A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Religious belief can be very close to madness. It has brought human beings to acts of criminal folly as well as to the highest achievements of goodness, creativity and generosity.

The chief disciple of Iyäsus Mo’a, Täklä Haymanot (‘Plant of Faith’), was a formidable ascetic, said to have spent a considerable proportion of his life standing on one leg in his monastic cell, feeding on one seed brought by a bird once a year. When the other leg atrophied away, God rewarded the monk with an array of wings.

These High Churchmen did not exactly despise preaching (indeed, one of their most influential members, Lancelot Andrewes, was a famous preacher), but they emphasized the solemn performance of public liturgy and the offering of beautiful music in settings of restrained beauty as the most fitting approaches to God in worship.

If God departed from our consciousness, or had become impersonal or a mere abstraction, the world would be a cold and empty place.