Patristics:
Greer
9/2/94:
Lecture
Origins
of Xianity: diversity. Scattered groups
of Xian communities. Then, a trend
toward uniformity and a 'great church'. Trend: from a diversity of
interpretations to one.
Trinitarian
issue: relation of Jesus Christ to the Father and Holy Spirit: Council of Nicea
Christological
issue: the relation of divine & human Christ
Greek
philosophical terms were used not in a techncal fashion but via popular
usage. In the early period, Xian
theology was not taught at schools.
Before
Augustine, the intellect wasn't separated from the will.
Introductory
Remarks:
Character
of early Church theology:
I.
Philosophical Theology (e.g.
Bultman-used Heidegger)
Platonism was the dominate phil in
early Xianity.
-interpretations of Plato in line with the Stoics and Aristotle.
-dogmatic and not separated from religion.
-ecclectic (Aristotilian & Stoic themes)
Assumption that Platonism &
scripture go together: use of platonic terms in
the Greek translation of the scripture.
Greer:
interpretations of scripture say a lot about those making the interpretations;
This was not necessarily what was meant in the writing of the scripture. Early
Xian mantality: Only God is real. So,
the theology of the period was usually 'from above' (e.g. Christ: the eternal
word of God).
II.
Experience (e.g. Schlermacher)
Early Church: the corporate body of
humanity or the church has priority over the individual. So, experience is in terms of the liturgy.
III.
Exegesis of Scripture
Assumptions:
-every detail in
scripture is important.
-no contradictions (if
any, only on the surface), so
exegesis was used to
explain away any apparent
contradictions.
9/5/94:
Lecture
N.T.
Apostolic Fathers: Early texts after the Gospels. For instance, the Didacke, Barnabas,
Ignatious, Papias, Polycorp, Greek Apologists, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, and
Hermas. Greer: no monolitic view
through these. The N.T. can be seen as an attempt to come to terms with the variety of
interpretations already in Xianity.
For example, at least four different interpretations of Jesus in the
Gospels. Mt: emphasizes the Sermon on the mount. Teachings of Jesus. It deemphasizes the miracle stories. Jesus as a healer & miracle worker. An
apocoliptic figure. Paul[1]:
Passion narratives. Dead & Risen Lord.
Messianic
categories:
The
gospels do not have the above interp.s as mutually exclusive.
E.g.
Mk: literary irony--no one understands who Jesus is until the end of the
gospel. Mk contains teacher, healer, and
apocoliptic figures, but ends with dead and resurrected Lord, as the Centerion
confesses. Another way of doing this is
to think of Jesus as the Messiah. Peter:
the resurrection made Jesus the Messiah; he was not the Messiah during his
lifetime, according to this view. So,
other interpretations could fit too.
But, this is messy. Different ideas
about what a Messiah should be: priestly, royal, or miracle-worker.
K.G.:
two senses. It is within you/it is in
the future. Particular to Jesus: the Kingdom of God Kingdom of God
On
the Son of Man: 3 kinds of sayings: a future figure (coming as judge), a
present figure (lord of sabbath, forgives sins, no where to lay head), and the
passion figure. In Aramaic, the Son of
Man is a way of expressing oneself. Like
'one'. One need not do that (I need
not do that). When translated into
Greek, use the Son of Man as used in Daniel.
Greer: one can combine this: Jesus was the Son of Man on earth, then
resurrected, and comes back at the end of the age. Jn. adds a pre-birth of Jesus as the Son of
Man. This story is called the redeemer
myth. See: Jn 1, 2 Phil., and 1 Col. A story of the one who is equal to God
empties himself, is persecuted, and goes back to the Father. The least common denominator here (One with
God, becomes incarnate, is resurrected and comes back to judge) is, to Greer,
the basic perception of Patristic theology.
This is like the creeds. Greer:
put the gospels back together with Jesus as the hero of the N.T. It is important to come to terms with who
Jesus is (Greer: Jesus is the hero).
9/7/94:
Lecture
How
does Ignatius understand his upcoming martrdom?
How does he characterize his times? His community? What is his Christology? What is his
trinitarian view? He calls Christ
'God'. Greer: some scriptural support
(e.g. doubting Thomas).
The
redeemer myth: the link between N.T. theology and the emerging early Xian
theology. It is a
'lowest-common-denominator' on the Christs in the N.T. and in early Xian
theology.
The
Redeemer Myth: the pre-existent Word (the agent of creation)[3],
incarnation, earthly life, ascent into heaven, 'session' sits on God's right
hand, return at the End of the world. A
temporal as well as a cosmic perspective. Bultman believed in a pre-Xian
gnostic redeemer myth.
Greer:
Jewish wisdom literature--the figure of wisdom reveals in the O.T. Apocripha
(included in Catholic bibles). Proverbs 8: wisdom (sophia) , as a female
figure, is said to act as God's builder in God's activity in creating. Sophia may have been used to describe
Christ. Jews equate wisdom with the
Torah; Xians equate wisdom with Christ. Background of Jn: Jewish, not Greek.
The savior is the same as the agent of the creation. Implied (see Aroneaus): redemption fulfulls
creation. Redemption is more than the
elimination of sin, but is the completion of creation. Greer: Christ as the pre-existant word comes
closer to the jewish sophia than the Greek Logos. So, Greer emphasizes the Jewish, rather than
Greek philosophical backgound of the N.T. and Xian theology.[4] Earthly Jesus: comparison to the 'bad' Adam.
Greer:
The Redeemer Myth is a narrative story.
When the early Xians cited 'incarnation' (economie), it includes the
pre-existance of Christ.
In
early Xianity, gnostics, Xians, and jews interacted; a mixture of ideas that
become increasingly distinguished. The
basic pattern of the R. Myth is in Xianity, Judiasm, Gnostism, and platonic
thought. The R. Myth is not in Mt, Mk,
and Lk.
Jewish-Xian
Theology:
Use
of Jewish, rather than Greek phil. categories, in Xian theology. For example, the Redeemer Myth.,
Categories
of Christ: Jesus viewed as an angel (Revelations equates Christ Jesus with
Michael or Gabrial);
Name:
'I am'--Jesus as the name of God. Deut
12:5--in the temple dwells the name, or glory, of God. J. is God's presence in
his people. 'The word was made flesh and tabernacled among us";
Beginning:
Hebrew: Be reshith (by first fruits).
So, beginning seen as God's first fruits.
Day:
in Genesis. Thought to refer to Christ. (?-CLG)
The
cross: In O.T., the word 'wood' is interpreted as 'the cross'. Also, Mose's
hands held up-he wins. Related to the
cross. The cross can be seen as
victorious as well as cosmogolical.
The
pre-existant church: a male and female pair--from the O.T.
Two-ways:
goes back to the blessings and curses in the O.T. Two impulses within us.
Greer:
this is not systematic.
Gnosticism:
Not
know origins. Harnock thought it was Greek Phil. applied to Xianity. Greer: Xianity made like the Mystery
religions (Hellinistic phil). Others
thought it used ancient Egyption ideas.
Others thought it was based in Jewish apocoliptics. Valentinus, Basihdes, and Marcion(rejected
O.T. God) were gnostic teachers. The
Acts of Thomas (his mission in India ):
gnostic-- the story of the pearl. Know that you are a spiritual seed, trapped
in this material world of evil. Key:
knowledge of this will be sufficient to bring you back to where you
belong. Redemption: the abolition of the
whole of material creation. It denies
the goodness of material creation and the resurrection of the body. Gnostic is
cosmological: a dualism between spirit and matter; not really monotheistic
(fragments the godhead).
9/7/94:
Seminar
Trajion:
A Roman who said that the Roman government should not take the initiative in
persecuting Christians. Most Xians were
not Myrtres. Ignatioius has either been
denounced or there was a riot. Not Roman
initiative.
Martrdom:
Ignatius sees it as a way to get to God. Imitation of Christ. Like Paul (1 Col. ) Roman 6: Baptised into his
death. Just as Christ was raised, so will we. Paul: death to an old way of
life. Ignatius: death to an old life, so to get to God. Bishops: a earthly hier. reflexive of a
heavenly hier. This is gnostic, even
though he is against the gnostic view of Christ as not being a man. It is also similar to platonism (ideal
forms). He is agn. the dostic
schism. So, he emph. loyalty to bishops
and the value of unity. The word
'bishop' or 'presybtr', the 'elders' are mentioned in the N.T. letters. Other
than in Luke, 'apostle' isn't limited to the twelve. Seen as teachers/prophets. Local work done by bishops and deacons.
Ignatius doesn't mention a bishop of Rome . Greer: it is odd to have so much emph. on
bishops at this time. He assumes that bishops have prophetic and charismatic
qualities. A heaven/earth scheme, and yet he assumes that this world would soon
end. Also, did this influence his
decision to give up his live in this world? The Holy Spirit is in Rabbinic
Judiaism. Ignatius does not mention it
much. Also, he calls Christ 'God', but he calls God 'the Father' and he
believes that God is one. A trinitarian problem. Greer: trinity not a doctrine
until 381. The problem of the trinity is
a paradox. It shows that God is
incomprehensible. Most of the early Xian writers, being platonists, don't try
to systemitize this. They acknowl. that
we can't know about God until we get to Him. We assume that a scientific method
can discern this stuff.
Greer:
Ignatius holds that the death and resurrection of Christ has cosmic
status. Ignatius gives J.'s birth cosmic
significance. Christology from above:
Pascal mystery becomes paradymatic. A pauline theology around the old and new
adam ('New Man)[5],
rather than justification/sanctifcation.
Ignatius
believes the O.T., but in a Xian way.
So, related to, but different from, Judiasm. Early Xianity and Rabbic Jud. developed side
by side.
Early
liturgy. Eucharist: Eucharistic words of
Jesus were omitted. Gregory Dicks[6]:
the structure of it (imitating the last supper) was more solid than the words
actually used.
The
early church saw Jesus as God, not just a prophet. Greer: the incarnation is at the heart of
Xianity. Greer argues that Ignatius's
use of the cosmic status of Christ's birth plus the cosmic status of the
Passion and resurrection suggests that Ignatius was using the redeemer myth.
9/12/94:
Lecture
Is
there a relation between gnosticism and the mystery religions? Dying and rising God. Ascent from earth to a
heavenly realm.
Xianity
and the Greco-Roman world: The
hellinization and institutionalization of Xianity is said to be from this
context. Harnock was against the import
of Greek Philosophy into Xianity. A
betrayal of the gospel. Greer:
disagrees. Xians were on a universal mission, so it was necessary for
Christians to explain their message in ways intelligible to others. Bultman: the hellonization of Xnity was a
're-mytholization' of Xianity. This was
necessary for the spread of Xianity.
This does not necessarily mean that Xnity must be the hellonistic
way. Xnity needs to find its own
translations for the modern world.
A precedent in Judaism: in the
ancient world, Judaism was a missionary faith, in the face of a popular
prejudice against Jews. Why? People did not live privately in the ancient
world. Especially in the cities. But the Jews were 'standoffish', refusing to
join in other festivities of other religions.
They felt that religions were mutually exclusive. Arthur Knock wrote on
the exclusivism of the Jews and Xians as being peculiar in their times. This 'differentness', or 'standoffishness'
produced persecution and martyrdom as well as Jewish revolts in the 60's and in
the 130's. Xian martyrdom may have been
borrowed from Judaism (e.g. Maccabees).
Judaism 'opts out' of the Roman empire
and stops its missionary activity within it.
By the second century, a competition
between Xianity and Judaism for the other 'god-fearers'. Xianity gave the latter equal status to
themselves, whereas Judaism did not. So,
Xianity did better. Judaism has an
apologetic party platform--why one god, dietary laws, etc. The sources are gone due to revisions in
Rabbinic Judaism.
But, Philo of Alex. (20 b.c. to 50
c.e.) was such an apologist, using an allegorical interpretation of the O.T.
which is more inclined to Greek philosophy.
He was a 'middle platonist philosopher' and a Jew. He sought to reconcile them. Justin did likewise.
Xianity did not simply adopt the
Jewish apologetic due to J.C. being the central actor in the N.T., although the
Jewish God is the silent central actor who sent J.C. A necessity for Christians to explain J.C. to
the Greco-Roman world in terms in which it could understand it.
Judaic
Apologetic to the Greco-Roman world:
The
one God: 'God one[7],
made everything, from nothing, uncontained, contains all things[8]'
(The Shepherd of Hermus). These are
mandates. The above comes from Jewish apologetics. God is one, for example, is in effect the
creed of Judaism. Philo also calls god 'the place'.
Greek Philosophy: Festugiare argues
that after Plato, two different views of god: as unknown (so transcendent) and
as immanent in the world (from Stoicism: God penetrates the cosmos). These two ideas were put together: for god to
be utterly absent, he must be present everywhere. His transcendence allows Him
to penetrate everything.
So, the Gk. phil way of talking
about the one god fits with that of Judaism apologetic.
Christian
Apologetic to the Greco-Roman world:
On Christ: how can there be 'one
god' and yet a 'divine Christ'? Justin
converts to Xianity. He explored Gk.
Phil. Not satisfied. An old man converts him to Xianity. His theology is an attempt to work out how he
can give full attention to his new status as a Xian without throwing out his
former work in Greek philosophy.
9/14/94:
Lecture
Justin
Martyr (ca. 155):
Philosophy
and Religion are not mutually exclusive. He converts to Christianity, viewing
Xianity as his philosophy. Greer: One can't deny what one was before a
conversion; rather, the conversion brings that which was before to a
fulfillment. 'Christ is the fulfillment of the law' Justin wants to know of the relation between
his old and new philosophy. Greer: a
similar problem for the writers of the N.T.: not a lack of panacea, but how to
establish the relation bet. the O.T. and N.T.
Solution: a continuity/discontinuity pattern established with
Judaism. Justin does the same thing with
his Greco-Roman phil/religion. Xianity was alien to this world's religions and
philosophies. So, Justin wants to
establish continuity as well as discontinuity with regard to Christianity and
Greek culture, as the N.T. writers sought to do with regard to the
O.T./Judaism.
Justin writes on the relation
between the O.T. and Greek philosophy using parallels between the O.T. and
Plato as a basis. The general view: Plato copied the O.T.--the loan/theft
theory. This 'copying' was a 'loan' or
'theft'. Justin preserves this theory. He uses the logos theory to do the same with
Christ. Logos=Word(John.), or
Reason. Logos was actually the basis of
'the Word', as used by John.
Actually, logos has broad range of
meanings including 'ground' and 'judgment.
Also, it can mean an idea in my mind or the spoken word of it. It used to be thought that the background of
John's use of 'the Word' was the Greek 'Logos'.
But, then 'the Word' as used by John was thought of as coming from
'Sophia'.[9] 'Wisdom' in the O.T. is a way of speaking of
God's creation and self-revelation.
Justin argues that Greek Logos used by John in 'the Word'. Greer: this is eclectic and popular but not
accurate. Greer: pay attention to Greek philosophy only so to understand what
the early fathers were doing.
Greek Background: The Stoics. Their
problem: how do we know things? Answer:
by sense impressions and a 'basic instinct'(Plato). Immediate sense-perception
knowledge and the residual (conception)-e.g. dreams. Two types of knowledge.
Greer: a problem with this: how could there be common knowledge? Stoics: at
birth, certain common conceptions were planted in the mind. For example, the
knowledge that there is a god, that there is right and wrong. Assp: instinctive
understandings that we all have. Seeds
of the virtues planted in us at birth. We have the potential for them. It is up
to the individual whether they come to fruition. God implants in the human mind certain
conceptions so we are created capable of virtue and knowing God. Aristotle: ideas come to us from outside.
Passive(our own capacity to think) vs. Active (ideas from outside) mind.
Platonists give a transcendental view of the active mind (God) which acts on
the passive mind and spurs it into action.
To Plato, we know things apart from sense perception. The higher forms of knowledge transcend
perception. In human minds, a spiritual
identity that is like God. A basic
instinct for something that transcends the world of our sense experience. To Plato, there is a world-soul. The universe is like a big animal, given life
by the 'world soul'. This soul is
related to the individual human soul.
Even though we are individuals, we are all related to the world
soul. So, a natural community.
Justin uses 'Logos' and
'logos'. Our translations use 'Reason'
and 'personality'. Justin relates Christ
as the world soul. These philosophical
ideas are eclectic and popular. This is a doctrine of the human soul being
created in the image of God. Cicero, a
philosopher and statesman, was eclectic.
In his story, one who chooses to die to get to the gods, does not go to
the gods.[10]
The human soul as something that can be apart from the body; soul as the spark
of the divine. This is in Justin. But, he adds the resurrection of the body.
Greer: Justin uses these Greek ideas
to relate Greek philosophy to Christianity to show a continuity. All these
paths will go into Christ's way. He is
against relativizing Christ's truth.
Justin acknowledges that there are other truths, but they are
subordinate to Christ's truth.
Tertallian: the discontinuities bet
Greek Philosophy and Xianity is emphasized.
Clement of Alex.: Christ's truth is the one truth that puts together the partial truths of Greek
Phil. So, different emphases of the
continuity and discontinuity by Xian writers.
The Logos theology also functions to
explain Christ (His relationship to humans). Greer has so far been using Justin
as an apologist for Xianity vis a vis Greek Philosophy.
9/15/94:
Seminar
Justin:
a petition to the emperor. He is asking that the Xians not be executed by
virtue of their Xianity. Greer: a weak argument that Xians are not atheists by
Roman standards; they are. Justin's plea
for the cessasion of injustice using prophasy may have been below a higher
agenda: giving the Xian party-platform. But, the party-platform emph. on J.C.'s
passion--related to executed Xians.
Also, prophasies illustrate party-platform as well as suggest that
Romans will suffer in hell for their injustice.
He does not mention sin.
Knowledge and virtue, as in Greek Phil., are emphasized. So, Christ's knowledge would be viewed as
moral knowledge by the Romans. Baptism he
calls 'illumination'. Light and knowledge go together. Baptism gives
free-choice. Greer: infants were
baptised as early as 200; earlier, not sure. Even after 200, adult baptism was
the norm. Greer: circular reasoning
involved in Justin's view of prophesy: fulfillment of Christ necessary to
realize the prophesies, and the prophesies foretold the fulfillment of
Christ. Greer: Faith, not proof, is
really what the Xians base their stance on. Justin, in arguing that the Greek
phil.s borrowed/stold from O.T., is following Philo. Greer: Plato was not taking his stuff from
Moses. Socrates has Word (Reason) to
gain the truth. The evil demons try to
put down the truth and execute Socrates.
Then, the incarnation, which corresponds to Socraties gaining truth, and
the execution of Christ, which corresponds to the execution of Socraties. But, a partial as opposed to a full
revelation. Perfect and complete
revolution in Christ. Origen argued that
the latter was not easily grasped. So,
with Justin, a non-elitist sense that the fulness of truth is easy to
grasp.
Greer:
Justin's audience was probably to both the emperor and the Xians. His view of
God: Jesus is 'second' and the Spirit is 'third'. Trinity. Also, Word was before the
incarnation. Fishing for ways of communicating 'identity' and 'distinction' in
the trinity. He subordinates Jesus and the Spirit to the Godhead.
9/19/94:
Lecture
Irenaeus:
He wrote in 185 A.D., a generation
after Justin. He was a friend of Polycarp, who in turn was known by St. John . He went from
Asia Minor to Rome . He succeeded
the martyred Bishop of Lyons in 177. He was one of the first to put
pieces together in a coherent pattern, giving a fundamental framework for the
early church.
Xian
passover took the place of the Jewish passover. In the tradition of Asia Minor , he celebrated the crucifixion and Easter as
one celebration on the 14th of Vicean.
This date was that of the execution of Christ, as told in John's
gospel. In John's gospel, Jews
slaughtered lambs in the temple while Jesus was crucified. In Rome ,
it was the custom to celebrate the Xian passion on a Sunday. Asia Minor Xians
in Rome celebrated on Asia
Minor dates (Eastern Xian calendar dates now). Irenaeus defended the rights of the Asia Minor Christians to the Romans. Outcome unknown.
Agn. Heresies was one his major works
Demonstrations of was another of his
works.
Irenaeus wrote in Greek, even while
in Rome . Latin did not take over until the early
300's. His writing is difficult to
understand.
Setting
of his Against Herasies:
He refuted the Gnostics. For him, theology is firmly engaged in the
life of the church. Problems arise in congregations due to theological
conflicts.
A Valentinian, Marcus was a
charismatic gnostic called the magician. He taught in Irenaeus' territories. According to Irenaeus, Marcus was stealing
members from him.
Gnosticism:
Bythos and Sige are the first of three major pairs of divine eons. Plus their
offshoots make thirty eons. The last of
them is Sophia (wisdom). She yearns to be Sige into the depths of Bythos. Seems
to become falsely pregnant. Disruption in the divine pleinama. Her
'abortion'--her 'unfinished' aeon 'child'--is expunged to outside the divine
pleinama. She goes through a passion. From it, the demiurge, or craftsman,
develops earth, fire, air, and water. So, a disruption within the divine
plirama results in the creation of the world. Sophia's divine seeds (from her
'unfinished' divine child') are now trapped in various people (not everyone).
Thus, the divinity that is in man is an incomplete form of divinity. Gnostics
teach that people who contain these seeds can be released from this imperfect
world and returned to the divine pleirama. Our
divine spark/seed can restore us to divinity. Redemption is in destroying
all creation of the body. The body is separate from the soul.
Irenaeus
was against the Gnostics. Greer: In the gnostic theory, a denial of the one
creator god of the O.T.. Christ is not god, but came to explain his
God
who is of the spiritual realm. Christ only appears to be human but is really
docetic/divine. Gnosticism denies the
unity of god and rejects the god of the O.T.
Gnostics see spiritual beings coming down to earth (i.e. Jesus). At his
death, the divine eon abandons Jesus.
Greer: the Gnostic decent and ascent
is like the redeemer myth. Gnostic: the
divine aeon leaves Jesus and ascends. A
denial of monotheism. Agn material world. The eternal God did not create the
world. Creation is not good. Denies resurrection of the body.
Irenaeus:
He did not see himself as inventing a new theology; rather, he saw himself as
articulating the faith of his community.
According to Loaf, Irenaeus' theology was unthinking and contradicts
itself, because he was repeating what was known of his community as he
understood it; his aim was not to systematize it. He uses the Xian uses of the
O.T. Assp: every detail matters. Assp:
there can be no contradictions in scripture--apparent contradictions can be
resolved. It was not assumed that all scripture is understood.
He could also use apostolic
theological traditions as the Rule of faith (precursor to the Apostle's
creed). He could also use Xian writers.
He
argues not based on Enlightenment understandings of objectivity and
subjectivity; rather, he regards his faith a priori as the foundation of his
argument. Assp: that what one believes
is where one starts, rather than having to demonstrate these views.
9/21/94:
Lecture
Irenaeus:
A practical dispute (Marcus was
stealing his sheep). He could use
traditional interpretations of scripture (e.g. the 'rule of faith'). He also has the writings of elders and past
Xian writers.
Structure
of Against Heresies :
The 'detection and overthrow of the
knowledge falsely known' is the full title.
Detection is an issue because Gnosticism was diverse. His assp: if one can get beyond the
diversity, one can find its 'rule' and argue against. it. But, gnostics would not see themselves as
having a 'system'. Gnostic groups trace themselves back to Simeon the Magician
(who liked Peter). So, they were taken
as a perverse mirror-image of the church, with its own rule and decent. Yet, Irenaeus is imposing this framework on
them. He seems to know this. His first
book contains this.
In book two, he seeks to overthrow
the gnostic rule. He demonstrated that the Gnostic rule contradicts the
Church's rule of faith.
In books 3-5 (packet readings are
from bks 4 and 5), he uses scripture (from the apostolic faith) to argue
against the gnostic rule. He, like other
Xian writers, assume their faith a priori.
He assumes that the apostolic faith is true. Pagan opponents attack this. He knows the gospels. But, Mk and Lk were not apostles. He argues that the latter are based on
Peter. Greer: 'fudging'. Irenaeus also knows Paul's letters. Paul saw the risen lord, so was regarded as
an apostle. Irenaeus also knows some of the Acts. He seems to be the first Xian writer who knows the Xian bible similar to the one we
use. He equates scripture as well as the rule of faith with the apostolic
faith. So, no 'false dichotomy' bet.
scripture and tradition. A sense in
which the scripture produced the tradition and vice versa. Irenaeus compares scripture to a mosaic (made
up of many pieces-stones- that must be put together). Rule of faith used to put the pieces of
scripture together. The rule of faith is a summary of scripture, a 'canon within a canon'. But, it was believed that the rule of faith,
as a canon, could be formally distinguished from scripture and examined in its
own light. Main pt: they were not
regarded as conflicting. The bishops
were the guardians of the apostolic faith.
Irenaeus was one of the first to discuss the apostolic succession.
The content of Irenaeus' rule of
faith: The rule of faith was not
necessarily repeated word of word by different Xian writers. Embrio of the Apostles creed. On God, Irenaeus uses the ancient theological
idea that God is uncontained. A way of
talking about God's transcendence and greatness. God in his greatness remains unknown. Nonetheless, Irenaeus insists on the unity of God. Faithfulness to Judaism and against the
gnostics (against Platonists?). Father, Word, and Spirit as three aspects
of one God; the latter two as the arms of God. Highly unified. Close to a 'Unitarian' position. Yet, distinctions: only the Son of God
became incarnate. Greer: he does not
adequately link the distinctions to the unity.
If God is transcendent from one
point of view, He contains all from another point of view. He is constantly present with his
creation. His love. Force or coercion
isn't used by God. So, a God which works
in a persuasive fashion. God loves his creation by his 'economies' (a method of
running one's household--from the Greek root).
God's economies in creation, in the O.T. (covenants with Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses), and in the incarnation (unites and climaxes the others). These economies are administrated by God's
Word in a persuasive fashion. Free-will is
assumed. This structure of God's
economies can be seen as an education (i.e. evolutionary). From the innocence of Adam to the experience
of Christ. Education involves the
persuasive interaction between teacher and student. But, a problem of the O.T.: Xians want to
accept some of it and reject other passages.
Irenaeus wanted to keep the whole thing. He views observances of the
Moses Law as a punishment and education, designed to guide toward perfection. The ancient view: punishment and education
are the same thing. Irenaeus is the
first one who tries to say how the whole O.T. can be used.
On the incarnation (the story from
incarnation to the return of Him at the End).
Recapitulation (Greek: anakephalaiosis): Christ's Headship (Eph
1:10)--to sum up or gather together. A
cosmological dimension: Christ is the head of not only the church, but of all
things. Greer: like a 'key stone' in a
medieval building which holds the building together. Christ organizes and unites on a cosmic
level. Also, a historical dimension:
Christ as the second Adam who undoes the disobedience of Adam. So, uses the Adam-Christ comparison to argue
that Christ reverses the Fall. Yet, this looks like paradox lost, paradox
gained, except that Irenaeus argues that Adam was not created perfect. A contradiction: if Adam was not perfect
before the Fall, then Christ, in reversing the Fall, does not bring mankind to
perfection. Greer: better to see Christ
in such a picture as getting man back on the track, so to lead to perfection,
rather than as the overcoming of the Fall.
Redemption as the completion of God's creation, rather than to overcome
the Fall. To the Gnostics, redemption
involves the destruction of God's material creation. To Irenaeus, visio Dei vita humanie: Christ 'injects' something into human
nature rendering it incorruptible (not rot-- the resurrection of the
body). So, the completion includes
material aspect to Irenaeus.
9/22/94:
Seminar
Irenaeus:
Created
things change; God doesn't. So, created beings must grow from
potentiality to actuality. Humanity
created infant-like. The original
creation was not perfect. The Fall: movement from infancy to knowledge of good
and evil. The Fall is part of growing
up, so God is merciful to Adam. He
punishes Adam with death, but it is of mercy too in that death is a release
from sinning. God's role as judge is played down, and His mercy is emph.d. God's intention for Adam was that he grow to
maturity. Adam disobeyed before this process could be completed.
Comparison
of Adam and Christ. He bases it on
Romans 5: Adam sins, which causes death.
Christ obeys, which causes bodily resurrection (life). Both events has cosmic and universal
(humanity) impact. Both involve a single
act with universal consequences. Adam's
act took place at the beginning, but Christ's act is located in the many
transgressions that follow from Adam. So, Christ is not substituted for
Adam. Also, whereas Adam's act was a
human act, Christ's act was of God's grace.
So, Christ's act was not a replacement for Adam. Death appears in both
acts, but it has a different place in them. So, the old pattern is not thrown
out, but is transformed.
A
problem with Irenaeus: he seems to assume that the fall is necessary in the
process of maturation. Suppose Adam had not fallen, would Christ have come
anyway?
The
'summng up': a vision of God and a control of mind over body(physical
controlled by the mind such that the latter can render the former physically
incorruptable). Greer: tendency not to
rot and die is put off until the end of the age. Origen does not take a physical understanding
of redemption.
9/26/94:
Lecture
Irenaeus:
To
sum up, Xianity has always been a religion of salvation as well as a way of
life. They can get out of balance. Greer: The latter (morals) is overly emph.d
today. In ancient Ch., salvation (belief) was emphasized.
Lushian at Irenaeus' time wrote of
the Xians. He had become a Xian. Xians
were simple-minded folk who were being taken advantage of by one of their
leaders. Two Xian follies: they assume
that they will get immortality (resurrection. of the body) and that they are
instantly brothers and sisters after baptism.
What would Xians say about themselves?
Look at Xian art. A funerary art:
to remind of the fate of the dead.
Theme: deliverance. The
resurrection hope. Also, there is art
that is baptismal. Theme: deliverance. Initiation. So, two dimensions of deliverance:
deliverance from what has happened in the past and from this life
(mortality). Points to past as well as
future, but his attention is really in the present.
A biblical or Pauline theology: his
understanding of Christ's headship (Romans 5, Cor. 15). A new being theology (like Tillich). Loose
ends: the relationship bet. Son and the Father.
'Two hands of God: Son and Spirit'. Sounds Unitarian. Yet, he distinguishes the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Not a satisfactory
trinitarian theol. On the christology:
not clear how the word and Christ's humanity were related. Poss. interp: when the mind relinquishes
control over the body, the body suffers.
Monarchianism:
the ancient Unitarians.
c.
200 Noetus, Praxeas, and Theodotion. c. 250 Sabellius and Paul of
Samosata. Their works have been
destroyed. Hard to give them a fair shake.
They are monotheistic. They want
to preserve this heritage from Judaism. A rejection of the Logos theology. Tertellian opposed them, arguing for the
Logos theology. The Monarchians: they
deny the Trinity as well as the logos theol., because these teachings risk
monotheism. Also, the Monarchians were suspicious of the church's use of Greek
philosophy.
Modern scholars argue that there
were two types of Monarcianism:
1. modalistic--One God having different manifestations. Three activities of God, rather than three
divisions or persons. They were docedic:
Jesus really wasn't human.
2. dynamic: One God adopts the man Jesus. The power of God informs Jesus. They were
ebionistic: Jesus was a human.
Hippolytus refuted the
Monarchians. He was anti-pope in 217:
was defeated in election to papacy, so he started his own Roman church. He was then reconciled to the Roman Church. Died in 235 as a martyr. He wrote the
Apostolic Tradition. He also
wrote The Refutation of All Herisies. He was a leading presbyter. In the latter work, he wrote on this heresy.
Calistus relaxed the penitential system.
Penitence was public and did not typically involve excommunication. Yet, it involved the exclusion of penitents
from the Liturgy of the Faithful. Calistus relaxed this.
Hippolytus was also against
Calistus' support of monarchianism.
Christ is Logos, and He and the Father are one and the same. Calistus supported the monarchian teaching, according
to Hippolytus. Hippolytus is refuting
Noetus. Noetus: terms and titles of God
have no reality but are ways of talking about God. John: "I and the Father
are one". Noetus stresses the unity
of God. Hippolytus refutes this verse in
John. Stresses "are" one,
meaning that the unity in John is not the kind that would eliminate a plural
verb. Not clear how Hippolytus views the
Trinity. Greer: the doctrine of the
Trinity is not yet settled. Hippolytus
was Christocentric. The object of the
cult therefore must be distinct for the cult to survive. So, Hippolytus stresses the distinctiveness
of the Word vis a vis the Father.
Monarchians do not.
Chronology:
177
Martyrs of Lyons.
175-202
Clement of Alex.
210
Tertullian's Alex Prax.
211/15
Clement died
217
Callistus pope
230
Origen ordained in Caecea.
235
Hippolytus, Pontanus
250
Decian persecution Novatian
254
Origen died.
9/28/94:
Lecture
Novatian,
De Trinitate c. 250
A
roman emperor ordered everyone to offer sacrifice to the gods. The Xians interpreted it as persecution agn.
them. Wholesale apostacy among Xians
(bribery, sacrifices). Novation felt
that such Xians should not be readmitted to the church. He founded his own Xian church: A Club of
Saints. He broke with the Bishop of Rome.
His church spread until about the fifth century.
He
wrote a treatise on the trinity agn. the doecetic heresy. Focus on the one God
which is uncontained (transcendent) and contains all, and controls all things,
in his first chapters. God can't be
comprehended by the human mind. The
'uncontained' aspect implies that God does not change (impassible and
immutable). This means that God is one.
Whatever is the highest must not have an equal (like Aris: the unmoved
mover). A single first principle. God is unknown, as He is not comprehensible.
We don't know anything that is just one (without components), so we can't
comprehend God. Categories of time and
space do not apply because God is transcendent.
Greer:
theology is in this sense poetic.
Anological or metaphorical in character.
Novatian
also writes that God is purely spiritual and does not have a body (Tertullian
argues that God has a body). These are
answers to the qu: What is God?
In
terms of God containing all, Novation writes that God's care extends to all. This is on the question of what God does.
The
second part of his treatise is on the logos of God. He appeals to the apostolic faith. The Son of
God revealed in the O.T. He argues for the divinity of the Son of God. He is an
angel, as he is the announcer of the Father's mind. A logos as an idea in God's mind and a spoken
word. Tertellian has the same idea of the logos. See Gen 19: 'The Lord rained from the Lord'.
Two lords. The word is the agent of the Godhead. The Greeks had a similar view on their
gods. So, the Son is distinct and
divine. In the incarnation, the Son
becomes human. So, Novation is not
doecetic.
A
problem: how can there be one God if there is a second divine person. The
Montanists(monarchians) say that the Son is a manifestation of the Godhead.
Greer: his refutation of this is not satisfactory. He uses scripture: "I and the Father are
one". A plural verb. 'One' is the
unity. Also, Gen.: 'Let us make...in our image'. Godhead is unbegotten; the Son is
begotten. So, not two gods. The Son is of the Father because the Son is begotten
by the Father. So, there are not two beginnings. The unity of god from the idea that there is
a first principle (Godhead being unbegotten).
God the Son functioning as the mediator between the Godhead and the
world. Greer: think of it as revelation. The revealer must have an identity to that
which is revealed and that to which it is being revealed. Problem: where is the
line between God the creator and God the created (begotten)? This pattern is in
Clement and Origen too.
Clement
of Alexandria c.200
He
wrote extensively. He was apologetic and
speculative. His first writing: The Protrepticus. An exportation to folks to become Xian. His
second work: The Paedas. For new
Xians--how to be Xian. His third work: The
Didaskalos, or the Stromatus. On a more advanced view of
the faith. His attn. is on the Xian
life. From the elementary teaching to
advanced. At the apologetic level, he adopts
Justin's schema: Xian comes to complete what is incomplete in Greek phil. A
story of a grasshopper filling in complete a tune. The greeks assumed that it was attracted to
the music. Clement wrote that the grasshopper was there in order to complete
what was incomplete in the world. Xianity:
a new song that completes the old one. The new song frees the world from its
slavery of custom and idolitry. This new song: the Son of God. It has a redemptive work. It composed the universe in to an order so it
would have harmony. The redeemer is also
the creator. It is the support of the universe.
Like Plato's demiurge and the world soul. Christ is the mediator at the levels of
creation and redemption. Imp.: the
mediatorial character of the Son. The
Son is like a prism--a mediator between the unity of God and the diversity of
our world.
9/29/94:
Seminar
Tertullian:
He was a heretic: a Montanist: prophesy important; hierarcy was
deemphized. He expected the end of the
world to be immenant. Final revelation by the Spirit--not that of Christ. The
Church: Christ is the final revelation.
Tertullian
distinguished between doctrine (rule of faith as authority) and discipline
(spirit has authority). On the doctrinal
issues, he gives the stance of the church. For Tertullian, the discipline may
be more important than the doctrine. He
was against the baptism of infants as
well as second marriages.
On
Against Praxis: The Spirit is third from the Father and Son. Tertullian is a
stoic. A distinction between raw material of matter and individuated
matter. Greer: substance and person used
by Tertullian in a Stoic sense rather than a legal sense. Substance: essence, condition, power. Person:
degree, form, aspect. Greer: but
Tertullian is against Son as a manifestation.
But what is the difference between 'aspect' and 'manifestation'. Also,
he has the Father as the source. A subordinist
tendency.
Word:
wisdom, spirit, and reason. Assp.: God is rational. Logos can mean a thought as well as a spoken
word. Logos as thought was always in
God; Logos as spoken word was not. Use the analogy of thinking: there is a
duality in it. Ter. is using Platonism:
Logos is that by which God via an idea makes a blueprint of the creation. Like
Plato's forms. Plato: there is a spiritual counterpart to our world. The spiritual counterpart is unitary even as
the world is not. Greer: problem with this appropriation to Xian theol: when
did time begin?
Tertullian
views God as having a body (i.e. is corporeal).
His Word is substantial, rather than void. Tertullian is unique in
saying that God is corporeal. Greer:
problem in Tertullian: his analogy from Plato wherein thought is apart from the
body contradicts his view that God has a corporeal body. Ter. is like a high school debater who avoids
trying to figure out how his arguments fit together. He is essentially defending the Church's rule
of faith, rather than thinking through the Logos theory. For Origen, the rule
of faith (authority) does not contain all the thinking, but is a
spring-board. For Tertullian, no
discussion of belief should go beyond the rule of faith (concerning doctrine;
discipline is under the spirit for Tertullian).
Greer: Tertullian has a Western (Roman) practical view, whereas Origen
has an Eastern view. Norris: Tertullian doesn't understand the Greek philosophy
or speculative theology, but is interested in defending the church. Greer: a
club of saints: The church is alone destined to be preserved. So, the church is
like an ark in that it contains all that will be saved.
Greer:
Tertullian gets the right answers, but does not ask the right questions. To Greer, the right questions lead us not to
answers but to mystery. Ter. asks qu.s
that lead him to answers. Greer: the
Cappadocians solve the trinity question by basing their aruments on the belief
that God is incomprehensible. To say
that God is one is to say that we can't say anything about God; to say that God
is three is to say that not comprehensible but understandable. A paradox here.
10/3/94:
Lecture
Origen:
Read
book one in Latin and book three(relation of providence and free will) in
Greek.
The
contemplative life is where his interest lies.
Eusebius wrote a biography on him. According to this account, Origen had
a passion for martyrdom at an early age.
He grew up in a Xian family. This
was unusual. Most baptisms in the third
century were adult baptisms. Origen worked
as a teacher of catechism in Alexandria.
He studied scripture in a philosophical manner. He was also ascetical in his practice. He was born c. 165. He died in 254. He was booted out of
Alexandria by the bishop. He had been ordained by the bishop of Assryia. Greer: indicative of a conflict bet. two foci
of leadership: episcopal(church Fathers) vs. charismatic teacher(gathering
around a teacher). Origen was of the
latter. He moved to Assryia.
He
was a philosopher and scholar. Origen,
like Plotinus, was neo-platonist. His
first scholarly work was on the O.T. A
text-critic. Origen defended the
scholarly approach to Xianity; advocated an intelligent approach to
Xianity. Xians are not just immoral
idiots. To him, Xianity went beyond
philosophy in that the former could appeal to simple-minded folk. This was a positive quality to him. In the long run, the simple Xians would
become perfected in future world orders.
We
have a lot of his homoletical work which appealed to intelligentia awa common
folk. He functioned as a mediator in
parishes where theol. disputes existed.
A trouble-shooter.
Origen
had a mystical bent. Imp: movement toward the pure contemplation of God. The
Xian life for him is a series of qu.s of scripture. A scriptural piety. In scripture is the life of the resurr., the
heart of God. It is not a sacramental
piety. Alexandria was a cross-roads. Also, good libraries. Gnostic writings done there. Pagan, Jewish and Greek writings there. Assps commonly made: every detail is imp.;
there can be no contradiction in any sacred writing. Trad.s avail. to him: the stoic
allagorization of Homer. Moral virtues
taught. Also, Philo's allagorization of
the O.T. Origen sought out, in fact,
rabbinic teachers. Also, Xian trad.s: Gnostics
awa the main line. For ex., how the N.T.
treats the O.T. One way: prophecy. Origen puts these trad.s into a coherent
theoretical framework: if inconsistencies in a text, it is of a legend or myth
(e.g. passages with treat God anthromorphically should not be taken
literally). Finding impossibliities in
scripture is a way by which to distinguish the letter from the spirit. Most passages have surface awa a deeper,
spiritual, meaning. Some passages have
just a spiritual meaning: some being moral, others eschatological, others
theological. A typology allegorism. His schema for interp. is basically his
theology.
10/5/94:
Lecture
Origen:
On
scripture:
The fact that an interpretation
could be valid would not mean that there were not other interpretations which
were equally valid. However, where an interpretation was inaccurate, it was
just that, inaccurate.
His framework: threefold progress in
time: shadow of the law (O.T.), image of the law (Christ) , and the reality of
the law itself. Typology: a view which relates the spiritual meaning which
relates to the present or the future to the past historical meaning. A temporal
perspective.
Origen places this typoloigcal
understanding in the larger context of the spacial metaphor: heaven vs. earth. Reality is heaven, all the rest is a mere
shadow.
If one puts these two perspectives
together, we move from reality(heaven) to the shadow of the law, through the
whole course of world history and then finally back to the reality. Not an
emination and return pattern, but rather a parabola. Means that the framework
which Origen has in fact equated with his theological narrative suggests his
theology. Theological convictions are to be understood as their hermeneutical
method- unlike those who use the historical/crit. method who distinguish their
methodology from their theology.
Theology is not a procrustean bed,
not imposing itself on scripture. Yet, when one interprets scritpture, one has
to ask questions. These questions
correlate with the answers: correlation.
Questions that the exegy asks of the text correlate with the answer
that comes back. Presuppositions
actiually determine the questions that are asked of the text. Thus, theol.
presuppositions effect hermeneutic methods because they shape the questions
that are asked. Text is not interpreted to mean what they want it to mean;
rather, they do ask questions from their own theol. structures.
For
the ancient church, the theol. assp.s of the writer impact their exigete of
scripture.
His
theology is a 'stage-setting' for the soul's return to God. For Origin, the beginning was
incorporial. God the Father is the
unitary, incorporial first principle.
The unknown God. Only
spiritual. This eternal God always
generates his word. An eternal relationship
bet. God and the word. They are
paradoxically the same and 'other'.
Greer: the word as mediator. Yet,
a subordinate air here. The Father alone
is absolute. The word is what he is due
to his partic. in the Father. The mind refers to the mind in its unfallen
cond. Souls are minds which have
fallen. But mind and soul are basically
the same thing. Rational beings partic.
in God through the mediation of the word.
These rational beings are all equal and incorporial (no matter or body,
just spirit). Father is the archetype,
the word is the image, rational beings are a unique image of God. Greer: where is the line bet. the uncreated
and the created? Unclear. Also, if the Father is one and the word is
multiple, then the word is on the created side.
Arian. Problem.
The Fall. The rational beings in the
Father's lecture room become bored. Loss attention. As their movements become diverse, they
fall. The Fall takes place
individualally, each to a different degree.
Origen wants to preserve the idea of human freedom and responsibility.
Origen lived in the Roman Empire in the third century: not much freedom. To
Origen, we have the power to make choices.
They can ultimately get us back to heaven. God's grace is not ruled out. His grace supplies the 'fundamental context'
for our capacity to choose. So, we exercise choice within God's
providence. The latter is a general and
universal operation. It is God's love
that supplies the context. God never
uses force, because love cannot compel.
god is not omnipotent. He has
voluntarily withdrawn his sovereignty in order that the rational beings may
have freedom to choose without coercion (nec. for love) to return to God.
If we make a wrong choice, we bring
punishment upon ourselves. We provoke
our own punishment. We can learn from
them. Origen believes that everyone,
even Satin, will eventually be saved.
Contrast with Augustine's predestination.
The rational beings, by virtue of
the diversity of their spiritual activiity, attain bodies. So, physical bodies are merely outward signs
of inner spiritual dynamics. They are ordered hierarchically, due to the degree
of the falls. Three ranks: angels,
humans, and demons. No longer rational
or incorporeal. The body is a punishment
too as well as a sign and a remedy. All
punishments are transformed into remedies. The body is no more than a function
of spiritual dynamics. So, the body is
not evil. The body is the consequence of
sin (which is spiritual), rather than its source. But, the body is not good, because it has not
independent ontological reality.
Successive world orders.
The incarnation is the central event
in these orders. The word of god is sent
incarnate. One of the rational beings
did not fall: the soul of Jesus. A love
relationship between it and the Word.
They become united. This dual
entity appropriates a human body, even though it had not fallen. He could change his body at will. In the incarnation, the revelation of the
truth is shown in a corporeal context. Not a direct showing of God's word. The
word has the same function (mediator) apart from and in the incarnation. Risk of saying that the incarnation is only
one manifestation of the word. Buddha
and Moh. could then be considered manifestations of hte word.
The resurrection body will be a
spiritual body; not our worldly body.
General
pattern: innocence at beg.; maturity at the end. unlike Ireneus, the resurr is not the body of
our earthly lives.
10/6/94:
Seminar
Origen:
Be
suspicious of Rufinus' Latin translation, especially on the Trinity. Origen was
condemned in 563 at the fifth council.
He
starts with the rule of faith. Apostolic. For Tertellian, the rule of faith was
confining; for Origen, it can't be contradicted, but it is not confining,
especially concerning the deeper questions. Tertellian is the first to suggest
a creation from nothing. Origen: At the beginning, no material
realm. Yet, the cycle of material orders is eternal. Greer: all of the rational
beings will come back to God in each world order. The stoics thought in
cyclical terms. Each world order is
completed when it burns up. Each world
order replicates the one before it. To Origen, each is not completed by being
burned up, but by a return to its beginning (to the realm of spirit). To the Platanists, the end of an order
results in the matierial forms reflecting that of the ideal forms. To Origen, the material forms end at the end
of each age. Greer: to Origen, what is
real about a person is the soul, not the body. The body is a function of
spiritual reality. To Origen, the resurrected body is not a corporeal body; it is not a
transfiguration of our earthly bodies. The soul has a form which can generate an
incorporeal body in line with itself. Greer:
the church does not have a doctrine on in what sense the body is that is
raised. It is generally believed that it
is our earthly body, transformed. Origen
is saying it is not a transfiguration of our earthly body. The latter the
result of evil. Origen was the only one of the Ch. Fathers to separate the soul
from the body.
Origen,
in general, realizes that his theology is speculative, rather than dogmatic. Before the fall, we are incorporeal. At the end, we will have a spiritual
body. So, the end is not exactly like
the beginning: a body of the soul added.
The diversity of our perfection doesn't exist in the beginning but does
in the end. So, the end is an
improvement on the beginning. So, like a parabola--things are more stable in
the end in a way not so in the beginning.
The experience of the souls' lives gives that added stability.
Origen
stresses that the Word not limited to the incarnation. Greer: this runs the risk that the
incarnation is not the fulfilment of the revelation of the Word. Not clear that there were not other
manifestations of the Word.
Origen
regards the crucifixion as the furthest extent of God's revelation. The lowest level (to the simplist person)
reached: easy to grasp that there is value in dying as a sacrifice. Greer: not
clear what standing it would have in the end of time when corporeality is gone.
To Origen, the cross was not separate from the resurrection as a
sacrifice. The West later separated
them, viewing Xianity as primarily an attempt to rid us of sin.
Origen's
free-will: in the context of God's actions.
10/10/94:
Lecture
Origen:
The
Christian Life:
His
real interest is in the drama of the soul's return to God. Love: in Xian Platonism, Plato's doctrine of
love is included (i.e., not just intellectual borrowings from Hellenistic
phil). Socrates: love begins as of a
beautiful body. Moves to a larger
concept: the body beautiful. Then, to
spiritual beauty. Then, absolute beauty
itself. The higher the object, the
higher is the love. Also, an account of
love in Plato's Timeus: Love not as an appetite, but as created. Love as seeking the good of the other
(agape). Also, Plato refers to a
reciprocity in love.
These
themes imp. for Origin as well as Platinus.
God implanted a yearning for Him, which is satified only by returning to
God. So, the ascent to God can be viewed
not only in terms of knowing, but of loving too.
Three
stages: purgative, illuminative, and unitive.
Soloman wrote three books. Origen
thought the order of them reflected stages in Gk Phil: ethics, physics,
speculative phil. A progression: a set
of moral instructions (ethics), then: God in his mercy creates the world: we
are dependent on God. Also, since God is
the ground of being, His presence permeates the created order. Not in his being, but in his activities. So, in Ecclesiasties,
recogn. of what God does. In the third
stage, a realization of who God is. A
love relation to God.
So,
a moral purification, followed by a mystical vision of God. These stages of human destiny are also of the
Xian life. According to Origen, contemplation
is not an end in itself, but is a means to the moral life. A dialectic bet. prayer and doing good;
vision and virtue. The moral life is a purification, enabling one to view God,
which in turn leads one to return to this life to do good.
Origen's
spirituality is oriented more to the scripture than the sacraments. The latter are for spiritual infants. Yet, one does not leave them behind. The Xian life for Origen is more than being
good and doing good.
Problems
in the Xian Church bet. 250-70 after Origen.
On of Origen's students, Gregory the Wonder Worker, studied Law in
Beriut and then founded the Cappodation church.
The
Dionysian controversy: two men called Dionyses.
Dion. of Alex was agn. sybellius(a Monarchian) who did not distinguish
the persons of the trinity. Dion. of
Alex made the Son a creature, foreign by essence from the Father. The Father
was not always the Father and the Son was not always the Son. Dion. of Rome written to on this. He insists that the Son is eternal. Greer: ontological questions were being
asked. Origen was not interested in such
metaphysical speculation.
In
Alex., agn Monarchian views. A
Christocentric piety, so Christ is divine and distinct.
Greer:
a dress-rehersal of the Arian controversy.
Paul
of Samosata affair. Paul was accused of
teaching an adoptionist theology: God the Father 'adopted' Jesus at his baptism
and left him hanging on the cross.
Antioch and Alex. were the imp. Eastern cities in the third
century. Councils there which
excommunicated Paul. Paul was accused of
teaching that Jesus and the Son are united by fellowship rather than by
metaphysical union. To distinguish the
word of God from Humanity. As one's body
and soul effect each other, the humanity of Christ and the Word of God effect
each other. So, in order that God is
immutable and unchangeable, the Word of God is not united to humanity in
essence but by participation (a love relation) in which the two do not loose
their identity. Like marriage: united to
make one flesh, while retaining separate identities. So, the indwelling presence of God in Jesus
was of participation such that it is not changed by Jesu's humanity. Greer: a dress-rehersal for the Nestorian
controversy.
10/12/94:
Lecture
Both
Methodius and Athanasius want to stress resurrection of the body in
redemption. So, different than Origen.
Methodius
of Olympus c. 300
He
wrote: an apologetic agn a Platonist, a treatise on free-will (agn. Origen),
and commentaries on various biblical books.
Also wrote others.
The Symposium : a Xian substitution
(subject being 'virginity') for Plato's Symposium (speeches after dinner on love).
The
setting: Pre-Arian context, just before Constantine became Xian in 312
The
Xian Story:
evolutionary structure: course of
human history as the growth of an
individual (like
Ireneus). Shadow, image, and
reality. The ultimate truth has not been revealed in this
world. Shadow of the
O.T., image in the N.T.,
and reality in the world to come.
Humanity
lies bet. two extremes:
just(incorruptability) and unjust (corruptable). Due to the Fall, God's plan that man be just
and
bound together has been
disrupted.
Adam and the Fall: Adam is damaged
before he could be completed.
God reworks this
creation via Jesus, bringing to completion
creation. So, like Ireneus, not so much reversing the
Fall.
The
mind governs the body and passions(e.g.
emotions). A hellenistic (Grk phil)
idea. Vice is when that governance gives
out. Virtue is the right ordering of the
human being. When fixed on God, the mind
can control the body and passions; otherwise, the mind is weakened and the body
and passions overwhelm the mind. The
moral hegemony of the mind over the body gives rise to physical
incorruptability of the body. Due to the
Fall, we will all die and rot, but if we exercise moral hegemony of the mind,
the body will not finally be physically corrupted.
Creationism: For Origen, souls
pre-exist the body. Methodius disagreed.
The creation of people
continues; God continues to create. God
creates a soul, which is
implanted into a body fashioned from the
parents. Triducianism: the soul and body are 'passed
down
together (see Gregory of
Nyssa). This latter view avoids dualism.
The
Xian Life
virginity as a moral virtue: It becomes a spiritual metaphor; a spiritual value.
Gregory of Nyssa does the same thing: total dedication to God.
virginity as incorruption: a way how
the mind can control the body.
So,
one gets to God by both a virtuous life and physical incorruptability. The latter is an imitation of God's own
immutability and incorruptability.
Christ
as virtue and incorruption.
Athanasius, De
Incarnatione, c. 315. Before the Arian controversy.
Subject=redemption. Not on the person
of Christ, but in what Christ has
done in the incarnation.
helps explain 'Apollinarianism':
Jesus has no human soul. The Word
into a body. A human is a soul
governing a body. So, in J.C., a
spiritual
principle (uncreated) governs his
body. So, we do not share a spirtual
likeness to Jesus. A traditional
view in Alexandria. Greer: Athanasius omits
mention of a human soul of Christ; he mentions it in other writings.
Greer calls this an 'appropriation'
Christology. Divine soul of the Son
appropriates a human body and
divinizes it in the resurrection.
Basic
understanding of redemption: God gave humans a special grace: the
image of God. Adam and Eve had knowledge of god which
allows them
to do good. Knowledge of God transforms one, via a process
of growth,
to physical incorruption.
Christ:
restoration of knowledge by J.C.
that Adam and Eve had.
bestowal of incorruption by J.C.
that Adam and Eve never had. Assp: the
word of God is able to divinize the
human body. Death and resurr. as
the fulfillment and first principle
of the new humanity. Christ is not only
the first instance, but is the
guarantee of it for us.
Problems:
relation of two themes: the
knowledge of God renders humanity physically incorruptable. Yet, he mentions the latter first in
discussing J.C.
use of ranson/sacrifice metaphors:
looks like Anselm. Greer: biblical and
popular understanding of
Xianity: Christ's victory over Satin. In
the ancient church, bap.
and the renunciation of satin were imp.
Satin was understood as
sin and death. So, victory over sin and death
was a pop. view of Xianity. Knowledge:
victory over sin;
incorruption: victory
over death. The themes of ransom and
sacrifice become imp. in
the west. The cross comes to stand for
the death. Death of J. and his resurr are separated.
freewill?: references to martyrs and
aescetics demonstrate that he views
us as having some role
to play in this restoration.
Theosis:
divination. Used in the Greek Ch. Athanasisus uses it not only in the
moral
and spiritual sense, but in the physical sense as well.
10/17/94:
Lecture
Greer:
Anselm changes the early idea of ransom from that it is paid to satin to that
it is paid to God. Ransom was viewed as
a sacrifice.
For
the early church, the cross was understood in a triumphalist sense: victory
over satin. Christ is alive on the
cross. Later, in Anselm's time, the
cross was on the crucifixion.
In
the early Ch, adult bap. socialized them into Xianity. Not so when infant bap. became popular. Bap. was viewed as joining with Christ in
serving not in Satin's army, and so sharing in Christ's victory. Catechism prepared them for this. This was not so in infant baptism, when
pentance was relied upon to socialize nominal Xians into real Xians(the main
point was thought to get rid of sin, whereas in the early Ch. the main point
was to get rid of death--so Athanesius emph. on incorruption--pulling together
Origen and Ireneus). Greer: both emphases are not fair in the sense that they
do not emph. the emphasis in the other period. For the ancient Church, satin
was associated with not only sin but death.
Out of this context came the ransom as sacrifice and corresponding
sharing in Christ's victory. Augustine
changes the metaphor of sacrifice into a concept. From 'like a sacrifice' to 'is a
sacrifice'. But, in letting go of the
poetry, there is a danger in taking this literally: human sacrifice. 'Sacrifice' is not salient in the N.T. That which was periferal(his death and
sacrifice) became central.
Arius:
The
controversy 318-381. Council of Nicea
marks the beginning. The Nicea Creed
(completed at the Council of Constantinople) is the only truly universal Xian
creed.
The
trinitarian issue was at issue. Though
it might have been the issue of salvation.
Greer: a false dicotomy: teachings about God and about salvation. So, it
was a controversy about God awa salvation.
Conclusion reached: because only God can save and Christ saves, Christ
was God, rather than a creature. If He
were the latter, He could not overcome death. Only God can conquer death. So,
Christ was not just a teacher or prophet.
R.
Hanson, THe Search of a Xian Title of God. No one knows what a Xian doctrine of God
is. No uniform opinion on either side of
the controversy. It is a mess. So, it was a formative period rather than a
definative one in terms of the doctrine of God.
Arius
was a priest in the ch. of Alex. Good
public speaker. He became problematic
because he had many followers and became divisive. The bishop of Alex. excommunicated him.
Arius'
teaching: Recall, to Origen, the Father
is 'behind the screen', with the word revealing Him to the souls. This worked well from the Greek point of
view. Plotinus: the One is the
source. No division bet. the source and
what flows from it. Xians sep. God from
the creation. If use the 'one/many'
dicotomy, sep. Father from word and souls.
Origen concludes that only the Father is good in an absolute sense. The Father is the archetype, the Son is the
image of the Father, souls being the image of the Word; the Father generates
the Word, whereas the Father is ungenerated.
To say the Word is generated is almost to say it is created.
The
orthodox claim was that the Word's partic. in the Father is direct; not so with
the souls. Also, the image theology is
reworked: souls imaged after the whole trinity rather than the Word. Also, the orthodox made a distiction bet.
generation and creation, thereby separating the Word from the souls.. Consider two types of images. One image: a
natural identity bet. a Father and his little boy who looks like him. Another
type of image: a woman stands as an image for a statue. In only the first type is there a shared
nature. The word is of the first type to
the orthodox.
How
shall one say that the Father begot the Son?
From Himself? If so, hasn't the
Father been divided? Arius: yes. From something else? If so, two first principles. Arius concludes that the Word was generated
from nothing. Creation, too, was
generated from nothing. So, the Word was
created. Arius stresses the unity of God vis a vis the diverse nature of
creation. Greer: heresy is usually more
logical and less mysterious than is the orthodox. So, the Arians believed that Christ was a creature, even though they do not say that
Christ was just a man; he was neither just man or divine, but was like a super
archangel, the first of creation. The
word was created first, as a 'supra-archangel.
There was thus a time when the Father had no Son.
10/19/94:
Lecture
Arianism:
Course
of Arian Controversy
312 Constantine defeats Maximus in
the name of the cross
318 Proclamation of Ariaus.
324 Constantine becomes the sole
emperor.
325 Nicaea, summoned by
Constantine. One issue was Arianism.
Baptismal creed of Jerusalem used.
Included: Son generated from the ousia (essence). So, homoousius: of the
same essence. Resistance to this term
because it was not in the bible and because it seemed like Sabellianism (blurrs
distinction bet Father, Son, and Spirit: 'unitarianism'). So, many in the east were suspicious of this
Nicean solution. The Arians, on the
other hand, were viewed as conservatives.
They gained control of the Xian ch. in Antioch.
335 Tyre: a synod held wherein
charges made agn. Athaneaus.
350 The emergence of
neo-arianism. Christ was a creature and
not divine. Followed Origen who tried to
separate the Word from the Godhead.
Also, a belief that God can be known.
Emergence
of neo-Arianism
Eunonus: insisted that God can be
known.
Constantius,
Constantine's son, favored neo-Arianism.
Then,
a re-working of neo-Arianism.
Towards
a solution
360 Meletus: made Bishop of
Antioch. Kicked out because he was not
Arian. Julian 'the apostate' refuted
Xianity. When Julian became emperor in 361, Xianity was no longer patronaged by
the State. This allowed all the exiled
Bishops to return. Meletus returned to
Antioch. Julian was killed in 363. Within his reign, three Xian ch.s: Arian, a
new Nicean ch. under Meletus, and an old Nicean ch. A move to merge the latter two.
362 Synod of Alex. held by Athanaius
to do that. The idea was to say one
ousia awa three homoousion. A political
compromise which became the latter theol. sol.
Put both positions together. Church politics. But, this didn't solve the
scism in Antioch.
Cappadocian
solution: Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa.
Basil
was a new Nicea bishop. He engineered
the theol. sol.
381 Council in Constantinople. This sol. sticks. It recognized the acts of the Council of
Nicea. The creed at the second council was an elaboration of that of Nicean.
problem: 1 ousia, homoousion
formulaic solution: 1 ousia, 3 hypostases
Thinking
the formula through: risk--if one ousia,
then might imply a unitarian view of God (e.g. Origen and Arius). The Word becomes a creature.
Mean between Sabellianism(the Word
is not clearly distinguished from the Father: same essence) and Arianism(the
Word is a creature of the Father): it was the task of the Cappadocians to think
through the formula. Want to make distinctions to get away from Sebellian and
yet not too much such that Arianism(Son and Spirit as creatures) is not
maintained.
Platonism:
one ousia=form, with many manifestations.
Reality attaches to the form.
What is real is the form of humanity, not individuals. It gives full reality to the unity of God,
but not to the trinity. Aristotle is
just the opposite. Each manifestation is
a ousia. Generic concepts are
abstractions without reality. So,
Father, Son, and Spirit are real, but the unity of God is not. So, Plato and Aristotle not work here. Stocism: a pot of matter with individuated
substances. But can't recogn both. So,
this doesn't work either. None of these
Greek Phil. models work.
So, rejection of philosophical models.
perspectival solution: to speak of
God as one and three is to speak from
two
different perspectives. E.g.
wave/particle perspectives of light.
What do
these perspectives mean? God as one is of the perspective of God's
nature.
God is one ousia (essence). So, God is incorporial, incomprehensible,
transcendent. God is outside the spaciall-temporal
continium.
The
hypostatic perspective: what is the hypostisis?
If identify Father as an essence of God, it would follow that the Son
would be something other than God. Yet,
if say that Father is an action of God, the Son as the product would be
different than the agent. But Sebellius
would view it in terms of functions (what God does). So, according to Gregory
of Nazianzus, the perspective of three hypostasises is not that of nature or
essence or what is done, but something in the middle. What is in the middle bet. who I am and what
I do. Greer: this is artificial and makes
little sense. Relation or mode of being
is the perspective on the hypostases.
The
doctine here is not meant to be a definition of God, but is meant to protect
the divinity of Christ, distinct from that of Father and Son.
So,
the function of solution is to protect the distinct divinity of Christ. It is to say
that
God is incomprehensible, and that three modes of being of God balance
this
incomprehensibility. God as one ousia:
to say that God is a mystery; to say
He
is three hypostases is to say that He is in some sense comprehensible.
Other functions: God's relation to creation. As transcending, He is free of creation (i.e.
unpredictable), as apprehensible, we can count on him.
A
spiritual function too: if Humanity is in the image of God, and God is a
trinity, we each have relations within the nature of our humanity.
Augustine
reverses the question: how can one God be trinitarian.
The
dogma of one and three at 381 allow for many doctrines.
10/20/94:
Seminar
Gregory
of Nazianzus:
The
unknowability of God is stressed. So,
the doctrine of the trinity cannot be intended as a definition of God. Stages in knowing God: moral, understanding
of the created order as dependent on God(His presence is everywhere), and
finally a mystical union with God.
So, we have some form of knowledge of God, but not complete. Greer: Why?
The flesh: 'darkness of the body'.
Platonic epistomology: like is known by like. It is the soul which has a capacity to know
God, yet it is impeeded by the body. For
example, we must use temporal, spacial, and corporeal ideas to describe
something that is beyond these. Greer:
risk of dualism bet. matter and spirit here.
Angels are created and incorporeal, but can't know God fully. So, it is
our created, rather than material/corporeal status to which he attributes our
inability to know God. Creator/created
dualism.
Two
routes to God: from the soul, introspectively drawn to God; and from a
realization of the beauty of the creation, deducing God.
Passion,
in Greek, can mean vice (lust, anger...) as well as weakness(eating, drinking,
sleeping). God transcends vice and human
weaknesses. Assp: God is unchanging and
impassible. The unmoved mover. God transcends the world, distinguished from
it. The generation of the Son is outside corporeality (space) and temporarity;
passionless.
On the presence of Christ's corporeal body
in the trinity, it would probably be taken poetically. Greer: the important point is that God is
beyond death. In what sense Christ's body is in heaven is not clear.
The
incomprehensibility of God is a way of talking about the one ousia. Problem then in talking about the three. The will to beget is the same as the
begetting: timeless. To be begotten is
to be. Father/Son metaphor, remove
temporality and get an eternal relationship.
Father has a logical not temporal status above the Son. So, the East was
agn. the Philia in the creed. But God has a status above the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit economies. So, improper to call God Father. The latter is only one of the three
hypostises rather than the one ousia. Hypostisis
means 'the nature' in Greek philosophy 'mode of being', or 'relation' to the
Capps. Augustine: 'relation' is used in
the Trinity in a nonaccidental way, so refers to the substance of God.
Greer:
if the question is of how much we can know of God, recognize that it has a
mystery so can't be totally known. Yet, can have true apprehensions of it, by
its activities. We reason from
activities "functions" to what something is. External operations of God (the three
hypostases) are more than activities yet not totally the essence. God is
simultaniously unknowable and knowable.
A paradox.
10/24/94:
Lecture
Gregory
of Nyssa
The Narrative of Creation
Much
like Ireneus. God's providence
interacting with human freedom.
He
was born c. 335 (after the Contintinian revolution). Upper-middle class family. He was Basil's younger brother. With Basil, founded a family monastery. By the 380's he was a promenant bishop and
theologian. Died c. 394.
His
theology:
On the Making of Humanity. To complete a work of Basil (a series of
sermons on creation). Gregory took the
homilies and speculated on them. An
abstract philosophical treatise. Its
focus: humanity as the image of God. An
allegorical interp. of the creation narrative.
All else created before man.
Humanity is the guest of God's banquet.
Humanity's role: guest of honor, having dominion over the other wonders
of creation. The image of God: humanity
as created in the likeness of God. Human
soul created a kin to God. The form of
the human body fitted for royalty. The human soul is incorporeal,
ineffible. The soul becomes God's vice
ruler in the created order. Involves freedom. Also, the image is portrayed as
God's self-portrait. Humanity is created
with God's virtues. The Godhead is mind
and word. So, the ability of the mind to
know the world, God and Christ, as well as love, of the image of God. The moral virtues, the mind, and love
correlate with three stages of the spiritual life: proverbs (moral stage),
ecclesiastes (Soleman looks at the created order with his mind), song of Psalms
(love stage). Pergative, illuminative
and unified stages of the Xian life.
So,
a platonic view of the likeness of the soul to God.
Also,
see the soul as the governor of the body.
If the image is solely with the soul, run the risk of separating the
body from the soul. Human beings as
psychosymatic entities. Origin: preexist
of souls; Creationism: God puts souls in bodies; Traducianism: soul and body
together. Gregory was of the
latter. So, because the soul is a mirror
of God, it gives the soul power to govern the body. We are ourselves when our mind governs our
passions. E.g. love vs. lust; courage
vs. anger. Key: control of the body by
the mind. The stoic principle of the
mind controlling the bodily passions.
Human
nature and 'image of God' refer not to individuals but to the corporate
character of humanity, applying to everyone.
If humanity is created in the image of God, human nature is a single
nature. Thus, we become relations of one
another in one nature.[11] Augustine sees the individual soul as the
image of God: a psychological analogy.
Gregory is using a social analogy.
Gregory:
the image of God as a corporate entity giving harmony. The soul relates us to angels; the body
relates us to beasts, plants, and the lifeless things. Incorporeal vs. corporeal. Humanity acts as the keystone, thus the
unifier or harmonizer, of the created
order. In the incarnation, the Father
and Spirit are linked to Humanity such that the latter is able to be divinized
into a divinized kingdom. The whole of
the created order will be transfigured (including other animals and rocks). A corporate humanity without divisions,
divinized by means of the incarnate lord.
This
articulation of the image of God is an ideal.
The world around us is quite different.
He has a visionary understanding of humanity. He assumes it is a true vision, yet he does
not deny the existence of real evil. Why
does what God intends not what He does.
Why? Procreation. God foresees that humanity will fall, so he
prepares a remedy for it from the outset.
God provided Adam and Eve with bodies so they could procreate in a
beasteal fashion. Augustine, on the
other hand, argued that Adam and Eve would have had sex (from love rather than
lust) if they had not fallen. Gregory
disagrees. Greer: a confused area of
Gregory's thought. To Greer, the
addition of Male/Female means the addition of the body. God's intension is to create humanity in His
image, creating them with bodies so humans can function in a broader way (nec.
due to the fall). The story of creation
and redemption is of how God realizes the actualization of His intension that
we be in his image. This general picture
is a theology (explanation of evil). Be
patient. To Augustine, this is a nieve
optimism that fails to get folks to take the experience of evil and suffering
now.
10/26/94:
Lecture
Gregory
of Nyssa
In
sum of thus far: distinction bet. God's intention which is eternal and the way
God realizes it across time and history.
God's intension is in process of being actualized. Thus, there is still suffering and evil. Creation and redemption: two ways of talking
about the same process in which God is directing by his
providence (Christ in his incarnation is the
agent in this). The gradual creation
of
the image of God. The image refers to
humanity's role in the whole of
creation.
The
Incarnation:
Gregory's technical Christology vs.
Apollinaris
He
realizes that the technical questions can not be resolved; rather, speak of the
process.
On
Apollinaris: Bishop of Acanecia. A
friend of Athanaeus. At the council of Nicea.
In opposition to Arius. Appol.
declared a heritic at Constantinople (381).
His view: recall Athanaeus--the word fashions and divinises a human body
for the purpose of redemption. Christ
does not have a human soul. A word-flesh, or appropriation, Christology. The word appropriates a human body. Logic: a human is a spiritual principle(e.g.
personality) governing a body. Christ:
his spiritual principle (the word) governing a human body. So, Christ is consubstantial with God awa us. Yet, the soul is affected by our body (our
personality can be affected when one's body is tired). The Arians argued that the soul of Christ was
affected by his body, so was less than God.
Appollinaris disagrees: Christ's body did not effect his soul. For humans, soul effects body and vice
versa. For Christ, his soul always
governed his body. So, In Christ,
suffering being defined as a divine activity, rather than from the body. The vitality of the word is constantly
directed to the body according to Appollinaris.
Whereas Athaneaus omits Christ's human soul, Appollinaris uses reasons
to argue that Christ did not have a human soul: the human soul is always
rebellious. So, that Christ did not
rebel shows that he did not have one. In
virtue of our creation, the human soul
is not strong enough to always govern the body.
A comparsion between Adam and Christ. 1 Cor. 15: the first man is
earthy. Adam in paradise before the Fall
was immature. He was good, but in need
of completion due to his created state. The created Adam had a human soul to
begin with where as Christ did not. Christ's
humanity is discontinuous with our humanity.
Replacement of our earthly humanity with Christ's divine humanity. Appol. therefore says Christ is a new
humanity. Problems: creation being equated with the Fall; consubstantiality bet. Christ and us is only
via the body.
The
Cappadocians argued agn. Appol. Nyssa
esp. Two attacts used.
theol. argument:
distinction--fellowship
Appol.
argued that the word is as close to the human body as the human soul is. Gregory: the human soul permeates the whole of
the body; not located at any one point in the body. So, impossible to sep.
them. The soul-body relation understood
by Gregory in a unified way. Risk of no
distinction bet. the creator and the creation.
In Christ, a created and an uncreated aspect. The relation bet. these is a fellowship. Word of God and the God-bearing man are
distinct. God transcends the created
order.
Soteriological argument:
union--mingling
Gregory:
for salvation, union bet. God and man nec.
The absence of a human soul in Christ would mean that salvation would be
incomplete: what Christ has not assumed he has not redeemed. Christ had a human soul--he had to or the
human soul would not be included in the redemption. A mingling: a human soul in Christ does not
obscure his divine nature. Like a drop
of vinegar dropped in the Ocean. The
vinegar becomes the ocean. Appol. confuses the divinity and humanity and gives
an insufficient account of the unity of Christ and man. So, Christ is distinct and yet involved in
humanity. The word remains distinct
while being united to humanity. Gregory
is setting up a paradox.
If
the incarnation is an inspired human being, then either God is arbitrary in
choosing to inspire only one man or only one man chose to do God's will. Gregory does not appeal to phil. or theol,
but to scripture. Christ was distinct
from, yet involved in, humanity. He was
not just another man and he was not just God.
How
could the word not be sucked into passion in Gregory's account? If the word is impassible, then this may be a
way of saying that it is sinless. The
sinlessness of christ is a way to speak of his impassibility. Yet, passion can also refer to human weakness
(eating, sleeping). Not vices. For Christ these were divine operations. But, this does not refute the objection that
christ would have had to become passible in the incarnation. Gregory says we don't have enough knowledge
to explain why this was God's way. Yet what
we do know about the incarnation fits with the nature of God's goodness. Christ's consubstantiality both with God and
with us is a mystery.
The
issues were the trinity and the incarnation here. There comes a point in which the mystery must be recognize.
Nyssa
refers to humanity in corporate awa concrete terms.
The process: leaven and lamb.
Christ
is the leaven. He is leavening our human
nature. In the process, he speaks of
Christ's concrete human nature. In the
new age, he speaks of Christ's corporate humanity. The leaven leavens the whole lump. Christ's
corporate
human nature is an image of god. The
metaphor of the temple, the
body
of Christ. All of us are in one body of
christ: Christ's humanity. At the end
of time, Christ's humanity is the lamb. ???
The
triple vision:
Epektasy: perpetual process in good
Koinonia: corporate humanity
Transfigured material creation
10/27/94:
Seminar
Gregory
of Nyssa:
The
man Jesus was taken from the common lump.
The concrete humanity of Jesus
begins the process of the divination of our human nature. In the age to come, we join Christ's
divinized human nature. In that age we
become relations to each other within the divinized humanity of Christ. So, in that age, Christ's humanity is
corporate.
The
distinction between creator and creature is bet. absolute being and becoming.
In the latter is choice and movement. Good = Being and Evil = Nonbeing. So,
evil does not come from God. Origen too:
evil as the deprivation of good, so God didn't create evil.
In the age to come, heaven will be
perpetual progress in the good. God
is infinite. Perpetual movement toward God.
Mystical. You never get to
infinity, but you lose track of time and space. The movement toward Evil, on
the other hand, is limited because it is bounded by good. So, Nyssa is a universalist. Greer: "Even Satan will be saved because
Christ's punishment of him and victory over him is God's way of healing 'the
very author of evil himself'." God
deceived satin by hooking him on Christ's humanity. God deceived the deceiver(who had deceived
Adam and Eve). Both: lured by the promise of divinity. Satin brings on his punishment on
himself(Christ). This punishment becomes
medicine for Satin. God is constantly
responding to our choices by redirecting us so as to purify us. Persuasion, rather than deceit, used.
Baptism: what happens depends on the
disposition of the heart of the one who receives it. The effect of a sacrament depends upon how
you receive it. Baptism is a means of grace, but it is not necessary for salvation.
Augustine's view of election raised the necessity of baptism. Baptism for them
was not nec. the forgiveness of sins.
Many gifts of baptism. Augustine
was the first to say that we are born damned.
Nyssa has a more optimistic theolology
Sin, to him, is a mistake about
the good, basically equatable with ignorance. Sin is not cumpulsions. The
human problem is not sin but mortality.
Mortality pertains to instability between the body and mind. Yet mortals still have the power to choose
the good.
Greer:
Nyssa isn't clear on the separation of the soul from the body at death. The immortality of the soul comes from Greek
phil. He holds on to this.
Corporate
humanity, transfigured physical realm, and perpetual becoming: the three ways
in which Nyssa sees the world to come.
They are not systematically related and can be contradicted.
10/31/94:
Lecture
Gregory
of Nyssa
The
triple vision of the age to come which informed his understanding of Xianity in
this world:
The
first vision: three stages.
The first stage:
Epektasy[12]:
perpetual process in good. Reworking Origen's
contemplative ideal. Ethical.
From Proverbs. From Vice to
Virtue.
Freewill
emph. We can choose good or evil. We constantly
change. God assists us if we move in the direction of
the
good. We have the capacity to move toward God. God
cooperating
with humanity. God's grace is a response to
human
choice. Greer: some Pelagian in it, but
some grace
in the human
choice. God elicits the choice from
us.
The second stage:
Symbolized by Eclesiastes. Soloman's
verdict on
the created order. A negative
judgement. So,
the whole of
the created order is dependent upon God.
Allegory of
the Burning Bush: everything depends on the
transcendent
essence of the cosmos. Grasp of God's
presence. Beyond morality.
The third stage: Song of Songs. 'the beloved is mine and
I am
his'. The union with God. As creatures, we will always
be becoming
(i.e. change). Allegorical interp. of
Exodus.
Moses sees
God's back parts pass. Following
God. The
soul, freed
from the body, soars to God. No limit to
this
ascent. An eternal joyful expectful movement to God
which
never
ends.
The
first stage is preliminary. Then,
recognize God's presence. Then, drawn to
God. These stages in human destiny are also stages
in the Xian life. Xian perfection in
becoming the servant of God. The vision
of God (e.g. Moses on the mount) is in the middle. Mystical experiences are not ends in
themselves, but are followed by a return to this world to serve others. Later in Xianity, contemplation is seen as
above the active life. For the Capp.s,
these two are interactive. Gregory sees
this as for the monastaries. Life of
prayer and virtue. So, monastic hours
awa teaching or social service.
The
second vision: Koinonia: corporate humanity.
No division. Greer: individualism
coming from community.
The
third vision: Transfigured material creation.
Humanity divinized.
Augustine,
on the other hand, argues that there is a large gap bet. our life and the world
to come.
Gregory:
wrote theology on human destiny so as to inform Xian life here.
The
councils of Nicea and Constantinople were concerned with trinitarian
issues. The next two councils considered
Christology.
Arians
in 325: Eustathius. In 360,
Diodore. They were in Antioch. Diodore was actually rather orthodox. Two of his pupils were Theodore and John
Chirysotom in 381. Nestorius and
Theodore were in Antioch in 431.
Alex.:
Athanasius in 325, Cyril and Eutyches in 431, and Diosorus in 451.
Lofty
and lowly statements about Christ. In
Alex., the lofty statements refer to the Word of God and the lowly statements
refer to the Word incarnate. So, refer
to the same subject under different conditions.
The Word as a prince embraces a pauper's condition. In Antioch, the lofty are attributed to the
Word, but the lowly are attributed to the man Jesus (his humanity). Two statements made of two subjects. How is it then argued that the Word and the
man Jesus are united in the incarnation?
Antiochene
Theology
Ante-Nicene? Eustathius, Diodore and Theodore did not
emerge in the
Arian
controversy. So, the school was before
the Council of Nicea and did not emerge as the Arian controversy.
Eustathius: had a writing before the
Nicea Council. Statements of the
Ante-Nicene
Christology.
Diodore: seems to have been an
inovation.
Paul
of Samasada: a precurer of Diodore and Theodore, yet the latter two denied
this.
So,
the Antiochene Theology was not a reaction agn. the Arians.
Eustathius
of Antioch: a series of dogmatic formula remain. Plus a small treatise agn. Origen. Eustathius emph. the creator/created
distinction. Not soteriological which
would imply a union here. God is
transcendant of the created order because he is immanent (everywhere). This distinction needs to be made about
Christ. Divinity and humanity in Christ
are thus distinguished. The indweller
(the Word) and the indwelt (the man).
The latter does not defile the former.
Diodore
of Antioch: fragments only remain.
Theodore used him a lot. Once
Nestorius was condemned in 451, their writings were thrown out. We have more material from Theodore. Commentaries on Paul's minor episcles and on
John. Also, on the sacraments. Some of the Nestorian Xians went to the
Persian Empire. They were scholars and
missionaries. Were in India, awa China
and Japan. They took along Aristotle.
11/2/94:
Lecture
Theodore
of Mopsuetia (School of Antioch)
He
gives an independence to the O.T. The
trinity is not recognized in the O.T. He
questions Songs of Songs (a secular wedding song) and Job (thought by him to be
written by a pagan).
The
historia: narrative meaning of the text is emph.d by him as being informed by
its historical context. So, the O.T.
must be given a meaning in line with its own time. For example,
the historical situation which the prophet is addressing would be salient
in understanding the narrative. Each
psalm must be regarded as a unity, rather than referring individual lines to
different referents (e.g. Christ); so must relate the psalms to the Babylonian
Captivity. So, not regarded as a
prophesy of Christ. He regards only four
psalm as prophetic of Christ. Not
'...forsaken me'. So, a historical,
independent view of the O.T. Has nothing
to do with Christ. There is, however, a
second meaning in the O.T.:
The
theoria: spiritual meaning. A
double-function: a contemporary use in terms of the condition of the
writer. So, a hint of what will be true
later on. One can press beyond 'the law'
to timeless, eternal meanings. Can apply O.T. to N.T., and the N.T. to the age
to come. The whole of the O.T. as a promise which finds its fulfillment in
Christ. The horizon of the O.T. goes
beyond the conditions of the writers.
Types(signs):
For example, Moses' bronze serpent.
Meant for that hist. cond. Yet also a
hint of what will be its fulfillment in Christ.
Christ was lifted up to heal not only death (as Moses did with the
serpent) but sin as well. So, the O.T. contains types, or signs, of what is to
come. The sacraments are also viewed as
types, or signs, of things to come: baptism and the resurrection.
So, a progression from the shadow of law to the
image of God to the reality of God (O.T., N.T., and second age).
The
texts in the O.T. have a Chistological meaning even though they are not types,
or signs, of Christ. His assp> Christ fulfills scripture. This enables prophesy at the level of
spiritual meaning. He realized that
one's theol. claims shape one's interpretation of scripture. One's view of the fulfillment informs one's
view of prophesy.[13]
Theodore's
theology
The two ages: this age and that to come. An exaggerated distinction bet. God as
creator and humanity as the creation.
Eternal vs. having a beginning.
key: limits or not. The
transcendence of God is utterly other than the creation. The God-man is a unique thing in this
scheme. God divided the created order
into two ages: the first--mutability of creation; the second--immutability of
the entire creation. As with St. Paul,
Christ is the first principle of the new age put in the first age to usher in
the second age. A Jewish-Xian perspective:
the two ages are linked together by Christ.
The first age is viewed as a preparation of the second.
Providence and freedom: His view is
similar to that of Origen and Gregory.
Providence is the context in which we exercise out ability to choose between
good and evil. Providence as persuasive.
Greer: the mother's love makes the context in which the children make their
choices. The more the children recognize
the mother's love, the more the kids will take the risks in exercising their
choice. Security gives freedom. If we misuse God's love via our freedom, we
are punished. God uses His punishments
to teach or heal us. Augustine, on the
other hand, viewed providence as soveriegn and thus coersive.[14]
Salvation: the end the age of preparation. Completion of the education/punishment
includes resurr of the body as well as moral and spirtual aspects. The moral and spiritual aspects are more
important in the union with God in the age to come. We become children of
God. We gain boldness of speech that
enables us to speak face to face with God.
Greer: theology is basically
poetry; there is a poetic license to theology.
Christ=the Word and the assumed
man. He makes a distinction between
these. He is trinitarianly
orthodox. Nothing unusual in his view of
the Word. But, the assumed man is human
as we are. His basic problem: how they
are united in Jesus.
one prosopon (mask--a
persona). A single Christ. Yet, scripture distinguishes between the Word
and the assumed man. The distinction
between God the Word with the man Jesus is at issue here--and how to unite them
in Christ. Two different natures (the
creator and the created). Greer: he is
using it as a exegetical devise. His
real way of articulating the Christological union is in an analogy of grace.
analogy of grace: Like
marriage. As a man and his woman become
one flesh, God and his creation become one in Christ. God the Word indwells in the assumed man. Because God is the ground of being, he
indwells in all things. But uniquely in
Christ: in good pleasure (from what God says when J. was baptised). Also in regard to prophets, though. Many have been inspired by grace due to their
desire to please God. Wanted: a
difference in kind between the grace in Christ and that in everyone else. Key: indwelling as a Son via the Son's
activity in redemption which is unique.
The special purpose in God here: redemption. God's and man's purposes rarely unite or
correspond. With Christ they do, in
terms of 'doing', rather than simply 'being'.
Greer: this is not a metaphysical way, but is a moral way, of arguing
for a union. One could argue that a
moral union is not sufficient to unite two such radically different
natures. Yet, is not a moral union more
valable than metaphysical union?
11/3/94:
Seminar
Theodore
of Mopsuestia
On
the Christological union: the whole of the assumed to himself. A unique case of his particular presence,
produced by a deliberate act of divine will, unique because he operated completely in him. 'Participation' was a way of uniting two
distinct natures without either being compromised.
Greer:
Jesus
was made perfect through suffering, the captain of our salvation by the
Word of God (Hebrews). Means that
the Man assumed was made perfect by suffering by the Word. Theodore is using this to show that the
Hebrews text is referring to one prosopon.
He is using this term as an exegetical term. The term prosopon does not solve the problem. To Greer, the solution (Theodore's union):
how the indwelling takes place. Essence
and active operation are not the way, because by these God rests as the ground
of being ontologically and in power in everything. Various forms of indwelling. Needed: a special kind of indwelling. By good pleasure by grace and freedom. Still, the prophets had this. Not enough.
Good pleasure alters the mode of his indwelling by proportion. For
Jesus, 'as in a Son'. Greer: a
difference in kind. A unique
participation: the whole of grace dwelling in the man. God's act of will here is what is unique. He sees providence as a context in general
but is using using here with Jesus as a particular. Greer: a congruence of grace and
freedom. But still a problem in that
providence is being used here uniquely in a particular event. Greer: a relatedness bet. the creator and the
created are intensified and united in Christ.
Christ: a focal point for
this. Theo. views the union as moral. Key: confluence of grace and mutual
choice. Moral/Spiritual. Greer: what is
more valuable than a moral and spiritual union?
A metaphysical union need not be more valuable.
Antioch:
tend to pull the two natures apart.
Alex.:
tend to put them together.
Theordore:
the Man Jesus as the model. Greer: the first principle which we follow to the
second age. Overcoming death is the goal
Sin is an outcome of mortality. Yet, in
the bible, death is said to come from sin.
Greer: instability in mind and body connection that comes with mortality
causes sin.
According
to Theodore, Jesus's divinity was not recognized by others until after his
resurrection. Greer: The union was a
process through his life.
Greer:
an ancient preaching tradition that insists on the reality of Christ's
humanity. In Ignatius, Ireneus, Justin
and Theodore.
Greer: the divinity of Christ affects his
humanity such that both are different in kind from our divinity and humanity. Theodore attributes Jesus' miracles to his
humanity. So, his humanity is different
from ours. Miracles of the prophets
attributed to God.
11/7/94:
Lecture
Nestorian
Controversy:
John
Chrysostom, pupil of Libanius in Antioch (pagan). C. 373, John retreated to the mountains,
lived as a monk for 7-8 years. In 381,
he was made a deacon at Antioch. A
'golden-mouthed' preacher. Priested in
386. 387: made Abp of Constantinople. He wanted to sort-out the empress and the
imperial church; got him into trouble. Prophetic stance, social justice.
Theophilus,
patriarch of Alexandria, was John's rival.
Epiphanius of Salamis' witchhunts found Egyption monks were Origenist.
He persuaded Theophilus to punish them by removing them from Egypt. They went to Constantinople, where John took
care of them, although he didn't restore them to commissions. In 403, at the Synod of the Oak, Theophilus
charged John with disciplinary infringements and embezzlement. John was condemned, but the emperor restored
him to Constantinople. But in 404, John
insulted the empress, and then exiled to the Black Sea. He died in 407.
Nestorius,
like John, was from Antioch, was an ascetic and probably a pupil of Theodore of
Mops. In 428, Nestorius didn't lke monks
calling Mary 'the mother of god'.
Theophilus' letter about this to the bishop of Rome. He wanted a
distinction between creator and created (re: Theodore of Mop.); monks said to
have confused the two natures because Mary gave birth to humanity, not
divinity. Divinity was before the beginning. They could call Mary Christbearer
or Manbearer but not Godbearer. The
Marian cult was active at this time.
Nestorius asked the bishop of Rome to be the arbiter. But the monks were
loyal to Cyril of Alex. so it got political. John favored complete union of the
natures, quoting Athenasius 'one nature of the incarnate word' (forerunner of
Monophysites). Cyril gets dossier of Nestorius' sermons and uses it to condemn
him. They are sent to Celestine, bishop
of Rome, who agreed with Cyril. The
third letter of Cycil to Nestorius listed twelve heresies. The bishop of Rome did not yet have
jurisdictional power over the church, but others looked to him to
arbitrate. Nestorius appealed to the
emperor to convene a council: Ephesus in 431. Cycil and his bishops arrive
early and condemn Nestorius. Then, Nestorius
arrives and condemns Cycil. Emperor
exiled both of them. Nestorius went to
Upper Egypt and d. c. 451 in obscurity.
Cycil was later recalled. Note the political dimension of all this.
Athanasius
represented the Alex. Theology: incarnate deity (one nature).
Antioch
emphasized the human aspect more.
Both
Christologies gained clarity in response to Arianism.
Arian
Syllogism:
Major
Premise: The Word is subject to human operations and sufferings.
For ex., Jesus wept:
Jesus=word of God, weeping is according to
human operation.
Minor
Premise: Whatever predicated of the Word is predicated according to
nature.
Conclusion:
Therefore, the Word is limited and affected by human operations
and sufferings of
Christ.
If
The Word wept according to his nature, Jesus Christ must be a creature (but not
necessarily human). To defeat a
syllogism, one must defeat one of the premises.
Alex.
rejected the minor premise: Some things according to nature (Word was with God,
was God, etc.--word proper); others because of economy(Jesus wept,
etc.--reference to word incarnate). Not
intended to be docetic. Prince and
Pauper analogy--experiences and clothing of pauper were real for the prince but
didn't affect his identity/nature as prince.
Antioch
attacked the major premise: some Biblical verses attribute to the Word of God;
some to Jesus the man. So, two subjects;
not one. For example, Jesus wept as a man; the Word didn't. Two natures.
All
of this depends on noticing the problem in the N.T.--some statements show
Christ is human; others that he is God. If scripture is sacred and
authoritative, everything in it must be considered--both the lofty and lowly
pictures of Christ.
The
two responses to the Arian Syllogism are the root of two Christologies.
Alex. has total union of two natures
because they are distinguished only at the operational level. Difficulty with Ps. 22. Antioch
has very distinct two natures.
Theological
principle (distinction bet. creator and created at every level includes Christ)
vs. Soteriological principle (for redemption to work, the fullest possible
union between God and humanity is necessary).
Luther's
analogy: sinking in quicksand--need savior but not someone who climbs in and
sinks too; not someone on bank saying swim harder; but something in between.
Cycil
of Alex: He depends on Athanasian Christology. Although he uses his own terms.
Athanasius: Word of God fashioning body in womb and staying with this body
through the resurrection. The incarnation is a process. Cycil is similar but is
not just a body but a whole human nature including the human soul. Human nature was gradually divinized,
completed in the resurrection. Things said in scripture can refer to either
part. Miracles of Christ attribute to divinity (in Antioch, attributed to
humanity).
11/9/94:
Lecture
Nestorian
Controversy & Chalcedon:
According
to Theodore, unity of purpose is sufficient for the redemption of humanity. At
Chalcedon, it was decided that this is not sufficient. Seeds of nestorianism can be seen in Theodore,
who does not want to argue for the unity of essence between Christ's divine and
human natures because such would break down the distinction between God and His
creation. His motivation was to preserve
orthodoxy in spite of his unorthodox position (same dynamic with Arius and
Origen).
John
Chrysotom was a brilliant student. In the year 373, he lived as a monk outside
Antioch and then he went back to Antioch in 381. He was associated with Diodore. John rapidly became an important figure in
Antioch--called John the Golden Mouthed, because he was a powerful preacher.
Sermons give a vivid glimpse as to what urban life must have been like in the
fourth century. He became the bishop of
Constantinople in 398. He was a prophetic character; he decided that he would
clean up the church's act and that of the empress (esp. her hairdo). He got into trouble when he rousted folks who
gave money to the Church. He wanted the
money to go to the poor. He was also not
liked by Theopholus who was a witchhunter, looking for heresy. Theopholus discovered that there were some
monks who were Origenist in theology. He
expelled their leaders, who went on the Constantinople and were cared for by
John Chrystontom. Theopholus called the
Synod of the Oak in order to bring charges such as misuse of church funds, bad
personal life, etc. John was condemned,
but the emperor reversed the condemnation.
But John then made the colossal error of insulting the empress. The emperor then had John put into exile in
404. He died in 407. Behind these dynamics in the church was the
rivalry between Antioch and Alexandria.
This rivalry was also present in the Nestorian controversy which led to
Chalcedon.
The
Nestorian Controversy: Nestorius vs. Cycil of Alexandria
Terms:
Hypostasis:
concrete reality as existing thing.
Physis:
reality in terms of significance.
Incomplete
vs. complete natures: body and soul are each incomplete because they need each
other to exist; human being is complete.
Ousia:
essence
Nestorius
was from Antioch but became the patriarch of Alexandria. He was a pupil of Theodore and an
ascetic. Nestorius objected to Mary
being called the Mother of God, because he wanted to separate Christ's divine
and human natures. He wanted to draw a
distinction between the creator and creation in the same way that we draw a
distinction between Christ the Word and Christ the man. Mary gave birth to the
humanity and not to the divinity. The first birth of Chirst was when Christ was
begotten; the second birth was of the humanity from Mary. Conjoined natures, but not metaphysically
united. He thought that metaphysical unity was a confused combination error
because it merged the created with the creator.
Two wills are distinct, but they do the same thing. So, it is proper, according to Nestorius, to
call Mary the 'man bearer' or the 'Christ bearer', but not the 'God
bearer'. Mary was the bearer of the
human. Mary was not the mother of
Christ's divinity. Although the
controversy was Christological, part of what was being dealt with was the
Marian cult. Moreover, one cannot use
any term to explain the union of the divine and human natures in Christ because
they are distinct realities. If merged, they become a different thing (alloy)
altogether. Nestorius used prosopon
to express 'mode of appearance. Human nature can appear as a schema:
unreal, misleading, or a disguise. Or, human nature can appear as a prosopon:
authentic expression of nature. Divine
nature can also have a prosopon. Both of
these prosopons coincide in Christ. For,
example, in Phil. 2, there is a distinction between forms of God and of a
servant. In Christ, these two forms
coincide.
So,
because God is unknowable by us, he must reveal himself in a form that we can
understand (i.e. in human terms). So,
the perfect human life(sinless rather than fallen) is the ideal expression of
God's nature to us. Nestorius was condemned because he was interpreted as
having divided the two natures. Despite Nestorius' argument, the Council of
Theoticus decided that Mary should be called the Mother of God. The Western Church follows suit to this day.
Cyril of Alexandria, meanwhile, was totally committed to the union of the two
natures in Christ (hypostatic union). He
argued that the two wills aren't sufficient for salvation. He believed that
Mary was the Bearer of God. He insisted that the divinity and humanity of
Christ were fully united. He used an
expression of Athanatius, who wrote that Christ was one nature of the incarnate
Word. Cyril assembled a dossier of
Nestorius' sermons. With the permission
of the bishop of Rome, he condemns Nestorius in his 'twelve beliefs'. According to Cyril, "If anyone does not
confess that Christ is God and that Mary is not Theoticus (God bearer)...let
him be anathema." Mary bore in the
flesh the Word of God by the action of the Holy Spirit which implanted the
divine nature in Mary's womb. God has no
mother in the sense that God has existed from eternity. Logic is that if we
don't talk about Mary as the bearer of God, we can't talk about Christ as God
incarnate. We could not say anything
more about Jesus than that he was human.
So, this doctrine should not be interpreted as a divinization of Mary;
it was later that some tried to deify her. Cyril's anathemas did not settle the
matter. It spread to become a world-wide
controversy. Nestorius asked the emperor
to convene a council, which he did at Ephasus in 431. Cyril and his bishops
arrived ahead of time and the council began before Nestorius arrived, so he was
condemned. Only later did Nestorius'
representatives arrive, led by John of Antioch.
They held their own council and condemned Cyril of Alexandria. The Emperor exiled both. Cyril was later recalled, but Nestorius died
in exile in Egypt.
In
this controversy are two Christologies reacting to Arianism.
Recall
the Arian syllogism:
Major Premise: The Word is subject
even to human operations and
sufferings
of Christ ('Jesus wept'. Because he
is
the Word of God, even this human operation is
predicated
on the Word. So, the Word of God wept).
Minor Premise: Whatever is
predicated of the Word is by nature ('Jesus
wept'.
The Word of God wept naturally, or by nature).
Ergo: The Word is limited and
affected by human operations and
suffering. If the verse really means that the Word of
God
wept according to his nature, then since God
transcends
human nature and suffering, the Word of
God
must be a creature. In talking about the Word
changing,
suffering, and dying, we are talking about
a
creature rather than about God. The Word is thus a creature.
In
order to refute a syllogism, one must refute one of its premises. In
Alexandria, the minor premise was attacked. It is not true that everything that
is predicated on the Word is predicated to nature. Some to nature, some to the economy
(incarnation). Distinction between natural predication and economic
predication. Economic attribution os like arguing that the pauper's clothes and
experience are in fact to be attributed to the prince, but not in such a way
that they would effect the status of the prince (remains the prince despite his
impoverished condition). Doesn't intend to be docetic. Problem: the prince
always knew he was a prince, so this may not be an adequate means by which to
describe the human experience of Christ.
Still, the pauper's characteristics such as weeping do not effect his
status. In Antioch, the major premise
was attacked. Some biblical verses were attributed to the Word of God and some
to the man. We have two subjects--not
just two modes of attribution. Jesus wept: man assumed by God wept, not the
Word of God. Nestorius. There has to be
a way of coming to terms with the double-judgment that scripture is making about
Christ.
On
the miricles: Alexandria attributed them to Christ's divinity. In Antioch, they are attributed to
humanity.
In
creating a Christology, it is necessary to observe two principles:
1.
Theological Principle: There is a distinction between the uncreated and the
created, even in Christ. Theologically,
one cannot confuse God with the created order.
Therefore, one must retain the distinction even on what one says about
Christ.
2.
Soteriological Principle: For redemption to occur, there must be the full union
between God and humanity.
These
two principles are contradictory (on the level of logic). Martin Luther used the example of a man
sinking in quicksand who needs a savior. The savior who climbs in the quicksand
would die too. If the Savior simply
stood on the bank, that would do no good either. Savior has to have one foot in
the quicksand and one foot out. Have to
have God, if there is going to be salvation, but you also have to have a link
to mankind if the salvation is to be effective (reaching us).
Cyril
of Alexandria depends on the Christology of Athanasius. Athanasius' 'on the incarnation' refers to
the Word of God fashioning a body in the womb of the Virgin Mary and making
that body his own. God appropriates the body when He is with it when it dies
and is raised from the dead. Think of
the incarnation as a process which begins with the appropriation of a body and
end with the rising of it. Cyril has one correction: not just a body which is
formed in Mary's womb, but a full human nature including soul as well as body.
This handles the double-judgment in an Alexandrian fashion.
Cyril
of Alexandria: 1 hypostasis or 1 nature of the Incarnate soul. Basically, he
wants to argue that the two elements (human and divine) are in one soul. But in
putting the two together, what he is concerned to argue is that the humanity is
not to be thought of as separate and independent. He insists that the human
nature totoally controlled and guided by God the Word. Cyril has no difficulty accounting for the
unity. The problem he has is that the two natures might be confused with one
another. Risk of reducing the Godhead to the human level (changeable). Also, a risk that the humanity will be so
exalted that it would no longer be
considered divinely human, but divinity itself.
This is best illustrated in Cyril's works on Christ's suffering. For instance, Christ's statement 'My God, My
God, why have you foresaken me?' was not for himself, but for all of
humanity. See Ps 22: could be argued
that Jesus is quoting the verse of the psalm, but this seems unlikely. To
Cyril, just as the human person involves the unity of body and soul (can't have
one without the other), so with Christ--the divine and human natures are united
in Christ; can't have one without the other for him to be the savior. God by nature became flesh--man insoled with
a rational soul. So, one shouldn't be embarrassed by the fact that Jesus
experienced human events such as sorror and hunger. Christ in human fashion (hunger) and divine
fashion (miracles, foreknowledge). A
metaphysical union: the distinction is in the way we are predicating Jesus, not
in the object itself. Nestorius, on the
other hand, argued that the human nature wept while the divine nature did
miracles. Nestorius risks salvation; Cyril risks the humanity of Christ. After
Cyril, some of his followers became very radical: Monophositism (one
nature). Mono (one) Phosis
(nature). Only one nature in the
incarnate Word. Usually only came out of the divine. Metaphysical union is so indivisible that
there is really only one (divinized) nature.
Two natures have collapsed into one.
Argued that Christ really didn't eat, sleep, or suffer; rather, he did
these so he would appear to be human. He
didn't need these things to live. Seems like Gnosticism. Present day Oriental Orthodox Churches.
Because the Council of Ephesus in 431 ended
in stalemate, Theodore of Cyrus (a negotiator between Antioch and Alexandria)
drew up a settlement in 433 which represented an agreement to disagree. Called:
The Formula of Union. This would have ended the problem, but for a monk
named Euteches, who began proclaiming an extreme view of Cyril's
Christology. Euteches taught that
Christ's body had peculiar properties in that he did not need to eat, or
example. He was excommunicated. Bishop
of Rome Leo was written to by Flavian on this issue. Eutuches appealed to the
emperor and in 449, the Latrocinium (Robbers' Council) was held. This
vindicated Eutuches and condemned Flavius and Leo. The old emperor died and the
new emperor convened a new council, which met at Chalcedon. It vindicated Flavius and Leo, and condemned Eutuches.
Chalcedonian
definition: basically, it was a compromise statement designed to exclude error,
but not to define truth. It rejected
Arius (there must be a divine nature; Arius had denied this), Appolonarus
(Christ had a complete human nature, consubstantial with both the Godhead and
humanity; Appolonarus had denied this), Nestorius (natures must be undivided;
Nestorius divided them), and Eutuches (can't confuse the natures with one
another; Eutuches, in arguing that Jesus did not have to eat, had confused the
divine and human natures). REjecting an
error implies something positive. Four terms are the boundaries (grammatical
rules) for doing a Christology.
Chalcedon recognized three different Christologies: Cyril (orthodox,
minus his one nature theology), Theodore, and Leo (Tome). Not a new creed; rather, just a guideline. These are impossible rules which cannot be
preserved together.
The Chalcedon solution: One in the same
Christ, same perfect in Godhead, same in manhood. Truly God and truly man.
Consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with us in manhood. Like us
in all ways except sin. Born of Mary, Theotocus (God Bearer) in manhood. Acknowledged
in two natures without confusion, with change, division or separation; the
difference in the two natures being in no way taken away because of the union.
But rather the distinct natures combined in one hypostasis. Two natures, unconfused. Two natures in one person (or one
hypostasis). Reject Cycil's language regarding two natures=one nature.
Attempted to embrace the followers of Nestorianism to a point--rejected the
Mono nature language. The following 1600
years have been footnotes to the Chalcedon definition.
At
Chalcedon, a major dispute with respect to one term: 'acknowledged in (or from)
two natures'. Cyril wanted the latter,
such that the two natures became one in the incarnation. 'In' would imply the persistence of the two
natures following the incarnation. This
won the day.
Greer's theology: If one starts with the
idea that the Incarnation is incomprehensible (as God is incomprehensible),
then one could argue that there are various ways of describing this mystery.
The fact that God should come among us and live and die with us--is truly a
mystery. God's power is revealed in
weakness and his majesty is to be understood as paradoxically equatable with
his willingness to live an die with us.
Whereas
the dogma of the Trinity is accepted by everyone in 381 at Constantinople, the
Christological definition was not so accepted after Chalcedon. Egypt saw the council as a vindication of
Nestorius (two separate natures) and refused to go along with it. This was the argument in the East from then on,
dividing it into the Oriental and Greek Orthodox Churches.
Greer:
there is a danger in talking about Christ in abstract ways. Can't think of him
as the Christ in scripture; don't see him in the earthly life.
Neochalcedonism:
take Chalcedoniam definition of two natures and one hypostasis and try to
understand it. A nature is generic in
character, and expresses itself as a hypostasis. In God, we have one nature
that expresses itself in three divine hypostases. In humans, there is one
nature and one hypostasis. In the case of Christ, the human nature doesn't
express itself in a human hypostasis, but in a divine hypostasis (a divinized
humanity). There is not a man
Jesus. The Word of God took to himself
everything that is necessary for human nature, but not a concrete existing man.
thi is the Christology of Thomas Aquinus, Charles Gore, and was the dominant
Christology for centuries.
To
insist on a single hypostasis, the duality of Christ is overcome. If the Word of God had united himself to a
concrete human being, then he would have benefitted that human being, but no
one else. The argument for the generic humanity of Christ would be one of the
arguments for this position.
Very
hard to accept: since the nineteenth century, the historical Jesus question. Hard to
get around the fact that there was an existing human being named Jesus.
11/14/94:
Lecture
Augustine:
He
did not have much influence in the East.
In the West, he changed attention to Xian doctrines involving
anthropological questions, such as the issues of grace and free-will. According to Greer, Augustine uses the
biological approach.
There
is a contrast between the early[15]
and late Augustine. His early writings include Xian Platonism
wherein the soul is between good and evil.
His later works emphasize the
total deprevity in original sin and the sovereignty and coerciveness of grace.
He
was born in 354 in N. Africa (now Algeria) at the height of the Roman Empire
and he died in 430 when Roman rule was in collapse[16]. His mother, Monica, was a Xian, so his
conversion was to a religion he knew of.
In 373, a book by Cicero changed his life. Cicero advocated the pursuit
of truth (via philosophy). So Augustine
converted to the Manichees.[17] But, Augustine realized that this school did
not accord with the science of the time, so he left it. In 383, he went to Rome. In the following year, he went to Milan to
teach. By then, he had broken with the Manichees. This left him with a void. He read Plotinus on the Logos and his
doctrines on the soul. Lacking in the
Platonic books was the incarnation. In
386 he converted. His conversion was in
Malan. He was unhappy. He had been reading Paul's Epistles. In his Confessions, he wrote of a double
perspective in his conversion: a rough journey and yet a breakthrough of grace.
In 387 he was baptised. He had not been
baptised as an infant because he got well from an early illness and was
expected to survive. Infants were baptised then only if they
were sick (believed to die before reaching maturity). Augustine discovered from Plotinus a dicotomy between God, good, and Being on the one
hand and Evil, or non-being, on the other.
The soul was in-between, so was
not inherently good or evil but could go either way. This platonic dualism implies that one is
responsible for one's sin. It is not his
old dualism. God is always the same; it
is the soul which changes. Augustine
read Ambrose's work on Xian Platonism.
In 391, he was made a priest at Hippo. In 395, he was concecrated a
bishop. He then spoke out against Donatism (no priests or bishops who had
turned plates over to the emperor could continue as clergy).
11/16/94:
Lecture
Augustine:
Donatism
(no priests or bishops who had turned plates over to the emperor or who had
offered sacrifices according to the emperor's decree could continue to perform
the sacraments). This controversy
triggered his doctrine of the Church. In 312, there was a scism is Carthage (N.
Africa). Cyril had been improperly consecrated because some of the consecrating
bishops had offered sacrifices in accord with the emperor's decree. So in the following year, Dionacius was
consecrated Bishop of Carthage. With two
standing bishops in N. Africa, there were thus two Christian groups there. The Dionicists took a relatively strict view of
the impact of a bishop's morality vis a
vis his authority to perform the sacraments. Both groups appealed to the emperor
Constantine, who recognized Cyril rather than the Donatists, using Roman
law. The Pope assumed this was a
council, so he concurred. Conclusion:
the moral character of a bishop does not effect the validity of his sacramental
acts. Yet, until 400, the Donatists dominated in N. Africa. From 399 to 410, the Catholic Church via
Augustine resisted the Donatist domination in N. Africa. Augustine used force via Roman rule to force
the Donatists to become Catholic.
Donatists: The Church is a club of saints;
emph: holiness
Catholics: The Church is a school for
sinners; emph: cathlicity
Augustine
was torn between these two views of the Church, even though he sided
politically with the Catholics.
Background
for his view: Tertellian had emphasized the practical Christian life wherein
the Church is the ark wherein only the few (saved) are on it. so, if one had a mortal sin, he could not be
on it. Then, the N. African Church
realized that pentence could be used to bring people back in. Such pentence involved proving yourself over
scrutiny. So, a two-tiered system of the
Church in N. Africa: Clerics were the Church of the saints and the laity were
saints and sinners. Greer: the
penatential system had been used too much: the merit of martyrs was used by the
church to forgive sinners.
This
background set the N. African Church up for the Donatist schism.
The
Re-Baptism Donatist Controversy: the Donatists maintained that anyone who had
been baptised in a schismatic church had to be rebaptised, since an immoral
bishop could have baptised them.
Augustine disagreed, arguing that the morality of clerics does not
affect the validity of their sacraments.
So, baptism in the Donatist Church is potentially efficacious. In this sense, Augustine saw the Church as a
school of sinners. Imp. to his notion of
the city of God: the Church on earth contains both the wheat and weeds. Augustine distinguishes between the elect and
the reprobate. The City of God in the
New Age is the invisible Church. So, we
don't know who really are the elect. The
holy Church is identified with the elect and the City of God. The
visible Church is a school for sinners, yet an invisible club of saints is
included in it as the holy Church, or City of God. Thus, Augustine attempted to reconcile the
two competing views of the Church. 'Who is in' was merely a Western concern.
Augustine's
view of the Roman Empire: Most folks saw it as sacred; a providential agent of
God to foster Christianity; the idea of a Christian commonwealth. The sack of Rome destroyed this view because
the invading Visagoths were Arian Christians.
In fact, the pagans blamed the sack of Rome on the Christians. Augustine's City of God refutes
this. Christianity of the Visagoths
mullified the severity of their invasion.
Also, there had been other crises. Augustine denied the historicity of a
true commonwealth based on justice. So, the Roman Empire was not sacred. Yet, it was not profane either. It was neutral. So, Augustine's visible city (of earth) was
not identified with the Roman Empire, just as the city of God was not
identified with the earthly Church. The
Church contains citizens of God and earth.
So, the value of a human society is only in God's purposes in the City
of God.
11/17/94:
Seminar
Augustine:
On True Religion
: Theme-- The fall of the soul and its
return. Highlighted: God's methods (of
authority, as seen in miracles, and of reason) and obsticles (cupidity, pride
and curiosity).
Sin: That which results
in evil. Augustine is inconsistent on
whether it is voluntary or involuntary.
Free-will: A capacity to choose between good and evil. However, in his retractions, Augustine states
that this capacity is only available for the doing of evil, due to original
sin.
Augustine, like Gregory of Nyssa, saw the soul as situated
between God (=Good=Being) and Evil (Non-being).
But unlike Gregory, Augustine saw
God's healing (and human choice--not so for the later Augustine!) as necessary
for the soul to get to God. Ortherwise, sin (movement away from God) would
prevail. The Fall: The sin of the fall caused our mortality as a punishment for
the sin. In his retractions, Augustine
added spiritual and eternal deaths to the results of the Fall. Due to our
mortality, God assists us in a persuasive, healing, fashion. In his retractions however, Augustine states
that Man is dead, so healing is not enough; a spiritual and moral resurrection
is necessary. Conversion in this life is
not sufficient. Augustine's doctrine of illumination: A platonic idea. The aim of Xnity is the contemplation and
vision of God. Moral purification is
necessary for this. Greer: So, moral Xns
are considered to be below contemplative Xns.
This is the elitist view of the sages. The soul is in the image of
God. So, in moving toward God, the soul
ought to be able to govern the body. In
his retractions, however, Augustine states that the soul can't control the body
by virtue of the fact that original sin comes with birth. So, separation of the soul from the body is
necessary to get to the vision of God. On Love: Love eternity (the only love
which can be enjoyed), not temporal relations alone (such love is used). Love
of temporal relations is fine if one has love of eternity. The Church: Wheat and Chaft. But in his retractions, Augustine states that
God makes this distinction at the end of time. No real discussion of the incarnation.
11/28/94:
Lecture
Augustine:
Augustine
never left the basic framework of Christian Platonism wherein the soul is
set between God/good/being and
Evil/non-being. Augustine's doctrine of
original sin is set within it: the soul goes toward evil. Nothing we can do
about this. Prevaenient grace enables the soul to turn back toward the
good. Augustine was dissatisfied with
Xian Platonism, so he modified it, retaining its basic framework, with his
doctrine of original sin.
The Soliloques (386): a dialogue between
Augustine and his reason. God is viewed
as Truth (the good, the beautiful, the being).
The soul needs eyes to see God. We
see shadows in the cave (from Plato).
Virtue turns our eyes to the light.
So, virtue leads to vision.
Vice and passions inhibit the vision of God. Temptations toward wealth and
marriage are cited as particular vices.
Augustine
had a sense that a lot had to be healed. Later, he realized that the cure is
not in this life. From the ascetical
movenent of the Desert Fathers of Egypt that swept into the West in the fourth
century, Augustine grasped the importance of an introspective conscience.
On Freewill (388-95): Regarding evil,
the Xian Platonist view was that God did not cause it; rather, the misuse of
freedom by creatures is the cause of evil.
Augustine is critical of this view. What causes our own propensity to do
evil? According to Gregory of Nyssa,
evil is the making of a mistake about the good.
To Augustine, there is something perverse about our choices involving
evil. So, not just a mistake.
Specifically, some of these choices seem to be deliberate: seeking
evil. In Xian Platonism, because the
mind and soul have a capacity to realize God which can't be destroyed, why is
there then evil and unhappiness? So,
evil is difficult to explain in Xian Platonism.
Augustine
considers why one is unhappy voluntarily.
This is so when one's will is in such a state that unhappiness must
follow. Augustine distinguished the will
from free choice(capacity to choose between good and evil). Whereas the will (or intellect) is the
motive, a way of referring to character, free-choice is the working out of the
motive (action). The will is the basic orientation
of a person. An evil will is a disposition that takes the soul away from
God. It is a corruption in our
motivation that effects our choices. We
can do virtuous deeds, yet illmotivated in that there is self-love in them. Freedom is our liberty when we are liberated
from sin. Servitude to God is true
freedom. The will chooses between good
and evil as well as between good and good.
Therefore, the will is always against itself, except when it serves God
(which heals its divisions). The will is
beyond one's control. So, motivation is not totally within one's control. This is a penal state. We are not responsible for this. We are ignorant of the good and cant truly do
it. This state is inherited from Adam
and Eve. Due to this state of original
sin, we are helpless, yet we have the ability to ask God for his help. Therefore,
we are radically incapacitated from helping ourselves. Prevalent grace is not yet in his writings.
It was in 396 that his writing (on Romans) included the idea of prevalent
grace. The Plagian controversy was not
until 410, so Augustine's thought was not a reaction to this fight.
Original
Sin: From Ireneous on, Adam was seen as childlike or unstable. The Fall, in this view, was seen as a
mistake. Immaturity caused the Fall. But, Augustine viewed Adam as upright and
mature, having the possibility of not sinning and of growing to incorruption of
the resurrected life without suffering death.
Adam choose to sin (disobeying God).
Augustine does not know why a mature person would make such a choice
voluntarily. Adam knew the good but
failed to act on it. Christian Platonism
can't explain this. To Augustine, the
evil will that motivated the sin, rather than the act itself, was
important. Adam's evil will explains the
Fall. His evil will itself can't be
explained by Augustine. The Fall was a
catastrophy and a mystery for Augustine.
This view of the Fall was unusual, given the views of the other writers.
11/30/94:
Lecture
Augustine:
Original
sin: we are born programmed to move away from God.
Prevalient
grace: God, by a sovereign act, can reverse this movement.
Augustine
was unique in viewing Adam as mature instead of as an infant. Also, the
Fall becomes a total calamity. Contrary to Christian Platonism, Augustine
believed that Adam knew the good but did not do it anyway. Augustine can't explain why Adam would do
such a thing. Augustine was also unique
in thinking through free-will. He saw it
as a disposition and motivation. The
will is a basic disposition or character of a person. Therefore, even if a good deed, not good if
not a good disposition. Augustine also
had a unique view of Adam's penalty. It
was not just physical death, but a fundamental disposition that removes our
capacity to do good. Adam and Eve
experienced a spiritual death as well as a physical death. The spiritual death separated their souls
from God. This first death is not completed until physical death when the soul
separates from the body. At the second
coming, the soul is reunited with the body.
The damned experience a second death: eternal damnation.
So,
we are born eternally dead. The first
death includes a spiritual and physical death and the second death includes
eternal damnation. God orders fallen
humanity for the greatest good. Evil is due to humans, not God. God permits evil by creating humans with a mutable
freedom. Others say God thus gives up
some of his sovereignty and persuades us back. Augustine denies this, arguing
that God is still sovereign and coercive.
How does God bring good out of evil? He does so by ordering evil
together with the good. Here, Augustine seems to have a second view of evil:
rather than being non-being, it is the antithesis of good (thus, evil is
necessary for the appreciation of good).
God punishes evil for the greater good.
So,
two cities: the elect and the damned.
Greer: a vicious circle: if God remains in control, then is not God the
cause of evil? God prevalient grace
brings the elect out of the loop. He gives them two resurrections. God's elective purpose (see Romans 9): To
Augustine, it is mysterious. There is
nothing we can do. Luther gets his 'justification by faith' from this
view. Calvin gets his 'predestination'
from this view. Prevalient means
'before'. So, whether we are the elect
has been decided 'before' us. So, what
we do or who we become does not impact our salvation. Prevenient grace is the first (spiritual)
resurrection. It is the gift of medicine rather than the cure. The cure is the bodily resurrection which
takes place in the age to come.
Augustine's experience of grace came not from anything about him or what
he did, but from his garden conversion.
It was experienced as a gift.
It
is as if we are in a hospital in this life (pilgrams). The cure is only in the
age to come. A pessimistic view of this
life. Other theologians wrote that we
can not only anticipate, but can participate now in our salvation. Augustine implies that baptism gives
prevalient grace, yet is not sufficient for salvation. So, there may be some in the Church who will
be damned. In Augustine's time, adult
baptism was the norm; only infants expected to die were baptised.
Greer:
It is odd that there is an eclipse in Augustine's writings on the doctrine of
the incarnation. He shows a connection
between Christ's passion and prevalient grace, yet he also refers to prevalient
grace separately. Augustine was not
worried about the story itself (e.g. the trinity, Christology), but on the
impact of the story on us instead. A
theocentric, rather than a Christocentric, approach. To Augustine, there is a
large gap between Adam and Eve in Eden and our fallen condition. Also, there is
a large gap between us and the age to come.
Augustine's emphasis is on how God helps us when we can't help
ourselves.
The
Christian Life: To Origen and Gregory of
Nyssa, life is in stages wherein the mystical vision is the last stage and is
unitive. Augustine abandons this in his
later works. Remembering, knowing/seeing, and loving are activities of the
human soul. Remembering involves sense
perceptions, emotions of the past, and principles of the sciences. Memory also
includes the image of God. In search of
the image of God. It drives us to
God. Knowing/seeing involves knowledge
(of sense perceptions) and wisdom (perfect contemplation of God; a vision of
the age to come). Loving involves an
ordering of one's life such that the love of God puts other loves in place,
heightening their values. The
distinctions between remembering, knowing, and loving is blurred to Augustine.
All three are meant to move us (not in stages) from multiplicity to unity (to
God).
12/1/94:
Seminar
Augustine:
To
Augustine, evil involved not merely a mistake, but a sin(whatever gets in our
way to God); a deprevation of good; a straying away from God.
On the origins of evil: evil as a
deprivation of being
On God's use of evil: evil as the
antithesis of being (deprevation of good).
So, nowhere is evil a positive entity.
As
the antithesis of being, evil is ordered as is good by God. God brings good out of evil by electing some
out of the damned.
We
remain good because we exist (existence in itself is good), yet we are evil
because we are corrupted. So, to the
extent that something evil exists, it has goodness in that it exists. As the antithesis of good, evil isn't
necessarily the deprevation of being.
So, it is possible to have evil with being. Evil as the antithesis of Good is the
depreivation of Good.
In
the ordering of good and evil, evil is necessary. God doesn't cause evil;
rather, evil is necessary for God to order the world. God permits evil so as to permit this
ordering. Greer: does not God relinquish
some sovereignty? By ordering good and
evil, God can bring good out of evil.
To Augustine, there
is no free-will. True freedom is slavery
to God. Therefore, freedom is not
the capacity to choose. The latter is
against slavery to God, and is thus a sign of our not having been healed.
At
the end of his life, Augustine wrote The
Retractions, yet he did not retract anything. Instead, a tendency to
pretend that his opinions haven't changed.
Yet sometimes changes are quite evident.
For example, a major shift made by Augustine in reinterpreting death to
mean more than mortality. Namely, a
spiritual death. It is impossible for
humans to do any good at all. Choices are limited to evil: a very radical kind
of view. We can do good deeds--nothing but splendid sins because they are
wrongly motivated.
[1]See 2 Cor. Also, the 'cross kerygma' in 1 Cor 15
(passing on a creed which Paul had learned and is passing on to the Cor.s): C.
died for our sins, buried, and raised the third day. And he appeared to folks. This is according to scripture and empirical
proof (e.g. died). As revealed in the
O.T. Greer: scriptural passages involved
isn't clear. Problem: circular relation between O.T. passages cited and those
in the N.T. Greer: N.T. passages not made out of 'old cloth'. E.g. Mark 14. 'I am the Christ'; Jn: 'I am'
(Exodus: God says "I am who I am").
So, a connection bet. O.T. and N.T., esp. in Jn. Also, from Psalm 110 and Daniel 7, J. sitting
on God's right hand, sitting on clouds (Mk, which sees this in apolcoliptic
terms). Mt sees this as the
resurrection. So, the scriptural proof
for J.'s death and resurrection is problematic.
The N.T. writers were Jewish.
[2]See: The Beatitudes. Poor & persecuted as in present K.G. Justice in future tense.
[3]Jn
1, Hebrews, Coloss 1, Phil 2. Christ:
through whom the world was created. God:
by whom the world was created.
[4]How
does the Dead Sea Scrolls strengthen this argument? SW
[5]Tillick: 'New Being'
[6]The Shape of the Liturgy. His
book.
[7]The Jews couldn't pronounce the
'JHVH' name for God. So, they had pet
names.
[8]God transcends the created order,
being 'above' it. But He is also viewed
as being among his people and in the temple. One of the rabbinic names for God
by the Jews was 'the place'. Is it the
temple or heaven. Mt used heaven as a pet-name
for god. God is the place of the world
(god's power keeps the order going), but the world is not his place(god is not
contained by the world).
[9]But, 'Logos' used by Philo as an
agent in God's creation--but an agent below God yet above man. Still, why does Greer emph. that it was
Sophia that was the basis of Christ before his incarnation?
[10]But, what about Ignatius'
martyrdom?
[11]On
the other hand, the existentialists believe that it is the individual who must
create meaning out of a meaningless world; that individuals are centers of
consciousness.
[12]Streaching
forward.
[13]See: Bultmann: Existance and
Scripture. One's theol. presuppositions
informs one's interpretations. Greer:
the modern historical method attempts to reconstruct the historical condition
of the O.T. and N.T. worlds. Yet,
historical events in scripture were informed by theol. interp.s So, scripture not written to give a
historical account.
[14]See: Romans 9. God's elective purpose is sovereign. He chose Issac not Ishmeal, and Jacob rather
than Esau (before any of them were born).
Theodore is troubled by this passage.
He views the course of events on two levels: providence before choice
and free-will.
[15]Early works: Contra Academicos, De beata vita, De ordine, Soliloquies (386 at
Cassiciacum), On Free Will (388-95),
and Of True Religion (389-91). Later works (after he was consecrated a
bishop): De doctrina Christana
(396-426), Against Faustus (397-98), Confessions (397-401), De Trinitate (399-419), On the Spirit of the Letter (412), City of God (413-27), and Enchiridion (421-23).
[16]The sack of Rome triggered The City of God.
[17]Mani was its prophet at the end of
the third century. It contained Persian/Zoroastrian as well as Christian
(Gnostic) ideas, such as a spirit/matter (good and evil) dualism. There were cosmological myths of good and
evil. Sex was believed to be bad because
it increases matter. This impacts
Augustine's view of sin: it is the product of matter (creation).
