Irenaeus constantly spoke of the presbyters who possess the succession from the Apostles; those who, together with the succession of the Episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth. For him the importance of the presbyter was based on apostolic succession: the presbyter was a teacher, and teaching determines faith; it is the means by which the faith is preserved and transmitted. The presbyter is a link in the long line of tradition; tradition which disciplines the faithful and determines the future of the church. For this reason alone the presbyter is important for Irenaeus. And this is the basis for the distinct way in which Irenaeus treats him. The presbyter is the primary minister, yet not necessarily a bishop. He is a leader of the Christian community assigned the task of preserving the faith, teaching it and making sure to defend it against error. He holds the chief seat in the administration of the Christian community, and is always associated with the episcopos or bishop. In the writings of Irenaeus there is no clear distinction made between these two terms.

We must keep in mind that Christianity began as a movement, not as an established system or institution. The early Christians were all Jews and the authorised Jewish minister was the rabbi (presbyter). From the very beginning the apostles founded new communities and directed them. After particular communities were founded a need arose to select local leaders or administrators for each of these communities. We know from the New Testament that in the various local communities different names were given to these men: in Rome they were called presidents, in Corinth they were called governors, in Ephesus the name given to them was shepherds and in Phillipi they were known as caretakers and ministers. It is only in the Pastoral Epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles that we find these administrators called presbyters, episcopoi. Irenaeus adds further information to the development to the Christian hierarchy by expressing his views on the presbyter as servant of the community. In short the role or task of the presbyter was one of service to the Christian community.

Ten years ago it might have seemed odd to place side by side two men like Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the former considered a ‘modern church father’ of the Reformation and the latter an implacable foe of that tradition in its fledgling state. What is significant however is that their essential spiritual thrust took such similar directions. It is the similarity in essentials that first drew this writer to begin comparing the thought of the two men, but more than a similarity is involved here. An examination of the attitudes of the two towards Christian proclamation and communication provides striking ecumenical possibilities, and allows Roman Catholics and Protestants to see how close their traditions are in so many cases, if only a careful effort is made to understand the other's language. Loyola himself, at the outset of his spiritual manual, offers us a pattern for sensitivity in theological discussion:

To assure better cooperation between the one who is giving the Exercises and the exercitant, and more beneficial results for both, it is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to put a good interpretation on another's statement than to condemn it as false. If an orthodox construction cannot be put on a proposition, the one who made it should be asked how he understands it. If he is in error, he should be corrected with all kindness. If this does not suffice, all appropriate means should be used to bring him to a correct interpretation, and so defend the proposition from error.

Of the various attempts to turn theology into a systematic science, that of Bernard Lonergan seems to me by far the most impressive. But it is not yet as well known as it deserves. In what follows I shall try to describe Lonergan's method, and to indicate why I think that it is of importance.

This paper proposes to give some account and critique of Peter Berger's thought as contained in a selection of his books. No note will be taken of his witty and mordant critique of the Protestant Churches in the United States, The Noise of Solemn Assemblies (1961), nor yet of The Social Construction of Reality (1966), which is a more technical book than the others which will be dealt with here. These are The Precarious Vision (1961), Invitation to Sociology (1963), The Social Reality of Religion (1967) (more entertainingly entitled in its original American edition, The Sacred Canopy), and A Rumour of Angels (1968).

Few sociologists can afford to ignore Peter Berger, and theologians only do so at their cost. Berger's contributions to both the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of religion are important and widely influential. However, I think he would be the first to admit that his specifically theological contributions are more tentative and exploratory. Professor Cairns ably shows that in fact Berger's theological ideas have shifted considerably over the last decade. From a highly Barthian position, distinguishing rigidly between ‘religion’ and Christianity, he has now almost become a natural theologian, appealing to ‘signals of transcendence’ within the experience of everyone, whether Christian or not.

In Meaning and Method, Anders Nygren has returned to his earlier field of study, the philosophy of religion, and has attempted to formulate a legitimate method for the philosophical study of religion. He accomplishes this task by retaining many of his earlier concepts including ‘motif research’, ‘a repudiation of metaphysics’, ‘religion as expressive of the concept of the eternal’ and adds to these the programme of language analysis proposed by the later Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations. Philosophy of religion becomes the logical analysis of the presuppositions found in the religious context of meaning. Such an enterprise is a science (Wissenschaft) because it is capable of objective argumentation.