Triablogue

Eyes Smeared With Blood And Tears He Could Not Wipe Away

2026-06-23T05:28:43.224-04:00

"For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted." (Hebrews 2:18)

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)

"For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21)

Christ's suffering accomplished many things, among them what's mentioned in the passages of scripture quoted above. One of the ways Christians should view suffering is in terms of how Christ suffered before us and how he suffered in ways like our suffering. His suffering is unlike ours in some ways, but also like ours in others. I wrote about these themes as they relate to the Garden of Gethsemane in a post earlier this year.

Richard Bauckham recently published a book about an experience he went through a few years ago involving a loss of his eyesight, the blurring of his vision. He wrote, "Later (perhaps on the bus home, I forget) I began to compose a poem based on the thought that the eyesight of Jesus, as he hung dying on the cross, would surely have become blurred, smeared with blood and tears that he could not wipe away." (The Blurred Cross [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2024], 118) It's an aspect of Jesus' suffering that doesn't get much attention. Bauckham quotes the poem he wrote:

I think perhaps that when you hung in pain,
bearing the weight of all this sad world's wrong,
your vision blurred. Could you distinctly see
your mother and your friends?...
Through that blur of blood, that cloud of tears and sweat,
you look with love on all whose sight is dimmed.

A Good Way To Think About Papias

2026-06-21T07:08:30.687-04:00

He's one of the earliest extrabiblical sources who comments on Christianity, he addresses some significant issues, and many people think (probably correctly) that he had met the apostle John. But he's also highly controversial, in a lot of contexts, and there are widespread disagreements about how to interpret him. You can access an archive of our posts about Papias here.

What I want to focus on in this post is a good way to think about Papias in an important context in which he's often brought up, the authorship of the gospels (and related issues, like the origins of the gospels more broadly). He's often treated as if he's an isolated figure in the context of gospel authorship. He'll sometimes be referred to, wrongly, as the only individual who named any gospel authors before Irenaeus did so. (See here for a correction of that mistake.) People will try to undermine his credibility by various means, suggesting that we therefore don't have any reliable sources on gospel authorship in the earliest generations of Christianity, that he doesn't cause much of a problem for the hypothesis of the original anonymity of the gospels, etc. But Papias is connected to other sources in this context:

- He names a predecessor he got at least some of his information on gospel authorship from, a man he refers to as "the elder" (in Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).

- The reason why people like Eusebius could quote Papias is that he wrote some material that was still extant in later generations. And the best explanation for why he wrote about gospel authorship is that he thought his audience was interested in the subject.

So, although Papias is just one individual, he relied on at least one earlier source on issues of gospel authorship (the elder), and he wrote about gospel authorship for an audience he probably thought was interested in the subject. Interest in and information about the authorship of the gospels (and other matters pertaining to the origins of the gospels) predate Papias and are present in some of Papias' contemporaries, not just Papias. It's helpful to think of him in connection with those other sources, the elder and the audience for whom Papias wrote.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 3)

2026-06-18T05:03:54.712-04:00

One of the issues that sometimes comes up in discussions of Mary's perpetual virginity is the necessity of accepting the doctrine. Is acceptance of it a requirement for salvation? If somebody believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary, to what degree does he think opponents of the doctrine have erred? As my last post mentioned, a person could be agnostic about whether Mary was a perpetual virgin. And people who support the doctrine or oppose it can do so to a wide variety of degrees. Issues like these often get overlooked or underestimated, not just when considering the timeframes I'm focused on in these posts, but also more broadly.

I've written in the past about an important, but neglected figure of the Reformation in England, Thomas Bilney. See my biographical sketch of him here. You can watch a video about his conversion here. And here's a segment on his martyrdom. He had a lot of influence on other Reformation figures who are better known, like Hugh Latimer. Bilney didn't die as a martyr until 1531, but the perpetual virginity of Mary came up during an earlier trial in 1527. John Foxe's Book Of Martyrs discusses that 1527 trial and refers to how Bilney was asked the following question:

"VII. Whether that a man may believe, without spot of heresy, that our Lady remained not always a virgin?"

Bilney's response:

"To the seventh article he said, that it is not to be thought contrary."

I've seen two different interpretations of Bilney's response. John Davis wrote, "To article seven he answered unorthodoxly by saying that one should believe that the Virgin 'remained not always a virgin'." (Heresy And Reformation In The South East Of England, 1520-1559 [Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press Inc., 1983], 49) However, I've also seen Bilney interpreted as only saying that opposition to the perpetual virginity of Mary is acceptable within Christian orthodoxy. Davis seems to be taking Bilney's response as affirming the following portion of the question: "that our Lady remained not always a virgin". The other view takes Bilney as responding to the question as a whole, which merely allows rejection of Mary's perpetual virginity as one among multiple options. That latter view seems to make more sense, since Bilney was expected to respond to the question as a whole, not just a portion of it. But Davis may have known of one or more other factors involved that convinced him of the other view (something in the larger context of the trial or whatever else). I think the best conclusion to reach is that Bilney at least allowed opposition to the perpetual virginity of Mary within orthodoxy and that he may have gone as far as denying that Mary was a perpetual virgin.

Whatever you make of the situation with Bilney, some early Protestants believed in Mary's perpetual virginity, but didn't consider it something a Christian was required to accept. For example, William Tyndale wrote that Mary's perpetual virginity "is yet none article of our faith to be saved by. But we believe it with a story-faith, because we see no cause reasonable to think the contrary." Go to the article just linked for more examples of the diversity of views held around the time of Tyndale and in later generations. Near the end of the sixteenth century, Richard Hooker wrote:

"This is why, even in divine matters, we may sometimes legitimately doubt and suspend our judgment, inclining to neither one side nor the other, such as concerning the time of the fall of both man and angels. Some things we may very well hold as probable and likely to be true, such as the belief that men have souls by creation instead of by propagation, or that the Mother of our Lord was a virgin after our Lord's birth as well as before (for it is necessary that we believe that she was a virgin before; but her continuing in virginity only has more likelihood of truth than of falsity)." (The Laws Of Ecclesiastical Polity 2:7:5, in Bradford Littlejohn, et al., edd., The Laws Of Ecclesiastical Polity In Modern English [Hillsdale, Michigan: Davenant Press, 2019], 140)

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 2)

2026-06-16T04:56:13.299-04:00

People have taken a lot of different positions on the perpetual virginity of Mary. A wide variety of views is found in the historical record during the timeframes I'm addressing. You could believe that Mary didn't have sexual intercourse, but reject her virginity in partu. You could believe in her perpetual virginity, yet not think that rejecting it makes somebody a non-Christian. You could affirm her perpetual virginity or oppose it to different degrees. You could be agnostic on the subject. And so on.

This post will discuss some examples of individuals who opposed the perpetual virginity of Mary. The next post will address sources who took other positions that are significant in one way or another.

In a recent debate with TurretinFan, William Albrecht referred to how belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary was "unanimous" among the church fathers, was required to be an orthodox Christian in the early church, and was challenged by "none" of the proto-Reformers or early Reformers. Later, he says that it's not until "later history" (after the time of the magisterial Reformers) that the perpetual virginity of Mary is denied.

Another Catholic, Dwight Longenecker, wrote:

From the very earliest times therefore, Mary’s virginity (which was a physical sign of her spiritual character) was assumed to have continued until her death....

We Catholics defend this belief in solidarity not only with the whole of the early church, but also with virtually the whole of orthodox Christendom down through the ages. The Perpetual Virginity of Mary is a beautiful and fitting belief upheld by the Eastern Orthodox as well as many Anglicans and Lutherans. Furthermore, it was defended not only by the ancient Church fathers, but by Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and the classic Anglican theologians....

Wow! The ease with which you dismiss fifteen hundred years of virtually unanimous Church teaching is breath-taking. So the modern Evangelical waves his hand and says with a straight face, “You see, everybody (including our own founding fathers) had it wrong for the first fifteen hundred years…” And this from the folks who accuse Catholics of altering the historic faith with later distortions!...

Tertullian’s is the only voice from the early church that suggests such a thing [that Mary wasn't a perpetual virgin].

I've addressed the Biblical, ancient extrabiblical, patristic, and early medieval evidence in many previous posts, like here, here, and here. And you can access an archive of some of our posts on the perpetual virginity of Mary here. Click Older Posts in the bottom right to see more after you go to that page. You can find other relevant posts by searching our archives.

As my last post explained, what I want to do in this series is discuss opposition to the perpetual virginity of Mary and other relevant views in the late medieval and Reformation eras. You can read my last post, linked above, for more about some background issues (the evidential value of different extrabiblical sources, how familiar I am with late medieval and Reformation sources, responses to potential objections to this series, etc.).

I'll begin with sources who either were heretical or have significant potential to have been heretical. In some ways, they're inferior to sources who are known to have been orthodox. But they have some degree of significance (refuting a claim that nobody held a particular view during the timeframe in question, showing the diversity of sources who held a particular view, etc.). Go here to watch William Albrecht discussing, with Suan Sonna nodding his head in agreement, the value of citing heterodox sources in support of the Assumption of Mary.

Writing of some individuals in the first half of the fifteenth century, Thomas Fudge refers to how one of their beliefs was "that the Blessed Virgin Mary had children other than Jesus" and, concerning some others, "The virginity of Mary is set aside by the Pikarts who accept she had other children." (Heresy And Hussites In Late Medieval Europe [New York, New York: Routledge, 2019], approximate Kindle locations 3617, 3857) Some anti-Trinitarian views are among the beliefs held by these people, but I don't know whether every one of the individuals in question held those views. Likewise, I don't know how many of them rejected Mary's perpetual virginity. But there's a rejection of it among these individuals to some extent.

Moving to non-heretical sources, John Edward, a Lollard of the late fifteenth century, held the view that Mary had another son after Jesus' ascension (D.P. Wright, ed., The Register Of Thomas Langton Bishop Of Salisbury 1485-93 [Canterbury And York Society, 1985], 76). I don't know how he reached that conclusion, but the best explanation that comes to mind is Acts 12:12. The Mary of chapter 12 is the only Mary mentioned in Acts after the reference to Jesus' mother in 1:14. The Mary in chapter 12 is a prominent one living in a house familiar to and used by Peter and other Christians. She's mentioned as the one whose house it is without any reference to a husband, which suggests her prominence or widowhood. Edward may have mistaken the Mary of chapter 12 for Jesus' mother for one or more of those reasons. Since the John Mark mentioned in that context isn't mentioned in the gospel accounts that name Jesus' brothers, Edward may have estimated that John Mark was born sometime after Jesus' ascension (presumably by a second husband of Mary). Some church fathers and other sources over the years have confused one Mary with another, such as Ephraem the Syrian's confusing Mary Magdalene with Jesus' mother (Michael O'Carroll, Theotokos [Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988], 132-33). I'm not citing Edward's belief that Mary had another child so late in life because I agree with it. I don't. Rather, I'm citing it because it's a form of rejection of the perpetual virginity of Mary. As O'Carroll explains in his material on Ephraem cited above, Ephraem attributed doubt about Jesus' resurrection to Jesus' mother in the process of confusing her with Mary Magdalene. His attributing doubt to the mother of Jesus tells us something about how he viewed her, even though he was confusing her with somebody else in the process. The situation with Edward seems to be of a similar nature.

The information I've cited about Edward comes from the register of Thomas Langton. There's another entry in the register about Joan Vorde. The description of the entry at the top of the page refers to "heresies touching the continuing virginity of the B.V.M." and other subjects ("the worthiness of priests in deadly sin, and the Lord's Prayer"). (63) Part of her confession and abjuration reads, "Firste that I shulde say that our lorde Jesu cryste was never conceyvede of and born of our blyssede Lady mary she remaynyng in her virginite (blank - ? words erased for half a line)." The record then moves on to other issues. So, the part about Mary's virginity is incomplete, and what's there has some significant ambiguity. Vorde clearly denied Mary's perpetual virginity. But to what extent? Did she deny that Mary was a virgin even at the time of Jesus' conception? I doubt it. The Lollards and others closely affiliated with them were generally orthodox by our typical standards today, including on the virginal conception. Vorde would be an exception to the rule if she rejected Mary's virginity at the time when Jesus was conceived. And the other charges brought against her are relatively minor, so a denial of the virginal conception wouldn't sit well with that surrounding context. I think it's most likely that she accepted the virginal conception, but denied Mary's later virginity, perhaps with the mention of Jesus' birth being intended to convey a denial of Mary's virginity in partu, not a denial that she was still avoiding sexual intercourse up to the time of the birth (which Matthew 1:25 affirms and Vorde would be unlikely to deny).

The incompleteness of Vorde's trial record underscores a larger issue that should be reiterated here. See my earlier post here on the subject of the incompleteness of such heresy trials. That post cites Marian doctrines as examples of how incomplete the records are. When I cite the records of Thomas Langton, one bishop in one region whose register covers less than a decade, that register doesn't reflect the interests of everybody who oversaw heresy trials in every context. Different church leaders had different interests and wrote under different circumstances in other ways. A subject that was of a lot of interest to one church leader may have been of much less interest to another. Langton's register doesn't say much about the beliefs of heretics at the time covered by the register. If it happened to mention a couple different individuals who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary in that small region during that small timeframe, there surely were far more people across the world around that time who held that view. As Norman Tanner explains in another book about heresy trials in another context, "In short, the information comes to us largely through the eyes and according to the priorities of the prosecution, and Warham's [the Roman Catholic archbishop's] first priority seems to have been to secure convictions on a relatively small number of charges where heresy was clear-cut, not to enter into the defendants' beliefs at all fully or sympathetically." (Kent Heresy Proceedings 1511-12 [England: Kent Archaeological Society, 1997], xiv)

Diarmaid MacCulloch wrote:

"The Reformation had turned back to Scripture, and one obvious issue to rethink was the proposition about Mary most insecurely supported therein: her perpetual virginity. Any reader coming fresh to the appropriate references in the Biblical text would draw the conclusion that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and that is the conclusion that many readers did come to in the 1520s: so in May 1525 an unidentified radical, probably Conrad Grebel [an Anabaptist], scandalized the town leadership of St Gallen because he 'slandered Our Lady with seven children'." (R.N. Swanson, ed., The Church And Mary [Suffolk, England: The Boydell Press, 2004], 205-206)

The number seven probably comes from the gospels' references to four brothers of Jesus and the plural "sisters" (Matthew 13:55-56, Mark 6:3). If you add up Jesus, four brothers, and the minimum of two sisters, you get seven.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 1)

2026-06-14T06:55:39.648-04:00

It's common for Roman Catholics and other critics of Protestantism to bring up support among the earliest Protestants for various Marian beliefs that are often rejected by Protestants today, like the perpetual virginity of Mary. Individuals like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli will be cited in support of her perpetual virginity and other such beliefs about her. While it's true that the earliest Protestants were closer to groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy on Marian issues than modern Protestants are, even the earliest Protestants substantially disagreed with those groups on some Marian issues. See the examples discussed here. And the early Protestants who accepted Mary's perpetual virginity sometimes disagreed with Catholics and other modern advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary on some issues related to the doctrine, like whether she took a vow of virginity. In the coming days, I'm going to be discussing some late medieval and Reformation sources who were more distant from a traditional Catholic view on the perpetual virginity of Mary. What I want to do in this post is discuss some background issues that I think are helpful in framing the discussion.

People will sometimes say or suggest that nobody before the Reformation denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, that only Helvidius did, that only Tertullian and Helvidius did, or something else of a similar nature. Even among those who argue for some opposition to her perpetual virginity in the patristic era, there's typically nothing said about medieval opposition or opposition during the time of the Reformation. I've written a lot about the Biblical and patristic evidence and have briefly addressed some medieval opposition to her perpetual virginity. You can find an archive of many of our posts discussing the perpetual virginity of Mary here. Keep clicking Older Posts in the lower right of the screen to see more. The Biblical evidence against her perpetual virginity doesn't just include a large number and variety of terms the New Testament authors use, but also a variety of activities the relevant sources are involved in. See this post, for example. I've discussed the evidence that some early extrabiblical sources didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin, like this post on Hegesippus, this one on Irenaeus, and this one on Tertullian, among other relevant posts. On late patristic and early medieval sources, see here. The evidence suggests that the view that Mary had other children after Jesus was the sole or dominant view during the earliest generations of church history, even though belief in Mary's perpetual virginity apparently became the majority perspective from the fourth century onward.

So, when I discuss late medieval and Reformation sources in the coming days, that isn't the only or primary evidence I'm relying on for my conclusions about the perpetual virginity of Mary. Rather, I'm supplementing the much more important earlier sources with information about later sources who are less significant.

Objecting that my view of the earlier sources is just my interpretation, just my opinion, and so forth isn't an adequate response. An interpretation or opinion can be accompanied by arguments and evidence. And I have provided a large amount of supporting arguments and evidence. It's erroneous to suggest, as Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and other advocates of Mary's perpetual virginity often do, that only something like an infallible church or later church tradition can resolve a disagreement over how to interpret the earliest sources. The interpretations of the earliest sources don't exist in isolation. Rather, they exist alongside arguments and evidence supporting those interpretations. You need to interact with those arguments and interact with that evidence. You can't argue for something like an infallible church or a later tradition we should trust without putting forward arguments and evidence for your interpretation of early sources who allegedly support your conclusions about an infallible church and later tradition. And your interpretations of a supposedly infallible church and later tradition are just that, your interpretations. You can't avoid an appeal to your own interpretations supported by arguments and evidence.

Furthermore, it won't do to object that the earliest Christians supposedly aren't clear enough about Mary's perpetual virginity, didn't comment on the subject enough for us to conclude anything significant, or some such thing. The earliest Christians were in a good position to know what relationship Jesus' brothers and sisters had with him. Even where they didn't say as much as we'd like, they did say some things, and it's very unlikely upfront that everything they said would just happen to be ambiguous, balanced on a knife's edge across the board. In all likelihood, at least some of what they said would lean in one direction or another. As my posts above argue, and as many Catholic and other non-Protestant scholars have acknowledged, the evidence from the New Testament, Josephus, and other relevant early sources favors the conclusion that Mary gave birth to more children after Jesus' birth.

A lot of the arguments against Mary's perpetual virginity are of an implicit nature, and people sometimes object to that fact. They'd prefer explicit arguments, especially arguments of the most explicit type. But preferences aren't necessities. Any probability will do. We all rely on implicit arguments in our everyday lives. We couldn't function without doing so. And advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary often appeal to implicit argumentation themselves (on her perpetual virginity and on other subjects). It's not as though Mary's perpetual virginity is explicit in Ezekiel 44, but that hasn't kept advocates of her perpetual virginity from appealing to the passage. It's not as though a vow of perpetual virginity is explicit in Luke 1, yet we frequently see advocates of Mary's perpetual virginity appealing to that passage to argue for such a vow. And so on.

My posts in the coming days will be about lesser figures than individuals like Luther and Zwingli. The sources I'll be discussing varied in their prominence in the culture of their day, but they're not equivalents of somebody like Martin Luther or John Calvin. I've cited more prominent figures, including some more prominent than Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, in my posts about the evidence from earlier eras, linked above. But my upcoming posts on the late medieval and Reformation sources will be about lesser figures.

Since critics of Protestantism often complain about the citation of lesser figures, I want to make some comments on that subject. If you're going to claim that nobody held a particular view during a certain timeframe or in some other context, nobody means nobody. It doesn't take an equivalent of Luther or Zwingli to refute your claim. If you want to move the goalposts partway through the discussion, that's not my problem, and I'm under no obligation to accommodate you. Groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are swimming in an ocean of forgeries, apocryphal documents, anonymous sources, and the like (the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, the Donation of Constantine, the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus, appeals to catacomb inscriptions from unknown sources, appeals to manuscript fragments from unknown sources, etc.). Advocates of Mary's perpetual virginity frequently appeal to the Protevangelium Of James, an anonymous and pseudonymous apocryphal document that's highly inaccurate about historical matters. If they're going to complain about the citation of anonymous sources, sources who didn't have much prominence in their day, etc., they need to get the sequoia out of their eye before they object to the speck in a Protestant's eye.

I spend more time studying the Biblical and patristic sources than I do studying sources of the late medieval and Reformation eras. I'm not claiming that the sources I'll be citing are the only ones that could be brought up. If somebody who spends as little time in the late medieval and Reformation sources as I do has come across as many examples of sources like these as I have, I suspect the full number is much larger.

Returning to the issue of citing minor historical figures, anonymous sources in the historical record, and such, let's keep in mind what role such individuals have in the Biblical record (and elsewhere, though I'll focus on the Bible here). Things like God's working through a younger sibling rather than an older one and working through a remnant are big themes in scripture. Think of the accounts of Joseph in Genesis, the individuals God worked through in the book of Judges, Nehemiah, etc. Idolatry was often a problem during the Old Testament era, sometimes involving some majority of the culture, including occasionally a majority of the Israelites. (For other examples of errors on the part of a majority, see 2 Kings 22:8-13 and Nehemiah 8:13-17.) When Elijah said that he was the only one left who was faithful to God (1 Kings 19:14), God responded, "Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him." (19:18) The fact that Elijah didn't know about those other individuals, and instead referred to himself as the only one left, suggests they weren't prominent individuals. It would have been ridiculous for Elijah to have responded to God by objecting that the 7000 were just a small minority, that they weren't prominent, or that he didn't know their names. God responded to Elijah on his own terms rather than anticipating some further qualified objection Elijah could raise later on, and God thought that it was sufficient to appeal to a small minority of the population, anonymous people who lacked prominence.

Also keep in mind that we're addressing the late medieval and Reformation periods, not some equivalent of modern America. During the timeframe in question, there had been centuries of societal tendencies to develop higher and higher views of Mary, popular ascetic movements, and other relevant cultural factors, often backed by governmental power and threats of punishment up to and including execution, often in forms as bad as being burned at the stake. Even after the Reformation arrived and Protestants had more governmental influence in some areas, a reexamination of the perpetual virginity of Mary wasn't a high priority. The doctrine has some significance in and of itself, such as telling us some significant things about what sort of household environment Jesus grew up in, but there's nothing inherently anti-Protestant about Mary's being a perpetual virgin. The idea takes on more significance when it's associated with larger concepts, like the reliability of certain types of extrabiblical tradition and church infallibility. So, it's not much of a problem from a Protestant standpoint if we find only a smaller rather than larger number of people who were skeptical of the perpetual virginity of Mary or significantly open to questioning it in timeframes like the late medieval era and the years of the Reformation.

So Quickly Drifting To A Different Gospel

2026-06-11T05:27:43.020-04:00

Paul told the Galatians, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel" (Galatians 1:6). He expressed a similar sentiment to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 11:4).

If churches as early as these Pauline ones were in such danger and sometimes erred while under Paul's supervision, there's even more potential in some ways for later individuals and churches to err in that manner. My post earlier this week provides many examples of how that sort of thing happened a lot in later church history, regardless of which side of those later disputes you take. The disputes happened, and both sides (or more than two in some contexts) couldn't be right, given the nature of their claims.

I'm not suggesting that every or almost every post-apostolic source before the Reformation wasn't a Christian or anything like that. As I've argued in many previous posts and elsewhere, there was far more belief in justification through faith alone among the pre-Reformation sources than people often suggest. And I allow for the salvation of people who hold false soteriological views. People are often inconsistent, as we see with Peter and the Galatians, for example. In some ways, later individuals and groups who have contradicted Paul's soteriology have been better than the Judaizers. They've accepted the authority of the apostles, have often read documents like Paul's letters in their church services, etc. So, when Cyprian sees two sacraments (baptism and the laying on of hands) as a means of justification in John 3:5 or a medieval Roman Catholic believes that you have to obey the Pope in order to be saved, for example, I allow for the possibility or probability of their salvation. I make a judgment based on the totality of the evidence, including their access to the gospel and their affirmations of it in some places, even if they were inconsistent with it at times.

My main point here, though, is that departing from the gospel isn't as difficult as some people make it out to be. It was a prominent concern in Paul's day, and it sometimes happened even with people under the apostles' supervision. People often underestimate the soteriological inconsistencies we see in post-apostolic church history. Supposedly, none or few of the soteriological contradictions we see among the church fathers, medieval theologians, and other sources rise to the level of a false gospel. But it makes more sense to acknowledge that the soteriological errors are more significant than that and allow for the salvation of the individuals involved, despite their false soteriology.

The Practicality Of Theology And Justification In Particular

2026-06-09T05:39:51.313-04:00

It's often suggested that matters like theology and apologetics don't have much practical value. What significance do they have in everyday life? They aren't pragmatic enough to deserve much time or attention. And the doctrine of justification is often singled out for that sort of commentary. Supposedly, arguments about justification, between Protestants and Catholics and in other contexts, don't matter much, are a waste of time, and so on.

Notice how the soteriological issues I addressed in my last post provide evidence to the contrary. For example, whether you're forgiven by God and have peace with him immediately (2 Corinthians 6:2), as soon as you come to faith, or when you're baptized six months later is significant. Similarly, the issue of the efficacy of deathbed repentance is of major importance. Much the same can be said of other soteriological issues.

Ironically, the sort of pragmatism advocated by the people I referred to in my opening paragraph is very unpragmatic. It causes a lot of significant problems in people's lives.

More Soteriological Disagreement Before The Reformation

2026-06-07T07:04:47.661-04:00

In the context of discussing baptismal regeneration, I've mentioned that there was widespread disagreement among the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation regarding initiatory rites. Things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit would sometimes be placed at the time of baptism, but often would be placed in some other context instead (faith prior to baptism, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal laying on of hands, etc.). The extrabiblical sources before the Reformation widely disagreed about baptismal efficacy, despite how popular it is to falsely claim that everybody before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that almost everybody did, or some such thing. What modern advocates of baptismal regeneration attribute to baptism was often attributed to prebaptismal faith, anointing with oil, foot washing, or something else by many pre-Reformation sources. For a discussion of some patristic examples, see here. On medieval sources, see here. And I've provided other examples in other posts.

I've also discussed widespread soteriological disagreements among pre-Reformation sources in contexts other than initiatory rites. See here for some examples of extrabiblical sources before the Reformation who believed in eternal security. And see here for some examples of how the sources who rejected eternal security disagreed with each other about which sins are mortal and which aren't. As that post mentions, there also were disagreements about whether certain activities qualified as sin of any type, regardless of whether they were mortal.

In the process of reading a collection of the sermons of Ceasarius of Arles, I came across another example of this sort of thing:

"Many of our brothers and sons are anxiously concerned whether a man who repents in sickness and immediately dies can obtain complete forgiveness. Not only are there inquiries on the subject, but even contentions marked with considerable animosity. Some say that one who repents thus is forgiven entirely, while others say it does no good." (Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 60:1, p. 295)

Elsewhere, I've quoted Caesarius' opposition to advocates of eternal security in his day. And notice that he refers to "contentions marked with considerable animosity". Keep that in mind when you hear people talking about the alleged unity of pre-Reformation sources.

In another sermon in the collection quoted above - a sermon that apparently didn't come from Caesarius, but has sometimes circulated among his sermons - we get an example of how far some pre-Reformation sources went in advocating justification through works, to the point of taking this much of an anti-Biblical position against those who repent on their deathbed:

"Let him not wait to seek penance until the last moment of his life, when he may no longer be able to fulfill it. That sort of idea is foolish, dearly beloved. The sinner cannot ask for penance unless he will perform it. Merely the word of the penitent does not suffice to wipe out sins, because in satisfaction for great sins not only words but actions are sought. Of course, even at the very last moment penance is given because it cannot be denied. However, we cannot be a guarantee that one who has thus sought it deserves to be absolved. Indeed, how can one who is exhausted do penance, established as he is at the very end of his life? How can he do penance when he can no longer offer works of satisfaction for himself? Therefore, the penance which is asked by the weak is weak; the penance which is asked by a man only when he is sick is sickly; that which is sought by a man only when dying, it, too, I fear, will die. For this reason, dearly beloved, let anyone who wishes to find God's mercy do penance in this world while he is in good health, in order that he may be saved in the world to come." (ibid., Sermon 62, p. 304)

Evidence Below The Surface

2026-06-04T06:18:41.872-04:00

People often say they're familiar with an issue, even to the point of being weary of hearing about it, when they're actually significantly ignorant about the subject. What they've heard a lot of is introductory information about the topic or some of the more advanced information about it without having heard about other information of a more advanced nature. Their knowledge is partial and often misleading.

For example, they've heard a lot about gospel authorship in the sense that they've heard many introductory or intermediate discussions of Papias, Irenaeus, and other sources. But there are other lines of evidence they have little or no familiarity with.

That's one of the dangers involved in addressing topics in a shallow way. You give people the impression that there's less involved, often far less, than is actually there. Christians should keep maturing in their understanding of issues and keep trying to get other people to mature. Take different approaches toward a subject on different occasions. Mention that there's more evidence involved than what you're bringing up, and direct people to resources that provide that other evidence.

Majoring On The Minors And Minoring On The Majors

2026-06-02T05:10:47.328-04:00

Given how you behave in school, in the workplace, among relatives, on the internet, and in other contexts, how much reason do people have to think you're significantly different than the secular, trivial culture around you? You claim to object to how corrupt the culture is. Should you fit in as well as you do with the mainstream of the culture in school, among your relatives, on Twitter, on Facebook, and in other contexts?

I would not with swift wingèd zeal
On the world's errands go,
And labor up the heav'nly hill
With weary feet and slow.
(Thomas Gill, "Lord, In The Fullness Of My Might")