Primacy & Conciliarity
Addison H. Hart on Orientale Lumen V
“Who do you think that the ancient lady was from whom you received the little book?” . . . “Who is she, then?” I said. “The Church,” he said. . . . “She was created the first of all things. For this reason is she old; and for her sake was the world established.”
[The ancient lady] said to me: “Behold, do you not see before you a great tower being built on the water with shining square stones? . . . The tower which you see being built is myself, the Church . . . [T]he building of the tower shall be completed, and all shall rejoice together around the tower, and shall glorify God because the building of the tower has been completed.”
—The Shepherd of Hermas, Vis. II,iv,1; Vis. III,ii,4; Vis. III,iii,3; Vis. III,iv,2; written circa A.D. 150
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Addison H. Hart is retired from active ministry as parish priest and university chaplain. He is the author of Knowing Darkness: On Skepticism, Melancholy, Friendship, and God and The Yoke of Jesus: A School for the Soul in Solitude (both from Eerdmans). His forthcoming book is a study of the Sermon on the Mount. He lives and writes in Norheimsund, Norway.
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