchases entail are an insoluble surd.
Thanks for those tips, Joe and Paddy. I remember a public exchange some years ago between Crossan and L.T. Johnson – another eminent scripture scholar but one with a creedal faith. That led me to Johnson’s ‘The Creed’ – a thorough dismantling of the notion that the Creeds are ‘imperial theology’ and not what the first Christians believed. Highly recommended for its tracing of the evolution of the Creed as a Christian postscript to the Shema, Jesus own ‘creed’ – ‘Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord your God is one God etc.’
Re Crossan’s view that Christianity was essentially anti-imperial, might it not truly have weakened Rome’s Martial energy by emphasising peace and justice – remembering where the word ‘martial’ originates? Is that what Gibbon argued?