If you were to travel in Uganda to the small town of Námugónga, a few miles from Kampala, you would find there at the Anglican Church one of the most bizarre memorials ever erected—it is a large cross, and piled like cordwood beneath the cross are some 25 life-sized ceramic figures, with their heads and shoulders protruding from bundles of wood and cane rods which encase the bodies.
Martyrdom was, in theory, enjoined upon all, but it also required extreme virtue and courage. One expositor and cautious apologist for martyrdom, Clement of Alexandria, approached the egalitarianism of martyrdom by citing as precedent for early Christian martyrdom the deaths of more ancient and brave people,
Justin was born in Samaria and tells us how he came to Christian faith in a little piece of autobiography which is also a parable of his position in the revelation/reason debate—in fact it may be no more than a parable. He tells us that he travelled to Ephesus for his higher education and had a series of disappointments.
How awesome to be in the presence
Of you, Lord, the One
Who brings Good News.
I have already said that God reared this fabric of the world out of nothing, by his word, wisdom, or power; and it is evident that your sages of old were of the same opinion, that the Ao’yos, that is, the Word, or the Wisdom, was the Maker of the universe, for Zeno determines the Logos to be the creator and adjuster of everything in nature.
The moment that the first Prayer Book was issued in 1549, it came under attack and not only from the people of Cornwall, who could not understand its form of English and preferred the old Mass. Reformed theologians also objected, such as Martin Bucer, who left Germany in the previous year to become a professor at Cambridge at Cranmer’s invitation,
It was requisite that the gift should be visible, that the bodily sense might the more stir up the disciples. For such is our slothfulness to consider the gifts of God, that unless he awake all our senses, his power shall pass away unknown.
Gregory would certainly have little enough knowledge about this island on the fringes of his world; a few old geographies and a little hearsay might have accounted for most of it. But as Ethelbert was married to a Frankish Christian princess (Bertha, daughter of King Charibert), as Kent of which Ethelbert was king had important trading and other contacts with Gaul, particularly south of the Loire, and as Gregory also had contacts with Gaul, he clearly could have had an impression of Ethelbert’s position
Why did Gregory choose Augustine to head his mission? For those to whom Augustine appears as an unintelligent coward and bigot it is naturally a puzzle why so shrewd a man as Gregory should have sent him.
He rendered divine service in an ideal manner, with simplicity and feeling. He loved the study of divinity, and made it a practice to read theological works, both the standard Anglican doctors, Hooker, Person, Bull, Barrow, Butler, Waterland, etc., and current treatises as well