CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9
Ongoing Themes The early fourth century, with the first Christian emperor and the first ecumenical council, marks a turning point in the history of Christianity. Afterward, the sheer volume of Christian texts makes it impossible to examine them all at the level of detail with which we have looked at the documents of the second and third centuries.
When we come to writers such as Augustine of Hippo, for example, the massive volume of their work prevents us from considering their thought as a unit and requires us to talk about the progression of thought throughout their careers. However, certain themes to which we have already been introduced continue the trends begun in the pre-Nicene era and can be traced as we look ahead to the later fathers and doctors of the Church.
While there is an admitted risk of oversimplification as we consider these themes from a bird's-eye view, the present chapter is meant to set the stage for further reading in depth. The following themes continue to be relevant, not only in the medieval Church but into the Renaissance and modern Church as well.
ANTHROPOLOGY
The question of anthropology that was raised by the Arian controversy continued in the Pelagian controversy. In some ways, the issues raised by Pelagius were similar to those raised by Arius.
And while Arius had his major opponent in the East, in the person of Athanasius, Pelagius's main opponent was in the West:
Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa.
Ongoing Themes Augustine of Hippo Aurelius Augustinus (354-430 CE) was born in Thagaste,
North Africa (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria), the child of a mixed marriage, a pagan father and a Christian mother. While his parents did not agree on religion, they did agree to give their son the best education possible. He passed through all the ranks of education that North Africa had to offer, eventually going to Carthage and then leaving for Rome to become a professor of rhetoric. He had rejected his mother's Christianity because he thought that the Latin translation of the Bible in use in North Africa was crude; thus he equated a perceived lack of dignity in the writing style with a lack of truth in the content.
Looking for answers elsewhere, Augustine joined the Manichees, a fourth-century version of gnosticism that was in a way the ancient world's equivalent to the Masonic lodge.' Manichaeism was an outlawed secret society that claimed to be able to provide the answers to all the questions of the universe. Augustine had hoped to find something to believe in, but he was disappointed when the answers that the Manichees provided turned out to be unsatisfying." The experience taught Augustine that he was approaching the prospect of faith backwards, looking for answers that would then give him something to believe in. After his disappointment with the Manichees, however, he came to conclude that it is not knowledge that leads to faith, but faith that leads to knowledge. In other words, first one has to make a commitment to believe by faith, then one can learn about one's faith. "We believe in order that we may know, we do not know in order that we may believe."' 'This is summarized in the well-known phrase Credo ut intelligam ("I believe so that I may understand").
When Augustine left North Africa for Rome, his mother, Monica, followed him. She would also follow him when he left
Rome and went to Milan. She is known to the Church as St.
Monica, and she has become the patron saint of mothers who pray for the conversion of their sons. In addition, she has a presence in Augustine's autobiography that is a kind of personification of God's grace, which Augustine came to believe was relentless in its pursuit of a person, irresistible and ultimately never thwarted. Augustine
Reading the Early Church Fathers was eventually converted to Christianity, in the year 386 CE. His bishop and mentor was the anti-Arian Ambrose of Milan, who would be a significant influence on Augustine's theology, and subsequently Augustine would become the most influential proNicene author in the West. Therefore, when we read Augustine, we must always keep in mind that he wrote to reinforce pro-Nicene orthodoxy, including the consubstantiality, coeternality, and equality of the Son with the Father.
After his conversion, Augustine decided to return to North Africa and form a religious community. Monica died on the way, in the port city of Ostia, happy that she had lived to see her son come to the faith.* Upon returning to North Africa, Augustine settled in Hippo Regius (modern Annaba, Algeria), where he was ordained a priest. According to the story, Augustine was ordained against his will. He would have preferred a life of monastic solitude; however, that was not to be. He became the right-hand man to the bishop and eventually succeeded him as bishop of Hippo.
Augustine's most important anti-Arian writing is On the Trinity, in which he expands upon the thought of Tertullian and Novatian, emphasizing the equality of the Father and Son against Arianism. Although the creed of Nicaea had only said that the Holy
Spirit proceeded from the Father, Augustine proposed that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son (in Latin, "and the Son" is one word, filioque).' This would eventually make its way into the creed in the West and cause friction between East and West; however, the point at this time was to refute Arianism by demonstrating the equal divinity of the Son, emphasizing that he is equally the giver of the Holy Spirit along with the Father. Thus
Augustine did for the West what Athanasius had done for the East.
Augustine wrote his autobiography, the Confessions, around the turn of the fifth century. The publication of this work was significant since the ancient biography and autobiography were genres of literature in which glorifying the subject was more important than reporting the truth. Thus the fact that Augustine did not refrain from telling his readers of the embarrassing details and the regrets of his life made it both revolutionary and very popular. As Augustine looked back on his life, experiences of peer pressure and (in his own assessment) an inability to control his sexual desire led
Ongoing Themes him to conclude that human perfection was not possible. Ironically, he was critical of himself for his shortcomings and at the same time confident enough to assume that if he couldn't do it right, no one could. Human habits and desires, as well as social pressure, were just too strong to expect that anyone could successfully obey God. If salvation depended on self-control, there was no hope for anyone.
Keeping in mind that his mentor Ambrose was anti-Arian, it could be argued that Augustine's own experience drove him to the extreme opposite of an Arian optimism, leaving him with a pessimism about human nature that could only see it as totally depraved. His disillusionment with Manichaean philosophy only reinforced this pessimistic anthropology, driving him to depart from the classical understanding of virtue as perfectibility. Thus the less he trusted human nature, the more he put all the responsibility for salvation on God's grace, which he came to believe was irresistible. Even when it came to living up to the moral expectations of God, Augustine concluded that if God did not grant the ability to resist temptation, sin was inevitable.
For Augustine, to be happy (or blessed) required confidence in one's eternal destiny. In other words, if our salvation were up to us, we would lose it. The possibility of the loss of salvation would create an uncertainty that would make happiness impossible. 'This represents a major shift from earlier writers who assumed that salvation could be lost through repeated disobedience. But Augustine reasoned that such a belief would lead to uncertainty and fear. The only alternative to living with this fear was to put all of one's trust in God, as opposed to one's own efforts.
If happiness means having what you desire, then to desire anything other than God would make happiness illusive, since anything other than God can be lost. To desire anything other than
God would be to live with the fear of losing (or never acquiring) what we desire. Therefore, the only object of desire (love) that could lead to happiness is God. But Augustine despaired that we cannot keep our love oriented toward God. He reasoned that the only way happiness is possible is if it is God who chooses us, since if it were up to us to choose God, we would ultimately fail.
Therefore, Augustine made salvation entirely the work of God's
Reading the Early Church Fathers choosing, or election, placing the emphasis on divine intervention over human effort.
Pelagius Pelagius was a British monk who had come to Rome, where he read some of Augustine's writings. He balked at what he perceived as an anthropology that exempted humans from moral responsibility. He reasoned that if the human will is ultimately incapable of obeying God, then how could God blame us when we don't obey? In fact, it would seem that sin itself is really to be blamed on God, since apparently God did not give us the ability to resist it. Before the controversy with Pelagius, the Church fathers seemed to be content with the paradox of some form of original sin
(based on Romans 5) with a real human free will.* Now Augustine seemed to be taking original sin to an extreme, and so Pelagius reacted by going to the other extreme. He rejected the concept of original sin completely, emphasizing free will to the extent that he seemed to be saying that humans could be good without God's help at all. Whereas Augustine had emphasized the role of God's grace
(divine intervention, understood as election) almost to the exclusion of the role of the human will, Pelagius emphasized the role of the will (human effort) and seemed to be diminishing the importance of God's grace.
Although Pelagius was not an Arian, he promoted an optimistic anthropology that was consistent with Arius.' After all, he was a monk, and if humans could not obey God through personal discipline and resisting temptation, then what would be the point of the monastic life? If Augustine was right, he reasoned, why even try to be good? One could justify sin simply by pointing out that God had obviously not granted the ability to avoid it. For Pelagius, not only is perfection possible, but it is expected of every believer.
Pelagius was eventually accused of heresy. Specifically, he was charged with having taught that a person does not need God's grace. When confronted at a synod in the East, he was at first able to talk his way out of the accusation by affirming that people do need God's grace. But Augustine knew that he was only able to say this because he was working with a different definition of grace.
Ongoing Themes Pelagius's definition of grace would be very much like Arius's definition. Grace is the example of Christ, along with his teachings as recorded in the gospels. In other words, Jesus' summary of the Ten
Commandments, along with the Beatitudes, constituted everything a Christian needed to be good and obey God. Grace is a gift of God in that it is the example to follow in order to be saved. Ultimately, though, this reduces grace to information. It is external to the human being, and it is passive.
For Augustine, grace is active; it is a force, one that acts on the human person from the outside but also from the inside. It is the very activity of God, pursuing the believer (as Monica followed
Augustine) and giving him or her the power necessary to follow Christ. Without that power, we cannot resist the temptation to satisfy our selfish desires. Sin is a disease that infects the whole human race, and grace is the medicine that will heal our human nature.
Although at times (especially toward the beginning of his career) Augustine affirmed the reality of free will, eventually he was pushed by the debate to say that on its own the human will is only free to sin.* God's grace frees the human will to do the will of God.'
Augustine responded to the challenges of Pelagius with many documents, now considered together as his anti-Pelagian writings.
The same skepticism about human nature that made him an antiArian also makes him an anti-Pelagian. In On the Spirit and the Letter, Augustine makes the connection between Pelagius and Paul's Judaizers, who were in a way the first Adoptionists and precursors to Arius.'° Augustine says that we have free will only in the sense that we can will (that is, want) to do what is right, but we are not actually able to do it without God's help.'' The only thing one can do by free will is accept God's grace, but even that is really a work of God." For Augustine, humans may have the will to do the right thing, but they do not have the ability. For Pelagius, humans have the ability, though they may not have the will to do the right thing, and may choose to do what is wrong (possibly based on a misunderstanding about what is right).
Other important anti-Pelagian documents include On Nature and Grace, On the Proceedings of Pelagius, and the Enchiridion
(Handbook) on Faith, Hope, and Love. The Pelagians had challenged Augustine with the question, If the responsibility for salvation is
Reading the Early Church Fathers ultimately on God, and if grace is irresistible, then why are not all people saved? It is clearly God's will that all should be saved (1 Tim
2:4). Augustine's response was his doctrine of election, which emphasized God's choice of who will be saved and who will be damned. Sometimes characterized as a "double predestination," it is an unconditional election whereby God has decided the eternal fate of every human being, before they were born and without the consideration of merit or even faith. Whether someone perseveres in faith is entirely a work of God based on divine election, so that if someone who professes faith should not be saved in the end, that would only mean that the person in question was never really among the elect. This implies that the atonement of Christ must be limited to the elect, or else the cross would be ineffective for some.
Against the charge that the predestination of some to damnation seems cruel and unfair, Augustine would reply that all deserve that fate, and the fact that some are elect and predestined to salvation is evidence of God's mercy (cf. Matt 20:1-16).
Pelagius's criticism of Augustine was essentially a criticism of his anthropology. Pelagius understood that Augustine was saying that the sin of Adam (the Fall) had changed human nature, and that it was in a sense broken and in need of repair. But Pelagius argued that human nature was not broken, and it does not need grace to "fix" it. It is possible to avoid sin because the Fall did not damage our human nature. For Pelagius, grace helps those who help themselves, For Augustine, grace helps those who cannot help themselves.
Pelagius was finally condemned as a heretic and excommunicated, though Pelagianism continued as a rigorist faction, not surprisingly gaining the most acceptance in areas that had been open to Arianism. It would take a century before the Church would sort out the teachings of Augustine. At the Council of Orange in 529
CE (ninety-nine years after Augustine's death), the Church chose the middle way and adopted a "semi-Augustinian" approach to anthropology and soteriology. The council accepted Augustine's understanding of original sin but rejected his understanding of election as a form of double predestination that implied a limited atonement. The council accepted the Augustinian definition of grace but allowed that the human will is free to cooperate with
Ongoing Themes grace, as long as it is clear that God's grace takes the initiative in inviting the human will to respond, and the human will could not act without that first invitation of grace.
Although not all aspects of Augustine's teachings were ultimately accepted by the Catholic Church, his thought would influence the Western world toward a skepticism about human nature that led to a spirituality of total dependence on God. By the end of his life he had moved away from the classical optimism that assumed the head could rule the heart. He came to believe that reason could not control the passions, and that the will is not free because it is not free of the strong powers of emotion, desire, habit, and social pressure. The only thing that could subdue these powers was the power of grace. The virtues of the classical world, based on the Stoic notion of moral progress, were gone and were replaced by submission to God's will as the one virtue that mattered. One could argue that Augustine marks the end of the classical world in the West." He certainly contributed to the fifth-century changes that led to the beginning of what are often called the "Dark Ages.""* In terms of anthropology, Augustine's debate with Pelagius set the stage for the question of original sin, free will, and predestination to be addressed again and again by Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Erasmus, John
Calvin, Jacob Arminius, John Wesley, and others.
ECCLESIOLOGY
Just as was the case with anthropology, the ongoing theme of ecclesiology finds Augustine of Hippo at the center of the controversy. In this case, however, his opponents were the Donatists. The Donatists were a rigorist faction in North Africa who held to the North African view of the sacraments (the faith of the presider matters, and a lack of faith can invalidate the sacrament). They claimed
Cyprian of Carthage as their spiritual father, since they practiced rebaptism. When Augustine became bishop of Hippo Regius, he was not the only bishop in the city; the Donatists had their own bishop and they were to become a thorn in Augustine's side.
Reading the Early Church Fathers Donatism Just as the persecution in the third century had led to the emergence of rigorist factions and rebaptizing bishops, the Great
Persecution at the beginning of the fourth century brought all of that back to North Africa. In 311 CE, a new bishop of Carthage named Caecilian was elected. After the election it was discovered that he had been consecrated by another bishop named Felix, who had lapsed in the persecution. Felix was not an apostate but was accused of being a traitor because he had turned over some church property to the authorities. A rigorist faction rose up and opposed
Caecilian on the grounds that his consecration as bishop was invalid. This faction feared, of course, that any sacraments over which he presided would also be invalid.
Although ordination (and consecration) was not technically considered a sacrament yet, the rigorists applied a North African understanding of baptism to the consecration of a bishop, which was understood as a conferral of the Holy Spirit and, with it, the authority of the Church. In other words, a lapsed bishop has forfeited the authority and expelled the Holy Spirit from himself, so therefore he could not confer the Holy Spirit on another, let alone grant authority. The rigorists raised up a rival bishop named
Donatus. But the Catholic Christians maintained that Caecilian was still the duly elected bishop and leader of the church in Carthage. From that point on, Carthage, and then North Africa, was split between the Catholics and the Donatists. This split also tended to be along ethnic and class differences. The Catholics were generally Latin-speaking coastal people whose ancestors came to North Africa from elsewhere, while the Donatists were generally inland people who were more indigenous and whose primary language was a Semitic derivative called Berber. The Catholics tended to be in the upper classes, but were consequently the minority."
The Donatists tended to be from the lower classes, and so constituted the majority. When Augustine was bishop of Hippo, there were more Donatists there than Catholics.
As we have seen, the emperor Constantine had declared that the Catholics were the true Church, and he had favored them over the Donatists when it came to restoring church property and
Ongoing Themes rebuilding churches after the persecution.' The Donatists were condemned at the Council of Arles in 314 CE, and after that time they were the target of discrimination. Donatists evangelizing
Catholics were subject to arrest.' In spite of this, the Donatists existed side by side with the Catholics in North Africa until the seventh century, when both forms of Christianity were driven out of North Africa by Islamic invasion.
Augustine accepted the Roman understanding of the sacraments and opposed the Donatists for their rigorism and their rebaptism. He wrote a series of anti-Donatist works, including On Baptism, Against the Donatists, and The Correction of the Donatists.
Augustine's Roman view of the sacraments, along with his pessimism regarding human nature, inevitably led him to the Roman ecclesiology. In other words, if people cannot be perfect, neither can the Church, so we cannot expect to purify the Church by excluding the impure." If grace is defined as a healing power, then the Church must be more like a hospital, inclusive even of the sick.'
Therefore, we must be content to include everyone for the Church's time on earth and, as in the parable of the wheat and the weeds, wait until the harvest (judgment) for God to sort out the real
Christians from the false ones. Once Christianity was legalized, and especially when it became the only legal religion, the Church had to be inclusive, since all citizens were expected to be baptized members. The Church that had been countercultural (perceived as antisocial) and persecuted had become the authority over the culture.
In the year 410 CE, the city of Rome was sacked by invading Goths. Those who had resisted the move to a Christian empire blamed the fall of Rome on the Church, some claiming that it was the failure to worship the old gods that led to the removal of their protection. Augustine responded by writing The City of God. This is really a tale of two cities, one a heavenly city and one an earthly city. A person's citizenship depends on the object of his or her love.
If one loves the things of the world, then one is a citizen of the earthly city. But one can never have real security in the earthly city, since the things one loves can always be taken away. If one loves
God, on the other hand, then one is a citizen of the city of God and has real security, since in this case the object of love (God) can never be taken away. Irue security could never be found in the pax
Reading the Early Church Fathers Romana, it could only be found in God, since it is God who maintains his hold on his elect. Assuming election, one who is elect could never lose God because the responsibility for perseverance is on God and God's grace. It must be so, or no one would be saved, since humans are incapable of persevering unless it is a work of God.
Theodosius I (reigned 379-95 CE) was the first emperor to attempt to create an empire in which all citizens were baptized
Church members. Others would follow him, in effect trying to create the City of God on earth, including Charlemagne and John
Calvin. It would generally be understood, however, that as long as it sojourned on earth, the Church would always be an ark of clean and unclean, a field of wheat and weeds.
CHRISTOLOGY
In the second and third centuries, the doctrinal debates had revolved around two primary questions: the relationship of the Father and Son (the balance of unity and distinction of persons in the Trinity) and the relationship of the two natures in Christ (that there is both divinity and humanity in the second person of the Trinity). Each of these questions evolved in the post-Nicene era.
The first question was expanded to include the Holy Spirit (that the Holy Spirit is also consubstantial with the Father). The second question applied the categories of the first question to the person of Christ (the balance of unity and distinction of the two natures).
The Cappadocians Also known as the Cappadocian fathers, the term refers to three bishops from the Cappadocia region of Asia Minor: Basil of Caesarea (329-79 CE), his brother Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330-85/86
CE), and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus (325-89 CE). They continued the work begun by Alexander and Athanasius in solidifying the pro-Nicene position in the Church and bringing general acceptance of the creed. They did this by clarifying that consubstantiality (specifically the nonbiblical term homoousios) did not imply a form of modalism. As Tertullian and Novatian had made
Ongoing Themes clear in the first half of the third century in the West, the one substance did not imply that the Father and Son were one and the same, since the Father and Son maintained a personal distinction."
They also helped settle the question of which Greek terms would be used as the equivalents of Tertullian's person and substance.'' All of this allowed some of the "semi-Arian" holdouts to come over to the Nicene side.
The Cappadocians also expanded the Church's understanding of the Trinity by applying Nicene conclusions about Christ to the Holy Spirit. In this, they were opposing a group known as Pneumatomachians ("Spirit-fighters"), who denied the Holy Spirit's divinity and therefore opposed the worship of the Spirit. Some of these may have been former Arians or semi-Arians who were willing to concede consubstantiality to the Son but not to the Spirit. They apparently applied some of the Arian arguments about Christ to the Holy Spirit, in effect saying, We may have to accept the divinity of the Son, but we can't accept the divinity of the Spirit. To them, calling the Holy Spirit "God" would be a form of polytheism.
Basil of Caesarea wrote On the Holy Spirit against the Pneumatomachians, affirming the validity of worshiping the Holy Spirit.
The Pneumatomachians responded by claiming that if all three persons are divine, then that is really a form of tritheism. Gregory of Nyssa wrote On Not Three Gods to counter this accusation, as well as On the Holy Trinity, in which he went further than his brother had in affirming that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial and coeternal with the Father. Thus the conclusions of Nicaea about the Son were applied to the Spirit. Finally, Gregory of Nazianzus, who would become bishop of Constantinople, wrote the Theological
Orations, including the Fifth Theological Oration on the Holy Spirit, in which he said that it is appropriate to call the Holy Spirit God.
The Cappadocians clarified that the Holy Spirit is of the same divine nature as (consubstantial with) the Father and the Son and is therefore divine and is worthy of worship. Variations of this had been affirmed in the West since Tertullian, and in the East at least since Athanasius; however, the Cappadocians are credited with effectively ending the debate over the divinity of the Spirit. Their work led to a revision of the creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE that expanded the paragraph on the Holy Spirit to what ln
Reading the Early Church Fathers it is today (with the exception of the Western addition of filioque,
"and the Son").
Apollinarius of Laodicea (310-90 CE) With Apollinarius of Laodicea, the pendulum swings to the other extreme from Arius (see Table 5, Christology and Theology in the Fourth Century). Apollinarius was a student of Athanasius who reacted against Arius's ontological separation of the Father and Son. He attempted to safeguard the unity and equality of the Son with the Father by emphasizing the divinity of the Son as well as the unity between the divine and human in Christ." In doing this, however, he envisioned a Christ in which the divine nature overshadowed the human nature to the point where the human nature was diminished by the divine nature. From the perspective of the mainstream bishops, Apollinarius seemed to have emphasized the unity between the two natures to the point of creating a kind of christological modalism.
Apollinarius also rejected Arius's anthropological optimism and (like Augustine) reasoned that if Arian soteriology was correct, no one could be obedient enough to be saved. In fact, if Jesus' sonship had depended on human willpower to resist sin, Apollinarius worried that not even Jesus could have been saved. Therefore, he concluded that the only way Jesus could have been without sin would be if there were no human will in him, since it would be the human will that would give in to temptation. He speculated that in the person of Christ, the human rational soul (the human mind) had been replaced by the divine mind, the Logos. So Apollinarius proposed a Christ who had no human will, but into whom the divine Logos was inserted to be the mind of the man Jesus. This was perceived by most bishops as unacceptable, because it seemed to diminish Christ's human nature. Although Apollinarius would have certainly denied it, his Christology seemed to have fewer than two natures, and his Christ seemed to be less than fully human.
Apollinarius's Christology was therefore rejected, because of the conviction that a Christ who is not fully human could not represent humanity and be the savior of humanity.
Whereas the orthodox said the Word became flesh, and Arianism
Ongoing Themes had said something like the flesh earned the Word, Apollinaritus seemed to be suggesting that the Word put on flesh. The language of "putting on" flesh had been used by the apologists with regard to the incarnation, but in the fourth century it became important to clarify that it was not only a "suit of flesh" that the divine Logos wore, it was a full humanity. The problem is that Apollinarius had reacted against Arius's diminished divinity in Christ by overemphasizing the divinity to the point of diminishing the humanity. The Arians had, in effect, proposed a Christ with only one will (human), but Apollinarius went to the other extreme and ironically also proposed a Christ with only one will (but divine). A Christology of one will only is called sonothelite (Greek for "one will")." The one will of Apollinarius's Christ is divine, so there is no human mind or will, and in fact no free will at all. The majority of bishops would eventually conclude that for Christ to have two natures, he must also have two wills, one divine (the same divine will as the Trinity) and one human."
At the second ecumenical council, the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE, Apollinarius's Christology was condemned as heresy. The conclusions of the Council of Nicaea were reaffirmed and Arianism was also condemned. Orthodoxy was implicitly defined as the middle way between Arianism and Apollinarianism.
The creed produced at Nicaea was updated and expanded, including the extended paragraph on the Holy Spirit, which was the result of the Cappadocians' work. What we know as the Nicene
Creed today is actually the result of both councils and it is properly called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This is the creed still honored and recited in the Church to this day, except that the Western version of the creed has the addition of the filioque clause
(that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son). The filioque clause can be traced to Augustine and his own emphasis on the equality of Father and Son against Arianism. It was later added to the creed, first in Spain and then across the West in an effort of standardization under Charlemagne.
Reading the Early Church Fathers Nestorius of Constantinople (Bishop 428-51 CE) The date of Nestorius's birth is unknown; but he gained a reputation as a proven anti-Arian and became bishop of Constantinople in 428 CE. He seems, however, to have overreacted against Apollinarius (swinging the pendulum once again) to the point where his Christology has some affinity with Arian theology, in the sense that it emphasizes distinction over unity (see Table 6,
Christology and Theology in the Fifth Century). Understandably uncomfortable with the diminished humanity in Apollinarius's description of Christ, Nestorius attempted to preserve the full humanity of Christ, and at the same time preserve the immutability of the divine nature of Christ, by emphasizing the distinction between the two natures over against the unity of natures. He apparently thought that Apollinarius's emphasis on the unity of natures would inevitably lead to the detriment of both natures, since the humanity would be diminished and the divinity would be mutable. Thus, like the Arians, he apparently rejected any kind of unity other than a unity of wills. Whereas the Arians had said that the unity of Father and Son was a unity of cooperating wills, not a unity of essence, Nestorius would say that the unity of the two natures in Christ was a unity of cooperating wills. In effect,
Nestorius was saying the same thing about the two natures within Christ that Arius had said about the Father and Son. Nestorius and his followers were accused of taking this further than he ever really did, to the point where the two natures appeared to be two separate persons, only united as long as the human will in Christ submits to the divine will."
The practical application of Nestorius's Christology was apparent in his rejection of the title "Mother of God" (in Greek,
Theotokos) as it was being used of Mary. Nestorius held that Mary could appropriately be called "Mother of Christ" (Christotokos), but not "Mother of God," since, he argued, this would imply that the divine nature of Christ had a birth and therefore a beginning. It also implied that the divine nature was circumscribed in the womb of the Virgin. Since divinity is eternal and omnipresent, Nestorius did not want to use such a title that, for him, compromised the eternality and immutability of the divine. It seemed to him that this
Ongoing Themes title for Mary denied the very separation of natures that he was trying to emphasize. If both natures of Christ were circumscribed in the womb of Mary, that seemed like too much unity of the natures, and risked the same problems as the Christology of Apollinarius.
Nestorius was opposed by Cyril of Alexandria (bishop 412-44 CE), who argued that Mary was, in fact, the mother of the divine nature of Christ, and therefore it is appropriate to call her "Mother of God." For him, the unity of the two natures within the person of Christ demanded that Mary be the mother of both natures. Cyril insisted that the union of natures was not simply a union of cooperating wills but a union on the level of Christ's very personhood.
While Nestorius seemed to be suggesting a volitional union, Cyril emphasized the personal (in Greek, /ypostatic) union. In the ensuing debate, Cyril won the support of Celestine, bishop of Rome, who recognized that the concept of the hypostatic union was consistent with the Christology of the West, especially that of Tertullian, but, as we have seen, it was also consistent with Novatian."°
The third ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus, was convened in 431 CE by the emperor Theodosius II (reigned
408-50 CE). Pope Celestine had given Cyril the authority to preside over the council. Unfortunately for Nestorius, the council met before his supporters could arrive, so he refused to defend himself, and it is probably the case that in his absence he was accused of teaching things that he never really believed or taught." Nestorius and his supporters held their own separate council, which claimed to excommunicate Cyril. In any case, Nestorianism (as it was understood) was condemned as heresy, and the condemnation of Apollinarius was reconfirmed. Thus the Council of Ephesus implicitly saw orthodox Christology as the middle way between Apollinarius and Nestorius. The use of the title "Mother of God" for Mary was confirmed as appropriate. It is important to keep in mind that, although "Mother of God" is a title for Mary, the issue behind it is one of Christology, since the use of the title assumes that the two natures of Christ are united in such a way that even the divine nature was circumscribed within the womb of Mary.
ASS
Reading the Early Church Fathers Eutyches, Abbot of Constantinople (378-454 CE) Eutyches was a monk and the abbot of a monastery in Constantinople. He was not a bishop, nor even a theologian.
Thinking that he was faithfully reflecting the teachings of Cyril, he overreacted against Nestorius and went even further from the mainstream than Apollinarius had (see Table 6, Christology and Theology in the Fifth Century). Whereas Apollinarius had suggested what appeared to be an overlap of the divine nature of Christ overshadowing the human nature, Eutyches proposed a Christology in which the divine nature completely absorbed the human nature, leaving no human nature after the incarnation. Now it was not simply a matter of only one will in Christ (sonothelite), it was a Christology of only one nature (monophysite). In Eutyches' description of Christ, though he may have theoretically had two natures that came together in the incarnation, he had only one nature after the incarnation, and that nature was divine. This is an extreme unity of natures in the person of Christ that leaves room for no distinction at all and ultimately absorbs and erases the human nature, leaving a Christ who is, at best, less than human and, at worst, docetic. Thus Eutyches described Jesus as consubstantial with God, but not with humanity.
The mainstream Church had been affirming the reality of the two natures of Christ from the very beginning. Adoptionism, and then Arianism, had affirmed one nature only (human), and Apollinarius had responded with a Christology that had more than one, but not quite two natures. Eutyches went even further than
Apollinarius in the opposite direction from Arius, with a Christology that once again reduced Christ to one nature, this time divine.
But in emphasizing such a unity of natures, it appeared that the one nature that remained after the incarnation was something not consistent with either of the two original natures. Eutyches' Christ was a tertium quid (a "third thing") resulting from the amalgam of the two natures, but no longer either one.** This implied a change in the divine nature that compromised divine immutability, and from the perspective of the mainstream resulted in a Trinity that was closer to a form of modalism. In any case, the one nature that
Ongoing Themes resulted and remained was divine and had no real connection to humanity. This the mainstream Church could not accept.
Bishop Flavian of Constantinople excommunicated Eutyches at a council in 448 CE. By this time, however, Cyril of Alexandria had died and was succeeded by Dioscorus, who took Eutyches' side, in part for political reasons. The debate now escalated into an argument between bishops, Flavian of Constantinople and Dioscorus of Alexandria. Rome was consulted and Pope Leo I (bishop 440-61) supported Flavian with a letter now known as the Tome." In this letter, Leo claimed the authority of apostolic succession, writing as if he spoke for Peter himself. At a synod in Ephesus in 449 CE, with Dioscorus presiding, Leo's Tome was rejected without a hearing
(possibly in part because there was no one there who could translate it from Latin into Greek) and both Flavian and Leo were excommunicated. This attempt at asserting the authority of Alexandria over both Rome and Constantinople was ultimately dubbed the "robber synod."
The fourth ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon, was convened in 451 CE. Affirming the creed of NicaeaConstantinople, the bishops of the council resolved not to create a new creed, but only to produce a statement of faith (called the Chalcedonian Definition) that would further clarify the christological question. Cyril's description of the hypostatic union was affirmed and Nestorius's condemnation reiterated. In addition, Leo's Tome was read and accepted, especially specific language that was taken as sufficient to refute Eutychian monophysitism. As Leo had phrased it (building on language from 'Tertullian, Novatian, and Augustine), Christ is one person "in both natures."*! This affirmed a full union of the two natures on the level of Christ's very personhood, while at the same time maintaining a distinction between the two natures that left both natures intact. In other words, with the help of Cyril and Leo, the Church had articulated the balance of unity and distinction between the two natures in the person of Christ to parallel the balance of unity and distinction between the persons of the Trinity. As Tertullian and Novatian had already taught, the Chalcedonian definition further clarified that the two natures of Christ must remain distinct, without change, confusion, or diminishing either nature or creating a third nature." In addiad
Reading the Early Church Fathers tion, the human nature of Christ is a full humanity with a rational soul (mind/will). Finally, it was confirmed that it is appropriate to refer to Mary as the Mother of God, since she is also the mother of Christ's divine nature. Thus, just as fourth-century orthodoxy was a middle way between Arianism and Apollinarianism, fifth-century orthodoxy was defined as the middle way between Nestorianism and monophysitism."* With both the Monophysites and the Nestorians condemned as heretics, the Council of Chalcedon had brought the Church to another plateau in the development of doctrine. By defining the doctrine of the Trinity and Christology, the first four ecumenical councils had not only defined orthodoxy, they had defined
Christianity itself. But this was done at the expense of unity, since after Chalcedon both extremes refused to submit to the authority of the majority, and so they split from the Church and became separated ecclesial bodies, a division that still exists to this day.**
Clarifying the boundaries of orthodox Christology naturally led to some being left outside those boundaries, and although the Chalcedonian Christians would have claimed that the nonChalcedonians were, by definition, not Christian, these groups nevertheless continued their worship of God in Christ according to their own understanding.
From the earliest decades of the Church, the authority of the bishops as successors of the apostles and the development of the hierarchy were meant to preserve the teaching and tradition of the Church and maintain unity. In the post-Chalcedon Church, however, it was no longer as simple as calling those outside the mainstream heretics and therefore unchristian. Now there were those outside the mainstream who had sufficient numbers to survive as separate entities. The Monophysites were centered in Egypt and became the Oriental Orthodox Churches (including the Coptic
Church). The Nestorians migrated to Persia and became the Assyrian Church of the East.
Today the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches have come to recognize each other and have rescinded their mutual excommunications. Each of the two non-Chalcedonian groups have reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church, to the point of admitting that the other's Christology is not a heresy but is pri-
Ongoing Themes marily a difference in emphasis. But there is a long way to go before eucharistic unity can be achieved. The Assyrian Church of the East accepts that it is appropriate to call Mary the Mother of God
(Theotokos), though they reserve the right not to use the title themselves. The Vatican has recognized them as a valid form of Christianity since 1994. The Coptic Church, for its part, does not claim Eutyches as its founder, but instead claims Dioscorus of Alexandria and maintains that it remains faithful to the teachings of Cyril.** They prefer to call their Christology mapbysite, meaning one composite nature that retains both divinity and a true full humanity.' The Coptic Church has been recognized by the Vatican as a valid form of Christianity since 1973, when a joint statement on Christology was issued by Pope Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria. The Greek Orthodox Church has recognized the Coptic Church since 1989, and both signed a joint statement on Christology in 1990.* The irony is that, in spite of an officially inclusive ecclesiology, the definition of orthodoxy and the clarification of the boundaries of doctrine ultimately led to exclusion of those who were only perceived as outside the boundaries, not so much because of different beliefs, but because of different ways of expressing their beliefs. In some ways, this was largely due to differences of language or disagreements over the definitions of words. But the authority that was originally meant to safeguard unity finally led to division.
SOTERIOLOGY
The convergence of anthropology and Christology is soteriology, or the doctrine of salvation. As we have already seen,
Christology and soteriology are interdependent because what one believes about the Savior will affect what one believes about how salvation works. In addition, what one believes about humanity
(anthropology) will determine what the human needs from God in order to be saved. Thus as we have seen with Arianism, an optimistic anthropology leads to an emphasis on human effort and to a soteriology in which all that is needed from Christ is to set a good example. On the other hand, Augustine's pessimistic anthropology z19
Reading the Early Church Fathers leads to an emphasis on divine intervention. The "nuts and bolts" of salvation, then, is the doctrine of the atonement, which answers the question of how the Savior saves.
In the New Testament, atonement is presented in various ways. One of the ways in which the apostle Paul describes atonement is in terms of manumission. Salvation is freedom (from sin, death, fate, superstition) and Christ is our Savior in that he has purchased our freedom through his sacrifice on the cross. This is described as "ransom" (Matt 20:28, 1 Tim 2:6). The mainstream theologians continued this trend, associating the two natures of Christ with two requirements for salvation. The Savior must be human in order to die for humanity (as a representative of humanity), but the Savior must also be divine in order to overcome death and rise in victory, making our resurrection possible.
By the Middle Ages, the "ransom theory" of atonement had become one in which it was speculated that humanity had sold itself into slavery to the devil by committing sin. In order to buy our freedom, Jesus Christ had to pay with his life. Christ was seen as the actual "ransom" itself, the payment that the Father was compelled to give in order to free the human race. This presented a philosophical problem, however. It put the devil in a position of power over God." It would take a group of medieval scholars known as the Scholastics to clarify the Church's doctrine of the atonement.
With Scholasticism, the philosophy that was abandoned by the theologians finally makes a comeback, with the conviction that both faith and reason are gifts from God and will complement each other. In expanding upon the connection between anthropology, Christology, and soteriology, the Scholastics would become the first systematic theologians.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033/34-1109 CE) Anselm was influenced primarily by Augustine of Hippo. He took Augustine's Credo ut intelligam (I believe so that I may understand), and made it Fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). In his most famous document, Cur Deus Homo (Why the God-Man?), Anselm followed the lead of the early theologians, developing the argument that Christ had to be both divine and
Ongoing Themes human in order to be the Savior of humanity." Anselm begins with a dilemma faced by God. Humans are sinful and therefore deserve eternal separation from God. But God loves humanity and wishes to save humans from the wages of sin. If God were simply to cancel the debt, God's justice would be mocked and an important part of God's nature would be compromised. On the other hand, if God were to condemn all of humanity, God's will to save humanity would go unfulfilled and another important part of God's nature
(mercy) would never be realized.*' The solution to this dilemma must be one in which the debt of justice is paid and humans are given the chance to be free of it.
Cur Deus Homo demonstrates perfectly the connection between Christology and soteriology. Anselm argued that the atonement works because Christ has two natures. The human nature of Christ is required to pay the debt of justice on behalf of humanity (a human must pay the debt that humanity owes), and the divine nature is required because a mere human would have sins of his own and would not be able to pay the debt for himself, let alone the rest of humanity. This has been expressed in more modern times as "Christ paid a debt he did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay." The apostle Paul said it this way, that Christ took our curse so that we could have his blessing (Gal 3:13-14).
Thus he died in our place as a substitutionary sacrifice, as the Letter to the Hebrews describes it, a once-and-for-all version of the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. Anselm, however, did not emphasize the sacrificial aspect of Christ's death. For him it was the payment of a debt—it is God's honor that is offended by sin, and that must be repaid." For Anselm, it is not so much the death of Christ, but the /ife of Christ that matters. Since his life is the most valuable thing imaginable, it could be given as an overabundant payment for the debt of humanity. Therefore, it has more to do with Christ's giving of himself than with a blood sacrifice. So while Anselm's theory of atonement is sometimes referred to as the substitution theory, a better name is the satisfaction theory."
According to Anselm, the most we could ever give to God would be our own lives; however, that would be less than we already owed God, even before sin and apart from the debt. But Christ's life is without sin, and therefore it is a surplus payment, the Zeb
Reading the Early Church Fathers credit of overage being applied to humanity, and so forgiveness is granted. Note, however, that forgiveness is granted to human nature in general, since the problem of sin is a problem of human nature. Like Augustine, Anselm believed that the Fall had damaged human nature. The problem is that we as humans are consubstantial with Adam, and so his sin has corrupted our nature. In Adam, the sin of the individual corrupts the entire human nature. In fact, each person's sin throughout the generations of history contributes to the corruption of human nature, which grows like a snowball rolling downhill, so that sin becomes inevitable.* The solution to the problem, then, is that Christ became consubstantial with us, so that in him, the sinlessness of the individual heals the whole human nature.** This satisfies both God's justice and God's mercy because it incorporates both divine intervention (the divine nature of Christ) and human representation (the human nature of Christ).
Peter Abelard (1079-1142) Abelard began with an optimistic anthropology, much like
Arius and Pelagius. Therefore he rejected Augustine's understanding of original sin, and he also rejected Anselm's understanding of atonement as substitution/satisfaction. He argued that if grace is a gift of God, no one should have to pay for it, not even Christ. He further maintained that since God had forgiven sin before the coming of Christ, then Christ himself (as a sacrifice) was not needed to forgive sin. In his commentary on the Book of Romans, Abelard refutes what appears to be a caricature of Anselm. He says, in effect, that God can save humanity simply by cancelling the debt. In fact, he argued that any other arrangement would have the same philosophical problem as the ransom theory, in that it seems to impose a necessity on God. Therefore, Abelard rejected the idea that Christ's death reconciles humanity to God, saying that if anything, the murder of the Son of God is the worst sin humanity has ever committed and it should make things worse. In this he anticipated some of the contemporary critiques of traditional atonement theories, saying that the very idea of a blood sacrifice seems cruel on the part of God. It seemed to him a great injustice that the innocent
(Jesus) would have to die for the guilty. So Abelard proposed that it Pps
Ongoing Themes was not Christ's death that mattered, but his incarnation. On the latter point, he and Anselm would probably agree, but Abelard went so far as to say that the passion of Christ was more of a wakeup call or a motivational object lesson, rather than the satisfaction of a debt or a substitutionary sacrifice.
This claim got Abelard into trouble, however, because he was essentially saying that Christ did not need to die to make salvation possible. In fact, Abelard proposed that those who killed Christ did not actually sin, since they thought they were doing God's will and sincerely intended to do God's will. Apparently taking his cue from some of the teachings of Jesus in the gospels (such as Matt 5:27-28),
Abelard made intention the criteria for what constituted sin. If one did not intend to sin (but did so inadvertently), the sin would not be held against that person. But if one intended to sin but was unable to carry it out, that person would still be guilty.* The point was whether one intended to follow the example of Christ.
According to tradition, Abelard's nemesis, Bernard of Clairvaux, responded to this idea with a version of the famous saying, The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Abelard is usually given credit for the moral influence theory of atonement, which is often seen as similar to an Arian soteriology in that the Savior is an example to follow, and salvation is by human effort. In other words, it is not Christ's death that saves, but our reaction to it. Christ was the perfect example of self-sacrifice, and his suffering was an act of love for humanity. Does it motivate us to repent and follow the example of Christ as one who loves unselfishly?" Like Pelagius, however, Abelard was no Arian. He did not completely reject the idea of salvation as substitution, as he wrote in a letter to his beloved Heloise: "He (Christ) bought you and redeemed you with his own blood." His was not really a salvation by works, but it did emphasize human effort in defining salvation according to whether or not we follow the example of Christ.
Nevertheless, he was accused of heresy (by Bernard of Clairvaux) and excommunicated, but was later reconciled to the Church before his death.* pipe)
Reading the Early Church Fathers Thomas Aquinas (1224/25-74) Thomas Aquinas is most famous for his unfinished systematic theology, Summa Theologica, of which On Nature and Grace is a part.
Like the other Scholastics, Aquinas affirmed that faith and reason are not contradictory, since both are gifts from God; but he may have found a balance between the two that the others did not. If it could be said that Anselm leaned more toward faith (that is,
Augustine), and Abelard leaned more toward reason (that is, philosophy), Aquinas presented the middle way, recognizing that while human rationality is a function of the image of God in the human person, it is nevertheless limited and therefore reason alone will not lead one to God—one also needs divine revelation. On the other hand, revelation requires reason to interpret it, and so each one needs the other. Aquinas combines Augustinian theology with a renewed optimism about human nature that affirmed that people can know and do what is good.
If the pendulum had swung hard to the Augustinian side with Anselm and to the Pelagian side with Abelard, Thomas Aquinas is the center of gravity where the Church would come to rest.
Combining the best of the substitution/satisfaction and moral influence theories of atonement, Thomas brought the Church's
"semi-Augustinian" anthropology to its logical conclusion and demonstrated how salvation requires divine intervention (God's grace is more than information, it is a power), human representation (Christ's human nature becomes the substitution for humanity), and human participation (the will of the individual cooperates with God's grace). This would become the accepted Catholic understanding of atonement. Thomas's thought in general would come to be known as Thomism, and while it would be impossible to do justice to Thomas's contribution to the Church in the space available here, it will have to suffice to point out that few Christian writers, before or since, have come close to the legacy of Aquinas.
It is also important to note that in the Protestant Reformation, the reformers' reaction against the sale of indulgences led to an aversion to any talk of personal cooperation with grace (that is, works), which made them move back toward Anselm and adopt a modified
(more forensic) version of the substitution theory.
Ongoing Themes Nevertheless, Aquinas had reclaimed the classical optimism about human nature to an extent that set the stage for the Renaissance and even the Enlightenment. For him, as for Augustine,
God's grace is a power, the power to change direction in life; however, the human will can accept and respond to grace, which in turn merits more grace, a positive version of the snowball effect.
Soteriology, then, is the question of reconciliation with God and how it is achieved. Can we reach out to God, or must God take the initiative and reach out to us first? The Council of Orange in 529 CE had concluded that although the human will can respond to grace, grace must move first. However, this still begged the question, How much can we contribute to our own salvation (Phil
2:12)? How much does the human will cooperate with grace? What is the balance between grace (what God does) and free will (what we do)? The Church would accept Thomas Aquinas as the best interpreter of the apostle Paul, that to connect with the Divine requires both divine power and willpower. It is not a question of either divine intervention or human effort; it requires the love, mercy, and compassion of a God who takes the initiative to reach out to humanity as well as personal discipline and following the example of Christ. Thus atonement is not one-sided, but is a divine-human dialogue that includes divine initiative (the incarnation, revelation, and the grace of baptism), human response (faith), divine intervention (the grace of healing and forgiveness), and human effort (prayer and good works).
CONCLUSIONS
While we have examined the Church of the second and third centuries in some depth, we have only scratched the surface of the proliferation of textual evidence left to us from the post-Nicene
Church. Therefore it may seem somewhat hasty to think in terms of conclusions. However, we have been able to point to some important trends that began in the early Church and continued on through to the Middle Ages. Furthermore, these trends can themselves point to certain questions that underlie the debates faced by the Church fathers. It is these questions to which we will now turn,
Reading the Early Church Fathers and with which I will leave the reader to explore the Church fathers in greater depth.
What Is Unity, and at What Cost Is It to Be Sought After?
From the beginning it was assumed that the Church must be one. A divided Church was a Church that the gates of hell had overcome (Matt 16:18), and therefore it was desirable, even urgent, that the Church define the boundaries of acceptable teaching and keep everyone inside those boundaries. But at least as early as the writing of the First Letter of John, there were those who would not stay within the boundaries and who "went out from us" (1 John
2:19). Then, from the Marcionites in the second century to the Novatianists in the third century, to the Donatists in the fourth century, to the Nestorians and Monophysites of the fifth century, there were always groups willing to separate from the mainstream
Church to maintain their own identity and stand up for their divergent beliefs. How was the Church to balance orthodoxy and unity?
How far could the Church go in accepting variations of doctrine before a particular teaching had moved far enough from the "center" that it could no longer be called Christianity?
For that matter, why not just let everyone believe what seemed right to them? The reason this would have been unthinkable was that the Church fathers recognized that theology and Christology always led to a particular soteriology, and they firmly believed that not every soteriology could actually save. Therefore, souls were at stake, and the heretic who insisted on teaching a divergent interpretation was in fact preaching "another gospel," one that would lead innocent people astray and ultimately to their eternal damnation. Hence the need for boundaries.
What Is Authority, and What Are Its Limits?
The need for boundaries immediately begs the question of who has the authority to set the boundaries. As the hierarchy of the Church evolved, authority became concentrated in the bishops, who were the keepers of the Church's doctrine and discipline.
Ongoing Themes Apostolic succession assumes an institutionalization of authority, one that would ultimately be incompatible with charismatic authority. Therefore, limiting the parameters of doctrine required limiting the authority. In the East, ultimate authority was placed in councils, but in the West, authority came to be consolidated in a single point at the top of the hierarchy, the bishop of Rome.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the West inherited Augustine's pessimism with regard to humanity while the East never did. A pessimistic anthropology might have contributed to the idea that a centralized authority was needed for a people who could not really be trusted. The East, on the other hand, with its more optimistic anthropology and its continuing acceptance of human free will, could allow more participation in authority. In any case, the Council of Nicaea was the last ecumenical council to include participation by anyone other than bishops.
After Constantine legalized Christianity and made travel and communication between bishops more convenient, the Church also had to struggle with the question of standardization. In other words, how much diversity of practice (liturgy, ritual) should the one Church allow, so that she can still call herself one? Thus it was not only doctrinal diversity but also liturgical diversity that caused concern.
What Is the Proper Balance of Unity and Diversity, and How Do We Achieve It?
Just as the Church struggled to find the balance of unity and distinction among the three divine persons of the Trinity, it also had to work toward a balance of unity and diversity among its people. Total unity was not possible, and to force it unnecessarily would create schism, which puts souls at risk no less than heresy does. Therefore, how much diversity should the Church allow for the sake of unity, and at what point must the Church draw the line of definition for the sake of its own integrity? Put another way, conclusions about the relationship of the divine and human in Christ have implications for the body of Christ, in which sincere believers seek a connection with the divine. Of course, we have to be careful not to project our own ideas about "community" on God
Reading the Early Church Fathers or make the Trinity some sort of analogy for human relationships, but the point is that what people truly need and want is access to the divine. We want to be one with God, but we do not want to lose our own identity. In the same way, the humanity of Christ is one person with the divine nature, yet retains its distinction. Salvation is nothing more or less than a relationship with God, through Christ, that continues into eternity. But here's the rub: the Church fathers believed that one must have a relationship with the right
Christ, or it would be ineffective to lead to salvation. A relationship with the Christ of Marcion or Arius would not do it. The true
Christ would not be found at the extremes, but would be found in the middle, in the center of gravity, in a place of balance.
The story of the early Church is therefore the story of the Church's struggle to define itself. Often Christians had to describe the Church in reference to its opposition, in other words, clarifying what Christianity is by pointing out what it is mot. Therefore, an orthodox anthropology is not a completely pessimistic understanding of the human as totally depraved, nor is it a completely optimistic understanding of humanity as capable of perfection.
Orthodox ecclesiology is not so exclusive as to be purist, but it is also not so inclusive as to be universalist. Orthodoxy Christology is not the extremes of adoptionism or modalism, but affirms both the humanity and divinity of Christ, both the unity and distinction in the 'Trinity. In fact, the union of human and divine natures in the person of Christ (and consequently the union of the Son with the Father) is the very focal point of the union of humanity with God.
Finally, soteriology is not all divine election without human participation, nor is it all human effort without divine intervention. The Church came to believe, and not only believe but wager eternity on this belief, that the truth is in the middle.
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Reading the Early Church Fathers
CHRISTOLOGY AND THEOLOGY IN THE
SUBAPOSTOLIC AGE
DOCETICS &
THE APOLOGISTS &
THE EBIONITES
GNOSTICS
TIRENAEUS
Mostly Gentile Christians, retaining elements of their former paganism Jesus is both fully divine and fully human Mostly Jewish Christians, they are considered the legacy of the so-called Judaizers of Galatians In his divine nature, he is the preexistent agent of creation Based on extreme dualism:
Matter is evil, only the Spiritual is good Jesus was an anointed Jesus was fully human, with real flesh (1 John 4:1-3), even after the resurrection prophet, but a mere human Therefore, Christ could not have real flesh, and Jesus only seemed to be human Jesus was indwelt by the Holy Spirit temporarily Jesus was uniquely filled with the Holy Spirit all his life, not just from his baptism The indwelling of the Spirit Gnosticism assumes salvation is by secret knowledge begins at Jesus' baptism Therefore, he is the recipient of the Spirit, not the giver of the Spirit The resurrection was a real, bodily resurrection Some Gnostics believed Jesus had a tangible, but Logos Christology:
Affirms Jesus' Humanity Affirms Jesus' Divinity "ethereal" body (hybrid Christology) Some said the Holy Spirit left Jesus alone on the cross The resurrection was a mystical vision, in which Christ was revealed in his true (nonhuman) nature The resurrection is a metaphor for eternal life Practical responses:
Refusal to ignore any scripture texts, even in the face of paradox or apparent contradiction Ebionite Christology:
Affirms Jesus' Humanity Denies Jesus' Divinity Docetic Christology:
Denies Jesus' Humanity Affirms Jesus' Divinity It is appropriate to worship Jesus Christ Practical responses:
Potential balance of devotion & service Require adherence to all Jewish laws Some may have rejected the worship of Jesus Practical responses:
Worship of angels Lifestyle of extremes—either Asceticism: self-denial, or Libertinism: self-indulgence Emphasis on personal belief, little social responsibility Note:
Both the Ebionites and the Gnostics envision a Jesus who is not unique among humanity. For the Ebionites, Jesus is not unique because Emphasis on following Jesus' example as opposed to a salvation by atonement Possible emphasis on social gospel, less on devotional he is not divine—for the Gnostics, Jesus is not unique because we are all divine.
The mainstream accepted the paradox of a Jesus who life Objections of opposition:
How can Jesus represent humanity if not human?
(What is not assumed is not saved—salvation requires human representation.) |Jesus is described as Objections of opposition:
How could Jesus be a Savior if not divine? (Salvation requires divine intervention) Jesus is described as divine is both one of us, and unique among us—uniquely filled with the Holy Spirit, and uniquely one with the Father (inseparable operation). in the NT (Col 2:9) human in the NT (Luke 24:36-43) Jesus ate, even after the resurrection.
Jesus claimed a unique relationship to God Pid
Charts and Tables
ASSUMPTIONS OF PATRISTIC EXEGESIS
"',.in matters of theology, absolute confidence is possible for only two classes of people: saints and idiots"
—Origen, Commentary on Genesis 1. The Sacred Texts, Including the New Testament, Are Divinely Inspired
(2 Pet 3:14-16) The texts are understood as inspired by the same Holy Spirit who inspired the prophets The text of scripture is the recorded voice of the divine Logos
Therefore, every word is there for a reason (this often leads to allegorizing all the details)
The written word is another incarnation of the living Word Like the body of Jesus, it enfleshes the Word of God
And like Jesus, it is both human and divine 2. Revelation ls Progressive Things get clearer over time, and the New Testament is clearer than the Old Testament New interpretations can build on, but cannot contradict, established ones
This assumes the authority of the Church through apostolic succession 3. There Are Multiple Meanings in Any Given Text
The human author's intended meaning is not the only valid meaning This is because the ultimate author is really God
4. Paradox Is to Be Embraced, Not Avoided Two apparently contradictory texts can be held in tension, where both are seen as true Assuming divine inspiration, one set of texts cannot be ignored in favor of another The question then becomes, not whether a biblical text is true, but how it is true 5. Patristic Exegesis Follows the Lead of Apostolic Exegesis
Interpreting the Old Testament in light of the life and ministry of Jesus: it is always christocentric Even Old Testament passages that were never thought of as messianic become prophecies Combining texts from different documents, such as the "Suffering Servant" (Isa 53), with messianic prophecies to explain why Jesus as Messiah suffers death a
Reading the Early Church Fathers 6. Scripture Interprets Scripture This assumes an internal integrity and consistency of message, even across the testaments It is based on the assumption of divine inspiration
Interpreting one text by the application of other (clearer) texts 7. In General, Interpretation of the Old Testament Was Nonliteral
The most important (that is, christocentric) meaning is hidden under the surface The two main types of nonliteral interpretation are typology and allegory
8. In General, Interpretation of the New Testament Was Literal While the (Christian) meaning was hidden in the Old Testament, it is usually plain in the New Testament
Some passages, such as parables and apocalyptic, must still be interpreted nonliterally
The Gnostics tended to interpret the Old Testament literally and the New Testament nonliterally 9. Interpretation Is Meant to Be Done in the Context of Prayer
Interpretation is something done in community (2 Pet 1:20), as part of a devotional life Doing theology was not an academic exercise, it was part of the ministry of a pastor Interpreting scripture is an act of worship, and must be accompanied by prayer
Charts and Tables
'THE HISTORY OF PATRISTIC EXEGESIS
Stage 1: Two Levels of Meaning Roughly the second and third centuries Interpretation is literal or nonliteral (spiritual)
When the literal meaning does not point to Christ, look for a spiritual meaning Nonliteral (spiritual) interpretation can be typology or allegory
The higher/deeper meaning is the nonliteral (based on a Platonic assumption that the spiritual is more real)
The key is Christ, and the best interpretation is always the christocentric interpretation LITERAL VS. SPIRITUAL/MYSTICAL (with the assumption that spiritual is better) Stage 2: Three Levels of Meaning Roughly the third through the fifth centuries, especially in the West and in Alexandria ; The legacy of Origen and the Alexandrian "school" (that is, methodology) of emphasis on allegory Based on ancient tripartite anthropology of body, soul, and spirit
Scripture is like an egg, with a shell, white, and yolk To get to the yolk, you have to start with the shell (the literal meaning, on the surface) However, the serious student of the Bible cannot stop with the shell, but must go deeper Even more of an insistence that the spiritual (nonliteral) meaning is more important LITERAL (Historical)—What Jesus did MORAL (Ethical)—What we should do ALLEGORICAL (Theological)—What we should believe
Reading the Early Church Fathers Stage 3: Reaction against Allegory—Back to Two Levels of Meaning
Roughly the fourth and fifth centuries, especially in Antioch and the East Recognizing the problems of overallegorizing every detail
Recognizing that allegory can be used to take the meaning out of an uncomfortable text A trend to shift away from the nonliteral in favor of the literal meaning
A new appreciation for studying the Old Testament in its Jewish/Hebrew context LITERAL/HISTORICAL—to be used whenever possible
ALLEGORICAL—to be used only when absolutely necessary, even then it must conform to the literal Phase 4: Four Levels of Meaning An attempt at a middle way, or balance of literal and nonliteral
Beginning in the fifth century and evolving into the Middle Ages Recognizing the necessity of taking the historical context seriously
But also recognizing that the historical interpretation was not always adequate Also maintaining that the Old Testament had to be read through the lens of the New Testament to be relevant for the Church
The spiritual was to be anchored in the literal/historical LITERAL/HISTORICAL—What happened SPIRITUAL (three types):
¢ Analogical/Theological—What we should believe ¢ Moral/Ethical—How we should behave ¢ Anagogical (Vertical Allegory)/Eschatological—What we hope for
Charts and Tables
CHRISTOLOGY AND [THEOLOGY IN THE
'THIRD CENTURY
ADOPTIONISM
MODALISM
THE THEOLOGIANS
(Dynamic Monarchianism) (Modalistic Monarchianism) (a.k.a. Patripassionism, or Irenaeus 'Tertullian Hippolytus God is one because Jesus is Sabellianism) Novatian God is one because Jesus is the Father—the Father and Son are one and the same but Jesus is not the Father The Father and Son are one (John 10:30), but the Father and Son are not one and the same (John 14:28) Jesus was a mere human, therefore is not preexistent Jesus Christ is divine, but not really human He was the first human to achieve perfection The multiple manifestations of God are only the different Jesus Christ is the preexistent As a reward for his perfect obedience, God adopted him Logos wha became human "masks" that God wears to reveal himself to humanity or to intervene in human history Jesus has his own divine power, but sets it aside for the incarnation The adoption took place at Jesus' baptism According to Novatian, the The different revelations of God are distinguished by "mode" of activity, or by task/function incarnation is a voluntary and temporary emptying Jesus did not have his own divine power (dunamis), rather he received power kenosis) of divine power
THE TRINITY
Note the importance of adoption in Roman culture, and in relation to the succession of Roman emperors The distinctions are more Unity of substance/divinity perceived than real Hierarchy of authority Note that the implication is that God can only be one manifestation or mode of revelation at a time The persons of the Trinity are consubstantial Jesus is a son of God, but only by adoption The three persons of the Trinity cannot be distinguished by function since the unity of substance Objections of opposition:
If Jesus is identical with the Father, then God died on the cross (Patripassionism) We are also "sons" (heirs) of God by adoption is also a unity of divine action.
Objections of opposition:
It appears that Jesus had to be saved by his own obedience Does that imply that for the rest of humanity salvation is also by human effort, that The only practical distinction between Son and Father is the incarnation— the Father did not become More importantly, the identity of the Son with the Father effectively diminishes the humanity of Christ human The subordination of the Son is hierarchical, not ontological is, by following his example?
Jesus as Savior is the embodiment of both divine intervention and human representation
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Charts and Tables
CHRISTOLOGY AND "THEOLOGY IN THE
FOURTH CENTURY
ARTANISM
THE COUNCILS OF | APOLLINARIANISM
Arius, priest of Alexandria | NICAEA (325 CE) AND |apollinarius of Laodicea Teh ee
CONSTANTINOPLE
|(over)reacted against e legacy of adoptionism, (381 CE) Arianism, and against the however with a qualified ae :
(lesser degree of) divinity Alexander of Alexandria |Possibility that Jesus might ascribed to the Son (bishop 312°3261Ce) ~~ {have sinned Athanasius of Alexandria |He emphasized the union of (bishop 326-373 CE) _ |the two natures to the point
Only the Father is eternal The Cappadocians | os replaces the human If the Son were eternal, that would make two Gods ; "Begotten" means generated |rational soul (mind/will) i aie pilot (caused), but not created —_ to ensure that Jesus would no : "there ? i j ese = ee aan aa Was The Son is eternally generated, }resist temptation not" coeternal with the Father and This results in a diminished humanity, since the human has no beginning: "Always a Jesus was a mere man Father, always a Son" who was rewarded for his _ ong [nature of Jesus has no '
F Alexander accused Arius of |human mind or will Casslincor ellos: lca ; a .
Orthodoxy is a Christology of ee - Hillel ie ae 8 Therefore, ch genet ) descent: Jesus is God (the Aten the eee ey: means Cc , and "only- :
: reate y- |Word) who became human [oo ac i Bae Wie ne begotten" means God's A Fics he ; d Eorke the "firstborn of all Salvation is by divine inter- }human mind or will Pen vention and human reprecreation"
(Col 1:15) sentation This is an emphasis on the This is an emphasis on the nates unity of divine and human, no salvation Father and Son, to the point Reeve eaves the human of a separation due to an He is the only "natural" Son : silk ontological difference of God—the Son of God by a wt eR (difference of substance) _ |nature, that is, substance
|!" rist Is calle "monothelite"
We can be adopted by identifying with him Arius accused Alexander of modalism The Holy Spirit is also Arianism is a Christology of | qivine and worthy of worship Ascent: Jesus is a man who became a god Note: The equality of substance within the Trinity
Jesus as Savior means means that anything that that he is the pioneer of can be said about any of the salvation, the first to save |three persons must also be himself and the one who said about the other two, sets the example for the with only these exceptions: jrest of humanity The Father is unbegotten Salvation is therefore by The Son is begotten, human effort, resulting in Jincarnate adoption an The Holy Spirit proceeds W359
Reading the Early Church Fathers
CHRISTOLOGY AND "THEOLOGY IN THE
FIFTH CENTURY
THE COUNCILS OF
MONOPHYSITISM
NESTORIANISM
EPHESUS (431 CE)
AND CHALCEDON
Eutyches (over)reacted against Nestorius's separation of natures, but went even further than Apollinarius to an extreme union of natures Nestorius (over)reacted against Apollinarius, but it (451 CE) is not clear how far he went; however, his followers seem to have taken his ideas to the extreme Cyril of Alexandria Leo of Rome The two natures of Christ are unified so that Mary gave birth to both natures, This is a union of natures to the point of "absorption," in which the divine nature cancels out the human nature This is an emphasis on the distinction between the two natures, perceived as a separation of natures not the human nature only Therefore, it is appropriate to call Mary Theotokos (Mother of God) The union of the divine and human in Christ is a union of action only, a moral union, or a cooperation of wills, but not a personal No humanity remains after the incarnation The union of the two natures is described as a hypostatic (personal) union, a union on the level of Christ's very personhood, and not a mere cooperation of wills Jesus is homoousios with the Father, but not with union humanity The two natures are not only distinct, they are separate There is no distinction between the two natures after the union of incarnation Therefore, Mary should not be called Theotokos (Mother of God), because she could not have been the mother of the divine nature of Christ Christ is "one person in both natures"
This leaves only one nature (divine) in the person of Christ The two natures are distinct, but not separate.
"Monophysite" = single nature Nestorius himself had used language of personality to jtalk about the two natures, The two natures are unified, but not confused The one nature is perceived as a tertium quid, a "third thing," something that is making it sound like he thought Christ had a split The union of natures does not cause either nature to be diminished or changed personality not what either nature was Later Nestorians pushed the separation of natures to the point where it sounded like they were talking about two separate "persons"
Christ has:
Two natures Two wills Christ has:
One nature One will
Charts and Tables
IMPORTANT [THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
AND DOCTRINES
1. Divine Simplicity a.
God is "simplex," meaning noncomposite: God does not have "parts" b.
Parts implies corruptibility, that whatever is not simplex could be broken down . Therefore, the three persons of the Trinity are not each one-third of God
. Each person of the Trinity is fully God . Not even the mind or will of God are distinct from God's essence
God does not have attributes, God simply is what God is . So-called attributes of God are only descriptions of God's essence, or [eieh aay Yeon a) substance 2. Immutability/Impassibility a. b.
Immutability is changelessness, the inability to experience change Impassibility is the inability to suffer (suffering is a form of change)
Divine perfection requires immutability, since change would destroy perfection Divine omnipresence also requires immutability, since movement is a form of change Ss d.
3. Inseparable Operation a, b.
A function of consubstantiality and divine simplicity All three persons of the Trinity are unified in all divine activity
4. Appropriation a, b.
Also a function of consubstantiality and divine simplicity What is said of one person of the Trinity must be said of the others
(limited exceptions) What can be said of God/the Trinity can be said of each person
Cc.
5. Perichoresis (Latin: Circumincessio) or Reciprocity A function of divine simplicity, consubstantiality and inseparable operation
The mutual interexistence of the three persons of the Trinity The interpenetration of the three persons in action (movement toward the unity) a. b.
C; . The fact that each divine person exists "in" the other divine persons
Reading the Early Church Fathers 6. Eternal Generation a. "Begotten" does not mean created b. What is generated is of the same substance as the Source of generation
7. Consubstantiality (Greek: homoousios) a. A function of divine simplicity (whatever is not the same substance as God, is not God) b. All three persons of the Trinity are the same substance c. The result of generation (in the case of the Son) and procession (Spirit) d. Describes the unity (oneness) of the Trinity e. The Son is also consubstantial with humanity
8. Coeternality a. Goes hand in hand with consubstantiality and eternal generation b. There is no time lag before begetting or proceeding, no time when the Son did not exist 9. Communicatio Idiomatum a. As perichoresis is to the Trinity, communicatio idiomatum is to the two natures b. Properties idiomatic to each nature are communicated to the other nature c. For example: i. By virtue of the union, the human nature experienced glory and immortality ii. By virtue of the union, the divine nature experienced the human condition iii. But not to the extent of allowing passibility in the divine nature
10. Circumscribability (Localization) a. The ability to be localized in time and space b. In the Son, required a kenosis of omnipresence c. Goes hand in hand with visibility
Appendix
'THE PRIMARY SOURCES
Secondary sources have been suggested along the way in the footnotes. For the purposes of this study, however, I have chosen to concentrate more on the primary sources, the documents from the historical Church. It is my hope that this survey of the writings of the early Church will inspire students to read further in the secondary sources on specific topics. For the student who wishes to read the primary sources, the documents mentioned in this book, many are easily accessed on the Internet. For a list of the primary sources Internet links, select the Online Resources tab at www.paulistpress.com, and then select this book's title, Reading the Early Church Fathers.
Reading the Early Church Fathers
MAP OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE WITH
PLACES MENTIONED
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