The Instructor (Clement of Alexandria)

Clement of Alexandria.  The Instructor.  Ante Nicene Fathers.

Clement, head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, combined philosophical sophistication with warm, if at times excessive, piety. Although it is not made clear by the editor, Clement must be understood as representative of what a philosophical school looked like in the ancient world.  Philosophy then does not mean what it means now (or even worse, what we think it means now).  Someone who was part of a philosophical school was part of a very particular community.  This community might set forth certain rules for eating, drinking, and even walking.  This should not be understood as “adding to the bible.”  It simply went with the territory. Regardless, many of Clement’s rules, although not followed today, illustrate what life would have looked like in the 3rd century.

Scope

Clement’s argument is simple: because Christ is our Teacher, we can teach. Because Christ is our  teacher, we have a message to teach. “The whole of piety is hortatory,” aiming “to improve the soul” (I.1). Clement’s rules, while at times appearing odd or legalistic, seek only “the attainment of right dispositions.” Throughout the treatise, the instructor is primarily Jesus, although at times the particular human instructor is in view.

Virtue

Not surprisingly, given the provenance of Alexandria, there is a strong Platonic thrust to Clement’s message. “Nothing exists, the cause of whose existence is not supplied by God.” A few lines later, Clement identifies God and the Word (I.8).

“Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin” (I.13).  Virtue, accordingly, “is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life.” Clement expands his earlier definition of virtue as “which is the Word given by the Instructor to be put into practice” (III.6).

Speaking thus of the soul: “The soul consists of three divisions: the intellect, which is called the reasoning faculty, is the inner man,” the irascible, and appetite (III.1).

Somewhat to the chagrin of the editor, Clement believes the narrative in Genesis 6 refers to angels: “An example of this are the angels, who renounced the beauty of God for a beauty which fades, and so fell from heaven to earth” (III.2).  In a footnote the editor grudgingly admits this was the common view in the early church.

In conclusion, he sets forth the goal of Torah for the life of the student: “For the intention of his law is to dissipate fear, emancipating freewill in order to faith” (III.12).

Practice

On eating: We should eat that we may live (II.1). “Our diet should be light and digestible and suitable for keeping awake.” Clement is not trying to make a list of what is and is not acceptable for the Christian.  Rather, in our lifestyles “daintiness is to be shunned.”  He defines gluttony as “the excess in the use of relishes.”  Such people, he says, “are ruled by a most lickerish demon, whom I shall not blush to call the Belly-demon.”

On drinking: the natural drink is water, but Clement makes an interesting comment that “wine” was associated with the prophetic cluster (II.2). He says it is associated with the Word, but I think it is more accurately associated with “Kingship.” He should have pursued this line of thought, for it dovetails nicely with his comments on kingship in the Stromata.

Some of his comments, while silly, are always amusing: “The breasts and organs of generation, inflamed by wine, expand and swell in a shameful way.” 

Evidently coed public bathing was common: “The baths are opened promiscuously to men and women, and there they strip for licentious indulgence (from for from looking, men get to loving” (III.5).

Clement notes a connection between luxury and sodomy: “The Sodomites having, through much luxury, fallen into uncleanness, practicing adultery shamelessly, and burning with insane love for boys” (III.8).

Conclusion

It would not be easy to apply all of Clement’s insights today, but there are some that are worth noting.  The good teacher will seek to encourage right dispositions according to right reason.  Clement knew, perhaps breaking with Plato, that knowledge by itself is not enough. Rather, the true Instructor will form the whole man.

The Seven Ecumenical Councils (Schaff series)

The Seven Ecumenical Councils. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series Two. Vol. 14.

This volume is a list of the canons of each council with running commentary by the then-leading patristic scholars.  The subtitle can read: “Getting the Bishops to Behave.”  While the format is not user-friendly, as the reader who just wants a list of the canons might be reading for a while, the knowledge is certainly learned and welcome.

Although the book is labeled The Seven Ecumenical Councils, many of the more important regional councils (e.g., Carthage, Sardica, Trullo) are listed.  Pride of place, both in history and in this review, is given to Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon.

Nicea

Although the Nicene Creed is close to the Nicene-Constantinapolitan Creed, there are differences.  For one, Jesus is begotten “of the substance of the Father.”  Does that make a big difference?  Maybe, although I cannot think of one at the moment. 

The canons of Nicea make for interesting reading, though little of it is of much theological substance.  Canon 17 condemns clergy who take interest on loans (36).  Canon 20 warns against associating with wizards (47).  Absent from the canons is any discussion of the canon of Scripture.  This is important on at least two grounds.  For one, we have no record here of the church “creating a canon.”  Moreover, we have no record here of Constantine deciding which books are in the canon of scripture.

Ephesus

Ostensibly convened to deal with the problem of Nestorius and whether one can call Mary the Mother of God, the Council of Ephesus provided us with the pinnacle of Christological reflection. Cyril of Alexandria, the sphragidis ton pateron, the seal of the Fathers, cogently argued that “was made flesh,” and not merely united to the person of man (198).  He was not “converted into flesh, [but] he made his indwelling in such a way as we may say that the soul of man does in his own body” (202-203).  He is “hypostatically one in flesh.”

Cyril will speak of “two natures,” but it is “of two” (ek duo), transfering the human and divine to the person.  He follows with a list of anathemas against Nestorius:

1. … those who refuse to call Mary “Theotokos.”
2. … who refuse to say the Logos was united hypostatically to flesh.
3. (This anathema is misleading, for it speaks of those who “after the hypostatic union divide the hypostases in the one Christ. By hypostasis Cyril does not mean “person.” He means “existent reality” of a thing.  In a sense, Cyril anathematizes those who divide the natures after the union, but even then nature does not mean what later thinkers meant by it).

Chalcedon

For us today, Chalcedon might be a victim of its own familiarity.  We speak of the two natures of Christ remaining unconfused, undivided, etc. We often miss the subtle metaphysical themes at play. Chalcedon had to respond to a number of challenges.  It had to rebuke Eutyches, who saw human nature absorbed into the divine, yet it had to be careful not to fall into Nestorianism.  It is best captured in the Tome of Leo, the highlights of which are noted below:

“For each of the natures retains its proper character without defect; and as the form of God does no take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not impair the form of God” (255).

“For each “form” does the acts which belong to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is, performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh; the one shines in miracles, the other succumbs to injuries” (256).

Session II goes on to say that “Leo and Cyril taught the same thing” (259).  At the risk of anathema, I do not see how Cyril would agree with this.  Cyril anathematized those who spoke of two “existent realities” after the union.  Leo does precisely that. Natures do not act.  Persons do. Christopher Beeley openly states that “Leo’s position is essentially the same as Nestorius” (Beeley, Unity of Christ, 276). Chalcedon bypasses the earlier narrative dynamics of Gregory and Cyril (economy of salvation) and moves into technical language (282).

We also do not see as much (if at all) talk of the Word uniting to the properties of flesh.  I do not think that is accidental. “Flesh” does not easily allow a tidy separation of natures after the union.

The Synod of Laodicea gives us a snapshot of what a worship service looked like.  

“The Congregation is gathered together, the men on one side and the women on the other.
1) The readings immediately begin. The are interrupted with chants,

2) These psalms are chanted antiphonally.

3) The bishop, if present, gives the homily.

4) The catachumens are dismissed before the mysteries are celebrated.

5) The communicants then pray the standard, “For the peace and good estate of the world…”

6) They then chant the “Sursum Corda.”

7) As the eucharist is celebrated, the people chant Ps. 34.

Conclusion

The format of this volume, as with many Schaff volumes, leaves much to be desired.  Key councils are often hard to find, and when found, they are usually buried within, not footnotes, by side-column explanations of some text a few pages earlier.  Nonetheless, this volume has remained a standard “go-to” for good reason.

Against Eunomius (Nyssa)

Early notes. Will probably be revised.

First, a few critical comments on the arrangement of the material. Then, an examination of Gregory’s theology. Gregory’s response to the Second Book of Eunomius does not have subsections, making it difficult to follow and impossible to cross-reference. Yet, many of the leading monographs point to key arguments in this book by subsection, which the editors left out. Moreover, the editors have frequent footnotes to material and sidebars that have little to do with the current discussion. Concentrating on reading small font, double-columned pages is difficult enough without distractions. .

The Content of Gregory’s Theology

Gregory’s theology can be seen as a division between Uncreated reality and created reality. While capable of standing alone, it is best seen as a critique of Eunomius’ heresy. Going to the root of the problem, Eunomius maintains that the Son and the Holy Spirit are part of created reality (p. 56; all page references are to the specific pages in the Schaff edition). Eunomius would also reduce the divine essence to “Ungenerateness.” He does this because he knows the Son is not Ungenerate; therefore, the Son is not of the essence of the Father and is reduced to created reality.

Gregory is at pains to respond accordingly: we cannot know the divine essence (103; 257). If we cannot know the divine essence, then Eunomius cannot define and reduce the divine essence to “Ungenerateness.” Rather, we know God by his operations/energies (221–God is above every name; God’s names are not interchangeable with his essence.

The Stromata (Clement of Alexandria)

Clement of Alexandria occupies the unusual position between the Apologists and Origen.  Despite Clement’s unfortunate use of the term “Gnostic” (by which means one who has true knowledge of God; he is not referring to the mystery cults), he largely avoids many of the errors of both the Apologists and Origen. Nonetheless, many of his conclusions, if not wrong, at least had to be “fine-tuned” by later Nicene writers.

Scope: Clement’s ideal man, the Gnostic, closely parallels Plato’s philosopher king. Rather than ruling a city, Clement’s Gnostic pursues the knowledge of God.  Of course, his use of the term “Gnostic” is about as tone-deaf as one can possibly imagine.

Epistemology

Clement begins his epistemology proper in book 2.  For him, anticipating thinkers like Michael Polanyi and Esther Lightcap Meek, faith and knowledge, not only of God but of anything, cannot be rigidly isolated.  Knowledge itself, being founded on First Principles, rests upon faith (2.4), since First Principles are incapable of demonstration.

Clement goes further.  Plato had demonstrated the difficulty of moving from what one knows to what one wants to know (cf. Meno). If knowledge is eternal and in the realm of forms, and what is not knowledge is in the realm of becoming, how can one from the realm of becoming to the realm of true being?  Clement cuts this Gordian Knot.  He explains: we already have a preconceived idea of what we want to know.  The act of knowing, to quote Meek, is like a vector. Faith, as it relates to knowledge, is “the anticipation of a pre-comprehension” (2.6).

I should clarify one point.  “Assent,” for the ancients, had a stronger force than it does today. When Clement calls faith “assent” (2.12), he does not mean mere acknowledgement of a true proposition.  Rather, it is closer to a necessary force on the mind.   Knowledge is a “sure comprehension,” which he calls a “katalepsis,” leading to sure and true reasons for knowledge (6.18).

Clement counters the objection that we cannot know the true Christian faith because of all the sects.  He says, by contrast, we must engage in “exercise of the apprehension of contemplation, and by reasoning of the most decisive character, we must distinguish the true from the seeming” (7.15).  Far removed from Clement is the pietistic (falsely so-called) nonsense that says we cannot trust our reasoning powers.  Indeed, we can “discover the sequence of truth” and “we are rightly condemned if we do not assent to what we ought to obey.”  Indeed, and he hints at this argument, how can we even read the Scriptures if our reasoning is so faulty?

Such a “lover of truth,” to use Clement’s elegant words, “needs force of soul.”  Not only is faith not opposed to reason, but faith, as previously glossed above, is “the essence of demonstration” (7.16).

Theology

Clement’s doctrine of the knowledge of God seems to be similar to other apophatic doctrines, but there are some differences.  Clement says God (presumably God the Father) cannot be an object of knowledge because he is not a subject for demonstration (4.25).  God is neither genus or species. Lest this plunge us into agnostic despair, Clement points towards a solution: The Son as Logos is the middle term of knowledge between the Father and us.  Clement goes on to say that the Son is “the first principle of reasoning and judgment.”

For him, the Father is “absolutely simple,” admitting of no multiplicity and distinction.  The Logos, by contrast, although very God, functions like a prism through which the simplicity unfolds into the multiplicity of the universe.

Clement, echoing the terminology of earlier Apologists, makes a distinction between the Word uttered from the Father (logos prosphorikos) and the Word in the Father (logos endiathetos). Despite his sometimes reckless language, Clement never approaches either Origen or the later Arians.  Unfortunately, he never approaches the clarity of a contemporary Irenaeus or a later Athanasius.  For example, he speaks of  “the Word issuing forth” as the cause of creation.  Later Arians technically could adopt this language, but Clement, at least here, never places the Word on the side of creation.  Clement notes that the Son is “an unoriginated First Principle” (7.1). He later says “the Son is an energy of the Father,” which is not the best use of language (7.2).

Clement equates Plato’s “region of ideas” with the “region of God,” saying that Plato “learned from Moses that it was a place that contained all things universally” (5.11).

Conclusion

Clement gives us a fascinating account of what life must have been like in an Alexandrian school.  What is interesting is Clement never talks about the role of the bishopric in the life of the church. And even if he uses mystagogical language, it is never used for initiating acolytes into the ecclesiastical mysteries.  Does Clement believe in apostolic succession?  Probably, but it does not seem to be that important for him.

Clement’s doctrine of God, while perceptive at times, remained undeveloped.  It would take the Origenist controversy and the final victory of Athanasius to cement the true faith.

Aphrahat the Persian Sage: Select Demonstrations

Aphrahat the Persian. Select Demonstrations

Found in the Schaff Nicene and Post-Nicene set, this selection of Demonstrations gives the reader a survey of “the East Beyond the East.”  Writing in either Syriac or Aramaic in the late 3rd century, the Persian solitary Aphrahat gives a glimpse of early monastic life and Christian-Jewish apologetics.  

Aphrahat is a Persian (or Assyrian, depending on how one looks at the geography).  He does not think like a Roman, and while he dates his writing relative to the time of Alexander, he does not think like a Greek, either. Like the rest of the Syriac tradition, he relies on poetry and symbol, though never eschewing argumentation where necessary.

Of Faith: Faith is helped by pure fasting and pure prayer (1.4).  He who lives by faith separates “himself from the observance of hours and Sabbaths and moons and seasons, and divinations and sorceries and Chaldean arts and magic, from fornication and from festive music, from vain doctrines” (1.19).  Is Aphrahat attacking the notion of the Sabbath as it is understood today?  The text is not clear.  Since his argument is connected with “moons” and presumably other pagan practices, it could be a general warning against pagan astrology.

Of Wars: The “ram” in Daniel is Medea Persia.  If the fourth beast is the children of Shem, then Antichrist will be a Shemite (V.10).

Of Monks: If we diligently ask for mercy, we will receive what is necessary for us in the spiritual life (VI.1).

Aphrahat exhorts the monks to resist the devil’s schemes in specific ways:

Sleepiness → vigils and psalms

Possessions → giving of alms

Christology

God and Christ are One, yet dwell in us who are many (VI.11).

Anthropology

“For when men die, the animal spirit is buried with the body, and sense is taken away from it, but the heavenly spirit that they receive goes according to its nature to Christ” (VI.14).

Scope of Biblical History

“Elijah divided up the Jordan, and John opened up baptism” (V.13).

Moses did not want to be buried in Moab, for Balaam had polluted the land (VIII.9).

On the Fate of the Wicked

Aphrahat is not a universalist.  The wicked sleep as in a great fever, fearing to awake (VIII.19). Aphrahat’s position is not actually that clear.  In the very next paragraph he says the good and wicked both sleep, not knowing either their good or bad deeds (VIII.20).  That does not seem quite right. He argues that the righteous have not yet inherited the kingdom, and apart from us they cannot be made perfect.  That much is true.

In section 23 he makes a distinction between the good spirit which goes up to God and the entire reward, presumably the resurrection of the body.

Conclusion

Because he writes in poetry and symbol, some of his arguments seem underdeveloped.  Read slowly, however, he provides fruitful meditations and a sample of Christian life east of the Tigris and Euphrates.

John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith

May 13, 2015

I read through Damascene’s On the Orthodox Faith in 2009.  At the time I had hyper-Palamite lenses on and really didn’t let Damascene speak for himself.  I am rereading him now, years and paradigms later.  He’s really quite interesting.  Contrary to the neo-Palamite Orthodox today, he isn’t afraid of “rationality” or using proofs for God’s existence.  In fact, he sounds VERY Aristotelian.  To be fair, he does anticipate later Orthodox mysticism by calling God “hyper-ousia” (I.4).

Existence and Nature of God

He does use Scripture and does allude to the Fathers, but the main thrust of his argument is natural theology. His argument for God’s existence is as follows:

(1) All things that exist are either created or uncreated. 

(2) If created, then mutable and subject to change and perishing

(3) But things that are created must be the work of some Maker

Damascene anticipates the infinite regress rebuttal and handles it in an amusing (if not entirely convincing manner)

(4) “For if he had been created, he must have been created by someone, and so on until we arrive at something uncreated.”

Perhaps not the most persuasive argument, but historically it is very telling.  The holy fathers were not averse to using “logic,” even logic apart from Scriptural and Patristic considerations, to prove points about God.

Damascene follows standard Patristic and classical usage in that the nature of God is incomprehensible.

(5) His essence is unknowable

How then can we speak about God?  In what sounds like a later Palamite move, John says, “God does not show forth his nature, but the qualities of his nature” (1.4).  Is this the same thing as saying “We can’t know God’s nature but only his energies”?  Not quite.  John does not use any of the cognates of energein.

A note on apophaticism

If we say, as John does, that God is not “darkness,” but above darkness.  Not light, but above light–why can’t we carry it through and say “God is not love, but above love.”  God is not a, b…z.  If God is above every reference point, then how can we truly predicate anything of him?  We are no longer using analogous language but equivocal language.

Pre-Notes on the Word

He doesn’t deal with Christology until Book 3 but he gives short comments here. 

(6) God always possesses his Word, proceeding from and existing within Himself (I.6).

John reasons analogously from our words proceeding from our minds, and is not identical with mind but not separate from it, so the Word has its subsistence from God.  Probably not the best analogy in the world.I find it ironic that we are always warned against Theistic Analogies, but John and Augustine go haywire on them.

(7) If a Word, then the force of the Word, which is the Spirit (1.7).

God and Being

(8) God is outside of being, yet the fountain of all being (I.8).

Along with this John gives the classic summary that God is one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, and one energy. John then gives a classic summary of the Trinity, but I want to highlight one point:

(9) “Whenever we say God is the origin of and greater than the Son, we mean in respect of causation.”

Here is the problem: Isn’t a cause different in substance to an effect?

Back to Divine Attributes

(5*) Goodness et al belong to the nature but do not explain it.

What does that even mean? 

(5′) We do not apprehend the essence itself, but only the attributes of the essence.

Will this hold water? Later thinkers, with echoes from Athanasius, identify attributes and essence.  If we apprehend the attributes, how are we not apprehending the essence also?

Angelic Personalities

(10) Angels are not spatial entities, but a mental presence and energy.

This is quite interesting and is backed up by numerous accounts of spiritual warfare.  An angel cannot be in more than one place at one time (“cannot energize two different places at the same time”).

Concerning this Aeon or Age

John notes that “age” has many meanings (II.1).

(11) An age is used to denote the temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity.

Creation

John has a really interesting section on angels.  It’s too long to replicate here, except to note several points:

(12) Angels are immaterial, mental presences. He notes some are set over nations, and ceterus paribus, this would apply to demons as well (though John fails to cite the most obvious texts to prove his point, Daniel and Revelation).

Days of Creation

John’s discussion of the days of creation is more on the nature of air, winds, constellations et al than concerning timing.  Interestingly, John says the four rivers are Tigris, Euphrates, the Nile, and the Ganges (I didn’t see that last one coming, though I suppose it could work).

Man in Creation

John’s view is markedly different from later views and apparently from the text.  He writes, “He meant for us to be free from care and have on work to perform, to sing as do the angels” (II.11).  This is no doubt true, and I suppose we wouldn’t have anxiety, but God very much intended us to subdue the earth and fill it.

God dwells in the soul, not in the body, and the soul is far more glorious than the body.  To be fair, this isn’t gnosticism or even chain of being, but a hard push can make it so.  However, he does speak of the Tree of life as “a divine thought in the world of sense and we ascend through that to the cause.  Here is the heart and definition of later monastic anchoretism.  The Christian life is one of participation and ascent from sense to hyper-ousia.

John correctly affirms substance-dualism (II.12).  Unfortunately, he holds to the flawed image/likeness dichotomy which can’t stand up to scrutiny.

Free will:  John affirms it, but what does he mean by it?  He says “there is no virtue in mere force,” which seems to be a rejection of materialistic determinism, which no Christian tradition holds today.

On the Soul

While John takes the body-soul dualism in an unhealthy direction, he does have some perceptive remarks on the soul:

1. Mind is the purest part of the soul.
2. The soul is free.  (Remember, R.L. Dabney argued that the soul, not the faculty of will was where true freedom lay).
3. It is mutable because it is created (II.12).
4. Sensation is the faculty of soul whereby material objects are discriminated (II.18).  This is a remarkably modern observation.  Sensation is not reducible to the matter.  We do not feel the faculty of sensation.  Rather, by sensation we feel pain, pleasure, etc. John reduces sensations into numerous sub-faculties, which need not detain us.
5. The soul also has the faculty of thought, and it is this faculty which prophecies to us.
6. Faculty of memory.
7. Faculty of conception.

Energy:  energy is that which is moved of itself (II.22) and in harmony with nature. .  Our energy is the force within our nature that makes present our essence (II.23).  However, John will call our natural faculties “energies,” as well.  Most importantly, an energy is moved of itself (and here is where the Reformed will ultimately differ with John).  

Our soul also possesses the faculties of life:  

The Movement of the Will

Given that Maximus the Confessor was tortured less than a century earlier for his dyotheletism, it is understandable John will devote a lot of space on the will.   Here we go:

1. Will as thelesis: faculty of desiring in harmony with nature.
2. Will as boulesis: a wish for some definite object.  We can only wish for something within our power.
3. Will as gnome: inclination.  Jesus’s soul did not have a gnomic will
4. The faculties of will are called energies (II.23).

Jesus has two wills, natural and divine, and his volitional faculties aren’t the same.  However, since the subsistence is one, the object of his will, the gnomic will, is one.

The Act of Choosing

(13) A voluntary act is one which originates from within the actor (II.24).  

John does make distinctions between providential necessity (seasons, laws of nature)

(13*) John says all mental and deliberative acts are in our hands.

This is no different from Reformed Scholasticism, which affirms that we have freedom of contradiction and freedom of contraiety (Muller 1995, 2007)..  

Side note: Elsewhere, John says that Christ, strictly speaking, did not have judgment and preference (gnome; III.14). Judgment and preference imply indecision and unknowing, which Christ, as fully God, could not have had. 

(14) Free-will is tied with man’s rationality (II.27)

If we are going to say, with John, that will is the faculty of willing, we must make a further distinction between that faculty and “choice” (arbitrium), arbitrium being the capacity of will to make that choice.  

Providence

John divides the works of providence into things that come from God’s will and God’s permission.  John justifies the misfortunes men experience under providence with the assumption that it works for a greater good (teaching, lead to repentance, etc).  

Predestination

God knows all things but does not determine all things (II.30).

Evaluation;

Much of what John says on the soul and the will is quite good.  This allows the Reformed an opportunity to robustly affirm what we believe about the will, given the confusion of the day. I do think his sub-categories of the will simply become unwieldy and his discussion is too minute.  

John is simply following Maximus, but I wonder how coherent Maximus’s discussion of dyotheletism is.  I affirm dyotheletism, but how many people can understand the difference between will, act of willing, and a mode of the act of willing?  

Christology

The Divine Economy

Gives an extended discussion of the two natures.  Standard classical Christology

(15) “But this is what leads heretics astray: they look upon nature and person as the same thing” (III.3)

Communicatio Idiomata

(16) “The Word appropriates to Himself the attributes of humanity” (III.3)

This is good Reformed Christology…so far.  The attributes of humanity are predicated, not of the divine nature but of the Person.

(16*) … “And he imparts to the flesh his own attributes by way of communication”

And here John sounds like a Lutheran.  The flesh receives the attributes of deity.  John wants to preserve several values:

(16a) The flesh is deified (which as to be the case if his teaching on the Lord’s Supper holds water).
(16b) Divine impassibility is not threatened (which is why the communication appears to be a one-way street).

Does John elucidate upon this problem?  

(17) Essence signifies the common, subsistence (person) the particular (III.4).

This lets John say in III.3 that the flesh receives the Word’s attributes while in III.4 he can claim that the flesh doesn’t receive the properties of divinity.

(18) Conclusion: “Each nature gives to the other its own properties through the identity of the Person and the interpenetration of the parts with one another.”

How are they united?

(19) The Word of God was united to flesh through the medium of mind, which stands midway between purity of God and grossness of flesh (III.6).

(See Bruce McCormack’s lecture on Patristic Christology where he deals with this passage).   Does this work?  It seems like “mind” is acting as a metaphysical placeholder between the two natures.  “The mind is the purest part of the soul, and God the purest part of the mind.”  It looks like this:

(gross matter) body—-> soul——>mind ——> better part of soul—>God (Pure Spirit)

Extra-Calvinisticum?

“And so the Word was made flesh and yet remained wholly uncircumscribed” (III.7)

John comes back to the question of communication and sounds a Lutheran strain:

(18*) “It [The Divine Nature] imparts to the flesh its own peculiar glories”

Make of it what you will.

From Christology to Liturgy

John demonstrates that Christology informs our liturgy, and gives a defense of the Trisagion

“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us” (repeat 3x).  The church learned it when a lad was snatched to heaven and taught the hymn by angels, and so the city averted disaster (III.10).  

Energy

Energy is the efficient activity of nature (III.15).  Therefore, Christ has two energies.  John says he works his miracles through the divine energy.  This is false.  He works his miracles because of the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Matthew 12:28: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of god has come upon you.

Acts 10:38: “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power…”

Luke 4:1, 14, 5:17: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness…And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit…and the Power of the Lord was present for him to perform healing.”

(19) The flesh acted as the instrument of the divinity (ibid).

John mentions this in passing, but it is at the heart of Orthodox deification soteriology. What does this mean?  A deified flesh is not one that changed its nature, but received the permeation of the divine nature.  

I think we have a potential contradiction at this point.  John is very clear that Christ’s human nature has a human energy, which is its efficient power.  I have no argument with that.  But if the human energy is what John says it is, then what is its relevance in an instrumental humanity?  If humanity is just the instrument of divinity, then why bother speaking of energy at all?  Further, since the subsistence of the Word does everything, then there is no way to say that the human energy of Christ ever activates.

(19*) The flesh received the riches of the divine energies (III.17).  

What is the upshot of all of this?  John says he was able to cleanse the leper because of his divine will.  Will this hold water?  Maybe.  We’ve already established that Christ did his miracles because of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  However, the text elsewhere speaks of Christ’s power going forth from him.  Further, those engaged in deliverance ministries speak of a heightened sense of Christ’s power after they have fasted.  

(19’) The riches of the divine energies heighten the power by which the Holy Spirit works in the believer.

Can John maintain both impassibility and divine suffering?  Maybe.  He has an interesting argument.  

(20) The soul shares in the pain but is itself not changed by the pain (III.26).

John gives an example:  if I cut myself with a knife, my soul feels the pain but the soul, being simple and immaterial, is not cut by the knife.  This is consistent (at least on the first level) with what John said in (19).  If the soul is the medium between God and man, or God’s nature and man’s nature in Christ, then the divine person can be truly present in the suffering without his immaterial nature undergoing change.

This seems to work, but it opens another question:  if the soul participates in the divine nature, and if there is an open street between them, it’s hard to see how the divine nature isn’t also experiencing perturbations.  

Book IV

Book IV is something along the lines of “soteriology” and the “life of the church.”   

Concerning Baptism:  While John, like most of the fathers, probably holds to baptismal regeneration, it’s interesting he doesn’t take it in extreme directions. He says others who have not had a Trinitarian baptism should be rebaptized (IV.9).  Regeneration takes place in the spirit, not necessarily in the act of baptism (p. 78, col. 2).  John justifies the church’s use of oil in baptism because of Noah and the flood (p. 79 col. 1).

The Power of the Cross

The power of God is the Word of the Cross (p. 80 col. 1).  All of this sounds good but John now moves into dangerous waters:

(21) We ought to worship the sign of the Cross because the honor passes from the image to the prototype.

A warning sticks in my head:  something about not worshiping man-made pesels.  

Further, we should worship towards the East (IV.12). John argues:

(22) Since God is spiritual light, and since the sun rises in the East, we should worship towards the East.

This doesn’t follow–at least not yet.  John refines his argument:

(22*) We are composed of visible and invisible nature.  Therefore, our visible nature corresponds to the physical sun rising and our invisible nature corresponds to God’s being spiritual light.

I’m not convinced.  Perhaps there is one other argument:

(22’) Christ will appear in the East and our worshiping towards the East is a joyful anticipation of his return.

It’s a pious sentiment and I suppose it hearkens us to vigilance, as long as we don’t make it a law.  John acknowledges this tradition is unwritten and he says many apostolic traditions are.  The problem he now faces is proving that tradition x is part of the apostolic tradition.  It simply cannot be done without asserting the consequent (and that one argument is why Orthodox Bridge is terrified of me). 

The Sacraments

(23) The bread and wine are changed into God’s body and blood (p. 83 col. 1).  

John warns us not to ask how.    Nor does he give any argument.  He does deny ex opere operato, for he says it only forgives sins for those who receive it with faith.  John appears to contradict himself:

(23*) The bread of communion is not plain bread but bread united with divinity (p. 83 col. 2 paragraph 3).

If the bread is changed into God’s body (23), then how can it be united with God’s body (23*).  It doesn’t make any sense to say that my body is united with my body.  

(24) The bread (used metonymically for “bread and wine”) is our participation and communion in Christ’s body.  

On Mary

(25) Mary did not have pain in childbirth (p. 86 col 1).

John has to make this claim if the EO view of Mary’s being uncorrupt holds.  To put it crudely, her “lady parts” were not damaged in childbirth, for how could the one who heals corruption (death, physical destruction) cause physical corruption in someone?

Of course, he holds that Mary never had sex with Joseph and that the phrase “first born,” simply means Jesus was born first, not that there were others.   This is strained almost to credulity.  Further, the argument that Mary knew that she gave birth to God and wouldn’t pollute herself with sex won’t work, for Mary often showed ignorance to Jesus’s identity.

Venerating the Saints

John says saints had God dwell in their bodies, and so should be venerated.  But the verse he quotes to prove his point (2 Cor 3:17) simply proves that God dwells in all of the believers.  The only way John’s discussion makes sense is if “saints” refers to departed believers.

Should we venerate their relics?  John says yes and this is his argument:

(26) God did amazing things like springs from the desert and killing people with the jawbone of an ass, so why should we be surprised that God works miracles in the relics of his saints?

This isn’t an argument.  I suppose it’s possible that oil can burst forth from a martyr’s remains, but even if that is true (and I’ll grant for argument that it sometimes happens), how does it follow that we are to bow down and venerate created pesels?  We can rephrase John’s position:

(26*) We should give honor to these heroes.

No one disputes this.

Images

(27) The honor given to the image passes to the prototype (IV.16)

John says the warning in the 2nd Commandment doesn’t apply because it only concerns worshiping false gods (the demons of the Greeks).  Further, God the Father is incorporeal, so he can’t be imaged by art.

This isn’t John’s full argument.  He spells that out in Three Treatises on Divine Images (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press).

Scripture

He has a good and profitable section on Scripture.

Eschatology

John posits a future Antichrist (IV.26). He is aware of John’s admonition but uses Antichrist as short-hand for the Man of Sin/Beast.  Enoch and Elijah will come and witness against him, which will convert the Jews to Christ.  Much needs to be filled in, but I agree with John. 

Chrysostom’s Homilies on Corinthians

From the NPNF First Series, volume 12.

Among the church fathers, Chrysostom is the better of the exegetes.  He handles the text in a proper way.  His homilies on Corinthians are valuable in showing us how “messy” church was back then.   Chrysostom has his hobby horses.  Almsgiving might be the high point of Christian praxis.  We have to understand the ancient world to know why.  There was no economic safety net and many people couldn’t get enough calories in the day.  A local drought could plunge half the empire into famine and starvation.  We don’t have that today.  I know this isn’t popular, but capitalism and technology have created systems of which Chrysotom could not conceive.  His comments on living a simple life, though, are worthwhile.

Homily 2

“All have a certain aptness towards virtue” (9).  It is impossible that one should be good by necessity.  Strong synergism in this homily.

Homily 3

The schisms arose from differences in contentiousness, not faith (11).

Chrysostom denies that the “rulers of this world” (1 Cor. 2) are demons.  He says they have to be men because their dominion doesn’t extend beyond this present world.  But that’s not really what the text is talking about.  And there are numerous examples throughout the bible where demons (for lack of a better word) are connected to geographical locales.  And Satan is called “the god of this world.”

Homily 10

“And Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 18-19).  Chrysostom: “as a genuine offspring, not as a work.”  Our gifts are on loan from God, so we should use them for the common good.  Regarding wealth, “If you enjoy it alone, you too have lost it.  But if you possess it jointly with the rest, then will it be more your own” (p. 57).

Homily 12

He begins with some comments about marriage, but then moves to the vanity of pre-marital daughter -aising when you try to make your daughter as beautiful as possible and parade her in front of others.  I think that is what he is saying.  Maybe it’s like a Southern debutante ball.

Part of it is legitimate.  He attacks silly customs like processions.  Hmm.  I wonder what those church traditions that engage in marriage processions would say about this?

Interesting comment concerning that period of time right after the birth of a child: “What shall we say about the amulets and the bells which are hung on the hand….when they ought to invest the child with nothing else save the protection of the Cross” (71)! The whole homily is a frontal assault on religious folk-customs.

Homily 14

God made us a free agent (80).

Homily 16

He identifies the effeminate as those who abuse their own bodies (93).  As to those who will not see the kingdom of heaven, he refrains from saying that is “hell.”  He acknowledges the possibility but doesn’t want to go further than the actual text says (93).

Homily 17

Chrysostom defends the Resurrection. He also rejects the idea that Adam was mortal before he sinned (99). He goes on to say that “mortality is not the cause of sin,” but a wicked will.

Homily 18

He says fornication stains the whole body in a way that not even murder or usury does (101).  He rather humorously proves it by saying that men always go to a bath after they visit a harlot.

Homily 19

“Good for a man not touch woman.”  Somewhat breaking from his anchoretic roots, Chrysostom notes that intercourse between husband and wife doesn’t necessarily make one sinfully unclean, for how else could “the cleanness of the wife overcome the uncleanness of the husband” (107)? The uncleanness is not in the mixture of bodies but in the thoughts of the mind.

Chrysostom allows for women to leave their husbands if he is abusive (108).

Homily 22

Strong defense of free will (p. 129).

Homily 23

Concerning 1 Cor 10, “he uses the terms of the Truth even concerning the type.”  Further, the punishments, like the blessings, also function as types (134).

Homily 24

Eucharist: The cup of blessing = thanksgiving = treasures of God (139).  “For as the bread consisting of many grains is made one, so that the grains nowhere appear; they exist indeed, but their difference is not seen by reason of their conjunction; so are we conjoined both with each other and with Christ” (140).  So there is a transubstantiation of sorts, only it is that we are made into the body of Christ.

Homily 26

Chrysostom rebuts those who while affirming equality of essence, argue for an essential subordination.   In other words, he rejects ESS and its tritheist cousins. “‘Nay,’ say they, ‘it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that he is under subjection.’ What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when anything lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the flesh,” it is of the Economy.

He then shows why such reasoning is flawed.  If we take the term “head” in the like sense in all clauses, the Son will be as far removed from the Father as we are from Him.  Nay, and the woman will be as far removed from us as we are from the Word of God (150).

Chrysostom notes that if Paul wanted to speak of subjection, he would have used the language of slavery, which was readily available.

Homily 27

Problems in the Lord’s Supper.  It should be common, but they are making it a private matter.

Homily 29 (I Cor. 12:1-2)

Chrysostom draws out the Trinitarian allusion in verse 4.

He likens “the spirit of man” to the soul (173).

Homily 30

He does not say that we, being many, are of one body.  But simply that the Body is many (175).

Methodius of Olympus on sex

If post-evangelicals ever say that evangelicals are hung up on sex, introduce them to the church fathers.  That will shut them up.

Some years ago a a few guys on a reformed message board attacked me for criticizing Methodius’s gnostic views on sexuality and marriage.  So basically I got attacked on a Puritan forum for upholding the Puritan view of marriage.  Sounds about right.

All citations taken from Schaff’s Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 6

Pros of Methodius

His prose often exquisite and always lyrical. He occasionally approaches the talent of Gregory Nazianzus, the Christian Pindar. While he often gets off track of his topic, his “wanderings” are very interesting and usually more sound than his main point.

Cons
* I do not believe Methodius lost the gospel. I do think he came within a razor’s edge of losing it.
* His use of excessive allegory is subject to the critiques of that position. If allegory is true, it is impossible to falsify since there is no permanent standard to say “X is wrong.”

Banquet of the Ten Virgins

Like many ancient Christians, Methodius held perpetual virginity to be the summum bonum. Unlike other ancient Christians, his defense of it, while suffering in terms of exegesis and argument, is the best-written defense (Augustine’s is confused and he knows it; Tertullian’s ranks as the worst treatise in the history of written thought).

“Virginity mediates between heaven and earth” (312-313).

Methodius bases much of his argument on legal analogies from Old Testament shadows: 327-329; 344. Even though this is a form of the Galatian heresy, even here he is not consistent, for he knows that people can bring up another OT text: Genesis 1:27ff about procreating (and even worse, maybe enjoying it). Indeed, he calls such men “incontinent and uncontrolled in sensuality” (320).

“The likeness of God is the avoidance of corruption.” A problematic statement, but not too bad. It gets worse when he adds another premise: virgins have this likeness (313). This brings up a troubling conclusion: can married people have the likeness of God?

Indeed, if you are married you need to work towards the goal of never having sex again. Methodius writes, “Until it removed entirely the inclination for sexual intercourse engendered by habit” (312). It gets worse: if married people enjoy sex, “how shall they celebrate the feast” (347)? What does Methodius mean by feast? Probably not the liturgy in this section (though of course he would draw that same application; you cannot have sex the night before Eucharist, nor can you eat or drink anything that morning); it could be either “the kingdom of God” or the “proper Christian life.” The narrative isn’t clear.

He knows the prohibition against marriage is a demonic doctrine, so he hedges his bets: marriage is to produce martyrs (314).
He has a fascinating discussion on numerology (339) and his commentary on the Apocalypse, while wild and fanciful, is no less arbitrary than any other “spiritual” interpretation of it

 

Ephrem the Syrian, Select Works

From the Schaff NPNF volume.

This review will cover the hymns found in the Schaff Edition, NPNF II vol. 13, pp. 117-341. Ephrem’s life is quite interesting, as he found himself in several military sieges in Syria and in relocating with different Christian populations.

St Ephraim is particularly difficult to navigate. He is thinking in Semitic idiom, not in Greek. Further, in line with his symbolic ontology, Ephraim rarely tells you what the Symbol means. Or rather, he doesn’t reduce symbol to object. Instead, he leads us from the symbol around the object and back to our understanding. The conversation is never finished. But this makes for good contemplation.

Other difficulties are more straightforward. In the Nisibene hymns it is not always clear to whom Ephraim is writing or who is even speaking.

Spirit and Freedom

*Freedom and godly joy are interchangeable (Ephraim 234). Discipline becomes spontaneous joy. Conversely, money is a master over our freedom (191). Indeed, usury has a deadening effect on spiritual life (225).

The Occult

Ephraim knows the occultic world is real. The Nephilim are angelic giants (194; though Ephrem seems to say the opposite in his commentary on Genesis; see Louth, ACCS volume 1). Likewise, “magic” is real (213), if not in the crude “hocus-pocus” sense. He probably–as did most of the church for much of her history–meant it in the sense that demonic entities can sometimes causally act on the material world.

The Church

Baptism is a seal that molds us (279). Grace is the freeborn sister to justice (179)

Fifteen Hymns on the Nativity

These are more focused than the Nisibene hymns, and Ephrem’s lyricism is occasionally exquisite. These are easier to read.

Evaluation:

Ephrem’s role as a personality is likely more lasting than his actual teachings. He stabilized several fractured liturgical communities. His hymns probably are good, but they need those skilled in both English idiom and Syriac.

Chrysostom: Homilies on Acts and Romans

I think I read this sometime in 2010-2011.

This review will differ from a normal review because it is reviewing, not a tightly argued treatise, but a collection of sermons preached on the books of Acts and Romans. One will briefly note Chrysostom’s style, address a series of themes and interesting insights from the ancient world and conclude with final observations on the book.

Chrysostom’s style in the book of Acts is more marked than in Romans. Of course, one should keep in mind that these sermons (in print) are probably a collection of the best that an ancient stenographer could do. Chrysostom briefly introduces the text as a whole, explicates a few verses, and then concludes in a fashion where he recapitulates the whole text and focuses it on a moral application in conclusion. This is the case in his sermons on Acts; it is not so much the case in Romans.

Observations from Chrysostom

(The references will be in the page numbers in the Schaff volume, and not the Homily number itself.)

Tradition: “In fact, there are many things which they have delivered by unwritten tradition” (2).  Comment:  That’s fine, but proving any of these traditions in a non-question begging way is impossible.

Ascetism: (I remember in some groups ascetism was evil medieval monkery and that in our “dominon mindset” we should engage in “biblical feasting” (e.g., drunkeness and gluttony).

Economcis: “This was an angelic commonwealth, not to call anything of theirs their own…No talk of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ then” (47).

Justification and baptism: “Now he justified them by the regeneration of the laver” (453). On this note one should mention, as Thomas Torrance argues, that nowhere in Scripture is “regeneration” (palingenesis) ever referred to as an “inward” conversion process. It is always referred to as the final product of creation or something baptism does. Back to Chrysostom: in case I have misinterpreted Chrysostom’s argument here, the editor notes on the same point in another passage that “Chrysostom cannot mean the gift of faith in regard to baptism” (45).

Ancient Practices of the Church: “Then let us rid ourselves of this demon (passion), at its first beginning let us quell it, let us put the sign of the Cross on our breast” (111). Praying for the recently departed: “This is the greatest memorial…bid them all make for him their prayers” (140).
Communing with the saints: “Let us keep the saints near us” (319).

Angels: There is actually too much on angels. I will simply cite the page numbers: 171, 198, 366, 450,510. In short, each man has his own angel (171).

Sin and Nature: Chrysostom famously rejects original sin in his homily on Romans 5:12. Elsewhere he notes that sin does not have a substance (423). Therefore, it cannot be equated with “nature.” Sin, like everyone in the ancient church taught, is an evil operation of the will. Natures, by contrast, do not change. That is the very definition of nature. Therefore, a nature cannot change from “good” in the garden to “evil” later in life, otherwise it wouldn’t be a nature.

A Reformed Protestant’s best counter to this is to say that sin is a “macula,” or a stain on the nature.

Conclusion

Reading this volume is certainly a healthy exercise in the Fathers. The sermons on Acts are particularly good because they give us a snapshot of what church life was like in the early church (and by contrast what it is not like today. People who prat about wanting to go “early church” never consult the writings of the guys on this topic who, like Chrysostom, were much closer to this reality than we are today). Still, there are a number of flaws in this volume that will keep it from being “re-read.” Like any volume of sermons, it cannot be structured around a theme and thus makes for hard reading. Secondly, the editor feels the need to add his own opinions and latest thoughts to the text when they are almost never needed.