Known as “the Mother Church” by Byzantine Chrisitians, the Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), stood for 900 years as the center of the Empire and of Eastern Christianity.

The Emperor Justinian knew he was building a church for all time. He nearly bankrupted Constantinople to build it. The city watched one fountain after another dry up — all the pipes had been melted down to make gutters for the new church. The teachers in the schools were starving. The poor were poorer, and the rich complained of being somewhat less rich. But the church was going up, and for a while Justinian hardly seemed to care about anything else.

His architect, Anthemius, was a brilliant but slightly eccentric engineer. Anthemius invented a kind of searchlight, and he used it to play practical jokes on his neighbors. He also invented a steam engine, but it was only a mechanical toy. Anthemius was just the sort of mildly unbalanced architect who would try something just because it was supposed to be impossible, and just the sort to build the most magnificent church in the world — or die trying.

The impossible problem was this: how do you give a building both light and space? The bigger the building, the heavier the roof. The heavier the roof, the thicker the supports it needs, and the less space there is for letting in light.

Anthemius’ answer was a huge, shallow dome. It ought to have been impossible. Nothing like it had ever been done before — a big dome usually has to be tall, like the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome or the Capitol in Washington, in order to hold itself up. Even if the dome could be built, the supports for it would have to be so thick that they would ruin the effect of light and space.

But nothing seemed impossible for Anthemius. He solved the problem by setting the dome on half-domes, so that the whole structure could rest on four widely spaced piers. Around the circumference of the dome were so many windows that the dome seemed to float over the church. Provincial visitors sometimes believed the story that the dome hung from heaven on a golden chain.

Anthemius had solved the impossible problem—at least so it seemed. When Justinian finally entered the finished church, he looked up at a mosaic picture of Solomon. “Glory to God,” said the Emperor, “who has found me worthy to finish such a great work — surpassing even you, Solomon.”

A few years later, the impossible dome fell down.

Even making the dome slightly taller didn’t solve the structural problems. But the dome was too beautiful to give up on. When it was rebuilt for the last time, the builders took no chances. Exceptionally holy men came to spit some of their holiness into the mortar. A saint’s relic was built into every twelfth course of bricks. And every brick was stamped with the initials of the verse, “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.”

With all that supernatural help, the dome stayed up. Earthquakes, sieges, and periods of neglect have taken their toll on the building, but with the help of occasional emergency repairs, the dome is still there today — though the building the Turks call “Aya Sofia” is now a state-run museum. The last liturgy was offered there in 1453. Afterward, the building was converted to a mosque.

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople hosts a lovely website of high-quality photos of the Mother Church. Don’t miss it.

Irenaeus of Lyons exhorted Christians to “take refuge in the Church, to drink milk at her breast, to be fed with the Scriptures of the Lord.” Babies can do very little to gain nourishment; they can only cry out in their need. So are we in our need of grace.

The Catholic Church is the “one and only mother,” said St. Cyprian a few years later. “By her bearing are we born, by her milk are we nourished.”

I have nothing against contemporary worship music. You can check the endorsement of Mark Shuttleworth’s CD that I posted earlier this week. And I’m a real fan of John Michael Talbot, who is himself a perceptive reader of the Church Fathers.

But I had to laugh when my son Michael presented me with the following, from the ancient “Canons of St. Basil”:

If a lector learns to play the guitar, he shall also be instructed to confess it. If he does not return to it, he shall suffer his penance for seven weeks. If he keeps at it, he shall be excommunicated and put out of the Church.

My son plays the guitar, but he favors old-fashioned hymns at Mass. Nevertheless, he insisted that, if I should post the bit from Basil, I must also post (as a sort of bronze serpent?) a link for readers to gaze upon a Gibson Les Paul with proper veneration.

See Justin Martyr through the lens of “a pagan astronomical device.”

Just a few months ago, the Washington Post ran an astonishing opinion column, written by one of its own, Patricia E. Bauer, a former Post bureau chief. Patricia has a grown daughter with Down syndrome, and she writes about the rudeness she has had to endure through the years. People ask her whether she had undergone prenatal testing. The unspoken assumption is that, if she had, her daughter Margaret would never have been born. One Ivy League ethicist said in her presence that mothers whose unborn children test positive for Down syndrome have a “moral obligation” to terminate the pregnancy.

We’ve come a long way, baby. And we’ve ended up back where we started before the rise of Christianity. In the Church’s infancy, the age of the Fathers, abortion and infanticide were commonplace events, requiring little deliberation. Archeology has yielded us a rare glimpse at the inner life of ordinary people in this time. We have a letter from a pagan businessman in which he wrote home to his pregnant wife, amid the usual endearments: “If you are delivered of a child [before I come home], if it is a boy, keep it, if a girl discard it.”

Indeed, most pagan cultures considered it a duty to place “defective” newborns on the dunghills at the edge of town, where birds of prey could pick them apart. Most families interpreted the word “defective” broadly, to include female children as well as those with disabilities or disfigurement. Plato and Aristotle commended the practice, and the Roman historian Tacitus said it was “sinister and revolting” for Jews to forbid infanticide.

Yet these practices created a crisis for pagans. Abortion and infanticide led to low fertility rates, high maternal mortality, a shortage of marriageable women, and an absence of familial care for the elderly. Over generations, the dwindling native population of Rome grew increasingly dependent on foreign mercenaries to fill the ranks of the army, and immigrants to do the servile jobs that no Roman citizen wanted to do. That makes for an unstable infrastructure. Various emperors tried to legislate fertility, but the law isn’t much of an aphrodisiac. And abortion kills a couple’s love every bit as much as it kills their baby. Besides, people had grown accustomed to an unmoored, leisurely life, drifting from pleasure to pleasure, without the encumbrance of children.

We face a similar crisis today. Christianity’s critics say they want to promote a tolerant, welcoming, inclusive society. What they usually mean is a society that gives free rein to every vice, every cruel lust, and every sin. But a growing number of people are dissatisfied with the societal consequences of those sins. What’s a culture to do?

We Christians have answers. Around 155 A.D., St. Justin Martyr wrote to the emperor: “We have been taught that it is wicked to expose even newly born children . . . For we would then be murderers.” In the same century, Athenagoras said: “Women who use drugs to bring on an abortion commit murder.” These testimonies appear late in the game, a half-century after the earliest recorded Christian condemnation of abortion.

We, too, are living rather late in the game, but not too late to speak up and speak plainly. No society can grow if it snuffs out life in the seed or in the bud. No society can be inclusive if it refuses to welcome the most vulnerable persons. It was Christians who created the first truly tolerant, welcoming, and all-inclusive society — with a remarkable social-welfare system. They did this because they, unlike their rulers, not only tolerated the poor and weak, nor merely loved them with a human affection. They saw the least of the human family as the image of God, as Christ who must be welcomed, as angels requiring hospitality.

I’ve quoted the Didascalia Apostolorum here before, but that’s OK. We need to memorize this line as if it were the first catechism lesson: “Widows and orphans are to be revered like the altar.”

From such reverence for life came true social security, true stability and prosperity. From such reverence came many beloved and loving children like Margaret.

Some poets peer into Chapman’s Homer and get inspired. I peered into my co-author Chris Bailey’s copy of The Da Vinci Code, saw his marginal notes, and howled with laughter. An example:

DAN BROWN WROTE: “More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament…”
CHRIS BAILEY WROTE: “Thank you for submitting ‘The Gospel of Thomas.’ Unfortunately, it does not meet our current needs…”

Visit Chris’s blog to read more of his musings on the Holy Grail and, yes, The Da Vinci Code. Unlike Dan Brown, Chris gives you real history. And, unlike Brown’s novel, many of Chris’s observations are intentionally funny.

I so enjoyed writing The Grail Code with this guy. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.

In the western calendar, today is the optional memorial of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus, martyrs (c. 100 A.D.); and the optional memorial of St. Pancras, martyr (c. 304).

Remember them today. They’ll intercede for you and help you through difficulties. Martyrs are good about that sort of thing.

Hat tip: Jeff Ziegler of the Ziegler A List.

Do you teach? Homeschool? Would you be interested in adding Latin to your lineup — or as an extracurricular activity?

About a year ago, while browsing at the local Barnes and Noble, my kids and I discovered the coolest program. A goup of students from a local Catholic school were putting on a Roman pageant — lots of comedy, singing, etc., and much of it in Latin. And their teacher raffled off some real ancient objects. On the other side of the store, the group had arranged for a “traveling ancient-coin museum” to visit. Its curator made the trip from the far reaches of the midwest.

I found out that the sponsoring Catholic school did not actually offer Latin classes. All they do is sponsor a Latin club. But the club’s moderator is a true zealot named Zee, who knows how to keep kids spellbound.

Zee Poerio is not alone in her work. In fact, she’s very active in several national organizations that welcome members from public, private or home schools.

If you teach you might be interested in checking out Excellence Through Classics, which sponsors and administers the National Mythology Exam. (Zee is vice-chair.) Homeschoolers, too, can take the exam.

Zee is also director of Ancient Coins for Education, which is the program that most fascinated my kids.

She’s also a member of the Education and Youth Programs Task Force of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild

Membership in the American Classical League gets you a discount on books from the organization’s Teacher Materials Resource Center.

Granted, these groups are dealing almost exclusively with classical antiquity, not Christian antiquity. But none of them, to my knowledge, forbids its members to substitute the writings of the Fathers for the best of Cicero. Others may ask, with Tertullian, what has Athens (or Rome) to do with Jerusalem? But that question was best answered by other Fathers, like St. Basil the Great, in his “Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature.”

How do you say that in French? Kevin at Biblicalia broke the news:

…in celebration of publishing their 500th volume in the Sources Chrétiennes series, all volumes are on sale at 50% off through the end of May. So, if you’ve got any Patristic writers for which you want an original language text with a French translation, chances are they’re in the series and now’s your chance to save big.

There’s some fascinating activity at GrailCode.com, where my co-author Chris Bailey has summoned old Nennius forth from his ancient grave and from neglected library shelves. In Nennius we encounter an early Christian re-telling of the Celtic tales, which later bards would weave into the romances of the Holy Grail. Don’t miss Chris’s fascinating discussion, and don’t forget to order our book, The Grail Code — which (if I do say so myself) is one of the more entertaining ways to counter the Grail-related fabrications of The Da Vinci Code.

People are often shocked when they go to the early Christians hoping to find a solution to problems that have preoccupied Christians since the Reformation. They often find the Fathers relatively unconcerned. A case in point is the debate about what it means to be “saved,” and correspondingly what it means to be justified and sanctified. The post-Reformation tendency, especially among Protestants, is to section these terms off and consider them as discrete events, points on a timeline. The Fathers, however, preferred to speak of salvation as an irreducibly integrated process, which they called “divinization” — or “deification,” or “theosis.”

Those are daring terms, but they are biblical in essence, as is the idea that we share in divinity by our incorporation into Christ. The Apostle Peter said, after all, that Christians are “partakers of the divine nature.”

Whenever people asked me about this doctrine of the Fathers, I usually pointed them to two excellent modern explanations: Scott Hahn’s book First Comes Love and chapter 2 of Cardinal Christoph Schonborn’s book From Death to Life. These are excellent resources — thorough and winsome — but I always wished for something that was handier for evangelism, along the lines of those tracts I often find at the laundromat or supermarket (“Are YOU Saved?”). After all, why should the whole truth — why should our divinization — prove resistant to modern media?

Yesterday I discovered just such a handy booklet: Theosis: Partaking of the Divine Nature, by Mark Shuttleworth, an Orthodox layman. The 20-page booklet is, like the teachings of the Fathers themselves, saturated with the testimony of the Good Book.

“I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High’ (Ps 82:6)… What on earth does it mean — “you are gods”? Doesn’t our faith teach that there is only one God, in three Persons? How can human beings be gods? … Theosis is the understanding that human beings can have real union with God, and so become like God to such a degree that we participate in the divine nature.”

Shuttleworth gives several pages over to New Testament quotations explaining the meaning and implications of our deification. He then summons the early Fathers to the witness stand: Origen, Athanasius, Basil, Cyril of Alexandria and others. C.S. Lewis even makes a cameo appearance.

This is a very useful little book, great to buy in bulk and stack in the back of the church. And it’s an invaluable tool for modern apologists.

The very first question I received when I launched this blog was from a group of tenacious Catholics living in the Mormon heartland of Utah. My correspondent said that Mormons were increasingly trying to invoke the Fathers’ doctrine of theosis as a sort of anticipation of the Mormon belief that the faithful will be made gods to rule over their own planets in the afterlife. These Utah Catholics, though, diligently applied themselves to studying and discussing the patristic doctrine, and formulating a deeply Christian, patristic response to their nearby neighbors.

The author of Theosis, Mark Shuttleworth, has put this ancient doctrine to the biblical test; he has put it into words that engage the mind; but, a man of extraordinary talent, he has also done something more with the doctrine. He has put it to beautiful music. Shuttleworth has translated these biblical and patristic notions into music in the contemporary praise idiom. His CD travels with me wherever I go. I especially love his setting for the ancient Trisagion and his own composition “My Lord, I Love You.” The disk is not yet available on the Web, but you can buy it directly from the artist. Just send a check for $15 ($12 for the CD; $3 for shipping and handling) to Mark Shuttleworth, 2962 Voelkel Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15216.

Then settle in for some truly divinizing listening.

This is from Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, in God’s Human Face: The Christ Icon:

“Theodore the Studite was convinced that iconoclasm ultimately is based on a rejection of the humility of God.”

What a stud … ite.

Hat tip: Scott Hahn, who sent it in response to this post.

Yesterday I joined Greg and Lisa Popcak on the “Heart, Mind and Strength” radio show, to talk about breastfeeding imagery in the Church Fathers. You can pick up the podcast here.

Rod Bennett‘s at it again. Searching out the ultimate creative sources of Tolkien, Lewis, and J.K. Rowling, he follows the influences, Livingstone-like, till he reaches … the Fathers of the Church.