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Reading the Early Church Fathers "angel of the Lord" appears in a place, and is presented as divine, it was assumed to be the preincarnate Christ (see Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2.22).
181. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 1, 9, 10.
182. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 12.2.
183. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 10-11.
184. Melito of Sardis, Homily on the Passover 8. This does not imply that Christ began to be divine at his resurrection; it is simply a poetic way of affirming the two natures of humanity and divinity.
185. For example, see Hermas, The Shepherd 78.1.
186. Eusebius also speaks of the tradition of passing down the location of holy sites from one generation to another (Ecclesiastical
History 7.18-19). Eusebius specifically mentions that the location of the home of the woman with a hemorrhage could be pointed out, and he also knows of statues and paintings of Jesus and the apostles, as well as the location of the "episcopal" throne of James.
187.In the Martyrdom of Polycarp 9, the same idea is expressed in Greek. The Greek word for "manly" (@ndrizou) is translated "courageous."
188.1 Clement 55.
189. See Geoffrey D. Dunn, Tertullian (New York: Routledge, 2004), 16-17.
190.On the diary of Perpetua, see Joyce E. Salisbury, Perpetua's Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman
(New York: Routledge, 1997).
191. Tertullian, Apology 50. Here Tertullian famously says that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
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1. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.31.1. The word orthodoxy is from a Greek compound word that literally means
"correct praise." As used here, it means the interpretations and teachings that the Church would define as correct, as opposed to the teachings of the heresies. In one sense, the label orthodoxy can only be applied after the debate produces a winner; however, it is also true that the orthodoxy of each generation is based on, and
Notes consistent with, the orthodoxy of the previous generations, going back to the apostles.
2. We must keep in mind, of course, that gleaning information about an ancient religious system from the writings of its opponents is difficult, since we cannot take for granted that the orthodox writers were always accurate or fair in their representation of the heresy in question. Nevertheless, much of the information about gnosticism presented above is from Irenaeus's Against Heresies.
3. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.3.12.
4. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 2.28.9, 4.6.4.
5. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.22.4, 5.19.1.
6. The gnostic rejection of the material world as evil may have pushed Irenaeus to affirm the goodness of creation by emphasizing the continuity, not only between the Old and New 'Testaments, but also between the Church age and the "millennium." In other words, it might have made sense to Irenaeus that a literal reign of Christ on the earth affirmed the connection between Christ and creation.
7. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 45. See also 30, 43, 51.
8. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 12.
9. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 49.
10. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 5. In this passage, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the wisdom of God, when one might expect that description to be applied to the Logos. This illustrates the fact that thus far in the Church's history there was a concerted effort to understand and describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, but no such attention to the relationship between the Son and the Spirit.
11. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 47.
12. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 7.
13. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 7, Against Heresies 5.36.1-2. In actual practice, it was believed that
Reading the Early Church Fathers one could not get to the Father but through the Son, and one could not get to the Son but through the Church.
14. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preach15. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preach16. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preach17. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preach18. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preach19. Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
42. See also Hermas, The Shepherd 33.3, 41. Hermas says that the Holy Spirit can be "choked out" of a person who invites evil into his or her life by harboring anger.
20. For a detailed life of Tertullian, see Timothy D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985). Some sources give Tertullian's full name as Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus. Note that Barnes thinks he was born a bit later, around 170 CE. See also Geoffrey D. Dunn,
Tertullian (New York: Routledge, 2004), 3-11.
21. Barnes, Tertullian, 246-47.
22. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 2.2.4.
23. Barnes, Tertullian, 24.
24. Barnes, Tertullian, 11, 58, Dunn, Tertullian, 3. See Tertullian, On Exbortation to Chastity 7.3, On Monogamy 12.2. The tradition that Tertullian was a priest is not attested before Jerome.
According to Barnes, there is no evidence that Tertullian was ever in Rome; however, he seems to have at least visited Rome based on comments made in On the Apparel of Women 1.7. Note that a priest in Rome at the end of the second century would not necessarily be expected to be celibate.
25. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 1.7.
26. It has been argued that Tertullian's On the Pallium 3-4 represents anti-Roman sentiment.
27. David Rankin, Tertullian and the Church (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 28-29.
Notes 28. Tertullian, On Modesty 1.2, 10.12. Note that Tertullian rejected The Shepherd as scripture because it seemed to advocate forgiveness of adultery. Cf. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 55.21. See
Rankin, Tertullian and the Church, 41-42, 46.
29. Rankin, Tertullian and the Church, 115, 195-96.
30. Ibid., 29-32.
31. Ibid., 27ff., 41, 44.
32. Ibid., xv, 3, 30. See Tertullian, On the Soul 9.4.
33. Barnes, Tertullian, 141.
34. Dunn, Tertullian, 9.
35. Rankin, Tertullian and the Church, 50.
36. 'Tertullian, On Monogamy 3.9.
37. Dunn, Tertullian, 31-34.
38. Tertullian, Prescription Against the Heretics 7.
39. Even if this document were written later, it is clear that in spite of his association with the Montanists, Tertullian considered himself theologically within the mainstream.
40. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 1.
41. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 3, 6.
42. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 10, 11, 14, 19-21, 28, 32. With the charge that the heretics take delight in being perpetual seekers, avoiding the responsibility of making a commitment to anything, Tertullian is referring primarily to the Gnostics.
43. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 9, 14, 17.
44. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 4, 30, 39.
45. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 29, 31.
46. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 20.
47. Tertullian, The Prescription Against the Heretics 13-14.
48. However, see Dunn, Tertullian, 17.
49. 'Tertullian, Apology 1, 37.
50. Tertullian, Apology 19, 47. The argument that Christianity is older than Greco-Roman philosophy and religion assumes that Christianity is based on the Old Testament prophets. In fact, the Christian apologists argued that anything worthwhile that the philosophers said was plagiarized from Moses and the prophets.
51. Tertullian, Apology 5, 10, 12-13, 16, 25, 29. The contrast is often made between pagan gods, which are made by humans and
Reading the Early Church Fathers need to be guarded by humans, and the actual God who made humans and who guards humans.
52. Tertullian, Apology 11-12, 14, 46.
53. Tertullian, Apology 6, 9, 37-39, 42, 4446.
54. Tertullian, Apology 42.
55. Tertullian, Apology 39, 42.
56. Tertullian, Apology 13, 24.
57. Tertullian, Apology 22-23, 32.
58. Tertullian, Apology 24, 28. This argument comes from Athenagoras. See Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 1.
59. Tertullian, Apology 1-2, 7. Tertullian knows of a story that Pontius Pilate converted to Christianity. See Tertullian,
Apology 21.
60. 'Tertullian, Apology 9.
61. Tertullian, Apology 9.
62. Tertullian, Apology 2, 49.
63. 'Tertullian, Apology 44.
64. Tertullian, Apology 42.
65. Tertullian, Apology 38.
66. 'Tertullian, Apology 40.
67. 'Tertullian, Apology 2.
68. 'Tertullian, Apology 5. Note that the Pantheon that stands in Rome today was not yet built in the time of Tiberius; however, it stands on the site of an earlier one. The current Pantheon was built by Hadrian, but the inscription to Agrippa is an homage to the man responsible for the original.
69. Tertullian, Apology 5.
70. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 1.
71. For the traditional view, see J. F. Bethune-Baker, The Meaning of Homoousios in the "Constantinopolitan" Creed in Text and Studies, ed. J. Armitage Robinson, vol. 7, no. 1 (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1901), 21-23, 65-70. While the strictly legal definition of substantia has been rejected as a basis for the theological term, it is still the case that the concept of "property" is a suitable analogy, since property can be nonmaterial, as in the case of intellectual property. See Eric Osborn, Tertullian: First
Theologian of the West (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Notes Press, 1997), 131-32. Note that Tertullian calls the gospel "the substance of the New Testament" (Against Praxeas 31.1).
72. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2.
73. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2. See Bethune-Baker, The Meaning of Homoousios, 70-74, and Osborn, Tertullian, 132-33, 137.
74. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 12, 26.
75. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 26.
76. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 8.
77. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 22, 25.
78. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 8-9.
79. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 17. See also Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians 7.
80. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 27. Tertullian actually said, ".,.the property of each substance is preserved." The term substance is synonymous with nature, since the two natures of Christ are actually two substances, one divine (the same divine substance as the Trinity) and one human.
81. For a treatment of the debate surrounding the authorship of writings attributed to Hippolytus, see Allen Brent, "St.
Hippolytus: Biblical Exegete, Roman Bishop and Martyr," in St.
Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 48:2 (2004), 207-31. For a detailed treatment of Hippolytus, see Allen Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman
Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension Before the Emergence of a Monarch-Bishop (Leiden: Brill, 1995). Many scholars do not believe that both Refutation of All Heresies and Against Noetus could be by the same author; however, I treat them together here in the conviction that they are at least the product of the same school of thought, originating in early third-century Rome. The differences between the two documents can be attributed to the passage of time between writings and to possible differences in audience and agenda (see Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, 204-7, 217, 238, 249, 257). Although Brent agrees that the two documents represent the same school of thought, he argues that they are by different authors based on a perceived theological evolution from the Refutation to Against Noetus: specifically, that on the one hand, Against Noetus is more trinitarian because of a more highly developed pneumatology, and on the other hand, it is in some ways a concession to the milder
Reading the Early Church Fathers modalism of Callistus as a tactic to combat the more extreme modalism of Noetus (see Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, 208-11, 213-14, 240, 257). However, as I have indicated above, I do not believe that Callistus and the other
Roman bishops were Modalists, but that their Christology may have included a holdover from an older form of Logos Christology that blurred the distinction between the preincarnate Logos and the Holy Spirit (see James L. Papandrea, Novatian of Rome and the Culmination of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy [Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock/
Pickwick Publications, 2011]).
82. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.20.
83. Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, 234-35.
84. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7. Note that Hippolytus refers to the school of Callistus.
85. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7.
86. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7.
87. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.2—-5.
88. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 1. Note that on the charge of heresy, the accused was called before the council of priests, not the bishop alone. This shows that the council still held some authority in the early third century and that the episcopacy was not yet the point of singular authority that it would become.
89. Apparently it was not always necessary to move up through the "ranks" of ordination one at a time, and in rare cases it was possible for a deacon to be elected bishop, on the assumption that he would be ordained priest and consecrated bishop at the same time.
90. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7.
91. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.6-7.
92. See Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7, 10.13, 10223:
93. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 10.29. See also Hippolytus, On the Holy Theophany 7.
94. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7, 10.23. See also Hippolytus, Expository Treatise Against the Jews 4, On Christ and Antichrist 4, Against Beron 1, 5-6. Hippolytus may have accepted the concept of circumincessio (see Against Noetus 14). Note that there
Notes is ongoing debate over the authorship of the documents traditionally attributed to Hippolytus.
95. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7.
96. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.7. Hippolytus actually accused Callistus of waffling between the two heresies, but in doing so, he betrays that Callistus was looking for the middle way between them.
97. According to one tradition, Hippolytus and Pontian were buried in Rome on the same day. If they were executed together, this would certainly be possible; however, Brent thinks that this tradition was invented to convey the impression that the two were reconciled (see Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, 257).
98. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 2.
99. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 2.
100. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 1, 7. This was the modalist interpretation of John 14:8-9, that the Son and the Father were one and the same. See also Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.5.
101. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 1-2. See also Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.5, 7. Note that Noetus and Callistus could agree on the concept of consubstantiality, which Hippolytus was slow to accept.
102. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 10.23.
103. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.5.
104. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 1.
105. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 10-11.
106. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 14.
107. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 3, 8, 11, 14.
108. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 12.
109. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 17. See also Hippolytus, Against Beron 8. However, some have argued that certain elements in Against Noetus which anticipate later doctrinal controversies may have been added later by editors (see Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, 224ff, cf. Irenaeus of Lyons,
Against Heresies 3.19.3).
110. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 16.
111. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 10-11.
112. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 10-11, 15.
Reading the Early Church Fathers 113. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 17.
114. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 10.29.
115. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 11, 16.
116. See Hippolytus, Against Beron 1. However, the authorship of this document is in doubt.
117. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 5.2.
118. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 5.1, 7.15. It is interesting to note that Hippolytus mentions that the Gnostics believed the human spirit to be situated in the brain (see Hippolytus,
Refutation of All Heresies 4.51).
119. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.2.
120. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.2, 4.43.
121. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.2-3.
122. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.5—7, 1.16.
123. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.16.
124. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 4.4849.
125. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.1.
126. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.16, 4.43.
127. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.16. Cf. Plato, Phaedrus 100.60. Evil is described by the philosophers as the result of going to extremes. It is a lack of self-control.
128. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 4.43.
129. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.18, 10.28-29. See also Hippolytus Against Noetus 11.
130. The details of Origen's life, such as we know them, come primarily from Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6, and Jerome, I/lustrious Men 54.
131.Among other things, Celsus had objected to the Christian belief in the divinity of Christ on the grounds that it compromised divine immutability (see Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, Volume 1: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon
(451) [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 105).
132. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.24.
133. Rufinus read Novatian's On the Trinity, but thought it was written by Tertullian (see Jerome, Apology Against Rufinus 2.19; see also Papandrea, Novatian of Rome).
134. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.23.
135. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.2, 6.19.