‘Ancient Church: 2nd & 3rd Centuries’ Category

One of the deepest ironies of the Ancient World is that the Judaeo-Christian tradition, which has a manifest taboo about nakedity (outside of marriage), also has a deep respect for the body (it will be resurrected, for one), while Graeco-Roman paganism, which was shameless in its display of nudity, had a very low view of the worth of the body. The popular Greek saying sōma sēma, “the body is a tomb” well sums up this low view of the human body. In this respect, Gnosticism, with its overt hatred of bodily existence, is flat-out Hellenization. While orthodox Christianity, with its championing of corporeality, is proving its resistance to cultural accommodation on this issue.

In the latest round of debate regarding the so-called “new atheism,” Christian theologian Doug Wilson takes on Christopher Hitchens in a published give-and-take on the topic Is Christianity Good for the World?[1] Hitchens is convinced that Christianity, along with religion in general, poisons everything good in life. And thus, for him, the answer to the question in the book’s title is a resounding no. Hitchens’ answer, however, is one that would have amazed numerous pagans living in the Roman Imperium in the first four centuries after Christ. The love, generosity, and showing of mercy of believers to those outside of the Christian community was, according to Henry Chadwick–that great patrologist who died this past summer and on whom I still need to write a small appreciation–“probably the most potent single cause of Christian success” during the period of the Roman Imperium.[2]

The citation from Philip Doddridge that was quoted in an earlier post on this blog is an echo–albeit probably unconscious–of this from the second-century Christian apologist Justin Martyr: “the lover of truth must choose, in every way possible, to do and say what is right, even when threatened with death, rather than save his own life.” [1]

[1] First Apology 2.1.

Collections of primary sources

Robert M. Grant, Second-Century Christianity. A Collection of Fragments (2^nd ed.; Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).

Steven A. McKinion, ed., Life and Practice in the Early Church. A Documentary Reader (New York/London: New York University Press, 2001).

Herbert Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).

Cyril C. Richardson, Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Edward Rochie Hardy, eds., Early Christian Fathers (Repr. Touchstone, 1995).

Maxwell Staniforth, trans. Early Christian Writings (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968).

General studies

Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement and Origen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).

Henry Chadwick, The Early Church. (Rev. ed.; London: Penguin Books, 1993).

Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

F. L Cross and E. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3^rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Philip F. Esler, ed., The Early Christian World (London/New York: Routledge, 2000), 2 vols.

Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2^nd ed.; New York/London: Garland Publishing, 1998), 2 vols.

Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1995).

Robert M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988).

Geoffrey M. Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, trans. Michael Steinhauser and ed. Marshall D. Johnson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).

Eric Osborn, The Emergence of Christian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Colin. H. Roberts and T.C. Skeat. The Birth of the Codex (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).

Thomas A. Robinson, The Early Church: An Annotated Bibliography of Literature in English (Metuchen: The American Theological Library Association/The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1993).

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity. A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996).

David Trobisch, Paul’s Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994).

D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch: A Study of Early Christian Thought in the East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

W. C. Weinrich, Spirit and Martyrdom. A Study of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Contexts of Persecution and Martyrdom in the New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981).

Ignatius of Antioch

Charles Thomas Brown, The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch (New York: Peter Lang, 2000).

Virginia Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960).

John E. Lawyer, Jr., “Eucharist and Martyrdom in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch”, Anglican Theological review, 73 (1991).

Daniel N. McNamara, “Ignatius of Antioch On His Death: Discipleship, Sacrifice, Imitation” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, McMaster University, 1977).

Issa A. Saliba, “The Bishop of Antioch and the Heretics: A Study of a Primitive Christology”, The Evangelical Quarterly, 54 (1982).

Cullen I. K. Story, “The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch”, The Evangelical Quarterly, 56 (1984).

Christine Trevett, A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).

Christine Trevett, “A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia”, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 29 (1992).

Irenaeus of Lyons

David L. Balas, “The Use and Interpretation of Paul in Irenaeus’ Five Books Adversus Haereses”, The Second Century, 9 (1992).

Denis Minns, Irenaeus (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1994).

Richard A. Norris, Jr. “Irenaeus’ Use of Paul in His Polemic Against the Gnostics” in William S. Babcock, ed. Paul and the Legacies of Paul (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990).

Eric Osborn, Ireneaus of Lyons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Justin Martyr

Craig D. Allert, Revelation, Truth, Canon and Interpretation: Studies in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (Boston: E.J. Brill, 2002).

L.W. Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).

Willis A. Shotwell, The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr (London: SPCK, 1965).

The Letter to Diognetus

Bruce Fawcett, “Similar yet Unique: Christians as Described in the Letter to Diognetus 5”, The Baptist Review of Theology, 6, No.1 (Spring, 1996), 23-27.

Joseph T. Lienhard, “The Christology of the Epistle to Diognetus”, Vigiliae Christianae, 24 (1970).

H.G. Meecham, The Epistle to Diognetus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1949).

W. S. Walford, Epistle to Diognetus (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1908).

Melito of Sardis

Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast: Melito, Peri Pascha and the Quartodeciman Paschal Liturgy at Sardis (Boston: E.J. Brill, 1998).

Alistair Stewart-Sykes, ed., Melito of Sardis. On Pascha: With Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001).

The Odes of Solomon

James Hamilton Charlesworth, ed., The Odes of Solomon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).

Theophilus of Antioch

Robert M. Grant, trans., Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).

Rick Rogers, Theophilus of Antioch: The Life and Thought of a Second-Century Bishop (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2000).

I was asked by one reader (www.letmypeopleread.blogspot.com ) about where I would recommend beginning a reading programme in the Fathers. Here is my brief reply. (And thanks, brother, for the great question).

I would start with Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). Then: Christopher A. Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1998). Finally, a third book that is a gem, but not easy is Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1971).

And do not forget getting into the Fathers directly. Start with Augustine, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1961) [this is the translation I like, but there are others]. Or read through an excellent collection by Steven A. McKinion, ed., Life and Practice in the Early Church. A Documentary Reader (New York/London: New York University Press, 2001). Another favourite of mine is Basil of Ceasarea, On the Holy Spirit, trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimirs Press, 1980).

For a good overview of the period, see the relevant pages in Tim Dowley ed., Introduction to the History of Christianity (1990 Rev. ed.; repr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) and for the key leaders, see John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988). The latter is regrettably out of print, but second-hand copies can be gotten easily. I have also had published Defence of the Truth: Contending for the truth yesterday and today (Darlington, Co. Durham: Evangelical Press, 2004), which deals with theological challenges faced by the Ancient Church.

I did blog on this back in 2006: see WHAT TO READ OF THE FATHERS?

A dear friend, John Clubine, recently passed along to me a couple of pages from The Berean Call, 23, No.3 (March 2008), an article by T.A. McMahon entitled “Ancient-Future Heresies.” There are a number of things in the article with which I would wholeheartedly agree. But at one point the following is stated:

“…it takes very little scrutiny of men like Origen, Ireaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Justin Martyr, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, and others, to see their flaws, let alone their heresies. For example, Origen taught that God would save everyone and that Mary was a perpetual virgin; Irenaeus believed that the bread and wine became the body and blood of Jesus when consecrated, as did John Chrysostom and Cyril of Jerusalem; Athanasius taught salvation through baptism; Tertullian became a supporter of the Montanist heresies, and a promoter of a New Testament clergy class, as did his disciple Cyprian; Augustine was the principal architect of Catholic dogma that included his support of purgatory, baptismal regeneration, and infant baptism, mortal and venial sins, prayers to the dead, penance for sins, absolution from a priest, the sinlessness of Mary, the Apocrypha as Scripture, etc. It’s not that these men got everything wrong; some on certain doctrines, upheld Scripture against the developing unbiblical dogmas of the roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless, overall they are a heretical minefield. So why seek them out?” (p.4).

John Lukacs, a marvelous historian, has recently said that one of the reasons why we need to do history is that there is so much bad history out there. And this paragraph is a case in point! Much of what is said here is out and out erroneous, some of it needs nuancing and parts of it are right. It would take a book to respond adequately, and a blog is probably not the best place in engage in developing an adequate response.

But suffice it to say this: the paragraph ends with a very erroneous statement and a very important question. The deeply erroneous statement: “overall they are a heretical minefield.” Wow! There have been some in the past who argued thus, but they were usually ones who disagreed with the Reformation impulse and felt that the entire history of the church between the Apocalypse of John and the Reformation was an utter wasteland. Best to forget it all and start anew.

This was not the view of the Reformers, who felt that the Fathers of the Church could aid them in the Reformation needed in their day. Not that the Reformers believed everything that the Fathers wrote. They tested all against Holy Scripture. But they did believe that the Fathers more often supported them than they did their Roman Catholic opponents.

The question: “why seek them out?” Because the Reformers like Calvin and Cranmer and Knox believed that the Fathers were important witnesses to biblical truth and they bore witness to the grace of God at work in the Church.

Fik Meijer, The Gladiators: History’s Most Deadly Sport, trans. Liz Waters (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007), xviii+267 pages.

I must admit that the gaudy cover of this book was off-putting at first glance. I picked it up at a variety store in an airport terminal and frankly, I thought it looked somewhat hokey. A quick perusal of the book, though, soon convinced me otherwise. And as I read it over the next few days I realized that this 2003 work by Dutch historian Fik Meijer is a gem. The very fact that the topic of gladiators is of perennial interest provides space for Meijer to argue that the modern West is as deeply fascinated by violence as Rome ever was.[1]

He first explains how the bloodiest “sport” in history evolved to become a key aspect of Roman society. Details regarding the lives of the gladiators—everything from the various types of gladiators who fought in the arena to the financial details of the shows—and the building of the Colosseum in Rome (the most spectacular of over 200 such amphitheatres in the Roman world by the third century a.d.) are then given in a lively prose style that is at once informative and fascinating reading.

The chapter “A Day at the Colosseum” brilliantly recreates what it would have been like to have attended one of the shows for a day of bloody and brutal entertainment. Although I have read the accounts of Christian martyrs for a good number of years now, I was completely unaware that their deaths would have taken place during what Meijer terms the lunchtime interval between the morning programme when there would have been animal fights and the afternoon “attraction” of the main gladiatorial fights (p.147-159). Meijer actually draws on the North African theologian Tertullian (fl.190-220) for some of his information, citing the second-century author more than half a dozen times.

Three final chapters deal with sea battles, the burials of slain gladiators and the end of the gladiatorial shows. Although Constantine issued legislation abolishing the shows in 325 a.d., it was not until the fourth decade of the following century that the shows finally ended.

All in all this is an excellent work and helps students of the Ancient Church understand in part why that ecclesial tradition, reacting against the violence of their world, was so solidly committed to non-violence.

[1] See pages 1-12, and his brief reviews of the movies Spartacus (1960) and Gladiator (2000) (p.220-231) as proof.

The use of the term “father” for Christian mentors is quite ancient.

Here is a quote from Clement of Alexandria that indicates this: “Words are the progeny of the soul. Hence we call those that instructed us fathers” (Stromateis 1.1.2-2.1).

Of course, Paul uses it thus in 1 Thessalonians 2:11. Our Lord emphasizes, though, that the term cannot be used in such a way that it compromises the fact that God the Father alone is our true Father. Any other father in Christ is relative compared to Him (Matthew 23:9).