Download PDF | Stephen Morris - The Early Eastern Orthodox Church_ A History, AD 60-1453-McFarland & Company (2018).
192 Pages
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the monks, clergy, and layfolk associated with the Russian monastery on East Third Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan who first invited me to teach a year-long course in church history. My notes for that course have become the pages of this book. A dozen of us gathered every week in the chilly refectory downstairs and got to know Ignatius of Antioch, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, and all the others who appear in these pages. I want to thank those monks, clergy, and layfolk for their patience with me and for their comments and their questions. This book would not exist if it had not been for them.
I want to thank John, Tom, Stuart, Jaana, and the others who read either this manuscript or sections of it in order to tell me what was clear, what was unclear, what was confusing, or to exclaim, “How could you have left THAT out?!” Their comments have also made this a better book.
I want to thank Alan Mack, the parish priest who allowed me—then a high-school student in Seattle—to read nearly every book in his library and to fall in love with the study of theology, liturgical practice, and Church history as well as the ways in which these all intersect. May his memory be eternal!
I want to thank Tony Lewis for his friendship and prayers over the years, beginning with those long walks around the Old Campus at Yale to discuss the Big Questions of life.
There are others who have contributed to the development of this project in a variety of ways, both small and large. To them, each too generous and too numerous to mention, I give my thanks as well.
Finally, I want to thank my partner Elliot who endured—quietly for the most part—the transformation of our dining room table into my office as I spread out notecards, books, and papers around my laptop for more than a year. His ongoing support for this—and all my other projects—is truly a reflection of the love of God and means more than I can ever say.
Introduction
“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,” the apostles declared at the conclusion of their council described in Acts 15. This apostolic council was only the first of many councils in the life of the Church as Christians sought to discern the will of God in the midst of historic challenges. Church history is the story of the people of God across time, of his interaction with humanity and human response to him. It begins with the initial act of creation, of God’s saying “Let there be light” on the first day (Sunday), and will only conclude on the Last, Great Day when Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead. In the meantime, the faithful struggle to express that apostolic faith in new words, new languages, new places, new times.
This is the story of that struggle from the days of the New Testament up to the fall of the city of Constantinople (AD 1453). For our purposes, church history more particularly begins with the Ascension of Christ. The Ascension is the last of the resurrection appearances to the apostles on any kind of regular basis and it is the first step of the Christian community on the road leading to the Second Coming of “this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, [and who] will come [again] in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
This book focuses on the story of the Christian community in the eastern Mediterranean which eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire. Much of this story necessarily involves the Christian community in Western Europe. Those who focus on the western Mediterranean area as they tell the story of church history are necessarily interested in what happens in the east as well, especially the record of the seven great ecumenical councils which were all held in Byzantine territory. But many of the great personalities of the eastern Christian world are lost or ignored when church history is told from a Western European perspective. We aim to rediscover those great personalities and the events that they shaped.
Each chapter attempts to tell “who-what-where-when” of particular episodes and then examines the “why,” the theology that was at the heart of the debates and events described. The events and the theology that fueled them are inextricably entwined, as are the personalities of the people involved.
Telling the story of God’s interaction with humanity and the world necessarily involves dates and asking what else was going on in the world at that time. We might suggest that the most significant pre-church history dates to know (in approximate terms) are these:
Creation the foundation of Jericho, one of the first known cities (8000 BC) the Pyramids are built (2500 BC) Abraham (2000 BC) the Exodus from Egypt (1350-1200 Bc) King David (1,000 Bc; also Homer in Greece) the exile to Babylon (600 BC) e Jesus Christ (born approx. 3 BC, due to a calendar miscalculation in the sixth century)
Beginning our exploration of church history with the Ascension and the first generations of Christian experience, we will embark on an examination of apostolic and sub-apostolic Christianity by reviewing questions dealt with in the earliest New Testament writings, church handbooks such as the Didache and the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, and Justin Martyr’s apologetics. We will also see the role of martyrs and martyrdom in the early Christian churches, using the Martyrdom of Polycarp as a guide. Irenaeus of Lyons’ Against Heresies and the theology of recapitulation as well as a brief review of styles of biblical study and interpretation will prepare us for one ongoing theme, that of the conflict between the interpretative styles of Alexandria and Antioch.
Next, we turn to the events of the Great Persecution of Diocletian and the legalization of Christianity by Constantine, followed by examinations of the building projects of the emperor and his mother, the development of monasticism in Egypt under Antony, the conflict with the Donatists in North Africa, and the dispute between Arius and Athanasius. Finally, we will see how the decision of the council at Nicea to endorse the term homoousias engulfed the Christian world.
The chronology of events involving the debates with the Pneumatomachoi and the proclamation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit at the Second Ecumenical Council follow on the heels of the dispute with Arius. We will read about Basil the Great’s life and his On the Holy Spirit as well as selected topics in his Hexameron (Sermons on the Six Days of Creation), some of which are still surprisingly pertinent in today’s world. We will also discover how the theology of Gregory Nazianzus, found in his Theological Orations and selected other writings, was able to contribute to the resolution of the argument with the Pneumatomachoi.
In Chapter 4, we spend some time with John Chrysostom, one of the most famous of the early Christian preachers. We then turn to the preaching of Nestorius and his teaching about Mary, the Mother of God, and the response of Cyril of Alexandria (especially his famous 12 Anathemas) and the events surrounding the third ecumenical council at Ephesus.
The aftermath of the council of Ephesus results in ongoing conflict, leading to the council at Chalcedon which endorses the Tome of Leo and results in schisms that continue to exist in the 21st century. The terminology of hypostasis, prosopon, and physis all will be examined in context and in depth.
Justinian and Theodora’ policies toward the non-Chalcedonian churches will be examined, as well as the liturgical developments (such as the Monogenes and Cherubic hymns) of their reign. The disputes concerning the Theopaschites, Origen, and the Three Chapters with their implications for Christian theology will be important to look at. We will also discover the articulation of the important Eastern Christian idea of the harmony (“symphony”) between civil and religious authority.
Further developments of Christology will be examined in Chapter 7, especially the Monothelite controversy and the response of Maximus the Confessor. We will discover how important the idea of gnomic will and the microcosm/macrocosm nature of humanity is in Maximus’ thought. Political developments in the Byzantine Empire will also be investigated, especially the Persian invasions and the Emperor Heraclius’ restoration of Byzantine power, including the recovery of the relics of the Cross.
Chapters 8 and 9 deal with the appearance of Islam and its significance, leading us into the Iconoclastic attacks on Orthodox practice and the decisions of the seventh ecumenical council (AD 787). We will meet John of Damascus and discuss his On the Holy Icons. Charlemagne’s interaction with the Byzantines and his subsequent claim to imperial authority in Western Europe is also discussed. The second wave of Iconoclasm is described and its resolution with the Triumph of Orthodoxy (AD 843).
The rivalry and divisions between Rome and Constantinople take center stage in Chapter 10. The famous schism in which the Patriarch Photius was a central figure had long-lasting consequences for church unity and policy regarding the importance of the papacy in Rome. At least some leading churchmen have suggested that the resolution of the dispute about Photius could be a model for contemporary ecumenical efforts between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The missionary work of Cyril and Methodius, the expansion of Byzantine Christianity among the Slavs, and the marital problems of Leo VI were not only contributing factors to the division between Rome and Constantinople but helped forge contemporary Orthodox practice regarding missionary work and attitudes toward marriage.
Ongoing divisions between Rome and Constantinople also played a role in Western European military support—or the lack thereof—for the Byzantine efforts to resist the growing Muslim threat. The Crusades, launched to ostensibly protect pilgrims, concluded with the overthrow of Constantinople and the Crusaders’ refusal to acknowledge the Byzantines as fellow Christians. Theological issues—such as the Filioque, the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the growing importance of purgatory and the material nature of hell in Western Christianity—all revealed fault lines in the Eastern and Western approaches to theology and Christian life. These issues also came to signify Byzantine political and military independence from Western Christians.
The conflict over the possibility of actual human contact with divinity was at the heart of the dispute in which Gregory Palamas played a leading role. His efforts to defend the hesychasts resulted in the final Byzantine clarification of the nature of the divine insofar as he clarified the distinction between the unknowable essence of God and the divine energies which can be known and experienced by humans. The Byzantine effort to win Western Christian military aid against the Turks in return for theological and ecclesiastical union—or submission, depending on one’s point of view—failed at the Council of Ferrara-Florence and New Rome fell in AD 1453.
This journey of the People of God through time will involve many disputes and ideas that seem unfamiliar—or even unimportant—to modern readers. Some readers might wonder how such issues could become so divisive in the past. As C.S. Lewis remarked,
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.... We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?”—lies where we have never suspected it.... [Introduction to “On the Incarnation”].
There will be other issues that arose in the past—such as the interaction of science and faith, between divinity and humanity, the relationship between Church and State, how differing religious communities can learn to live together in common geographic areas and political systems—that still seem familiar and pertinent. Some might wish to resolve the discussion of these issues in different ways than they are seen to be resolved in history, but contemporary readers can see the importance of discussing them.
It is with great excitement and a sense of adventure that I invite you, my readers, to join me on this exploration of the People of God as they make their way through time and begin the work of understanding themselves and the God they worship.
Before Nicea
The early Christians took Jesus’ command “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19) very seriously. Almost immediately after the Resurrection, Peter and the other apostles began preaching in Jerusalem that Jesus was the long-expected Messiah and had been raised from the dead. Christian communities sprang up across the Middle East and Asia Minor; it was in Antioch, the capital of Syria, that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians (Acts 11:26).
Missionaries and preachers, such as the Apostle Paul, would often travel to Jewish communities and preach in local synagogues until they and the circle of followers they gathered were expelled by the synagogue officials. Then they would establish distinct Christian communities and begin preaching to the non-Jews as well. Other missionaries went directly to communities that were not Jewish but were familiar in some way with the Old Testament, such as the Apostle Philip who preached to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:27). The Apostle Thomas, who had initially doubted the reports of Jesus’ Resurrection, is said to have preached in India; Mark, having first served as the Apostle Peter’s secretary in Rome, later preached in Egypt; the Apostle Paul intended to preach in Spain one day (Romans 15:24, 28) and might have succeeded; the Apostle James is also said to have preached in Spain. Mary Magdalene reportedly led a group of preachers to Great Britain while the Apostle Jude may have gone to Mesopotamia and the Apostle Simon made his way across North Africa.
Although these later legends claiming apostolic or nearly apostolic origins for Christian communities may not be verifiable as history, they point to the early arrival of Christian preachers and the establishment of Christian communities in far-flung areas across the Roman world and beyond; the record of persecution of Christians across the Roman Empire testifies to the rapid spread of Christianity. Outside the Roman Empire, it was Armenia that embraced Christianity in AD 304 while Georgia (in the Caucasus region where Eastern Europe-Western Asia meet) did so in AD 319 and the kingdom of Aksum (modern Ethiopia) embraced Christianity as the official faith of The Kingdom, in AD 324.
Development of the New Testament
The first written records of this new Christian community on its way through history are the epistles of the New Testament, followed later by the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation. There were many more epistles, gospels, acts, and apocalypses than just the ones we know of today; different Christian communities used a variety of collections of texts that they treasured and read during liturgical celebrations. Differing communities had differing criteria that texts would be measured against; the texts that met these criteria would be preserved and handed on while those that did not would either be ignored and discarded or actively refuted in arguments with other communities that held them to be authoritative.
One of the earliest and simplest of these criteria was the question “Was this text written by an apostle?” Another was “Does this text accord with the other texts that we hold to be authentic witnesses of Christian teaching and experience?” Even these apparently easy questions that seem uncontroversial today received widely different answers in those early days of the Church's experience. For instance, the western (Latin-speaking) Christian insistence that all texts had to be written by an apostle meant that the Epistle to the Hebrews was often rejected by Latin-speaking Christians because of common doubts concerning its Pauline authorship. But that insistence on apostolic authorship meant that the Apocalypse was widely adopted among Latinspeaking Christians because of its early and accepted association with the Apostle John the Divine, the Theologian.
Greek-speaking Christians, however, came to opposite conclusions based on different answers to those questions. Greek-speaking Christians embraced the Epistle to the Hebrews because they saw its liturgical viewpoint and commentary as being at one with the rest of early Christian experience and were happy to acknowledge that it was probably written by either Apollos or even his teacher, Priscilla, rather than the Apostle Paul (Acts 18). But the Apocalypse of John was rejected throughout the early Greek-speaking Christian world, despite its association with John the apostle and evangelist, because it was thought too idiosyncratic and difficult to understand or interpret.
Disputes such as these, involving not only texts but teachings that might or might not be supported by these texts, were based on a series of choices by the early Christian leaders. Some of these choices were, at the time, considered relatively minor or even trivial; others were considered more significant, causing the Greek word heresy, meaning “choice,” to become the label by which all such choices to differ with mainstream Christianity were known. The heresies that early Christians contended with were the choices made by various Christian spokesmen to set themselves up in opposition to other more orthodox (“right-worshipping” or “right-believing”) leaders, such as those described in Titus 3:10 and 2 Peter 2:1.
We can see some of these disputes and choices, these developing heresies, are present already in the New Testament itself, as early Christian writers and communities struggled to understand and live out the implications of what they had experienced of Jesus: Were the followers of Jesus obligated to keep the dietary rules that Jesus lived by (Acts 10 and 15)? Were they obligated to actually convert to Judaism before they were eligible for baptism (Acts 15)? Were they obligated to care for those in the parish (Greek for “community”) who were from other ethnic backgrounds (Acts 6) or social classes (I Cor. 11)? Were they obligated to maintain ties with the original Christian parish in Jerusalem (Acts 8 and 11)?
Church Handbooks and St. Ignatius of Antioch
In the earliest layers of the New Testament itself we can already see the first stages of church organization developing. Bishops (lit. “overseers”) were already serving in each community as authoritative teachers who presided at liturgical celebrations and were responsible for the authenticity of the community’s adherence to Christian faith and practice. The deacons (“servants”) were his assistants, responsible for the social welfare of community members, including insuring the hungry were fed, the sick or imprisoned were visited, the naked clothed, the homeless cared for. The deacons would know who needed to be prayed for because they were aware of the personal needs of the community members. The presbyters (“elders”) were the bishop’s assistants in managing any physical property that the community owned as well as assisting in the preaching and teaching ministries (Acts 15 and I Timothy 5). These roles developed early in the Christian communities; Acts 6 describes the ordination of the first deacons to oversee the Christian soup kitchens and feeding programs. Councils of presbyters or elders oversaw the life of the community; one of these was always the final authority, whether that particular community called the chief presbyter a “bishop” or not (see I Timothy 3).
One source for early Christian thought and practice is the Didache. It survived—but only in one manuscript—because some communities considered it worthy of inclusion in the New Testament. Apparently written in Syria, near Antioch, it is a brief handbook in Greek—only 16 chapters with most chapters only a paragraph or two—of instructions for managing a local Christian community, i.e., a parish church. Scholars continue to debate how early the Didache was written, but most agree it was written during the first century; I agree with those that think it was written before AD 70 since it does not mention the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, an incident that it would be sure to report if it had already occurred since the Didache is especially concerned with distinguishing the authentic faithful from “the hypocrites.” Generally, such church handbooks are thought to reflect practices at least 25-50 years old by the time they are written down; this means the Didache is contemporaneous with much of the New Testament itself.
The first six books of the Didache are a set of instructions and teaching—a catechism—that the catechumens (“those being instructed,” in preparing for baptism; mentioned in Galatians 6:6 as well) should receive during their period of preparation. The catechism outlines the Two Ways which are the Way of Life (behaviors and beliefs that foster love of God and neighbor, such as charitable giving, refraining from anger, embracing humility, forgiving others) and the Way of Death (behaviors and beliefs that lead to spiritual destruction, such as blasphemy, murder, adultery, hypocrisy, jealousy, deceit).
The seventh book of the Didache gives instruction for baptism, preferring the use of living (ie., running) water and that the candidate for baptism ought to fast for a day or two beforehand. Book eight continues with instructions for fasting, presuming that the Christians will all fast twice a week (on Wednesdays and Fridays, unlike the hypocrites—i.e., the Jews—who fast on Mondays and Thursdays) and that the faithful should pray the Our Father thrice daily. Books nine and ten provide the instructions and prayers for the Eucharist.
Itinerant prophets and apostles should be welcomed but sent on their way if they ask for money or stay more than three days (books 11-12). Prophets-in-residence, who are known and trusted, may expect to be supported by donations (book 13). The community ought to celebrate the Eucharist weekly on the Lord’s Day (book 14). Bishops and deacons should be elected by the community; they provide the same ministry as prophets and teachers but in a stable, more consistent manner (book 15). The Didache concludes with warning its readers to be always ready for the Second Coming and to not fall prey to false teachers and prophets or allow their faith to grow lukewarm before the Lord returns “and all his saints with him” (book 16).
What we find in the Didache then is that Christians were already fasting on Wednesday and Friday each week as well as celebrating the Eucharist. A bishop and a handful of deacons in each community served as both the principle of stability in the community and as apostles, prophets, and teachers. Wandering prophets and teachers might be welcomed briefly if their words accorded with the beliefs already held by the community; this concern with consistency of teaching is the same as that reflected in the Greek-speaking Christian acceptance of the Epistle to the Hebrews as a legitimate Christian text; this consistency of teaching across times and locales quickly became one of the hallmarks of “catholic” (i.e., authentic) Christianity.
Baptism in the Didache was a significant moment of ceremonial drama preceded by instruction and fasting. Daily prayer was to be offered on a regular schedule and the prayers of the Eucharist, although the Words of Institution were not included, already contained a prayer for the descent of the Spirit in the petition that the Church be sanctified, saved from all evil and made perfect by the Father’s love. Later prayers for the Eucharist specify that the descent of the Spirit to sanctify the Gifts of bread and wine is but the first step in this process of sanctifying and perfecting the Church. All this, and the New Testament itself not yet complete.”
The Didache is our first handbook describing the organization of parish life, the first “church order manual” as such handbooks are now called. Another early church order, this one from Rome—written in Greek, indicating that the Christians in Rome were still primarily Greek-speaking rather than Latin-speaking residents—and known as the Apostolic Tradition is attributed to Hippolytus (a presbyter and later bishop of Rome); it was compiled perhaps as early as AD 215. It covers many of the same subjects as the Didache but in slightly different order and in more detail.
The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus begins with instructions about electing and ordaining a bishop to serve in the community (chapters 1-3), followed by directions and prayers for celebrating the Eucharist (chapter 4). Although the eucharistic prayers in the Apostolic Tradition contain the Words of Institution, these Words are followed by the petition that the Father send the Spirit “to the oblation of [the] Holy Church” and “give to all those who partake of your holy mysteries the fullness of the Holy Spirit, toward the strengthening of the faith in truth, that we may praise you and glorify you.” Not unlike the prayers in the Didache, the Eucharist is sanctified so that the Church might be sanctified by partaking of the Gifts.
Directions and prayers for blessing oil [chrism], cheese, and olives are given (chapters 5-6). Directions and prayers for choosing and ordaining presbyters and deacons (chapters 7-8) are followed by instructions concerning confessors (Christians who are arrested and tortured for their faith but not killed) and widows (elderly women who depend on the donations of the community to survive) in chapters 9 and 10. Although wandering prophets and apostles do not seem to be of much concern to Hippolytus, he is still concerned about who may or may not expect to receive support from the community and what they owe the community in return: the clergy and widows may be supported but they are obligated to serve and pray for the community in return. If they fail in their obligations, the parish is no longer obligated to support them.
The appropriate behavior and instruction of catechumens (chapters 1519) is followed by the description of baptism (chapters 20-22). Catechumens who are employed in occupations considered inappropriate for the baptized faithful—such as artists (who make idols), teachers of children (who are expected to impart knowledge of classical mythology), government officials (who are obligated to sit in judgment and condemn criminals as well as partake in pagan sacrificial rites and military exercises),’ or actors and actresses (whose roles often included prostitution)—are told to find new jobs before they can be baptized. The conclusion of the Apostolic Tradition (chapters 2343) covers a wide range of subjects: times of daily prayer (the various practices involved with praying and the times of day appropriate for prayer both at home and at church), burials (that supplies and workmen should be paid but burial in the Christian cemeteries should not be limited to the wealthy), that deacons ought to be diligent about bringing Holy Communion to the ill, the reservation of the Eucharist (clergy should be careful that the container in which the Eucharist is kept is adequate to keep mice from nibbling at the reserved Gifts!), and fasting before the celebration of Pascha.* Much of the material in the Apostolic Tradition still looks familiar to anyone involved with managing and maintaining the integrity of a church community.
The epistles of St. Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch who was arrested and charged with being a Christian about AD 98-117, expand the picture of church life that we glimpse in the Didache. (We must remember that at this time there was probably only one or two parishes in any given city and that the bishop was in fact the local pastor of that parish. To be “the bishop of Antioch” does not imply a far-flung network of parishes across a large diocese; it means that Ignatius was the leader of the local, albeit small, Christian community.) He was brought to Rome for trial (just as the Apostle Paul was taken from Judea to Rome for trial) and martyred there by order of the Emperor Trajan. As he was being taken from Antioch to Rome, Ignatius sent a series of letters to the parish churches in cities that he was passing near (the Ephesians, Trallians, Magnesians, Romans, etc.). These epistles, written only 30 years or so after the Didache, amplify much of what we see in the Didache concerning church ministry and order and eucharistic fellowship.
Ignatius is especially concerned with the interconnection of the episcopacy, dogmatic orthodoxy, and the legitimacy of the Eucharist. The Didache says that the local bishop is the prophet and teacher of the local community; each community was evidently expected to have several prophets in their midst and the bishop was the chief of these local prophets. Ignatius himself is still known as the “God-inspired,’ i.e., a prophet himself. Ignatius expands on that role in his letters. The local bishop, Ignatius stresses, ought to be respected “as you respect the authority of God the Father ... who is everybody’s bishop.” Ignatius goes on to remind his readers: “Let the bishop preside in God’s place, and the presbyters take the place of the apostolic council, and let the deacons ... be entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ” (Magnesians 3 and 6). He is underscoring the importance of the harmonious functioning of the Christian community under the supervision of the bishop, replicating the life of the first Christian communities gathered around the apostles.
Ignatius does not develop the idea of an apostolic succession (i.e., that each bishop must have been taught and ordained by someone who had been taught and ordained by someone who had been taught and ordained by someone that had eventually been taught and ordained by one of the apostles) but he does insist that each church (parish) that celebrates the Eucharist is a “type” or reflection of heaven, a microcosm on earth of heavenly reality (Ephesians 5) and that the bishop’s role in each community is to insure the consistency of teaching across the network of parishes that constituted the worldwide Christian community (Ephesians 16-17; Magnesians 8, 10; Trallians 6, 8-10). Only the Eucharist celebrated by the local bishop is to be considered legitimate; each member of the community is to accept the authority of the bishop and to resist the bishop is to lack the true Eucharist and thus forfeit salvation (Ephesians 5; Philadelphians 4). Participation in the weekly Eucharist is the fundamental act of faith and love, without which there is no salvation (Trallians 8). As far as Ignatius is concerned, heretical or schismatic communities have—by definition—no love or charity (Smyrnaeans 6) and God only heeds those who heed the bishop (Ignatius to Polycarp 6).
In fact, Ignatius’ basic rule can be summed up: stick with the bishop and avoid all heresy, error and schism. There is no good reason to ever break off fellowship with the bishop. (It was apparently inconceivable to Ignatius that a legitimate bishop might ever preach error.) Only by maintaining one’s communion with the bishop (and all that such fellowship implies) can salvation be achieved.
We can also see in Ignatius’ letters how important the martyrs and martyrdom are in the Christian experience. Ignatius’ chains are spiritual pearls (Ephesians 11) which the faithful kiss (Polycarp 2); martyrs experience the birth pangs of heaven (Romans 6); and Ignatius is eager to take his place among the martyrs (Trallians 4), telling his readers to not interfere with the legal process (Romans 4).
Participation in the Eucharist goes hand in hand with martyrdom, Ignatius tells his readers. Martyrs are offered on the altar, just as the bread and wine are; he is himself to be ground like wheat by the teeth of the beasts he expects to confront in the amphitheater at Rome in order to make a pure loaf for Christ; to be martyred is to eat the bread which is Christ’s flesh and drink the wine which is his blood, “an immortal love feast indeed” (Romans 2, 4,7). ignatius’ musings and meditations on the Eucharist are, in fact, some of the most beautiful written in all of Christian literature.)
But to the larger world, the disputes among Christians—such as Ignatius warned his readers to avoid—were the petty squabbles of a particularly troublesome collection of people known commonly as “the Jews” who had never quietly acquiesced to Rome’s conquest and dominion of their homeland. There was constant murmuring against Rome, frequently boiling over into revolts and uprisings against Roman authority. They were so troublesome that the Emperor Claudius expelled all the Jewish residents from the city of Rome sometime between the years AD 41-54; the revolt in AD 66-70 in Judea led to the Roman destruction of the Temple and removal of its treasures to Rome in an attempt to impress on the Jews the futility of revolt; the last straw was the Bar Kokhba revolt of AD 132-136 that resulted in the complete demolition of Jerusalem and the permanent exile of the Jewish people from Jerusalem as well as from most of Judea. Jews and Jewish-Christians were dispersed across the known world.
The Romans renamed the region “Palestine” and built a Roman city known as “Aelia Capitolina” atop the ruins of Jerusalem. The Romans erected a temple for Jupiter over the ruins of the Jewish Temple and a temple for Adonis atop the hill known as Calvary, thus clearly marking the sites that would later be so important for Christian excavation and church building.
During this time of chaos, confusion, destruction, and upheaval the Christian terminology was still very fluid as Christians were still searching for an adequate vocabulary, for “words appropriate for God.” Various Christian communities had a variety of titles for their leaders, as we saw in both the Didache and in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus: in one place they were “prophets,” in another “preachers” or “teachers,” while in still other places they were called “bishops.” The Christians were in the midst of adapting the earlier Jewish practices and terminology that they were familiar with, in both Greek and Aramaic.
Apologetics
There were two basic styles of Jewish Christianity that for ease of identification are most often called “West Syrian” (reflected by the Didache and the letters of Ignatius) and “East Syrian” because of their geographic locations. The style known as East Syrian survived until the Persian Empire conquered that territory in AD 337-344. The style of Jewish Christianity known as West Syrian survived to become what we call the Eastern Orthodox today. In addition, there were groups that identified themselves—or are identified nowadays—as Gnostics, Montanists, etc. Each of these Christian groups were missionary minded and apologetic, i.e., they wrote apologies (from the Greek apologia, or “speaking in defense” as might a lawyer in court) for their beliefs.
Justin Martyr wrote one of the most famous of these Christian apologies (c. AD 150). Although he had been born in Judea/Palestine, he lived as an adult in Rome. Justin developed apologetics as the attempt to explain the faith to a literate, educated audience in a way that they would understand; apologetics is thus part of the basic missionary work of the Church in every age and place and we will see this effort play out in the struggles to define and teach the faith over the ages, at the great councils of the Church, and in the missionary work, such as that of Cyril and Methodius.
In his First Apology, Justin begins by asking his Gentile or pagan readers to give his words a fair hearing and then goes on to describe Christian life and faith, the superiority of Christianity to paganism, how Christianity fulfills Old Testament prophecy and how pagan beliefs and practices are imitations of Christian beliefs and practices. He concludes by describing some aspects of Christian worship that his readers may have heard of and been confused about.
To counter the common rumor that Christians were plotting to overthrow the Roman political system, Justin writes:
When you hear that we look for a kingdom, you rashly suppose that we mean something merely human. But we speak of a Kingdom with God, as is clear from our confessing Christ when you bring us to trial, though we know that death is the penalty for this confession. For if we looked for a human kingdom we would deny it in order to save our lives, and would try to remain in hiding in order to obtain the things we look for. But since we do not place our hopes on the present [order], we are not troubled by being put to death, since we will have to die somehow in any case [First Apology 11].
He goes on to reassure his audience about Christian intentions and to flatter them, promising them that he trusts in their intelligence and good will:
We are in fact of all men your best helpers and allies in securing good order, convinced as we are that no wicked man ... or virtuous man either, can be hidden from God and that everyone goes to eternal punishment or salvation in accordance with the character of his actions.... [Roman attempts to exterminate Christians] seem as if you were afraid of having all men well-behaved, and nobody left for you to punish; this would be the conduct of public executioners, not of good rulers.... [And] we have not learned [to expect] any unreasonable conduct from you, who aim at piety and philosophy [First Apology 12].
Justin goes on to point out
those who are found not living as [Christ] taught should know that they are not really Christians, even if his teachings are on their lips, for he said that not those who merely profess but those who also do the works will be saved. For he said this: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. For whoever hears me and does what I say hears him who sent me. Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not eat in your name and drink and do mighty works? And then I will say to them, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. Then there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when the righteous will shine as the sun, but the wicked will be sent into eternal fire. For many will come in my name clothed outwardly in sheep’s clothing, but being inwardly ravening wolves; by their works you will know them. Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire [First Apology 16].
Large portions of Justin’s apology are simply long quotes from the Scriptures that Christians call the Old Testament or the Gospels. Books were difficult to obtain and most Gentiles would have never heard of most of these texts before.
To help his readers understand the Christian expectations of the resurrection of the dead, Justin explains that no one would believe that a drop of male sperm could become a human being if they had not seen it happen.
In the same way unbelief prevails about the resurrection of the dead because you have never seen an instance of it. But as you at first would not have believed that from a little drop such beings [as men] could develop, yet you see it happening, so consider that it is possible for human bodies, dissolved and scattered in the earth like seeds, to rise again in due time by God’s decree and be clothed with incorruption [First Apology 19].
Justin goes on to spend a great deal of time quoting from the prophets and other Old Testament texts to demonstrate how Christ fulfilled the expectations of Israel, albeit in perhaps unexpected ways. The prophets, i.e., the whole of the Old Testament, were still the basic Scripture of the Church during this period; even when the Nicene Creed was developed the statement that Christ rose from the dead “according to the Scriptures” meant “in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and expectations.” The fulfillment of and interdependence of such Scriptural texts with Christian life were crucial aspects of Christian teaching.
When Justin comes to describe Christian worship (First Apology 61-67), he explains how catechumens are instructed and baptized and how the newly baptized are then allowed to participate in the weekly Sunday celebration of the Eucharist for the first time. Remembering that Justin wrote his Apology in Rome and that Hippolytus wrote his Apostolic Tradition there and that church manuals generally reflect practices at least 25-50 years old, we can conclude that Justin and Hippolytus are describing the same practices of catechumenate, baptism, and Eucharist.
The Martyrs and Martyrdom
Justin was known to his contemporaries as a Christian philosopher, a “lover of wisdom,’ and teacher. But he is primarily known today as a martyr, like Ignatius of Antioch, one killed for his adherence to Christian belief and practice.
In the Roman world, religion was not a matter of private belief. Religion was a collection of public activities and behaviors that were thought necessary to protect the state. A handful of religions were considered suitable or appropriate to protect the state; these were licit or “legal to practice.” The principal licit religions were the worship of the classical Greek and Roman gods, the worship of Cybele and certain Egyptian deities (Isis, Osiris), the worship of the Persian god Mithras, and the religion of the Jews. All the illicit or illegal religions were considered treason and labeled “magic.”
As long as Christians were seen by the Romans as simply yet another sect or subdivision of Jewish practice, they were safe. But once Jewish leaders began to denounce the Christians as a differing religious practice, asserting that the Christians were not practicing an acceptable style of Judaism, then Rome turned its attention to these new a-theists, those without a recognizable god or gods.
The sibling rivalry between Christianity and Judaism turned deadly. There was no systematic, organized persecution of Christians until the “Great Persecution” began in AD 303. Until then, the Roman authorities simply waited for someone to denounce a person or group of people as Christian; then the Romans would arrest and torture the accused. If they agreed to burn a few grains of incense before the image of the emperor, which was the only act required and considered little more than reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States, they would be released. (This offering of incense was made to “the fortune of Caesar” or the genius of the emperor, akin to the emperor's guardian angel rather than to the emperor personally. Also, “Caesar” was used as a title rather than a name. Every emperor was Caesar, even when the emperors later embraced Christianity.) Those who did so were outcast from the Church and forbidden to associate with other Christians or participate in the Eucharist again.
While the accused were in prison, family and friends were allowed to visit them and to bring gifts such as food and clothing or medicine as well as bribes for the guards. Clergy would visit the imprisoned and bring the Eucharist. Often, the only food or change of clothing or medical care that a prisoner could have was whatever his friends and family would bring. That is why visiting those in prison ranks so highly as an important thing to do in early Christian texts, including the New Testament.
Once arrested, the accused might be released because they burned incense before the emperor’s image; these people were called thurificati, as they had “burned incense.” Some were called libellatici as they bribed the authorities in exchange for a certificate (Jibellus) that said they had burned incense or offered sacrifice to an idol, even though they had not. Those that actually offered sacrifice to idols were called sacrificati. Traditores (from “hand over, the same root as tradition, those practices and beliefs which are “handed over’) were those who handed over sacred books, liturgical objects, or the names of other Christians. All these people were considered apostates (from the Greek for “departure” or “revolt”), the “lapsed” who were thereafter shunned by the Christian community and refused admittance to social or liturgical fellowship; they were now excommunicate, having broken communion (fellowship) with the Church.
However, some of the accused who were subjected to interrogation (i.e., torture) and refused to deny their faith or surrender any information to the authorities and yet survived might be released; these were welcomed back into the Church’s fold and held in great esteem as “confessors,’ those who had confessed the faith in public and survived.
But most of those arrested were executed for treason. A person executed under such circumstances was considered by the Church to be a martyr (Greek for “witness,” as in a court case). A martyr was a witness to the power of Christ’s Resurrection and his victory over death. The bodies or other remains of the martyrs were collected by family and friends to be interred in Christian burial grounds.
Martyrdom, viewed by the Church not only as an act of loyalty or heroism but as an act of communion in the death and resurrection of Christ himself, was seen by some as a highly desirable vocation and a way to attain fame and glory. But the Church was very clear that martyrdom and suicide were mutually incompatible. Anyone who offered themselves for arrest and execution was considered a suicide, not a martyr, someone who had tempted God and trusted in their own strength rather than divine aid to overcome their suffering (Martyrdom of Polycarp 4).
As was common Roman practice, meals were held near or atop the grave in memory of the deceased, especially on the anniversary of death which, in the case of the martyrs especially, was considered their birthday into heaven. (Remember how Ignatius used that term in his epistle to the Romans?) In the case of the martyrs, the Eucharist was celebrated at the gravesite on the anniversary of their birthday into heaven and if a martyr was especially popular in a region, even those who could not attend the graveside Eucharist might attend a celebration of the Eucharist in their local church to mark the anniversary. (This is the root of the association of saints with certain days and the celebration of the Eucharist to celebrate their memory.)
The stories of the martyrs developed from the accounts of friends and fellow-worshippers into semi-official written notices that were exchanged among various bishops and churches. These stories and reports were always told or composed in such a way as to make certain points and became as stylized as icon painting did later. Today, we often need to know how to read each report in the appropriate way so as to understand what is going on “between the lines.”
Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna and friend of Ignatius, was one such extremely popular martyr who was arrested and executed in either AD 155156 or AD 167. The report of the martyrdom is sent from Smyrna to the church in Philomelium “and to all those of the holy and Catholic Church who sojourn in every place” to show everyone what “a martyrdom conformable to the Gospel” looks like.
Ignatius had been the first to call the Church a “catholic” body, in his epistle to the Smyrnaeans: “Nobody must do anything that has to do with the Church without the bishop’s approval. You should regard that Eucharist as valid which is celebrated either by the bishop or by someone he authorizes. Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Smyrnaeans 8). But with Polycarps martyrdom we see the description of the Church as Catholic becoming one of the commonly attributed marks or notes of her life. The “holy and Catholic Church which sojourns in every place” does not use “catholic” primarily refer to the notion of universality as a geographic concept. “Catholic” here is used to mean whole, integrated, and complete. The notion of geographic universality is secondary to the notion of universality as in “for all” The Church is universal because it is for everyone. It is the same, complete, and authentic in every place because of the ministry of the bishops which we have seen was to guarantee that authenticity and catholicity.
Polycarp “waited to be betrayed, just as the Lord did,’ rather than volunteer for suffering (Mart. Polycarp 1). He was an elderly bishop (in his mid80s), denounced as a Christian by two slaves under torture, arrested late one Friday evening as he was in hiding in a farmhouse. He offered food and drink to those who came to arrest him while he went to offer his usual midnight prayers; he prayed for “all who had met with him at any time, both small and great, both those with and those without renown, and the whole Catholic Church throughout the world” and when he was finally done “many repented that they had come to get such a devout old man”
Refusing to offer the incense and call Caesar “Lord” as only Christ was to be accorded that title, he was taken to the arena on Saturday. A great crowd was there, news of Polycarp’s arrest having spread like wildfire. The proconsul urged him to swear by Caesar and to dismiss his allegiance to the Church by saying, “Away with the atheists!” Instead, we are told that Polycarp used the proconsul’s own words against the mob as he “looked with earnest face at the whole crowd of lawless heathen in the arena, and motioned to them with his hand ... [and] he said, ‘Away with the atheists!” The proconsul continued to urge him to save himself by cursing Christ but Polycarp insisted, “Eighty-six years I have served him and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me?”
Finally the crowd demanded that Polycarp be burned at the stake if he would not recant his Christian faith. The authorities capitulated to the mob and ordered the stake erected, kindling and wood for the fire gathered from the workshops and the public baths near-by, “the Jews being especially zealous, as usual, to assist with this.” (We can see the ongoing rivalry between the Jews and Christians here, the boundaries of the two communities still not rigidly fixed, the local Jewish authorities apparently trying to demonstrate who was or was not a member of their licit co-religionists.) Polycarp was fixed to the stake, “like a noble ram out of a great flock ready for sacrifice, a burnt offering ready and acceptable to God.” (The author here is reminding his readers of the sacrifice of Isaac as well as the sacrificial lambs offered in the Temple, the Passover lamb, and the Lamb of God.)
Just before the fire itself was lit, Polycarp prayed:
“Lord God Almighty, Father of thy beloved and blessed servant Jesus Christ, through whom we have received full knowledge of thee, the God of angels and powers and all creation and of the whole race of the righteous who live in thy presence: I bless thee, because thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and hour, to take my part in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of thy Christ, for resurrection to eternal life of soul and body in the immortality of the Holy Spirit among whom may I be received in thy presence this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, just as thou has prepared and revealed beforehand and fulfilled, thou that art the true God without any falsehood. For this and for everything I praise thee, I bless thee, I glorify thee, through the eternal and heavenly high priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved servant, through whom be glory to thee with him and the Holy Spirit both now and unto the ages to come. Amen.”
This prayer would clearly not have been out of place at a celebration of the Eucharist. Polycarp offers it to the Father who has been made known by his “beloved and blessed servant Jesus Christ”; the Greek word can mean both “child” and “servant” and was the way Jewish-Christian prayers had commonly referred to Jesus since the Didache itself. Polycarp identifies his martyrdom with the act of receiving the Eucharist and thanks the Father for having considered him worthy of such an honor just as Hippolytus’ prayer at the Eucharist thanks the Father, “who has made us worthy to stand before [him] and to serve as [his] priests” Polycarp also makes clear that he is offering his prayer to “the true God,’ not the false god Caesar or any of the Roman pantheon.
The soldiers lit the fire and as the conflagration grew, the flames “made the shape of a vaulted chamber, like a ship’s sail filled by the wind, and made a wall around the body of the martyr.” The crowd did not smell burning flesh but rather the fragrance of bread baking or incense burning, the text underlining the eucharistic and liturgical nature of the martyr’s death.
After the bishop’s death, we read that Jewish efforts prevented the local Christians from collecting Polycarp’s remains but that they were eventually able to gather up his bones, “more precious than gems and more valuable than gold, and inter them in “a suitable place.” There they intended “to gather together in joy and gladness to celebrate the day [anniversary] of his martyrdom as a birthday, in memory of those athletes who have gone before and to train and make ready those who are to come thereafter” (Mart. Polycarp 18).
“Against Heresies”
One of those who knew Polycarp and who no doubt celebrated his birthday into heaven was a young boy named Irenaeus (just as Polycarp himself said that he had childhood memories of knowing the Apostle John); Irenaeus may have also studied with Justin at Rome. We do know that Irenaeus became bishop of Lyons, one of the Roman capitals of Gaul. Following a large-scale persecution of the Church in Lyons, Irenaeus was made bishop there and as part of his responsibilities as bishop he wrote both a Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching to instruct new converts and a work commonly known as Against Heresies to defend the Catholic faith against a variety of Gnostic beliefs. Against Heresies was evidently written in AD 189-190 and is one of our best sources about both Gnosticism and orthodox teaching at this time.
The Gnostics (who stressed the need for secret gnosis or “knowledge” in order to achieve salvation) were a widespread network of communities centered on a variety of teachers who each taught a slightly different theological system. The common points among all the Gnostic systems were that the material world had been created by an evil or lesser divine figure and as a result the world we know was irredeemably wicked and fallen, a prison to escape; that Christ had not truly taken on human nature or interacted with the material world or died or been raised on the third day; that Christ had imparted secret teachings to only a few, select followers who then passed that gnosis on to their followers; and, that the more of this gnosis someone knew, the higher they would rank among the “saved.” Some of the Gnostic teachers stressed radical asceticism as one of the ways to help escape the prison of this fallen world while others taught that physical behavior was irrelevant to salvation. They all denied that the dead would be raised with bodies as well as souls.
Irenaeus stressed that incarnation, Eucharist, and resurrection are all interrelated and interconnected, making salvation possible.
Vain above all are they who despise the whole dispensation of God, and deny the salvation of the flesh and reject its rebirth, saying that it is not capable of incorruption. For if this [mortal flesh] is not saved, then neither did the Lord redeem us by his blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of his blood, and the bread which we break the communion of his body.... For when the mixed cup and the bread that has been prepared receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, and by these our flesh grows and is confirmed, how can they say that flesh cannot receive the free gift of God, which is eternal life, since it is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and made a member of him? So also our bodies which are nourished by [the Eucharist] and fall into the earth and are dissolved therein, shall rise at the proper time, the Word of God bestowing on them this rising again, to the glory of God the Father [Against Heresies 5:2].
In his Against Heresies, Irenaeus argues that the Faith, the Tradition which the bishops have consistently maintained through time and across geographic locations, is sufficient to refute these Gnostic teachers:
You will be able to resist [the Gnostic heretics] faithfully and boldly on behalf of the one true and life-giving faith, which the Church has received from the apostles and imparts to her children. For the Lord of all gave to his apostles the power of the gospel, and by them we also have learned the truth, that is, the teaching of the Son of God—as the Lord said to them, ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me, and him who sent me: [W]e appeal again to that tradition which has come down from the apostles and is guarded by the successions of elders [presbyteroi] in the churches.... The tradition of the apostles, made clear in all the world, can be clearly seen in every church by those who wish to behold the truth [Against Heresies 3:2-3].
Irenaeus delights in this succession of teachers from the days of the apostles. He names those who have served at Rome and maintained the faith there, “that very great, eldest, and well-known Church, founded and established at Rome by those two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul ... [that faith] which comes down to us through the successions of bishops....” Irenaeus and his readers share the “same life-giving faith which has been preserved from the apostles to the present, and is handed on in truth.” Irenaeus urges that disputes be settled by turning “to the oldest churches, where the apostles themselves were known, and find out from them the clear and certain answer” to any current problem.
Irenaeus describes the heart of this apostolic faith and tradition, maintained and sustained by the bishops in each church, in book 5 of Against Heresies. He announces that salvation is only possible because the Second Adam and Second Eve recapitulated and set right what the First Adam and First Eve set awry, similar to the ideas expressed in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.
If he had appeared as man when he was not really human, the Spirit of God could not have rested on him, as was the case ... nor would there have been any truth in him, what was [then taking place] not being what it seemed to be.... He would not have had real flesh and blood, by which he paid the price [of our salvation], unless he had indeed recapitulated in himself the ancient making of Adam [Against Heresies 5:1].
So the Lord now manifestly came to his own, and, born by his own created order which he himself bears, he by his obedience on the tree [of the Cross] recapitulated (see Ephesians 1:10) what was done by disobedience in [connection with] a tree; and [the power of] that seduction by which the virgin Eve, already betrothed to a man, had been wickedly seduced was broken when the angel in truth brought good tidings to the virgin Mary, who already [by her betrothal] belonged to a man. For as Eve was seduced by the word of an [fallen] angel to flee from God, having rebelled against his Word, so Mary by the word of an angel received the glad tidings that she would bear God by obeying his Word. The former was seduced to disobey God [and so fell], but the latter was persuaded to obey God, so that the virgin Mary might become the advocate of the virgin Eve. As the human race was subjected to death through [the act of] a virgin, so it was saved by a virgin, and thus the disobedience of one virgin was precisely balanced by the obedience of another. Then indeed the sin of the firstformed man was amended by the chastisement of the First-begotten, the wisdom of the serpent was conquered by the simplicity of the dove, and the chains were broken by which we were in bondage to death.... As our race went down to death by a man who was conquered we might ascend again to life by a man who overcame; and as death won the palm of victory over us by a man, so we might by a man receive the palm of victory over death [Against Heresies 5:19, 21].
For they [the Gnostics] cannot search out the wisdom of God, by which what he had fashioned is perfected by being conformed and incorporated with the Son—or how that his offspring, the first-begotten Word, could descend into his creature, that is, into what he had fashioned, and be contained within it—and that the creature again should lay hold on the Word and should ascend to him, passing beyond the angels, and be made [anew] according to the image and likeness of God [Against Heresies 5:36].
These two notions, that Christ recapitulates in himself and his mother all that Eve and Adam experienced and that he does this in order to become all that we are so that we can become all that he is, become the touchstone of all later Christology articulated at the imperial, ecumenical councils. This salvation, Irenaeus proclaims against the Gnostics, is freely available to all the Church's children, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist.
Biblical Interpretation
One of the most influential of the pre-Nicene theologians was a child at Alexandria as Irenaeus was concluding his ministry in Lyons. Origen (AD 184/185-253/254) was the leading biblical scholar of the ancient world. He wrote massive numbers of commentaries and sermons, dogmatic treatises and apologies for the faith, developed theories to support the practice of prayer and Christian spirituality. He was the first to engage in “textual criticism” of biblical texts as he produced the Hexapla (“sixfold”) version of the Old Testament, in which the Old Testament text appeared in six columns for easy comparison: Hebrew, Hebrew in Greek characters, the Septuagint (the translation produced by Greek-speaking Jewish scholars in Alexandria, early 300s BC), and the Greek versions of Theodotion (a Greek-speaking Jewish scholar in Ephesus, about AD 150), Aquila of Sinope (A Greek-speaking Jewish scholar, about AD 130), and Symmachus (a Greek-speaking convert to Judaism, from around AD 200).
Origen led a colorful life, which brought him considerable notoriety. As a young man, he received a classical education but his father Leonides, who was a Christian teacher, also taught him the Scriptures. Leonides was martyred when Origen was an adolescent; Origen wanted to be a martyr like his father and his mother was only able to stop him from turning himself in to the Roman authorities by hiding his clothes. Despite his youth, he became known as a great teacher of Christianity and was popular with the large number of catechumens enrolling for baptism, despite the persecution by the Roman officials. However, he took Jesus’ words that “there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake” (Matthew 19:12) too literally and castrated himself. He traveled around the Mediterranean world and Middle East as he continued his studies. Eventually settling in Palestine, following a political dispute with the bishop of Alexandria, he suffered “bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks.” Although he was not killed while he was under arrest, he was released and counted as a “confessor” but he did die three years later, aged 69, from the injuries he received during his arrest.
Although several of Origen’s ideas were later rejected by the Church, many others continued to be very influential and were circulated under others’ names in order to avoid the scandals associated with his own. One of his achievements was categorizing the principles of biblical interpretation. These basic styles of interpretation became known as literal (the historical or literal meaning of the text), allegory (a series of free associations and reminders built up around the text), anagogy (the moral meaning of the text), typology (the prophetic aspect of the text), and eschatology (the aspect of the text linked to the Last Times or End of Days).
The best way to demonstrate these styles of interpretation is to take one straightforward text and demonstrate how it might be interpreted in each style. One of the easiest examples to use is the Exodus from Egypt. Thus, it can be interpreted as follows:
Literal: the sea parted and Moses led the Israelites through the water, after which Pharaoh and his armies were drowned when the sea closed up again.
Allegory: the sea reminds the reader of passions and temptations, so passing safely through the water is like the ascetic effort to discipline oneself.
Anagogy: passing through the sea is like turning one’s back on the morals and behavior of the sinful world.
Typology: Moses and the Israelites passing safely through the water is a “type,” a prophetic act anticipating Christ’s Death and Resurrection or of Christian baptism in which the convert dies and rises with Christ.
Eschatology: the salvation of the Israelites and the drowning of the Egyptians is like the Last Judgement of the world, in which the righteous are saved and the wicked are damned.
The use of allegory became especially popular in Alexandria, the second most important city in the Roman empire, while the literal meaning of the text was most popular in Antioch, the third most important city in the empire. This rivalry between Alexandria and Antioch and their differing interpretative stances became increasingly important throughout Church history.
The death of Origen leaves us poised on the brink of two events that would change the Christian world: the legalization of Christianity by Constantine the Great and the controversy between Arius and Athanasius at Alexandria.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق