{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.025385312783318223, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.841269841269841, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: The Cappadocians

caelis. Hence, behind Tertullian's rigorist advocacy of the penitential discipline as central to the nature of the Church, lay the urgency of the ritual anticipation of the Last Judgement, rather than the need for the individual conscience to be at peace with itself. It was not eschatology, however, but Roman patterns of order that created the mould for Tertullian's view of the ministry. The three-fold ministry, clearly in evidence in Tertullian's writings, was not for Tertullian sacral in its essential nature. Its dignity, its authority and its privileges accrued from its position: the higher clergy were analogous to the Roman nobilitas who exercised authority over and acted as patrons of the plebs. This alone can account for the fact that Tertullian allows laity, in the absence of the clergy, not only to baptize but even 'to offer' the Eucharist. This is a book I am pleased to recommend both to the scholar and the interested layperson. The scholarship is sound, within the boundaries assigned, and the issues raised are of perennial interest to the Church.