“I will argue in this book that the fundamental physics of every socioreligious, cultural-religious formation consists of practices concerning holiness, purity and sacrifice. . . . Relocate the sacred, rearrange the boundaries of purity and pollution, revise its sacrificial procedures, and you have changed the fundamental physics of the society. A revolution here is the most profound of social revolutions, and it is the revolution achieved by Jesus in his cross and resurrection” (Peter J. Leithart, Delivered from the Elements of the World, 12).

Madness it is to hope that human minds / can ever understand the Infinite / that comprehends Three Persons in One Being.

Be satisfied with quia unexplained, / O human race! If you knew everything, / no need for Mary to have borne a son.

(Translation by Mark Musa, Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Purgatory, Canto III, 34-39)

“A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand” (Dorothy L. Sayers, Why Work?, 3).

“We cannot enter into the consciousness of God, and therefore cannot know His thoughts, as they lie in His infinite understanding, without some medium of external revelation” (James Henley Thornwell, The Collected Writings, Vol. 1, 29).

“Like brilliant lights the churches were now illuminating the world, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ was flourishing everywhere when the Devil, who hates what is good, true, and saving, turned all his weapons against the church. Previously he had attacked her from the outside through persecutions, but now that he was prevented, he resorted to internal tactics [i.e. heresy], using wicked impostors as corrupt agents of destruction [e.g. the Gnostics], assuming the name of our religion to destroy every believer they could ensnare while deflecting unbelievers from the path that leads to salvation” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 139).

“It is related that in his [Nero’s] reign Paul was beheaded in Rome itself and that Peter was also crucified, and the cemeteries there still called by the names of Peter and Paul confirm the record” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 85).

“Nero sent Festus as [Felix’s] successor, and Paul was tried before him and brought as prisoner to Rome. Aristarchus went with him, whom he called his fellow prisoner in his epistles [Col. 4:10]. And at this point Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, finished his story with the statement that Paul spent two whole years in Rome in free custody, preaching without hindrance. After defending himself [successfully], the apostle is said to have set out again on the ministry of preaching and, coming a second time to the same city, found fulfillment in martyrdom. During this imprisonment he composed the second epistle to Timothy, mentioning both his earlier defense as well as his impending fulfillment” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 80).

“Thus the saving word started to brighten the whole world like rays of the sun. In every city and village, churches mushroomed, crowded with myriads of members. Those chained by superstition and idolatry found release through the power of Christ as well as the teaching and wonderful deeds of his followers. Rejecting demonic polytheism, they confessed the one God and Creator of the universe whom they honored with the rational worship implanted by our Savior” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Paul L. Maier, 61).