Journal

I have argued elsewhere that the doctrine of original sin as defined at the Council of Carthage in 418 is just as authoritative in the East as it is in the West because of the inclusion of the canons from Carthage in Canon 2 of the Council in Trullo (692, also known as the Quinisext or Penthekti Council). At first glance, this case may appear significantly overstated; yet another wooden canonical reading by an Internet pedagogue. After all, Trullo has long been understood in the East to be merely administrative in function: a standardization of various canonical norms. Surely, one might propose, Trullo did not intend to take on so weighty a theological matter as original sin!

A florilegium collected by Eric Lozano and originally published here. Used with permission.

“For what is sin? Could a child who has only just been born commit a sin? And yet he has sin for which it is commanded to offer a sacrifice. For this reason the Church received from the Apostles the tradition to administer baptism to the children also. For the men to whom the secrets of divine mysteries had been entrusted knew that in everyone there were genuine sinful defilements, which had to be washed away with water and the Spirit.”

© Alexis Torrance and Dylan Pahman, ed., Treasures Old and New: Themes in Orthodox Theology in Memory of Fr. Matthew Baker (Jordanville: Holy Trinity Seminary Press, forthcoming).

Introduction: “Why can it be so hard to see the face of Christ in [historical] scholarship? Perhaps we forget how that face was beaten, spat upon, and crowned with thorns for our salvation and fail to recognize it before our eyes. Or perhaps, more likely, the problem is that the image in us and the scholarship we produce is obscured by the overgrowth of our sin and corruption. As the chanters pray in the person of Adam during memorials for the dead, ‘I am an image of Your ineffable glory, though I bear the scars of my transgressions.’ Whether studies of texts new or old, the contributions to this volume sift through the dragnet of history and human thought, endeavoring to sort the good from the bad. This even applies, as is the custom of the Fr. Georges Florovsky Orthodox Christian Theological Society, to the works of Florovsky himself. And so it does, far too soon, to the works of Fr. Matthew Baker.” Continue reading “Inherited Guilt in Ss. Augustine and Cyril”

By Sarah H. Begley (ThM Thesis)

“A world in need of redemption is a world in which vision of God is not an optional extra. . . Art, faith, theology and doing good can provide paths to such glimpses of the transcendent.”
– G. Thiessan, Theological Aesthetics Continue reading “Theological Aesthetics East and West: The Reception of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II)”