A HISTORY OF
CHRISTIANITY
notes
prepared by Larry Brown
Reasons for Christians to
study our history
·
These are not dead names
from the distant past, but many are our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ,
with whom we will spend eternity. We need to get to know them better.
Noll intro, Turning Points:
·
reminds us of the
historical character of Christian faith
·
provides perspective on the
interpretation of scripture
·
reassures us that most of
our problems have been faced before: “Believers, guided by scripture, church
authority, and the Spirit, have often acted wisely in such matters. Even when
in retrospect Christians have made mistakes, the Lord has not abandoned them to
their folly.”
·
helps to see our problems
at a distance: “It is often easier in reviewing the past to discriminate
between matters that are essential to Christian faith and those that are of
relative importance or none at all.”
·
warns us of abuses:
Throughout the entire history of Christianity, problems have arisen when
believers equate the human acts of the church with the acts of God, when
Christians use the name of God to justify their own desired actions. Studying
Christian history can be an eye-opener. Heroes of the faith often have feet of
clay. A Golden Age turns out to be tarnished. Oftentimes the church looks no
better than the world around it. In all this disillusionment, we are reminded
of “a divine patience broader than any human impatience, and a divine
forgiveness more powerful than any human offense.”
Further challenges for
Churches of Christ (Allen and Hughes, Discovering
our Roots: the Ancestry of Churches of Christ. 1988)
·
“We often assume that our
roots are simply in the NT and that we really have not been shaped in any
significant way by the intervening history. We assume our churches are simply
NT churches, nothing more or less. The sects and denominations of Protestantism
may be products of history, but our origins come entirely from the Bible.”
·
“The conscious rejection of
tradition leads only to the development of unconscious ones … We can deny
tradition and its effects on us but we cannot escape them.” We are either
“conscious participants or unconscious victims.”
·
“Without a sense of
history, we are not aware of tradition. It is just when we think ourselves
entirely immune from tradition and culture that we are most susceptible to
their influences.”
·
“Tradition is the living
faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”
·
“A church that imagines it
stands beyond history, beyond conformity to culture … has little to offer the
world. But a church that owns up to its blunders and compromises – its
humanness – is a church that can both receive and reflect the love and grace of
God to the world around it.”
Part 1: Early Church Period
Three major transitions:
·
From Jewish to Gentile
environment: Jews had different presuppositions about monotheism, ethics
(especially sexual), the concept of history progressing toward the final
judgement of God, and the authority of OT scripture.
·
From Apostolic age to
Church Fathers: raising questions of continuity (are we the same church as the
1st century), authority of NT scripture (formation of the NT canon),
and selection of leadership.
·
From persecuted sect to official
religion of the Empire: challenges of Christianity having and abusing political
power, and the church becoming too comfortable with the dominant culture.
FIRST CENTURY
Acts ends probably about 6
Persecution in
Jewish wars and fall of
John’s gospel, his letters,
Revelation (90-95); limited persecution during this time under Domitian
Clement's Letter to the Corinthians
Author: by early tradition
Clement was the third bishop of
Occasion for letter: Clement
writes primarily to warn of the sin of pride (3), disunity, and rebellion
against leaders/bishops (44)
·
Clement writes that, before
the church at
·
Using the example of the
saints’ humble faith, he mentions Rahab who let down a scarlet ribbon from her
house, “thereby typifying the redemption which would flow through the blood of
the Lord to all those who believe and hope in God.” (1
·
Quotes Isaiah 53 as example
of humility; Christ-centered ethics (similar to Paul): “You see, beloved, what
is the example which has been given us; for if the Lord thus humbled Himself,
what shall we do who have through Him come under the yoke of His grace?” (16)
·
Clement refers to the
mythical phoenix, who builds a nest and sets itself on fire, and from the ashes
rises a new phoenix. He treats this story as fact, testifying to the marvels of
God’s creation (
·
“And we, too, being called
by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own
wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have done in holiness
of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has
justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (3
·
Christ brought illumination
and knowledge of God: “Through him we can look up to the highest heaven and see
as in a glass the peerless perfection of the face of God.” In him “we taste the
wisdom of eternity” (36). “…Jesus Christ, by whom He has called us out of
darkness to light and from ignorance to the clear knowledge of the glory of his
name” (59). Similarly, the Didache
thanks God for life and knowledge.
·
“Let him who has love in
Christ keep the commandments of Christ. Who can describe the [blessed] bond of
the love of God? What man is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it
ought to be told? The height to which love exalts is unspeakable. Love unites
us to God. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love bears all things, is
long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love.
Love admits of no divisions: love gives rise to no discord: love does all
things in harmony. By love have all the elect of God been made perfect; without
love nothing is well-pleasing to God. In love has the Lord taken us to Himself.
On account of the Love he bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us
by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.” (49)
·
Clement mentions the deaths
of Peter and Paul (5). Eusebius says they were killed during Nero’s time.
Didache “teaching” (c 80-1
·
“And concerning baptism,
baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water.
But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do
so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three
times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before
the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whoever else can; but
you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before.”
·
“Now concerning the
Eucharist, give thanks this way [“eucharist” means thanksgiving]. First,
concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David your
servant, which You made known to us through Jesus your Servant; to you be the
glory for ever. And concerning the broken bread: We thank you, our Father, for
the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus your Servant;
to you be the glory for ever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the
hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered
together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory
and the power through Jesus Christ for ever. But let no one eat or drink of
your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for
concerning this also the Lord has said, "Give not that which is holy to
the dogs.”
·
Note no mention in
communion prayer of Christ's death, blood, sacrifice; instead, key themes are
unity and eschatology.
·
“Concerning the apostles
and prophets, act according to the decree of the Gospel. Let every apostle who
comes to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not remain more than one
day; or two days, if there's a need. But if he remains three days, he is a
false prophet. And when the apostle goes away, let him take nothing but bread
until he lodges. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet. And every prophet
who speaks in the Spirit you shall neither try nor judge; for every sin shall
be forgiven, but this sin shall not be forgiven. But not every one who speaks
in the Spirit is a prophet; but only if he holds the ways of the Lord.
Therefore from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known. And
every prophet who orders a meal in the Spirit does not eat it, unless he is
indeed a false prophet. And every prophet who teaches the truth, but does not
do what he teaches, is a false prophet.”
·
“Then shall appear the
world-deceiver as Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth
shall be delivered into his hands, and he shall do iniquitous things which have
never yet come to pass since the beginning. Then shall the creation of men come
into the fire of trial, and many shall be made to stumble and shall perish; but
those who endure in their faith shall be saved from under the curse itself. And
then shall appear the signs of the truth: first, the sign of an outspreading in
heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet. And third, the resurrection
of the dead -- yet not of all, but as it is said: The Lord shall come and all
His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds
of heaven.”
·
"
SECOND CENTURY
Letters of Ignatius (107 AD)
·
Bishop of
·
Three crucial themes:
authority of the bishop, glory of martyrdom, and problems with heresy and
division:
1. Docetism
("appears") was an attempt to rationalize faith, using current
philosophy of materialistic dualism (spirit = good, body = evil). They claimed
Jesus’ physical body was a phantom, he only appeared to be human. Ignatius’
dogmatic affirmations of the virgin birth, suffering under Pilate, etc. challenging
docetism are early forms of the Creed. Docetism can be found in late NT
letters: Cerinthus (100 AD) is possibly the subject of controversy in 1 John
(story of John running out of the bath). Problem in letters to Tralles,
·
Ephesians: Ignatius looks
forward to martyrdom, considering it the means to becoming a “true disciple”
(1). He calls his chains a necklace of spiritual pearls (11). He emphasizes the
importance of the bishop in each congregation; church in harmony like a choir
under his direction (4). Christians carry the Name (in
·
Magnesians: describes three
tiers of leaders (bishop, elders, deacons). Mentions worship on Sunday, not the
Jewish Sabbath (9). Earliest use in Greek of noun "Christianity" (10).
·
Romans: he calls Christ “my
God.” Martyrdom described as "an intelligible utterance of God" (2) He
asks them not to pray for his release: “I am truly in earnest about dying for
God, if only you put no obstacles in the way. I must implore you to do me no
such untimely kindness; pray leave me to be a meal for the beasts, for it is
they who can provide my way to God. I am His wheat, ground fine by the lions’
teeth to be made purest bread for Christ. Better still, incite the creatures to
become my sepulcher, so that I need not be a burden to anyone after I fall
asleep. When there is no trace of my body left for the world to see, then I shall
truly be Jesus’ disciple” (4).
·
Philadelphians: unity found
in one Eucharist administered by one bishop
·
Smyrneans: Docetic heresy:
“And He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised up Himself, not, as
certain unbelievers maintain, that He only seemed to suffer, as they themselves
only seem to be [Christians].” One day they will become phantoms without
substance themselves (2). These heretics rejected the Lord’s supper as a
material substance. Ignatius says the Eucharist is the same body as the Lord
Jesus, perhaps the earliest evidence suggesting to some the idea of
transubstantiation (7). First use of "catholic" church, meaning
universal. Polycarp their bishop; Ignatius wrote a separate letter to him as
well (8).
Martyrdom of Polycarp
·
Pupil of John in
·
The martyrs “displayed such
heroism that not a cry or a groan escaped from any of them; which seemed a
clear proof to us all that in that hour of anguish those martyr-heroes of
Christ were not present in the body at all, or better still, that the Lord was
standing at their side … they made light of the cruelties of this world and at
the cost of a single hour purchased life everlasting. For them the fires of
their barbarous tormentors had a grateful coolness, for they held ever before
their eyes their escape from the unquenchable flames of eternity.” (
·
Polycarp was betrayed by a
servant, like Christ in the middle of the night.
·
When ordered to “revile
your Christ,” Polycarp responded, “86 years have I served him, and he has done
me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”
·
Reports of miracles: the
fire would not burn him but surrounded him like sails of a ship in the wind. Then
when they stabbed him with a sword, a dove flew out of his breast, and enough
blood flowed to extinguish the flames.
·
His bones were gathered and
buried, where Christians assembled to celebrate the “birthday of his
martyrdom.”
Letter to Diognetus
·
Anonymous apology addressed
to pagan reader, a reasoned defense of Christianity. Diognetus means
"heaven-born" and may indicate royal reader. No certain date but
probably mid 2nd c. Written to an unbeliever, contains few scripture quotes,
concentrates rather on first principles about God from nature and reason,
refutes idolatry and Judaism.
·
foolishness of idolatry,
appeals to reason (2)
·
compares Jewish sacrifices
to idol worship: “When they boast that a bodily mutilation is evidence of their
inclusion among the elect, what does this deserve but to be laughed out of
court?” (4). This is the first sign of anti-Jewish sentiments in early Christian
writings (although understandable in light of Jewish opposition, and
involvement in Polycarp's death). Paul's arguments were against legalistic
Judaizers who wanted to circumcise Gentiles (3).
·
Similarities to Marcion
(his Antitheses contrasts OT / NT)
but different; in Diognetus the God of Creation = God of Love, God of
Judgement = God of Redemption
·
Christians are decent,
moral citizens, rational, peaceful, loyal, no secret society of rebels or
eccentrics (as Jews are); he refutes common rumors that love feasts are
orgies--wordplay: common table (koinein)
not bed (koitein); irony that
persecuted Christians increase in numbers (5).
·
In the classical world,
ancient religions were respected as truth; Christians had to defend their
"new" religion as a mystery hidden by God but now revealed in Christ.
Logos as God's Truth/Wisdom and Logos as Creative Power proceeding from God. Difference
again is incarnation, not just revelation of timeless truth but historical act
(7).
·
Christ as substitution and ransom:
“He took our sins upon himself and gave his own Son as a ransom for us” (9)
·
Curious absence of key terms:
cross, resurrection, clergy, sacraments
Early Christian Anti-Semitism
·
After the fall of
·
“Epistle of Barnabas”
(70-13
·
“Do not be like some and
heap up your sins by saying that the covenant is theirs [Jews] and ours
[Christians]. It is ours! They lost it completely when Moses had barely
received it.” (4)
·
Referring to events in 70
AD: “how mistaken these miserable folk were in pinning their hopes to the
building itself … after their armed rebellion it was demolished by their
enemies … it has been revealed that the city, temple and Jewish people are all
alike doomed to perish one day.” (16)
·
“Barnabas” gives many examples
of how the OT was appropriated as Christian allegory using bizarre rules of
interpretation. The writer misquotes Gen 14:14, saying Abraham circumcised 318
servants; ignoring that it was written in Hebrew, he takes the Greek letters
which stand for that number “I E T” and interprets this as “IE(sus)” and T as
the sign of the cross. (13)
·
The Didaskalia (3rd c) distinguished between the moral law
of the OT which Christians still follow and the secondary laws that applied
only to
Gnosticism (those “in the know”)
·
Discovery of Gnostic Nag
Hammadi library of about 50 texts (1947); before this find, most of what we
knew came from their critics.
·
Justin and Irenaeus claim
that Simon Magus (Acts 8) started the Gnostic traditions, declaring himself a god.
He consorted with a prostitute named Helena, whom he claimed was the first
creation of his mind, the first mother, who had lived in many different women
including Helen of
·
Irenaeus repeats a story by
Polycarp about John running from a bathhouse in
·
The ultimate Transcendent
Being could not be the source of creation, nor could It interact with the world
in any way. There are many gods, emanations, generations of spirit beings,
finally descending to the level of the material world. A demiurge (divine
artisan, discussed by Plato) who created the world was the God of OT, not the
same as the God of NT, the father of Jesus. [see details under Irenaeus]
·
Some said Jesus was a
phantom, wasn’t really born, didn’t really die. He came to reveal the true God
(not Yahweh). Others taught that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph on whom
the Christ-Spirit descended at baptism but left him before the cross, as the
Christ-Spirit could not suffer. Sometimes the Gnostics claimed that Simon of
·
Three categories of people:
pneumatics (spirituals with “knowledge”), psychics (“souls,” Christians with
mere faith) and hylics (material pagans). The true God has sown spiritual seeds
in this world; divine sparks reside in the “spiritual,” or enlightened ones,
who have superior knowledge over ordinary Christians. Psychical Christians were
saved by works and had to obey the law. Spirituals were saved by their own
nature, having grace as their special possession; carnal sins did not soil them
(according to the actual Gnostic texts, this antinomian attitude did not
characterize most Gnostics).
·
For support Gnostics cited
1 Cor 2:14-15: only the spiritual man is able to understand; 1 Cor 2:6 speaking
a message of Sophia to the mature, and 2 Cor 4:4 “the god of this age.” “We are
not to blame if those who say they know mysteries above God do not even know
how to read Paul” (Irenaeus, Adv. Her.
1.6).
·
Salvation comes not from
faith in Christ’s atoning death but this secret knowledge and personal
asceticism.
·
Unlike Marcion or the later
Manicheans whose thinking was strictly dualistic, Valentinian Gnostics sought a
grand system which would explain everything, good and evil, pain and happiness,
as part of one reality (Minns, Irenaeus
31).
·
Extremes: Ophites (serpent)
and Cainites viewed the serpent as man’s helper against the OT demiurge and
praised Cain for his rebellion.
Gnosticism in the NT?
·
1 Tim 1:4: “false doctrines … myths and
genealogies”
·
2 Tim 2:16-18: Hymenaeus
and Philetus claimed that the resurrection had already taken place. Similar
teaching in Gnostic Treatise on the
Resurrection, Exegesis of the Soul, and
Gospel of Philip.
·
1 John: antichrists deny
that Jesus had come in flesh.
Marcion (d. 160?)
·
wealthy ship owner,
generous giver to the church (influential)
·
Came to
·
Marcion tackled the problem
of evil: how can a good God be the origin of evil?
·
Unlike Gnostics, Marcion
didn’t have genealogies of gods, a chain of divine beings, just the demiurge
and NT God. Marcion did not speculate about the origin of the demiurge; the two
gods were unrelated, an impassible gulf between them (Adv. Her. 2.1.4). OT god was “stupid,” neither omniscient nor
omnipotent, legalistic, a god of wrath and judgement, delighting in war, author
of evils.
·
Jesus came (but not in
flesh) to reveal the true God and save us from this evil world.
·
There is no resurrection;
only the soul will be saved.
·
When Jesus descended to
Hades at death, Cain, Sodomites, Egyptians accepted him and were saved, but Noah,
Abraham and the prophets feared that this was another temptation from their God
and did not accept Jesus (Adv. Her.
1.27).
·
Taught strict morals,
demanded chastity, no marriage
·
Antitheses, comparing
contradictions in OT and NT. The church had corrupted pure Christianity by
linking it with Judaism. Gnostic texts used the OT but read symbolically.
·
Marcion’s canon (the first
on record): he included only Luke (edited) and ten of Paul’s letters, no OT
Formation of the NT canon
·
In response to Marcion, the
church began to develop its own NT canon, using three major criteria: apostolic
authorship (or in the cases of Mark and Luke, close association), books widely accepted
and read in the churches, and consistency of doctrine with OT and strongly
accepted books.
·
The earliest known list is
the Muratorian fragment (c.170) with all NT books except 1,
·
Several books remained in
dispute for the next two centuries: Hebrews (unknown author), James (few
uniquely Christian doctrines, sounds “Jewish”), 2 Peter, 2-3 John (they differ
in vocabulary and tone from the first letters), Jude, and Revelation. Other
books were partially accepted: 1 Clement (in 5th century
Alexandrianus codex), Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas (in 4th c.
Sinaiticus).
·
The
·
Recognition of NT writings
as “scripture” began with
Justin (100?-165, martyred)
·
Study of Greek philosophy
led him to Christianity. "Philosophy is the knowledge of that which really
exists, and a clear perception of the truth; and happiness is the reward of
such knowledge and wisdom” (Trypho 3)
·
He came to admire those
willing to die for a belief (Apol
2.12).
·
Of the Greek philosophical
schools, Justin agrees most with Plato, in his view of God as wholly
transcendent, immutable, impassible, and nameless; that the world was created,
not eternal; in free will, and punishment after death. He disagrees with Plato
that the soul is immortal, and in transmigration/reincarnation (Trypho 4-6).
·
Founded a Christian school
in
Defense of Christianity
·
Wrote two apologies, first written
to emperor Antoninus Pius, defending Christians as good citizens. He defended
Christianity against accusations of atheism, cannibalism, child sacrifice,
incestuous orgies. Occasion for 2nd apology: three Christians had been executed on
the word of a husband whose Christian wife had rebuked his vices.
·
Addresses question of
suffering (Apol 2): if Christians are
right, why do they suffer? Why doesn’t God protect them from persecution? (1)
Fallen angels (demons) are the cause of suffering, provoking persecution. (2)
Through the ages those who follow “reason” (such as Socrates) have been persecuted. (3) A day of
reckoning is coming when God will make all things right.
·
Justin argued that
Christianity was not a new upstart religion but with ancient roots in Judaism
Jesus’ pre-existence
·
Influenced by Stoic ideas,
Justin discusses Logos (“Word” in John 1) as an eternal aspect of God, his
wisdom, rationality, which came into being by distribution, not severance.
Whatever is severed is cut off from the original; however, one torch may light
another (distributed) without being diminished; speech doesn’t separate the
thought from the speaker. So the Logos was different but not separate from
God (Trypho
61). The Son was “begotten from the Father by His power and will, but not by
abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things
partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided”
(128).
·
Justin speaks of “another
God and Lord subject to the Maker of all things … distinct in number but not in
will” (Trypho 56).
·
Justin uses the “Let us”
passages in Genesis to support OT teaching the different “persons” (Trypho 62). Also “When Scripture says,
'The Lord rained fire from the Lord out of heaven,' [Gen 19:24] the prophetic
word indicates that there were two in number: One upon the earth, who, it says,
descended to behold the cry of Sodom; another in heaven, who also is Lord of
the Lord on earth, as He is Father and God; the cause of His power and of His
being Lord and God” (129).
·
Any theophany of God
appearing to Abraham (before
·
Trypho asks, “How can He be
demonstrated to have been pre-existent, who [would be] filled with the powers
of the Holy Ghost, which the Scripture by Isaiah [11] enumerates, as if He were
in lack of them?" Justin replies, “The Scripture says that these enumerated
powers of the Spirit have come on Him, not because He stood in need of them,
but because they would rest in Him, i.e., would find their accomplishment in
Him, so that there would be no more prophets in your nation after the ancient
custom” (87).
Jesus’ birth and death prophesied
·
Trypho counters Justin that
Isaiah 7 refers to a young woman in its historical time. He notes a similar
virgin birth in the story of Perseus and Danae (67). Justin (who read only the
LXX) says that Jews always appeal to the “original” Hebrew when disagreeing
with Christian interpretation; he asks whether they cannot trust their seventy
scholars (68). Justin says any parallels to Christ in pagan myths (Dionysos,
Aesculepius, Mithras) were invented by Satan (69).
·
Strange proof-text for
virgin birth: “And when Moses says that He [descendant of Judah] will wash His
garments in the blood of the grape [Gen 49:11], does not this signify what I
have now often told you is an obscure [!] prediction, namely, that He had
blood, but not from men; just as not man, but God, has begotten the blood of
the vine?” (Trypho 76) Justin’s
“exegesis” ignores the original meaning and always refers to Christ. Trypho
admires his reliance on scripture, but objects, “The utterances of God are
holy, but your expositions are mere contrivances” (79).
·
Justin must explain to
Trypho the seeming contradiction of the Jewish expectation of a glorious
messiah and the lowly, crucified Christ. Justin relies on prophecies (which
would be clearer if the Jews had not tampered with the scriptures, see below),
and contrasts Christ’s humble first coming with his glory at the second
(premillennial) coming (110). Justin taught a literal millennial reign in
·
His death was a
substitution, dying for the sins of the people (Isa 53); he took on himself the
curse that was upon us (Deut 27:26) (Trypho 89, 95). Justin also speaks of
Jesus as Victor over demons (see below).
·
Foreshadowing of the cross
in the OT: tree of life, wood of Noah’s ark (“saved through water, faith, and
wood”), branches Jacob used to make the sheep fertile, Judah’s staff which
identified him as Tamar’s lover, Moses’ staff, Aaron’s rod, Ps 1 “tree planted
by the river”, Ps 23 ‘thy rod and staff comfort me,” Elisha’s stick that he
threw in the water to retrieve the axe head “even as our Christ, by being
crucified on the tree, and by purifying [us] with water, has redeemed us,
though plunged in the direst offences” (Trypho
86, 138). When Plato in Timaeus
describes the crossing of the celestial equator and equinox as an X, Justin
claims he unknowingly prophesied of the cross (Apol 1.60)
·
Manner of crucifixion
foreseen in Moses’ stretching out hands at battle with Amalek, in which
Joshua/Jesus led the fighting (idea found in Barnabas 12), and Joseph described as the horns of a wild ox (which
Justin calls a unicorn) with which he gores the nations, that is, they are
pricked in their hearts to abandon idols (Dt 33:17). (Trypho 90-1)
·
Rahab’s scarlet cord out
her window symbolizes Christ’s blood by which Gentiles are saved (111); same
idea in Clement of
·
Two goats, one sacrificed
and one released, on the day of atonement signify the two comings of Christ
(40).
·
12 bells on the high
priest’s robe prefigured the 12 apostles (conveniently forgetting the 12
tribes) (Trypho 42)
·
Justin admits that many of
these “signs” of Christ in the OT are obscure, but "Unless a man by God's
great grace receives the power to understand what has been said and done by the
prophets, being able to repeat the words or the deeds will not profit him”
(92).
·
Justin records two sayings
of Jesus not in NT: “In whatever things I overtake you, in these will I also
judge” (Trypho 47); “There shall be
schisms and heresies” (Trypho 35),
knowledge of sayings not in Gospels (which he calls Memoirs).
Demons
·
Demons are the offspring of
angels who mated with women (based on Enoch’s
Watcher stories from Gen 6). Pagans believed that these demons were gods such
as Zeus, etc. When Socrates (whom Justin calls a Christian before the fact, Apol. 1.46) argued against the
traditional gods, he was condemned, just as Christians are called atheists
because they don’t believe in the gods (Apol
1.5). Belief in the influence of demons is prominent in Tertullian and Origen
as well (3rd c).
·
Demon defeated at Jesus’
birth: “For that expression of Isaiah 'He shall take the power of
·
Justin emphasizes Jesus’
role as teacher, who saves us with knowledge of the truth and of the false
gods/demons (Apol. 1.23; Trypho 30, 83). He overthrew the demonic
“principalities and powers” (Trypho
41). “He declared that He would break the power of the serpent which occasioned
the transgression of Adam” (92).
Other thoughts
·
Argues against the idea
that God’s foreknowledge implies fatal necessity. Free will is not negated by
the truth of prophecy: “Unless the human race has the power of avoiding evil
and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions” (Apol 1.43). “But if the word of God
foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so
because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because
God had created them so” (Trypho
141).
·
The soul is not unbegotten
or immortal, but must derive its life from God. “Now the soul partakes of life,
since God wills it to live. Thus, then, it will not even partake [of life] when
God does not will it to live. For to live is not its attribute, as it is God's;
but as a man does not live always, and the soul is not forever conjoined with
the body, since, whenever this harmony must be broken up, the soul leaves the
body, and the man exists no longer; even so, whenever the soul must cease to
exist, the spirit of life is removed from it, and there is no more soul, but it
goes back to the place from whence it was taken” (Trypho 6). Gnostics teach no resurrection and that the soul goes
straight to heaven at death (80).
·
Jews were given the law
with its strict commands because they were stubborn and idolatrous, and needed
constant reminding of the true God. Circumcision was not necessary for those
who lived before Moses; if it were, Adam would have been created circumcised (Trypho 19). Christians do not need these
aids to faith, having Christ (92).
·
Jacob married Leah first (
·
Justin mentions that Simon Magus
was honored with a statue in
·
Notes Stoic belief in
periodic catastrophes such as Deucalion’s flood (Noah) and future fiery end (2
Peter 3) (Apol 2.7)
·
Mentions the sacred meal of
Mithras (Apol. 1.66)
·
At the end of Apol 1, he
includes a letter from Marcus Aurelius to the senate. Surrounded by German
armies, “Having then examined my own position, and my host, with respect to the
vast mass of barbarians and of the enemy, I quickly betook myself to prayer to
the gods of my country. But being disregarded by them, I summoned those who
among us go by the name of Christians. … they prayed not only for me, but also
for the whole army as it stood, that they might be delivered from the present
thirst and famine. … praying to God (a God of whom I am ignorant), water poured
from heaven, upon us most refreshingly cool, but upon the enemies of
Irenaeus (140? – 200?)
·
Bishop of Lyons, studied
under Justin; as a young man he heard the preaching of Polycarp, who knew John,
so Irenaeus was only two generations away from an apostle. Some call him the
church’s first theologian. Two works survive: Against Heresies, an anti-Gnostic apology, and Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (AP)
·
Irenaeus refers to Linus as
first bishop of Rome, whom he claims Paul mentions in 2 Tim 4:21 (3.3.3).
Irenaeus promoted idea of apostolic succession, unbroken line of bishops
insuring the purity of doctrine (4.26.2).
·
Early creed: “The Church,
though dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has
received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in
one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all
things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became
incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the
prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a
virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension
into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His
[future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father ‘to gather all
things in one,’ and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in
order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according
to the will of the invisible Father, ‘every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue
should confess’ to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all”
(1.10).
·
Irenaeus was not an
original thinker, that was not his purpose, but to show how the true gospel had
remained unchanged from the beginning through the line of bishops in the true
church. The original thinkers were the problem, who taught innovations. Irenaeus
is the first to emphasize the issue of “orthodoxy” – raising several questions:
who determines orthodoxy and how? Was Jesus orthodox?
Against the Gnostics
·
Irenaeus argues against
Gnostics such as Valentinus (100-175), who almost became bishop of
·
Valentinus taught that
creation began with a dyad of the incomprehensible Abyss and Thought or
Silence, who begot a second pair, Mind and Truth, then Word, Life, Humanity,
Church; these eight (Ogdoad, male-female pairs) beget 22 others, together
symbolized by Jesus’ pre-ministerial 30 years (also parable of laborers; total
of hours = 30). All these Aeons together form the Pleroma or Fullness. Only
Mind (Nous) knew the Father (Abyss); to all others he was invisible. One of the
younger Aeons, Sophia, desired to know the greatness of Incomprehensible, but
could not, being impossible. After a futile struggle, in which she almost
perished by being absorbed into the universal substance, her desire then gave
birth to a shapeless substance, which was expelled from the Pleroma. This
desire or Achamoth gave birth to the Demiurge, who created the world. Ignorant
of the Aeons, he thought he was alone (“I am the Lord and besides me there is
no other god”: Isa 45:5). So that such a desire would not overtake any others,
the Aeons produced Christ who provided true knowledge of the Father, and Holy
Spirit who caused them to rejoice and rest in the truth (Adv. Her. 1.1-2).
·
Irenaeus parodies his
opponents’ ability to imagine multiple Aeons with his own genealogy of Gourd,
Cucumber, and Melon (1.11.4).
·
Valentinus may be the
author of the Nag Hammadi text, The
Gospel of Truth. Unlike other Gnostics, he did not teach abstinence from
sex but considered it the way to pass on the seed (the divine spark) to another
generation.
·
Irenaeus says that in
twisting the scriptures to support their ideas, Gnostics “strive to weave ropes
of sand.” They rearrange passages out of context, like removing the pieces of a
mosaic and making a different picture (1.8.1).
·
Irenaeus doesn’t share his
opponents’ deep concern about evil and suffering as part of the material world.
Irenaeus marvels at creation and the God who made it; he doesn’t understand
their negative assessment of the world.
·
Gnostics supposed that it
was not possible for the Highest God, being utterly transcendent, to create the
world or that it was unworthy of Him, which, Irenaeus argues, makes Him a
lesser god in fact, requiring assistance, thus not omnipotent. If other gods
created without His knowledge, then He is not omniscient (2.2).
·
The Gnostic chain of being
creates a continuum between God and the world; all reality is a continuous
whole. Irenaeus argued that God is totally transcendent, with no substantial
continuity with creation. The world is not a reflection or emanation many steps
removed from God, but completely separate from Him. Everything else exists, not
by sharing in the divine substance, but because God wills it.
·
Marcion’s two gods fail as
God. One is good but not just, the other just but not good (3.25.3).
·
Against Gnostic derogation
of matter, Irenaeus calls man plasma,
something modeled from mud by God, inherently material, formed by the “hands”
of God (5.1.3; 5.16.1). “If then you are the work of God, await the hand of
your fashioner … Offer him a soft and pliable heart and retain the shape which
he gave you. Retain the moisture he gives you, for if you turn dry and hard,
you will lose the imprint of his fingers” (4.39.2).
·
Among the heretics he
criticizes are the Carpocratians, who believed that good and evil are only
matters of opinion. They thought it necessary to experience every kind of life
and behavior, over and over by means of reincarnation, so that finally they
would exhaust all possible fleshly desires and the soul would be pure (1.25).
·
Marcus the magician
performed conjuring tricks to win the loyalty of “those who never had sense or
had lost it.” He would change the color of the wine and fill a large glass with
the contents of a small one (1.13).
·
Irenaeus includes the
Ebionites in his list of heretics; although not Gnostics, they shared the
belief that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph, a good man and teacher. They
held onto Judaism and its practices (1.26).
Scripture
·
Scripture does not tell us
everything but what we need to know for faith and obedience. “If anyone asks, ‘What
was God doing before he made the world?’ we reply that the answer to such a
question lies with God himself … it is not proper for us to bring forth
foolish, rash, and blasphemous suppositions in answer to it.” The Bible doesn’t
reveal the day of Christ’s return: “If then the Son was not ashamed to ascribe
the knowledge of that day to the Father only … neither let us be ashamed to
reserve for God those greater questions which may occur to us.” Likewise, we
cannot know how the Son was begotten by the Father: “His generation is
altogether indescribable … those who strive to set forth generations and
productions [of Aeons] cannot be in their right minds.” Irenaeus mocks their
intimate knowledge of these emanations, suggesting they must have been midwives
at the divine births (2.28). Valentinians claim that God is unknowable then
proceed to describe the complex nature of deity in exhausting detail (2.13.3).
·
Defines NT scriptures on
basis of apostolic author (or close connection) and wide church acceptance, “what
is taught everywhere.” He limited the authentic gospels to four (3.11.8). He is
the first to discuss the idea of the “New” Testament (Covenant) (4.9.1)
(Donovan, One Right Reading, 1997).
·
Typical of allegorizing OT,
Irenaeus takes a strange lesson from the story of
Nature of God and Jesus
·
Son and Spirit are often
described as God’s hands (4.20 etc), the vehicles of his self-revelation in the
world, not three coequals, but subordinate in function, one God with his Word
and Wisdom. Irenaeus mostly avoids speculation, such as how the Son was
begotten, etc., talks more on the works (economy) of God rather than divine
nature; how God reveals himself to us, not his inner being.
·
Jesus is the invisible God
made visible. Irenaeus follows Justin in attributing OT theophanies to Jesus,
precursors to the incarnation (4.6; 4.7.4, 4.10.1). Also similar to Justin, he
interprets Gen 19:24, Ps 45:6-7, 82:1, 110:1 as referring to two divine persons
(3.6).
·
Refuting Gnostic idea of
adoptionism: at his baptism “Christ did not at this time descend upon Jesus,
nor was Christ one and Jesus another” (3.9.3).
·
Irenaeus was one of the
first Christians to speak of creation ex
nihilo: whereas man must start with some material, God creates out of
nothing. He did not work from pre-existing, formless matter (2.10.4). His
contemporary Theophilus also had this idea (Osborn, Irenaeus, 2001).
Recapitulation as God’s economy
·
Economy = an intelligent
plan (law, nomos) for ordering things
properly, as in a home (oikos).
Irenaeus speaks of God’s economy not so much as individual divine works but as
the single, unified plan which God has for his creation, what today we call
salvation history, perhaps the first to do so (Minns, Irenaeus 56).
·
Jesus’ future humanity was
the pattern God had in his mind when he fashioned man. “Man was created in the
image of God and the image of God is the Son, in whose image man was created” (AP 22).
·
He differentiates in Gen 1
between the image of God (free will and rationality) and the likeness of God
(spirituality, holiness). We lost the latter in the fall of Adam and recover it
only in Christ, the idea of recapitulation (5.16.2, 5.21.2). “He recapitulated
in himself the long history of mankind, procuring salvation for us, that what
we lost in Adam (that is, to be according to the image and likeness of God), we
would recover in Jesus” (3.18.1), an idea found in Rom 5: “As by one man’s
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man shall many
be made righteous.”
·
“He became what we are in
order to enable us to become what he is” (5. pref.; cf. 3.19.1). “How shall man
pass into God, unless God has [first] passed into man?” (4.33.4) Some commentators
describe this as “deification through incarnation,” but Irenaeus means that we
might become the human beings God meant us to be, in his image and likeness, not
become gods. Jesus not only reveals God to us, but also reveals true humanity.
Furthermore, the incarnation is not the basis for recapitulation; Adam’s fall
came through disobedience, thus Jesus corrected this through his obedience unto
death (3.21.10).
·
Jesus’ life had to
recapitulate Adam’s: Just as Adam was born from “virgin” earth, Jesus was born
of a virgin (3.21.10). Jesus overcame Satan’s temptations, whereas Adam did
not. To cancel the effects of Adam’s disobedience in eating of a tree, Christ
died on a tree (5.16.3).
·
Also Mary’s obedience
cancels Eve’s disobedience (5.19).
·
As Satan once bound man
through sin, it is fitting that a man would bind Satan (5.21.3).
·
Irenaeus thought Jesus died
in his late 40s, during the time of Claudius, passing through every age, as did
Adam, in order to sanctify men both young and old; cites John 8:57: “You are
not yet 50 years old” (2.22).
·
Christ’s recapitulation of
Adam’s sin, restoring the image and likeness of God, would not be possible if
Jesus had not shared the same fleshly humanity of Adam or if the creator of
Adam was another god (5.21).
·
There seems to be tension
between this idea of recovering a perfect likeness that was lost, and Irenaeus’
other theme (below) of growing toward perfection. But Irenaeus never describes
Adam’s original nature as perfect, but instead innocent and childlike (AP 12, 14). Man’s growth in God’s
likeness was halted by his attachment to sin, and the child ceased to progress
towards the destiny God has planned for him. Christ sets man back on track
(Wingren, Man and Incarnation, 51).
·
Irenaeus assumed a
solidarity between Adam and all his descendants, an early, undeveloped idea of
original sin: “In the first Adam, we offended God” (5.16); also reference to
Rom 5 (3.18). But all can be restored through solidarity with Christ.
·
Once an angel, Satan envied
God’s workmanship, man, and set out to turn man against God. God banished Satan
from his presence (4.40.3, 5.24.4). If God knew men (and angels) would sin, why
did he not prevent it? God desires voluntary obedience, not compulsory. God
wanted rational beings with free will (an aspect of His image) rather than
unthinking creatures unable to make decisions or have the power to do anything
other than what they were made to do. “Thus their being good would be of no
consequence because they were so by nature rather than by will.” We value more
those things which we struggle to possess (4.37). God could have offered
perfection to man but man would not have been ready to receive it or having
received it he could not retain it. (4.38).
·
Irenaeus describes the
“fall” in terms of childhood, immature, weak, vulnerable, easily led astray
(Augustine will call Adam rebellious, willfully disobedient). The “fall” was in
a sense inherent in creation in that man as creature is finite and thus
fallible: “Created things must be inferior to him who created them. … Man could
not achieve perfection, being an infant.” See Paul’s comments about not being
ready for meat, 1 Cor 3:2 (4.38). Satan offered Adam and Eve immediately what
God intended them to have once they were ready for it, likeness to God.
·
Only God is Being in unchanging perfection;
everything else is in a state of becoming. “God creates and man is in process
of being created. The one who creates is always the same … but the person who
is found in God grows and advances toward God” (4.11). Augustine saw the
mutability of humanity and the created world in pessimistic terms; anything
that can change for the worse certainly will. For Augustine change is
corruption, falling away from perfection, whereas for Irenaeus, change is the
potential for development toward perfection, found not in our efforts but only
in God.
Other views of salvation
·
Irenaeus describes Jesus’
death in terms of atonement: redeeming us with his blood (3.16.9, 5.1), a
sacrifice for our redemption (4.5.4), propitiation for our sin against God
(5.17.1) but these are secondary to his recapitulation theme.
·
Christ as victor over Satan
(but not in the sense of paying ransom): “How, too, could He have subdued him
who was stronger than men, who had not only overcome man, but also retained him
under his power, and conquered him who had conquered, while he set free mankind
who had been conquered, unless He had been greater than man who had thus been
vanquished?” (4.33.4) “For at the beginning Adam became a vessel in [Satan's]
possession, whom he did also hold under his power, that is, by bringing sin on
him iniquitously, and under color of immortality entailing death upon him. …
wherefore he who had led man captive, was justly captured in his turn by God;
but man, who had been led captive, was loosed from the bonds of condemnation”
(3.23.1). “The Word of God, however, the Maker of all things, conquering him by
means of human nature …” (5.24.4). Irenaeus doesn’t discuss this defeat as an
act of deception by God (see Ignatius, Gregory of Nyssa).
Eschatology
·
God allowed humanity to
experience death so that we might also experience resurrection and know that
our immortal life is not inherent but a gift from God (3.20).
·
The Gnostic God is “feeble,
worthless, and negligent,” unable to save the body as well as the soul (5.4.1).
·
Irenaeus emphasized
physical resurrection against Gnostics (5.7). He challenged the Gnostic view
that the soul went straight to heaven at death, teaching instead of a waiting
place until resurrection. Jesus did not ascend to heaven at death but waited in
Hades with the saints there for three days until his bodily resurrection
(5.31).
·
Along with Barnabas, Justin, Tertullian, and
Hippolytus, Irenaeus thought that Jesus would come and reign 1000 years before
we go to heaven, and perhaps was the first to suggest the antichrist would rule
for 3½ years before Christ’s final victory (5.30.4). The millennium would be
the 7th of 1000 years (based on Barnabas
15 teaching about creation) and
was necessary to prepare the saints to become accustomed to “incorruption”
before they entered the spiritual kingdom (5.32.1). As for 666: “It is
therefore more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfillment of the
prophecy, than to be making surmises, and casting about for any names that may present
themselves, inasmuch as many names can be found possessing the number
mentioned; and the same question will, after all, remain unsolved” (5.30.3).
Misc:
·
Irenaeus mentions gifts in
his day of foreknowledge, visions, prophetic speech (2.32.4) and tongues/languages
(5.6.1).
Pagan criticism of
Christianity
·
Celsus wrote an attack on
Christianity, “A True Discourse,” about 180, which survives in Origen’s
detailed defense (3rd c).
·
Jesus was the illegitimate
son of Mary and a soldier named Panthera; Joseph kicked her out for her
adultery. Jesus spent time in
·
"If this at least
would have helped to manifest his divinity, he ought accordingly to have at
once disappeared from the cross" (2.68). Celsus wonders why a god who foresaw
the future could not have avoided his death.
·
Likewise, “If Jesus desired
to show that his power was really divine, he ought to have appeared [after his
resurrection] to those who had ill-treated him, and to him who had condemned
him, and to all men universally" (2.63), which even Origen admits is a
difficult question.
·
Christianity is a
corruption of Greek ideas with nothing original to offer in ethics, but with
strange new doctrines about God. Everything true in Christianity was borrowed
from Greek philosophy, and much of its teaching is a distortion of the truth. He
admitted that there were some positive ethics in the teaching of Jesus but he
had taken them from Plato (the reverse of Justin’s claim that Plato read
Moses).
·
Most Christians are stupid
(1.9, 17, 27, 62; 3.44, 49; 4.42, 49-52, 87), characteristic of the irrational,
anti-intellectual nature of their faith. “Christians repel every wise man from
the doctrine of their faith, and invite only the ignorant and the vulgar"
(3.18). A few Christians are educated but only clever enough to use allegory to
explain away the embarrassments of the OT (1.17, 4.38, 48-51, 89). Celsus was
familiar with Marcion’s arguments (5.54, 61; 6.53, 74; 7.18).
·
Christianity is hostile to
the Greek tradition of rational investigation: “Do not ask questions. Only
believe” (1.9; 6.11-12). Ask difficult questions about the resurrection and
they answer “Anything is possible with God” (5.14).
·
The world was created for
an elect few arbitrarily chosen, while everyone else will be consumed by the
fire of judgement (4.10-11, 23). "It is folly on their part to suppose
that when God, as if He were a cook, introduces the fire which is to consume
the world, all the rest of the human race will be burnt up, while they alone
will remain, not only those who are alive, but also those who are long since
dead, the latter rising from the earth clothed with the self-same flesh (as
during life); for such a hope is simply one which might be cherished by worms”
(5.14). Believing themselves the elect, Jews and Christians are arrogant,
thinking they alone have the truth (5.41-50). "It is not probable that
[the Jews] are in great favor with God, or are regarded by Him with more
affection than others, or that angels are sent by Him to them alone, as if to
them had been allotted some region of the blessed” (5.50).
·
The mystery religions
invite those to join who have “clean hands, pure of pollution, conscious of no
known evil,” whereas the church invites sinners (3.49).
·
The Incarnation reveals a
God who waited ages to send his spirit into a single man in an obscure part of
the world, which defeats its claim of universality (4.23; 6.78). The
Incarnation is impossible, as it implies God changed, either for the better or
worse, either one incompatible with divine perfection. God either changed or
appeared to be a man, thus deceiving everyone (4.14, 18).
·
The God of the Bible is a
busy, interfering deity. A God who creates a world then suddenly decides to
destroy it is childish (6.58). He has to correct the evils of the world he
created (evidently incompetently) by drastic intervention: floods,
·
Christians criticized the
crude anthropomorphism of myths of other cultures but continued to read
literally their own myths as in Genesis (4.33-47; 5.59; 6.49), which are as incredible
as Greek myths (2.55).
·
Celsus believes that god is
unmoved and transcendent, has no special love for humanity, still less for a
select group. The world was not created for man; he is only a small,
insignificant part of the cosmos which goes on its merry way without
interference from above (4.67-9, 73, 99).
THIRD CENTURY
The “alogoi” movements
against Logos Christology (early Trinitarian thought in
·
Adoptionists: Theodotus,
Paul of Samosata (bishop of
·
Modalists: Praxeus, Noetus,
Sabellius. One God acting in three roles, modes, describing stages by which God
has worked in the world. Noetus supposedly said, “The Father suffered in the Son.” Concerning
Praxeus, Tertullian said the devil sometimes tries to destroy truth by
defending it, maintaining the oneness of God only that he might fabricate a
heresy. Praxeus “put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father” (1).
Modalists claimed to uphold the monarchy of God. Very popular with the masses,
even with Roman bishops Zephyrinus (198-
·
Almost all we know about
these positions comes from their opponents, some a century or more later.
Tertullian (160? –
·
First major Latin
theologian, living in
·
In his major works, he
wrote against the views of Marcion and Valentinus (Gnostic), Praxeus
(modalist); 31 texts survive
·
Argued against human
philosophy as an avenue to truth: “What does
Against Marcion
·
He challenged Marcion, who
had objected to the idea of God becoming flesh: “Spare the one and only hope of
the world. Why tear down the indispensable dishonor
of the faith? Whatever is beneath God’s dignity is for my advantage.”
·
On the Flesh of Christ: He rejects Marcion’s
idea that the Jesus-spirit passed through Mary without taking flesh from her
flesh (“no seed from a father, no flesh from a mother”). He assumes that Mary
did not remain a virgin but had other children. He also assumes Mary was a
descendant of David (21).
·
“There are to be sure other
things quite as foolish as the Incarnation which have reference to the
humiliation and suffering of God, or else let them call a crucified God
‘wisdom.’ But Marcion would apply the knife to this also and even with greater
reason. For which is more unworthy of God, which is more likely to raise a
blush of shame – that he should be born or that he should die? That he should
bear flesh or the cross? Be circumcised or crucified? Be laid in a manger or a
tomb? You will show more wisdom if you refuse to believe this also … The Son of
God was crucified. I am not ashamed because other men are ashamed. It is by all
means to be believed because it is absurd. … It is certain because it is
impossible.” (On the Flesh of Christ 5)
·
On the Resurrection: If Phidias
the sculptor chose good material to fashion gods, did not God do even more so
to fashion man?” (value of the body) Resurrection is necessary, for man must be
judged according to how he lived in the body.
·
“But [Gnostics] will say,
the churches have erred. Some indeed went wrong, and were corrected by the
Apostle; though for others he had nothing but praise. … But let us admit that
all have erred; is it credible that all these great churches should have strayed
into the same faith"? (Prescrip Heretics)
Christ and Trinity
·
First to use “Trinity”
(Latin trinitas) defined as one
substance in three persons (Prax
·
According to Tertullian, this
revelation of the Trinity is the unique contribution of the NT: “God was
pleased to renew His covenant with man in such a way as that His Unity might be
believed in, after a new manner, through the Son and the Spirit, in order that
God might now be known openly, in His proper Names and Persons, who in ancient
times was not plainly understood” (Prax
31).
·
The Son derives his
substance from the Father, receives all power from the Father, and does nothing
without the Father’s will. The Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
The Son reigns on behalf of the Father and according to 1 Cor 15 will one day
restore everything back to the Father. Thus the Son’s administration does not
challenge the monarchy of God (Prax
4).
·
Before all things, God was
alone, being his own universe; there was nothing external to himself. But
within himself he possessed his Reason, and inherent in Reason, his Word (Logos),
which Tertullian considered “another,” a second person in addition to himself;
just as someone in thought can talk with “himself” (Prax 5).
·
The Son/Word not coeternal
with the Father: “Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a
Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His
having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the
Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin
existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a
Judge, and the latter a Father.” Referring to Wisdom’s creation in Prov 8: “as
soon as He perceived [Wisdom] to be necessary for His creation of the world, He
immediately creates It, and generates It in Himself … the very Wisdom of God is
declared to be born and created, for the special reason that we should not
suppose that there is any other being than God alone who is unbegotten and
uncreated. For that, which from its being inherent in the Lord was of Him and
in Him, was yet not without a beginning – I mean His wisdom, which was then
born and created, when in the thought of God It began to assume motion for the
arrangement of His creative works. … this same Wisdom is the Word of God” (
·
The Word was begotten when
God spoke, “Let there be light.” Wisdom says, “The Lord created or formed
me as the beginning of His ways” [Prov 8:22]. “My heart,” says He, “has emitted
my most excellent Word” (source?). The Word was a substantive being, not an
attribute of God. “How could He who is empty have made things which are solid,
and He who is void have made things which are full, and He who is incorporeal
have made things which have body?” … Based on Phil 2, “In what form of God? Of
course he means in some form, not in none. For who will deny that God is a body,
although ‘God is a Spirit’? For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind,
in its own form” (Prax 7).
·
How does this differ from
Gnostic emanations, or tritheism? “Valentinus divides and separates his
emanations from their Author, and places them at so great a distance from Him,
that the Aeon does not know the Father: he longs, indeed, to know Him, but
cannot;” whereas the Son knows the Father. The three in the Trinity involves
distinction, but not separation; there is one substance not divided but extended,
using analogies of root à tree à fruit, fount à stream à river, sun à ray à light (Prax 8). Same analogies used by
Hippolytus, an anti-pope, rival bishop to Callistus (217-22).
·
God the Father alone is
transcendent, Son and Spirit are extensions of God to achieve tasks “outside”
God. “For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and
portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: ‘My Father is greater than I’”
(Prax 9).
·
Tertullian notes that when
Jesus says, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), ‘one’ is neuter, indicating
they are united, not one in identity (Prax
22).
·
Christ had “two natures”
divine and human (anticipating council of
·
Tertullian challenged
Aristotle’s view of the immutability of God, admitting that God could indeed
change his mind, as he did with Nineveh after Jonah’s preaching, also seen in
God’s “repenting” his creation (Gen 6:7), and allowing Saul to become king (1
Sam 15:11). (Marcion
·
Following Justin and
Irenaeus, Tertullian attributes OT theophanies and any acts of divine judgement
to Christ, as the Father has committed all judgement to the Son [John 5:22].
These acts and appearances were “rehearsals” for humanity to become accustomed
to talking with God prior to the incarnation (Prax 16).
·
Types of Christ in the OT:
Isaac who carried the wood for his own sacrifice; Joseph described as a bull,
“whose horns were the extremities of His cross,” and a “unicorn,” “the midway
stake of the whole frame is the unicorn”
(Dt. 33:17, cf. Justin); also Moses’ outstretched hands and the bronze serpent
(Marcion 3.18).
Sin and free will
·
Rather than Marcion’s
lesser god, Tertullian blames human freedom, an aspect of the image of God, for
the problem of evil. Freedom is necessary for man to be a moral creature,
choosing between good and evil. Without freedom, it would be unjust for God to
punish or reward us for our actions if we committed them by necessity. Likewise,
Marcion is unjust to blame God for sin which is the consequence of our abuse of
freedom. Human freedom implies that God does not control everything that
happens in this world; He willingly gave up some of his power to allow for
human free will. God knew what would happen if he created free creatures, that
we would go against his will, but he allowed it to happen, not revoking our
freedom which he considered a higher good (Marcion
·
Although defending free
will, Tertullian also thought that we inherit a tendency toward sin from Adam, deriving
our souls from his (see below), thus the argument for infant baptism (providing
some of the earliest evidence of the practice, around
·
Satan was a fallen angel
who “departed from the condition of his created nature, through his own lusting
after the wickedness which was spontaneously conceived within him,” although
this too was permitted by God (Marcion
2.10). (cf. Irenaeus)
·
Whereas Marcion envisioned
two gods, one just (wrathful), the other good, Tertullian argues that God
cannot be truly good without being just, as goodness must oppose evil. We
consider justice good and injustice evil (Marcion
2.12). The demand of justice aids in producing goodness: “Fear of judgment
contributes to good, not to evil. For good, now contending with an enemy, was
not strong enough to recommend itself by itself alone. … who, when so many
incentives to evil were assailing him, would desire that good which he could
despise with impunity? … Thus, justice is the very fullness of the Deity
Himself, manifesting God as both a perfect father and a perfect master: a
father in His mercy, a master in His discipline, … a father to be loved,
because He prefers the sinner's repentance to his death, a master to be feared,
because He dislikes the sinners who do not repent” (2.13).
·
God’s wrath in punishing
sin cannot be likened to human emotions of anger, irritation, or losing one’s
temper (2.16).
On Baptism:
·
“According to the
circumstances and disposition, and even age, of each individual, the delay of
baptism is preferable; principally, however, in the case of little children.
For why is it necessary … that the sponsors should be thrust into danger? Who
both themselves, by reason of mortality, may fail to fulfill their promises,
and may be disappointed by the development of an evil disposition, in those for
whom they stood?... Let them become Christians when they have become able to
know Christ…. If any understand the weighty import of baptism, they will fear
its reception more than its delay: sound faith is secure of salvation” (18).
·
Tertullian recommends
delaying baptism until one can commit to its strict demands, for some sins
after baptism were “unforgivable”. During his Montanist period, he lists seven
deadly sins: idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, fornication, false witness,
and fraud, conceding that these might be forgiven once with penance but no more
(Marcion 4.9).
·
Appropriate times for
baptism were Easter and Pentecost. “However, every day is the Lord's; every
hour, every time, is apt for baptism: if there is a difference in the solemnity
[of the day], there is no distinction in the grace” (19).
On the Soul:
·
With support from the
Stoics (surprising, with his criticism of philosophy) he taught that the soul
itself possessed some kind of body, intimating united with and occupying the
same space as the physical body. “But I call on the Stoics also to help me, …
declaring … that the soul is a corporeal substance.”
·
“The soul certainly
sympathizes with the body, and shares in its pain, whenever it is injured by
bruises, and wounds, and sores: the body, too, suffers with the soul, and is
united with it, whenever it is afflicted with anxiety, distress, or love, in
the loss of vigor which its companion sustains, whose shame and fear it
testifies by its own blushes and paleness. The soul, therefore, is (proved to
be) corporeal from this inter-communion of susceptibility.” Whatever
experiences feelings or suffers must be corporeal.
·
He uses the rich man and
Lazarus in Hades as biblical support of souls described with bodies: “Every
soul is detained in safe keeping in Hades until the day of the Lord” where they
experience pleasure or punishment prior to Judgement. He also notes that John
“saw” the souls of the martyrs under the altar in Rev 6.
·
Tertullian held the
“traducian” theory that the soul was not created by God at each birth but
derives its substance from the parents. In this way all human souls are derived
from Adam, who “infected the whole race by his seed, making it the channel of
condemnation” (Soul’s Testimony 3).
On Fleeing
Persecution:
·
“Nothing happens without
God's will … For what is the issue of persecution, what other result comes of
it, but the approving or rejecting of faith, in regard to which the Lord will
certainly sift His people? …This is that fan which even now cleanses the Lord's
threshing-floor—the Church, I mean—winnowing the mixed heap of believers, and
separating the grain of the martyrs from the chaff of the deniers; and this is
also the ladder of which Jacob dreams, on which are seen, some mounting up to
higher places, and others going down to lower … if persecution proceeds from
God, in no way will it be our duty to flee from what has God as its author; a
twofold reason opposing; for what proceeds from God ought not on the one hand
to be avoided, and it cannot be evaded on the other.”
·
Brief mention of the ransom
of man from Satan: “The Lord indeed ransomed him from the angelic powers which
rule the world, from the spirits of wickedness, from the darkness of this life,
from eternal judgment, from everlasting death.”
On the
Spectacles:
·
Christians were not to
attend the theater or public games. “Every one is ready with the argument that
all things, as we teach, were created by God, and given to man for his use, and
that they must be good, as coming all from so good a source; but that among
them are found the various constituent elements of the public shows, such as
the horse, the lion, bodily strength, and musical voice. … How skillful a
pleader seems human wisdom to herself, especially if she fears losing any of
her delights—any of the sweet enjoyments of worldly existence! … We must not,
then, consider merely by whom all things were made, but by whom they have been
perverted;” for example, idols are made of gold, silver, wood, which God
created (2).
·
Public games and shows
honor the gods, a form of idolatry (5).
·
Theater is “immodesty’s own
peculiar abode. … For all licentiousness of speech, nay, every idle word, is
condemned by God. Why, in the same way, is it right to look on what it is
disgraceful to do? How is it that the things which defile a man in going out of
his mouth, are not regarded as doing so when they go in at his eyes and ears?”
(17) He lists several offences of theater: “With their high shoes, he has made
the tragic actors taller, because ‘none can add a cubit to his stature.’ His
desire is to make Christ a liar. And in regard to the wearing of masks, I ask,
is that according to the mind of God, who forbids the making of every likeness,
and especially then the likeness of man who is His own image? The Author of
truth hates all the false; He regards as adultery all that is unreal.
Condemning, therefore, as He does hypocrisy in every form, He never will
approve any putting on of voice, or sex, or age; He never will approve
pretended loves, and wraths, and groans, and tears. Then, too, as in His law
[Dt 22] it is declared that the man is cursed who attires himself in female
garments” (23). He reports a story of a woman who went to the theater and
returned demon-possessed (26).
·
“With such dainties as
these let the devil’s guests be feasted. … Our banquets, our nuptial joys, are
yet to come. … You long for the goal, and the stage, and the dust, and the
place of combat! … Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with
pleasure die? For what is our wish but the apostle's, to leave the world, and
be taken up into the fellowship of our Lord? [Phil 1:23] You have your joys
where you have your longings” (28).
·
“If your thought is to
spend this period of existence in enjoyments, how are you so ungrateful as to
reckon insufficient, as not thankfully to recognize the many and exquisite
pleasures God has bestowed upon you? For what is more delightful than to have
God the Father and our Lord at peace with us, than revelation of the truth,
than confession of our errors, than pardon of the innumerable sins of our past
life? What greater pleasure than distaste of pleasure itself, contempt of all
that the world can give? … If the literature of the stage delight you, we have
literature in abundance of our own—plenty of verses, sentences, songs,
proverbs; and these not fabulous, but true. … Would you have something of blood
too? You have Christ's.” (29)
·
“But what a spectacle is
that fast-approaching advent of our Lord.” Tertullian looks forward to
Judgement day when he will rejoice to see the spectacle of tragic actors truly
lamenting their fate, the wrestler “tossing in the fiery billows,” the
charioteer “all glowing in his chariot of fire.” He envisions those who have
persecuted Christians brought low, and philosophers who misled others by
teaching no afterlife proven wrong (30).
Other thoughts
·
Tertullian mentions the
early Christian symbol of the fish, as an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, Son of
God, Savior”: “We as little fishes, in accordance with our ichthus Jesus Christ, are born in water” (On Baptism 1).
·
Religious freedom: “It is a
fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that all persons should worship
according to their own convictions.” Any true god would not desire worship from
an unwilling subject. (To Scapula
·
Occupations unlawful for
Christians: serving in the army, teaching pagan literature, training
gladiators, working in gold and silver (which might be used to make idols),
selling frankincense (used in idol worship). Servants cannot assist their
masters in pagan worship (On Idolatry).
Montanism
·
Tertullian defended the
church as the repository of faith and guardian of truth – until disturbed by
the lack of moral discipline among the clergy. He was attracted to Montanism
(the New Prophecy), with more emphasis on spirit-led individual.
·
Montanus (movement began 156-70?),
taught the Age of the Paraclete had come with himself as the Spirit’s
mouthpiece, promising the near return of Christ, the new Jerusalem to be
founded in Pepuza (his home town). His followers rejected the church
institution, wanting to be Spirit-led only. They enforced strict discipline
(which Tertullian admired), fasting, renunciation of marriage, selling
possessions, and new revelations.
·
On Monogamy: During his strict Montanist
period, he argues that second marriages, even after the death of a spouse,
exhibit “shameless infirmity of the flesh.” “Heretics do away with marriages;
Psychics accumulate them. The former marry not even once; the latter not only
once” (he adopts Gnostic terminology with the distinction between the
“spiritual” Montanists and “psychics,” other Christians). “‘It is not good for
the man that he be alone; let us make a helpmate for him.’ For God would have
said ‘helpers’ if He had destined him to have more wives. He added, too, a law
concerning the future: ‘And two shall be into one flesh’—not three, nor more.”
·
Psychic Christians say that Jesus
did not forbid second marriage, but Tertullian claims that Montanists have
further teaching from the Paraclete: “For in saying, ‘I still have many things
to say unto you, but you are not yet able to bear them: when the Holy Spirit
shall come, He will lead you into all truth,’ He sets before us that He will
bring such (teachings) as may be esteemed alike novel, as having never before been published, and finally burdensome, as if that were the reason
why they were not published. … It follows,’ you say, ‘that by this line of
argument, anything you please which is novel and burdensome may be ascribed to
the Paraclete, even if it have come from the adversary spirit.’ [good question]
·
Critics of Montanism
pointed to the difference between their ecstatic tongue-speaking resembling
madness (babbling, rolling on the ground) and Paul’s discussion of the gift as
intelligible speech in another language. Evidence of NT tongue-speaking after
the 1st century is scarce and ambiguous. In the 4th c.
Chrysostom and Augustine say that the gift no longer exists.
·
Because Montanists were
also premillennialists, this idea soon lost favor in the mainstream church.
Clement of
·
led Christian school in
·
Clement described
philosophy as a divinely ordered preparation of the Greeks for faith in Christ,
as the law was for the Hebrews; and taught the necessity and value of
literature and philosophic culture for the attainment of true Christian
knowledge (gnosis), in opposition to
the numerous Christians who regarded learning as useless and dangerous (“the
multitude are frightened at the Hellenic philosophy, as children are at masks,
being afraid lest it lead them astray.” He says that if their faith is no
stronger than that, it deserves to fail: Strom
5.10).
·
He was eclectic, believing
there were fragments of truth in all systems, which may be separated from
error; but declared that the truth can be found in unity and completeness only
in Christ. “The way of truth is one. But into it, as into a perennial river,
streams flow from all sides” (Strom
1.5).
·
“Since, therefore, truth is
one … just as the Bacchantes tore asunder the limbs of Pentheus, so the sects
both of barbarian and Hellenic philosophy have done with truth, and each vaunts
as the whole truth the portion which has fallen to its lot” (Strom 1.13). For Clement philosophy
means the search for truth, liberal education, and critical thinking more than
any particular school of thought. He refers to the person with true Christian
knowledge as a “Gnostic” (not the heresy).
·
When Paul in 1 Cor
criticizes the wisdom of men, he doesn’t condemn all philosophy but that which
contradicts scripture. He notes that Paul quotes from the Greeks in Acts 17, 1
Cor 15, Titus.
·
Unfortunately, many
faithful Christians are moral but not very knowledgeable in matters of faith.
They are like beasts who work out of fear, doing good without knowing why (Strom 1.9). This was a pastoral concern
for Clement, as some intelligent pagans found Gnosticism more appealing,
believing Christians were irrational and uneducated. Ambrose became a Gnostic
for this reason, before Origen converted him.
·
On the topic of faith, he
defended against pagan critics who scorned faith as irrational opinion without
evidence: all argument takes something for granted as beginning postulates;
first principles cannot be proven. Faith is a choice of will which leads to
knowledge. Against heretical Gnostics he argued that faith was not inferior to
their special knowledge; in this life we will never know everything but must
trust in God. To his fellow Christians who insisted that faith was
all-sufficient without any additional learning or reasoning, simple acceptance
of authority, he said that mature faith seeks greater understanding than what
was learned in the initial catechism. Advanced learning is not necessary for
salvation but it can enrich it. The truly wise (“Gnostic”) will attain a higher
place in heaven, that is, greater appreciation of the contemplation of God
(5.14).
·
“The Word of God became
man, that you may learn from man how man may become God” (Exhort Heathen 1.8). In
context here, deification seems to mean immortality.
·
“We must then, according to
my view, have recourse to the word of salvation neither from fear of punishment
nor promise of a gift, but on account of the good itself” (Strom 4.6).
·
Jesus did not need to eat,
his body “kept together by a holy energy,” but did so in order not to raise
questions about his humanity (Clement admits this sounds like docetism). He
felt no pleasure or pain but was impassible [?], which should be our goal as
well (Strom 5.9). This sounds like
Buddhist renunciation, of which Clement was familiar: the perfect man has
“withdrawn his soul from passion” and “put to death his desires.”
·
If Adam was created
perfect, how did he fall? Similar to Irenaeus, Clement says that Adam was not
created perfect but “adapted to the reception of virtue. … Now an aptitude is a
movement towards virtue, not virtue itself” (Strom 6.12). We were created with the ability to attain perfection.
·
Clement rejected the idea
of original sin, and denies that a new baby who has not committed sin has
fallen under the sin of Adam (Strom
3.16.100).
·
Quotes Homer, Euripides (Orestes, Ion), Aristophanes, Menander in
texts that question or mock the gods. Mentions Bezalel as an example of a
divinely inspired artist (Strom 1.4),
supporting the study of the humanities, as God can use artists as well.
Selections
from “Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?”
·
Those who heap praise on
the rich are not only flatterers but also godless, because rather than praising
God, they invest with divine honors men wallowing in an execrable and
abominable life; and treacherous, because, by inflating the minds of the rich
with the pleasures of extravagant praises, they make them despise all things
except wealth, on account of which they are admired; bringing, as the saying
is, fire to fire, pouring pride on pride, and adding conceit to wealth. (1)
·
“But well knowing that the
Savior teaches nothing in a merely human way, but teaches all things to His own
with divine and mystic wisdom, we must not listen to His utterances carnally;
but with due investigation and intelligence must search out and learn the
meaning hidden in them.” (5)
·
When Jesus tells the rich
young man to sell all that he has, “He does not, as some conceive off-hand, bid
him throw away the substance he possesses and abandon his property; but bids
him banish from his soul his notions about wealth, his passion about it, the
anxieties which are the thorns of existence, which choke the seed of life. For
it is no great thing or desirable to be destitute of wealth.” (11)
·
“For one, after ridding
himself of the burden of wealth, may none the less have still the lust and
desire for money innate and living; and may have abandoned the use of it, but
being at once destitute of and desiring what he spent, may doubly grieve both
on account of the absence of attendance, and the presence of regret.” (1
·
“[Jesus] praises the use of
property … in giving a share of it, to give drink to the thirsty, bread to the
hungry, to take in the homeless, and clothe the naked. But it is not possible
to supply those needs without substance … Riches, then, which benefit also our
neighbors, are not to be thrown away. For they are possessions, inasmuch as
they are possessed, and goods, inasmuch as they are useful and provided by God
for the use of men.” (13-14)
·
“He then is truly and
rightly rich who is rich in virtue, and is capable of making a holy and
faithful use of any fortune.” (19)
·
Jesus says we should seek
out those in need whom we may help.
“This saying is above all divinity – not to wait to be asked, but to
inquire who deserves to receive kindness. … Do not judge who is worthy or who
is unworthy. For it is possible you may be mistaken in your opinion. As in the
uncertainty of ignorance it is better to do good to the undeserving for the
sake of the deserving, than by guarding against those that are less good to
fail to meet the needs of the good.” (31, 33)
Persecution in the 3rd
Century
·
Persecution of Christians
was sporadic until mid-century. Regional governors (proconsuls, like Pilate)
acted as judge and jury and could condemn Christians on their own authority,
even when there were no official imperial laws prohibiting the religion. Early
persecution depended on the attitude of these governors, and could change at
any time.
·
Tertullian remarked that
the more Christians died, the faster the church grew: “The blood of Christians
is seed” (Apology 50).
·
Septimus Severus (
·
Decius began the first
empire-wide persecution (
·
Controversy developed
within the church over the status of Christians who betrayed the faith, then
repented. Should they be rebaptized? The question became more crucial when
dealing with lapsed bishops. Novatian considered them illegitimate
representatives of the church whose sacraments were not valid. He became a
rival or anti-pope in
·
Addressing the schism of
Novatian, Cyprian maintained that the criterion of church membership was not,
as Irenaeus taught, acceptance of the apostolic teaching, but submission to the
bishop himself. Rebellion against him is against God. The schismatic, no matter
how correct his doctrine or virtuous his life, lives outside the church, hence
without Christ and salvation. “No salvation outside the church.”
Origen (185 –
·
A teacher of Greek
literature, philosophy, mathematics in
·
Major works: On First Principles (first major
systematic theology), Against Celsus
(pagan critic of Christianity, 180),
Interpreting Scripture
·
In the preface of First Principles, Origen explains how
the Scriptures “do not have just the meaning that is evident but another one
hidden from most readers.” He felt that some truths were too difficult for most
“simple” Christians but could be discovered by the scholar. The challenge to
the Christian teacher is to speak without upsetting the simple, yet without
starving the intelligent.
·
Scripture has three layers
of meaning, literal, moral, and allegorical. Often the literal meaning is not
the true meaning (citing
·
OT passages are
reinterpreted to apply to the Christian era. For example, the miracle of
Gideon’s fleece symbolically refers to the transition from Judaism to
Christianity: the dew of Moses that fell on
·
Origen argued that a
strictly literal reading of scripture is often a misreading. Genesis 1 cannot be taken literally as God creates
light on the first day, but the sun on the fourth. God didn’t physically walk
through the garden (Prin 4.3.1).
Christ’s coming “down from the clouds” is symbolism; he will not appear at any
one place, but will make himself known to all the world at one time.
·
Furthermore, it was their
literal readings of OT prophecies of the age to come that led the Jews to deny
Jesus was the Christ (the wilderness didn’t bloom, the Dead Sea didn’t become
fresh, the wolf didn’t lie down with the lamb, Egypt and Assyria didn’t worship
in Jerusalem). Also the Gnostics read the anthropomorphic language about God
too literally (God being angry), leading them to repudiate the OT God (Prin 4.
·
Discussing the OT as it
applies to Christians, he distinguished between the ceremonial laws of the OT
which were peculiar to
·
Commenting on Luke’s
preface, Origen confirms only four gospels; others (such as Gnostics) had
“tried to compose” their own accounts but without the inspiration of the Spirit
(Hom Luke 1).
·
Origen wanted to stay true
to the original gospel, but felt that some knowledge had not been revealed in
scripture but only hinted at, awaiting those who could understand more deeply.
His theology contains much speculation, which after his death led to his being
condemned for heresy. Irenaeus believed that heresy arises from the temptation
to speculate about uncertain matters (Heresies
·
To his credit, Origen
frequently admits that he states his opinions, not biblical facts, and may be
wrong. “Now we ourselves speak on these subjects with great fear and caution,
discussing and investigating rather than laying down fixed and certain conclusions”
(Prin 1.6.1)
Father and Son
·
Only the Father is
uncreated, without a source, the fountainhead of all being (John Comm
·
The Father begot the Son,
not by an emanation separating from God as the Gnostics taught, but “as an act
of will proceeds from the mind without either cutting off any part of the mind
or being separated or divided from it” (Prin
1.
·
Only God the Father is
called “the God” in Greek (‘o theos).
The Son can be described as “God” (theos)
or “divine” without the article (John 1:1). The Son is subordinate to “the God”
but is above all others; he alone dwells continually with the Father; he
derives his divinity from his unique relationship to the Father (John Comm
·
Somewhat inconsistently,
Origen calls both Father and Son “Almighty” (Prin 1.
·
Father and Son are two
persons but one in love, will, and action, as man and wife become one flesh (Prin
·
Origen seems to describe the
Son as an intermediate being between God and the rest of creation (Danielou, Origen, 1955,
·
“The power of the Father is
greater than that of the Son … and that of the Son is greater than that of the
Holy Spirit” (Prin 1.3.5, Greek).
Origen was later condemned for subordinating the Son to the Father, but in this
matter he is biblical, and the doctrine of the Trinity, as it developed in the
next century, is not. The Son has always been and always will be subordinate to
the Father: sent by the Father (Jn 3:16), obedient to the Father (Jn 14:31),
speaks for the Father (Jn 14:
·
“For Christ is life, but he
who is greater than Christ is greater than life … the Father who is beyond
eternal life” (John Comm 13.19).
Jesus says, “I have meat to eat which you do not know.” “Not only do men and
angels need spiritual foods, but so too does the Christ of God. … he is always
replenishing himself from the Father who alone is without need and sufficient
in Himself” (John Comm 13.219). “The
Father exceeds the Savior as much (or even more) as the Savior … exceeds the
rest (John Comm 13.151).
·
The Logos was not confined
to the body of Jesus, but was at the same time everywhere (Celsus 2.9).
·
Against Celsus who claimed
that the gospel writers invented much of the story of Jesus, Origen argues, how
could anyone create fiction and then believe in it to the point of being
willing to die for what one knows is false? (2.26).
Cosmos and Created Beings
·
Creation ex nihilo (Prin 1.1.3; 2.1.5; John Comm
1.17)
·
Because God has always been
Creator, and always been Lord over something (Prin 1.
·
As spirits with free wills,
we chose to serve ourselves rather than God. Thus the origin of sin is found in
free will even before the physical creation. Our sins in this earlier existence
determine our status in this present life, thus explaining how some are born
more privileged, more gifted, more healthy than others (something like karma) (Prin 1.5.3, 1.8.1,
·
Origen did not teach, however,
that we are condemned by original sin and our eternal fate predestined by God.
Marcion and Gnostics said that men are born with either a good or bad nature
and have no choice in the matter. Origen stressed that God’s election depends
on his foreknowledge of man’s faith and resulting good works according to free
will. Quoting James, faith as in mere belief is not enough without good works
to prove faith. Justification is by
faith, but lest someone rely on this and grow lax in obedience, he warns: “A person
does not receive the forgiveness of sins in order that he should imagine that
he has been given a license to sin; for the remission is not given for future
sins but only past ones.” Obedience rests with us, and we should cease blaming
the devil, our natures, or the stars for our sins (Rom Comm 1.3; 2.4.7; 3.9.4; 6.3.5).
·
Free will: “The matter is
not done by force nor is the soul moved in either of the two directions (good
and evil) by compulsion. Otherwise, neither blame nor virtue could be ascribed
to it.” The freedom we now have is nevertheless limited by our slavery to the
flesh; we will enjoy perfect freedom in the future age to come (Rom Comm 1.18.7; 1.1.4)
·
The sun, moon, and stars
also are living beings with souls; based on their previous existence, some
shine brighter than others (Prin
1.7.3-4).
·
From the time of his
eternal begetting, the Son’s soul had remained pure and united with God, hence
his sinless life in the flesh on this earth. Jesus in effect had two souls, his
human soul (which could be troubled, Mt
·
Satan is a fallen angel
(not new idea itself) because of Pride, wanting to be like God; likewise demons
were not always wicked (Celsus 7.69).
Earlier theodicies (explanations of the origin of evil) had emphasized the sin
of lust, when the fallen angels called Watchers seduced women (Enoch,
·
He argues against Celsus
that God orders all things, including sin and the demonic powers. Celsus asks
if God hasn’t assigned demons their rightful place in the cosmos and thus
deserve our respect and worship. Origen says God permits some things that He
does not will to happen (7.68)
·
In Gen 1 God first says,
“Let us make man in our image and after our likeness” but then it says “God
created man in his image.” Similar to Irenaeus, Origen explains that we were
created in God’s image, but the perfection of God’s likeness will come at the consummation.
“The purpose of this was that man should acquire it for himself by his own
earnest efforts to imitate God” (Prin
3.6.1).
·
We each have a guardian
angel to assist us on the way back to God, but also a wicked angel (demon) to
tempt us (Prin 3.
·
In 1 Cor 11, women must
cover their heads because angels are present in worship (Hom Luke 23.8).
Salvation
·
Discussing a Jewish reading
of Isaiah 53, where they say the servant refers to the nation Israel: “It is
evident that it is they [the Jews] who had been sinners, and had been healed by
the Savior's sufferings … For if the people, according to them, are the subject
of the prophecy, how is the man said to be led away to death because of the
iniquities of the people of God, unless he be a different person from that
people of God?” (Celsus 1.60)
·
Origen is the first of the
church fathers to discuss in detail Jesus’ death as a sacrifice in our place
(Kelly 186; John Comm 28.160-66, Rom Comm
3.8, Celsus 4.28). Jesus died not
just for all humanity but for all spiritual beings (John Comm 1.255, 28.163; Rom
Comm 1.4.4). After becoming sin for us (
·
However, Jesus’ role as
example and teacher, along with his defeat of evil powers, seem to be more
important in Origen’s teachings. Jesus came as an example and teacher to show
us how to become more like God (Prin
3.5.6). The Logos is our teacher, law-giver, and model (Prin 4.1, 4.3).
·
Salvation by defeat of
Satan (Christ as Victor): Lucifer was “crushed by Jesus” on the battlefield of
the earth (John Comm 1.78). “Jesus
submitted to slaughter on behalf of the world, purchasing us with his own blood
from him who bought us when we had sold ourselves to sin” (John Comm 6.274; Hom Ex
6.9). “Now it was the devil who was holding us, to whom we had been dragged off
by sins. Therefore he demanded the blood of Christ as the price for us” (Rom Comm 2.13.29).
·
God arranged for Mary to be
betrothed to Joseph rather than being unmarried and pregnant. If Satan had realized
that a virgin had conceived, he would have known that Jesus was divine; this
way he “escaped the devil’s notice” (Hom
Luke 6.4).
·
When God handed Jesus over
to die, Satan did not realize that his death was no defeat but God’s ultimate
plan and victory: “the opposing powers, when they delivered up the Savior into
the hands of men, did not intend to deliver Him up for the salvation of some,
but, as far as in them lay, since none of them knew ‘the wisdom of God which
was hidden in a mystery,’ they gave Him up to be put to death, that His enemy
death might receive Him under its subjection.” Satan, who had power over death,
was defeated when Christ’s resurrection brought death itself under subjection:
“in the very act of His being delivered up, and coming under the power of those
to whom He was delivered up, [Jesus] destroy[ed] him that has the power of
death; for ‘through death He brought to naught him that has the power of death,
that is, the devil, and delivered all them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage’ [Heb 2:14]” (Matt Comm. 8).
·
“But to whom did Christ
give his soul for ransom? Surely not to God. Could it then be to the Evil
One? For he had us in his power until
the ransom for us should be given to him, even the life of Christ. The Evil One
had been deceived and led to suppose that he was capable of mastering the soul
and did not see that to hold him involved a trial of strength greater than he
could successfully undertake” (Matt Comm
16:8). “…who was to redeem them from the enemy and purchase them with His own
precious blood” (Matt Comm. 40) [the NT never says Christ
redeemed/ransomed us from Satan]
·
Salvation through
deification: “They also saw the power which had descended into human nature,
and into the midst of human miseries, and which had assumed a human soul and
body, contributed through faith, along with its divine elements, to the
salvation of believers, when they see that from Him there began the union of
the divine with the human nature, in order that the human, by communion with
the divine, might rise to be divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who
not only believe, but enter upon the life which Jesus taught, and which
elevates to friendship with God and communion with Him every one who lives
according to the precepts of Jesus” (Celsus
3.28).
Eschatology
·
Origen explains suffering
in this life as a form of spiritual preparation for the next. God sometimes
causes suffering, but like a doctor, it is a means of restoring us to health.
(Danielou
·
Hell is a purging fire, not
everlasting punishment: “I do not think that the kingdom of death is of eternal
duration in the same way as that of life and righteousness, especially when I
hear from the apostle that the last enemy, death, will be destroyed” (Rom Comm 5.7.8). “It is a purifying fire
which is brought upon the world, and probably also on each one of those who
stand in need of chastisement by the fire and healing at the same time, seeing
it burns indeed, but does not consume” (Celsus
5.15). After this life, there will be an additional time of purging (Prin 1.6.3, 3.6.3,8). Origen suggests
the possibility of other worlds after this one in which souls will be perfected
(Prin
·
Origen was a universalist.
Even in future worlds, creatures with free will shall have the potential to
fall away, but God’s love will eventually conquer. With all eternity to repent,
everyone will ultimately choose to worship God. “Rightly then love, which is
alone greater than all, will keep every creature from falling away at that time
when God will be all in all” (Rom Comm
5.10.15). In one letter (Dial. Candidus,
recorded by Jerome) he admitted that, because even Satan retains his free will,
it was theoretically possible that he might one day be won over by the grace of
God. Against Gnostic dualism, Origen thought that the reality of evil could not
be co-eternal with good. “The end is always like the beginning,” that is, God
will be all in all once again (1 Cor 15:
·
While not believing in hell
(Prin 2.10.8), Origen admitted it was
a useful doctrine to motivate obedience in weaker Christians (Homily Jer 19.9).
·
Origen explains Paul’s
doctrine of the transformation of the body into immortal, incorruptible form (1
Cor 15), but also suggests that at some time in the future, all material
substance will dissolve, so that we will be like God completely, spiritual beings
only (3.6.1).
·
Origen criticized a literal
reading of the “1000 years” with its literal fulfillment of OT prophecies which
sounded too hedonistic, a life of pleasures (
Misc. topics
·
He thought that Mary
remained a virgin all her life; Jesus’ brothers were from Joseph’s previous
marriage, a view Tertullian had earlier rejected (Hom Luke 7.4). Later Athanasius will refer to her as “ever-virgin.”
Mary was descended from David, arguing she would have married her kinsman (Num
36:8-9), similar argument in Justin and Tertullian (Rom Comm 1.5.4).
·
On Prayer: purpose is not to
petition God for gifts but to become more like Him. Our lives should become one
constant prayer (1 Thess 5:17), as virtuous deeds are a form of prayer.
Other developments in the 3rd
century
·
Hippolytus describes
baptism early in this century (Apostolic
Tradition): Lengthy preparation with instruction, sometimes 3 years. All
baptisms appear to have taken place on Easter Sunday or Pentecost. Candidates
fast, pray all night, then undergo exorcism to banish evil spirits. They are
questioned whether they have lived soberly, taken care of widows and the sick,
been active in good works. They face west (realm of darkness) and renounce
Satan and all his works, then face east and take the Trinitarian oath. Stripped
of their old clothes, they go down into the water and come out to put on new
white robes and are anointed with oil by the bishop (also sip a mixture of milk
and honey). In some places, there was triple immersion. Infant baptism is now
widely practiced in 3rd c, although not approved by all.
·
Debate between bishops
Cyprian and Stephen as to the authority of the Roman bishop over other bishops.
Cyprian believed that the promise made to Peter extended to all bishops
equally, not just to the bishop in
·
Third sacrament (after
baptism and communion) of penance became common, public confession, period of penance,
and exclusion from communion until formal absolution by the bishop. Private
confession to a priest doesn’t appear until the 6th century and not
widely until the 9th.
·
Agape meals continued to be
practiced although apparently not in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper (as in
1 Corinthians). By mid-century, writers are warning against abuses, however,
with the meal becoming more like pagan banquets. Origen cautioned that the kiss
of fellowship needed to be chaste.
FOURTH CENTURY
Diocletian persecution (r. 303-12)
sought to get rid of divisive Christianity; oddly, his wife and daughter along
with one of his governors were Christians. Destruction of church buildings,
burning of sacred books, demotion of Christians in high positions, imprisonment
and torture. Diocletian also split the administration of the empire into East
and West, later to affect the separate development of Roman and Orthodox
churches.
·
Before the battle of
·
·
·
·
Friend to Eusebius, first
church historian (after Luke).
·
He moved the capital from
·
In 3
·
First St. Peter’s basilica
built in
·
He considered himself to be
“bishop to those outside the church,” enacting laws based on Christian
principles, many concerned with sexual morality, and allowing Sunday as a day
of rest for state officials (Eusebius, Life
of Constantine 4.24; Gonzalez, Faith
and Wealth 150).
·
Constantine was no saint;
he executed his oldest son and second wife, which his admirer Eusebius fails to
mention. He retained the title Pontifex
Maximus, high priest of paganism.
·
He postponed baptism until
near death, so as not to risk apostasy afterward (typical belief of the day).
Arius (256-336)
·
“We acknowledge one God,
who is alone self-existent, alone eternal, alone without beginning” (in
Alexander, Ep. Alex.). Based on
scriptures such as Prov 8:
·
“[The Son] was made for our
sake, in order that God might create us through him, as by an instrument. And
he would not have existed, if God had not willed to make us” (in Alexander, Ep. Encyc.)
·
As a creature, Jesus
experienced emotions impossible for God. He feared death and asked that this cup
be removed. On the cross he despaired that God had forsaken him. As a creature,
he shared the limitations of creatures: “If the Son were, according to [the
orthodox] interpretation, eternally existent with God, he would not have been
ignorant of the day [of his return]; nor would have been forsaken [on the
cross], as he was coexistent [with God]; nor would have asked to receive glory,
having it in the Father [already]; nor would he have prayed at all, for being
the Word, he would have needed nothing. But since he is a creature and one of
the things generated, he said such things … for it is proper for creatures to
require and ask for what they do not have” (in Athanasius, Oration contra Arius 3.26).
·
In all things Jesus was
dependent on God, not possessing them in himself by divine nature: all
authority in heaven and earth was given to him by God (Matt 28:18); the Father
has entrusted judgement to the Son (Jn 5:22); the Father has placed everything
in his hands (John 3:35; 6:37, Matt 11:27): “If he was, as you say, Son
according to nature, he had no need to receive, but he possessed these things
according to nature as a Son” (Oration
3.26).
·
“He bore the marks of true
humanity: the body’s infirmities, the mind’s uncertainties, the soul’s
troublings, the need for divine empowerment through the Spirit” (Gregg, Early Arianism, 1981, 12).
·
Jesus’ knowledge of the
Father was limited to that which the Father revealed to him, not knowledge
obtained in a divine, equal relationship. He did not know the answer to
everything but asked questions (John 11:34, Mark 6:38).
·
As a creature, Jesus could
change and grow “in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Mutable,
he was potentially, though not in fact, able to sin. If he were truly God, how
could he sin? He had to “learn obedience from what he suffered and was made
perfect” (Heb 5:8). “He became obedient unto death; therefore, God exalted him
to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name” (Phil
2:8-9). “God has made the same Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ” (Acts
2:36). Before the cross, Jesus is called by titles such as Son and Lord because
of God’s foreknowledge of his obedience, titles which were not his by natural
right but were won by virtue (Oration 1.5).
Jesus was elected Son “on account of his diligence of conduct and discipline, and
practice of moral advancement” (as recorded by their opponent Alexander, Ep. Alex.).
·
Christ’s victory of
obedience gives his fellow men hope that they might do the same (similar to
Pelagius in the next century). “Certainly we also are able to become sons of
God, like him” (Ep. Alex.). “To all
who believed in his name, he gave power to become sons of God” (John 1:12). Believers
can enjoy union with the Father in the same fashion as Christ. The Father and
Son are “one” in agreement of will, not eternal nature. Jesus prays that his
disciples be one as he and the Father are one (John 17:11). Because we share
his nature, what applies to the redeemer also applies to the redeemed. Jesus
was truly like us so that we might imitate him. Gregg and Groh argue that Arius
was not as concerned with demoting Christ to protect monotheism (as his critics
claimed) as he was with presenting a view of salvation based on Jesus as a creature
we might imitate.
Athanasius (
·
Whereas for Arius, Jesus’
ability to change implied potential for advancement, Athanasius feared change
as the potential to sin. He argued that Jesus, like God, was unchangeable and
thus had no free will, no potential for choosing evil. If Jesus were a creature
and changeable, his virtue and thus the grace he received as reward for this
virtue was not secure. A creature receives grace and is capable of forfeiting
it. A created Christ could not bestow enduring grace (Orations against Arius 3.38).
·
Athanasius insisted that
Jesus’ sonship must be of a different nature than the sonship of God’s
creatures. “Hearing that men are called sons, [the Arians] hold themselves
equal to the true and natural Son. … They are so arrogant as to suppose that as
the Son is in the Father … so will they be” (Oration 3.17). If this were so, then all God’s creatures, from men
to the stars and planets could earn the title of Son. His colleague against
Arianism, Alexander wrote Christ’s natural sonship “surpasses by an
inexpressible preeminence the sonship of those who have been adopted as sons
through His appointment.”
·
“If the Son advanced when
he became man, it is plain that before he became man, he was imperfect, and the
flesh became for him a cause of perfection, instead of he for the flesh” (Oration 3.52).
·
Incarnation as deification:
for Athanasius deification = immortality, not becoming a god. We come to share
in His divine life.
·
Only if Jesus were
completely divine could his death save us. The Word became flesh so that we might
be deified (Oration 1.38, 2.70,
3.33-4 etc). “He deified that which he put on” (1.42). “For if, being a
creature, He had become man, man had remained just what he was, not joined to
God; for how had a work been joined to the Creator by a work?” (2.67) In
contrast, Arians sought to become like God by imitating Christ through willing
obedience and discipline.
·
“God made man for
incorruption, and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil
death came into the world.” Once God set death as the punishment for sin, He
could not revoke his own law: “For God would not be true, if, when He had said
we should die, man died not. [However] it were unseemly that creatures once
made rational and having partaken of the Word should go to ruin, and turn again
toward non-existence by the way of corruption. For it were not worthy of God's
goodness that the things He had made should waste away, because of the deceit
practiced on men by the devil. … what was God in His goodness to do? Suffer
corruption to prevail against them and death to hold them fast? And where were
the profit of their having been made to begin with? For better were they not
made, than once made, left to neglect and ruin. For neglect reveals weakness,
and not goodness on God's part.” The divine solution must not only remove the offense
of sin but also remove the curse of mortality. Repentance might bring
forgiveness for sin, but cannot restore immortal life. The chief effect of the
Incarnation was to restore the possibility of this divine life, by taking the
punishment of death on himself (“all being held to have died in Him, the law
involving the ruin of men might be undone, inasmuch as its power was fully
spent in the Lord's body, and had no longer claim against men, his peers”),
then defeating mortality by his resurrection (“whereas men had turned toward
corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from
death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection”). “While
it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the
Father, to this end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by
partaking of the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of
all, and might, because of the Word which was come to dwell in it, remain
incorruptible. … thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being conjoined with
all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption, by the promise
of the resurrection” (Incarnation 3-9).
·
“As we had not been
delivered from sin and the curse, unless it had been by nature human flesh,
which the Word put on (for we should have had nothing common with what was
foreign), so also the man had not been deified, unless the Word who became flesh
had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to Him” (Oration 2.70).
·
“'Yet,' [Arians] say,
'though the Savior were a creature, God was able to speak the word only and
undo the curse.' And so another will say in like manner, 'Without His coming
among us at all, God was able just to speak and undo the curse;' but we must
consider what was expedient for mankind, and not what simply is possible with
God. … If God had but spoken, because it was in His power, and so the curse had
been undone, … man had become such as Adam was before he disobeyed, having
received grace from without, and not having it united to the body (for he was
such when he was placed in Paradise); nay, perhaps had become worse, because he
had learned to disobey. Such then being his condition, had he been seduced by
the serpent, there had been fresh need for God to command and undo the curse;
and thus the need had become unending, and men had remained under guilt not
less than before, as being enslaved to sin, and, ever sinning, would have ever
needed one to pardon them, and had never become free, being in themselves
flesh, and ever falling short of the Law because of the weakness of the flesh.”
Unless we are transformed by the new divine life from Christ, we would continue
to be susceptible to sin. “If the Son were a creature, man had remained mortal
as before, not being joined to God … Whence the truth shows us that the Word is
not of things created, but rather Himself their Framer. For therefore did He
assume the body created and human, that having renewed it as its Framer, He
might deify it in Himself, and thus might introduce us all into the kingdom of
heaven after His likeness. For man had not been deified if joined to a
creature” (Oration 2.68-70).
·
He explained his earthly
“limitations” by saying Jesus only pretended to be ignorant of his second
coming, to be troubled in spirit, or felt abandoned on the cross (Oration 3.33, 3.37).
·
As later emperors were more
favorable to Arianism, Athanasius had to live in exile for 16 years at different
times. In his writings during this time he questioned the state’s influence
over church matters: “For if a judgment had been passed by bishops, what
concern had the emperor with it? … When did a judgment of the church receive
its validity from the emperor, or rather when was his decree ever recognized by
the church? There have been many councils held before now, and many judgments
passed by the church, but the Fathers never sought the consent of the emperor
thereto, nor did the emperor busy himself with the affairs of the church” (History of Arians 52).
Council of
·
“It becomes clearer what
cardinal matters of the faith were at stake in the years preceding and
following the council of
·
No official records
survive, not even the original creed, just reports by Athanasius and Eusebius
(who leaned toward Arianism as opposed to modalism), etc. (Tradition says that
St. Nicolaus also attended).
·
The council was called by
Emperor Constantine (not the bishop of
·
Controversy over
nonbiblical language: one iota (Greek letter “i”) difference between homoousion (Jesus and God are “of the
same nature”) and homoiousion (“of
similar nature”)
·
Arians, in the minority at
the meeting (although some think the majority of believers at the time) were
excommunicated and exiled. However,
·
Afterward, many questioned
the authority of such a council and of the emperor over doctrinal matters.
Ambrose: “The Emperor is in the church, not above it.”
·
After
Council of
·
Called by emperor
Theodosius, who had just declared Christianity the official religion of the
empire. He banned not only pagan religions but many Christian sects.
·
The council condemned the
Pneumatomachians, “fighters of the Spirit,” those who denied the deity/person
of the Spirit by expanding the Nicene creedal statement.
·
Condemned the views of
Apollinarius (see below) and reaffirmed the condemnation of Arianism.
·
Condemned Marcellus of
Nicene creed
(as reported in 381): “We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all
things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not
made, being of one substance (homoousion)
with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our
salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered and on the
third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to
judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit.”
Council of
Cappadocian Fathers: Basil the Great (329-79), brother Gregory of Nyssa
(335-94?), Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89)
·
The Cappadocians developed
the idea of “coinherence,” the Son dwelling in the Father and the Father in the
Son (see John 14:10) as an explanation of their oneness (Basil, Letters 38.8; Meredith, Cappadocians). G. Naz. says that the
Father is the ground of unity for the other persons (Or. 42.15). The Cappadocians tend to focus more attention on the
three persons than the one deity (which Augustine will challenge).
·
Basil compared the three in
one to three men who share the same nature of Man (Letters 38.2), which his critics called tritheism. In his defense:
“Let the unapproachable be altogether above and beyond number, as the ancient
reverence of the Hebrews wrote the unutterable name of God in peculiar
characters, thus endeavoring to set forth its infinite excellence. Count, if
you must; but you must not by counting do damage to the faith. Either let the
ineffable be honored by silence; or let holy things be counted consistently
with true religion. There is one God and Father, one Only-begotten, and one
Holy Ghost. We proclaim each of the hypostases singly; and, when count we must,
we do not let an ignorant arithmetic carry us away to the idea of a plurality
of Gods” (Basil, Holy Spirit 18
[44]).
·
Overall, they were more
reluctant than others to speculate on God’s essential nature. Basil: “We can
know God only by his operations [mercy, justice, etc] but do not undertake to
approach his essence” (Epistle
234.1). Ultimately the doctrine of the Trinity is not an explanation of God’s
nature, but the statement of a mystery, a reminder that He is beyond human
comprehension.
·
Gregory of Nyssa admitted
that every concept we have of God, even the Trinity doctrine, is a false or
imperfect likeness, as no words can reveal the nature of God himself. Gregory
seems to be the first theologian to discuss God as infinite and therefore
indefinable (Against Eunomius 3, Not Three Gods). Likewise, “the manner
in which the Divine nature was united to the human surpasses our power of
comprehension” (Catechism 11).
·
Unity of operation: “Men,
even if several are engaged in the same form of action, work separately each by
himself at the task he has undertaken, having no participation in his
individual action with others who are engaged in the same occupation. …Thus,
since among men the action of each in the same pursuits is discriminated, they
are properly called many …. But in the case of the Divine nature we do not
similarly learn that the Father does anything by Himself in which the Son does
not work conjointly, or again that the Son has any special operation apart from
the Holy Spirit” (G. Nyssa, Not Three
Gods). “If we observe a single activity of Father, Son and Spirit … we are
obliged to infer unity of nature from the identity of activity (Basil, Letters 189.6; perhaps by Nyssa).
·
God created man “that there
might exist a being who should participate in the Divine perfections. If man
was to be receptive of these, it was necessary that his nature should contain
an element akin to God; and, in particular, that he should be immortal. Thus,
then, man was created in the image of God. He could not therefore be without
the gifts of freedom, independence, self-determination; and his participation
in the Divine gifts was consequently made dependent on his virtue” (Nyssa, Catechism 5).
·
“God did not, on account of
His foreknowledge of the evil that would result from man's creation, leave man
uncreated; for it was better to bring back sinners to original grace by the way
of repentance and physical suffering than not to create man at all. The raising
up of the fallen was a work befitting the Giver of life, Who is the wisdom and
power of God; and for this purpose He became man” (Nyssa, Catechism 7).
·
Against those who thought
an incarnation was beneath God, G. Nyssa argued that it’s not marvelous to
think that God created the universe, as that kind of miracle would be natural
to God. “God’s transcendent power is not so much displayed by the vastness of
the heavens … as in his condescension to our weak nature” (Catechism 24).
·
G. Nyssa taught that Satan
did not recognize the Son in Jesus, and was tricked by God into arranging his
death, not realizing this was actually his defeat: “The Deity was under the
veil of our nature, so that the hook of Deity was gulped down along with the
bait of the flesh” (idea also found in Rufinus; cf. Ignatius). Gregory defends
God’s act of deception by saying that justice should give everyone is due, and
wisdom should always seek the benevolent end of justice, that is, the salvation
of humanity. God’s deception accomplished both. “He who first deceived man by
the bait of sensual pleasure is himself deceived by the presentment of the
human form.” Even Satan benefits from this deception: “Whereas he, the enemy,
effected his deception for the ruin of our nature, He Who is at once the just,
and good, and wise one, used His device, in which there was deception, for the
salvation of him who had perished, and thus not only conferred benefit on the
lost one, but on him, too, who had wrought our ruin” (Catechism 26). Ambrose held a similar view (Kelly 387). Like
Origen, Gregory was a universalist, teaching the ultimate salvation of all
beings.
·
Gregory of Nazianzus
refuted his friend’s thesis, rejecting the ransom theory entirely. Ransom could
not be paid to Satan, which would reward him for his crime (“monstrous!”), nor
was the ransom paid to God, who did not hold us in bondage but sought to save
us from it (Orations 45.22). In the
NT, the idea of ransom or redemption implies freedom from the bondage of sin,
but scripture doesn’t address the question to whom the ransom was paid.
·
G. Nazianzus argued,
against the view of Apollinarius (below), that Christ had to have a human soul:
“What [in human nature] has not been assumed [by divinity] has not been healed,
but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell,
then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of
his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was
begotten, and so be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our
complete salvation, or clothe the Savior only with bones and nerves and the
portraiture of humanity” (Letter to
Cledonius, Ep. 101).
Post-Nicene Christological
controversies:
·
Hilary of
·
Apollinarius (bishop of
·
As patriarch of
·
Eutychus argued that Jesus
had only one nature (monophysite). His humanity was “swallowed up” by divinity,
as a drop of honey in the ocean. The human nature was not destroyed but
transformed into the substance of divinity.
·
In 451, the Council of
·
In 680 the creed will speak
of Jesus’ human will and divine will as separate concepts [very confusing; how
can one person have two wills?]. The human will submitted entirely to the Logos’
will. In the NT, however, Jesus says that he submitted to the will of his
Father, not the Logos (a criticism made by Servetus in the 16th c).
·
“If the pagans of the first
century were amazed by the love which Christians bore one another, those of
later centuries could have been equally astonished at the loathing and
intolerance [Christians] displayed toward their associates whose formulae for
defining the indefinable differed from their own” (Christie-Murray, A History of Heresy 62).
·
4th century
views of salvation began to move away from ransom and deification theories
(held by Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa) toward substitutionary sacrifice
offered for our sins (Eusebius, Cyril, Chrysostom).
Monasticism
·
During the reign of Arian
emperors, Athanasius was exiled and hid with the monks in the Egyptian desert.
He wrote a popular biography of the first Christian monk Anthony (“monk” comes
from Greek monachos, “alone”).
Anthony lived with other hermits, waging personal battles with demons, whom he
said took the form of women, wild beasts, and reptiles.
·
With its desire to withdraw
from the world, early monasticism became highly individualistic and eccentric.
Some monks would eat one meal a week. Others would sleep standing up, or bury
themselves neck deep in the ground. One man lived on top of a 60 ft. pillar for
30 years, allowing worms to eat at his sores.
·
Basil “the Great,” bishop
of
Misc. developments in the 4th
c.
·
Eusebius completed his
history of the church in 325.
·
Churches are now built with
baptisteries, resembling burial chambers to symbolize the burial of Christ.
·
The act of Consecration
transforming the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ became common
belief. Transubstantiation becomes official church doctrine in 1215.
·
Christmas is officially
chosen as the celebration of Jesus’ birth (earliest record 336).
·
Christians created “a
miniature welfare state in an empire lacking in social services.” They developed
self-supporting programs similar to retirement and funeral insurance. In 362
the emperor Julian the “apostate,” who wanted to revive the pagan religions,
recognized that to attract converts it would be necessary to match the
benevolence programs of the church: “the impious Galileans … support not only
their poor but ours as well; everyone can see that our people lack aid from
us.”
·
The emperor Gratian
(375-83) rejected the pagan title pontifex
maximus, and deprived pagan priests of their tax exemptions (now given to
clergy). State funds no longer supported the temples.
·
In 385 Theodosius made it
illegal not to be a Christian. Unfortunately, Christians who had argued for
tolerance for their beliefs, once in power, often had little for pagans.
·
The Palestinian monk Jerome
translates the Bible into Latin, the Vulgate, meaning in the common language
(404).
Attitudes toward poverty (Gonzalez, Faith and
Wealth, 1990).
·
“You shall not turn away
from anyone who is in need.” The way of death includes not only murderers,
adulterers, and thieves but those who do not labor to help the afflicted,
advocates of the rich, judges who cheat the poor. The text also warns those who
are not truly needy defrauding givers (Didache
5.8; 1.5).
·
Let the rich man provide
for the needs of the poor, and the poor man bless God for providing his help (Clement 37.2).
·
Ignatius warns slaves not
to take advantage of churches by asking them to buy their freedom, lest they
become slaves of greed (To Polycarp 4.3).
·
Aristides (2nd
c) defends Christian generosity; when someone is hungry, and there is no
surplus of food, they fast two or three days to give the food to those in need
(Apology 15.7).
·
Shepherd of Hermas asks how can
the rich be saved unless they help the poor? Excessive concern over business
distracts one from faith. As pilgrims in a strange land, we should not buy up
possessions here that we cannot take with us to our true home. “Instead of
lands, buy afflicted souls” (Mand.
10.1; Sim. 1.1-9).
·
Tertullian: “Our compassion
spends more in the streets than yours does in the temples. …Possessions, which destroy brotherhood among
you, create fraternal bond among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate
to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but
our wives” (Apol. 42, 63).
·
Cyprian (d. 258) introduced
the idea, “By almsgiving we may wash away whatever foulness we subsequently
contract [after baptism].” Do not fear that your giving will reduce you to
poverty: “The merciful cannot be in want. … By the prayers of the poor, the
wealth of the doer is increased by the retribution of God.” Just as heathens
give more when they know important people notice them, Christians should give
more because God will know (Works and
Alms 1, 9, 21). For those boundless in greed, “possession amounts to only
this, that they can keep others from possessing them” (Letter 1.12).
·
Lactantius (250-325):
Generosity can atone for post-baptismal sins, as long as one doesn’t rely on
this to continue sinning. Those who fear poverty which results from giving are
too concerned about their possessions (Inst.
6.12-13). He defends private property, for if all things were in common in
society, no one would be motivated to save, and to take care of possessions
(3.22).
·
Basil: “Superfluous
[wealth] must be distributed among the needy.” Basil founded a benevolence
center at
Augustine (354-430)
·
Augustine represents the
summit of early church theology and had a profound impact on the development of
both Medieval Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation.
·
His mother Monica was a
Christian, but Augustine’s early reading of scripture, especially the OT,
turned him away from the faith until much later in life. For nine years he was
an initiate with the Manicheans, an eastern dualistic religion from
·
Perhaps his most famous
quote: “You made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find
their rest in you” (Confessions 1.1).
Mystery of the Trinity
·
“Since it is God we are
speaking of, you do not understand it. If you could understand it, it would not
be God” (Sermon 117.5). “Believe so
that you may understand. For, unless you believe, you will not understand” (Sermon 212).
·
“What He has, He is: as for
you, you are one thing, you have another. For example, you have wisdom, but are
you wisdom itself? … In such a way He [actually Christ in context] has wisdom
in such a way that He is Wisdom” (Tract
John 48.6). “It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is
called simple, because it has not anything which it can lose, and because it is
not one thing and its contents another, as a cup and the liquor, or a body and
its color, or the air and the light or heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom.”
The nature of God is simple “because in [him] quality and substance are
identical” (City 11.10).
·
On the Trinity, prior to
Augustine most writers expressed the idea that the Son and Spirit derive their
divinity from the Father the begetter, source, or fountainhead. Most creeds
begin, “I believe in God, the Father…” but for Augustine all three possess the
same, equal divine essence, no subordination.
·
Augustine thinks of God
primarily as Trinity, not as Father, on whom Son and Spirit rely for their
divinity. For instance, he interprets passages such as “"Now unto the King
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever
and ever” as applying to the Trinity, not merely to the Father (Trinity 2.8). The Eastern church spoke
more of the persons, and so were accused of tritheism. OT theophanies were not
the appearance of the Son only but the entire Deity (Trinity 2.9).
·
Admitting that he speaks of
an unspeakable mystery, for God cannot be adequately described by words or
thoughts, Augustine differs from the Cappadocians who say, “one essence (ousia) in three substances (hypostases)” as He prefers one essence
in three persons (in Latin essence and substance mean almost the same). He
objects to describing God as having three substances, as if God were not
“simple” (completely united in Himself and his qualities) and instead consisted
of different things. What God “has,” He “is” (see above). (Trinity 7.4-6)
·
Even so, the three persons
cannot be discussed in the same way as three men or three horses or three
statues, as a class of beings/objects in three individual instances, as this
would be the same as saying there are three gods who all share the category of
godness. There is no genus of godness in which individual species exist (as in
polytheism): “Therefore the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three species
of one essence.” Because of this mystery, we struggle for an adequate generic
term to describe the three, “for the super-eminence of the Godhead surpasses
the power of customary speech. For God … exists more truly than He is thought”
(Trinity 7.4-6).
·
“Who will declare how Light
is born of Light, and how both constitute but one Light” (Sermon 195).
·
God is personal, whether we
speak of the three or the one together. Personality belongs to the essence of
God, not one of his qualities. Thus even the term “person” is inadequate. “Why,
therefore, do we not call these three together one person, as one essence and
one God, but say three persons, while we do not say three Gods or three
essences; unless it be because we wish for some word to serve for that meaning
whereby the Trinity is understood, that we might not be altogether silent” (Trinity
7.4-6).
·
“Further, in these things,
one man is not as much as three men together; and two men are something more
than one man. … But in God it is not so; for the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit together is not a greater essence than the Father alone or the Son
alone; but these three substances or persons, if they must be so called,
together are equal to each singly: which the natural man does not comprehend” (Trinity 7.4-6). Each of the three is
omnipotent and all wise, but together they are not three times more powerful or
intelligent (Trinity 5.8, 8.1, 15.3).
“We do not speak of three Lords, or of three Omnipotent Ones, or of three
Creators … because there are not three God but only one God” (Sermon 212.1).
·
“‘I and my Father are one.’
[Jesus] has both said ‘one,’
and ‘we are one,’ according to
essence, because they are the same God; ‘we are,’ according to relation,
because the one is Father, the other is Son. Sometimes also the unity of the
essence is left unexpressed, and the relatives alone are mentioned in the
plural number: ‘My Father and I will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.’ We will come, and we will make our abode, is the plural
number. ... Sometimes the meaning is altogether latent, as in Genesis: ‘Let us
make man after our image and likeness.’ Both let
us make and our is
said in the plural, and ought not to be received except as of relatives. For it
was not that gods might make, or make after the image and likeness of gods; but
that the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit might make after the image of the
Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, that man might subsist as the image of God. …
And if this cannot be grasped by the understanding, let it be held by faith,
until He shall dawn in the heart who says by the prophet, ‘If you will not
believe, surely you shall not understand’” (Trinity
7.4-6).
·
He explains how the Word
can remain with the Father and yet could become a man by comparing it to
speech. When a person speaks a word, it remains in his mind at the same time as
it leaves the mouth and goes to another: “You have heard what is in my mind;
now it is in yours, and I have not lost it” (Sermon 225).
·
Augustine agreed with
Origen on the eternal generation of the Son; there was never a time when the
Father did not have a Son (Sermon
196.1).
·
Augustine proposed many
analogies of the Trinity, in particular to the human mind. He compared God not
to three persons in relationship (as the Cappadocians) but to different aspects
of one mind: memory, understanding, will, which can be separated for purpose of
discussion but not in reality (Trinity
10.11). Another analogy: Father as lover, Son as beloved, Spirit as the love
between them (Trinity 9.2; cf. 6.5,
15.17).
·
In his Confessions Augustine claimed to have found the first ch. of John
in Plato (as read through Neo-Platonism), while noting that the Greeks never
envisioned the Logos becoming flesh. He later retracted his over-enthusiasm for
philosophy.
God and Creation
·
On creation, God first
created the formless matter from which he shaped all other things (Confessions 12.8; cf. 11.5)
·
God exists outside time and
created time (Confessions 11.13).
Time involves change from one state to another, whereas God does not change (City 11.6; Confessions 12.8). “It is only that which remains in being without
change that truly is” (Confessions
7.11). God contemplates all events in time in an instant, eternally before him;
past, present, and future are equally real to him: “in the Eternal nothing
passes away, but that the whole is present.” When asked what God was doing
before creation, he replied, “Preparing hell for those who pry into mysteries,”
but admitting this was a frivolous reply, he gave a more serious answer: before
God created space and time, there could be no “before” or “after”; the question
is meaningless (Confessions
11.10-12).
·
“I asked the earth; and it
answered, ‘I am not He,’ and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I
asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping things that lived, and they
replied, ‘We are not your God, seek higher than we.’ … I asked the heavens, the
sun, moon, and stars: ‘Neither are we the God whom you seek.’ And I answered
unto all these things … ‘tell me something about Him.’ And with a loud voice
they exclaimed, ‘He made us.’ My questioning was my observing of them; and
their beauty was their reply” (Confessions
10.6.9).
·
The six days of Genesis
were not meant to be taken literally, as the concept of evening and morning
would make no sense prior to the creation of the sun (Gen contra Mani 1.23.41).
·
“In
·
God did not create woman in
the same way he created man, but instead out of him, so that the entire human
race might be derived from one individual. In this way, God intended for all
men to be united (City 12.22).
Person of Christ
·
The Son lost none of his
divinity by taking on flesh, nor did the man lose any of his humanity by taking
on deity. One nature was not changed into another, nor mixed to create a third
thing, such as two metals creating a new alloy (Trinity 1.7). He assumed what he was not, without losing what he
was.
·
“The Word of God, through
whom all things were made, did not leave the angels, did not leave his Father
when he was in the virgin’s womb. … ‘How,’ the seeker asks, ‘could such
greatness exist in so small a place?’ That womb received what the world does
not contain” (Sermon 225).
·
The baby Jesus was not
limited in knowledge in any way, but only appeared to be (On Merit and Forgiveness, Baptizing Infants 2.48).
·
In contrast to earlier
writers, Augustine distinguished between personified wisdom in Proverbs, the
first created thing, and the Word as Wisdom who was uncreated (Confessions 12.15).
·
Discussing Jesus’ prayer in
Jn 17: “He prays for us who gives what he himself prays for. For Christ is man
and God. He prays as man; as God, he grants what he asks in prayer” (Sermon 217).
Work of Christ:
·
Sacrifice: He is both the
priest who offers and the offering itself (City
10.20). “For us he was both victor and victim, and the victor as being the
victim; for us he was both priest and sacrifice, and priest as being the
sacrifice” (Confessions 10.43).
·
Mediator: “as man He was
Mediator; but as the Word He was not between, because [he remains] equal to
God” (Confessions 10.43). His
mediation was between God and men, not Satan (see below) (City 10.22).
·
Deification: “The
only-begotten participated in our mortality so that we might participate in his
immortality” (Trinity 13.9). “He who
was God became man so as to make those who were men gods” (Sermon 192).
·
Ransom: “For our ransom he
held out his cross as a trap; in it he placed his blood as bait” (Sermon 263).
·
In fact, Satan had no legal
claim on mankind, so no ransom was due him. Rather, he overstepped his
authority by shedding innocent blood: “It pleased God, that in order to rescue
man from the grasp of the devil, he should be conquered, not by power, but by
righteousness. …What, then, is the righteousness by which the devil was
conquered? What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ? And how was he
conquered? Because, when he found in Him nothing worthy of death, yet he slew
Him. … And therefore He conquered the devil first by righteousness, and
afterwards by power: namely, by righteousness, because He had no sin, and [yet]
was slain by him most unjustly; but by power, because having been dead He lived
again, never afterwards to die.” By killing an innocent man, taking that which
was not owed him, Satan lost his right over us. “The devil was conquered when
he thought himself to have conquered, that is, when Christ was slain. For then
that blood, since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured out for the
remission of our sins; that, because the devil deservedly held those whom, as
guilty of sin, he bound by the condition of death, he might deservedly release
them through Him, whom, as guilty of no sin, the punishment of death
undeservedly affected” (Trinity 4.13,
13.13-15; cf. Free Will 3.10.31).
·
“The Devil was overcome by
his own trophy. … By seducing the first man, he killed him; by killing the Last
Man, he lost the first from his snare” (Sermon
263). For similar arguments see Hilary (Hom
Ps 68.8)
·
Augustine did not teach a
“limited” atonement, as did Calvin: “Thus all, without exception, were dead in
sins, whether original or voluntary sins, sins of ignorance, or sins committed
against knowledge; and for all the dead
there died the one only person who lived, that is, who had no sin whatever, in
order that they who live by the remission of their sins should live, not to
themselves, but to Him who died for all” (City
20.6). Christ’s blood applies to unbaptized babies (Against Julian 3.25.58). “The true and apostolic opinion is that
Christ is the savior of all men” (Sermon
292.4). “The blood of Christ is salvation to those who wish it, punishment to
those who refuse” (Sermon 344.4). However,
God does not give faith to accept this atonement to everyone (see below).
On Grace and Free Will
·
“God, the Author of all
natures but not of their defects, created man good. But man [Adam], corrupt by
choice and condemned by justice, has produced a progeny that is both corrupt
and condemned. For we all existed in that one man … Although the specific form
in which each of us was to live was not yet created, our nature was already
present in the seed from which it was to spring. And because this nature has
been soiled by sin and doomed to death … no man was to be born of man in any
other condition” (City of
·
Pelagius of
·
Other theologians gave a
greater role to grace than Pelagius while affirming free will. Gregory of
Nazianzus and John Chrysostom taught that God’s help is necessary for us to do
good, but the initiative (choosing to do good) comes from us. We first desire
to do good, then God strengthens that desire to make it effective.
·
In his early writings,
Augustine expressed similar views: “God begrudges nothing to anyone, for he has
given to all the possibility to be good, and the power to abide in the good as
far as they would” (Of True Religion 4).
“For the soul cannot receive and possess these gifts [of grace], except by
yielding its consent. Whatever it receives is from God, and yet the act of
receiving belongs to the receiver” (On
the Spirit and the Letter 60). “Sin is so much a voluntary act that it is
not sin unless it is voluntary” (Of True
Religion 9.27). “'For it is ours to believe and to will, but it is His to
give to those who believe and will, the power of doing good works through the
Holy Spirit” (retracted in On
Predestination). “I knew as well
that I had a will as that I had life. When, therefore, I was willing or
unwilling to do anything, I was most certain that it was none but myself that
was willing and unwilling; and immediately I perceived that there was the cause
of my sin” (Confessions 7.3). In
fact, Pelagius quotes from Augustine’s early writings to support his arguments
(Peter Brown, Augustine 148).
·
However, in the heat of
battle against heresy, Augustine tended to swing to the opposite extreme. These
early statements were written against the deterministic views of the Manicheans,
a dualist eastern religion which taught the eternal existence of Good and Evil;
Augustine had been a member before his conversion. In later writings against
Pelagius, Augustine said the Fall had so corrupted the will that we now cannot
choose anything but evil. We are unable not to sin. Man chooses to sin, and
thus is responsible for his actions.
·
In his later writings,
Augustine still insisted on human free will, in order to make us and not God
responsible for our sins: “God's precepts themselves would be of no use to a
man unless he had free choice of will, so that by performing them he might
obtain the promised rewards. For they are given that no one might be able to
plead the excuse of ignorance” (On Grace
and Free Will 2). At first glance, this sounds much like Pelagius’ argument
that God would not command us to obey if we did not have the ability to do so.
However, Augustine defined free will in an unusual way: we freely choose to
sin, not that we have a choice between good and evil: “We do not say that by
the sin of Adam free will perished out of the nature of men; but that it avails
[only] for sinning in men subjected to the devil, and not of avail for good and
pious living, unless the will itself should be made free by God’s grace” (Two Letters of Pelagians 9).
·
“The Lord, in His
foreknowledge of the future, foretold by the prophet the unbelief of the Jews;
He foretold it, but did not cause it. For God does not compel any one to sin
simply because He knows already the future sins of men. For He foreknew sins
that were theirs, not His own; sins that were referable to no one else, but to
their own selves. Accordingly, if what He foreknew as theirs is not really
theirs, then had He no true foreknowledge” (Tract.
John 53.4).
·
“The Pelagians think that they know something
great when they assert that ‘God would not command what He knew could not be
done by man.’ Who can be ignorant of this? But God commands some things which
we cannot do, in order that we may know what we ought to ask of Him. For this is
faith itself, which obtains by prayer what the law commands. … For it is
certain that we keep the commandments if we will; but because the will is
prepared by the Lord, we must ask of Him for such a force of will as suffices
to make us act by the willing. It is certain that it is we that will we will,
but it is He who makes us will what is good, of whom it is said, ‘The will is
prepared by the Lord’ [Prov 8:35] … When he says, ‘I will make you . . . to do
them,’ what else does He say in fact than, ‘I will take away from you your
heart of stone,’ from which used to arise your inability to act, ‘and I will
give you a heart of flesh’ [Ezek 36:26] in order that you may act?” (G&FW
32)
·
For Augustine, grace and
free will belong in a paradoxical relationship, as Scripture affirms both. “It
is, however, to be feared lest all these and similar testimonies of Holy
Scripture … in the maintenance of free will, be understood in such a way as to
leave no room for God's assistance and grace in leading a godly life and a good
conversation, to which the eternal reward is due” (G&FW 6). “When God says, ‘Turn to me, and I will turn to you’
[Zech 1:3], one of these clauses – that which invites our return to God –
evidently belongs to our will; while the other, which promises His return to
us, belongs to His grace” (G&FW
10). “Nevertheless, lest the will itself should be deemed capable of doing any
good thing without the grace of God, after saying, ‘His grace within me was not
in vain, but I have labored more abundantly than they all,’ [Paul] immediately
added the qualifying clause, ‘Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me’” [1 Cor 15:10] (G&FW 12).
·
“He, therefore, who wishes
to do God's commandment but is unable, already possesses a good will, but as
yet a small and weak one; he will, however, become able when he shall have
acquired a great and robust will. …Forasmuch as in beginning He works in us
that we may have the will, and in perfecting works with us when we have the
will. On which account the apostle says, ‘I am confident of this very thing,
that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of
Jesus Christ’ [Phil 1:6]. He operates, therefore, without us, in order that we
may will; but when we will, and so will that we may act, He co-operates with
us. We can, however, ourselves do nothing to effect good works of piety without
Him either working that we may will, or co-working when we will” (G&FW 33).
·
“Why does He command, if He
is to give … except it be that He gives what He commands when He helps him to
obey whom He commands? There is, however, always within us a free will, but it
is not always good; for it is either free from righteousness when it serves
sin, and then it is evil, or else it is free from sin when it serves
righteousness, and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good; and by
it, it comes to pass a man is of a good will, though he was before of an evil
one. … For what does it profit us if we
will what we are unable to do, or else do not will what we are able to do?” (G&FW 31)
·
Delight motivates the will,
but we cannot choose what delights us or should delight us. “Who has it in his
power to ensure that his mind attains just the right perception to move his
will to faith? Who can respond enthusiastically to something that does not
delight him? Who has it in his power to ensure either that he will meet what
can delight him or that it will delight him when he meets it?” (Simplicianus 1.
·
God’s irresistible will:
“It is not, then, to be doubted that men's wills cannot, so as to prevent His
doing what he wills, withstand the will of God. … He has the wills of men more
in His power than they themselves have” (Rebuke
and Grace 45).
Election by grace, not
merit
·
As his argument continues,
Augustine insists that we have no freedom to choose God, unless He first
chooses us. This election is based not on human merit but entirely on God’s
free will. “[Paul’s] last clause runs thus: ‘I have kept the faith.’ But he who
says this is the same who declares in another passage, ‘I have obtained mercy
that I might be faithful’ [1 Cor 7:25]. He does not say, ‘I obtained mercy
because I was faithful,’ but ‘in order that I might be faithful,’ thus showing
that even faith itself cannot be had without God's mercy, and that it is the
gift of God” (G&FW 17). “‘You
have not chosen me, but I have chosen you’ [John 15:16]. There could be no
merit in men's choice of Christ, if it were not that God's grace was prevenient
in His choosing them” (G&FW 38).
·
In his early comments on
Romans 9 (394 AD), Augustine had said that God elected Jacob because of his
foreknowledge of Jacob’s faith. In his Retractions
and other late writings, he corrected his earlier opinion and made it clear
that election cannot come from any human activity, even faith; faith is a gift
given by God to those whom He freely chooses (On Predestination 36). “Did we ourselves make ourselves faithful? …
No man should think that he arrives at faith itself through the merit of his
works; for it is faith [provided by God] which is the beginning whence good
works first proceed” (Proceedings of
Pelagius 34).
·
“No one believes who is not
called. God calls in his mercy, and not as a reward of merits of faith, which
follow his calling rather than precede it” (De
Div Quaest. ad Simplic 1.2.7).
Faith as God’s gift
·
Augustine is fond of
saying, “Give what you command and command what you will” (Confessions 10.29).
·
“Now if faith is simply of
free will, and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who will not
believe, that they may believe? This would be absolutely useless to do, unless
we believe, with perfect propriety, that Almighty God is able to turn to belief
wills that are perverse and opposed to faith. Man's free will is addressed when
it is said, ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’ But if
God were not able to remove from the human heart even its obstinacy and
hardness, He would not say through the prophet, ‘I will take from them their
heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh’ [Ezek 11:19] …. Now can we
possibly, without extreme absurdity, maintain that there previously existed in
any man the good merit of a good will, to entitle him to the removal of his
stony heart, when all the while this very heart of stone signifies nothing else
than a will of the hardest kind and such as is absolutely inflexible against
God?” (G&FW 29)
·
“‘For what have you which you have
not received?’ [1 Cor 4:7] does not allow any believer to say, ‘I have faith
which I received not.’ All the arrogance of this answer is absolutely repressed
by these apostolic words. Moreover, it cannot even be said, ‘Although I have
not a perfected faith, yet I have its beginning, whereby I first of all
believed in Christ.’ Because here also is answered: ‘But what have you that you
have not received? Now, if you have received it, why do you glory as if you
received it not?’” (On Predestination
8).
·
“For some will say, ‘Many hear the
word of truth; but some believe, while others do not. Therefore, the former
will to believe; the latter do not will.’ Who can deny this? But since in some
the will is prepared by the Lord, in others it is not prepared, we must
assuredly be able to distinguish what comes from God's mercy, and what from His
judgment” (On Predestination 11).
·
“But perhaps it may be said, ‘The
apostle [Paul] distinguishes faith from works; he says, indeed, that grace is
not of works, but he does not say that it is not of faith.’ This indeed is
true. But Jesus says that faith itself also is the work of God, and commands us
to work it. For the Jews said to Him, ‘What shall we do that we may work the
work of God?’ Jesus answered, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him
whom He has sent.’ [John 6:28] The apostle … says that a man is justified
by faith and not by works, because faith itself is first given, from which may
be obtained works, in which a man may live righteously. For he himself also
says, ‘By grace you are saved through faith; and this not of yourselves; but it
is the gift of God, [Eph 2:8] — in saying ‘through faith,’ even faith itself
is not of yourselves, but is God's gift” (On
Predestination 12).
·
“Why, then, does He not teach all
that they may come to Christ, except because all whom He teaches, He teaches in
mercy, while those whom He teaches not, in judgment He teaches not? Since, ‘On
whom He will He has mercy, and whom He will He hardens’ [Rom 9:18] …. And
yet in a certain sense the Father teaches all men to come to His Son. For it
was not in vain that it was written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be
teachable of God’ [John 6:45] … so we justly say, God teaches all men to
come to Christ, not because all come, but because none comes in any other way” (On Predestination 13).
·
“For it is God who works in you both
to will and to accomplish according to his good will” [Phil 2:13] (Letter 186)
Perseverance of the Saints
·
“Now, moreover, when the saints say,
‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,’ what do they pray for
but that they may persevere in holiness? For, assuredly, when that gift of God
is granted to them, … none of the saints fails to keep his perseverance in
holiness even to the end” (On
Perseverance 9).
·
“Certainly, when the apostle says,
‘Therefore it is of faith that the promise may be sure according to grace’
[Rom 4:16], I marvel that men would rather entrust themselves to their own
weakness, than to the strength of God's promise. But do you say, God's will
concerning myself is to me uncertain? What then? Is your own will concerning
yourself certain to you? and do you not fear, ‘Let him that thinks he stands
take heed lest he fall’? [1 Cor 10:12] Since, then, both are
uncertain, why does not man commit his faith, hope, and love to the stronger
will rather than to the weaker?” (On
Predestination 21)
·
“…to which calling there is no man
that can be said by men with any certainty of affirmation to belong, until he
has departed from this world; but in this life of man, which is a state of
trial upon the earth, he who seems to stand must take heed lest he fall” (On
Perseverance 33).
·
“But, moreover, that such things as
these are so spoken to saints who will persevere, as if it were reckoned
uncertain whether they will persevere, is a reason that they ought not
otherwise to hear these things, since it is well for them ‘not to be
high-minded, but to fear’ [Rom 11:20]. For who of the multitude of believers
can presume, so long as he is living in this mortal state, that he is in the
number of the predestined? Because it is necessary that in this condition that
should be kept hidden; since here we have to beware so much of pride. … men
[should] have that very wholesome fear, by which the sin of presumption is kept
down” (On Rebuke and Grace 40).
·
“Far be it from you to despair of
yourselves, because you are bidden to have your hope in Him, not in yourselves.
For cursed is every one who has hope in man, and it is good rather to trust in
the Lord than to trust in man, because blessed are all they that put their
trust in Him. Holding this hope, serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him
with trembling. Because no one can be certain of the life eternal which God who
does not lie has promised to the children of promise before the times of
eternity” (On Perseverance 62). [seems self-contradictory]
Predestination as God’s great
mystery
·
With fallen man completely
incapable of doing good or even willing it, only intervening, supernatural
grace can bring about a state of redemption. “Mortals cannot live righteously
unless the will itself is liberated by the grace of God from the servitude to
sin into which it has fallen” (Retract
1.9). Such grace is unmerited and irresistible, creating in the elect the faith
and the will to obey God. Pelagius: God helps those who help themselves.
Augustine: God helps those who cannot
help themselves.
·
This belief led Augustine
to the conclusion that God chooses to provide his grace to some and not others;
otherwise, if God wanted all to be saved, they would be. He interprets 1 Tim
·
“[By] the grace of God …
the human will is not taken away, but changed from bad to good, and assisted
when it is good. … also those which follow the world are so entirely at the
disposal of God, that He turns them whithersoever He wills, and whensoever He
wills, to bestow kindness on some, and to heap punishment on others, as He
Himself judges right by a counsel most secret to Himself, indeed, but beyond
all doubt most righteous” (G&FW
41).
·
“But why [faith] is not
given to all ought not to disturb the believer, who believes that from one
[man] all have gone into condemnation, which undoubtedly is most righteous; so
that even if none were delivered from condemnation, there would be no just
cause for finding fault with God. … But why He delivers one rather than
another, ‘His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out’ [Rom 11:33].
For it is better in this case for us to say, ‘O man, who are you that replies
against God?" [Rom 9:20] than to dare to speak as if we could know
what He has chosen to be kept secret. Since, moreover, He could not will
anything unrighteous” (On Predestination
16)
·
“Who can help trembling at those judgments of
God by which He does in the hearts of even wicked men whatsoever He wills, at
the same time rendering to them according to their deeds? …. For the Almighty
sets in motion even in the innermost hearts of men the movement of their will,
so that He does through their agency whatsoever He wishes to perform through
them, even He who knows not how to will anything in unrighteousness” (G&FW 42).
·
“God works in the hearts of
men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds
according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment
being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous. This ought to
be the fixed and immoveable conviction of your heart, that there is no
unrighteousness with God. Therefore, whenever you read in the Scriptures of
Truth, that men are led aside, or that their hearts are blunted and hardened by
God, never doubt that some ill deserts of their own have first occurred, so
that they justly suffer these things. Thus you will not run counter to that
proverb of Solomon: ‘The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames
God in his heart’ [Prov 19:3]. Grace, however, is not bestowed according to
men's deserts; otherwise grace would be no longer grace. For grace is so
designated because it is given gratuitously. Now if God is able, either through
the agency of angels (whether good ones or evil), or in any other way whatever,
to operate in the hearts even of the wicked, in return for their deserts, whose
wickedness was not made by Him but was either derived originally from Adam or
increased by their own will, what is there to wonder at if, through the Holy
Spirit, He works good in the hearts of the elect, who has wrought it that their
hearts become good instead of evil?” (G&FW
43)
·
“‘Therefore has He mercy on
whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens’ [Rom 9]. He has mercy out
of His great goodness, [yet] He hardens without any injustice, so that neither
can he that is pardoned glory in any merit of his own, nor he that is condemned
complain of anything but his own demerit. For it is grace alone that separates
the redeemed from the lost, all having been involved in one common perdition
through their common origin. Now if any one, on hearing this, should say, ‘Why
does He yet find fault? for who has resisted His will?’ – as if a man ought not
to be blamed for being bad, because God has mercy on whom He will have mercy….
The whole human race was condemned in its rebellious head by a divine judgment
so just, that if not a single member of the race had been redeemed, no one
could justly have questioned the justice of God” (Enchiridion 99).
·
“For [infants] in receiving
grace have no will; from the influence of which they can pretend to any
precedent merit. We see, moreover, how they cry and struggle when they are
baptized, and feel the divine sacraments. Such conduct would, of course, be
charged against them as a great impiety, if they already had free will in use;
and notwithstanding this, grace cleaves to them even in their resisting struggles”
(G&FW 44). “You must refer the
matter then to the hidden determinations of God, when you see, in one and the
same condition, such as all infants unquestionably have, who derive their
hereditary evil from Adam, that one is assisted so as to be baptized, and
another is not assisted, so that he dies in his very bondage” (G&FW 45).
·
“As of two twins, of which
one is taken and the other left, the end is unequal, while the deserts [both
deserving punishment because of original sin] are common, yet in these the one
is in such wise delivered by God's great goodness, that the other is condemned
by no injustice of God's. For is there unrighteousness with God? Away with the
thought! But His ways are past finding out. Therefore let us believe in His
mercy in the case of those who are delivered, and in His truth in the case of
those who are punished, without any hesitation; and let us not endeavor to look
into that which is inscrutable, nor to trace that which cannot be found out” (On Perseverance 25).
·
Augustine admitted that
predestination may undermine morality, as in the case he reports of a group of
monks criticized for their sins. They responded, “Why do you preach to us about
our duties, when it is not we who act but God who works in us?” If all things
are predetermined, then ultimately it’s up to God if we are sinners. (On Perseverance 38).
·
“Although, therefore, we
say that obedience is the gift of God, we still exhort men to it” (On Perseverance 37). Augustine warned
against preaching predestination in such a way as to discourage obedience. “One
should not say, ‘And if any of you obey, if you are foreknown to be rejected
you shall cease to obey.’ Doubtless this is very true, assuredly it is; but it
is very monstrous, very inconsiderate, and very unsuitable, not by its false
declaration, but by its declaration not wholesomely applied to the health of
human infirmity” (On Perseverance 62)
·
Why is preaching faith and
obedience not in vain when God has predetermined everything? Because God has
chosen to effect his election through preaching; He commands it, so it must be
done without questioning (On Perseverance
22, 34).
On the Origin of Evil
·
Augustine follows Origen in
applying OT texts allegorically to Satan: "How art thou fallen, O Lucifer,
son of the morning!" (Isa 14;1
·
He traces the origin of
evil before the Fall to the creation of the angels, and asks why, if they were
created with good wills, did some fall? Anything God creates is good by nature,
but because He created all things from nothing, there is the tendency to
imperfection, as only pure, uncreated Being can be perfect. Everything made
from nothing is capable of change and of being corrupted. Evil is the
corruption of good, changing from what God intended into something else (City 14.13). For Augustine, Nothing
almost becomes “something” (as darkness to light) which is opposed to
Being/God, its negative or opposite (while not falling into dualism; he does
not personify Nothing).
·
Both faithful and
rebellious angels were created equally good, but God gave to some the extra
benefit of grace which enabled them to resist temptation and remain faithful
(thus predestination even in heaven) (City 11.11, 12.9).
·
The number of elect has
been set from eternity, to replace the number of fallen angels (City
On Original Sin and
sexuality
·
When Adam and Eve sinned,
they saw their nakedness and covered themselves: “That’s the place from which
the first sin is passed on” (Sermon
151.5). Adam’s original sin is transmitted from one generation to another
through sexual reproduction, designed by God but corrupted by lust after the
Fall. Our souls are produced through an extension of our parents’ souls,
already tainted with sin.
·
Prior to the Fall, the
first couple engaged in “passionless procreation.” The body was completely
subject to the soul’s will; lust did not move those members of the body without
the soul’s consent. “The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman
received it, as need required, the generative organs being moved by the will,
not excited by lust.” (He illustrates his point with examples of men who
can control their bodies at will: wiggling their ears, crying at will, even
passing wind in a musical fashion.) How sex would occur without desire,
Augustine admits, is difficult to imagine today. Sexual desire became part of
the penalty for sin, “this struggle and rebellion, this quarrel between will
and lust.” However, he refutes those against sexual relations in marriage who
say that before the Fall, Adam and Eve did not mate (an idea he himself once
held). “That blessing upon marriage, which encouraged them to increase and
multiply and replenish the earth … was yet given before they sinned, for the
procreation of children, as part of the glory of marriage. … He who says there
would have not been copulation or generation except for sin, virtually says
that man’s sin was necessary to complete the number of the saints.” Augustine
apologizes for his discussion of sexual matters, afraid that even in a
religious context, talking about such things will excite the reader’s passions
(City 14.17-26).
·
In later years he had to
defend marital relations more strongly in response to the asceticism of the
Manicheans (3rd century dualistic religion from
·
God designed sex in
marriage for procreation. Birth control or “unnatural” forms of sex are not
permissible as this attempts to defeat God’s purpose. “Intercourse that goes
beyond the necessity [of procreation] no longer obeys reason but passion.” Sex
for pleasure in marriage gives into lust and is a venial sin (pardonable),
whereas adultery is a mortal sin. Pleasurable sex in marriage is permitted, but
only to protect the relationship from the temptation of adultery. Complete
chastity is the best way; yet Augustine warns virgins not to think themselves superior
to the married (The Good of Marriage
6, 10).
·
Sexual ust “takes such
complete and passionate possession of the whole person, both physically and
emotionally, that what results is the keenest of all pleasures on the level of
sensation; and at the crisis of excitement, it practically paralyzes all power
of deliberate thought. This is so true that it creates a problem for every
lover of wisdom and holy joys who is both committed to a married life and also
conscious of the apostolic ideal, that every one should ‘learn how to possess
his body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles
who do not know God’ [1 Thess 4:4]. Any such person would prefer, if this were
possible, to beget children without suffering this passion. He could wish that
… the organs of parenthood might function in obedience to the will and not be
excited by the ardors of lust” (City
14.16).
·
Eve was deceived into
thinking that her disobedience was for her good. Adam was not deceived but
sinned knowingly, choosing to remain with his mate and not be separated from
her in her punishment. Their sin, seemingly insignificant, was all the more
greater a rebellion because before the fall it was so easy for them to obey. An
act of will occurred before the sinful behavior. Satan would not have tempted
either if they had not already begun to seek satisfaction in themselves rather
than in God. “Whoever seeks to become more than he is becomes less.” (City 14.1
·
Whereas earlier theologians
had placed emphasis on the evil powers outside man (demons), Augustine focused
on the inward problem: “The Devil is not to be blamed for everything; there are
times when a man is his own devil” (in Peter Brown
·
Augustine explains that
Satan was not physically present in the garden, being a place of complete
blessedness, but this story personifies the thoughts in Eve’s mind which
tempted her (Genesis contra Mani
2.14.20).
·
“It is an error to conclude
that all the evils of the soul proceed from the body …. The corruption of the
body, which is a burden on the soul [Wisd. 9:15], is not the cause but the
punishment of Adam’s first sin. … It was the sinful soul that made the flesh
corruptible” (City 14.3). Satan has
all kinds of vices but has no body/flesh.
·
Although admitting no
certain knowledge from scripture, Augustine thought that souls were not created
at birth, for how would they acquire the taint of Adam’s sin? (Letter 166.10). He also objected to
Origen’s idea that souls were pre-existent (166.15).
Psychology of sin
·
“Our mind cannot be understood,
even by itself, because it is made in God’s image” (Sermons 398.2).
·
In his Confessions (2.4) Augustine obsesses about a childhood prank,
stealing pears from a neighbor’s tree. He did not want the pears (threw them at
pigs) but enjoyed the pleasure of stealing. It was love of sin itself that
caused him to do it.
·
Lust takes many forms other
than just sexual: “But pleasure is preceded by a certain appetite which is felt
in the flesh like a craving, as hunger and thirst and that generative appetite
which is most commonly identified with the name ‘lust,’ though this is the
generic word for all desires”: lust of revenge; lust of money, lust of
conquering, lust of applause, lust of ruling (City 14.15).
·
Three main forms of sin:
lust for things (covetousness), lust for power, and sexual lust.
·
At birth we exhibit our
self-centeredness by crying for attention, demanding that our parents take care
of our needs immediately. “Who brings to my remembrance the sin of my infancy?
For before You none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a
day upon the earth.” Babies are weak in physical strength but not in will (Confessions 1.11).
·
Sin can corrupt even good
works if we perform them out of pride or for recognition. “Faithfully
interrogate your own souls, whether you have not been unduly puffed up by your
integrity, and continence, and chastity; and whether you have not been so
desirous of the human praise that is accorded to these virtues, that you have
envied some who possessed them” (City
1.28; 5.13).
·
“But whatever is done
either through fear of punishment or from some other carnal motive, and has not
for its principle that love which the Spirit of God sheds abroad in the heart,
is not done as it ought to be done, however it may appear to men” (Enchiridion 121). “It is useless for
anyone to think that he has triumphed over sin when he refrains for fear of
punishment, because even though the impulse of the evil passion has not
resulted in outward action, the evil passion is still the enemy within. … A man
is an enemy of righteousness who refrains from sin only through fear of
punishment” and would prefer that the threat of punishment be removed so that
he might sin. True obedience loves the right way because it is right, and hates
sin even if it were not punished. “He who fears hell does not fear to sin; he
fears to burn” (Letter 145.4).
·
“The rule of sin is the
force of habit, by which the mind is swept along and held fast even against its
will, yet deservedly, because it fell into the habit of its own accord” (Confessions 8.5).
·
“Whence is this monstrous
thing? What causes it? The mind commands the body, and it obeys at once; the
mind commands itself, and is resisted. … The mind orders itself to make an act
of will, and it would not give this order unless it willed to do so; yet it
does not carry out its own command” (Confessions
8.9).
·
In his early days,
Augustine prayed, “‘Give me chastity – but not yet.’ For I was afraid that you
would answer my prayer at once and cure me too soon of the disease of lust, which
I wanted satisfied, not quelled” (Confessions
8.7). He depicts his old temptations as calling to him, “Are you getting rid of
us?” (8.11)
·
“For it is you, Lord, who
judge me; for although no ‘man knows the things of a man except the spirit of
man which is in him’ [1 Cor 2:11], yet there
are some things in a man which even his own spirit does not know. But You,
Lord, know all there is to know of him, because you made him” (Confessions 10.5).
Theodicy (reconciling the
justice of God and the reality of evil):
·
Evil as the corruption of good: God is never to be blamed for any defects that offend us,
but should ever be praised for all the goodness we see in the natures He has
made. For God is absolute Being, and therefore all other beings are made by
Him. No being that was made from nothing could be perfect, on par with God, not
could it ever be at all, were it not
made by Him. Anything created is subject
to change; only God is unchangeable (City
12.5). There is only one good in itself, which is God, the Author of Being.
Anything else is good only by participating in God. Since everything else is
mutable, it can fall away from the good.
·
If the entire creation is
good, evil is the corruption or misuse of something good, a falling away from
its created design and purpose (City
14.3). In his early work on Free Will,
he explains that the human will sins when it turns away from the Supreme Good
and turns toward its own private good. What causes the will to want to sin?
Augustine says the origin of sin forever lies hidden within the mystery of
human freedom (John Hick, Evil and the
God of Love, 1966, 1978, 60-1).
·
Evil is the absence of
good, as sickness is the absence of health (influence of Neo-Platonism). “There
can be no evil where there is no good. … Nothing evil exists in itself, but
only as an evil aspect of something good” (Enchiridion
4.13-14; cf. Confessions 7.12).
·
Bringing good from evil: “By his
omniscience, God could foresee two future realities: how bad man, whom God
created good, was to become, and how much good God was to make out of this very
evil.” (City 14.11)
·
“God judged it better to
bring good out of evil than to allow no evil to exist” (Enchiridion 27).
·
“God would never have
created any angel or man whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had
equally known to what uses for good He could turn him, thus embellishing the
course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses. For
what are called antitheses are among the most elegant of the ornaments of
speech. … As, then, these oppositions of contraries lend beauty to the
language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the
opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words,
but of things. This is quite plainly stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in
this way: ‘Good is set against evil, and life against death: so is the sinner
against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are
two and two, one against another’” (City
11.18).
·
“For while the Lord, by His
servants, overthrows the kingdoms of error, His will concerning erring men, as
far as they are men, is that they should be amended rather than destroyed. And
in every case where, previous to the final judgment, God inflicts punishment,
whether through the wicked or the righteous, whether through the unintelligent
or through the intelligent, whether in secret or openly, we must believe that
the designed effect is the healing of men, and not their ruin; while there is a
preparation for the final doom in the case of those who reject the means of
recovery” (Against the Fundamental
Epistle of Manichaeus 1).
·
Plenitude of creation (the aesthetic argument): God designed nature to fill every level of Being, from the
highest rank to the lowest: spiritual creatures (angels and humans) above
non-spiritual, sentient (animals) above non-sentient (plants), living above
non-living (rocks, etc). Everything has its place in the great chain of being.
Augustine adapted this idea from Plato.
·
Unlike in Gnosticism and
its later version Manichaeism, Augustine teaches the whole creation is good.
The lowest level of being in God’s creation is still good. An inferior creature
is not evil but of lesser good.
·
In his design there is a
place for every natural thing, predator and prey, natural disasters, etc. If we
cannot see the beauty of this design, it is because we are too enmeshed in our
own troubles to appreciate the whole. “As it is beyond our comprehension to
understand the providence of God, we are rightly commanded to have faith rather
than allow the rashness of human vanity to criticize even the smallest detail
in the masterpiece of our Creator.” (City
1
·
Why did God create so many
pernicious animals? To one unfamiliar with the craft, the tools in the
artisan’s shop appear useless, but the artisan knows their use and value to his
purposes (Gen contra Mani 1.16.25).
·
“Therefore it is not with
respect to our convenience or discomfort, but with respect to their own nature,
that the creatures are glorifying to their Creator. …For what is more beautiful
than fire flaming, blazing, and shining? What more useful than fire for
warming, restoring, cooking, though nothing is more destructive than fire
burning and consuming? The same thing, then, when applied in one way, is
destructive, but when applied suitably, is most beneficial. …We must not
listen, then, to those who praise the light of fire but find fault with its
heat, judging it not by its nature, but by their convenience or discomfort. For
they wish to see, but not to be burnt. But they forget that this very light
which is so pleasant to them, disagrees with and hurts weak eyes; and in that
heat which is disagreeable to them, some animals find the most suitable
conditions of a healthy life.” (City
12.4)
Donatists
·
After many Christians fell away
during Diocletian’s persecution, Donatus led a split from the main church,
insisting on clergy that had not betrayed the faith (similar to Novatian in the
3rd c). Sacraments performed by unfaithful clergy were not valid;
they insisted on rebaptizing. (Laws against Donatists’ rebaptism were used
against Anabaptists centuries later.)
·
Donatists at times
outnumbered Catholics in North Africa, and unfortunately the conflict became
violent on both sides. Each claimed to be the only true church.
·
After losing appeals to the
emperor over loss of church property, the Donatists rejected imperial authority
over the church: “What does the Emperor have to do with the church?” (Optatus, Schis. Don. 3.3). Many of their members
were from the lower classes, heavily taxed by the empire. Donatists resented
the tax exemptions given to Catholic clergy, and thought that the church had
more than its share of wealth and privileges. Augustine defended himself
against accusations of covetousness and mismanagement of church funds (Letter 126.8). Donatists claimed that
the devil had rewarded those who lapsed (Catholic clergy) with imperial favor
and wealth, and accused them of wanting to save their riches rather than their
souls (Aug. Answer to Petilianus
2.99.225).
·
Donatists gained a
reputation for being social dissidents. Augustine writes: “Unity
is shunned and peasants are emboldened to rise against their landlords. Runaway
slaves, in defiance of apostolic discipline, are encouraged to desert and even
threaten their masters” (Letter
108.18). Under the laws of Christian emperors, “the doctrine of the
peace and unity of Christ was beginning by degrees to gain ground,” but bands
of radical Donatists (Circumcellions) “disturbed the peace of the innocent in
the spirit of reckless madness.” Master lived in fear of servants who became
Donatists, fearing violent reprisals if they punished them. “Under fear of
clubs and fires and instant death, the records of worthless slaves were torn up
so that they could go free” (Letter
185.15). Catholic reaction to Donatist extremists led to an even greater
alignment of the church with the powerful state (Gonzalez, Faith and Wealth 161).
·
Augustine is the first
theologian to approve of the state’s coercion of non-Catholics by confiscating
property (quoting Ecclus 10:19, “Therefore the just took the spoils of the
wicked”), assessing fines, and enforcing exile. He admitted that coercion was a
last resort but sometimes necessary: “Does anyone doubt that it is better for
man to be led to the worship of God by teaching rather than forced to it by
fear of suffering? … but a hard-hearted slave will not be corrected by words. …
‘Beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from death’ [Prov 23:14].” Paul
himself was “compelled” to believe in Christ; Jesus’ parable urged that people
be compelled to come to his feast (Luke 14). “Why then should the church not
compel her lost sons to return if the lost sons have compelled others to be
lost?” (185.21-23, 37).
·
Donatists argued for
religious freedom from the state religion, saying coerced faith was no faith at
all. Some Donatists committed suicide to avoid being forced into the Catholic
church. They would disrupt pagan ceremonies to stir up the mob to kill them
(185.12).
·
Augustine did try to make
peace with the Donatists, accepting their bishops back to the church; he was
willing to alternate services with the Donatist bishop at Hippo. When laws were
passed against them, he encouraged his people not to brag like victors (Letter 78.8). He considered Donatist
baptism valid, being the mark of the Lord and not the baptizer, and did not
require anyone to be rebaptized as a Catholic (Letter 185.23, 43). Whenever the Catholics took back church property
from the Donatists, they would take responsibility for all the poor that the Donatists
had cared for previously (Letter
185.36).
·
Quotes Cyprian: “There is
no salvation outside the church” (On
Baptism vs. Donatists 4.17). Also by Cyprian: “He will not have God as his
father who does not wish to have the church as his mother” (Answer to Petilianus 3.9).
·
In his arguments with the
Donatists, Augustine defined four marks of the church: unity, holiness,
catholicity (universality), apostolicity. The holiness of the true church is
not found in its members or leaders but in the holiness of grace dispensed in
its sacraments. The church could not claim to be sinless, based on 1 John
1:8-9.
·
Against the Donatists’ idea
that the church must be perfectly pure to be the true church, he argued that
the visible church in this age will never be perfect, and is not equivalent to
the eternal City of God, as there are many within the church who are not of the
elect: “from the Church those reapers shall gather out the tares which He
suffered to grow with the wheat until the harvest” (City 20.9). “Do not be surprised at the large number of bad
Christians who fill the church … They can exist along with us in the church of
this time, but they will not remain in that assembly of saints after the
resurrection” (Sermon 223). “There
are some also who as yet live wickedly, or even lie in heresies or the
superstitions of the Gentiles, and yet even then the Lord knows them that are
His. For, in that unspeakable foreknowledge of God, many who seem to be without
are in reality within, and many who seem to be within yet really are without” (On Baptism vs. Donatists 27). “How many
sheep are outside, how many wolves within!” (Tract. John 45.12)
·
Augustine feared that since
the legalization of Christianity, many had been baptized for reasons other than
faith, such as social benefits, reputation, political favors by powerful
bishops: “For whence exist in the Church the great evils under which we groan,
save from the impossibility of withstanding the enormous multitude that, almost
to the entire subversion of discipline, gain an entrance, with their morals so
utterly at variance with the pathway of the saints?” (Tract John 122.7)
·
Some Donatists asked, “If
we have sinned against the Holy Spirit by casting scorn on your baptism, what
use is it for you to seek us, when it is impossible for this sin to be
forgiven?” Augustine answered that the unforgivable sin against the Spirit is
rejection of the Spirit’s testimony about Christ (Letter 185.48-9).
Government
·
The sacking of
·
Augustine wrote The City of God in answer. God is
independent of human history and the rise and fall of nations. The church
should never identify itself with the prevailing culture. The Christian has a
higher allegiance than any state. The city of
·
Augustine (following
Ambrose) introduces the concept of the just war (now that the church and state
are aligned). Wickedness must be restrained, by force if necessary, and the
sword of the earthly ruler is divinely sanctioned. Prior to Augustine, no major
writers condone a Christian killing in war; soldiers who converted were told to
disobey their commanders rather than kill. No one who was a Christian already
could enlist in the army.
·
Not only are our eternal
lives predestined, but God determines our place and fortune in society (Sermon
125.5). He appoints rulers both good and wicked, but always justly and for the
proper reason; some people deserve a cruel king (City 4.33). “The cause, then, of the greatness of the
·
“By what right does every
man possess what he possesses? Is it not by human right? For by divine right,
‘The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.’ The poor and the rich God
made of one clay; the same earth supports alike the poor and the rich. By human
right, however, one says, This estate is mine, this house is mine, this servant
is mine. By human right, therefore, is by right of the emperors. Why so?
Because God has distributed to mankind these very human rights through the
emperors and kings of this world” (Tract
John 6.25).
·
“For even they who
intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living have no hatred of
peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits them better. … even
wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that,
if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but
one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace
with him! It is thus that pride in its perversity apes God. It
abhors equality with other men under Him; but, instead of His rule, it seeks to
impose a rule of its own upon its equals. It abhors, that is to say, the
just peace of God, and loves its own unjust peace; but it cannot help loving
peace of one kind or other” (City
19.12).
Christian Life
·
“It is a lie not to live as
a man was created to live.” Man desires happiness even when he lives in such a
way as to make happiness impossible. When we sin, we seek our own happiness,
not realizing that true happiness can be found only in pleasing God (City 14.4). “Because you made us for
yourself, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you” (Confessions 1.1).
·
“In this life you cannot be
happy; not one can. You seek what is good, but earth is not the source of that
which you seek” (Sermon 231).
·
“How many necessities of
strife there are on every side! Very often one is overcome with weariness, and
says to himself, … ‘I have no peace [with others]; … what business is it of
mine to endure this? Let me return to myself…’ Do return to yourself, you find
strife there. … The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh” (Tract John 34.10). “Whoever
hopes for [peace] in this world, his wisdom is but folly” (City 17.13).
·
“Quite exceptional are
those who are not punished in this life, but only afterwards. … the very
life we mortals lead is itself all punishment, for it is all temptation, as the
Scriptures declare, where it is written, ‘Is not the life of man upon earth a
temptation?’ [Job 7:1] … Our infancy, indeed, introducing us to this life not
with laughter but with tears, seems unconsciously to predict the ills we are to
encounter” (City 21.14).
·
“If the things of this
world delight you, praise God but turn your love away from them and give it to
their Maker, so that in the things that please you, you will not displease Him.
…The good things you love are from God, but they are good only as long as they
are used to do his will” (Confessions
4.12).
·
“No man should be so
committed to contemplation as to give no thought to his neighbor’s needs, nor
absorbed in action as to dispense with the contemplation of God” (City 19.19).
·
Unlike other vices which
manifest themselves in sinful acts, pride can corrupt even our good deeds, if
we act in order to receive praise or fame.
·
“He that is good is free,
though he be a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king” (City 4).
·
“Do not grow weary; do not
look back. Your Lord’s promise is true when he says, ‘Whoever perseveres to the
end shall be saved.’ You answer, ‘I notice that the one who lives an evil life
is fortunate.’ You are mistaken; he is unfortunate, and more so to the very
degree in which he seems to you to be more fortunate. His is an insanity which
does not recognize his own misery … [like] a man with a high fever laughing” (Sermon 250).
·
“We should never undertake the task of chiding
another’s sin unless, cross-examining our own conscience, we can assure
ourselves before God that we are acting from love. If reproaches or threats or
injuries, voiced by the one you are calling to account, have wounded your
spirit, then for that person to be healed by you, you must not speak until you
are healed yourself, lest you act from worldly motives to hurt, and make your
tongue a sinful weapon against evil, returning wrong for wrong. Whatever you
speak out of a wounded spirit is the wrath of an avenger, not the love of an
instructor” (Galatians Comm 57).
·
“The beauty which flows
through men’s minds into their skillful hands comes from that Beauty which is
above their souls and for which my soul sighs day and night.” Yet Augustine
feels guilty for appreciating music even in hymns: “Sometimes I feel that I
treat [music] with more honor than it deserves. I realize that when they are
sung, these sacred words stir my mind to greater religious fervor and kindle in
me a more ardent flame of piety than they would if they were not sung … but I
ought not to allow my mind to be paralyzed by the gratification of my senses,
which often leads me astray. … When I find the singing itself more moving than
the truth which it conveys, I confess it a grievous sin” (Confessions 10.34, 33).
On Wealth
· “Not money in a rich man but covetousness is condemned” (En Ps 52.10). “’Perhaps,’ [the rich] would say, ‘You call him covetous and greedy who seeks another's goods,’ but I say, seek not even your own greedily or covetously” (Sermon 107.4).
·
If you call your
possessions your “riches,” you will love them and will perish with them (Sermon 113.4).
·
“[Paul said,] ‘Let them be
rich in good works, let them easily distribute, let them share’ [1 Tim 6:18].
Must [the rich] then lose all they have? He said, ‘Let them share,’ not ‘Let
them give the whole.’ Let them keep for themselves as much as is sufficient for
them, let them keep more than is sufficient. Let us give a certain portion of
it. What portion? A tenth? The Scribes and Pharisees gave tithes. … And yet I
am not finding fault with this; do even this. So hungry and thirsty am I, that
I am glad even of these crumbs. But yet I cannot keep back what He who died for
us said while He was alive: ‘Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness
of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ He
does not deal softly with us; for He is a physician, He cuts to the quick. The
Scribes and Pharisees gave a tenth. How is it with you? Ask yourselves.
Consider what you do, and with what means you do it; how much you give, how
much you leave for yourselves; what you spend on mercy, what you reserve for
luxury. … Seek only for sufficiency, seek for what is enough; and do not wish
for more. All the rest is a weight, rather than a help” (Sermon 85.4-6; cf. En Ps
147).
·
What God has given you in
abundance beyond your needs belongs to the poor; to keep it is theft (Sermon 206.2). "From those things
that God gave you, take that which you need, but the rest, which to you are
superfluous, are necessary to others. The superfluous goods of the rich are
necessary to the poor, and when you possess the superfluous you possess what is
not yours" (En Ps 147.12).
·
“The Lord made the rich so
they could find help in the poor, and the poor to test the rich” (Sermon 39.6). The poor help the rich by
alleviating their burden of riches which impedes their progress to heaven;
poverty itself is burden as well, so both burdens are shared (Sermon 61.12, 164.9)
·
“But you [the rich] will
say, ‘I give costly banquets, I feed on rich meats.’ But the poor man, what
does he feed on? On cheap food …. Well, I ask you, when you both are filled, and
the rich food is inside you, what does it become? If we had but looking-glasses
within us, should we not be put to shame for all the costly meat whereby we
have been filled? [implying both rich and cheap food become the same waste] …
But you will say, ‘I relish better my costly food.’ True, and it is hard for you
to be satisfied, dainty as you are. You know not the relish which hunger
seasons. Not that I have said this to force the rich to feed on the meat and
drink of the poor. Let the rich use what their infirmity has accustomed them
to; but let them be sorry that they are not able to do otherwise” (Sermon 61.12).
·
Giving is a way to do penance
for minor sins after baptism, unless one uses giving as an excuse to sin: “For
they would thus be driven to acknowledge that it were possible for a very
wealthy man to buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and all manner of
wickedness, by paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins. … They suppose
that by giving to the poor a small fraction of the wealth they acquire by
extortion and spoliation they can propitiate Christ, so that they may with
impunity commit the most damnable sins, in the persuasion that they have bought
from Him a license to transgress” (City
21.27.2).
Eschatology
·
Intermediate state: “In
this intermediate period between the putting off and the taking again of the
body, the souls are either tormented or they are in repose, according to those
things which they have done during the period of the bodily life” (On Predestination 24). “During the time
which intervenes between a man's death and the final resurrection, the soul
dwells in a hidden retreat, where it enjoys rest or suffers affliction just in
proportion to the merit it has earned by the life which it led on earth” (Enchiridion 109).
·
Rejecting the “gross dreams
of carnal indulgence” in the millennium, Augustine proposed that the 1000 years
symbolically represents the entire church age, “employing the number of
perfection to mark the fullness of time.” The “first resurrection” in Rev
·
Augustine discourages
looking for signs of the End, as most passages people use refer to other
events. He agrees with contemporary interpretation (by whom?) of the 70 weeks
in Daniel predicting the first coming of Christ, not the End (Letter 199.21).
·
Luke 21 makes clear with
its reference to “armies surrounding the city” that the Abomination in Matt 24
/ Mark 13 refers to the siege of
·
Christians should not look
for signs of the End in present troubles of
·
Augustine accepts the Greek
concept of the immortal soul, but also challenges Platonists in insisting that
the body will be resurrected and made immortal as well (City 13.18, 24). He describes eternal damnation in Platonic terms:
“not that death which releases the soul from the body, but that in which the
soul will burn forever” (Sermon 224).
[Jesus said, body and soul are destroyed in hell]
·
He speculates that the
resurrection body will be recreated with all our organs, even genitalia no
longer needed for procreation; but they will be glorified, no longer shameful (Sermon 243).
·
“Now it was expedient that
man should be at first so created, as to have it in his power both to will what
was right and to will what was wrong … But in the future life it shall not be
in his power to will evil; and yet this will constitute no restriction on the
freedom of his will. On the contrary, his will shall be much freer when it
shall be wholly impossible for him to be the slave of sin. We should never
think of blaming the will, or saying that it was no will, or that it was not to
be called free, when we so desire happiness, that not only do we shrink from
misery, but find it utterly impossible to do otherwise” (Enchiridion 105).
·
He condemned Origen’s idea
that the wicked and even Satan would someday be purged of their evil and
brought into the presence of God (City
21.27).
Mary
·
Mary remained a virgin,
even through Jesus’ birth; if the risen Christ could walk through closed doors,
then he could be born without violating her virginity (Sermon 191.1; 247).
·
Augustine agreed with
Pelagius on one point, that Mary was sinless, not by her own will but by God’s
grace: “We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no
question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for
from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular
was conferred upon her” (Nature and Grace
42).
·
“We do not subject Mary to
the devil because of the condition of her birth, but the reason that we do not
is that the condition itself is cancelled by the grace of rebirth.” Mary is
saved like everyone else, by rebirth in Christ, not an immaculate conception,
an idea which developed later (Incomplete
work against Julian 4.122).
Other thoughts:
·
“Miracles have not been
allowed to stretch into our time, or the soul would always be looking for
sensations, and the human race would grow jaded with their continual
occurrence” (True Religion 47). But
see Confessions 9.7 where he reports
miraculous healings for those who came near the bodies of martyrs.
·
Explaining disagreements
between the Hebrew and Greek translation of OT (Septuagint), he says that the
70 translators were also inspired, sometimes to write different ideas from the
original texts. (City 18.43)
·
Concerning the reading of
Genesis, Augustine admits that there are many possible interpretations of
scripture, “flowing out in many streams from the one source of truth.” We
cannot know for certain what was in the mind of Moses when he wrote these
words. We can assert the truth of scripture while at the same time admitting
that getting at this truth is often difficult. He rebukes those who are all too
sure of their own interpretations: “They have no knowledge of the thoughts of
[Moses’] mind, but they are in love with their own opinions. … When so many
meanings, all of them acceptable as true, can be extracted from the words that
Moses wrote, do you not see how foolish it is to make a bold assertion that one
meaning in particular is the one he had in mind?” (Confessions 12.23-7)
·
Why do children suffer and
die? God in his wisdom may use their deaths to bring about repentance in their
parents. “Who knows what reward, in the secret of his judgments, God has in
store for these little ones whose sufferings serve to break down the hardness
of their elders?” (Letter 166.18).
·
Use of allegory: In John
21, Jesus tells the disciples to cast for fish and they catch 153. The two
boats represent the Jews and Gentiles. Unlike earlier (Luke 5) he does not say
cast to the right (the good people) or left (the wicked), but just cast, so
that both good and bad are caught up in the nets (the church). There are so
many wicked people in the church, their weight drags down the rest. As for 153,
add the ten commandments to the seven operations of the Spirit (Isa 11:2-3),
needed to obey the commandments, to get 17. Add the numbers 1 through 17
together to get 153 (Sermon 249).
Leo the Great (440-461 as
pope) finally established the bishop of
Major
Sources:
Davies, J. G. The Early Christian Church: A History of its
First Five Centuries. 1965.
Hinson, E. Glenn. The Early Church. 1996.
Jefford, Clayton. Reading
the Apostolic Fathers. 1996.
Kelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Doctrines. 1978.
Larson, John. A
Theological and Historical Introduction to the Apostolic Fathers. 1961.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity. 1953.
Placher, William. A History of Christian Theology. 1983.
Gnostic texts (The Gnostic Bible, edited by
Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, 2003)
Gospel of Thomas (first mentioned by Hippolytus, 220s; discovered at Nag
Hammadi, 1945): 114 sayings without context thus hard to interpret, 50 are the
same as in the gospels. Supposedly recorded by Judas Thomas the twin brother of
Jesus (1).
·
When you understand
yourselves you will be understood. And you will realize that you are Sons of
the Living Father (3).
·
His disciples said to him,
“Show us the place you are, for it is essential for us to seek it.” He
responded, “He who has ears let him hear. There is light within a man of light,
and he lights up all the world. If he is not alight there is darkness”
(24)
·
When you give rise to that
which is within you, what you have will save you. (70)
·
[truth lies not with Jesus
but within ourselves; commentator says, “Jesus is God in the same way that we
all are God”]
·
If you fast you will bring
sin to yourselves, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you give to charity
you will damage your spirits. (14)
·
His disciples asked him,
“If we are infants, will we enter the kingdom?” Jesus responded, “When you make
the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside
like the inside, and the upper like the lower, and thus make the male and the
female the same, so that the male isn’t male and the female isn’t female, when
you make an eye to replace and eye, and a hand to replace a hand, and a foot a
foot, and an image to replace an image, then you will enter the kingdom. (
·
Split wood and I am there.
Lift up a rock you will find me there.” (77)
·
Jesus said, "When you
see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and
worship him. That one is your father." (15) [Jesus not truly born in the flesh]
·
Simon Peter said to them,
“Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus said, “I myself
shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living
spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will
enter the kingdom of heaven.” (114) [considered inauthentic, no reason, just
doesn’t fit PC presuppositions]
Apocryphon of John (Oxyrhynchus, and three copies in Nag Hammadi), Hypostasis of the Archons
·
Some Gnostic sects believed
they were the descendants of Seth, depicted not just as human but as a
pre-existing spiritual being, as was the “heavenly Adam.” Seth transmitted the
truth to his descendants. This knowledge is salvation. Jesus is a
representative of Seth.
·
For Sethians, the Supreme
Being was the Father, the Invisible Spirit, the One (Monad), Indescribable: “Do
not consider him a god or something like a god, because he is so much more than
a god.”
·
The Mother was Barbelo, the
Spirit’s first thought, “the womb of everything.” These two conceived the Son,
the divine Autogenes. These three created further generations of aeons,
Foreknowledge, Indestructibility, Eternal Life, Truth, etc.
·
The aeon Sophia (wisdom)
“wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself, without her partner, without
the consent of the Spirit, who had not given approval.” She gave birth and
“something came out of her that was imperfect and different in appearance … it
was misshapen,” looking like a lion-faced serpent. Sophia later repents of her
independent action.
·
This being is the demiurge
who created this imperfect world, known as the first archon, Yaldabaoth (the
Arrogant One), Nebro (rebel), Saklas (fool), or Samael (blind one). Ignorant of
the Supreme One, Yaldabaoth proclaims, “There are no other gods beside me.” He
creates further archons numbering 365. These beings are supposedly the rulers
and spiritual forces of evil that Paul mentions in Eph 6:12.
·
Seeing an image of the
Supreme One in the primordial waters above (firmament) and mistaking it for himself,
Yaldabaoth creates man in “his image.” The chief archon could only give Adam a
soul (life-force?), which left him crawling on the ground like an animal, but
God secretly grants him a spirit, the divine spark which reminds the
knowledgeable (Gnostics) of their true origins. Recognizing that man is a
superior being to his creators, the archons mix fire, earth, water, and wind to
create Adam’s mortal flesh, “the tomb of the newly formed body … the bond of
forgetfulness,” which places him under the “shadow of death.” In this material
form he forgets his true nature as a spiritual being, or as the writer says, he
forgets his root.
·
In The Apocryphon of John, the Savior (Jesus the speaker of the
revelation) says that the serpent tempted Adam and Eve with the wickedness of
begetting and lust. But Jesus appears as an eagle on the tree of knowledge “to
awaken them out of the depths of sleep” and revealed to them their true nature,
at which point Yaldabaoth banishes the couple from the garden. Then Yaldabaoth seduces
Eve and begets Eloim and Yave (OT names of God), but calls them Cain and Abel
in order to deceive. Thus Seth is the first true son of Adam. “Now up to this
day, sexual intercourse continues because of the chief Archon, and he planted
sexual desire in her … and inspired them with a counterfeit spirit.” Yaldabaoth
uses sex to distract humanity from the true spiritual nature (John). (In Archons Eve tricks the archons and turns into a tree.)
·
In Archons, Yaldabaoth and his minions forbid Adam and Eve to eat of
the tree, because it would illuminate them with the true knowledge of their
spiritual nature, not bound by the material. The “female spiritual principle”
from the Supreme One enters the serpent, called the “instructor,” who
encourages them to eat. “These beings that possessed only a soul ate. And their
imperfection [as material beings] became apparent … and they recognized they
were naked of the spiritual element.” Yaldabaoth expels them from the garden,
throwing “humanity into great distraction and into a life of toil so that they
might be occupied with worldly affairs and might not devote themselves to the
spirit.” (Archons 90-1)
·
At the conclusion of Archons, instead of Seth, Eve’s virgin
daughter Norea receives the divine knowledge, “who will assist many generations
of humanity.” She hears a prophecy of “the true man within a modeled form” who
will reveal the existence of the spirit of truth which the Father has sent.
·
The text On the Origins of the World describes
how Sophia’s daughter Zoe appears as Eve to give life to Adam. The archons fool
him into thinking that she came from his rib during sleep.
The Second Treatise of the
Great Seth (Nag Hammadi)
·
Jesus speaks as the
representative of the Great Seth.
·
Jesus says he came into the
world and was hated not only by the ignorant but by those who claim the name of
Christ (the orthodox church), proclaiming the doctrine of a dead man. They
persecute those who have been liberated by him (the Gnostics). (59-60)
·
“I was not afflicted at
all. I did not die in reality but in appearance … it was another who drank the
gall and the vinegar … it was another, Simon, who bore the cross … I was
laughing at their ignorance.” (55-56)
·
Jesus ridicules OT figures
as “laughingstocks”: Adam was a counterfeit man, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were
counterfeit fathers, Moses, David, prophets all counterfeits because they
served a counterfeit god. “None of them knew me.”
Gospel of Judas (mentioned by Irenaeus 180; late 3rd c mss
discovered in 1970s, reconstructed and translated 2006)
·
“The secret account of the
revelation that Jesus spoke to Judas Iscariot during the week before
celebrating Passover.”
·
Jesus laughs at the other
disciples as they practice Jewish worship, saying “your god will be praised.” They claim Jesus is the “son of our god” but he says “no one of this
generation (i.e. the unenlightened, the unspiritual) knows me.” When they
become angry with him, he says, “Your
god has provoked you.”
·
Judas gives “the great
confession” that “You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo.” In Gnostic texts
Barbelo is the divine Mother of all, said to be the Forethought of the Infinite
One.
·
When Judas says this, Jesus
asks him to step aside from the others in order to reveal the mysteries of the
kingdom. Jesus tells him, “It is possible for you to reach it, but you will
grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you in order that the twelve
many again come to completion with their
god.”
·
The other disciples have a
vision of priests in the temple, who sacrifice their wives and children and are
homosexuals. Jesus reveals that the vision is actually about themselves, and
how they will lead many astray in his name.
·
Each person has his own
guiding star (neo-platonic influence).
·
Judas has a vision of being
persecuted by the other disciples. Jesus calls him the thirteenth spirit, “you
will be cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them.”
·
Jesus tells him of many
generations of divine beings, such as the Self-Generated / Self-Begotten
(Autogenes), in Gnostic texts often called the first child of God, who calls
other beings into existence, 12 aeons and 360 luminaries, etc. In a fragment of
the manuscript, Jesus mentions the “corruptible Sophia” (see Apocryphon of
John).
·
Michael gave temporary
spirits (life-force?) to most people as a loan “so that they might offer
service” but the Great One ordered Gabriel to grant spirits to the great
generation (i.e. Gnostics) with no ruler over it. The text is corrupt but the
implication seems to be these latter spirits are immortal.
·
Jesus tells Judas, “You
will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes [bears]
me.” By betraying Jesus, he will help to sacrifice the fleshly body that
contains the true spiritual self.
·
The book ends with Judas’
betrayal and taking money from the priests. The crucifixion is assumed, and no
resurrection mentioned, as resuming a bodily form would be a defeat in Gnostic
thinking.
·
In Against Heresies, Irenaeus describes the Cainites (probably not what they called themselves) who
venerated those who rebelled against the creator god: Cain, Esau, Korah, the
people of
Gospel of Mary Magdalene: 5th c manuscript discovered in 1896 (along with
Apocryphon of John, Sophia of Jesus, Acts
of Peter), later fragments from 3rd c. (Oxyrhynchus); about half
of the text is missing. Presents a dialogue with Jesus, the disciples and Mary
after his resurrection.
·
Jesus says “there is no
such thing as sin,” implying in context that deeds done in the body do not
matter; only the soul matters. All matter will dissolve; only the soul
survives. “Sin” is “adultery,” that is, mixing one’s true spiritual nature with
the lower passions of the body; “you love what deceives you.”
·
The Son of Man [PC trans. “child
of true humanity”] exists within you; seek “it” within yourself (not identified
with Jesus).
·
Don’t set laws like a
lawgiver that go beyond my teachings.
·
Mary describes a vision she
had from the Lord, in which seven powers (darkness, desire, ignorance, etc) try
to hold back a disembodied soul from ascending to heaven. The soul describes
the body as a discarded garment; “what binds me has been slain.” Peter and
Andrew reject her message, asking why would Jesus tell such things to a woman?
·
Karen King (Harvard):
“There is no hell and no eternal punishment in the Gospel of Mary’s teachings, for God is not conceived as a wrathful
ruler or judge, but is called simply the Good. Nor is God called Father, for
gender, sexuality and the social roles ascribed to them are part of the lower
material realm. Even the true spiritual nature of human beings is non-gendered,
so that people are truly neither male nor female, but simply Human in
accordance with the Divine Image of the transcendent Good. Moral effort is
centered on inner spiritual transformation, not on sin and judgement. … The
establishment of excessive laws and rules within the Christian community is
understood as a tool for domination.”
Gospel of Philip (from Nag Hammadi, 1945)
·
Claims Mary (Miriam) of Magdala
was Jesus’ wife/companion, and he kissed her often.
·
Ridicules the idea of the
virgin birth: “Whoever heard of a female conceiving by a female [holy spirit]?
… Jesus would not have said “My father in heaven” if he didn’t have another
father [Joseph]” (55).
·
Joseph planted the tree and
made the cross that his son died on (73).
Trimorphic Protennoia (Nag Hammadi)
·
“I am the True voice, I cry
out in everyone, and they recognize the voice since a seed dwells in them.”