@curiousdannii @PeterTurner While currently studying early Christian history (up to AD 800) I find the social religious historian method very useful: tradition as the community's self definition against other groups that posed a threat. Before Constantine, it's against the charge of Christians being illegitimate superstition, of lesser status than Judaism. Shortly after Constantine it's respectability against paganism, thus works by classically trained Christian scholars such as St. Augustine.

In the meantime the nascent apostolic church is fighting various "heretical" groups from Marcion, Montanist, Gnostic, Docetist, up to Arian near Council of Nicaea but continues the self-definition as the Right (orthodox) church in the next several hundred years with Pelagianism, Monophysites, Manicheeism, etc. All in the name of preserving the Apostolic tradition, although which one is genuinely apostolic is still a matter of debate until today.

I found out that the precursor of major divisions appeared before AD 400 already, not only the precursor of Eastern Orthodox, but the now (just in the past decade or two) increasingly studied Coptic and Syrian Christianity. Which one is truly apostolic? I found that it's not an easy answer. Peter Brown, et. al. doesn't try to answer this question, but want to be faithful in describing those groups in their own terms as a professional historian.

He wrote books on the "cult of the saints" (mainly the social aspects), asceticism, the role of the poor (which is not only the fiscally poor, but the deserving poor which includes monasteries and missionaries, which is connected with accumulating treasures in heaven), etc. In doing the study this way, I hope to let the different traditions speak on their own terms, and try to find common ground while postponing judgment on which tradition is THE ONE as late as possible.

In the end, we may not have an answer, or have to settle that the only binding authority is the Nicene creed, which is fine with me.

@GratefulDisciple The Nicene-Constantinople Creed is indeed a fantastic document. And I do really appreciate that, whatever other differences we may have, we can come together behind it.

@curiousdannii That's the distinction between big T Tradition and little t tradition. So if Pope Pius the 90th in the year 3052 finally proclaims the 5th Marian dogma, nobody's gonna say it arose in a vacuum. But you're right about the other stuff. They may not all be true, but they probably all have some truth to them. For instance, in Wisconsin Our Lady appeared to a Belgian-American lay-sister named Adele in the late 1800's. She just told her to teach the catechism.

That didn't add much to the deposit of faith, but it was a confirmation that teaching the catechism is a good thing. Our Lady told the kids at Fatima to pray the Rosary - that's good advice.

Now, she also left 'em with some prophecies the veracity and meaning of which are pretty debatable, which is why people still talk about it and make movies about it 100 years later.

I'll admit, it doesn't help outsiders to understand Catholicism much when we talk with equal fervor about things we have to believe and things we don't have to believe.

@curiousdannii Yes. As I skim the book, Prof. Goetz is helpfully liberal in quoting excerpts from Lewis's many letters where he studiously avoided not only sectarian disputes but "high theology" (i.e. theological disputes by specialists, out of reach of layman). Another related and supremely important trait of C.S. Lewis highlighted in the book is his fervent appeal to the common sense of everyday people, turns out to be a key reason why he was against Aquinas (in some, but key areas)!

So I think both characteristics justify C.S. Lewis being tagged as the spokesman of mere Christianity, a term that I found out from the book he borrowed from the 17th century Anglican clergyman Richard Baxter, who in the original context was trying to find common ground in the midst of the dispute between the Church of England and the Puritans.

I now focus on the apostolic: the "mere Christianity" hidden within the written, liturgical, art, practices, and historical records between AD 50-450. I also focus on the fleshing out of the apostolic teaching to all aspects of human nature (philosophical domain). In this, C.S. Lewis and Aquinas are my most trusted guides. This book brings out both men's presuppositions so I can be more faithful to the theology of the Biblical authors, which both men professed utmost allegiance.