CHURCH HISTORY 8/31/98
FOUR MAJOR SECTIONS OF COURSE:
I. Pre-Constantinian--patristic age until estab of Chr as a legal rel, nature of the ch ‘s self understdg is theol articulation.
II. Constantinian Age: Church is the legal rep and monop of all rel exercise, and during that period distinct character
III. Age of Barbarian Invasions, Roman Empire collapses and Church woven into tapestry of Roman life is attacked and try to read to understand change in circum
IV. High middle ages: 11-12th century to renaissance, medieval char structure christendom. Then the thoughts of the European nations until reformation.
Outline the Church Historical Developments for the period. Need a structure narrative .
Sept. 2, 1998 Church History
Eric Auerbach ‘s article on Oedysseus’ Scar speaks of the sense of time that char’es Homeric rel and contrasts sharply with understdg of time and history that is char of OT and bibl lit. In the case of the other art, a sim case is made usng as a pt of departure a study by a historian of rel. A Romanian Orth Scholar who had studied hinduism, and had arg’d that Hind and other rel had a diff sense of time than biblical sense. Not only diff sense of time and history but person of indiv ident as a member of that rel commun. History had no real signif for most rel. The sense of contin and the anticipation of end of history and purpose was not a part of the living reality of the indiv who shared that viwe show forth our faith to those who have no knowl or understdg of what one bel.
The same Q could be asked by one who decides to take up the mission of explaining the gospel in foreign parts, where Chr has had no impact. What does one say and do. Approp to say come in the name of JC< but don’t understd JC and who he is in their lang. The issue is why are we studying the history of chr and what do we look for. Is it enuf to study, point out our caring for people. Those are essential but are they adeq.. If say see love as the center of our lives, Budd can make sim claims. Then might say see love as self-sacr giving and they can point that Budd did the same. Soc Justice: Jewish Comm is at the drive for soc justice. Refl on God, Hindus do well w/medit. What then is of import is CH. What are the essentials to which we must attend, or what is the continuity of Chr, what holds it tog? Find change transpires in dramatic way. Prot reformation, what part of the church from inception was repudiated. What claim does reformation thought have to the claim that they have the essentials of chr? Anglicans? The place where we must look is in the FAITH of the CHURCH!!!! or in its theology. First we are talking about the communal faith of the church. Many of us in seminary, having had pers rel exper, or having shared partic theol convictions. That is terribly impt for the indiv, but here to study the community faith.
Faith of the church--means psych, sociological and academ char of the church are secondary to the fundam faith point of view. Since the second world war, the psych rhetoric has placed a large role in the understdg of faith, that is approp and we hve benefited greatly from that per in the church’s life. BUT for some the psych serves to define the nat of christianity, and that is probl if elim the theol dimension. It is more an anthropological understdg. We make a mistake in trying to understd Islam by trying to explain it in terms of the poverty of the people and lack of democratic countries, and their lack of understdg of non-muslim rel, but the heart of Islam is its faith, with all its diversity and richness.
Similarly, w/Christianity, much of the church’s beh was b/c of its male domination, but as to the faith of the church, it does not depend on its male polity. So there may be a discontinuity of our sexual understdg, but the Q becomes does that affect the faithful of the church.
Another pt: faith of the church has been expressed in a var of ways over the centuries, and even at any partic time. Bibl studies will point out the diff in chr leadership in the first century, on impt rel issues, and throughout the centuries, there have been diff and debates and bitter controversies over the adeq of partic faith of partic grp.
What is the faith given the variety, diversity and plurality? The readings indic that in spite of the complexities or diff, there is a kind of consensus, a common char amongst these diverse grps that are part of the church, that at least makes it poss to talk of the church as though it were a single entity, even in our divided state. Will explore the **common char. that makes it poss to talk about christianity, such that it would be poss for us in the 20th cent to say "we chr" w/o ltg it to those who agree with us.
19th century engl theol said if you didn’t pray for everyone, before long would pray only for class, then only those who agree w/you and eventually yourself. That tells us something about the nature of christianity. It is not an obvious thing that sh be praying for the whole world. What is it about chr that tends to drive its members to pray for the whole world or feel guilty if don’t? In resp to the Q of the Shinto Priest, there is a sense in which one cannot provide an adeq answer, b/c it is not a distinctive model of beh or living that sets us apart from other peoples and faiths. It may and it often does, but that is not the defining char of christianity. It is the faith of the church that may unite or divide us from others.
You can’t simply look at one per in the church’s life, and say if you look at that you will underst what the church is. Some people try to recreate an ancient form of tribal chr and take as essence of faith. We assume that the faith of the 20th cent that bears w/it the richness of the trad of the past, must now inform us and conform us to the faithful church, and help us live out that faith in the very diff circum of the late 20th cent. We will find, I think that there is much of the past that is still very much a part of the life and faith of the church. Need to look always at that inher critically, and ask if that is adeq for our times, so not simply a recreation of the past, no matter how wonderful and desireable.
Q: "Illiad thinks that the only thing that will enable us to support the repair of history is the renewal of faith." --response: he may be right.
Q:Phillip Leon seems to say that history comes out of faith. Say more:
Answer : with that article and w/Illiades art, assumption is that there is a model that transcends the ephemeral char of life here on earth that is the basis of truth. That can’t find it her on earth and what need to do is to try to be in communion or proper rel w/that eternal model in order to break free from the uncertainties and terrors of life. That quest for that eternal transcendent reality minimizes if not eliminates the impt of history or the unfolding changing events--contrary to the unchanging reality. Neoplatonic theol is akin to that. You want to liberate self from those powers that impose constant change and worries in order to be in touch with the unchanging power, where in spite of what happens to you, you can be free. Buddhism, the claim is that life on earth, and as perceive it is an illusion. How to liberate oneself from that illusory perception is the nature of the rel exer. So the iconic person of Buddha sitting on lotus plant, gives a sense of timelessness of faith reading of that rel. There are other aspects of Budd that contrad that reading, not that coherent, but there is that char. It is a stoic acceptance of what happens here on earth b/c that is not what counts. Even for neoplatonists, the ideas are real, but shadow of form. There is strong platonic strain, partic in the E. The West inherited from Augustine.
What is at stake is whether G is an illusion, or G created the world and it is good.
Q: what is impt about literary style, and is that what he is talking about. Actually he says what is not said is as impt as what is said, and how does that refl the power of the rel. (Odysseus) Answer: Auerbach was a scholar of literature, so would focus more on literary style, but he intimates that given rel orientation of homeric paganism as over against judaism, the sense of historic continuity and purpose is absolute, so focusing on the immediacy, so what indiv does in any partic instance, does not contrib to the historic unfolding. Even the Gods get caught up in the mechanistic cyclic reading of history. Accdg to Aristotle in his poetics, the purpose of that kind of literature is to confront one with the terrors of history, but does not provide us w/a clue as to how one partic in history. Auerbach does not go into the theol, so he will read that in.
Q: Could you say it was imposs for Homer to have written w/the abscence of time, as Abr wrote, b/c everyting mitigated against that. Answer: if he were to tell that story, would come out in a very diff session. But he has trouble with the OT story, and need to explore on its own terms. Need to explore in terms of the faith orientation.
Q: absence of info can lead in two diff dir. Can lead to imagination or splintering? Answer: but the Abr story does have a context as contrasted to Auerbach.
09/04/98
Read : Justin Martyr: Dialogue w/Trypho--in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 1.
Will be talking about the essence of chri abil to articulate its faith that was set apart from Judaism. As far as the canonical lit in the early period is concerned. Given the fact that the church is now making claim that the expectation of a savior for Isr and all the world has appeared in J, how does that set Chr apart from Judaism.
Reflect on the christol nature of the reading of the faith and what justifies the church’s claim to have the fulfillment of the the people’s hopes thru the life and teaching of J, and what sets the church apart.
In the year 112 AD, a governor in Asia Minor, in Bythinia, Pleny writes to Emperor Trajan, seeking advice on how to deal w/a group of people called Christians. In A New Eusebius, it contains that exchange of letters. Pleny writes the emperor and says there are many chr in this province not simply in the urban centers where you would expect people to be int’d in new and diverse things, but even in the remote countryside. He is asking the emperor how we sh deal w/these people who are now considered to be involved in the subversive relig. So if we figure that J was executed in the year 30 ad, in just a few decades, at least in that E sector of the Roman empire, there is a suff number of christians that the issue of how to deal w/them comes to the attn of the gov and the emperor. A very rapid growth especially if you consider that chr was seen primarily as a Jewish offshoot.
Emperors had taken note of the presence of chr in an earlier period. Nero had managed to execute a number of them back around 64 ad, or 62, and Domitian had engaged in some persec of some chr in 95 AD, but in both instances the assumption was that whether the emperors were using the chr as scapegoats. Nero was unpop. Domitian primarily concerned w/people in the court taking up foreign rel and not just chr were executed. When he interviewed a sibling of J, realized that country bumkins and not a polit prob and released. But in another generation, chr became very numerous, espec in the Roman province of Asia, E Empire. From that period, church gains great momentum. So by the middle of the second century, educated influential folk like justin martyr, will write open letters to the emperors to make a case for the value and usefulness of the chr faith for the empire as a whole. Apologetic literature. There was the apology of Socrates in classic lit, the case for the defense in the Greek courts.
The church is now appealing to a more influential segment of the roman imperial pop but located throughout the empire. This is especially true in the urban centers, Antioch, Alexandria. Antioch in the near eastern sector, Corinth, Greece, Roman, N. Africa, could boast a number of chr many of whom came from well-conn’d fam. The fact that chr was expanding which caused concern in emperial courts could be viewed as somewhat strange in view of the fact that other non-roman rel flourishing throughout the empire. In the city of Rome itself, in the cap city where the emp had his residence, not only were there the trad Rom rel, like Isis, an egyptian Goddess, was extremely pop. In the armed forces, Serapis had great pop w/troops. (From Iran)
Judaism had its converts, and a per in the first cent when the emper tried to disc and even forbade it. Some converted to Judaism and circumcised, and some tried to reverse the process. There was widespread int in non-roman rel even in cap city, BUT chr was singled out as the threat to the empire and declared unRoman and forbidden. Will learn how this affected the church’s self-identity. In declaring chris illegal, and req’g license, the failure of chr to be licensed was not for theol reasons. There was widespread ignorance about chr teachings and practice, which disseminated the notion that chr immoral and superstitious. That is often the charge leveled against any new rel. But in the case of Roman officialdom, the issue was the threat to the peace and order of the empire. It was a conviction of the authorities that the people who became chr would be unable to abide by many of the laws and requirements. The concern of the Roman govt was to maintain unity and order amongst a very diverse imperial pop. Consider the fact that the roman empire had just been established at the time that chr had its beg’gs. Some chr theologians saw the establishment of the roman empire at the same time as chr as part of God’s providential ordering of the medit world in order for chr to be disseminated. (1) did not have to cross a lot of boundaries, (2) could travel w/security and safety in contrast to earlier periods of piracy where brigands populated areas traveled by those traveling. (3) Rome had claimed that people support the Roman empire, b/c the pax romana was providing peace, prosperity to all the peoples. (4) wonderful roads built by Roman engineers. Only beg’g w/18th cnetury that europe began to improve on the roads. Excellent roads made easy transport, and quick military deployment to make sure that peace maintained everywhere.
Despite the many ben conferred throughout the empire by this imperial order, the Roman occup of the various lands they conquered by the legions were not all thrilled to lose their local indep and autonomy and be incorporated in to an autocratic govt system, that minimized the distinctive culture and heritage of the various people. There were the semi-nomadic people in the W european segment of the empire, the celts in britain, and gauls in France. There were the highly urbanized people in asia and egypt. There was almost a balcanized div of people in Asia Minor, jealous of their distinctive heritage. They were expected to conform to Roman imperial laws. Rome had inher’d a pol estab’d by Alex the Great, which he had applied to his own conquests in the 4th century bc. His empire from Greece E to the mesop basin, down into India, and encompassed Egypt, syria, and Greece. How to hold this empire tog that had been est’d through mil might. What Alex had done was to establ cities, the most famous was Alexandria in Egypt, a great center of Greek culture and learning. He would station his troops there and est schools and provide the wherew/all to set up commun where the greek lifestyle could be duplicated in those areas. The lingua franca was GREEK. Alex only lasted 20 years, and empire broke into pieces, but that pol ret’d by his successors, trying to Hellenize those territories in such a fashion that a common culture unifying the people. Whereas in the OT, the conq by a people, by Syrians, Persians or Babyl or Egyptians, was simply to impose cond on local rulers and exact tributes, like gold and slaves. But no effort to disseminate egyptian culture or kings over the Israelites. But as to Alex, tried to dev a universal culture. Made it easier to rule and incorp them into a common life. See examples of this in mod imperialistic practices. Rome simply adopted this Alexandrian policy. So in the E the official lang cont’d to be Greek, in the W it was Latin, it was not w/o success, for eventually the people in Gaul, who were Celtic, and subseq’ly Teutonic, took up the Romance lang, so lost celtic/Teutonic ident. Marseille, and other urban centers where this dissem of the culture was exercised. Caesarea bears the title of a Caesar which gives a clue as to what the cultural char of that city was. One notes in a study of first cent Judaism, that many of the Jews, even in Israel, had adopted Greek ways, spoke Greek, went to the baths, it is said the Sadducees were as hellenized as any in Israel. Thus, they were not looked at kindly by the more traditional Pharisees.
But the diff w/this policy was first that it is a long and slow process, there are large segments of the imperial pop, that were untouched and quite antag toward it. In the hinterlands and the areas call algeria and Tunisia, which remain fairly free from european infl, they maintained their traditl ident and were unhappydiscern the inadeq of the inherited auth structures of their own commun. So would begin to raise Qs. There was a per of great cult dislocation and disruption by contrast tothe pax romana which provided order. So it was that in this per as in other per of disruption and disorientation, a great deal of relig searching went on. Why is it that Jupiter allows such things to happen to the good people of Rome. Why are not the fam values of rome no longer respected. Emperor Augustus had trouble w/his daughter’s inappr activ. He imposed harsh pun. This is how the new imper order undermining how informing people about life and death.
If the tradtl religions at least in the form inherited, no longer addressed the needs of the people, then the people began to look elsewhere.******* Emperor Augustus hated all of these changes, but it was he who had recog’d the inadeq of the republican form of the govt that had est’d an empire, where he had sole and total auth. So he himself was involved in undermining the good old system. He hated foreign religions and invested money to build new temples. But the conserv senate forbade the building of alien temples w/in the city of Rome, ok in the suburbs, said the glory of rome rested on tradtl values. The popularity of Isis and Serapis, the Senate itself had imported the mother of fertil goddess Asia Minor, in a period when Rome seemed to be losing to Carthagenians, hoping that when the Roman Gods seemed not to have the power to gain victory over the empress, this goddess might be able to. In this cosmopolitan setting of the urban settings, there was ample oppor to sample and partake of rel of other parts of the world.
The pax romana had brt great social mobility in the medit worlds. There were greek slaves. In rome, the hellenistic culture seen as superior to the Roman culture, wealthy upwardly mobile folk in Rome, liked to have educ’d greek slaves. Seneca, the great philosopher was a slave.
There were merchants from India, Syria, Africa, in Rome. It had become a cosmopolitan polyglot, and those folk had brt their own gods and goddesses. As is often the case, exotic rel seem to address areas seemingly untouched by trad rel. They had myster w/them and some spiritual support for those who are spiritually seeking or troubled. At any rate, this is a period of great relig interchange and influence. For people reared in a a polytheistic trad, adding another god or a dozen doesn’t make a diff. Just slightly shift loyalty or maintain old and add new. (Syncretism)
The effort of Emperor Augustus, to maintain integr of the Roman System in his own cap city, and to try to promote the unit of the empire, seemed to be working at counter purposes. For instance, one of the institutions that was developed during this per was emperor worship. This was alien to the Roman govt, but at home in Egypt. Emper was seen there as intermed betw heaven and earth. So that new practice slowly gave infl even in Rome, so began to style emperors as being godly. Much to the dismay of Roman traditionalists.
So then, why the probl w/chr? Was that not another one of the easter relig, that was gaining favor. Will look at in detail, but first the believers in monotheistic rel cannot partake of many of the social cultural exer that permeates a polytheistic culture. Chr and Jews set themselves apart. That is ok for jews, the emperors recogn’d that Jews would not for some crazy reason, would not partic in many of the communal activ, but they were partic conq’d people for whom some adjmustments would be made. If you were maintaining law and order--concern, and jews were very numerous people. As much as 10% of the roman imperial pop belonged to Judaism. Converts would not have been a major factor. Did have a missionary impulse, but if you become a convert, you are set apart ethnically, and little more diff to become a Jew than a christian b/c disr is not as radical. So some prov had to be made for their relis peculiarity. Julias Caesar, not having to serve in the army, or have idolotrous images. If you have large numbers of infl people who are romans or greeks, and not part’g, what would you do if can’t count on them to serve in mil or be involved in programs. Not that misreading the situation, but from pt of view of govt, there was a danger that chr would undermine the unity of the em.
Defined its own ident that is distinctive from judaism and work out its rel to its environing culture.
Church History 9/9/98
Augustine’s City of God. And Stevenson’s Creeds, Councils and Controversys.
Regarding reading outside of Gonzalez, they are intended to give details on spec and ltd aspects on the Church’s history. When you are trying to get a handle on the history of some entity, you need the broad narr framework, but some of the details. The chall for anyone who teaches history, is to throw as many details so not throwing out generalizations, so keeping the reading to a minimum.
Justin Martyr’s dialogue w/Trypho. That is to illus the manner in which the church tries to estab identity apart from Judaism. That doc is dated about the middle of the second century. Christianity and Judaism are sep religions, and that is not true in the apostolic age. During the ensueing years, the ch has become more clear about its distinctive identity and dev a certain way of identifying. Martyr was pop and influenced the church in its own views and that infl persists to this day. So if to right a report on that doc would want to understd what import it has for you. Don’t won’t to go back to tell the people the details b/c not terribly impt, but lot have no int in details of history, but in th middle of the second century whdn the ch is still in process of est’g its distinctive ident, this doc was written and this is kind of thing that it said. In the scholarly editions of all of these docs, there is usually a scholarly introd by the editor w/backgr and no immed imptance unless have that kind of scholarly int. Could have been written 149-150, skip it.
When get to Origen’s First Prin, have no doc original in the Greek, so scholars have had to put tog fragments that have survived. So they will be a transl of the Greek and latin, b/c not ident. For our purp don’t have to worry about the details of the diff, looking for gen understdg of the system arctic of the nature of the chr faith as seen by the first system theol.
Note when Judaism no longer sees itself a part of the Jewish commun. Note J born 6 AD and died.
Next four sessions a period of the church’s history under the Bible dept, but in so far as telling the history of any institut, missg part, so will talk about the theol importance of the early period and all of the heresy he imparts will be corrected by the bible dept.
He is reading from the book of Acts. In 3rd chapter, Peter delivers an addr to the people who have gathered around him following his healing of a cripple. This is what he says. You Israelites, why do you stare at us as though by our own power we made him walk. The G of Abr, Is and Jac, has glorified J whom you handed over, tho he had decided to release him, but you rejected the holy and righteous one and asked to have a murd rel’d to you and you killed the author of Life whom G raised from the dead. His name has made this man strong, and faith in J has given him perfect healt. I know you askect in ign as did your rulers, in this way G fulfilled as foretold that messiah would suffer. Repent and turn to G so times of refreshing may come so he may send the messiah to you. Moses said, the Lord your g will raise up for you a prophet like me and you must listen..all who don’t listen will be rooted out. Those who have spoken prophets also predicted these days. In your desc. all the fam of the earth sh be blessed.
This address is recorded many years afater it was given. So you must not think it is an accurate record in detail, but it does point up sev things of import to us in understdg these early years. First, it is very clear that the christians see themselves as part of the Jewish commun. They are speaking as those who share in the common faith of the Israelites. It is about the G of Abraham, Isaa, and Jacob, the G that has chosen the Isr as his people, that these followers of J are speaking about and it is also about the promise that G has made at least as it is understd by Judaism. So Peter is alluding to the centuries of hopeand antic and faith that has sustained these people, and what he is saying is that hope is now realized. The long awaited messiah has now come. The messiah has been rejected by the Israelites and is now calling on them to bel. WE know from subseq history tht the oppos of the Jews for the most part remains unrelenting. A period of persec will follow, so that by the time that Stephen appears on the scene, he is not as generous as peter as saying you rejected J thru ignorance, but rather thru unfaith and disbelief in the promises made by G to these people. Stephen must have known he was going to be executed, b/c not so diplomatic stmt. So at this stage in this early apostolic period, the focus of the faith of these people is on J as the Messiah, a bel shared by Israel as a whole. The faith is not monolithic faith, there was no unanimity on the details, all said bel’d in theG of abram, Is and Jac, and all bel’d in the chosenness of Isr, that the God of Abrm Is and Jacob had chosen these people to serve his purposes, but one notes in the study of the history of Judaism, that there are diff of opinion on the way in which their G deals w/them, and it is significance in the way they live out their life as a people. In the early period of J history,monolotry, worship of one G prevails. They bel there are lots of G, but Yahweh is their G, and in the ensuing years become convinced that Yah is not there G but only one G.
As one follows the canonical lit of Judaism, one notes that their view of the nature and working of G becmes more cosmic and incl of world history and not just the history of the Jewish people, and try to arctic how G deals w/other peoples, and there is not agmt, but there is a clear dev and there are as we will note in terms of the study of first century Judaism and christianity, there are churchmanship differences, so that some groups in the days of J would focus on spriituality, and others on social politicalissues. Others on cultural matters. The sadducees do not bel or share in the conv of the resurrection, so there are theol differences. Or in the case of the expectation ofhte messiah, the form in which that messianic expectation will take differes. Some think in terms of the restoration of the davidic kingdom, others in terms of the cosmic redemption and renewal that is illustrated in the prophesying of Isaiah. Some who are concerned about how and what resp the jews have in terms of helping to bring about the red of Israel think more in terms of the separation of Judaism from the rest of the world. So at the same time that there is this larger cosmic view, there is ethnocentric nationalistic thinking w/in the Jewish commun. Some ofhte more extreme sectarians will separate themselves off like the Anabaptists did, seeing that only a faithful remnant that tries to live out the covenant of life, have the hope of effecting a messianic appearance.
What is thenature of the red? For a nationalistic oriented, it would be the restor of davidic, for the cosmic oriented, it would be the allev of suffering, and there are a var of images in the bible which indic the various ways the condof life in a redeemed world take. The chr contended that that messiah that they all had waited for had appeared and the end of the ages was at hand, and the process of restoration had begun, ins pite of the rejection of israel of that messiah. Why then the virulent persecution of a seemingly conservative group of bel in the Jewish trad. They weren’t like the essenes plotting a revolt against Rome and weren’t like the Qumran commun that were anti-establ. They maintained the conv of the centrality of the temple and its various cultic activities, ex: P went thru the rite of purif as expected of a Jew who comes to town. Tehy accept the auth of the Judaic hierarchy, and at least there is no manifest call for a revolt against them. So why the problem? There is this process of trying to est the distinctive idt of this group w/in Judaism that will make clear to them what their distinctive theol ident is. P and others will profess that Jesus and they themselves keep the faith so far as their inheritance is concerned. They are clearly w/in the J relig trad. Christ has come to fulfill the law and th eprophets, so as one will see in both the NT lit and the dialogue of Trypho, they will attribute the rejection of J and christians on the grounds of unfaith and disbelief. Failure to truly believe what God has prom’d. In the G of Mark in the healing of the paralytic, the first maj mir of J, in the way the author makes the presentation, he will make the case that when J forgives the sins of the paralytic, i.e. declares the alientation of that person and G are overcome, the crowds are disappointed at first, the relig auth, Phar andScribes are offended, b/c blasphemy, and only when J heals the paralytic that everyone is impressed. They are not waiting for coming of messiah and reconcil of G and the people. As Jews will make ref to, it is a theolog outlook that is distinctive from christianity, but the ch does not see any departure on its own part, but that is not exactly true, for while P for example, talks about the continuity of christianity w/the Jewish faith, he at the same time, downgrades Judaism by saying that its relig discipline and herittage is simply a prep for the real thing. The jews are law and the gospel as the real good news comes w/the coming of Christ. There is an understdg that there is something new her and that from a theolog view, there is an arg to be made for the rej of the jewish theolog position. By the time that the first G, Matt, that point is made abundantly clear. For the structure of that gospel suggests now that there is a new covenant that the informing center of chr life is not the Torah, the exodus events, the relig legislation of the first five books, but rather the life and teachings of Christ. So the Sermon on the Mount displaces reception of G’s laws during the Exodus.
In terms of the church’s claim of its continuity w/Judaism and that it is Israel that has been unfaithful and the ch has maintained the faith, one would have to say there is a dramatic discontinuity which is not made altogether clear as to its true nature, so that the law, the Torah and the prophets continue to be authoritative for the chr commun, but as to the nature of its auth, as to the theol that is found w/in that Judaic canonical literature, the issue remains undefined except that the interp prin will be that the OT will prophesy the nature of the messianic event. To that extent there is a selective prin. in the use of that literature. Furthermore, w/the centraility of Chr and in the doctr and worhsip of this commun, while much of the imagery will be judaic, some signif theolog departures will occur, which gets slowly elaborated in the course of early ch history. Ex: in the letter to the hebrews, the pt is made that the temple sacrifices are no longer needful nor approp for the chr believer, and issue is on what theol grs can such a pos be made. Next will explore what a christological def of G will make in the ident of the church which results nec’ly not only in the jewish rej of chr as being heretical t their faith, but the chr rej of the much of the jewish heritage, while utilizing the jewish her to help arctic the church’s faith.
In the early church history, need to diff from other faiths, now move is to find similarities. Today unity of peoples is not antag to christianity. Noticing now that the churches are beg’ to circle the wagsons while beginning to be inclusive and reach out. The culture is no longer supportive of many ideas of chr. Chr formation can no longer look at environment as supportive, the new morality exemplifies that . Can’t assume schools will help sustain the faith and help in our chr formation. Then have to begin to ask what is the char of a chr culture, that sets us apart from the gen culture. In that sense there is a dual movement.
In tunisia, there was a chr missionionary working w/students. He had two daughters growing older, and concerned to move back to France, b/c there was no protection for them in that culture if would fall in love w/Muslim. If go to Africa and exper some of the native rel or China and recogn the power of the confucian trad, and if one becomes a chr, the church sees itself as not setting itself apart, but as being apart. Islam is a gnostic form of christianity, the shaping infl of islam is quite diff.
Church History 9/14/98
Stephenson’s New Eusebius last section handout. But changed the readings from the original readings assigned in the sylabbus. The lastest edition has been revised, but w/the readings from stevenson, the intention is not to get us to learn a lot of details but gives an intimate picture, an actual source material to put us in touch w/that period to make it come alive. The next Eusebius assignment will be on orthodox and heterodx, 43-65, 71-78, 84-90. The docs are about the gnostic heresies. Don’t have to become expert on the heresies, won’t ask about what had to say by teacher, but will talk about the gen char of the teachings and ask why the church rejected them, and in what manner the church tries to counter their influence. He has shifted some readings as recommended. For future ref will lprove useful.
Talking about the mode in which the church did its theologizing. In terms of modern ways of giving expression to it, talk about the impt of narrative, but it is not simply that. Narrative was the form in which the church, following the ex of judaism, gave expression to its understdg of God and G’s dealings w/the world. In terms of the fund structrues of that story, chr followed judaism, and used judaism’s canonical writings, the OT, as the source for its understdg. One begings w/ "in the beginning, God...." and ends w/the end times culmination of that story. In terms of the meanig of the dynamics of that narr were to be seen in the exodus events. That was the heart of the matter. In one’s understdgs of judaic faith, pushed the story backed to the beginnings and antic’d how the ending might be. Substantive elab and modif and shift and emphases in that story as we find int eh arious books of hebrew scriptures still authenticates their views in terms ofhte exodus. Relig formation for the jew wa in remembering what G had done in exodus. Their anemesis their remembering was in terms of what G had done in freeing from bondage from egypt. To depict the nature of g as revealed in that event, you would draw a picture of a dread power that controls the forces of nature, that directs the course of history and cares for his chosen people. So G’s magesty as G shakes the mountains or rolls back the red sea would give you one aspect of the nature of G, for the feeding of the people as go thru the wilderness, taking them safely thru enemy territ shows G’s caring and benev for those he cares for.
One notes in some of the later writings a more global reading of G’s dealings w/the world, where G’s concern ultimately is for all creation, such as in the refl of the writings of Isaiah. Consequently in the book of Jonah the call to spread the good news about G to all peoples but there also is a circling of the wagons in the era of Ezra and Nehemiah where there is an effort to maintain the integrity of the jewish faith in terms of Jewish formation by seeing to it that the laws of judaism are maintained strictly, that marr outside the commun is forbidden etc. there are a variety of reflections about the import of this exodus understdg of the nature of G in the course of Israelite history.
The church has expressed its faith w/in that framework but in adding the story of christ’s ministry onto that story, but also claiming that it now displaces the exodus, by saying that it is now a new covenant. By sayig that this is a final revelation, by claiming that G is now made truly manifest in the life and teachings of J of Nazareth, there is a clear change in the portrait of G. To be sure, as the gospels tell the story, it shows that G is still lord of all of nature, all the miracle stories still reflect that. It is the same G who is the Lord of history but the gospels are contending that the true heart of all of reality is revealed on the cross. To understd the nature and purpose of G and the manner of G’s dealings w/the world, one makes ref to the crucifixion, rather than the miracle stories, the almighty deeds of God. The almighty deed of G is clearly shown on the cross. The iconography of the church even in this early period clearly reflects that reading, the portrait of G is shown in terms of the crucifix, the good shepherd, the almighty features of G are not absent by any means. The language depiction and ultimately the social ethical understdg of christianity will be shaped by the cruciform nature of G’s dealings w/the world.
The church authenticates its claim about the centrality of christ, by making ref to Hebrew scriptures. As was the case w/all judaic theological efforts, if you don’t mention of it directly, you clearly allude tothe central teachings of the OT. But obviously in laying claim to one’s pos in scriptures one’s theol governs the text that one uses. So if one were to look carefully at the allusions in the gospel accounts, clearly Isaiah is central. A jew who would read the church’s literature would be justified in saying your selectivity leaves out some of the most impt elements in our scritpures. For one thing, the nature of the chosen people. In judaic history, Israel is at the center of G’s dealings w/the world. Sometimes it is Isr v the world, sometimes it is Isr proclaiming the nature of G and bringing the world to G’s holy mountain. But it is this ethnic or national entity which claims the hearat of israel. Whereas, with the church now, the contention is that Israel has been displaced w/this new covenant or dispensation of G. True israel is constituted by those who bel in the centrality of christ as revealed in the nat and purp of G. So P in speaking of the role of the old Israel in the salv history, was as a prep for the coming of the son of G. And subordinating the old teachings by treating it as law, and now thenew covenant is gospel. There is acknowledgment of chr thinkers that there is a dram discontinuity in the contin of the Israel history of salvation. So the pentecost story, the anticipation that would reverse the effects of the tower of babylon, people begin to understd each other. Or in the Joahannine gospel the idea that history itself will move toward global unity, and the unity of people is the purp of G, rather than to make all an Israelite.
Or in terms of the readings of the dynamics of history, especially in the early books of the OT where suffering and death are seen as pun’mts inflicted by G on a disobed world. That the misfortunes of the Isr people due to the beh of their kings for instance, in the book of kings, almost every acct beg’g is that a king reigned, a sin disobeyed God and the nation was overrun. That reading of history gets at least serously challenged when the suffering and death of the messiah are seen as instruments of salvatin rather than conseq of pun’mt. So there would have to be among the chr thinkers the Q of dynamics of history.
Indeed in terms of one’s status in G’s kingdom, one’s ethnicity, one’s well-being in the world, one’s status in the church have nothing to do w/the fund rel betw the indiv and G. If you note in the gospel accdg to mark, everyone who thinks that He is impt, or puts on the pretense of impt or concerned to sit on the right hand of G is clearly reprimanded by G. The low estate folks come out looking good, the outsiders, the women, the rejected. So ti si not the adequacy of one’s living out worldly stds, but the status of Israel in bondage is not a refl of G’s displeasure, for one now has to begin to use diff stds to understd G’s dealings w/the world.
Christ does displace the exodus acct as being central for the church in defining the nature of G, and that is depicted in a var of ways in the gospel of matthew by paralleling the crucif w/the exod story, actually the last supper w/the passover, the sprinkling of the blood of sacrifice at Mt Sinai, is paralleled by the shedding of Christ’s blood. These are the ways in which to give expression to the centrality of chr in a historical narrative. The role people play in the narr by the unfolding of the plot is known. The gen narr is inherited from judaism. So understandably getting a good fix on christ’s ministry is impt, and getting christ’s min is impt. It is gen’ly agreed that the first gen of christians assumed the second coming would occur almost any time. The messiah having come the world was at its end time, so the urgency of proclaiming that good news before it was too late b/c accdg to at least one reading of salv history, some were in and some were out. But as the second coming did not occur as quickly as had been anticipated and as the apostolic age was coming to close, the need to safeguard the story. For as know, verbal commun can get messed up. The writings of the gospels. Whatever the diff amongst them, the shared conviction of the centrality of christ as the key to salv history, that it was the crucifix that lies at the center, was a key to understdg, the key to the mystery of life.
This then created some issues. Much of the subseq history of the church was to clarify what this all meant. What does this mean in terms of the church’s rel to the old israel, the gentile world generally. What are the conseq for and what the signif of some of the old regulations that had governed life w/in the bel’g community. As you would recall in the encounter betw Paul and Peter, there were some diffs and Paul never quite forgave Peter for giving him a hard time on that matter. The issue about creation resurrection, the end time the nature of the role that the church should play in the Roman empire, clearly in the Pauline reading of the christological reading of the understdg of the church, thought the church should not (? Should) be cooperative w/the imperial powers. But the author of revel, who has experienced persec of Nero and Domition, sees Rome as the whore of babylon and will be destroyed at the end time. The issue of social ethics. What does the role of slaves and women mean in everyday life. Perhaps knottiest probl is the nature of christ.
So much of the church’s concern in these early years is to begin to address some of these questions. For it is not simply now a matter of bel’g in the revel of G in Jesus, but asking what conseq that has for every day living.
While the faith of the church was given expression in this salvation history narrative, the growing influx of people non-Israelites in to the Chr community also required being able to give expr to the nature of chr in a lang that was meaningful to these converts. The task prob not too diff at the outset b/c the church was primarily int’d in going to the synagogues, and proclaiming the good news to the fellow Jews. It would appear that a goodly part of those who accepted that were godfearers, the gentiles who were assoc’d w/judaism, were part’g in the life of the synagogue, but not fulfledged members of the commun. They were wfam w/much of the lang and story, partic in the diaspora synagoges, much of the appropr had occurred, but w/the second generation, there is a growing infl of this hellenistic presence w/in the life of the commun. By the time of ignatius of Antioch in the early second century, there is much more ref to the cath commun, than over against the spec of the new israel. The universality of the church’s claim as against the partic of early histyr. The church’s literature is in greek or syriac. Even w/the jews, many were more comfortable w/Greek, partic’ly the jews of the diaspora. The syriac church was not a major presence at the outset, but it becomes a flourishing instit later on. Eventually, the persian church will become a major force in the evangelization of the eastern part ofhte world, goign as far as china. But the major writers of this time, are in places like Rome, starts off in the near east, but goes to the emperial center, where there is a growing chr commun. Folk like Justin, or Tatian, one of his followers, beg’g to use philosophical lang, because the philosoph lang carries much more ofhte universal ideas that transcends the partic of cultic languages and practices. If one uses the word God in latin or greek, and say J is God or the son of G, immed’ly think just like jupiter or Zeus. Whereas the word logos is more neutral or generic. They are struggling w/these issues as they try to help make sense and understd the nature of the church’s faith.
Isaiah shows G’s benevolent face at the forefront, but the normative reading of history is in the Koran, for even Moses is not allowed to enter the promised land, not b/c of his own failures but b/c the grumblings of people (Disagree--struck the rock in violence.)
Church History September 16, 1998
There are three diff editions of Stevenson’s New Eusebius. Does not matter, but the reading list will not coincide w/the editions. Look at the topic under consideration. When deal w/heterodoxy and orthodoxy, the section to read is that which deals with gnosticism and montanism. Some of that material will have already have read in Ireneaus. Much of our info about gnostics is from Ireneaus. The concern is not w/the details of gnosticism. If one were to say your sermon was gnostic, what is the character of gnosticism? In so far as the early church declared it to be heterodox, why? Heterodox is that which the church deems to be a departure from its faith. The concern at the seminary and thru the centuries is to maintain the integrity of its faith. To this point, he is stressing the narr mode of giving expr to that faith. But the church made known its conviction about the nature of G in terms of salv history that had been exper’d by the chosen people and recorded in their sacred literature. Now as make a transition from that traditional Hebrew mode of reflecting on its faith, the difficulties of dealing w/orth and heterodox expressions of that faith become more complicated.
As read Justin, he is using lang that is not altogether domesticated w/in the apostolic church. To a question that would be raised by a second cent chr would be, is it cons w/the way I rec’d it in the traditional form, and in the hellenized expression, does it adeq’ly rep what we the church believe. If you were the emperor, Antonius or Marcus Aurelius, how do you think you would have reacted to that piece. There is an echo of Socrates apology behind this document. It is a stmt for the side of the defence and it is going to make its case as vigorously and strongly as possible. In so far as making a claim in a socratic appr, justin may have thought would be effective.
Another comment: appealing to the philosophers, and distinguishing christianity from that. Sugeno would sugg that Justin was not obsequious enough. Sugeno says it was intended that the emperor will actually read it. Justin is anticipating another round of persecutions. He is hoping the educ classes will also read it and it will serve as an evangelizing device. Goes into considerable detail about the faith and practice of the church. It is clearly Justin illustrates, the growing hellenization of the church. That is vague term for when talk about the hellenic world, the world influenced yb Greek culture, that does encompass the roman empire and territories beyond it. Alex the Great’s empire reached into India and E of greek culture reaching all the way across central asia into china. Students of iconography not that the statutes of buddhist divinities look like greek gods and goddesses. The hellenist culture is profound int he roman imperial domain. That doesn’t mean that the local culture loses its own particularism or abiding integrity. There is this overall culturre that is leavening and unifying the peoples of the empire. It is w/in this upwardly mobile groups w/in the centers of the urban empire who are the relig seekers of the age. Religious questing is not ltd to periods of dramatic social culture change, but it certainly does become much more widespread during such times for a variety of reasons. Some are evident in the literature of the doc. Religions at any period tend to give expression to the situation w/in which those religions develop. Rel during this time gave expression to Roman republic or to the egyptian understdg of religion. So there is a regional historical particularity of all these religions. As all of these circum change, the commerce, industry and politics becomes more global, then some of the old-time relig are not prepared to address those issues. Under those circum, something more exotic, that one hasn’t grown up w/seems to have more global catholic implications. For ex, Isis worship, which is egyptian back home, in the city of Rome would not have the tradtl limitations as one encounters it. So isis worship might be more fulfilling of the indiv need than the tradtl worship of jupiter. The kind of buddhism have in this country is not alien to classical budd, but takes a diff form. Consequently one notices the popularity of these exotic religions. The mystery religions, the ones that purport to place one in touch w/supernatural powers, that place one in touch w/the gods, enjoyed wide popularity. Orphic religions--the rituals of the Dionysian cult was orphinism. That gave sort of immed contact and sacramental relation w/the gods enjoyed some great popularity during this period. The rel that provided greater unity of understdg about thenature of reality also seemed to have gained pop as people wrestled w/the meaning of their lives.
Many of the rel had already been shaped by Greek rel trad. The celtic gods and teutonic and roman gods were cast w/in the mythic framework of greek rel. Id’d jupiter w/zeus and cast jupiter in the myths assoc’d w/zeus. Greek had provided the written lang for most of these people who had no prev written lang of their own. Their theological reflections were much more ethnic regional and ltd. One could apprec the relig syncretism from the egyptian infl or greek infl had on one’s perc of the nature of gods and religion. This overall questing is made evident in the writings of the time. Justin in his personal life illustrates that relig questing, when says one begins to seek meaning for life, first goes to philosophers, and moves from one to another, finds the greatest satisfaction among the platonists, but still is not satisfied. Whatever the nature of the encounter w/chr, finally turns to chr and becomes a member of the church. He was born about 100 ad and by then chr had spread widely in that area. How much, don’t know and don’t know about his conversion. Accdg to his own acct, the thing that put him over the line was in noting the manner in which christians met their martyrdom.
As in our own times, prob’ly the reason for people looking at the church and becoming members is as diverse as the number of members. Ultimately have to say God saved me. Even a very detailed conversion acct by Augustine’s convessions blames G for all that happens. The point merely is that people were turning to a var of relig and christianity was not one of them, and their motives were varied.
One needs to give some attn to the nature of the religons of the time. Code word for referring to their gen char and speak about paganism. Orig’ly not meant to be complimentary term. Were thought if not chr then yokuls, but polytheistic religions had abiding assumption throughout the course of human history was that affairs in the world were under the power and guidance of courses and gods, and that from an indiv point of view, one’s well-being rests upon dealing with these powers in manner that was appropr in manner that God regards. So a cit of Rome would be invoking sev gods or goddesses, and if did not work well, would try another or an alien one. The conseq of that kind of polytheistic understdg is that no one is in full control. If having psychol problems go to asklepius, a physician. Or to apollo and hope a psychological prob. The notion that single power in control of all aspects of life was not one that was a part of a polytheistic reading of life.
The homeric literature tries to give acct of war betw the war bet ååinto the world w/o road map or compass, seeking the secrets of the created order. Would it not be more nat to assume tha chaos, rather than a directed course of history is at the heart of affairs. That one prospect for a happy life is very iffy at best. In Herodutus’ history, he gives an acct of King Cresus, a wealthy king of greek world, and asked Solon whom the most fort one in the world was. Solon mentions three names whom cresus has never heard of. So dismisses him. Solon again goes thru the capital and persians have overrun Cresus and asks solon who the threee were. Solon said lived a long time and even after dead the children did well. Can’t know if life is fortunate until generation after death. If not even the most powerful god can run the whole show, then fate is what lies behind everything. There is no way to lose control.
Oedipus is ex, wants to be good ruler and concerned about virtue, but his virtue gets in the way and serves as his downfall. That one does not knwo what the gods have in store for you, b/c don’t have a key to the fund purpose of the universe and can’t if you are a polytheist. The king agnotten of Egypt tried to unify his empire by promoting sun worship. But it is clearly an attempt to give expression to his faith, and a genuine move, but also political. Trying to impose his faith otn others and doesn not take. People are convinced that a var of gods and the gods tend to be Proteon--Proteus changed forms constantly. If could trap in the form of a rabbit, would change into a lion. Did not know what could expect even from a particular god. So the models for good living are not the people who seek a constant or virtuous form of life, but one who is more clever, like Odessyeus, who worked to trick the gods b/c that is the only way to survive. That is exaggeration and does not give due acct to the genuine piety to those who went to the shrines and temples to implore assistance from the gods, but theologically, the assumption of their faith is that the universe if polymorphic and many centers of power.
Greek phil was impt in that it sought to overcome the fundamental chaos of a polytheistic reading of life. To ask what amongst appearances was truly real. What amongst the dying and changeing ephemeral forms in the world, what was abiding, what was eternal. What amongst the multi-plicity of events and material forms and what w/in this chaos was the basic unifying principle. There were a number of various answers. But in the first cent, it is int’g that it was the phil that proported to find some kind of unity w/n the multiplicity that were the pop ones. Stoicism had seen that w/in the chaging orders of the world, there was an eternal pattern. So that one should not get caught up in the rapidity of daily change, but keep one’s mind and try to find the nature of that pattern and live stoicly and virtuously w/in the changing order. Pythagorous had a number of followers, for the mathem mind who saw mathethatical order of the universe, provided some clue that might be helpful in living life. But the most impt philosophers was Plato, and amongst the platonic lit, those who dealth w/the governing prin of his life. Timmaeus was the most signif of his writings. Not impt for our purp here. It is impt to note that b/c Plato was to see and discsern the one w/in the many that much of his lang and many of his ideas got domesticated into the church’s life and thought.
For someone like justin, phil is helpful in dealing w/intell issues but in term of one’s spirituality, in terms of coming in some kind of direct rel w/that uifying source of life, platonism finally was not satisfactory. Amongst the religions that were flourishing during that time amonst the seekers, were the worshippers of Mithrash. Mithraism, judaism and christianity for they all prpovided a unified understdging of life and helped one find one’s place w/in the cosmic order. Mithras was partic’ly pop among randks of milit b/c that rel saw the world as being under the infl of the sources of light and darkness and that was to be a cosmic struggle. The whole universe was caught up in that warfare and faith was that eventually light would voercome darkness. So one needed to live a live in accord w/the forces of light. Lot of practices asso’d w/Mithras seemed to border on superstitious to the philosophical people. So while it flourished for aseason and its later manif in manichaesm as St. Aug attested, it did not win the day. Judaism provided a powerful monotheistic reading of life, and for people who are caught up in the polycentric reading of life, the notion that all of creation was under the governance of yahweh was good news, so for a while judaism as fairly successful, as attested the number of gentiles who either became jews or godfearers and shared int eh jewish worship. But among the limitations, the popularity of judaism was its ethnocentric character.*** this meant that if you were a roman and became a member of the jewish commun, you had to dissociate yourself from life and on the fringes. But w/christianity, they encounteered a rel that also provided this unified view o life that was much more universal and encountered all peoples in equal terms in god’s kingdom. So as contin disc about hellenization, note that not only do the gentile converts become the dominant element in the chr commun, but will begin to introd pracidtsis taht refl the hellenistic char of the backgr as seek to help make sense of faith and make it make sense.
Church History 9/18/98
Sections on Monday about Irenaeus
How to read excerpts of documents. Ordinarily those docs are arranged in a manner useful for whoever made the collection. His own lectures were arranged to coincide w/the book.
Eusebius was a fourth century historian, and a goodly part of the documentation of this period comes from Eusebius. He comes in the age of Constantine and it is a bit tedious, but a lot of valuable material.
Justin Martyr illustrates the issues that arise in terms of the rapid influx of hellenistic people int the church. If recall, Justin is addressing in his apology the nature of christianity as he tries to lay it out to those who are not church members. So he will use language that departs somewhat from the traditional salvation history lang, which is the primary theol lang of the church. How does one in a foreign context set forth the nature of one’s faith in a manner that the natives will understd. Not to nec convert but get them to understd. Will use lang fam to those outside the church. During this time when the church was under suspicion and illeg and persecuted and widespread int in chr for evangel and apologetic purposes, Justin does a good job and subseq apologists will rely on is style and lang. It is not unlike the exper of the commun party in this country. When it was being persecuted and declared illeg by the govt it helped many people make sense out of history. Once again, can use comm as a parallel, the nature of understdg of history helps marginalized people find themselves in the scheme of things.
Justin indicates taht simply the life style of the christians appealed to many people who saw in the charitable works, the ability to accept martrydom in heroic fashion. They found themselves being attracted to that faith. As indicated earlier, there was widespread int in alien religions during the time. The old time rel seemed not to be speaking to that period in Roman history. The appeal of christianity judaism mythraism was that they provided a handle for all of reality and understdg of polytheism, a unified view of life. W/polytheism, there is no central governing prin that can get ahandle on to understd all reality. There was no center to the universe. So there is a built in pessimism, about the possib of a meaningful appr to life. Even the gods are caught up in the fate. They themselves don’t control the show and like a committee trying to run the universe. You could see this longing for unified view of reality in the dev’g philosophy of the age. It is amongst the greeks that the scientific appr to a study of the world is making steady advances. It is not simply greeks that is contributing but at the forefront. Pythagorus who sees that in exam of the world, it seems to be org’d in some mathem fashion, so tries to find solution about the unifying basis of the cosmos in terms of numbers. In plato’s early phase also sees correlation betw numbers and the world. All these philosophers saying thru the empir method, thru the use of crit rational capab, let’s see what can understd about the world. These were phil like democratus, and see what the basic building blocks of the world are. The wold must be made up of the basic units in the various combinations that results in humanity or animal life or whatever. Others, partic’lyplato are trying to find that basic center to all of reality that will help to explain the multiplicity of materials and events taht const life. He ends up w/an understdg that the idea of the good is a governing prin or the gov’g prin. Others like procurus says may be some governing powers call gods, but they don’t have int in us humans and can’t even control own lives. Just live worthy virtuous life w/o ref to these gods. There were various options. Astronomy is making strides and med is making impt discoveries and aristotle and his followers is beg’g to categ things. So the rational appr is a way to getting at the nature of reality. Their achievements are quite impressive. So for a christian addressing not only non-chr community, but within the church itself will begin to utilize languages and rational methods that had been developed over the centuries and are seen as being the basis for winning a case and making a point and persuading people as to the truthfulness of one’s statemetns. So for instance, the term logos, the notion of the reason is used as one of the governing org’g prin of life b/c the universe seems to be ord’g in this reasonable fashion. So if one makes ref to the divine power as logos, you re buying into a well credited understdg of the rationality of the universe. This is an age where the stoics and platonists are in the ascendancy b/c the phil and rest of the pop trying to find unified philosph base by which to direct lives. The stoics and platonists are pop b/c asking the fund qs and using the terms logos. It is conven to use that term to try to make sense to try to make non-chr understd what the nature of the churhc is.
The structured order in the ch and the world comes from G. Obviously if you use such terms that are not domesticated into chr thinking it also is touched w/presupp taht are apart of those terms. The scientific method and the ideas and prin of the scientific commun are a part of what adopting. Once use term logos, either in rel to god or son J, other qs will arise. It is one thing to talk about the messianic rel of J of naz and G. You are speaking of a different conceptual univ, than when talking about the logos and g the father. It is dev of more philosoph oriented theologigies and the systematics will take on more phil nature. This is in antic of subseq theol dev. For these folk who become converts to christianity. At this point means one who changes from pagan to chr practices, they may convert their membership and become naturalized cit of the churhc, but doesn’t mean their minds and hearts are fully converted yet, that is a lifetime process. So you can anticipate, esp w/this huge influx of hellenistic people into the church, that they carry a lot of old freight. So when church is talking about heterod or heresy, are talking about ideas introduced into the ch that is not consistent w/its fund faith. In the middle of the second cent in the days of justin irenaeus and tertullian, one of their major struggles is against these heresies which used church lang which acknowledged the lordship of christ, and accept the monotheistic view of G, but arr’d thinking in dif way.
Marcion, Valentitus. Marcion doesn’t quite fit here but valentitus and vascellities carrying on their spec about how the cosmos was created. It is an adaptation of things that are already there. Nag Hammadi docs indicates that those ideas were prev especially in egypt. Valentinus and vascillites were associated with the school. There are saffron robe monks walking the streets of Alexandria at this time. So there are many relig infl that are echoed and modeled in the empire. What the so-called gnostics have done is to first start w/the monotheistic understdg of G, but that G is pure spirit and totally transcendent in terms of the created world. So from the very beg’g, the assumption of pure spirit and total transcendence from the world is the ideal. They try to explain where the world came from and why it is so messed up, and clearly it could not have been from the transcendent G, so they explain it in terms of a great chain of being, where the lower come down the chain, the heavier its mat char and the further from this ideal that is refl in G. So by the time come to humanity and the created world, it is pretty messy. So then the issue for salvation, in terms of the doctrine of soteriology, it becomes how do you escape this. It is a world denying faith, b/c salv is not to become at one w/g except through an escape from the world. Clearly the whold system is antic in terms of the way one defines G. The idea of G, the great transcendent being that is self-suff creates these lesser deities, and finally one of the lesser ones goofs and breaks out beyond the pure spiritual world, and end up w/a material world, and accdg to valentinus and company, some have the spir spartk that gives them promise and hope that they could be liberated from the mat cond of existence and turned back into the great spir enclave where there is no suff’g and death. How is it done? Obviously for thechr commun it is christ the savior. But obviously chr the savior if rep’g pure spirit, then chr the savior cannot be incarnated and enfleshed so there is your christology. What about the stories that the teachers tell about theword becoming flesh embodied in J of Naz. Sort of like the Exorcist, but light side instead of dark side. The logos either resides in this fellow from naz or appears to be human but really is not. What about the crucif? Some poor devil pays the price, while the logos is laughing at them for thinking they could nail the logos on the cross. It is not simply the story, but the lifestyle approp to that faith is approp to the story. If mat life is bad, then you could either try to live a body denying life, ascetic, or say that doesn’t matter what do w/the body and live free life, and both are rep’d in gnostic mood.
What does it take to be saved? Ultimately they say you have to have that special knowledge or gnosis or otherwise ignorant of the reality. It is usually some secret word. It was intriguing to be a secret socity. It was not being a foll’er of christ that enabled savl, but knowing what the secrets are. The chall to Iren is how to conquer this kind of arg. In one of the egyptian myths before you can cross the River have to have a secret word and coin, and seems to echo that a bit, but pure speculation. Also idea of name of G was secret. In revel G writes name on the stone that only we know.
The church will take on secret society char, more w/a quality of the hellenistic mystery rel both in its style and lang. The q will be whether selling out to paganism or propogating the faith using other lang. But to talk about the holy mysteries and to dismiss the catechumens who are not full members of the soc yet, at the point of the communion proper, and to use the lang of the body and blood of a victim, clearly is to adopt some of the lang of the mystery religions in talking about the essential char of christianity.
Gnosticism and the term gnostic is used in perjorative sense by the church. So far as Val and Vas are concerned would appear that sincere believers trying to provide a systematic reading tha would cut the mustard w/in the phil oriented world. They had for a season very widespread influence, b/c they seem to conform to hellenistic rel. That then evoked a theol response on the part of members of the church which helped to shape the church’s theol to provide a structured presentation of chr faith, that was parallel to though not intending to substitute the salv history mode of living w/in the faith. So if you think of theol as being a formational infl and convey the faith, it feels diff in reading about it in Iren than in Paul. It is as though chr were becoming bilingual. How to unify those two approaches and still struggling with that.
Marcion was in a way a greater threat. He knew the church from the inside. His father was a bishop. May have been actually a priest in Synope, in the province of Pontus in Asia Minor. After reflecting on chr came to the concl that if G is love, then that G that was running the show as recorded in the OT could not be the same G that the chr worshipped. There si something to be said for that . The vengeful God at the same time as merciful. The G that created the world in Gen sort of like the wisdom who created the world in valentinus’ scheme, is not the same g of love who rules over everything. So he too concluded that the probl w/the world was its material nature. Therefore, yahweh is not worthy of worship and we the christians sh worship the true G, the G and father of the Lord JC. So in order to proivde a true instrumetn for chr formation, he threw out the OT, threw out most of the New and kept an exprigated form of Luke and the pauline letters. Would want to get rid of idea of incarnation, but liked the high moral qual of the teachings of Luke, b/c consistent w/life of love. He promoted a highly disc ascetic lifestyle.
There could not be incarnation if material is bad. The gnosticism generally is dualistic.*** the bad part of the duality is matter. It is very tempting to bel that. Those who have body, know that hard to remain in control over it. That kind of anti-mat reading of life is quite widespread at all times. Major prob of the church is that denied its fund teaching. G created the world and GOOD. That would create probl for explalining the existence of evil, a prob that won’t go away given the fund char of our faith. Explan is that matter is evil. He did see J as the son of G. The threat so far as the church is concerned, that marcion posed was that he was challenging the auth base of the church, namely the bible.So kicked him out and started own church which flourished for a while. It was around for about 200 years. Gnosticism challenged the church for a couple hundred years.
Gnosticism as being dualistic divided the world betw light and darkness and rejecting the material and for the most part claiming to have information about the nature of the faith that was not shared by the commun at large. It posed a prob. There is much lit that poses as being a form of the gospel, for instance there is the Gospel of Truth, that parallel the acts of Peter, and the Gospel of Thomas, which refl the gnostic reading and prop thru lit that resembles the churches lit. So the chall was quite substantial and pushed the church to daeling with the issues presented by this chall. So much of the writings like tert, iren and justin, and clement and origen of alex all are understd as trying to provide a chr appr using phil resources, but more in line w/the apost trad. So we are now up to date to Iren. Hegel is arg’g that some of the gospels were thrown out are vital to the teachings of the church, one can learn about history and the role of women by looking at the heretical lit. We have some knowl of the heretical movements from fragments of lit found by arch. Before only jaundiced view of heresies by folk like Iren.
Church History, September 21, 1998
Next Section: Gonzalez 58-82
Next: Leith: Creeds of the Churches 1-22, and begin Origen’s First Principles, 1-65
Leith gives a progression of the Church’s creedal statement. He is recommending Hippolytus Apostolic Tradition.
Irenaeus: Why writing? To defend against the diff heresies arising in the chr church at that time. Marcion, and Valentinus. Gnosticism is the generic term. They are not all the same. The issue w/gnosticism is that it departs from fundamentalism, but Q is where do they depart. There are diffs w/in the christian commun and ways of intg things. Gnosticism--bad in its interp of the material world as bad against orthodoxy b/c God created the world as Good. Jesus could not be god and material.
Diads and cucumbers. They are spec about the manner of creation. It is not the transcendent god who is resp for creation. The demiurge was a lesser god and there was polytheism w/in gnosticism. There was more than one power governing the material world. One of the lesser gods was Jesus, so contradicts John and the view that Jesus was in the beginning. It is not as polytheistic as the pantheon of paganism, but the unity they seek to achieve is at the cost of the material world. Like buddhism, salvation comes from liberation from the conditions of life in this world. If you grew up w/a Pagan context, the trans to chr is not an easy thing. It is dramatic shift in mode of thinking. Secndly , people thruout the ages have looked at the mat existence as posing serious prob. The body deter and limits our spirit. So to be liberated from those cond would seem to quite wonderful.
Justins sets the stage by bringing it to a higher level, but there is this terminology in the fourth gospel. There is a kind of gnosticism in the feel of the mat world. The fourth gospel deals w/the enfleshment of the word. It insists on the sacr char of the life of ffaith. J moves in and out of rooms w/o going thru walls. There is the ethereal J.
Anecdote when John refused to bath where ____ in the bathhouse. This is theonly E have from Ireneaus.
Q: Gnosticism brings light to some of the mystical trad of chr. May not have been in line w/chr as son of G. Answer: there is a mystic strain in chr thruout its history, it is always a probl for the eccles bureaucrat whose job is to set limits and sustain the trad. Mystics will claim exper that seem not to fit into the mold. Most mystics have had diff. If you read gnostic lit generally, they are bizarre in terms of the chr faith,hard to see how could accept as useful. Much of the pop at this time is recent converts and the task is to prop the faith. If accept valentinus’ readings, throw off the fund of the faith, that G dwells in the world that G created.
Marcion is diff b/c he condemns materiality, but he wants the claim of the benev char of G to lie at the heart and wants to get rid of the OT and so all the new ch reads about is the love of G. If J is at the heart of the matter, then gnosticism is a serious prob.
Origin of gnostic ideas: they were a part of the rel scene in the med world. So itis a domestication of it in the church. In non-chr rel there is akind of spec of how the world began and clearly efforts to get a unified vision of the universe. They are making it more chr.
Gnosticism and chr is inherently elitist, b/c knowl only given to few. Pop image of the chr was the gullible folk, to accept this immoral superstit rel. But had to know the story and bel it. People like Justicn, Iren, Origen are well educ and sophisticated fold.
In Texas, shrewd lawyers say just a country lawyer. Rhetorical tack when minimizes his infl whereas est’d the apost succ theory.
We impose the term gnostic upon them.
What is Iren strategy? The knowl of chr has come from knowing J, and the secret knowl would be theirs if it would be around, and says they are the late comers. The apostles would have passed it on.
Answer: at the end where doing own spec, as far as the essentials of the faith develops the idea of apost succesion. It is the assumption that the bishops are in agmt, and if they don’t know, then it must not be true. If J is to pass only secrets of the faith, he would have given it to the apostles.
19th century, renaissance of the doctr of apos succ, and in Rc the notion is diff. There is the legit of the claim of the ch of engl to be the one holy cath church. It is eccles arg as over v the doctrinal one that iren is making in talking about apost succ.it is the integrity of the faith of the apost that Iren is claiming and it comes thru the church. It is the bishops who have rec’d this so-called rule of faith, the essentials of the faith, that the bishops pass on.
The gnostics were claiming secret knowl form christ. At that pt, all authentication comes from Christ. So there was not a strong sense in the church of the HS revealing things? Always the danger of arg’g from the doctr of the sps salv history. Towards the end of the apost age, realise longer, so begin to write down some of the recollections. In this post-apost period, the rapid exp of the ch and to the gentile regions, where there are bureaucratic govmts all things can and do happ in terms of passing on the trad. The Q becomes on what basis or auth are we now to est the integrity of that faith. It is as this pt that Iren plays impt pt in starting that process. At the very outset of this treatise, he points out what the rule of faith is, and that isthe heart of the matter. That is an acct that he gives. Salvation history. That is thewhole story. So he is testing everything against that rule of faith. So if christol of the gnostics deny the fact that the word has become flesh, so far as he is conc’d that is heresy. Mod theol efforts christol will cont to be a probl. At least for iren, and for most of the thinkers of the per, they at least know the starting pt. He will begin to marshall all kinds of args to try to provide args that he thinks establ the adeq of claims that he ismaking for the faith.
There were a lot of gospels and Acts of apostles floating around. Most of the gnostic ones come from the second century and quite a bit later than the four gospels. How does he counter the infl of these other gospels, like the Gosp of Truth, or Acts of Peter, or Gospel of Thomas? Student: the truth descends dir’ly from the apostles, that is first hand. Answer: he does est the apostolicity of these writings, aclaim mod scholars question.
Stud: there is the arg that four gospels b/c of four winds of the earth. Reaching? Ans: grasping at straws. Stud: if thought the world a sheet of paper, then dir more impt, sounds more arbitr now. Aristot had four elements of creation.
Four winds and four covenants: Noah, Abr, Moses and 4th is Gospel.
In the church today, numbers like three, 12, 7 carry weight.
Ans: indic that by now the churches have settled down to four gospels and not yet canon, but justifying it. There is no instr for canonizing it yet. Corinth, Rome and Eph have settled for four gospels.
Student: there is strength in that they are the earlier writings, and their apostolicity.
Ans: there is long standing trad that the four gosp werewritten either by the apostles or someone under them recording the apos recollections..
Student: note that the contrad by the other gospels and call the four main gospels liars. He does not address the contrad among the gospels among themselves..
Ans: in the ot trad, there is central event and variations on the recording of it, as try to at least harmonize it, like the jepd but there is a kind of unity there. As to the gospels, all are conv’d about the centrality of Christ, and there are some variations about them, and it is not quite as clear that diff. It is clear that Mark has a bone to pick w/Matt, and so it leaves one w/some leeway for dealing w/the gray areas in the life of faith. There is more clarity of def in the NT than the OT b/c they focus on the revel of G’s char.
Antoher arg that Iren uses v gnostics, is that the gnostic view is not universally acepted. There are diff among marcion, valent, etc, but there is great deal of harmony of faith throughout the churhc. That means there is one gospel that is being propogated in the church in contrast to the chaotic teachings of the gnostics. That is true as to the rule of faith of chr. So far as Iren is concerned it is the rule of faith that is at the heart of it.
Finally in the speculative section at the end, where tries to set up notion that symmetry characterizes G’s dealing w/the world, and that there is a recapit of the world, where there is a reversal of misfortunes when Mary gives birthto christ and sort of reverses what has happened when Eve tempted Adam. That clearly is Iren’s speculative stmt. Theory of Recapitulation.** there will be many thinkers who will follow the course of his thinking and bits pop up now and then. It is a kind of neat formula. That is a major contrib Iren makes in the dev of christian thought. On the notion of recapitulation. Iren is sugg’g that in the incarn there is a cosmic transformaton that occurs. There is new heaven and new earth. So the speculartion that will follow that notion will contrast w/the conviction that in christ there is the possib of the new birth of the indiv. One is more cosmically oriented, than the notion that salv comes from bel’g in the revel of christ which depends on the indiv’s belief. You will see some of both aspects of this understdg in Origin. *******
Q: Which gnostic would have posed the greatest threat? Marcion, b/c his christology focusing G as G of love would seem more consistent w/chr that people more inclined to givecredance. It is a rej of this world.
CHURCH HISTORY 9/23/98
Outline of Church History
The nice thing about Gonzalez is that Story of the Church is very direct and follows straight line, whereas he sniffs along the path. He is simply elaborating on aspects of Church History that Gonzales touches on. So you want to be in a position at the end of this course of having some kind of unified perspective, a contin story on the life of commun w/shared faith. The nature of this commun is intended to be theol. It is brought tog under the conviction that in J, the savior of the world appeared. The history of this community then is to try to understd and live out that conviction in the varying circumstances in which it found itself. So if you were to make a presentation about early church history, where would you start? Jerusalem and might want to include Israel as a whole but it focuses on this fellow from Nazareth. It would help to locate it in time as well. Begin story w/30 AD (CE) Israel. Centers on J as the Christ. But it is a story of a community so want to include the apostles as those who have experienced this revelation and will disseminate that good news. Insofar as the context is at Israel, they will first declare the good news to their fellow Jews, but the context is also the Roman Empire, so it might be useful to know that the Roman Empire is a little more than 50 years old at the time and still struggling for stability. J’s life covers the latter half of Emperor Augustus Caesar’s reign and he is the first emp of the Roman Empire. That is impt to know that the empire is still in process of formation. As the cshurch moves outward into the Roman Emperial Society as a whole and not just the diaspora, some info is helpful. What else or next. Mission to gentiles and split of jewish community.
Paul’s Conversion--missionary thrust from beg’g but Paul’s conversion relates to miss thrust and breaks out to diaspora.
54-64 Persecution under Nero. Martyrdom in 64 when does overt killing. The persecution starts early. The church becomes more circumspect, but remains public. Begins to give christianity its identity. Leads to separation from Judaism. There is suspiciion against chr and will persist until age of Constantine. Became indirectly a factor in defining faith. Can trace the persec and date and include the apologists and names and content. Then clearly there will be a development and sophistication of doctrine. There is glorification of suffering of J in martyrdom. In modern times, Amer protestantism felt threatened w/ immigration of RC and in 20th century w/the flourishing of New Age and eastern rel. To starat to get a large spread of people who reject paganism and will not participate in some of the civic activities that have pagan rel content, would be seen as having a threat to the stability and unity and good functioning of a society. That is clearly refl in the persecutions. When infl gets out of hand and mil industr complex takes on threats and heavy militarization, then an attempt to get back to traditional rel of the Roman Empire become strong and the persecution becomes systemic in efforts to get rid of christianity.
70 AD jerusalem falls. (Points up the sep of christianity and Jerus.
NT written c 70-90 AD.
Gnostic Heresy--that too will help define more clearly and definitely the doctrinal understdg of the chr community. You would want to have dates and names of people. He is not a stickler for dates but don’t want to have narrative free-floating in terms of time and space. His focus has been on the dev of apostolic TRADITION. The theological formularies that will eventually be seen as definitive for the church. So at the beg’g J is seen as the culmination of Jewish salvation history. So no great elab of christology. But as christianity becomes separated from Judaism, and as questions arise as to who J is, there will be an intense discussion of the matter. The discussion will culminate in the christological or ecumenical councils that are seen as legislating the church’s understanding. Valentinius and Marcion are contemporaries w/Iren and Justin Martyr. There are indic that Justin is concerned about gnosticism, but he is not clearly dealing w/it as Iren is. Iren and Tertullian are focused on gnosticism. Tertull writes five volumes against Marcion. Justin is mid second century. Martyred 165. People like marcion are already flourishing.
The stories as condemned as Nestorius, historians bel not an espouser of what condemned for. There is ultimate reality and absolute truth. It is the story of human beings trying to apprehend and express their understdg of ult reality. There is no finality of the historical signif. So contemp discussion of the adeq of trinitarian formulation indic that can’t through legislation stop people from thinking it and it is hoped arriving at a more adeq understdg of a commonly shared truth. It is the case that in the second century, that Justin, Iren, and Tertull and all the apologists help to dev a vocab and outlook that others find meaningful so they become major influences iin the dev of chr thought. One notes that there is a lot of corresp going on amongst these prin. It is clear that Tertullian not only admires Iren, but uses a lot of his ideas. He makes ref to the rule of faith and dep on summary of the faith. Even the notion of a rule of faith is developed during this time to give a compendious presentation of the nature of faith that is contained in scripture.
One cannot help but be impressed in the details involved in the presentation of the basis of the church’s christol understdg. Clearly people have gleaned the OT to demonstr that the OT was anticipating christ and they further refine it and talk about the sev dispensations and covenants that show dev on the part of G in bringing people up to the incarnation. By the time of Iren and Tert, it is clear that the gospels have become a part of the canonic lit, not be/c legislated, but b/c has been accepted in virtually all of the churches. It is assumed that the bible carries auth. You justify your case by citing scriptures. Most of the churches were limiting gospels to the four by the middle of the second century. Writings like the Gospel of Thomas, had some pop in ltd sections of the church and it was used in the lit life of the church not simply as literature. But by the mid-second cent, there was widespread assumption that the four gospels are the authoritative ones. The church still has to work out how one interprets the bible. If the whole bible contains the word of G, then there are portions of the scripture that seem not to be particularly illuminating or edifying. Have to wait on people like Origen and find ways of biblical interp and hermeneutic that at least helps them deal w/the issue though in terms of mod scholarship might find it unacceptable. It provided a basis of looking at scr thru christological lenses. If used an allegorical method rather than a literal one, sometimes it is a stretch.
TERTULLIANN: But while there is this great dev of thought in the second century, from a point of view of a greek thinker, like Tertullian, a learned and erudite thinker, there are many questions left unanswered. What is the nature of the soul? What is the signif of martrydom? Did G create out of existing material or out of nothing through decree and obviously if you were to use the Gen account, you could make a case for either one of them. What was to be the nature of the escaton. So this brilliant man writes tone after tone reflecting on these issues and disputing w/people who held other points of view. He wants to touch on and begin conver on the nature of christ partic the doctrine of the trin. As the church increasingly hellenized, terms like gnosis, son of God or logos, are used to give voice to the church’s faith. One then enters into a world of crit thought asking for theunity of one’s understdg. And an obvious issue is that of the trin definition of the nature of G. One of the most insistent points of the church was the unity of God. The church’s faith was monotheistic. Then what does one do w/all this bs of Father, son and HS. The term is not included in the gospel "Trinity" but the phrase is. It is part of the liturgical lang of the church. But the Question is, how can one be speaking about the divinity of Father, Son and HS and still maintian the unity of G. There were some folk who tried to resolve the issue by taking a monarchian or one-ruler point of view, insisting on a single God, in which case one would have to deal w/the role of Father, Son and HS, b/c that was very much a part of the church’s faith. There was a theologian named Noetus, who writing about the year 200 claimed that there was only the father, and that it was the father who was also involved in the J experience. The father was born suffered and died. It is apretty awkward solution, but maintained the monotheistic claim. There was a person who followed on this SABELLIUS, who is thought to have promoted the modalistic view and claimed that God appeared in THREE MODES, or Modalities, or energies. In one mode, Father, another son, and another Holy Spirit. That one G in those guises but still presented lots of problems. But once again, seemed to defend the MONOTHESTIC claims of the church. What would be the problem with a Sabellian solution. Tertullian notes taht when cried Abba Father, to whom was he calling. There are number of examples of dialogue and and "We will.." so that is the triune God that is speaking and we is necessary.
For Tertullian, it is the rule of faith that governs the way that he deals w/the issue so for him the worry is that if Sebellius’s understanding is accepted, the church reverts to Judaism. The monarchian effort will result in church becoming like Judaism, but undefined by the divne presence of J of Nazareth. It would be akin to Judaism b/c the faith of the church would be defined by a monotheistic understdg w/o ref to a christomorphic understdg of G. Modalists say that God just appeared in the guise of Jesus so have a kind of proteon God, appearing as father at times, and G appearing as redeemer in J. There is a feeling side to Sabellius in terms of trying to maintain the unity fo God and maintain the Chr faith. From Tert ‘s point of view have to have the Triadic view.
Clearly we are studying history b/c we share in that puzzlement. The manner in which the issue is resolved will see in Christol is up to us if satisfactory and to be acknowledged that the christolog defs of the councils become normative for the church members and get into trouble by opposing it until recent times but doesn’t meant the prob goes away. The issue of the trin is fund’ly the issue of the rel of G to the world and the manner of G’s dealing w/the world. The lang of father son and HS are terms that the church has used to try to express that understdg. But as modern theologians say, that sol utilized metaphysical lang which is not a part of the commn parlance of our days.
Church History 9/25/98
Origen of Alexandria 1-65. Gnosticism is impt, and the apologists are impt and the reason for them and what they said and the impact had on the life of the church is impt. "People often speak about the early church that it was unified and not secularized." Think about the stmt and reflect on it. Or could give a choice of a couple of kinds of questions to answer. Now have bishop in Ft. Worth and in N.J. and how about that unity.
By the mid-third century, by the year 250, which is when the major persecution begins, the systemic persecution, under emperor Decius, as a period when the church has pretty much established its essential ideas about its doctrine discipline and worship. Discipline in terms of how the church is ordered institutionally. Under the Severan Dynasty from 193-235 (first emp was Septimus Severan, so the Severan era) during that period, the church did not suffer the kind of persecution that it exper’d prior to and subseq to that dynasty. They were allowed to hold counsel meetings and in order to do that would have had to have had municiple permission. Churches being built in Rome where the catacombs were beg’g to dev. that could not have happened w/o some official permission. Catacomb is simply a burial place. The notion of hiding in catacombs is somewhat exaggerated. Origen who perhaps was one ofhte more celebrated intellectuals in the Roman Empire at this time, was invited by the mother of one ofhte Severan emperors to come and visit for a theol disc, her name was Julia Malay. She is rem’d in history as the first to invite a chr theologian to learn more about chr. He was given a mil escort as trveled from his home to her palace. It is symbolic of the toleration that the church experienced during this period. Not surprisingly, the church flourished.
One notes the growing ordering of the life of the church in order to meet the challenge that was presented by the circumstances. By the mid-3d century, the essential formularies of the church were now in place. The essential theological expressions that would provide what came to be called the ORTHODOX stmt of the church. Thnk of the fairly complex and arduous process of developing these formularies. At the beg’g of the life of the church, the believers’ understdg of the nature of the commun was that bel’d that J was the long awaited messiah. So the period of celebration of antic ofthe second coming when salv history would be consummated. One can see the dev of the church’s lit, the growing awareness of what conseq had on their self-understdg. That if christ indeed was the messiah, if christ defined the nature and purp of G, then have to be some modif and revisions in the inherited salv story. Jesus life and teachings manifested the nature and purp of God and therefore there was some need for modif in the salv history had inherited as JEWS. Can see n the dev’g lit the awareness of its now separation from that Jewish formulation of its own ident. The commun that called itself followers of Christ saw the jewish history as a preliminary to this essential revelation in J. But the story was not the formation of Israel and its histor as a people, BUT NOW the story was the new formation of a people at Pentecost, and the story of their development. So the prior inherited stories which were retained n Jewish canonical literature, was seen as a prelimiary of the prefig’g of the real story that starts w/J and dev in the life of the church. So in Iren, he talks about the sev dispensations, the covenants made by G, simply as an antic of the coming of christ and the creation of a non-ethnic people.
Much as the event at Sinai, where the cov of G is made w/his people, Pentecost is the beg’g of these people as a nation of the church. The heart of the matter is not G forming this people and providing for them thru the course of their history, but G has formed a people of many tongues and nations, it’s their story that lies at the heart of salvation. So if that indeed be the case, then have to provide the instruments and institutions for this new israel, in order to carry out its cov w/G and carry out G’s commandment in the life nad teachings of JC, and to proclaim that news to all the world as to who runs the world and how. It is that story now that the church is disseminating and using as a basis for formation of its own people.
As the Israelites recited their salv history, the church was also reciting its own memorial of what G has wrought thru J. It is not impt for us the details of the history where they make that transition from J in history to church, but the nature of G as revealed in J. How to give expression to the signif of J in our understdg of G is what gets complicated. Look outside of christianity for a moment. Here is this fellow in Northern India who gets a vision about the nature of realit and starts to preach the way to the people of 7th cent in India of what life is all about and what underlies all the happenings in history. He not only proclaims that news, but he embodies it in his own life. Don’t just say here is someone in N India who said these things, so begin to apply parables to help people see the cosmic signif. In sim fashion, here is this fellow who is totally human, born at this time and lived and suffered and died and in that life as in the words he said, can actually see the heart of reality. One lang people understd is Son of God, means he is divine. The jew would understd messiah, b/c the mess is seen as a divine agent. But the diff now w/the church dealing w/the chr formation of a people who dwelt w/in a polytheistic universe is to first point up this cosmic signif of J’s life and say that is the essential and only truth about the nature of G. You have a very diff task of simply communicating the import of the theol of the church as it focuses on J the Christ. (Reinhold Niebuhr said exams are like vomit retg’g to the dog.)
It is a diff task at any time. It is impt issue for the church, b/c have lots of people coming into the church, and not so dang anymore, persec has let up and seen as personally advantageous. Telling the people now entering a commun where the sole basis of existence is in terms of life focused on the person of J of Naz. He was a Jew that lived sev centuries back, and is the agent of G, who is saving the world, including you. So the response might be tell me more. So you could see that much like Justin talking to Trypho, no simple form of how to tell the story, try to find points of contact between your faith and the faith of others, but the lang the church has developed, by the mid third cent, has become the offic way of giving expression to the church’s faith.
So how to embody this in the life of the now growing commun. What he sugg is that the church’s development as an instit is primarily to effect chr formation. Still the maj of the people bring in hellenistic theol presuppositions. So how to now bring them into the church’s culture that is shaped by this story of salvation, that gives the church members some sense of the course of history as G has designed it and how one finds one’s place in the cosmic scheme of things. If one knows who G is and G’s purp in history and what Ghas wrought, then how does one live out one’s life in the framework of that conviction. As you can imagine, a goodly part of the focus is insistence on the monotheistic nature of the church’s faith. All of life comes under the governance of the one true G. Everything comes under G’s rule. There is nothing that is that ws not created by G. That G’s creation and purpose in so far as revealed in J then involves an affirmation of the divine signif of J, so you can imagine that in the catechetical stage, one would have to know something about J. By that time there is now official literature canonical writings about the life of J, so they would serve as an instrument for relig educ. Since it is also the church’s conviction that G who is ruler over all and manifested in J that man, J is born of mary and suffered and died, that man and divine power dwells in the world and so one probably would learn about chr ethics and the conseq there are in living in that spirit. But it means how one discerns wht the spirit intends. So imagine if one moved in Rome from a city where Jupiter is the primary G, and other Gods play an impt role in the life and fait of the people. How to provide christian formation for those folk would require a long period of education. So if there is a lot of stress on reason and educ and illumination and gnosis, it is because of this need for great cultural transition from polytheistic oriented culture to monotheistic one. This was the emph of the catech. Bishop Steven Bane said when he ws in Africa, there was a priest who did good job in propagating the faith in Africa, but when things got anxious would revert to witchdoctor. Where the culture is manifestly diverging from the church’s faith, the task is difficult. Most secular folk today at least understd a unified view of life. It was primarily the philosophers who had a strong investmet in finding the source of unity. People mostly lived in the polytheistic culture that had forces that had power over them. Not that suddenly get rid of superstitions, but at least the formation of the church ws to try to get people to understd that whatever happened to them in their lives, tehy lived w/in the province of loving God who dwells w/in us as HS. The period of catechization was long one. Hippolytus in early 3d century writer on the church who dwelt in Rome, in his Apostolic Trad, said the period lasted 3 years. The three years under fairly intense supervision.
Then once that process was satisfactorially completed, the person would be rec’d into the commun through baptism, and in the rite of bapt the profession of faith in the triune G. So the people who were to be bapt’d would fast for a couple of days and apparently the sponsor would fast w/them, and there would be a period of prayer and fasting in prep for this very impt event in the life of that person. Then, according to hippolytus, and there is no uniform practice at this time, at least in liturgical terms, the notion of uniformity comes in w/the reformation. But there is a lot of influencing of churches at this time, so there is a tendency to at least have fam resemblances among the churches in doctr discpl and worship. So apologist could say could go from Rome, to Syria to N Africa and Gaul and find common worship and teaching. Would not find that in most pagan institutions. The best place to be bapt’d was where there was running water. Then if not that, then a pool of water. Then if not possib, the sprinkling method. People would disrobe in order to be bapt’d. People in the roman empire were used to publ baths. There they would be baptd in the name of the father, son and HS. Then immed’ly after the bapt, would receive the eucharist, they would exper the Hcommunion. Hippolytus indicates that the structures and components of the commun service but starts w/the Sursum Corda, the epiclesis, the prayers, and then the distrib of the elements, pretty much as we know the euch today. Whenmade the last rev made it compare more nearly to euch practice. Tertullian wanted people to understd the faith had some misgivings about infant bapt but most conversions were adults and often head of fam and brt in servants also. More of the middle class coming in now. Involved conversions of entire household. Quite often a wife would be converted and persuade husband to come in and that happens in Africa now. The families are still extended as the basic unit of society. If get tribal chief get all people. The church was growing rapidly. Tertullian said better not start persecuting, or will disc how many chr there are and affect the stability of the empire.
To move into monotheismwas a major step bc society itself was saturated w/polytheistic deities and presuppositions. If families say focus on apollo as the protected deity in the fam, and had gone to the first apollo temple to receive past case or be buried, would be to assoc one-self. Furthermore, there were some prohibitions attached to being a chr. Included the gladiatorial fights and one questioned whether it was ok to be a solder and be involved int eh killing of others. One could not carry out one’s civic resp as a member of a family. There were ramif that would cause one to think twice before making the move. If husband decent, would consult w/ whole fam. Not likedragged off alone, b/c theytoo wouldhave to make that affiramtion.
Church History 9/28/98
ORIGEN: His remarks about philosophy are commonplace, but when enter the phil realm it is diff from the dogmatic realm. They serve diff purposes and the diff for us who haven’t done a lot of phil is to enter the world and try to follow the disc. When phil became an impt aspect of the christians’ effort to give expression to their faith, phil discourse had been going on for cent, and ch enters that conver and makes use of the vocab and the ideas that hvae been dev’d by the phil over the centuries. The diff is to try to give expr to the faith of the ch expr’d in the narr fashion into a phil discourse that is in terms of historical style very diff. In a way, phil’s enter into a historyless realm. They are trying to find the eternal char of the universe. While history may be part of eternity, they are illus but don’t carry the substance of it. It is one thing for us to give an autobiography of how exper life, but another for psychol to try to understd us as an instance of the general. Both are enormously helpful in trying to make sense out of life. The philosophers were asking what are the fund building blocks of the universe and beg’g w/Ionian philosophers in 7th century bc that Q was carried on until some of the people said it is either mater, spir, or mental, or epiphenomenon. They accompany the material, but wen the mat disappears the spir is gone as if the magnetism is lost.
By the first cent AD had gone as far as could w/that kind of discourse and trying to find the first prin the eternal power thta held the whole show tog. Pythag, Xeno, the stoic and Plato were very pop. There are a lot of other phil schools. Those were the flourishing ones. In that respect the gnostic spec that we have been exposed to fits in that development. A goodly part of the phil energy went into trying to understd what that first prin was. As in the case like Valentinus and Vaselities, the source of all life is seen as being mind, but it is a spir and mat invis reality, out of which emanates a var of other forces. The pairing of the sev subdeities of this nous or absolute mind is using the notion of fertilization of male and female. Male and female as it relates to generation. There is req’mt of duality of forces. It is in light of the kind of discussion that is giong on that Origen enters that disc and comes us w/the first effort at a systematic stmt of the nature of christiantiy, tryingto cover all bases and talk about beg’gs and ends and the meaning of things. He doesn’t cover everything, but wat he considers to be the fund prin. It is diff to get a hold of the fund way in which Origen organizes his thinking unless read the whole thing, but fund in parts read, and how God and preachers and how they relate to each other. He is remarkably systematic about it. At every point he tries to justify it in terms of reason and scripture. Added to the diff of the entering of the philos realm of theol, is that don’t hve in tact the book he wrote. He was very infl in the devl of phil theol during this early church per. He ordered that his books be demolished so what have are passages in Greek of the original and parts of it. The major parts are in latin and comes from Ruffinus’ translation. He and Jerome were contemporaries who were great admirers of Origen. Jerome backed down when origen was charged w/heresy. The reason for the choppped upnature of the book is that scholars found scraps and pieces and put the whole thing tog. There are areas that ar unclear of what Or meant,bu the basic arg comes thru.
Q. How to expl the tension betw phil and free thinking and at the same time, extreme conseq for act of heresy? If I think you are a heretic and write saying what you said about the HS is heretical, meaning did not accord w/scripture, then others would enter the discussion, and enter the conver and dispute. BUT once an emperor enters the picture and the dec of the emp is on the side of Nicea, then that becomes the law of the land,and becomes a polit rather than theol issue. It is hard enuf to get measure of intell harmony, but when make it a pol issue, then the schemeing starts working. See that at the councils. The carryover of the infl of the constant arrangement still carries over to mod times, despite sep of ch and st. So our notion of heresy is not one over which people dispute, but rather someone who is giving up the whole show, and deserves to be thrown out.
When Rome excomm’d Alexandria it meant stop praying for Alex, there were not other conseq. The serious one was to break the unity of the church. But when the emp exiles you or puts you in jail more serious. At this stage, Origen is saying that he is trying to think about the faith of the chur so sets forrth the rule of the faith as Iren does. Will talk about the F, S and HS, and G gave us a mind, as intell elitism, for thegnostics, the people cap of knowing, there is the req to give thought as to how the wole show hangs tog and is rationally defensible. He does not arg for the existence of G, which he presupposes, but the unity and disposition of G requires accdg to O some disc, b/c the gnostics are polytheistic. On the basis of reason, will arg for the unity of G. By the same token, then in the face of the monarchianism, faced w/people who are arg’g that there is only one G and therefore the Church’s claim of F, S and HS is irrational and indefensible, he is arg’g that it is both reasonable and the other side is unreas and it is buttressed by the word of G and scriptures. So it is in terms of salvation history, that the ch sees as a basis of its faith, that he touches on these points, the nature of humanity and the fall, and the nature of angels and demons. Finally, the Q of last things.
For most of us, Or in diff universe, all the args may not be that persuasive to us, but it at least gives us an idea of what systematic theol is all about. Now days in the case of St. Thomas Aquinas, the issue of the reality of G, that he exists becomes a major intell concern, so people doing theol will talk about the issue of G as the first thing, or the issue of epistemology, ie how we know anything about G. There is a prolonged disc about that issue. In the third cent while there ws a lot of skepticism the FACT of the gods was taken for granted. The q was the nature of G. For the chr the first thing to point out is that there is only one G. Origen is very clear about what the issue is, whereas a system theol is not. He was a very highly respected phil amongst his contem w/in and w/out the ch. The issue for O is the theol issue around the nature of G.****
The first prin is written is written near the end of his career. He was basically a biblical scholar. He had this restless energetic mind that carried on a number of projects simultaneously. At his catechetical school in Alex, Egypt, while training chr educ leaders, he was doing bibl scholarly work. There is an excellent coll of Hebrew texts try to get a good accur text of Hebr lit, which was pub’d along the translit of Hebrew using Greek letters and using Greek transl of the bible. "Hexapla." He was in conver w/the Hebrew scholars. He wrote a major commentary on the Gospel of J. He tried to estab prin of hermeneutics, ie ways of inter’g scriptures in the face of the assumption that every word in the bible was divinely inspired or revealed.**** Tertullian does some of that. The technique had been developed by the scholars. That sort of textual crit was already avail. Origen is the first to do it in a fairly systematic way.
Whether you bel that the bible is divinely inspired and req’d to conform to bibl teaching, you have to come up ways of interp’g to make sense of it and he dev’d a spir interp of scripture, some passages are to be taken lit’ly, some moral content, some allegorically and some spiritually. By so doing, this word allegorically refers to some spiritual thing.***** He tends to be fairly consistent in terms of his theol perspective. Soif you know his theol perspective, you can almost guess how might interp diff passages.
Q of whether he bel’d in transmigration of the soul. A: there are some things that for him are not debatable, like the unity of G, so in terms of the disc about the unity of G, his main resp is to indic that that is a reas pos to hold, and polytheism is unreas. In terms of transmigration of souls that is not a part of the teaching of the church. He will say that one cannot say w/any clarity whether our souls pre-existed our earthly existence, or what happens afterwards . BUT since G is the craetor, creation had to be going on from all eternity, so possib our souls preexisted our earthly existence, so our social status is det’d from prior existence, like Hindu. The first nature of G is LOVE, and G intends to save G’s creation, so souls not saved here, surely must go thru a period of purgation and then return to from whence they came, i.e. the bosom of G.
Q. So the term transmigration can be interp’d..? A: It means the soul carries on in ex beyond this life. In the Hindu, the souls keep reappearing until liberated. For him the soul is immaterial, so even when our bodies are removed, have soul. He is strongly infl’d by Plato. A lot of the thinkers views are converging at this point, thinking in terms of an immaterial spirit that is at the essence of what it means to be human. So theQ about the nature of bodies, and for the gnostics, the bodies are evil and are therefore due to the bumbling creative activ of a lesser deity. But the true spirit or reason in humanity is like the logos of the spirit of the divine, and that is eternal, so is the dissolution of the body. How to get back to what that spiritual means in terms of the nature of salvation. There are variety of views from earlier times of duality of soul and body. Earlier philosophers thougth the soul was energized dim of humanity. They thought the soul gone when the body died. Others thought the soul was the heart of being human and athe body was etiher added on or not essential to one’s humanity. Some quite dualistic and some subordinated the body. In phil, virtually all the alternatives had been set up in the first cent, we have spent the last two thousand years contemplating these possibilities.
Q: Unity issue--G not contained by the created order and not cont’d by time and space. A: Greek phil who bel’d in single G, defined G in ltd terms. G is immutable b/c if you are changeable you suffer and don’t have control over things. So the people who tried to achieve that kind of immutab were the stoics, no matter what goes on around them, even -keeled, rational and maintained essential ident and assume that what goes on around not disruptive. They saw God as an immitation of that view. G defined in way that takes G out of history, then how to expl that there is history and change, and G creates the univ in G’s own image. There is where the logos comes into play. It is clear that w/Origen, the logos is the mind of god.**** it is that energy that comes from G. The logos not G does the creating. May be said to preserve G’s immutability. God is seen as omniscient, omnip, eternal, immut, impassible, does not suffer fear and hate, so G is self-suff, but then what do you do w/the cross. Also what to do w/the diff faces of G in the OT and NT? That is the kind of issue the system theol has to deal w/ especially if the bible serves as an auth. For Origen, the spir meaning of the passage is this.
Mind is a central metaphor for Origen’s doing of theology.*** Mind is invisible, immaterial, and as to Origen, it is eternal, and not affected by the partic events. That if G and the truth about G comes from G, for Origen, J and the HS play a part in that mind game, so the ideas in G get activated by the logos. That is why the fourth gospel is so related. He says the logos becomes like you and me, but born of a virgin thru the HS. That is a tough intell ploy, but at least he is trying to be true to the church’s convention that the logos became flesh and truly human ad really suffered. So the logos and the HS fit into this mind image of Origen in trying to understd the divine. That is platonic. Most of his writing is during the Severen Dynastry but when the Decian persecution starts in 249, he is tortured and two or three years later as a result of the torture he dies, at age 68.
There is a greek fragment when subordinates the spirit to the father and the Son. But mind you this is not at this point heretical in thought. Terms like logos and son of G are used that place them in special categ. As to how J relates to the father is still open for discussion. He is one of the early contributors of that discussion. So the Q becomes, what prin does one apply in deciding. He kind of pictures that he has the role of more a mediator betw G and us. He is subord but tied. How does that differ from an angel of G. How does that relate to the nature of father and son. That will be hashed out in the fourth century. What is wrong w/subordination. When say son that is subordinate pos.
Since Origen is doing exploring, he doesn’t try to det those issues. You can read into him all kinds of things, and it is only as the conver progresses and the ch comes to some common mind as to wheter the word is subord to eternal G or whether the HS is simply a kind of energy from G, God acting in the world. Those are issues that remain unclear at this point. His discussion of the HS is minimal. "She herself may be called the express image of God’s substance." he is becoming more clear about the image of G becoming manifest in the wisdom incarnate in J. He is using wisdom and logos in rel to the second person of the trinity. They are not synonymous. He sees them as saying diff things about J. What do they say that is diff? Logos deals w/the rational dimension. This is not his term, but wisdom is more intuitive.Wisdom has a connotation that goes beyond pure rationalisty. It is int’g that he sees wisdom there.
Church History 9/30/98
The last session was talking about the dev of the church as an institution. He indicated that there was a formalization in organizational terms that the informal loose ordering of the chr commun in the apostolic per could not be sustained as the church grew and as became clear eschaton not imminent. Impt to record the teachings of J and protect against heretical distortions. The love feasts and memorial meal related to last supper began to take on more of a liturgical char, rather than a covered dish supper. One can follow the growing concern w/the hierarchy of the church. Paul mentions a variety of functions and not quite clear of what they were, those who distrib’d to needy, the widows and greeters. Can see from time of Ignatius of Antioch, a concern for some kind of organizational order. So he makes an appeal to the churches in Asia Minor that they be obed to their bishop. By bishop during Ignatius’ time, was basically the same as a priest.
There is not a clear parallel betw the synagogue and the chr congreg, but the person who was resp and in the Jewish commun the Rabbi runds the show and he is the keeper of the Torah and a teacher. In the chri also liturgical duty and the bishop seen as the sacramentalist and the maintainer of the apost tradition. Began to talk about the elders or senior member as being a bishop or priest and people simply copied others. There is no institutional way of imposing uniformity on the church at this point. While they began to talk about the bishop as being the auth in the local congreg, there is no agmt as to how the bishop gets elected, or what the job descr is. It becomes clear when read Iren "Against Her," the teaching function of the bishop is crucial to maintain the integrity of the church. There is too much variety to indic that J left any instructions. Ignatius’ letters to the churches in Asia Minor is making an appeal for a bishop as auth figure, b/c unclear what the lines of auth are. As the apologists and the teachers like Iren start to make an appeal for maintaining the apost trad and that the bishops are the bearers of that trad, it reinforces the impt of the bishops and gives focus to the bishops’ resp.
By the mid-third cent, see that in org terms. The bishop is clearly the auth and while there are many functions n the church, it is the bishop who orders the life of that commun. It is est’d that the bishop of Rome had about 150 functionaries under his authority, meaning other priests, deacons, widows, janitors were also grave diggers. It is also est’d that about 1500 people on the soc welfare role in Rome, widows, orphans and other needy folk. Conseq’ly the bishop became the collector and disperser of funds. And in so far the other functionaries pd from the bishop’s purse, can see the bishop had power. Can still go to many parts of the angl commun and see the money comes from the bishop, and see the power of the bish in contr to the Amer bishops.
By the mid-third century, the bishops in the metrop areas liek Rome, Antioch, Constantin, Ephesus, had infl over other bishops, metrop prelates.they would convene councils. The first recorded council is in Asia Minor, seeking to deal w/MONTANISM. It became a common practice when a regional probl for the bishop to convoke a council and invite the bishops in that territ and come and delib about various issues. In the case of Cypriot of Cathage, in the mid-thrid cent, uses the councils effectively as deals w/a var of problems. And much of his infl comes from his conciliar activ. Affected all of Africa and Numibia, the provinces of Africa in the Roman empire. That is the source of the term "Metropolitan," as large urban area and leaaders in Greek Church. It is the ordering of the life of the church, in regional terms headed by bishops, which gave some order and stability to the ongoing life of the church.
Alongside the apostolate of the bishops, was the apostol witness of martyrs. What means is that it was assumed that martyrdom gave witness to the nature of chr living in its most ideal form. Those who gave their lives for chr were indeed imitating christ. In dying, they died in and w/christ and as w/christ, they would rise and be lifted into the throne room of the heavenly kingdom. Hear echoes of the portrait of heaven where martyrs in the book of revel. In the early second century, ignatius of antioch was being taken captive and going to Rome to be executed and writes a letter to the church in Rome and says don’t use your infl to rescue me and don’t deny me this oppor to give this witness. It takes on a specialized meanign of giving w through your own death as testim of faith. You note that the accounts given, the written accounts of martyrdom, like of Polycarp from Smyrna, who died around 176 under Marcus Aurelius, or when read about the martyrs of Carthage, whether men or women, it takes on a sort of form of literature where the patterns of witness almost follow a formula that there is a period of persecution, the person either is apprehended and asked if chr and told yes, and encouraged to make sacrifice, and say "how can they abandon their lord, and point out why will not make sacr to the emperor, then their very heroic deaths where the acct indic that the HS is there to sustain them. So there is almost a euphoric end to their lives. As they pray to christ and often pray for their persecutors.
The notion of martyrdom is not unique to chr. There is the notion in Judaism, in the book of Maccabees, the macab brothers were martyrs for the jewish faith. Then in Islam, there is disc of heroic wit’s who died for faith. BUT the char of chr w is not marshall setting and warfare, not trying to destroy the enemy, but clearly the portrait is of people who are loyal roman subjects and will say that the well-being of Rome itself, following Justin, rests on the people who are appealing to the Lord of all creation who appeal on behalf of all of Rome, not just christians. The chosenness for martyrdom is only notable after the fact. Polycarp hid in response to attempts to arrest and then took as G’s call to martyrdom. He saw as notion of providence, and that is impt to christian outlook. G is the lord of all history. Persec starts under Decius in 249, Cyrian, the bishop of Carthage, in refl’g on why this sh be, says the church has become complacent that no longer is aware of its resp then surely G in some fashion, brt on this persecution. That sort of mentality is reflected throughout history., but not providence not so signif. If G is in control of everything, then in some strange fashion, G is resp for the hard times. The geniune char of one’s chr faith is tested in fire. The dross in the human soul is burned away and those who are not true followers of christ will fall away.
These accounts we have are composed by the faithful who are deeply impressed by this witness and will paint an ideal portrait and you suspect that the reality is not quite that beautiful, you suspect that they screamed, but they remained true to their faith and refused to recant and to try to find a way out. The ideal portrait served like any ideal portr to help in the chr formatoin of others, like the wonderful stories of abr lincoln, who exemplifies the true nature of democracy. Historians want to show the blemishes of char and that arrived at views on slavery late in his career, but the portraits not for purpose of these details, but for the ideals that want to propogate in the faith. The martrydom cults had trem infl in providing chr w/their identity.
People who were anxous to get martryed and volunteered by ident’g selves as chr, clearly created probl for others. Bishops tried to discourage. Always find those who take extreme courses. They thought they were doing the chr thing, b/c if going to go strt to heaven, not bad. Critics say, ‘ya’ll just commit suicide," missed the point of discipleship and course of following chr and being obed to chr’s commandment, that the chall will arise, and then bear witness, "I do this in the name of christ." think how useful that ideal of martyrdom would be for those living in a hostile environment. It helped them to deal w/the hostility and persec and to see that it was in some ways inevit and that in their suff’g they were sharing in the suff’g of christ, but also share in the glory that chr exper’d on his resur. It helped chr understd their place and role in world history. An amer sociaologist, Nathan Glazer, about Amer Jud, said Amer Jews are doomed to be free. In the absence of persec ofthe Jews, many were losing their ident. Many wept when they heard that. In some ways the ideal of martyrdom, provided at least the framework in which the ch understd its ident, and lived out its life, and it was a very powerful thing as noted in the persec that begins under Decius in 249.
Had indicated that under the Severin Dyn, Rome went thru affl period and ch flourished, but Rome already beg’g to crumble. The threat on the N frontier, n of the Danube River, by the Germanic Tribes and on the E by the Iranian empire was powerful and real. Trying to maintain a militarized fronteir along Rhine, Danube and Euphrates and to have troops in N Africa is pretty costly. Image that Rome like the US built up a pretty heavy debt. The mil was taking lion’s share of the budget and the civil service becoming subord to the mil hierarchy. The nec of raising heavy taxes and so when there is a downturn inthe economy, great deal of unhappiness. From the time that the last Severen Emperor, Septimus Severus, 238, there were 22 emperors. So the avg tenure of an emperor was abouat 2.5 years. A mil system raised up emp and destroyed them. So Decius in trying to prov some pol stab, goes back to Marcus Aurelius and tries to ret to the culture and pol phil and practices of Old Rome. So he then begins to build templs to Jupiter and insist that people show their loy to the empire by offer’g sac to the emperor’s genius. Many of the chr can’t comply. To make sure, they all have to get a cert that have made sacr, and in the face of the res of the chr leadership, Decius for the first time in the church’s history, mounts a systematic persecution of the churhc. Previous persec depended on local offic being zealous of prot of old ways. Strat was not to go after indiv but LEADERSHIP. So there were some bishops and priests and deacons and other functionaries, who made offerings, and had to give up their bibles, some gave away any old thing, and the local offic were content w/that. Some to give up the church’s vessels for euch, and buildings were confis’d so it caused a great deal of disorder w/in the church. Many of the bishops went into hiding, incld’g Cyprian of Carthage. The people who were apprehended and ref to make sacr and imprisoned came to be seen as martyrs of the church, CONFESSORS. In the time of the bishop’s absence, they often carried out priestly functions like forgiving people their sins. So some people who have made offerings and had second thoughts, would go to conf and ask for absolution. They had become authoritative figures in per when the bishops absence in many areas. Conseq’ly they did many things not approved of by the absent bishop. Cyrian was unhappy about the liberal way of the absolution being given, when the church gen’ly req’d per of years of penance. So ther is this period during this persecution and the subseq one under DIOCLETION, that the struggle is against the usurp of power by confessors, and the insistence by the church that it is the bishop who has auth, and confessor may only function cons w/the bishop and bishop’s orders. So far as Cypriot is concerned, if a priest had defected and then recanted and come back in, whether or not a confession had absolved that priest, he was no longer in good stdg, so anything that that priest did was not acceptable. So a bapt done by defecting priest had be redone. On that count, Cyrian disagreed w/the bishop of Rome, who felt that if the baptismal rite carried out in the name of f, s and HS, and done in the name of christ, then valid and rebapt was unnec. By current practice know that the bishop of Rome won out. The logic of Cyprian the bishop authenticates the action, and only if functioning and in good stdg w/in that framework whose actions are valid. So in a tone that is often cited by anglicans in the Unity of the Church, argues for the apost nature of the csurch, ident the office of bishop, and church w/its appropr bishop, there have the whole church. That is conven for anglicans in fight v pope. So cyrians is a hero for anglicans. Almost the conflict betw the idea of an apostolically sustained ordered institution and the ideal of martyrdom for the heroic act of an indiv defined the church. Those who are not martyrs even if bishops, do not have the comparable auth, so the confessors would say of Cyprian, you ran off from persec, what rite do you have to crit us who suffered for the faith.
Church History 10/5/98
Next 2 sessions the Christological Controversy. For our purp want to be able to know what the issues for each of the ecumenical councils. So that if your examiner asks you what was the christological issue at Nicea--there are other issues, but since it is the theol of the church that is the issue of greatest moment of modern times. There are many other cou final look at the age of persecution, which brings to a close that period in the church’s history where it saw itself as being w/in an alien setting, and defining itslef as over against pagan-judaic competition, and against a hostile government. Its own identity had dev’d w/in that context. As will note, as that context changes, one has to redefine onself. There was a notable jewish scholar in the 1950s stated in the Walden lectures, that in this country Judaism was doomed to be free, meaning that judaism had defined itself for centuries over against its environing culture, as anti-semitism declined. As a jew when see self as part of the majority, what does it do to its identity. In somewhat sim fashion, the ch has to reconsider its ident. When it shifts from the persecuted minority to the persecuting majority.**** As you have read, the last persecution was by far the most sustained lengthy and harsh one. Then from about 303 to 311, the so-called Diocletian persecution which under emp Diocletian was far more systematic in its effort to suppress the church, and it had a more thought out strategy. The assumption was that if the govt could get at the institutional ordering of the church instead of going after indiv chr, and could go after the leaders, destr the meeting places and destr the sacred lit and accoutrements of worship, it was hoped they would be able to suppress so it would cease to be the growing force taht was threatening the government’s views on unity and order. So they then tried to get church leaders, the clergy to abandon their faith to say that they cease to be christians and would make offerings to the genius emperor. They appropriated church bldgs, tore them down or gave them over or sold them, and demanded that their bibles and books of worship be turned over to the authorities. There were a number of clergy, don’t know numbers, but quite a few willing to endure their faith and make offerings, and therfore stay out of jail and save their lives. In some cases, and in many cases, the leaders simply went into hiding. But while they were in hiding, they could not maintain the daily oversight of the church. If you figure that this lasted for about 8 years, imagine a ch unable to carry on public worship, and to be w/o deacons, priests and worships and other functionaries, and to sustain its sacramental life. It caused tremendous diff and chaos and conflict w/in the church. But fortunately by this time at least, the church was fairly well organized.
So theat the bishops from their hiding place could send letters of instruction. Worship was maintained in some areas. There was a great deal of falling away, b/c some were not as equipped to stand up to persec as had been during the earlier area. There was LAPSING, or lapsed christians. They were numerous and so a diff time. Finally, after years of persecution, it became clear that the govt program was not succeeding. First, among the two emperors or caesars who headed the empirial govt, it was only Diocletian and Galerius who were trying to suppress chr. Constantius did very little to carry out that program. It was primarily Galerius who was pushing so hard. Now the faith that had so penetrated Roman society, if one was an official doing the persecuting, one would be persecuting one’s own fam. Diocletian’s own wife and daughter were christians. The acute hostility v christianity among the public, and the notions about the immorality of chr and their untrustworthiness and immorality, those notions had largely been dispelled. Even the enemies of chr were willing to concede that part of their success was that they were such model citizens. They went out of their way to help people during periods of widespreach disseases, and Julian the Apostate, the grandson of Const the Great, in an effort to revive paganism, said if we pagans were as thoughtful as the pagans, we wouldn’t be languishing as are now. So the absence of widespread hostility it was quite diff. It was like the status of Rc in the late 20th century as was in the beg’g of 20th century. At the beg’g of the 20th century, prots thought RC were hostile to democracy, those ideas have largely dissipated. Chr status had improved greatly in the gen publ mind. So many of the officials and segments of the populace conspired v the persecution policy. They would give certif of conformity to offer sacr, GIVE, even tho they had not done anything. They would accept token conformity, like rec’g any old book in place of a bible as meeting the demands of the law.
There was an instance of a Chr who refused to offer sacrifice, and was dragged to the altar, and forced to drop some incense on the altar, then could report conformity. When even one’s own offic were conspiring v the law, can see the reason that it did not succeed. It was sort of like our mod day politics, where the govt gets fixated on one issue, and after a while realize that has other bs to tend to. Eventually, even Galerius, who recog’d the death of the pol on his deathbed, relented and in 311 grants TOLERATION to christianity.*** Then two years later, Const and Vicinius who succeed, issue their toleration and ENDS that long era of persecution. NOW chr like every other rel in the Roman Empire, a legal relig. One as a chr no longer has to worry about being persecuted or prosecuted for one’s faith. So historians will talk about the Constantinian era, though when the historians use that term, they are making ref not to a legalized chr, but to a chr that enjoys the relig monopoly w/in western civil.**** For in the course of about 313 The Edict of Toleration to 395, when chr is declared the only legal rel in the Roman Empire, there is a gradual but systematic enhancement of its status w/in the empire. The emperors will make it clear, w/the exception of Julian, that they are favoring christianity. Indeed this brief period of about 18 months under julian’s rule where tries to reverse his granadfather’s pol, his failure indicates the extent to which chr was now the most powerful relig instit w/in the Roman empire, and becoming part of the established apparatus of the govt. For instance, directly after the Decl of Toleration in 313, Constantine orders that the appropriated church buildings be returned and the moneys taken away from the churches be returned to them. He gave the Lateran Palace, which had been used by his wife, tothe church. He began the building of a great church on the site of the bel’d burial plot of St. Peter. St Peter’s basilica, later rebuilt more magnificantly. Const exempts chr clergy from having to meet municipal resp, like paying taxes, or holding offices. People in upper ranks were expected to hold local offices, which tended to be onerous and expensive. Clergy exempted and also exempted from mil duties.
Over the years up the 395 when chr is declared the legal religion, the various exemptions for clergy and church grow and the infl of the church in carrying out the needs of the govt increases quite noticeably. Const declares the jud dec of the church like the manumission of slaves, as an offic act of the Roman Govt. As notice in the const era, especially in the middle ages, church law becomes the law of the land and that is well under way during the fourth century. Many tax subsidies were given to the church to help the church w/its building programs. Many ch’s were built during this century and many quite spectacular. The Statute of Victory, in the Senate of the Roman Empire, was ordered removed and it rep’d the trad’l Roman religion and its role in Roman city life, to have it removed, made it quite clear that the emperors were now supporting chr as the true religion. The tax exemption of pagan priests was now abolished. Not only has chr status enhanced, but the reversal of pagans. When constant decided to move the cap city from Rome to Constantinople, at the celebration, no pagan celebrations were permitted at the occas. Only Christian. Const became forged w/the chr churches. Slowly the screws get turned on the pagan shrines. In many cases, those shrine properties were expropriated including their endowments. And while pagan worship persisted for a long time, don’t reverse the piety w/in a country that easily, but it was clear that chr was pushing out paganism. Since the ch enjoyed the favor of the emperors, people began to flock into the churches. In the era of persecution, while the church grew at dramatic points, there was not mass movement, so it was possib to provide a systematic catechical program, relig educ program prior to acceptance into the church. That kind of careful indoctrination of the church, became less char of htis period, and by the era of Charlemagne, whole tribes were admitted at a time, on the order of a tribal chieftain.. Diff level of understdg of christians. Short period of baptismal preparation. There are some voices of dissent regarding this development. Judaism was being faced w/the same situation. The persec of jews becomes more acute at this time. For instance, at the end of the fourth century, during the reign of emperor Theodocius, there was the burning down of a jewish building in the E part of the empire. The emperor was furious, so he ordered that the building be rebuilt, and make the people who were resp pay for that building and they were punished. Ambrose talked Theodocius out of the move of pun’g the jews for that. (Q this seq of events and what happened) Mobs tore down some shrines and tore down some pagan relig symbols, so there is some irony in this reversal of roles, especially for people who claimed to be the followers of Christ, as the Lord of love. Here again, it is not as though not voices of dissent, but the gen direction is towards promoting chr monopoly w/in empirial life. LOOK UP EMPEROR THEODOCIUS in OXFORD.
Now that there is imperial support for the church and b/c church life has now become more public, and ch festivals could be celebrated in greater fashion, the chr self-image begins to change. Consequently, the church’s attitudes towards other faiths, will take on a very diff char. It is not clear what attitude Constantine had towrd the chr faith. Historians make a living out of speculating. Most of the historians think that Const was somewhat sincere in his commitment to christianity and was a superstitious person. In so far as the father of our Lord JC helped him win the battle v his competitors, he was in his rather uneducated way. He was not asked to go thru two years of catech. He was not bapt’d until his deathbed. One expl is that remains suff’ly neutral in his rel to paganism, so as not to cause divisions in the empire. (2) The other is that he was being just machiavellian regarding christianity and saw chr as an instrument for promoting greater unity in the empire. The empire is starting to show signs of fraction, and this is an institut that crosses class lines and edge that paganism does not. To use chr to make stable the empire, makes sense. (3) that having had a pagan backgr it is easy to take on another god and retain the old ones. What is impt is that he indeed supported the ch and slowly began the process of incorporating it into offic Roman life. So that even w/in his reign, the priests were taking on quasi-official status. By the end of that century, the clergy are official functionaries of the Roman empire. They are carrying on their relig duties that are needful for imperial life. Constantine used the title for himself of being bishop of bishops, which indicated that he intended not to be neutral on relig matters and he would or had some intention of intruding into ch life and he did. Emperors before that carried the title of "pontificos maximos" and carried on the relig resp of the roman emper. Const refused the title as did his followers except Julian.
Uniformity was the intent of Constantine and his successors, they also bought into some chaos. For in the aftermath of the Diocletian persecution, there were several schismatic groups in the church. In impt eccles centers like Rome, Carthage and Alexandria, where two groups were claiming to rep the official cath church. The details of these schisms are not that impt given time, but it was a diff over the issue of authority and discipline, that had caused the splits so that in Carthage the so-called DONATISTS movement, claimed that the bishop who had been elected at the end of the Diocl persec K. Killian, could not be a valid bishop, b/c one of his consecrators had been a lapser." The nature of the lapse was not partic’ly bad, but that bishop instead of being martyred, had gone into hiding. They said a true chr would std to be martyred. So since that so-called lapsed bishop had parti’d int eh consecr, then Killian not a true bishop. The opponents proceeded to electe their own bishop of Carthage, so two claimants to the epis see, claiming to have auth over the metrop area, the provinces of N. Africa nad Numibia. For N. Africa and Egypt were the bread baskets of the empire, provided the wheat for all of the empire. By the same token, the Militians, Miletius had their own schismatic group. In Rome there were the NOVATIANS. Const was able to take care of the egyptians ones very skillfully. He saw to it that the tradtl bishop, elected more reg fashion, would be the bishop, then be succeeded by the Miletian bishop, so able to bring those groups tog. The schism in Rome ws not that great, so the other groups died out. The Donatist movement was a large one and not about to submit even to the emperor. Efforts to end were to no avail. The governor of N Africa tried ot mediate, but said to be unacceptable b/c not a cleric. The bishop of Rome tried to mediate, but Donatists would not accept, called a council in Arle in France, and invited the other bishops, but Donatists refused to accept that. Finally loses his patience and begins to use some force and we will see will attempt an ecumenical council, a counc of the whole ch to deal w/the Donatist issue and athe Arian issue. So he for the FIRST time, uses the practice of holding councils, and an ecum council of the whole ch and will be an instru for dealing w/churchues, that involve all the church. Emperors called Ecum councils one after another. Not all the ones which were ecum in terms of representation were nec’ly ecum. Nicea becomes a litmus test as to ecumenicity of the subseq councils. So much look carefully at Nicea and spend some time how to resolve this issue, not simply viewed historically but today. We talk about the church’s faith in one God, F, S and HS, and what theolog signif does that form hold. On to christology.
Church History 10/07/98
Dramatic change in circum and the self-understdg. The emperors were active in promoting the org’l events of the church. End of the century under emp Theodocius, the church was org’d on a regional basis into provinces and dioceses. Previously the church had not been incorpan equiv status as the civil courts and became jdgs of the land, the manumission of slaves and probating of wills often carried out in the eccles courts. The church was subsidized and given protection during the period of church anarchy in N. Africa in the struggle betw the donatists and the so-called catholics. The police and army sent in to protect the catholics against the claims of the donatists who claimed they were the real church. The polit and eccles intertwining becomes more complex. By the mid ages clerics hold pol offices and pol figures will hold eccles offices. There is a revolutionary change in the status of the church and the attendant self-identity. So by the end of the fourth century again, chr becomes suspect in Iran and the Persian empire b/c of its intimate conn w/teh Roman Govt. Mithraism is seen as a persian rel and it is looked on w/considerable suspicion by the Imper govt of Rome.
As the church now becomes a public institution, the worship life becomes more formal and elaborate. The Ambrosian chants at the end of the 4th cent refl more formal celebr of the liturgy, lots of music and highly dramatized and celebrated in the large basilican style buildings. The house churches slowly disappear. These great rectangular colonnaded buildings become the area where lit is celebrated w/lit and vestments and host of clerics.
A movement continues well into the 16th century and the reformation. Along with this more official dev w/in the worship life of the church is the development of a POPULAR PIETY, which will become a signif feature of chr life in subseq centuries. The veneration of saints was not new int eh fourth century. People were int’d in going to the cite where presumably st. Peter and Paul buried, but in the fourth century the veneration of saints grows dramatically. Constantine has built a great church over the site of presumed burial plot of Peter and over the Lord’s beginnings and ends. Every church that could lay claim to the fact that the apostles had been there not only took pride in their early hist beg’gs saw that as giving them a little more clout in the life of the faithful. Normally, it took from two of the major apostles. Many of the martyrs who had suffered during the periods of persecution were rem’d and their relics cherished. St. Ambrose directing a place be excavated and came across some bones, which attributed to be the remains of two martyrs, Ambrose was having a crucial struggle with the queen over a number of eccles issues, including the Arian controv. The queen was arian and Ambrose was Nicean. The discov of the bones, which scholars think were neolithic bones, since were ocre colored bones, but the discov gave Ambrose the upper hand. By then martyrology was well-developed. Even at this early per, the selling of relics were sort of like beanie babies. Constantine’s mother discovered the holy cross. How she knew doesn’t know, Huckster?? So took off slivers of the holy cross to send to churches who wanted them. Mariology also under way.
When martrys executed, people laid cloth where saint about to be beheaded, so have it as veneration. It is easy to be cynical about these kinds of developments. But we all have mementos that are very impt to us that help us rem events in our lives. While that can degen into rank superstitution, not all of this dev sh b inter’d as pure superstitution.
Pray to saints as intercessors if one feels unworthy to appr the throne of grace. Clinton might ask Hillary to intercede for him??? HA!
This is also the period when pilgrimages took on imptce. Most pop spot St. Peters but if could afford would go to Jerus. Nun named Egeria who has written about her travels in that area. This is also a period when MONASTICISM becomes a major component in the personal piety of many people. It has its start in places like Egypt and Syria, and in the case of the Egyptian monastic movement, which got well under way during the persec of Diocletian, was given its publicity in the W by Athanasius during his period of exile in the west. So people in the west began to take up the mon movment. Will pick it up later, b/c it provides a bridge in the church’s life of piety from the end of Rom Empire and teutonic kingdoms in the early middle ages.
Finally there is a growth of MISSIONARY endeavors. They are reaching out especially toward the Germanic tribes, settling north of the Danube and beg’g to become a major problem for the Roman empire. Not trying to convert the gothic tribes to chr, but gen concern for the propagation of the gospel. Ulifalas becomes ordained durng the reign of Emp Constantius, and it happens that since Constantius was in favor of Arius, Ulfilas rep’d the arian view and converted the gothic tribes to arian christianity.
At least a part of the reas for Constantine’s extending toleration to Christianity and showing Chr lots of things and slowly incorporating the ch into the life of the Empire, the other reason was to use the ch as an instrument of unity and uniformity, in a per where the empire is showing signs of fracturing. And that serious division w/in the church from that point of view became a matter of real concern simply from a pol point of view. Don’t want conflict w/in your realm. If calling upon you to promote unity, that is even more serious. He ws rel’ly successful w/the help of other bishops in dealing w/the scshism in egypt and in Rome, BUT not in N. Africa. In all of these areas where there was schism, the issue owas authority and discipline. Who was to rep the auth of the churhc. In N. Africa, the donatists or cath and how does one adjudicate betw those two groups. The Donatists were saying that because there had been some lapsers on the side of the cath, involved in the consecr of bishop of Carthage, that K. Killian as Metropolitan could not function as such. The issue is discipline in the sense of what is the role of disc and on what does the authority of a functionary in the church depend. Does it mean that a person who is not pure cannot function as a bishop or priest or cleric of any sort. Later a council will decide that the validity of a sacrament does not rest on the virtue of a celebrant or would be no sacr at all. That doesn’t answer the Q, as to whether K. Killian had been validly consecrated. The donatists wouldnot give in although constantine patience. Got the bishop of rome to mediate and when ruled v the donatists, said he was impure. So ultimately invoked a UNIVERSAL council to deal w/the sit in N. Africa and the disturbing problem of arianism. The arian issue involved virtually all sectors of the church.
Hard for us to understd the controversy. Erasmus in later centures warned v the hostility of theologians. But why the gen church populace? B/c the Q was the nature of the rel of the logos to G the father. Clearly one reason was b/c arius was good at public relations, dev’d a singing commercial. Const invited all of the bishops of the ch to come to NICEA to try to resolve those issues. For our purposes, we don’t have to go into the agonizing debate, but need to know what the issues were and why. Arius Says that while the logos was begotten before the creation of the universe, first begotten before all time, he said "there was a time when the logos was not."****** that meant that he was not coeternal w/God the father. The logos is the son, and was begotten, and before he was begotten he was not. It seems logical. As bishop, he took him to task and eventually threw Arias out of his pos. Arius went to see Eusebius of Nicomedia, who supported Arius and the battle was on. Both parties were well conn’d. Wrote letters to solicit support. How does one resolve that issue. Think on the trinitarian controversy. One talks about Father, Son and HS. Yet argues for monotheism. How can you claim both? The Sebellians at least provided intellectually viable solution to that problem. By then the monarchians were condemned. They bel’d in one God, and affirmed the centrality of the son and the HS. Was it effective to talk about the modalities of the godhead,and the F, S and HS reflect the various energies of the Godhead. That is where the christol emph lies. The triune char of our faith. If someone today were to ask you if you bel in one god, then you would say yes. Then why do you bel in the father son and HS>
Lest you think that the probl lies merely in the doctrine of the trin, all our prayers refl the fact that our understdg of G or our theol is defined by Father, son and HS. J is our lord. J is the eternal word taht informs us about the very heart of reality. So if we think that it is that strange doctrine of father son and HS ws the prob, then mistaken. There is no way to talk about chr w/o mentioning all three. The critics of the monarchians said if you accept their point of view, really become jewish and affirm monotheism, but do not affirm that the nature of that one G is fully revealed in J of Nazareth. It is this man who was born, suffered and died, it is the human being who reavealed the supernature creation. The spirit that dwells in the church or in our hearts is the source of all reality, and reflects the nature of that reality as revealed in J. Test the genuineness of the spirit that moves you, to the extent it is congruent w/teh revel of J. I someone asks you to give a picture of God, would want to say someting about all these. If don’t have picture of crucif, then leaving out the crucial element in the church’s faith aboaut thenature of G. So how to give expresion to that conviction. Since the Church was committed to relating the second person of the trin to the rational order of the universe and designating the second person of the logos, have already set the stage for both the solution and the problem. The logos is a very useful concept for pointing out that the univers’is rathionally. The univ is not irrational or out of control. So the logos which has left its imprint on th world is now reviewed in its essential nature in its incarnate form. If want to know the heart of that rational ordering, h ave to look at J, the logos. Itis that person who was born, who was enfleshed, who talked and ate. It is that human revelation that teells us what the show is about. So if you give up the humanity of the christ, you are talking about a very diff thing than that of a servant. So the creedal stmt about the incarnate nature of the logos, says that ifyou look at this human w/essentially divine signif, so the humanity of J is at the very heart of it. This human being carries or manifests G. He is not a demi=god, slightly human and slightly god, nor a messenger like Moses. So that is what is at stake. It becomes diff to sustain the life of faith and worship that depends on the triune def of God. That is the head trip of the churches on the councils.
Gonzalez lists the ecum councils, and dates. KNOW. The signif of these debates in the life of worship, look at some of the documents in the book on Christol of the later fathers or on the incarn of Athan, will have some idea of where he is coming from. Enables us to define. Liek apollinarians. Finally it is a life of faith and prayer. It is the source of understdg that is fought over.
Church History 10/9/98
Christology--We’ve noted that one of the theological problems of the church was maintaining its claim that the church’s faith was monotheistic and yet we define the nature of monotheism in terms of three divine entities, F, S and HS.
MONARCHIANISM: So one obvious solutions was to say that there was but one G, a monarch, and that monarch either in terms of appearing in differing occasions or guises or in terms of setting forth divine energies in diff fashions appeared in the world in this triune form. But then the problem was whether Christ was real. If the son is merely a mode of appearance of the father, then what about that guy from Nazareth? Then, you see if God appears in different modes, God would be like the pagan God, proteus, and you really don’t know who G is. A number of people thought that if could appear in the form of a rabbit, thought got you now, but then appeared as lion. So monarchianism was rejected b/c J as the messiah as the one through whom G was reconciling a world to himself was an essential component of the churchs’ understdg of the nature of G. So that monarchian discussion while, for a while, cut off by the period of persecution, started up again after the end of the reign of diocletian.
ARIANISM: While there were various points of view being set forth, it was priest in Alexandria, Arius, who brt that discussion to a focus. His solution was to say that Christ in deed was divine, but that Christ was nevertheless a divine CREATION by G the father, the eternal one. So another way of making that point is that while Christ was created before all time, Christ in deed was a creator of this world, THERE WAS A TIME WHEN CHRIST WAS NOT. Otherwise we would have two Gods. His bishop on the other hand, opposed him bitterly and contended that christ was precisely divine in the way that G the father was. That Christ was of the same substance of G.****** The Greek word ousia" means SUBSTANCE. That there was no substantial distinction between G the father and G the son. Or to make his case contrast sharply w/Arias, he contended that Christ was co-eternal w/the father. If go back to Origen’s first principles, find that both points of view were entertained by Origen, b/c he could see the probl of maintainilng monotheism, but as to the church, G was in Christ reconciling the world. Christ was the son of G. So he entertained both possibilities, but like a good philosopher he doesn’t say it has to be one way or the other. Most of the participants in this vigorous debate were living w/in the theological context set forth by Origen. Arius had gone to school under Lucian of Samosata, and all of his school mates shaped by Lucian, supported him, including some powerful bishops. So all of the E part of the empire caught up in this debate. Later on Greg of Nysia commented and went to barber shop, and barber might say was a time when Christ was not. Like the current impeachment debate, we are all experts on impeachment.
COUNCIL OF NICEA: So it was in an effort to resolve this conflict which was upsetting the empire that Constantine decided that he would call this ecumenical council, so the whole church could come to an agmt, so the matter would surely be settled. In terms of Constantine’s own understdg, he thought the matter was so inconcequential, but Alexander his bishop was so rigid no way to deal w/the men. The council convoked NOT by the church but by the emperor, and the deputy of the emperor presided over the gathering and part of the time Constantine himself presided. They looked at this issue at the very outset. This council lasted from May through August. On this issue of the relationship of G the S to G the father, after a long diff debate, they came up w/the dec that Christ was of the SAME SUBSTANCE< whole same OUSIA substance. Homo ousia. One of the problems of this term was had been used by Paul of Samosata to make a case for monarchianism, so opponents thought it was heretical, BUT it made it clear that in terms of the divine nature, there was to be no distinction between G the father and G the Son. In terms of the cont’g debate, the Q becomes what is the difference. If the same substance, can there be any difference at all. W/in the Teutonic universe, could say species could share the same substance, but were diff as to non-essentials. Like we share the human nature, but the non-essentials are sexuality and color of our hair, in that they are not essential in our claiming to be a human being. To say that there are ACCIDENTS w/in divinity creates other problems. At any rate, the great maj of the bishops agreed on that solution, so inserted it into one of the existing creeds, and the confession of faith reads, "we bel in JC the son of G, and the decl that he is the same substance of God the father who created all things." While there was a small but not inconseq min who opposed, the emperor turned the screws and got all but two to comply and sent the two into exile. Three more signed the decl the first go round, and did not support when got back home, so sent them into exile.
That means then that J is divine in every sense of the term, he is co-eternal, omnicient, he shares in the governance of all things visible and invisible. He is omnipresent. All of the other attributes that one would designate to divinity. BUT because the emperor and the maj of bishops said so, doesn’t mean the mind stops ticking. So the debate continues.
SERBIUM: There was another council held SERBIUM, where they wanted to use the term HOMO OUSIAS. Others proposed to make the stmt more vague and less precise and proposed that make it HOMO I OUSIAS. Of like sustance. But the Nicene party said the IOTA of difference made all the diff in the world. To say a person is like another person is diff from saying the person is the same. Others wanted to say like each other and wanted to get rid of the term OUSIAS and just say HOMO, like each other.
CONSTANTINOPLE : BUT because this debate continued and there were two or three councils after Nicea that tried to change the formulation, another council convened in CONSTANTINOPLE, in 381 by Emp Theodocius, where wanted him to come to terms w/the difficulties. Here the focus of the debate was on the teaching of APPOLINARIS of Laodicea, who took a rather radical NICENE point of view. He raised the Q, how can God be or become man, G is G. God is eternal and man is ephemeral. So in some ways he was trying to say the logos did become flesh, but the fleshly part of J is inconsequential. The charge is that Apoll defines the humanity of J so that not fully HUMAN. The flesh of christ is conjoined w/the logos that comes into history. OR that the mind of Christ is the LOGOS. There is in terms of this incarnation, but one entity insofar as the mind of Christ is the logos is really functioning in the divine fashion. So the opponents charge is that Apollinaris is departing from the teachings of the church which was that the logos became FULLY HUMAN. He suffered, was crucified and died and born of a woman. He talks about the one incarnate nature of the logos. So the stress is on the divine side of things. This is pretty much in line w/Alexandrian piety. If you were to read, Athanasius, On the Incarnation, he makes ref to the Christ in his divine glory. If you attend an Eastern Orth service, made aware of the fact there is the presence of the divinity of Christ, in contrast to those who express the humanity of Christ. There are many mystical references to God. "On the Incarnation,", p. 69, or 369? Athen: like a kind teacher, he comes down to their level and teaches them by simple courses, so also did the world of God. It was G’s good pleasure who preached to save them that bel’d. He walks among men and they who think that G is corporeal may perceive the truth and through him recognize the father. (See the Christology of the Later Fathers.) See diff approaches to the diff christological issues. For Athanasius or Origen see the glory of G and get the true gnosis in the presence of the logos in J as the son of G. They take the enfleshment of J very seriously, so not Docetism.
Q when piece of iron in fire, it becomes hot and as though one w/the fire. The iron remains iron, but it is transformed, and see the glory of G in J, as glows white w/fire in the logos. Know G and worship G. Whereas in the Western Church, so much of the issue is in terms of salvation, soteriology rather than in terms of gnosis. The focus of christ takes on a much stronger moral character, in terms of Christ’s function, so there is less concern in the west w/the issue of substance. In our prayers in the western segment, Christ is a mediator between G and sinner, whether in the Alexandrian trad, humanity has lost the vision of G, and therefore lost its divine image or character. The logos the son of G coming into the world in the form of man, really not pretending, makes manifest to humanity in a way can see the nature of G, and receiving the knowl of the divine image. If then move into divine image. _____is a part of eastern religion. Appolinaris threatens the church’s claim about the true humanity of J. It is subordinated to the logos.
The Council at CONSTANT in 381, (1) they condemned the appolinarian understdg of christianity. (2) They reaffirmed the Nicene stmt about homo ousias, and (3) they elaborate on the Holy Spirit as being a share of that divinity, adding words, Spirit as Lord and giver of life. That strengthens the creed so refer to the Creed as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Needless to say the debate goes on.
On the Aniochene side, people whose schooling came associated w/the city of Antioch, the claim was made that stressing so much the divinity of Christ, that losing sight of the full humanity of Christ. If operating w/in this framework provided the Church by Origen, if the image of humanity, gets messed up by a fall, in other words, at the fall, one loses both one’s image of G and one’s image of humanity.
Ireneaus had said, Christ in becoming incarnate brings one’s understdg that before the lapse of Adam and Eve w/the obed of God.(?) If to claim humanity and rel to God, CHRIST had to be fully human. Need to see in him the full image of G in humanity.
CYRIL, the then patriarch of Alexandria, however, who was his bitter foe politically and theologically, Cyril like Athanasius was as single minded and pugnatius. He held the view of Athan and Apollinaris, though tried not to sound like the condemned Apoll, but argued that Christ has to be seen as ESSENTIALLY divine, the logos had Emptied himslef, the gnosis of Christ emptied himself and became man, but the stress is on the logos.
Nestorius who was not too swift in terms of debate, took issue w/a phrase regarding the virgin mother that she was THEOTOKUS, the bearer of God. How can a woman be a bearer of G. How can any creature be a God bearer. She can be a CHRISTOTOKUS, but not God bearer. She bore a son but not a God. So he raised the ire of Cyril and others. He was emphasizing the humanity of God. Cyril--said Theotokus and Nestorius said Christotokus. Cyril was by far the more politically adept. He got control of the council convened at Ephesus, and presided as judge, jury and prosecutor. So Nestorius left Constantinople in disgrace. So it rejects the Nestorian views and Reaffirms NICEAN, which was not particularly concerned about the humanity of J. One could interpret Nicea in a Nestorian fashion if so choose. The Nestorian Church flourished in the E part of the empire, especially in Persian, had a vigorous missionary empire.
Now at the point where the CHURCH has decided that the son of God is the SAME SUBSTANCE of G the Father, and that does not include an Apollinarian interp, where the humanity of Christ gets diminished, or the Nestorian one where the divinity of Christ is not clearly articulated. Could use Nicea to make either case. The debate continues and goes on into the Fifth century. As will note later, the Christological debate is a cause of division w/in the empire. So the ermperors are trying to find some solution to bring the warring factions tog again. Much of the Syrian segment of the church is Nestorian in character, Egypt is Athanasian and close to Apollilnaris, not that agree w/the description of the rel of God and Christ, but that the divinity of Christ is crucial for them. The politics amongst the various schools of thought is quite fierce. It is bad within Anglicanism is at odds b/c of high and low church. Like Emperor Justinian where he and his wife were on diff sides. So there is after Justinian ‘s death, his successor emperor, Marcian, who convenes a council in Chalcedon. They come up w/the formulation that includes a tone written by _____ who tries to state a pos that is mediating between the Antiochene and Alexandrian views. If look, see the assertion that Christ is fully divine and fully human and they function in total unity, not two entities, one being dominated by other or struggling and in perfect concert functioning as one person. BUT neither the divine or human nature gets diminished or gets mixed up with the other side. Humanity is still fully human and divinity is fully divine, but function as one person. This is an affirmation, not a solution. The problem is still there. So a skeptic would say, how can that be fully divine and fully human and still be one person. The divine is omniscient, but human is ltd in vision. How can they be one person. BUT the emperor says this is it, so those who will not accept will be punished. The empire is in such bad shape, the emperor can’t enforce the view, so large schisms in the church. As will see, at the end of the empire don’t stop that debate, but shifts concerns to other areas. In some ways, the debate will rehearse similar issues. The manner of the presence of God w/in this material world.
Modern theol say can’t use metaphysical lang to resolve this.
CHURCH History 10/26/98
The City of God: Take a look at Book 14, where he sets forth the distinction between the two cities. Ch 14 provides the meat of his argument. He was a teacher of rhetoric and loves words and args. Helpful to skip detailed args and illustrations. He sites examples after example how the Roman Gods failed to protect the Roman Empire. He is a great writer and can be fun. Need to learn how to get at the heart of the matter and read as rapidly as possible and learn how to extract from the verbosity of the prof and the readings what is impt. Someone said the readings from Stevenson are not that illuminating, but they are intended to be illustrative on aspects of the church’s life during a particular period. He cuts out of the verbage but illustrations don’t always come alive. He is to help us understd the history of the times.
Councils were symbolic of the nature of the life of the church in the Constantinian period. At least for now, from the time that toleration was extended during the Chr church by Const in 313 AD up to the collapse of the Roman empire, which he dates at 476, when in the W part of the Roman empire, empirial rule disappeared completely. No more emper’s in the west, nor did the emperor in Constantinople have jur over the Western empire. Encounter council after council. Under Constantius alone, during his reign, son of Const the Great, 12 major councils were held. There was at least one a year. Imagine being a bishop trying to do your work and being called to councils, and if happened to live in Alexandria takes a few days to get to Constantinople. Took time just to get the messages. Purpose was trying to straighten out the church. (Imagine the pres of the US trying to straighten out the church.) Councils were symbolic, was a formation of a christian centered empire. Under Constantine is just toleration, and made a legal rel amongst many rel in the empire. But Const showed favor to the church, and whatever his own attitude toward chr, he was using the church as an instru for the unification of a n empire he was hard pressed to hold together. But if the church was to be an instru for unif, then impt for the ch to stay unified. Being a human institution, it always had its internal controversies and conflicts and has always been from the beg’g that have had differences, like Peter and Paul.
When Const had made the ch legal and sought to use it as an instru for the unif of the empire which was a pretty good polit ploy, regardless of his faith commitment, b/c the church was the one institution in hthe empire that transcended ethnic and class distinctions. Though a minority in the empire it tied tog people from all parts of the empire. Aside from a roman bureaucracy it was a solidified group and could be commited to Roman empir life. The Const used councils to bring tog bishops and provide leverage to the church to unify itself and provide resol to controverted issues. The first council he calls in the city of Arles in France in Gaul, was to deal with the DONATIST issue. The DONATISTS would not accept a council in their precinct of Carthage, so sought to involve the bishops of the Western region and lend the auth of the bishop of Rome, and that did not work. SO on the next go round, w/the var of probl of the churhc, including the scisms in Egypt and Africa and the Arian debate, thought if could now have a gathering of all the bishops in an ECUMENICAL Council, clearly could reach some kind of concensus, like lambeth on Sexuality.
While Nicea arrived at a consensus, that did not resolve the issue. You don’t stop people’s heads from ticking just b/c the council says this is it. Therefore, the arian issue and the christological issue more generally became to be the focal point of the controversies in the church, and a whole series of councils were held. All tried to claim to be ecumenical. BUT the only ones that really stuck and took on an official status in the church, were the four ecumenical councils, Nicea, Const, Ephesus and Chalcedon. So when Anglicans are struggling over theol issues, they will inevitably cite the four councils. The church over the centuries had argued that the four ecum councils had resolved thd to see that everything be done properly in good and decent fashion, so one would not steal the election. So if three neighboring bishops involved in the consecr would be one way of offsetting possib irregularies and maintain historical continuity of its life. Regularity and good order doesn’t necess guarantee good bishops. A whole host of legislations are adopted at this time, and eventually codified and serve as a book of canons in the church catholic. In that sense they were very useful in ordering the life of the church, which up to this point had no way of dealing with it.
The councils were not the only instrument for strengthening the role of the ch w/in the empire. The empire was in rather desperate straights and Constantine tried to promote the church in other ways in order to strengthen its role in the unif of emperial life. (1) One thing did, build a lot of magnificent churches. Jerusalem and Bethlehem at holy sites and in the new capitol in the little town of Byzantia, built magnificent churches, and served as symbols of his intent to create a christian empire. (2) Gave generous grants of money to the church and (3) exempted clergy from onerous civic duties like mil serv and taxes. (4) With his successors, began to promote Sundays as a sabbath from official bs. We take the Sunday for granted, but with a pagan culture, would observe other holy days appropr to the nature of those gods, but the beg’g of impregnating the culture w/chr symbols and observations. By the age of enlightenment, after the Const era, a challenge to the faith presuppositions of the church is mounted, one of the thing tried in the french and russian revolution was to get rid of Sabbaths. French tried to set up a ten day week, to conform to rationalism and science, metric system. The beg’g of the process of christianizing culture advanced over the const era. (5) Clergy were honored and given exemptions. The reverend, right and very were descriptive of the nature of the offic eand part of the hierarchy of officialdom. (6) The emperors began to support the churches charitable activities. In summary, the church became a part of the offic public life of the Roman empire. So coronations became relig chr events rather than pagan events. Chr festivals were observed, and ecclesiastical courts and findings rec’d official snactions, and the govt sanctioned the church by carrying out. If church recog’d freedom of slave, state carrried it out. The enc’mt of the state in the dev of chr culture, the ch culture flourished. In the conversion of a culture, people don’t themselves change overnight. If our pres declares that our country has become muslim, doesn’t mean that our thought processes would change, nor that it would be our faith that would generate that conversion. In sim fashion, while can see the church advancing, one must assume that pagan presuppositions disappear quickly. Nevertheless, the flourishing of chr culture is happening, w/the large basilican churches, beautiful space for elab worship. The elab of the eucharistic celebr occurs and the ch music accompanies the flourishing. Bishop ambrose of Milan is credited w/the Ambrosian chants.
Chr literature is composed in great abundance. Stories like Socrates or bibl scholars like Jerome and the transl of the Greek Bible into the Latin vulgate, there is apologetic lit from Augustine. The exploration now of the ch’s moral teaching is shifted to the govt and its resp for the spiritual formation of the whole nation.
Eusebius of Caesarea was very euphoric about the future of the church, and it is understandable why. It would be as though Stalin or Mae TseTung had become chr and were converting nations. BUT it is not w/o cost.**** Eusebius himself felt the pressure on the church when the empirial govt got into the act of getting involved withe the Church. He subscribed to the dec of Christ as homoousious with the father, but not altogether happy w/it. Nor were a large maj of the bishops subord the humanity of christ and for that reason, a number of bishops, including Eusebius of Caesarea were not altogether happy about the use of htat term. Eusebius wrote a letter to his diocese explalining why he had signed up on that term, b/c from Antiochene area which stressed the humanity over the divinity of christ. But the emperor said, the HS has spoken and the homoousious nature was settled, and many bishops pressured to go along.
The reason for the freq of the councils was that the issue would not go away. Council after council tried to find a formula to satisfy the maj of the people. The last effort made at Chalcedon at 451 AD which simply affirms the full humanity and full divinity of christ does not resolve the issue, but simply states the terms w/in which people will have to understd the nature of christ. In attempting to find a solution, the govt used considerable force. Athanasius was exiled about five times, but still no great success.
Politics in any human institution is inevitable, but when the secular polit institution gets into the act, the issue is more complex. The investment of the govt is not for the propag of the faith, but good order and the maintenance of the status quo, which may work at cross purposes w/the church’s need to define its faith. The bishops going to Constant to infl the emperor to get on their side. Cyril of Alexandria, in his struggle against Nestorius, not only made a powerful theol case for his defin of the nature of christ and his attach on Nestorius’ stress on the human over divinity of christ, but he bribed govt officials to try to get them on his side. So councils more a convening of people to deal w/issues and more like a polit convention, for people who have already made up their minds who will try to garner enuf votes to carry the day. So understdbly many of the councils were not accepted by the church at large. As an outcome of these conciliar activities, one sees very little gain even by the state for the church. The fault lines in the political order serves to divide the church as well as the empire.
The Roman empire extended from the middle of britain down to the Sahara, and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean. The Rhine River and the Danube River wre the northern boundaries, and within this empirial terrir were included Teutonic peoplel, celtics, burbers, latin, greek, syrians and sub-groups w/in these people. During the early period of the empire, when the Romans had a monoply of mil power, and growing prosperity, people were tolerated, like Clinton enjoying popularity b/c of prosperity. Put up w/things when econ well. BUT by the opening of the fourth century and the emper Diocletian, the germans were becomeing very serious opponents of the empire and the persians were beg’g to become very powerful. Conseq’ly the need to increase the mil budget arose. Diocletian had divided the empire into four regions, two emperors and four caesars, and to have leadership throughout the empire, so needed good sized mil establ. Need industrial complex to support this. They had moved that the reason for est’mt of Const and empirial headquarters to Milan and Gaul wwas to be closer to borders where threats. In order to pay these bills, had to levy absolutely ruinous taxes, such that the equiv of empirical bankruptcy was occuring w/greater freq’cy. Many strapped under debt put themselves under the prot of powerful local leaders and became virtual slaves or serfs. This was the beg’g of the collapse of empirical order and the growth of bureaucracy which meant robbing the growing commun of initiative. Stists in N. Africa came from the taxes beign levied on their agriculture. From about 340 ad there is a more radical movement in the area now call Algeria, where the burber people, resentful of latin domination from Carthage and having no investment in the empirical system took to violence, but expressed the grievance in relig terms. "Circumcilians." Athanasius who stood up to emperors was supported. Athan becomes great national hero, so support the Athan view, supported by Cyril and nephew Dionysius. Can understd if see that the grievances related to theological issues how they related. The Syrian territ, the Nestorian vie, Egypt the monophysite and N. Africa, the Donatist view, all increasingly hostile to emirial effort to try to find a solution to the prob, that people in local areas had no investment in. Empire crumbling. The will to fight off the external enemies, sapped by internal probs. Could not get locals to serve in the mil, but had to hire the germans, like hiring the fox to guard the chickens. 378 was a disastrous defeat of the Roman army on the danube frontier of Emp Valens. The Rhine frontier is broken thru by the Germans and huns and the visigoths come right into the city of Rome. A tremendous shock. Imagine mexicans breaking into WDC, but where the will to resist diminishes, for some people the invaders were seen as preferable.
By the seventh century, Islam rises and many parts of the empire are easy prey to this new militant relig. But in the meantime, there is a growing christianization of the empire, and politicization of the church, and as the barbarians begin to break into Roman territories, some of the Romans say, it is b/c we have abandoned our gods that the show has falled aparat. It is time for Aug to show up and say no.
CHURCH HISTORY: 10/28/98
Augustine of Hippo: Impressions of the class. He was a platonizer, but Plato is the major informant of the philosophical basis of the Cappodocian Fathers and Origen. He holds predest and free will in tension. It is much like the issue of christology. How can you escape that dillema. Is there an illog mood or is it insoluble. Affirmed the goodness of creation, but did not affirm the goodnessof one’s material body. Compare the kind of intell universe one occupies if follow the line of thought of Origen and that of Augustine. There is more materiality in history in Augustine than Origen. Origen’s universe seems to be fleshless.
Augustine has enjoyed a rather poor press in modern times. For sev reasons: (1) since the enlightenment the idea of orig sin has become unpopular. To be sure, there are still the old fashioned components of it all over the place. But it is not the dominant idea that informs christianity of modern times. (2) Augusine is focusing on sexuality as a prime dimension of sin is one that does not rest comfortably with the people and new ethics of our times, we want to celebrate rather than restrict or condemn sexuality. (3) if know about Aug’s rel w/women, they don’t come out looking good. Psychiatrists have had trouble explaining why Aug has trouble w/women and sexuality. People take issue w/him b/c of his profound infl in the shaping of western christianity. Can follow his thoughts about salvation, free will, the fall through Anselm of Canterbury, Luther and Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, puritan New Engl, and a large segment of American Protestantism. This is in sharp contrast to eastern chr in therms of their theol point of view and understdg of salvation. It is to be noted that while aware of the problematics of Augustinian thought, that he had a profound influence in providing those who followed his line of thought w/a very systematic look at life. In his latest writings, he talks about the beg’gs and end of life and the course of history and the nature of salv and the church, and the role of priests and bishops and so on. It is a pretty full blown system, so that it provides ones w/a completed intell outline w/in which to live. Conseq’ly, its understdble why people would refer to Aug thought when trying to rest w/partic theological issues.
Furthermore, it is less polemical types of writings and he loved polemics, he did not always fight fair, but polemicists dont’ intend ot fight fair. In the Confesssions are powerful resources for spirituality. One sees that reflected in much of medieval and reformation developments.
In the last session, church and empirial govt worked tog to form a chr culture to sustain and order a deeply threatened roman imperial life. But it is clear that by the time of Augustine, by the end of the fourth century, that that struggle is a losing one. When Aug finally comes around to writing the city of God, his assumption is that the empire is going to fall. So in contrast to the very optimistic reading of the Roman imperial sit by Eusebius of Caesarea, a contemp of Constantine, Augustine is writing w/a very pessimistic outlook, and is trying to sufficiently disengage the church from its tie in w/Roman imperial life that one at least can say that while Rome is not eternal, God’s kingdom is.*** he spends ten years writing this work which will help distinguish the kingdoms of the worldw/the kingdom of God. By so doing, he provides some historical perspective, w/in whhch the chr in the post imperial age could live, moe and have its being. You will find that most of the influential people in human society, are those who provide a credible historical perspective. So whether it be Paul or an augustine, an Aquinas, a John Locke, or a Karl Marx, one can occupy that universe and get some excitement about the prospects of a future, and Augustine was to provide that framework for the medieval period. So he is impt in that sense. Born in the year 354 in Numidia in N. Africa west of Carthage, to a moderately affluent fam w/some infl. His father was a city counselor in their home town, he was profoundly infl’d by his mother Monica, who was an ardent christian. His father did not become a chr until his deathbed. Aug has little to say about his father and what says si not particularly complimentary.
A brilliant student, he went off to do advance studies in the city of Carthage , specialized in rhetoric, went to the big city of Rome to make his fortune, was somewhat disappointed w/that city, so moved to Milan where the Imperial court had moved in the age of Valentinian and Theodosious. Came under the infl of Bishop Ambrose of Milan and was eventually baptized. Aug was already profoundly shaped by his mother before he was baptized, but he had trouble w/the very simple piety of his mother, so began to seek intell understdg from other sources. He spent a lot of time reading the greek and roman latin classics. He illus in the City of God many of those classical writings. But from the time he was at carthage, he became an ardent foll’r of Manicheism, which like gnosticism was both in and out of the churhc. Manichaesm was a form of gnosticism, but was dualistic, just god of light and darkness, with a strong mystic strain. Strange ideas aboaut vegetarianism, strong ascetic tendency, which would be consistent w/the notions of light and darkness. While an ardent Manichean and infl’d many friends to join, he became increasingly w/the manich understdg of life and started studying Platonism, especially Plotinus, who was int’d in the theol dim of Plato’s thought. He became a master of Platonism, but still as he says int eh confessions, his heart remained restless until it found its rest in God.**** he came back to the church and was bapt’d. He went back to the hometown and started an ascetic commun and converted back some of old fr from Manich and hoped to continue the ascetic life, but persuaded to become a priest and an influential writer in struggling against the opponents of the true faith.
Then eventually he was consecrated Bishop of Hippo and carried on his min in the city of Hippo until his death in 430. AT that point, the teutonic invaders were laying seige to Rome and the Empire would collapse. During his min, the argumentative type taht he was, he took on the Donatists, the manichaens, the pelagians, and he just volumes against these people. Through this struggle he began to formulate his own views. For instance, against Manichaenism, he now insisted that there was but one God, whereas Manichaeanism was dualistic. He struggles w/the doctrine of evil and takes it very seriously, and from whence does come evil when there is but one God. He will conclude, using Platonic notions, that evil is simply the absence of the good.******
It is hard to know if that is a verbal slight of hand, or logcally meaningful. It gets him out of the diff of having to explain the presence of evil in a world that was totally created by God. (Monist)
In his struggle against Donatism, in this area may have been more Donatists than Catholics, and was serious enought that asked the emper to confiscate the Donasticts church bldgs and he tried to discipline them. In his theol strug arge’d that the Donatists claim the ch was the gathered commun of those who were the thru believers and had not lapsed. Aug argued that the church’s validity and the power of the min is not dep on the purity of the lives of its functionaries. Christ is the head of the churhc and it is christ who empowers the church to carry out its ministry. So Catholicity, the maintaining of the apostolic trad as over against integrity, lies at the heart of the nature of the church. So if someone is bapt’d by a lapsed priest, you don’t rebaptize that person, b/c it is christ that actually baptizes the person. Stated in another way, the church is made up of sheep and goats. It is god who will determ who are each and won’t know until jdg day who is a sheep and who is a goat. AS you will know from contemporary exper, people who hold that view, are prtty sure that they are sheep. Indeed the Donatists, breaking of communion w/the rest of the curch, was a lack of charity and contrary to the spirit of Christ. So Donatists.
Then w/the Pelagians: Pelagius was an anglican, ha! or did work in britain, but was a Roman who grew up in Britain. Pel took issue w/the doctrine of orig sin. It would be monstrous of G to pun all for what adam and eve had done. It would be incons w/the church to say that the devil had more power than God, and that the devil took over after the garden, and all born in sin and deserved eternal condemnation, and AND that all were resp for own behav, and would be pun’d accordingly, and all had free will to carry out God’s commandments. Humanity did not become atomatons due to the fall. While salvation requires G’s grace, all have HS, so not arg’g for self salvation, but for turning to the power of the spirit in order to be saved.
Aug took sharp issue v this notion and arg’d that we were totally w/o virtue in our fallen state. That we were conceived in sin and conseq’ly we were sin, and it was only through the gracious act of god that we are redeemed. There is nothing that we did that turned G gracious towards us. So he invoked the doctrine of predestination. Some are predestined to saving and some to damnation. That was not G’s decree, but that G knew we would fall, not because willed it but b/c omnicient. For some unknown reason, he chose to save some.
For Pelagius, our destiny is det’d by the way we exer our free will. Pelaag was saying that creation is basically good, and idea of fallen universe was foreign to Pelag. Aug says the universe was fallen and only have to examine self to know the mess. The only way to be redeemed from that messy state is through G’s grace, and nothing can do to persuade God to be merciful . Luther will pick upon this and in that sense was Augustinian, he ws Aug monk. We are saved by pure GRACE. No one is saying we are saved by works, but Pelag is saying what do has some infl on our redemption. The HS is there waiting to save us but we struggle against it. Only when turn will toward christ and toward accepting the infl of the HS that will be saved.
What is wroong b/being a Pelagian? Some say anglicans are Pelagians. Idea is that coudl receive salv by living righteous life and no need for grace. There are many people today who would say yes to that. There are so many people who are exper’g what call salvation, and had tried all but nothing worked, and despaired, but somehow the thing happens. In that sense, they would agree totally w/Aug, nothing that we did worked, but thanks to the grace of God our savior. Others would say, Hell no. That all you have done previous were works. Debate is complex.
So far as Aug is concerned, takes extreme view and talks about predest, God is omnicient, but unlike the stoics, we are not atomotons, but G knew we would use our freedom foolishly. But then if that be the case and God foreknew that, what does free will mean at all. So at least many people took issue w/Aug even in his own lifetiem. He also was a good politician, and able to say at least the Numidian bishops to accept this pos and condemn pelagius. From the time of the reformation, the dom view was Augustinian, and if called Pelag was not a complement. It is throught these various controversies, that Aug shapes his theol view. When he comes now to the writing of the city of God..all of that is sytematically refl’d in his making a dist in the heavenly and earthly one. He wants to sep the two kingdoms, and to deny that the roman empire was collapseing b/c it had abandoned its trad gods who had helped create the empire, wanted to show that gods had not been that effective and Rome had been in constant trouble, as illust’d by their own historians. God had ord’d from the time of the fall that there be an earthly kingdom to at least maintain some order and decency w/in a fallen community. Before fall had amity kingdom. Now earthly kingdoms don’t give you salvation. So God will pick up some of the more virtuous political entities to impose some order. In some periods egyptians dom, and others assyrians and now Romans. But once turned from orig virtue, then G will abandon that kingdom, and possib raise up another. God is lord of all of history and therefore of the kingdoms of the earth as well as the heavenly kingdom. But it is the heavenly kingdom that is the basis or source of salvation. That has a very diff istory, and is distinguishable from the earthly kingdoms. While the heavenly kingdom has been present in the world throughout the world thru history, it becomes manifest throught J the christ, and the earthly manif is org’d around the church. Those who accept the faith of the church and follow christ’s commandments who are cit of G’s kingdom. So if persist in that citizenship, they will be saved.
But then what of the suff’g of the church and the problems of the church. He has to admit that G’s instrument is made up of fallen vessels and there will be problems, but the probls of the ch will serve G’s purpose in purifying G’s members and strengthening its char and deepening its faith. The trad of martyrdom enters into the picture. The great tragedies of the church, they serve G’s purpose in the saving of those who are amongst the elect. In the Aug reading of humanity, he in contrast to origen sees the heart of the theol issue in the human will. It is our willing to serve ourselves rather than serving G that is at the heart of the problem. For Origen or athan it is the loss of the image of G, and the loss of our understdg of the nature of G and G’s kingdom that is the probl. The incarnation provides that lost image. So Gnosis is a major concern for origen or the E Church. BUT from Aug’s point of view, can have that image and still will to serve oneself. So aug says in his confessions, that is constantly asking G to save him and free him from his great sexual lust, save me but not quite yet. It is only when the will is transformed that one can actually abide by the truth that is already known. Salv of the will tends to be the nature of the W church. So for Aug then, to be able to have a will, working to live so totally in God that G becomes all in all, lies at the heart of his spirituality and the destiny of the world in terms of salvation. So if you were to examine the writing of the city of God and what lies at the heart of the matter, it is the conversion and sustaining of the will and centering of life on God than self or the world that centers all of his thinking. One can be tortured but if one’s will stays focused on Christ, one is already in the process of salvation. Q: is that liek the pelag ‘s destiny is by free will, BUT for Aug is through the spirit. If say I was lost and now I am found, that changes the will, but it is GOD’s spirit who did it. What part did I have in that process is the issue. So Pelag and Aug part company. He is terribly impt b/c so profoundly shaped by his thought. But commend his writings. There is apublication available: "On the Two Cities," ed by F.W. Strothmann. He cuts the whole thing down to size and gets to the heart of it.
Church History 10/30/98
The next three sessions, I will be characterizing the history of the church using broad brushstrokes. It doesn’t do justice to the impt of this period, b/c it is a period of major transition. Tal order which replaces the imperial order of Rome. So if don’t provide the details, will have to depend on Gonzales.
At the time of the death of Augustine in 430, when the vandals were at the gate of the city of Hippo, the empire was clearly in the phase of rapid collapse. Insofar as the ch was by this time so closely identified with the empire and integrated into its life that the church itself suffered severe collapse. The church was a aprt of the official life of the empire. It functioned in official cap in carrying out many dutues and received subsidies from the govt, and its acts were the ch courts thru the dec of councils became official dec, and ch canons became the law of the land. So closely ident’d was christianity w/the Roman empire, so far as persia, Rome’s enemy was concerned, the ch was a pot’ly subversive org in Persia and persian chr suffered persecution as a result. So closely ident’d were ch and empire, that when the empire was in stage of collapse, the bishop of hippo would claim that there were two cities, roman empire and ch universal, and that they were very distinct, w/diff functions. Civiliz was ident’d w/urban culture, so referred to as ethos of city. So far as Aug was concerned one’s eternal well-being or salv was only avail thru the church. But such fine intellectual distinction was sure lost on the barbarians who invaded the empire and entered into its heritage. Incidentally, the term barbarian is such neg connot, it initaily meant non-greek and the lang being spoken by the peopl north of Greek, used phrase Baba instead of greek equiv, so referred to as Barbarians. But now referring to people not nec’ly uncivilized.
The period under study was period of great migration of semi-nomadic people. It had started earlier, the germanic people had settled n of black sea dn around the danube earlier. The Goths, visigoths and ostigoths, and they had become partly agrarian, influenced by Roman culture. So they were familiar and in some cases strongly assimilated into Roman empirial culture. But there were germanic people further north, situated on the N side of the danube river and east of the Rhine who had not exper’d that assimilation. When the great migration and invasion into the roman empire occurs, they brt in their radically diff life style, which brt about the collapse of the existing order. Eventually, a reordering of life in europe resulted.
Historians have speculated about the cause of migrations, they wondered if there was a drought in central asia, that had caused the Turkic-huntic people to push westward, others think just looking for better pastures or ddriven by tribal war fare in central asia. But they in turn pushed the germanic people away from where they were and the germanic people moved westward and penetrated the Rhine frontier of the roman empire. As these people moved westward, the slavic people situated further north, moved into the balkan area. There were also waves of invasions from central asia, and the last major invasion from the north, was by the Norse people which devastates Britain, sets up kingdom in Normandy, and sets up kingdom in Italy and attempts to take over constantinople.
The other major migration was from the arabian peninsula. Mohammed in 622 rec’d a revelation from the one god and is well-established as the paramount relig, pol and mil power ten years later and from the focal pt of Mecca, the great migration of the arabic people nward and w ward. They destroyed the persian empire and took over large parts of Syria, and w/in about a century, conq’d egypt, n africa, nymidia, crossed the Gibralter and got as far n as Tours in the heart of France, but stopped by Frankish king Martel, pulled back and virtually all of Spain came under arabic rule, and the medit rule became an arab sea instead of a roman one, so no longer safe for romans to travel the sea highways. So from the roman econ pt of view, the great source of grain from n africa and egypt was lost.
The unique thing about the muslim invasion into roman empirial territory, muslims had no intention of entering into the roman cultural heritage. They est’d a muslim theocracy imposed muslim laws on the peoples, and while they did not persecute the ch in the way the ch persecuted unbelievers w/in the roman imperial territ, over the course of centuries, the chr commun shriveled until became ineffective minority in muslim lands. Took hundreds of years. If writing a history of arab and muslim countries would see the infl of chr in the dev of islamic culture. Not inconsiderable.
N. Africa, the territ n of the Sahara, and a large part of the so-called near east was lost so far as christianity and the roman empire was concerned. But w/the invasion and the colinization of the european empire, by the end of the millenium, year 1,000, the roman empire has been cut down to the territ around constantinopleand some of asia minor. While it maintained a flourishing life in that territ, it was not much like the old empire. Today asia minor would be turkey. Much of asia minor was lost first to persians, and when arabs took over persian territ, included much of asia minor. For a brief period, imperial rule was re-established by emperor Justinian in the 6th century, and he was able to reconquer n. Africa and most of Italy. That conquest lasted only for his lifetime. The eastern empire had neither the resources nor will to struggle to re-establish emperial rule throughout its territ.it was barely staying alive itself. As an aside, migratory peoples are org’d on a war like basis. Since they are not identified as a nation w/clear like boundaries, their existence depends on their abil to obtain grasslands, so need to fight to maintain the wide ranging areas in which herds graze, or have to invade other territories. What have to have is a highly mobile mil force, where all are trained to fight. Like the mobility of the Nazi era, Vermachten. Until the dev of guns, seettled peole did not ahve the advantage, only had adv in settmt w/social stability. The nomadic people always ont he move, from a pol pt of view, very unstable, so often able to conquer but not hang on to territories. But very effective during this time in their conquest of dispirited collapsing empire. In some areas, the people welcomed the invaders as being preferable tothe existing govt, which is simply taxing them to death. At any rate, the goths, vandals first, then Ostrogoths in N Italy, and Visigoths in France and Spain and vandals in N. Africa. They were arians and conseq’ly did not devastate the church greatly. It was devastating to be sure, but Aug points out that these barbarians did not ravage the church, and people who took refuge in the church were saved, b/c the invaders instinctively knew this was godly. They had been converted by a missionary to the germanic people in the age of constantius. But the germanic people who then came in after them like the Franks were much more devastated. Both church and society. The church had difficulty sustaining its life.
There were areas where church councils ceased to exist. So to the extent the parishes survived it was quite often on their own. These invaders persuaded the E emperor to adopt them as clients, and gave them titles like Duke and Count and counsel, traditly greed titles. The emperors had nothing to lose and hoped this would provide them w/at least a toe-hold in the conquered areas and conven for invading tribes to have their chieftains w/titles, and show a letter of authority. But the situation is far too chaotic for that to be of any great infl. For future dev, maintained the myth of a cont’g roman empire, (process started in the 5th century, and continues beyond the year 1,000.) The bulgarians, slavic people get converted to Christianity, in the 9th century, the King of the Bulgarians, who is the most powerful person in the balkans, takes on the title Czar, like caesar. In the early 800s when the frankish emper invades, also takes on title Caesar. It is just simply indicative of the intention of the conquering peole to enter into the roman emperial heritage. It would be like some alien people conq’g the US, and rther than shutting down existing instit, hoping to keep them alive, b/c that is the goose that is laying all the golden eggs. The invaders, the slavic people become the new rulers, so the soscial order does collapse.
This indeed is a very dark period in european history, b/c of anarchy and instability. When start to stabilize by second generation and becoming latinize, that lose own lang, and speak a faorm of latin, eventually gets to be called French nad Spanish. They even lose their sense of history, and their rel becomes id’d w/them and the church. So it was w/Ophelius and his successor the missionaries who developed a written lang for them. They are highly dep on their adoptive culture. Historians are trying to get some information, but so absorbed into latin soc in the west and hellenistic society in the east. This is the context w/in which the church now intends to sustain itself and carry on its ministry. Understandably, since it was so integrated into roman life, when the emire crumbled, so did the ch structures. But the functionaries of the church at least attempted to maintain its life of worship and min, and in some areas, most notably Rome, but other areas as well, priests and bishops stepped into the socio-polit vacuum in social tersm. So the ch became the centers of socio-polit order. The bishop of rome had great wealth so used the ch’s resources to provide food for the needy and a pol force to maintain order, and to org some mil defense force. It was Leo I who persueaded Alaric and the Huns not to conquer the city of Rome n the mid of the 5th century. It was Gregory I, bishop of Rome at the end of the 6th century, died in 597, who functions virtually as the gov of the Roman territ, the city of Rome and its environing area. For by then the imper govt wasnon-existent in the west.
AS we will note in the next session, the monasteries voluntary orgs, not dep upon org’d pol or rel life were perhaps more successful than the org’d church, in sustaining themselves dur this time. They were able to carry on a min w/in their regions and conseq’ly became very signif relig instit presences in people’s lives. At the same time, there was an effort on the part of some of the church authorities to convert these invaders: to convert arians to catholic christianity, but not too succ on that count. But they sent missionaries, recall the account of sending Aug of Canterbury to England to seek to convert the germanic people who had taken over britain. That was a long slow process of converting the anglo-saxon and danish tribes to christianity. But once that had at least sunk some deep roots, those benedictine monks then sent missionaries over to Saxony, to try to convert their german cousins who had stayed on the continent. The major effort of the conversion of slavic people was carried out under the emperor’s auspices in 9th century by sending two brother monks to slavaic poeple to Moravian, Methodias and Cyril. They then dev’d a Cyrilic Alphabet, then they transfered the bible into slavic and the proc of the conv of those people began.
But here one can see the polit elements at plan in this process of conversion. For the E emperior wanted the peole to be E orthodox. The ch is split betw spheres of infl, rome on one sice nad Const on the other. There is effort on part of both to expand their sway. So the desire on the part of the eastern emp to have eastern oriented chr among the slavic. But the frankish kingdom expanding eastward into slavic area, wanted to make them western christian. You will find that the chieftains among the slavic people, flop back and forth, trying to get the best deal out of the franks aor byzantines, and in the case of Cyril and Methodius working in moravia, found haried so badly by the Frankish bishops, finally went to Rome and worked under the sponsorship of Rome. Gave them some prot from Franks. Part of the reason for attractiveness for areas like Serbia of eastern sponsorship, is tha E empire could provide them w/prot from the franks. Not always theol ra that de’d outcome.
Presumably church is one and e and west at this tie not divided. The split evolved and finally occurs in 1054, when an absolute idsruption, already differencesso deep, that diff to acamp betw east and west. Here the lang barrier did not help. The E was Greek and the W was latin. While technically, all the bishops dep on the emperor, as had beenprior to the coll of the emperor. Ravenna cont’d to be the center of Roman emper rule in the west, but was insulated and isolated from the rest of Italy. When the est’mt of new emperor in W under CHARLEMAGNE, there is a clear polit division, and increasignly, the western part of the church is dep on the empire to protect. 1054 makes it total in the bishop. (???? paragraph)
In many ways the situation in the germanic and slavic areas for the church was not unlike the early ch period. They were evangelizing and converting people from their polytheistic rel to a monotheostic one. The deff was that the ch now had dev’d. The theol understdg that was very sophi’d and able to deal w/many of the issues that arose. But the conversion of a people is not loike the conv of an indiv. So when Clovis, king of the franks, decides in 597 to be bapt’d and to be bapt’d cath christian and not arian one, is adv and will give adv rel to vandals b/c could communicate and put in more fav light. When he gets baptd all hi warriors baptd too. Sim when Russian is converted, the whole tribe s bapt’d. That clearly is just the beg’g of the procecc of conversion. If there are clear signs of crazy rel of christianity, understandable. Most the effort unerstandable. Throught this chaotic picture in a territ that is becoing chr but divided up untl a number of stable trible territ, w/diff understdgs and diff social order. View the church must begin diff and new sit and that is the chall for the church for the next 1,000 years.
Church History 11/2/98
From 500-1000, the Early Feudal Age, he will not have as great an expectation of specifics, but is useful to pin down some dates and spec so will have a narrative of the dev of chr at this time.
For ex: the date 476 marks the end of the presence of the presence of an emperor in the W. After that, the only remnant of an emperor ruling is in Constantinople. That emp wil be the ruler of all of the remnants of the empire including the west, and the western authorities will seek authorization of their activ from the emperor in Constant, but that pretty much comes to an end by the middle of the 8th century. Rem 800 is the year, Christmas Day for the coronation of Charlegmagne, who takes on the title of Caiser or Caesar. For all effects and purposes, the signif of the E emperor vanishes in the west. The date of the sending of Augustine to England by Pope Gregory I, is another signif date: 597. It begins the rechristianization under Roman auspices of the British Isles. That doesn’t mean that not a chr presence there, bu timpt b/c it spreads the impt of the bishop of Rome in N. Europe. It would be useful to have in our outline, the date 622, when Mohammed starts his career, for from the date of his death in 632 to 732, during that hundred years the large segment of the Roman empire comes under Muslim rule, and there is a gradual changing of relig life, at least in N. Africa and near east and Syria, Iran, Palestine, and all of it comes under Muslim influence. These are just a few of the suggestions that will help you get a skeleton for your outline. Keep your outline up to be ready for the exam period.
MONASTICISM: it is not too far off to think of the middle ages as the age of Monastic Christianity. Most of the herioc figures that the church commemorates durnig the middle ages are monastics. Bernard, Francis, St. Eliz, St. Clara, and much of the signif lit that helps people understand ppeople to understd the nature of faith, reflect the monastic ideal. Monks occupy high office in spite of their monastic vocation. There is no one as powerful as Bernard in the 12th century, he chastizes popes and castigates kings and is a powerful influence. Monastics occupy high secular office as well as ecclesiastical office. The scholars of the age are monks and the teachers of the age are monks. Much of the missionary endeavors and the social welfare activities are carried on by monks and by monasteries. The monastic ideal gets carried over into other segments of church life. For a while the Abbot of Cluny is one of the msot powerful men in Europe. Not that so much compet, but the monastic ideal begins to shape the nature of Christianity, so when someone says I’ll start getting serious about spirituality, the model will adopt will come out of the monastic ideal. So one might say that the ideal of the martyr gets displaced by the ideal of the monk. Black death was in the 14th century (1348).
Monasticism is to be seen as the institutionalism of a particular form of spirituality. The life of a solitary, the life of abandonment of the world in order to focus one’s life on God and prioritize life to make the relig activities at the center is very much a part of all religions. It takes a variety of forms. The monastic form as known in west chr has been shaped by the benedictine model. Practical aescesis, the discipline of prioritizing life so that G is at the center, one can find everywhere in all religions, the only difference in terms of the understdg of the nature of God, betw the monastic practices of the sev religions. Is there a gnostic influence? Considerable infl in some areas and in others slight. One does not have to denigrate the mat world in order to carry on the monastic discipline, though there is a tend to say that mat existence is obstacle to focusing life on God. Augustine’s view on sexuality has a strong gnostic tendency.
In christianity, one can find from the very outset, the effort to center one’s life on one’s faith, one can point to J’s withdrawal into the wilderness, his getting away from crowds as a time to refocus as a time for prayer and reflection. That his admonition to the rich young man to sell all and give to the poor and follow him, as an instr that the worldly aspirations must b/ given up in order to live a truly relig life. During the pataristic period, there were many who followed a disciplined ascetic regimine, giving up personal ambitions for the sake of the gospel. But it was Antony of Egypt who w/o intent starts up a movement that will end up in the institutionalization of the monastic ideal. He will make it a signif part of christian life, beg’g in the fourth century. Anthony was an egyptian who was quite well off and in his search after rearing as a christian, his quest for deeper spirituality, hears the matt 19 rich young man to give away and follow, so does that and puts sister in a nunnery, parents were dead, and goes out into the desert and begins his life of prayer and meditation and disciplining of the body and spirit, to have it focus on the god revealed in Christ. Nunneries existed or convent, did not mean had to become a nun. Gonzales said female monasteries predated male monasteries. There were more female monastics. There were widows and deacons who carried on their min in the church. One could say some Buddhist influ here. Antony’s intent was to get away from the society that laid such heavy claims on him and the obvious place to go was to the frontiers of the desert. Word got out that here was a deeply devoted holy person. During this period of systemic persec of christians and life in the community was getting incr’ly diff, high taxes, corrupt govt officials, high inflation, and great uncertainty, both econ and social. That made the monastic life seem attractive. So people began to gather around Antony, b/c di dnot want to be totally alone out there. They wanted someone to serve as a guardian and guide in their effort to lead a solitary monastic life.
So Antony’s pattern became the common one in Egypt. This almost got in the way of Anthony’s effort to be alone, so would keep moving further and further out into the desert, so people moved out further with him. He tried to set up some kind of structure, so could all live the life of a solitary and occas come tog for functions and be mutual supportive of each other.
Pachomius organizes many of these hermits into communes, CENOBITIC form of monastic form, the communal form, which was most appropr for most who had monastic aspirations. It is reported that some of these aramitic communities numbered into the thousands. But they are communities org’d around the relig discipline. [Pachomius view that had to knock for a few days before would let you in, like discernment process ] Dr. S says now in Benedictine monastery, have novation period, and ceremony of knocking. Monasticism which had its major beg’g in Egypt, gets picked up in Syria, Asia Minor and eventually in the West. People went to Egypt to see how it was done so could emulate them, but there is no set pattern at this point. Some of the communities took very extreme measures of self-disc, of the mortification of the flesh, one of the more severe were the celtic monks in Ireland, some of whom would go out into the sea in the middle of winter as a way of mortifying the flesh. It was very penitential in char. Some of the more bizarre forms in Syria, Simeon the Stylite, who was a pole sitter, for 20 years. This form of self-denial was seen as the heroic and lot of people were impressed, but more gen’ly the monastic commun est’d by Basil of Caesarea, the great 4th century church leader, was made up of friends. Quite often were people of the priv’d class. Basil set up monast on own fam estate. He was led into the monastic life by his sister Macrina, who was a powerful infl on her two Capp brothers. In some instances, the monastic life was a fairly congenial or relaxed or congenial one, w/the main focus as spirituality, where did not see the need to go to great extremes of self-denial.
For western chr, the signif monastic dev occurred w/benedict of Nursia, who after experimenting w/a var of forms of disc, came up w/an understdg, a disc’d form of life which was to become normative for the western churhc. In contrast to E christianity, where there is no std that informs people as to how to set up a monastic community. Benedict, who dies in about 547 set up a regimine which by mod stds would seem to be anything but comfortable, established 7 daily offices, the first the visuals, at 2:00 a.m., an hour of medi and bible study. When the day begins to break, lauds, sunrise, prime, then after prime, medit and reading, so could see that the meditative and studious life is built int this mon life style. Then Terse at 9, then work until 4:30, w/break at noon for prayers. Then about 5:00, the single meal of the day which is for the most part is w/o meat. While seems sparse diet, that would not be unusual. It would be sparser than normla, but not so much as the contrast of three meals. Then foll’d by compline, then go to sleep for prep for next vigil at 2:00. Sundays euch. Also set up rules on relating to each other and purpose. They were useful guidelines, and during his own lifetime, in his monast only place where followed this rule, in Monte Casino in Italy. Others made use of it, but Pope Greg I, who uses Benedictine monks to carry out his many enterprises, and he himself carries out the benedictine spirituality. So when becomes Pope, surrounds self w/monks. He sends monks to Engl to rechristianize that. There the celtic monks are already present, carrying on their min from the orig base of Iona, and subseq’ly at Lindesfarne, the celtic monks are carrying on a wide ranging missionary endeavor in France and in Switzerland. But the future lies w/the Benedictine movement. For it is in this not exactly competition, but the celtic and benedictine movements cause some confusion in Engl, so there is a conf held in Whitby in 663.*** There the king decides that the Roman model is the one that is adopted in England. Easter will be celebrated on the day celebrated by the Greeks, which ws the date the Celtic calendar followed.
Britain then becomes a great center of Benedictine monasticism. It’s height is in the 8th century. Bede, the Ch Historian of the Engl church is a benedictine monk. Alcuin, who is invited by Charlemagne to lead in educational enterprise of his kingdom, is a benedictine monk.
Willobraur, who evangelizes in the present day low lands comes from monastery. Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, who converts the Saxons, comes from an English monastery. The signif of this is taht in those areas where these monks were active, in places like England and France, and Frnkinsh kingdom like saxony, the bened monasticism is seen as THE monastic way. So that Charlegmagne’s son, Lewis the Pius, was very dedicated to the church, ordered that all monasteries in his kingdom were to follow the Benedictine pattern. So not only was Benedictine monasticism the model provided, Benedictines also saw Rome as providing the center of Church life. The monks in England went to Rome to see how things were done. So the varieties of liturgy avail in Christendom were the Roman model that were seen by these English converts that were normative to Church life. They learned to chant the music, the use the vestments, to celebrate the festival days in the Roman fashion. Many of the monks were not ord’d priests. Benedict was not ordained. The monastic movement is a LAY MOVEMENT, and a voluntary movement. Only lpart of it becomes clericalized. They train someone to be ord’d so that they would not have to tleave the monast in order to partic in the eucharist.
Given this Benedictine assumption, that the model for christianity was to be found in Rome, it helped to give Rome considerable influence in all territories where the Benedictine movement was powerful. It would nver hav eoccurred to Cyprian of carthage, or Ambrose of Milan to look to Rome for authority or to legitimate their election of a new bishop. But these benedictines in Engl, looked to Rome to auth the election of a bishop, and in many cases, the bishop of Rome sent up bishops to England. When Boniface began his activities in Saxony, he went to Rome to be consecrated, to be legitimated by the Bishop. It was quite a change in outlook, so that it wasn’t any intent on the part of Rome to gain this authority, but they didn’t fight it. It did increase the reach of the auth of the bishop of rome during this period. And does not hurt the papal cause, when the Frankish rulers seek authentication of their throwns but looking to the bishop of rome to crown them. It lays a claim for universal jurisdiction on the part of the popes, which does not get fully expressed until the high middle ages.
CHURCH HISTORY 11/4/98
When Charl was crowned Holy Roman Emp Christmas Day 800 AD, imperial society was in shambles, there was a remnant of the empire in the east centered around Constantinople, but the E province as well as Egypt and Africa had already been lost so the title of empire was there but was a shadow of itsformer self. The west and Charl lay claim to the title, but no vestige of us. The contin’g onslought of invasions by the Turkic or hunic people from the middle eas as well as the Scandanavians were cont’g to throw disorder and violence in all parts of the empire in the courseof the 500 years looking at, Constant was under siege a number of times. It would barely escape capture. Rome sacked anumber of times. So the remnant of the empire of Constant did not have the energy or empire to do any imperial prot or order beyond its immed precincts.
It was clear that it was the ambition of Charlemagne to reinstitute imperial rule in the West. From his capitol in Aachen, he instituted abuilding and reform program in Aachen itself and errected a numer of impressive bldgs of Romantic style and built a number of churches, passed a number of laws to try to reinstitute education, religious nurture and political order. He especially depended on the Church to provide him with both the know how and the resources to carry on his restructuring program. He brought in the most learned sscholar of the West, Alcuin from Britain, who was his major advisor in many of the activities. He legislated that every parish should have a school, and he himself was illiterate, but he was hoping that literacy would be commonplace in his kingdom. He reinstituted synods, councils had not met for a number of years, so Church synods became a reg feature of church life in his lifetime. He sent out inspectors to check out clergy and their level of competence, which had fallen dramatically during these diff years. He tried to protect church funds, and built monasteries. He had an impressive program which he instituted in his life time, he ruled 754 to 818 the Frankish kingdom. As Holy Roman emperor, he served as a protector of the papacy and a numberof times went to Italy to put down the Lombards who were a cont’g threat to the papacy throughout this period in the middle ages. He carried out warfare with the arabs both in Italy an in Spain.
So he could make a rightful claim to being the Holy Roman Emperor in the West but for Charlemagne, church and society were not clearly distinguishable. In entering into the inheritance of the Roman empire, he simply assumed that the church was a part of that imperial order. So the church was to help to promote the welfare of the empire and the empire’s resp was to promote the church and be its protector. In other words, that sense of the autonomy of the church, that church had its own existence and that it was its resp to promote the city of God instead of the city of the world escaped Charlemagne. But this notion was clearly understandable for the nature of the social order of the germanic tribes and slavic tribes was quite diff from the settled commercial agric society that constituted theRoman Empire. He is not qual’d to characterize the feudal society that develops at this point. Nomadic people don’t define themselves territorially. They are constantly on the move. Urban centers are not a part of their life style, and furthermore the social unity is quite loose, so that the tribes and clans the kinship system defines the nature of human relationships, so one’s role and one’s status is derived from one’s place in this kinship tribal system, as over against a more settled institutional system. So social relationships are personal in char and doesn’t have that universal dimension that institutional life provides. In more spec terms, as the Franks came into the Roman imperial territory of Gaul, their king or head person assigned certain areas and said you can have this, b/c you are my vassal and that is part of your reward or loot. In return, I would expect you to provide me w/10 trained knights or foot soldiers for defensive purposes when make another raid. So land ownership is not like the kind of pvt property that we identify in a more institituionalized urban socieyt. So Charlemagne’s vassals would come to some kind of agmt and first pay homage to Charlemagne so showed subord and resp to him, and he in turn would say you did good job in this war so I give you this land here and you are resp to maintain order and you proivde necessities, maintan bridges and you will be amongst my closest associates. There is sortof a caste system. The domo in Gaul, in order to be able to provide soldiers he would provide them smaller pieces of his prop, they were his vassals and had a pyramiding rel w/highly individualized relationships. It comes from the tribal background of these nomadic people.
When the first invasion was made into Gaul, it was sort of a temporary federation of the huns, visigoths and ostrogoths and they went their sep ways. Then when under attack, they might help each other. When the visigoths moved into spain, the chief broke up the territ into smaller units for his vassals, who in term broke into smaller territ. When living a nomadic life and a pastoral people would wander all over the place. The sense of social order was retained. So one’s rights and obligations were individually negotiated. In some cases it is simply a verbal agmt and in others wrote it down into a kind of chart. Presumably, since it is these indiv vassals who are obligated to the king, when that vassal dies, and wants his sons to inherit that arrmt, they would have to renegotiate, but eventually, it becomes an inheritable tradition. So for instance, the earl of Exeter would keep the obligations made by his ancestor, but no longer assumed that he would have to reneg w/the king of england. This was very complex and unstable, b/c personal relationships. Moreover, the system gets complicated whtn the Earl of Exeter gives piece of land to the Bishop of Durham, and the people don’t know whether they are vassals to Exeter or Durham, or if Exeter picks a fight w/the king, is the vassal loyal to the king or the earl. It is a diffused authority system. Quite often ther are disagmts about what the obligations were so fighting was endemic to the system. Tried to institute courts of law, but hard b/c req a bureaucratic institution, but the infrastructures of setttled society is absent. So there is chaos, anarcy and conflict all the time. It is like a universal voluntary system and even the authority of the king is unstable b/c depends on agmts made. It might be that all would get tog at some common meeting pt once a year and consult in concert what sh do and if a vassal were obligated only to fight three months of the year, would have to be selective aboaut which war to wage.
Everything is viewed from a proprietary pt of view. So the vassal who has exeter and its real estate, sees everything in it as his pers possession even the church. He will select the priest, and if his youngest son does not have income, may place son as priest of the parish. Same as bishops, for king, needed sympathetic cooperative bishops. So the dioceses in his realm are HIS. When the priesthood becomes sep activ from the episcopate. In the earlier period the bishop is the sacramental functionary, and the priest is his auxilliary, and much of the sacramental piece took place in urban centers. Priests are left upon their own, especially if Lord going to say can’t go.
Church is part of the feudal system b/c a major landholder. As much as 50% of the land in Italy is held by the church. Then necessarily the church is obliged to take care of its territ and maintain order and collect taxes and provide knights for the kings, and as much as part of the secular order as any other grp of people . The clear dist betw ch and world is lost during this time and it is not incongruous during this period to think that the church supports the king in fighting wars and supporting order. Charlem says that if he had been there the Romans would not have executed Jesus. Song-Roland LC the bishops are riding off to war. W/major endowments they are part of lords of the realms and once that system is institutionalized in Engl, the bishops are automatically members of the House of Lords.
Now the kings used the church as major instruments in the ordering of their kingdoms and their territories, because they had some say in who appt. The frankish kings apptd bishops and local lords apptd the priests. Impt for them to have loyal supporters. Indeed it became a policy w/many of the monarchs to upgrade the power of the dioceses on the frontier, like the bishop of Durham was expected to raise a lot of troops and protect the frontier v the Scots and be a powerful ally for the king v the disorderly vassals. So the bishops and abbots became powerful members of the empire. The indiv churches are now seen as prop of the local lords so when a vacancy they make the choice and the bishop had ltd if any authority, and dep’d on whether the local lord felt cooperative tothe bishop. The bishops often played a powerful role in the selection of kings, but in the power struggle that was constantly taking place w/in the feudal society, the bishops were major players, but kings needed their support. So kings were careul in choosing bishops. This starts in the 5th century, but the roman imperial order doesn’t disappear right away, but by time of Charl is a full-blown feudal system. Since the social order is seen in these proprietary terms, and the rights and oblig are inheritable, when the Lords and the vassals and even kings will divide their holdings amongst their heirs, so Charl grandsons divided up the Frankish kingdom in three parts. They squabbled among each other so the frankish empire did not last beyond Charl much. By 900 no more carolingian claims to the throne.
So the church becoming a part of this social order, first finds itself unalbe to function in the way accustomed in the est’d Roman empier. Unable to carry on as an autonomous body. Even the calling of counsels depended on the perm of the kings. Travel and commun were diff so not a large incentive for more than carrying out the duties of parish and diocese. So not much of creative activity could be expected at this time. The conseq of this kind of disorder can be seen in the fate of the bishop of Rome. By the end of the ninth century, Rome itself comes under the control of noble families who are themselves fighting for control and the bishop of Rome is a pawn in this game. The low pt in roman episcopal history is at the beg’g of 10th cent, 904 Theophylact. He and his wife become paramount powers and his daughter becomes lover of Pope Sergius III, and eventually w/the demise of the pope, she elevates her son to the episcopal chair,and her other son has a quarrel and upon defeating her, puts her into a nunnery, and makes himself Pope John Twelfth. This is period dubbed, Pornocracy." Sexual politics is very effective. Needless to say, while the church was in such great disorder, the faith and the ideal of many members of the church had not disappeared. Question becomes what can we possibly do to restore the church to its proper function.
Answer will come from Monasteries, where the world denying ideal is very helpful. They will need lots of support and protection. So this is the context within which now the ministry of the church has to develop and find a way to make an impression on this feudal society.
Church History 11/11/98
Church reform was intended to liberate the church from its deep entanglement in feudal system.with the collapse of the Roman Empire, the trad means of unifying the church and maintaining order in it had been lost. Very few councils were held during the period of the Barbarian invasions. Rome itself had falled to chaos itself. The papacy was captive to the rivalry of tith ecclesiastical affairs. Much as the cluniac monasteries had succeeded in dong when freeed from feudal resp by Wm of Aque..... they were no longer vassals of feudal lords.
For Leo the effort was made for holding the counsels throughout france and germany, for gathering bishops and trying to promote this ideal. His episcopate was to short to have any deep impact, but with the accession of Gregory VII to the Roman throne in 1073, a vigorous and single minded almost inflexible leadership program was provided. He legislated and made canonically required the observ of celibacy and the Simoniac the monetary considerations that went into becoming a bishop. In a feudal syst when vassal rec’d a piece of land from the lord, had to swear fielty to the Lord and agree to pay first year’s produce to the lord and the lord in turn would give the vassal symbols of the office as the Lord of that manor received. In the case of the bishop who wwent thru the same cerem of a duke or lord, would go thru the same ceremony and receive as symbols of office, the ring and the staff, one for spiritual office and the other for secular office. The bishop too would give over first year’s income to the Lord and often give othermoney or comodity recompense to the Lord fo rhte honor received. It was to this latter practice that Hildebrand focused his attention. He said it was unthinkable that a lay person to invest into spiritual office of the churhc, the body of christ, who was beholden only to christ and not to a prince of the kingdoms of the world. Ant that the bishop of Rome, as the succ of Peter, the prince of the apost, the VICAR OF CHRIST, would be the one to give over and give the symbols of off to the bishop. THE INVESTITUTE CONTROVERSY. Who was to invest into the office the bishop of the church. The focus of that struggle was with Henry IV, the Saxon King, who aspired to be the Holy Roman Emperor. The pope had some leverage here since it was a pope who crowned each succeeding emp since Charlemagne. On the other hand, Henry had the larger army. Hildebrand is Greg VII. The occas for the dispute was the appointment of a new Archbishop of Milan. The prev one was thrown out by the people of Milan. So in the usual baronial fashion, Henry had selected the Archb and counselors had invested him with the symbols of office, so the new Archbish swore fielty to Henry IV. And Hildebrand said Henry IV did not have the power and demanded the action be rescinded, and refused, so Hildebrand excomm’d the counselors who had carried out the action fo rHenry IV.
When Henry IV refused to do anything about it, and made military threats, the pope excomm’d him and deposed him as King of the Saxons. Unfort’ly for Henry IV at that time, he was having trouble w/Saxon vassals, so they were in an act of rebellion. So using as an excuse for their revoke, the excomm and deposition of Henry IV, they took up arms and it was clear that he would lose out in any kind of battle, so hurried to Rome to get the excomm rescinded. There is the famous story of the pope fearing for his life, took refuge in a castle of a supporter Countess Matilda, at Canosa, and Henry IV fighting for his polit life, put on the clothese of a penitent stood side the castle for three days in the snow asking for forgand reconcil and Hildebr finally gave in much to the discust of the lSaxon rebels. So the pope lost the supp of the Saxon rebels, they elecsted own king, Rudolph the Saxon. Now Henry is no longer excomm’d and went back and defeated his enemies. He carried on and cont’d to expand his power which led to another confront w/HIlde and excomm’d again, and Henry IV declared Hildebr deposed and had another pope elected, so NOW TWO POPES.
So within the roman scheme list the official popes and in parenthesis, the competing pope or Anti-pope. There was an anti-pope at this time, and Henry IV descended on Rome. Greg VII fled among the Norman conquerers of S. Italy and died in exile in Solerno in 1085. So it was a bout a nine year struggle between the pope and Henry who was crowned Holy Roman Emperore by the Anti-pope. Greg VII in his enthus for reform and attempt to liberate the church from feudal entangl failed to recogn the reality of the polit sit. To rid the Lord bishops of their respons in polit situations would disrupt the feudal system. Kings and emperors counted on bishops to carry out their dutties. So since the eccles lords of the realm and their powers were not inheritable, which would have been more impt than their duties to the Lord, then kings and emp liked to have eccles Lords on their side. So it was impt for the kings to see to it that the right person occcupied epis offices so they needed to make the choice and receive homage and fielty from these bishops.
Sim struggles occurred in other parts of Europe. Anselm, who Henry I had appt’d ABC, refused to receive the office from the King, and so he went into exile, and see of ABC vacant for 5 years.
So the ABC of Henry II, Thomas A. Beckett, lost his life in that struggle, it was impt for Henry II who had appt’d Beckett to ABC, but when Beckett decided he sh not submit to the orders of the king, it made Henry II upset and led to his assassination. While Henry II had to do penance fo rthat, he had his way. Consider the messy entanglement of resp and loyalties that a feudal system created. Beckett was a vassal of Henry II and Pope and Henry II was Count of Angou, the Duke of Aquitane and the King of England. As Lord of Angou and Aquitane, he was the king of france. Functioning as the king of engl he ws no vassal at all. So the cont’g struggles of the kings of engl who carried those titles and the king of france, was sort of finally ended with the hundred years war in 1453. The constant struggle between divided loyalties. Some of the lords betw Aquitan and Angou were caught betw the king of engl and the king of france. The church was a part of that battle. But the unfortunate thing with Hildebrand’s policy was that in his effort to help liberate the church, he focused on investiture, which was but a symbolic act, for in fact the king was going to make appts whether pope liked it or note and hope was that he would make wise choices. Apptmts to ABC were pretty good, Lanfranc, Monastic, and Anselm, Scholar, and Beckett, brilliant administrator.
But one did not have to be a particularly spiritual person to qualify for office from the monarch ‘s view so in most cases to try to avoid conflict, monarchs consulted with the pope. After Hildebrand’s death, a pope and holy roman emperor in 1122 came to a compromise agmt, designed the CONCORDAT OF WORMS, but in the Concordat, the agmt is that the symbol of office for the bishop in terms of his worldly responsibilities would be given by te emp or his rep and the ring by an eccles personage. The election of the bishop would be done by the proper ecclesiastical personages, but the election in the presence of the monarch. Rarely did they elect one whom the monarch disapproved of. It was a face saving device for both. Recogn’d as status quo, tho bishop sh be qual’d as eccel std but also persona grata from the monarch’s view. The staff was symbol of political office. (Is the staff the relig office symbol.). More likely the staff is the shepher or ecclesiastical and ring is seal. It ws imposs to make that clear sep betwe the spir and secular in a secular society. One thing it did reflect and signal was the growing consolidation of feudal power throughout the middle ages and increasingly the lesser lords, the petty barons were beign squeezed out. That process would continue throughout the middle ages. That was pretty much culminated with the war of the Roses in Britain, and to a great degree ended with the 100 years war in France, although the feudal baronial powers persisted in both countries well into the 18th century.
While the papal efforts at liberating the church did not succeed, church renewal was carried on at the grass root level, and once again it was the monastic renewal movement that had a major infl in this development. In the 12th century, the second major monastic renewal moveent occureed. Cartusian Order in 1084 and the Cistercian movement in 1098. Cistercian from Citeaux and Carthusians who were much more of a gathering of solitaries, or hermits. Their activities were coordinated or unified in a communal fashion. The Cistercians attempted to go back to the primitive benedictine lifestyle. So to avoid the excesses of the cluniac movement that had become so rich and powerful that lived in kingly fashion. Declared among Cist not to receive gifts or fancy foods that were prohibited by the bened rule, to assure that the succeeding gener of Cistercians would live a simple almost prim life. They too like the Cistercians, started a number of daughter houses that followed their rule and became a part of the Cistercian community. The Carthusians, b/c of their hermit like existence was not a rapidly growing order. They would not accept serfs but instead, there were lay affiliated groups, Conversi who functioned as lay associates who carried on not part of the comunity but followed mod’d bened order and did lot of the manual work to assis the order in carrying on its life. Q--why would they do it? If meaningful, why would they do that? Like if want to help Mother Theresa many went to help here tho not part of her community. We all long to make our lives meaningful, and if find some activ that moves us deeply, want part ofhte action without beign fully involved in it. So the Conversi became a subst part of the Cistercian commun and carried some of their ideas into secular life. If one believes that the monastic movement brings one closer to God and living out the ideal lifestyle that Christ intended for us, and get a lot of merit badges, then those who help them out may not get as many merit badges, but get grace of God for their help. That kind of work ethic will become a problem and explode in reformation.
Another movement that refl the monastic ideal was the formation of Canons Regula, lived in communities in mod’d bened life, canons in cathedr or large churches. No longer indiv priests carrying out duties, but living in commun and reciting or singing the office on regular basis and carrying on cathedral and monastic resp. So the monastic ideal penetrates the church eccles arr’mts outside the monast as well. Furthermore, one notes the growing involvement of lay people not simply as assoc of monasteries, but seek to achieve a more adeq chr spirituality by assuming discipling in their spiritual lives. There will be literature composed to help them carry that out or urge them on in a dev of an ascesis, it is where the word Ascetic comes from.**** Thereis the play Everyman, medieval play that promotes the idea of a disciplined life, quite pop in the middle ages, and if someone became relig, would either , like a knight who had killed, and now remorseful, would become aconversi or enter monast. Later in 12 the cent when Louis IX of France takes on monarch resp, has to wear the regalities of office, but would wear a hair shirt underneath, and would receive a whipping to remind him of his worldly nature. So the monastic ideal penetrates medieval culture. Ther are other forms of spirituality which have a very impt role in chr formation in this age.
St. Bernard plays an impt role in the 12th century. 1115-1183, and enters a Cistercian order and becomes its major figure in W Christendom during his lifetime. Brialliant man who was a poet and theologian, and founded 66 new monasteries, and such a powerful charismatic presence that even pope’s and kings trembled in his presence. It was said that so powerful was his infl that mothers who saw him coming down the street, would hide their children, lest he convert them to monastic life. All his fam entered monasteries. He reflects the idealization of the monastic life and he lives it out in a very effective and persuasive fashion. He is the one who beat down Abelard theologically. He played an impt part in the initiation of the second Cruscade. He helped to promote the monastic ideal throughout his lifetime. But even this monastic ideal cannot change the social order that monasteries themselves had. They had vassals and had major resp for territories under their care and even their involvement in promoting cruscades indicates the degree to which they were entangled in the polit social system. After all, what could be more contraary to the spirit of monasticism than acruscade, yet there were mil orders that were monastic. The Knights of the Templars, the Hospitlars of Jerus, and mil orders protected pilgrims, helping them as they made their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Bearers of the Sword were fierce fighters, who swore in the name of Chrsit to destroy their muslim enemies. Muslim has not forgotten the cruscades. The pope himself extended his lordship over s. Italy where the Normans had settled, and in Spain where the muslims. And in both cases the normans and christians declared vassalage to the pope. So the pope resp to help them fight their wars v the enemies, and athe pope’s did. So there now is the context within which the church must carry out its resp to promote christian formation, not simply within the monastic order but to so christianize society to reflect their confviction as to the nature of the faith.
CHURCH HISTORY 11/13/98
The Life of Piety in the Middle Ages.
Making generalizations about piety is risky bs. The forms of piety and the framework within which one’s pietistic life occurs, but people’s readings and understandings with what is involved in those activities varies considerably. If to ask episcopalians what think, quite a variety of reactions. In similar fashion, one can describe the relig life of worship within the church catholic in the middle ages, but its signif and its conseq would have varied enormously. Today’s lecture is very broad generalization.
I talked about the monastic ideal" especially in the west and east also where monasticism dominated, the daily round of prayers would give a framework within which people understd their christian formation to be occuring. But needless to say, not everyone lived in a monastery,and their understdg of the signif of the monastic ideal varied considerably. But whether viewed from a monastic or secular pt of view, a penitential understdg of the life of piety was very powerful, and understdg that one’s relig activ was part of penit activ of commun of faith. Wht would you say if someone asked you the meaning of your life of worship. Could anticipate the range of possibilities today. In the middle ages, much of the response would be that worship helps me to take care of my penitential responsibility. Worship was an act of penance. The theology of baptism in the early church, in large part stated that all one’s sins were washed away by the right of baptism. The sinner was redeemed and one’s sinful nature was altered through that sacrament, so while baptism took care of one’s pre-baptismal sin, those were related to post-baptismal activ. Some christians like constantine waited to death bed to be baptized. What does one do if bapt washes away the sins, and have post-baptismal sins.
EARLY CHURCH: There is no highly developed understdg of that issue in the early church period. But during the period of persecution, when many of the members of the church lapsed, some provision was made that made it possib to confress sin in a public fashion before the whole congreg and carry on some kind of penitential activity, so that once again restored into good standing. If a person were seriously ill or at the point of death, they could partake of the holy communion, it was an indulgence provided by the church as an act of mercy reflecting God’s graciousness. Over the years, they began to worry not so much about major lapse in one’s commitment tothe life of faith, but even to minor sins. So before long, they began to develop first the instit of pvt confession, so not humiliated in front of entire congregation. Then the priest would impose some kind of approp act of penance to make some kind of satisfacton of an earthly character. The church could not speak in eternal terms. God did forgive sins, but surely one had to give some satisfaction, especially where there was injury imposed on others. It is a modern day equivalent of community service imposed by judged on malefactors. Of course, in the midle ages, it started with the Irish Monks, they develped a book of instructions for the parish priests, known as the penitential, that would offer guidelines ffor appropr pun’mts to be meted out the sinner. If one did something more severe, then pun’mt more severe.
Along with that, quite often, some kind of commutation of the severity of pun’mt and some kind of indulgence would be provided, and if a person ill and had seriously injured a neighbor and not able to give monetary restit, then work the farm, and priest might say, why don’t you give them some of your food and meatand say some Hail Mary’s and Lord’s prayers. It was an effort toward spiritual instruction as well as to say sin is not appropriate for a memeber of the chr commun. So the confession of Sin, in pos of pun’mt and often commutation of that sentence.
Atthe council of Nicea, 325, Canon 12 says at the pt of death, someone who could not rec communion, should be allowed to receive if truly penitent. There were more prov over the years by Councils, to aid those unable to meet the full rigors of penance. So prayers, fasts, mortification of the flesh, would have been a variety of ways one could substit and give indulgence to the confessed sinner. The system starts to get pretty refined. If someone told to fast for three weeks, might have the length of that time cut down a third to just bread and water for one week. But soon the system became more mechanical, more general, so that when in 1095, the Pope declared against the Muslims who had taken over the Holy Land, he offered plenary indulgence of all past sins for anyone who went on the cruscade. It seems to not have been a stipulation, that the person make a conf and be truly penitent. Later in subseq cruscades, tehy offered plenary indulgence for all who sent someone else intheir place, and later still for anyone who gave moneys to help defray the cost of cruscades. So the process becomes increasingly impersonal and automated. It became useful for raising funds. It becomes pretty scandalous by the time of Martin Luther, where a Dominican huckstering primary indulgences for donations of money. This was not to say the pentitential deeds took only that form, some went on relig faslts and flagellated themselves, but the serious personalized understanding of the penitential act was not taken very seriously by a large segment of the churhc.
Clearly by the end of the middle ages, the system is in desperate need of reform. Theologians generally supported the indulgence. Alexander Hales said we as chr pray for each other and help each oter out and it is approp tha there be some sharing in terms of making satisfaction for our sins. Not just praying but the pentitential deed. Theologians claimed there was a treas of merits of saints, and especially for Lord. It was for the goodness of their lives. That chould beshared with the sinners. So there is a kind of transacttion, so tha when a person sins, it is possible to give plenary indulg b/c the church has this excess of merit. So when dies, who lives w/o sins. Soon the indulgence system was extended to the dead. So praying for the dead had great efficacy b/c of this great treas of merit available. The masses said for the dead seemed to have efficacy to those who still owed a lot of penitential deeds, for suffering and pergatory. The process of purgation could be helped out by the living. Before long Chancery priests sold duty, and masses prayed for the dead and cut time inpurgatory. The eucharistic sacrament was enveloped in this penitential network.
Purgatory: notion of period of purgation is mentioned in Origen’s first Principles.
[back to ring and staff--both are relig symbols meant to rep relig duties, but lay lor would receive sword and piece of earth]
If mass is to have efficacy, by virtue of its being said, then a congreg not necessary, quite often the masses said in choir by the monks and canons regular, and the lay folk in the nave and could hear but not participate in it. There were screens in Canterbury Cathedral. The holy mystery going on up behind screens. They rec’d only the wafer for fear that some of the wine would be spilled and the blood of christ get desacralized. Can see how the whole apparatus of worship was often read as being part of the penitential mechanism. It would mean in terms of chr formation, that the mass was not as central as it was in the early church period. The Fourth Lateran Council req’d that go to conf and commun once a year. Many rec’d more freq’ly but give s some idea how attit toward the sacraments had changed.
Not only were the sacr elements seen as part of the penitent mechanism, people understd sacraments in literal fashion. On the body and blood of christ, were literal in that the elements transformed and Christ crucified. The elements rec’d are potent merely by virtue of being sacramental if receive w/o faith, the vitamins would have negative impact. So sacraments were very impt and priests tried to promote this idea by relig education, by telling stories of unbel in church in unbel’g fashion, and raises the host and blood flows out and the skeptic becomes a believer. Also there was raised the idea that had magical powers, so women went ot become fertile, or receive it and take it home and bury it and make land fertile. Story in Constant times of beehive keeper, who puts the bread int eh hive, and happily waiting for abundant harvest. Looks into the hive and bees have built altar and busy worshipping and not honey. Distored character.
Cult of Mary developed and penitential system developed andinflueced the cult of saints.
The Veneration of the relics of saints: Ancient stories. Idea of soaking up the blood of saints martyred, or venerate where Peter and Paul buried in Rome. That is fairly common thing fo rus to rem great heroes. The Masonic Wash Shrine in Alexandria. Keep his wooden teeth. Before long people begin to attribute mystic and magic powers to the relics so they use churches as burial places and mementos of the saints and before too long there was great commerce in relics. Constant’s mother allegedly found the Holy Cross, and on that discovery great hosts of people went tot eh Holy Land just to see those objects, but as the objects were seen to have powers to cure and provide fertility and wholeness, there was a great demand for relics. So when begin to read the list of relics collected and sold, you would be impressed. Moses’ rod, Manna, Job’s dung heap, filings from Peter’s chains, milk from breast of the blessed Virgin. There were enough chips to supply whole forest, but idea that could keep cutting from something holy and not destroy. Sev heads of the same saints. People, out of piety, would visit the relics and would seem to have effects in the penitentail system, to serve as a sacrificial deed. So people would go there and might be told to make a pilgrimage to say the Shrine of Thomas Beckett, and it might be worth about a year’s indulgence, so for places like Canterbury, it was boone to have Beckett murdered there b/c became visitation site and raised the prestige of that commun. Important relics, the cities of tours and portiers fougt over the remains of St. Martin.
It is taken very seriously. It creates a diff understdg of the nature of piety and its impact. So now every church had to have a relicin the second council of Nicea, the canons req’d that there be a relic associated with every altar, so would place remains beneath the altar. Warriors placed relics in swords and ladies in their amulets, all have the efficacy. Wild the indulgence system could become absurd, could also served about the nature and costliness of fatih. Great saints were nurtured within that framework. You can see that pilgrimages going to the Holy land or tombs could also get caught up in the induglence system, and seen as a satisfaction for sins cmmitted. Often the sinner was told to make a pilgrimageto certain places, where saints alleged to have gone, died and buried.
So related to all this dev is the cult of Saints andthe cult of Mary. One could call on especially the virgin Mother to make appeal to her son on behalfof a sinner. It was a mother who herself had known pain, and would bewilling to intercede on his or her behalf. BUT the great saint might be diff to reach so wuod ask like the virgin mary to appeal to her son. The Virgin Mary, and people like St. Bernard and St. Francis perpetuated this or got caught up into the importance of it.
One can see the transformation of Mary from the earlier image to one who takes on virtual deification. Theotokus was an argument for the divinity of J, and not a cultic related to that.
The liturgy of St. Mark of Greek Ch and other to Syrian Church. But the immac conception of mary and the process of deificaition. Some theologians like Aquinas questioned, but generally she was seen as the major intercession. There is a powerful element of medieval piety, and when stop to think of the great saints that participated in that , need to be cautious about being too critical or synical.
There are sev other forms of piety that don’t get caught up inthe indulg system. The impt one to note is the mystical trad, a trad that is not concerened about penitential system,but concerned to have a vision of God, to beocem one with God, to lose one’s identity witin te Holy o Holy’s. Aquinas, Francis fo Assisi and They rise oer the institutional dev as seek union with G. For themost part these arewell-educated folk. It was not a mass move and rarely is. But the import is that they are the theologians and they keep their eye on the nature of God and God’s self-revelation. So taht they become as few as tehy are and the foci of relig educ in the middle ages. Goes back to the good order of Europe and oder and stability, increasingly imprt role in the christian formation, by middle ages, flourishing of monastics and questions raised about the adeq of the relig tradition as it had been practed in the middle ages, and there will be a great eruption. So the mystics begin to leeaven the prevailing piety.
CHURCH HISTORY 11/16/98
In Tierney you have illustrations of the nature of oaths given by vassals to their lords. That kind of mindset indicates the understdg of the relationship, pyramid system, and personal character rather than universal, uniform relationship that you find in the roman empire and post medieval period. It helps you to imagine what like.
y hildebrand Greg VII, and cont’d by the successors of Greg VII to the twelfth century. The import of this effort when stop to think that no General Convention or Exec Council, or coordinating ordering central body to run the affairs of the church. So during the feudal period developments in doctrine, discipline and worship, went on without any central supervision. So a whole host of changes and innovations occurred without any ability to discipline those changes. Leo IX had started the effort of liberating the church from its feudal entanglement so it could be a chur apart from the secular world uninfluenced by sec power and promoting celebacy of the priests so the priest would not be entangled in feudal oblig and family ties, so could spend time on work on the church. That effort was frustrated for the most part. Celibacy during the height of the monastic renewal movements like Cluny or Cistercians strengthened the ideal of celibacy but it would appear as though the maj of clerics had families and often used church resources to care for the fam and their subsequent issue. The effort to liberate the church from lay intrusion was also unsuccessful and a compromise had been reached between church and state so elections could occur in the presence of the monarchs. While the cathedral chapter would elect the bishops did not ignore the wishes of the kings. There was a vacancy at Canterbury during the reign of King John, a contemp of Pope Inn III. The king then furious let the chapter know there would be conseq so the chapter backed down. Innocent iII was unhappy with lay intrusion so disqualified both candidates so chose Stephen Langton, but King John for a while refused to accept that selection, and finally gave way. It indic the continuing problem of lay intrusion in a struggle that was a contin’g nature.
The aspiration to liberation dealt with whole host of issues that dealt with need for some kind of central govt. There was a widespread bractice of keeping the church vacancy open so the oowner or proprietor could keep the income. Often the lay proprietor of the parish would make himself the incumbent of the glebe or endownment along with other prop that went with the church, and would hire a vicar to hire in his stead and give them a pittance of that income. There was also the probl of multiple incumbents where one person held the livings of a number of parishes and cathedral benefices and even episcopates, so that tthe combilned income would allow them to live in the style to which they aspired. And they would send vicars in their stead to run the church. This was anything but desireable given that the vicar didn’t have the ultimate say in local affairs. There was a practice which is consistent w/the feudal system, where a bishop or abbott would have to give away the first year’s income to whoever chose them for that office. It was called "Anne".
The papacy itself was involved in these undesirable practices despite their protestations. One who died in the serv of the pope, like the bishop of worchester serving as a legate of the pope, if he died the pope claimed the right to name his successor, so the positions were kept open so that papal functionaries ahd a source of income. Land was a primary source of wealth and a number of the papal officials held churches in lands as far away as Sscandanavia and never visited them.
There was a problem of the ordination process. If there is no orderly way of going about the process like the pre GOE days in the Epis church, there were canons in the epis church, but in the middle ages, if a lay patron nominated someone who would pay him a sum or a member of his own fam to provide them with a living, and quite often chose one who was underage and unqualified. There was a great proliferaton of forms of piety and while the eucharist and the baptism was seen as the primary centers of christian formation, these were augmented by a variety of activiteis that we have taken some notice of that occurred without any control. The need for relics and saints for every locality, meanat that every town and village created their own saints. So saints all over the place. There was the unsupervised creation of relics. Could add to the list ad infinitum when no centralized govt of the church. Clearly the effort of the reforming popes was to impose some order on the scales. So in the 12th century, there is the dev of a PAPAL GOVT which tried to serve this end. Pope’s from the time of Leo IX itinerated and went around Christendom and hold local councils to promote disc and order. They then took to appointing legates to do the same thing and carry papal powers. They began to dev a systematic eccles court system, which would serve to by-pass some of the feudal road blocks. So if a baron were to interfere in the life of a diocese, someone in the dioc could appeal to the papal court. Signif devel in the papal court system. The 13th and 14th centuries there is an interminable list of appeals made to Rome.
FURTHERMORE, they developed a chancery which was to serve as the basis of record keeping and maintaining commun with all of the dioceses. So that the local churches would be kept informed on the pol and regs of the churches from the papal point of view. Finally the institution of Palatine, the Lateran Councils held in Rome in the LateranPalace in Rome. There they would invite bishops to come so that they could be sort of trained in a manner and formed in a way that would promote papal policies. So there is the beg’g of a centralized govt here. This pretty much parallels what is going on in the secular sphere where the monarchs were dev’g own centralized form of govt and central feudal system which was so chaotic. In England appointed Shire riffs, Sheriffs. In the legends of medieval englands, they are painted as unpop figures intruding into the rights of the local people. Gives the kings some leverage in local areas where not dep just on the barons who have own dynastic ints. The sheriffs are not inheritable pos and employees of the king so carry out the king’s orders w/vigors. Then apptd constables, the kings began to appt a notion of common law for all of england. There was a comparable centralizng thrust occuring in the monarchies, trying to offset the chaos of the feudal order.
Innocent III one credits the highest dev of papal govt in the middle ages. He is seen as the one who brings to its highest level this centralizing policy. Inn III was for a change, an Italian, educated at Paris and Bologna, theol in parish and law at Bologna. He served under sev popes in their curia, and only 37 when elected as pope, by far the youngest member of the colleg of Cardinals. Chosen for his great admin ability. Like most popes of the 12th and 13th centuries, his strength was in law. Can see from the legis of Fourth Lat Council, he has an admin legalistic approach to church reform, diff from Martin Luther. During his 18 year papal reign, the admin regime was extended and made far more effic nad extended the papal juris all the way to Palestine, thanks to the cruscades, and he succeeded in bringing disc to kings and monasteries as well as to dioc and parishes, and during his life time, the pope was by far the most powerful personage in all of Christendom. He perfected the use of the instrucments of excommunication and interdict to use spiritual power to effect often political ends. For instance, King John of England, that unprincipled rascal was causing probl. While King Richard the Lionhearted was on cruscade, he tried to usurp the throne, but anyone on cruscade was protected by the pope, so efforts thwarted but cont’d devious ways. So the pope imposed excommunication and interdiction and in the whole land the sacraments could not be administered to the laity. That was powerful for those who saw the sacraments as the basis of their eternal salvation. Interdiction=forbid the use of the sacraments.
Carried a lot of weight with the faithful. So there was a good chance that John might be overthrown by the people who felt pressured by the interdict. Eventually, john is brt to submission. When a King is excomm’d he is outside the pastoral resp of the church. Interdict puts pressure on the king by stopping the sacramental act for the whole nation. There is a case of King Phill of France, a contemp of John’s equally a rascal who married Ingaborg of Denmark, who must ahve been singularly undesirable b/c after two days said could not put up with her. Most royal marriages in these days were for dynastic advancement. The hapsburgs would become among the greatest powers despite starated in switzerland, b/c made good marriages. France married Denmark, but had limits, rejects her and gets the bishops to annul the marriage. She appeals tothe pope and the pope says no grounds for annulment. So Ingleborg is the legal wife, but he lusts after Agnes so he marries her. The pope keeps putting on pressure and excomm’d then finally interdicts. But happily for Phillip Agnes dies so now he can say and goes along with the Pope but does not receive Ingleborg back to the throne for sev more years. The spiritual instrumetn is used to leverage people in the prom of church law, but other sit where less worthy purposes. One of the concerns of the pope as monarch of Romania, around Rome, he wants to protect Rome from absorption by the Holy Roman Empire, so he wants to enc claims of France in N Italy and Spain in S Italy, so he keeps taking sides and uses excomm to get those kings to accept papal political policy. This happens thruout the middle ages and into the monarch period.
In this sense, the pope continues to entangle the church in feudal affairs and to become a part of it. He declares a cruscade to fight the muslims of spain, and to help the kings of Arraagon, Castille, in their fight ve the Muslims. Cruscaders come from all over europe to help out. They can get an indulgence for their sins. The kings in order to get the support of the pope, declare themselves his vassal. So the pope is now the overlord of the spanish kingdoms. When he succeeds in bringing King John to see the light, to free from excomm, John declares Engl a fief of the Pope and extra tax on the people.
Furthermore the papacy has developed besides the instrument of the cruscades the use of force to promote christian policies, to be used not only v the muslim infidels but v Christian heretics. So that there is the cruscade in S France, where the Albigensians are numerous and the count of Toulouse gives them protection. Innocent after trying to get the bishops to do someting, he decl the cruscade and people kill indiscrimantly b/c really lusting after the land. Added to that is the developement of the INQUISITION. It is intended ot follow legal procedure to make inquiry about people’s theological views when they are charged with Heresy, but the inquisitorial process also includes torture. Once a person is convicted of heresy they are turned over to the secular arm, and they let the princes do the killing, b/c the church is not in the bs of killing. But so concerned with the papal authorities with the developing heresy in the heart of christendom, that they developed this instrument that has terrible conseq for sev centuries. Within this context the Fourth Lateran Council is convened to now try to make uniform the admin of papal policy, which would receive the concensus of all christendom. In the invitation , pope Innocent declares, two things lie particularly in my heart, the regaining of the holy land and the reform of the whole church. After praying for God for enlightenment, this matter, I have decided to convoke a gen council by which evils may be uprooted and mistakes corre’d and heresies explicated and liberty protected and chr princes induced to aid the holy land and peace installed. But given his great success in imposing disc and order in the areas in which he was working it seemed not imposs ambition on his part.
The 71 canons adopted by this council covered a whole range of subjects from heresy, ordina process, cruscades, the cond of bishps and clergy, dealings with Jews, and for the most part they would be quite desireable policies. The oppos of mult holdings of livings and the maintaining of vacancies so that proprietors could keep the income. But in fact the Papacy itself was amongst those who subverted these efforts. For one of the greatest needs of the papacy was MONEY. To be able to support legates, members of the chancery, the judicial eccles courts, meant taht they had to greatly increase the number of bureaucrats working for the pope, and the only way to pay ws to maintain openings in the dioceses or appt cardinals to hold the positions of impt and vicars do the work. They imposed an income tax on all clergy. The first one was intended to support the cruscades, and this wa sa one-time shot, but then other cruscades then an established practice of clergy paying taxes, and goodly portion went to estab armies to carry out the polic in Italy. So created consid resentment v the papacy and the successors of Innocent. The discriminate efforts to raise money, and the fees for appeals to the eccles court system, the occup of episcopates by foreigners who never showed up, caused a great deal of cynicism towrd the reform policies. Towrd the end of 13th and partic in 14th century, there will be a great deal of anti-papal sentiment. Think of the corruption that is symbolized in the 4th cruscade, where the pope called for the crus to reclaim the holy lands is diverted to the conquest of Constant and the imposition of latin rule on E Empire, their fellow christians, under the Venetians who are doing lot of bs in that part of the world. While Inn III was initially horrified, the thought of the extension of his jurisdiction overcame his moral outrage and he now had jur over the E juris. This is a fact the easterners have never forgotten.
So while this is a period when a central govt develops it entangles the church even further in the feudal system and creates new probl which will occupy the church for the next sev centuries and on ly a major revolt in the reformation is some radical change imposed, that will alter the face of the church.
In 1204 Inn III calls for another cruscade to reclaim the Holy Land and so a cruscading army collects and the transportation is to be funded by the Venetians b/c they now have a formidable fleet of ships and the venetians persuade the head of the cruscades instead of going to the Holy Land to attack Constantinople. They attack Constant, and take it and establ the cruscaders as rulers and it stays that way for 60 or so years until the Greeks throw them out. By 1215, the Pope was hoping the E bishops and patriarch would go along with him. But they were in occupied territory so had nothing to lose. The patriarch of Constant did not sent representative. Part of Albigensians was gnostic and part was non or anti institutional movement.
CHURCH HISTORY 11/18/98
Cur Deus Homo--one way to remember Anselm in history is to relate him to Greg the Great Hildebrand, and useful to know that he is person of the dark ages or the high middle ages, and he is the high middle ages. Why God Man" Cur Deus Homo? Bozo is asking qeustions that unbelievers would ask. Why did God have to become man to redeem us, could he not have just done it? What is Anselm’s answer. Anselm said that man was created and could choose whether to follow God or be tempted by the devil. He had chosen the devil and now owed a debt to God. Man was reason for the fall, so man had to die for man’s salvation.
If not counting on Anselm, what would you say? Have an example. Not wacky when think of history and G’s efforts to redeem us by sending prophets. Had promised not to start over again at least not by rain. If one does damages to another, and go to pay the dmgs back and offer less than cost, so to offer more than the sins of creation. Accomplish nothing, so the only sacrifice would be God becoming man. Has to be human sacrifice without sin. Anselm says it undermines those who honor God by not sinning.
Atonement can be understood in a variety of ways, sacrificial idea is only one of them. At one is to reconcile God to man. Atonement is sugg of impt sacr as an expression of desire to be reconciled and pay an important price. The notion of atonement being achieved by example is illus by Abelard, who disagrees sharply with anselm on this point. From Anselm’s pt of view death came with sin, so to restore humanity to its orig pure state, some transaction had to happen. Why did God have to become man to effect that. What is meant by the second Adam and how would that make a diff? If he doesn’t sin, then what diff does it make to the sinner. Someone has to pay a PRICE to get back into God’s relation. It is a ransom or penalty notion? BUT the sacrifice of Christ did not stop sinning. God gave son like Abraham, to show the love. Some of us might not ask the same questions Anselm asked. Makes a dif how the question is posed. The Anselm Q and A dominated W theol from middle ages to modern times. And much of today’s theol follows that. Some kind of pricehad to be pd and pun’mt meted out. Q is what is the nature of the pun’mt and why.
From A’s pt of view, G’s honor has been smirched, the failure to obey G’s commandments. So why can’t humanity pay the price and make good? It you damage your neighbor’s property, you make restitutions, if you insult your neighbor you can make some other restititution. In the middle ages, only way to settle was by blood sacrifice. Not all humanity wanted to be made good, so the sacrifice was expiation that was greater ransom and sacrifice than people could give. It had to be so greater that the only thing greater was God himself.
Anselm discusses the number of people who are going to be saved, the notion of the redeemed humanity will take the place of the fallen angels. Where did that idea come from? It was somebody that made mention of it in the patristic period, so not new. This by way of noting that G doesn’t die for everybody, but only for those who truly want to be redeemed. So the atonement is not intended for those who don’t care. He is in the Augustinian tradition, that only elect will be saved. This is in oppos to some dimensions of Paul.
But if humanity were to try to make restitution, what resources do we have to repay God for the damage done. From the Anselmian pt of view all that we have we already owe to God and there is nothing we can do that will build up our capital. All thoughts actions and desire should be God centered. So can’t say I am going to be more devoted to God. Can’t be more devoted than totally devoted. No overage can offer. So from A’s pt of view, only God can repay himself as it were. BUT as one noted, it is man who did the damage, so at least the arg is made, but he doesn’t follow the logic, that man must make the pymt. Only G has the resources, butthe debt is human so human must repay. So must be a God-man.
BUT A actually argues that God’s honor can’t be dishonored. He makes some huge jumps. Still it is a legitimate question that many people ask. He makes a serious effort at answering it. As noted, he really assumes the medieval framework--honor and life for life. If dishonor your lord will pay a big price for it. And the good order of society depends on recognizing your resp and honoring those resp. If don’t, the system falls apart. So from the A’s pt of view, not simply the restitution that is nec for the work of dishonor, but maintaining and restoring good order in the universe. While there is this Augustinian pt of view, in terms of the atonement nec and human inability to make the atonement, and there was an anti-Pelagian outlook, for Augustine, finally the issue is not so much atonement, but UNITY with God. The heart of Augustinian view of salvation is that G becomes all in all, there is the mystical dimension. Anselm is concerned with the good ordering of G’s universe and he clearly sees the universe ordered in hierarchical fashion, and God is at the peak or pinnacle of that. He also speaks about the fact that VENGEANCE is God’s so we are not to take other people’s lives, which is diff from Augustinian view, b/c in G’s good order there would be no killing. Anselm agrees with Aug that only G has the rt to take revenge, but since G has instituted government, the sinner can be turned over to the govt and the govt can take vengeance. There is not that clear sep between Church and state as there was in the Augustinian model.
The doctrine of atonement will be picked up later by the Scholastics. But generally the Anselmian outlook is the dominant one in the middle ages. Abelard in contrast, a man noted for his love affair. Abelard sees G’s nature revealed in Christ and that then informs humanity of how to model their lives. The incarnation is informative about the nature of God. But his view is seen as being heretical. He tends to be Pelagian. But note as unfortunately can only hop skip and jump over medieval theology. Just looking at Anselm and Thomas Aquinas. But there is a major renewal of intellectual life in the church during this period. Spending one’s time reflecting on ideas and exploring the conseq is not a matter of great urgency, so that is neglected during the dark ages. The intell activ carried on during the dark ages is mostly the preserv of writings during the patristic age and the passing down of those teachings. Copying the bible and Aug’s books and making an Anthology of ideas, which were sort of intellectual manuals.
BUT once order is restored in Europe, the concern for education, especially of the clergy leads to the est’mt of cathedral schools, and instruction of bishops and his assistants for the prep of clergy and shcools for collegium of teachers, who rent house and invite students to come and study and pay tuition, or collegium of students, who invite teachers. The eventual formation of these clusters of schools into university, or the ordering of thought and exploration of new ideas once again took place. The publication of Gratian’s decretum, a collection of laws of the time, simply when imagine that when disorder and promote order, helpful.
In the case of theology, Peter Lombard’s similar ordering of ideas, so there will be a section on the atonment, and set forth the major teachings of thinkers, and bible passaages and reflections. Then Abelard whohorrified people b/c of the forcefulness of his thinking and lack of humility, but he was absolutely brilliant. His writing, Sic et Non, Yes and No, *** to take note of the fact thatthere are pros and cons to virtually every idea, our theolog trad is not an homogenous one and he did not suggest a way to choose amongst the sev ideas, but this stirs a lot of intell activity, and eventually will end up in the brilliant effor tof T. Aquinas who tries to reconcile these pts of view, like how many sacraments, and talks about pros and cons and comes up with his suggestions. Anselm comes very early in this and so his arg is not quite as systematic as Aquinas’ will be, but his dialectic method he uses to deal with issues by composing a dialogue, between himself and the imaginary figure, Bozo, don’t think he meant it to be a real person. Bozo is not a very vigorous critic of Anselm’s thinking. Once the method becomes more widespread the debate will become vigorous, the dialectical discussion is the change in the cultural framework in which theol was done.
In the early period, the concern is first with the monotheistic view of christianity, in the context of a polytheistic world, but now the major competition to christianity are Islam and Judaism, all monotheistic religions. While there is still some discussion about the doctrine of the trinity which continues tobe a diff issue, for the most part the triune is taken for granted, and the ISSUE of ATONEMENT, and how we can be reconciled with God, in practical terms, is dealt with in indulgence and the treasury of merit.
Q: Hebrews and sacrifice of atonment was it the basis for this? Dr. S is not aware that it was.
When read the mystery plays and morality plays the drama that was put on by guilds to recount especially the passion of J, clearly the dep is on the gospels, but with a very strong feudal outlook on the matter. So issues of honor will appear constantly in these plays. The other major concern of the time is the sacramental. There will be a vigorous debate about the nature of the presence of Christ especially in the eucharist. While the fourth Lateran Council will opt for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, in th eoutward form appears to be bread and form, it will be the actual physical presence of the Lord. The 4th Lat council accepts the gen idea of actual presence and theologians seek to define what that means.
There was widespread conviction from the early church period that christ was physically present, but the theol have to explain how that is possible. So people like Aquinas will try to do it, and it doesn’t quite work from the intell pt of view. Theol are simply trying to give intell credibility to an item of faith that is held without very much Q by the great bulk of chr population.
Finally, one would want to note that over v the platonic domin of ideas in the early church ideas, the middle ages is dominated by the Aristotelian approach. What the chr do is enter into a conver, a llively conver that is going on betw arabs and jews. The medieval thinkers are highly dep on the highly soph’d and intell conver that is going on. The intell life was not possib in isolation. A crit mass of thinkers carrying on a disc you enter into it and b/c of htenature of the disc if to commun, have to use their lang and presupp, so Aristot is dominant until the rennaissance period.
The char of Plato is to try to get at the essence of things, whereas Aristotleis much more into experience and imperical definition. For systematizing is more congenial to the platonic system, and the achievement is notable and while Thomism becomes favored in the late middle ages and is adopted by the papacy in the 16th century, it dies out in age of enlightenment and comes back in the 19th century. It is a powerful element in the anglo-cath movement in the 19th century.
Church History 11/25/98
If going to initiate some form of renewal in the church, what form should it take. One of the things that you can count on is that our ideas of renewal will reflect the prevailing ideas of a particular age. There is a prevailing idea of what it means to be religious and what it means to be truly religious. Renewal movements are not so revolutionary that they abandon all those ideas. They see inadequacy of the current arrangment to carry out and live out those ideals. Clearly in the medieval period, there are these recurring renewal ideals, which for the most part in the early periods in medieval history took the form of monastic renewal. Reinvigorate the monastic ideal, which would become too relaxed and too perfunctory. To take it seriously, personalize it. To respond to personal Jesus, then in the monasticism would give up all have, live in poverty and obed to the commun and live a chaste life.
In the late 12 and throughout the 13th century, a part of the disfunction of the church was its inability to meet the needs of a changeing socio-political order. Part of it was the probl of relig becoming perfunctory. One thing can count on is that people do not inherit genuine piety. The insights we receive from a renewal movement will by the second generation become institutionalized so that they may be passed on to subseq generations. Children and grch of the puritans were puritanical, but did not have the vision of a new jerus that would inspire and transform the world. In sim fashion, the monastic movement was not only an effort at personal renewal but a renewal of the church and the world, given that society and church were coterminous. Through the infl of the monasteries people would catch the vision of true discipleship, and there would peace and caring for the needy.
But in the latter 12th and 13th century, there emerged a new social class that resulted from the est’mt of greater peace and order in western europe. The devastation of the barbarians had been overcome and while cont’g invasions, they were scarcely on the scale of the earlier ones. As peace prevailed, commerce began to pick up. During the early middle ages, virtually all activity was subsistence farming. Some craftsmen providing the necessities for subsistence farmers and providing for the needs of the mil class ruling society. Decline of commercial and econ activ of the roman period had collapsed with the roman empier and was not beg’g to pick up again. Now beg’g to do some trading with the far east and middle east. The spices from the spice islands were greatly treasured and merchants were setting up commerce, and then industry began to flourish. The city of Italy and Flanders and Bruge and Florence and Venice, saw their best days during these days as the center of commerce and industry. The various cities that served as collecting and distrib of these goods began to develop, cities that had virtually disappeared during the middle ages. Along the Roan and Rhine River that served as highways and Geneva that served as points of shipping to the Alps and sent down by ship on the Rhine or conn’d from the northern countries, like the wool from England and woolens from the Netherlands being shipped south. By modern stds this is a modest beg’g, by medieval stds this is a remarkable recovery.
Much of the growing econ power shifted to a new middle class the Bergers our Bourgeoise. They were the creaters of new wealth. As such many of the local lords were willing to free them from their feudal resp and dues. If could be called out by the Lord to come harvest crops in the middle of your commercial activ, then couldn’t do much. So the Bourgoise became a free class and freed from feudal responsibilities. Europe going from barter system to a money economy. If you wanted the silks from China or spices from Indonesia to spice up your life, you needed cash. They wanted towns and fairs in their territory and tried to attract people, and would tax and have a good time.
For this new Bourgeoise, there is a new outlook. In order to do bs have to be literate, so the near monopoly of the clergy on literacy was broken. People doing bs needed clerks and acctnts and money exchange system, as began to dev international trade. Some ofhte great powerful families were bankers and fullers who lent money to those trying to buy office. The Medigee who became the symbol for pawn shops. For those folks thte ministrations of the parish priest was for large part inadequate. They were more sophisticated. The parish priests came from a peasant class and did not know the world much and did not share in the mindset of the middle class urban culture. So not surprising that an effort at church renewal arises within this Burger class. There were a number of them. The most notable one being that of the poor men of Leon, led by Peter Waldo. He was a wealthy merchant, who hears a minstral tellling the story of St. Alexius, who apparently had conversion experience. St Alexius was a rich young nobel who renounces his wife on his wedding night and embraces poverty for the love of God. In the middle ages, if neglecting god, would renounce the world and live in poverty. Said that he lived ingognito under the house steps of his father. Waldo goes to talk to his parish preist, who directs him to Matt --if you would follow me, go sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me. He gives dowry to wife and daughters money for daughters whom he places in a nunnery, and pays debts thought owed, and becomes a MENDICANT (beggar) and goes out and would accept no money, all wanted was the essential food and clothing. Recalling the Lord’s admonition to give no thought for tomorrow.
Others usually when you have a charismatic figure, setting an example, it will excite others. The vision of a wealthy person giving everything away and becoming a beggar and proclaiing the good news of God redeeming the whole world, was exciting, so others followed his example, so developed a community of Waldensians, not critical of the establishment, but just unsatisfied with own lifestyle and wanated to become a true follower of Christ, which meant a life of poverty and service. They were not crit of the est’mt, but if you were their parish priest and they went running after a lay person, you lose your authority, especially if you are living a comfortable life. In that sense, while not heretical, they were declared heretical eventually, for setting up shop on their own. The group was persecuted and they scattered and went into remote mountain areas where managed to survive thru the centuries. Eventually they got in touch with the protestant reformatin and influenced by that movement, they continue to exist in Italy to this day. They are rather remarkable. They were condemned in 1184 and conseq’ly driven into wilderness.
Other groups were the Humiliati, who followed a similar course of that of the Waldensians, but they too were seen as being outside the acceptable stds of the church. In the next generation, a fellow from Assisi, also a son of a rich merchant, seemed to be headed toward a conventional privileged life, and spent some time as a night, engaged in crusades and bs, but in 1205, he gets religion. He has a dream where called to follow a solitary life. So he does. He returns all his possessions to his father, even the clothes on his back, and was thought to be crazy. At the early staage, he is uncertain as to what to do, but eventually he becomes clear in his own mind and while at the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, Portiuncula, down in the valley outside the city walls, where hears Matt 10, preach as you go, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and take no gold and silver, for the worker is entitled for his food, and has only one tunic, and goes barefoot, and walks and Francis sees as his mission the proclam of the Gospel. He uses as his own model the activities of the Lord. So he goes to the neediest of the commun and feeds and min to them. Above all he goes to the lepers where earlier, just the seeing of them used to make him physically ill.
Then before long, people come to join him in this life of poverty and service. He has to begin to develop some rules for the group rather than just for himself. So the decision is that they would practice corporate as well as personal poverty. The group would own nothing, and the monastic model, whereas in the monastic model, the group would own lands, but francis det’d that since the Lord owned nothing, the group would own nothing. Given the fact that carrying on the mendicant life for the sake of the kingdom, people were inclined to help them out, give them food and provide them with a place to sleep. It was an egalitarian commun unlike monastic societies and no class distinctions and clergy had no special privileges. Through the course of Francis’ life, all of the leadership came from the laity. They did adopt some of the features of a monastic commun. Those able would read the daily office, and those who could not would recite the psalter. Most of the converts came from the bourgoise. They were people from good homes. Clare in 1211 a noblewoman joined the movement and they served as women in similar fashion. They were cloistered to protect them. In 1217, the commun decides their mission should be universal and not just in central Italy. So began to sent missionaries to Germany, France and England. Francis goes to Egypt with the crusaders in 1219, and manages to get an audience with the sultan there and it went no where but had the conversation. But the expanding activities and the growing nature of the movement dictated that some kind of organization was needful. The first mission sent to Germany could not speak German. How can you speak the lang, so then you have to org in a manner that not only send people to speak the lang, but have to prepare them and teach them what to do. They need a bible since that is the source of preaching, and need to teach them pastoral skills, since people come to them over the parish priest for confession. Nice to have itinerant confessors, where don’t know you.
Parish priests were for the most part able only to say the mass in inadeq fashion, so the franciscans were trained in pastoral care. There was need for org and institutionalization. For Francis, while he is the leader, he doesn’t want to get involved in the admin stuff and is not altogether happy with the direction that dev is taking in the order. If you have to have all these things, it modifies his sense of absolute poverty. One way they deal at least in theory with maintaining corp poverty is to maintain spiritual friends who own property in their names. The commun doesn’t own, but becomes in fact wealthy. The new middle class contributes money and lands and all nec to their work. So by the time of Francis’ death in 1226, the movement is now insittutionalized. It had rec’d the support of Pope Inn III in 1210, so received protection. Innocent realized the value of Friar’s minor and so protected them as did subseq popes. They were ministering to an element of society that could be easily swept out of the church.
More importantly a new heretical movement, that was called Cathari, manichean in nature, god of good and bad and light and darkness. The Cathari were to be on th side of light and formed an ascethic life which commended itself to the piety of the middle ages, very extreme, no meat or eggs, and no creatures that engaged in intercourse. Once again, given the inadequacies of the church at the time, this very serious movement got a large following in N. Italy and S. France. The popes recognized the capab of the Franciscans. By the time of Inn III they are a major problem (Cathari) b/c won’t partake of the sacraments. This group also drew from the middle class. The cities are the places where new ideas get gobbled up. Their christology would docetic or gnostic. That denied power over them b/c can’t excommunicate them. So Pope INN sends in the Cistercians, but they couldn’t make a dent. So Dominic, a canon regular, one who lives in community conn’d with a cathedral in Spain, who is shocked when pays a visit to Southern France, b/c the innkeeper was a Cathari, (in France called Albigencians, b/c in Albi). Dominic stays up the whole night arg’g with him, then he talks to the Cistercians who were there and convinces the Cistercians that their lifetyle is too affluent to make a dent on them. These Catharis are giving up poverty. So Dominic persuades all of them to give up lives and follow him in the mendicant life. It is the beg’g of the Dominican order, the order of preachers. They tried to get licensed by Inn III in 1215, but by then the Lateran Council had said no more new orders, so the way they got around it was to adopt the Augustinian Rule, but were a mendicant gropu living a life of absolute poverty and went into southern France to fight heresy. They didnot make a big dent there. Where had Dominic gotten the notion of a mendicant lifestyle? Possibly Francis, but not a novel thing or creative thing at that time. It was more a strategy than personal piety.
How much was the papacy involved in fueling Dominic’s efforts? NOT so the movement goes slowly. Since they are frustrated in fighting this movement, the next pope calls for a crusade and simply slaughter them to eliminate the heresy. It is shortly afater Innocent’s death. They also institute an inquisition a judicial system to try to ferret out heretics. They stoked the fires, and that was in 1233.
But it turns out that for both orders the crucial thing aside from poverty, is education. So both orders then begin to instill in the people who are carrying out the church’s ministries, good theol education. Hence the impt of Thomas Aquinas and the dev of colleges for the Franciscans a big name is Duns Scotus. He was a Scotsman. Their ministry for the most part centers around university communities and urban areas. By the mid-13th century, the leadership even in the Franciscans has shifted over to the clergy and they have become in a way a part of the ecclesiastical establishment, being used to educate, b/c one ofhte concerns of the papacy is educated min, also to preach crusades b/c orders all over the place, and to carry out special functions for the papacy, like a franciscan is sent to the court ofhte mongrel emperor of China, to set up a peace accord, b/c mongrels are raising heck in Europe. It took Cortel a couple of years just to get to Beiging and spends time trying to evangelize China. The christians are thrown out once the Mongrel rule ends. It reflects both the sacrificial char and herioc char of many of the missionaries. So friars as parat of the estab will need renewal themselves. Those who maintain the vision of St. Francis crit’d the est’d franciscan order of the 13th century, and themselves went into Schism, from those who observed poverty with the spirituals. Bitter fight and by Pope John XXII, the observants or spirituals are condemned as heretical, b/c claim JC had no possessions. The outcome of the movement is the broadened impact of the medieval monastic ideal and the growing import of the laity in the affairs of the church. By the time of the rennaissance and reformation it becomes massive.
Church History 12/2/98
Bring outlines on the Monday of Reading Week, at class time and review. Outline due w/exams.
Sugeno@aol.com e-mail.
As to exam and outline. The major concern so far as he is concerned is that you have some understanding of the context within which the church carries on its ministry that helps you understand why dev occurs the way they did. Looked at the early dev of the church to follow the logic of the church’s central understanding of the nature of its faith within the hellenistic judea pagan context. So you can understand why a Paul or Justin Martyr would give expression to the nature of their understanding to christian faith, given that context. Then obviously during the Constantinian period, the context changes quite dramatically. The constant in this is the church’s faith, but the context is in flux and sometimes dramatic changes. That will at least keep you from just collecting a lot of facts, and give you some idea why certain people were seen as being significant. That will also help you prepare for GOEs. Too much mass to memorize.
Left us with questions about the status of the 39 articles as it relates to predestination. What is the anglican view of predestination? What are the authoritative view of the 39 articles on predestination? It says we have a predestination toward life in Jesus. It is kind of fuzzy, very anglican. Clearly there is some kind of affirmation of the predestinarian understanding of the human destiny. Part of what church history does is first to teach you how to find out precisely where we stand when it is fuzzy. Always grasp wtih the Q of authority, just b/c Cranmer said it doesn’t mean it is so. How do we handle the issue of authority. The epis church does not agree with all that the church of england maintains. Thirdly, if you will look at the preface to the 1552 pb, it points out the extent to which a sense of history informs our claims about thenature of the chr faith. History does shape us but it doesn’t straight jacket us. It is worth reading the preface as try to figure out what does anglicanism hold about predestination, and what do we think about it.You are charged with being in touch yourself and the dialogue over the centuries. It seems that a cranmerian version of predest was profoundly shaped by the reformation, but don’t accept the double predestination of Calvin, that some are predestined to salvation and some to damnation. There might be some things for which the issues will be very clear and others where not nec’ly wishy washy. I believe in the sov’ty of God, and also in the freedom of the human soul.
What about Augustine’s ongoing dialogue with himself about the baptism of infants? Yes it is difficult thing and question becomes what is authoritative in the church. Aug may have trouble with infant baptism, but anglicanism as practice infant bapt not a problem, but as to how interp it is problem.
What does Mr. Whitcliffe have to say about holiness of life? Don’t need a lot of possessions. When give alms are for God, and not to support the high life style of the church. Holiness is not the job of clergy, but to minister to poor and needy. Alms don’t go to church. Before you answer these kinds of questions, need to say why this thing was written. Growing sentiment that people tired of abuses of the church. He was living on the Papacy of Avignon and struggles of clergy secular power and felt out of place. Part of the extravagance was response to the huge cathedrals and gold that were unnecessary. Massey Shepherd, great liturgics scholar said sh sell Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and not waste money on piles of stone. The point that liturgy was in a language that the people could not understand. Quite often the priests could not understand. If a chancery priest especially if being paid by a patron to pray for the patron’s soul. A careful meaningful reading of the liturgy was not what all about, just rattled through it. We should worship in way that reflects culture. It was not just the liturgy, but the whole bible, and word was essential for living in Christ.
Dr. S: Clearly, lying behind Wycliff’s criticism of the church of his age wer no of probl: (1) the church was changing into a large centralized bureaucratic org.,as the papacy attempted to bring some order into the very chaotic life of the church. (2) the clergy were poorly educated for the most part and consequently people themselves were not well educated concerning the nature of the faith and the contents of the bible. Now the friars had played a major part in at least broadening the educational scope of the activ of the church through their preaching missions. The major preachers in the 13th and 14th century were the friars, Carmelites, Franciscans, etc. at this stage the nature of their preaching still reflects the medieval outlook regarding theology. Some of it is pretty bizarre. Especially as the stories are told they are cluttered with hagiographical material, saints stories. The complaint is, especially as the laity become more literate, it departs more dramatically from the simple stories told in the bible. Just having sermons is crucial. So we need to have an educated clergy who know the bible, and biblically centered understanding to carry on their parish ministry. So lying behind Wycliff’s concern is the need to restructure the order of the church so the parish ministry becoes effective. The friars roam around w/o primary pastoral responsibility. They were the most powerful element in the org’d life of the church in the 1th century, had become part of the establishement and lost their cutting edge. From Wycliff’s pt of view, they are quite a nuisance. He also sees this growing bureaucratic order of the church to get in the way of the primary mission of the church. For these bureaucrats like lay officials, exercise power, deal in social and polit issues rather than the primary mission, and like the magistrates in the secular realm, they live a life appropriate to officialdom. So the moneys raised in the church go to support this lavish lifestyle. It is not always lavish, but tending to get that way as Europe is beg’g to become affluent. Think of the portraits that Peggy Parker showed us. Even in the portrayal of the holy family, the virgin is wrapped in beautiful raiments and costly material, it reflects a more bourgoise std of life. As far as Wycliff is concerned that may be ok for lay folk, but quite inapproriate not only for the Franciscans, the abbots the bishops and even the pope.
Clearly lying behind Wycliff’s critical analysis of the ills of the church of its time is the monastic model of true christian living. I am not using that in a perjorative sense. That is a powerful image. It is sacrificial living on behalf of the gospel. But so far as he is concerned, the only thing needful for Church functionaries is food, raiment and shelter of the most simple, unelaborated variety. For after all, did not the Lord live w/o a roof over his head and command his apostles to go out w/o extra clothing. Did he not live in the simplest of fashion without ownership of property. The Pope said anyone who said the Lord did not own property was heretical. He was opposed to the extremism of the mendicant view of the nature of true christian living. But behind wycliff’s analysis is the assumption that what Francis said about poverty was the std by which church officialdom should be evaluated. If wanted the parishioners to live simply and in the light of the gospel, then have to expect priests to set that example, or how are their words credible? (Pope John XXII)
So in order to renew the church one needed first people dedicated to stds of poverty, educated regarding the gospels and prepared to preach. Church officials should stay out of political entanglements. All the church possessions should reflect the stds of poverty and simplicity. So the magnificent cloisters for friars and monks were to be condemned.
Wycliff’s ideas took hold as people reflected on the problems. The popes were living in high style. It cost a fortune to pay for the new papal center in Avignon. They had to build now new palaces, new great churches, and recruit clerks, judges and the whole apparatus that is necessary for the centralized church government. Church taxes were steep. The number of functionaries grew dramatically. Furthermore, many of the now even parishes, as well as positions in cathedrals and epis offices, the livings that were endowed for those institutions were often reserved by the papacy in order to pay these functionaries, who were absentee livings, so would hir people as their vicars in these parishes, sometimes even the bishop was an absentee bishop. Furthermore, the papacy, in order to gain leverage among the faithful, before this the papacy had great prestige as the vicar of christ and the successor of the prince of the apostles, now the pope needed institutional power. If he sent someone from rome to england to try to get the english church and monarchs to reform the church there, what kind of leverage would they have? One was excommunication. Leaving people out of their life blood. The other was the threat of a crusade. Another ws the power of granting indulgences. A powerful incentive for people who took their faith seriously. Threat of hell and purgatory would encourage people to behave better and seek pardon. As recall with Innoc III, his threat of excomm and carrying out of it gave him tremendous power. But Inn III had political savvy, that kind of awareness of what is politically appropr is rare. He used the powers sparingly and judiciously. He brt king John to his knees. He was able to persuade Phillip Augustus to reform his ways, and made a vassal out of King John and htae monarch in Spain. But you can only use those powers sparingly if going to have an effect.
But one notes in the 14th century, every time the pope unhappy with te city of Venice, he would excomm them, and the Venetians got tired of it, built up an immunity. Same with crusades. When the first crusade initiated in 1095, and tried to reclaim the holy land, people gave very generously, and some went all the way to the holy land to reclaim it for the holy faith. But when you begin to declare many crusades and some v Venice or Albigensians in southern France, then the Question of the appropriateness of that is raised in people’s minds. By the 14th century so many crusades initiated by popes, people began to get angry about them, and concerned about the church’s money going to the crusades. Before the reformation a good number of people criticized the establishment. It is very difficult to change institutions, it was a slow build up of values over the centuries. Conseq’ly the changes are slow. If changes aren’t made will be interrupted by revolution. Here in the 14th century, the frustration is there. The middle class would be affected by the way the papacy doing bs, it was a building up of its system to make the church more effective that aggravated the problem.
Indulgences were now a money maker rather than a spontaneous gracious act to relieve people who were concerned about the pains and pun’mt rightly deserved for sinful life. As the reformers noted, the only pun’mt were the ones the church gave out, and God is the one who punishes. Notion of purgatory is inappropriate.
In the 14th century, there was an alternative theol understanding, so our crit view of the way bs was done at that time is inappropriate. But on the one hand it is nec for the church to try to impose some kind of order. To do so, it creates some ecclesiastical machinery. It creates a burden from the top down, and in some ways aggravates the problem. As will see in the next session, the kingdoms are also beg’g to build their own political structure in order to order a feudal society which is moving toward nationhood. As that happens, and the papacy is seen as but one player, in the nationalistic development, so they have a stake in the power struggle, and can’t act as an arbiter. So part of the alienation of the kings and the people scattered about christendom, complaint about papacy is not helping, but making a pwoer grab like everyone else. Conseq’ly they have looked cynically on papal pronouncements. The prot reading of the middle ages, tends to demonize the popes, but need for reform needed since Hildebrand. State’s righters create a clash, and resolved through violence and laws.
Church History 12/4/98
CONCILIARISM
The Holy Roman Emperor ___ convoked a council considered to be ecumenical, to convene in the city of Constance. Top of the priority was the dealing of the scandal of three folks claiming to be the vicar of Christ, the wielder of the plenitude of power responsible for both secular and spiritual swords claiming auth over secular and church catholic rule. The existency of the three popes had caused confusion and considerable distress among the faithful, and as a conseq the conflicting claims of these three popes, the church was falling into disarray. Who is the true pope, whom do we obey, to whom do we send taxes and to whom do we appeal when conflict in the churhc. Whose indulgences are the most valid. Does alignment with the wrong pope mean the loss of salvation. You can imagine the confusion and consternation for those who took their faith seriously. Even those who didn’t , the papacy was at the heart of christendom. So Citisdom understood the resp that someone had to take over this issue. Now the difficulties had arisen b/c of the political involvement inteh papacy in european affairs. The King of France distressed with Boniface VIII had eventually taken him prisoner and mistreated him, and as a result of mistreatmetn, he had died shortly after his release. The solution to the polit problem was to move the papal residence from Rome to Avignon, which was w/in the jur of the Holy Roman Emperor, but the King of France would have the greater impact on the polit consid of the pope. So beg’g in 1309 and lasting 69 years, approximately 70 years, the papacy was in the Babylonian Captivity of the powerful infl of the kings of France, much to the distress of the enemies of France. For when issues arose that pitted one nation v another, the likelihood was that pope would side w/France.
Phil of Burman wanted to marry Margaret Flanders, a weathy heiress. It was love or lust that motivated him. She was heiress to one ofhte richest precincts. Flanders had great wealth. She had other territ as well that she would inherit on the death of her father. Her father wanted to make a connn w/Engl and King Edw was keen on having his son marry Marg to secure power. Looked like Engl to win out and France persuaded the pope to judge that the degrees of consanguinity were too close for Engl to marry Flanders. All the pope had to do was to persuade his bureaucracy to make that jdg. So flanders ends up in the jur of Burgandy. These types of infl that France could wield on the Avignon papacy made it imperative on the part of other nations to see that the papacy return to Rome. So it happened that eventually one of the popes ret’d to Rome. It was thougt to be just temporary, but he died on this journey so the folks in Italy all converged on Rome and put trem pressures to have the election in that city, and an italian was elected. He called himself Urban VI. He was not partic’ly well qualified candidate, but belonged to a major infl family. Most of the italian popes came from these families. But the maj of the cardinals who elected Urban were French and made the claim that Urban’s claim was not valid and was carried on while the cardinals were under duress, so they had another election and surprise chose a Frenchman, Clement VII, adnhe and his cardinals moved back to Avignon. Having a couple of popes was nothing new in the medieval experience. It had happened w/HIldebrand when he Greg VII was having fight w/Henry IV, and appt’d new pope to his own likeing for a year or two. But the sit now was quite diff for the papacy jurisdiction reached into the lives of the nations in a way that was not the case in early centuries. There was now this elaborate ecclesiastic court system which took care of all jurisdictional issues, the probating of wills, and the annulment of marriages, quarrels between kings and ecclesiastics or lay noble ecclesiastics, all clerics were tried in eccles courts, an elab tax system. There was the granting of indulgences. Institutions that had dev’d over 200-300 years and now to have two popes, andin place now for a number of years, made the sit intolerable, and even the king of france was unhappy and tried to get the pope in Avignon to resign but he refused to do so.
But how do you resolve an issue when it involves the supreme autority in the church. Who has the authority to consider and deal with the issue. In earlier centuries the monastic and friars had played a powerful role in effecting reform and initiating renewal, but these institutions had been preempted by the church and were now a part of the establishment, so they had an investment in that situation, and could hardly serve as an arbitraator as Bernard could. The only powerful agency that had a measure of detachment and consequently could assess the situation a little more objectively were the universities. By the 14th century, the universities were powerful, partic Oxford and Paris, and Univ of Prague was just beg’g to flex its muscles. By the 14th century many issues are now being presented to scholars for their thoughtful consideration, and get some measure of the power of the univ when consider in another 150 years when Henry VIII is trying to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, he turns to the universities to see if his marriage is valid and they will find on his side. It displays the powerful role and some of those in universities are giving thought to authority in the church. We considered Wycliff’s thoughts on the matter but he was preceded by others who took as extreme a veiw as he, for instance Dante, who died in the 1320s. Dante proposes a Council to deal with church issues, for he is not particularly with the performance of popes who heavily populate the lowest regions of purgatory because of their misconduct.
Perhaps more impt is Marcilius Hipagua, who 1324 authors a consideration of issues and authority, Defender of Peace" was name of book, argues that all authorities, both secular and ecclesiastic, spiritual resides in the church catholic, the whole church, all christian people, so the autho of bishops, kings, popes and nobles are delegated, so the answerability of these people is to the well -being of all people. Since councils are representative of the people, that councils bear higher authority than popes. But then since spiritual values must be taken on not to coerce but voluntarily, that all coercive power to maintain law and order resides with the prince and not the priest. The resp of law and order requires coercive powers and the wielder of the coercive power should be the prince not prelate, emperors and kings rather than popes and bishops. Religious values depend on one’s voluntary acceptance of the claims of the church and cannot be coerced. You can coerce people to confirm and conform externally to the demands of the church, but that is not faith. It was the same arg that Roger Williams will use sev centureis later in arg’g the disestablishment of the church. But the prince can demand conformity to church laws because he needs to order the kingdom, and that way he can be helpful to the priests. The priests function in the spiritual realm and conseq’ly sh not carry on these political responsibilities, which are part of the resp of parish priests and bishops and popes. Can see a similarity ofhte understdg of Wycliff in the church which sh be surely spiritual. It takes sev centuries before the church will lay claim to all coercive powers. The divine right of kings will dev in the 16th century and carried out in the 17t century, and the reason for elevating the importance of the prince is to counter the claims of the church. The idea that the prince is carrying out God’s purposes is scarcely new, see it in Paul and Augustine. Therefore sh be obedient.
But now the church is the major player in carrying out coercive powers. Roger Bacon is imprisoned for many years for his refusal to conform to church teachings. Later on people like Galileo gets into trouble and church will use coercive power to straighten him our. Marcilius, Wycliff, Ockham, will contend that it is an improper use of the church’s powers. Less radical proposals much of the more radical thought actually came from England, but more moderate proposal now dealing specifically dealing with the issue of schism came from Paris. Conrad of Galsenhalzen, but their proposal usually comes under the title of Conciliarism. Conrad of Gelhausen in 1380 simply makes the claim that councils are above popes as the church universal is superior to popes. As historically could point out that the councils had established dogmatic formularies for the church and made the creedal determinations and made the basis for them being canonical. This would sugg a way out of the dilemma of a great schism. Convene a universal council and have them deal with the issue. So Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor calls a council. The medieval period, also had ecum councils convened by popes. But earlier onces like Constant and Chalcedon had been convend by emperors. But the opponents claimed not valid b/c not convened by the pope. It was a pretty impressive gathering. When read details of these gatherings realize what a great occasion they were. He is not too fam with Constance, but in places like the Council of Trent, princes would come after others had come first and make a grand entrance at the end, w/streams of peddlars to sell their wares, like Tshirts of today. Peddlars of all things and army of prostitutes. 1413 and lasted 4 yrs. This council was virtually all clerics, three patriarchs, 29 cardinals, 33 Ab’s 150 bishops and 100 abbots and 300 doctors of theology. Imagine all these talkative people.
So questoin is who has prime authority and how to resolve the issues. But it was virtually imposs to come to theol conclusions except that councils wer over popes, and before fin’d set up a reg schedule for councils. Did not have to wait on the pope to call the next council. They claimed the three claimants to the papal throne were no longer acceptable. Pope John had an int’g list of charges and suspended for fornication, adultery, incest and sodomy and poisoning his predecessor, so not diff to say he was not an appropr pope. Then elected a successor, Pope Martin V, and the only othe rimpt bs was to burn John Huss at the stake, of Chechoslovakia, b/c he had been influenced by wycliff. Wycliff had taugt that poverty was the appropr vocation for clerics as well as monks, bishops and all sh own nothing except what nec for survival and to carry out their resp. That meant the rej of the established order.
Q If one ofhte args was that eccles power sh not have a coercive power, how could they burn Huss at the stake? Indeed there was a technically non-involvement in the physical pun’mt of people but what they would do was run it thru the eccles court, and declare a heretic and turn over to the secular arm and the sec arm would burn. If the state burned, tehchurch was involved. In the case of the Lollars, it was not an enormously powerful movement in Engl, but had its day criticizing the est’mt for its lifestyle and people refused to accpt the parish priest b/c did not conform to the wycliffite std, and while wycliff was protected by his patron, tho teachings were condemned and his followers were persecuted quite severely. Dug him us and burned him while dead. Lollars were followers of Wycliff. Hussites were the followers of Huss who followed Wycliff’s ideas, but they wer far more powerful and became a major movement in bohemia. The Bohemian brothers are in some ways a descendant of the Hussite movement. After this council, while the conciliarists tried to maintain the momentum and make the councils an extreme auth in the churc and have a more rep govt, it didn’t work. You don’t create a rep govt by fiat. There were two many diff views. So a council at Basil and proclaimed again the superiority of councils over Popes, but that was the last hurrah and went back after that to the auth and super of the pope and full power. The context for the dev in the 14th and 15th century was one of consolidation of powers secularly and eclesiastically. Centralized power in highly feudalistic area. The 100 years war, the French king trying to consol power and the king of Engl is the most powerful rival to French territories, and during this war that Joan of Arc plays a major role in inspiring the french troops to fend off the English. French are successful and the french king makes good his claim tgo be sovereign, and by the end of the war only thing left to Engl is Calais. The war of roses in Engl is the strugg betw the monarchy and the nobles and by the end of that war, the tudors emerge ascendant and the pwoers of the aristocracy is ltd. The papacy tries to do the same thing in Italy, and much of the eccles policy is to further that end. Declare crusade v Cicily and not successful, but in declaring the crusade they will raise money thru taxes and use the money to fight what is basically a papal war to strengthen its power. The notion of a commonwealth where people have a role in det’g policy is alien to virtually everyone. The society is still org’d from top down, but emerging a sense of nationality, and is expressed in the Shakespearean framework, where now have a sense of ident not b/c of rel’shp to local lord but b/c belogn to the territ call England. We are now watching the process dev where feudalism is giving way to a nationalistic ordering of society. The struggle is to maintain order and so far as church history is concerned to serve the mission of the church and while there are differing understandings of who sh carry it out and how, there is widespread agmt that the church has to be reformed and its taxation system is now onorous and the ct system is elaborate and the system itself leads to corruption. For instance popes need money, and one way did that was to create new offices in the curia and sell those offices to the highest bidder. Did not need the office but money, and had little resp. But sim corruption was occuring in the secular sphere. How to finance the cost of now a growing sense of bureaucracy and how to minimize the disorder in the midst of thestruggle among barons or political aristocrats as over the centralized agents. Look at Shakespeares’ plays. A lot ofthe policies and practices are not nec due to the nepharious actons of immoral people, but the situation itself contributed to this period of great chaos.
As will see at the start of next sem will be huge polit exposure and the prot and RC countries will lay claim to the ascendency to the church and state. The national system of govt will determine the rule of the church.
CHURCH HISTORY 12/7/98
Usually Luther gets a better press than Erasmus. But since anglicanism tends to be humanistic, there are many anglicans who think better of Erasmus than Luther. Both are towering figures not only in rel to the church but to the social political scene in general.
14th and 15th centuries is Renaissance, marked by a rebirth of classical studies of science. A reclaiming of the hellenistic heritage of europe. It is a period of remarkable creative energies, as though the pent-up creativity of medieval society exploded, inventions, art, exploration and mil conquest, architecture. The chr world reverses the barbarian invasion movement and the chr society itself becomes the invader as it erupes into the whol world and will continue from the end of the 15th cen to the 20th.
Chr was virtually surrounded by Islam and asiatic conquerers like huns, mongrels and turks, and from the Southern reaches, the arabs, and now the guns of mil power will shift and the chr will begin to be the aggressor. The last hurrah for islamic expansion is the 16th century when come up to the gates of Vienna. They will get pushed back and over the next sev centuries, christianity will reclaim the balkan area. Same in Spain, whre in 1492, the last of the Muslim states is conquerred and all of the Iberian peninsula becomes chr in its allegiance. Furthermore, in the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan in 1498, he will begin that Chr surrounding of Islam, and Islam will reach to Phillippines in Mindanou but that will be the last expansion of Islam. In response to the great outward impulse, where europe is haveing that embattled outlook, it begins to think of possib of better life in eruopr and throughout the world. Stop to think of the conquest of the islamic state in spain is in 1492, and it is also the year of the discov of America. It is also the year that the Borchevs occupied the papal throne which was a diff understdg of what means to be a pope.
Now the people themselves saw their era as beign a dramatic break away from medieval society, and they saw their society as being a modern society. They saw the earlier period as being a medieval one, in between the classical culture of hellenistic world and the renewal of that hellenistic trad in the renaissance era in the 15th and 16th centuries. Like we in our generation think of ourselves as post-modern and just know don’t mean the modern world. Similarly the modernists of the renaissance era saw themselves abandoning that pol order and culture which they called medieval, an unfort hiatus in the civilized activ of europe. So in the rejection of things medieval, they looked at gothic architecture as barbaric. So the architecture was gothic not classical, and symettrical and geometrical harmony characteristic of Grecoroman arch. So things classical were in, and things medieval were out. This should not be seen as being a dramatic break. We can see the shift beg’g to occur by the 14th century. The apostle had a diff perspective on the world. Even in the 16th century, when the renaissance culture in the its ascendency, many didn’t approve.
Many of the changes of this era are not introduced by design. A major part of the change is introduced by the econ dev of the period. For instance, the beg’g of great commerce and the shift to a money economy means that many of the econ activiites of the feudal society are no longer adequate. Subsistence farming where large tracts of land divided into strips and divided among the occupants of that domain, not suff for commercial farming, or the woolen mills of flanders, and no longer avail to the peasants so the peasants are dislocated, and a lot of peasant uprisings during this period. They are generated by frustration and necessity. Or with the knightly class, once there is more stable social order, the services of these knights are no longer so badly needed, and there is now a shift toward a professional army. With the introduction of guns, heavy metal clad warriors are no longer very effective. So there is a great dislocation of that military class. Even the first estate, the clerical class, finds that it is out of step with much of the new development, b/c there is a dislocation of population. The churches of the manor house are now located whre there are few peasants and knights and growing urbanization where there are very few churches. So the clerical class finds itself dislocated in the modern era.
As you know where there is radical social change, the direction to take is not an easy one to solve. So there is much unhappiness. The changes, many want to go back to the old ways, but as Cervantes shows in his study of "One night of Spain," return to such cult life style is ridiculous--you can’t go back. So much of the intell energy goes toward where society might go to advance the wellfare of the people. A number of books are written at this time, introducing new ideas. Thomas More’s Utopia is one such book. While the proposal is Utopian, it addresses some of the principles that might be part of the new society. For the young intellectuals, the forward looking folk of this time, much of the hope lies in the classical heritage in Europe. Look to the time of universal law as over against chaos of a feudal order. They looked back to a time when law was universally applied and there was due process. They looked back to a time when no superstition. All this hocus pocus that goes on at the altar reflecs an uninformed uncritical mentality which they think is not useful for a devout Christian. The hocus corpus mahew was what was said, but some priests did not know what saying and it would be criticized as a hocus pocus jumbo.
They looked at the splendid arch and beautiful arch of the classical age and they want to revive that heritage which they do. Oil paintings get started with explosion of excuisite arch and art. The romanesque style of arch comes back into vogue and there is a great deal of literary activities and scientific research which had not been an impt part of medieval life. People talk about humanism as a hallmark of the renaissance. Humanism in the 20th century is seen as a perjorative and non-relig term. Humanitos, humanism for the renaissance person denoted a new perspective into faith, church and world which is reflected in the art of the time. When you look at a Michaelangelo, or great artist of the time, there is a sensible solidity, the fleshliness of the subjects that are not partic strong in medieval art. There is a sense of a realism that marks the renaissance art that does not make the human figure merely a symbol of the reality behind the religious paintings. This world, not just human beings, mavericks, the natural order and all that they look at is seen in more realistic fashion. It is their belief that it is this immediacy of the world that is more true to the chr understndg of creation. So all these allegorical readings of the world and of the past are seen as doing injustice to the importance of the immediate realities. Chr faith is not just concerned with the hereafter, but the here and now. So one sh be chr of the human pilgrimage AND the wonders of creation.
So the humanists like Erasmus and More, spend a lot of their literary energy poking fun at the medieval style of looking at life and the medieval allegorical strategy in reading the bible. There is a sense in which the disc of writing etc are not just refl or symbol of higher reality. So the scientist takes on a higher authority, looking at the natural order for its own sake. This is now the rebirrth of science. In other words, that archetectronic structuring by Thomas Aquinas who sees the whole world under the divine providence, is rejected and see it within selves.
So it is an outlook that no longer sees the institutional church in that high sacramental fashion characteristic of someone like Thomas Aquinas. How much ref was there to the church in Erasmus’ writing? Go to church and say your confession? Seek counsel ofyour priest? Not that the church ws unimportant to erasmus, but it does not have the dominant position for people who are under the infl of humanism. Erasmus’ Praise of Folly, the church functionaries take a beating as he points out how poor their latin is, and get carried away with their allegories and how disfuncitonal they are. Not an easy time to be a cleric in those days. So this new humanistic perspective informing this new age as the new econ social political order is developing which will result in the nation states as we know it today. This is a transition point. While people like erasmus are crit of the status quo and mindset of the period, he is basically conservative and not proposing a revolutionary change. Nor for that matter was Luther, but he lit a match to illuminate his surroundings, and found he was surr’d by dynamite.
It is within this context that we look at the church as it struggles to carry out its ministry in the period. As we noted earlier, it is a tough time for the papacy. For no longer can it simply dictate terms and excomm folk and serve as arbitrator in the various conflicts that is to be found throughout europe. When the so-called golden bull of the germanic princes was issued in 1356, said pope no longer had to confirm the election of holy roman emperor, whereas before that the pope was seen as the maker of emperors. Or in 1393 statutes of PRAEMUNIRE PROVISORS, severly limited the power of church in Engl. The pope could not make apptmts w/o king of Engl’s approval. Could make judicial pleas into foreign courts. The growing efforts to limit papal powers where the kings wanted control of the kingdom. Then in 1438, the king adopted the pragmatic sanction of Bourges which declared that councils were above popes, and that papal pronouncements without sanction from ecumenical councils were not binding. For in a very catholic pious regime as that of Ferd and Isabella, their refusal to allow a papal inquisition (rant their own inquisition). By the end of 16th cnetury, the pope were more occupied with advancing their polit power and strengthening the roman state in a manner parallel to the activ of other kings. There is cutting down on the power and priv of barons and est’g the rule of law, and extending their territories. One did so w/marriages of daughter. They too were caught up with this humanistic spirit. For instance it was Nicholas V who started up the great Vatican library, and he began the reconstructino of the city of Rome and Vatican so he ordered that a new St. Peter’s Church be built and brt to Rome all the great artists architects to beautify the city of Rome. Glory of the papacy.
So the reputation of the papacy was not enhanced at all by these activities. For a lot of the money came from church taxes from all over christendom. Another aspect of the importance of humanism in church life is the great biblical studies of the age. The greatest being that of erasmus, who in mid-career stopped to study greek so could work on new greek nt, and it could become the basis of new transl in the vernacular to replace the vulgate. That in part was to meet the growing market among literate laity who are seeking spiritual resources which were not provided by the church. Some of the clerics were very unhappy that the laity were reading the bible, b/c many of them were more sophisticated than their priests and the humanistic appro of approaching the text in literal rather than allegorical terms, meant that many sermons were dismissed out of hand as being unfaithful to the text. So a parallel to this movement is a growth in lay groups some of which called themselves orders or confraternities, to dev a life of piety. So that movements like the modern devotional groups in the Netherlands like which Thomas Akempis was associated, "The Imit of Christ," that kind of literature and those acts of devotion increased greately in the 15th and 16th centuies. A development was helped along by the introd of the printing press. The first bible was 1453 by Guttenberg. Now possible to put out large numbers of books and make them more affordable. If the editor has done a good job, they are more reliable.
So here again there is a distancing between many of the faithful and the church as they understand it. Given a good theol reason and an effective it can result in a great reformation of the church. So the stage is set for the next.
Q: example of an allegorical interpretation. Clearly texts from numbers and leviticus were diff to be taken literally, but if you were operating in the sacramental providential framework of the middle ages, could say that certain demands were indirect referrals. These often had nothing to do with the scripture but might serve as a cautionary tale.
Q: Was the scholastic understanding and aristotelian system a contributor to humanism. IN part yes, but the superstructure that is in diff in the humanistic age. The superstructure auth is based on revelation rather than reason. So if say through reason cant get the doctrien of trin, so had to have a special revelation, a humanist would say that need to rethink this. Aristot was closely assoc’d w/medieval system, so platonism became more signif in the renaissance. The platonism of middle ages was the neo-platonism of augustine rather than his political and ethical writings.