Robert Ernest Wallis

“ Let us note that the whole spirit of antiquity is opposed to worldliness. It reflects the precept, “Be not conformed to this world,” and in nothing more emphatically than in hostility to theatrical amusements, which in our days are re-asserting the deadly influence over Christians which Cyprian and Tertullian and other Fathers so solemnly denounced. ”

“ Compare St. Basil’s letters to the Western bishops, in which he reminds them that the Gospel came to them from the East. This is a sort of primacy recognised by St. Paul himself, [6] as it was afterwards, when Jerusalem was recognised as “the mother of all the churches” [7] by a general council, writing to Damasus, bishop of Rome, himself. ”

“ Matt. iii. 10. “Securis ad radicem arboris posita est,” says Cyprian, quoting the Old Latin, with which the Vulgate substantially agrees. [1] A very diligent biblical scholar directs attention to the vulgar abuse of this saying, [2] which turns upon a confusion of the active verb to lay, with the neuter verb to lie. ”