Summary of John Philip Newell's Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Around 50 CE, a shift began to occur in parts of the Celtic world, from Druidic to Christian wisdom. The first Christian teacher to emerge in Celtic territory was Irenaeus of Lyons, who had studied in Asia Minor under Polycarp, who in turn had been a student of St. John in Ephesus. #2 Irenaeus was a priest in the second century who was against the way in which celibacy was beginning to be seen as a higher path than marriage. He insisted that the divine and the human are inseparable, and that heaven is found in the things of earth. #3 Irenaeus’s teachings on earth’s sacredness and humanity’s primal instinct for it represent a betrayal of humanity’s deep natural knowing. Christ, according to Irenaeus, is a radical affirmation of this knowing. #4 Pelagius was a teacher who arrived in Rome in the 380s. He became a spiritual adviser to some of the leading families of the church in Rome. But controversy engulfed him almost immediately, as the church father Jerome and others relentlessly criticized him.