‘Ancient Church: 4th & 5th Centuries’ Category

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

Christians today have two options: hiding under a rock, or confronting complicated and disturbing moral issues. The past month alone has witnessed an ethical Blitzkrieg on Christian values. From the Gosnell trials to the Marathon Bombing, with two more states on the verge of legalizing homosexual marriage and insecure international relations, believers are overwhelmed with moral conundrums. Thankfully, there are resources from the past that help Christians think through the moral dilemmas of today—nothing is new under the sun. Augustine’s work, The City of God, is an excellent example of such a resource, and while it may not comprehensively address every nuance of our modern ethical crises, it’s a good place to establish a moral framework for working in that direction.

In this work, Augustine (354-430) depicts two realms: the earthly city and the heavenly city. The earthly city is transient and corrupt, and the heavenly city is eternal and glorious. In Book XIX, Augustine explains what differentiates the citizens of these cities: one worships and serves God, and the other serves the self. The worship of God establishes true virtue while self-worship leads to immorality. He expounds this point:

Now in serving God the soul rightly commands the body, and in the soul itself the reason which is subject to its Lord God rightly commands the lusts and the other perverted elements. That being so, when a man does not serve God, what amount of justice are we to suppose to exist in his being? For if a soul does not serve God it cannot with any kind of justice command the body, nor can a man’s reason control the vicious elements in the soul. (XIX.21)

If God is not the master of our actions, then our conduct will serve evil. Service to God subjects the mind, will, and actions to righteousness rather than corruption.

The worship of God grounds not only justice but also true happiness and wisdom. When the saints inhabit the heavenly city, they experience supreme joy because they no longer serve other things. The “present reality without” the future hope of being righteous in God is “a false happiness, in fact, an utter misery” (XIX.20). The things humans serve in the earthly city will not only tend to evil but also to profound disappointment. True wisdom must direct “its just dealings with others” towards “that ultimate state in which God will be all in all, in the assurance of eternity and the perfection of peace” (XIX.20). If believers want to act morally wise in the present age, they must pattern their conduct on the heavenly city rather than the earthly city.

Make no mistake, Augustine warns, for many will exploit the virtues to serve selfish ends rather than serving God. Non-Christians and Christians alike can fall into this insidious trap. Augustine explains, “if the soul and reason do not serve God as God himself has commanded that he should be served, then they do not in any way exercise the right kind of rule over the body and the vicious propensities” (XIX.25). Thus, it is essential for believers to constantly study and cherish God’s commands if they hope to gain moral discernment.

In sum, the foundation of virtue is the worship and love of God. Moral reasoning that is not subject to the service of God is vulnerable to serve all kinds of evils, for “it is not something that comes from man, but something above man, that makes his life blessed” (XIX.25). Augustine grounded his confrontation with the moral issues of his day in this framework, and believers today would do well to imitate him.

St. Augustine. The City of God. Trans. Henry Bettenson. New York: Penguin Books, 1972, 1984.

__________________

Ryan Patrick Hoselton is pursuing a ThM at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Jaclyn, and they are expecting their first child in August.

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

Ellen Charry’s work, By The Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (1997), is among those rare gems that challenge you to consider a serious paradigm shift in the way you do theology. Even more, I think her arguments have implications for historiography.

Charry contends for the restoration of theology that is sapiential (which she understands as knowledge that emotionally engages the knower to the known), aretegenic, and salutary. She attempts to show that the best Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation theologians thought, wrote, and spoke about God in this way. Theologians such as Basil of Caesarea, Anselm of Canterbury, and John Calvin insisted on correct doctrine—on knowing God accurately—because it was conducive to moral transformation and flourishing in the Christian life. Knowing and loving God rightly enables authentic imitation of him, and this is the key to human virtue, excellence, and happiness. Thus, pastoral concern drove their theological reflection and engagement in doctrinal controversy.

The modernism of Locke, Hume, and Kant severed faith and sapience from reason, eliminating both from the category of knowledge. Charry suggests that these epistemic shifts facilitated the waning of sapience from theology. Modern academic theology, preoccupied with pursuing knowledge of God on the terms of this modern epistemology, reduced theological reflection to factual knowledge, scientias. However, for classical theologians like Augustine, the goal of scientias was to move the knower to sapientia, wisdom.Knowing factual things about God must be paired with knowing God in wisdom and love. The verity of a doctrine rests largely in its result. For example, Basil of Caesarea argued that the Holy Spirit must be God on the basis that he makes us more like God and unites us to him—only God can do that. Basil contended for this doctrine because he believed that if his congregants denied it they would not grow in godliness. These classical theologians did not separate scientias and sapientia in the way that the modern Academy often does. For them, theology and pastoral theology were synonymous. Their doctrinal battles and treatises functioned primarily to protect and promote their congregants’ holiness.

Charry’s thesis applies to church historians as well. Treatments in historical theology that are limited to broad sweeps of ideologies could fall into the modern trap of severing scientias from sapientia. Historians must avoid imposing this modernist separation on past theological thought. Church historians are responsible for uncovering the pastoral concerns that lie behind the subject’s theological reflection. As Robert Darnton says, the point is “to show not merely what people thought but how they thought—how they construed the world, invested it with meaning, and infused it with emotion” (Darnton, 1985, 3). The historian must investigate the relationship between a theologian’s ideas and his behavior, shepherding, and spirituality. This kind of historiography will assist theologians and pastors in understanding why historic Christian doctrines mattered and still matter to the lives of believers.

__________________

Ryan Patrick Hoselton is pursuing a ThM at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Jaclyn, and they are expecting their first child in August.

Tri-Unity: An Essay on the Biblical Doctrine of God

From the Publisher:

Early Christian contemplation on the Trinity is one of the most fascinating intellectual and spiritual conversations in the history of western thought.

In this new work by Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin on this bedrock doctrine of the Christian Faith, follow some of the greatest figures in the Ancient Church — men like the missionary theologian Ireanaeus of Lyons, the African bishop Athanasius and the monastic reformer Basil of Caesarea — as they study the Bible, grapple with how to talk about the Triune God and determine what exactly this means for the Christian life.

Their thinking is just as relevant now as it was when they first put pen to papyrus.

“What a rich story this is, and one the reader will understand and appreciate much better because of Haykin’s masterful work.” — Bruce A. Ware, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

“Michael Haykin’s, with his impeccable scholarship, has produced a short, readable account that will help many to appreciate these struggles and to grow in their knowledge of God. Buy it, read it, give it to a friend.” — Robert Letham, Director of Research, Senior Tutor in Systematic and Historical Theology, Wales Evangelical School of Theology

“In a clear and learned way, Michael Haykin connects the Bible to Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers…” — Carl R. Trueman, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA

Product Details

Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher: NiceneCouncil.com
Year: 2012
Pages: 75
ISBN: 098825480-8

Last fall, during a visit with Steve Weaver to the British Museum on September 14, I headed to one of my favorite places in the Museum, the room housing the exhibits of Roman Britain. While there, I was drawn especially to the Water Newton Treasure, a hoard of silver vessels, found in 1974 in the English county of Cambridgeshire. In the fourth century, the locale was known as Durobrivae, a fortified Roman garrison town. A number of the pieces were stamped with the familiar Christian chi-rho symbol, and the names of some of those who associated with the hoard were listed: Publianus, Amcilla, Innocentia and Viventia.

I love finding lists like this: Who were these fourth-century believers? How had they come to Christ? What was their witness?

We Evangelicals have a real problem in the way we do history and remember our own past. We highlight certain figures–the “great men” and the “great women”–in our past and the result is that we fail to understand often what God was doing in the given era which we are studying. For God never acts solely through one individual in the history of the church.

We talk about Athanasius contra mundum, for instance, but what about Serapion of Thmuis, and Hilary of Poitiers, and Ossius of Cordoba, and Lucifer of Cagliari and Eustathius of Antioch and Meletius of Antioch and Epiphanius of Salamis. Tell me, why is only Athanasius remembered? Something is very odd here. I could mulitply numerous examples here. To be sure, one reason, for remembering Athanasius is all that he wrote. The other men just listed, apart from Hilary and Epiphanius, wrote little. But church history is not only about books, even though that is the medium by which we have access to it. Our path to the past we have confused with the past itself. Church history is not simply the story of great theologians talking to each other.

My recent excursion down this way of thinking happened recently when reading some of the sermons of Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910). I suddenly realized that the sermonic ability and achievements of CH Spurgeon overshadowed everyone else of that era, including Maclaren. But Maclaren is good, very good. Pick him up and read him.