The Story of Christianity

The title ‘Theologian’ is a very high honorific in Eastern Christian tradition, indicating a special knowledge of the mysteries of the Holy Spirit, and Symeon is one of only three persons to whom the distinction has been accorded (along with St John the Divine and St Gregory of Nazianzus).

The tears of Peter were therefore indicative of a profound shift in moral imagination and sensibility. Something had become visible that had formerly been hidden from sight. For Christian thought, God had chosen to reveal himself among the least of men and women, and to exalt them to the dignity of his own sons and daughters. And, as a consequence,

Under the pen of Luther, the principles of the movement became ever clearer: the ‘priesthood of all believers’, the complete dependency of the soul on God’s grace, unmerited election to salvation, the ‘bondage of the will’ of fallen humanity (either to the devil or to God), the ‘freedom of the Christian’, salvation by faith and not by works, and th

And Gregory of Nazianzus, in the fourth century, had enunciated the principle by which Christological reflection had therefore to be governed: what had not been assumed had not been healed – which is to say, if any part of our humanity was absent from Christ, then that part of our humanity had never been saved.

It was the message of submission (which is what ‘Islam’ means) to the will of God: obedience to divine law, prayer, reverence, good works and faithfulness.

Moreover, Civic Biology was a monstrously racist text, which ranked humanity in five categories of evolutionary development (with blacks at the bottom and whites at the top), advocated eugenic cleansing of the race, denounced intermarriage and the perpetuation of ‘degenerate’ stock and suggested ‘humane’ steps for the elimination of social ‘parasit

matter itself becomes worthy of veneration when it is transformed into a vehicle of divine enlightenment, sanctification or salvation.

The tears of Peter were therefore indicative of a profound shift in moral imagination and sensibility. Something had become visible that had formerly been hidden from sight. For Christian thought, God had chosen to reveal himself among the least of men and women, and to exalt them to the dignity of his own sons and daughters. And, as a consequence,

if it is the Son who joins us to the Father, and only God can join us to God, then the Son is God; and if, in the sacraments of the Church and the life of faith, it is the Spirit who joins us to the Son, and only God can join us to God, then the Spirit too must be God.