Monks and priests bore the title rabban, teacher or master, which is of course related to the familiar rabbi. Church thinkers used literary approaches that have as much to do with the Talmud as with the theologies of Latin Europe. Through such bodies, we can trace a natural religious and cultural evolution from the apostolic world through the Middle Ages. If we are ever tempted to speculate on what the early church might have looked like if it had developed independently, avoiding the mixed blessing of its alliance with Roman state power, we have but to look east.
