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9 results

  • The Intellectual Role of the Early Catholic Episcopate
  • L. William Countryman
  • Journal: Church History / Volume 48 / Issue 3 / September 1979
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009, pp. 261-268
  • Print publication: September 1979
  • View extract

    The intellectual dominance of the clergy is an important feature of Catholic Christianity in the second and third centuries. If one goes through the roll of Christian writers from the period, one finds very few laymen: Hermas, Justin, Tertullian, Minucius Felix. The great majority were ordained men, including a disproportionate number of bishops: Ignatius, Polycarp, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, Melito, Theophilus, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius of Alexandria, Cyprian, to give but a partial list.