Curated playlist
Christian apologists
- Thomas AquinasThomas Aquinas's family held him prisoner for nearly a year. At nineteen he chose to join the Dominican preachers.
- C. S. LewisC. S. Lewis died the same afternoon President Kennedy was shot. His death was almost swallowed by the news from Dallas.
- IrenaeusWhy did a bishop in Gaul insist on exactly four gospels? Irenaeus is the earliest witness to that claim.
- TertullianTertullian distrusted philosophy yet gave Latin Christianity its word "trinity."
- OrigenIn 543, Emperor Justinian I declared Origen a heretic and ordered his writings burned.
- Augustine of HippoAugustine of Hippo once prayed, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."
- LactantiusLactantius, a North African writer, ended up tutoring the son of the Roman emperor Constantine.
- JeromeJerome translated the Old Testament from Hebrew, against most Christians' advice. He finished the project by 405.
- ArnobiusArnobius wrote an early version of Pascal's Wager around 303. He was a rhetoric teacher turned Christian convert.
- Blaise PascalBlaise Pascal rediscovered geometry on a tile floor as a boy. His father had tried to keep math from him.