Posted on 02/23/2007 3:00:26 PM PST by stfassisi
Christology of the Fathers Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Between the Councils of Nicea and Ephesus arose a series of patristic writers that have shaped Christology on its kerygmatic side more than any other factor in the history of the Church. Nicea had clarified the divine nature of the Savior and Ephesus would define His divine personality, but in the interim was a century that for output of theological genius has not been duplicated since; and even the thirteenth century produced its great synthesis of faith only because it had the monumental work of Augustine, Jerome and Chrysostom to lean upon.
It is impossible to do more than get a glimpse of these hundred remarkable years; but they cannot be passed by without leaving a one-sided impression of the Christian religion--as though it depended solely on the periodic councils to forward the development of dogma. Actually the councils themselves could be so effective because they had the wisdom of saintly scholarship on which to draw for a deeper understanding of revelation, here of the Word of God become Man.
Rather than enter into a detailed analysis of each writer, it seems wiser to see them all briefly in historical context, and then concentrate on the one who did most to advance scientific Christology, St. Augustine, to see the groundwork he laid for future generations to build upon.
Witness to Christ and His Mother St. Ephrem (306-373 A.D.) was a Syrian exegete and biblical commentator whose voluminous output is mostly in verse. Among his varied productions are cycles of hymns on the great feastdays of the Church.
He is best known for his attention to the Mother of Christ, on whose privileges he dwelt at length and opened the way for developments in Mariology that were given dramatic sanction at the Council of Ephesus. His special concern was to vindicate Mary's virginity and unrivaled holiness. He says of her, speaking to Christ, "You alone and your Mother are in all ways wholly pure; for in you there is no stain, and in your Mother there is no sin." (1)
Ephrem is rightly considered the forerunner of the Immaculate Conception. He contrasted Mary with Eve, and set the stage for calling the Mother of Christ a mediatrix between the human race and her divine Son. "Mary and Eve," he wrote, "were two people without guilt. As two simple people they were originally the same. But later one because the cause of our death, and the other the cause of our life." (2)
Ephrem's contemporary, St. John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.), was not a theologian nor technically an exegete. He was by early profession a lawyer, then became a hermit, priest, and finally bishop of Constantinople. His eloquence gained him the name "Golden-mouthed" and his unsparing denunciation of the moral laxity of clergy and laity won him exile and equivalent martyrdom.
Always the preacher, Chrysostom did much to show the need for redemption by the Savior's blood and the necessity of obedience to His teachings, especially of charity. In Christology, he did not concern himself to explain how the two natures were united in Christ. In the spirit of the Antiochian school, however, he insisted mainly on the humanity of Christ, His life, works and death. If there is some inadequacy in his concept of the Lord's humanity, it would be in the direction of extolling the finite nature assumed by the divinity--to a point that diminished the effort, sometimes painful, which Christ exerted on such critical occasions as the agony in the Garden and dying on the Cross.
The bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose (339-379 A.D.), has been over-shadowed by his famous neophyte Augustine. But in his own right, he should be numbered among the more influential persons who determined the future course of both Christology and Mariology.
He recognized in Christ the existence of two distinct natures, and also of two wills. Yet he affirmed with equal insistence on Christ's unity, and that in Him we may not separate the One who is "From the Father," and who was born "of the Virgin Mary."
Like Hilary, he explained the Redemption by a realist theory of expiation. Christ freely offered Himself to the Father as more than sufficient ransom for us by His blood. At times Ambrose talks about the claims which the devil had on the human race; but these references may be taken as rhetorical expressions and not as measured theology.
The Blessed Virgin figures greatly in Ambrosian literature not only as a perpetual virgin and inviolate person, but as the one who began the institution of Christian virginity. De Institutione Virginis is one of the early writings which helped establish devotion to the Mother of God and laid the principles for a life of celibacy according to the counsels. Sometimes wrongly accused of demeaning the state of marriage, Ambrose did say that virginity was more pleasing to God, for those who have the grace, because it leads the faithful soul more surely to the mystical marriage with Christ.
Yet all Christians, the married and celibate, need to know and love Christ if they want to reach perfection, or even survive the temptations of this world. "We have all things in Christ," he said. "Christ is everything to us. If you are wounded and need to be healed, He is the physician. If you are oppressed by the heat of trial, He is your refreshment. If you are burdened by sin, He is your righteousness; and if you need help, He is your abiding strength. If you fear death, He is your life; and if you desire heaven, He is your way there. If you fear darkness, He is your light; and if you want food, He is all the nourishment that need be had. Taste, therefore, and find out how satisfying is the Lord; and how blessed is the man who hopes in Him." (3)
Perhaps the most controversial of the Fathers, St. Jerome (342-420 A.D.), was a contemporary and correspondent of Augustine. He was also an indefatigable defender of several areas of the faith that involve the person and work of Christ.
Like Augustine, he battled the Pelagians who claimed that grace was not necessary for salvation and therefore that Christ's redemption was quite dispensable. But his forte was defending the principles of Christian morality that showed from the Church's constant tradition that Christ's command to baptize did not carry with it the promise of no lapse into sin after baptism, no matter how fervently a convert receives the faith. He further demonstrated that faith alone will not save a person, and acceptance of Christ as Savior does not guarantee perseverance until death.
Not unlike Ambrose, but more so, Jerome so praised virginity that he has been charged with denigrating matrimony. The charge is not true, while it must be admitted that Jerome's sometimes intemperate language (which brought him trouble) may leave that impression.
Jerome was one of the pioneers of the religious life, in whose favor he wrote to meet the criticism of his day. Always his first premise was that a life of the counsels must be pleasing to God because the Son of God practiced them during His own stay on earth.
He vigorously championed Mary's perpetual virginity, tracing belief in this doctrine to the apostolic age. She was evidently a virgin before the birth of Christ, as testified by Luke. She was also a virgin after His birth (against -Helvidius) because this has been the teaching of the Church since the first century--Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Ireneaus, Justin and others who held the traditional position against deniers of the fact like the Gnostics. She was a virgin in delivery of Christ (against Jovinian) also because this had always been believed in the Church. Jovinian's difficulty was that he ruled out virginity as such as a counsel pleasing to God.
For all his asceticism, Jerome was tinged with Origenism. He had so exalted a notion of Christ's merits, that he claimed they were not only sufficient to save all men, but de facto would save everyone born into the world. After 394 A. D., Jerome modified this extreme position but still said that at least all Christians would finally be saved, and that the torments of sinners would not be eternal (such was the mercy of Christ) provided they had never apostatized.
Similarly Jerome's lifelong association with the Rabbis in Palestine made him suspect the canonicity of the Deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament, notably the sapiential writings with their concept of the Wisdom of God, anticipating the Logos of St. John.
He was particularly clear about the two-fold nature of Christ, of whom he wrote: "The glory of the Savior is the gibbet of His triumph. Crucified as man, he is glorified as God. We say this not as though we believed that there were two individuals, one God and the other man, or that there are two persons in the Son of God, as some new heresy calumniously teaches. One and the same Son of God is also the Son of Man."
St. Augustine The bishop of Hippo in Africa, St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), dominates his age like a giant, and all Christian theology since his time has been colored and in many ways formed by his mind.
His early days and youth have some bearing on his teaching about Christ. Born in Africa, where Christological issues had been debated for more than a century, Augustine led a life of dissipation and for nine years was a Manichaean. But he wrote later on that there were three things he never completely lost even in his worst days: faith in providence, at least a dim awareness of sanctions after death, and trust in Christ as Savior.
He dropped Manichaeism after a long struggle because it fostered a sceptical philosophy of life, because of the immorality of its followers, and because of its exclusion of Christ from the ambit of faith.
After conversion, he preached and wrote so extensively that his extant works seem to be the production of several men, and his soundness of doctrine has made him an authority in the Church, second only to the Bible.
While Arianism was still rife in his day, and a number of pieces by Augustine combat this heresy, his Christology and Soteriology can best be seen in the framework of the three main problems he faced and solved theologically: Manichaeism, which raised the question of where evil originates; Donatism, whose premise was a new concept of the Church; and Pelagianism, that denied man's need of divine grace to reach his destiny.
Each of these problems was enveloped in the aura of Christ, whose suffering of evil to expiate evil answers Manichaeism; whose established Church was designed to channel the merits of His passion; and whose grace makes Him the second Adam, to restore Adam's progeny to the friendship of God.
Christ and Manichaeism. In its teachings, Manichaeism held that the moral and physical evil in the world ultimately came from an essentially evil Being outside of man; that some creatures are essentially evil; that the Good Deity is not infinite nor omnipotent; that material things are bad so that pleasure (and joy) are wicked.
In their Christology, the Manichaeans were Docetistic--Jesus was a devil, on his human side, who held the Christ (spirit) imprisoned. They were therefore against a historical Jesus and said He was only a symbol who appeared to die, suffer, and rise from the dead. Yet they were cautious in speaking about these things with Christians, so as not to intrude themselves too radically. As a result they led many astray.
Augustine refuted the Manichaeans directly, distinguishing between two kinds of evil, physical, and moral. In God's providence, physical evil is a result of moral evil or sin. He wills it as a consequence of sin, and in order to expiate sin.
Accordingly the Manichaean error is rooted in two mistaken judgments: taking evil univocally to mean whatever displeases or is painful, and refusing to admit that the source of moral evil is in the heart of man himself. The Incarnation of the Son of God gives the lie to both these premises. Christ became man and undertook a life of trial and hardship, without being subject to sin, and by this dichotomy severed once and for all the false identification of pain and real evil. Were it not for the mortal body He assumed and the passible flesh He had, the Savior would not have suffered for the redemption of mankind. The very humanity in which He became incarnate became the instrument of humanity's reconciliation with God. Is it still possible to call evil that which has been the means of producing so much good?
Donatism and the Mystical Body of Christ. The occasion for the Donatist schism, turned heresy, was an imperial edict in 303 A.D., which demanded that Christians deliver up the sacred books to be burned. Certain Numidians claimed that anyone who had delivered up the books ceased to be a Christian and could no longer administer the sacraments validly. Carthage became the arena in which this rigorism became entrenched when a certain Caecilian was declared invalidly consecrated bishop because his consecrator was supposed to have been a traditor during the time of persecution.
The rigorists clustered around the rival to the See of Carthage, Donatus. They were condemned by Rome but their schism lasted for centuries; and Tagaste, where Augustine was born, had only shortly before his birth been converted from Donatism.
At least fourteen of Augustine's treatises are against the Donatists, revealing insights into Christ's role in the Church that would never have come to light except for the distorted Christology of the followers of Donatus.
Augustine argued that the Donatists cannot represent the true Church because Christ founded His society for all men; but the Donatists cater to only an elite few. They claim that only good people belong to the Church, and that sin drives a Christian out of the Body of Christ. Augustine counters by quoting parables and the example of Christ, showing that He came to call not only (or especially) the holy but sinners to follow Him.
The critical test of following Christ, Augustine urged, is obedience to the See of Peter, whom the Savior chose to unify His Church. Separated from Peter, the Donatists are separated from Christ.
No doubt Christ wants His sacraments to be administrated by holy men, and unworthy priests and prelates are an abomination in the sight of God. Nevertheless, the value of the sacraments they confer does not depend on their sanctity, nor their efficacy on detachment from sin. When baptism is administered, it is Christ who baptized through His earthly minister; when the Eucharist is consecrated and the Mass offered, it is Christ again who is the principal priest and consecrator.
Pelagianism against the Necessity of the Redemption. The principal heresy of naturalism in Christian history was born of Stoic philosophy that infected certain writers from apostolic times. Yet, the full-blown system of Pelagianism into which it developed did not arise until the beginning of the fifth century. A British lay-monk, Pelagius, first popularized the theory, together with his disciple Celestius. Little is known about the life of Pelagius, except that he was born in England about 354 A. D. (the year of Augustine's birth) and came to Rome where he became alarmed by the low morality of priests and people. He concluded that the only hope of reform lay in placing all the responsibility for sin on the free wills of men, to the point of denying the necessity of Christ's redemption or of divine grace.
The premises served as basis for Pelagius' thesis. Arguing from the principle that "a person is free if he does what he wills and avoids what he wills to avoid," he said that heaven is attainable by use of our natural faculties alone, since nothing but the free will is needed to practice virtue and keep out of sin. From the axiom that "Adam neither injured nor deprived us of anything," Pelagius decided that men require no special help to repair what Adam is supposed to have lost.
Pelagius and Celestius went to Africa in 410 A.D., the latter staying to find himself charged with heresy by the Council of Carthage, while Pelagius went on to Palestine and met the same treatment at the hands of St. Jerome. On request of the bishops of North Africa, Innocent I condemned Pelagius, who for a time deceived Pope Zozimus, Innocent's successor, into acquitting him. Though Pelagius leaves the scene at this point, eighteen Italian bishops, led by Julian of Eclanum, refused to submit to the Pope and proceeded to elaborate Pelagianism into a compact system of doctrine.
Its basic principle is the affirmation of the self-sufficiency of man's free will. We can always will and do good, even when we de facto will and do otherwise, depending on our own moral strength.
In the Pelagian scheme there is no room for original sin derived from Adam by carnal generation. What we now call preternatural gifts of bodily immortality and integrity were never really possessed by Adam. He left us only a bad example, and the proneness we have to sin is not inherited through our parents from Adam but acquired by our own misdeeds.
Baptism therefore can have no strict remissive function, and a person can be saved without it. At most its purpose is to incorporate us into the Church, or unite us with Christ, or make us members of a mysterious heavenly kingdom, but never absolutely necessary for salvation.
For the same reason, sanctifying grace is not the necessary basis of supernatural activity, but only a sort of remedy for actual sins or a spiritual adornment of Christians and a sign of their divine adoption. Actual graces are only external, in the form of preaching, miracles, revelation and the example of Jesus Christ. The Savior is Second Adam only in the sense in which the first Adam misled humanity by the pattern of disobedience; Christ "redeems" us by giving us the model of obedience to the will of God. His redemption is not intrinsic to the soul.
If, for the sake of argument, real supernatural grace were needed, it would be only as light for the mind but never internal grace for the will. "You destroy the will, Pelagius protested, "if you say it needs any help." The only true "grace" we possess is the faculty of free choice, a gift from God that sets us above the brute creation.
For the Pelagians predestination is a misnomer. It should rather be called foreknowledge. Divine activity does not penetrate into the very heart of human activity, to elevate and transform it. God merely foresees that we are going to do something. He in no way predestines our free choices or directs what they are going to be. By the same token, the Redemption by Christ does not give us a new birth but only lifts us to a higher stage of natural activity, and the influence of Christ's passion and death is purely extrinsic to those for whom He died.
Among the more obvious corollaries of Pelagianism was a consequent rigorism in conduct and concept for Christianity. It allowed no distinction between grave and venial sin; once a person sinned, then he was out of Christ's friendship and out of the Church, and not a Christian; and so the Church was composed only of saints.
Augustine's greatest claim to fame is the defence of Christ's redemption against the Pelagians--and of the necessity of His grace for salvation. Through volumes of closely reasoned theology, he vindicated all the premises of Soteriology on which the Church has built ever since.
God's sovereignty over the human will includes His sovereignty over man's liberty. He would not be God if He were not Master of all that exists and operates.
Adam sinned not only in himself but for the human race. His offence has infected all his progeny. We are born in a state of sin before the age of reason and before we can offend God personally.
Mankind therefore needs a Redeemer, who is Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God.
His grace is indispensable for man's salvation, and no one reaches heaven except through Christ, who said, "Without me you can do nothing."
Concupiscence has deeply injured man's nature and weakened our resistance to evil. Yet we are able to withstand temptation, with Christ's help, and thereby merit more grace on earth and a heavenly reward.
Although Christ's grace is absolutely necessary, it can be reconciled with man's autonomy. He does not coerce our compliance but solicits our love. Pelagianism and Augustine's defence of grace are the foci around which centuries later will revolve the Christology of the Reformation and the Council of Trent. Trent, like Augustine, stressed the need of Christ not only to redeem mankind (because man had sinned), but to raise mankind to a supernatural state of being (because men are creatures and not divine).
Providential Function of Error. In Augustines' judgment, the mysteries of faith, including the Incarnation and Redemption, have benefited from the rise of doctrinal errors. Seeing that his own theological development was conditioned by the aberrations of Manes, Donatus and Pelagius--Augustine's observations in this matter are highly pertinent.
The Catholic Church has been vindicated by heretics, and those that think rightly have been proved by those that think wrongly. For many things lay hid in the Scriptures, and when the heretics had been cut off, they troubled the Church of God with questions. Those things were then opened up which lay hid, and the will of God was understood. Was the Trinity perfectly treated of before the Arians carped at it? Was penance perfectly dealt with before the Novations raised their opposition? So too, baptism was not perfectly handled before the rebaptisers who were cast out of the fold contradicted the teaching. Nor was the doctrine of the true oneness of Christ clearly set forth until after those who divided Christ began to weigh upon the weak. In all these cases, those who understood took upon themselves to bring out into the open the obscure teachings of the faith; and by their discourses and disputations they helped to strengthen their weaker brethren against the assaults of the ungodly. (4) Consistent with this attitude, Augustine helped others better understand what he had discovered through years of personal involvement in heresy. As a convert from Manichaeism, he grasped the inner meaning of error as few men before or after him
Augustine could speculate about man's sinfulness and his need for redemption, and he wrote many volumes of profound analysis into the mystery of the Incarnation. We shall draw on this wisdom, as the Church has done, in seeing the development of doctrine on Christ through Ephesus and Chalcedon, up to Trent and the two Councils of the Vatican. The most quoted single authority in II Vatican's Constitution on the Church is St. Augustine.
But Augustinian speculation grew out of deeply personal experience. In the profoundest sense of that term, the Manichaean rhetorician had found Christ as his own Savior. Theology came afterwards; first was experience.
There are two passages in the Confessions that summarize what Augustine felt, and what happened to him as an individual before he ever preached or taught others to believe about the Savior.
The first occurs a moment after he hears the children shouting, "Take and read!" He had been struggling for years, and always the main problem was chastity, joined to an inveterate pride. In a flash grace struck. He rushed for the New Testament, to "take up and read," and read at random the first words that met his eyes.
I rose to my feet. I snatched up the book, opened it, and read in silence the passage upon which my eyes fell first: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in conscupiscence" (Romans 13:13-14). I had no wish to read further; there was no need to. For immediately I had reached the end of this sentence it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away. Before shutting the book I put my finger on some other marker in the place and told Alypius (a friend) what had happened. By now my face was perfectly calm. And Alypius in his turn told me what had been going in himself, and which I knew nothing about. He asked to see the passage which I had read, nor did I know the words which followed. They were these: "Him that is weak in the faith, receive." He applied this to himself, and told me so. He was strengthened by the admonition; calmly and unhesitatingly he joined me in a purpose and a resolution so good, and so right for his character, which had always been very much better than mine. The next thing we do is to go inside and tell my mother. How happy she is! We describe to her how it all took place, and there is no limit to her joy and triumph. Now she was praising You, "who are able to do above that which we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20). She saw that with regard to me You had given her so much more than she used to ask for when she wept so pitifully before You. You converted me to You in such a way that I no longer sought a wife nor any other worldly hope. I was now standing on that rule of faith, just as You had shown me to her in a vision so many years before. So You had changed her mourning into joy, a joy much richer than she had desired and much dearer and purer than that which she looked for by having grandchildren of my flesh. (5) These few sentences epitomize more than Augustine's conversion, or even the psychology of his discovery of Christ as personal Savior. They retell in a fast moving narrative, the main features of how Christ comes into a man's life to change it from error and sin to discipleship and sanctity.
At the beginning is the dull experience, sometimes (as with Augustine) of years standing, that things are not going well. There is consciousness of moral evil and mental uncertainty. This is often coupled with a true desire of amendment, but to no avail. The flesh is too weak, and passions (lust and selfishness) too strong.
All the while someone is praying and begging God for the grace of repentance. It is seldom the one who needs the grace, but another who cares for his spiritual welfare. When the confused sinner prays for himself, as Augustine did, his prayer is half-hearted and more of a velleity. "Make me chaste, Lord," Augustine would say, "but not yet." Yet prayer is essential, especially the prayer of those in God's friendship who unite their petition with wholesome sacrifice.
Suddenly comes a change, though more often the heart has been changing gradually but there is often a marked crisis between two states of soul--a before and an after. Anyone who experienced this kind of conversion, even on a minor scale, has no doubt that a new life has begun and old ways are shed.
At this crucial point, the person of Christ figures prominently and perceptibly as the One through whom the change of heart took place; that it was His grace at work and, above the natural capacities of the sinner, made a new man out of him.
Subjectively two spiritual emotions demonstrate the presence of grace, and the finding of Christ in the soul: peace of mind and joy of will. Where confusion and doubt had prevailed, now there is quiet of intellect and assurance that there are answers to life's problems and that life is not a mad dream. And where the volitional faculties had been torn between extremes and may be near despair, now they experience a happiness that is all the more real for being indescribable. No one who has gone through this crisis doubts it, and anyone who has been through it knows exactly what Augustine means to say.
The net effect of this transition is to change the mind and will permanently and endow them with powers they never had before. The mind acquires convictions that are unseatable, absolute certainties about the role of Christ in one's life, and the relevance of His teachings for men. And the will develops a courage that baffles even the person who is thus changed. He wants to attempt great things for Christ's kingdom and cannot be satisfied with anything less than all.
This finds a ready echo in like-minded persons, whether former friends or new acquaintances, who are asked (often urged) to share in what the man who finds Christ has discovered for himself. Augustine was anticipated in this apostolic zeal by St. Paul, and followed by St. Ignatius. And in lesser measure, every one who makes the same discovery has the same reaction. Christ is too good to keep to oneself; He must be shown to others and the power of His grace revealed to those who badly need Him and sadly are unaware of what is wrong.
The second classic passage in "experienced Soteriology" comes shortly after the story of his conversion. Augustine is reflecting on how widely he sought for some go-between to reconcile him with God, knowing his own weakness and inability to do it alone.
We should recall that in Oriental thought, including Manichaeism, the recognized mediators between God and the human race were some kind of spirits, lesser deities we might call them. Islam has them by the legion, and the two principal Asian religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, are filled with such ethereal beings that demand incantation or invocation from helpless men.
Whom could I find to reconcile me to You? Was I to seek the help of angels? By what prayers, what sacraments? Many people in their attempts to return to You and not being able to do so by their own strength have, so I hear, tried this way and have fallen into a desire for strange visions and have become, rightly, the victims of delusions. They are seeking a mediator through whom to become clean, but this was not he. It was the devil, transforming himself into an angel of light, and for proud flesh it proved a strong attraction that he himself had not a body of flesh. For they were mortal and sinners; You, Lord, to whom they wished to be reconciled, are immortal and without sin. So a mediator between God and men should have something in common with God and something in common with men. If he were in both respects like men, he would be far from God, and if he were in both respects like God, he would be far from men, and so neither way could he be mediator. Many are deceived by the evil spirit, who tries to make men believe that he can deliver them and bring them the peace and joy they desire. He poses as scornful of sin--it is only natural to indulge passion and nurture one's pride. At the same time, he pretends to be divine--by simulating something of God's attributes. In this way the unwary are seduced. "That deceitful mediator, by whom, according to Your secret judgment, pride deserves to be mocked, has one thing in common with men--namely, sin--and appears to have another thing in common with God--that is, not being clothed in the mortality of flesh, he can pretend to be immortal."
For years Augustine had followed the standard of Satan, and enlistment had brought him nothing but pain and distress. Until he found Christ.
The true mediator in whom in Your secret mercy You have shown to men, and have sent Him so that they, by His example, might learn humility, that appeared between mortal sinners and the immortal Just One, is the Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. He is mortal with men and just with God. Thus, because the wages of justice is life and peace, He can, by a justice conjoined with God, make void the death of those sinners who were justified by Him. He was willing to let death be common to both Him and them. He was revealed to the holy men of old so they might be saved through faith in His passion that was to come, just as we may be saved through faith in His passion now that it is in the past. For insofar as He is man, He is mediator; but insofar as He is the Word, He is not midway between God and man; for He is equal to God, both God with God, and together one God. Speaking from the depths of his soul, Augustine thanks the Father for not sparing His only Son, but sending Him to become human and mortal--which means subject to pain and to death--in order to deliver this servant from the bondage of sin. "He that thought it not robbery to be equal to You, was made subject even to the death of the cross. He alone, free among the dead, having power to lay down His life, and power to take it up again." In this dual role of man--to suffer; and of God--to reconcile, Christ fulfilled the paradigm of all priesthood.
Then follows one of Augustine's famous figures of speech, in which he contrasts the relationship of passive and active functions in Christ the great High-priest, sent by the Father to intercede with the Father.
He was to You (the Father) both victor and victim, and victor because victim. For He was to You both priest and sacrifice, and priest because sacrifice. And He made us sons to You instead of slaves by being born of You and by becoming Your slave. With reason, then, my hope in Him is strong, that You will heal all my infirmities by Him who sits at Your right hand and makes intercession for us. Otherwise I should despair. For many and great are my weaknesses, many they are and great. But Your medicine has more power still. We might have thought that Your Word was far from any union with man, and we might have despaired, unless it had been made flesh and dwelt among us. Terrified by my sins and the mass and weight of my misery, I had pondered in my heart a purpose of flight to the wilderness. But You forbade me and gave me strength by saying, "Therefore Christ died for all, that they who love may now no longer live to themselves, but to Him who died for them." See, Lord, I cast my care upon You, that I may live and understand the wondrous things of Your law. You know my ignorance and my weakness. Teach me and heal me. Your only Son, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, has redeemed me with His blood. Let not the proud speak evil of me, for my thoughts are on the great price of my redemption. I eat and drink it, and pass it on to others to eat and drink the same. (6) The Church's ascetical teaching since Augustine has been influenced by his stress on Christ whose humanity and divinity are both necessary for our salvation and sanctification. Since He was God, the sacrifice He offered on the cross had infinite value; because He was man, the sacrifice was made possible--only a human being can make an oblation to God, and only a mortal man can make this oblation His body and blood.
Yet Augustine also understood that Christ's sacrifice must be freely appropriated by us if it is to become effective. Objectively the Lord died for all men: "The shedding of innocent blood has blotted out all the sins of the guilty" potentially. (7) In other words, "the blood of your Lord, if you will it, is given for you; if you do not will it, it is not given for you. This is the important point, that He gave it once and for all. The blood of Christ is salvation to those who wish it, punishment to those who refuse." (8)
Not for a moment did Augustine doubt that Christ's redemptive work had to be freely accepted to produce the effect which God intended by dying on the cross. If a half lifetime of sin had convinced him that he needed divine grace, the method of his conversion told him that the grace could have been refused.
The Blessed Virgin. Augustine's personal devotion to Mary and vindication of her privileges should be emphasized. It has been said that the veneration of Mary was held in abeyance in the Church until late in the patristic age, after Christ's true divinity and unique mediatorship was clarified by all the early councils. Yet Augustine has a well-developed Mariology before Ephesus and Chalcedon, without a trace of fear that recognition of Mary's place in religion would detract from the role of Christ in the economy of salvation.
Like Athanasius before him, Augustine freely spoke of Mary as Mother of God, Theotokos, made possible because she gave birth to a divine person, whose human body came from His human mother.
It was Mary's faith, he believed, that played the most prominent part in her cooperation with Christ in His redemptive work. In this sense, she was the sacrament that in visible form gained for mankind the Source of invisible grace. She thus became a Second Eve, in a way comparable (though subordinate) to the way Christ was Second Adam. "We draw near to a great sacrament," according to the Christian Agony, "that life should be born to us of a woman because death came to us through a woman." (9)
With Jerome, Augustine never doubted Mary's perpetual virginity. Again her faith is credited for the marvel of conception without intercourse: "Mary was a virgin before conception, and a virgin after giving birth. It is unthinkable that bodily integrity should disappear from the flesh in which Verity first appeared." (10)
She was also free from all sin, by comparison with even the holiest men of the Old Law or her spouse, Joseph. There was no doubt in Augustine's mind that Mary was personally sinless, and the text from his treatise on Nature and Grace is one of the best known in Augustinian literature. In context, he is refuting Pelagius' denial that we need grace to be saved. To illustrate his point, Pelagius names a series of saintly persons, men and women, from Abel in Genesis to John the Baptist and Joseph in the Gospels.
Augustine admits that all these people were holy, but they were not without some sin, apart from the Mother of God.
We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord. From Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular (omni ex parte) was conferred on her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin. With this exception of the Virgin, if we could assemble all the aforementioned holy men and women, and ask them whether they lived without sin while they were in this life, what do you suppose would be the answer? Would it be in the language of our author (Pelagius), or in the words of the apostle John, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves." (11) Many authors believe that Augustine taught not only Mary's personal sinlessness but her Immaculate Conception, suggested by such expressions as omni ex parte. Given the Pelagian arguments he was combating, it seems certain that Augustine claimed Mary was immune from sin from the first moment of her existence
We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord. From Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular (omni ex parte) was conferred on her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin. With this exception of the Virgin, if we could assemble all the aforementioned holy men and women, and ask them whether they lived without sin while they were in this life, what do you suppose would be the answer? Would it be in the language of our author (Pelagius), or in the words of the apostle John, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves."
Ping!
"Ephrem is rightly considered the forerunner of the Immaculate Conception. He contrasted Mary with Eve, and set the stage for calling the Mother of Christ a mediatrix between the human race and her divine Son. "Mary and Eve," he wrote, "were two people without guilt. As two simple people they were originally the same. But later one because the cause of our death, and the other the cause of our life." (2)"
Utter and complete Roman hogwash!
"St. Augustine The bishop of Hippo in Africa, St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), dominates his age like a giant, and all Christian theology since his time has been colored and in many ways formed by his mind."
More hogwash. While a good theologian dealing with problems which simply never arose in the East, on account of his Manichean youth, Blessed Augustine's innovative musings were in great measure outside the consensus patrum and directly lead to a number of Western innovations, specifically including the filioque which was a foundational reason for the Great Schism. His concepts of Original Sin and the utter depravity of humanity twisted Christianity in the West, was almost completely unheard of among the other Fathers and formed a solid intellectual and theological basis for Calvinism.
Dear Friend,
All you are offering here is to say hogwash.
As far as I can tell ,Saint Ephrem's affirmed more explicitly than any of the other Christian Fathers, including St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
"Thou alone, O Lord," he declares, "and Thy mother are they who in every respect are wholly beautiful; for there is no spot in Thee, O Lord, nor any stain in Thy mother."
Saint Ephrem also wrote...
"Two women were pure and two simple: Mary and Eve; they stood on a level. But one was the cause of our death, the other of our life."
In consequence of her exemption from the effects of original sin Mary was, as St. Ephrem affirms in another passage, spared from the pains of labor in bearing the Christ-child.
Please post who you think is the forerunner and post their writings .
I,m always willing to learn something new if it is the truth.
Kolokotronis, Your "consensus patrum" is only including the Eastern Fathers. Please be aware that the Western Fathers ALSO had a "consensus patrum" on much of what St. Augustine wrote about. Perhaps it would be beneficial to remember that theology took different, yet complimentary paths even before St. Augustine. As such, St. Augustine was merely describing Western ideas, being a Western Father. That you find that as "hogwash" is unflattering towards the entire Western Tradition - as if man can come to God only through the Eastern "way"... This is simply not true, as a number of saintly Westerners are recognized by the Eastern Church - to include Augustine.
They managed to do so without utilizing the "uncreated energy" theology later solidified in the East. This should give you cause for discounting the entire Western Church.
Regards
Oops, sorry...
Regards
"We are UNITED o what is important.
Right?"
Right. Its VERY important. More important by far than what I am complaining about. However, 1000 years of preaching that before the Great Schism the Fathers were either the regional managers or employees of wholly owned Roman Catholic franchises has contributed to the fractured state of Christianity today. From what I have read here on FR over the past three years, three years during which I learned more about Protestantism than I had in the previous 50+, it appears to me that much of what motivates their present theology is their desire to "not be Roman". To that end they have scrapped Holy Tradition, many dogmas of the Ecumenical Councils, or at least an orthodox understanding of those dogmas, most of the sacraments and virtually all of the praxis of The Church.
When you or I quote +Ignatius of Antioch on the nature of The Church or his Eucharistic theology or his condemnation of the heretics who reject the Real Presence, they read "Roman Catholic" theology. They read that because the Romans always write "...there is the Catholic Church", with all that capital C implies, when in fact what +Ignatius wrote about was the "catholic Church", as did all the Fathers until after the Great Schism. For the umpteenth time I am rereading the Spiritual Meadow by +John Moschos. Time and again he writes of the "catholic Church" in distinction to the various heretical sects running around then (most of his contact was with the "Severians"). In the same context, like even Blessed Augustine, he writes of the Churches (pl) of God and their holy patriarchs and popes (Rome and Alexandria). When you add the impressions created by Roman writings such as that of Fr. Hardon, that the Eastern Fathers like +Ephraim were proto IC theologians and that +Augustine, the big gun of the Scholastics, was the preeminent theologian of The Church, the Protestants end up rejecting most of what the Fathers, East or West, teach. It gets even worse when claims are made that men like +Cyril of Alexandria or +John Chrysostomos were devotees of the later Roman Church position on the pope's authority.
When someone outside The Church converts to the Roman Church, I rejoice. Here on FR we have seen that time and again especially with Episcopalians. I trust you feel the same way when one of those people converts to Orthodoxy. But I am saddened by the situation created by Roman Catholic writers that The Church is and always was Roman Catholic and which has prevented so many outside The Church from even investigating what Orthodoxy or the Fathers have to say because they identify us with some sort of Roman franchise.
Final point, Jo, you say that I am ignoring a Western consensus patrum in favor of an Eastern one. You are incorrect. There is only one consensus patrum which arose out of the patristic era of The Church. Certainly there are variations among the Fathers, between East and West and within the East and the West. There are even great errors among the writings of the Fathers, especially among some of the early ones. Blessed Augustine's writings about original sin and the depravity of mankind are outside what any Father wrote prior to him (and in the East after him for that matter) except perhaps a few writings of Origen and Tertullian, both ultimately heretics. His influence on Western patristic writing after his death is undeniable as is his status as THE theologian of Calvinism. In his defense, he couldn't read, or could read well, Greek, he fought heresies the East didn't have to deal with and spent years as a Manichean. All of these factors shaped his theology and in certain areas they lead him, unwittingly, outside the consensus. You know, in Orthodoxy today we see something like this among our convert clergy here in the States. Many of them come from a sort of Calvinist background. Lately I have been listening to some of their sermons on Ancient Faith Radio on the net. I am surprised, as is our parish priest, at the thoroughly Western rather Calvinist tone of those sermons. They are Orthodox at base, but they "sound" Calvinist in their "atonement" theology.
We have an advantage over Blessed Augustine and his successors. We can read and understand both Latin and Greek and Orthodoxy and the Church of Rome have come to a point where we are more interested in re establishing some sort of consensus on the role of the Pope of Rome within The Church so that we can then move on to deal with the non conciliar innovations of the Roman Church since the Great Schism and thus move to communion upon establishing a complete identity of belief. Neither the Pope and his men nor our Orthodox hierarchs are wasting time in the dialogs. On matters of ecclesiology, Orthodoxy will not be asked to accept anything which it didn't accept prior to the Great Schism. +BXVI himself has said that. We're not going to be asked to become Greek or Arabic or Slavic speaking Roman Catholics nor will our hierarchs demand that the Pope of Rome become just some random patriarch. In matters of divergent dogma, a true Ecumenical Council will deal that. None of this will lead to "submission" of Orthodoxy to the Pope of Rome, much less to a united Church which the heterodox will call "Roman Catholic". Writings like this particular post, however, will not advance that end and indeed only make it harder to accomplish.
From where I sit, my friend, it appears that the Orthodox have the same mentality towards anything Roman Catholic that came AFTER the Schism. Is there ANY dogma defined AFTER the Schism that the Orthodox would say "Yea, they are right, we also believe that"? No - despite the fact that the Western Church traces its Tradition to a common point with the Orthodox in these doctrines, such as the sinlessness of Mary. I do not know why that is. Do the Orthodox think that the West totally relied on the East to define doctrine?
Final point, Jo, you say that I am ignoring a Western consensus patrum in favor of an Eastern one. You are incorrect. There is only one consensus patrum which arose out of the patristic era of The Church.
You say that, but do you believe that, my friend? You seem to ignore or have disdain for anything that was a Western avenue in the development of theology. Because "Atonement theology" is decidedly Western, coming from even before Tertulian, you cast it aside in favor of the "Eastern" view. Please remember that the "Atonement theology" is only one of several explanations in the West - admittedly, until recently, the primary view on salvation. Theosis is more an Eastern idea - one which we share, of course. However, it would be ignoring our own Tradition to totally remove Atonement theology from our current faith. It is part and parcel of the Catholic faith. But it is not the sum total of what we believe on the subject. Thus, when you put down the "Atonement theology" of the West, you are clearly showing that you have no respect for the MANY theologians in the West, dating back to Hilary and before who clearly preached some sort of Atonement idea of salvation.
There are even great errors among the writings of the Fathers, especially among some of the early ones. Blessed Augustine's writings about original sin and the depravity of mankind are outside what any Father wrote prior to him (and in the East after him for that matter) except perhaps a few writings of Origen and Tertullian, both ultimately heretics. His influence on Western patristic writing after his death is undeniable as is his status as THE theologian of Calvinism.
Unfortunately, St. Augustine and his Neo-Platoism was not his alone. Many of the Greek Fathers ALSO tried to explain theology under the background of this Neo-Platonic tendencies. Some of St. Augustine's ideas on the Trinity stem from the Cappadocians, so I have to tell you that your charecterization of St. Augustine as some sort of loose canon who was a proto-Protestant is an unfair judgment. What is ironic is that the Protestant Reformation, theologically speaking, was an argument between the theology of Augustine on grace vs. free will. The battle lines were drawn utilizing the largest and most pronounced Father of the West, a man who wrote about many things and whose influence on Western Christianity is undeniable. Given that he wrote so much on various subjects, it would not be difficult for Calvin to find things to twist in his writings - just as one could take the writings of the Theologian and twist them regarding the Trinity.
As you may know, many of St. Augustine's ideas were NOT accepted by the Council of Orange, which dealt specifically with the issue that Calvin would later turn upside down. Yes, St. Augustine's ideas went too far, but the Western Church DID NOT ACCEPT THEM ALL!
All of these factors shaped his theology and in certain areas they lead him, unwittingly, outside the consensus.
We believe that the Holy Spirit guides the ENTIRE Church. Thus, if the West went in the direction of the Atonement for many years regarding soteriological theology, than it was the WILL OF THE SPIRIT! We CANNOT say that this was some sort of aberration. The Spirit is present with the Church and a Tradition of 1000 years cannot be ignored. While we may both agree that theosis and divinization is closer to the Patristic Fathers, it is not the sum total of our Tradition anymore. The Church is a living Body that grows and continues to grow and mature. We are not in some form of statis. Thus, our Tradition spans 2000 years, not just from 100 to 500 AD.
On matters of ecclesiology, Orthodoxy will not be asked to accept anything which it didn't accept prior to the Great Schism. +BXVI himself has said that.
And there is no reason why they should. We are catholic - universal. As such, the Church world-wide is to express itself to men in the society that it lives. People in the East and people in the West live in different cultures, and it is the responsibility of the Church to preach the Gospel to where men in society are CURRENTLY at. As such, it would be insane to expect the Church throughout the world to take on Roman disciplines. That mistake was made before. With Vatican 2, I think we have a recognition with "Gaudium et Spes" that we can no longer expect the Chinese to speak Latin and to celebrate St. Patrick's day anymore...
Regards
"Is there ANY dogma defined AFTER the Schism that the Orthodox would say "Yea, they are right, we also believe that"?"
MAYBE the Assumption, though I confess that while I certainly believe in it, as do all Orthodox I know, I don't see that that belief is a sine qua non of theosis. What other ones would you expect us to accept? Filioque? the IC? the dogmatic pronouncements of Vatican I?
"...despite the fact that the Western Church traces its Tradition to a common point with the Orthodox in these doctrines, such as the sinlessness of Mary."
The sinlessness of The Theotokos is well within the consensus patrum. The IC is not, nor its illogical extension the Co-Redemptrix notion. Do you suppose that Fr. Hardon would have used +Ephraim's hymns to justify that idea and so give it a patristric heritage too?
"Do the Orthodox think that the West totally relied on the East to define doctrine?"
No, we expect the West to rely on the The Church, like we do.
"Because "Atonement theology" is decidedly Western, coming from even before Tertulian, you cast it aside in favor of the "Eastern" view. Please remember that the "Atonement theology" is only one of several explanations in the West - admittedly, until recently, the primary view on salvation."
Orthodoxy does not reject the Atonement theory of salvation, though we do reject any notion that God demanded the bloody death of His Son to be persuaded to let us do what He created us to do. Properly preached, the theory has a place in Christian theology. As you say, many Fathers taught some form of it. The problem is that it is seldom properly preached.
"Some of St. Augustine's ideas on the Trinity stem from the Cappadocians, so I have to tell you that your charecterization of St. Augustine as some sort of loose canon who was a proto-Protestant is an unfair judgment."
HUH? The man couldn't read Greek, Jo! What parts of his Trinitarian theology are traceable to the Cappadocians? The only thing connected to the Cappadocians about Blessed Augustine's Trinitarian theology is that he got it so very, very wrong.
"Yes, St. Augustine's ideas went too far, but the Western Church DID NOT ACCEPT THEM ALL!"
Except that hasn't been the Western "company line". That line is well expressed by Fr. Hardon who, in conformance with Latin practice, makes Augustine the most influential Father of the entire Church! I think he has been in the West, with obvious results.
"We CANNOT say that this was some sort of aberration. The Spirit is present with the Church and a Tradition of 1000 years cannot be ignored. While we may both agree that theosis and divinization is closer to the Patristic Fathers, it is not the sum total of our Tradition anymore. The Church is a living Body that grows and continues to grow and mature. We are not in some form of statis."
The theological dogmatic innovations of the West after the Great Schism, and even before that with the filioque, were the product of papal decree and local councils. Rome would have done better to remain in a state of theological stasis, remaining faithful to the 7 Ecumenical Councils where the whole Church decreed dogma than simply assuming that it had the totality of the Church and thus some sort of ownership of the Holy Spirit. Orthodoxy never presumed such a thing and while it believed and believes that it has preserved The Faith inviolate, it has not felt that it could declare further dogma for The Church while the West is in schism. Just because the Roman Church has been around 2000 years says absolutely nothing about the "orthodoxy" of its sua sponte dogmatic proclamations. Jo, by that criterion, Antioch and Jerusalem should have been proclaming even more valid dogma!
Perhaps you are unaware that the Coptics teach the same thing - although they say we should have stopped after Nicea... I suppose they call US innovators. It all depends on one's point of view. You call us innovators because the Western Church continues to grow and develop doctrine, continues to delve into the mysteries of our faith. It doesn't stop at the end of the seventh Ecumenical council. Such a statement basically says that the Church cannot continue on unless the Eastern Orthodox decide it to be so.
And so does what you say make everything Palamas said an innovation? A reading of history could certainly lead one to that assumption. Realize that the "New Theologian" is called that for a reason... "Uncreated energies" is not exactly a universal teaching of the entire Church. Most teach that God is the "imageless Image" - found in DARKNESS, not in an image of Light.
Being that it is Lent, I do not wish to argue over such matters. I consider my Orthodox brothers to be an integral part of the Body. If it bothers you that we have different opinions on the filioque or what type of bread to use at the Table of the Lord, I am sorry that you are focusing on such things. I doubt if God will sort us out on such matters...
Regards
"It all depends on one's point of view. You call us innovators because the Western Church continues to grow and develop doctrine, continues to delve into the mysteries of our faith. It doesn't stop at the end of the seventh Ecumenical council. Such a statement basically says that the Church cannot continue on unless the Eastern Orthodox decide it to be so."
Not at all. Both Rome and Orthodoxy have "delved into the mysteries of our faith" since the Great Schism. What Orthodoxy says is that the declaration of dogma is reserved to The Church as a whole. We haven't presumed to be that because Rome is in schism. It would be wrong for us to declare dogma for the whole Church. Rome presumes otherwise and proceeded to proclaim dogma for the whole Church and by declaring its popes infallible, earned the enmity of Orthodoxy and put itself into a box its extracation from which will take the combined efforts of the best theologians of both the East and the West.
As for +Gregory Palamas and +Symeon the New Theologian, well neither of them infallibly declared anything, much less any dogma.
""Uncreated energies" is not exactly a universal teaching of the entire Church."
No it isn't. Its essentially Cappadocian.
"Most teach that God is the "imageless Image" - found in DARKNESS, not in an image of Light."
Most? Really? How appropriate that the imageless Image of God in the West is found in DARKNESS while in the East in Light.
"If it bothers you that we have different opinions on the filioque or what type of bread to use at the Table of the Lord, I am sorry that you are focusing on such things. I doubt if God will sort us out on such matters..."
What type of bread you use is of little or no consequence to me except in the eating of it. I am surprised that as a Roman Catholic you would believe that God won't sort us out on an infallibly decreed matter like the filioque. What about the IC or for that matter the decrees of Vatican I?
I had thought that the East had basically declared the "uncreated energies" doctrine as dogmatic in their various synods after Palamas defended the Hesychasts...
Most? Really? How appropriate that the imageless Image of God in the West is found in DARKNESS while in the East in Light.
God is beyond our visible sight, Kolokotronis. As to darkness and finding God there, you know well that I speak of knowing God in the unknowing...
I am surprised that as a Roman Catholic you would believe that God won't sort us out on an infallibly decreed matter like the filioque. What about the IC or for that matter the decrees of Vatican I?
I believe God will look to the love that we express, not on whether I or you believe in the filioque or not. Apparently, Jesus didn't find it a matter of salvation on which side we land, because He really doesn't mention it much in the Scriptures. From my readings of the Bible and Tradition, it appears that God will judge us on our deeds, not on such things as the filioque...
I pray that your love does not fade as a result of such issues...
Regards
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