Lawrence a deacon of Rome was originally from Spain. He was flayed, and grilled alive, having enraged the Prefect who demanded that he hand over the treasures of the church. Lawrence assembled the poor and needy and presented them to the Prefect, announcing: “Behold, the treasures of the Church!”

In the early church – as evidenced by such texts as the Didache – the central praxis of theology was moral and social justice rather than the more speculative theology that defined many late antique controversies. Speculation is fine – it is an expression of our reflecting on the person and work of Christ, but it ought to then feed into the larger praxis of “being” Christ in the World – that is to say that Speculative theology must be tried on the ground, in the daily activity of the faithful.

I think in part this is one of the reasons why classical Gnosticism was quickly recognised as a heresy – as a number of early writers point out – Gnostic thinkers engaged in endless speculation, and the creation of ever more layers of myth – but to what end?