Key Theological Debates and Developments
Key Theological Debates and Developments
As we have already noted, the patristic period was of immense importance in shaping the contours of Christian theology. The following areas of theology were explored with particular vigor during the patristic period.
The Extent of the New Testament Canon
From its outset, Christian theology recognized itself to be grounded in Scripture. There was, however, some uncertainty as to what the term “Scripture” actually designated. The patristic period witnessed a process of decision-making, in which limits were laid down to the New Testament – a process usually known as “the fixing of the canon.” The word “canon” needs explanation. It derives from the Greek word kanon meaning “a rule” or “a fixed reference point.” The “canon of Scripture” refers to a limited and defined group of writings that are accepted as authoritative within the Christian church. The term “canonical” is used to refer to scriptural writings accepted to be within the canon. Thus, the gospel of Luke is referred to as “canonical” whereas the gospel of Thomas is described as “extracanonical” (that is, lying outside the canon of Scripture).
For the writers of the New Testament, the term “Scripture” meant primarily a writing of the Old Testament. However, within a short period, early Christian writers (such as Justin Martyr) were referring to the “New Testament” (to be distinguished from the “Old Testament”) and insisting that both collections of works were to be treated with equal authority. By the time of Irenaeus, it was generally accepted that there were four gospels; by the late second century, there was a consensus that the gospels, Acts, and letters had the status of inspired Scripture. Thus, Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215) recognized four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, 14 letters of Paul (the letter to the Hebrews being regarded as Pauline), and Revelation. Tertullian declared that the “evangelical and apostolic writings” were to be read alongside the “law and the prophets,” both of which were authoritative within the church. Gradually, agreement was reached over the list of books which were recognized as inspired Scripture and the order in which they were to be arranged. In 367, Athanasius circulated his 39th Festal Letter, which identifies the 27 canonical books of the New Testament, as we now know it.
Debate centered especially on a number of books. The western church had hesitations about including Hebrews as it was not specifically attributed to an apostle; the eastern church had reservations about the book of Revelation (sometimes referred to as the “Apocalypse”). Four of the smaller books (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude) were often omitted from early lists of New Testament writings. Some writings, now outside the canon, were regarded with favor in parts of the church, although they ultimately failed to gain universal acceptance as canonical. Examples of this include the first letter of Clement (an early bishop of Rome, who wrote around 96) and the Didache, a short early Christian manual on morals and church practices, probably dating from the first quarter of the second century. Yet, despite these local variations, agreement on the canon appears to have emerged remarkably quickly within the Christian world.
The arrangement of the material within the canon was also subject to discussion. Which books should appear first? How should the letters be arranged? And where did the Acts of the Apostles fit in? Agreement was reached at an early stage that the gospels should have the place of honor within the canon, followed by the Acts of the Apostles. The eastern church tended to place the seven “catholic letters” (that is, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, and Jude) before the 14 Pauline letters, whereas the western church placed Paul's letters immediately after Acts and followed them with the catholic letters. Revelation ended the canon in both east and west, although its status was subject to debate for some time within the eastern church.
What criteria were used in drawing up the canon? The basic principle appears to have been that of the recognition rather than the imposition of authority. In other words, the works in question were recognized as already possessing authority, rather than having an arbitrary authority imposed upon them. For Irenaeus, the church does not create the canon; it acknowledges, conserves, and receives canonical Scripture on the basis of the authority that is already inherent in it. Some early Christians appear to have regarded apostolic authorship as of decisive importance; others were prepared to accept books which did not appear to have apostolic credentials. However, although the precise details of how the selection was made remain unclear, it is certain that the canon was closed within the western church by the beginning of the fifth century. The issue of the canon would not be raised again until the time of the Reformation.
The Role of Tradition: The Gnostic Controversies
The early church was confronted with a major challenge from a movement known as Gnosticism. This diverse and complex movement, not dissimilar to the modern New Age phenomenon, achieved considerable influence in the late Roman empire. The basic ideas of Gnosticism do not concern us at this point; what is of relevance here is that Gnosticism appeared very similar to Christianity at many points. Gnostic writers often interpreted New Testament passages in a decidedly unorthodox way, raising important questions about the correct manner of interpretation of Scripture. For this reason, Gnosticism was viewed as a major challenge by many early Christian writers, especially Irenaeus.
In such a context, an appeal to tradition became of major importance. How did the first Christians interpret the Bible? The word “tradition” literally means “that which has been handed down or over,” although it can also refer to “the act of handing down or over.” Irenaeus insisted that the “rule of faith” (regula fidei) was faithfully preserved by the apostolic church, and that it had found its expression in the canonical books of Scripture. The church had faithfully proclaimed the same gospel from the time of the apostles until the present day. The Gnostics had no such claim to continuity with the early church. They had merely invented new ideas, and were improperly suggesting that these were “Christian.”
Irenaeus thus emphasized the continuity of the teaching and preaching office of the church and its officials (especially its bishops). Tradition came to mean “a traditional interpretation of Scripture” or “a traditional presentation of the Christian faith,” which is reflected in the creeds of the church and its public doctrinal pronouncements. This fixing of the creeds as a public expression of the teaching of the church is of major importance, as will become clear in the following section.
Tertullian adopted a related approach. Scripture, he argued, is capable of being understood clearly, provided that it is read as a whole. However, he conceded that controversy over the interpretation of certain passages was inevitable. Heretics, he observed gloomily, can make Scripture say more or less anything that they like. For this reason, the tradition of the church was of considerable importance, as it indicated the manner in which Scripture had been received and interpreted within the church. The right interpretation of Scripture was thus to be found where true Christian faith and discipline had been maintained. A similar view was taken by Athanasius, who argued that Arius's distorted account of the identity of Jesus Christ would never have arisen if he had remained faithful to the church's interpretation of Scripture.
Tradition was thus seen as a legacy from the apostles, by which the church was guided and directed toward a correct interpretation of Scripture. It was not seen as a “secret source of revelation” in addition to Scripture, an idea which Irenaeus dismissed as “Gnostic.” Rather, it was seen as a means of ensuring that the church remained faithful to the historic teaching of the apostles instead of adopting idiosyncratic interpretations of Scripture.
The Fixing of the Ecumenical Creeds
The English word “creed” derives from the Latin word credo, “I believe,” with which the Apostles' Creed – probably the most familiar of all the creeds – begins: “I believe in God.” The word “creed” has come to refer to a statement of faith summarizing the main points of Christian belief, common to all Christians. For this reason, the term “creed” is never applied to statements of faith associated with specific Protestant denominations. These latter are often referred to as “confessions” (such as the Lutheran Augsburg Confession or the Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith). A “confession” pertains to a denomination and includes specific beliefs and emphases relating to that denomination; a “creed” pertains to the entire Christian church and includes nothing more and nothing less than a statement of beliefs which every Christian ought to be able to accept and be bound by. A “creed” has come to be recognized as a concise, formal, and universally accepted and authorized statement of the main points of Christian faith.
The patristic period saw two creeds – known as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed – winning increasing authority and respect throughout the church. The stimulus for their development appears to have been the growing need to provide a convenient summary of Christian faith suitable for important religious occasions, especially baptism. The early church often baptized its converts on Easter Day, using the period of Lent as a time of preparation and instruction for this moment of public declaration of faith and commitment. Each convert who wished to be baptized was required to declare his or her faith in public. Creeds began to be used as a uniform declaration of faith which converts could use on such occasions.
The Apostles' Creed is probably the most familiar form of the creed known to western Christians. It falls into three main sections, dealing with God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. There is also material relating to the church, judgment, and resurrection. The historical evolution of this creed can be traced back to the declarations of faith which were required of those who wanted to be baptized. The 12 individual statements of this creed, which seems to have assumed its final form in the eighth century, are traditionally ascribed to individual apostles, although there is no historical justification for this belief. There are slight differences between the eastern and western versions of this creed. The statements concerning Christ's “descent into hell” and the “communion of saints” (printed below within square brackets) are not found in eastern versions of the work.
The Apostles' Creed
The Nicene Creed is a longer version of the creed which includes additional material relating to the person of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. In response to the controversies concerning the divinity of Christ, this creed includes strong affirmations of his unity with God, including the expressions “God from God” and “of one substance with the Father.” This creed was developed with the Arian controversy over the divinity of Christ (see pp. 217–19) in mind. As part of its polemic against the Arians, the Council of Nicea (June 325) formulated a short statement of faith based on a baptismal creed used at Jerusalem. This was developed further at the First Council of Constantinople (381) and became known as the “Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed.” Not surprisingly, this clumsy name was soon abbreviated to “Nicene Creed.”
The Nicene Creed was intended to affirm the full divinity of Christ against the Arian understanding of his creaturely status, and includes four explicit condemnations of Arian views, as well as its three articles of faith. As the full details of the proceedings of Nicea are now lost, we are obliged to rely on secondary sources (such as ecclesiastical historians and writers such as Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea) for the text of this creed.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty, the maker of all things seen and unseen. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God; begotten from the Father; only-begotten – that is, from the substance of the Father; God from God; light from light; true God from true God; begotten not made; of one substance with the Father; through whom all things in heaven and on earth came into being; who on account of us human beings and our salvation came down and took flesh, becoming a human being; he suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens; and will come again to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit.
As for those who say that “there was when he was not,” and “before being born he was not,” and “he came into existence out of nothing,” or who declare that the Son of God is of a different substance or nature, or is subject to alteration or change – the catholic and apostolic church condemns these.
The development of the creeds was an important element in the move toward achieving a doctrinal consensus within the early church. One area of doctrine which witnessed considerable development and controversy related to the person of Christ, to which we now turn.
The Two Natures of Jesus Christ: The Arian Controversy
The two doctrines to which the patristic period may be argued to have made a decisive contribution relate to the person of Christ (an area of theology which, as we noted, is generally designated “Christology”) and the nature of the Godhead. These two developments are organically related to one another. By 325, the early church had come to the conclusion that the significance of Christ was best understood as being “of one substance” (homoousios) with God. (The term homoousios can also be translated as “one in being” or “consubstantial.”)
This Christological statement can be seen as consolidating at the intellectual level the church's understanding of the spiritual importance of Jesus Christ to Christians. However, it posed a powerful challenge to simplistic conceptions of God. If Jesus Christ is recognized as “being of the same substance” as God, the entire doctrine of God has to be reconsidered and reworked in the light of this belief. For this reason, the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity dates from after the emergence of a Christological consensus within the church. Only when the divinity of Christ could be treated as an agreed and assured starting point could theological speculation on the nature of God begin.
Figure 1.3 The Council of Nicea.
Source: Vatican, Library © 2015. Photo Scala, Florence.
The Christological debates of the early church took place largely in the eastern Mediterranean world and were conducted in the Greek language, often in the light of the presuppositions of major Greek schools of philosophy. In practical terms, this means that many of the central terms of the Christological debates of the early church are Greek, often with a history of use within the Greek philosophical tradition.
The main features of patristic Christology will be considered in some detail on pp. 214–24, to which the reader is referred. At this early stage, however, we may summarize the main landmarks of the patristic Christological debate in terms of two schools, two debates, and two “general councils,” as follows.
Schools
The Alexandrian school tended to emphasize the divinity of Christ and to interpret that divinity in terms of “the word becoming incarnate.” A scriptural text which was of central importance to this school is John 1: 14, “the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” This emphasis upon the idea of incarnation led to the festival of Christmas being seen as especially important. The Antiochene school, however, placed a corresponding emphasis on the humanity of Christ, and attached especial importance to his moral example (see pp. 221–3).
Debates
The Arian controversy of the fourth century is widely regarded as one of the most significant in the history of the Christian church. Arius argued that those scriptural titles for Christ that appeared to point to his being of equal status with God were merely courtesy titles. Christ was to be regarded as a creature, although nevertheless as preeminent among other creatures.
This provoked a hostile response from Athanasius, who argued that the divinity of Christ was central to the Christian understanding of salvation (an area of theology known as “soteriology”). Arius's Christology was, he declared, inadequate soteriologically. Arius's Christ could not redeem fallen humanity. In the end, Arianism (the movement associated with Arius) was declared to be heretical.
This led into the Apollinarian debate, which centered on Apollinarius of Laodicea (c.310–c.390). This debate focused on the question of whether Christ was fully or partly human. A vigorous opponent of Arius, Apollinarius argued that Christ could not be regarded as being totally human. In Christ's case, the human spirit was replaced by the divine logos (“word” or “discourse”). As a result, Christ did not possess full humanity. This position was regarded as severely deficient by writers such as Gregory of Nazianzus as it implied that Christ could not fully redeem human nature (see p. 221).
General Councils
The Council of Nicea (325) was convened by Constantine, the first Christian emperor, with a view to sorting out the destabilizing Christological disagreements within his empire. Constantine realized that the unity of the church was essential to the stability of the empire, and wanted to establish peace within the church over the issue of the identity of Christ. He summoned a gathering of Christian leaders from all over the empire at Nicea (now the city of Iznik in modern-day Turkey). The word “synod” (from the Greek synodos, “a gathering together”) is often used to refer to these councils.
Nicea was the first “ecumenical council” (that is, a general assembly of bishops drawn from the entire Christian world; the decisions of these early bishops are still regarded as normative for the churches). These councils played an important role in clarifying and stabilizing doctrines in the first five centuries of Christian thought.
Nicea settled the Arian controversy by affirming that Jesus was homoousios (“one in being” or “of one substance”) with the Father, thus rejecting the Arian position in favor of a vigorous assertion of the divinity of Christ. The Council of Chalcedon (451), the fourth ecumenical council, confirmed the decisions of Nicea and responded to new debates which had subsequently erupted over the humanity of Christ.
The Doctrine of the Trinity
Once the Christological debates of the early church had been settled, the consequences of those decisions were explored. In this intensely creative and interesting period of Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity began to emerge in a recognizable form. The basic feature of this doctrine is that there are three persons within the Godhead – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and that these are to be regarded as equally divine and of equal status. The coequality of Father and Son was established through the Christological debates leading up to the Council of Nicea; the divinity of the Spirit was established in the aftermath of this, especially through the writings of Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea.
The main trinitarian debates increasingly came to focus on the way in which the Trinity was to be understood, rather than its fundamental validity. Two quite distinct approaches gradually emerged, one associated with the eastern church and the other with the western church.
The eastern position, which continues to be of major importance within the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches of today, was developed especially by a group of three writers, based in modern-day Turkey, known collectively as the “Cappadocian fathers.” Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus began their reflections on the Trinity by considering the various ways in which the Father, Son, and Spirit are experienced. The western position, especially associated with Augustine of Hippo, began from the unity of God and proceeded to explore the implications of the love of God for our understanding of the nature of the Godhead. These positions will be explored in greater detail at the appropriate point in this work (see pp. 311–13).
The doctrine of the Trinity represents a rare instance of a theological issue of concern to both the eastern and western churches. Our attention now shifts to two theological debates which were specifically linked with the western church and have both come to be particularly associated with Augustine of Hippo.
The Doctrine of the Church: The Donatist Controversy
A major controversy within the western church centered on the question of the holiness of the church. The Donatists were a group of native African Christians, based in modern-day Algeria, who resented the growing influence of the Roman church in northern Africa. For reasons we shall explore in a moment, the Donatists took an increasingly hard line about church membership. They argued that the church was a body of saints within which sinners had no place.
The issue became of heightened importance on account of the persecution undertaken by the emperor Diocletian (244–311; reigned 284–305) in 303, which persisted until the conversion of Constantine in 313. During this persecution, in which the possession of Scripture was illegal, a number of Christians handed their copies of Scripture in to the authorities. They were immediately condemned by others who had refused to cave in to such pressure. After the persecution died down, many of these traditores – a Latin word which literally means “those who handed over [their Scriptures]” – rejoined the church. The Donatists demanded their exclusion; they had compromised themselves.
Augustine argued otherwise, declaring that the church must expect to remain a “mixed body” of saints and sinners, refusing to weed out those who had lapsed under persecution or for other reasons. The validity of the church's ministry and preaching did not depend upon the holiness of its ministers but upon the person of Jesus Christ. The personal unworthiness of a minister did not compromise the validity of the sacraments. This view, which rapidly became normative within the church, has had a deep impact upon Christian thinking about the nature of the church and its ministers.
The Donatist debate, which will be explored in greater detail elsewhere (see pp. 358–60), was the first to center explicitly on the question of the doctrine of the church (known as “ecclesiology”) and on related questions, such as the way in which sacraments function. Many of the issues raised by the controversy would surface again at the time of the Reformation, when ecclesiological issues would once more come to the fore (see pp. 360–4). The same may be said of the doctrine of grace, to which we now turn.
The Doctrine of Grace: The Pelagian Controversy
The doctrine of grace had not been an issue of significance in the development of theology in the Greek-speaking eastern church. However, an intense controversy broke out over this question in the second decade of the fifth century. Pelagius (c.354–c.420), a British ascetic monk based at Rome, argued forcefully for the need for human moral responsibility. Alarmed at the moral laxity of the Roman church, he insisted upon the need for constant self-improvement, in the light of the Old Testament law and the example of Christ. Pelagianism, a composite movement drawing on the ideas of Pelagius and his circle, came to be seen as a religion of human autonomy which held that human beings are able to take the initiative in their own salvation.
Augustine reacted forcefully against Pelagianism, insisting upon the priority of the grace of God at every stage in the Christian life, from its beginning to its end. Human beings did not, according to Augustine, possess the necessary freedom to take the initial steps toward salvation. Far from possessing “freedom of the will,” humans were in possession of a will that was corrupted and tainted by sin, and which biased them toward evil and away from God. Only the grace of God could counteract this bias toward sin. So forceful was Augustine's defense of grace that he later became known as “the doctor of grace.”