Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. 0813217938, 9780813217932

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Tradition & t h e Ru le o f Fa i t h in t he E a r ly C h u rch

TRADITION & T H E RU L E O F FA I T H I N T H E E A R LY C H U R C H Essays in Honor of J os ep h T. Li en h a rd, S.J.

a Edited by Ronnie J. Rombs & Alexander Y. Hwang

The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2010 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tradition and the rule of faith in the early church : essays in honor of Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. / edited by Ronnie J. Rombs and Alexander Y. Hwang. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8132-1793-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Tradition (Theology)—History of doctrines—Early church, ca. 30–600. 2. Rule of faith—History of doctrines—Early church, ca. 30–600.  I. Rombs, Ronnie J.  II. Hwang, Alexander Y.  III. Lienhard, Joseph T.  IV. Title. BT90.T735 2011 231´.042—dc22 2010011327

Contents Foreword Roland J. Teske, S.J.

vii

Introduction

ix

Abbreviations

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Part One: Tr adition and the Rule of Faith in the Fathers of the Church 1. Paradosis and Traditio: A Word Study Everett Ferguson

3

2. From the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας to the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν: The Rule of Faith and the New Testament Canon Jonathan J. Armstrong

30

3. The Bishop in the Mirror: Scripture and Irenaeus’s Self-Understanding in Adversus haereses Book One D. Jeffrey Bingham

48

4. Prosper, Cassian, and Vincent: The Rule of Faith in the Augustinian Controversy Alexander Y. Hwang

68

Part Two: Tr adition and the Rule of Faith in the Arian Controversy 5. Joseph Lienhard, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Marcellus’s Rule of Faith Sar a Parvis 6. Apollinarius and the First Nicene Generation Kelley McCarthy Spoerl

89

109

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Contents

7. The Enigma of Meletius of Antioch Brian E. Daley, S.J.

128

Part Three: Augustine, Tr adition, and the Rule of Faith 8. Augustine’s Appeal to Tradition Roland J. Teske, S.J.

153

9. Augustine, Paul, and the Ueritas Catholica †Thomas F. Martin, O.S.A.

173

10. How Christ Saves: Augustine’s Multiple Explanations J. Patout Burns

193

11. Augustine Laughed: De beata vita Kenneth B. Steinhauser

211

12.

Unum Deum . . . Mundi Conditorem: Implications of the Rule of Faith in Augustine’s Understanding of Time and History Ronnie J. Rombs

232

Part Four: The Tr aditio Patrum 13. Traditio Patrum in Early Christian Ireland Joseph F. Kelly

253

14. Interpretation, Assimilation, Appropriation: Recent Commentators on Augustine and His Tradition Frederick Van Fleteren

270

15. (Re)defining the Boundaries of Orthodoxy: The Rule of Faith and the Twentieth-Century Rehabilitation of Origen A. Edward Siecienski

286

16. Erasmus’s Edition of Origen Thomas Scheck

308

Joseph T. Lienhard, Significant Dates and Bibliography

337

Contributors

345

Index

347

Ro l a n d J. T es k e , S.J.

Foreword The editors invited me, in this foreword about Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., to highlight something other than his scholarly achievements, which have been amply acknowledged in this volume. I could hardly refuse, but I also feel totally inadequate to the challenge. Such remarks are inevitably going to be somewhat personal, and I have chosen to make them under three headings: Joseph Lienhard as a Jesuit and a priest, as a teacher and a mentor, and as a friend. Joseph Lienhard entered the Jesuit order in 1958 and was ordained a priest in 1971. He came to Marquette University in 1975, joined our community there, and remained at Marquette until 1990. Hence, I had the privilege of living with him in community for those years—years, as many of you well know, that were full of change and challenge for religious and priestly life. Although we Jesuits may be reluctant to say that we find spiritual edification in other Jesuits, I confess that I have always found Joseph to be a man of deep Catholic faith and Ignatian spirituality and a model priest and religious, to whom I could always look as a model of stability amid storms, of solid devotion and priestly piety. To concelebrate the Eucharist with him has always been a grace, for the sacrifice of the Mass obviously meant very much to him. His liturgies in parishes or convents on weekends when other Jesuit scholars relaxed from the week of teaching and writing are marks of his zeal. He has been and remains a man of the Church, a loyal son of Loyola, and a man for others in the words of a recent superior general of the Society of Jesus. Joe’s graduate students could testify to his role as a teacher and mentor much better than I, but Joseph was also my teacher and mentor. When he came to Marquette in 1975, I was intellectually adrift after finishing a dissertation on a British Hegelian of the nineteenth century. I stumbled onto Augustine of Hippo when another Jesuit retired from teaching the graduate course, and although I had no graduate training in the area, with Joe’s encouragement and guidance I got into some rather interesting work in Augustine, where I vii

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Ro l a n d J. T es k e , S . J.

have worked happily and somewhat fruitfully for thirty years. Without his help and encouragement I might never have found the intellectual center of my interest over these years. I remember how he took one of my first articles and suggested a radical revision that almost completely turned it around. And the result was a radical improvement. It is no surprise to me that his students have also found him to be an excellent teacher and mentor. Joseph became a very close friend of mine during his years at Marquette and remained a very close friend even after he left for Fordham University. A true friend is a tremendous gift and grace, and I have certainly experienced such a gift and grace in Joseph Lienhard’s friendship. Augustine of Hippo, a common teacher for both Joseph and me, tells us that true friendship has to be grounded in the Lord and that one can never lose a friend whom one loves in the Lord. Such friendship is of course not exclusive, but open to more and in fact thrives with more friends. Thanks be to God for Joseph Lienhard, a Jesuit and priest, a teacher and mentor, and a friend in the Lord. May God continue to bless him abundantly ad multos annos.

Introduction

This collection of essays is dedicated to Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. The theme is tradition and the rule of faith in the early Church. The essays were written by a few of his many friends who study the Fathers of the Church and represent but a small token of gratitude for Joe and his accomplishments. The list of Joe’s scholarly contributions, which appears in a section after the essays, is long and impressive, and rightfully places him among the preeminent contemporary patrologists. All of his work is marked by a rigorous scholarship and written in his signature style: a clear and precise prose that has been praised as “Hemingwayesque.” Joe’s scholarship alone would merit a collection of essays in his honor. In addition to his scholarly achievements, Joe has taught patristics and directed twenty-two doctoral dissertations in the course of his thirty-five years of teaching at Marquette University and Fordham University. For those of us who have had the benefit and pleasure of knowing him or of having worked under his direction, Joe’s scholarship is matched only by his personal integrity, generosity, graciousness, and humility. So it is with great pleasure that we present this work to honor him as priest, scholar, and friend. c The theme of tradition and the rule of faith is particularly apt for this Festschrift as it has been at the center of Joe’s scholarship. Moreover, it is not merely an academic interest for him. It reflects his Christian faith and commitment to the Church. Through his writings and lectures, Joe has sought not only to present the truth and beauty of the writings of the Fathers, but also to remind the Church of the essential importance of tradition and the rule of faith both for the early Church and for the Church today. The meanings of tradition and the rule of faith and their importance have been succinctly put forward in his book The Bible, the Church, and Authority.1 1. Joseph T. Lienhard, The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), esp. 95–100.

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x Ron n i e J. Ro m b s & A le x a n d er Y. H wa n g Tradition (traditio in Latin and paradosis in Greek) means “to hand on,” and its content is the faith that was proclaimed by Jesus and his apostles, which was “established in and preserved by the Church as true.” The rule of faith has two meanings: one is related to its content and the other to its function, but both are inextricably connected. In content, the rule of faith is tradition, as defined above. In function, the rule of faith is the “norm that guides the Christian’s faith.” The rule of faith “guided the formation of the New Testament canon. . . . And then, once a New Testament was established, the rule of faith functioned as the norm for its right interpretation.” Joe unashamedly believes that this method is the Church’s “best guide still” for the right interpretation of Scripture. That belief is shared by a growing number of both Catholics and Protestants who are coming to an appreciation of the contributions of the Church Fathers, especially in the area of exegesis. c The essays are divided into four sections: “Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Church Fathers,” “Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Arian Controversy,” “Tradition and the Rule of Faith in Augustine,” and “The Tradition of the Fathers.” “Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Church Fathers” begins with Everett Ferguson’s word study of paradosis and traditio among the Church Fathers. Ferguson begins with the various meanings of the word traditio, which he divides into two groups: traditio as an act and traditio as content. After examining the usage of the word among the Greek and Latin classical writers and Jewish writers, Ferguson focuses on the Christian usage of the word up to the early fourth century, and then provides a summary of how the word was used in the later fourth and fifth centuries. Ferguson concludes that there was a shift in the usage of the word. In pre-Christian writers the word was predominantly used to refer to an act. When Christians first began to use the word it was in reference to a specific content. Then, beginning in the later fourth century, the word was used to refer to the mode of delivery. Jonathan J. Armstrong’s article explores the relationship between the rule of faith and the formation of the New Testament canon. After providing an overview of the different and contradictory evaluations by various scholars on this question, Armstrong proposes his own theory. Scholars from Theodor Zahn to Valdemar Ammundsen and Gustave Bardy have proposed theories for the formation of the New Testament canon, which have been unable to account for all the facts concerning this formation. What these theories have failed to acknowledge is the inextricable relationship between the development of the canon and the institutional development of orthodoxy. Armstrong concludes that although the rule of faith as cited by second-century authors is not identical to the New Testament canon cited by the fourth-century



Introduction 

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authors, the former served as the standard of orthodoxy during the era preceding the final emergence of the latter. D. Jeffrey Bingham revisits the question of the composition of book 1 of Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses, and offers an argument for its unity and originality based on the words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 10. Bingham argues that Irenaeus viewed his own ministry as an extension of the apostolic ministry described in Matthew 10—a ministry of speaking and proclaiming what is revealed. Book 1 is Irenaeus’s continuation of that apostolic ministry of disclosure against errors. Bingham concludes that it is after the errors are revealed that Irenaeus can then present the arguments informed by Scripture and the rule of faith—the apostolic tradition—in books 2 through 5. Alexander Y. Hwang looks at the controversy over Augustine’s doctrine of grace that took place in southern Gaul between the supporters of Augustine and those who opposed Augustine’s later teaching on grace. Hwang focuses on three representatives of the controversy, Prosper of Aquitaine, John Cassian, and Vincent of Lérins, whose estimations of the orthodoxy of Augustine’s teaching on grace differed. While they agreed that the rule of faith—Scripture and the Church’s tradition—determined orthodox belief, they held different and competing understandings of what constituted tradition. For Prosper, after evolving from his strict adherence to Augustine’s doctrine of grace, tradition was solely represented by the Roman pontiffs. Cassian and Vincent understood tradition in terms of consensus. That is, tradition is restricted to that which the Church as a whole has affirmed to be true. The next three essays are devoted to tradition and the rule of faith in the Arian controversy. Sara Parvis begins her essay with an overview of the importance of Lienhard’s contribution to the study of Marcellus, and then focuses on the creed found in his Letter to Julius to illustrate Marcellus’s rule of faith. Parvis carefully provides the historical/theological contexts of the various parts of Marcellus’s creed, and argues that this creed, which closely mirrors the baptismal creed used in Rome at the time, reflected his genuine theology—his own rule of faith—and not simply an attempt at appeasement. The essay ends with a reflection on the contemporary relevance of Marcellus’s contribution of the scandal of the incarnation to the scandal of the cross. Marcellus, or rather the anti-Marcellan tradition, is taken up in Kelley McCarthy Spoerl’s essay. Spoerl provides a historical reconstruction of the events surrounding the development of Apollinarius’s Christology. She proposes that the roots of his Christology are located earlier in his life than previously thought. Not only was Apollinarius influenced by the anti-Marcellan tradition, but also the anti-Eustathian tradition. This essay sheds further light on the relationship between the second generation of Nicene sympathizers and the first generation. In the case of Apollinarius—a second-generation pro-Nicene—his

xii Ron n i e J. Ro m b s & A le x a n d er Y. H wa n g trinitarian theology and Christology were shaped by his opposition to Marcellus and Eustathius, who belonged to the first generation of pro-Nicenes. The section ends with Brian Daley’s contribution on Melitius of Antioch, who managed to gain the respect of his contemporaries on both sides of the Nicene trinitarian debate. Melitius’s love of tradition, graciousness toward the views of others, and desire for Christian unity has been interpreted by modern scholars as theologically elusive or politically elastic; according to Daley, however, it was precisely these qualities that his contemporaries found orthodox. Through the example of Melitius, Daley suggests a correction to the modern tendency to overemphasize the divisions among the fourth-century theologians, when, in fact, there was a greater underlying unity that transcended differences among those who rejected the extreme forms of trinitarian teachings. Roland J. Teske’s essay examines Augustine’s involvement in three major controversies—Manichean, Donatist, and Pelagian—through his appeal to tradition. For each of these groups, Augustine appealed to tradition in slightly different ways that addressed the particular errors that Augustine saw in each of the groups. In combating the Manichees, Augustine pointed to the Church as the bearer and custodian of Scripture. Augustine appealed to the universality of the Church against the Donatists who claimed the Church in a restricted sense. And against the Pelagians, Augustine invoked the teachings of the bishops from the time of the apostles to the present. Thomas F. Martin’s essay continues the theme of Augustine’s involvement in Manichean, Donatist, and Pelagian controversies. While Teske explores Augustine’s appeal to tradition in combating these groups, Martin looks at Augustine’s presentation of the Apostle Paul (Paulus catholicus), which refuted the presentations of this apostle made by the Manichees (Paulus Manichaeus), Donatists (Paulus Donatista), and Pelagians (Paulus Pelagianus). The integral connection between the rule of faith and Scripture is foundational in Augustine’s dialectical and rhetorical efforts at presenting the Paulus catholicus against his opponents. According to Martin, Paul’s writings were profoundly formative of the rule of faith, and this rule of faith served as the guide for reading Paul. J. Patout Burns addresses Augustine’s three explanations of the redemptive work of Christ: subverting the devil’s authority and power over human beings, taking up human sinfulness and destroying it in his bodily death, and providing an act of divine love that provokes sinners to repentance and inspires a love of God. Burns argues that the first two explanations are Augustine’s versions found in the Eastern traditions, while the third interpretation is Augustine’s own contribution. This third interpretation, Burns suggests, is foundational to the coherency and adequacy of the first two.



Introduction 

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Kenneth B. Steinhauser uses a poignant exchange between Augustine and his mother at Cassiciacum concerning happiness, as recorded in his De beata vita, to explore the classical understandings of happiness and Augustine’s view expressed in his early philosophical works. Steinhauser notes that all the philosophical schools of antiquity believed the highest good was happiness or eudaimonia, and that Augustine, along with other Christian writers influenced by the pagan tradition, sought to redefine what this happiness was and how it was achieved. Ultimately for Augustine, the wisdom of philosophy is insufficient to achieve happiness, for it must be joined with the authority of faith. Happiness is the enjoyment of God, and it is through faith, hope, and love that one can find happiness. The section on Augustine concludes with Ronnie Rombs’s essay on the development of Augustine’s assessment of time and history. The young Augustine inherited from the Platonic tradition an understanding of time and history that was inseparable from the idea of a fall or sin. But, as Augustine became increasingly aware of the implications of the rule of faith—in particular the profession of faith in God as Creator of all things from nothing—he abandoned the Platonic or Neoplatonic conceptions of time and history. Where Plotinus saw time and history as effects of the fall of the soul, the later Augustine would come to see time and history as dimensions of human life even prior to and apart from Adam’s sin and as marked by the good, creative will of God. This development stems entirely from his engagement with the rule of faith. Joseph Kelly’s essay begins the final section of the book. As noted above, the section takes up the topic of the tradition and reception of the Fathers themselves. Kelly describes the significance of the Fathers among early medieval Irish commentators on Scripture. The Irish, Kelly shows, depended heavily upon the exegesis of the Fathers, but they did not merely use the writings of the Fathers as a series of proof-texts. The Irish recognized that they, while standing on the shoulders of the Fathers, were themselves interpreters of and contributors to the tradition they inherited from the Fathers. In the following article Fredrick Van Fleteren examines the meaning of interpretation and assimilation in terms of both Augustine’s use of the Platonic tradition and the assimilation of Augustine by the subsequent Christian tradition. While recognizing continuity between sources and the thought of those who subsequently assimilate them, Van Fleteren emphasizes the change ideas undergo when they are taken out of their original context and assimilated by new thinkers. Van Fleteren tells us, for example, that, despite the significant influence of Augustine, Aquinas was still his own man. Van Fleteren also argues, by way of cataloging (though not exhaustively) the many assimilators of Augustine and the Augustinian ideas appropriated, that not all assimilation is

xiv Ron n i e J. Ro m b s & A le x a n d er Y. H wa n g legitimate. He questions whether Luther, Calvin, and Jansenius, among others, authentically appropriated Augustine. Edward Siecienski traces the demise and rehabilitation of the reputation of Origen. Siecienski notes that the Church never worked out a consistent or unified approach to discerning between a Father of the Church who happened to err on a particular point and a “heretic.” Origen, who died a revered Confessor of the Church was later condemned by the Second Council of Constantinople. Siecienski provides a historical overview of Origen’s life and the course of his posthumous condemnation. The second half of the essay is given to the process of Origen’s rehabilitation in the twentieth century, especially at the hand of Henri de Lubac. Finally, Thomas Scheck concludes the collection with his study of Erasmus’s edition of Origen, published in 1536. Scheck provides a detailed analysis of Erasmus’s appreciation of Origen, the structure and emphases of his “Life of Origen,” and the parallels between the three men: Origen, Erasmus, and Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.

A Final Word of Thanks The idea for a collection of essays to honor Joe was conceived in 2007 by his former students. Ever humble, he was reluctant at first, and only subsequently concurred. Joe has expressed his surprise and not a little humility at the many contributors who have made the time and effort to contribute to the Festschrift. We, the editors, wish to thank the contributors for their enthusiasm for the project and the high quality of scholarship reflected in their essays. We are especially grateful to one contributor, Thomas Martin, O.S.A., who passed away in 2009 shortly after submitting his essay. He did not mention his illness to us and did not hesitate when asked to contribute to this collection. We would also like to thank the many others without whose help the collection would have been impossible. James Kruggel, the acquisitions editor at the Catholic University of America Press, has been extremely encouraging and helpful at each stage of the production of this book. George Demacopolous and David Maconi, S.J., generously offered much needed guidance and criticism. The two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript also provided thoughtful critiques and suggestions. Finally, we would like to thank the Department of Theology at Fordham University for its support of the project: the department provided the much needed and much appreciated funding for this project.

Alexander Y. Hwang Ronnie Rombs

Abbreviations

ACW

Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, ed. J. Quasten et al. (New York: Newman Press, 1946–)



ANF

Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1951–)



AS

Augustinian Studies

ATA

Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999)

AThAug

L’Année théologique Augustinienne

BA

Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, Bibliothèque Augustinienne (Paris: Desclée, De Brower, 1936–)

CCCM

Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–)



CCL

Corpus Christianarum: Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–)



CPL

Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 3rd ed. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995)

CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna: Tempsky, 1865–)

CWE

Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–)



DS

Enchiridion Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, ed. H. J. Dinzinger and A. Schönmetzer (Barcinone: Herder, 1965)

FC

Fathers of the Church, ed. R. J. Deferrari (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947–)

GCS

Der griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1897–)



JECS

Journal of Early Christian Studies



JTS

LB

Journal of Theological Studies Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omnia, ed. J. Leclerc (Leiden, 1703–6, repr. Hildesheim 1961–62, 10 vols.)

xv

xvi

Abbreviations

MGH

Monumenta germaniae historica (Munich: Monumenta germaniae historica, 1949–)



NHC

Nag Hammadi Codex (Leiden: Brill, 1985–)



NHS

Nag Hammadi Studies (Leiden: Brill)

NPNF

A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994)

PG

Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1857–66)

PL

Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1844–64)

PLS

Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Supplementum, ed. J. P. Migne and A. Hamman (Paris, 1958–63)

PS

Patristic Studies, ed. R. J. Deferrari (Washington, D.C.: The University of America Press, 1922–)



RB

Revue Bénédictine



RTAM



SC



SHR



SP

Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1942–) Studies in the History of Religions. Supplements 3–26 to Numen Studia Patristica (Louvain: Peeters Press, 1955–)

StEphAug

Studia Ephemerides Augustinianum

TU

Text und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: Hinrichs)



Vigiliae Christianae

VC

WSA

Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1990–)

WUNT

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995–)

Pa rt O n e

a Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Fathers of the Church

Ev er et t Ferguson

1  Paradosis and Traditio A Word Study

Modern usage of the word “tradition” has so many meanings, and to some persons such negative and to others such positive connotations, that careful definition is required. A number of works in the 1950s and 1960s established the early Christian use of the words for and concept of tradition.1 The passage of time perhaps justifies a fresh examination of the evidence that in addition introduces some texts not in the usual repertoire. Actual word usage does not support the modern distinction between Scripture and tradition, nor the identification of tradition with unwritten transmission. This study aims at comprehensive coverage of Christian usage up to the early fourth century and concludes with a summary look at the later fourth and fifth centuries. A complete examination of early Christian thinking about tradition would require looking at the cognate verb forms, but the usage of the nouns παράδοσις and traditio suffices for the purposes of this essay. 1. Notable works in English include G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics (London: SPCK, 1954), chap. 1; E. Flesseman–van Leer, Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1954); Oscar Cullmann, “The Tradition,” in The Early Church (London: SCM Press, 1956), 55–99; J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (New York: Harper, 1958), 5th rev. ed. (1978), 29–51; R. P. C. Hanson, Tradition in the Early Church (London: SPCK, 1962); George Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 9 (1963): 181–200; Albert C. Outler, “Tradition in the Ante-Nicene Church,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 1 (1964): 460–84; Outler, “The Sense of Tradition in the Ante-Nicene Church,” in The Heritage of Christian Thought, ed. R. E. Cushman and E. Grislis, 8–30 (New York: Harper, 1965); Yves M.-J. Congar, Tradition and Traditions: An Historical Essay and a Theological Essay (London: Burns & Oates; New York: Macmillan, 1966; French orig. in two vols., 1960, 1963); George S. Bebis, “The Concept of Tradition in the Fathers of the Church,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 15 (1970): 22–55.

3

4

Ev er et t Ferguso n

I offer the following classification of usage that groups content according to grammatical meaning.2 A. The active sense of the act of handing over. 1. The handing over of objects. 2. Handing over, betrayal, surrender of persons or a place. 3. The passing on of teaching, especially by philosophers. B. The passive sense of that which is handed on. 4. Any item of information. 5. Ancestral customs and attitudes. 6. Jewish interpretations and application of Torah—halakah. 7. The Christian message—from God, Christ, or the apostles, or from God or Christ through the apostles. 8. Apostolic or ecclesiastical practices—liturgical, organizational, and disciplinary. 9. Erroneous or heretical teaching. 10. Content indeterminate from the context.

Classical Greek Authors The active sense of transmission predominates in classical Greek usage. Thus Thucydides refers (1.) to what Homer says in regard to “the handing over [παραδόσει, delivery] of the scepter” (History 1.9.4). He also writes (2.), “at the surrender [παράδοσιν] of our city” (3.53.1). Plato provides an early instance of the word referring to the delivery of teaching or doctrine (3.): “Next let the teaching and imparting [παράδοσις] of these things be discussed” (Laws 7, 803a).3 Aristotle uses the word for the transfer of goods (1.)—“In order that there may be no theft of public property, let the delivery [παράδοσις] of goods occur in the presence of all the citizens” (Politics 5.7.11, 1309a)—and for the transmission of ideas (3.), in this case legends—“matters that grow out of the process of transmission [παραδόσεως]” (Sophistici elenchi 184b). Isocrates furnishes an example of handing over a person (2.): “He refused to obey them with regard to the surrender [παραδόσεως] of the slave” to punishment (17 [Trapeziticus].16).4 Polybius offers a variety of usage. For the meaning betrayal (2.) note: “They had taken many cities in Spain and Italy, some by force, some by surrender [or 2. G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 1014–16, offers a much fuller classification. 3. Plato refers to the delivery of goods (1.) in Laws 11, 915d. 4. Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.36.1.



Paradosis and Traditio 

5

betrayal, παραδόσεως]” (History 9.25.5).5 For the act of teaching (3.) he says that one way of acquiring the art of generalship is from “the systematic instruction [παραδόσεως] by experienced men” (11.8.2). The passive sense of something received by transmission (5.) is represented by his reference to “whole cities accustomed to act nobly from tradition and principle” (16.22a.7).6 Coming to the centuries at the beginning of the Christian era we find similar usages. A papyrus of the third century records (1.), “after the time of the delivery [παραδόσεως] of the grain” (Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1257.3). Plutarch says (1.) that Numa “surrendered [resigned, handed over, παράδοσις] the kingship” (Lives, Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa 1.1). The philosophers provide an approximation of Christian usage. Plutarch reports that the Stoics say (3.), “The doctrine concerning the gods is last; therefore, they designate the delivery [transmissions, παραδόσεις] of this doctrine the ultimate mystery” (Contradictions of the Stoics 9; Moralia 1035B).7 Sextus Empiricus parallels the “delivery [παραδόσει] of laws and customs” (3.) to “instruction [διδασκαλία] of the arts” (Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.11.23–24).8 The active sense shades into the passive (4.) in his observation about an upheaval “that does away with the continuity of historical tradition” (Against the Professors 5.105). Pseudo Plutarch, The Education of Children, offers one of the rare pagan uses of the passive sense “that which is handed down,” when he says of an anecdote about Demosthenes (4.), “This perhaps is an inauthentic and fictitious tradition [παράδοσις]” (9; Moralia 6D). The grammarians did use tradition for the content of grammatical rules (4.).9

Classical Latin Authors Latin shows the same priority of the active sense and something of the same range of usage for traditio as Greek does for paradosis. Cicero writes of the transfer (1.) or delivery [traditio] of property (Topica 5.28).10 Livy mentions that some cities (2.) were delivered up [tradi, surrendered] to the Romans and others were “set free without delivery [traditione, surrender]” (History 33.31.2).11 5. Cf. History 2.62.11, “by siege and surrender.” 6. Cf. “all knew by tradition of a treaty” (History 12.6.1). 7. On the Stoics, cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 7.40; also Epictetus on the delivery of teaching (3.) in 2.23.40. 8. Same phrase in 1.34.237; cf. Against the Professors 1.2.55. 9. Apollonius Dyscolus, On Conjunctions 213.13; Etymologicum Magnum 815.18. 10. Cf. Suetonius, Lives, Augustus 39. 11. Also 34.30.1; cf. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 37.4.9.

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There are several occurrences for the transmission of knowledge, the activity of teaching. Seneca, referring to a teacher and a physician (3.), says that “in the transmission [traditio] of such knowledge mind is fused with mind” (Benefits 6.17.2).12 Apuleius in reference to his third initiation into the mysteries of Isis, this time at Rome, describes it (3.) as “what remained lacking of what was given [traditioni],” having been performed twice (Metamorphoses 11.29).13 The passive sense of an item of knowledge or belief (4.) is also evident.14 Two passages in Aullus Gellius are noteworthy as implying a negative evaluation. He reports (4.) that “there was a tradition [traditionem] that Nerio was said by some to be the wife of Mars” (Attic Nights 13.23.14). Again he writes that some use words without knowing their meaning (4.), “but follow an uncertain and popular tradition [traditionem] without investigation” (16.5.1).

Jewish Writings The Septuagint is not relevant to this study. Paradosis occurs twice in Greek Jeremiah for the delivering up (2.) of King Zedekiah and Jerusalem to the king of Babylon (39 [= 32]:4; 41 [= 34]:2). Two manuscripts of 2 Esdras (= Ezra) 7:26 give paradosis (betrayal, delivered up) (2.) instead of “bondage” for the punishment received by those who do not obey the law of God. Philo reflects the use by philosophers (3.): “For the instructions [παραδόσεις] and directions which come through men are slow, but those through God are exceedingly swift” (Drunkenness 31.120). I take the word as active here, but it seems to be passive, equivalent to ancestral customs (5.), in a passage that has the importance of referring to unwritten tradition: For children ought to inherit from their parents in addition to property ancestral customs [ἔθη], in which they were raised and have lived from their swaddling clothes, and not to despise them, inasmuch as the tradition [παράδοσις] is unwritten. (Special Laws 4.28.150)15 12. Quintilian, Institutes 12.11.16—ad traditionem opus; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 8.1. 13. According to F. M. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 763, the passive sense of that which is handed down in reference to the mysteries is found in an inscription dated 117: “introducing the tradition [παράδοσιν] of the mysteries” (W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 704E, 12). 14. Tacitus, Annals 16.16—ita traditione supremorium accipiant. 15. Unless he means among Christian authors, P. Smulders, “Le mot et le concept de tradition chez les pères grecs,” Recherches de science religieuse 40 (1951–52): 41–62 (46–47), is incorrect that “in Clement [of Alexandria] we read for the first time the expression ἄγραφος παράδοσις.”



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The passage continues by referring to written and unwritten laws. It may be, however, that the word is active here also (3.), referring to the unwritten, oral, transmission of the customs. Josephus’s Antiquities has similar uses: (2.) “A voluntary surrender [παραδόσεως] means safety” (Antiquities 10.10 [1.2]), and reference to the delivery of the watchword (1.) to the consuls at Rome (Antiquities 19.187 (2.3). I take as the active meaning (3.) that Josiah, king of Judah, was guided “by the counsel and tradition [teaching] of the elders” (Antiquities 10.51 [4.1]). This work also introduces other meanings. He summarizes the contents of the Antiquities as containing the tradition, the account (4.), from the first creation of human beings until the twelfth year of Nero’s reign.16 Relevant for New Testament usage is Josephus’s description of the traditions of the Pharisees (6.): The Pharisees handed down to the people by succession from the fathers certain laws that were not written in the laws of Moses. For this reason the Sadducaean group rejected these laws, claiming that (only) the written laws were to be held valid and that those derived from the tradition [παραδόσεως] of the fathers were not to be observed. (Antiquities 13.297 [10.6])17

The reference here is to the oral law of the Pharisees, identified with the “tradition of the fathers.” Nonetheless, a frequent use in Josephus is for written accounts (4.). His history of the Jewish War “preserved the record [παράδοσιν] of the truth” (Life 361), and King Agrippa testified to its “record [or perhaps better here its transmission, παραδόσει] (3.) of the truth” (Life 364).18 Josephus elsewhere uses tradition in the sense of an account for his own writings (4.).19 He refers to the written records of other nations as tradition.20 The Jewish books included the five of Moses (4.–5.), which “contain the laws and the tradition [παράδοσιν, the account] from the origin of mankind down to his death” (Against Apion 1.8.39).21

16. Antiquities 20.259 (12.1). Cf. Against Apion 1.8.39, cited below. 17. A briefer statement occurs in Antiquities 13.408 (16.2). 18. Eusebius, Church History 3.10.9–11, quotes the passage. 19. Against Apion 1.9.50; 1.10.53; 2.40.287. 20. Ibid. 1.2.8–9; 1.6.28. 21. Eusebius, Church History 3.9.5, introduces his quotation of this passage about “the scriptures of the Old Covenant,” which are undisputed by the Hebrews, “as if from ancient tradition.”

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Of the thirteen New Testament references, nine are to the traditions of the Pharisees (6.). These latter uses refer to an objective content, that which was handed down, and in each case the Latin uses traditio to translate paradosis. As to the source, the tradition is specified as “of the elders” (Mt 15:2; Mk 7:3, 5), “of men” (that is, human tradition—Mk 7:8), and “your [Pharisees’ and scribes’] tradition” (Mt 15:3, 6; Mk 7:9). Their tradition was what “you hand on” (Mk 7:13). These traditions are contrasted with “the commandment of God” (Mt 15:3) and “the word of God” (Mt 15:6; Mk 7:13). In addition to these eight passages from the Gospels there is Paul’s reference (6.) to his life in Judaism, “being exceedingly zealous for the traditions [παραδόσεων] of my fathers” (Gal 1:14). The Pauline corpus also refers to “human tradition [παράδοσιν],” in this case teachings of philosophers and human speculations (4. or perhaps 5.), contrasted with what accords with Christ (Col 2:8). The statement apparently refers to what is called the “Colossian heresy,” but it is possible that the active meaning of “transmission” (3.) is intended, but in either case the human origin discredits the subject. The above references give a negative evaluation of tradition, but Paul three times uses the word in a positive sense for what he delivered to the churches. He commended the Corinthian Christians, “because you observe the traditions [παραδόσεις, Latin praecepta] even as I delivered them to you” (1 Cor 11:2). Practices are in mind (8.), probably the practice of veiling, which is the subject of the following verses. Matters of conduct, practice, are once more the subject when Paul writes of brothers living in a disorderly manner (8.), “not according to the tradition [παράδοσιν, traditionem] that they received from us” (2 Thes 3:6). Doctrine (7.), especially eschatological teaching, seems to be the content of the exhortation, “Hold fast to the traditions [παραδόσεις, traditiones] which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by our letter [1 Thes]” (2 Thes 2:15). The content was the same in both means of communication—orally and in writing. The message was public, not secret. In all three of these positive references to tradition Paul the apostle was the source, but the implication is that what was delivered was from the Lord.

Christian Apocrypha, Apostolic Fathers, and Apologists An uncanonical gospel fragment from about the mid-second century uses paradosis in a sense common in Josephus and classical authors (2.).22 The rulers 22. D. B. Reynders, “Paradosis: Le progrès de l’idée de tradition jusqu’a à saint Irénée,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 5 (1933): 155–91, surveys the use of the verb and noun before Irenaeus (136–73) in order to demonstrate the novelty of Irenaeus’s use.



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were unable to seize Jesus, “because the hour of his delivering up [παραδόσεως]” had not come.23 Although Christian usage, unlike classical Greek, is predominantly the object transmitted, this passage shows that the word could keep its sense of the act of delivering.24 Clement of Rome wrote to the Corinthian Christians, “Let us leave behind empty and vain thoughts and come to the famous and noble rule of our tradition [παραδόσεως ἡμῶν κανόνα]” (1 Clement 7.2). One might think that the reference is to doctrine (7.),25 but since the author was addressing the schism, and from his standpoint sedition, of some in the congregation, behavior (8.) seems to have been in mind. Eusebius’s report on Papias contains frequent reference to tradition.26 The word, however, does not occur in Eusebius’s quotations from Papias and appears to be his own designation for what Papias recorded (4.),27 a conclusion confirmed by use of Eusebius’s characteristic phrase, “as” or “as if ” in speaking of tradition (see below on Eusebius).28 The qualification “unwritten” for some of the traditions indicates that unwritten was not implicit in the word itself, even if the transmission was normally oral.29 Eusebius had a generally unfavorable opinion of Papias. The text of the apology known as Epistle to Diognetus contains what appears to be a homily appended to it (chapters 11–12), so to the uncertainty of the date and authorship of the apology there is the added uncertainty of the origin of the final two chapters, which may be much later. Here is found a statement that reminds one of Irenaeus and later authors (I do not suggest him as the author but think of his time period): The fear of the Law is sung, the grace of the Prophets is known, the faith of the Gospels is established, the tradition [παράδοσις] of the Apostles is guarded, and the grace of the church leaps for joy. (Epistle to Diognetus 11.6)

23. Papyrus Egerton 2, frg. 1, recto, line 29. 24. Contra Smulders, “Le mot et le concept de tradition,” 43—“The Christian authors of the second century employ only the objective sense”; this passage is overlooked also by Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon, 763, who says that only the passive sense occurs in early Christian literature. 25. Or at least is included, as apparently by Danker, ibid., who lists this verse under “Christian teaching.” 26. Eusebius, Church History 3.39.7, 8, 11, 14. 27. Reynders, “Paradosis,” 167. 28. Used in reference to Papias in Eusebius, Church History 3.39.8 and 11. 29. Ibid. 3.39.11. Contra Smulders, “Le mot et le concept de tradition,” 45, “The first characteristic property of tradition is to be unwritten,” a statement refuted by the usage of Paul and Josephus cited above.

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The listing of Law, Prophets, and Gospels indicates that the next item refers to apostolic writings, so I have capitalized Apostles. The apostles are the source, and their teaching is the content of the tradition, that is, the Christian message (7.). Although the verb “to deliver” is common in the apologists, the noun is rare. Justin Martyr called on Trypho the Jew to “despise the tradition [παραδόσεως] of your teachers” (6.) (Dialogue 38.2).30 Tatian referred to “the tradition [παράδοσιν] of the Greeks” (5.) (Oration 39.1). Minucius Felix, using a verbal form, repeated the claim that Rome’s success was due to her adherence to ancestral traditions (5.) (traditas—Octavius 6.1).

Those Called Gnostics The Valentinian Ptolemy in his letter to Flora claims to present teaching derived from the Lord and the apostles (9.): “If you are deemed worthy of the apostolic tradition which we also have received from a succession together with the regulation of all our words by the teaching of the Savior.”31 Ptolemy was one of the principal targets of Irenaeus’s refutation in Against Heresies, and his words closely parallel the claim of Irenaeus on behalf of the orthodox Catholic Church. Which came first? The lack of predecessors to Irenaeus’s language among the orthodox and the place of the argument from tradition in Against Heresies (on which more below on Irenaeus) seem to indicate that a claim to a secret tradition derived from the apostles was first made by his Gnostic opponents, to which he opposed the public tradition of the church.32 Irenaeus uses tradition in reference to heretical teaching (9.).33 Particularly significant for this section of our study is the following: When they are refuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they differ among themselves and that the truth cannot be discovered from them by those who are ignorant of tradition [traditionem]. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but by the living voice. (Against Heresies 3.2.1) 30. The much later Pseudo-Justin, Epistle to Zeno and Sereno 1 says, “Concerning the irrational education according to the presuppositions of some and the simple learning inherited according to human tradition [παράδοσιν ἀνθρώπων] by the thoughts and practices [(5.)] like the Pharisees [(6.)]” (text in J. C. Th. Otto, Corpus apologeterum; repr. Wiesbaden, 1969). 31. Epiphanius, Panarion 33.7. 32. Hanson, Tradition in the Early Church, 22–24 collects the Gnostic claims to secret tradition. 33. Against Heresies 1.21.1—Marcosians, a Valentinian group, “tradition [παράδοσιν] of redemption” (one might think of the active sense of imparting redemption, but his other statements make this meaning unlikely); 1.21.5, disagreeing with one another “in doctrine and in tradition [doctrina et traditione].”



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This Gnostic claim to have received a secret oral teaching seems to lie at the root of the orthodox counterclaim in regard to tradition.34 Clement of Alexandria adds some specificity to the claimed lines of transmission (and these concern Gnostic teachers who preceded Irenaeus): Basilides from Glaucias, said to have been the interpreter of Peter; Valentinus from Theodas, a disciple of Paul (Miscellanies 7.17.106). Hippolytus confirms this approach by other groups: James the brother of the Lord to Mariamne to the Naassenes; the secret discourses of the Savior to Matthias to Basilides and his son Isidorus.35

Irenaeus With Irenaeus we reach the first Christian author to make frequent use of the word groups paradosis/traditio. Reynders states that with Irenaeus the noun(s) and corresponding verb(s) attain the technical sense they keep henceforth.36 This may be an overstatement, and one should not read too much into the phrase “technical sense.” Irenaeus uses paradosis/traditio for four types of traditions.37 We have noted above his references to Gnostic tradition (9.). Another use is what the ancients preserved (5.).38 In three passages he refers to the tradition of the Jews (6.), all quoting or commenting on Matthew 15:3–4.39 The great majority of Irenaeus’s uses are in reference to the apostolic and ecclesial tradition (7). The references to the Christian tradition (7) are concentrated in chapters 3–5 of book 3 of Against Heresies. There are only four passages elsewhere. A key passage is 1.10.1. Having summarized the faith of the church, Irenaeus says that this kerygma the church believes, proclaims, teaches, and hands down in harmony; “although the languages of the world are different, the power of the tradition [παραδόσεως] is one and the same.” The leaders of the church, however eloquent, do not teach differently, nor do “those deficient in speech diminish the tradition [παράδοσιν]” (1.10.2). The tradition of the church is here, as elsewhere in Irenaeus, equivalent to the preaching of the church, summarized in the confession of faith. The other three passages refer to the tradition from the apostles.40 34. Reynders, “Paradosis,” 175, “This idea of an esoteric teaching, oral and distinct from the apostolic scriptures, which it explains and completes, seems to be an original idea of gnosticism.” 35. Refutation of All Heresies 5.2 and 7.8. 36. Reynders, “Paradosis,” 155. 37. Henri Holstein, “La tradition des apôtres chez saint Irénée,” Recherches de science religieuse 36 (1949): 229–70 (235); Flesseman–van Leer, Tradition and Scripture, 101–43. 38. Against Heresies 2.9.1. Subsequent references to Irenaeus are from Against Heresies. 39. 4.9.3 (twice); 4.12.1 (three times, once in the plural); 4.12.4 (plural). 40. Against Heresies 2.91 about the one God; 3.21.3 about the Greek translation of Is 7:14

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The emphases in Irenaeus that the tradition derives from the apostles, that it is maintained in the church, and that it is transmitted orally (as well as in Scripture) were dictated by the requirements of the polemic against Gnostics, who claimed their teaching came to them from the apostles in a secret oral tradition.41 These points are repeatedly stated in the opening chapters of book 3. The heart of these chapters has the character of a “digression,” occasioned by the Gnostics’ resort to a secret tradition.42 Irenaeus’s main task was to refute the heretics from Scripture, and this he does in the remainder of book 3 through book 5. After his statement about the Gnostics’ retreat from Scripture and appeal to oral tradition (3.2.1 quoted above), Irenaeus says, When we refer them to that tradition which is from the apostles and is preserved by the successions of presbyters in the churches, they object to tradition, saying they are wiser not only than the presbyters but even the apostles. . . . It comes to this that they consent to neither Scripture nor tradition. (3.2.2) ”It is possible for all who want to see the truth to perceive in every church the tradition from the apostles manifest in all the world.” If the apostles had any hidden mysteries they would have imparted them to the bishops appointed over the churches (3.3.1). The apostolic tradition, therefore, is public, not secret.

At this point Irenaeus introduces the church of Rome, and especially its bishop, Clement, and the letter of 1 Clement, as an example of “preserving the tradition of the apostles” (tradition used four times—3.3.2). In this passage tradition is the equivalent of the “preaching of the apostles” and the “preaching of the truth” (tradition used twice—3.3.3).43 Irenaeus next adduces Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and then the church at Ephesus as “a true witness of the tradition [παραδόσεως] of the apostles” (3.3.4).44 These things being so, “we must choose with great diligence the things per(since he proceeds to name Peter, John, Matthew, and Paul, references to whom in Irenaeus are to their writings, it is clear that Irenaeus here includes the New Testament writings under the term tradition—contra Flesseman–van Leer, Tradition and Scripture, 143, and Reynders, “Paradosis,” 175–76, whose definition of tradition in Irenaeus is “the exposition of scripture” [177]); 5.20.1 introducing a summary of the preaching of the church to which she holds firm. 41. D. Van den Eynde, Les Normes de l’enseignement chrétien dans la littérature patristique des trois premiers siècles (Louvain: Gembloux, 1933), 159–63. 42. Reynders, “Paradosis,” 189; Flesseman–van Leer, 142–43; André Benoît, “Ecriture et tradition chez Saint Irénée,” Revue d’ histoire et de philosophie religieuses 40 (1960): 32–43, who affirms that Irenaeus was interested in tradition only in relation to the demonstration by Scripture and because the heretics first advanced this notion (36–37). The two norms of Scripture and tradition are inseparable; he could not conceive of one without the other (40). 43. Quoted by Eusebius, Church History 5.6.2–3 and 5. 44. Quoted by Eusebius, Church History 3.23.4.



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taining to the church and hold fast to the tradition [traditionem] of the truth.” If the apostles had not left us writings, “would it not be necessary to follow the order of the tradition [traditionis] which they delivered to those to whom they committed the churches?” (3.4.1). Barbarian churches without benefit of writing “have salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit and preserve diligently the old tradition [traditionem]” and by means of it do not listen to the doctrines of heretics (3.4.2). Irenaeus concludes his discussion of tradition and returns to the argument from Scripture with the words: “Since the tradition [traditione] which is from the apostles does thus exist in the church and is permanent among us, let us return to the proof from the Scriptures of those apostles who wrote the gospel” (3.5.1). Irenaeus thus consistently identifies tradition with what was delivered by the apostles and maintains that it was preserved in the churches.45 He does so because of the Gnostic controversy over what was authentically apostolic. The apostles stand for the divine teaching. This tradition is identified by him with the words “rule of truth,” “faith,” “teaching,” and “preaching.”46 For Irenaeus what is in Scripture and what is in tradition are the same, the truth about God and Christ; both contain the apostolic preaching.

Clement of Alexandria Of all the early Greek Fathers, Clement of Alexandria makes the most extensive use of the language of tradition, so a full treatment is in order.47 Contrary to the conclusion that early Christian literature does not use tradition in the active sense of transmission, or delivery, there are passages in Clement that may keep this meaning (1.).48 Both meanings of paradosis, what is transmitted and the act of transmission, occur close together in Clement’s 45. Reynders, “Paradosis,” 186–88, for the apostles as the sole transmitters of tradition and therefore necessary intermediaries of the Christian revelation, but modified by Holstein, “La tradition des apôtres,” 238. 46. Reynders, “Paradosis,” 176–77; Holstein, “La tradition des apôtres,” 240–59, shows the correspondences between tradition/to deliver and preaching/to preach. Note also his charts on 238–39 on who is said to transmit and what is said to be transmitted. Benoît, “Ecriture et tradition,” 41, for the content of the apostolic tradition in Irenaeus being summed up in the three fundamental articles of the Symbol. 47. Jean Daniélou, “La tradition selon Clément d’Alexandrie,” Augustinianum 12 (1972): 5–18; he compares Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria as theologians of tradition but with complementary emphases (18). 48. Delivery of the mysteries to those going to be initiated, but there follows the statement, “putting aside godless opinion to turn to the true tradition”—Miscellanies 7.4.27.6. In other passages Clement speaks of “delivery [or transmission] of the truth” (3.)—ibid. 1.20.99.4; 6.10.82.4. Future references to Clement, unless otherwise noted, will be to the Miscellanies.

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Prophetic Eclogues. “The men of ancient times did not write, not wanting to take time away from the teaching of the tradition [παράδοσιν]” (5. or 7.); but “The deposit of these men of ancient times, speaking through what is written, made use of the assistance of the scribe for handing down [παράδοσιν] to those who are going to read” (3.) (Prophetic Eclogues 27.1 and 4). Clement refers to the Jewish “tradition of the elders and commands of men” (6.) with reference to Matthew 15:2, 9 (3.12.90.2). He cites Colossians 2:8 for the philosophy to be avoided (5.) in contrast to the “divine tradition” (7.) (1.11.50.5; 51.2; 52.1–2; 6.8.62.3). Paradosis seems to have the meaning “account” (4.) in the statement, “We shall begin with the tradition [παραδόσεως] of creation from the prophets” (4.1.3.3). Indefinite (10.) in reference is the parenthetical comment, “We have the (W)ord spoken before the tradition itself ” (1.1.16.2). Traditions is the title of a book (10.) from which the apostle Matthias is quoted (2.9.45.4; 7.13.82.1). The great majority of Clement’s uses pertain to the Christian tradition (7.). I shall classify these occurrences according to content. Clement sometimes uses tradition for Scripture. Those who do not take the whole of the “divine Scriptures” and evade “the inspired words from the blessed apostles and teachers set human teachings against the divine tradition” (7.16.103.4–5).49 Sometimes tradition is the interpretation of the Scriptures. “Since the Savior taught the apostles, the unwritten tradition of what is written has been handed down to us” (6.15.131.5).50 Clement further identifies tradition with the teaching of the Lord and the apostles. “The understanding and practice of the godly tradition according to the teaching of the Lord through his apostles is the deposit delivered by God” (6.15.124.5).51 Here practice (8.) is included in the tradition. This tradition from the Lord and the apostles is the church’s tradition and is identified with truth. Clement speaks of those who “spurned the ecclesiastical tradition” for the opinions of human sects, but on hearing the Scriptures turned to the truth (7.16.95.1).52 Sometimes the tradition is simply the Christian message. The Greeks “had not learned perfect knowledge, the tradition through the Son” (6.5.39.4). As these passages show, the apostolic tradition is contrasted with heretical teaching. Unlike the differing teachings of the heresies, the teaching and tra49. Also 7.16.99.5 and 7.16.104.1–2. 50. See also 7.18.110.2. 51. Cf. “the true tradition of the blessed teaching” from the apostles (1.1.11.3); “the blessed tradition” (1.1.12.1). 52. The preceding paragraph (7.16.94.5) identifies the Scriptures with the truth; in 7.17.106.2 we enter the truth through the tradition of the Lord, identified with the “teaching of our Lord” and “preaching of the apostles.”



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dition of the apostles are one (7.17.108.1–2). The true gnostic tradition was older than the apostles and went back to the creation of the world (1.1.15.2).53 As the phrase “gnostic tradition” indicates, a distinctive feature of Clement’s teaching is the appropriation of the Gnostic language of a secret tradition to refer to the advanced knowledge he has to give.54 “Since the tradition is not common and public,” the wisdom taught by the Son of God is hidden in a mystery (1.12.55.1); however, with reference to 1 Corinthians 2:14 and Matthew 10:27, Clement says that the Lord “commands to receive the secret traditions of true gnosis” and deliver them to those for whom they are fitting (1.12.56.2). This gnostic tradition may be learned from Christ’s activity in the prophets, was taught by himself to the holy apostles, and was delivered unwritten to the few by succession from the apostles (6.7.61.1). Clement’s gnosis is different from the heretical gnosis, and his elite are different in character. The beginning and the end, I mean faith and love, are not matters of teaching, but knowledge [γνῶσις], being handed down by tradition [παραδόσεως] according to the grace of God, is entrusted like a deposit to those who show themselves worthy of the teaching. (7.10.55.6)

Clement’s “secret” tradition is the deeper understanding of God’s ways and higher spirituality that comes from a fuller perception of the Scriptures, that is, the teachings found in the Prophets, the Lord, and the Apostles.

Origen Whereas Irenaeus and Clement were theologians of tradition, Daniélou considered Origen a theologian of Scripture.55 There may be a shift in emphasis, but the contrast can easily be overdrawn, for Irenaeus and Clement, each in his own way, took Scripture as the supreme authority, and argued their case from Scripture, but Origen in his works surviving in Greek has less to say about Christian tradition.56 In one passage Origen clearly uses paradosis in the active sense of imparting teaching (3.). “Let the teacher complete everything for the tradition [παράδοσιν] of knowledge,” yet the person does not receive it (Homilies on Jeremiah 6.2). 53. Cf. 4.1.3.2. 54. “Gnostic tradition” in 5.10.63.2; 5.10.64.5 and further below. 55. Daniélou, “La tradition selon Clément d’Alexandrie,” 18. 56. R. P. C. Hanson, “Origen’s Doctrine of Tradition,” Journal of Theological Studies 49 (1948): 17–27.

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Origen notes that because of human nature persons “lay aside the traditions [παραδόσεσι] of their ancestors” (5.) with difficulty (Against Celsus 1.52).57 He quotes Colossians 2:8 for the world’s wisdom in founders of philosophical sects (ibid. pref. 5). In a positive sense, “The Logos exhorts [in Ps 2:10] the judges of the earth to the education [or discipline] which is learned by tradition” (Selections on Psalms [PG 12.1113]). In commenting on 1 Corinthians 4:6, he writes (9.), “Those from heresies announce traditions” (Commentary on 1 Corinthians 19). Origen’s overwhelming usage pertains to Jewish traditions (6.).58 For instance, he says that the apostles by miracles were able to convert people “from Jewish fables and human traditions” (Against Celsus 2.52).59 A special kind of information (4.) occurs in the statement that the names of heavenly powers were learned from traditions (παραδόσεων) or from secrets (Commentary on Matthew 17.2). Origen often reports traditions that he learned from Hebrews.60 The few passages using paradosis in the works of Origen surviving in Greek and referring to Christian information assign tradition little doctrinal significance. Eusebius takes the tradition (Origen’s word) about where the apostles preached from Origen’s Commentary on Genesis (Church History 3.1.1). He quotes also from Origen’s Commentary on Matthew the tradition concerning the authorship of the four Gospels (Church History 6.25.4). “Tradition,” Origen says, “teaches” that the Roman emperor condemned John to Patmos but does not teach who condemned him later to martyrdom (Commentary on Matthew 16.6). A fragment from the catena quotes Origen on Proverbs 1:8 as meaning, “the words of the father are the Scriptures; those of the mother are the unwritten tradition of the church” (PG 17.157). Mindful of Hanson’s caution about the reliability of the Latin translations on this topic because of the propensity to translate Origen according to the terminology of fourth-century orthodoxy,61 I have left the passages preserved only in Latin to the side, but three should be noted. Origen takes tradition as referring to the interpretation of Scripture (Homilies on Leviticus 5.4.2). The practice of infant baptism (8.) is said to be a tradition from the apostles (Com57. “Traditions of the ancients” also in Selections on Psalms (PG 12.1093 on Ps 1:5). 58. Commentary on Matthew 11.8–11; 17.28; On First Principles 4.3.2 = Philocalia 1.18; Commentary on John 13.27; ibid., frg. 72. 59. Peter still lived according to Jewish traditions—Against Celsus 2.1. 60. Letter to Africanus 8; 9; Selections on Psalms 1:3 (PG 12.1080 = Philocalia 2.3); Selections on Genesis (PG 12.108 on Gn 6:1); Homilies on Jeremiah 20.2.2; Commentary on John 19.4.15, 17, 18. 61. Hanson, “Origen’s Doctrine of Tradition,” 17ff.



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mentary on Romans 5.8–9). Corresponding to the language that became current in the church (7.), Origen declares that “nothing is to be believed as truth that conflicts with the apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition” (On First Principles pref. 2).

“Hippolytus” The Refutation of All Heresies says that the Pharisees (6.) “firmly held to their ancient traditions” (9.28.4 [9.23]). Of the Essenes (6.) it is said that “to those who wish to become their disciples they do not deliver their traditions to them immediately but test them” (9.23.1 [9.18]). The author’s opponents in the “school of Callixtus” (8.) “continue preserving its customs and traditions” by “offering communion to all” (9.12.26 [9.7]). The manuscript reading of 10.25 (10.21) says that the “Phrygians” (Montanists) appointed “novel fasts and traditions [παραδόσεις]” (8.), but this may be a corruption of παραδόξους, “novel and strange fasts.” All of these passages have practices in view, but more may be included in the words about the Quartodecimans that apart from their keeping the Pascha on a different date, “they agree in other respects with all the traditions delivered to the church by the apostles” (8.11). The treatise Against Noetus has teaching/faith in mind (7.): “Let us believe according to the tradition of the apostles,” followed by a summary confession (17.2). The Latin prologue to the Apostolic Tradition presents its content as “the tradition that catechizes the churches, so that those who have been well led by our exposition may guard that tradition which has remained up to now” (1.2– 3), and the conclusion similarly refers to the “tradition of the apostles” (43.2). The reference to catechizing may lead one to think of doctrine, but the contents have to do mainly with practices (8.), as in the use of the verb about the hours of prayer (41.15).62

Pseudo-Clementines The Latin Recognitions describes the moral conduct of the Brahmans in India (5.) as coming from ancestral tradition (9.20.2). The Greek Homilies quotes Peter’s antagonist Simon Magus as referring to (6.) “the things in the law which are from the tradition of Moses and are true but are mixed up 62. I use the translation and chapter numbers of Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002).

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with falsehoods” (3.48.1). To Simon, Peter refers to Paul (but not by name) as “someone who has been instructed in the tradition of Moses” (19.22.4), where practices (6.) are mentioned. The Epistle of Peter to James uses tradition in reference to the interpretation of Scripture (1.4). The teachings of the community represented by the author are the content of the admonition to deliver his books only to those tested so that they might “interpret all things by our tradition” (3.2), so the community’s tradition is contained in writing.

Tertullian Tertullian stands with Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria as a precursor of the later developed doctrine of tradition.63 He uses traditio primarily in two contexts, one of which is the same as Irenaeus, in his anti-heretical argument, and the other in the debate between Montanists and Catholics over practices without scriptural support. Before pursuing these we note briefly his other uses of forms of traditio. Tertullian employs traditionem for Judas’s betrayal (2.) of Jesus,64 and for the delivering up or betrayal of Christians in persecution.65 Paul became an imitator not of ancestral traditions (6.) but of Christian (7.) traditions (On Modesty 1).66 Tertullian several times refers to pagan traditions (5.).67 A different kind of ancestral tradition (5.) occurs in the statement that Noah heard from hereditary tradition things concerning Enoch (On Women’s Apparel 1.3). Tertullian uses traditio for the content of the gospel message (7.): “The gospel tradition had found its way everywhere” and so had priority in time to the heresies (Against Marcion 5.19.1).68 A cluster of uses of traditio occurs in Prescription of Heretics. In this work, Tertullian, like Irenaeus, turns from the scriptural argument to the argument 63. Frans De Pauw, “La justification des traditions non écrites chez Tertullien,” Ephemerides theologicae Louvanienses 19 (1942): 5–46; A.-P. Maistre, “‘Traditio’: Aspects théologiques d’un terme de droit chez Tertullien,” Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 51 (1967): 617–43; Flesseman–van Leer, Tradition and Scripture, 146–83; J. Quasten, “Tertullian and Traditio,” Traditio 2 (1944): 451–84. 64. Against Marcion 3.23.5; Against Praxeas 23 (twice). 65. On Flight 12 and 13; Scorpiace 9 (three times). 66. Against Marcion 4.38 for “tradition of the scribes” (6.). 67. On Repentance 7; On the Soul 28; Testimony of the Soul 1 and 5; Prescription of Heretics 7; Against Marcion 5.19.7. 68. The “apostolic tradition” as “God’s rule of faith” (ibid. 1.21.4). “The authority of the churches” supports “the tradition of the apostles” (ibid. 4.5.7).



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from tradition, only now using a legal principle to exclude heretics from appealing to the Scriptures at all. The content of his works as a whole and the tenor of this work, however, show that Scripture was the standard for him. Tertullian aims to show that “the true Christian rule and faith, the true Scriptures and expositions of them, and all the Christian traditions” (19.2–3) are to be found in the churches derived directly from the apostles. These terms are equivalent; the Christian traditions are the Christian message, Christian teachings (7.).69 Tertullian associates tradition with the “rule” (regula).70 All the churches are one and apostolic, enjoying “privileges which no other rule directs than the one tradition [traditio] of the same mystery [the faith]” (20.9).71 The apostles founded churches by declaring the gospel first orally and then by their letters. The apostolic tradition is that which the apostles taught. Tertullian’s most frequent use of traditio occurs in his writings on behalf of Montanist practices that went beyond Scripture and differed from those of the Catholic Church. The Paraclete, to whom the Montanists looked as revealing their discipline (8.), was charged by the Catholics with “novelty in opposition to catholic tradition” (Monogamy 2.2). The defense of practices that went beyond Scripture as nonetheless binding prompts Tertullian’s argument on behalf of non-scriptural traditions (8.) in On the Crown. A Christian soldier refused to wear the laurel wreath as being an act of idolatry. Other Christians criticized him, arguing that Scripture did not forbid the crown so it was allowable. Tertullian replied with the counterprinciple that what is not authorized is forbidden (Crown 1–2). Tertullian argued against wearing the crown from tradition and especially from nature and reason.72 Both parties sought the support of Scripture,73 but what about matters on which there was not a word in Scripture? Tertullian contended that if there was no prescription in Scripture, custom that flowed 69. Associated with doctrina, disciplina, and institutio, traditio in this sense is modified by the adjectives evangelica, apostolica, catholica—Maistre, “Aspects théologiques,” 617. 70. For example Prescription 21. Flesseman–van Leer, 161–67. 71. Maistre, “Traditio,” 624, considers the meaning here as the active transmission. He cites Testimony of the Soul 5 and Apparel of Women 1.3 as also active. De Pauw, “La justification,” 9, adds Against Marcion 4.25 and Against Praxeas 7 as having the active sense. 72. De Pauw, “La justification,” 18, for ancient custom, the Paraclete, and the rational value of observances as constituting Tertullian’s justification for unwritten traditions; 11, 30–44, for the primacy of the argument from reason for him. 73. For the authority of Scripture in Tertullian, Flesseman–van Leer, 172, 183–84; De Pauw, “La justification,” 44, “In matters of observance Scripture possesses an absolute and decisive authority,” but I question his further assertion that “a capital affirmation” of Tertullian’s theology is “the subordination of the Scriptures to tradition.”

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from tradition (traditio) confirmed an ancient practice (Crown 3). His opponents said that written authority was required for tradition, but Tertullian replied that other practices were maintained on the ground of tradition without any written instrument. We note that tradition could be either written or unwritten and that a tradition might not become customary but those traditions that did had a special claim.74 He proceeded to name items lacking express scriptural authorization—such as renunciation of the devil at baptism, triple immersion, taking milk and honey after baptism, receiving the Eucharist before dawn, making the sign of the cross. His examples are practices (8.), not doctrines.75 For these practices, “tradition is their origin, custom their strengthener, and faith their observer. Reason will support tradition and custom” (Crown 4). From Jewish practice sanctioned by the apostle Paul, one can “vindicate the keeping of even unwritten tradition established by custom, the proper witness for tradition when demonstrated by long-continued observance” (ibid.). Reason teaches us to keep the tradition, whatever its origin, for the authority is that of custom (ibid.). Tertullian then turns to develop his argument from nature and reason, to which he devotes his main attention, with the heart of the matter the association of the crown with idolatry (Crown 10). The two chapters on tradition (3–4) have something of the character of an ad hoc argument prompted by the position of defenders of Christians’ wearing the military crown. That the argument for unwritten tradition in On the Crown does not represent a fundamental theological principle for Tertullian is evident from his argument in On Fasting. Tertullian makes passing reference to “the prophecies of the Holy Spirit” (Crown 1), but he does not ground his argument against wearing the crown on the revelations of the Paraclete, preferring to argue from authorities commonly accepted with his critics. The contrast of Montanist and Catholic practice is more explicit in On Fasting, only now it is the Catholics who invoke tradition against the newer, more rigorous fasts promoted by Tertullian. The length and strictness of fasts were particularly at issue. The Catholic observances were grounded on tradition, and since both observances lacked the express authority of Scripture, Tertullian sought to establish the rationality of the practice authorized by the Paraclete, but in fact he also appealed to scriptural precedents (Fasting 10.5). Tertullian’s Catholic opponents argued 74. De Pauw, “La justification,” 24, that custom added a note of authority to tradition. 75. Note ibid., 26, “The activity of the Paraclete is strictly limited, at least in the thought of Tertullian, to the domain of discipline,” which for Tertullian was often a moral prescription (37).



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that no further observance was to be added to what was “appointed by the Scriptures or the tradition of the elders”; when Tertullian charged them with “exceeding tradition” in other observances, they changed their ground (according to Tertullian) by saying that these things were matters of choice (Fasting 13.1–2). Tertullian wanted to make a matter of law what his opponents considered a matter of choice.

Cyprian and Contemporaries In Cyprian the usage of traditio is significantly narrowed to matters of Christian concern but still with no fixed content and most often applied to practices (8.). A few occurrences are in biblical quotations.76 Several of these are contexts where the other occurrences of traditio appear. Cyprian’s usage of traditio is almost exclusively with internal conflicts in the church: ordination of bishops, schism over treatment of the lapsed, “rebaptism,” and the contents of the cup in the Eucharist. Writing to Cornelius in support of his ordination as bishop of Rome, Cyprian appealed to divine appointment and Catholic unity and said his letters were “in conformity with the sanctity and truth of divine tradition and ecclesiastical institution” (Letter 45.1.2).77 Cornelius’s rival was Novatian; in setting himself as a rival bishop to Cornelius, Cyprian said he despised “the gospel and apostolic tradition” (Letter 69.3.2).78 He describes Novatian’s action as “profitless tradition of heretical institution” (Letter 55.28.1), notable as an example of tradition used for a recent act. Discussing the treatment of those who lapsed in persecution, Cyprian describes the faithful as resting on the heavenly precepts “and strengthened by the gospel traditions” (Lapsed 2). In his own church at Carthage five presbyters joined a rebellion against Cyprian as bishop: “The Lord’s priests being forsaken, a new tradition of a sacrilegious appointment should arise, contrary to the gospel discipline” (Letter 43.3.2). The passage, as the preceding one, associates tradition with gospel,79 and is especially noteworthy as another example of a “new tradition.” 76. Col 2:8 (Patience 2); 2 Thes 3:6 (Ad Quirinum 3.68; Unity of the Church 23 [cf. Ad Quirinum 3.86 also against schism, which may be one of the rare occurrences for doctrine in Cyprian, but in view of his other usages the thought may be practice]; Letter 59.21.2); Mk 7:9 (Lord’s Prayer 2—an example of the active sense; Letter 43.6.1; Unity of the Church 19); Mk 7:13 (Letter 63.14.2; 67.2; 74.3). 77. For divine tradition cf. Letter 46.1.3; Letter 67.5.1 (paired with “apostolic observance”); Letter 59.17.2 (apparently referring to the instituted organization of the church). 78. Cf. Letter 55.24.2. 79. Also Letter 59.5.3.

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Cyprian advocated a rebaptism of Novatianists and other schismatics and heretics on their return to the Catholic Church. They should lay aside human errors and “return with a sincere and religious faith to gospel authority and apostolic tradition” (Letter 73.15.2). Cornelius’s second successor, Stephen, accepted the baptism of schismatics and heretics on their reconciliation to the church. He appealed to the traditional policy of the Roman church in this regard, but his opponents labeled it a “tradition of men” (Firmillian in Cyprian, Letter 75.6). Cyprian asked of Stephen, “Whence is that tradition? Does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? . . . If it did, let this divine and holy tradition be observed” (Letter 74.2.2–3). Since Stephen’s practice did not have that source, “what obstinacy, what presumption it is to prefer human tradition to divine ordinance” (Letter 74.3.1).80 Even bishops may find it necessary to “return to the head and source of divine tradition” so that error may cease, “to return to the gospel and apostolical tradition” (Letter 74.10.1–2).81 Another controversy in which Cyprian used the language of tradition had to do with the practice of some of using water without wine in the Eucharist. He addresses this practice in Letter 63. He begins by affirming that churches throughout the world “maintain the plan of gospel truth and of the tradition of the Lord, and do not by human and novel institution depart from that which Christ prescribed and did,” and that those in error should “return to the root and origin of the tradition of the Lord” (63.1).82 We must “offer the cup of the Lord mingled with wine according to what the Lord offered” so that “the gospel law and the Lord’s tradition may be everywhere kept” (63.17).83 Mixing and offering the cup is “to keep the truth of the Lord’s tradition” (63.19). Here it seems that the active sense of what the Lord delivered may be intended as much as the content of what he delivered. Once more tradition is paired with gospel teaching and is contrasted with what is of human origin. One further context for the language of tradition concerned women who took a vow of virginity and then slept with men. In response to a request for his advice on their treatment, Cyprian said, “Know that we do not depart from the traditions of the Gospel and of the apostles . . . and maintain the discipline of the church” (Letter 4.1.2). 80. See further his sarcastic comment in Letter 74.4.1. 81. Note the frequency of this combination in Cyprian. To this further example of “divine tradition” note in the same context Letter 74.11. 82. Contrasted with “human tradition” 63.14.3. 83. Cor 11:26 is quoted in this section. The Gospel accounts of the institution of the Lord’s supper and 1 Cor 11:2 are also in mind.



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Novatian, unlike Cyprian and addressing different topics, uses tradition for Christian doctrine (7.). In a context that claims that the “whole of the Old and New Testaments” could be adduced for testimony concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that appeals to the “authority of the Scriptures,” Novatian says that “heretics, ever struggling against the truth, are accustomed to prolong the controversy of pure tradition and catholic faith” (Trinity 30). Tradition here equals what is taught and is paired with the faith. He wrote to brethren whom he says “hold the gospel pure and purged from all stain of perverse doctrine” that they “may hold the tradition and teaching of Christ alone” (On Jewish Foods 1). The tradition of Christ is his teaching. The anonymous treatise On Rebaptism employs tradition, as does Cyprian in the context of this controversy, to refer to practice (8.). The author introduces the issue as “whether according to the most ancient custom and ecclesiastical tradition” those who received baptism outside the church were to be received into the church by the laying on of the hand of the bishop (Stephen’s and the author’s position) or must have a repeated baptism (Cyprian’s view) (Rebaptism 1). He later refers to the “tradition of the sacrament,” which seems to refer to the delivery (1.) or administration of baptism (ibid. 10).

Lactantius Lactantius, perhaps as a result of his rhetorical and literary studies, is notable for his uses of traditio in the classical sense of the act of delivery (1.). “The bestowal [traditio, delivery] of benefits gave the name of gods to Ceres and Liber” (Divine Institutes 1.18.18). “We defend wisdom because it is a divine gift [traditio, deliverance]” (ibid. 3.16.10). I take the meaning to be active in the statement that God revealed to us the creation and destruction of the world (3.), so “we do not arrive at [this knowledge] by conjectures but by instruction [traditione] from heaven” (ibid. 7.1.11).84 Less obviously active but possibly so is the statement (3.), “Teaching [traditio] that is true is self-consistent” (ibid. 5.3.2). Lactantius has the objective sense of a body of teaching (7.) in his description of certain heretics who “corrupted the sacred writings so that they composed for themselves a new doctrine” and “fell away from the knowledge of God and left behind the true tradition” (ibid. 4.30.8). This true tradition from the sacred writings pertained especially to the truths of the incarnation of Christ.

84. Similar is the usage in the less-well-attested 7.8.3.

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Ev er et t Ferguso n Eusebius of Caesarea

We have cited passages in Eusebius’s Church History dealing with Papias and quoting Josephus, Irenaeus, and Origen. We collect here other passages using paradosis. These are principally in the books where he reports stories about early figures in Christian history (4.). Explaining that it was impossible to name all the shepherds and evangelists who succeeded the apostles, Eusebius “recorded by name the memory only of those whom the tradition preserves to our time by their memoirs of the apostolic teaching” (Church History 3.37.4). For instance, Clement of Alexandria in his Hypotyposeis “mentions by name Pantaenus as his teacher and sets forth his interpretations of the Scriptures and traditions” (ibid. 6.13.2). Scriptures are here distinguished from traditions. In Clement’s On the Pascha “he professes that he was compelled by his companions to deliver in writing the traditions which he had heard from the elders of olden times” (ibid. 6.13.9).85 A characteristic of Eusebius’s style is to introduce his summaries of the accounts by other writers with the phrase “as” or “as if ” from tradition.86 Was this simply a stylistic feature for a matter of fact, or was this a way of acknowledging the statement but distancing himself from it? It would seem that there were many traditions which Eusebius did not value very highly. Hegesippus mentioned (6.) “some things as from Jewish unwritten tradition” (Church History 4.22.8).87 For heretical teachings (9.) Eusebius quotes Dionysius of Alexandria: “I read both the compositions and traditions of the heretics” (ibid. 7.7.1). Outside the Church History Eusebius refers to a pagan tradition (5.) that Aphrodite was called “‘the golden’ from an ancient tradition” (Preparation for the Gospel 10.8.11). Eusebius had an interest in the canon of Scripture. He makes explicit his intention to present “the sayings of the ancient ecclesiastical elders and writers in which they delivered in writing the traditions that came down to them concerning the covenantal [that is, canonical] Scriptures” (Church History 5.8.1). He reports that Clement of Alexandria in his Hypotyposeis set down “a tradition of the elders from the beginning” with regard to the four Gospels (ibid. 6.14.5). Eusebius’s own list (4.) of the “writings of the New Covenant” distinguished “the writings which according to the ecclesiastical tradition are true, genuine, and recognized” from those “not covenantal but disputed” (ibid. 3.25.6). In his Commentary on Psalms Eusebius used tradition in reference to Scrip85. In Proof of the Gospel tradition is the basis for the inhabitants of Bethlehem showing the cave where Jesus was born (7.2.5). 86. Church History 2.9.2; 3.28.3; 3.28.6; 4.8.1; 5.18.14. 87. Eusebius himself refers to Jewish traditions—Commentary on Psalms 86[87]:2; Commentary on Isaiah 2.44 for Jewish readings of the Bible.



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ture: the use of musical instruments in Psalms 32[33]:2 is explained as “according to the first written tradition of the law” (PG 23.281A).88 In another place tradition refers to an interpretation of Scripture: “We shall set forth the tradition which has come to us” “according to the Hebrew tradition” (ibid. 27[28]:1–2; PG 23.245C,D). In reverse of Tertullian, who sought to establish tradition by Scripture, Eusebius in reference to Matthew 28:19 refers to “the catholic church of God confirming the testimonies of the divine Scriptures from the unwritten tradition” (Against Marcellus 1.1.36).89 Christian practice (8.) is the subject in Eusebius’s quotation from the antiMontanist writer Apolinarius that Montanus prophesied contrary to the tradition of the church from the beginning (Church History 5.16.7). Concerning the rebaptism controversy between Cyprian and Stephen, Eusebius says of the latter that he thought there ought not to be any innovation “contrary to the tradition that prevailed from the beginning” (ibid. 7.3.1). Another matter of practice was the controversy over the date for observing the Pasch. Eusebius reports that those churches in Asia who observed the fourteenth day of the month (Nisan) did so “as from a more ancient tradition.” The churches in the rest of the world observed the feast on Sunday “from apostolic tradition” (ibid. 5.23.1). Eusebius quotes bishop Polycrates of Ephesus, Irenaeus, and the Palestinian bishops as appealing to tradition in support of their respective positions.90 A connection of tradition with the Christian message is explicit in some statements (7.). Eusebius describes the letters of Ignatius as warning against heresies and exhorting his readers “to hold fast the tradition of the apostles” (ibid. 3.36.4). He says that Hegesippus gave “the unerring tradition of the apostolic preaching” (ibid. 4.8.2).91 Similar language occurs in a letter of Constantine to Eusebius, no doubt learned from his ecclesiastical advisors: “To abide by that which appears at the same time pleasing to God and in accord with apostolic tradition is a proof of true piety” (Life of Constantine 3.61.1).92 Some, “forgetting the apostolic tradition and preferring the things outside the divine [teaching], dared to write and teach” things of error (Against Marcellus 1.4.38).93 88. Also “the tradition of the new covenant” in Prophetic Eclogues, ed. T. Gaisford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1842), 163, line 14, but see next note. 89. The distinction of Scripture from tradition in Prophetic Eclogues (n. 88, p. 26, line 25), “neither from Scripture nor the tradition of the ancients.” 90. Church History 5.24.1, 6; 5.24.11; 5.25.1. 91. Also Church History 4.21.1 on Hegesippus. 92. The election of a bishop (8.) is the subject of another letter, in which Constantine instructs that the decision be “according to the rule of the church and apostolic tradition” (Life of Constantine 3.62). 93. An idiom seems to preserve the old active sense (3.): “God traditioned [τὴν παράδοσιν

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Ev er et t Ferguso n Athanasius

Athanasius’s uses of tradition appear to have been almost exclusively in a Christian context.94 Several of these have to do with church practices (8.). Athanasius complained of the nomination of a bishop for a small village that should have been under his jurisdiction as bishop of Alexandria as “contrary to ancient tradition” (Apology against the Arians 85.4). Several occurrences pertain to intruding another bishop into his see of Alexandria and the refusal of the bishops of Rome to recognize this action.95 Because of the theological conflicts in which he was engaged Athanasius more often uses tradition in reference to the true doctrine (7.). In his Defense of the Nicene Definition he appealed to the letter of Eusebius of Caesarea to his church, saying that what was approved at Nicaea was “the faith of the church and the tradition of the fathers” (2.3).96 Athanasius presents Antony as exhorting the monks to avoid the Meletians and Arians and to “observe the traditions of the fathers and chiefly the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which you have learned from the Scripture” (Life of Antony 89). He wrote to Adelphius, affirming, “Our faith starts from the teaching of the apostles and tradition of the fathers, being confirmed by both the Old Testament and New”; “the apostolic tradition teaches us in the words of Peter [1 Pt 2:21 and 3:18 combined] . . . and in Paul [Ti 2:13–14 quoted]” (Letter 60.6).97 He seems to identify tradition, teaching, and the faith in a statement that sounds like Irenaeus: “Let us look at the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the catholic church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the apostles preached, and the fathers kept” (Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit 1.28). Paradosis appears often in Athanasius’s On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia. He saw his opponents as in effect saying, “We contradict our predecessors and transgress the traditions of the fathers” (1.7).98 He quotes a synod ποιούμενος] to the Savior, Physician, and Governor of all such things as are for improvement and benefit” (Ecclesiastical Theology 1.20.30). 94. One exception, using tradition in the active sense of delivering up a nation (2.), is Exposition of the Psalms 105(106):39(40–41); PG 27.448D. 95. Apology against the Arians 2.30.1; History of the Arians 2.14.1; 5.36.1. 96. The wording is Athanasius’s. The statement represents the new tendency in the fourth century to appeal to the tradition of orthodox fathers of the past alongside or instead of an appeal to the tradition of the apostles—Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 44–45, 48. 97. Cf. 60.2 for “what befitted the church’s tradition.” The location of the apostolic tradition in Scripture is paralleled in Exposition of the Psalms 77(78):10: “He speaks of the new tradition of the Gospel,” later described as the new law of God (PG 27.352C). 98. Similarly Athanasius charges his opponents with saying the reverse of 1 Cor 11:2 to their flocks (1.14.1–2). The synodal letter of ninety bishops (including Athanasius) To the Bishops of Africa 10 also quotes 1 Cor 11:2 with a doctrinal reference.



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at Jerusalem and the dedication council of Antioch (341) as claiming to confess the “evangelical and apostolical tradition” (2.21.7; 2.23.2). For himself Athanasius says, “We have received the traditions from the fathers” (3.47.4), and he encourages “remaining on the foundation of the apostles and holding fast the traditions of the fathers” (3.54.3). Athanasius often uses the plural “traditions,” perhaps under the influence of 1 Corinthians 11:2.

Some Later Statements I have been fairly complete in the coverage of early authors and taken representative writers of the early fourth century to show the continuation of their practice. A few later fourth-century authors will indicate the usage that became common in future Christian discourse. Basil of Cappadocian Caesarea’s treatise On the Holy Spirit is a nodal point in the later development of the doctrine of tradition (7.). Beginning with the argument that the Son receives equal glory “with” the Father, Basil appeals to those “who have preserved the tradition of their fathers unadulterated” in the doxology “to the Father with the Son.” “But we do not rest only on the fact that such is the tradition of the fathers; for they too followed the sense of Scripture” (Holy Spirit 7.16). The case for the deity of the Spirit is not so strong from Scripture as for the Son. In support of giving glory to God “with the Holy Spirit,” he reasons: Of the doctrines and preachings99 observed in the church we have some things from the written teaching, and we received other things delivered to us in a mystery by the tradition of the apostles. Both of these have the same force for piety (Holy Spirit 27.66).100

The last statement represents a marked advance over what had preceded. Basil then proceeds to list a number of “unwritten customs” of great importance to the church. The confession of faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit “in accordance with the tradition of our baptism” is as much an “unwritten tradition” as the Trinitarian doxology (Holy Spirit 27.67). He uses the argument from tradition on behalf of doctrine, but it is still practices he finds for illustration, even though the liturgical practices are those with doctrinal implications. Epiphanius marked the distinction between Scripture and tradition, de99. He later in the passage distinguishes “doctrine” (δόγμα) as observed in silence and “preaching” (κήρυγμα) as publicly proclaimed. E. Amand de Mendieta, “The Pair Κήρυγμα and Δόγμα in the Theological Thought of St. Basil of Caesarea,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 16 (1965): 129–42. 100. Cf. “the unwritten tradition of the fathers” 29.71; 10.25.

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claring that not all things can be obtained from the divine Scripture for “the holy apostles delivered some things in the Scriptures and some things in tradition” (Panarion 61.6). John Chrysostom’s homily on 2 Thessalonians 2:15 sidesteps Paul’s statement that the traditions came both in writing and orally and distinguishes tradition from what is written. “Let us consider the tradition of the church also as trustworthy” (Homily on 2 Thessalonians 4). The comment on 2 Thessalonians 3:6 identifies tradition with matters of practice (8.), not doctrine, and declares that actions are “in the proper sense tradition” (Homily on 2 Thessalonians 5). In the fourth century, therefore, the usage of tradition was narrowed to what is transmitted in the church, and the distinction between written Scripture and unwritten tradition became a standard formulation, but tradition was still primarily applied to church practices.

Conclusions In a broad sweep the meaning of tradition changed from an act (delivering) to content (what is delivered) to the mode of delivery (oral). The meaning of delivery predominated in classical Greek and Latin; in Christian usage the meaning was primarily what was delivered; by the end of the fourth century the last meaning was coming to prominence. Neither paradosis nor traditio appears to have been a technical term in the earliest Christian literature. I recall the warning of A. D. Nock’s obiter dicta that technical meanings did not eliminate ordinary meanings of words. Nonetheless, a technical usage would require some fixed content, and even where tradition appears in a theological context there is no specific content nor definite mode of delivery prior to the fourth century and then not exclusively. The earliest Christian authors use tradition in a wide variety of contexts and with varied meanings. Tradition came to prominence in a polemical context, first in response to Gnostic claims and then in internal church conflicts. Like other successful arguments, the argument from tradition became a part of the doctrines it was designed to defend. But on many controverted issues it was a two-edged sword, with both sides claiming tradition in their favor. Where this was not possible (as for Cyprian in the rebaptism controversy), tradition was subordinated to other standards. And although normally referring to old practices, this was not inherent in the word “tradition”; the same is true for oral transmission—more often than not this was the mode of tradition, but this was not necessarily the case.



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Tradition initially referred primarily to practices; only in the fourth century did it come into primary use in a doctrinal context, but even then practices were used as the basis for the doctrinal affirmations (as in Basil). The distinction between “Tradition” and “traditions” is a modern theological construct.101 As such it is useful and indeed points to a real distinction. What is designated capital-T Tradition refers to a reality—the Christian, apostolic message. But Tradition was not “the term” for it—gospel, truth, faith, the rule were more common terms. The distinction between the singular and plural was not observed by the early Christian authors who made extensive use of the word. Congar’s distinction was based on a thorough examination of the historical usage, but we must not reverse the process and read his theological formulation back into the word usage. 101. Congar, Tradition and Traditions, 1–85 (note summary on 63), 233–458; Bernard Sesboüé, “Tradition et traditions,” Nouvelle revue théologique 112 (1990): 570–85.

J o nat h a n J. A r mst rong

2  From the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας to the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν The Rule of Faith and the New Testament Canon

Hans Lietzmann was certainly correct when he said that the emergence of the New Testament canon was among the most complicated problems in all of church history.1 Hans von Campenhausen was no less correct when he said that apparently irresolvable questions in church history should be assessed as historiographical problems and not merely as historical problems.2 The exceptional difficulty experienced in attempting to reconstruct the history of the New Testament canon arises not only from a critical paucity of primary sources but also from a superabundance of conflicting secondary literature. In this article, in alignment with the above sage advice, I revisit the apparently irresolvable question of the relation of the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν����������������������������������������������������������������������� as a historiographical problem. From the following survey of the analyses of the most prominent scholars, from Theodor Zahn to Valdemar Ammundsen and Gustave Bardy, we will see that the vastly different evaluations of the role of the rule of faith in the story of the New Testament canon attest to the fact that this dynamic has been thus far inadequately comprehended and merits renewed research.3 The thesis of this article is that the inability of available theories to account for all the accepted facts concerning the forma1. “Die Kanongeschichte gehört . . . zu den allerkompliziertesten Teilen der kirchenhistorischen Wissenschaft” (Wie wurden die Bücher des Neuen Testaments heilige Schrift? [Tübingen: Mohr, 1907], 2–3; quoted by Christoph Markschies, Zwischen den Welten wandern: Strukturen des antiken Christentums [Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1997], 101). 2. Die Jungfrauengeburt in der Theologie der alten Kirche (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1962), 5. 3. For the sake of simplicity, I do not differentiate between the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the regula fidei in this article.

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tion of the canon is indicative of a common failure to acknowledge the inextricability of the histories of canonicity and orthodoxy. For always retaining proto-orthodoxy as a point of reference in his lectures on the New Testament canon, and for his personal example of resilience in researching apparently irresolvable problems, I wish to express my appreciation to my Ph.D. advisor, Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.4 The history of astronomy would teach us that it is precisely the awareness of the unpredictability of a phenomenon according to current models that leads to true discovery; plotting out the divergent conclusions of previous theories is the first step to developing a superior theory. In attempting to work out a coherent history of the canon for my doctoral dissertation, I came to wonder if the anomalies that I encountered did not in fact cumulatively demand that I reconfigure my approach, much as the paradoxes witnessed by the Renaissance astronomers led to new models for the motion of celestial bodies. As I searched for signs of the New Testament canon in the lonely night sky of the post-apostolic period, I began cataloging references to the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας as probable appearances of the nascent canon. When I endeavored to keep the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας as the focus of a telescoped analysis of the canon in the post-Irenaean era, however, I discovered that the κανὼν�������������������� ������������������������� ������������������� τῆς���������������� ��������������� ἀληθείας������� disappears from the center of the discussion about Christian Scripture in the third and fourth centuries. I had incorrectly anticipated that the trajectory of the κανὼν���������������������������������������������������������������������� τῆς������������������������������������������������������������������ ��������������������������������������������������������������������� ἀληθείας��������������������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������������������������������� would be linear—and thus that the interpretation of Irenaeus in the second century would correspond precisely to that of Augustine in the fifth century—but in reality the course of its theological development is elliptical and arcs dramatically during this span of time. It is for this reason that past studies of the relation of the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν have failed to draw conclusions that have been valid for more than a single point on the timeline of patristic theology. I therefore now conclude that the correspondence of the histories of the formation of the New Testament canon and the emergence of orthodoxy is analogous to the correspondence of the orbits of twin planets—charting out the course of one can be achieved only when the presence of the other is fully accounted for.5 4. See Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The History of the Christian Bible in History and Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995). 5. Further elements of this astronomical analogy could be developed. For example, in the history of canonicity and orthodoxy, there are two points of almost total eclipse: once when in the writings of Irenaeus we see the dominance of concern for orthodoxy—so that canonicity is defined through orthodoxy—and once in the writings of Augustine, when we witness the reverse phenomenon. In addition, the tendency of scholars today to attribute the formation of the canon to a nebulous constellation of factors (such as improvements in ancient bookbinding, the confiscation of sacred writings during periods of imperial persecution, the rise of Gnosticism

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In his commendable essay “The Tradition and Canon of the Gospel according to the Scripture,” John Behr brilliantly articulates the unity of the canon and orthodoxy in the theology of Irenaeus.6 It may be that Behr’s position as an Orthodox theologian aids his perception of the relation of canonicity and orthodoxy. What proves perplexing for this Protestant reader is not Behr’s contention that canonicity and orthodoxy are related in the first place, but rather his seeming lack of interest in discriminating at all between the histories of these theological standards. If I may be permitted to appeal once more to the above analogy: according to my theory, the histories of canonicity and orthodoxy are interrelated but separate, as the orbits of a pair of planets or twin stars; according to my reading of Behr, he would have the histories of canonicity and orthodoxy traced as a single trajectory. In defense of my own theory, I would contend that, although canonicity and orthodoxy are largely inseparable as witnessed in the writings of Irenaeus, the two histories are seen to spin apart during the centuries that follow. The assumption that there simply is no significant connection between the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν does not represent a position that could be easily deduced either from the past century of scholarship or from the writings of the Church Fathers themselves. We turn now to our survey of past scholarship.

Readings of the Relation of the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν Theodor Zahn is perhaps best known for his massive volumes on the New Testament canon, but he also published several landmark articles on the rule of faith. Nevertheless, in all of his writings, Zahn portrays the themes of the rule of faith and the canon as almost entirely unrelated subjects. In an essay entitled “Glaubensregel und Taufbekenntnis in der alten Kirche,” Zahn proposed that the regula fidei should be identified as the baptismal confession of the ancient church—a thesis that deeply influenced subsequent scholarship.7 If one were to ask Irenaeus or Tertullian to state the theological principle upon which the oneness of the church was founded, writes Zahn, “they would answer that it was the ancient and universal rule of faith or rule of truth that unites the diverse Christian communities into the church cathoand Marcionism, and so on) compares surprisingly well to the practice of early astronomers to appeal to an endless regression of epicycles to describe the orbits of the planets. 6. The Way to Nicaea (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 17–48. 7. “Glaubensregel und Taufbekenntnis in der alten Kirche,” in Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: Deichert, 1908), 238–70; originally published in Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliche Leben 2 (1881): 302–24.



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lic.” And, if one were to ask the definition of the rule of faith, Zahn continues: “I would answer that the rule of faith is the baptismal confession of the ancient church.”8 In the face of the ambiguity and indecision of previous analyses, Zahn’s radical thesis represented a promising alternative. The opening sentence of Augustine’s sermon on the Apostles’ Creed serves as the primary evidence for Zahn’s argument: accipite regulam fidei, quod symbolum dicitur.9 Zahn also cites Tertullian’s words as a key text in support of his theory: cum aquam ingressi christianam fidem in legis suae verba profitemur.10 Zahn’s proposal not only promised a definition of the regula fidei but also provided a solution to the unsettling theological problem that arose from the fact that every specimen of the regula fidei was uniquely worded. It was precisely because the rule of faith could be identified as the baptismal confession, Zahn argues, that the early Church Fathers were at liberty to allude to this confession very freely and with a variety of titles. In an article that appeared in the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche almost a decade later, Zahn unequivocally restates his theory: “The rule of faith is identical with the baptismal confession.”11 Zahn was perfectly aware that, in order to secure permanent acceptance of his theory, it would be necessary to explain not only why ancient Christian writers would refer to the regula fidei with such a variety of titles but also why they would ascribe such diverse functions to this same principle. The rapid pace at which the rule of faith evolved in the final decades of the second century certainly contributes to the difficulty of working out a suitable definition, Zahn affirms. And yet, the rule of faith appears so frequently and in such theologically significant contexts that one sincerely doubts that the authors of this period could be rightly interpreted before a definition of this principle is achieved. The rule of faith is neither more nor less than the baptismal confession, according to Zahn, and therefore he could declare: “As to the question of what the ante-Nicene church considered to be the rule of faith, the rule of truth, 8. Ibid., 245–46. Zahn’s thesis was not absolutely unprecedented. In a footnote on Adv. haer. 1.9.4, William Wigan Harvey expounds the rule of faith as “the primitive apostolic form of sound words, the Creed, the baptismal use of which was from the beginning” (Sancti Irenaei Episcopi Lugdunensis: Libros quinque adversus haereses [Cambridge: Typis Academicis, 1857], 1:87). 9. “Receive the rule of faith, which is called the symbol” (Sermo de Symb. ad Cat. 1.1 [CCSL 46:185; cf. NPNF, 1st series, 3:369]). 10. “When entering the water, we make a profession of the Christian faith in the words of its rule” (De Spect. 4 [CSEL 20:6; cf. ANF 3:81]). Zahn also appealed to Irenaeus’s Adv. haer. 1.9.4, and Rufinus of Aquilae’s De Symb. 3, as of utmost importance for his conclusion. 11. “Glaubensregel,” in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, ed. Albert Hauck (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899), 6:685.

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or the rule of the church, the answer is first of all: never the Bible or any certain section thereof.”12 From this perspective, it is perhaps not surprising to discover that Theodor Zahn dedicated almost no space to the regula fidei in his monumental Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons.13 Zahn’s thesis deeply colored the conclusions of Adolf von Harnack, and although Harnack slightly restructured Zahn’s argument, the end results of the studies of these scholars are nevertheless quite similar. For Harnack, the regula fidei and the baptismal confession are not absolutely identical but rather represent the same theological reality at different points along the course of its development. The regula fidei can be equated with the apostolic tradition, Harnack affirms, and from this source streamed the words and concepts that came to compose the baptismal formula, the deposit of the faith. In defining the rule of faith in terms of the apostolic tradition rather than the baptismal confession per se, Harnack allowed the possibility of a direct association between the regula fidei and the Scriptures. “In a narrower sense, the stories of Jesus and the words of Jesus were that rule,” alleges Harnack. “Insofar as they formed the content of the faith, they were the faith itself, i.e., the Christian truth, and insofar as that faith defined the entire Christian essence, it could be called the κανὼν τῆς πίστεως or the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας.”14 It was not in fact an ever more specific rendition of the tradition that was required to defend orthodoxy against the heresies of Marcionism and Gnosticism but rather an apostolic criterion, and it was Irenaeus who appealed to the regula veritatis to serve as this apostolic standard.15 The fervor and forcefulness with which Irenaeus cites the rule of truth demonstrate that he conceived of it as a certain confession and not merely a loose network of apostolic traditions. It was because the baptismal confession stood behind every allusion to the rule of truth that Irenaeus could find every citation crucial. It is also for this reason, Harnack argues, that an author such as Irenaeus could apply the phrase regula veritatis to all the very different formulations of the tradition. Harnack summarizes: “The rule of truth is the ancient baptismal confession that had always 12. Ibid., 6:684. 13. Zahn does, however, discuss the word κανών in the introduction to his Grundriß der Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons (Leipzig: Deichert, 1904; repr., Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1985), 1–14. He is content to say on the first page that the meaning of the word κανὼν came to refer to a collection of Scriptures only a very long time after it was applied to the baptismal confession. 14. Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, vol. 1, Die Entstehung des kirchlichen Dogmas (Freiburg: Mohr, 1886), 257. Harnack states clearly, however, that he maintains that the individual lines of the Apostles’ Creed were not simply derived from the New Testament but represent theological formulations of the post-apostolic age (“Apostolisches Symbolum,” Realencyklopädie, 1:754). 15. Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 1:262.



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been known to the Christian communities. Since it is precisely this, it is apostolic and certain and unshakable.”16 Harnack can even concede: “Zahn was completely right in his article when he proposed that the rule of faith is the baptismal confession.”17 He qualifies this statement by then positing that the early Church Fathers came to identify the regula fidei as the baptismal confession only as an apologetic argument in a specific polemical situation. Harnack essentially endorses Zahn’s thesis, but he attempts to situate the equation of the rule of faith and the baptismal confession within the context of the changing theological constellations of the second century. Zahn’s theory, saluted and reinforced by Harnack, achieved mainstream status following Ferdinand Kattenbusch’s important work Das Apostolische Symbol. Kattenbusch dedicated a section of his monograph to surveying the relevant studies that preceded Zahn’s conclusions. In Kattenbusch’s classic analysis, the question of the relation of the rule of faith and the New Testament canon first arose with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who in his famed 1778 essay, “Necessary Answer to a Very Unnecessary Question,” contended that the rule of faith could not be identified with the Scriptures from a historical perspective.18 Lessing may indeed be credited as the first to address the subject, but he certainly did little to compile the needed data or to conduct a scientific inquiry. It was only after C. P. Caspari had published four substantial volumes on the regula fidei that the foundation had been laid for a comprehensive examination.19 Kattenbusch writes more as an analyst of previous studies than as an advocate of a new proposal, but he nevertheless advances his own criticisms and observations. In contrast to Harnack, Kattenbusch detects a significant dissimilarity between the way in which Irenaeus conceives 16. Ibid., 263. 17. Ibid., 264. Harnack clarifies his own views in contrast to those of Zahn in the following article: “Zur Geschichte der Entstehung des Apostolischen Symbolums,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 4 (1894): 130–66. 18. “Nötige Antwort auf eine sehr unnötige Frage des Herrn Hauptpastor Goeze in Hamburg,” Gesammelte Werke, ed. Paul Rilla (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1956), 8:417–23. 19. C. P. Caspari, Ungedruckte, unbeachtete und wenig beachtete Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel, 3 vols., and Alte und neue Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel (Christiania: Malling, 1866, 1869, 1875, 1879). August Hahn’s authoritative work Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche (Breslau: E. Morgenstern, 1897) is something of a compilation of the findings of Caspari. The first section is comprised of an almost exhaustive catalogue of the rule of faith as it appears in patristic literature. Those who preceded Caspari in responding to Lessing would include: Christian Wilhelm Franz Walch, Kritische Untersuchungen von dem Gebrauch der heiligen Schrift unter den alten Christen in den ersten drei Jahrhunterten (Leipzig, 1779); K. H. Sack, C. J. Nitzsch, and F. Lücke, Über das Ansehen der heiligen Schrift und ihr Verhältnis zur Glaubensregel in der protestantischen und in der alten Kirche (Bonn: Eduard Weber, 1827); and Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition (Ludwigsburg: F. Riehm, 1859).

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of the rule of truth and Tertullian the rule of faith. Irenaeus does not actually clearly distinguish between the regula veritatis and the formula recited by the catechumen at baptism, Kattenbusch argues, but Tertullian does in fact evidence an awareness of the difference between the regula fidei and the baptismal confession.20 Later commentators continued to maintain this distinction. Ellen Flesseman–van Leer notes that, although the question of the relation of Scripture and tradition first emerges in the writings of Irenaeus, it is not until Tertullian that one finds any sustained reflection on this theological problem.21 Kattenbusch in the end adopts the theory that the regula fidei should be identified with the baptismal confession and critiques Caspari for failing to perceive that these principles are in fact one and the same.22 Zahn’s thesis now seemed firmly established. After the publication of Harnack’s collaborating research and Kattenbusch’s first volume, a complete overturn of scholarly opinion appeared quite impossible. But while Kattenbusch was attempting to canonize Zahn’s theory, Johannes Kunze was constructing a major counterproposal that would render Zahn’s equation of the regula fidei and the baptismal confession permanently suspect. In 1899, just one year before Kattenbusch’s second volume appeared in print, Kunze published his Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis: Untersuchungen über die dogmatische Autorität, ihr Werden und ihre Geshichte, vornehmlich in der alten Kirche. Kunze explicitly states that the study was conducted to challenge the theory that the rule of faith and the baptismal confession were identical in the ancient church. Before commencing with his critique, Kunze first provides a statement outlining the points on which he is in agreement with Zahn: Zahn is essentially correct when he avers that the rule of faith is the baptismal confession. But, so far as I am able to judge, he did not appreciate the extreme circumstances in which the early Catholic Fathers found themselves and which they could not quite conceal. The difficulty was that they needed a rigidly formulated and thus definitively interpreted confession of the apostolic teaching, but at this time they 20. Das Apostolische Symbol: seine Entstehung, sein geschichtlicher Sinn, seine ursprüngliche Stellung im Kultus und in der Theologie der Kirche (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1894, 1900; repr., Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 2:83. 21. Flesseman–van Leer writes: “The question what is the interrelation between tradition and scripture becomes relevant for the first time, strictly speaking, with respect to Irenaeus. This does not mean that he was the first to give an explicit answer to this question; on the contrary, he does not explicitly state it, let alone answer it. Tertullian is the first who has any awareness of this problem. For Irenaeus, on the other hand, tradition and scripture are both quite unproblematic” (Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1953], 139). 22. Das apostolische Symbol, 1:20–21.



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in fact only possessed a rigidly formulated but not interpreted baptismal confession and in addition a completely unformulated ecclesiastical tradition, although it at least excluded the most elementary Gnostic theses.23

As we read here at the close of the introduction to the monograph, Kunze largely aligns himself with Harnack in his specific criticisms of Zahn’s thesis. In addition, he embraced Harnack’s insightful maxim: “‘Canon’ was originally the rule of faith; the Scripture had in truth intervened.”24 Nevertheless, it would not be many pages further on before Kunze would reveal several serious reservations about Harnack’s overall position. Foremost in the disagreement between Kunze and Harnack is the question of the relative importance that should be assigned to the testimony of Tertullian. Kunze noted almost immediately in his study that Tertullian’s negative principle that the heretics should be disallowed from even interpreting the Scriptures, since they do not maintain the rule of faith, unfortunately muted the question concerning the positive relationship of the rule of faith and the canon of the Scriptures.25 This failure to note the positive relationship of the canon of the Scriptures and the rule of faith, Kunze continues, is found implicitly in Harnack’s theory of Frühkatolizismus, a theory that necessarily conceives of canon, creed, and episcopate as theological principles that are capable of being isolated one from another. In his quest to discover the relationship between the rule of faith and the Scriptures, Kunze concludes that two possibilities are most likely: either the rule of faith eventually became the canon of the Scriptures, or the church always understood the dual dimensions of baptismal confession and Scripture to be present in the rule of faith. In the case of the second possibility, one could say that these two dimensions were later collapsed into one and that the canon came to mean exclusively the canon of the Scriptures.26 The main section of Kunze’s work represents the endeavor to determine whether the baptismal confession of the church from the late second century to the early fourth century was uniform. Kunze does this in the attempt to determine exactly how the baptismal confession relates to the regula fidei, reasoning that from this position he would then be able to measure the developments in the conception of one principle against the developments in the church’s understanding of the other. Kunze says that, although from time to 23. Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1899), 15. 24. History of Dogma, trans. Neil Buchanan (Boston: Little, Brown, 1901), 3:210. “Kanon war ursprünglich die Glaubensregel; die Schrift ist in Wahrheit zwischeneingekommen” (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte [Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1887], 2:87; quoted in Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis, 3). 25. Ibid., 2. 26. Ibid., 3.

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time it would appear that the regula fidei and the baptismal confession are very near to one another, still the important difference remains that the baptismal confession was formulated for the church and the rule of faith was an antiheretical implement.27 Kunze rightly points out that this anti-heretical bent is unmistakable in the works of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Novatian as well. Kunze argues that the thesis that the rule of faith can be positively identified as the baptismal confession is shown to be inadequate in Tertullian’s De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 13, in which context the anti-heretical thrust of the rule is absolutely unequivocal: haec regula a christo, ut probabitur, instituta nullas habet apud nos quaestiones, nisi quas haereses inferunt, et quae haereticos faciunt.28 Victorinus of Pettau is cited as another prime example of an author who ostensibly understood the rule of faith to be an anti-heretical implement.29 In fact, Kunze argues, almost every citation of the regula fidei demonstrates that the rule cannot be identified as the baptismal confession, for each specimen of the rule contains elements that are not included in the baptismal formula.30 Through a careful comparative examination of the form of the regula fidei and the baptismal confession, Kunze shows that the two must be considered to be different. To take one example, Kunze discusses the specimen of the rule of faith found in Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses, 1.22.1, and argues persuasively that the rule is far more elaborate than the baptismal confession would be.31 Kunze faults Zahn’s analysis for focusing too exclusively on the evidence presented by Augustine and Tertullian and concludes: “As we can see then, Augustine is an exception in a way, and he may be read as evidence of the rather loose use of language that followed Tertullian and Novatian.”32 Kunze comes to the point of his discovery: the rule of faith cannot be merely another name for the baptismal confession.33 Kunze’s work became a milestone publication, convincing 27. Ibid., 75. As Kunze notes, according to this distinction, the most ancient author recorded to cite the rule of faith would be Dionysius of Corinth in his contention with Marcion (see Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 4.23.4). 28. “This rule, as it will be proved, was taught by Christ, and raises amongst ourselves no other questions than those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics” (De Praescr. Haer. 13 [CSEL 70:18; ANF 1:249]); Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis, 82. 29. In his commentary on the Apocalypse, Victorinus states that no one can adore around the throne of God except those who confess the rule of faith (Com. in Apoc. 11.1; Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis, 84). 30. Ibid., 79. 31. Ibid., 79–80. 32. Ibid., 84. 33. Kunze cited older works that also supported the idea that the canon and the regula fidei were intimately connected. H. J. Holtzmann, for example, wrote: “The rule of faith in its various forms and the Apostles’ Creed in its various recensions constitute the most exact chronological parallel to the genesis of the canon itself ” (Kanon und tradition: Ein Beitrag zur neueren Dogmengeschichte und Symbolik [Ludwigsburg: F. Riehm, 1859], 409).



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scholars that Zahn’s thesis was premature, or at least that any declaration of the final victory of Zahn’s thesis would be premature.34 Kunze states his contention succinctly: “The rule of faith was not an actual name for the baptismal confession, and one could be easily persuaded that the church would never have arrived upon this name from a purely positive and internal point of view.”35 He turns Zahn’s argument from Augustine on its head when he notes that even Augustine’s dictum accipite regulam fidei, quod symbolum dicitur demonstrates that for Augustine the name of the creed was generally symbolum and not regula fidei.36 Kunze then produces further evidence for his view when he quotes Augustine’s statement from the Retractationes: liber de agone christiano . . . conscriptus est, fidei regulam continens et praecepta vivendi.37 After citing another example from Augustine, in which he affirms symbolum est ergo breviter complexa regula fidei, Kunze concludes: “The symbol is namely the rule of faith in summary form, and therefore the former is not the sole possible formulation of the latter.”38 And not only is Zahn’s interpretation of Augustine suspect, according to Kunze, but also, even if this were to be the correct interpretation of Augustine, one could not reasonably argue that Augustine spoke for all his contemporaries. As counterpoint to Augustine’s statement that the rule of faith is the baptismal confession, Kunze draws the reader’s attention to the statement of Isidore of Pelusium: “the rule of truth, that is to say the divine Scriptures” (τὸν κανόνα τῆς ἀληθείας, τὰς θείας φημὶ γραφάς).39 Kunze’s landmark monograph succeeded in ensuring that Zahn’s theory would not achieve a permanent, authoritative status. But, at that point in time, there was no clear and compelling theory that could replace Zahn’s thesis. Upon the publication of Johannes Kunze’s severe criticisms, scholars started 34. Bengt Hägglund proposes that both the baptismal confession and the Scriptures should be understood as referents of the term regula fidei: “As the baptismal confession so also even more justifiably can the Holy Scripture be designated as the regula veritatis. In fact, the regula always refers to the Scripture because through the holy Scripture and only through it—through the message of the prophets and apostles—is the ‘truth’ revealed and delivered to us” (“Die Bedeutung der ‘regula fidei’ als Grundlage theologischer Aussagen,” Studia Theologica 12 [1958]: 12–13). 35. Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis, 72. 36. Ibid.; Sermo de Symb. ad Cat. 1.1 (CCSL 46:185). 37. Augustine informs the reader that De Agone Christiano “contains the rule of faith and precepts for living” (Retract., 2.3 [FC 60:123; CCSL 57:91]); Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis, 72. 38. “The symbol is therefore more concise than the comprehensive rule of faith”: Augustine, Sermo 213.2 (Miscellanea Agostiniana, ed. D. Germani Morin [Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1930], 1:442); Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis, 73. 39. Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 4.114; quoted by Zahn, Grundriß der Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, 7; see also Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufgekenntnis, 3.

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to explore the potential connections between the rule of faith and the canon of Scripture. In 1912, Valdemar Ammundsen penned an article in response to a recently published doctoral dissertation, originally submitted to the faculty of the Københavns Universitet by one Svend Aage Becker. Approaching the question of the definition of the rule of faith primarily through the writings of Irenaeus, rather than Tertullian and Augustine as Zahn, Harnack, and Kattenbusch had done, Ammundsen and Becker came to substantially different conclusions. Becker introduced a new perspective to the scholarly discussion when he advocated that, in Adv. haer., 1.9.4., in speaking of a “body of truth” (τὸ τῆς ἀληθείας σωμάτιον), Irenaeus was in fact referring to a specific literary corpus.40 Ammundsen draws a very different conclusion from the one that Zahn had deduced from Adv. haer., 1.9.4. Following Becker’s lead, Ammundsen notes that Irenaeus states that whoever maintains the rule of truth will not be fooled by Gnostic fables because he will recognize the original context of the dominical sayings that the Gnostics misappropriate in support of their own heretical fantasies. Irenaeus argues that the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας alone should be sufficient to demonstrate that the terms adopted by the Gnostics—such as pater, charis, monogenes, aletheia, logos, zoë, anthropos, ecclesia, and so on—were applied in an inauthentic way. Ammundsen therefore concludes concerning the rule of faith: “Then it must be either the Scriptures or the main content of the Scriptures. That it is said to have been received at Baptism cannot overthrow this explanation and lead us to think of a short formulated Creed.”41 But according to Ammundsen, this conclusion can be clearly drawn not only from Adv. haer., 1.9.4; he also examines 2.25.1, 2.27.1, and 2.28.1 and boldly affirms: “In these last three passages there can be no doubt of the explanation: the rule of truth is the main, unambiguous content of the Scriptures.”42 Ammundsen finds it unnecessary to rely on equivocal points of exegesis; he contends that his interpretation of the rule of truth is forthrightly stated further on in Irenaeus’s own work. Ammundsen quotes Adv. haer., 4.35.4: nos autem unum et solum verum Dominum doctorem sequentes et regulam veritatis habentes eius sermones.43 He then writes: “In this clearest of all passages the rule of truth is the words of God contained in Scripture.”44 Ammundsen develops the implications of his analysis concerning the re40. Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 1.9.4 (SC 264:151); Becker, Ο ΚΑΝΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΣ: Regula veritatis eller Sandhedens Regel. Et Bidrag til Belysning af dette Udtryks Forekomst og Betydning hos Irenaeos (Copenhagen: Gad, 1910), 17–24. 41. “The Rule of Truth in Irenaeus,” JTS 13 (1912): 575. 42. Ibid., 576. 43. “We follow for our teacher the one and only true God, and possess his words as the rule of truth” (SC 100:874–76; ANF 1:514). 44. “The Rule of Truth in Irenaeus,” 578.



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lation of Scripture and the rule of truth for Irenaeus: “This truth is first to be found in Scripture, so that Scripture or some part of it occasionally may be called the rule of truth. The idea of separating Scripture from the Church never occurs to Irenaeus. But how strongly he insists on Scripture as the basis may be proved from nearly every page he wrote.”45 In order to prove his point, Ammundsen then puts forward an excerpt from Adv. haer., 5.20.1. In this passage, Irenaeus teaches that one should avoid the doctrines of the heretics and only accept the Scriptures of the church. He compares this teaching to the instructions that God gave Adam in the Garden of Eden: It is necessary, therefore, to avoid their doctrines and to take care lest we suffer any injury from them; but to flee to the Church, and be brought up in her bosom, and be nourished with the Lord’s Scriptures. For the Church has been planted as a garden in this world; therefore says the Spirit of God, “You may freely eat from every tree of the garden,” that is, “Eat from every Scripture of the Lord.” 46

Ammundsen then asks if this close association of the regula fidei and the Scriptures can be discovered in any other early authors. He turns to the testimony of Polycrates of Ephesus, who was perhaps the very earliest author to use the expression “rule of faith.” He notes that, for Polycrates, to keep Passover according to the gospel or according to the rule of faith was one and the same.47 Ammundsen’s conclusion thus represents almost the antithesis of Zahn’s theory. Instead of arguing that the rule of faith could be identified as the baptismal confession, it seemed now that the rule of faith was in fact intimately associated with the apostolic Scriptures and perhaps could even be identified precisely as the Scriptures themselves. It was left to Gustave Bardy, however, to argue that the regula fidei was to be identified as the New Testament canon. Bardy opened his article “La règle de foi d’Origène” by stating that the first question that one must answer when approaching Origen’s theology is precisely his understanding of the rule of faith, since the answer to this question will provide the basis to understand not only Origen’s theology but also his relationship to the church Catholic.48 45. Ibid., 579. 46. “Fugere igitur oportet sententias ipsorum et intentius observare necubi vexemur ab ipsis, confugere autem ad Ecclesiam et ejus sinu educari et dominicis Scripturis enutriri. Plantata est enim Ecclesia paradises in hoc mundo. Ab omni ergo lingo paradise escas manducabitis, ait Spiritus Dei, hoc est ab omni Scriptura dominica manducate, a superelato autem sensu ne manducaveritis neque tetigeritis universam haereticam dissensionem” (Adv. haer. 5.20.2 [SC 153:258; cf. ANF 1:548]). 47. Eusebius uses the terms “κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον” and “κατὰ τὸν κανόνα τῆς πίστεως” (Hist. Eccl. 5.24.6 [SC 41:68]). One could also draw attention to the reference in Epist. ad Floram, where we read: κανονίσαι πάντας τοὺς λόγους τῇ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν διδασκαλίᾳ. 48. Bardy, “La règle de foi d’Origène,” Recherches de science religieuse 9 (1919): 162.

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Bardy demonstrates via a biographical route that it is crucial to appreciate the significance of the rule of faith for Origen not simply so that one may understand his philosophical apologetics but also so that one may understand the way in which Origen read Scripture. After citing the Latin text of De Principiis, 3.3.3, Bardy deduces that in this passage the expressions regula scripturarum and regula christianae veritatis are perfectly synonymous, and Bardy therefore concludes that the rule of faith is to be identified as the canonical Scriptures: As for the precise sense of the term regula scripturarum, there can scarcely be any reason to hesitate in affirming that Origen is thereby referring to the inspired Scriptures, as they constitute a corpus and as they form a part of an official list that assumes the Christian teaching as its point of departure.49

According to Bardy, Origen routinely used the term κανὼν to refer to the canon of the inspired Scriptures.50 This theory was later adopted by the noted scholar and churchman Henri de Lubac in his Histoire et esprit: l’ intelligence de l’ écriture d’après Origène. In his chapter on Origen as a man of the church, after noting the several expressions that Origen employs when referring to the regula fidei—such as regula scripturarum, regula evangelii, evangelicae et apostolicae regulae, and apostolica regula veritatis—de Lubac cites the conclusion of Bardy: “In all of these expressions, it is solely a question of the books of the Old and New Testament.”51 Heinz Ohme, the author of the most extensive study of the rule of faith ever conducted, a study that was originally submitted as a Habilitationsschrift at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität 49. Ibid., 174. 50. Ibid., 181. 51. De Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 68; Bardy, “La règle de foi d’Origène,” 175. Johannes Quasten concludes perceptively that the rule of faith should be identified neither with the Scripture nor with tradition but rather with the kerygma that underlies both of these theological principles: “Da die Apostel ihre Verkündigung in den Evangelien auch schriflich zusammengefaßt haben und das schriflich fixierte Kerygma keinen anderen Inhalt haben kann als die mündliche Überlieferung, wird von manchen behauptet, Eirenaios, Tertullian und andere verständen unter regula fidei die Heilige Schrift; andere wiederum sind überzeugt, daß damit die mündlich Überlieferung gemeint ist. Tatsächlich läßt sich eine Reihe von Väterstellen für jede dieser beiden Ansichten anführen. Doch ergibt eine genauere Nachprüfung, daß die regula fidei weder mit der Heilige Schrift noch mit der mündlichen Tradition, sondern mit dem beiden zugrunde liegenden Kerygma identisch ist. Die Verleugnung oder Veränderung dieses apostoliche Kerygmas stellt die Häresie dar” (“Regula fidei,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner [Freiburg: Herder, 1963], 8:1103). Bruce Metzger avers that the primary criterion by which the New Testament canon was achieved in the ancient church was the rule of faith, thus tracing a definite correlation between the canon of faith and the canon of Scripture (The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987], 251).



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Erlangen-Nürnberg, avers that for Irenaeus “the sacred Scripture is fundamentally complete, sufficient, and from itself comprehensible. Therefore, he can refer to Scripture itself as the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας.”52 If we were to continue our survey of scholarship, we would discover that opinions have become ever more diverse. The story of the scholarship from Zahn, who said that the rule of faith was the baptismal confession, to Ammundsen and Bardy, who finally concluded that the rule of faith referred to the Scriptures as arranged in “une liste officielle,” is a remarkable story. Scholars examining essentially the same textual evidence came to entirely contradictory conclusions. It should give us pause to reflect on the fact that scholars have interpreted the data in such different ways. I would submit that this indicates that the methodological considerations are considerably more significant than previous analyses have admitted. As the orbit of twin planets would be impossible to explain if one of the two planets were unnoted by astronomers, so the history of canonicity can scarcely be reconstructed without appealing to the history of orthodoxy as one of its most significant points of reference. In the following section, I will outline one recently proposed methodology that may provide a key to understanding the relationship of the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν.

The κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας as the Institutional Foundation of the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν In the paragraphs remaining, only a single methodological suggestion can be made. The theory that I would advocate as best clarifying the relationship of the principles of canonicity and orthodoxy is that presented in the recent monograph by Christoph Markschies, Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen: Prolegamena zu einer Geschichte der antiken christlichen Theologie.53 In this study, Markschies persuasively demonstrates that for one to correctly understand Christian theology in the second and third centuries, it is necessary to understand that it was the earliest institutions that formed the theological definitions by which these institutions themselves were later conceived. It is the failure to appreciate this dynamic, Markschies argues, that causes the logic of the earliest theological discussions to evaporate, leaving the reader with nothing but perplexing rhetoric. Markschies contends that it was the process of the development of the institutions that in fact produced 52. Kanon Ekklesiastikos: Die Bedeutung des altkirchlichen Kanonbegriffs (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998), 68. 53. See JTS 59 (2008): 794–97.

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the richness and diversity of theological expression in early Christianity, since each particular institutional context generated and disseminated a particular theological orientation and emphasis. It is therefore imperative that one not fail to appreciate the role that the institutions played in establishing the theological principles by which the institution itself finally came to be defined. Markschies notes that if one were to trace the history of the New Testament canon by tracing the history of the Greek term and its application to the corpus of Scripture, one would invariably arrive at the conclusion that Athanasius introduced the canon, for not only is he the first to use the term κανὼν in reference to the Scriptures, but he is also the first to write out a list of the books of the New Testament canon as it is presented in modern Bibles.54 But, if one decides to reconstruct the history of the canon not by tracing the emergence of the term κανὼν but via some other methodology, then one needs to be very careful in selecting the criteria by which the “canon” is studied in the era before the fourth century.55 Markschies concludes that Christian theology therefore must be studied in its institutional context, and my application of this theory is that the history of the canon must be studied in the context of the institutional development of orthodoxy—that is, in the context of the history of the development of the rule of faith. This is not to conclude that the second-century references to the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας are direct references to the fourth-century κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν, but rather that the history of the latter cannot be understood apart from the history of the former. The development of a definitive body of Christian literature came to define the orthodoxy by which the final form of the canon was adjudicated. I would affirm that the close association between the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας and the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν can be witnessed from the fact that these principles served precisely the same function as standards of orthodoxy. For Irenaeus, the rule of faith is the standard by which normative Christian truth is determined.56 54. Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen, 221. 55. Still the best article on the Greek term is Beyer, “κανών,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1965), 3:596–602. Athanasius says that the Shepherd of Hermas is not “of the canon” (ἐκ τοῦ κανόνος) (De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi 18.3 [Opitz, 15]). Also, Athanasius uses the passive participle “κανονιζομένων” in his famed Festal Letter 39. The phrase κανὼν γραφῶν comes from Amphilochius of Iconium’s catalogue of the New Testament canon. Although Eusebius’s precise understanding of the word “canon” is controversial, it seems best not to conclude that he ever used the term to refer to a collection of literature. See Gregory Allen Robbins, “Eusebius’ Lexicon of ‘Canonicity,’” in SP 25 (Louvain: Peeters, 1993), 134–41. 56. Adv. haer. 1.9.4. Irenaeus indeed provides us with the first direct reference to the rule of faith (Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 75), as is often said, but there is a convincing case that the term rule of faith in fact was constructed around Paul’s use of the word κανὼν in Gal 6:16 (see especially William R. Farmer, “Galatians and the Second-Century Development of the



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It saves those who confess its truth.57 It is not something that can be controlled by anyone; it separates orthodox Christians from heretics; it is the rule of truth that is abandoned in Gnostic interpretations of the Scriptures.58 It is precisely the rule of truth that is established when Christian doctrine is formulated from only the apostolic Gospels.59 It is true that the rule of faith served as a hermeneutical principle for Irenaeus, and therefore it would seem incorrect to conclude that for Irenaeus the rule of faith represents the Scriptures themselves. Nevertheless, as Markschies notes, insofar as Irenaeus maintains the Scriptures to be complete and comprehensible in and of themselves, it is clear that the canon of Scripture and the rule of faith are very closely associated for Irenaeus.60 In his magisterial piece against Marcion, Tertullian speaks of the “rule of the Scriptures” (scripturarum regulam), and in this context appears to equate the rule with the Scriptures.61 In a homily on 1 Corinthians, Origen quite clearly uses the term κανὼν to refer to the Scriptures.62 The rule of faith and the Scriptures were intimately associated from earliest times. But above all, for the early Church Fathers, the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας was the criterion of theological truth; it was the principle that verified all truth concerning the faith. In the era that followed, after the New Testament canon was fixed, we find that the Fathers appealed to the canonical Scriptures in the same way that Regula Fidei,” The Second Century 4 [1984]: 143–70). We meet the word κανὼν for the first time in Christian literature in Gal 6:16 (Heinz, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 37). Hans Dieter Betz places great significance on the rhetorical position of the term κανὼν in Galatians and argues that the occurrence is theologically very significant for Paul’s purposes (Galatians [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979], 320–21). It is important to note that Clement of Rome’s use of the term κανὼν in 1 Clem. 7:2, may be a reference to this early Christian rule of faith, since the passage is quoted by Clement of Alexandria in Stromata 1.1 or 1.15.2 and explicitly linked to the rule of faith. It is also important to note that Clement of Alexandria essentially quotes Paul’s use of the word canon in Gal 6:16 (See Stromata III.9.66.1). Tertullian cites the rule of faith in association essentially with a rule of discipline (see especially De Virginibus Velandis 1), and thus we see unmistakably the connection with the rule of discipline in 1 Clem. 7.2 (Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos, 83). Ohme argues persuasively that Tertullian looked to Paul’s earliest citation of the rule in Gal 6:16 as the source of the Christians understanding of the term, noting that Tertullian’s statement in De Praescr. 37.1, quicumque in ea regula incedimus, parallels Paul’s statement in Gal 6:16, ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν. Ohme notes that this is especially likely in light of Tertullian’s statement in Adv. Marc. 4.5.1, in which Tertullian expressly states that the rule is that rule by which the Galatians were corrected (Kanon ekklesiastikos, 121; see also 571). 57. Adv. haer. 3.15.1. 58. Ibid., 3.12.6, 1.22.1, 2.27.1. 59. Ibid., 3.11.1. 60. Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen, 238. 61. Adv. Marc. 3.17. 62. Origen here paraphrases the words of 1 Cor 14:36 with his own words: ἆρ᾿ οὖν ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ὁ κανὼν ὁ ἐκκλησιαστικὸς εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους τοὺς Κορινθίους κατήντησεν (edited by C. Jenkens, JTS 10 [1909]: 42). Albert C. Outler determined that Origen here is best interpreted as using this term to refer to the Scriptures (“Origen and the Regulae Fidei,” Church History 8 [1939]: 216).

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they once appealed to the rule of faith. Cyril of Jerusalem can say with confidence that no point of doctrine is to be accepted unless it can be proved from Scripture, and he even instructs his baptismal candidates not to receive his own words as authoritative unless their veracity can be demonstrated from the divine Scriptures.63 In his epistle against the Pneumatomachi, Basil of Caesarea states boldly that human tradition counts for nothing in the settling of theological questions. Rather, it is the “God-inspired Scriptures” that decide “the vote of truth.”64 Augustine frequently refers to the “canonical authority” (canonica auctoritas) of the Scriptures, a phrase he repeats so often as to be an Augustinian idiom.65 Augustine ascribes “paramount authority” (eminentissimae auctoritatis) to the canonical Scriptures and draws a sharp distinction between the books that have been declared canonical by the Catholic Church and those penned by any other author.66 The books of the canon are uniquely authoritative.67 In an important passage, Augustine clearly expresses his theological understanding of the authority of the New Testament canon: As regards our writings, which are not a rule of faith or practice, but only a help to edification, we may suppose that they contain some things falling short of the truth. . . . There is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to 63. Catech. 4.17; see also 5.12. See the key references to the Fathers on the authority of Scripture as compiled by G. W. H. Lampe, “Scripture and Tradition in the Early Church,” in Scripture and Tradition (London: Lutterworth Press, 1955), 46–49. 64. Ep. 189.3. 65. De Cat. Rud. 8.12; De Civ. Dei 15.23, 17.20, 17.24, 18.47; De Cons. Evan. 1.1.2; Ep. 93.10.38; Contr. Faust. Man. 11.5–6, 23.6; De Gest. Pel. 14; In Joh. Evan. Tract. 96.2, 112.1; De Pecc. Merit. et Rem. et de Bapt. Parv. 3.14. 66. De Civ. Dei 11.3 (Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, 2:145; Augustini Opera Omnia, 7:440A). Augustine declares: “For the reasonings of any men whatsoever, even though they be Catholics, and of high reputation, are not to be treated by us in the same way as the canonical Scriptures are treated. We are at liberty, without doing any violence to the respect which these men deserve, to condemn and reject anything in their writings, if perchance we shall find that they have entertained opinions differing from that which others or we ourselves have, by the divine help, discovered to be the truth. I deal thus with the writings of others, and I wish my intelligent readers to deal thus with mine” (Ep. 148.4.15 [NPNF, 1st series, 1:502]). In a letter to the Rogatist bishop Vincent, Augustine reaffirms that the canonical Scriptures are above the authority of all other authors, even the Catholic ones (Ep. 93.10.35). 67. In a letter to Jerome, responding to the theory that Paul inaccurately reported his altercation with Peter in Gal 1:20, Augustine writes: “For I admit to your Charity, I learned to show this reverence and respect only to those books of the scriptures that are now called canonical so that I most firmly believe that none of their authors erred in writing anything” (Ep. 82.1.3 [WSA 2.1:316]). In his contention with Jerome, Augustine argues that “the divine scriptures, which were entrusted to us in order to build up our faith, not by just any persons, but by the apostles themselves, and which were for this reason accepted as having the canonical peak of authority [canonicum auctoritatis culmen], should remain true and indubitable in every respect” (ibid., 82.2.7 [WSA 2.1:318; Augustini Opera Omnia, 2:287B]).



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apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind. . . . In consequence of the distinctive peculiarity of the sacred writings, we are bound to receive as true whatever the canon shows to have been said by even one prophet, or apostle, or evangelist.68

Augustine salutes the wisdom of earlier Catholic writers but avers that one “owes unhesitating assent to nothing but the canonical Scriptures.”69 Noncanonical books offer “merely a profitable study,” Augustine reiterates in his debate with Faustus the Manichean, but the books of the New Testament “authoritatively claim our belief as part of the ecclesiastical canon.”70 In his debate with the Manichees, whom he accuses of picking and choosing from the Scriptures only those documents that were convenient for their preconceived positions, Augustine asks: “Are you, then, the rule of truth?”71 The relation of the ������������������������������������������������������ κανὼν������������������������������������������������� τῆς��������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������ ἀληθείας������������������������������������ �������������������������������������������� and the κανὼν���������������������� ��������������������������� τῶν������������������ ��������������������� γραφῶν����������� ����������������� is a question on which scholars have come to entirely contradictory conclusions. This observation is significant in and of itself, as it demonstrates that various past analyses of the rule of faith have focused on radically different factors, and it indicates that the story of the New Testament canon cannot be told without also telling the story of orthodoxy. The present author would recommend Markschies’s recent thesis as a possible methodology for unraveling the relation between the histories of canonicity and orthodoxy. The rule of faith as cited by second-century authors is not to be identified as the New Testament canon cited by fourth-century authors. However, the κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας is in fact a direct antecedent to the κανὼν τῶν γραφῶν, for the former served as the primary standard of orthodoxy during the era preceding the final emergence of the latter. 68. Contr. Faust. Man. 11.5 (NPNF, 2nd series, 4:180). 69. Quia solis canonicis debeo sine ulla recusatione consensum (De Nat. et Grat. 71 [Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, 1:569; Augustini Opera Omnia, 10.1.413D–414A]). 70. Non prodiciendi exercitatione in studiosorum manibus versarentur, sed praecipiendi auctoritate in ecclesiastico canone legerentur (Contr. Faust. Man. 11.8 [NPNF, 2nd series, 4:183; Augustini Opera Omnia, 8:374C]). 71. Tu es ergo regula veritatis? (Contr. Faust. Man. 11.2 [NPNF 4, 1st series, 4:178; Augustini Opera Omnia, 8:364B]).

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3  The Bishop in the Mirror Scripture and Irenaeus’s Self-Understanding in Adversus haereses Book One

Originality and Structure in Adversus haereses 1

Fifty years ago William Schoedel noted the rhetorical structure of Adversus haereses. Within that structure, book 1 included both the exordium and the narratio.1 This indicated a thoughtful and selective structure to Adv. haer. 1 in continuity with ancient topoi and models of argument and the need to question certain source analyses of Irenaeus’s first book.2 Taking note of Schoedel’s insights on structure, and those of others, while also profiting from and engaging studies which have challenged aspects of both the originality and structure of Adv. haer. 1, I wish to revisit the question of how we should understand the composition of this book. I argue that the bishop of Lyons composed his first book in light of a biblical text, a saying of the Lord, found differently in Matthew 10:26, Mark 4:22, and Luke 8:17, 12:2. First, however, a brief presentation of the contemporary discussion on the originality and structure of Adv. haer. 1. A dozen years after Schoedel presented his argument, Frederick Wisse, This essay is offered in celebration of the scholarship of Joseph Lienhard, S.J., particularly as it illuminates the patristic devotion to the Scriptures and the Fathers’ concept of the unity of the Old and New Testaments. In regard to the subject of this essay, Lienhard has aptly noted: “Irenaeus of Lyons was the first to work out a theory of how the Old and New Testament were related” (in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). I am grateful for the assistance of Christopher Graham and Jeff Webster. 1. W. R. Schoedel, “Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Adversus Haereses of Irenaeus,” VC 13 (1959): 27–28. 2. P. Perkins, “Ireneus and the Gnostics: Rhetoric and Composition in Adversus Haereses Book One,” VC 30 (1976): 194–95; 194, n. 9.

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picking up on earlier nineteenth-century proposals, argued strongly for the need to divide Adv. haer. 1 into those portions for which the bishop was responsible and those which were dependent upon an earlier source. He believed that only Adv. haer. 1.1–10; 13–21; and 31.3–4 “were composed by Irenaeus himself,” and that the remainder, Adv. haer. 1.11–12; 22–31.2 derived from an “earlier heresiological work,” which the bishop adapted to his own polemical purposes.3 This work, in Wisse’s mind, was not Justin’s Syntagma, but “a later and more up-to-date catalogue of heresies,” which may have had some relationship to the Syntagma.4 This source, from his analysis of Adv. haer. 1.28–30, did not name the Gnostic sects it discussed and did not provide information on the Gnostic texts (like Apocryphon of John) that specifically informed that discussion.5 That portion of the source preserved in Adv. haer. 1.31.1–2 provides no extensive citation, contains the title of only one tractate (Gospel of Judas) and simply mentions a collection of Gnostic writings.6 Wisse concludes that Irenaeus’s “first-hand knowledge of Gnostic teaching was limited to the disciples of Ptolemaeus and Marcus,” and that the material to which he had access was not the “holy books” of the Gnostics, meant for consumption by the Gnostic community, but only propaganda useful to their missionary endeavors which argued for the scriptural basis of their myth from 3. F. Wisse, “The Nag Hammadi Library and the Heresiologists,” VC 25 (1971): 205–23 (esp. 212–15). The polemical purposes, according to Wisse, were twofold: (1) “expose the inconsistency and diversity” of the theses of the Valentinians, and (2) demonstrate that the Valentinians had an ancestry of heretics starting with Simon Magus (215). The history of the discussion prior to Wisse (R. A. Lipsius, G. Heinrici, and A. von Harnack) is briefly summarized by Wisse (213– 14). Wisse joins Heinrici in seeing Adv. haer. 1.11–12 as having its source in the catalog of heresies (perhaps Justin’s Syntagma expanded by another, later heresiologist [Lipsius, 1875]) used by Irenaeus. Unsure of the author of the source himself (Lipsius, 1875: Justin’s Syntagma expanded and perhaps re-ordered by another, later heresiologist), Wisse (214) due to content judged too late for Justin and in part joining Lipsius and Harnack, thinks that Adv. haer. 1.12, 25.6, 26.2, 26.3, and 28 are later additions to Justin’s Syntagma and came from another hand. Wisse thinks that Adv. haer. 1.29 is based on an early form of Ap. John or perhaps presents Ap. John in an abbreviated or paraphrased manner, that Adv. haer. 1.11 reflects “traditional material” also incorporated into Val. Exp., that the “Christian” material in Adv. haer. 1.24 and Treat. Seth share a Gnostic source, and that Adv. haer. 1.30 “is based on early traditions underlying” Hyp. Arch., Ap. John, Gos. Egyp. (217–18). For studies relating Adv. haer. 1.22.1–1.30.2 to earlier heresiological sources see R. A. Greer, “The Dog and the Mushrooms: Irenaeus’s View of the Valentinians Assessed,” in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, vol. 1, The School of Valentinus, SHR, no. 41, ed B. Layton (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 147 and E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the Valentinians, NHS, no. 60, 10, n. 4. 4. Wisse, “The Nag Hammadi Library and the Heresiologists,” 214. See Justin, Apol. 1.26.8 and Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 4.11.10 for Syntagma. 5. Wisse, “The Nag Hammadi Library and the Heresiologists,” 215. 6. Ibid., 215.

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proof texts.7 Such missionary material was threatening and offensive to Irenaeus’s community. The “holy books,” however, lacked the menacing exploitation of the Scripture and faith of Irenaeus’s community, and were more similar to the tractates of Nag Hammadi. The heresiologists viewed them, at worst, as only marginally Christian and therefore as less problematic.8 In 1976 Pheme Perkins gave specific attention to book 1, arguing against Wisse and demonstrating from rhetorical devices a more extensive unity to Irenaeus’s own composition.9 For Perkins, Irenaeus’s rhetorical skill and the distinction he draws between his own Valentinian opponents and the Simonian sects (1.30.15; 2.Pref.) necessitate assigning Adv. haer. 1.11–12 to Irenaeus.10 Though she recognizes some dependence upon an earlier source, this source did not include a genealogy of his opponents in Lyons. Furthermore, “stylistic and structural criteria” indicate that Adv. haer. 1.29–30 do not fit the pattern used by the source to classify the heresies it treated.11 These chapters, Perkins argues, do not belong to the source but derive from Irenaeus and are the fruit of his research informed by the commentaries of his opponents which he had in hand. The Valentinians read two of these, at least, as sources descriptive of their own ancestry, although they are not in the strict sense “Valentinian.”12 A “non-Christian, Gnostic work” in Irenaeus’s possession had similarities with the source used by the Apocryphon of John and this explains the parallels between Adv. haer. 1.29 and Ap. John.13 This work also explains two Christian Gnostic traditions: the one represented by the Ptolemaeans which Irenaeus described and the one reflected by Ap. John in its different versions. The Apoc. John, therefore, “could easily have circulated” in a form which gave birth to the various versions and which was used by Irenaeus.14 In the understanding of Perkins, then, Irenaeus himself composed Adv. haer. 1.1–21; 29–30 and 31.3–4. Two studies on Adv. haer. 1 in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first century focused upon the question of the book’s original order and sequence. David H. Tripp argued that the preface to Adv. haer. 2 presents an original order to Adv. haer. 1, which was disrupted early in its transmission and that book 1 has come to us with a section misplaced.15 This shuffling 7. Ibid., 216. 8. Ibid., 216–17. 9. Perkins, “Ireneus and the Gnostics,” 193–200. 10. Ibid., 197. 11. Ibid., 197–99 (quotation, 199). 12. Ibid., 200. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., 193. See her note, 193–94, n. 4, and her mention of the work of W. Foerster, H.M. Schenke, J. Doresse, R. Kasser, M. Krause. Note, too, her discussion (199) of the work of Y. Janssens, who points out parallels between Ap. John and the speculations of the Valentinians noted by Irenaeus. The Valentinian account related by Irenaeus could very well reflect an interpretation of a source common to both Adv. haer. and Ap. John. 15. D. H. Tripp, “The Original Sequence of Irenaeus ‘Adversus Haereses’ I: A Suggestion,” The Second Century 8 (1991): 157–62.



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of the contents of book 1 happened, according to Tripp, as scrolls holding different components of the book were, after some disordering event, rearranged in the current order by some well-meaning scribe. Tripp identifies seven components (a–g) to Irenaeus’s outline of Adv. haer. 1 in seven clauses at the beginning of the preface of book 2. The original order of the sections of Adv. haer. 1 was as follows: (a) 1.1–12; (b) 1.23–31; (c) 1.13–16.2; and (d) 1.16.3–20.3; and (e–g) 1.21–22.16 Tripp argues that Adv. haer. 1.23–31 cannot be the original ending because the preface of book 2 indicates that (1) the progress of Irenaeus’s argument requires it to be positioned between Adv. haer. 1.12 and 1.13; (2) the portion discussing the Simonians and “Gnostics” (1.23–31) must come in the second position where the predecessors of the Valentinians are supposedly discussed and before the portion on Marcus (1.13–20.3), because Marcus preceded Valentinus and followed Simon; and (3) the theological ideas given last place in the outline are developed not in Adv. haer. 1.23–31, but in 1.21– 22.17 In 2006, Einar Thomassen took brief issue with Tripp’s thesis, but it was Joel Kalvesmaki who the next year provided a thorough critique.18 Kalvesmaki argues that Tripp’s idea should be rejected for four reasons. First, the whole of book 2 treats the opponents of Irenaeus in approximately the same order as book 1. Tripp gives undue place to only the preface of book 2. Second, Adv. haer. 1.31.3–4 clearly anticipates the next book and thereby declares its position as the conclusion to the first book, a service 1.22.2 does not provide. Third, Adv. haer. 2.14.6 leaves little doubt concerning Irenaeus’s understanding of Marcus as a Valentinian. Finally, Kalvesmaki argues that Tripp’s identification and ordering of the first three components outlined in the preface of book 2 does not take best account of Irenaeus’s discussion and logic. Instead, the bishop discusses the Valentinians, their forerunners, and Marcus, so component (a) is better seen as Adv. haer. 1.1–9, (b) as 1.10–12, and (c) as 1.13.1–16.2. He agrees that (d) refers to 1.16.3–20.3, but combines Tripp’s components (e–f) to include 1.23–31.2 as one unit, and agrees that (g) refers to 1.21–22. “Thus,” he says, “(a–f) [of Adv. haer. 2. Pref.] follow perfectly well the order of book one,” but of course this still requires an explanation for (g) 1.21–22.19 The issue of Adv. haer. 1.21–22 indicates a difference between the preface of book 2 and the current sequence of book 1. This order, in Kalvesmaki’s mind, can be explained in one of three ways. Option one, which he does not favor, 16. Ibid., 158–59. Component (e) in Tripp’s outline of the preface of book 2 ends up in his analysis not to refer to any portion of the original sequence of book 1. It is merely an “editorial composition” (160). 17. Ibid., 159. 18. E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed, 12–13; J. Kalvesmaki, “The Original Sequence of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1: Another Suggestion,” JECS 15 (2007): 407–17. 19. Kalvesmaki, “The Original Sequence of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1,” 410.

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rearranges Adv. haer. 1 to conform to the preface of the second book. He sees no reasonable explanation to justify this shuffling, and he believes that to have the obvious concluding section of 1.31.3–4 follow after 1.22.1 introduces an unreasonably jumbled narrative. Option two, which he finds more plausible, but not compelling, holds that for some reason (oversight or rhetoric), Irenaeus wrote the final clause (g) of book 2 at the end, although in that location it did not reflect the order of the contents of book 1 as he had composed it. The third option, which he finds more compelling, explains the difference by suggesting that “Irenaeus produced two editions of the first two books of Against Heresies.”20 The first edition of Adv. haer. 1 treated the Valentinians and included 1.Pref.–22.1 and 31.4, following precisely the outline given in the preface of book 1.21 His revision of book 1 intended to provide, a “global heresiology” in addition to his treatment of the Valentinians.22 So, with a transitional paragraph (1.22.2) he introduced On Simon, his adaptation of “earlier heresiological material,” (1.23.1–31.2) which treats Simon and the Simonians, between 1.22.2 and 31.2.23 Kalvesmaki argues that On Simon, 1.23.1–1.31.2, is comprised of three parts: 1.23.1–4 and 1.23.5–28.2 (which he understands, for the most part, as the original form of his source which ends at 1.27.3); 1.27.4– 28.2 (which includes some of Irenaeus’s own material); and 1.29.1–31.2, which he thinks has Irenaeus as its “chief author.”24 So, for Kalvesmaki, Irenaeus “redacted” the source, thereby creating 1.23.1– 28.2, with most of his editorial work coming in the second part, and then “added” by his own hand 1.29.1–31.2.25 Irenaeus added another transition, Adv. haer. 1.31.3, which returned the topic to his main concern, the Valentinians, before he concluded the book in 1.31.4.26 The portions composed by Irenaeus, then, in both the first and second editions, are Adv. haer. 1. Pref.–22.2; [some parts of 1.27.4–28.2]; and 1.29.1–31.4. The only portion moderately or extensively dependent on the earlier heresiological source is Adv. haer. 1.23.1–28.2. This compares favorably with the argument of Perkins that Irenaeus composed Adv. haer. 1. Pref.–21; 1.29–30; and 1.31.3–4. Scholarly attention to the rhetoric, language, and logic of Adv. haer. 1 (and book 2) has continually recognized Irenaeus’s limited dependence upon an earlier source, but it has also emphasized Irenaeus’s own hand throughout the majority of book 1, either in original composition, or redaction of that source. The work of Perkins and Kalvesmaki has helped the readers of Irenaeus recognize and appreciate the high degree of order, logic, originality, unity, and precision of argument employed by the bishop of Lyons in his first book. 20. Ibid., 415. We will consider only his thoughts on book 1. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., 416. 23. Ibid., 413, 416. 24. Ibid., 414–16. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., 416.



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Alongside these studies, focused upon the rhetoric and composition of Adv. haer 1, is Philippe Bacq’s close examination and commentary on Adv. haer. 4. In this work Bacq showed the unity of the book structured around the words of the Lord.27 Bacq’s study emphasized a complementary perspective on understanding the organization of Adversus haereses on rhetorical grounds. He demonstrated that specific scriptural texts, most prominently the sayings of Jesus, governed Irenaeus’s literary procedure. His important work highlighted a device employed by Irenaeus in book 4 that will aid further understanding of how Irenaeus composed book 1. This paper argues that Irenaeus’s use of a saying of Jesus serves to indicate the thematic flow and unity of his composition of book 1. In this way the originality and organizational unity of book 1, already evident on rhetorical grounds, may be seen again through his use of Scripture, and the pivotal role of the words of the Lord in Adversus haereses may be seen not only in book 4, but also in Irenaeus’s first book. From the beginning of his project, the sayings of Jesus figured prominently in his polemical task. Furthermore, we will see how the same dominical word contributed to Irenaeus’s views of heresy and polemic, informed his self-understanding of his role as polemicist-pastor, perhaps even as bishop.

Background: Irenaeus’s Conception of Heresy Having quickly introduced the dangers and errors of the heretics in the first section of the preface to Adversus haereses 1, Irenaeus begins the second section by discussing the disguised nature of error.28 It is necessary for error’s survivability that it never be shown forth (οὐκ ἐπιδείκνυμι; non ostendo) for if this happens, error is exposed (γυμνόω; denudo) and detected (γίνομαι κατάφωρος; fio comprehensibilis) as falsehood. Since error must be cloaked to be effective, it is cunningly adorned (κοσμέω; adorno) in a persuasive cover (περίβλημα; cooperimentum). This exterior (ἔξωθεν; exterior) disguise, to the inexperienced, makes error appear truer than true. These first few lines of Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 introduce Irenaeus’s controlling conception of heresy’s enchantment. It is dis27. P. Bacq, De l’ancienne a la nouvelle alliance selon S. Irénée: unité du livre IV de l’Adversus Haereses, Collection Le Sycomore (Paris: Lethielleux, 1978). 28. Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264: 20). SC refers to the critical edition of Adversus haereses used throughout this study: Irénée de Lyon: Contre les heresies, Livres 1–5, ed., trans., and annot. A. Rousseau, L. Doutreleau, B. Hemmerdinger, and C. Mercier, 10 vols., SC nos. 263, 264 (book 1), 293, 295 (book 2), 210, 211 (book 3), 100.1, 2 (book 4), 152, 153 (book 5) (Paris: Cerf, 1979, 1982, 2002, 1965, 1969). A convenient, yet dated, English translation is available: Against Heresies, Books 1–5 and Fragments, trans. A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, in ANF 1, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr, rev. ed. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 315–578.

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guised falsehood. Only in its costume may it conceal its true identity and dupe the ignorant. He develops this conception with the words of an elder and a word of the Lord.29 The quotation of the elder is used to picture disguised error as a glass imitation of a precious emerald or a mixture of silver and brass rather than pure silver.30 The counterfeit quality of either the jewel or metal requires someone to test (δοκιμάζω; probo), disclose, or refute (ἐλέγχω; arguo) it. Without such testing and disclosure, the inexperienced admire the counterfeit. After the quotation from the elder, Irenaeus speaks of the disguised nature of the heretics by employing the language of Jesus in Matthew 7:15. There, Jesus warned against false prophets, describing them as those who are outwardly dressed in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are as ravenous wolves. For Irenaeus, the wolves represent heretics whose true character the inexperienced, pictured as sheep, are unable to detect because of the outward layer (ἐπιβολή; superindumentum) of sheep’s skin. There is a dual usage of the image of sheep. On the one hand it refers to the naïveté of the inexperienced who are duped by the heretics. On the other hand it refers to a false version of the apostolic teaching, a rule of faith which the heretics counterfeit. The Lord, Irenaeus says, had warned the church against these heretics masquerading as teachers of truth. Though their language is similar to that of the orthodox, their notions are different. Irenaeus has now stated his conception of heresy and supported it from an ecclesiological source and a saying of Jesus. In good rhetorical form, he has provided three vivid images of his understanding of heresy.31 He has also grounded his belief in two authorities. The quotation from the elder informs his conception regarding the ability of a counterfeit to enchant the ignorant and introduces the need for one to expose the fraud. The saying of Jesus informs his predominant conception regarding heresy as cloaked error. The image of wolves in sheep’s skins is the background for his idea of an exterior covering, which disguises error. The saying of Jesus also informs Irenaeus’s conception of the attractiveness of disguised error. The image of sheep conveys to him the character of the orthodox teaching. Thus, the heretics in their cloaks appear orthodox outwardly. Yet, inwardly they represent error.32 29. Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264: 20). 30. For some discussion on the identity of this elder see A. Benoit, Saint Irénée: Introduction a l’ étude de sa théologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1960), 17–19. Charles Hill claims that the unnamed presbyter of Adv. haer. 4.27–32 is Polycarp (From the Lost Teaching of Polycarp: Identifying Irenaeus’ Apostolic Presbyter and the Author of ad Diognetum, WUNT 186. 31. Cf. Perkins, “Ireneus and the Gnostics,” 196. 32. Mt 7:15 is alluded to again in Adv. haer. 3.16.8 (SC 211: 318) and there Irenaeus specifically draws out this image of the Gnostics masquerading as the orthodox. See too Adv. haer. 4.15.2



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A Saying of Jesus and Irenaeus’s Ministry Because the heretics appear orthodox in their coverings and are seducing the inexperienced, Irenaeus feels compelled to take upon himself the task of protecting those under his care. As one acquainted with their true character through reading and personal intercourse, he will manifest (μηνύω; manifesto) their blasphemy and madness.33 This idea of manifesting the hidden character now becomes the controlling concept of the remainder of Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 and anticipates the saying of Jesus which concludes that section.34 As pastor/shepherd/bishop, Irenaeus understands his role to be that of one who reveals the masquerade. Through his acquaintance with tenets of the heretics he has become able to expose the counterfeit. He is the one spoken of by the elder earlier in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 who is able to skillfully evaluate and expose the false orthodoxy.35 He writes to inform a friend and in doing so he sets forth (ἀπαγγέλλω; ostendo) the opinions of the heretics (Ptolemaens). He will show (ἐπιδείκνυμι; ostendo) how contrary to the truth the heretical teaching is. Commenting rhetorically on his lack of skill, in order to disarm his opponents, he states that he will make known (μηνύω; manifesto) the erroneous doctrines concealed (κρύπτω; absconsus) prior to his acquaintance with and presentation of the heresy (μέχρι μὲν νῦν).36 Irenaeus understands his knowledge and writing to be, at last (ἤδη), the grace of God bringing to light (εἰς φανερόν; in manifestum) the error of the heretics.37 It is Irenaeus’s reading of the commentaries (SC 100.2: 558). Irenaeus may be thinking of Mt 10:16 where the apostles are characterized as sheep being sent out among wolves. The heretics attempt to pose as representatives of apostolic doctrine. 33. Irenaeus is using ironic language when he writes of the Valentinan tenets as being portentuosissima et altisima mysteria, quae non omnes capiunt, quia non omnes cerebrum habent (Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2; SC 264:22). See the notes in SC 263:170, and in ANF 1: 315, n. 6. Irenaeus is indicating that their “profundity” is actually blasphemy, its only “depth” (βυθός) is madness. This is further irony and plays off the highest Aeon (also named “depth”) of Adv. haer. 1.1.1 (SC 263: 170). Actually it takes laborious love of falsehood to be so profound! (Adv. haer. 1.4.3 [SC 264: 68]). 34. SC 264: 22–4. 35. Ibid., 20.22–8. 36. Cf. R. M. Grant, “Irenaeus and Hellenistic Culture,” Harvard Theological Review 42 (1949): 47; Schoedel, “Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Adversus Haereses of Irenaeus,” 27; Perkins, “Irenaeus and the Gnostics,” 195. Cf. 1. Pref. 3 (SC 264: 24–6). 37. Irenaeus’s reading of the commentaries and his personal intercourse with Valentinians seem to be the opening demarcation for the anticipated exposure. The implication is that prior to that there was no understanding of the tenets, and it is by God’s grace that he now has understanding from these sources. It is God’s continued work in the church through this bishop. In relation to his friend, it brings to an end his long wait for information (Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 3 [SC 264: 26]).

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and his personal intercourse with the Valentinans that provide the context for his anticipated exposure.38 He implies that prior to his acquaintance with them and their material there was no understanding of their tenets. Only God’s grace has now given him understanding from these sources.39 This language could reflect the experience of Paul in his revelation of the gospel spoken of in Ephesians 3:7–9, which Irenaeus now understands to be true of him as polemicist.40 But it is not to Paul that he turns for a scriptural basis to his self-understanding. Rather, Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 ends with a quotation of a saying of Jesus, which occurs variously in Matthew 10:26, Mark 4:22, Luke 8:17, 12:2: “for nothing is concealed [καλύπτω; cooperio] which will not be revealed [ἀποκαλύπτω; manifesto] and hidden [κρυπτός; absconsus] which will not be made known [γινώσκω; cognosco].” The idea of “concealed” or “hidden” in this saying captures for Irenaeus the previous images of the counterfeit gem and silver and that of the wolves covered in sheep’s skins. Error’s true character is hidden. Moreover, this text has informed Irenaeus’s understanding of his revelatory role as pastor/bishop, and has been anticipated in his previous discussion of his ministry as unveiling that which is concealed. Irenaeus’s progressive argument from heresy’s fear of exposure, to the need for someone skilled to expose its masquerade, to his personal initiative to expose, report, and manifest heresy, has anticipated the notion of “reveal” or “make known.” What allows for this anticipation is Irenaeus’s interpretation of the saying as a personal and present enterprise. For him, the things of which the Lord spoke in his word as already concealed and hidden refer to the heretical doctrines which had been hidden (κρύπτω; abscondo) up until Irenaeus’s ministry. But, at last, concealment is a thing of the past and manifestation is the note of the present. Irenaeus, out of concern, knowledge, and God’s grace, brings into present actualization the Lord’s prophecy. The future tense and force of the certainty in Jesus’ “will not be revealed” (οὐκ ἀποκαλυφθήσεται; non manifestabitur) and “will not be made known” (οὐ γνωθήσεται; non cognoscetur) is announced as already fulfilled in the perfect tense of Irenaeus’s “have come to light” (εἰς φανερόν ἐληλυθότα; in manifestum venerunt). The agent of the fulfillment is Irenaeus and his personal role is emphasized through the repeated 38. Wisse (“The Nag Hammadi Library and the Heresiologists,” 212) thinks the personal conversations to which Irenaeus refers were his firsthand discussions with Marcus the magician and his followers because of the extensive description given by Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.13–21). The commentaries, he believes, refer to the written reports or tracts of the Ptolemaens, which inform his lengthy description of their thought (Adv. haer. 1.1–8). 39. Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264:22.33–9). 40. Cf. 1 Cor 4:5.



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use of the first person with verbs of disclosure: “I deemed it necessary . . . to make known to you”; “we will give you a concise and clear report”; “and we will offer suggestions . . . for refuting this doctrine, by showing how utterly absurd, inconsistent and incongruous with the truth their statements are.”41 His making known (μηνύω; manifesto), giving a report (ἀπαγγέλλω; ostendo), and showing (έπιδείκνυμι; ostendo) are the literary results of the heresies coming to light (εἰς φανερόν; in manifestum venio). Irenaeus believes, then, that this saying, through God’s goodness, finds present fulfillment in his manifestation of the error of the heretics. More specifically, Adv. haer. 1 is itself a fulfillment of the Lord’s saying, for this is the medium of the disclosure. Consonant with the line of the gospel given by the Lord to the apostles and preserved in the succession of bishops, Irenaeus carries out and fulfills in his literary ministry the Lord’s words. After citing the Lord’s word, Irenaeus goes on in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 3 to again describe rhetorically his weakness in ability, and to exhort his friend to expand, develop, and minister what he labors to make known (ποιῆσαι φανερόν; facere manifestum).42 Irenaeus also indicates that what he sets forth in Adv. haer. 1 furnishes the means for showing (ἐπιδείκνυμι; ostendo) the error’s falsehood. This suggests that making it known is itself exposure of error.43 Perhaps Irenaeus’s understanding of himself as a revealer stems from his understanding of the episcopate’s being endowed with the charismatic ministry of apostles, prophets, and teachers. As a bishop, then, he would exercise the gifts bestowed upon the episcopate by the Holy Spirit.44 The gracious act of God through Irenaeus, which makes known the error of the heretics, would occur as a function of the charisma veritatis he already possesses as bishop.45 The charisma veritatis is the gift of knowing the apostolic tradition, the church’s faith, the true doctrine.46 Although he asserts that any baptized believer would discern the unacceptability of the system of the heretics, he does understand the uniqueness of his ministry.47 He notes that what he does in disclosing the heretics’ mysteries, doctrines, systems, and the discontinuity among them, allows his friend to minister profitably.48 It is an important dis41. Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264:22.37–38, 42–3, 46–8). 42. See note 28 above. 43. Cf. the opening statement in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264:20). 44. Adv. haer. 4.26.5 (SC 100.2:726–28). 45. Ibid., 4.26.2 (SC 100.2:718). 46. Ibid. For my earlier discussion and the literature see D. J. Bingham, “Evangelicals, Irenaeus, and the Bible,” in The Free Church and the Early Church, ed. D. H. Williams, 39–45 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002). 47. Adv. haer. 1.9.4. 48. Ibid., 1. Pref. 3 (SC 264:26.71–73).

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tinction that Irenaeus, by God’s grace, manifests the error while his friend develops and expands it by grace. The grace to both is the same, but Irenaeus’s ministry is fundamental. He is specially informed, and through him God is exposing heresy in accordance with Jesus’ words. Furthermore, Irenaeus may see himself, as a recipient of revelation, obligated to speak within an extension of the ministry of the apostles. Since Irenaeus is possibly citing the Lord’s saying in Matthew 10:26, perhaps he has in mind and understands his ministry in the light of the whole of Matthew 10, especially Matthew 10:19–20 and 10:27. The first passage contains the Lord’s promise that the Sprit would provide the apostles with words for their testimony. The second passage follows the Lord’s word cited by Irenaeus and contains his command to speak and proclaim what the Lord reveals to them. Thus, gifted with the charismatic ministry like unto that of an apostle, and informed by the Spirit, Irenaeus may understand his work to be a fulfillment of Matthew 10:27. Indeed, he may see himself as one of the brethren with the gift of prophecy, who by the Spirit will “bring to light [εἰς φανερόν; in manifestum] the secrets [κρύφια; absconsa] of men.”49 This language reflects that of Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 and the saying of the Lord, and is based on Irenaeus’s conception that only God reveals (manifesto) what is hidden (absconsa), for God alone knows the hidden (absconsa) things.50 From the Spirit, Irenaeus, by God’s goodness, receives what only God knows, and he proclaims it. Irenaeus’s perception of his ministry as an extension of the apostolic ministry may additionally be informed by parallel New Testament texts on the revelatory ministry of the apostles.51 The Lord’s saying informs Irenaeus’s perception of his revelatory task and the surrounding context may complement that perception and place it within the line of the perpetuity of the apostolic ministry through the church of Irenaeus’s day. But the impact of the Lord’s word upon Irenaeus does not end here. In Irenaeus’s mind, the fruit of his ministry is very specifically defined. That which is being manifested in his polemic he presents in a very particular place. The preface to Adv. haer. 1 closes with his announcement that the manifesation spoken of in the Lord’s word, the task he will fulfill, follows in Adv. haer. 1.1.1.52 In fact, Irenaeus understands the entirety of book 1 as the literary product of his ministry spoken of in the Lord’s saying. The concepts of that saying frame the development of his writing. The preface closes with an announcement that the manifestation now begins in Adv. haer. 1.1.1. 49. Ibid., 5.6.1 (SC 153: 74.15–6; 74.3–4). 50. Ibid., 4.18.3 (SC 100.2:604.68–69); 4.21.2 (SC 100.2:678.31–34); cf. 4.19.2 (SC 100.2:620.43–50). 51. Cf. Eph 3:7–9; 1 Cor 4:5. 52. SC 264: 26.72–73.



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The Saying of Jesus within Adversus haereses 1

The saying of Jesus in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2–3 operates in a pattern similar to one evident in Adv. haer. 4. Philippe Bacq notes that Irenaeus will indicate unified progression of an argument based on a word of the Lord by first announcing, then citing, and finally commenting on the word.53 Sometimes the announcement can be somewhat lengthy and subtle as Irenaeus builds a setting against which the saying takes on dramatic meaning.54 In this manner, Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 up to the citation of Jesus’ saying is the announcement, the background. Irenaeus describes heresy’s masquerade, asserts that he will end it, and then cites the Lord, thereby contextualizing his mission within the tradition received from Jesus. Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 3 through the end of the book is commentary, in that against the background of the words of Jesus he restates his mission and carries out the task. The significance of the saying for understanding a comprehensive thematic unity to Adv. haer. 1 is indicated by another pattern evident in Adv. haer. 4. When Irenaeus wishes to close an argument begun with a word of the Lord, he often cites the saying or a key aspect of it again in an inclusio.55 An allusion to the Lord’s word appears again at the close of Adv. haer. 1.15.6, in the midst of his presentation of the Marcosian system.56 There, having just scolded the heretics with a quotation from an elder that relates Marcus to Satan, Irenaeus promises again to bring to light (εἰς φανερόν; in manifestum) what has been hidden (κρύπτω; occulto). This will expose error so that it will be made known to all. This second allusion indicates that Irenaeus is proceeding with his agenda stated in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2–3, and that he still understands his literary ministry in light of the Lord’s saying, the Lord’s prophecy. It is in the final section of the book, 1.31.4, however, that the inclusio or chiasm is formed.57 Irenaeus begins to close the inclusio in Adv. haer. 1.31.3.58 He concludes that it has been necessary for him to do two things. First, he has had to clearly expose (arguo) the followers of Valentinus as descendants of the various heretics discussed in Adv. haer. 1.23–31. The doctrine of the Valentinians shows (ostendo) this line of descent. Second, he has had “to bring out into the open [in medium with adfero] their teachings.” This manifestation (manifestatio) of their doctrine itself, he notes, accomplishes a victory over the heretics. He will again 53. Bacq, De l’ancienne á la nouvelle alliance selon S. Irénée, 282–84. 54. Bacq discusses Adv. haer. 4.20–22 (De l’ancienne á la nouvelle alliance selon S. Irénée, 283–84). 55. Bacq, De l’ancienne á la nouvelle alliance selon S. Irénée, 20. 56. SC 264: 252. 57. Ibid., 388–90. 58. Ibid., 386–88.

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employ similar language in the preface to book 2 in regard to the work he undertakes there and in the preface to book 3 to indicate the work he has already produced.59 Irenaeus completes the inclusio in Adv. haer. 1.31.4, the final paragraph of the book.60 There he states that he has sought to disclose the heretics’ adaptation of Scripture for the perversion it is. He uses language reminiscent of the mosaic metaphor in Adv. haer. 1.8.1. There he said that the heretics pervert the proper connection of the parts of Scriptures. He compared this procedure to the rearranging of the mosaic of a king into the mosaic of a dog and fox (ἀλώπηξ; volpecula). Now in Adv haer. 1.31.4, Irenaeus states that he has worked “to bring out into the open [in medium with produco] the entire illformed body of this little fox [volpecula] and clearly make it manifest [ facio manifestum].”61 This statement shows that Irenaeus views his work, within Adv. haer. 1, as an exposure of the perverted mosaic, the heretics’ misappropriation of Scripture’s parts.62 Irenaeus’s revelatory ministry focuses on the heretics’ duplicity, which he metaphorically expresses through the fox mosaic, developed out from the Lord’s own metaphor of sheep’s skins. Now, at the end of the book, the reference to the fox forms an inclusio with the image regarding his opponents’ exegesis at the beginning of his book and the one introduced in Adv. haer. 1.8.1.63 Though he prefers the mosaic’s capability to illustrate the heretics’ misappropriation of the proper connection of Scripture’s parts, he is also informed by the Lord’s image. In part he derives his concept of the hiddenness and duplicity of heresy from Matthew 7:15. In the same vein, his concept of manifestation comes from the Lord’s saying, which we are now discussing. Just as he connected these two sayings, the one on the manifestation of the hidden and the other on the masquerade of error, at the beginning of his work, he also connects them at end of his book. Approaching the end of his summary of his labor, Irenaeus cannot resist drawing one final metaphor. To illustrate once again his revelatory work in terms which echo the Lord’s saying, but which also capture the imagination of his contemporaries, he tells a story about a beast. Reflective of a boar hunt, the story describes a dangerous beast which is hidden (absconditus) in a forest and from its concealment attacks and kills people.64 Someone, however, separates and uncovers (denudo) the forest and brings the beast into sight. In this way 59. Adv. haer. 2. Pref. 1 (SC 264:22.6, 17); Adv. haer. 3. Pref (SC 211:16.1–7). 60. SC 264:388–90. 61. Adv. haer. 1.31.4 (SC 264:388.40–43). 62. Ibid., 1.8.1 (SC 264:112–16). 63. Cf. Perkins, “Ireneus and the Gnostics,” 196. 64. Grant, “Irenaeus and Hellenistic Culture,” 49.



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the people can see the attacks, avoid them, attack the beast, wound it from every side, and eventually destroy it. Irenaeus then concludes that “in like manner, since we have brought to light [in manifestum] their hidden [absconditus] mysteries,” many more words will not be needed to destroy their doctrine.65 This echoes the terminology of Adv. haer. 1.15.6 and 1. Pref. 2 and recalls the image in the Lord’s saying. The beast image picks up the wolf image of Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2, and conveys the danger of the heretics. The cover provided the beast by the forest, which must be separated and uncovered, picks up the image of sheep’s skin. Irenaeus, no longer shepherd, is the hunter who exposes the wild beast. He concludes the paragraph and the book by noting that his work allows for his friend to overthrow the heretics. But he will still furnish complete refutation so that he not only exposes (ostendo) the beast, but in countering the full variety of heresies, wound it from every side. Adv. haer. 1.31.4, providing another vivid image, forms an inclusio with 1. Pref. 1–3, 1.8.1, and anticipates the conformatio to begin in Adv. haer. 2. Irenaeus’s reading of the Lord’s word informs his agenda for Adv. haer. 1 and comprises a structural device which he uses to introduce, reiterate, and summarize that agenda. There is variance between his form of the saying and the ways it appears in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. His quotation is closest to the form of the saying in Matthew 10:26. As a matter of fact, the editors of the Sources Chrétiennes critical edition list only Matthew 10:26 as its source. The fuller index to patristic biblical citations and allusions, however, Biblia Patristica, lists all the synoptic parallels, thereby indicating a hesitancy to exclude any possibilities.66 There is also some variance between the terminology in his citation of the saying and his repeated allusions to it. The term that is predominant throughout his discussion is abscondo, κρύπτω, κρυπτός. It appears in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 prior to the citation, in the citation itself, in 1.15.6, and again in 1.31.4. The phrase which usually counters this notion of “hidden” with the notion of “reveal” is in manifestum, εἰς φανερόν, with various verbs.67 This construct occurs in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 prior to the citation, in 1.15.6, and in 1.31.4. These three occurrences of “reveal” with “hidden” demonstrate Irenaeus’s repeated, progressive use of the concepts communicated to him by the Lord’s word. The saying makes a conceptual impression upon Irenaeus, for al65. Adv. haer. 1.31.4 (SC 264: 388.51–390:53). 66. Centre d’Analyse et de Documentation Patristiques, Biblia Patristica: Index des Citations et Allusions Bibliques dans la Littérature Patristique (Paris: CNRS, 1986), vol. 1, Des origenes à Clement d’Alexandrie et Tertullien. 67. The term μηνύω (manifesto) occurs against κρύπτω (absconsus) in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2 immediately prior to the citation of the Lord’s saying. However, εἰς φανερόν (in manifestum) occurs just after (1 Pref. 2 [SC 264: 24]). Μηνύω also occurs in the same sense earlier in Adv. haer. 1 Pref. 2 (SC 264: 22).

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though he cites it, he employs only one term from the citation in his development of its teaching. He uses different terms to convey the concept taught by the Lord. The citation has both cooperio, καλύπτω and abscousus, κρύπτος for the notion of “hidden,” but Irenaeus employs only the latter. The citation has manifesto, ἀποκαλύπτω and cognosco, γινώσκω for the notion of “reveal,” but Irenaeus prefers in manifestum with venio, produco, or redigo (εἰς φανερόν with ἔρχομαι or ἄγω). In this particular instance, it may be that Luke 8:17 complements his use of its form in Matthew 10:26. There, in Jesus’ saying regarding the lamp on a stand, the hidden (κρύπτος) will be revealed (φανερὸν γενήσεται). Irenaeus seems to quote Matthew 10:26 but employs terminology also in accord with Luke 8:17. Irenaeus seems to be attracted to this construction for polemical reasons. In manifestum, εἰς φανερόν, with a verb conveys the idea of an open, public display. He counters the destructive force of the hidden, private, secluded teaching of the heretics by publicly displaying it. The heretics purport that their doctrines contain hidden and unutterable mysteries.68 This is because of the hidden nature of the beings and occurrences within the Pleroma.69 The heretics insist that it is this characterization of their doctrine which leads them to keep it hidden, secret.70 For instance, they believe that the mystery of the thirty Aeons of the Pleroma is manifested by the first thirty years of the Savior. During these thirty years “he did no work in public [in manifesto; κατὰ τὸ φανερόν].”71 The private ministry of the Savior indicates the mysteriousness of the Aeons, which “are enveloped in silence [taceo; σιγάω] and are known to no one [non agnosco; μὴ γινώσκω].”72 Irenaeus views his public display of the heretics’ teaching to be effective polemic in at least three ways. First, it counters the elitist characterization of the heretics’ teaching by showing it to be nonsense. In Adv. haer. 1.3.1, Irenaeus again discusses the mystical nature of their teaching and again notes their appeal to the Savior’s first thirty years. The mysteries of the Pleroma “were not declared openly [manifeste; φανερῶς], because not all are capable of grasping this knowledge.”73 Instead they were mystically revealed by the Savior in parables to those capable of understanding them. One such mystical parable was contained in the “thirty years during which they say [the] Savior did no work in public [in manifesto; ἐν φανερῶ].”74 The phrase, “because not all are capa68. Adv. haer. 1.1.3; 1.4.3; 1.11.7; 1.12.4; 1.13.6 (SC 264: 34.51–52, 59–61; 68.54–56; 166.5–8; 188.56–58; 202.107–8). 69. Ibid., 1.18.1; 1.19.2; 1.20.2; 1.21.3 (SC 264: 272.12–13; 288.26–28; 290.25–27; 292.31–35; 300.48–49). 70. Ibid., 1.3.1; 1.24.6 (SC 264:50.9–12; 330.116–18). 71. Ibid., 1.1.3 (SC 264:34.51). 72. Ibid., 1.1.3 (SC 264: 32.46–47). 73. Ibid., 1.3.1 (SC 264: 50.9–10). 74. Ibid., 1.3.1 (SC 264:50.13–14).



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ble” picks up the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:11 in regard to celibacy: “not all men can receive this saying.”75 The heretics withdraw their teaching from the public forum on the grounds that it requires extraordinary understanding of mystical revelation. Earlier, in Adv. haer. 1. Pref. 2, Irenaeus had raised the reference the heretics make to Matthew 19:11 with irony. There he said that he thought it necessary to reveal to his friend those mysteries “which not all grasp [quae non omnes capiunt; ἅ οὐ πάντες χωροῦσιν] because not all have purged their brains.”76 He goes on to say that when his friend has learned these mysteries, he will be able to make them open to sight, clear (manifestum; φανερός) to the community, and warn them of such nonsense and blasphemy.77 Thus, Irenaeus’s public display leads to opening the elitist mysteries to the sight of the community, which leads to their recognition as error. Second, Irenaeus’s public display counters the elitist characterization of the teaching of the heretics by displaying their true motives. His public display of their motives for seclusion will contribute to their system’s demise. Finally, his public display counters the duplicity involved in the heretics’ seclusion of their teachings. The heretics, he believes, falsely announce that they adhere to orthodox doctrines. They conceal (abscondo) their true opinion regarding two gods because they themselves think it indefensible.78 The followers of Valentinus may confess the unity of God and Christ, but they believed in many deities.79 Their own prophet, Homer, rebukes them when he says, “It is hateful to me, as much as the gates of Hades, that one who hides [abscondo] one thing in his heart and describes another.”80 This duplicity recalls Irenaeus’s interpretation of Matthew 7:15. The heretics speak similar words, but their system is different. Irenaeus, in fulfilling the Lord’s words, openly displays the true, indefensible beliefs of the heretics. Therefore, Irenaeus’s choice of the Lord’s word and the language he develops from it inform his perception of his personal ministry, frame his literary agenda for Adv. haer. 1, and specifically oppose the cryptic character of the heretics. Yet, in addition to all this, the saying may play such a key role in his self-perception for another reason: it may comprise a polemic against the Gnostic use of the saying or a tradition informed by the saying. For example, forms of the saying occur twice in the Gospel According to Thomas (log. 5, 6). Particularly in Gos. Thom. log. 5, the saying supports the Gnostic theology of revelation. Jesus calls upon the reader to “recognize what is in your [sg.] sight, and that which is hidden from you [sg.] will become plain 75. Ibid., 1.3.1 (SC 264:50.10). 76. Ibid., 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264.22.38). 77. Ibid., 1. Pref. 2 (SC 264.22.39–42). 78. Ibid., 4.33.1 (SC 100.2:796). 79. Ibid., 4.33.3 (SC 100.2:808); 1.22 (SC 264: 310). 80. Ibid., 4.33.3 (SC 100.2: 810.69–74).

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to you [sg.]. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.”81 In the context of Gos. Thom. this call addresses the elect who are to recognize individually their source as the place of light, the kingdom of the living father, in order to receive insight into the mysteries of the Cosmos.82 Furthermore, The Treatise on the Resurrection contains an assertion reminiscent of the Lord’s saying.83 There the Savior, who emanated “from Truth and Spirit,” is presented as “the Solution.” The Savior discloses the hidden solutions to two existential problems: the destruction of evil, and the manifestation of the elect as those who will ascend into wisdom and the Aeon.84 If Irenaeus knew of Gnostic traditions that used the saying of Jesus in support of Gnostic ideas, such as the elects’ self-recognition or the elects’ ascent to the Pleroma, his usage of the saying would be polemical. By using the saying to frame his revelation of the heretics’ secret errors he would, with poetic justice, be exposing the error of their view of revelation. The saying of Jesus speaks about revealing their error, not validating their view of self-recognition or ascent. Irenaeus’s preference for citing a form of the saying which seems closer to Matthew 10:26 suggests that his understanding of the saying may be linked to that literary context and to the role Matthew 10 played in his concept of the church’s life and ministry. In Adv. haer. 1.4.3, he states that he believes that it is fitting for his opponents not to teach their doctrines in public because their teachings “are abstruse, and portentous, and profound mysteries, acquired with much toil by lovers of falsehood.”85 Only the wealthy, who can pay the high price, can access such profound knowledge. The Valentinians, particularly Marcus the magician, convey the profound mysteries to others in return for 81. The Gospel According to Thomas in Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2–7 Together with XIII, 2*, Brit. Lib. Or. 4926(1), and P. Oxy. 1, 654, 655, ed. B. Layton and trans. T. O. Lambdin, NHS 20, 54–55 (hereafter cited as Layton, NHS 20); cf. the P. Oxy. 654 fragment (H. W. Attridge, ed., The Gospel According to Thomas [Greek Fragments], in Layton, NHS 20, 115). 82. Cf. Gos. Thom. log. 3, 49, 50 (Layton, NHS 20: 53–54, 73); M. Fieger, Das Thomasevangelium: Einleitung, Kommentar, und Systematik (Münster: Aschendorf, 1991), 35–36. 83. Treat. Res. 45. 6–7 (Nag Hammadi Codex I, 4: The Treatise on the Resurrection, in Nag Hammadi Codex I [The Jung Codex]: Introductions, Texts, Translations, Indices, ed. and trans. M. L. Peel, NHS 22, ed. H. W. Attridge [1985], 148). Hereafter cited as Attridge, NHS 22. 84. Treat. Res. 45. 4–14; 46.25–47.8 (Attridge, NHS 22: 148–52) following the translation of M. L. Peel (Attridge, NHS 22: 249–53). Cf. Peel’s introduction (Attridge, NHS 22: 138–39) and his notes (NHC I, 4: The Treatise on the Resurrection, in Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung Codex): Notes, ed. M. L. Peel, NHS 23, ed. H. W. Attridge (1985), 157; M. L. Peel, The Epistle to Rheginos: A Valentinian Letter on the Resurrection (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 39, 41–42, 65. The text may also have as its background 1 Cor 4:5 in addition to the synoptic forms of the saying. Cf. for a similar Gnostic sense to the saying Orig. World 125. 14–19 (On the Origin of the World, in Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2–7 together with XIII, 2*, Brit. Lib. Or. 4926 [1], and P. Oxy. 1, 654, 655, ed. B. Layton, NHS 21, vol. 2 [1989], 86). 85. Adv. haer. 1.4.3 (SC 264: 68.53–56; Fr.gr. 1. 403–06); trans. Unger and Dillon, ACW 55:31; Cf. 2.31.3 (SC 294:330); 2.32.4 (SC 294:342).



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a profit, which included material possessions and, with women, sexual union.86 When he contrasts the church’s teaching to that of the heretics, Irenaeus uses another saying of Jesus from Matthew 10. He writes that the doctrines of his opponents are not “similar to those about which our Lord said: ‘You received without paying, give without pay’ [Mt 10:8].”87 Because of this teaching of the Lord, Irenaeus writes that the church ministers without a price, without remuneration. Furthermore, he explains that since the church’s ministry is complementary, the church’s doctrines can be publicly spoken without regard for one’s ability to afford them. Later, in Adv. haer. 2.32.4, Irenaeus will develop his understanding of Matthew 10:8 more fully.88 There the emphasis is upon the church’s ministry of substance contrasted with the empty, deceptive ministry of his opponents. It appears in that division of Adv. haer. 2, where Irenaeus refutes the allegation of Simon and Carpocrates that they are superior to Jesus.89 His refutation consists of contrasting the works of Jesus and the church with those of the heretics. He argues that the ministry of Jesus was free, without cost, and for the benefit of humans, while the performance of the heretics, accomplished through magic, gives no real benefit. The spells of the heretics, like those of Simon, were short-lived instances of deception. The true disciples of Jesus, in contrast, perform actual beneficial miracles in keeping with the grace and gift each one received from God’s Son due to the possession of such true, miraculous gifts: Some drive out demons really and truly, so that often those cleansed from evil spirits believe and become members of the church; some have foreknowledge of the future, visions, and prophetic utterances; others, by the laying-on of hands, heal the sick and restore them to health; and before now, as I said, dead men have actually been raised and have remained with us for many years.90

Such gifts from God are universal and numerous in type, and daily the church employs them in order to provide benefit for the Gentiles without duplicity and without charge. This leads Irenaeus to understand the church in light of Matthew 10:8. The church profits the Gentiles without cost to them, “because as she has freely received from God she also freely ministers.”91 The grace and 86. Ibid., 1.13.3 (SC 264:192–96); Cf. A. le Boulluec, La notion d’ hérésie dans la littérature grecque (IIe–IIIe siécles), vol. 1 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1985), 145–48. 87. Gratis accepistis, gratis date; Δωρεὰν ἐλάβετε, δωρεὰν δότε (Adv. haer. 1.4.3 [SC 264: 68.58; Fr.gr.1. 408]); trans. D. Unger and J. J. Dillon, Against the Heresies, Book 1, ACW 55, 31. 88. SC 294:342.112–13. 89. Adv. haer. 2.32.3–5. 90. Ibid., 2.32.4 (SC 294: 340.99–107; Fr.gr.9.8–16); trans. G. A. Williams and A. Louth, Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (London: Penguin, 1989), 153 (from Eusebius. Eccl. Hist. 5.7). 91. Adv. haer. (SC 294: 342.112–13; Fr.gr.9.21–22).

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gifts that the church has freely received from God are the powers by which the church freely ministers. Irenaeus anticipated this application of Matthew 10:8 in Adv. haer. 2.31.3. There he said that his opponents mislead people through magic, but the church operates for the benefit of people and gives to others “without fee and freely,” from their own resources. Again, it appears that Irenaeus views the present miraculous ability of the church, through its charisms, in continuity with the apostolic powers of the earliest church and the spiritual gifts bestowed upon believers by Christ through the Spirit.92 The presence of Matthew 10:8 and the selected list of powers indicate that the commissioning of the twelve apostles in Matthew 10 functions as an important passage for Irenaeus. Matthew 10:1 reads, “And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity.” Also, the entirety of Matthew 10:8 reads, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying, give without pay.” Irenaeus’s connection of the church’s power to work miracles with what the church has freely received shows that these two verses in Matthew 10 inform his view of the continuation of apostolic powers in the church of his day. He understands Jesus’ conferral of authority upon the disciples as a grace perpetuated into the time of his own ministry. This perpetuation by the church of the apostolic ministry, set forth in Matthew 10 provides an essential background to Irenaeus’s perspective on his own ministry. Matthew 10:19–20 contains the Lord’s promise that the Spirit would provide the apostles with words for testimony amidst trial and persecution. Matthew 10:27, which just follows the Lord’s words cited by Irenaeus, contains the Lord’s command to the apostles to speak and proclaim what is revealed to them. Our bishop sees himself as a recipient of revelation under obligation to speak within an extension of the apostles’ ministry. The Spirit, through Irenaeus’s own study of the heretics’ material, has graciously informed him of his opponents’ tenets and he must speak them in the clear and without cost. Such a concept of his ministry would be consistent with the line of the gospel given by the Lord to the apostles and preserved in the succession of bishops.93

The Saying of Jesus and Irenaeus’s View of Polemic The structure and content of book 1 indicated by the Lord’s saying suggests that it is a setting forth, a manifestation of the doctrine of the heretics. But 92. See note 19 above for the source concerning my previous discussion and listing of the literature. 93. Adv. haer. 3 Pref.–4.3.



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to Irenaeus, this manifestation accomplishes exposure and detection of the error. This results in perception of the falsehood, folly, and ignorance of the heretics and thus gains victory over them.94 When the baptized believer, holding to the rule of truth, sees their perversion of Scripture and the great diversity of the heretics, this is enough to cause rejection of the heresy.95 Thus, though he anticipates further refutation,96 the disclosure accomplished in book 1 is itself effective polemic. For him, the revealing of the hidden things, spoken of by the Lord, is polemic. It is a display that discomfits heresy. Irenaeus, carrying out the Lord’s words, needs only to show heresy’s illusiveness in order to bring about its demise. In conclusion, Irenaeus sees his ministry in light of the saying of Jesus which also informed his views of heresy and polemic. He then composes Adv. haer. 1 with a structural unity and flow organized around his reading of the word of the Lord. He cites it at the opening of his treatise, alludes to it in the center, and closes his argument by bringing it before his readers in his conclusion. However Irenaeus composed Adversus haereses, these three occurrences of the Lord’s saying appear in portions original to him, and if there were two editions, they would have been present in both. Whether by precise rhetorical analysis, carefully done source criticism with an eye for Irenaeus’s own style and language, or analysis of the role of Scripture in his method of writing, the unity of book 1 is persistently seen. Scripture is such a normative part of Irenaeus’s life that every aspect of his ministry is shaped by it. He knows himself and his ministry only by peering into the mirror of Scripture; he conceives of his polemical task only as the Lord’s saying reflects it; his artistic flair images what is already present in the Testaments; and he writes literature only as a reproduction of the teaching of the sacred writings in continuity with the teaching of the apostles. In so doing he paves the way, through his ministry of disclosure, for the presentation of the apostolic tradition that now comes through the argument informed by the Scripture and the rule of faith in Adv. haer. 2–5. For him, disclosure of the error sets the stage for the presentation of the apostolic tradition; furthermore, even the prior arrangement of that stage is informed by Scripture. Scripture, fulfilled in the labor of the spiritually gifted, establishes the platform for the correcting force of the received rule of faith. 94. Ibid., 1. Pref. 2–3 (SC 264: 20–26); 1.9.1 (SC 264: 136); 1.9.4–5 (SC 264: 148–52); 1.16.3 (SC 264: 260); 1.31.3 (SC 264: 388). 95. Adv. haer. 1.9.4–5 (SC 264: 148–52). See this aspect of early Christian polemic in F. Wisse, “The Use of Early Christian Literature as Evidence for Inner Diversity and Conflict,” in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, ed. C. W. Hedrick and R. Hodgson, Jr., 186 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1986). 96. Adv. haer. 1.21.1 (SC 264: 294); 1.22.1 (SC 264: 310); 1.27.4 (SC 264: 352); 1.31.4 (SC 264: 390).

A le x a n d er Y. Hwang

4  Prosper, Cassian, and Vincent The Rule of Faith in the Augustinian Controversy

Prosper of Aquitaine, John Cassian, and Vincent of Lérins were involved in the first stage of the controversy over the doctrine of grace that began in the late 420s in southern Gaul—the Augustinian conflict.1 The conflict originated with the reception of Augustine’s doctrine of grace, namely predestination. Prosper and a few others—the Augustinians—defended his doctrine, while Vincent, John Cassian, and other doctores Gallicani opposed it.2 This paper is an examination of the ways in which Prosper, Cassian, and Vincent argued for their respective positions. All three appealed to the rule of faith, claiming that Scripture and the Church’s tradition supported their particular views on grace. Where they differed was how they understood the Church’s tradition. Prosper eventually reached the conclusion that the Roman pontiffs were the sole authoritative representatives of this tradition, while Cassian and Vincent understood tradition in terms of consensus. 1. Recent works on these three figures are: Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009); Richard J. Goodrich, Contextualizing Cassian: Aristocrats, Asceticism, and Reformation in Fifth-Century Gaul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Jose Madoz, El concepto de la tradicion en S. Vincente de Lerins: estudio historico-critico del ‘Commonitorio’ (Rome: Pontifical Universitas Gregoriana, 1933). The designation “Augustinian controversy” more accurately describes the conflict traditionally, but falsely, known as the semi-Pelagian controversy. For a discussion on the various terms used to denote this controversy, see the introduction to Hwang, Intrepid Lover. A volume of collected essays on this conflict is expected to be published by The Catholic University of America Press, tentatively titled The Grace and Free Will Controversy: 427–529. 2. The designation “ doctores Gallicani” was first employed by Gennadius of Marseille, De viris inlustribus 60 (ed. E. C. Richardson, TU 14.1, 1896, 81); For a discussion of the term, see Mark Vessey, “Peregrinus Against the Heretics: Classicism, Provinciality, and the Place of the Alien Writer in Late Roman Gaul,” StEphAug 46 (1994): 533ff.

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Brief Sketch of the Conflict By at least 427, Prosper’s vocal support of Augustine’s teaching on predestination began to attract attention in southern Gaul. Prosper received a letter from Rufinus—an otherwise unknown associate of Prosper’s—expressing concern over Prosper’s support for this new doctrine. Prosper responded, faithfully echoing Augustine’s teachings.3 Prosper was later joined by Leontius and Hilary of Marseilles, and together they formed the core of the Augustinians, with Prosper as its leader. Up to 427/28, it appears the opponents of Augustine’s doctrine were content to merely raise objections to it. They had three main objections: it was novel, it was fatalistic, and it removed free will.4 Prosper’s circle, try as they might, could not illicit an open public debate. With the appearance of Augustine’s De correptione et gratia in southern Gaul, a work written for the monks of Hadrumentum, the level of opposition increased dramatically.5 As the debate intensified, Prosper and Hilary felt compelled to appeal to Augustine for further clarification and support.6 Augustine’s reply, De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae, must have been something of a disappointment to them.7 Although Augustine clarified his doctrine of predestination, he did not consider their opponents Pelagian-like at all, but rather sincere “brothers” of the same faith, whose error stemmed from not progressing to the advanced truths, including predestination.8 Thus, according to Augustine’s estimation, these “brothers” were not so much heretical as they were deficient in their understanding of grace. Augustine’s instructional but rather condescending treatise, as expected, was met with sharp disapproval by the doctores Gallicani, who in turn started producing treatises against Augustine’s doctrine. Augustine’s death shortly after composing the reply spared him from having to get embroiled in yet another controversy. The Augustinians, despite Augustine’s positive estimation of these “brothers,” continued to view their opponents as heretical. The Augustinians, outranked and outnumbered, turned to Rome, hoping that the Roman pontiff would support their faction. 3. Prosper, Epistula ad Rufinum de gratia et libero arbitrio (PL 51: 77–90). 4. The negative reactions to Augustine’s doctrine were reported by Prosper’s and Hilary’s letters to Augustine (Prosper, Ep. 225 [CSEL 57: 454–68]; Hilary, Ep. 226 [CSEL 57: 468–81]). 5. Augustine, De correptione et gratia (CSEL 92: 219–80). For the context of this work, see Rebecca Weaver, “Hadrumentum,” ATA, 411–12. 6. Prosper, Ep. 225; Hilary, Ep. 226. 7. Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum (PL 44: 959–92); De dono perseverantiae (PL 45: 993–1034). 8. Augustine, De praedestinatione 1.2 (PL 44: 960).

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In 431, Prosper and Hilary set out for Rome. Whether or not Prosper and Hilary presented a completely accurate picture of the situation cannot be known, but Pope Celestine responded (Apostolici verba) with only a general defense of Augustine’s impeccable reputation against those who were attacking him, whom Celestine perceived as Pelagians.9 These Pelagians are to desinat . . . incessere novitas vetustatem.10 As for the real issue, the conflict between the doctores Gallicani, who were in fact anti-Pelagian, and the Augustinians was not addressed. That is, Celestine did not pass any judgment on Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, only on the status of his orthodoxy in relation to Pelagianism. Celestine’s Apostolici verba failed to secure any peace between the two factions in Gaul; instead, the letter was later used, rather ingenuously, by both Prosper and Vincent, to advance their respective claims. Shortly after arriving back from his trip to Rome, Prosper composed De gratia et libero arbitrio liber contra collatorem, a work against Cassian and his Conlatio 13.11 The response to Prosper’s attack on Cassian came from Vincent in his work Commonitorium.12 This work was the last treatise attacking the Augustinians in southern Gaul. Prosper continued to defend Augustine’s doctrine, although not as enthusiastically and faithfully as he had before.13 By 435, the pamphlet war came to an end in southern Gaul. Prosper eventually relocated to Rome to serve as an advisor to Pope Leo, and wrote his final contribution to the conflict, the Praeteritorum episcoporum sedis apostolicae auctoritates de gratia Dei et libero voluntatis arbitrio.14

Competing Views of Predestination Augustine’s later teaching on grace, refined in the course of the Pelagian controversy, claimed that by God’s eternal plan, God elected (chose) some to 9. Celestine, Ep. 21 “Apostolici verba” (PL 50: 528–37). 10. Celestine, Ep. 21 (PL 50: 529A). 11. Prosper, De gratia et libero arbitrio liber contra collatorem (PL 51: 213–76). Cassian, Conlationes (CSEL 13). 12. Vincent, Commonitorium (CCL 64: 147–95). 13. Prosper’s last two works in Marseilles were Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum calumniantium (PL 51: 155–74) and Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentiarum (PL 51: 177–86). The lessened enthusiasm in defending Augustine is reflected in the absence of Augustine’s name in his responses against the Vincentian articles, the use of the authority of the Apostolic See to defend Augustine in his responses to the Gauls, and the claim that God’s withholding of predestination was due to God’s foreknowledge in both works—a claim that directly contradicted Augustine’s view. The evolution in Prosper’s defense of Augustine has been well documented; see Hwang, Intrepid Lover, and M. Cappuyns, “Le premier représentant de l’augustinisme médiéval, Prosper d’Aquitaine,” RTAM 1 (1929): 309–37. 14. PL 51: 205–12.



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everlasting life, before the creation of the world. God foreknew these persons, who were called, and predestined them to salvation. Human merits were the result of God’s predestination—the act whereby God prepares the human will to receive grace in order to do good works. This predestination is gratuitous. God predestines some to eternal life according to God’s plan. The rest are condemned to eternal death through their own faults. The reason for the withholding of God’s predestination for these persons remains a mystery.15 This was the view of predestination that Prosper and the Augustinians initially defended. In Prosper’s estimation, Augustine had faithfully interpreted Scripture and faithfully expressed the view of the Church.16 The doctores Gallicani had several objections to this doctrine. Among the critiques was that God’s foreknowledge, predestination, or plan meant only that God foreknew, predestined, or planned to save those whom God foreknew would believe; that Augustine’s doctrine, based on his interpretation of Scripture, cannot be found by anyone else in the Church; that Augustine’s doctrine is not edifying; and that there were some who did not object to it, but wished to remain silent. What they all agreed on, however, even those who were not opposed to the doctrine, was the uselessness of such a speculative doctrine. They argued that the Catholic faith was defended effectively without this doctrine, and there was no danger in being silent on something that cannot be fully understood.17 Among the most prominent voices of opposition were Cassian’s and Vincent’s. Cassian objected to Augustine’s doctrine because it conflicted with his own scriptural interpretation and tradition, namely the consensus of the Desert Fathers. Vincent’s objection was centered on tradition, namely the consensus of the Church, broadly understood. Both felt that one should hold only doctrines that were certain and beyond doubt.

Cassian’s Conlatio 13

Conlatio 13 may not have specifically targeted Augustine’s De correptione et gratia, but that it attacked Augustine’s teaching on grace is clear.18 The issue Cassian wants to clarify in Conlatio 13 is the relationship between grace and 15. Augustine’s doctrine of predestination is most clearly expressed in his last two works on grace: De praedestinatione sanctorum (PL 44: 959–92); De dono perseverantiae (PL 45: 993– 1034). 16. For the evolution of Prosper’s Augustinianism, see Hwang, Intrepid Lover. 17. Prosper, Ep. 225.3 (CSEL 57: 457–60); Hilary, Ep. 226.4 (CSEL 57: 472–73). 18. For the various views, see Ogliari, Gratia et Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 2003), 133–34 nn. 196–97. Augustine Casiday (Tradition and Theology

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free will in the economy of salvation. Cassian’s claim is that there is more than one way in which God can save people. Scripture attests to the different ways in which grace and free will are involved in salvation. Cassian juxtaposes conflicting sets of scriptural passages—passages that speak of God’s initiative and passages that speak of human initiative and effort in the process of salvation. Cassian concludes from this that salvation is accomplished in different ways.19 Cassian asserts that the reason for these diverse ways is a mystery, claiming Romans 11:33, rebuking those who delve too much into this mystery, that is, Augustine and his followers.20 However, Cassian does delve into this mystery in his concluding remarks. Cassian claims that “all the Catholic fathers,” who lived and taught the perfection of heart, that is, the Desert Fathers, held that God’s grace and the integrity and autonomy of the human free will were both involved in the process of salvation and the Christian life.21 Moreover, criticizing Augustine and the Augustinians, Cassian warns that any contrary views resulting from human reasoning or argumentation should be avoided, lest it lead to the destruction of the faith.22 Cassian’s Conlatio 13 was a sophisticated attack on Augustine and his followers. Cassian first began with his argument that Scripture contains different ways in which grace and free will are involved in salvation, which challenges Augustine’s claim that Scripture supported only his particular view. According to Cassian, God’s plan of salvation works in manifold ways according to the mysterious mind of God, thus Augustine’s claim suggested that Augustine knew the mind of God. Cassian appealed to the consensus of the Desert Fathers for his particular view on how grace and human will work together. All of these Fathers lived and taught the life of perfection, and did not just engage in idle disputation. The inference was that Augustine was not to be counted among these Catholic Fathers, and was merely an idle disputant. Augustine’s doctrine could not make an exclusive claim upon Scripture for his position, nor could his doctrine claim tradition, since all the Catholic Fathers were unanimous in their endorsement of Cassian’s view. Thus, Augustine’s doctrine in the Writings of St. John Cassian, Oxford Early Christian Series [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006], 117) suggests that Conlatio 13 was directed not against Augustine’s writings per se, but against the “outbursts of ill-considered or otherwise amateurish theological blathering” coming from Augustine’s supporters in Marseilles. However, the Augustinian members, at this stage in the conflict, faithfully adhered to the teachings of Augustine. 19. Cassian, Conlatio 13.17.1 (CSEL 13: 392–93) “Per haec igitur exempla quae de evangelicis protulimus monumentis evidentissime poterimus advertere diversis atque innumeris modis et inscrutabilibus viis deum salutem humani generis procurare.” 20. Conlatio 13.17.2–3 (CSEL 13: 393–94). 21. Ibid., 13.18.4 (CSEL 13: 395). 22. Ibid., 13.18.5 (CSEL 13: 396).



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could only claim its origin in human argumentation and reasoning, and not in Scripture or tradition.

Prosper’s Contra collatorem The death of Celestine (432) left the Augustinians anxious about how Sixtus, the new pope, would judge this matter. Prosper took this occasion to attack Cassian’s Conlatio 13, in De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio liber contra collatorem.23 Prosper was hoping to convince Sixtus and the general public that Cassian and the other opponents of Augustine’s doctrine were continuing the heresy of the Pelagians and, therefore, were to be viewed as enemies of the Church. Prosper’s argument consisted of countering Cassian’s two main claims in Conlatio 13— Scripture and tradition. Prosper argues that Cassian’s use of Scripture is contradictory and supports the Pelagian position, while Cassian’s appeal to tradition (consensus of the Desert Fathers) is countered with an appeal to the decisions of the pontiffs, especially that of the Apostolic See. Instead of seeing the manifold ways in which grace works in a person for salvation, Prosper asserts that Scripture only affirms one particular view of the economy of salvation, for the process of salvation does not differ from person to person. According to Prosper, Cassian is neither fully Pelagian nor Catholic, but an inventor of an unknown, deformed third way.24 Cassian’s system is not fully Pelagian because it claims the initiative of grace, but it is not Catholic because it claims the initiative of free will. Cassian’s attempt “to cover up the incoherence and contradiction” of the different propositions by combining what are mutually contradictory creates two groups of believers: those whose good works and thoughts are initiated and brought to completion by God, and those who are given grace according to human merit.25 Prosper concludes that Cassian’s division of humanity renders Christ as the Savior for some, and as a refuge for others. God compels the former to accept the gratuitous gift of grace, and for the latter, God is the refuge who provides the reward for those who anticipated the divine call by the fervor of their free wills.26 To preach both doctrines suggests that the Pelagians hold what Catholics hold, and when these contrary doctrines are mixed, it is the Catholic faith that is destroyed.27 23. Prosper, De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio liber contra collatorem (PL 51: 213–76). 24. Contra collatorem 3.1 (PL 51: 221; On Grace and Free Will, Against Cassian the Lecturer, in Defense of St. Augustine, trans. P. De. Letter, ACW 32 [Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1963], 76): “Tu informe nescio quid tertium.” 25. Ibid., 18.1 (PL 51: 262–63; Against Cassian, 123). 26. Ibid., 18.2 (PL 51: 263; Against Cassian, 124). 27. Ibid., 18.2 (PL 51: 264; Against Cassian, 125).

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Thus, Cassian’s use of Scripture is erroneous, because Scripture does not support the initiatives of both grace and free will. By claiming that it does, Cassian is supporting the side of the Pelagians. Since Augustine’s doctrine is in accordance with the Church’s condemnation of the Pelagians, the opponents of Augustine are endangering the Church by claiming that the bishop of Hippo did not defend the doctrine of grace in the right way against the Pelagians. The attack on Augustine is, therefore, an attack against all the pontiffs and especially those of the Apostolic See.28 Prosper establishes the consensus of the Church in the condemnation of the Pelagians. Prosper rhetorically asks if Pope Innocent, the Eastern bishops at Diospolis, the local councils of Mileve and Carthage, the Council of Carthage (417), Pope Zosimus, and the African bishops who wrote to Zosimus were all wrong in asserting the divine initiative over human free will.29 Prosper then draws upon the actions of the Apostolic See. Innocent had cut the heads of the Pelagians with his sword. The Palestinian bishops at Diospolis had forced Pelagius to condemn himself and his followers. Zosimus had placed the sword of Peter in the hands of the African bishops when he added his authority to the decrees of Carthage. Boniface defeated the Pelagians through his decrees and directed the emperors to issue imperial decrees. Boniface also asked Augustine to write answers to the books of the Pelagians. Celestine, observing the judgment of past decrees, did not grant Caelestius a new trial, and he banished him from Italy. Celestine also took care to cleanse Britain from the heresy, and to keep it free he ordained Palladius to draw the pagan nation to the Christian fold. Celestine was involved in the cleansing of the Eastern Churches by helping to condemn the Nestorian and Pelagian heresies.30 In the same context, Prosper immediately adds that Celestine endorsed Augustine and his supporters in Gaul against the doctores Gallicani.31 According to Prosper’s interpretation, Celestine’s general declaration of Augustine’s catholicity also applies to his writings in question—his later works on grace. Although the Apostolici verba did not expressly mention any particular writings of Augustine, which Prosper admits, nonetheless Prosper claims the endorsement was implied.32 The doctores Gallicani, whom Celestine criticized, Prosper asserts, are new growths of the Pelagian heresy. Thus, Prosper hopes that God’s protection, granted through Popes Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, and Celestine, will continue in Pope Sixtus, the present pope.33 28. Ibid., 1 (PL 51: 215–17; Against Cassian, 70–72). 29. Ibid., 5.3 (PL 51: 227–28). 30. Ibid., 21.1–2 (PL 51: 271). 31. Ibid., 21.2 (PL 51: 271–72). Cf. Celestine, Ep. 21.3 (PL 50: 529–30). 32. Contra collatorem 21.3–4 (PL 51: 272–73). 33. Ibid., 21.4 (PL 51: 273). Pope Sixtus (432–40).



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Prosper’s critique of Cassian and defense of Augustine were less than truthful.34 His critique of Cassian’s contradictory statements has merit, but Prosper’s caricature of Cassian’s manifold appreciation of grace does not do justice to the complexity and nuances of Cassian’s views. Although Prosper acknowledged that Cassian and the other opponents of Augustine belonged within the Church, Prosper all but names them Pelagians.35 Prosper’s linking of Augustine’s opponents with the Pelagian heresy is at best disingenuous, and the implication that one is either with the Pelagians or with Augustine and the Church is a charge that not even Augustine could agree with. And then there are the places where Prosper misquotes and misrepresents Cassian’s words and intentions, the clearest example of which is Prosper’s summation of Cassian’s views in chapter 20.36 Prosper’s history of the Pelagian conflict is also deeply flawed, a revisionist account that served Prosper’s purpose at the expense of facts.37 And Prosper’s interpretation of Celestine’s Apostolici verba is astonishingly bold. According to Prosper’s groundless interpretation, Celestine implied his praise of Augustine’s books and officially pronounced the authority of his writings.38 Prosper directly challenged Cassian’s use of Scripture and tradition. Cassian’s interpretation of Scripture is linked with the Pelagian heresy. The appeal to the tradition of the Desert Fathers is answered with the consensus of the Church, especially the Apostolic See. It is Augustine’s doctrine that is consistent with Scripture and the Church. Neither the general public nor the pope was persuaded by Prosper’s treatise. Sixtus did not respond to the situation, much less condemn the opponents of Augustine through papal decree or the influence of the imperial authority.39 Cassian did not respond to Prosper’s attack—this may be due to his advanced age; he died in 435. The response came from Vincent.40 A priest monk 34. Casiday (“Rehabilitating John Cassian: An Evaluation of Prosper of Aquitaine’s Polemic against the ‘Semipelagians,’” Scottish Journal of Theology 58, no. 3 [2005]: 270–84; and Tradition and Theology, esp. 17–29) provides a scathing critique of Prosper’s misrepresentation of Cassian’s Conlatio 13. 35. The most explicit references are in Contra collatorem 11.2, 16.1, 21.4 (PL 51: 243, 259, 265, 273). 36. Contra collatorem 20 (PL 51: 269–70). 37. Ibid., 21.1–2 (PL 51: 270–71). According to Prosper’s account, the Palestinian bishops forced Pelagius to condemn himself, and Zosimus simply condemned the Pelagians, neither of which is completely faithful to the facts. 38. Ibid., 21.2 (PL 51: 271–72). Cf. Celestine, Ep. 21 (PL 50: 528–30). 39. For Sixtus’s favorable disposition toward Pelagianism, see Ralph Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 138, n. 99. 40. Ibid., 136. On Vincent, see Mark Vessey, “Vincent of Lérins,” ATA, 870; Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 65 (TU 14, no. 1: 83).

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of the monastic community of Lérins, Vincent wrote the Commonitorium in 434, and was most likely the author of a list of objections against Augustine’s doctrine of predestination.41

Vincent’s Commonitorium

Written under the pseudonym peregrinus, Vincent’s stated purpose was to write down what he had faithfully received from the holy Fathers, in order to produce a handbook or guide for determining orthodoxy and heresy.42 However, Vincent’s thinly veiled purpose was to refute Prosper’s Contra collatorem.43 Vincent’s method of argumentation parallels Prosper’s Contra collatorem too closely to be merely a coincidence. Given the close links between the monastic communities of Marseilles and Lérins, and the limitations placed on Cassian by his advanced age, the Commonitorium should be viewed as a response to Prosper’s attack on Cassian.44 Vincent refutes Prosper’s twin claims of Scripture and tradition by countering with his own definition of tradition (semper, ubique, ab omnibus) and proper scriptural interpretation (indubitato, certo, ratoque).45 Prosper had defended Augustine’s teachings by asserting that Augustine’s interpretation of Scripture was correct and linked Augustine’s opponents to the Pelagian heresy. Prosper had situated the present conflict in the larger context of the Church’s struggle against Pelagianism. Augustine stood in the tradition of the Church, which was defended by Innocent, the Synod of Diospolis, Zosimus, 41. Commonitorium (CCL 64: 147–95). Vincent’s pamphlet against Augustine’s doctrine, now lost, has been preserved in Prosper’s Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentiarum (PL 51: 177–86). 42. Vincent, Commonitorium 1.1 (CCL 64: 147). For an extensive discussion on the Commonitorium in the larger political-ecclesial context, see Mark Vessey, “Peregrinus against the Heretics: Classicism, Provinciality, and the Place of the Alien Writer in Late Roman Gaul,” in Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 46 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1994), 530–65. 43. Scholars have disagreed on the extent of Commonitorium’s anti-Augustinian sentiment. Markus (“Legacy of Pelagius,” 220) claims that Vincent “was not attacking the views of his Augustinian opponents on grace and free will, or defending his own.” Mark Vessey (“Opus Imperfectum Augustine and his Readers, 426–435 A.D.,” VC 52 [1998]: 284) concludes that Vincent was attacking Augustine, but refrained from stating the logical conclusion that Augustine was worthy of censure. Mathisen (Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 136) asserts Vincent’s “real purpose was to respond to Celestine’s letter of a few years before [Apostolici verba], and to defend the Gallic anti-predestinarian position.” Ogliari (Gratia et Certamen, 431) views the work primarily as a handbook to determine orthodoxy and, within that framework, should be viewed as an expression of Gallic resistance to Augustine’s novel doctrine. 44. The relationship between the two monastic communities are detailed in Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 119–40. 45. Commonitorium 2.5; 28.7 (CCL 64: 149; 187).



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the African councils, Boniface, and Celestine.46 Moreover, Augustine’s opposition to the new heresy was affirmed by Celestine and, Prosper hoped, by Sixtus, while his opponents were declared to have opposed the Catholic faith. Vincent takes the same argument but turns it on Prosper. Vincent begins by establishing the definition of catholicity as what has been believed semper, ubique, ab omnibus.47 The definition of heresy, then, is any doctrine that is limited to a certain time, place, and group. Vincent labels teachings that do not meet the test of catholicity as novelties, namely, the teaching of Augustine, caricatured in chapter 26.48 Although not mentioned by name, it becomes clear that Augustine’s doctrine of predestination is the novelty Vincent was concerned with refuting. Vincent lists the authorities related to the Council of Ephesus (431), which condemned the profane novelty of Nestorius.49 This judgment of Nestorius was shared by Popes Celestine and Sixtus, who upheld the ancient tradition by condemning profane novelties. After quoting from Sixtus’s letter to Bishop John of Antioch, “Let no further advance of novelty be permitted, because it is unbecoming to add anything to ancient tradition,” Vincent quotes from Celestine’s Apostolici verba, where he addressed the profane novelty of the practice of presbyters preaching: “Rightly we must bear responsibility, if by our silence we encourage error. Therefore, those who behave in this way should be rebuked! They should have no right to free speech.”50 Vincent, however, interprets the profane novelty to belong to Prosper’s group, and so Celestine’s rebuke was directed at Prosper’s group, not at the opponents of Augustine, who maintain the tradition. Thus, according to Vincent’s interpretation, Celestine maintained the tradition by asserting that “novelties should refrain from attacking tradition,” that is, Prosper’s group should refrain from attacking Church tradition.51 Vincent concludes that anyone who opposes the Catholic and apostolic decrees insults the memory of Celestine, derides the definitions of Sixtus, disregards the statements of Cyril, and rejects the Council of Ephesus.52 For Vincent, the Catholic faith has already been established by the decrees of the Church, and any teaching that adds a new element to the established Catholic faith is heretical. Vincent attacks Augustine’s teaching on grace by linking the older heresies to 46. Contra collatorem 21.1–2 (PL 51: 270–71). 47. Commonitorium 2.5 (CCL 64: 149). 48. Ibid., 26.4, 8–9 (CCL 64: 185). 49. Ibid., 29–31 (CCL 64: 189–92). 50. Ibid., 32.3–4 (CCL 64: 193). Cf. Sixtus, Ep. 6.7 (PL 50: 609); Celestine, Ep. 21.1 (PL 50: 528). 51. Commonitorium, 32.7 (CCL 64: 193): “Destinat . . . incessere novitas vetustatem.” 52. Ibid., 33.1–2 (CCL 64: 194).

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Augustine’s teaching. The Church has continued the practice of opposing novelties in its opposition to Augustine’s teachings. Vincent had his own list that supported the tradition of opposing novelty, which included Celestine, Sixtus, Cyril, and the Council of Ephesus.53 According to Vincent’s interpretation of Apostolici verba, Celestine had continued to observe this practice by opposing the novelty of Augustine’s teachings and by endorsing the Gauls.54 And in regard to Prosper’s hope of Sixtus’s support, Vincent makes clear that Sixtus is continuing the tradition in opposing novelty, specifically Augustine’s doctrine.55 According to Vincent, false interpretations can be distinguished from correct ones, first, by observing the rule of semper, ubique, ab omnibus. If there is rebellion, novelty, or dissension by any group against the Church, one should prefer the integrity of the whole to the corruption of the few. Second, false and correct interpretations can be judged by observing the general decrees of a universal council, if relevant. And third, they can be distinguished by following the concordant opinions of the Fathers. A new heresy, such as that of Augustine’s doctrine, whose interpretation of Scripture is not addressed by a relevant general decree from a universal council, must be countered with the interpretation of the canon by the collected opinions of the Fathers. Vincent goes on to qualify these Fathers and their opinions. Only those Fathers who lived, taught, and died according to the holy Catholic faith are to be believed. Only those opinions of these Fathers are to be followed, which the Fathers held indubitato, certo, ratoque that all or most of them in the same sense confirmed manifeste frequenter perseveranter.56 Having established the rule for the proper interpretation of Scripture, Vincent instructs the reader on how to deal with an interpretation that does not observe this rule. Any interpretation that is outside or contrary to the general opinion of the Fathers is to be viewed as a propria et occulta et privata opiniuncula. This rule of interpretation, the consensus of the Fathers’ opinions, should be observed lest holding the error of one person’s opinion they should lose their eternal salvation.57 Vincent’s attack on Prosper was primarily negative, that is, Vincent criticized what was wrong with Augustine’s doctrine, but did not explicitly propose a correct doctrine of grace. However, by interpreting Celestine’s Apostolici verba as supporting the doctores Gallicani against novelty (that is, the beliefs of the Augustinians), Vincent suggests that what he and the other doctores Gallicani believed concerning grace was Catholic.58 53. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 32.1–3 (CCL 64: 193). 57. Ibid., 28.7–8 (CCL 64: 187).

54. Ibid., 32.4–7 (CCL 64: 193). 56. Ibid., 27–28 (CCL 64: 185–89). 58. Ibid., 32.4–7 (CCL 64: 193).



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Vincent’s work seems to have had a profound effect on Prosper.59 Prosper was concerned about the peculiarity of Augustine’s interpretation of Scripture from the beginning, but continued to defend him because Augustine, in Prosper’s estimation, represented the Church’s view on grace. The Commonitorium appeared at a time when Prosper was beginning to reevaluate the catholicity of Augustine’s doctrine. Although Prosper did not formally respond to the Commonitorium, Prosper never again referred to Celestine’s pronouncement nor specific Church decrees to defend Augustine. There were already counterclaims to Prosper’s interpretation of Celestine’s Apostolici verba prior to Commonitorium, and Vincent’s argument for catholicity and interpretation of Celestine’s pronouncement would only add to the difficulty of defending Augustine by appealing to Scripture and tradition.60 By 440, Prosper came to two conclusions: Augustine’s doctrine was not Catholic and the Roman pontiffs represented the Church and determined her tradition.

Prosper’s Auctoritates

Prosper wrote the Auctoritates, sometimes known as the Capitula, after composing De vocatione omnium gentium, between 450 and 455.61 According to Prosper, it is the Church, properly interpreting Scripture through the teaching of the Apostolic See and the liturgical practices of the Church, which defines Catholic grace. Although written in the 450s, Prosper composed the document to appear not only contemporaneous with Celestine’s letter of 431 (Ep. 21, the Apostolici verba), but also as directly related to it. In doing so, Prosper rewrites the history of the conflict so as to make it appear that the Roman Church made a definitive pronouncement on the Catholic view of grace as early as 431. The Auctoritates was written toward the end of Prosper’s life. The evidence for this comes from Prosper’s doctrinal development. Prosper’s De vocatione omnium gentium was written around 450.62 The greater appreciation of catho59. Cappyuns (“Le premier représentant,” 321) argued against this view: “Rien ne prouve qu’il ait eu connaissance du Commonitorium.” 60. Contra collatorem 21.3–4 (PL 51: 273). 61. Prosper, Auctoritates (PL 51: 205–12). See Hwang, Intrepid Lover, chap.1 for the discussion on the question of authorship. 62. Cappuyns (“L’auteur du De vocatione omnium gentium,” RB 39 [1927]: 226); Joseph J. Young (Studies on the Style of the “De vocatione gentium,” PS 87 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1952], 164) and A. G. Hamman (“Introduction, notes et guide thématique,” in L’appel de tous les peuples/Prosper d’Aquitaine, trans. [French] F. FrémontVerggobi and H. Throo [Paris: Migne, 1993], 12) have put forth 450 as the year of composition. For a more detailed discussion on the question of Prosper’s authorship and the dating, see Hwang, Intrepid Lover, chap. 1.

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licity, embodied in the Roman Church and fully revealed in the Auctoritates, suggests the work followed De vocatione omnium gentium. Thus, the terminus post quem is 450, the date of De vocatione omnium gentium, and the terminus ante quem is 455, the date of his last work, the Chronicon edition of 455. Although the Auctoritates was written toward the end of Prosper’s life, the content of the work does not reflect a post-431 situation. The beginning of the Auctoritates details, in the present tense, the criticisms directed at Augustine and his supporters by their—implied—Gallic opponents, which is the very context of the Apostolici verba, written in 431.63 There is a smooth and logical transition from the ending of the Apostolici verba and the beginning of the Auctoritates. The Apostolici verba ends with an affirmation of Augustine’s Catholic standing, and it is the challenge to this affirmation that is detailed in the beginning of the Auctoritates.64 Moreover, the dates of the sources cited in the Auctoritates do not go beyond 431. The internal evidence leads to the conclusion that the Auctoritates was intentionally written to appear as if it had been written as a continuation of the Apostolici verba. The circumstances surrounding the actual joining of the Auctoritates to the Apostolici verba are unknown.65 Prosper may have joined the two documents himself, or he may simply have written the work with the hope that someone would understand that the two works were related. Cappuyns noted that Dionysius found the Auctoritates and the Apostolici verba already filed together in the papal archives.66 By at least the time of Dionysius, it was determined that the Auctoritates belonged with the Apostolici verba. Prosper’s intent of making the Auctoritates directly related and contemporaneous to the Apostolici verba was successful—the addition of the Auctoritates to the Apostolici verba made it appear, for posterity, that the controversy between the Augustinians and their opponents was settled by Celestine in 431.67 63. Prosper, Auctoritates, Praef. (PL 51: 205–6): “Quia nonnulli qui catholico nomine gloriantur, in damnatis autem hereticorum sensibus, seu pravitate, sive imperitia demorantes, piissimis disputatoris obviare praesumit; et cum Pelagium atque Coelestium anathematizare non dubitent, magistris tamen nostris, tamquam necessarium modum excesserint.” 64. Celestine, Ep. 21.3 (PL 50: 530): “Augustinum sanctae recordationis virum pro vita sua atque meritis in nostra communione semper habuimus, nec umquam hunc sinistrae suspicionis saltem rumor aspersit: quem tantae scientiae olim fuisse meminimus, ut inter magistros optimos etiam ante a meis semper decessoribus haberetur. Bene ergo de eo omnes in communi senserunt, utpote qui ubique cunctis et amori fuerit et honori.” 65. Celestine, Ep. 21 (PL 50: 528). Dionysius Exiguus, Decreta Coelestini papae 1–2 [Apostolici verba], 3–13 [Auctoritates] (PL 67: 267–74). For a discussion on the question of the origin of the Auctoritates, see Cappuyns, “L’origine des Capitula d’Orange 529,” RTAM 6 (1934). 66. Cappuyns (“L’origine des Capitula d’Orange 529,” 270): “C’est [Auctoritates] là, sans doute dans les archives pontificales, que Denys le Petit les retrouve, à la fin du siècle, classes avec une lettre dup ape Célestin I en faveur de Prosper d’Aquitaine.” 67. Cf. Raúl Villegas Marán (“En polémica con Julián de Eclanum. Por unan nueva lectura



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According to Prosper, but expressed in the “official” language of an authoritative pronouncement, those addressed by Celestine’s Apostolici verba, while claiming to be Catholics and opposed to Pelagius and Caelestius, are on neither side, for they hold to the condemned teachings of the heretics and oppose “our doctors.” Since the opponents of the “doctors” profess to follow only the pronouncements by the Apostolic See against the Pelagians, a summary of these pronouncements have been collected, which expresses the faith of Catholics on the issue of grace.68 Ten articles are then listed, each containing the Catholic statement on grace followed by the corresponding papal pronouncement.69 The first four articles assert humanity’s fallen and helpless nature, drawn from two letters of Innocent.70 Articles 5 to 7 assert the role of grace and free will in the economy of salvation—5 and 6 drawn from Zosimus, and 7 from canons 3–5 of the Council of Carthage (418).71 Articles 8 and 9 deal with God’s universal salvific will and the meaning and effect of baptism, which are drawn from the Roman liturgical prayer and the baptismal rite.72 Article 9 also serves as the summary of the articles. The last article concludes by stating that the above-mentioned articles are the expressions of the Catholic faith and sufficient for the profession of faith concerning the doctrine of grace.73 Prosper did not include all of the papal pronouncements in his list of articles, nor did he limit his sources to apostolic decrees. Prosper’s summary of the Catholic view on grace is selective, but systematic, revealing what he considers to be Catholic. For Prosper, the Catholic doctrine of grace is expressed in what the Apostolic See proclaimed and what the Church practices in its liturgy, consistent with Scripture. Prosper begins with the most basic element, original sin, then moves on to the relationship between grace and free will, which is, at the end, confirmed by the practices of the Church. Prosper avoids any mention of God’s foreknowledge, except that God knew that humans could fall back to sin after baptism, and so offers daily help to persevere in the good life.74 Prosper seems to suggest that a free human redel Syllabus de gratia de Próspero de Aquitania,” Augustinianum 43 [2003]: 81–124), who argues that the Auctoritates was written in 439 and was exclusively concerned with combating Pelagianism in the context of Julian of Eclanum’s appeal to the pope in 439. 68. Auctoritates, Praef. (PL 51: 205–6). 69. Articles 8–10 are not drawn from papal pronouncements. Articles 8 and 9 are from Roman liturgical practice, and 10 is a conclusion. The significance of this will be addressed below. 70. Auctoritates 1–4 (PL 51: 205–7). Cf. Innocent, Ep. 29.2, 3, 6; 30.3 (PL 20: 584, 586; 591). 71. Ibid., 5–7 (PL 51: 207–9). Cf. Zosimus, Epist. Tractoria and Concilium Carthaginense 3–5 (CCL 149: 70–71). 72. Auctoritates, cap. 8–9 (PL 51: 209–10). Cf. Prosper, De vocatione 1.12 (PL 51: 664). 73. Ibid., 10 (PL 51: 211–12). 74. Ibid., 3 (PL 51: 207).

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sponse to this daily help is necessary to overcome the dangers of human sin, but immediately clarifies in the following articles the role of human free will and good works.75 The proper use of free will can only occur when it is helped by Christ.76 Free will is not set aside, yet it is God’s grace that is the more powerful agent, inspiring every good movement, and without which humans can do nothing good.77 As for the controversial text of 1 Timothy 2:4 ([God] wills that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth), Prosper alludes to this passage, but does so in the context of his new conviction, initially conceived in De vocatione omnium gentium, and now fully realized.78 Prosper, well aware of the controversy surrounding the interpretations of this text, and wanting to resolve the debate, provides the Church’s interpretation. The Catholic understanding of God’s universal salvific will in 1 Timothy 2:4 is expressed by the prayer of the Church: the “Prayers of the Faithful.” Prosper may have found the inspiration from Augustine’s reference of the Church’s prayer.79 However, whereas Augustine used the “Prayers of the Faithful” in support of his doctrine of grace, Prosper uses the prayer as support for his doctrine of the Church. Since the Church prays for the salvation of all people, ut lex supplicandi statuat legem credendi.80 It is the “law of supplication” that determines the “law of believing,” thus the theological controversy over the interpretation of this text has been settled by the practice of the Church.81 Prosper also refers to another practice of the Church, the rite of baptism, as further proof of the redeeming power of Christ.82 The apostolic decrees 75. Ibid.: “Quotidiana praestat ille remedia, quibus nisi freti, confisique nitamur, nullatenus humanos vincere poterimus errores.” 76. Ibid., 4 (PL 51: 207). 77. Ibid., 5–6 (PL 51: 207–8). 78. Ibid., 8 (PL 51: 209–10). Cf. De vocatione 1.12 (PL 51: 664). 79. Augustine had referred to this prayer in a few places, including De don. pers. 23.63–64 (PL 45: 1031–32). 80. Auctoritates 8 (PL 51: 209): “Obsecrationum quoque sacerdotalium sacramenta respiciamus, quae ab apostolis tradita, in toto mundo atque in omni catholica Ecclesia uniformiter celebrantur, ut lex supplicandi statuat legem statuat credendi.” This well-known maxim has been misquoted as lex orandi, lex credendi. See Paul de Clerck, “‘Lex orandi, lex credendi’: The Original Sense and Historical Avatars of an Equivocal Adage,” Studia Liturgica 24 (1994): 178–200; Daniel Van Slyke, “Lex orandi lex credendi,” 130–51; and Walter Durig, “Zur Interpretation des Axioms Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi,” in Veritati Catholicae: Festschrift für Leo Scheffczyk zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Anton Ziegenaus et al., 226–36 (Aschaffenburg: Pattloch, 1985). 81. Prosper’s intent was not to propose a general rule in which prayer trumpeted belief. The idiom was specific to the question of the interpretation of 1 Tm 2:4. Since there were different “beliefs” concerning the meaning of 1 Tm 2:4, the correct interpretation must and has been settled by the Church, which prays for the salvation of all. 82. Auctoritates 9 (PL 51: 210).



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and the Church’s liturgical practices represent the ecclesiasticae regulae.83 Together with Scripture, these two reveal Prosper’s understanding of the Catholic faith on grace. Prosper’s theology of grace can be reduced to the belief in the priority of and the absolute need for God’s grace to accomplish anything good, and that free will is set free in order that it may cooperate with God’s grace.84 The issues related to God’s discrimination—predestination, election, foreknowledge, and the like—are not included in Prosper’s definition of grace. Prosper sees no need to explore or even reiterate these “more profound” and “more difficult” questions.85 What is essential for the proper understanding of the Catholic view on grace is what is contained in this document.86 Thus, according to Prosper, the Catholic view of grace need only express what the Church, through the Apostolic See, explicitly affirmed or declared: the priority of and absolute need for God’s grace to do good, and the cooperation of the redeemed free will with God’s grace. The Auctoritates is Prosper’s Retractationes, but, in keeping with Prosper’s personality, the admission of mistakes is not explicit, only implied. Looking back on those years of struggle, misguided by his naïve zeal for Augustine and the lack of understanding of catholicity, Prosper concluded that the Roman Church defines Catholic grace, and that personal speculations do not. Prosper was content with the parts that were illuminated by the Roman Church and his insatiable curiosity and fascination with the more hidden aspects of grace were finally satisfied. The Auctoritates was meant to be the authoritative response to the conflict between the Augustinians, of which he was no longer a member, and the doctores Gallicani, whom he still regarded as heretics. The implication is that the conflict that continued after the Apostolici verba and the Auctoritates was unnecessary because the Church had already resolved the issue by declaring the official Catholic view of grace. This conclusion is reaffirmed in Prosper’s Chronicon, in which the whole controversy is omitted.87 In effect, Prosper echoed one of the main critiques by the doctores Gallicani: “What need was there that the hearts of so many simple people be disturbed by the uncertainty of such an argument? For the Catholic faith has been defended no less effectively for so many years without this doctrine.”88 83. Ibid. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid., 10 (PL 51: 211): “Profundiores vero difficilioresque partes incurrentium quaestionum, quas latius pertractarunt qui haereticis restiterunt, sicut non audemus contemnere, ita non necesse habemus astruere.” 86. Ibid., 10 (PL 51: 212). 87. Prosper, Epitoma chronicon, in Chronica Minora 1 (MGH, AA 9: 385–485). 88. Hilary, Ep. 226.8 (CSEL 57: 478).

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There was no reaction to the Auctoritates. The silence may have been the result of the document’s anonymity, or the fact that the original doctores Gallicani, who had opposed the Augustinians, had died. Prosper’s death in 455 marks the end of the initial conflict. Despite Prosper’s efforts at providing the Roman Church with the Catholic understanding of Augustine’s doctrine of grace and establishing the Roman Church’s view on grace, the controversy continued after his death. Augustine’s doctrine of grace was either defended or rejected as Catholic doctrine and the Auctoritates, even if known, did not keep others from exploring the mysteries of grace. Lucidus and Faustus in the 470s clashed over Augustine’s doctrine of predestination. Faustus vehemently opposed Lucidus’s Augustinianism and in the process formulated a doctrine of grace, De gratia, which disregarded the limits of the Auctoritates. Faustus’s treatise then caused a disturbance between some Scythian monks and Possessor in Constantinople over the catholicity of Augustine’s doctrine of grace in the 520s.89 The Augustinian controversy came to something of a resolution at the Second Council of Orange in 529.90 The doctrine of grace formulated in the decrees of Orange reflects a moderate Augustinianism and is the result of a cooperative effort with the pope. This understanding of grace was very much in line with Prosper’s.91 The Second Council of Orange, however, did not mark the end of the Augustinian controversy. Augustine’s doctrine of grace continued to be a source of controversy in the Middle Ages. During the Carolingian renaissance, Augustine became a topic of interest, and Gottschalk and Hincmar assumed the roles of Augustinian and anti-Augustinian. In the fourteenth century, Gregory of Rimini and Gabriel Biel continued the debate over Augustine’s doctrine of grace, and Thomas Bradwardine, John Wyclif, and John Hus were inspired by their own independent reading of Augustine’s doctrine of grace.92 Finally, the Reformation can be viewed as a stage of the Augustinian controversy, but with much more profound consequences. 89. See Henri Rondet, The Grace of Christ: A Brief History of the Theology of Grace, trans. Tad W. Guzie (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1967), 154–58; and Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 244–68. Faustus of Reiz, De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio libri duo (CCL: 101– 101B). 90. Concilium Arausicorum (CCL 148A: 55–76). 91. Rondet, Grace of Christ, 158–64. For a more in-depth study on the Council of Orange, see Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, Patristic Monograph Series 15 (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1996), 199– 234. 92. Rondet, Grace of Christ, 176–84, 261–72.



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Conclusion Through decades of struggling with the issue of grace and free will, Prosper eventually came to the conclusion that the Catholic view of grace is to be found in Rome. The rule of faith for Prosper was composed of the tradition established by the Roman pontiffs. Prosper represents the emerging Western tradition, a rule of faith determined by Rome. Cassian and Vincent also maintained a view of the rule of faith in terms of tradition, but tradition for them consisted of the consensus of the Church. The rule of faith was determined by what the Church, broadly understood, believed. If Prosper represents the emerging Western medieval view of the central role of Rome in determining the rule of faith, Cassian and especially Vincent represent the dissonant voice that claimed a less centralized authority. The rule of faith was composed of what the Church declared through its ecumenical councils and the concordant opinions of the Church Fathers. This dissonant voice would be echoed in Gallicanism, and characterizes the Eastern Churches’ understanding of the rule of faith.

Pa rt T wo

a Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Arian Controversy

S a r a Pa rv is

5  Joseph Lienhard, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Marcellus’s Rule of Faith The Achievement of Lienhard’s Work on Marcellus Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology is the work in English to which all those seeking to understand either Marcellus’s theology or his place in later fourth-century controversy must turn first.1 Its merits only become clearer the better one knows the subject. The range of the book (supplemented by a series of articles which treat some of its key arguments in more detail) is particularly impressive.2 It touches with quiet understanding a considerable spread of material, having something to add to our understanding of every decade of the Arian controversy.3 It pronounces on points of fierce dispute with ease and humor: “Athanasius’s works supply the fullest documentation available for the history of the controversy, but—not surprisingly—are written from his point of view.”4 Above all, it makes three important and quite separate contributions to our understanding of the controversy: a sympathetic analysis of Marcellus’s 1. Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999). 2. The articles include “Did Athanasius Reject Marcellus?” in Arianism after Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts, ed. Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams, 65–80 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1983); “Ps-Athanasius, Contra Sabellianos, and Basil of Caesarea, Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos: Analysis and Comparison,” VC 40 (1986): 365–89; “The ‘Arian Controversy’: Some Categories Reconsidered,” Theological Studies 48 (1987): 415–37; “Acacius of Caesarea: Contra Marcellum. Historical and Theological Considerations,” Cristianesimo nella Storia 10 (1989): 1–22; “Acacius of Caesarea’s Contra Marcellum: Its Place in Theology and History,” SP 19 (1989): 185–88; “Basil of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra and ‘Sabellius,’” Church History 58 (1989): 157–67. 3. For a short justification of my continued use of this term, see Sara Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 38. 4. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 30.

89

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theology at different stages in its development; a tracking of the literary antiMarcellan tradition of the later fourth century; and a rearticulation of one of the key theological differences of the controversy in terms of “miahypostatic” and “dyohypostatic” theology. It also gives us a new and attractive insight into the enigmatic character of Athanasius. The importance of Lienhard’s categories of “miahypostatic” and “dyohypostatic” (arguably better replaced by “trihypostatic”) theology to our understanding of the controversy is, in my view, currently underestimated.5 It is now largely agreed that any attempt to reduce the entire controversy to the political or theological stances of two parties (or even two and a half parties) is liable to be unsuccessful: there were too many ad hoc coalitions, shifting alliances, generational changes, and genuine modifications of opinion for any two terms to hold the stage successfully throughout the length of the controversy. However, intelligent theological and political categories are of great help in making sense of some of the alliances which were put together at different points, and sometimes created loyalties which affected events many decades after the individuals involved had realigned themselves. The stalemates of the 360s and 370s (so bewildering to the younger generation of pro-Nicenes) only make sense in the light of the alliances forged in the 320s, 330s, and early 340s. Likewise, the splits of 357–60 between Homoiousians and Heterousians have their roots in the doubts of Eusebius of Caesarea even while he made common cause with Eusebius of Nicomedia.6 Accurately describing what those alliances had in common, where they differed, and why they shifted is essential to making sense of the shape of the controversy as a whole; otherwise, we are left groping for “armies in the dark” imagery to excuse ourselves for our own lack of understanding of what was going on, or falling back on the assumption that all the differences were merely political, personal, and opportunistic. And one very important point that Athanasius, Marcellus, and the continuing Eustathians had in common, which is frequently left out of consideration, is precisely their belief in one hypostasis. Those who, like Basil of Caesarea, remain bewildered at the loyalty of both 5. Lewis Ayres, while acknowledging that he has found Lienhard’s categories helpful, argues that debate over whether God is one or more hypostasis is only one feature of a wider debate over different understandings of the way that inherited terminologies and metaphors maintained or did not seem to maintain the unity of God (Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 41, n. 1). While this is undoubtedly true, it misses the usefulness of the terms as delineators of actual historical groupings at various moments in the controversy for which appropriate alternative designations are difficult to find. 6. It is notable that Eusebius of Caesarea finds different excuses not to defend the theology of his namesake of Nicomedia in both Contra Marcellum and De Ecclesiastica Theologia.



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Athanasius and the West toward not only Marcellus but also Paulinus of Antioch, should take Lienhard’s categories into consideration. They remind us that not everyone, early or late, thought that Marcellus and Eustathius were self-evidently theologically marginal figures (as the Western Creed of Serdica, for example, bears witness). A Trinity of one hypostasis was the right theological answer for a number of thinkers throughout the controversy, and those who defended that theology had a strong claim to be protected by one another. Looking around to see who confessed it allows us to make sense of some aspects of the controversy which are not otherwise easily explained. In tracking the anti-Marcellan tradition of the later fourth century, Lienhard has helped both to make sense of the strong animus that existed against Marcellus in later years, and to explain its curiously varied character, from writers who happily attack Marcellus directly by name, such as Eusebius and Acacius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Emesa, and Cyril of Jerusalem (all before 360), to others who attack him under the code name “Sabellius” as a way of presenting their own opinions as a middle course between Sabellianism and Arianism, including Basil of Caesarea and probably Apollinarius. As Lienhard has pointed out, the former all rely heavily on the picture of Marcellus’s theology originally painted by Eusebius of Caesarea; the same is true of Basil’s depiction of Marcellus’s theology in his letters.7 But the so-called Fourth Oration against the Arians, normally now dated to 340, though I would hazard that it is three or four years later,8 strikes a new path, which the later antiSabellian tracts also follow to some extent, implicitly recognizing the dangers in Eusebius’s own position and outlining an approach not a million miles away from Marcellus’s own.9 We might add to Lienhard’s analysis the view that, while his distinction between the two sorts of attack on Marcellus is well taken and important, all of these writers ultimately have their roots in the same tradition, even where they have moved beyond it. What has traditionally been called the “moderate Origenist” camp (the less extreme elements in the Eusebian alliance, in other words), which gave birth to the Homoiousians and then coalesced around Meletius of Antioch, was the most fiercely anti-Marcellan section of the East7. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, chap. 7. 8. On the date, with which Lienhard agrees (Contra Marcellum, 213), see Markus Vinzent, Pseudo-Athanasius, Contra Arianos IV. Ein Schrift gegen Asterius von Kappadokien, Eusebius von Cäsarea, Markell von Ankyra, und Photin von Sirmium, supplements to VC 36 (Leiden: Brill, 1996). In my view, the attack on Photinus makes a date closer to 345 more plausible; the death of the two Eusebii does not rule out a short continuing currency for the term “those around Eusebius,” particularly if Athanasius’s Orations are the model. 9. “Implicit in their writings is an opening through which the Marcellians might join them” (Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 211).

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ern church. As Lienhard nicely puts it, “For several decades the members of that party may have been uncertain about what was right, but they were sure that Marcellus was wrong.”10 There were strong reasons for this in the case of one of the group’s leaders, of course: if Basil of Ancyra (who also wrote antiMarcellan works which do not survive) were ever to admit that Marcellus had been wrongly deposed, he himself would lose his see. It may not be a coincidence that after he did lose it, in 360, the attacks on Marcellus become much more muted. (The realignment of this group away from Acacius and toward Athanasius may also have contributed.) At this point, their authors begin to draw on the more nuanced position that Apollinarius (if he is indeed the author of the Fourth Oration) had established fifteen or so years previously. Lienhard’s influential work on the relationship between Marcellus and Athanasius has been important in a number of ways. It has reminded scholars of the later controversy how widespread support for Marcellus, or at least his followers, actually was at the end of his life.11 It has also provided valuable evidence of Athanasius’s capacity for disinterested activity. Lienhard’s argument that, far from permanently dropping Marcellus out of political expediency, Athanasius acted with considerable loyalty toward him as late as 371, moving quietly to prevent Basil of Caesarea’s attempts to have him condemned as a heretic, is difficult to refute, and sheds a clearer light on Athanasius’s otherwise somewhat ambiguous smile at Epiphanius.12 Finally, it reminds us that Marcellus died in communion with the Catholic Church. For the remainder of the present article, I want to take further Lienhard’s account of Marcellus’s own theology.13 Contra Marcellum: Marcellus and Fourth-Century Theology contains the best, most lucid, and most sympathetic overview in English of the theology both of the Contra Asterium and of the Letter to Julius. One expression of Marcellus’s views on which Lienhard does not linger, however, is the baptismal-type creed included in the Letter to Julius. Here, I want to use that creed as a key to unlocking what Marcellus has to say on the rule of faith in general.14 10. Ibid., 136. 11. Ibid., 9. 12. Epiphanius, Panarion 72.4.4. 13. The theology of the Contra Asterium is analyzed in Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, chap. 3; of the Letter to Julius, in Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 140–44. Lienhard also analyzes the theology of the Western Creed of Serdica, seeing it as representative of Marcellus’s thought, if not actually by Marcellus (Contra Marcellum, 148–52). He leaves aside De Sancta Ecclesia among the other, more uncertain works attributed to Marcellus, as possibly emanating from Marcellus’s circle rather than Marcellus himself, and as having had no discernible effect on the anti-Marcellan tradition (Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 19–20, 25–27). The case for Marcellan authorship of De Sancta Ecclesia, in my view, is very strong: see the discussion in Alastair H. B. Logan, “Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), ‘On the Holy Church’: Text, Translation and Commentary,” JTS, n.s. 51 (2000): 81–112. 14. Greek texts and translations of all Marcellus’s works are taken from my own edition



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Before I begin, it will be worth glancing at the question of how representative the Letter to Julius is of Marcellus’s theology as a whole.15 Critics have generally been divided between those who believe that Marcellus genuinely moderated his views after writing the Contra Asterium, perhaps after discussion with Athanasius, and those who have argued that the Letter to Julius was a deceptive attempt to conceal Marcellus’s real thought—and in particular his real Christology.16 Both of these approaches, however, I would argue, have ultimately been predicated on the mistaken assumption that Eusebius of Caesarea’s two anti-Marcellan works give a faithful picture of Marcellus’s theology as it appeared in the Contra Asterium. To pick only the most important and obvious point, most scholars have accepted that in that work, Marcellus uses the title Son only after the incarnation.17 In fact, the extant fragments themselves make it clear at a couple of points that this is not the case: So then, even if most especially this new mystery was declared “in the last times,” so that for this reason it was pre-appointed before this age, the prophet reasonably currently in preparation. For the most recent critical text of the fragments and the Letter to Julius, with German translation, see Markell von Ankyra, Die Fragmente. Der Brief an Julius von Rom, ed. and tr. Markus Vinzent, Supplements to VC 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). The different numberings of the fragments (Parvis’s, Klaus Seibt’s order in Markus Vinzent’s edition, and Klostermann’s order) are here designated in the style P 1 S/V 1 K 1, except where Seibt’s and Vinzent’s order differ, where both are given separately. For a widely accessible text of the Canons of Ancyra which includes Greek and Latin texts and French translation, see Périclès-Pierre Joannou, Discipline general antique, Pontificia Commissione per la redazione del codice di dirittocanonico orientale, Fonti 9, 2 vols. in 3 (Grottaferrata: Tipografia ItaloOrientale S. Nilo, 1962–65), i.2, 56–73. For a text of De Sancta Ecclesia with English translation, see Alastair H. B. Logan, “Holy Church.” For a text of the Western Creed of Serdica with German translation, see Hanns Christof Brennecke et al., eds., Athanasius Werke, III.i, Dokumente zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites, 3, Bis zur Ekthesis Makrostichos (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 205–12. For the Creed of Eugenius the Deacon, see M. Tetz, “Markellianer und Athanasios von Alexandrien. Die Markellianische Expositio fidei ad Athanasium des Diakons Eugenios von Ankyra,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 64 (1973): 75–121, at 78–84. 15. Professor Lienhard has, of course, pointed out that even if Marcellus’s thinking has changed since the Contra Asterium, there is no need to see the former work as the most characteristic expression of Marcellus’s theology: “Marcellus’s definitive thought is often assumed to be found in the Contra Asterium, but this assumption is gratuitous.” Contra Marcellum, 137. 16. Those who have accused Marcellus of simply hiding his views or “trimming” in the Letter to Julius include Leslie Barnard (“Marcellus of Ancyra and the Eusebians,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 25 [1980]: 63–76, at 64) and Marcel Richard (“Un opuscule méconnu de Marcel évêque d’Ancyra,” Mélanges de science religieuse 6 [1949]: 5–24, at 23). Those who have seen Marcellus as genuinely changing or softening his earlier views include Richard Hanson (The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318–381 [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988], 230–31), Lewis Ayres (Nicaea and its Legacy, 106) and Lienhard himself (Contra Marcellum, 137). 17. Even Lienhard argues that “Marcellus postulates a ‘Father’ and a ‘Word’ from the beginning of creation, but a ‘Son’ only from the time when the Virgin conceived” (Contra Marcellum, 51).

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said, “He founded me before the age,” (clearly that which is according to the flesh) because of the communion with the one who is truly his Son, the Word. (P 43 S/V 38 K 20)18 For he says, “No-one knows the Father except the Son,” that is, the Word. (P 72 S/V 69 K 44)19

Other fragments might seem at first sight to tell a different story, but we need to remember that they are taken out of context. I suspect that the context of Marcellus’s claim that “no other name is fitting to the eternity of the Word than this which the most holy disciple of God and apostle John spoke at the beginning of the Gospel” (P 18 S/V 3 K 43) is precisely a discussion of the way in which “Son” is to be understood. Later in the same fragment, Marcellus contrasts the name of Word with what he sees as the post-incarnation titles: “After the assumption of the flesh he is proclaimed Christ and also Jesus, Life and also Way and Day and Resurrection and Door and Bread.” But there is nothing to suggest that “Son” should be reckoned among these titles. What is clear from the extant fragments is that Marcellus nowhere calls “Son” a title of the incarnation (except in the form “Son of humanity,” ὑιὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου),20 and, as shown above, he explicitly uses it twice as a synonym for Word—just as he does in the Letter to Julius.21

Marcellus’s Creed When Marcellus sets out at the request of Julius of Rome to defend himself against charges of heterodoxy, he does so in four ways.22 He first sets out a list of erroneous propositions about the relationship between Father and Son allegedly taught by his opponents, and then sets out a series of propositions of his own on the same subject, with reference to Scripture. Both sets of propo18. οὐκοῦν εἰ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτων τῶν καιρῶν τουτὶ τὸ καινὸν ἐπεφάνη μυστήριον, ὡς διὰ τοῦτο πρὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου προωρίσθαι, εἰκότως ὁ προφήτης ἔφη «πρὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐθεμελίωσέν με», δηλονότι τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν ἀληθῶς υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν λόγον κοινωνίαν. 19. «οὐδεὶς» γὰρ «οἶδεν» φησὶν «τὸν πατέρα, εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱός», τουτέστιν ὁ λόγος. 20. I translate υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου as “Son of humanity” rather than “Son of Man” not only for feminist considerations, but equally because this translation gives a better sense of what Marcellus actually means by the term. 21. I have discussed other ways in which what might seem to be the differences between the Contra Asterium and the Letter to Julius does not in fact represent a change in Marcellus’s thinking in Lost Years, 181–82. 22. For a similar account with slightly different emphases, see Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 140–44. On the list of propositions shared with Athanasius’s Orations, see Parvis, Lost Years, 182–85.



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sitions look to have been in agreement with Athanasius; they are close to formulae he himself uses in the Orations. Marcellus then confesses his belief in the form of a baptismal creed close to that of the Roman church, and finally sets out his logical case against the position of his opponents and in favor of his own. Some writers have seen Marcellus’s use of a formula so close to the Roman baptismal tradition as simply an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Roman church.23 But, together with the glosses he provides in the same Letter to Julius, this creed can be shown to match his own theology very closely. The formula is as follows: I believe in God Almighty, and in Christ Jesus his only-begotten Son, our Lord, the one who was begotten of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, the one who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried and rose on the third day from the dead, ascended to the heavens and is seated at the right hand of the Father, from where he shall come to judge living and dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, life everlasting. (Epiphanius, Panarion 72.3.1)24

I do not intend here to enter the debate as to where exactly this creed of Marcellus’s fits into the history of the development of the Apostles’ Creed, although its existence as the earliest full-length witness to that creed type is certainly intriguing.25 I am concerned rather with what it tells us about Marcellus’s own theology. First of all, it notably, of course, confesses a belief in “God Almighty” rather than “God, the Father Almighty.” Marcellus confesses an eternal Fa23. See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1972), 103, 108–10. 24. πιστεύω οὖν εἰς θεὸν παντοκράτορα· καὶ εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν, τὸν γεννηθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου, τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου σταυρωθέντα καὶ ταφέντα καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστάντα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, ἀναβάντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ καθήμενον ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ πατρός, ὅθεν ἔρχεται κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς· καὶ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, ἁγίαν ἐκκλησίαν, ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, ζωὴν αἰώνιον. The Letter to Julius is transmitted only by Epiphanius. Since Vinzent’s edition is not subdivided into sections, I give, for convenience, section numbers from the Panarion (ed. Holl-Dummer, GCS [1985]). 25. Markus Vinzent has recently argued that Marcellus should be considered essentially as the author of the Apostles’ Creed, a claim he makes with some amusement (Markus Vinzent, “Die Entstehung des Römischen Glaubensbekenntnis,” in Wolfram Kinzig, Christoph Markschies, and Markus Vinzent, Tauffragen und Bekenntnis: Studien zur sogenannten “Traditio Apostolica”, zu den “Interrogationes de fide” und zum “Römischen Glaubensbekenntnis,” Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 74 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 185–409, at 408–9. Liuwe Westra (The Apostles’ Creed: Origin, History and Some Early Commentaries [Turnhout: Brepols, 2002], 30–46) disagrees.

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ther and an eternal, pre-existent Son elsewhere in the Letter to Julius, so this form of the First Article cannot reasonably be used to accuse him of believing the Son/Word only becomes distinct at the incarnation: there is plentiful evidence throughout his writings, including, as already noted, the extant fragments of the Contra Asterium, that he believes in a pre-existent Son, whatever his indictment at Constantinople attempts to imply. But Marcellus did believe, as we have seen, that “Christ” was an incarnate, not a pre-incarnate title, and so balances the fact that this creed concentrates on the incarnate life and work of Christ with a confession that is precisely a confession of the preincarnate Word as well as the Father: “God Almighty,” for Marcellus, includes both. If so, the question naturally follows, what did he believe about the relationship between the Father and the pre-incarnate, eternal Son/Word? It is this question that occupies the other three-quarters of the Letter to Julius. The final, logical, section of the letter is, I would argue, the best and clearest account of his thinking on the matter, here or in the whole corpus of his writings. It runs as follows: We have learned from the divine Scriptures that the Godhead of Father and Son is undivided. For if someone separates the Son, that is the Word, from God Almighty, it is necessary for him either to think there are two Gods, which has been adjudged to be alien to the divine teaching, or to confess that the Word is not God, which also itself is seen to be alien to the orthodox faith, given that the Evangelist says, “And the Word was God.” (Letter to Julius [Epiphanius, Panarion, 72.3.2])26

Father and Son must be one in Godhead, Marcellus argues. For if the Son is divided off from the Almighty God, then either the Son is not God, or there are two Gods, either of which is theologically prohibited. This is the most succinct and also the most widely acceptable form in which Marcellus puts his teaching on the unity of Father and Son. Presumably as a result of his agreement with Athanasius, Marcellus here eschews any insistence on one hypostasis or one prosopon, in favor of one indivisible (or undivided) θεότης. His formula allows room, therefore, for a distinction of some sort between Father and Son, without actually affirming one beyond the two names. More firmly, he implicitly (elsewhere he does it explicitly) rules out the notion that the Son could be divine in an attenuated sense, God but not true 26. ἀδιαίρετον εἶναι τὴν θεότητα τοῦ πατὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ παρὰ τῶν θείων μεμαθήκαμεν γραφῶν. εἰ γάρ τις χωρίζει τὸν υἱόν, τουτέστι τὸν λόγον, τοῦ παντοκράτορος θεοῦ, ἀνάγκη αὐτὸν ἢ δύο θεοὺς εἶναι νομίζειν ὁπερ ἀλλότριον τῆς θείας διδασκαλίας εἶναι νενόμισται ἢ τὸν λόγον μὴ εἶναι θεὸν ὁμολογεῖν ὅπερ καὶ αὐτὸ ἀλλότριον τῆς ὀρθῆς πίστεως εἶναι φαίνεται, τοῦ εὐαγγελιστοῦ λέγοντος «καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος».



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God. There are only two possibilities for Marcellus: being God, or not being God. We can flesh out Marcellus’s teaching on this point with surviving extracts from an exegetical passage of the Contra Asterium which discusses Exodus 3:14, “I am the one who is” (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν in the Septuagint): So then, who does Asterius think is the one saying “I am the one who is,” the Son or the Father? For he said that there are two hypostases, looking to the human flesh which the Word of God assumed and because of it imagining thus, separating the Son of God from the Father in this way, even as one might separate some son of a human being from his father according to nature. (P 94 S/V 85 K 63)27 So then, if he will say that the Father, separating himself from the Son, said these things to Moses, he will not confess that the Son is God. For how is it possible for the one saying “I am the one who is” not to confess at the same time that he says that he is “the one who is” in contradistinction from the one who is not? But if he should affirm that the Son, divided by hypostasis, says this (“I am the one who is”), he will be thought to say the same thing again concerning the Father. And either of these is impious. (P 95 S/V 86 K 64)28

In this case, the philosophical basis for Marcellus’s argument is the very common late third-/early fourth-century position that the most important metaphysical distinction that exists is between what is and what is not. Marcellus argues that it is impossible for the speaker in Exodus 3:14 to be either the Father without the Son, or the Son without the Father, since saying “I am the one who is” logically implies a contrast with the one who is not (or alternatively, with “what is not”; the Greek allows either translation, though the logic of Marcellus’s ad hominem argument seems to demand the former translation). This is why Marcellus rejects two hypostases of Father and Son, and indeed, at least implicitly, two separate masculine subjects of Father and Son; because it must be Father and Son together who say “ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν.”29 27. τίνα τοίνυν τὸν «ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὢν» λέγοντα Ἀστέριος εἶναι οἴεται, τὸν υἱὸν ἢ τὸν πατέρα; δύο γὰρ ὑποστάσεις, εἰς τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἣν ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος ἀνείληφεν σάρκα ἀφορῶν καὶ δι᾽ αὐτὴν οὕτω φανταζόμενος, πατρός τε καὶ υἱοῦ ἔφησεν εἶναι, οὕτω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ χωρίζων τοῦ πατρός, ὡς καὶ υἱὸν ἀνθρώπου χωρίσειεν ἄν τις τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν πατός. 28. εἰ τοίνυν τὸν πατέρα χωρίζοντα ἑαυτὸν τοῦ υἱοῦ πρὸς τὸν Μωσέα ταῦτ᾽ εἰρηκέναι φήσει, οὐκ εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν θεὸν ὁμολογήσει. πῶς γὰρ ἐγχωρεῖ τὸν λέγοντα «ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὢν» μὴ συνομολογεῖν ὅτι κατὰ ἀντιδιαστολὴν τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ὁ ὢν ἑαυτὸν εἶναί φησιν; εἰ δὲ τὸν υἱὸν ὑποστάσει διῃρημένον τοῦτο φάσκοι λέγειν τὸ «ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὢν», ταὐτὸν αὖθις περὶ τοῦ πατρὸς λέγειν νομισθήσεται. ἑκάτερον δὲ τούτων ἀσεβές. 29. It might be added (Marcellus probably added this point himself in a section Eusebius does not cite) that the logic of the passage as a whole appears to be on Marcellus’s side: Moses’s interlocutor is described apparently interchangeably as “ἄγγελος κυρίου,” “κύριος,” and “ὁ θεός.”

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To see how Marcellus does express the distinction between Father and Son, we turn to the second part of the Letter to Julius: But I believe, following the divine Scriptures, that there is one God, and the only-begotten Son, Word of this God, the one who always co-exists with the Father, never ever having had a beginning of being, truly existing from God, not created, not made, but always in being, always reigning together “with the God and Father,” of whose reign, according to the witness of the Apostle, there will be no end. This one is Son, this one is Power, this one is Wisdom, this one is proper and true Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, undivided Power of God, through whom all things which came to be, came to be. (Epiph., Pan. 72.2.6–7)30

This position is essentially unchanged from the one Marcellus espouses in the Contra Asterium, where he opens the exegetical part of the work by arguing for the eternity of the Word,31 and closes the work by arguing that the partial reign of the Son of Man will give way to the eternal reign of the Word: “So then, when he should have his enemies as a footstool for his feet, he no longer needs this partial reign, being king of all things generally; for he reigns together with the God and Father whose Word he was and is.”32 Marcellus says nothing of the partial reign of the flesh, here or afterwards, but says nothing which contradicts it at any point, either; whether he continued to believe in it is impossible to tell. The second article of Marcellus’s creed is belief in Christ Jesus his onlybegotten Son our Lord, the one who was begotten of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin. This specific formulation of course favors the Christology most in evidence in the fragments of the Contra Asterium, where Christ and Jesus are titles that belong to the incarnation, rather than to the pre-incarnate Word. We have already seen that Marcellus could use “Son” as a synonym for “Word”; as we shall see in a moment, it is possible that he would have used “Son of God” and “Son of humanity” as designations for the Word as pre-incarnate and incarnate. Marcellus’s use of the title “only-begotten” is more difficult 30. Πιστεύω δὲ ἑπόμενος ταῖς θείαις γραφαῖς ὅτι εἷς θεὸς καὶ ὁ τούτου μονογενὴς υἱὸς λόγος, ὁ ἀεὶ συνυπάρχων τῷ πατρὶ καὶ μηδεπώποτε ἀρχὴν τοῦ εἶναι ἐσχηκὼς, ἀληθῶς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, οὐ κτισθεὶς, οὐ ποιηθεὶς, ἀλλὰ ἀεὶ ὢν, ἀεὶ συμβασιλεύων «τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ» οὗ «τῆς βασιλείας» κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀποστόλου μαρτυρίαν «οὐκ ἔσται τέλος.» οὗτος υἱὸς, οὗτος δύναμις, οὗτος σοφία, οὗτος ἴδιος καὶ ἀληθὴς τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος, ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, ἀδιαίρετος δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ, δι᾽ οὗ τὰ πάντα τὰ γενόμενα γέγονε. 31. See fragment P 18 S/V 3 K 43 cited above, and fragments P 9 S/V 20 K 38, P 14 S/V 68 K 51, P 15 S/V 6 K 53, P 17 S/V 71 K 33. 32. οὐκοῦν ἐπειδὰν τοὺς ἐχθροὺς σχῇ ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν οὐκέτι χρῄζει τῆς ἐν μέρει ταύτης βασιλείας, πάντων καθόλου βασιλεὺς ὑπάρχων· συμβασιλεύει γὰρ «τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί,» οὗ λόγος ἦν τε καὶ ἐστίν. P 125 Seibt 105 Vinzent 106 K 117.



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to pin down. The logic of his argument against pairing “only-begotten” and “first-born”33 would seem to leave room for the view that the former is a preincarnation title, the latter one that belongs to the economy according to the flesh, but there are other indications which would seem to tell in a different direction.34 This creed’s concentration on the Christ of the incarnation reminds us of one of the most important aspects of Marcellus’s theology: the way in which the incarnation is for him the heart of the Good News. “Begotten of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin” reminds us that, whatever his opponents argued, Marcellus believed that both the divine and human origins of Christ were soteriologically essential. Indeed, we might add that Marcellus’s soteriology does not work unless Christ is both true God and true human being. Without arguing that his Christology was exactly Leonine (Marcellus lacked a sense that the One Mediator had to unite divinity and humanity eternally within himself), I would claim that the Contra Asterium fragments suggest that Marcellus does have a Christology of divine exchange that depends on Christ’s being both true God and true human being: Touching the human body and showing it to their eyes, he said, “Does this scandalize you? Then what if you were to see the Son of humanity ascending where he was before?” (P 124 Vinzent 105 Seibt 106 K 118)35 For that not in order that the Word should be benefited did he assume our flesh, but in order that the flesh might receive immortality because of the fellowship with the Word, is clear also from this declaration of the Savior. For concerning the flesh which he had when he conversed with the disciples, he speaks thus: “Does this scandalize you? So what if you were to see the Son of humanity ascending where he was before? The Spirit gives life, the flesh imparts no benefit.” (P 125 Vinzent 106 Seibt 105 K 117) 36

33. See fragment P 4 S/V 10 K 3. 34. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 52, discusses Marcellus’s apparently contradictory use of “beget” (γεννᾶν) and «one begotten» (γέννημα), arguing that they seem not to be technical terms for him, but that Marcellus does seem to allow γέννημα as a pre-incarnation title. 35. τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου γὰρ ἁψάμενος σώματος καὶ δείξας αὐτὸ τοῖς ὁρῶσιν «τοῦτο ὑμᾶς σκανδαλίζει;» ἔφη «ἐὰν οὖν ἴδητε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀνιόντα, ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον; τὸ πνεῦμα ζωοποιεῖ, ἡ σὰρξ οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ.» 36. ὅτι γὰρ οὐχ ἵν᾽ ὁ λόγος ὠφεληθῇ τὴν ἡμετέραν ἀνείληφεν σάρκα, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα ἡ σὰρξ διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν λόγον κοινωνίαν ἀθανασίας τύχῃ, δῆλόν ἐστιν καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς τῆς τοῦ σωτῆρος ἀποφάσεως. περὶ γὰρ τῆς σαρκὸς, ἣν ἔχων ὡμίλει τοῖς μαθηταῖς, οὕτω λέγει «τοῦτο ὑμᾶς σκανδαλίζει; ἐὰν οὖν ἴδητε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀπιόντα ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον; τὸ πνεῦμα ζωοποιεῖ, ἡ σὰρξ οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ.»

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For Marcellus, the “this” of “Does this scandalize you?” (John 6:61) is the human flesh which the Word has assumed. Does it scandalize the disciples to see the Word in a human body? Well, what about seeing a human being (the “Son of humanity”) ascending to where the Word was before? Salvation is twofold, both times from the Word (that is, the Spirit, here): the Word gives life to humankind first by assuming human flesh, and then by promoting it to sit at the right hand of the Father (he returns to the Father, Marcellus says elsewhere, wearing the human flesh “like some crown of victory”).37 Marcellus expresses the same idea by talking about the twofold glory which Christ has given to humankind:38 And he made the human being who had fallen through disobedience worthy to be joined to his own Word through the Virgin. For what sort of other, greater glory might there be among human beings than this glory? But having said “I have glorified you” he goes on to say, “And I shall glorify again,” so that because of the superabundance of his love for human beings he might make immortal the formerly mortal human being in the second glory after the resurrection of the flesh, and he might glorify him with such great glory that he might not only be freed from the former slavery, but even made worthy of more than human glory. (P 111 S/V 80 K 107)39

Of course (as Lienhard points out) salvation for Marcellus is a whole series of events, as Christ recapitulates and redeems all that has gone wrong with humankind, successfully replaying Adam’s old match with the devil with a new outcome through the agony in the garden and the crucifixion (and no doubt the temptations in the wilderness as well).40 But the two moments which stand out in Marcellus’s soteriology are the incarnation—the “begetting of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin”—and the rising from the dead as first-born of the new creation, promoting humankind to the “more than human glory” not just of being freed from slavery to the devil, but of eternal life. Regarding Marcellus’s faith in the Holy Spirit, I doubt if Lienhard’s account of the pneumatology of the fragments can be bettered.41 However, it is worth noting also the evidence of De Sancta Ecclesia, which explicitly criticizes 37. P 116 S/V 84 K 127. 38. See Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 63–64, for further discussion of this theme. 39. καὶ ἠξίωσεν τὸν πεσόντα διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς ἄνθρωπον τῷ ἑαυτοῦ διὰ τῆς παρθένου συναφθῆναι λόγῳ. ποία γὰρ ἐν ανθρώποις ἑτέρα μείζων δόξα γένοιτ᾽ ἂν τῆς δόξης ταύτης; εἰπὼν δὲ ὅτι «ἐδόξασά σε,» ἐπιφέρει λέγων «καὶ πάλιν δοξάσω,» ἵνα δι᾽ ὑπερβολὴν φιλανθρωπίας ἐν τῇ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν τῆς σαρκὸς δευτέρᾳ δόξῃ τὸν πρότερον θνητὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀθάνατον ἀπεργάσηται καὶ τοσαύτῃ αὐτὸν δοξάσῃ δόξῃ, ὡστε μὴ μόνον αὐτὸν τῆς προτέρας ἀπαλλαγῆναι δουλείας, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῆς ὑπὲρ ἄνθρωπον ἀξιωθῆναι δόξης. 40. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 64–65. 41. Ibid., 52–53.



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Marcellus’s opponents (who include Eusebius of Caesarea) for their low pneumatology: “And again they blaspheme the Holy Spirit, saying that it is not necessary that this should be worshipped or venerated, for they call it a slave and a servant.”42 We may add to this the criticism of Marcellus in the Easterners’ Letter of Serdica, that his peculiar heretical mixture included Montanism.43 This is a good indication that he believed in ecstatic prophecy, the Holy Spirit speaking through seers as through an instrument—something we have other reasons also for suspecting Marcellus thought.44 Marcellus’s ecclesiology is also interesting. In the surviving passages of the Contra Asterium, references to the church are scattered, and sometimes difficult to put together. In an early fragment, Marcellus applies to Matthew 16:18–23 the prophecy of Zechariah 3:2 (“And the Lord said to the devil, ‘May the Lord rebuke you who chose Jerusalem.’”): For when did he rebuke him? When he joined the one whom he loved to his own Word. “The one who chose Jerusalem,” he says, clearly this one of ours, concerning which the Apostle says, “But our Jerusalem is above; for this one is in bondage with her children.” For at that time, in the time of the coming to be of the great Jerusalem itself, that is, our Church, he rebuked the devil according to the prophecy, saying, “Depart from me, Satan, because you are a scandal to me.” So then, he is the great priest, of whom the Jesus at that time preserved a type. (P 19 S/V 4 K 1)45

In the other two explicit references to the church in the fragments, it is “preappointed of old by God Almighty” (P 42 S/V 37 K 19), and Christ is “established as king over the Church” (P 118 S/V 99 K 111). The Church seems in the later fragment to be equated with the kingdom of heaven, but it is explicitly the kingdom which Adam lost by disobedience: “So indeed the one who came down and took flesh through the Virgin was established as king over the Church, clearly in order that through the Word humankind might be able to 42. De Sancta Ecclesia 18 (Logan, 93). 43. Hilary, Fragmenta Historica A IV 1.2.4 (= A. L. Feder, ed., S. Hilarii Pictavensis Opera, iv, Tractatus Mysteriorum, Collectanea Antiariana Parisina [Fragmenta Historica] cum Appendice [Liber I ad Constantium], Liber ad Constantium Imperatorem [Liber II ad Constantium], Hymni, Fragmenta Minora, Spuria, CSEL 65, 50). 44. The reference at the beginning of De Sancta Ecclesia to the Church as “poured out” (κεχυμένη) throughout the world evokes the famous “prophets’ charter” of Joel LXX 2.28–29, “I shall pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” 45. πότε γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐπετίμησεν; ὅτε τὸν ἀγαπηθέντα ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἄνθρωπον τῷ ἑαυτοῦ συνῆψεν λόγῳ. «ὁ ἐκλεξάμενος» φησὶν «τὴν Ἱερουσαλὴμ,» δηλονότι ταύτην τὴν ἡμετέραν, περὶ ἧς ὁ ἀπόστολος λέγει «ἡ δὲ ἡμετέρα Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἄνω ἐστίν· αὕτη γὰρ δουλεύει μετὰ τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς.» τηνικαῦτα γὰρ ἐν τῇ μεγάλῃ αὐτῃ Ἱερουσαλὴμ, τουτέστιν ἐν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ ἐκκλησίᾳ γενομένος ἐπετίμησεν τῷ διαβόλῳ κατὰ τὴν προφητείαν εἰπὼν «ἄπελθε ὀπίσω μου, σατανᾶ, ὁτι σκάνδαλον εἶ ἐμοί.»

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receive a kingdom, having earlier fallen from the kingdom of heaven.”46 So the Church is a kingdom, a polity, with Christ at its head, but clearly also a partial kingdom which will come to an end. Its purpose, we learn, is to abrogate the power of the devil: “Having been established king through the Word, the man who was earlier deceived will make ineffective all rule and power and authority of the devil” (P 120 S/V 101 K 113). But “when [the Word] should have his enemies as a footstool for his feet, he no longer needs this partial reign, being king of all things generally” (P 125 Seibt 105 Vinzent 106 K 117). So the kingdom of the Church will end at the time of the “restoration of all things,” as all authority is returned to God, the Father together with his Word, who will then be all in all. This is all rather rudimentary (and very much driven by ad hominem argument to explain those passages in Scripture which refer to a figure who becomes king at a moment in time), if suggestive. In De Sancta Ecclesia, we have a somewhat more systematic picture of the Church, if again one driven by ad hominem concerns. Here, Marcellus is concerned to argue for the catholicity of the church. The subtext (probably in response to the Dedication synod of Antioch of 341) is that the Eastern half of the empire cannot make major theological decisions without the participation of the West: So then, there is one Catholic Church across the whole of the inhabited world, which having received the faith from the apostles preserves it until now; and it is called Catholic because it subsists as having been poured out throughout the whole world, according to the saying “Their voice has gone out through the whole earth, and his words to the bounds of the inhabited world,” and “That incense is offered in every place, and a pure sacrifice to God, and from the rising of the sun even to its setting the name of the Lord has been praised among the nations,” and again the prophecy says as from the persona of the God and Father to the Son, “I have placed you as a light of the nations, in order that you might be for salvation to the end of the earth.” (De Sancta Ecclesia 2 [Logan, 90])47

46. ὁ γοῦν καταβὰς καὶ τὴν σάρκα διὰ τῆς παρθένου προσλαβὼν κατεστάθη βασιλεὺς ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, δηλονότι ἵνα διὰ τοῦ λόγου ὁ τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν πρότερον ἐκπεπτωκὼς ἄνθρωπος βασιλείας τυχεῖν δυνηθῇ. 47. Μία τοίνυν καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία ἔστιν καθ᾽ ὅλης τῆς οἰκουμένης, ἥτις ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων παραλαβοῦσα τὴν πίστιν ἄχρι νῦν διαφυλάττει· καθολικὴ δὲ εἴρηται διότι καθ᾽ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου κεχυμένη ὑπάρχει κατὰ τὸ εἰρημένον «Ἐις πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν ἐξῆλθεν ὁ φθόγγος αὐτῶν καὶ εἰς τὰ πέρατα τῆς οἰκουμένης τὰ ῥήματα αὐτοῦ,» καὶ «Ὅτι ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ θυμίαμα προσφέρεται καὶ θυσία καθαρὰ τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου καὶ ἕως δυσμῶν τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου δεδόξασται ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσι,» καὶ πάλιν ἡ προφητεία ὡς ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατὸς πρὸς τὸν υἱὸν «Ἰδοὺ,» φησὶ, «τέθεικά σε εἰς φῶς ἐθνῶν τοῦ εἶναί σε εἰς σωτηρίαν ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς.»



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The Church here appears in classic Irenaean terms, as one, catholic, and apostolic, in contrast to the heresies, which are none of these. The piece ends by arguing that those who have been led astray by Marcellus’s opponents have “harvested the name of the heresiarch,” Arius, “having lost the name of the one who nourished them, the holy catholic and apostolic Church.”48 It might be added that Marcellus’s own life gives us a further implied ecclesiology. I have argued elsewhere that the only plausible explanation for Marcellus’s disappearance from ecclesiastical affairs from 345 to his death in 374/75 is a deliberate decision on his part to withdraw from the Arian controversy.49 And yet he presided at the end of his life over a flourishing series of church communities in Ancyra who called him “Father.”50 Considering the fact that Ancyra was on the main highway from Constantinople to Antioch, considering the centrality of Basil of Ancyra to the events of 341 to 360, and considering the amount of attention which the continuing Eustathians in Antioch attract in the years 345–77 and beyond, it is nothing short of astonishing that Marcellus’s own actions after 345 attract no comment at all. Athanasius (after 357) continues to write about Marcellus as a victim of the “Arians,” but purely in relation to events before 345.51 Likewise, those who write against Marcellus, up to and including Basil of Caesarea in the 370s, still make no reference to any actions of his more recent than the early 340s. In Basil’s case, given his strong views on Marcellus, his readiness to complain about the actions of Apollinarius and Eustathius of Sebaste, and the proximity of Caesarea to Ancyra, this is particularly surprising. He mentions the actions of Marcellus’s followers from time to time, but never of Marcellus himself. This must all imply that keeping the ecclesiastical peace, once it became clear that Serdica had failed, became Marcellus’s main aim. He ended his life having had and perhaps continuing to have serious theological differences with his former allies. Whether out of conviction or loyalty, he could not condemn his former deacon Photinus, even when everybody else, including his own community, did. But the attitudes of his friends and community toward him, toward one another, and toward the Church speak eloquently. Both 48. De Sancta Ecclesia 19 (Logan, 93). 49. Parvis, Lost Years, 248–52. I do not think the alternative suggestion that Marcellus suffered from senility for thirty years, without any of his enemies ever mentioning the fact, is plausible. 50. Οἱ μὲν κληρικοὶ καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ ἐν Ἀγκύρᾳ τῆς Γαλατίας μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Μαρκέλλου συναγόμενοι (Creed of Eugenius the Deacon 1.1). Eugenius, the ambassador from the Ancyran communities to Athanasius, describes the number of congregations involved in sending him (who all seem to be from Ancyra) as ἀναρίθμητον πλῆθος (1.3). Even if this is something of an exaggeration, it suggests a flourishing group. 51. See, e.g., Hist. Ar. 6.

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Athanasius and the West, led by Damasus of Rome, refused to agree to his condemnation. The Ancyran community of the 370s, which glories in its connection with Marcellus, is on good terms with these, with at least some of the bishops of Greece and Macedonia (among whom Marcellus may have spent the years 343–61) and with the continuing Eustathians.52 Moreover, after Marcellus’s death they even attempt to bury the hatchet with Basil of Caesarea. (Basil more or less admits that they are orthodox, and that what worries him is simply their reputation among his friends.)53 These are the actions of a community that values loyalty, catholicity, and peace. It seems reasonable to think that their ecclesiology must have been a good mirror of Marcellus’s. Since the Arian controversy in general was sometimes rather short on forgiveness, it might seem appropriate here to turn to Marcellus’s confessed faith in the forgiveness of sins, a doctrine to which he made an important contribution. The synod of Ancyra of 314, over which Marcellus presided, is one of the major early sources for the development of the sacrament of reconciliation.54 Ancyra establishes (probably developing an already existing practice) a series of stages of reconciliation: a period of hearing the readings and then departing, giving way to a period of remaining in the church but praying apart, bowed down, during the prayers of consecration; a period of standing with the others, but without receiving communion; and finally reception back into full communion, usually within a seven-year period (that is, at the beginning of the seventh year). This was an important mechanism for healing in communities after the Great Persecution, when those who had undergone torture or lost their lands and possessions for the sake of the gospel were faced with the desire to return to the Church of those who had given in more or less easily and sacrificed, preserving their status at the expense of solidarity with their (often lower-class) brethren. Ancyra welcomes even those who have previously made no attempt to return to the Church on the proviso of six full years’ penance, though the penance is extended to ten years for anyone who forced others to sacrifice.55 52. See Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 8–9, and his two articles “Basil of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra and ‘Sabellius’” and “Did Athanasius Reject Marcellus?” 53. See Basil’s Letter 266.1: “So, having been troubled many times by the Galatians, I was never able to reply to them, since I was awaiting your judgments. And now, if the Lord should grant it, and they should wish to endure us, we hope to lead the people to the Church, so that we ourselves be not reproached with going over to Marcellians, but that they become members of the body of the Church of Christ, so that the wicked reproach which has been scattered from the heresy might be done away with by our taking them to ourselves, and that we not be put to shame as having sided with them.” 54. On the place the canons of Ancyra 314 hold in the early canon law collections of both East and West, see J. Gaudemet, Les sources du droit de l’ église en Occident du IIe au VIIe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1985). 55. See Ancyra canons 6 and 9.



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Ancyra also limited penance for adultery for both men and women to a seven-year period, and for women who commit abortion to ten, explicitly citing its desire to soften an earlier ruling which excluded them for life.56 These contrast sharply with the canons of a slightly earlier synod at Iliberris (Elvira), which excluded a number of miscreants from receiving communion even at the moment of death, and those of the contemporary synod of Arles, which may have intended to do the same (the Latin is ambiguous: “Concerning those who accuse their brothers falsely, placuit eos usque ad exitum non communicare”).57 I have argued elsewhere that Marcellus may have been responsible for the clear ruling on the point given in canon 13 of Nicaea (“Concerning those who are dying, the ancient and canonical law is to be protected also now, so that if someone is dying he is not to be deprived of the last and most necessary viaticum”).58 But in any case, given the concerns of Ancyra, it seems clear that forgiveness of (post-baptismal) sins was high on the list of Marcellus’s pastoral concerns: eighteen of the synod’s twenty-five canons address it in one way or another. In the case of the resurrection of the flesh, we should note that this, too, is one of Marcellus’s distinctive theological concerns. Although we have no lengthy surviving discussion of the topic of the sort we find in Athanasius’s De Incarnatione, we can see that for Marcellus also salvation is, among other things, the making incorruptible and immortal of human flesh: The Word of the invisible God was about to be born through the Virgin and to assume human flesh, also in order that having prevailed through it against the devil who earlier overpowered humankind, he might prepare it to become not only incorruptible and immortal, but even enthroned in the heavens with God. (P 115 S/V 83 K 110)59

Marcellus’s view of the worth of human flesh can seem ambivalent. Eusebius attacks Marcellus for on the one hand making the flesh the image of God, and on the other throwing it away, claiming that it is not worthy of the Word.60 56. See ibid. canons 20 and 21. 57. See, e.g., Iliberris canons 7, 8, 63, 64; Arles canon 14. Even those who think the canons of Iliberris represent a composite document (see Maurice Meigne, “Elvire: concile ou collection?,” Revue d’ histoire ecclesiastique 70 [1975]: 361–87) believe the earliest canons belong to a council from the beginning of the fourth century. 58. Parvis, Lost Years, 93–94. 59. ὁ λόγς τοῦ ἀοράτου θεοῦ διὰ παρθένου τεχθήσεσθαι ἔμελλεν καὶ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἀναλήψεσθαι σάρκα, καὶ ἵνα δι᾽ αὐτῆς τὸν πρότερον κατισχύσαντα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου διάβολον καταγωνισάμενος μὴ μόνον ἄφθαρτον αὐτὸν καὶ ἀθάνατον γενέσθαι παρασκευάσῃ, ἀλλὰ καὶ σύνθρονον ἐν οὐρανοῖς τῷ θεῷ. 60. Eusebius, Contra Marcellum 3.1–4.

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But it is important to note the ad hominem context of Marcellus’s remarks in an argument against the idea that the Word qua Word is somehow promoted at the ascension. When he insists, for example, that “the Spirit gives life, the flesh imparts no benefit,”61 he is pointing out that in both the descent of the Word into human flesh and the ascent of Christ to sit at the right hand of the Father, the flesh is the beneficiary; the Word qua Word gains nothing. That Marcellus stresses just how astonishing the fact of the incarnation actually is does not detract from his view of the importance of human flesh. For Marcellus, human flesh is simply what we are. He never contrasts it with a naturally immortal or ontologically superior human soul. We can see the difference between Marcellus’s anthropology and, say, Eusebius of Caesarea’s, by Eusebius’s criticism that the flesh of Christ could not have an independent existence if abandoned by the Word. For Eusebius, the Word supplies the place of a soul in Christ, and without it the flesh is simply a lump of flesh.62 For Marcellus, “flesh” encompasses the whole of the psychophysical unity that is humankind; there is no separable part of a human being that has any closer affinity to God than does the flesh. Redeemed flesh is capable of a great deal: capable of incorruptibility, immortality, “more than human glory.” But even in its immortal state, it is not worthy to be eternally united to God—any more than purely spiritual entities are. For “that not everything which is immortal is united to God is clear also from the fact that dominions and authorities and angels are immortal, but belong in no way to the oneness of God.”63 The problem with human flesh is not that it is flesh—simply that it is not God. But the consequence of this is that it retains its own identity—it is not destined to dissolve eternally into God. For Marcellus, we will still be recognizably us in eternity. This may be implied also by his confession of belief in ζωὴν αἰώνιον.64 All of this shows that Marcellus’s inclusion in his letter of defense to Julius of a creed close to the Roman tradition in not simply flattery. This is his rule of faith, which closely matches his theology as expressed both before and after 341. Where it lacks a confession of the relationship between the Father and the eternal Son, Marcellus supplies one which is in no way incompatible with what he has previously said on the subject in the Contra Asterium. Finally, he puts the crux of the trinitarian question as he sees it: if the Word is separated from God Almighty, then it is necessary either to confess that there are two Gods, or to confess that the Word is not truly God. 61. P 124 Vinzent 105 Seibt 106 K 118. 62. Eusebius, De Ecclesiastica Theologia 1.20.40–41. 63. P 127 S/V 108 K 120. 64. This is of course an extremely common New Testament phrase, and one which is confessed in the First Creed of Antioch (at the request of Julius of Rome?), though in few other creeds before the fifth century (Constantinople has the form καὶ ζωὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος).



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Conclusion: Marcellus and the Rule of Faith Today Marcellus remains most famous for his negative contribution to theology, as the target of the phrase “whose kingdom shall have no end” in the Constantinopolitan Creed (known as the Nicene Creed in the modern liturgy). But, as Lienhard has argued, what he has to offer our understanding of the rule of faith is rather more than this. Lienhard singles out Marcellus’s witness to other ways of understanding the Trinity than the so-called “Cappadocian solution”: “As the eastern Church accepted the formula ‘one ousia, three hypostaseis,’ it gained clarity in its doctrine. But Marcellus may still say to the Church that the phrase remains in need of careful explanation and that there were other ways, too, of speaking about the mystery of God, One and Three.”65 More controversially, one might say that Marcellus’s particular trinitarian value is to show that it was not only theologians of the Latin-speaking church who would answer the questions “Who is the One God of the Old Testament?” and “Who is the First Cause?” with “Father, Son and Spirit together.” But Marcellus is perhaps even more importantly the theologian of the scandal of the incarnation. The scandal of the cross was perhaps the dominant theological kerygma of the twentieth century. The horrors of wars, of the Holocaust, of tortures, massacres, and genocides, of grinding poverty and oppression, of mass starvations and mass violations, have fixed our eyes on Jesus’ cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” The answer to that question cannot be cheap. But if it has an answer, that answer is the incarnation. Many Christians in the West now doubt the incarnation, scandalized by its particularity, its anthropocentrism, and even its apparent undervaluing of the worth of human life for its own sake. If Jesus was God, that makes him so much the less human, in the eyes of many, and what we really want is a Savior who is truly human. Marcellus reminds us that we are right to be scandalized by the incarnation: For who would have believed, before the demonstration of the facts, that the Word of God would assume our flesh, having been born through the Virgin, and would display the whole Godhead in it bodily? (P 38 S/V 33 K 16)66

65. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 244. 66. «τίς» γὰρ πρὸ τῆς τῶν πραγμάτων ἀποδείξεως «ἐπίστευσεν» ἂν ὅτι λόγος θεοῦ διὰ παρθένου τεχθεὶς τὴν ἡμετέραν ἀναλήψεται σάρκα καὶ τὴν πᾶσαν θεότητα ἐν αὐτῇ σωματικῶς ἐπιδείξεται.

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He argues against all attempts to explain the incarnation away or to soften it by making the Son either less than true God, or less than truly human. One of Asterius’s phrases that strikes a particularly raw nerve for Marcellus is the claim that Father and Son are one “because of the harmony in all things, both words and works”: For Asterius asserted the Father and the Son to be one and the same thing in this way only, that they are in harmony in all things. For he spoke thus: “And because of the precise harmony in all things, both words and works, ‘I and the Father are one.’” (P 83 S/V 125 K 72)67

Marcellus argues that, on the contrary, the story of the incarnation is a story of disharmony: For what sort of harmony was there, in the time of the Passion, when he says this: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass,” but also adds this: “But not as I will, but as you will”? (P 84 S/V 74 K 73)68

The human struggle against pain and death is real. But, paradoxically, that saving disharmony, the Father willing the cross and the Son not willing it but accepting it anyway, only makes sense for Marcellus if the Father and Son are one God. (Otherwise, in other words, we simply have the story of a divine child abuser.) For Marcellus, unless we are prepared to hear the incarnation as a story of profound disharmony, a story that shrieks with outrage at its own impossibility, we have not yet thought enough about what it actually means. But unless we believe that “the Father and I are one” ontologically and not just in harmony of will, the incarnation has not actually happened. “Does this scandalize you?” Marcellus asks, with Jesus, of the incarnation. “Then what if you were to see the Son of humanity ascending where he was before?” We are rightly all too suspicious of salvation, which can seem to be preached as an opiate for the suffering, a carte blanche for the monstrously sinful, a sop for our own bad consciences concerning people we have hurt and good deeds we have left undone. And yes, Marcellus tells us, we should be scandalized by salvation. That is the only way we can begin to appreciate the enormity of what it actually means. 67. ἓν γὰρ εἶναι καὶ ταὐτὸν Ἀστέριος κατὰ τοῦτο ἀπεφήνατο μόνον τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὸν υἱὸν, καθ᾽ ὃ ἐν πᾶσιν συμφωνοῦσιν. οὕτω γὰρ ἔφη· καὶ διὰ τὴν ἐν πᾶσιν λόγοις τε καὶ ἔργοις ἀκριβῆ συμφωνίαν «ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν.» 68. ποία γὰρ ἐν καιρῷ τοῦ πάθους συμφωνία τοῦτο λέγοντος, «πάτερ, εἰ δυνατόν, παρελθέτω τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο,» ἐπιφέροντος δὲ κἀκεῖνο «πλὴν μὴ ὡς ἐγὼ θέλω, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς σύ.»

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6  Apollinarius and the First Nicene Generation Over the past twenty years, I have been seeking the roots of the unique Christology of Apollinarius of Laodicea, whom Pope Damasus condemned in Rome in 377 for denying that the Incarnate Word possessed a human soul. My research on the one trinitarian treatise securely attributed to Apollinarius, the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις, revealed that Apollinarius was significantly influenced by the anti-Marcellan tradition of trinitarian theology that Eusebius of Caesarea initiated in the late 330s with the publication of his works the Contra Marcellum and the Ecclesiastical Theology.1 All scholars of this period owe a debt of gratitude to the research of the Rev. Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., which has done so much to illuminate both the theology of Marcellus himself and of Eusebius and the writers after him, who created an identifiable anti-Marcellan tradition in theology that was highly influential in fourth-century Greek theology.2 On the basis of the knowledge I have gained from close study of Lienhard’s work, I have argued that the anti-Marcellan tradition was likely to have been influential not only on Apollinarius’s trinitarian theology, but also on his Christology, since it is clear that Eusebius of Caesarea also rejected the existence of a human soul in Christ.3 My goal in pursuing this line of research is to argue that I want to thank Sara Parvis of the Edinburgh University Divinity School for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 1. This was one of the major conclusions of my Ph.D. dissertation: “A Study of the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις by Apollinarius of Laodicea” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1991), 212–318. Throughout this essay, the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις will be abbreviated as KMP. Unless otherwise noted, all translations here are my own. 2. See Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and FourthCentury Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), which contains the fruit of both his 1986 Habilitationsschrift taken at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg im Breisgau, and the several articles that followed it. 3. See Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “Apollinarian Christology and the Anti-Marcellan Tradition,” JTS, n.s. 45, no. 2 (1994): 545–68, esp. 566–68.

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the roots of Apollinarius’s theology in both its trinitarian and Christological dimensions are to be located earlier in the fourth century than scholars have previously thought. With this essay, I would like to open another avenue to the possible early sources of Apollinarius’s thought: the theology of Eustathius of Antioch. In an article composed for the Festschrift for the Rev. Brian Daley, S.J., I have recently explored both the ecclesiastical connections between Marcellus of Ancyra and Eustathius of Antioch, and the theological kinship between these two bishops, both of whom were prominent early opponents of Arius and were eventually deposed by supporters of the latter.4 While examining the similarities and differences between these two thinkers was valuable in itself as illuminating the ideas of the “first generation” of Nicene thinkers, it is also relevant for the study upon which I embark here. To be honest, when I set out to study both the ecclesiastical and theological links between Marcellus and Eustathius, I was triangulating. Since Apollinarius’s opposition to Marcellus and his supporters is well documented in the historical record, I thought that if one could show that there were significant links—both ecclesiastical and theological—between Marcellus and Eustathius, such links would increase the probability that Apollinarius was influenced in his formative years not only by opposition to Marcellus, but also by opposition to Eustathius. On the surface, such a claim has a certain geographic plausibility, for Eustathius was the bishop of Antioch, a place not far from Apollinarius’s home town of Laodicea, and one where Apollinarius was known in later life to teach.5 Moreover, Apollinarius’s disastrous intervention in the mid-370s in the complicated politics of this ancient see intensified the negative scrutiny of his theology that eventually resulted in his condemnation.6 More to the point, however, is the fact that 4. Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “Two Early Nicenes: Eustathius of Antioch and Marcellus of Ancyra,” in In the Shadow of the Incarnation: Essays on Jesus Christ in the Early Church in Honor of Brian E. Daley, S.J., ed. Peter W. Martens, 121–48 (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008). 5. See Laodicea in the province of Coelesyria, map 15A in F. van der Meer and Christine Mohrmann, Atlas of the Early Christian World, trans. Mary F. Hedlund and H. H. Rowley (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1959). Located in Coelesyria, Laodicea would be under the metropolitan jurisdiction of Antioch, the precedence of which was formally asserted in the sixth canon of the council of Nicea in 325 and confirmed by the second canon of the council of Constantinople in 381. See Périclès-Pierre Joannou, Fonti, Fascicolo IX, Discipline Generale Antique (Rome: Grottaferrata, 1962), 28–29, 46. Jerome, Epistle 84.3 in Jérôme Labourt, ed., Saint Jérôme, Lettres, vol. 4 (Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1954), 127), says that he heard Apollinarius lecture on Scripture in Antioch, though the exact date when this took place is unclear. See Pierre Jay, “Jerome auditeur d’Apollinaire de Laodicée,” Revue des études augustiniennes 20 (1974): 36–41. 6. Spoerl, “A Study of the KMP,” 39–51.



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in his extant fragments, Eustathius makes the explicit claim that Apollinarius disputes: namely, that in becoming incarnate the divine Word assumed a human soul as well as a human body.7 So if one grants my general thesis that Apollinarius probably developed his Christology initially in response to influences coming from the first generation of Nicenes (for example, Marcellus of Ancyra) rather than ones emerging in the 360s or 370s (for example, Diodore of Tarsus), Eustathius of Antioch, one of Marcellus’s comrades-in-arms at Nicaea, is surely a source worthy of examination. One might ask why I have waited this long to broach this subject. To begin with, I was hesitant because of the lack of a comprehensive edition of the fragments of Eustathius of Antioch. Happily, the publication of Jose Declerck’s edition has removed this obstacle.8 Secondly, I was aware that Apollinarius’s opposition to Eustathius is much less well documented than his opposition to Marcellus. Jerome says outright that Apollinarius wrote antiMarcellan works,9 and I have argued that the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις is just such a work, filled as it is with anti-Marcellan tropes and scriptural exegesis common to anti-Marcellan literature. There is no comparable evidence regarding Apollinarius’s opposition to Eustathius. For example, to my knowledge, Apollinarius never mentions Eustathius by name in the extant fragments.10 Nevertheless, there is a certain amount of circumstantial evidence suggesting that Apollinarius is likely to have known the theology of Eustathius, which in turn would have made it possible for him to make the criticism of it an important part of his own theology. This paper will attempt to lay out that evidence, specifically by focusing on Apollinarius’s interactions with two bishops of Laodicea who were early supporters of Arius, and critics of those who opposed Arius, including Eustathius of Antioch and Marcellus of Ancyra. I will examine these incidents in detail, and try to map out on the basis of them a likely scenario for Apollinarius’s theological development in the 330s and 340s. This will involve considering not only the relations between Apollinarius and his predecessors in the see of Laodicea, but also the relationship Apollinarius developed with Athanasius of Alexandria beginning in 346. It is my conviction that if we look at this compli7. For references, see Spoerl, “Two Early Nicenes,” 130–31. 8. José H. Declerck, ed., Eustathii Antiocheni, Patris Nicaeni, Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, Corpus Christianorum: Series Graeca 51 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002). 9. Jerome, De viris inlustribus 86 in PL 23:730B. 10. This is based on an exhaustive search through the Apollinarian fragments in Hans Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea unde seine Schule (1904; repr., Hildescheim: Georg Olms, 1970). I also examined the fragments of Apollinarius’s disciples in Lietzmann, and they did not reveal any references to Eustathius of Antioch either.

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cated web of relationships between early supporters and detractors of Arius in the years just before and following Nicaea and Apollinarius’s interactions with them, we will see that it is likely that Apollinarius was influenced by not only the anti-Marcellan tradition, but also the anti-Eustathian one. In fact, I will argue here that it is possible that the anti-Marcellan tradition—at least in its Christological dimensions—was anti-Eustathian too. This study will in turn set the stage for a more detailed comparison of the fragments of Apollinarius and Eustathius to unearth the textual evidence that would lend further support to the claim that the theology of Eustathius was a significant influence on the early Apollinarius. The larger benefit of this long-range study, of which this article represents a first stage, will be to illuminate how the thought of the first Nicene generation was adapted and modified by the second generation of those who embraced the teachings of the first ecumenical council. The first piece of evidence we can cite to suggest that Apollinarius could have been familiar with the teachings of Eustathius of Antioch at an early stage of his theological formation is the implication of ecclesiastical figures from Laodicea in the downfall of Eustathius and in the reporting of that downfall. Eustathius became bishop of Antioch in 323.11 Athanasius alleges 11. Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 1.7.10 in Leon Parmentier and Günther Christian Hansen, eds., Theodoret: Kirchengeschichte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998), 32. See also Sozomen, Historia ecclesaistica 1.2.1–2 in Joseph Bidez and Günther Christian Hansen, ed., Sozomenus: Kirchengeschichte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 10. The date of Eustathius’s accession to the see of Antioch has been the subject of some controversy. The date I cite reflects Sara Parvis’s reconstruction in opposition to the date (early 325) cited by Richard W. Burgess, Studies in Eusebian and Post-Eusebian Chronography (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999), 190–91. In a private e-mail message dated January 27, 2009, Parvis offered the following reasons for her dating. She agrees with Burgess that one of Eustathius’s predecessors, Philogonius, died in December 323. The question is when Paulinus of Tyre became bishop of Antioch, and whether he came before or after Philogonius. A complication is that Paulinus was not bishop of Tyre at the time of Nicaea; the diocese was instead represented at the council by a certain Zeno. Burgess believes that the only way to explain this is to conclude that Paulinus succeeded Philogonius before Eustathius, but died in late 324 or early 325, to be succeeded by Eustathius. Parvis provides another possible reason why Paulinus is no longer bishop of Tyre at Nicaea, but may also have been bishop of Antioch both before and after the council. She notes that Licinius’s ban on Christian synods in the early 320s would have impeded the holding of an episcopal council to elect Philogonius’s successor in Antioch in late 323. What happened in the wake of his death, she proposes (and the claim certainly has plausibility in view of the subsequent history of this see), was the election of two rival bishops in Antioch, from opposite poles of the then-roiling controversy generated by Arius: Paulinus in the faction supportive of Arius allied with Eusebius of Caesarea, and Eustathius in the faction opposed to Arius and allied with Alexander of Alexandria. The schism in the Antiochene church impeded Constantine from his triumphant tour of the East to celebrate his victory over his enemies; hence he sent Ossius of Cordoba to Antioch to investigate the matter and to determine who was the rightful bishop of Antioch. This would have involved the holding of the council of Antioch in early 325 at which the ecumenical council of what eventually was Nicaea was announced and Eusbeius of Caesarea (along with Narcissus



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that, during his episcopate, Eustathius drove out of the diocese supporters of Arius, including one George, who became bishop of Syrian Laodicea circa 335, at the death of Theodotus.12 Eustathius was present at the Antiochene synod of late 324 or early 325 wherein Eusebius of Caesarea, Narcissus of Neronias, and Theodotus of Laodicea were placed under provisional ban until the ecumenical synod at Nicaea that summer.13 Both Eusebius and Theodotus eventually signed the creed of the Council of Nicaea that Eustathius (and Marcellus) enthusiastically championed at the council,14 but in the aftermath of the council, from late 325 to 327, Eustathius engaged in a pamphlet war with Eusebius of Caesarea over the latter’s alleged dishonesty in signing off on the creed.15 The hostility between Eustathius and his pre-Nicene opponents resulted in revenge at the provincial synod of the diocese of Coele-Syria in the fall of 327, when Eustathius was deposed.16 Again, about this event, there are significant Laodicean connections: Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History claims that along with Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodotus of Laodicea led the charge against Eustathius at the council at which he was deposed.17 The names of Eusebius of Caesarea and Theodotus of Laodicea later appear on the list of signatories of Neronias and Theodotus of Laodicea) were placed under provisional ban. Parvis contends that the reason for such a ban was the refusal of Eusebius and company to support Eustathius as bishop of Antioch, instead of their ally Paulinus. According to this reconstruction, then, Eustathius was initially elected bishop of Antioch in late 323 after the death of Philogonius, but was only officially recognized as bishop at the Antiochene synod of early 325. Paulinus, meanwhile, was without a see from the latter date, having been replaced at Tyre when he became bishop of one of the two communities at Antioch in late 323. He becomes bishop of Antioch definitively only after the deposition of Eustathius in 327, though he holds the see for only about six months before he dies. 12. Athanasius, Historia Arianorum 4.2 in Hans-Georg Opitz, Athanasius Werke, vol. 2, pt.1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1938), 185. For more on George, with relevant references, see “Georges de Laodicée” in the Dictionnaire d’Histoire de et Géographie Ecclésiastique, vol. 20, ed. R. Aubert (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1984), 630; “George of Laodicea” in Encyclopedia of the Early Church, trans. Adrian Walford, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 343. 13. The document appears in Syriac as Urk. 18 in H. G. Opitz, ed., Athanasius Werke, vol. 3, t.1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1934), 36–41. See Declerck, ccclxxxvii, n. 5. 14. See Sara Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy 325–345 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 255. The names of all four bishops, Eusebius of Caesarea (no. 26), Theodotus of Laodicea (no. 51), Eustathius of Antioch (no. 49), and Marcellus of Ancyra (no. 114) appear in the Greek list of signatories to the council’s decisions. See H. Gelzer, H. Hilgenfeld, O. Cuntz, eds., Patrum Nicaenorum Nomina (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1995), 62, 63, and 66. 15. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.23.6–8 in Günther Christian Hansen, ed., Sokrates: Kirchengeschichte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 69–70; Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 2.18.3–4 in Bidez, 74. For more on this, see Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 97–107. 16. This reflects the reconstruction offered by Parvis, ibid., 101–7. The date and causes of Eustathius’s deposition have been much discussed in past scholarship; on this see ibid., 101, n. 27. 17. Theodoret Historia ecclesiastica 1.21.4 in Parmentier, 70.

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of a synod of Antioch that appointed Eustathius’s successor.18 In addition, Socrates’s history reports that one of the charges against Eustathius at the synod was “Sabellianism”—and that he had this information from George of Laodicea, Theodotus’s successor, in his encomium of Eusebius of Emesa.19 As we know from Lienhard’s research, Eusebius of Emesa was another author of antiMarcellan treatises from the mid-fourth century.20 This evidence reveals that Laodicean figures were opposed to the theology of Eustathius even before Nicaea, were active in his deposition after Nicaea, and continued to damn his reputation for decades after he went into exile.21 What is especially significant about these reports of Eustathius’s deposition is that historians say Apollinarius had dealings with both these figures—Theodotus and George—early in his career, and that his dealings were not uniformly hostile, but were, in fact, just the opposite. I will turn to these incidents now, and consider what they reveal about the theological influences to which Apollinarius might have been subject early in his career. If we grant that Eustathius’s name would have been held in suspicion by bishop Theodotus and his successor, exactly when might Apollinarius have become apprised of this? As with many figures in the ancient world about whom we would like to know much more, we have very little information about Apollinarius—until about the year 362, when the Tomus ad Antiochenos identifies him as a bishop and he emerges onto the wider stage of ecclesiastical politics.22 But what we do have is intriguing, and relevant to the question of Apollinarius’s possible relations with Eustathius and his opponents. Socrates states that Apollinarius’s father was a teacher of rhetoric originally from Alexandria, who after a sojourn in Berytus (modern-day Beirut) came to Syrian Laodicea, married, and had a son, the Apollinarius who later became the controversial theologian and bishop, whom the father also trained to be a teacher of rhetoric.23 The first significant report we have about Apollinarius, other than 18. See E. Schwartz, Zur Geschichte des Athanasius, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1959), 216–26, especially 219–20, in a discussion of canons previously attributed to the Dedication synod of 341. The names of Eusebius and Theodotus appear as nos. 1 and 10 on the list. 19. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.24.2–3 in Hansen, 70. 20. See Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 186–97. See also the short biography in E. M. Buytaert, O.F.M., Eusèbe d’Émèse: Discours conservés en latin (Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1953), xi–xii. 21. Given that Eusebius of Emesa is believed to have died circa 360. 22. Athanasius, Tomus ad Antiochenos 9 (PG 26:808A), describing the deliberations at the council of Alexandria in 362, mentions the presence of monks at the council, sent by “Apollinarius the bishop.” (My italics.) 23. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.46.



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this one about his origins, concerns an incident in his youth. According to the historians Socrates and Sozomen, Apollinarius senior and junior, probably as professional colleagues and, for Apollinarius the younger, as student, were intimate with the pagan sophist Epiphanius.24 The historians report that on one occasion when Epiphanius was singing a hymn to the pagan god Dionysius, Apollinarius and his father remained in the hall. For this, the historians report that bishop Theodotus excommunicated both Apollinarii because they were clerics, Apollinarius senior a presbyter and Apollinarius junior a reader.25 Presumably their attendance at the event was seen as giving scandal—because suggesting support for syncretism—to observant Christians at a time when pagan practice was still ongoing in the cities of the Roman Empire. The event has to have taken place before 335, the year in which Theodotus probably died, but placing it earlier is difficult because of the lack of exact knowledge about the year of Apollinarius’s birth. Raven claimed that to be a reader, Apollinarius had to have been at least eighteen years of age, placing his birth date at the latest in 317, though he also advances a possible birth date as early as 310, which would place this event at the earliest circa 328.26 Either way, it is likely that the conflict with Theodotus occurred in the post-Nicene period, when Theodotus was technically in agreement with the council’s creed, but also (we must assume from his actions at the council that deposed Eustathius) working against those who had supported the creed most passionately. Indeed, the incident may have occurred within a year of the deposition of Eustathius, to obtain which outcome Theodotus had cooperated with Eusebius of Caesarea.27 What are we to make of the excommunication of the Apollinarii? Does it reveal anything about their ecclesiastical sympathies at this somewhat fraught time? It is difficult to say. What it does reveal at the very least, which will be reaffirmed throughout Apollinarius’s career, is a certain “maverick” tendency on Apollinarius’s part—a tendency to think and act independently, to resist confinement to a distinct theological or ecclesiastical “party,” and to reject authority when he thought it justified.28 We see this in 24. This may or may not be the Epiphanius mentioned in Philostratus and Eunapius, The Lives of the Philosophers, trans. Wilmer Cave Wright (London: Heinemann, 1922), 514–15. See also Pauly-Wissowa’s Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertums Wissenschaft, s.v. “Epiphanios,” no. 8. 25. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.46.2–5 in Hansen, 185; Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 6.25.9–12 in Bidez, 271–72. 26. Charles E. Raven, Apollinarianism: An Essay in the Christology of the Early Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), 129. 27. See Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 105, for her evaluation of Theodoret’s report of these events. 28. The Socrates passage (Historia ecclesiastica 2.46) reads as follows, suggesting the Apol-

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Apollinarius’s refusal to accept the authority of Pelagius of Laodicea when the latter is consecrated by Acacius of Caesarea in 360, we see it in his attempts to thwart Julian the Apostate’s ban on Christian teachers of rhetoric a few years later, and we see it in his consecration of his disciple Vitalis to the already wildly contested see of Antioch in the mid-370s.29 But this maverick tendency explains only the first aspect of this incident: Apollinarius’s breach of clerical discipline in the service of his professional educational interests. What I find particularly interesting in this report is what the historians say about the aftermath of the incident: namely, that Apollinarius and his father sought readmission to communion with Theodotus and after a period of what seems to have been sincere penance (Sozomen says they completed it “by tears and fasting”), they obtained it.30 Given that Apollinarius the younger would later be seen as a paragon of Nicene orthodoxy,31 I have always found this incident intriguing: Apollinarius the Nicene seeking readmission to communion with the bishop who had been an active supporter of Arius and who had recently engineered the deposition of one of Arius’s prominent early opponents? If we take the report at face value, it would suggest that, at least at this point in his career, Apollinarius was not merely content to recognize Theodotus’s authority but even eager to garner his approval, and this in turn would suggest that he did not dispute Theodotus’s theological views. And what might be salient aspects of that theological view? It must be remembered that at the probable time when Apollinarius linarii paid scant attention to the bishop’s prohibition: “They were contemporaries of Epiphanius the sophist, and being true friends they became intimate with him; but Theodotus bishop of Laodicea, fearing that such communication should pervert their principles, and lead them into paganism, forbade their associating with him: they, however, paid but little attention to this prohibition, their familiarity with Epiphanius being still continued.” Translation from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 74. 29. On Apollinarius’s refusal to recognize Pelagius’s consecration, see Spoerl, “A Study of the KMP,” 15–18. For his circumvention of Julian’s ban, see Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 5.18.3–4 in Bidez, 222; Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.16 in Hansen, 210–12. For Apollinarius’s consecration of Vitalis to the see of Antioch, see Theodoret Historia ecclesiastica 5.4.1 in Parmentier, 282. 30. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 6.25.12 in Bidez, 272. 31. See Basil of Caesarea, Epistle 129.1 in Saint Basil, Correspondance, vol. 2, ed. Yves Courtonne (Paris: Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 2003), 39. In a letter written circa 373 to Meletius of Antioch, Basil expresses to Meletius the likelihood that he will be surprised by recent accusations against Apollinarius’s orthodoxy, and admits that prior to hearing of them himself, he had been ignorant of such accusations. See also Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 77.2.1 in Karl Holl and Jürgen Dummer, eds., Epiphanius, vol. 3 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1985), 416–17: “It was the venerable old man, always beloved by us, by the blessed Pope Athanasius, and by all the orthodox, Apollinaris from Laodicea, who first thought up this doctrine and brought it forward.” Translation from The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, trans. Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 339.



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was excommunicated (late 320s/early 330s), Theodotus was still officially on record as supporting the Nicene creed; hence the pursuit of communion with him did not necessarily suggest that Apollinarius was opposed to Nicaea—to its assertion that the Son was begotten, not created from the Father, that the Son was from the Father’s substance, possibly even that the Son was ὁμοούσιον with the Father.32 At the same time, however, Theodotus was making clear his opposition to any understanding of the Nicene council’s faith that would support Sabellianism—the very heresy of which Eustathius was accused, according to George of Laodicea’s report. This would at least suggest some concern that meaningful distinction between the persons of the Trinity be upheld was important in the Syro-Palestinian ecclesiastical environment in which Apollinarius would have been receiving his religious formation. Could it have gone as far as asserting more than one οὐσία in the godhead—as Theodotus’s ally Eusebius of Caesarea was accused of asserting when questioned at the Antiochene council prior to Nicaea?33 In the wake of Nicaea, this is unlikely.34 Still, the fact that Apollinarius sought readmission to Theodotus’s communion so fervently suggests that he may have shared his bishop’s anti-Sabellian convictions and associated them with the fallen bishop of Antioch. These anti-Sabellian convictions, in turn, were to receive further confirmation within the same period, because within a few years of Eustathius’s deposition, circa 328, the latter’s one-time fellow Nicene supporter, Marcellus of Ancyra, would publish a book against Asterius the Sophist, attacking him as the chief theorist of the “Arian” cause.35 As Lienhard has shown, Marcellus then became the next avatar—after Eustathius—of “Sabellius.” Recent scholarship has shown that Eusebius of Caesarea probably composed his first antiMarcellan work, the Contra Marcellum, as evidence to be cited against Marcellus’s orthodoxy at the Council of Constantinople in 336, which deposed him.36 Eusebius then composed his more comprehensive refutation of 32. Of course, as is well noticed in the literature about Nicaea and its aftermath, the controversial Nicene watchword drops out of theological discourse until the 350s. 33. Marcellus of Ancyra speaks of this in frgs. 116–17 in Markus Vinzent, ed., Markell von Ankyra, Die Fragmente, Der Brief an Julius von Rom (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 108–11. 34. Indeed, as far as I can determine, the proposition of multiple οὐσίαι in the godhead that is under discussion prior to Nicaea drops out almost completely from fourth-century theological discourse after the council. Two possible exceptions appear in references in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical Theology 2.23.1 in Erich Klostermann and Günther Christian Hansen, eds., Eusebius Werke, vol. 4 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1972), 133, and 3.19.1 in Klostermann/Hansen, 180. 35. On this, see Markus Vinzent, ed., Asterius von Kappadokien, Die Theologischen Fragmente (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 21–22, and also Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 118–23. 36. Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 129, citing the proposal of Markus Vinzent, Markell von Ankyra, xix.

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Marcellus’s theology, the Ecclesiastical Theology, by his death in May 339.37 As noted above, Marcellus was accused of the same Sabellian heresy that Eustathius was, and deposed with the cooperation of the same figure who had cooperated with Theodotus of Laodicea in the deposition of Eustathius: Eusebius of Caesarea. Hence one can assume that if Apollinarius associated Eustathius with Sabellianism in Laodicea, he was taught the same about Marcellus by Theodotus’s successor, George (who nevertheless does not seem to have been present at the council that deposed Marcellus).38 And this is obvious from the accumulated evidence of anti-Marcellan rhetoric (of which Eusebius’s anti-Marcellan works initiate a long tradition) in Apollinarius’s trinitarian treatise, the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις.39 But a more intriguing question is the extent to which Apollinarius could have known about not just Eustathius’s and Marcellus’s “Sabellianizing” trinitarian theology, but also their Christologies. This is where my recent comparison of the theologies of Eustathius and Marcellus has been instructive. That comparison revealed some real similarities between the Christologies of the two bishops, notably in their suggestion that the humanity of Christ has a certain degree of hypostatic independence, and in their willingness to attribute psychological authenticity to the human Christ, to suggest that Christ has the anthropological “equipment,” as it were, to experience human emotion and to exercise human free will. This equipment would include, of course, a human soul. In my research, I noted that while Marcellus suggests this with his exegesis of the struggle in Gethsemane, Eustathius makes such an attribution entirely explicit, and this in fragments scattered through his extant works.40 The latter makes such an attribution, also explicitly, against his Arian opponents, who denied such a claim, he argues, the better to attribute the vulnerabilities Christ exhibits in the gospels to what they want to argue is the subordi37. On this see Timothy D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 56; Klaus Seibt, Die Theologie des Markell von Ankyra (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994), 243; and Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 156. 38. See the list of provinces from which bishops attended in Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 259. 39. It should be noted that at least two pseudonymous treatises that contain anti-Marcellan rhetoric, the Pseudo-Athanasian Contra Sabellianos and Oratio Contra Arianos 4, have been attributed to Apollinarius in recent scholarship. Lienhard describes the works in Contra Marcellum, 212–27. For the attributions to Apollinarius, see Reinhard M Hübner, Die Schrift des Apolinarius von Laodicea gegen Photin (Pseudo-Athanasius, Contra Sabellianos) und Basilius von Caesarea, Patristische Texte und Studien 30 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), and Markus Vinzent, Pseudo-Athansius Contra Arianos IV: Einen Schrift gegen Asterius von Kappadokien, Eusebius von Cäsarea, Markell von Ancyra und Photin von Sirmium, Supplements to VC 36 (Leiden: Brill, 1996). 40. Spoerl, “Two Early Nicenes,” 130–36.



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nate and mutable divinity of the indwelling Word.41 In my view, this increases the likelihood that Eustathius was articulating his Christological model from an early stage in the Arian controversy, possibly going back to the late teens into the 320s. There is no mention in the account of Eustathius’s deposition that indicates that Christological heresy was any factor in the downfall of the bishop of Antioch, and so there is no direct evidence to suggest that criticism of the idea was circulating among Eustathius’s Laodicean opponents and possibly influencing Apollinarius as early as the late 320s/early 330s. However, it should be noted that at the end of the first book of the Ecclesiastical Theology, Eusebius of Caesarea explicitly denies the existence of a human soul in Christ.42 Given the fact that this treatise is directed against Marcellus of Ancyra, I have argued that the articulation of this “proto-Apollinarian” Christological model is made explicitly against Marcellus. However, noting the similarity between the Christologies of Eustathius and Marcellus, I now think Eusebius’s assertion is likely to be equally directed against Eustathius, Marcellus’s Nicene ally, who by 339 had been in exile for ten years or more.43 The significance of this is to suggest that even if Christological objections do not appear in reports of Eustathius’s deposition in the late 320s, it is evident that by the late 330s an explicit countermodel to his Christology, shared in significant ways with Marcellus of Ancyra, had been articulated in the Syro-Palestinian ambit in which Apollinarius lived and from that point on, if not earlier, could have been influencing the future Nicene bishop of Laodicea. Again, as I have already stated in print, I think Eusebius of Caesarea was a likely influence on Apollinarius’s Christology.44 To review, the incident reported by the historians of Apollinarius’s early conflict with Theodotus of Laodicea suggests that, certainly by 340 and very likely earlier, Apollinarius could have been exposed first to the antiSabellianizing arguments of Theodotus, Eusebius, and George against Eustathius and Marcellus, and to the criticism of a human soul in Christ, which Eusebius of Caesarea articulated explicitly against Marcellus—but also probably with Eustathius in mind. 41. See frg. 6.67.1–14; frg. 19.81.21–26 and frg. 74.145.14–146.18 in Declerck. The numbers refer respectively to fragment, page, and line numbers. 42. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical Theology 1.20.40 in Klostermann/Hansen, 87. See my comments on this passage in Spoerl, “Apollinarian Christology and the Anti-Marcellan Tradition,” 567–68, especially n. 74. 43. And according to Sara Parvis, probably dead, or he surely would have returned with the other exiles in 337 (e-mail message to author, November 28, 2008). 44. See Spoerl, “Apollinarian Christology and the Anti-Marcellan Tradition,” 545–68, esp. 566–68.

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I now turn to the next incident reported about Apollinarius in the historical record, which occurs in the year 346. Perhaps indicative of what I see as Apollinarius’s persistent independence, the next time he appears in the historical record before 362 he is again being excommunicated. This time it was Theodotus’s successor, George, who carried out the excommunication. According to Sozomen, the pretext was Apollinarius’s reception of Athanasius into communion when the latter was on his way back from exile in the west in 346.45 Two aspects of this incident are worthy of notice: first, the very fact that Apollinarius entered into communion with Athanasius, and second, that once again, when excommunicated, he sought readmission (repeatedly, πολλάκις, in fact) to communion with George.46 Now, granted, Sozomen suggests that it was the refusal to be readmitted to communion that caused Apollinarius to craft and disseminate the heresy for which he much later became notorious—so perhaps the report about seeking readmission to communion from George is an erroneous and unconvincing attempt to explain Apollinarius’s later actions. (Indeed, Apollinarius becomes associated with heretical ideas and schismatic actions only in the mid-370s.) On the other hand, the report is consistent with the previous one about Apollinarius’s dealings with Theodotus. It may indicate simply a desire on the part of a clergyman to be on good terms with the ecclesiastical authorities in his diocese, but in view of Apollinarius’s intellectual predilections, it probably also indicates at least some degree of comfort with George’s theological views. George was himself an early supporter of Arius in Alexandria; when excommunicated by bishop Alexander, he went to Antioch, from which Eustathius expelled him.47 He was present at the Antiochene “Dedication” synod of 341, whose second creed has been characterized as “violently anti-Sabellian, antiMarcellan.”48 Later in the 350s, he will emerge as one of the prominent voices of the Homoiousian trinitarian party, which was also significantly indebted to the anti-Marcellan rhetoric of Eusebius of Caesarea.49 He also seems to have been a ferocious opponent of Athanasius from an early stage in the “Arian” controver45. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 6.25.7–8 in Bidez, 271. 46. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 6.25.12 in ibid., 272. 47. See Athanasius, Historia Arianorum 4.2, in Opitz, vol. 2, pt. 1, 185. 48. On George’s participation in the Dedication Council, see Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 260. For the anti-Marcellan character of the second creed, see Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 169, citing J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (New York: Longmans, 1972), 270. Indeed, three out of the four creeds associated with this council have explicit anti-Sabellian, antiMarcellan dimensions. See Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 263–74. 49. George is clearly linked with Basil of Ancyra as leader of the Homoiousian party in Epiphanius’s Panarion, haer. 73. He does not seem to have been present at the Council of Ancyra in 358 but he is reported to have taken the Homoiousian position at the Council of Seleucia in 359. On this, see Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.39. For the anti-Marcellan coloring of Homoiousian theology, see Lienhard, Contra Marcellum, 211.



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sy, and Athanasius returns the hostility in the anti-Arian writings of the 340s and 350s—until he attempts to make common cause with the Homoiousians against the Anomoeans and Homoians at the end of the 350s.50 So Apollinarius’s behavior in 346 suggests something of an effort to square the circle, to stay on the right side of two men who took diametrically opposed positions in the trinitarian controversies and who seemed to have heartily disliked each other. What could the effort to maintain communion with both George and Athanasius suggest about the evolution of Apollinarius’s theology since his conflict with Theodotus in the late 320s or early 330s? Once again, I propose that the desire to be on good terms with George in the mid-to-late 340s suggests that Apollinarius saw some validity in George’s anti-Sabellian, anti-Marcellan views, with which he wanted to express his solidarity by being accepted into George’s communion. On that account, Apollinarius’s behavior is of a piece with his dealings with Theodotus and consistent with what one observes in the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις with its vigorous antiSabellian rhetoric. But completely new in this report is, of course, the relationship Apollinarius established with Athanasius in 346. I would argue that this incident is the first indication we have in the historical record that Apollinarius was going to ally with Nicene sympathizers in the ongoing trinitarian debates. While it is possible that all along Apollinarius had had such sympathies, there is no concrete indication of this prior to the establishment of his relationship with Athanasius. As I have noted, the relationship with Theodotus suggests the opposite. If one supposes that Apollinarius’s relations with Theodotus suggest sympathy with the Arian stress on the distinction of the divine persons (which evolves into the anti-Marcellan stress on the same in Eusebius of Caesarea), Apollinarius’s actions in 346 indicate a clear evolution in his views in favor of Nicaea and its strong statement of divine unity, and it is interesting to think why this might have happened by this time.51 My theory is this: one thing to keep in mind about the period beginning roughly in 340 is that it is a time of emerging polarization in the Christian Church, wherein the battle lines between the members of the old “Eusebian” party and the pro-Nicene party were becoming hardened, the latter being 50. For hostile references to George of Laodicea, see Apologia contra Arianos 8; 36; 43; 48; 49; Ad Episcopos Aegypti 7; Apologia de fuga 1 and 26; Historia Arianorum 4; 17; De Synodis 17. The latter reference is quite mysterious since, by the time this text was composed in 359, Athanasius was trying to ingratiate himself with the Homoiousian party, of which, as noted above, George was a prominent member. On Athanasius’s overtures to the Homoiousians, see Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius, 152. 51. I say “evolution” and not “change” because, as the KMP suggests, Apollinarius does not lose the concern for the proper distinction of the divine persons, but adds onto it a concern to account for their unity in Godhead, which perhaps even by this time, he thinks the Nicene creed or something equivalent might be better able to supply.

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labeled by their enemies “Sabellians” and the former being labeled by theirs “Arian.”52 It must have been at just such a time, when a “middle way” seemed harder and harder to find, that Apollinarius, now probably in his thirties and coming into his own both ecclesiastically and intellectually, was driven to reconsider his own position. This may have involved examining all of the relevant literature available to date, including the anti-Marcellan works of Eusebius of Caesarea but possibly also the works of Eusebius’s Sabellian enemies, Eustathius of Antioch and Marcellus of Ancyra himself.53 Interestingly, another result of the comparative study I conducted recently was that while the Christologies of Eustathius and Marcellus bear some real similarities, there were more significant divergences between the two bishops on the point of trinitarian theology. I argued in my study that Eustathius has a more robust account of the personal differences between Father and Son.54 It is possible that such a reevaluation of those formerly reviled as Sabellians led Apollinarius to a new appreciation for Eustathius’s pro-Nicene stance in trinitarian theology, but it is clear from his extant writings that Apollinarius would never have endorsed the existence of a human soul in Christ that Eustathius posited. The turn to a pro-Nicene trinitarian stance, however, would obviously have disposed Apollinarius to welcome Athanasius when he appeared in Laodicea and offered his communion to him. The record of the meeting in Sozomen is vague, but at least superficially it sounds like Athanasius initiated the meet52. For a recent study of the “Eusebian” party in the writing of Athanasius of Alexandria, see David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the Arian Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Sara Parvis would place the polarization of the two parties much earlier. See her article “The Strange Disappearance of the Moderate Origenists: The Arian Controversy, 326–341,” SP 39 (2006): 97– 102. In it, Parvis asserts that “from 326 to 341, it is all-out war, both political and theological.” While this may be true on some level, I think the polarization worsens with the much-noted “invention” of Arianism occurring during Athanasius and Marcellus’s shared exile in Rome (on this, see Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 180–81; but also Michel René Barnes, “The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon” in Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric and Commmunity, eds. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones, 47–67, esp. 53 [London: Routledge, 1998]), which is met from the opposing side by increasing anti-“Sabellian” rhetoric in conciliar decrees directed against Marcellus throughout the 340s. That the polarization is in full force, even after Eusebius of Nicomedia’s death in 341, which Parvis argues mitigates it somewhat, is also suggested by the failure of Eastern and Western bishops to come to agreement at the Council of Serdica in 343. On this see Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 210–45; Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius, 71–81. 53. I am skeptical that Apollinarius actually read Marcellus’s works. I tend to agree with Lienhard that by the time the KMP is written in the late 350s/early 360s and indeed as much as twenty years earlier, the portrayal of Marcellus’s theology in anti-Marcellan literature is unnuanced and stereotyped, suggesting a limited exposure to the actual work that got Marcellus condemned at Constantinople in 336. This would contrast with what I tend to think is a fairly intimate knowledge of Eusebius’s anti-Marcellan works in the KMP, since it involves not just the use of anti-Marcellan slogans, but also the biblical exegesis Eusebius used to attack Marcellus. 54. Spoerl, “Two Early Nicenes,” 124–29.



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ing.55 Many reasons are possible for that: perhaps the shared Alexandrian heritage; the fact that Apollinarius was an up-and-coming academic and churchman, whose influence might be useful to Athanasius when he returned to his diocese and from that position would attempt to recommence the campaign to win the Greek east for Nicaea; the very fact that Apollinarius, as a Nicene sympathizer, would have been an especially valuable ally in a diocese where Athanasius had a sworn enemy in bishop George. Surely, Apollinarius must have had his “conversion” to Nicaea—if conversion it was—prior to Athanasius’s arrival, or it is unlikely that the latter would have sought him out, or agreed to meet with him if in fact it was Apollinarius who initiated the relationship.56 In any case, the relationship became an important one for Apollinarius; he claims in later writings “always” to have been a disciple of the bishop of Alexandria.57 Later correspondence, however, suggests that Apollinarius, obviously much better educated than Athanasius, felt he retained the right to comment on the writings of the bishop of Alexandria.58 And Apollinarius’s reverence for Athanasius did not extend to his successor Peter—more proof of that persistent maverick tendency in Apollinarius.59 55. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 6.25.7–8 in Bidez, 271. 56. Again, I place this moment of “conversion,” if conversion it was, sometime before the meeting with Athanasius. In view of the history I cite above, n. 52, this occurred perhaps sometime circa 340, but more probably a little later in the decade, perhaps in 344–45, after the disastrous Council of Serdica triggered attempts at reconciliation between Eastern and Western bishops such as the “Long-Lined Creed.” On the latter, see Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 279–80. Interestingly, the latter creed uses the term three πρόσωπα for the members of the Trinity, which is the preferred terminology in the KMP. Markus Vinzent, who is sympathetic to the claim previously advanced in scholarship that the Pseudo-Athanasian Oratio Contra Arianos 4 has Apollinarian authorship, proposes a date circa 340–42 for the composition of the work, written as part of an effort to find a via media between the Arians (= the Eusebians) and the Sabellians (= Marcellus) by someone who has embraced the Nicene ὁμοούσιον. See Vinzent, PseudoAthanasius, Contra Arianos IV, ix–34, 386. For the purposes of this essay, I prefer not to take a stance on the authorship of the CA 4; nevertheless, Vinzent’s work suggests some emerging consensus that the basic shape of Apollinarius’s trinitarian theology was crystallizing in the 340s. 57. Apollinarius makes this confession in his letter to the Egyptian bishops exiled in Palestinian Diocaesarea: Ep. ad Diocaesareenses 1.255.24–25. The reference is to Lietzmann’s edition, citing by chapter, page, and line number. 58. We see this in late correspondence with Serapion of Thmuis, in which Apollinarius reports receiving a copy of Athanasius’s letter to Epictetus and approving of its contents. Of a tract he has received from Serapion, then, he suggests some refinements. See frgs. 159–61 in Lietzmann, 253–54. I discuss this at the end of my dissertation, reading this evidence as suggesting that Apollinarius, in spite of his personal reverence for Athanasius, did not see himself necessarily as in a mentor/disciple relationship with the bishop of Alexandria, but as a member of a community of like-minded equals. See Spoerl, “A Study of the KMP,” 369–70. 59. In fact, one of Apollinarius’s disciples, Timothy, claimed to be the orthodox successor to Athanasius in place of Peter, as we learn in Facundus of Hermiane, Defense of the Three Chapters to Justinian, 4.2.14–16 in Facundus d’Hermiane, Défense des Trois Chapitres (à Justinien), vol. 2 (books 3–4), trans. Anne Fraïsse-Bétoulières, SC 478, 150–53.

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But, again, in view of the bad blood between the bishops of Laodicea and Alexandria—which Apollinarius must surely have known about from ecclesiastical circles as well as the outright prohibition George had issued in the diocese against meeting with Athanasius—why did Apollinarius think he could establish a relationship with Athanasius and still retain George’s communion? It is possible that, in meeting with Athanasius, Apollinarius was consciously pointing up some inconsistency in George’s policy. If George saw Athanasius as a Sabellianizer like other early Nicenes such as Eustathius and Marcellus, Apollinarius may have been able to point to the fact that Athanasius had relatively recently broken communion with the bishop of Ancyra.60 Moreover, my 2003 Oxford paper revealed that Athanasius probably incorporated antiMarcellan rhetoric derived from Eusebius’s anti-Marcellan works into his own anti-Arian writings.61 Hence, Apollinarius may have thought that, far from being an enemy, Athanasius was in the process of evolving toward a trinitarian position closer to George’s and thus was someone to be tolerated, even cultivated, rather than scorned. Perhaps he even saw himself as attempting the kind of reconciliation that George is reported to have sought between Arius and Alexander in the period prior to Nicaea.62 Lastly, it is a fact: when Athanasius returned to his diocese in 346, he was doing so with the explicit permission of the emperor Constantius.63 Hence, when Apollinarius sought readmission to communion after George’s excommunication, he may have felt he was justified in seeking it on the basis of two factors: 1) Athanasius seems to have become “safer” in trinitarian matters, and 2) Athanasius had imperial support for his return, which in Apollinarius’s view may have rendered George’s prohibition an illegitimate attempt to legislate on the basis of his own personal ani60. Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra, 248–52. 61. Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “Athanasius and the Anti-Marcellan Controversy,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 10 (2006): 34–55. 62. See the remark in Athanasius, De Synodis 17.5–7 in Opitz, Athanasius Werke, vol. 2, pt. 1, 245, wherein Athanasius quotes two letters allegedly from George, who was then presbyter of Alexandria and staying at Antioch: one to Alexander of Alexandria and one to unspecified “Arians,” wherein he urges various biblical passages that might support the positions of both parties, and urges the parties not to complain of one another. In some respects, this is one of the most intriguing pieces of information I have uncovered in the course of researching this article, suggesting that seeking the “middle way” between opposing viewpoints, which is what we see Apollinarius doing in the KMP between Arian and Sabellian trinitarian positions, may have been a perspective introduced into the Laodicean church environment by George. 63. Under pressure from his brother Constans. Nevertheless, Constantius is reported to have written a “circular letter to the bishops and priests of the catholic church everywhere announcing the pardon of Athanasius and the restoration of full privileges to the clergy loyal to him. . . . Constantius also furnished Athanasius with a letter of commendation to the Christians of Alexandria which encouraged them to respect the unanimity and peace of the church and discreetly warned them against disturbance and sedition.” (Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius, 92.)



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mosities. From this, then, came Apollinarius’s repeated efforts to be readmitted to George’s communion. Interestingly, despite the evident strain in their relations, my investigations into Apollinarius’s pneumatology suggest that he was influenced later in the 350s by the efforts of George to modify the problematic doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit that both had inherited from Eusebius of Caesarea and the anti-Marcellan tradition.64 This suggests ongoing theological dialogue between Apollinarius and George; and it seems possible that when Athanasius decided to reach out to the Homoiousian party at the end of the 350s against Anomoean and Homoian bishops, Apollinarius may have been a helpful intermediary from his location in Laodicea.65 Hence the Apollinarius who emerges from the encounter with Athanasius in 346 is already essentially the Apollinarius who composes the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις in the late 350s or early 360s: he is pro-Nicene like Athanasius, but like Theodotus and George he is anti-Marcellan. But where and when does the negative influence of Eustathius of Antioch figure into Apollinarius’s development—that is, the latter’s decided opposition to the notion of a human soul in Christ? I have argued above that it was already in place by 340 and more likely even earlier, conditioned by Apollinarius’s early exposure to rhetoric from Laodicean bishops directed against Eustathius of Antioch and Marcellus of Ancyra. Hence, it is possible, and even likely, that Apollinarius’s opposition to the human soul of Christ predates his public adoption of a pro-Nicene stance on the Trinity. 64. Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “Apollinarius on the Holy Spirit,” SP 37 (2001): 571–92; see especially 581, n. 46. 65. Support for this theory may be found in the fact that Socrates’s account (Historia ecclesiastica 2.46) of Apollinarius’s break with George mentions nothing about his meeting with Athanasius; he suggests the relationship broke down closer to the time of George’s death over trinitarian theology by mentioning the Council of Seleucia. In the same work, 2.39, Socrates says that George belonged to the party that “concurred in all the decisions of the council of Nicaea, but criticized its adoption of the term ὁμοούσιον.” This translation is from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, 68. This report does not necessarily conflict with Sozomen’s account of Apollinarius’s expulsion from George’s communion in 346. It may instead suggest that by the late 350s and the Council of Seleucia, George had become substantially “Nicene” in outlook, which would probably have drawn him closer to the trinitarian position Apollinarius was in the process of embracing in the 340s. Perhaps taken together, the two accounts suggest that, though technically out of communion with George since 346 (which Apollinarius may or may not have considered legally valid, again, in view of the fact that Athanasius returned to his see in 346 with imperial support), Apollinarius continued to recognize him as his bishop and was in dialogue with him and his Homoiousian fellows in 359 just as Athanasius was attempting to persuade the Homoiousians to accept the Nicene ὁμοούσιον. The Socrates passage might then suggest that the relationship broke down completely shortly before George’s death (perhaps because of his ultimate resistance to the Nicene ὁμοούσιον?) circa 360. Certainly, within roughly the same time period, that of his own consecration as bishop, Apollinarius comes out strongly in favor of the Nicene ὁμοούσιον (outlawed by numerous creeds since 357). See KMP 27.176.21.

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On this point, there is one other matter that should be addressed when on the subject of Apollinarius’s meeting with Athanasius in 346: that is the report that while in neighboring Antioch on the way home in 346, Athanasius worshipped with the continuing Eustathian community, thus establishing communion with them.66 Would this have “tainted” Athanasius in Apollinarius’s eyes? In view of subsequent events (that is, the fact that Apollinarius did meet with Athanasius) this is unlikely—and this perhaps because while Athanasius and the Eustathians shared similar trinitarian sympathies, Athanasius, as much scholarship discusses and certainly not at this point in his career, does not explicitly and consciously assert the existence of a human soul in Christ.67 That fact, combined with Athanasius’s recent break with Marcellus, may well have convinced Apollinarius that Athanasius was sound, not only in trinitarian matters, but also in Christology.68 In previous work I have speculated that Apollinarius was probably in communion with the Eustathian community at Antioch after 363 on the basis of his communion with Athanasius, who established communion with Paulinus, bishop of the Eustathian community, in that year.69 Though a deeper look at this question lies outside the chronological period under consideration here, I would now revise that view, suggesting that it is unlikely that Apollinarius was ever in communion with the Eustathian community at Antioch because of the Christological views of their founder. Certainly Apollinarius rejects the leadership of Paulinus circa 376 when he consecrates as bishop of Antioch his own disciple Vitalis (originally from 66. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 3.20.4–5 in Bidez, 134. 67. An informative and well-documented summary of scholarly criticism of this aspect of Athanasius’s thought (as well as a defense of Athanasius’s Christological orthodoxy) appears in Thomas G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction (Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007), 91–96. As Weinandy notes, the lack of a human soul is assumed by Grillmeier in his presentation of what he terms Athanasius’s Logos/Sarx Christology in Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1975), 311. Grillmeier’s assertion has been subjected to important, nuanced criticism in Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought (London: Routledge, 1998), 70–73. Anatolios’s criticism centers on what he regards as Grillmeier’s inappropriate attempt to force an analytical framework onto a Christology that Anatolios characterizes as instead “dialectical.” In my opinion, though, Apollinarius—who did have an analytical Christology—may still have found the lack of a specific assertion of a human soul in the bishop of Alexandria’s thought congenial to his own Christological outlook. 68. Athanasius’s written work provides relatively little evidence about his views on Eustathius of Antioch. There are two commendatory notices in Historia arianorum 4 and Apologia de fuga 3 that speak of Eustathius as an orthodox confessor persecuted by Arians, but little substantive discussion of the specifics of his theology. There is comparatively more discussion of Marcellus of Ancyra. Interestingly, the notice about Eustathius in Historia arianorum 4 notes Eustathius’s expulsion of George from the diocese of Antioch, and shortly afterwards (6) discusses Marcellus of Ancyra, again, showing the link between the two figures in early historiography of the controversy Arius’s teaching generated. 69. Spoerl, “A Study of the KMP,” 28–29.



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the community led by Meletius, consecrated by Acacius of Caesarea, another anti-Marcellan writer).70 I have suggested earlier that the precipitating factor in this move was the acceptance of Marcellans into communion by the Eustathian community,71 which would have inevitably antagonized someone with lively anti-Marcellan sentiments, as we can only conclude from the evidence of the Κατὰ Μέρος Πίστις. Epiphanius reports that after his consecration, Vitalis was in talks with the Eustathians under Paulinus, which may suggest an awareness that on trinitarian grounds the two communities— Apollinarian and Eustathian—shared affinities. But the extant records of the talks suggest that the rapprochement failed on the inability of the two communities to come to agreement on Christology—which may have been the sticking point for decades at that point.72 Hence, close study of two early incidents in Apollinarius’s career reveals his involvement with Laodicean bishops who were influential in the deposition of Eustathius of Antioch and his damning as a Sabellian heretic. The fact of these involvements—and that they suggest ongoing relations with the bishops in question—in my opinion increases the likelihood that Apollinarius could have known, not just about the trinitarian theology, but also about the Christology of Eustathius of Antioch from a relatively early stage in his career. The association between Eustathius and Marcellus, both as opponents of Arius and accused proponents of Sabellianism, and the involvement of Eusebius of Caesarea in the deposition of both also increases this likelihood, given Apollinarius’s apparent familiarity with anti-Marcellan rhetoric. Indeed, the striking similarities between the Christologies of Eustathius and Marcellus make it likely that Eusebius’s criticisms of Marcellus’s Christology are also criticisms of Eustathius’s Christology, and thus render Eustathius another indirect negative influence on the emerging shape of Apollinarian Christology. Lastly, Apollinarius’s embrace of Athanasius in 346—one of the last remaining survivors of the pro-Nicene alliance that included both Eustathius and Marcellus—suggests that in him, Apollinarius found the one survivor of the original Nicene controversy who had, from his point of view, both orthodox trinitarian and Christological views. What we can see from the historical reconstruction offered here, then, is the first generation of Nicene sympathizers giving way to the concerns of the second generation of Nicene sympathizers, which in Apollinarius’s case were both anti-Marcellan in Trinitarian theology, and anti-Eustathian in Christology. From this, we can gain more insight into how the Nicene creed eventually triumphed by the late fourth century as the definitive statement of the Christian rule of faith. 70. Ibid., 39–47. 71. Ibid., 59–62. 72. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. 77.20.5–24.9 in Holl, 434–37.

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7  The Enigma of Meletius of Antioch Distinguished people, in any age, often defy categorization. Meletius, one of several competing bishops of Antioch during a time of prolonged schism in the 360s and 370s, was apparently regarded even in his own time as a bright and attractive Church leader whose theological allegiances were hard to pin down.1 What the fifth-century Church historian Sozomen says of the hardline “Neo-Arians’” estimate of Meletius, at the beginning of his episcopal career in the late 350s, probably expressed the feelings of other parties of the time as well: they thought of him as “possessed of great and persuasive eloquence, of excellent life, and above all, as they imagined, as being of like opinions with themselves.”2 Meletius was well connected, persuasive, and highly influential in the Church of the eastern Mediterranean provinces, a powerbroker and peacemaker deeply revered by the next generation of leaders and thinkers— people as diverse as Basil of Caesaraea and the two Gregories, Diodore of Tarsus, and even Epiphanius of Salamis. He was also by all accounts a holy man, recognized even by his rivals as a person of striking kindness and gentleness.3 1. The most detailed treatment to date of Meletius’s life and career, in the context of the whole history of the Church in fourth-century Antioch, is the classic study by Ferdinand Cavallera, Le schisme d’Antioche (IV–Ve siècle) (Paris: Picard, 1905). Another good summary, less focused than Cavallera’s on questions of theology, is the chapter devoted to Meletius in Robert Devresse, Le patriarcat d’Antioche depuis la paix de l’Église jusqu’ à la conquête Arabe (Paris: Gabalda, 1945), 17–38. For a reconsideration of Meletius’s theological position in the light of a newer, more complex understanding of fourth-century theological debates, see Kelley McCarthy Spoerl, “The Schism at Antioch since Cavallera,” in Arianism after Arius, ed. Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams, 101–26 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993). 2. Sozomen, Church History 4.28 (trans. Chester D. Hartranft; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, 2 [repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994], 323). Church History hereafter abbreviated as CH. 3. See, for example, Basil of Caesaraea, Ep. 67 (from 371); Gregory of Nazianzus, On his own Life 1514–21; Theodoret, CH 5.3. Even before meeting Meletius in person, Basil addresses him by letter in an almost awestruck tone: see Ep. 57. Gregory of Nyssa, in his encomium delivered at Meletius’s funeral in June 381, paraphrases the first verse of the book of Job in describing

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Yet modern historians of patristic theology continue to debate, on the basis of the contemporary evidence that survives, just where Meletius actually stood on the central theological issues of his day, particularly on the role and status of the Son and the Holy Spirit within the mystery of God and the process of human salvation. Roy Deferrari expresses the frustration of many when he astutely remarks, in a footnote to his Loeb translation of Basil’s Letter 129, that Meletius apparently believed that truth lay in delicate distinctions, but his formula was so indefinite that it is difficult even today to grasp it clearly. He was neither a thorough Nicene nor a decided Arian, and he passed alternately as an Anomean, a Homoiousian, a Homoian, or a Neo-Nicene, seeking always to remain outside any inflexible classification. After his death his name long remained for the Eastern faithful a rallying sign and a synonym of orthodoxy.4

My argument here is that what appears to many modern readers as doctrinal elusiveness or politically motivated elasticity in Meletius of Antioch may well have seemed, for the people of the Eastern Churches of his day, to be the very heart of his orthodoxy and his pastoral moderation: a love of tradition, an ability to recognize the validity of many—but not all—competing ways of speaking about God, and above all a desire for wide-reaching Christian unity centered on Eucharistic communion. Meletius was a native of Armenia—according to Philostorgius, from Melitene or Armenia Secunda, the mountainous region of Asia Minor that lay just east of Cappadocia and just north of eastern Syria.5 Fifth-century historians assert that he served briefly as bishop of Sebaste,6 the provincial capital of Armenia Prima to the north, in 358 or 359, replacing the charismatic and controversial Eustathius, but that he soon resigned “because of the insubordination of the people,”7 who may have missed the prophetic behavior of their former pastor. Socrates tells us he was then briefly bishop of Beroea (presentday Aleppo) in central Syria, although this may simply have been a temporary residence.8 Socrates also informs us he was present at the imperially sponsored Meletius as “a nobleman from the East, blameless, just, truthful, reverent, who refrained from every wicked undertaking” (Encomium on Meletius: Gregorii Nysseni Opera IX [= GNO; Leyden: Brill, 1967], 445–46). Contemporary sources tend to refer to him as “the divine Meletius”—in other words, as a saint! 4. Saint Basil. The Letters 2 (trans. Roy J. Deferrari; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1962), 282–83, n. 2. 5. Epitome of CH 5.5. 6. Socrates, CH 2.43–44; Sozomen, CH 4.25. 7. Theodoret, CH 2.27. 8. CH 2.44. Cavallera, Le schisme d’Antioche, 94–95, and most other scholars since then, suspect Socrates is simply mistaken.

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synod of Eastern bishops at Seleucia in Isauria—roughly 150 miles west of Antioch—at the end of September 359, and was an official signatory to its somewhat minimalistic formula of faith. This creed, a compromise formula based on the so-called dated creed produced at Sirmium (in modern Serbia) the previous May, condemned as divisive extremes both the Nicene assertion that the Son is “of the same substance” (homoousios) as the Father and the Neo-Arian insistence that the two are radically “unlike” each other. Like the formula imposed on the Western bishops gathered at Rimini and at Niké in Thrace at about the same time, the creed of Sirmium contented itself with affirming that “the only-begotten Son of God, who was begotten impassibly from God before all ages and before all beginning and before all conceivable time and before all comprehensible essence [ousia],” is simply “like the Father who begot him, according to the Scriptures.”9 Modern scholarship, especially since the nineteenth century, has tended to be dominated by Athanasius’s assessment of the course of the orthodox faith in the fourth century, and to see the alternatives then available as being either an affirmation of unity in essence between Jesus, the Word incarnate, and the God he calls “Father,” based on the Church’s long tradition of venerating Jesus as divine, or else some version of what Arius affirmed: that the Son is a creature, formed by God to act as our Savior, but essentially like us, and therefore ontologically other than God. One of the main themes of more recent historical scholarship on fourth-century theological controversies has been to argue that the situation was not so simple.10 For most Christian leaders in the 320s and 330s, the creedal formulation of the Council of Nicaea (325), affirming that the Son is “of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father,” was as disturbing for the Church’s traditional faith as Arius’s bald insistence that the Son is simply the noblest of God’s creatures: it suggested Son and Father are really the same divine agent, the same “thing,” and therefore unable to have any genuine relationship with each other in which we, as saved humans, can share. So a sizeable majority of Greek-speaking bishops and writers in the middle decades of the fourth century seem to have been convinced that the most 9. CH 2.44. For the text of the creed of Seleucia, see Socrates, CH 2.40. For a presentation of these contested formulations of 359 and a discussion of the relationships between them, see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (London: Longman, 1972), 288–95; for an analysis of the meeting at Seleucia in greater detail, see Hanns Christof Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1988), 40–56. 10. See especially Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and John Behr, The Nicene Faith, 2 vols., (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004). The most definitive modern study of Arius and his theological background is Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002).



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accurate, biblically grounded way of talking about Jesus’ relationship to God was rather to affirm—in the spirit of Colossians 1:15–20 and the prologue to John’s Gospel—his “likeness” to the Father, and his consequent role as the source and redeemer of all creation, without venturing any explicit judgments about the degree to which he shared the transcendent status of the one God. Many Church leaders at that time, in other words, whom we now refer to as “Homoeans,” because they emphasized that Jesus is “like” (homoios) the Father, refused to identify themselves either with Arius and his followers or with the defenders of the Nicene formula, and were even more vehemently opposed to the highly rationalized anti-Nicene polemic developed in the 350s by “NeoArians” such as Eunomius and Aëtius. Hanns-Christof Brennecke, in the introduction to his detailed study of this dominant “Homoean” residue among Greek bishops in the mid-fourth century, characterizes them as belonging more to “the Origenist-Eusebian theological tradition” than to the backers of either Arius or Nicaea, and concludes: The Homoeans, therefore—on whom the title “Arian” has continually been pinned [by ancient and modern scholarship]—can only be understood theologically as anti-Arians. The identification of the Homoeans with the Anomoeans [that is, NeoArians], developed both in the Athanasian and in the Homoiousian tradition and partly adopted by scholarship until today, thus shows itself to be mere polemics. . . . An evaluation of the texts of the imperial synods [of 359 and 360] . . . reveals several peculiar features of the Homoean understanding of the Christian faith: an avoidance of theological speculation, simple Biblicism, and a zeal that sometimes turns into fanaticism against all things pagan, seem all to have been typical characteristics of Homoean Christianity.11

It is important to remember, however, that “the Homoeans” modern scholarship refers to were not really a formal group or party within the Greekspeaking Churches, and were probably much less unified in their theological language and agenda than were even the groups we speak of as “Arians” or “Homoiousians” or “Nicenes.” A better way to think of them is as the traditional Christians who were left, when all those groups had begun to pursue their own goals, and who felt more comfortable simply saying, with older tradition, that “the Son is like the Father” in all the ways that really matter. The contemporary heresiologist Epiphanius, who gives us a considerable amount of detail about the struggles in the Greek Church over the interpretation of Nicaea in the late 350s, and quotes in full the synodal drafts and texts 11. Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer, 2–3 [my translation].

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the various parties produced, reports that Meletius was present at Seleucia, as a member of the group supporting Acacius of Caesaraea, who seems to have drafted the synod’s formula;12 but Epiphanius does not list him among its signatories13—probably because he was not, at the time, a canonically resident bishop. In January 360, however, yet another synod of both Eastern and Western bishops was gathered by the emperor in Constantinople, to solidify what he saw as the gains made at Rimini and Seleucia and to ratify as part of imperial Church policy the Homoean approach to language about the relationship of Son to Father; here the supporters of this official, centrist position, again led by Acacius, contrived to have Meletius installed as bishop of Antioch, presumably because he seemed a safe representative of the conservative, mediating language of the imperial synods held the year before.14 Clearly the dominant party in these Greek-speaking synods of 359 and 360 were concerned, despite a good deal of local variation, to preserve what these bishops took to be the tradition of Christian faith as founded on Scripture and witnessed by the liturgy; philosophical terms seemed extraneous and possibly dangerously misleading, and were therefore suspect in the eyes of many. As Epiphanius—a man unusually sensitive to all possible shapes of heresy— himself argues, the majority of bishops at the time “held the same views, [but] each of them confessed them differently, and so it came about that they fell out with each other.”15 Meletius, as contemporary documents reveal, devoted his episcopal career to promoting a theology and a liturgical practice that avoided both the Nicene and Arian extremes, but that often struggled to find precise expression. The ups and downs of that career, over the next twenty years, testify both to the bitterness of these disputes and to the tenacity of his reconciling purpose. Close to the end of 360, the sources tell us, Meletius delivered a homily at Antioch in which he directly took on the controversial issue of the relation of the Savior to the God of Israel and affirmed, in carefully crafted phrases, that the Son of God is truly begotten from the ineffable, ingenerate Father, truly distinct as “perfect and abiding offspring from the One who is perfect and abides the same”; so the Son’s role is to interpret and represent the Father, not simply as God’s instrument of self-communication but as one who 12. Epiphanius, Panarion 73.23.4. 13. Ibid. 73.26. 14. Socrates, CH 2.44; Sozomen, CH 4.28; Theodoret, CH 2.27, who sees Meletius’s installation as the work of the “Arian” faction; see also Epiphanius, Pan. 73.28.1 (trans. Philip Amidon, The Panarion of St. Epiphanius [New York: Oxford University Press, 1990]), and Philostorgius, Epitome 5.1, both of whom ascribe Meletius’s advancement to the influence of Acacius. 15. Pan. 73.23.5 (Amidon, 311).



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“has his own existence and is active.”16 Nowhere here does Meletius use the language of “substance” or “hypostasis”—terms from the philosophical realm, which had been officially banned in the interests of peace by the recent imperial synod in Constantinople; nor does he adopt the compromise formula “like in substance” (homoiousios) then vigorously being promoted by Basil of Ancyra and George of Laodicaea, which the strict adherents of the Nicene formula (including Athanasius) apparently regarded as a weak substitute for orthodoxy. Fifth-century historians, however, conclude what must have been fairly obvious to the congregation in Antioch in 360: Meletius was, in effect, affirming the intent of Nicaea in his homily, even if he had avoided its contentious phrases.17 He was defining Christ, the Son of God, as a fully divine agent, personally distinct from the transcendent Father, yet deriving the whole of his reality from the Father and totally oriented toward the Father in being and work. As a result, even he must have struck Constantius as a potentially divisive figure in the turbulent Syrian capital, and the emperor quickly sent him into exile once again. When Julian succeeded Constantius as emperor in June 361, he allowed all the Christian bishops who had been exiled for doctrinal reasons to return home, and Meletius probably did so. While he was away, however, Constantius had appointed Euzoïus, a colleague of Arius from the 320s and 330s, as officially recognized bishop of Antioch; Meletius’s many followers, who seem to have remained deeply devoted to him,18 gathered for worship in what was known as “the old church” (palaia), outside the city walls, and the bishop probably joined them quietly there after his return.19 But the situation had grown more complicated since the previous year: with the apparent support of Athanasius of Alexandria, the Italian bishop Lucifer of Cagliari had visit16. Pan. 73.30.4–7 (Amidon, 318). For a careful discussion of the currents of thought that surrounded Meletius’s sermon of 360, and an analysis of the “hagiographical” and political tendencies of the sources, see Brennecke, Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer, 66–81. 17. Socrates, CH 2.44; Sozomen, CH 4.28; Theodoret, CH 2.27; Philostorgius, Epitome 5.1. Sozomen adds the colorful story that the deacon standing next to Meletius clapped his hand over the new bishop’s mouth in the middle of the sermon, to prevent him from explicitly promoting the Nicene faith, whereupon Meletius extended first three fingers, then one, to illustrate his main point. When the deacon then seized his hand, Meletius—his mouth again free—cried out loudly that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all together a single God. Theodoret represents his homily as the final act of a preaching contest in the presence of Emperor Constantius, on the text Prv 8:22, which also included the radical “Arian” George of Alexandria and Meletius’s “homoean” patron Acacius of Caesaraea. See Cavallera, Le schisme d’Antioche, 77– 85; Spoerl, “The Schism at Antioch,” 110–23. 18. This is attested by Meletius’s protégé John Chrysostom, in his encomium delivered in 386, five years after the bishop’s death: see PG 50.515, 517. 19. Socrates, CH 3.9; Sozomen, CH 5.13.

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ed the most earnest supporters of the Nicene theology in Antioch, and had ordained their priest Paulinus—a follower of Athanasius’s deceased ally Eustathius of Antioch—as bishop of the city. Paulinus’s flock seems never to have been large, and met, with his rival Euzoïus’s tacit permission, not in the main basilica but in one of the city’s smaller churches. Still, Antioch now had three bishops competing for authority: the “Arian” Euzoïus, supported since Constantius’s time by the court in Constantinople; the “Nicene” Paulinus, recognized by Alexandria, and by the Latin West through Athanasius’s influence; and Meletius, the city’s former bishop, who represented the more traditional, biblical approach to formulating the mystery of the divinity and the work of Christ that was favored by most of the bishops of Palestine, Syria, and eastern Asia Minor. By the mid-370s, the enterprising and eloquent Apollinarius of Laodicaea—an unequivocal Nicene with his own peculiar views of the constitution and personal pre-existence of Christ—had appointed a disciple, Vitalius, to act as yet a fourth bishop of this deeply divided city. With the succession of the pro-Nicene Jovian to the imperial throne in 363, some of the ideological differences seem to have abated for a while. The historians describe a synod at Antioch held late that year, in which the “Homoiousian” party of Basil of Ancyra joined with Meletius, Acacius of Caesaraea, and the more numerous Homoeans of Palestine and Syria in affirming the creed and language of Nicaea as orthodox, provided one understood homoousios not as implying numerical identity or impersonal emanation, but as a way of signifying “that the Son was begotten of the substance of the Father” and was not created from nothing, as all other beings are.20 In 364, Jovian died, and was succeeded in the East by Valens, who again showed imperial favor, in the Antiochene Church, to the Arian party of Euzoïus and his anti-Nicene associates. Meletius was officially exiled once again on May 5, 365, but seems to have remained in the vicinity of the city for most of the next six years, keeping a low profile and quietly encouraging his supporters, who continued to gather in the Old Church. During those years of clear, if shadowy, local leadership, Meletius became the mentor and friend of the young John Chrysostom, whom he baptized at Antioch, probably at Easter of 368, and ordained a lector in 371. The late 360s and 370s, however, during Valens’s reign as Eastern emperor, witnessed some new efforts at reconciliation among the Church’s episco20. So Sozomen, CH 6.4. Socrates, CH 3.25 (on which Sozomen usually bases his slightly later account) adds that homoousios also means that the Son “is like the father as to substance”—in other words, that homoousios and homoiousios really mean the same thing. Both historians’ versions of the text emphasize that the language of substance here is not meant in a technical philosophical sense, but as a way of emphasizing the Church’s opposition to Arius’s doctrine on biblical and traditional grounds, by affirming the full divinity of Christ.



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pal and theological leaders on the subject of Christ’s relationship to the Father. The goal was to avoid both extreme affirmations of the ontological unity of Father and Son, which seemed to abolish their personal difference and so make their relationship simply a matter of appearance, and extreme affirmations of their ontological difference, which would place Christ squarely in the realm of graced creatures. A synod of bishops from the area around Constantinople met at Lampsacus on the Hellespont, for instance, in 366, and agreed to return to the somewhat restrained formula of faith decreed at Seleucia in 359, while rejecting the rule laid down at Constantinople in January of 360 to avoid all references to “substance” or “hypostasis.” Sozomen, who describes this meeting in detail, tells us also that “they decreed that the doctrine of the Son being in substance like the Father”—homoiousios—“should have the ascendancy; for they said that it was necessary to resort to the use of the term ‘like’ as indicative of the hypostases of the Godhead.”21 The majority of bishops, in other words, were moving clearly in the direction of a modified, cautious affirmation of Nicaea’s faith in the full divinity of the Son, but one which avoided the possibility of modalism that many saw implied in the word homoousios. They were ready to see other, ontologically weighty expressions of “likeness,” including “like in substance” (homoiousios), as most closely representing the Church’s core of faith, provided these terms also expressed the permanent distinction of Father and Son as real centers of personal identity, real focal points for distinct predication—real “hypostases,” to use slightly later language— within the single reality of God. Agreement was less forthcoming at Lampsacus on the status and role of the Holy Spirit; Greek bishops in the early 370s, including those ready to affirm the Son’s hypostatic reality as substantially “like” that of the Father, generally seem to have been less ready to accord the same characteristics to the Spirit sent by the Son on his disciples—to think of the Spirit, in more modern terms, as a “divine Person.” Meletius was not at the synod of Lampsacus, as far as we know, but his theories and his hopes clearly lay in the same direction that the synod proposed.22 In the summer of 371, Valens—whose ecclesiastical sympathies remained decidedly opposed to the backers of Nicaea in all of their shades—insisted that Meletius go into exile in earnest. The bishop returned to rural Armenia, and spent the next seven years on his family estate at a still-unidentified spot called Getasa. This removal of an eloquent and attractive leader seems only to have drawn his sympathizers closer together into a cohesive group, spreading 21. CH 6.7 (trans. Hartranft, NPNF II, 2.350). 22. See, for example, Sozomen, CH 7.2. Epiphanius, writing in the mid-370s, says of the followers of Meletius that there were some “who, while they speak correctly concerning the Son, consider the Spirit to be a creature and completely foreign to God.” (Pan. 73.34.5).

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from Palestine through Syria and eastern Asia Minor, and to have strengthened their resolve. Epiphanius, at any rate, writing between 374 and 376 about the exiled Meletius and his party, interestingly characterizes them as evolving proto-trinitarians with a strong commitment to tradition: He is still alive in his own country, honored and beloved especially because of the reforms which we now understand him to have instituted and on account of what those subject to him in Antioch now profess: they no longer mention the word “creature” at all, even in passing, but acknowledge as coessential (homoousious) the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three hypostases, one essence, one divinity, according to the true faith which comes from our forebears.23

One of the new leaders of Meletius’s party, during his time of exile, was Basil of Caesaraea, ordained metropolitan of the Cappadocian capital in 370 by Meletius’s friend and supporter Eusebius of Samosata. Like Armenia, Cappadocia belonged spiritually, if not politically or canonically, to the sphere of influence of the Syrian and Palestinian Churches. Starting in 371, Basil undertook a letter-writing campaign in support of Meletius’s community in Antioch, urging the venerable Athanasius of Alexandria, for instance, to use his decades-old connections with the West to pressure the Latin bishops in communion with Pope Damasus to promote unity in the divided Church of Antioch, at least among those “who say they agree with each other.”24 In a letter to Meletius himself, probably written in 371 before the Antiochene bishop had left for Armenia, Basil and his Cappadocian colleagues urge Meletius to send his deacon Dorotheus (who had been the bearer of Basil’s message) on to Alexandria and Rome, to lobby in both ancient sees for support in persuading the imperial government to bring home the episcopal exiles and to recognize the status of bishops generally supportive of what could broadly be called the Nicene position.25 Apparently the deacon did travel to the West, but brought back nothing more than noncommittal good wishes from Damasus and his synod. Sometime in 372, Basil wrote to Meletius (now in exile) once again, urging him to send another letter to the Western bishops, along with one from his own synod still holding out in Antioch, and to send it this time by the Roman deacon Sabinus, who had brought letters from the Latins; Basil also deli23. Epiphanius, Pan. 73.34.2–3 (Amidon, 321). 24. Basil, Ep. 66; see also Ep. 67. Both these letters to Athanasius seem to come from sometime in 371, and seem to have in mind especially the reunion of the “strict Nicenes” in Antioch, gathered around Paulinus, and the larger, less-well-defined body of “centrists,” who affirmed both the correct intention of Nicaea and the more traditional, biblical terminology of “homoeans” and “homoiusians.” This middle group seems to have looked on the exiled Meletius as its spokesman. 25. Ep. 68. Basil explains Dorotheus’s mission more fully in another letter to Athanasius, Ep. 69, probably also from the spring of 371.



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cately urges Meletius to reestablish communion with Athanasius as a gesture of peace, even though Athanasius has long supported Meletius’s rival Paulinus in Antioch.26 In another message, probably from later in the same year, Basil urges Meletius to draft a letter to the West that all the local bishops in communion with him would sign, pointing out that the confusion in the Eastern provinces was being made worse through uncanonical ordinations by some politically ambitious bishops.27 Doctrinal differences, as always, were closely intertwined with conflicts in jurisdiction. Basil writes to the military commander Count Terentius in what we know as Epistle 99, and tells there of finally meeting Meletius, along with his protégé Diodore of Tarsus, on Meletius’s estate in Armenia, probably in the summer of 372. From this point on, there is a whiff of greater frankness and urgency in their correspondence. So in another letter to Meletius, probably from the summer of 373, Basil complains of the activities of Apollinarius’s followers, who have moved out beyond Syria and are now aggressively pursuing their own program in eastern Asia Minor; they are claiming, Basil indignantly reports, that he agrees with their view of the divine Trinity—which, in Basil’s reading, seems to affirm no genuine distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit, and so is implicitly modalist.28 Basil urges the exiled bishop of Antioch to write to the Latin bishops yet again, warning them not to establish communion indiscriminately with the newly active Apollinarian party. In his oft-quoted Letter 214, written in 375 to Count Terentius, Basil addresses the situation in Antioch yet again.29 The general is apparently under 26. Ep. 89. 27. Ep. 120. Loofs (Fridrich Loofs, Eustathius von Sebaste und die Chronologie der Basiliusbriefe: eine patristische Studie [Halle: Niemeyer, 1898], 29) places this letter in 375, Cavallera in 376. Basil’s complaint concerns the ordination of a certain Faustus to be bishop in Armenia, by Basil’s Cappadocian rival, Anthimus of Tyana. Ecclesiastical strife over theological positions was leading, as Basil notes, to rival hierarchies and uncanonical ordinations. W. A. Jurgens has offered the interesting hypothesis that the letter included in Basil’s corpus as Ep. 92, describing the “truceless war” in the Eastern Church, is, in fact, that synodical plea from the bishops in communion with Meletius, addressed to the Western bishops, that Basil has requested. See W. A. Jurgens, “A Letter of Meletius of Antioch,” Harvard Theological Review 53 (1960): 251–60. 28. Ep. 129. (Loofs dates this letter to 375, Cavallera to 376.) Basil quotes the Apollinarians as affirming—and claiming that he also affirms—such statements as “that the Father is, in a paternal way, the Son, and that the Son is, in a filial way, the Father. And in like manner with the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as the Triad is one God.” For Basil, those who affirm this “are drawing near to the impiety of Sabellius.” Despite his attempts to affirm Nicene orthodoxy on the subject of God’s being, Apollinarius, by this time, seemed—at least to Basil and his colleagues—to be, in effect, a modalist. For a description of the various theological and Christological positions of the Apollinarians, see also Theodoret, CH 5.3. 29. Ep. 214. Parts of this letter are often quoted in later patristic florilegia as expressing clearly the Cappadocians’ distinction between substance and hypostasis, with regard to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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some pressure by this time, both from local Christians and from the bishops of the West, to recognize Paulinus as the sole legitimate bishop of Antioch, on the grounds that he represents the faith of all those who affirm Nicaea. Basil seems to be arguing here that further refinements in the Nicene conception of God’s being remain necessary, if one is to escape the “Arian” charge that homoousian language is simply a form of modalism: in Basil’s somewhat astonishing phrase, that all Nicenes hold that the Son is “of one substance [with the Father]”—the same thing as the Father, in other words—“as regards hypostasis.”30 Basil then goes on to make clear his own classic distinction as a rule of speech: substance (ousia) refers to a thing on its generic or universal level, the level of what it is, and hypostasis refers to it in its individuality. Such a distinction, which lays the foundation for the classic understanding of God as Trinity, requires theological refinements beyond the simple affirmation of the “single substance” of Father and Son, and the loosely knit Meletians are, in his view, the only ones laboring to develop such a vocabulary. On August 9, 378, Emperor Valens was killed in battle at Adrianople in Thrace. Theodosius, the Spanish general who took over his army—himself a devout Nicene Christian—was co-opted to be Valens’s Eastern successor by the young Western emperor, Gratian, on January 19, 379. Theodoret tells us that a few days before, Theodosius had dreamed of being invested with the imperial robe and crown by none other than Meletius of Antioch, and that he took this as a clear sign from God of what was to come.31 Meletius was to be a central player in Theodosius’s program for the religious rehabilitation and unification of the Greek-speaking world: he stood for orthodoxy and tradition. The bishop had already returned home from exile to Antioch late in 378, and had apparently made an imperfect working peace with Paulinus and his small band of pro-Nicene followers.32 Although a consensus on some modified form 30. Ep. 214 (Deferrari 3.230). See also ibid., 232: “What could be worse than this charge, . . . that some of us should seem to be saying that Father and Son and Holy Spirit are a single hypostasis—we who more or less clearly teach a distinction of persons—because this same thing has already been anticipated by Sabellius, in saying God is one in hypostasis but has been personified in distinct ways by Scripture, according to the particular character of the underlying situation in each case . . . ? If, then, some among us seem to be saying that Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one in subject [hypokeimenon], but confess three perfect personae [prosopa], how will they not seem to be providing clear and irrefutable proof that what is said about us is true?” That the Nicenes are all really modalists is the charge of Eudoxius and the Neo-Arians, Basil implies here; but the failure of Paulinus’s (and Athanasius’s) followers to distinguish sufficiently among the hypostatic realities of Father, Son, and Spirit makes those who sympathize with Nicaea vulnerable to the charge, unless they are willing to take the further linguistic steps taken by the homoiousians, the homoeans, and the supporters of Meletius. 31. CH 5.6. 32. Theodoret, CH 5.2–3, reports Meletius’s offer of a “deal” to Paulinus, by which they



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of Nicene theology seemed to be within grasp in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, positions still varied on the status of the Holy Spirit, and on whether the Spirit given to the Church should be spoken of in parallel terms to the person of the Son. Sozomen, for instance, relates that some of the “Macedonians” (by which he means those who tended to view the Holy Spirit as a created gift of God) joined now with those who professed Nicaea, while others in the same group sympathized with the “homoiousian” Christology; this difference led to a further split among the opponents of the Spirit’s personal divine status.33 Union on one front seemed to encourage division on another. To begin resolving these differences, and to work out some settlement to the long-standing schism in the Church of Antioch, Meletius called together a synod of bishops from the civil dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Oriens (Asia Minor and the Levant) in the summer of 379. It was this synod, in its membership and its agenda, that laid the groundwork for the somewhat more inclusive council of Greek bishops that was to meet two years later in Constantinople. And it was here, in all likelihood, that Gregory of Nazianzus—then living as a private scholar with a women’s ascetical community in Cilicia, just to the north of Antioch—was persuaded by Meletius and his associates to move to Constantinople, as unofficial bishop of the Nicene moderates there, and as an eloquent apologist for a new, tri-hypostatic understanding of the one biblical God.34 Meletius himself, now the leading figure among the Eastern bishops simply through age and experience, seems to have remained in close contact with Theodosius; it may well have been at his suggestion that Theodosius summoned the Council of Constantinople of June 381, to reaffirm and refine the faith formulated at Nicaea as the official imperial theology. As an organizational prelude to the council, according to Socrates and Sozomen, Theodosius recognized the leading Nicene bishops of the time as theological, if not strictly canonical, leaders in their provinces and civil dioceses, while Meletius retained “the primacy of honor [presveia tes times] reserved to the Antiochian Church.”35 In this role as de facto “patriarch of the East,” Meletius came should share the episcopal office during their lifetimes; whoever should survive the death of the other would then succeed to sole headship of the Antiochene Church. According to Theodoret, Paulinus refused to accept, and the schism continued. Meletius did manage to persuade the six figures in his own party who seemed the most likely candidates to succeed him to allow Paulinus to do so, should he (Meletius) die first. In the event, this oath was disregarded, and one of those who swore it—the presbyter Flavian—succeeded as bishop of Antioch in June of 381. 33. CH 7.2. 34. See John A. McGuckin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 236–37. 35. Socrates, CH 5.8; Sozomen CH 7.7. On the meaning of this phrase, “prerogatives of

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to Constantinople to preside at Theodosius’s council of 381, but died, after a brief illness, during its first weeks. No less a rhetorician than Gregory of Nyssa preached his funeral oration,36 and Meletius’s body was then carried back to Antioch, to be buried across the Orontes from the city in the shrine of the third-century martyr Babylas, which Meletius himself had built. It was the early Church’s equivalent of immediate canonization. The problem Meletius raises, for us if not for his contemporaries, is where to place him in the theological struggles of his time. For modern historians of ancient theological controversy, he is an enigma. Never unequivocally a champion of Nicaea’s language of homoousios, although generally regarded as a Nicene; always at odds, politically and probably theologically, with Athanasius, and always allergic to any accusation of modalism; hostile to Apollinarius and his followers, as crypto-Sabellians as well as ecclesiastical opportunists; unacceptable to the more philosophically acute defenders of the Arian tradition, and resolutely opposed to any rapprochement with the Neo-Arians in Antioch; a protégé of Acacius of Caesaraea, who was himself the intellectual heir as well as successor to Eusebius; a friend and occasional collaborator with those who promoted Basil of Ancyra’s “homoiousian” conception of God as three distinct and related hypostases, who are like to each other in substance—Meletius defies easy categorization by modern dogmatic handbooks. My suggestion is that Meletius was not, in fact, theologically enigmatic at all, in the context of his own time, but that he embodied, more and more, the moderate, self-consciously traditional, terminologically conservative position sought by the majority of bishops in Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor in the period between 341 and 381. If intention and widespread ecclesiastical support count at all, Meletius was as orthodox as they come.37 This explanation of Meletius’s theological position in the debates of his time seems to fit more easily if we suppose that the famous collection of liturgical and canonical formulas and rules we know as the Apostolic Constitutions honor,” especially as it came to be applied to the standing of the bishop of Constantinople within the worldwide body of bishops, see my article, “Position and Patronage in the Early Church: The Original Meaning of ‘Primacy of Honour,’” JTS 44 (1993): 529–53. 36. Socrates, CH 5.9; for the text of the oration, see the edition of Andreas Spira, GNO IX, 441–57. 37. Theodoret of Cyrus, Ep. 145, includes Meletius and his successor Flavian in a list of those whose Christology was unassailably orthodox, along with Damasus and Ambrose in the West, Athanasius and Ephrem in the East, and the early martyrs Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, and Irenaeus. The brush strokes may be broad, but Theodoret does not seem to harbor any suspicions of heresy against his Antiochene forebear. Cavallera, Le schisme d’Antioche, who generally wants to defend Meletius’s Nicene orthodoxy, even over against the position of Acacius and his supporters, says of Meletius: “Il était du nombre, à en juger par son discours [of 381], de ceux qui voulaient s’en tenir à l’Écriture et aux expressions des anciennes professions de foi” (97).



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was produced by some of his supporters, as a massive dossier of traditional materials intended to provide justification and support for Meletius’s ecclesiastical and theological program.38 This assemblage of texts, which contains such earlier collections as the second-century Didache, the third-century Didascalia of the Apostles, and the work modern scholars often identify as the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, is now generally agreed—on grounds of liturgical content and historical allusions—to have been put together in its present form in the Church of Antioch, sometime in the 370s.39 The collection is generally thought to come from the same theological “workshop” that produced the long or interpolated version of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch,40 and the supposedly “Arian” commentary on the book of Job ascribed in some catenae to an otherwise unknown “Julian.”41 The Apostolic Constitutions, as a whole, claims to be the work of “the apostles and elders” of the primitive Church, as written down by Peter’s disciple Clement, perhaps in the aftermath of the apostolic council reported in Acts 15.42 As its modern editor, Marcel Metzger, observes, in the days before the great collections of conciliar and imperial legislation for the Church, pseudepigraphical collections such as this were the main vehicle for “laying down the law” in a way that claimed the authority of tradition.43 The portrait of Christ that appears in the various texts assembled in the Apostolic Constitutions is, to a large extent, archaic in language and concept, closer to the conceptuality of Origen and even to Philo than to the competing “schools” or parties of the mid-fourth century.44 A number of passages re38. The most recent critical edition of the Apostolic Constitutions is that of Marcel Metzger, in SC 320 (1985), 329 (1986), and 336 (1987). 39. The text of the Didache constitutes AC 7, 1–32; the Didascalia is books 1–6; the Apostolic Tradition is 8, 3–45. The final section of the AC 8, 47, is made up of the eighty-five so-called Apostolic Canons, which summarize much of the legislation found earlier in the collection, especially with regard to clerical behavior and jurisdiction. On this part of the larger work, see my article, “Primacy and Collegiality in the Fourth Century: A Note on Apostolic Canon 34,” The Jurist 68 (2008): 5–21. On the date and place of composition of the AC, see Metzger’s introduction to SC 320, 54–59. 40. On the theological coloring of the interpolations in the Ignatian corpus, see especially the classic discussion of Bishop J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, part 2/1 (London: Macmillan, 1889; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1989), 268–73. 41. Edited now by D. Hagedorn, Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973). 42. See AC, title and book 1, 1. 43. See Metzger, SC 320, 47–52. 44. So Metzger, SC 329, 32. For a full exploration of the theology of the Constitutions, see also Metzger’s extended discussion in “La théologie des Constitutions Apostoliques,” Revue des sciences religieuses 57 (1983): 29–49; 112–22; 169–94; 273–94. Metzger presents a slightly condensed version of this discussion in SC 320, 10–39.

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fer to Christ as “Servant” of the Father, as the Wisdom who effected creation, as the Logos present “in the beginning,” and as High Priest of all rational creatures.45 Only the Father is the proper object of adoration, an activity mediated by the Son (VI, 14.2). Praise is normally directed to the Father “through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.”46 Prayer addressed to Christ is witnessed in only one passage, a formula for exorcism (VIII, 7). The language of the collection is largely biblical, like that of Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catecheses, and successfully avoids the technical terminology of fourth-century debates. Yet it clearly depicts the Son, who is born of the Father before time (VIII, 12.7, 31), as “only-begotten God” (III, 17.4; VII, 39.2; 42.3; 43.2, 3; VIII, 12.6–7; etc.). The baptismal creed, spelled out in book VII as part of the so-called Apostolic Tradition, professes with Nicaea that Christ, the only Son of God, is “the firstborn of all creation, begotten before the ages by the good pleasure of the Father, not created; by him all things were made in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.” (VII, 41.5) On the subject of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, the collection generally shows the same kind of caution, the same hesitation in affirming that the Spirit is a divine hypostasis equal to Father and Son, that one finds in most late-fourth-century discussions, even in Basil’s celebrated treatise On the Holy Spirit and in the text of the Creed of Constantinople of 381. Here as in those works, the Spirit is never directly said to be God, or to be “of the same substance” as God, and in a number of places is spoken of as having been created by the Father to help achieve the formative and redemptive work of the Son. In one passage of the Apostolic Constitutions—at least in those manuscripts which the modern editor suspects represent the original, uncorrected version of the collection—the Spirit is spoken of as “the Spirit of Truth, created before all things, the interpreter and minister of the Only-begotten” (VIII, 12.8). Another creedal formula in the collection affirms that the Father is “creator, through Christ, of a single Paraclete, and of the other heavenly ranks” (VI, 11.2). In the prayer of episcopal ordination in book VIII, the Holy Spirit is included with “all the holy spirits who serve” before God’s throne (VIII, 4.5), and is spoken of as “serving your beloved Servant Jesus Christ” (VIII, 5.5). In all of these passages, the Holy Spirit is conceived of as closely identified with the saving action of Christ in the Church, sent from the Father to bear witness to him and to be subordinate to the Son’s will (II, 26.6). On the other hand, the collection clearly maintains the tradition of referring to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, as a distinctive and irreducible triad forming liturgical 45. For details, see SC 329, 30–33. 46. SC 329, 29–30; see, for example, AC VI, 14.2.



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speech and action. So in a long gloss on Apostolic Canon 50, which concerns the ritual form of baptism, the redactor of the collection emphasizes the importance of baptizing candidates not with a single but with a triple immersion into the font, as an anti-modalist gesture—a way of making clear that “baptism into Christ’s death,” which Paul speaks of in Romans 6, does not imply the death either of the Father or of the Spirit, but that all three are here doing in distinctive ways the saving work of God: We baptize, then, in the name of the Father, not as if he had become human or had suffered, or as if he were our high priest; . . . in the name of the Son, not as if he were the sovereign master, as if he had welcomed or assented to [Christ’s sacrifice]; . . . in the name of the Paraclete, not as if he were Father or Son, but insofar as he witnesses to the good pleasure and affirmation of the Father and to the obedience of the Son in all things. (VIII, 47.50)

It is modalism—the modalism possibly thought to lurk in an indiscriminate use of the term homoousios—that the redactor clearly fears, as inconsistent with apostolic tradition, not the affirmation that the Spirit carries out the mission of the Son, or that the Son obeys the will of the Father. We are confronted here not with the trinitarian model then being forged, in both scriptural and ontological terms, in Gregory of Nazianzus’s orations or Gregory of Nyssa’s shorter treatises; rather, we find in these passages a view of the divine triad not far distant from Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catecheses, or even Eusebius of Caesaraea’s Ecclesiastical Theology and Demonstration of the Gospel—a theology still squarely in the tradition of Origen, and struggling to avoid the traps laid by Arius and Marcellus: either conceiving of the Son and Spirit as alien in nature from God, or conceiving of them as not truly distinct from the Father, in being and in relation to us. It has long been realized, as we have mentioned, that these same theological features characterize the so-called long recension of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, which includes both changes and interpolations in what are apparently the seven original letters of the second-century martyr, and six additional letters not attested by Eusebius or other early witnesses.47 The consensus of modern scholarship is that this version of Ignatius, too, comes from the Church of Antioch, sometime in the second half of the fourth century. Although many commentators have characterized this recension as “Arian” or even “Apollinarian” in character, neither of these labels offers us an accurate 47. For a detailed, thoughtful discussion of the long recension of Ignatius, with an analysis of the evidence for its date and theological nature, see especially the introduction of J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, part 2/1, 233–79, to his 1889 edition and translation of Ignatius’s works.

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fit; as Bishop J. B. Lightfoot observed in 1885, “It is much easier to ascertain this writer’s antipathies than his sympathies,” but he is clearly anti-modalist in his portrait of Christ and the Father.48 In the long recension of Ignatius, only the Father is presented as “unbegotten,” or as “God over all” or “the God of all things”;49 the Son admits that he “does not refuse to worship the Father, . . . who is the cause of my generation.”50 Yet these same letters rank the Son as existing “before the ages” and as “unchangeable by nature,”51 and speak of the Son frequently and without further qualification as “God.”52 One passage in the pseudo-Ignatian Letter to the Philippians offers a whole portrait of the Trinity, which is certainly not the same as what one would find in the writings of the Cappadocians, but which is also hardly Arian: There is, then, one God and Father, and not two or three; “the one who was and who is” is one, “and there is no other besides him, the one who is true” [cf. Eph 4:5– 6]. For “the Lord your God,” Scripture says, “is one Lord.” . . . And there is also one Son, God the Word. For Scripture speaks of “the Only-begotten, the one who is in the bosom of the Father” [Jn 1:18]. . . . And the Paraclete, also, is one. For Scripture says, “There is one Spirit, since we have been called in one hope of our calling” [cf. Eph 4:4]. . . . So there are not three Fathers nor three Sons nor three Paracletes, but one Father and one Son and one Paraclete. Therefore the Lord, when he was sending out the Apostles to “make disciples of all nations,” commanded them to “baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” [Mt 28:19], not into one with three names nor into three who have become human, but into three who share the same honor.53

The author shows here a decided reticence toward speaking of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in ontological terms, and prefers to echo the language of the New 48. Ibid., 268. 49. Ibid., 268–69. 50. Ps.-Ignatius, To the Philippians 12 (ed. Lightfoot, part 2/3), 201. 51. See Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, part 2/1, 270 for references. 52. Ibid., 271. 53. Ibid., part 2/3, 189–90. The text immediately goes on to emphasize that the Son alone became human, “not in appearance, not in fantasy, but in truth,” and that this meant that “God the Word was begotten as man, with a body, from the Virgin” (Phil. 3; Lightfoot, ibid., 190–91). It is clearly not part of this author’s understanding of Christ that he had a human soul, but that view—although unlike Origen’s—is shared by many third- and fourth-century theologians of the Origenist tradition until the anti-Apollinarian writings of the 380s. Dom Bernard Capelle pointed out in 1949 that a manuscript in Caius College, Cambridge, of the Latin translation of these pseudo-Ignatian letters reads the last line quoted here as ending, “nor into three who share the same honor”—a more “Arian” version of the text. (See B. Capelle, “Le Texte du ‘Gloria in Excelsis,’” Revue d’ histoire ecclésiastique 44 [1949]: 445.) This reading is not supported by other manuscripts, however, and seems to be an insufficient basis for emending them, despite the usually literal character of the Latin translation.



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Testament; yet he is equally far from speaking of Son or Spirit as creatures in time. “In short,” as Bishop Lightfoot observed, “his position is not unlike that of Eusebius of Caesaraea”54—the classical approach to the Trinity that, as we have been arguing, seems to have been shared by the majority of bishops and theologians in Syria, Palestine, and eastern Asia Minor from the 330s through the late 370s. The other work that is thought to come from the same source as the Apostolic Constitutions is a Greek commentary on the book of Job, transmitted anonymously in the two manuscripts that contain all or most of the text, but ascribed in some of its fragments in the catenae to Origen or to a certain Julian. Clearly Origen cannot be the author—there are too many elements in the commentary that suggest a later date—but Dieter Hagedorn, its recent editor, is confident in ascribing it to a Julian who is otherwise unknown, and whom he identifies, on the basis of many stylistic similarities, with the redactor of the Apostolic Constitutions and the interpolator of the long corpus of Ignatius’s letters. Hagedorn interprets the commentary’s portrait of Christ, in his relationship to his Father, as indicating that this Julian was “an Arian, pure and simple, . . . a follower of Aëtius and Eunomius.”55 These conclusions are, to say the least, highly conjectural; and the very passages Hagedorn points to as “Arian” or Neo-Arian seem rather to suggest, once again, a much more moderate position in the range of fourth-century views of Christ. The author clearly wants to differentiate his understanding of the Savior both from the modalist approach ascribed to Marcellus of Ancyra, and from the “Arian” conception of Christ as simply a mediator created in time. Commenting, for instance, on Job 37:22b–23a (“Great is the power and honor of the Almighty, and we shall not find another like him and his strength”), the author affirms that “there is no other cause of all that is than the Almighty one, nor any other mediator of the origin of these things than ‘the only-begotten God,’ ‘the Word in the beginning’”; he then adds: He is not Word in the sense of sound, nor God as being without source, but a Word who has come into being by will and power without mediation, not by natural pas54. Ibid., part 2/1, 271. For similar assessments of the theological position of the expanded Ignatian corpus, as representing a rather traditional, Origenist view of Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit that is clearly anti-Marcellan, and that stands closest to Eusebius of Caesaraea and his followers, see Othmar Perler, “Pseudo-Ignatius und Eusebius von Emesa,” Historisches Jahrbuch 77 (1958): 73–82; and Kenneth J. Woolcombe, “The Doctrinal Content of the PseudoIgnatian Letters,” SP 6 (Texte und Untersuchungen 81; 1962): 269–73. 55. “Julian war demnach ein Arianer reinsten Wassers; wir dürfen in ihm einen Anhänger des Aëtios und des Eunomios vermuten”: Hagedorn, Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian, liv–lv.

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sion, not by division of substance; for the one who begot him is incorruptible, since he is immortal. And the one who is begotten is also incorruptible in his own right, as only-begotten God, and with incorruptible things neither change nor division nor alteration nor projection nor transformation can be thought of; for the one begetting is not a human being, but the true and holy God, and therefore the begetting, too, is as befits God, not a human experience. For the one begetting gave being, but not a share in being; and the one begotten came to be life in himself, but did not share in life. The glory of the Almighty, then, is great, and great is the honor due him from all rational, holy nature, because it is incomparable [to him] in nature and power, for there is nothing from him that is of the same substance [homoousion ti]— for we have said he is incorruptible—or of like substance [homoiousion]. For he is incomparable, and “we shall not find another like him and his strength.”56

The author here is clearly concerned to present the divine Word in a way distinct from the “economic” or modalist conception of Marcellus, and to emphasize the Word’s distinctness from the Father, as one who is begotten in order to be mediator of all else that is; but the Word is just as clearly affirmed to be God in his own right, and to share in the divine attributes of incorruptibility and immortality. The commentator’s denial that anything besides God is to be called homoousion or even homoiousion clearly refers to the created realm, in distinction from the Logos: thus these adjectives are neuter, not masculine in gender; and the affirmation that neither Father nor Word can be said to “share” in the divine life and being seems here to be a way of affirming that being and life are proper to each of them, and by implication also to the Holy Spirit, as part of their eternal status as God.57 The conception of the holy triad implied here is, to be sure, more clearly ranked, more hierarchical, than what 56. Commentary on Job (ed. Hagedorn, Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian, 245–46). The author’s effort here to conceive of the Son’s distinct status within the creative and saving mystery of God is strikingly close to that of Eusebius of Caesaraea, Demonstratio Evangelica 5.1. 57. In the other passage cited by Hagedorn as principal proof of the commentator’s “pure Arian” orientation, this same point is made even more clearly: that the generation of the Son or Word by the Father is completely different from the “sharing of substance,” including possibility and changeability, implied in creaturely generation. He writes: “Just as here [that is, in Jb 38:28– 29] the ‘belly’ and ‘childbirth’ are recalled (and what is signified is God’s power and will), so even when, in the case of the Son, we hear these terms, we will understand not corruption and partial giving, but power and pure generation, which comes about by the will and power of the one who communicates nature, not by some passionate participation. For he is not begotten as bodies are, by the division and separation of substance, like plants and animals, nor is he created like things that are numbered; for those things that are created through the Mediator are compared with each other by numbering, but what belongs to the same rank of being [that is, as the Father] remains without the participation of another, since these things are also incorruptible. But if the other category of things came to be also, by participation, still they are not incorruptible; and being mutually changed in qualities, like the elements, are formed from each other when they are brought into being.” (ed. Hagedorn, Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian, 270)



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one finds in the works of the Cappadocians, but it is also very carefully differentiated from the “Arian” conception of Son and Spirit as created mediators. If, then, we continue to assume that these two works are productions of the same literary “workshop” as the Apostolic Constitutions (which, in the case of the Commentary on Job, seems possible but not certain), and that the name of at least one of the authors involved was in fact Julian (which is less certain still), we are left with a set of writings that represent the Son and the Spirit in a way that is neither Arian nor Neo-Arian, neither Marcellan nor homoousian nor homoiousian, but that rather continues the third- and fourth-century Origenist, Syro-Palestinian way of imagining them: as divine yet subordinated; as produced yet not as creatures; as constituting a single mystery and yet doing so in a system of dynamic origin and ordering that is not governed by the same rules of language and thought as is the world of ordinary creation. All three of these works represent, presumably, the effort of one group within the hotly divided Christian world of the late fourth century to claim ancient authority for their own understanding of God: the authority of Ignatius, one of Antioch’s most revered martyr-bishops; the divine sanction of Antioch’s long exegetical tradition; and the many-faceted weight of a collection of canonical and liturgical texts that is said to come from the apostles. We have no direct evidence as to the identity of the authors and redactors of these works. If they do come from Antioch in the decade just before the council of 381, however, as most modern scholars now assume, the only ecclesial group with whose theological priorities they fit, I suggest, is the supporters of Meletius. They certainly do not represent the strongly unitive theology of Eustathius and Paulinus, or the radically subordinationist approach of Euzoïus and the older stream of “Arians,” let alone the dialectically self-conscious proponents of the “Neo-Arian” system. The characteristic concerns of Apollinarius, though themselves more elusive, are also missing. If we go on, then, to assume that the Apostolic Constitutions, as we now have them, and the other two works we have mentioned, form a dossier put together in the Church of Antioch in the mid-370s, precisely as a way of assembling that Church’s earlier witnesses to prayer and Church practice in the interest of certifying the mainstream identity of Meletius and his faithful followers, we can see both the works and Meletius himself in a new light. Meletius, perhaps still in exile when the collection was assembled, appears with its help as the icon and spokesman for a theology and a Christology that have deep roots in the liturgy and life of the primitive Church in Syria. The collegial model for the interaction of bishops and metropolitans in the local and provincial Churches outlined here—especially in Apostolic Canon 34—can be seen as a warning from the past to avoid the kind of factional, schismatic empire-building plaguing

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Antioch in the decades after Constantius’s death. The Apostolic Constitutions, in such a context, becomes not simply a haphazardly gathered dossier of largely antiquarian interest, but a manifesto of a faith, an ecclesiology, and a liturgical life that deliberately avoids controversial jargon, and reaches back into tradition to retrieve a vibrant trinitarian life rooted in the New Testament. That such a vision of liturgical and practical unity, even one built on a fairly eclectic set of theological formulations, was possible in the Greek-speaking Churches of the fourth century, is supported, I think, by some of the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus—whose connections with Meletius and his colleagues has already been mentioned. Gregory himself, the impassioned spokesman for what would become the orthodox views on the person of Christ and on God as Trinity, was always clear and forceful in rejecting various forms of theology that he regarded as deviant or distorted: contemporary philosophical Neo-Arianism, for instance, or a modalist approach to God that drew no meaningful distinctions between the divine hypostases. It was Gregory, too, who first articulated the theological inadequacies of Apollinarius’s understanding of Christ’s divinity. Still, in his Oration 22, entitled in the manuscripts “The Third Oration on Peace”—apparently delivered shortly after his arrival in Constantinople in the autumn of 379, when he was struggling to build the ecclesial unity there that Meletius and his synod had commissioned him to promote58—Gregory offers us a description of the common faith needed in a church not shaken by academic or terminological differences. Do we not consider this to be the one norm of piety: to worship Father and Son and Holy Spirit, the one divinity and power in the three, but not to honor them in an excessive or deficient way (if I may borrow a little from the language of those who are wise in these matters—even though to honor God too much is impossible, and to honor God too little is not piety at all!), nor to break apart that one single Greatness by linguistic innovation? For nothing is greater or smaller than itself.59 But when this is settled, let us be of one mind about everything else, since we share in the same Trinity, and (more or less) in the same teaching and the same body. And let us cut off and destroy, like some common disease, the overblown and useless sidegrowths and deviations involved in the present discussions. 58. So McGuckin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, 248–51. Two manuscripts of this oration say that it was delivered “in the city of Constantinople, on the occasion of the rivalry that had come to be among the people because of disputes certain bishops had with each other.” McGuckin plausibly argues (248) that it “certainly refers to the recent attempts to bring settlement to Antioch,” probably to the “deal” that had been offered by Meletius to Paulinus and his proNicene group of followers. 59. Gregory seems to be suggesting here a radical identity in being of the three hypostases in the divine mystery, which goes beyond a mere share in the same universal term—“God”—and rules out any attempt to rank them ontologically; see also Or. 31.16.



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Have we not had enough, I mean—to let more remote issues go undiscussed—of the wicked spirit of Montanus, ranged against the Holy Spirit,60 and the boldness of Novatian, that most impure form of Puritanism,61 . . . and the foolishness of the Galatians, who are so richly endowed with the many names of impiety,62 and the synthetic language of Sabellius and the divisive thinking of Arius,63 and the further divisions made by people considered so clever today,64 who are as different from them as a chatty tongue is from a lazy one? Yet even we still differ on some issues with each other—we who share a healthy faith on the main issue, and fight for the same causes against the same opponents! 65

A faith that agrees on the main outlines of trinitarian piety and worship, in other words, growing from the one formula of baptism and from common Eucharistic practice—a faith that therefore sees the Church as a single body, and is ready to reject as Church-dividing all the more extreme forms of trinitarian heresy—ought still to be able to live with considerable variations in how that faith is expressed. Although Gregory’s own way of conceiving and formulating the Church’s distinctive, trinitarian view of God will certainly be substantially different from what seems to have been the language of Meletius and his followers, he seems to be saying here that their unity of vision was substantial enough to hold them all together, in opposition to really divergent views, and to assure them that they formed one Church. 60. The Montanist sect, which had its origins in the second century, claimed the influence of the Holy Spirit was the source of its “new prophecy”; by Gregory’s time, the Montanists were understood to claim that their founder, Montanus, was himself an incarnation of the Holy Spirit. As a result, it was seen by some in the late fourth century as a radical misunderstanding of God’s trinitarian being: see Basil of Caesaraea, Ep. 188.1, where he ranks the Montanists with Manichaeans and Gnostics as disagreeing about “faith in God itself.” 61. The Novatianists, a third-century schismatic group originating in Rome, had a rigorist understanding of Church membership and did not believe Church ministers could forgive serious sins, but were generally not considered heretics, because they shared the Church’s understanding of God; see Basil, Ep. 188.1; Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 39.18–19. 62. Gregory here is referring to the “economic” view of the Trinity promoted by Marcellus of Ancyra, the main city of Galatia—which he connects with Paul’s remark in Gal 3:1, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Marcellus emphasized the radical unity of God, which he understood to be manifested within human history by a variety of names and divine activities. 63. Sabellius was the classic figure associated with a modalist theology, of which Marcellus’s approach was considered simply a more recent form; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for him, were thought to be different names for the same undivided divine being. Arius, on the other hand, had distinguished between the one God of Israel, whom Jesus called Father, and the Son and Holy Spirit, who are created by God to act as the mediators of creation and redemption. 64. These are the “Neo-Arians,” including Eunomius and Aëtius and their disciples, who presented Arius’s conception of the Son and Spirit as creatures in terms of sophisticated logical definitions and syllogisms. They seem to have been the intellectual core of the opposition to Gregory’s ministry in Constantinople. He represents them as sophisticated tricksters, given to facile and dazzling argument. 65. Oration 22.12.

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Against the background of Gregory’s reflection, the factions of fourthcentury theological debate—which modern historians of theology struggle so hard to track and identify—recede somewhat in importance, or become at least more flexible in contour, as we try to grasp through these texts what fourth-century Christians really saw as worth fighting about. One school or party seems, often enough, to have been able to identify itself fairly readily with another, despite variations of language and concept, and to have seen a deeper compatibility underlying terminological differences. By the time of the Council of Constantinople, at least, the factions modern scholars label as Homoeans, Homoousians, and Homooiousians could all—with varying degrees of enthusiasm, perhaps—claim the faith of Nicaea as their own, within the welter of competing alternatives available in the late fourth century; all could reject the radical forms of Arianism and modalism, and could dispute together the claim of Apollinarius to represent that same Nicene tradition authentically. What mattered most to them, in the end, was to find ways to speak of Christ as savior and bestower of the divine life that was his from the Father, through the gift and guidance of his Spirit. In the end, as the Apostolic Constitutions and Gregory of Nazianzus suggest, the struggle was about how to pray, and the main goal of Meletius and his friends seems to have been to get the Christians of Antioch to pray together.

Pa rt T h r ee

a Augustine, Tradition, and the Rule of Faith

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8  Augustine’s Appeal to Tradition At least since the time of the Council of Trent, session 4, April 1546, the Catholic Church has taught that the truth and discipline of the faith ”is contained in written books and traditions without writing” and that God is the author of ”all the books of the Old and New Testament . . . and the traditions themselves pertaining to faith and morals, as dictated orally by Christ or by the Holy Spirit and preserved in the Catholic Church by continuous succession” (DS 1501). Following the Council of Trent, the First Vatican Council, and the Second Vatican Council, the Catechism of the Catholic Church repeated this teaching: Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal. Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20).1

Scripture and tradition have but one source, although there are two distinct modes of transmission. Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit. And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching. As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the 1. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Ligori, Mo.: Liguri Publications, 1994), 80.

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holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.2

In reading the works of Augustine of Hippo against the Manichees, the Donatists, and the Pelagians, I was struck by the various forms of his appeal to the apostolic tradition against these early examples of heresy and schism in the church, and since the topic certainly was one that was of interest to Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., it seems an appropriate topic for an article in a Festschrift honoring him. The article examines the various forms that Augustine’s argument took in controversy with each of these three groups. For each of the controversies evoked a slightly different sort of appeal to the tradition of the church.

The Appeal to Tradition against the Manichees Augustine’s writings against the Manichees contain an aspect of his appeal to the tradition of the church, namely, to the church as the bearer and guarantor of the canonical Scriptures. The Manichees rejected the whole of the Old Testament and also parts of the New Testament. They nonetheless claimed that they themselves were Christians and even insisted that they were the true Christians, while claiming that the Catholics were only semi-Christians because they still clung to the Old Testament. In the Capitula, which the Manichaean bishop Faustus wrote against a former Manichee who had recently been converted to Catholic Christianity, Faustus explicitly called the Catholics “semi-Christian.”3 In his reply to this charge Augustine wrote: You think that people ought to avoid semi-Christians, which you say is what we are. But we avoid pseudo-Christians, which we show is what you are. For something that is “semi” is imperfect in some respect, but still not false in any respect.4

The grounds for the Manichaean rejection of the Old Testament Scriptures were multiple and included the alleged immorality of the Hebrew patriarchs,5 2. Ibid., 81–82, again quoting from the decree Dei Verbum of Vatican II. 3. Since Augustine himself was certainly the most prominent African Manichee recently converted to Catholic Christianity, it is likely that Faustus intended the Capitula for him. See G. Wurst, “Bemerkungen zu Struktur und Genus Litterarium der Capitula des Faustus von Mileve,” in Augustine and Manichaeism in the Latin West: Proceedings of the Fribourg-Utrecht International Symposium of the IAMS, ed. J. van Oort, O. Wermelinger, and G. Wurst (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 307–24, here 321. 4. Contra Faustum 1, 3 (CSEL 25/1: 252): “Tu semichristianos cauendos putas, quod nos esse dicis; nos autem pseudochristianos cauemus, quod uos esse ostendimus. Nam quod semum est, ex quadeam parte imperfectum, ex nulla tamen falsum est.” 5. See, for example, Contra Faustum 22.98 (CSEL 25/1: 703–4), where Faustus objects to Jacob’s running like a billy goat between his four wives.



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the supposed opposition between the teachings of the two Testaments,6 the anthropomorphic descriptions of the God of the Old Testament,7 the merely earthly character of the happiness promised to the Jewish people,8 and the creation narratives with their emphasis upon the goodness of the created world.9 The Manichaean stance with regard to the New Testament Scriptures was more complex since they claimed to be Christians, to accept the New Testament, and to be true and full Christians as opposed to the Catholics. They could not, however, accept the whole of the New Testament. For some parts of the New Testament quoted with approval passages from the Old Testament, or praised patriarchs such as Abraham. For example, there are the words of Jesus, which were raised as an objection to Faustus, “Moses wrote about me,” and, “If you believed Moses you would also have believed me” (Jn 5:46). Similarly, Jesus himself cited the commandments of God that were given through Moses, saying: For God said, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, “Anyone who curses his father or mother will die the death.” But you say: “Anyone who says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever gift you might have received from me has been given to God,’ does not honor his father.” And you make void the word of God on account of your tradition (Mt 15:4–5 with Ex 20:12 and 21:17).10

Augustine then continues, speaking of Jesus, “In this matter see how many things he teaches us, namely, that he does not turn the Jews away from their God, that he not only does not break his commandments, but also blames those who break them, and that only God gave these commandments through Moses.”11 6. Adimantus, who was probably one of the immediate disciples of Mani, wrote a whole book on the opposition between the two Testaments. In his Contra Adminantum, Manichaei discipulum, Augustine replied in detail to each of the Adimantus’s arguments. 7. See Confessiones 3.7.12, where Augustine mentions the Manichaean question about whether God was confined in a bodily form and had hair and nails. Similarly in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.17.27 (CSEL 91: 94), Augustine claims that Gn 1:26 led the Manichees to suppose that God had a nose, teeth, a beard, and other members of the human body. 8. See, for example, Contra Faustum 4.1. 9. See De haeresibus 46 (PL 44: 35): “Proinde mundum a natura boni, hoc est, a natura Dei factum, confitentur quidem, sed de commixtione boni et mali, quae facta est, quando inter se utraque natura pugnavit.” 10. Contra Faustum 16.24 (CSEL 25/1: 469): “Deus enim dixit: ‘Honora patrem et matrem’ et: ‘qui maledixerit patri aut matri, morte morietur.’ Uos autem dicitis: quicumque dixerit patri uel matri, munus, quod est ex me, tibi prosit, non honorauerit patrem suum; et inritum fecistis uerbum dei propter uestram traditionem” (Mt 15:3–6). 11. Ibid.: “Qua in re uidete quam multa nos doceat, et Iudaeos a Deo suo se non auertere, et eius mandata non tantum non infringere, uerum etiam a quibus infringerentur arguere, et non nisi Deum per Moysen ista mandasse.”

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Other passages taught points of doctrine that no Manichee could accept. For example, Faustus insisted that the genealogies and infancy narratives were not gospel, that is, were not good news, as they certainly were not for the Manichees who regarded the presence of Christ or of anyone in the flesh as an abomination.12 Similarly, they could not accept passages that referred to or described Christ’s death since their Christ could not die or rise from the dead. Nor could they accept the Acts of the Apostles, which taught that the Holy Spirit, whom the Manichees identified with their founder, Mani, had come much earlier than the appearance of Mani. When challenged about their rejection of parts of the New Testament, the Manichees replied that the New Testament books, as they existed, had a number of interpolations by various men who corrupted the pure Christian revelation. In opposition to the Manichaean rejection of parts of the New Testament Augustine appealed to the authority of the Catholic Church. In his work, Contra epistulam Manichaei quam uocant fundamentum he makes the somewhat startling statement: “In fact I would not believe the gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me.”13 He continues, confronting the Manichees with a dilemma: Why should I not believe the people whom I obeyed when they told me, “Believe the gospel,” when they now tell me, “Do not believe the Manichees”? Choose which you want. If you say, “Believe the Catholics,” they want me not to place any faith in you. Hence, while believing them, I cannot do anything but not believe you. If you say, “Do not believe the Catholics,” you will not succeed in forcing me into the Manichaean faith by means of the gospel, since I believed the gospel because the Catholics preached it.14

Augustine’s appeal to the Catholic Church as the reason for his belief in the gospel and the whole of the Scriptures was not limited to a single work. His 12. Faustus clearly distinguished between the gospel and the genealogy and birth. He faces the question: “Accipis euangelium? Et maxime. Proinde ergo et natum accipis Christum?” He answers to it: “Non ita est. Neque enim sequitur ut si euangelium accipio, idcirco et natum accipiam Christum. Cur? Quia euangelium quidem a praedicatione Christi et esse coepit et nominari; in quo tamen ipse nusquam se natum ex hominibus dicit. At uero genealogia adeo non est euangelium, ut nec ipse eius scriptor ausus fuerit eam euangelium nominare.” As evidence he cites the difference between the beginning of Mark’s and Matthew’s books. 13. Contra epistulam Manichaei quam uocant Fundamenti 5.6 (CSEL 25: 197): “Ego uero euangelium non crederem, nisi me catholicae ecclesiae conmoueret auctoritas.” 14. Ibid. (CSEL 25: 197–98): “Quibus ergo obtemperaui dicentibus, Crede euangelio; cur eis non obtemperem dicentibus mihi, Noli credere Manichaeis? Elige quid uelis. Si dixeris, Crede catholicis; ipsi me monent ut nullam fidem accommodem uobis: quapropter non possum illis credens, nisi tibi non credere. Si dixeris, Noli catholicis credere; non recte facies per euangelium me cogere ad Manichaei fidem, quia ipsi evangelio catholicis praedicantibus credidi.”



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work Contra Adimantum is in its entirety devoted to showing that there is no incompatibility between the Old and the New Testaments, as the Manichees claimed. It is, however, in the immense work Answer to Faustus, A Manichaean that Augustine makes most explicit his appeal to the Catholic Church as the source of the Scriptures. In book 11, Faustus faces the objection that in the Letter to the Romans Paul said that the Son of God was born of David according to the flesh, something that no Manichee could accept. Consequently, Faustus claimed that the text of St. Paul has been falsified. Augustine replies as he had in book 10: When the Manichees are strangled by the plain truth so that they are surrounded by the clear words of the holy scriptures and cannot find in them a way out for their lies, they reply that the testimony that has been produced is false. Oh, words in flight from the truth and stuck in madness! The passages brought forth against you from the books of God are so invincible that you have nothing else to say but that they were falsified. If this plea is admitted, if it is thought to carry any weight, what written authority can one appeal to, what sacred book can one open, what proof from any writing can one use to refute your errors, if it is thought to have any weight?15

The problem is not that the Manichees do not accept certain books, but that they accept the letter as Paul’s and claim that the objectionable passages have been inserted by somebody else. Augustine points out that, when they are asked to prove their claim, they “do not have recourse to more accurate copies, either of more or older manuscripts or of an earlier language from which it was translated into the present language.”16 At best the Manichees can claim that the statement in question does not agree with their teaching. To this Augustine replies by asking, “Are you, then, the standard of the truth? Is whatever is opposed to you not true?”17 Augustine asks Faustus what he would do if someone else objected to him that the statement that agrees with him is false, but that this one against him is true. In order to substantiate his claim, the Manichaean had to appeal to earlier and better manuscripts and/or ones in the original language. If Faustus produces some other book in support of his claim, Augustine challenges him: 15. Contra Faustum 11.2 (CSEL 25/1: 314): “ubi sic manifesta ueritate isti praefocantur, ut obsessi dilucidis uerbis sanctarum scripturarum exitum in eis fallaciae suae reperire non possunt, id testimonium, quod prolatum est, falsum esse respondent. O uocem a ueritate fugacem, in amentia pertinacem! uos de diuinis codicibus proferuntur, ut non sit aliud, quod dicatis nisi eos esse falsatos, quae auctoritas litterarum aperiri, qui sacer liber euolui, quod documentum cuiuslibet scripturae ad conuincendos errores exeri potest, si haec uox admittitur, si alicuius ponderis aestimatur?” 16. Ibid., 315: “non confugias ad exemplaria ueriora uel plurium codicum uel antiquorum uel linguae praecedentis, unde hoc in aliam linguam interpretatum est.” 17. Ibid.: “Tu es ergo regula veritatis? Quidquid contra te est, non est uerum?”

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What origin will you claim as a witness for the book you produced? What antiquity? What line of succession? For, if you try to do this, you will accomplish nothing, and you see what the authority of the Catholic Church can do in this area. It is supported by the series of bishops who followed one after the other from those most solidly founded sees of the apostles right up to the present day and by the agreement of so many peoples.18

If, however, the question rested upon the reliability of the copies, then Augustine indicates the procedure to be followed in order to establish the correct reading: Our doubts would be resolved by manuscripts from other regions from which the teaching stemmed or, if the manuscripts differed there as well, more manuscripts would be preferred to fewer ones and older manuscripts to newer ones. And if the differences were still uncertain, the earlier language from which it was translated would be consulted.19

Augustine in other words appeals to some basic principles for the establishment of the text of the Scriptures and to the canonical books handed down in the Church from the time of the apostles, something that the Manichees cannot do in favor of their claim that the letter of Paul has been falsified. In defense of Paul’s statement that Christ was born in the flesh, Augustine counters, “But all the manuscripts both new and old have what we bring forth against your impiety from the letter of the apostle Paul, namely, that the Son of God is a descendant of David according to the flesh [see Rom 1:3]. All the churches read this, and all the languages agree.”20 If the Manichees offer in support of their cries of interpolation their own books, Augustine compares the authority of the Catholic Scriptures to the authority of such books: The authority of our books, which has been confirmed by the agreement of so many nations through the sequence of apostles, bishops, and councils is opposed to you, 18. Ibid.: “Quam libri a te prolati originem, quam uetustatem, quam seriem successionis testem citabis? Nam si hoc facere conaberis, et nihil ualebis et uidebis in hac re quid ecclesiae catholicae ualeat auctoritas, quae ab ipsis fundatissimis sedibus apostolorum usque ad hodiernum diem succedentium sibimet episcoporum series et tot populorum consensione firmatur.” 19. Ibid., 316: “uel ex aliarum regionum codicibus, unde ipsa doctrina commeauit, nostra dubitatio diiudicaretur, uel si ibi quoque codices uariarent plures paucioribus aut uetustiores recentioribus praeferrentur, et si aduc esset incerta uarietas, praecedens lingua, unde illud interpretatum est, consuleretur.” 20. Contra Faustum 11.3 (CSEL 25/1: 316.): “Hoc autem, quod aduersus impietatem uestram ex Pauli apostoli epistula profertur, filium dei ex semine David esse secundum carnem, omnes codices et noui et ueteres habent, omnes ecclesiae legunt, omnes linguae consentiunt.”



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but the authority of your books is nonexistent because it is supported by so few people and by those who worship a lying God and lying Christ. Hence, authority turns out to be against the lying doctrine of the Manichees unless they are considered to be lying imitators of their God and Christ.

Hence, Augustine’s appeal to tradition against the Manichees is essentially an appeal to the Church as the bearer and custodian of the canonical Scriptures that have been handed down in the Church by a succession of bishops from the time of the apostles.

Augustine’s Appeal to Tradition against the Donatists Augustine’s appeal to tradition against the Donatists is more complicated because the Donatists had appealed to tradition against the Catholics. Specifically they claimed that Cyprian, the great bishop and martyr of Carthage, had agreed with their position on the repetition of baptism and quoted texts in proof of that. They were moreover correct in their appeal to the authority of Cyprian, who clearly taught that the baptism conferred by heretics was not valid.21 Hence, Augustine’s appeal to tradition against them had to attempt to neutralize the Donatist claim to have Cyprian on their side, while also appealing to the teaching of the universal Church against the pars Donati, which was, after all, an isolated African group. In De baptismo Augustine argues at length to neutralize the Donatist claim to have Cyprian on their side. He does, however, acknowledge that Cyprian and many African bishops were in error on this point, although only because the issue had not been definitively clarified. He says, for example: For in those times, before the consensus of the whole Church confirmed what is to be followed in this matter by a statement of a plenary council, it seemed to him along with almost eighty of his fellow bishops of the African churches that it is necessary to baptize again everyone coming to the Church who was baptized outside of communion with the Catholic Church.22

21. See Cyprian, Epistola ad Pompeium contra epistolam Stephani 1–2 (PL 3: 1128–29), where he rejects the teaching of Pope Stephan I and argues for the rebaptizing of those coming to the Church from heresy. 22. De baptismo contra Donatistas 1.18.28 (CSEL 51: 171): “Nam illis temporibus, antequam plenarii concilii sententia quid in hac re sequendum esset, totius ecclesiae consensio confirmasset, uisum est ei cum fere octoginta coepiscopis suis Africanarum ecclesiarum, omnem hominem qui extra ecclesiae catholicae communionem baptizatus fuisset, oportere ad ecclesiam uenientem denuo baptizari.”

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Although Cyprian and his fellow bishops were not in agreement with what the later teaching of the Church would be, they did not, Augustine insists, break off communion with those who held different views, but “put up with one another in love, desiring to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”23 Thus, although Cyprian and his fellow bishops did not hold the position that the Church would later adopt, they did preserve the bond of peace in unity, unlike the Donatists who broke off communion with the Catholics. Augustine appealed to the example of St. Peter, who held an incorrect view on the observance of the Jewish law by Christians and had to be rebuked by St. Paul.24 In opposition to those who want to break off communion because of a divergence of views, Augustine cites St. Paul’s counsel in the Letter to the Philippians: And for this reason the apostle said: “If you hold some other view, God will also reveal this to you.” So that they would not think that their divergent views could be revealed to them apart from the path of peace, he immediately added: “But let us walk in the path to which we have come” (Phil 3:15, 16).25

Hence, having preserved the unity of peace, Cyprian died the death of a martyr and “came to the angelic light so that there, if not before, he certainly recognized what was revealed because, although he had thought otherwise, he did not prefer a view of another opinion to the bond of peace.”26 Thus Augustine defends Cyprian along with his fellow bishops, while admitting that they erred, but only if one judges them by later criteria. In his own appeal to tradition, Augustine admits that he would not suppose that baptism could be conferred by those who are outside the Church, “were he not supported by the most harmonious authority of the universal Church, to which [Cyprian] would undoubtedly yield, if the truth of this question was already at that time clarified, declared, and confirmed by a plenary council.”27 The core of Augustine’s appeal to tradition against the Donatists rests upon the authority of the universal Church at that time. Hence, he challenges the Donatists: 23. Ibid.: “non se ille tamen a caeteris diversa sentientibus separata communione disiunxit, et hoc etiam caeteris persuadere non destitit, ut sufferrent inuicem in dilectione, studentes servare unitatem spiritus in uinculo pacis.” 24. Ibid., 2.4.5 (CSEL 51: 179). 25. Ibid., 2.5.6 (CSEL 51: 130): “Ideoque Apostolus cum dixisset, ‘Et si quid aliter sapitis, hoc quoque uobis Deus reuelabit’; ne putarent praeter uiam pacis quod aliter sapiebant sibi posse reuelari, continuo addidit, ‘Verumtamen in quod peruenimus, in eo ambulemus’” (Phil 3:15–16). 26. Ibid.: “peruenit ad angelicam lucem; ut si non antea, ibi certe reuelatum agnosceret, quod cum aliter saperet, sententiam diuersae opinionis uinculo non praeposuit unitatis.” 27. Ibid., 2.4.5 (CSEL 51: 179): “Nec nos ipsi tale aliquid auderemus asserere, nisi universae ecclesiae concordissima auctoritate firmati; cui et ipse sine dubio cederet, si iam illo tempore quaestionis huius veritas eliquata et declarata per plenarium concilium solidaretur.”



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Answer me, why have you separated yourselves? Why do you set up an altar in opposition to the world? Why are you not in communion with the churches to which you maintain and read that the apostolic letters were sent? And you say that you live according to them! Answer me, why have you separated yourselves?28

Augustine supplies the answer that the Donatists give, namely, so that they do not perish by communion with the sinful. But, if that is their answer, he has them caught on a dilemma, for Cyprian and his colleagues did not separate themselves from those who disagreed with them on the question of the repetition of baptism. For they did not break off communion with those who disagreed with them. Hence, by the Donatist argument Cyprian and his colleagues perished by communion with the sinful. He, therefore, says to the Donatists: Do not raise the authority of Cyprian as an objection to us for the repetition of baptism, but hold with us the example of Cyprian for the preservation of unity. For that question of baptism was not as yet carefully weighed, but the Church nonetheless held the most salutary custom of correcting even in schismatics and heretics what is wrong, but not of repeating what was given, of healing what was wounded, but not of curing what is healthy.29

Furthermore, Augustine argues that the apostolic tradition was the source of that custom. He says: I believe that this custom came from the apostolic tradition, like many things that are not found in their writings or in the councils of later men, and which nonetheless, because they are observed by the universal Church, are believed to have been handed down and commended by them.30

Although Augustine reports that St. Cyprian said that this custom began to be corrected by his predecessor, Agrippinus, Augustine himself reports that a more careful investigation of the issue shows that the custom rather began to be corrupted by Agrippinus.31 28. Ibid., 2.6.7 (CSEL 51: 182): “Respondete, quare vos separastis? Quare contra orbem terrarum altare erexistis? Quare non communicatis ecclesiis, quibus epistolas apostolicas missas tenetis et legitis, et secundum ipsas vos vivere dicitis? Respondete, quare uos separastis?” 29. Ibid., 2.7.12 (CSEL 51: 186–87): “Nolite ergo nobis auctoritatem obicere Cypriani ad baptismi repetitionem, sed tenete nobiscum exemplum Cypriani ad unitatis conseruationem. Nondum enim erat diligenter illa baptismi quaestio pertractata sed tamen saluberrimam consuetudinem tenebat ecclesia, in ipsis quoque schismaticis et haereticis corrigere quod prauum est, non iterare quod datum est; sanare quod uulneratum est, non curare quod sanum est.” 30. Ibid., 2.7.12 (CSEL 51: 187): “Quam consuetudinem credo ex apostolica traditione uenientem, sicut multa quae non inueniuntur in litteris eorum, neque in conciliis posteriorum, et tamen quia per uniuersam custodiuntur ecclesiam, nonnisi ab ipsis tradita et commendata creduntur.” 31. Ibid.: “hanc ergo saluberrimam consuetudinem per Agrippinum praedecessorem suum

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Regardless of the strength of Augustine’s appeal to a tradition antedating Cyprian, his claim that he is appealing to an apostolic tradition is informative. In De baptismo he used such an appeal to apostolic tradition both in opposition to repeating the baptism of someone entering the Church from heresy and in favor of infant baptism. On the latter, Augustine says: And does someone ask in this matter for divine authority? . . . What the universal Church holds and has not been instituted by councils, but has always been maintained, is most correctly believed to have been handed down only by apostolic authority.32

In his note on that passage in the BA edition, G. Bavaud says that Augustine “insiste sur la continuité de la coutume liturgique travers le temps (‘quod semper retentum est’) comme aussi de son universalité dans l’espace (‘quod universa tenet ecclesia’)”33 He sees in Augustine’s language an anticipation of the words of Vincent of Lérins in his Commonitorium: “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est” (PL 50: 640). Similarly, he finds an anticipation of Prosper of Aquitaine’s appeal to the liturgical prayer of the Church.34

The Appeal to Tradition against the Pelagians In arguing against the Pelagians and especially in conflict with Julian of Eclanum, the most learned of his Pelagian opponents, Augustine was forced to confront Julian’s accusation that his teaching on our sinful condition inherited from Adam was a novelty in the teaching of the Church or, worse yet, was Manichaean. In reply Augustine appealed to the teachings of earlier bishops and gathered a florilegium of texts, some of which he appealed to again and again. Augustine’s first extensive appeal to the teaching of earlier bishops is found in Contra Julianum, books 1 and 2. In his Retractationes Augustine informs dicit sanctus Cyprianus quasi coepisse corrigi, sed sicut diligentius inquisita ueritas docuit, quae post magnos dubitationis fluctus ad plenarii concilii confirmationem perducta est, uerius creditur per Agrippinum corrumpi coepisse, non corrigi.” 32. Ibid., 4.24.31 (CSEL 51: 259): “Et si quis quaerat in hac re auctoritatem diuinam . . . quod uniuersa tenet ecclesia, nec conciliis institutum, sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate apostolica traditum rectissime creditur.” 33. Traités anti-Donatistes II, BA 29 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1964), 613, n. 25. 34. Ibid. In De vocatione omnium gentium 1.12.1 (PL 51: 664), Prosper had appealed to the supplications of the universal Church for the conversion of all peoples as evidence for God’s universal salvific will, and in his Praeteritorum apostolicae sedis auctoritates 8 (PL 51: 209), he appealed to the prayer of the Church as a basis for believing: “ut legem credendi lex statuit orandi.”



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us that, when he received Julian’s four books, Ad Turbantium, he set out to refute them in his Contra Julianum and that the first two books “refute the impudence of Julian by the testimonies of the saints who defended the Catholic faith after the apostles.”35 Specifically, in book 1 he argued that the teachings of earlier bishops were in harmony with Catholic teaching, while in book 2 he undertook to destroy the Pelagian teaching by the statements of earlier bishops. Hence, in the first book Augustine tells his readers that he will present “a few statements of a few of these men, before which our adversaries will be forced to blush and to yield, if any fear of God or shame before human beings overcomes the great evil of stubbornness in them.”36 For the purposes of the present study it will suffice to examine the texts Augustine presents in book 1. There he presents a series of quotations from earlier bishops, beginning with “Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons,” who “lived not long after the time of the apostles.”37 Augustine quotes two passages from Irenaeus. First, he reports that the bishop of Lyons said: Human beings can be saved from the ancient wound of the serpent in no other way than by believing in him who, when he was raised up from the earth on the tree of martyrdom in the likeness of sinful flesh, drew all things to himself and gave life to the dead.38

Secondly, he quotes Irenaeus, who said: Just as the human race was subjected to death by a virgin, so it was justly released by a virgin, the disobedience of a virgin balanced by the obedience of a virgin. For, when the sin of the first-formed human being was corrected by the rebuke of the firstborn Son and the cunning of the serpent was defeated by the simplicity of the dove, we were released from the chains that bound us to death.39 35. Retractationes 2.88 (62).1; BA 12: 554: “testimoniis sanctorum qui fidem catholicam post apostolos defenderunt, Iuliani impudentiam redarguunt.” 36. Contra Iulianum 1.3.5 (PL 44: 643–44): “ponam pauca paucorum, quibus tamen nostri contradictores cogantur erubescere et cedere, si ullus in eis vel Dei timor, vel hominum pudor tantum malum pervicaciae superaverit.” 37. Ibid., 644: “Irenaeus Lugdunensis episcopus non longe a temporibus Apostolorum fuit.” 38. Ibid.: “non aliter salvari homines ab antiqua serpentis plaga, nisi credant in eum, qui secundum similitudinem carnis peccati in ligno martyrii exaltatur a terra, et omnia trahit ad se et vivificat mortuos” (Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 4.2.7 [PG 7: 979]). The Latin in Augustine’s version is slightly different from the version in PG 7, here and below. 39. Ibid.: “Quemadmodum adstrictum est morti genus humanum per virginem, solvatur per virginem, aequa lance disposita, virginalis inobedientia per virginalem obedientiam. Adhuc enim protoplasti peccato per correptionem primogeniti emendationem accipiente, serpentis prudentia devicta per simplicitatem columbae, vinculis illis resoluti sumus, per quae alligati eramus morti” (Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 5.19 [PG 7: 1175–76]).

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In introducing the next quotations from Cyprian of Carthage, Augustine seems to admit that the words of Irenaeus are not as clear as one might have desired, for he says that Cyprian spoke much more plainly about the same faith. The bishop and martyr of Carthage said: If something could prevent human beings from attaining grace, it would rather be serious sins that could prevent adults and mature and older people. If, however, sins are forgiven even in the case of those who sin gravely and often against God, when they later come to believe, and if no one is excluded from baptism and grace, how much more ought an infant not be excluded! After all, as a newborn, it has no sin at all except that it has contracted by its first birth the contagion of the ancient death, because it was born in the flesh from Adam. For this reason it approaches baptism to receive the forgiveness of sins with greater ease insofar as the sins forgiven are not its own, but another’s.40

Cyprian was in fact clearer about even an infant having contracted the sin of another because of its birth from the flesh of Adam. Next, Augustine introduces quotations from three bishops, of whom the first is Reticius, the bishop of Autun, who died circa 334 and played an active role in fighting the beginnings of the Donatist schism. In speaking of baptism he said: No one misses the fact that this is the basic pardon in the Church. In it we unburden ourselves of all the weight of the ancient crime and wipe out the first misdeeds of our ignorance; in it we also strip off the old human being with its inborn wrongdoings.41

The second is Olympius, a Spanish bishop, who is otherwise unknown; he said: 40. Ibid., 644: “Si homines impedire aliquid ad consecutionem gratiae posset, magis adultos et provectos et maiores natu possent impedire peccata graviora. Porro autem si gravissimis delictoribus et in Deum multum ante peccantibus, cum postea crediderint, remissa peccatorum datur, et a Baptismo atque gratia nemo prohibetur; quanto magis prohiberi non debet infans, qui recens natus nihil peccavit, nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus, contagium mortis antiquae prima nativitate contraxit? Qui ad remissam peccatorum accipiendam hoc ipso facilius accedit, quod illi remittuntur, non propria, sed aliena peccata.” Augustine is quoting Cyprian, Epistula ad Fidum 64, 5 (CSEL 3/2: 720). This letter of Cyprian is one of Augustine’s favorite texts, which he cites often in whole or part. See below 1.6.22 and 3.17.31, as well as De peccatorum meritis et remissione 3.5.10–11, De nuptiis et concupiscentia 2.29.51, Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum 4.8.23, and Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 1.106. 41. Ibid.: “Hanc igitur principalem esse in ecclesia indulgentiam, neminem praeterit, in qua antiqui criminis omne pondus exponimus, et ignorantiae nostrae facinora prisca delemus, ubi et veterem hominem cum ingenitis sceleribus exuimus.” The work of Reticius of Autun is not extant.



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If faith had remained ever inviolate on earth and had continued to follow the determined and well-marked paths that it abandoned, it would never have sown by the deadly transgression of the first human being the defect in the seed so that sin is born along with a human being.42

The third bishop cited is Hilary of Poitiers, who wrote on the flesh of Christ: Since, therefore, he was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh [see Rom 8:3], he did not have sin in the way he had flesh. But since all flesh comes from sin, that is, it is derived from the sin of our father Adam, he was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, for there was in him not sin, but the likeness of sinful flesh.43

Augustine adds a second quotation from Hilary’s commentary on Psalm 118, where the bishop of Poitiers said on the words: “My soul will live and will praise you” (Ps 118:175). “The psalmist does not suppose that he is living in this life, for he had said, ‘See, I was conceived in iniquities, and my mother bore me in sins’ (Ps 50:7). He knows that he was born from a sinful origin and under the law of sin.”44 Augustine next appeals to Ambrose of Milan, his own father in the faith at whose hands he received baptism, and cites a series of texts from him. First, in commenting on the Gospel according to Luke, he said, “The words, ‘The Jordan turned backwards’ (Ps 114:3), signified the future mysteries of the bath of salvation through which the little ones who have been baptized are changed from wickedness back to the original state of their nature.”45 In another passage in the same work Ambrose said of the conception of Christ:

42. Ibid.: “Si fides unquam in terris incorrupta mansisset, ac vestigia defixa tenuisset, quae signata deseruit, nunquam protoplasti mortifera transgressione vitium sparsisset in germine, ut peccatum cum homine nasceretur.” The work of Olympius is also not extant. 43. Contra Julianum 1.2.9 (PL 44: 645): “Ergo cum missus est, in similitudine carnis peccati, non sicut carnem habuit, ita habuit et peccatum. Sed quia ex peccato omnis caro est, a peccato scilicet Adam parente deducta, in similitudine peccati carnis est missus, existente in eo non peccato, sed peccati carnis similitudine.” This passage attributed to Hilary of Poitiers is cited in the same form in Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum 6.33. See Jean Doignon, “‘Testimonia’ d’Hilaire de Poitiers dans le ‘Contra Iulianum’ d’Augustin: Les textes, leur groupement, leur ‘lecture,’” RB 91 (1981): 7–19, for an argument that the passage is a composite from Hilary’s De trinitate 10.24–25 and his Commentarium in Matthaeum 10.23–24. 44. Ibid., 1.3.9 (PL 44: 645): “Vivere se in hac vita non reputat; quippe qui dixerat, ‘Ecce in iniquitatibus conceptus sum, et in delictis peperit me mater mea’ (Ps 50: 7). Scit sub peccati origine et sub peccati lege esse se natum.” Augustine cites Hilary, Tractatus in Psalmum 118 22.6 (PL 9: 641). 45. Ibid., 1.3.10 (PL 44: 645): “‘Jordanis conversus est retrorsum’ (Ps. 113:3) significavit salutaris lavacri futura mysteria, per quae in primordia naturae suae, qui baptizati fuerint parvuli, a malitia reformantur” (Ambrose, Expositio Euangelii secundum Lucam 1.37 [CCL 14: 25]).

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For intercourse with a man did not open the secret passages of the virginal womb, but the Holy Spirit poured forth spotless seed in the inviolable womb. For by reason of the new manner of his immaculate birth the holy Lord Jesus alone of all those born of a woman experienced no infection of earthly corruption, but repelled it from himself by his heavenly majesty.46

He again quotes from the same work, “We all die in Adam, because ‘through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and in that way it was passed on to all human beings, in whom all have sinned’ (Rom 5:12). His sin, then, is the death of us all.”47 In still another passage from the same commentary, he said: Beware, then, that you do not become naked as Adam was naked. He was deprived of the heavenly protection of the commandment and stripped of the clothing of faith, and in that way he received a mortal wound by which the whole human race would have died, had not that Samaritan come down and healed his grave wounds.48

Again Ambrose said in the same work, “Adam existed, and we all existed in him. Adam perished, and we all perished in him.”49 Clearly Ambrose provided strong evidence for the Catholic position that Adam’s sin harmed not just Adam, but the whole human race. Augustine turns to other works of the bishop of Milan. From his work in De apologia prophetae David, Augustine quotes: Before we are born, we are stained with infection, and before enjoying the light we receive an injury from our very origin. We are conceived in iniquity; the psalm46. Ibid., 645: “Non enim virilis coitus vulvae virginalis secreta reseravit; sed immaculatum semen inviolabili utero Spiritus sanctus infudit. Solus est enim per omnia ex natis de femina sanctus Dominus Jesus, qui terrenae contagia corruptelae immaculati partus novitate non senserit, et coelesti maiestate depulerit” (Ambrose, Expositio Euangelii secundum Lucam 2, 56 [CCL 14: 55]). 47. Ibid.: “Omnes in Adam morimur, quia ‘per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors; et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt’ (Rom 5:12). Illius igitur culpa, mors omnium est” (Ambrose, Expositio Euangelii secundum Lucam 4.67 [CCL 14: 131]). 48. Ibid.: 635: “Cave ergo ne ante nuderis, sicut Adam nudatus est, mandati coelestis custodia destitutus, et exutus fidei vestimento, et sic lethale vulnus accepit, in quo omne genus occidisset humanum, nisi Samaritanus ille descendens vulnera eius acerba curasset” (Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam 7.73 [CCL 14: 238–239]). The Samaritan is of course Christ, in accord with the patristic tradition that interpreted the parable of the Good Samaritan as Christ who came to save the fallen human race. See my “St. Augustine on the Good Samaritan,” in Augustine the Exegete, ed. Frederick Van Fleteren and Joseph Schaubelt (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 347–67. 49. Ibid. “Fuit Adam, et in illo fuimus omnes: periit Adam, et in illo omnes perierunt” (Ambrose Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam 7.234 [CCL 14: 205]).



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ist does not say whether the iniquity is our parents’ or our own. And every mother begets each of her children in sins; here too the psalmist did not explain whether the mother gives birth in her own sins or whether there are already some sins of the child who is born. But see whether one should not understand both of these. The child conceived is not without iniquity, because the parents too are not free from the fall, and if even a child one day old is not without sin [see Jb 14:4 LXX], then those days of the mother’s pregnancy are for even better reason not without sin. We are, then, conceived in the sin of our parents, and we are born in their transgressions. Birth itself has its own infections, and nature itself does not have only one infection.50

From Ambrose’s commentary on the book of Tobit, Augustine quotes, “Who is that loan shark of sin but the devil from whom Eve borrowed sin and put the whole human race in debt with succeeding generations subject to usury?”51 From the same work Augustine quotes words referring to the devil: “He deceived Eve in order to trip up her husband and place their descendants in debt.”52 Finally, Augustine quotes from Ambrose’s commentary on Psalm 48: Our own sinfulness is one thing; something else is the sinfulness of our heel in which Adam was wounded by the fang of the serpent. By that wound he left his descendants in the human race subject so that we all limp because of that wound.53

Having shown that bishops of the Western Church from Irenaeus to Ambrose held a doctrine of sin inherited from Adam to be washed away in baptism, Augustine then turns to Pope Innocent as a bridge between East and West before continuing his florilegium of texts by citing the works of Eastern bishops. Referring to Innocent’s letters to the African councils, Augustine asks, “After all, 50. Ibid.: “Antequam nascimur, maculamur contagio, et ante usuram lucis, originis ipsius excipimus iniuriam, in iniquitate concipimur. Non expressit utrum parentum, an nostra. Et in delictis unumquemque generat mater sua. Nec hic declaravit, utrum in delictis suis mater pariat, an iam sint aliqua delicta nascentis. Sed vide ne utrumque intelligendum sit. Nec conceptus exsors iniquitatis est, quoniam et parentes non carent lapsu: et si nec unius diei infans sine peccato, multo magis nec illi materni conceptus dies sine peccato sunt. Concipimur ergo in peccato parentum, et in delictis eorum nascimur. Sed et ipse partus habet contagia sua, nec unum tantummodo habet ipsa natura contagium” (Ambrose, De apologia prophetae David 11.56 [CSEL 32/2: 337–38]). 51. Ibid.: “Quis iste peccati est fenerator, nisi diabolus, a quo Eva mutuata peccatum, obnoxiae successionis usuris omne genus defeneravit humanum” (Ambrose, De Tobia 9.33 [CSEL 32/2: 536]). 52. Ibid.: “Evam decepit, ut supplantaret virum, obligaret haereditatem” (Ambrose, De Tobia 23.88 [CSEL 32/2: 570]). 53. Ibid.: “Alia est iniquitas nostra, alia calcanei nostri, in quo Adam dente serpentis est vulneratus, et obnoxiam haereditatem successionis humanae suo vulnere dereliquit, ut omnes illo vulnere claudicemus” (Ambrose, Enarrationes in XII psalmos Davidicos 48.8 [CSEL 64: 365]).

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what could that holy man reply to the African councils but what the Apostolic See and the Church of Rome from the beginning constantly held along with the other churches?” He mentions that Julian accuses Zosimus, Innocent’s successor, of failing to reverse the teaching of Innocent. Without quoting Innocent, Augustine paraphrases his teaching: The one, true and Christian position [is] that the poor little ones must be set free by the grace of Christ from the original evil which they contracted from Adam. He said that by his bath of baptism Christ washed away every past defect coming, that is, from the first human being who was plunged into the depths by free choice;54 he declared, moreover, that little ones can in no way have life if they do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man.55

Hence, Augustine argues that Julian has no reason for appealing to the teaching of Eastern bishops since Innocent represents both the East and the West. Augustine, however, adds testimonies from some Eastern bishops, first of all from Gregory Nazianzen: Let the image of God wash away the stain of immersion in the body, and let it raise up by the wings of the word of God the flesh joined to it. It would have been better for it not to need any such cleansing and to have remained in its original dignity, to which we hastily return after our present conversion, and it would have been better not to fall from the tree of life by the most bitter taste of sin. It is, nonetheless, better in the present condition to mend one’s ways and to be converted after the fall than to remain in sinfulness.56

Augustine adds other quotations from Gregory, of which I will omit all but one. Gregory said on the effects of baptism: On this point let Christ’s words persuade you, when he says that no one can enter the kingdom of heaven, unless he has been reborn of water and the Spirit [see Jn 3:5]. This baptism washes away the stains of the first birth because of which we are conceived in iniquities and our mothers bore us in sins.57

Continuing with the great Cappadocian Fathers, Augustine first argues that Julian’s appeal to Basil the Great’s work against the Manichees is irrelevant, but on the present topic Augustine cites Basil’s Sermon on Fasting: 54. See Innocent, Epistula 181.7 (in the Letters of Augustine). 55. See Jn 6:54 and Innocent, Epistula 182.5 (in the Letters of Augustine). 56. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio XVI: De grandinis vastatione 15 (PG 35: 953–56). As Augustine himself indicates, he cites the works of Gregory Nazianzen from a collection of his sermons translated into Latin. The translation was made by Rufinus of Aquileia around 400. For Rufinus’s translation, see Homilia VIII: De grandinis vastatione 15 (CSEL 46: 253–54). 57. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio 41.40 (PG 36: 447).



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Fasting was established by law in paradise. For Adam received the first commandment: “From the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat” (Gn 2:17). “You shall not eat” implies fasting, and it is the beginning of the establishment of law. If Eve had fasted from the tree, we would not need this present fast. For “it is not the healthy, but those who are ill who need a physician” (Mt 9:12). We have become ill through sin; we are healed through penance. But penance without fasting is hollow. “The earth that has been cursed will bring forth thorns and thistles.” You were sentenced to sorrow; why look for delights?58

Later in the same sermon Basil says, “Because we did not fast, we fell from paradise. Let us, then, fast so that we may return to it.”59 To Gregory and Basil, Augustine adds the testimony of the fourteen bishops of Diospolis who heard the case against Pelagius that was brought before them and acquitted him only after Pelagius condemned the basic propositions on which the Pelagian heresy rested.60 Julian had reportedly written that “Saint John of Constantinople denies that there is original sin in little ones,” and went on to quote a fairly long passage from Chrysostom’s Homilia ad neophytas.61 Augustine deplores the idea that John should have been opposed to so many great bishops whom he had already mentioned: “Especially to Innocent of Rome, Cyprian of Carthage, Basil of Cappadocia, Gregory of Nazianzen, Hilary of Gaul, and Ambrose of Milan.”62 While acknowledging that there are other points on which Catholic teachers may differ, he insists that “the point with which we are now dealing belongs to the foundations of the faith.”63 He then attempts to neutralize the passage to which Julian appealed, arguing that the saintly bishop and martyr of Carthage could say the same thing: “Even our Cyprian could say the same thing about little ones as John, since he said that a newborn infant ‘has no sin 58. Augustine, Contra Julianum 1.3.18 (PL 44: 651): “Jejunium in paradiso lege constitutum est. Primum enim mandatum accepit Adam: ‘A ligno sciendi bonum et malum non manducabitis’ (Gn 2: 17). ‘Non manducabitis autem,’ jejunium est, et legis constitutionis initium. Si jejunasset a ligno Eva, non isto indigeremus jejunio. ‘Non enim opus habent valentes medico, sed male habentes’ (Mt 9: 12). Aegrotavimus per peccatum, sanemur per poenitentiam. Poenitentia vero sine jejunio vacua est. ‘Maledicta terra spinas et tribulos pariet’ (Gn 3: 17.18). Contristari ordinatus es, numquid deliciari?” (Basil, De ieiunio 1.3 [PG 32: 168]). 59. Ibid.: “Quia non jejunavimus, decidimus de paradiso. Jejunemus ergo, ut ad eum redeamus” (Basil, De ieiunio 1.4 [PG 31: 168]). 60. See Augustine’s Acta Pelagii for his account of how the bishops of Diospolis were led to acquit Pelagius of the charges of heresy. 61. Contra Iulianum 1.6.21 (PL 44: 654): “Sanctus Joannes,” inquis, “Constantinopolitanus negat esse in parvulis originale peccatum.” 62. Ibid.,1.6.22 (PL 44: 655): “maximeque Romano Innocentio, Carthaginensi Cypriano, Cappadoci Basilio, Nazianzeno Gregorio, Gallo Hilario, Mediolanensi . . . Ambrosio.” 63. Ibid.: “Hoc autem unde nunc agimus, ad ipsa fidei pertinet fundamenta.”

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at all’ and that ‘the sins forgiven are not its own, but another’s.’”64 He explains that John said they “have no sins,” but did not say they “are not stained with sin,” and he quotes the Greek to prevent any possible evasion on Julian’s part. John, Augustine argues, did not have to say that they had no “personal sins,” because, “speaking in the Catholic Church, he did not think that he could be understood in any other sense.”65 Following up this somewhat weak appeal to what John must have meant, Augustine turns to a passage in John’s Epistula ad Olympiam, which he quotes five times in Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum: “When Adam committed that great sin and condemned the whole human race in common, he paid the penalty in sorrow.”66 He adds another passage from a sermon on the raising of Lazarus: “Christ wept because mortality had failed to such a point that it was cast down from endless life and loved the lower regions. Christ wept, because the devil made mortal those who could have been immortal.”67 Unfortunately, the quotation is not from Chrysostom, but comes from a homily on Lazarus by Potamius of Lisbon, which was once attributed to Chrysostom.68 Augustine then quotes several passages from Chrysostom’s Homiliae in Genesim. The first quotation is on Adam and Eve’s lack of fear with regard to the animals of paradise. John comments: “For this fear did not yet exist, but because sin entered in, such privileges were taken away.”69 Augustine adds another passage from the same source in a similar vein and comments: “Saint John showed by this argument that what entered in through one man became a sin common to all since all in common have this fear of animals.”70 Continuing his argument that John did not stand on the Pelagian side, Augustine quotes from his Homilia ad neophytas: “Christ came once and found us bound by our paternal debts for which Adam signed. He revealed the beginning of our debt; by our sins the interest has grown.”71 Similarly, Augustine 64. Ibid.: “Poterat etiam noster Cyprianus hoc dicere de parvulis quod Joannes: quandoquidem ait, ‘quod infans natus nihil peccaverit, et quod ei remittantur non propria, sed aliena peccata’” (Cyprian, Epistula 64, ad Fidum). 65. Ibid.: “quia disputans in catholica Ecclesia, non se aliter intelligi arbitrabatur.” 66. Ibid.: “Quando enim Adam peccavit . . . illud grande peccatum, et omne genus hominum in commune damnavit, de moerore poenas luebat” (Chrysostom, Ad Olympiam 3.3 [PG 52: 574]). 67. Ibid., 657: “Flebat Christus . . . cur usque ad hoc mortalitas deliquisset, ut excussa de perennitatibus inferos adamaret. Flebat Christus, quod eos qui immortales esse poterant, diabolus fecit esse mortales.” 68. See CCL 69A: 173, ll. 103–6. 69. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Genesim 9.4 (PG 53: 78–79). 70. Contra Iulianum 1.6.25 (PL 44: 658): “sanctum Joannem hac disputatione monstrasse, illud quod per unum hominem ingressum est, commune omnibus factum esse peccatum, quandoquidem omnibus terror communis est bestiarum.” 71. Ibid., 1.6.26 (PL 44: 658): “Venit semel Christus, et paternis nos cautionibus invenit



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cites Chrysostom’s commentary on Romans, chapter 5, selecting two passages from the text: “It is clear that what ruined everything was not the sin that comes from the transgression of the law, but the sin that comes from the disobedience of Adam,” and, “As Adam became the cause of death . . . for those who are born from him, though they did not eat from the tree, so Christ has become for those who are born from him, even if they have done nothing righteous, the source of the righteousness which he gave to all of us through the cross.”72 Augustine again quotes from the same sermon of John: “When a Jew asks you how the world was saved by the power of Christ alone, you can say to him: in the same way that the world was condemned by the disobedience of Adam alone, even if grace and the sin are not equal. Death and life are also not on a par, nor are God and the devil equal.”73 Chrysostom goes on to explain what Paul meant in Romans 5:16: “This is what he means: sin could bring about death and condemnation, but grace did not destroy that one sin alone, but also the sins coming along after it.”74 Augustine adds two more quotations from Chrysostom’s commentary on Romans where John comments that Paul “showed that grace brought about many benefits and it destroyed not only that sin, but also all the rest.” John continues, “If the sin of the one destroyed all, much more will the grace of the one be able to save them.”75 The final quotation speaks of our baptism into the death of Christ, but does not add to the argument regarding John’s position on original sin. Augustine’s extensive citation from John is clearly due to the fact that Julian had claimed that John was on the Pelagian side in not holding any doctrine of sin inherited from Adam. Augustine then turns to another objection from Julian, namely, that Auastrictos, quas conscripsit Adam. Ille initium obligationis ostendit, peccatis nostris fenus accrevit.” (John Chrysostom, Homilia ad neophytas 3.21 [SC 50: 163]). 72. Ibid., 1.6.27 (PL 44: 659): “Manifestum quoniam non ipsum peccatum, quod ex legis transgressione, sed illud peccatum quod ex Adae inobedientia, hoc erat quod omnia contaminavit. . . . sicut ille ex semetipso nascentibus, quamvis non manducaverint de ligno, factus est causa mortis . . . ita et Christus iis qui ex ipso sunt, tametsi nihil iuste egerint, factus est provisor iustitiae, quam per crucem nobis omnibus condonavit” (John Chrysostom, Commentarius in epistolam ad Romanos 10.1 [PG 60: 475]). 73. Contra Iulianum 1.6.27 (PL 44: 659): “Ut cum tibi dixerit Judaeus quomodo unius virtute Christi mundus salvatus est? possis ei dicere, Quemadmodum uno inobediente Adam mundus damnatus est. Quanquam non sint aequalia gratia atque peccatum, neque paria sint mors atque vita, non aequalis Deus ac diabolus.” (John Chrysostom, Commentarius in epistolam ad Romanos 10.1 [PG 60: 475]). 74. Ibid.: “Hoc idem est quod dicitur, quoniam quidem mortem et damnationem potuit peccatum inducere, gratia autem non unum illud tantummodo interfecit peccatum, sed etiam post illud introeuntia peccata” (John Chrysostom, Commentarius in epistolam ad Romanos 10.2 [PG 60: 475]). 75. Ibid.: “plura introducta sunt bona, et non solum illud interfectum est peccatum, sed etiam omnia reliqua, ostendit . . . si unius peccatum interfecit omnes, multo magis et unius gratia poterit salvare” (John Chrysostom, Commentarius in epistolam ad Romanos 10.2 [PG 60: 476]).

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gustine and his side raise against the Pelagians “only the murmuring of the people,” apparently because of the Pelagian rejection of infant baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Augustine concedes that the people do murmur against the Pelagians because the issue is one that all people can understand.76 Against Julian Augustine amassed an extensive list of citations from Catholic bishops that taught that Adam’s sin did not harm Adam alone but the whole human race, and that we need the remedy of baptism in order to be set free from the injury done to the whole race by that great sin. Whether or not the texts that Augustine has invoked prove that the Church always taught from the time of the apostles these effects of the first sin is perhaps debatable, but it is not debatable that Augustine developed an argument for the Catholic position based on the teaching of the bishops of the East and the West from the time of Irenaeus, who came soon after the apostles, down to the bishops of his own time. He clearly shows that he himself did not invent the doctrine of a sin inherited by all from Adam.

Conclusion In his arguments against the Manichees, the Donatists, and the Pelagians, Augustine appealed to the tradition of the Church in three different senses: against the Manichees he appealed to the Church as the bearer and custodian of the Scriptures, against the Donatists he appealed to the universality of the Church’s tradition against that of a small segment of the Church, and against the Pelagians he appealed to the teaching of earlier bishops from the time of the apostles until the present. It is not without reason that G. Bavaud said: “Les textes de saint Augustin ont été souvent rapprochés de celui du Concile de Trente: ‘Hanc ueritatem et disciplinam contineri in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus’ (DS 783).”77 76. See Contra Julianum 1.7.31. 77. Traités anti-Donatistes II, BA 29, 613, n. 25.

† T h o m a s F. M a rt i n, O.S.A .

9  Augustine, Paul, and the Ueritas Catholica Augustine sees the creed as the expression of Christian faith. What is in the creed was already in Scripture.1 The creed can be identified with the rule of faith (regula fidei).2

“What is in the creed was already in Scripture”—Joseph Lienhard captures succinctly the essential link Augustine persistently insisted upon between the rule of faith and Scripture.3 On the one hand the rule of faith provides the sure guide for reading the Scriptures: Some other person may produce a better interpretation [he is commenting upon Psalm 74:9, “For in the Lord’s hand is a cup of pure wine, full of a mixed drink”], for the obscurity of the scriptures is such that a passage scarcely ever yields a single meaning only. But whatever interpretation emerges, it must conform to the rule of faith.4

On the other hand, the Scriptures themselves are the very source of the rule of faith: It is a pleasure to dedicate this essay to Joseph Lienhard, S.J., who has done so much to promote the study not only of Augustine but of the entire patristic era. His intellectual rigor and honesty provide a model for all who enter upon the labyrinthian path that is patristic studies. 1. See S. 212.2. 2. See Symb. cat. 1.1 (cf. S. 59.1; 213.2) and Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., “Creed, Symbolum,” in ATA, 254–55. 3. For an overview of Augustine and the question of the regula fidei, see Wieslaw Davidowski, O.S.A., “Regula Fidei in Augustine: Its Use and Function,” AS 35, no. 2 (2004): 253–99. 4. En. Ps. 74.12: “potest enim alius melius, quia sic se habet obscuritas scripturarum: difficile est ut unum pariant intellectum. Quicumque tamen intellectus exierit, opus est ut regulae fidei congruat” (CCL 39: 1033).

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Everything you are going to hear in the Symbol is already contained in the divine documents of the holy scriptures.5

Augustine’s sense of the reciprocity between the rule of faith and the Scriptures is evident from these two brief but typical excerpts.6 In what follows I intend to explore this interplay between the rule of faith and the Scriptures in a somewhat indirect fashion, by seeking to draw out from Augustine’s writings an emphasis that, although implicit, is nonetheless ever in operation. It is what I would like to call somewhat provocatively Augustine’s notion of Paulus catholicus. Augustine, I would propose, sees his very presentation of Paul as a manifestation and confirmation of the Catholic rule of faith.

Paulus Catholicus

The call Audi Paulum apostolum echoes repeatedly throughout the Augustinian corpus in a variety of forms and manifestations.7 This call clearly represents an effort to assert the authoritative voice of the apostle Paul. Paul for Augustine is the doctor ueritatis (Ep. 82.3), the ecclesia fidelis doctor (C. Iul. 2.9.32), the praedicator ueritatis (see C. ep. Parmen. 3.2.9), and his apostolic voice and authority form a major support column that runs straight through the entire Augustinian corpus. At first glance this would seem totally expected—could any major Christian thinker not be deeply committed to the authority of the apostle Paul? However, the sheer volume of Augustine’s affirmations regarding the authority of Paul suggests that other matters may be at stake than simply paying homage to his apostolic authority. In fact, and this comes as no surprise to anyone knowledgeable about Latin Christianity in the late fourth and early fifth century, the claims for Paul’s voice and authority were highly disputed throughout Augustine’s lifetime. Without exaggeration one can speak of Paulus Manichaeus, Paulus Donatista, Paulus Pelagianus as vying forcefully and often bitterly with Augustine’s—and here I will use once again an expression never explicitly employed by Augustine but one implicitly ever-present—Paulus catholicus.8 5. S. 212.2: “Quicquid enim in symbolo audituri estis, iam diuinis sanctarum scripturarum litteris continetur” (PL 38: 1060). 6. See Augustine’s comments concerning regula fidei and Scripture in Doct. Chr. 3.2.2. 7. The variations are virtually endless: “Paulum audi Apostolum”; “ipsum Paulum audi”; “audite Paulum apostolum”; “audite apostolum Paulum,” etc.; see, e.g., Io. eu. tr. 3.10; 12.8; En. ps. 30.2.2.12; En. ps. 120.10; C. Faustum 2.4. 8. Carol Harrison has also called attention to the “Catholic Paul” in her Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 119ff.



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Paulus catholicus: underlying Augustine’s persistent call to “listen to the apostle” is the obvious assertion that Paul is being correctly interpreted by Augustine—and that his reading is the Catholic reading of the apostle. Augustine’s grasping of Paul’s apostolica ueritas (see, for example, Ep. 186.4.12 “the truth from the lips of the apostle,” trans. Teske) only has validity to the extent that it echoes and affirms the catholica ueritas (see C. Iul. op. imp. 2.98)— and in that sense the implicit insistence upon Paulus catholicus can be seen as another manifestation of Augustine’s unrelenting assertion of the centrality of the regula catholica fidei (see C. duas ep. Pel. 4.4.), the Catholic rule of faith, as the only sure guide for all theological affirmations and discussions: they must always be secundum regulam fidei (for example, Ep. 102.37; C. litt. Petil. 2.43.102; C. duas ep. Pel. 4.3.3.; its opposite is praeter regulam fidei, En. pss. 115.1, 118.12.2). Augustine’s understanding of the regula fidei has received abundant consideration from a variety of perspectives, often associated with more explicitly creedal formulations of the fides catholica. This exploration seeks to approach the question from a somewhat different point of view: how Augustine crafts and communicates an understanding of Paul in such a way that his reading is to be viewed as a veritable expression of the regula fidei. In that light, I will seek to highlight how Augustine presents his reading of Paul rather than concentrate specifically on the content of that reading. What kind of dialectical and rhetorical moves does Augustine employ to seek to leave no doubt that Augustine’s Paul is, indeed, the Paulus catholicus? As is well known, Paul is omnipresent throughout the works of Augustine and so the potential scope of such an exploration is virtually infinite. For the sake of this study I will draw upon three representative selections from the Manichaean, Donatist, and Pelagian controversies to suggest how in each controversy Augustine proposes a Paulus catholicus to counter what he considers deviations from the regula fidei.

Paulus Manichaeus Anyone familiar with Augustine’s Manichaean background is well aware of the central role of Paul in Manichaean theology. Mani presented himself as a virtual carbon copy of Paul: All the letters of Mani begins thus (omnes tamen eius epistulae ita exordiuntur): “Manichaeus apostolus Iesu Christi.” 9 9. C. Faustum 13.4: CSEL 25/1: 381; see François Decret, Aspects du Manichéisme dans L’Afrique Romaine. Les controverses de Fortunatus, Faustus et Felix avec saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1970), 106.

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Beginning as early as the De moribus and continuing throughout the rest of his writing and preaching career, Augustine labored to deconstruct Manichaean claims on Paul the apostle and secure a “Catholic reading” of the apostle. Among his abundant anti-Manichaean writings Augustine’s Contra Faustum stands out as his lengthiest if not most trenchant attack upon the entire Manichaean doctrinal system. Completed shortly after the Confessions, the standard dates proposed are between 400 and 402. The work is made up of thirtythree “books”—thirty-three disputations which begin with often lengthy direct citations from Faustus’s Capitula, each book beginning with “Faustus dixit,” followed by the bishop of Hippo’s “Augustinus respondit.” The twentytwo paragraphs of book 32 offer a prime example of Augustine’s Paulus catholicus at work. Augustine begins with a lengthy excerpt from Faustus that seeks not only to discount the Old Testament—quae Paulus putauit stercora (Phil 3:8)—but also to insist that New Testament affirmations of the Old Testament are interpolations. Why, then, is it strange or why is it surprising if, while I read certain things from the New Testament that are utterly pure and suitable for my salvation, I also pass over those things that were fallaciously introduced by your predecessors and that spoil its majesty and grace?10 These and other such examples and laws are found in the Old Testament. If they are good, why do you not imitate them? If they are evil, why do you not condemn their source, that is, the Old Testament itself. Or, if you also think that these were falsifications that were inserted into it, as we believe concerning the New Testament, we are in the same position. Stop demanding from us with regard to the New Testament, then, what you do not observe with regard to the Old.11

The Manichaeans present themselves as the only true readers of Scripture because in their reading they alone show proper veneration for the Son of God:

10. C. Faustum 32.1: “Quid ergo peregrinum hoc aut quid mirum est, si et ego de testamento nouo purissima quaeque legens et meae saluti conuenientia ea praetermitto, quae a uestris maioribus inducta fallaciter et maiestatem ipsius et gratiam decolorant?” (CSEL 25/1: 761). The English translation of the Contra Faustum is taken from WSA I/20. Translations not from the WSA are by the author. 11. Ibid., 4: “Haec igitur atque alia huiusmodi sunt testamenti ueteris et exempla et iura: quae si bona sunt, cur non imitamini? Si mala, cur non damnatis auctorem, id est testamentum ipsum uetus? Aut si falsa haec ei, tamquam nos de nouo credimus, etiam uos putatis inserta, pares ergo sumus. Desinite iam proinde id a nobis exigere in testamento nouo, quod uos non seruatis in uetere” (CSEL 25/1: 776; WSA I/20: 411).



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Hence, why is it strange if we too have accepted from the New Testament only those things that we found were said to the honor and praise of the Son of Majesty either by him or by his apostles—but who were already perfect and believers—and simply ignored the other things that the uneducated said there naïvely and ignorantly or that enemies indirectly and maliciously raised as objections or that those writers unwisely asserted and handed on to posterity?12

One can see here why Augustine may have been initially attracted to the Manichaeans with their claim to be the only true believers who offer “honor and praise to the Son of Majesty.” And given perhaps a latent Roman anti-Judaism combined with the accumulation of over three centuries of conflict between Jewish and Christian apologists, it seems that such arguments seemed all too credible to especially those whom Augustine labels here as the “ ineruditi” (see 32.14). Augustine’s response is crisp and direct: Augustine said: We praise all the true and divine scriptures of the Old Testament, as is proper. You attack the scriptures of the New Testament as falsified and corrupted. We say that the things that we do not now observe from the books of the Old Testament were nonetheless appropriately commanded at that time and for that people and that the things that we do not observe signified things that we understand and hold in a spiritual sense. We not only say this but we also show and teach this in the writings of the apostles. But you find fault with absolutely everything that you do not accept in the books of the New Testament and claim that it was neither said nor written by Christ or by his apostles. You see, therefore, how big a difference there is between you and us in respect to this matter. And so, when we ask you why you do not accept everything in the books of the New Testament but reject, find fault with, and blame many things in those books, in which you approve of some things, you maintain that they were inserted in those books by falsifiers. Do not take as an example for yourselves the distinction between what we believe and what we observe, but give an account of your presumption.13 12. Ibid., 7: “si et nos de testamento nouo sola accipientes ea, quae in honorem et laudem filii maiestatis uel ab ipso dicta comperimus uel ab eius apostolis, sed iam perfectis ac fidelibus dissimulauimus cetera, quae aut simpliciter tunc et ignoranter a rudibus dicta aut oblique et maligne ab inimicis obiecta aut inprudenter ab scriptoribus adfirmata sunt et posteris tradita?” (CSEL 25/1: 766; WSA I/20: 412). 13. Ibid., 8: “Augustinus respondit: nos ueteris testamenti scripturas omnes, ut dignum est, ueras diuinas que laudamus, uos scripturas noui testamenti tamquam falsatas corruptasque pulsatis. Nos ea, quae nunc de libris testamenti ueteris non obseruamus, congruenter tamen illo tempore atque illi populo fuisse praecepta nobisque in eis ipsis, quae non obseruamus, significata, quae intellegamus et spiritaliter teneamus, non solum dicimus, sed in apostolicis quoque litteris ostendimus et docemus; uos autem omnia, quae in libris noui testamenti non accipitis, omnino reprehenditis nec a christo nec ab apostolis eius dicta uel conscripta adseueratis. Uidetis ergo, quantum inter nos et uos, quod ad hanc rem adtinet, distet. Cum itaque a uobis quaeritur, quare non omnia in libris noui testamenti accipitis, sed et in eis libris, in quibus adprobatis

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Uidetis ergo, quantum inter nos et uos: the language throughout is distancing, for example, nos/uos, with the insistence that what Augustine holds is nothing other than apostolic doctrine: sed in apostolicis quoque litteris ostendimus et docemus. This first volley ends with a final challenge: sed rationem reddite praesumptionis uestrae. Even though no actual public debate ever took place between the bishop of Hippo and Faustus, nonetheless Augustine constructs his own responses to Faustus as if he were surrounded by a crowd watching the arguments unfold with baited breath, ready to cheer or jeer. This is clearly intentional and as he proceeds he will continue this “staging,” doing his utmost to deride and mock Faustus and his coreligionists: anima misera, infirma, carnalibus nebulis inuoluta (19). Such negative strategies against the Manichaeans are always immediately accompanied by positive assertions, based upon the apostle Paul, to assert the ueritas catholica: ex doctrina apostolica nos defendimus (9); et ad hoc ex Litteris apostolicis respondemus: ait enim Apostolus (ibid.); Apostolus dicit (13); et quoniam tenet ecclesia, quod uehementius Apostolus commendauit (17). This latter assertion is perhaps the most telling as the linkage between “church” and “apostle” is made most explicit. Here one can appreciate Augustine’s implicit insistence upon Paulus catholicus, which implies not only a certain ecclesial tradition of reading Paul, but also a commitment to redde rationem: a desire and willingness to engage the Scriptures thoughtfully and intelligently. This challenge likewise confronts Manichaean claims that they were a religion of ratio while the ecclesia catholica was one of auctoritas, that is, unreasonable blind faith: How do you know these things? “Obviously,” you say, “Mani taught me.” But, unhappily, you believed him. For you did not see these things. You made yourself subject to a little-known and utterly insane authority for the thousands of mythical phantasms by which you are disgracefully weighed down, so that you might believe all these things, because they were written down in the books that in your miserable error you judged you should believe, though nothing was proven to you.14

Manichaeus me docuit: implicit here is Augustine’s Paulus me docuit!, as he concludes this book with a stinging critique of Mani, comparing the auctoritas Manichaei with the auctoritas apostolorum. Augustine’s approach is delibaliqua, multa respuitis, reprehenditis, accusatis, a corruptoribus inserta esse contenditis, nolite in exemplum adsumere distinctionem fidei uel obseruationis nostrae, sed rationem reddite praesumptionis uestrae” (CSEL 25/1: 766–67; WSA I/20: 412–13). Italics mine. 14. Ibid., 19: “Unde scis haec? plane, inquis, manichaeus me docuit. Sed, infelix, credidisti; neque enim uidisti. Si ergo ad milia fabulosorum phantasmatum, quibus turpiter grauidata es, te auctoritati ignotissimae et furiosissimae subdidisti, ut ideo haec omnia crederes, quia in illis conscripta sunt libris, quibus miserabili errore credendum esse censuisti, cum tibi nulla demonstrentur” (CSEL 25/1: 781; WSA I/20: 421). Italics mine.



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erately antithetical: it is isti (apostoli) compared to ille (that one—Mani); Isti are discipuli ueritatis, ille, praedicator falsitatis (see 22). In a sequence that parallels the Catholic creed, isti affirm again and again the incarnation, while ille proclaims the Manichaean creed of dualism, demons, and darkness, concluding: Finally, Mani proclaims a contrary message drawn from the teaching of demons so that he may appear more eminent, but the apostles tell us from the teaching of Christ that whoever preaches a contrary message is anathema [see Gal 1:8–9].15

Similar approaches can be found throughout this work and other antiManichaean writings: But all the manuscripts both new and old have what we produce against your impiety from the letter of the apostle Paul, namely that the Son of God is a descendant of David according to the flesh [see Rom 1:3]. All the churches read this, and all the languages agree. Strip off, then, the cloak of lies that Faustus donned when he set before himself someone who asked him, “Do you accept the apostle Paul?” to which he replied, “Certainly.” For why did he not reply instead, “Not at all,” except because, as a liar, he could not answer anything else but what was false? For what does he accept of the apostle Paul?16

Quid enim accepit apostoli pauli? Augustine’s entire effort is directed toward the delegitimation of Paulus Manichaeus in favor of Paulus catholicus. The fundamental failure of the Manichaean reading of Paul is that they read him carnaliter, whereas Paul himself is to be read and himself teaches us to read the Scriptures spiritualiter: In order not to understand the text in a carnal manner [he is referring to 1 Cor 10:4: “ bibebant enim de spiritali sequente petra, petra autem erat Christus”], he [Paul] calls it spiritual, that is, he teaches to understand the text spiritually. It would take us far a field and it is not necessary at this point, to explain the mysteries of the same law, unless it could be done briefly. For now it is sufficient that those who deride the scriptures know that we do not understand them as they do, with their customary 15. Ibid., 22: “Denique manichaeus ex doctrina daemoniorum aliud adnuntiat, ut quasi eminentior sit, apostoli uero ex doctrina christi commendant, ut quisquis aliud adnuntiauerit, anathema sit” (CSEL 25/1: 784; WSA I/20: 423, I have modified the English translation). 16. Ibid., 11.3: “Hoc autem, quod aduersus inpietatem uestram ex apostoli pauli epistula profertur, filium dei ex semine dauid esse secundum carnem, omnes codices et noui et ueteres habent, omnes ecclesiae legunt, omnes linguae consentiunt. Exuimini ergo pallio fallaciae, quo faustus indutus, cum sibi proposuisset tamquam interrogantem et dicentem: accipis apostolum paulum? Respondit: et maxime. Cur enim non potius respondit: et minime, nisi quia fallax aliud quam id, quod falsum erat, respondere non potuit? Quid enim accepit apostoli pauli?” (CSEL 25/1: 316; WSA I/20: 116).

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derision. We understand them in the manner of the apostles who though understanding all the mysteries only explain a few, leaving to their posterity to explain the rest following their same rules.17

The Manichaeans fail to employ Paul’s own regulae—and so fail to understand not only Paul but the very Old Testament which he teaches us to read spiritualiter. Thus they represent the antithesis of Paulus catholicus: This I ask of you: if Mani, or rather the teaching of the lying demons that possessed Mani did not seduce some Christian Catholics, so that they would abandon the faith . . . whence the Apostle says . . .18

Augustine’s voice never stands alone. Whatever he says is immediately supported and validated by the apostolic voice: unde apostolus dicit. In this admittedly brief glance at Augustine’s confrontation with Paulus Manichaeus, it is clear that Augustine does his utmost to emphasize the chasm that exists between “their” Paul and “his” Paul. Accipis apostolum Paulum? is his challenge to the Manichaeans, but it really means “accipis apostolum Paulum catholicum”! And he answers the question for himself: minime—not in the least.

Paulus Donatista I have argued elsewhere that the place of Paul in Augustine’s polemics against the Donatists has often been overlooked.19 Time and again, directly and indirectly, in his writings against his African religious opponents he calls upon Paulus noster (C. Cresc. 1.12.15)—implicitly setting what we have chosen to call Augustine’s Paulus catholicus over and against Paulus Donatista: Who would not recognize, in fact, how right we were to cite this text from the apostle [he is referring to 1 Cor 1:30, the man guilty of fornication with his father’s wife], since you say that it was not in the name of Donatus that you were baptized nor was 17. C. Admim. 12.5: “Quae rursus ne carnaliter acciperetur, spiritalem illam uocat, id est eam spiritaliter intellegi docet [Paulus]. Longum est et nunc non necessarium sacramenta eiusdem legis exponere, nisi cum breuiter possint. sufficit autem, ut nouerint illi, qui de his calumniantur, non ea nos ita intellegere, ut illi adsolent inridere, sed quemadmodum apostoli omnia intellegentes pauca exposuerunt, ut ad easdem regulas cetera posteris intellegenda relinquerent” (CSEL 115: 144). Italics mine. 18. C. Felicem 1.8: “Hoc te interrogo, utrum manichaeus uel potius doctrina daemoniorum mendaciloquorum, quae fuit in manichaeo, nullos christianos catholicos seduxerit, ut recederent a fide . . . unde Apostolus dicit . . .” (CSEL 25: 810). 19. See my “Paulus autem apostolus dicit (Cresc. 2.21.26): Augustine’s Pauline Polemic Against the Donatists,” Augustiniana (Festschrift für Dr. G. Ring zum 70 Geburtstag OSA.) 56 (2006): 235–59.



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Donatus crucified for you, and yet it is on account of the pars Donati that you separate yourself from the Catholic community, just like those against whom Paul contests. They too say they were not baptized in Paul’s name nor was Paul crucified for them, yet they created a schism in the name of Paul.20

This excerpt is interesting for two reasons. It shows how Augustine perceived the Donatists as drawing upon Paul to support their theology (et tamen de pauli nomine schisma faciebant), as well as how Augustine insists that the “Catholic reading” is the only true one: quis enim non uideat ideo magis recte a nobis positum hoc apostoli testimonium. It will be helpful, once again, to turn to some specific examples of Augustine’s arguing his Paulus catholicus against a Paulus Donatista. Written around 400, the Contra Epistulam Parmeniani is one of Augustine’s most important anti-Donatist works. Parmenianus succeeded Donatus as Donatist bishop of Carthage in 362 and until his death in 391/392 made every effort to secure the preeminence of the Donatist cause throughout Roman Africa. At the same time, he maintained a firm hold upon the reins of his church, perhaps most notably in his efforts to contain the Rogatist schism within Donatism. Augustine recognized in his Donatist opponent a skillful and formidable adversary, precisely what prompted his writing the work against Parmenianus’s Epistula ad Tyconium. His approach, announced at the outset, will be scriptural: I have decided here to respond to the letter of Parmenianus above all by means of various testimonies from scripture that must not be understood as he does.21

The testimonium apostoli (1.3.5) will play a prominent role throughout the work. In book 3, Augustine offers an example of Parmenianus’s approach to Paul: They hijack [Paul] to carry out the sacrilege of schism and as opportunity for separation: “Behold the apostle says: ‘Remove the evil from yourselves’ [1 Cor 5:13]. What evil, the kind that is toxic for the pure, otherwise he would not have ordained that it be removed?”22 20. C. ep. Petil. 3.51.63: “Quis enim non uideat ideo magis recte a nobis positum hoc apostoli testimonium, quia non uos dicitis in donati nomine baptizatos neque donatum crucifixum esse pro uobis, et tamen propter partem Donati uos ab ecclesiae catholicae communione separatis, sicut etiam illi quos paulus arguebat non utique dicebant in nomine Pauli se fuisse baptizatos aut Paulum pro se esse crucifixum, et tamen de Pauli nomine schisma faciebant” (CSEL 52: 216). 21. C. ep. Parmen. 1.1: “ut hic eidem Parmeniani epistulae responderem propter quaedam maxime quae de scripturis testimonia non sicut accipienda sunt accipit” (CSEL 51: 19). 22. Ibid., 3.1.1: “ad sacrilegium schismatis et ad occasionem praecisionis usurpant dicentes: ecce ait apostolus: auferte malum a uobis ipsis. quod malum utique si integris, inquiunt, non obesset, nec iuberetur auferri” (CSEL 51: 99).

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Ecce ait apostolus—Parmenianus supports his ecclesiology with a text from 1 Corinthians 5:13. Augustine counters this reading ingeniously: However, let us consider if it was not in vain that the apostle did not say: “Remove the evil from your community,” but “Remove the evil from yourselves,” since when someone is prevented by the community of the church to separate himself from evil people, if he removes evil from his very self, he does not mix with them in his heart and thus not only is he joined to the good, but he is likewise separated from the bad.23

The malum has now become a matter of the heart rather than the “membership roster”! And in this interpretation Paul becomes Augustine’s chief support, as Augustine follows with a “barrage” of Pauline testimonia that he will use against this Donatist reading of Paul. The attack will be twofold: on the one hand he will affirm Paul’s resolute authority, on the other hand he will show how he does not use that authority as the Donatists do. He begins with a text from Paul, but then shows how it is to be correctly read: Thus he says to Timothy: “Do not share in someone else’s sin” [1 Tm 5:22].24 And so, as the apostle admonishes, if you remove the evil from your very self, not only do you remove the boldness to commit evil but also the pestilence of consenting to it, as well as laziness in correcting and negligence in punishing, doing so with prudence and obedience to what the Lord prescribed, lest the grain be damaged.25

Ne frumenta laedantur: in the paragraph that follows Augustine continues with fourteen specific citations from 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and Ephesians, each supporting a “Catholic” approach to discipline; for Augustine, the only approach advocated and witnessed by Paul. ”What do you want,” Paul asks, “to come to you with rod in hand or to come to you in gentle love” [1 Cor 4:21]?26 23. Ibid., 3.1.2: “Interim uideamus, ne forte non frustra non dixerit apostolus: ‘auferte malos a congregatione uestra,’ sed: ‘auferte malum a uobis ipsis,’ quia et, cum quisque impeditur ab ecclesiae congregatione malos homines separare, si a se ipso auferat malum, non eis corde miscetur atque ita spiritaliter non solum coniungitur bonis, sed etiam separatur a malis” (CSEL 51: 99). 24. Ibid.: “sicut enim in illo loco ad Timotheum cum dixisset: ‘Neque communicaueris peccatis alienis’” (CSEL 51: 99). 25. Ibid.: “Et ideo, sicut apostolus monet, si auferat malum a se ipso, non solum auferet audaciam committendi aut pestilentiam consentiendi, sed etiam pigritiam corrigendi et neglegentiam uindicandi adhibita prudentia et oboedientia in eo quod praecepit Dominus, ne frumenta laedantur” (CSEL 51: 100). 26. Ibid., 3.1.3: “‘Quid uultis?’ inquit [Paulus]. ‘In uirga ueniam ad uos an in caritate mansuetudinis?’” (CSEL 51: 100).



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“It is common knowledge,” Paul remarks, “that there is a fornicator among you, and such a one as not even to be found among the pagans, someone having his father’s wife as his own” [see 1 Cor 5:1].27 What, therefore did the apostle [Paul] do, if not to provide for spiritual health by the destruction of the flesh, so that by some punishment or even bodily death, as happened to Annanias and his wife, falling dead at the feet of the apostle Peter, or for the sake of repentance, as [the fornicator] was handed over to Satan, slaying in him the shameful concupiscence of the flesh, as [Paul] himself says: “mortify the members which are on earth” [Col 5:3], in which context he mentions fornication, and again, “if you live according to the flesh, you will die; if, however, you mortify in the spirit the deeds of the flesh, you will live” [Rom 8:13].28 He says this more clearly speaking to the Thessalonians: “If someone does not obey our admonition in this letter, note it well, so that you will not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed” [2 Thes 3:14–15].29 May they [the Donatists] listen and at some point grasp how apostolic love busies itself [to maintain unity] so that, bearing with one another, we make every effort to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace [see Eph 4:2–3].30 There is no doubt but that he has the fornicator in mind in the second letter to the same Corinthians when he says: “Through my tears I write to you filled with dismay and with a crushed heart, not to bring you down but so that you may know the love which I have in abundance for you.”31

Through this progression of Pauline texts Augustine highlights both his apostolic dedication to discipline and his apostolic dedication to love, neither condoning evil nor breaking the community apart. This final excerpt, as it pro27. Ibid.: “‘Omnino,’ inquit [Paulus], ‘auditur in uobis fornicatio, et talis fornicatio qualis nec in gentibus, ita ut uxorem patris sui quis habeat.’ quid moderatius, quid diligentius, quid sollicitudine pia et paterna ac materna caritate plenius fieri aut dici potest?” (CSEL 51: 101). 28. Ibid.: “Quid ergo agebat apostolus [Paulus], nisi ut per interitum carnis saluti spiritali consuleret, ut siue aliqua poena uel etiam morte corporali, sicut Annanias et uxor eius ante pedes apostoli Petri ceciderunt, siue per paenitentiam, quoniam satanae traditus erat, interimeret in se sceleratam carnis concupiscentiam, quia ipse item dicit: ‘mortificate membra quae sunt super terram,’ inter quae etiam fornicationem commemorat, et iterum: ‘si enim secundum carnem uixeritis, moriemini, si autem spiritu facta carnis mortificaueritis, uiuetis’?” (CSEL 51: 102). 29. Ibid.: “Hoc enim apertius ad Thessalonicenses dicit: ‘si quis autem non obaudit uerbo nostro per epistulam, hunc notate, ut non commisceamini cum illo, ut erubescat.’” (CSEL 51: 102). 30. Ibid.: “Audiant isti aliquando et intellegant, quemadmodum satagat caritas apostolica, ut sufferentes inuicem studeamus conseruare unitatem spiritus in uinculo pacis” (CSEL 51: 102). 31. Ibid.: “Nam non inuenitur de quo alio significet in secunda epistula ad eosdem Corinthios, cum ait: ‘nam ex multa tribulatione et angustia cordis scripsi uobis per multas lacrimas, non ut contristemini, sed ut sciatis dilectionem quam habeo abundantius in uos’” (CSEL 51: 103).

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gresses, contains a lengthy citation of 2 Corinthians 2:4–11, ending with a clear statement of what Augustine will describe subsequently as pax uera atque catholica (see 3.2.4), the pax Paul not only taught but most importantly practiced himself: Has anyone heard of someone more restrained, more diligent, more filled with holy care and paternal and maternal love?32

It is not only Paul’s words but equally the exemplum Pauli which the Donatists fail to grasp: their Paulus Donatista is not the authentic Paul! A few paragraphs later Augustine returns once again to Parmenianus’s use of 1 Corinthians 5:13: Pay attention to how the apostle has come to this position, whose final comments [alone] Parmenianus believed necessary to cite: “Remove the evil from you yourselves.”33

Augustine goes on to note that while Parmenianus cites 1 Corinthians 5:13, he carefully leaves out its surrounding and potentially incriminating verses: And, accordingly, Parmenianus, as far as I can judge, tried to avoid citing [the whole passage], in order to avoid being challenged, leaving out what would eminently seem to support his argument.34

This Donatist reading of Paul is further suspect because it fails to read Paul integrally, leading them to do “quod Apostolus prohibet” (3.2.12). Once again, the authority here is not Augustine but Paul, who not only writes but also models what he writes. He teaches and demonstrates a thoroughly Catholic model of what tolerance and love truly demand: ne pax ecclesiae uioletur (3.2.15). Augustine’s conclusion to this particular section once again gives the apostle the final word: And for this reason, in no way must that precept of the apostle be overlooked, when it can be implemented without danger of disturbing the peace; namely, that someone evil be separated from the community of the good in such a way that [Paul’s] primary precept be maintained, that bearing with one another, we strive to serve “the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” [Eph 4:3].35 32. Ibid., 3.1.3: “Quid moderatius, quid diligentius, quid sollicitudine pia et paterna ac materna caritate plenius fieri aut dici potest?” (CSEL 51: 103). 33. Ibid., 3.2.7: “Ecce quemadmodum ad hanc sententiam uenit apostolus, cuius ultimam particulam ponendam credidit parmenianus dicens esse scriptum: auferte malum ex uobis ipsis” (CSEL 51: 107–8). 34. Ibid.: “Hoc ergo ergo Parmenianus, quantum arbitror, euitare conatus est ne sibi responderetur, ut id non poneret quod pro eius causa ualidissime sonare uideretur” (CSEL 51: 108). 35. Ibid., 3.2.16: “Quamobrem et illud praeceptum apostoli nullo modo neglegendum est,



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I would like to insist, once again, that although Augustine’s Paulus catholicus is implicit, it nonetheless is present at every turn of the argument. Augustine proceeds with Paul ever at his side: cur idem Apostolus praecipiat (3.2.9); discant isti aliquando non sic intellegere quod ait Apostolus (3.2.11); quid restant nisi ut intellegamus nobis id iuberi per Apostolum (3.2.12); cum enim dixisset Apostolus (3.2.15). Paul has become for Augustine a fellow-disputator, pleading and insisting on the “Catholic cause,” his “overwhelming” presence in citation after citation clearly taking the argument out of Augustine’s hands and placing it firmly in Paul’s hands—Paulus catholicus, of course.

Paulus Pelagianus Anyone familiar with Augustine’s controversy with “the Pelagians” is well aware of the central role the writings and figure of the apostle Paul play over the course of the dispute.36 Augustine will accuse his opponents again and again of standing not against Augustine but, in fact, against Paul. A case in point, is the bishop of Hippo’s charge against Julian of Eclanum: Thus, you wanted to reply to me in its defense, but you did not dare to oppose the apostle and could not twist his apostolic testimony to some other meaning, as you usually do. Hence, you preferred to be utterly silent about it.37

Sed apostolo resistere non auderes: throughout the entire controversy, and in particular, in its most polemical “contra Iulianum” phase, Augustine persistently draws upon Paul for support and, in a certainly determined and deliberate effort, argues again and again that to resist Augustine’s “Catholic” reading of Paul is tantamount to resisting the apostle himself. He further buttresses this argument by marshaling a host of doctores catholici to argue on his behalf, a practice that will only increase in the course of the controversy. cum sine periculo uiolandae pacis fieri potest, quia nec ipse aliter fieri uoluit, ut a congregatione bonorum separaretur malus, et eiusdem illud praecipue tenendum est, ut sufferentes inuicem studeamus seruare unitatem spiritus in uinculo pacis” (CSEL 51: 120). 36. The bibliography regarding Paul and the Pelagian controversy is extensive but awaits a single comprehensive study (a daunting task, to say the least). For some perspectives on the topic see Engaging Augustine on Romans: Self, Context, and Theology in Interpretation, ed. Daniel Patte and Eugene TeSelle (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2002); Theodore De Bruyn, “Introduction,” in Pelagius’ Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, trans. with introduction notes by Theodore De Bruyn, esp. 1–35 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); see also my “Exercises in grace: Augustine’s En. in Ps. 118,” Augustiniana (Mélanges offerts à T. J. van Bavel à l’occasion de son 80e anniversaire.) 54 (2004): 147–75. 37. C. Iul. 2.7.20: “Ita cum mihi pro illa respondere cuperes, sed apostolo resistere non auderes, nec in aliam sententiam, sicut soletis, ipsum apostolicum testimonium detorquere potuisses, omnino inde tacere maluisti.” (PL 44: 687). English translations for the Contra Julianum are taken from WSA I/24.

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Recognize, Julian, my son, the Catholic voices in harmony, and stop singing out of tune with them.38

There can be no doubt that this uox catholica is not only the doctores catholici such as Ambrose, Basil, Hilary, and a host of others he will cite, but Paul himself, and, by extension Augustine—since the bulk of his citations are of these same doctores catholici upholding Paul and his teaching—and Augustine will insist that their Catholic teaching is identical with his. And so, those five arguments of yours, which you use especially to frighten people, are not able to upset others or yourselves, if only you believe Ambrose, Cyprian, Gregory, and the other holy and renowned Catholic teachers—in fact, even if you believe your own selves. They all say that the law of sin which is present in the members of a human being and resists the law of the mind, the law by which the flesh has desires opposed to the spirit, imposes even upon holy baptized persons the necessity of fighting—and of fighting, of course, against evil.39

What is interesting about this excerpt is that Augustine begins with the “ doctores catholici” but subtly moves into Paul’s own words, establishing an unbreakable bond between their voices and that of the apostle—and, implicitly, that of Augustine’s. Once again, it will be helpful to take a closer look at this effort in operation. Book 2 of his Contra Iulianum, the entire composition of six books being dated to c. 421, is perhaps the most Pauline of the work. Paul’s name echoes explicitly seventeen times, the most of any of the books, complemented by the simple reference to “the apostle” some twenty times. The apostle Paul clearly and plainly stated this point with his words, “The flesh has desires opposed to the spirit and the spirit has desires opposed to the flesh, for those are opposed to each other so that you do not do what you will” [Gal 5:17].40 38. Ibid., 2.3.7: “Agnosce, fili Iuliane, consonas catholicas uoces, et ab eis desine dissonare” (PL 44: 678; WSA I/24: 310). Italics mine. 39. Ibid., 2.4.9: “Ac per hoc quinque ista uestra, in quibus maxime terretis homines, argumenta, nec alios poterunt perturbare, nec uos, si credatis Ambrosio, Cypriano, Gregorio, aliis que catholicis sanctis claris que doctoribus, imo uero etiam uobis ipsis, legem peccati, quae inest hominis membris repugnans legi mentis (cf. Rm 7:23), qua caro concupiscit aduersum spiritum (cf. Gal 5:17), etiam baptizatis sanctis ingerere pugnandi necessitatem, contra quid nisi contra malum?” (PL 44: 679–80; WSA I/24: 312); italics mine. For Augustine’s use of these Catholic authorities see the comments of Eric Rebillard, “A New Style of Argument in Christian Polemic: Augustine and the Use of Patristic Citations,” JECS 8 (2000): 559–78; “Augustin et ses autorités: l’élaboration de l’argument patristique au course de la controvrse pélagienne,” SP 38 (2001): 245–63. 40. C. Iul., 2.3.6. Augustine here cites Cyprian’s De oratione dominica 16: “quod aperte



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Here it is Augustine citing Cyprian citing Paul—a doctor catholicus citing Paulus catholicus! Throughout we will hear ideo dixit Paulus (2.5.13), unde sanctus Paulus ait (ibid.), Paulus dicit (ibid.)—and often it is enough, Augustine insists, simply to listen attentively to Paul without need of commentary or exposition. We see the same intersection of voices as Augustine turns to Ambrose: Listen further to what he [Ambrose] says in the book he wrote called Paradise. He says, “Perhaps Paul said, ‘Words which it is not permitted that a human being speak’ [2 Cor 12:4], because he was still situated in the body.” That is, he saw the passions of this body; he saw the law of his flesh that resists the law of his mind. He also says in the same work, “When scripture speaks of the serpent as wiser, you understand about whom it is speaking; it is that enemy of ours who has, nonetheless, the wisdom of this world [Rom 8:7]. But pleasure and delight are also correctly said to be wise, because scripture also speaks of a wisdom of the flesh, as you have in the text.”41

What is interesting to highlight here once again is the linkage between three voices: Augustine’s, Ambrose’s, and Paul’s, Augustine quoting Ambrose quoting Paul. As noted at the outset, I do not intend to explore here the “content” of the argument of this reading of Paul, but rather to highlight how his Pauline interpretation is presented, Augustine’s dialectical and rhetorical strategy. It is as if Augustine cedes the stage to Ambrose, and Ambrose’s reading of Paul, to let him speak on Augustine’s behalf. Augustine’s reading is none other than secundum beatum Ambrosium: But now notice—for this is the more important point—it is not some Jew, as you suppose, but the apostle Paul, as blessed Ambrose holds, who says, “I see another law in my members that resists the law of my mind and holds me captive in the law of sin” (Rom 7:23). Again, in another passage of the same work the same teacher says, “Paul is under attack and sees the law of his flesh that resists the law of his mind and holds him captive in the law of sin. His own conscience is not the source of his confidence; rather, he trusts that he will be set free from the body of death through the grace of Christ. How can you suppose that no one can sin knowingly? Paul says, atque manifeste apostolus Paulus sua uoce declarat: caro, inquit, concupiscit aduersus spiritum, et spiritus aduersus carnem: haec enim inuicem aduersantur sibi; ut non quae uultis illa faciatis” (PL 44: 676; WSA I/24: 308–9). 41. Ibid., 2.5.13: “Audi adhuc quid dicat [Ambrosius] in libro quem scripsit De paradiso. Fortasse, inquit, ideo dixit Paulus, ‘quae non licet homini loqui,’ quia erat adhuc in corpore constitutus, hoc est, uidebat istius corporis passiones, uidebat legem carnis suae repugnantem legi mentis suae. Itemque in eodem: cum dicit, inquit, sapientiorem serpentem, intelligis quem loquatur, id est, illum aduersarium nostrum, ‘quia tamen habet sapientiam huius mundi.’ Sed et uoluptas atque delectatio bene sapiens dicitur; quia et carnis appellatur sapientia: sicut habes, quia sapientia huius carnis inimica est Deo” (PL 44: 682; WSA I/24: 315).

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‘For I do not do the good that I will, but I do the evil that I do not will’ (Rom 7:19). How can you think that one derives benefit from knowledge which increases the hatefulness of the sin?” [Ambrose, De paradiso, 12.60] So too, in the same work this bishop applies his words to all of us, carefully treating our common situation. He says, “After all, the law of the flesh resists the law of the mind, and we must labor and sweat in order to chastise the body and bring it into servitude and in order to plant in it things that are spiritual” [Ambrose, ibid., 15.77].42

What underlies this approach is the stinging accusation, different from what was seen in the Manichaean controversy or in his debates against the Donatists, that Augustine’s reading of Paul, especially regarding original sin and its consequences, is not a “Catholic” reading of Paul; rather, the Pelagians are, at best, novel, at worst Manichaean—against which accusations Augustine does his utmost to turn the tables against his opponent by the countercharge of “novel error”: In those books [Julian’s Ad Turbantium] you want to turn human beings away from the most solidly founded Catholic faith and to bring them to the novelty of your error. You often try to instill in the minds of your readers a horror of the Manichaean plague.43

It is Julian who is guilty of “novelty”: The Church, then, has taken fright at the profane words of your new teaching, and she is cautious and sober because of the apostle’s warning. She fears that, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so her mind might be led astray from the chastity of Christ. And so, she is horrified at the attacks of your doctrine creeping up upon the virginity of the Catholic faith, and she steps on, crushes, and kicks aside your doctrine like the head of the serpent [see Gn 3:15].44 42. Ibid., 2.5.13: “Uerum nunc, quod potius instat, ecce non secundum uos quicumque iudaeus, sed secundum beatum ambrosium de se ipso Paulus apostolus dicit, ‘uideo aliam legem in membris meis, repugnantem legi mentis meae, et captiuantem me in lege peccati’ (Rm. 7:23). Rursus in eodem opere alio loco idem doctor: impugnatur, inquit, paulus, et ‘uidet legem carnis suae repugnantem legi mentis suae, et captiuantem se in lege peccati’; nec de conscientia sua praesumit, sed per Christi gratiam confidit se a mortis corpore liberandum: et tu quemquam opinaris scientem non posse peccare? Paulus dicit, ‘non enim quod uolo facio bonum; sed quod nolo malum, hoc ago’ (Rm. 7:19): et tu arbitraris homini prodesse scientiam, quae delicti augeat inuidiam? Item que in ipso opere idem ipse episcopus ad omnes nos referens eloquium, causamque communem sedulo agens: ‘repugnat enim lex carnis,’ inquit, ‘legi mentis, et laborandum nobis est ac desudandum, ut castigemus corpus et seruituti redigamus, et quae sunt spiritualia seminemus’” (PL 44: 683; WSA I/24: 315–16). Italics mine. 43. Ibid., 1.2.4: “In quibus libris uolens homines auertere a fide catholica fundatissima, et ad nouitatem uestri erroris adducere, saepe incutis legentium sensibus manichaeae pestis horrorem” (PL 44: 643; WSA I/24: 269). Italics mine. 44. Ibid., 2.10.37: “Ideo profanas uoces uestrae nouitatis expauit; et cauta ac sobria ex admo-



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[Through Cyprian] we prove that we are defending the ancient Catholic faith against the vain and pagan novelty of your error.45 After all, there is but one reason why even the multitude of Christians despises your novel doctrine [their simple Catholic faith].46 On these questions your impious new ideas are choked off by the Catholic truth handed down from antiquity.47 In fact, you have not even crushed the Manichaeans; rather you helped them—you in particular and all those who share in common with you the new Pelagian error—as I have already shown.48

Augustine is using the notion of “novelty” as a cipher for moving beyond the pale of the rule of faith. As he says in a sermon with reference to the Pelagians: “Why try to smash the ancient rule of faith with new objections?”49 Indeed, it is Julian’s reading of Paul which is not only novel, but also smacks of Manichaeism! The very intensity of these comments suggests the high stakes Augustine saw to be at the heart of these debates—and why he felt it necessary to align Ambrosius catholicus as closely as possible with Augustine’s Paulus catholicus. Ambrose, for Augustine, is “ ille doctor meus” (1.9.44), “tam memorabilis doctor” (2.6.15), “uir sanctus et uerax” (2.8.22), “uir uenerabilis” (2.5.1), to be numbered among “catholicis sanctis clarisque doctoribus” (2.4.9), and perhaps the most noteworthy, “ ille tam excellenter tui doctoris ore laudatus doctor Ambrosius” (2.5.11)—the reference being to Pelagius’s own admiration for doctor Ambrosius. It is with unremitting emphasis on Ambrose’s authority that Augustine can exclaim “quae si satis non sunt, adhuc audi—but if these are not nitione apostolica, ne sicut serpens euam seduxit astutia sua, sic et mens eius corrumperetur a castitate quae est in Christo, catholicae fidei uirginitate insidias uestri dogmatis subrepentis exhorruit; et tanquam caput colubri calcauit, obtriuit abiecit” (PL 44: 700; WSA I/24: 335). Italics mine. 45. Ibid., 3.17.31: “probemus antiquam nos defendere fidem catholicam, contra uestri erroris uanam profanam que nouitatem” (PL 44: 7188; WSA I/24: 357). 46. Ibid., 5.1.4: “Neque enim alia causa est, cur nouitatem uestram detestetur etiam multitudo christiana.” Earlier in the same paragraph he makes reference to simplices credentes (PL 44: 784; WSA I/24: 433). 47. Ibid., 5.12.48: “In his quaestionibus catholica ueritate antiquitus tradita uestra impia nouitas suffocatur” (PL 44: 811; WSA I/24: 463). Italics mine. 48. Ibid., 6.22.69: “Uerum nec ipsos manichaeos contriuisti, quos potius adiuuisti, tu maxime, et in commune omnes Pelagianae nouitatis erroris que participes, sicut iam demonstraui” (PL 44: 865; WSA I/24: 524). 49. S. 174.9: “Quare nouis disputationibus antiquam fidei regulam frangere conaris?” (PL 38: 945).

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enough, listen further!” (2.5.11), occasion for another salvo of Ambrosian citations in support of the “Catholic” position: In another book he [Ambrose] wrote entitled The Sacrament of Rebirth, or Philosophy, he speaks as follows, “Happy, then, is the death that rescues us from sin and forms us again for God. For one who has died has been justified from sin [Rom 6:7]. Are any justified from sin by the end of their nature? Certainly not, because those who die as sinners remain in their sin. But those who have had all their sins forgiven through baptism are justified from sin.” Do you have anything to say to this? Do you see how this venerable man stated that the death of a human being is made happy in baptism in which all sins are forgiven? But notice another point; notice this point which you reject.50

Augustine seeks to construct his argument in such a way that Julian must to respond to Catholic Ambrose rather than Augustine himself! And as he continues with another lengthy quotation from Ambrose which ends with Romans 7: 23—“uideo autem aliam legem”—he concludes with a direct challenge to Julian: As great, Julian, as is the stubbornness of heart which sweeps you along, as great as is the obstinacy which puts you on the side of Pelagius against us, that great is the evidence of the facts by which blessed Ambrose besieges you, that great is the clarity of his words by which he hammers you. Hence, if no reason, no thought, no consideration of religion, of piety, of humanity, and of the truth which is to be found in you yourself will call you back from your stubborn purpose, you reveal how great a human evil it is that a person has advanced to a point where one does not want to remain, but from which one is ashamed to withdraw. That is after all, the way I believe you feel when you read these passages. If only the peace of Christ would win out in your heart, and the good of repentance would be victorious over the evil of shame!51 50. C. Iul. 2.5.14: “In alio quoque libro suo, De sacramento regenerationis, uel De philosophia quem scripsit, ita loquitur: ‘beata igitur mors quae nos peccato eripit, ut reformet Deo.’ ‘Qui enim mortuus est, iustificatus est a peccato.’ numquid naturae fine,’ inquit, ‘iustificatur a peccato aliquis? non utique: quoniam qui peccator moritur, in peccato manet; ille autem iustificatur a peccato, cui per baptismum peccata omnia remittuntur.’ Habesne ad ista quod dicas? Uidesne quemadmodum expresserit uir uenerabilis, in baptismo fieri hominis mortem beatam, ubi remittuntur peccata omnia? Sed attende aliud, attende quod non uis” (PL 44: 683; WSA I/24: 316); italics mine. The work of Ambrose cited by Augustine is now lost. 51. Ibid., 2.5.14: “Quantalibet feraris animi obstinatione, iuliane, quantalibet aduersus nos peruicacia pro Pelagiano errore consistas; tanta per beatum Ambrosium circumuallaris rerum euidentia, tanta uerborum eius manifestatione contunderis, ut profecto, si nulla te ratio, cogitatio, consideratio religionis, pietatis, humanitatis, atque in te ipso aduertendae ueritatis a pertinaci intentione reuocauerit, ostendas quantum in malis humanis ualeat, eo quemquam fuisse progressum, ubi manere non libeat, unde redire iam pudeat. sic enim credo te affici, cum ista legeris. sed o si pax christi in tuo corde uincat, et bona poenitentia de mala uerecundia palmam ferat” (PL 44: 684; WSA I/24: 316–17).



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And what Augustine does with Ambrose he replicates with Chrysostom, with Cyprian, with Hilary of Poitiers, and others, leading to collective accusation, for Augustine, and against Julian: On account of this Catholic truth holy and blessed priests renowned for their explanation of the words of God, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Reticius, Olympius, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory, Innocent, John, Basil, to whom I add, whether you like it or not, the priest Jerome—I omit those who are still living—maintain against you that all human beings are subject to original sin. No one rescues them from it except he whom the virgin conceived without the law of sin that resists the law of the mind.52

And again: By these words and by the great authority of the saints, you will surely be healed by a gift of God’s mercy. He who can do this knows how much I desire it! Or, if you persevere in this position which you take for wisdom, though it is really great folly—and that is something I do not want—you will not be looking for judges from whom you may gain acquittal. You will be looking for judges before whom you can accuse so many holy, outstanding, and renowned teachers of the Catholic truth: Irenaeus, Cyprian, Reticius, Olympius, Hilary, Gregory, Basil, Ambrose, John, Innocent, Jerome, and other companions and colleagues of theirs, as well as the whole Church of Christ. Faithfully serving the Lord’s food to God’s family, these men attained great glory in the Lord. Against this wretched insanity of yours, which I pray that God may take from you, I see that I must reply to your books so that the faith of these men is defended against you, just as the gospel itself is defended against the unbelieving and professed enemies of Christ.53

Once again, this is only a sample of a much more pervasive technique that spans the entire anti-Julian corpus, one that defends Augustine’s reading of Paul as the only true and genuinely Catholic reading of the apostle. 52. Ibid., 2.10.33: “Propter quam catholicam ueritatem sancti ac beati et in diuinorum eloquiorum pertractatione clarissimi sacerdotes, Irenaeus, Cyprianus, Reticius, Olympius, Hilarius, Ambrosius, Gregorius, Innocentius, Ioannes, Basilius, quibus addo presbyterum, uelis nolis, Hieronymum, ut omittam eos qui nondum dormierunt, aduersus uos proferunt de omnium hominum peccato originali obnoxia successione sententiam: unde nemo eruit, nisi quem sine ‘lege peccati repugnante legi mentis’ uirgo concepit” (PL 44: 697; WSA I/24: 331). Italics mine. 53. Ibid., 2.10.37: “His igitur eloquiis et tanta auctoritate sanctorum, profecto aut sanaberis dei misericordia donante, quod quantum tibi optem, uidet qui faciat: aut si, quod abominor, in eadem quae tibi uidetur sapientia, et est magna stultitia, perduraueris; non tu iudices quaesiturus es, ubi causam tuam purges; sed ubi tot sanctos doctores egregios atque memorabiles catholicae ueritatis accuses, Irenaeum, Cyprianum, Reticium, Olympium, Hilarium, Gregorium, Basilium, Ambrosium, Ioannem, Innocentium, Hieronymum, caeteros que socios ac participes eorum, insuper et uniuersam Christi ecclesiam, cui diuinae familiae dominica cibaria fideliter ministrantes, ingenti in Domino gloria claruerunt” (PL 44: 701–2; WSA I/24: 335).

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This essay began with a comment from Joseph Lienhard: “What is in the creed was already in Scripture.” This integral connection between the regula fidei and Scripture is, I propose, the foundation of Augustine’s arguing on behalf of Paulus catholicus. Paul’s writings, on the one hand, are profoundly formative of the regula fidei—after all, he is the doctor ueritatis, the dispensator ueritatis (see Ep. 82.2.22; 3.37); on the other hand, this very regula fidei must be the guide for reading Paul: one must read him secundum regulam fidei. This “hermeneutical circle” certainly sets up a complex but potentially productive methodology for appreciating Augustine’s Pauline endeavors—and in the case of this essay, to note the rhetorical and dialectical efforts Augustine employs to insist that his reading of Paul is truly a Catholic reading.54 In particular, it challenged Augustine to place his own reading of Paul in continuity with the doctores catholici, seeking to defend his reading of the apostle as not idiosyncratic but, rather, Catholic through and through. The regula fidei is not Augustine’s rule but the church’s rule, so the bishop of Hippo argues, and is, in this case, a way of reading Scripture in general and Paul in particular. Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that, given Augustine’s own authority as the preeminent doctor catholicus of the medieval church, his reading of Paul left the West with an Augustinian Paulus catholicus whose profile would continue to dominate for the millennium that followed his death—and beyond.

J. Pato u t B u r ns

10  How Christ Saves Augustine’s Multiple Explanations

Augustine’s primary explanation of the process of redemption is usually identified as a forensic analysis which addresses the rights of the devil. This theory was proposed early, middle, and late in his writing career and with little significant change. Its presentation twice in his On the Trinity conferred upon it a certain prominence and insured that it would be given full consideration by his students.1 Anselm would later reject it on the grounds that the rights of the devil—as this notion had been developed in the time since Augustine proposed it—was a fiction which would not stand up to sustained analysis.2 This was not, however, Augustine’s only explanation of the redemptive work of Christ. He also developed a theory based on the Pauline meditation on Christ’s taking human sinfulness upon himself and destroying it in his bodily death on the cross.3 In both of these expositions, Augustine included elements of yet a third explanation of the efficacy of the death of Christ, one which Abelard would later adopt and elaborate.4 As a manifestation of divine love, the death of Christ provokes human sinners to repentance and inspires a love of God which is itself the beginning of their salvation.5 This essay is dedicated to exploring each of these three explanations of redemption and to discerning how they are related to each other in Augustine’s thinking. The analysis will begin with the better known, the one using the 1. Lib. 3.10.31, Trin. 4.12.15–13.18; 13.10.13–18.23. 2. See Anselm, Cur Deus Homo 1.7 and my “The Concept of Satisfaction in Medieval Redemption Theory,” Theological Studies 36 (1975): 285–304. Augustine did see and attempt to avoid the problem Anselm identified. 3. For early examples see, Rom. prop. 32–34, 48; Gal. 22–24. 4. Commentaria in epistulam Pauli ad Romanos 2.26, CCCM 11.113.124–118.270. 5. Within the first explanation, see Trin. 13.15.18 or Catech. 4.7–8.

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rights of the devil. This essay will then examine the second, parallel interpretation of Christ’s action based upon Paul’s symbolic language. Only then will the study turn to the third model, which attributes the efficacy of the death of Christ to its impact on the dispositions of the person. The principles and objectives which guided Augustine’s elaboration of these three explanations will then be studied. Finally, an attempt will be made to show how these three theories were related to each other and how they were modified as a result of the development of Augustine’s theology. The conclusion toward which this essay moves, albeit somewhat provisionally, is that the first and second explanations—the rights of the devil and the destruction of sin—were Augustinian versions of the theories offered by the theological traditions associated with the theological “schools” of Antioch and Alexandria. The third explanation was Augustine’s own, a North African contribution. It rested upon an appreciation of the church’s mediation of salvation and of charity as the divine gift which realizes salvation by forgiving sins and sanctifying the Christian. This third theory was, it will be suggested, foundational to the coherence and the adequacy of the other two.

Subverting the Devil’s Dominion Human beings originally sinned in response to being tempted by the devil. For violating the command of God, they were subjected to both death and that lust which deprives the person of control over bodily appetites. Because of the presence of the whole of humanity in Adam and Eve, and because of the operation of lust in the process of generation after their sin, all human beings became sinful as a consequence of that first sin. In this sense, the whole of humanity was in the possession of or under the domination of the devil.6 Having persuaded them to join in sin, the devil then used their bodily deaths to hold them with him in that eternal spiritual death which was originally the punishment for the devil’s own sin.7 Augustine later explained that God did not actually subject humanity to the devil: after humans had abandoned their relationship with God, the devil entered in as the guide they had followed and the ruler to whom they submitted. Both the demons and the sinful humans, however, remained under the divine governance.8 The devil’s malice even served God’s purpose for both the punishment and the redemption of human sinners. 6. Lib. 3.10.3; Trin. 4.12.15, 13.16.21,18.23; Serm. Morin 17(265D).4; Psal. 71.7, 125.2. In De libero arbitrio, the sinfulness of humans is explained through the operation of lust; by Trin. 4, the identity of all humans in Adam has become a factor in Augustine’s thinking. 7. Lib. 3.10.31; Trin. 4.13.18, 13.16.21. 8. Trin. 13.12.16 makes this transition explicit. See also Fel. 2.11.



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The Word of God became human in order to restore sinners to a proper relationship with God. Christ was virginally conceived—without the operation of lust—and free of the sinful influence of Adam. He was part of Adam’s race but neither identified with his sin nor subject to its guilt. The devil then tempted Christ to sin personally and individually but was unsuccessful and thus had no claim over him, no right to inflict upon him the punishment of bodily death.9 Using human agents, whom Augustine identified primarily as Judas and the Jews, the devil worked Christ’s death unjustly.10 Christ voluntarily allowed himself to be killed: he preferred to suffer that injustice rather than use his divine power—even justly—to prevent the violation of his right to bodily life. By killing a human being who had not been persuaded to sin, the devil transgressed the limits of the dominion or authority which sinners had ceded and God had allowed. Thus Christ’s voluntary death actually defeated the devil. Christ gained the right to deprive the devil of authority over sinners and justly exercised that right to set free all who were or subsequently would be connected to him by faith. Any humans who transferred their allegiance from the devil to Christ were no longer subject to that eternal, spiritual death in which the devil would hold those who remained under his suasion.11 By paying a “debt” of bodily death which he did not owe, Christ freed those who actually owed the debt of spiritual death. His followers continue to be assaulted by temptation from outside themselves but their spirits were set free from demonic control. Until their resurrection, they pay the sinner’s debt of bodily death, which does them no lasting harm because they had been freed from the devil’s eternal death. Christ’s bodily resurrection followed his death as a just exercise of divine power and a demonstration of his subversion of the devil’s authority and power. The faithful will, in the end-time, also be freed from mortality just as they had been from sin prior to their deaths.12 Thus Augustine explained that Christ, by his justice and humility, had used the pride and power of the devil to destroy that very dominion which sinners had ceded. He explained that justice is actually powerful and that injustice is self-defeating even though human mortality provides the agents of injustice the opportunity to coerce.13 Christians could participate in Christ’s victory even when they lacked his divine power: by clinging to justice, they could defeat the coercive power of the Roman state and lesser tyrants or bullies.14 9. Lib. 3.10.31; Trin. 4.13.17, 13.18.23. 10. Psal. 61.22, 71.7. 11. Lib. 3.10.31; Trin. 4.13.17, 13.14.18, 15.19, 16.21; Serm. 263.1; Psal. 125.2. The death of Christ liberated those who had believed in advance of his coming—the saints of Israel—as well as those who believed afterward, Pecc. merit. 2.29.47. 12. Lib. 3.10.31; Trin. 4.13.17. 13. Trin. 4.13.18. 14. This was the essence of the martyrs’ victory over the coercive power of the Roman state,

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In his preaching, Augustine used the image of a trap in which Christ’s mortal flesh was the bait which caught the devil and thereby sprung Adam from the other trap which the devil had set for him. That image would survive the medieval criticism of the underlying theory.15

By Sin God Condemned Sin in the Flesh The Pauline letters offered resources for describing and illustrating the work of Christ in freeing humanity from the domination of sin and death. Five passages in particular were closely linked together and frequently used in combination. Because the modern critical text of Paul’s writings (and its contemporary interpretative translations) differs somewhat from the Latin versions which Augustine used—both the Old Latin and the Vulgate—a review of his texts will be helpful for understanding his interpretations of them. Romans 6:6 reads in the NRSV, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin [sinful body, RSV] might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” Augustine used variant forms of the Old Latin: “Knowing that our old man at the same time was fastened to the cross with him so that the body of sin might be emptied, so that we might no longer serve sin as slaves.” Sometimes he used, “crucified,” and even “crucified to the cross,” in place of “fastened.”16 The Vulgate form, which used “crucified” instead of “fastened to the cross” and substituted “destroyed” for “emptied” appeared only in his very late writings.17 Augustine exploited his Old Latin version’s image of fixing the old humanity to the cross and its evacuation. Romans 6:10–11 reads in the NRSV and RSV, “The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” Augustine used a text which was little different from the Vulgate or these modern translations: “That he died to sin, he died once; that however he lives, he lives to God.”18 Trin. 13.16.20. Augustine identified it again in the threats made by the socially powerful to coerce false testimony in court. Serm. Denis 17(301A).5. 15. Serm. 134.5.6, 263.1–2; Serm. Morin 17(265D).4–5. The image survives, for example, in the fifteenth-century Merode altarpiece, in which Joseph is pictured at his workbench constructing a mousetrap. 16. “Scientes quia uetus homo noster simul confixus est cruci cum illo ut euacuetur corpus peccati, ut ultra non seruiamus peccato” (Trin. 3.10.20); “crucifixus est” (Trin. 4.3.6); “crucifixus est cruci” (Ep. 55.2.3,14.24). 17. “Hoc scientes quia uetus homo noster simul crucifixus est, ut destruatur corpus peccati, ut ultra non seruiamus peccato” (Iul. op. imp. 1.67). 18. “Quod enim mortuus est peccato, mortuus est semel: quod autem uiuit, uiuit deo” (Iul. 6.3.7).



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Romans 8:3 reads in the NRSV: “For God had done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh; and to deal with sin [variant: on account of sin], he condemned sin in the flesh.” The RSV translates the NRSV’s variant: “as a sin offering.” The relevant portion of the Vulgate reads: “God sending his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”19 Augustine consistently used a different version which read: “God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and from sin God condemned sin in the flesh.” Thus would he understand that second use of “sin” as related to the third rather than the first: sin itself had been an instrument for its own condemnation.20 Second Corinthians 5:21 reads in the NRSV and RSV: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Augustine’s text was the same as the one Jerome used in the Vulgate: “Him, who did not know sin, for us made sin, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”21 Augustine read the text in two different ways, chronologically differentiated. The Latin text specifies the subject of the verb “made” only through its third person singular form; the reader had to decide whether it referred to God or Christ, both of whom were named in the prior sentence. Initially, Augustine understood Christ himself as the subject (“Christ made sin”) and had to explain how Christ could have sinned. Later, he recognized God as the subject (“God made him sin”) and worked to understand in what sense God made Christ to be sin.22 Galatians 3:13 reads in the NRSV: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming [having become, RSV] a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” Augustine’s text was what Jerome used: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, made for us a curse.”23 The point in all cases was that Christ himself became the curse in order to remove the curse from his disciples. In this sense, the text is parallel to the second reading of Second Corinthians 5:21 immediately above. In shaping these five texts together into an explanation of the redemptive 19. “Deus filium suum mittens in similitudine carnis peccati et pro peccato, damnauit peccatum in carne.” 20. “Misit deus filium suum in similitudine carnis peccati, et de peccato damnauit peccatum in carne” (Maxim. 1.2). 21. “Eum, qui non nouerat peccatum, pro nobis peccatum fecit, ut nos efficeremur iustitia Dei in ipso.” 22. In Maxim. 1.2, he asked his opponent to check the Greek text, implying that he had already done so himself. For the first interpretation, see Rom. prop. 48.5; Gal. 22.9; Faust. 14.3. In Enchir. 13.41, he explicitly rejected his earlier interpretation as a misreading of the text. 23. “Christus nos redemit de maledicto legis, factus pro nobis maledictum. scriptum est enim: maledictus omnis, qui pendet in ligno” (Adim. 22; Fel. 2.11; Psal. 87.7, 108.29; Gal. 22).

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work of Christ and its efficacy, Augustine employed a symbolic interpretation which enabled him to understand the mortal body of Christ as the symbol of a set of closely related realities: the sin of Adam and Eve, the lust or sinful disposition which afflicted human beings, the curse pronounced on the sinner, and mortality as a punishment for sin.24 Christ, he believed, could be considered literally subject to neither sin nor curse nor punishment nor the lustful disposition which was itself sinful. He did, however, take on mortal flesh and accept the bodily weakness and death which were the consequences and thus the signs of the common sin of the progeny of Adam and Eve. Christ accepted flesh which was—in its weakness and mortality—like sinful flesh and thus symbolically he became human sin. Then by actually dying an undeserved bodily death and rising into immortal bodily life, Christ both symbolically and then actually put human mortality to death; through that mortality, he symbolically executed and destroyed the sin which was its cause. That bodily death was the consequence and punishment of a sin incurred by Adam and Eve but shared by all their progeny was clearly asserted by Paul in Romans 5:12.25 Augustine, it will be recalled, had affirmed this connection between sin and death in his elaboration of the explanation of the devil’s rights. Using Romans 6:6 and 8:3, Augustine also contrasted the sinful flesh or the body of sin to its likeness—mortal but not sinful flesh. Other human beings were born into the flesh of sin, subject to original guilt, lustful dispositions, and bodily mortality. Christ, however, took not this flesh of sin but its likeness: he was weak and mortal but was burdened by neither sin nor lust.26 This mortal flesh, through its likeness to the body of sin, symbolized but did not realize in him the human sin from which death, lust, and curse followed.27 Thus Augustine interpreted Paul by applying the name “sin” to the mortal flesh of Christ: in becoming mortal, Christ became “sin.” Then, in allowing his mortal body to be crucified, Christ fixed to the cross all the realities which it symbolized—sin, death, the oldness of humanity.28 By allowing the killing of his body, Christ then put all these realities to death. Christ’s cry of abandonment on the cross revealed the presence in him of the old and sinful humanity and marked the point at which God, in Christ, destroyed it.29 Then, in 24. This analysis is dependent upon the analysis of Augustine’s interpretation of these texts in Michael Cameron’s “Christ Meets Me Everywhere”: How Augustine Learned to Read the Old Testament as the First Book of the New, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. 25. See, for example, Pelag. 1.4.7. 26. Rom. prop. 48.5; Serm. 155.7.7; Faust. 14.5. Christ’s was mortal in the same sense that Adam and Eve’s had been created: it was capable of death but not destined to die. This was worked out in Gen. litt. 6.25.36–26.37. 27. Gal. 22.7; Faust. 14.3–4, 6; Maxim. 1.2; Serm. 134.4.5, 294.12.13. 28. Rom. prop. 32–34.1–2; Adim. 21; Gal. 22.8–9; Fel. 2.11; Maxim. 1.2. 29. Psal. 140.5–6.



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rising to new life, Christ exhibited a new humanity, emptied of bodily death, human oldness, and the curse, all of which were the punishment of that sin which he had destroyed in his own death.30 In this symbolic sense, Christ took the sin of humanity upon himself and in his death brought it to an end.31 Thus Augustine constructed a second understanding of the redemptive work of Christ by weaving together the five Pauline passages. He applied this interpretation to Romans 6:6, “Christ fastened our human oldness to the cross and destroyed the body of sin,” and 6:10, “in dying, he died once for all to sin.” Galatians 3:13, “Christ became a curse for us and redeemed us from the curse of the law,” was similarly clarified. The connection between “he took the likeness of sinful flesh” and “he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3), was also explained. The interpretation based on these passages also established the meaning of Second Corinthians 5:21, “Christ being made sin” and “from sin he condemned sin.” Because of the delicacy of their assertions, however, these statements require further consideration. As has been indicated, Augustine initially understood Second Corinthians 5:21 as a statement that Christ had in some way sinned for our sake. Augustine first explained that for an immortal being to die is a kind of sinning, going contrary to the being’s own nature.32 Thence he moved to the idea that dying might be considered sinning in a figurative or symbolic way, because it resulted from sinning.33 Eventually, he made a connection between sin and the sacrifice which was offered for it. The term “sin” is applied in the Old Testament, he claimed, to the victim itself which is being offered.34 Thus the victim was identified with the sin and its destruction effected the end of the sin it symbolized. God, then, had made Christ to be sin symbolically in his being offered as a sacrifice for sin.35 Indeed, the sacrifices of the prior dispensation found their religious efficacy only by foreshadowing the offering of Christ on the cross: his was the sacrifice from which they were named such.36 This interpretation of the text allowed it to be integrated into the complex of passages; it supported Au30. Gal. 22.16; Iul. 6.7; Iul. op. imp. 2.225; Fel. 2.11; Maxim. 1.2; Serm. 136.6. 31. Rom. prop. 32–34.2; Gal. 22.7. 32. Rom. prop. 48.5; Gal. 22.9,16. 33. Faust. 14.3. 34. Quaest. lib. 4.14. Augustine seems to have conflated Lv 4:3 and 4:4. In the LXX and the Vulgate, 4:4 reads: the high priest shall “lay his hand on the head of the bull calf,” not on the “sin,” as Augustine has it. But in 4:3 it is said that “he shall offer a young bull for his sin.” Reading the passage from Leviticus in light of Rom 8:3, “from sin he condemned sin in the flesh,” Augustine cited 4:4 as “laid hands on the sin” rather than “on the head of the bull,” the victim that was the sin offering. This solution is the work of Robert L. Wilken, privately communicated. 35. Maxim. 1.2; Serm. 134.4.5, 152.11, 155.8.8; Pelag. 3.6.16; Quaest. lib. 4.12; Ep. 140.30.73; Enchir. 13.41. 36. Eu. Io. 41.6.

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gustine’s understanding of the destruction of human sin in the death of Jesus. Augustine also had to specify the referent of the first usage of the term “sin” in Romans 8:3: “from sin, he condemned sin.” From which sin had God condemned sin? Initially, he applied the same meaning he was then using for Second Corinthians 5:21: Christ “sinned” by dying and had thus worked the condemnation of the sin of humanity.37 As he gave up that interpretation of Christ “sinning,” he focused instead on the sin of Judas and the Jews in bringing about Christ’s execution.38 This was the sin God had used to condemn all sin. Thus he aligned the interpretation of this text with his explanation that the devil had overstepped his authority by using these human agents to cause the death of Christ. This second explanation of the redemptive work of Christ was compatible with the first, though it used a different resource, the Pauline letters, and a different analytical technique, symbolic identification. In both instances, Augustine had to address the foundational problem of human sin or enmity against God indirectly. In the first theory, Augustine explained that the dominion of the devil over humans was itself based on their sinful intention, and showed that Christ had attacked and destroyed that authority. He voluntarily submitted to the devil’s illegal and unjust assault upon his bodily life; thus he stripped the devil of his authority to carry out a punishment of those sinners who attached themselves to Christ by faith and then love. Christ’s death prevented the devil’s authority from impeding the liberation of the sinners who converted and sought the forgiveness of their sin. In this analysis, Augustine did not use the death of Christ as a means of explaining the reversal of humanity’s sinful intention itself. Moreover, he exploited the difference between Christ and other humans—he alone was innocent and free from sin—as the basis for the efficacy of the redemptive action. In the second theory, Augustine insisted that Christ had identified with sinful humanity to the extent possible, by taking upon himself the mortality and weakness which resulted from and symbolized human sin. By taking the likeness of sinful flesh, Christ symbolically became sin. When he was put to death, the sin symbolized in his body was itself executed and thereby emptied of its destructive power. When he rose from the dead, a new flesh, immortal and bearing no resemblance to the body of sin, was established. In this analysis, Augustine hinted at the participation of Christians in the victory of Christ: the sinful humanity in which they had been born was fixed to the 37. An interpretation he tried in Rom. prop. 32–34.3, 48.6; Gal. 22.9. 38. Serm. 152.10; Pelag. 3.6.16.



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cross in the symbol of Christ’s mortal body; there it had cried out and there been destroyed. Yet again, however, Augustine had not demonstrated how the death of Jesus joined those sinners to Christ, in faith and love, so that they actually shared his victory. Augustine did develop an understanding of the death of Christ as a sacrifice which supported his explanation of its efficacy. In the Old Testament ritual which prefigured the work of Christ, the sacrificial victim symbolized and was therefore called “sin.” Its killing was the destruction of the reality it signified. Thus, these sacrifices were effective not in making a payment to God or in changing God’s attitude toward the sacrificers but in symbolically removing the sacrificers’ own impediment to receiving a gift offered by God. This is precisely the meaning of sacrifice which Augustine used in his Pauline redemption theory.39 In this sense, the destruction of sin in the death of Christ was equivalent to the subversion of the right of the devil: it removed an impediment to the sinners’ being joined to God. Yet a third explanation of the efficacy of the death of Christ would be necessary to complete these two. Augustine had to show Christ attacking the sinful attitude directly and thus establishing a new relationship of the sinner to God.

Christ Provoked Love for God In explaining the process of redemption both through subverting the devil’s dominion and through the destruction of sin in its symbolic presence in the flesh of Christ, Augustine alluded to a third process. Christ’s death was designed to persuade sinners to abandon their self-love by manifesting and thus provoking a response to the divine love. Unlike the other two, this third process addressed sin directly, as a disorder of human intention, which it was intended to change. It was, moreover, closely aligned with Augustine’s understanding of the interrelation of faith and charity in the process of salvation. Augustine’s early treatises against the Manichees emphasized human freedom of choice and explained divine assistance as encouraging and guiding its proper exercise. Thus the role of persuasion in both sin and salvation is clearly signaled in his first discussion of the process of redemption in On Free Choice. The devil had persuaded Adam and Eve to sin and continued to tempt their offspring; Christ countered by convincing sinners to attach themselves to 39. In Ciu. 10.6, he used the term in a different way, as any good work which is done for the sake of God. This usage also kept the meaning within the created order. A similar application is made to penitential actions in Serm. Cail. 2,11(112A).5.

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himself and thus come to salvation.40 Augustine observed that the devil continued to sin by tempting humans and asserted that this sin was actually worse than the humans’ consent to the temptation. The difference between the spontaneous sin of the devil and the solicited sin of humans was also used to explain why human sinners could be saved by Christ’s persuasion while the devil could not.41 In contemporary treatises and commentaries, Augustine began to elaborate this role of Christ by remarking on the ways in which Christ’s death revealed the divine love and thus moved sinners first to conversion and then to overcome the fear of death so that they persevered in good.42 In the instructions he provided for catechists, Augustine enunciated the principle at work in Christ’s persuasion. A display of genuine affection provokes and engenders not only gratitude but a return of affection, particularly when a person of higher social status favors an inferior. This bond is strengthened and deepened by the expressions of joy in one another. Augustine specifically distinguished this mutual delight from the love and care which a Christian owes to every neighbor. Thus he concluded that the manifestation of love and affection by God in sending Christ and by Christ in laying down his life for sinners was actually designed to move sinners to return that love toward God, and then to extend the same love toward the neighbor in imitation of God. He urged the catechists to present the work of Christ as an initiative of divine love toward those they were instructing.43 Later, Augustine introduced his fullest consideration of the process of redemption with the observation that God had to raise the hopes of mortals by a demonstration of the love and the value which God set upon them.44 The demands of the law made humanity’s plight clear but Christ showed that God was providing help.45 He articulated the general principle that since Christ’s death was voluntary, each detail of the passion had been chosen by Christ to convey his intention to Christians.46 Augustine’s writings, and particularly his sermons, present many examples of the persuasive power of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. In contrast to the proud devil whose idolatrous cult used deities that were distinguished by bodily immortality rather than moral virtue, Christ showed the divine love by becoming humanity’s companion in death.47 The devil encouraged not a contempt for death but a kind of disbelief in it, which would facilitate impiety. Christ’s voluntary death, in contrast, moved his followers to 40. Lib. 3.10.31; Trin. 4.12.15. 41. Lib. 3.10.29, 31, 25.76. 42. Adim. 21; Gal. 22:5–6,17, 24.10. 43. Cathec. 4.7–8. 44. Trin. 4.1.2, 13.10.13. 45. The law was to prepare for faith by showing the need for assistance. See Rom. prop. 12. 46. Serm. 218.1–11. 47. Trin. 4.13.17.



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despise the death which could not separate them from God and to fear the impiety which would. Christians learned from Christ to live without greed and to die without fear.48 They realized that mortal life should be tolerated rather than cherished.49 Christ not only provided an example of resistance to temptation and faithful obedience even unto death but also decided to submit to that weakness and fear in the face of the loss which afflicted his followers.50 When he took human mortality upon himself, Christ freely accepted and truly experienced the terror and sadness which he so clearly manifested when faced with his own death. He realized in his own person not only the triumph of the martyrs but also the struggles of the other faithful. By taking these emotions upon himself in his agony and his death, he assured his followers that such feelings in time of tribulation were neither sinful nor shameful; their weakness was no sign that God had rejected or would abandon them. As with Christ, God would sustain them in the conflict rather than shielding them from it.51 Thus Christians would experience but not be overcome by fear of death.52 By his resurrection, Christ displayed the reward for faithful obedience and exhorted his followers to seek only these eternal goods which had been foreshadowed in the promises of earthly goods made to Israel.53 Augustine’s insistence on the gratuity of divine grace brought him to remark on yet another form of persuasion at work in the coming of Christ. No merits preceded the joining of human to divine in Christ and none induced the Son of God to die for sinners. Having given his life for the unjust, Christ could then be trusted to fulfill his promise of life to the just, though they had no claim of their own upon his generosity.54 Thus Augustine called attention to the affective power of the death of Jesus and the ways that divine identification with human mortality and weakness built the voluntary union of Christians to God which enabled them to participate in the efficacy of Christ’s redemptive action. Running through these discussions are hints of a deeper unity in his understanding of the various elements in his theory of redemption.

48. Serm. Guelf. 28(313E).1, 31(335B).1–2; Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).40–41; Trin. 4.12.12. 49. Trin. 13.17.22; Eu. Io. 111.1. 50. Trin. 13.17.22. 51. Psal. 87.3, 93.19; Eu. Io. 60.5. Interestingly, Augustine never drew on the striking statements in Heb 4:14–5:10 in this regard. 52. Gal. 22.5–6, 17; Adim. 21. 53. Trin. 13.17.22; Psal. 88.2.12. 54. Trin. 13.17.22; Serm. 185.3; Trin. 13.10.14; Psal. 85.2.

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These three explanations of the process of redemption were guided by a set of principles which Augustine explicitly asserted and whose operation can be discerned in the development of these theories. The first and most important of these was an implication of the trinitarian theology which had been developed in the late fourth century. The earlier notions of a hierarchy of three divine beings had been abandoned in favor of an assertion of the equality of the three persons and the simplicity of the divine being. No distinction or difference could be affirmed between the knowledge and love of the divine persons; they shared a single judgment and intention toward creatures. One could not love what the other hated. Thus the Son did not love humanity and act to appease the wrath of the Father.55 A closely related judgment was that what the Scripture named divine wrath itself must be understood not as an emotion in God but a divine action in the creation: the carrying out of a just punishment of the sinner.56 To say that God is angry or merciful was to be understood as the equivalent of saying that God punishes or forgives the sinner. Another principle on which Augustine relied was the gratuity of divine operation: salvation, no less than the original creation, was unearned. Sinners could not perform good actions which would win a reward from God. Thus the saving gift of God responded to no merits from the human side, not even those of the Savior himself.57 From this set of principles followed the conclusion that God did not have to be reconciled to humans; rather a self-alienated humanity had to be reconciled to God. Thus Augustine’s first objective was to explain the entire redemptive process as a divine effecting of changes within the created order, not a set of creaturely initiatives which resulted in an attitudinal adjustment within the divine. He used different means of locating the impediment to human salvation in the created order rather than in God: the rights or authority of the devil, the sin or guilt symbolized by human mortality, and the sinful intention of human wills. In each case, some created reality had to be changed by the redemptive action of Christ. Augustine understood love as the foundation of human relations to the divine: a person’s fundamental orientation of love of God—and of all else— for God’s sake established the sanctified state; stability in that state constituted salvation. Such love was itself a gift of God; during their earthly lives, humans should cooperate with that gift. They had the freedom, however, to reject 55. Trin. 13.11.15. 56. Trin. 13.16.21. 57. Trin. 13.10.13–14, 17.22; Eu. Io. 110.6; Ep. Io. 7.7.



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the gift and to love self in place of God. Self-love established the sinful state and stability in that state constituted damnation. Thus a second objective for Augustine was to explain how Christ overcame the sinful intention which the devil instigated in Adam and Eve, and in which all humans participated both through their identification with Adam and Eve and their individual decisions.58 The rebellion against God was appropriately symbolized by the conflict within the person which culminated in death’s forcing the soul out of the body. Augustine initially observed that the devil persuaded humans to sin, then ruled over them on the basis of their continuing preference for self and opposition to God. Christ’s saving action had to reverse that human rejection of God and communicate love of God. Later, he explained that human sinful intention was the basis for both the devil’s dominion and the just punishment identified as divine wrath. Christ must change that orientation in order to destroy the devil’s authority and remove the alienation which results in eternal death.59 Christ was regarded by Augustine as both a teacher and a model of proper human love and conduct. The incarnation was designed to demonstrate the way to attain the heavenly life to which humanity aspired. A third objective of Augustine’s explanation of the redemption was thus to establish a parallel between the action of Jesus and that of his followers. Christ achieved his victory by righteousness rather than power, so that his disciples could imitate and participate in his action by divine assistance. God neither prevented temptations by the devil nor forestalled the suffering of bodily death.60 Instead, God allowed these to continue as opportunities for Christians to share in the Savior’s victory by preferring the justice which they could maintain to that dominating power which most of them would neither possess nor exercise. The martyrs won their crowns by parting with their lives rather than their confession of Christ; the faithful resisted more subtle temptations less dramatically but no less effectively.61 Even Christians who were charged with the exercise of power were shown that justice must be loved more. Thus, Christians were to recognize themselves in Christ’s death and hope for a sharing in his resurrection. They were called to love their neighbors as faithfully and generously as God loved them. A challenge to the realization of these objectives was the biblical language of sacrifice.62 It might have been interpreted as a form of payment to God, intended to turn aside wrath or win favor. Such a meaning was not, however, com58. Although Augustine’s understanding and explanation of the universality of human sinfulness changed during his writing career, he always affirmed the universality of guilt, at least among adults. 59. Lib. 3.10.31. Trin. 4.13.16, 13.16.21. 60. Lib. 3.10.31. 61. Trin. 4.13.18, 13.13.17, 16.20. 62. Trin. 4.12.15. The language was not repeated in the discussion in Trin. 13.

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patible with Augustine’s principles and objectives. In the first of his explanations, then, Augustine distinguished the death of Christ as that of a sacrificial victim by its being performed in justice rather than as a punishment for sin, its being voluntary rather than either coerced or owed. Thus, he asserted, it was a sacrifice removing the sin for which others owed punishment, and were therefore subject to the devil.63 In his second explanation of the process of redemption, Augustine elaborated a fuller interpretation of sacrifice as the symbolic destruction of sin and guilt. By focusing the efficacy of the sacrifice on the sin itself, he defined its efficacy in the created order and thereby avoided any implication that the Son had offered himself to repay or appease the Father. The impediment to human salvation which was overcome by the death of Christ was characterized differently in each of Augustine’s three explanations: the dominion granted to the devil by sinners; the guilty, mortal, lustful condition of humanity resulting from the first sin; the voluntary rejection of God and preference for self which was the core of every sin. The third impediment—the disorientation of love—was actually the foundation and cause of the other two: humanity’s subjection to the devil and the conflict within the mortal self. The other two theories of redemption, therefore, did not provide an adequate explanation of the efficacy of Christ’s action because they failed to explain how it actually moved sinners to abandon self-love, to desert the devil’s rebellion, and to join themselves to Christ. For sin to be overcome, humans must voluntarily abandon their enmity toward God, their cult of pride and power; they must come or be brought to love God and find their life and happiness in that love. Only the third explanation of the redemption actually addressed this change.

The Interrelations of the Three Explanations In Augustine’s theology, the eradication of sin is attributed to charity. By charity a person loves God for God’s sake and thus reverses the disordered disposition of self-love. In its dual operations of giving to the poor and forgiving the offender, charity was also credited with achieving the remission of the guilt for sin, its debt of punishment. In the Donatist and Pelagian controversies, Augustine often cited the phrase in 1 Peter 4:8, “Charity covers a multitude of sins.”64 He used it to explain the efficacy of the sacraments despite the continuing sinfulness of the minister and the church. He called upon it to show that the individual Christian journeying toward heaven could be at once 63. Trin. 4.12.15–13.17. 64. Bapt. 1.18.27, 6.24.45; Cresc. 2.12.15, 4.11.13; Gaud. 1.12.13, 1.39.54; Unic. bapt. 13.22, 15.26; Ep. 88.9, 93.10.40, 108.2.5,3.9, 141.13, 153.3.7, 185.10.43–44; Ep. Io. 1.6, 5.3; Grat. 17.35; Corrept. 16.49.



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sanctified and sinful. The power of charity to forgive sin was also at the heart of his understanding of the redemptive work of Christ. The manifestation of divine love in bearing the self-inflicted sufferings of humanity elicited and encouraged a response of love: not simply of gratitude but a recognition and appreciation of the divine goodness. That love, in its beginnings, its growth and its fullness, constituted human salvation. Yet Augustine never believed that charity could be attributed to the operation of human willing alone; it was at root a gift of God with which a person cooperated rather than a disposition arising from the creature’s natural power and decision. This belief was both an insight derived from Plotinus’s philosophy and a doctrine based upon the Pauline writings, particularly Romans 5:5. Initially, however, Augustine explained that a person could, with that divine assistance given in the teaching of the moral law and the preaching of the gospel, take the steps of repentance and faith which distinguished some individuals from others and thus prepared them for receiving the gift of charity.65 This early understanding was reflected in the initial articulation of both the first and the third redemption theories. Both required that sinners take some action—repentance and faith—to attach themselves to Christ, who could then liberate them from sin by the gift of charity.66 His attempt to understand the working out of the divine initiative which accomplishes the gratuitous election and predestination of the saints brought Augustine to recognize the efficacy of divine operation rather than human cooperation in working conversion and attaching a person to Christ.67 Over time, moreover, he placed less trust in the persuasive and more in the transformative character of God’s working of this transition.68 As Augustine argued that any move toward repentance, faith, and charity was itself the effect of the interior working of the Holy Spirit, the original explanations of the first and third theories became increasingly unstable. Sinners, he argued, did not have the capacity to respond to persuasion and “attach” themselves to Christ; they could not appreciate a display of divine love. Instead, God had to change the dispositions of the elect to make them sensitive to the preaching of the gospel and responsive to the divine goodness.69 65. This is laid out most clearly in his Rom. prop. 12. 66. Lib. 3.10.31; Cathec. 4.7–8. 67. His first explanation of the divine working of faith through a “congruous” vocation was offered in Simpl. 1.2; the operation of perseverance was always through forms of persuasion because charity became fully stable in its operation only with a heavenly knowledge of God. 68. For example, in the fierce conflict with Pelagius and his supporters after the approbation of Pelagius’s teaching in Palestine in 416, Augustine attacked the idea that a sinner could be persuaded to make the first move toward God. Grat. Chr. 10.11, 14.15; Ep. 194.3.9–15; Pelag. 1.19.37–20.38. 69. For an analysis of this transition, please see “Preexistence and Predestination,” in In

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Augustine had thus radically modified his third explanation of redemption. Instead of persuading sinners by a display of divine affection, Christ sent the Holy Spirit to change them so that they repented their self-love and began to love God for God’s own sake. Sinners could do nothing to help themselves; they could not respond to an invitation to attach themselves to Christ; their dispositions had first to be radically transformed by a divine working of faith and infusion of charity.70 In this new theological atmosphere, Augustine adapted his first theory of redemption to fit his understanding of the transition from sin to grace. Using Matthew 12:29, he argued that by his death, Christ had bound the devil with cords of justice. He had won the right to “raid” the devil’s household, and choose from among his sinful servants certain ones to be set free by unmerited gifts. In this iteration of the theory, the death of Jesus justified the granting of the saving endowments of faith and charity to sinners who were utterly unworthy of receiving them. In this revised form, the first theory identified and then explained the subversion of the legal obstacle to such gratuitous divine operation: by killing Christ, the devil lost all right to hold even those who remained intentionally committed to his rebellion and leadership.71 Thus, a shift in the understanding of the operation of the third theory—the reversal of sin by infused rather than inspired charity— now required a revision of the first theory to serve as its justification. Despite the emphasis which the Pelagian controversy required him to place on the interior operation of the Holy Spirit which moves the Christian to love and action, Augustine retained an appreciation of the suasive power of Christ’s teaching, example, and display of love, as well as of its mediation through the church’s ministry of preaching and correction.72 Praying that God would convert the sinner never completely replaced the effort to correct and exhort. Human action was necessary but it succeeded only by the action of God. Once sinners had been granted charity, however, Augustine believed that they were empowered to respond to exhortation, correction, and the display of divine love in the death of Christ. The third theory of redemption found a new role in Augustine’s explanation of the grace of perseverance through Dominico Eloquio—Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Robert L. Wilken (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 294–316. 70. This shift is evident in Psal. 58.1.6, 67.16, 68.1.9; Ep. 217.3.11; Serm. 71.1.3. This approach became more important as Augustine focused on the salvation of infants and applied the principles there operable to adults as well. Iul. op. imp. 6.20. An earlier use of the text in Qu. eu. 1.5 attributed a more active role to the elect. 71. It was in this sense, of course, that Anselm objected to the theory. 72. At the end of his life, Augustine completed his manual on preaching, De doctrina Christiana, which he had left unfinished almost thirty years earlier. He also noted that most converts were actually brought to the church through the efforts of the laity.



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which God maintained Christians in good willing and action. During earthly life, charity never became so strong that it stabilized the will in good and made failure impossible. Thus God used human mediators and circumstances to preserve those who could fail from actually falling away.73 Here the second theory of redemption found a new, persuasive role. In his preaching, Augustine constantly called the attention of the faithful to their identification with Christ in his suffering, to their incorporation into the social body which was symbolized by the physical body he had fixed to the cross, whose weakness and guilt he had destroyed, whose life he had transformed in his resurrection.74 As the first theory dealt with bringing the natural person into the church by the divine operation of repentance and love, the second addressed the living of the Christian life by identification with Christ. Both were integral to the new understanding of the third theory, built upon the necessity and efficacy of grace. Thus Augustine’s affirmation of the persuasive power of the manifestation of divine love in the death of Jesus remained integral to his understanding of the process of salvation. The explanations of the redemptive efficacy of the death of Christ based on the rights of the devil and the destruction of sin are African versions of two other theories, those normally associated with Antioch and Alexandria, both of which were contemporary to Augustine’s. Theodore of Mopsuestia’s exposition of the efficacy of the redemptive work of Christ uses a forensic analogy: the devil violated the right to life of the Savior and thus had to give up those who were attached to him. This theory was, of course, adapted to Theodore’s explanation of the union of divine and human in Christ: its efficacy does not require assigning a divine value to the human activity of Christ on the grounds of a hypostatic union. Instead, like Augustine’s parallel explanation, it required only the innocence of the human being to establish the right to bodily life which the devil violated. Augustine and Theodore both asserted that Christ’s death was a free and voluntary act of obedience to God. Once Augustine had transformed his own theory under pressure from his developed understanding of the necessity and efficacy of grace, however, it bore a close resemblance to Theodore’s forensic explanation. Augustine’s third theory, however, was foreign to Theodore’s perspective. Both Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria used a redemption theory which depended upon the transformation of mortal humanity through its being hypostatically united with the immortal divine nature of the Savior. Athanasius also observed that the manifestation of the divine in the life and teaching of Christ restored human knowledge of God and put an end to the demonic de73. This work was done primarily in De gratia et libero arbitrio, De correptione et gratia, Epistula 214, and De dono perseuerantiae. 74. Psal. 21.2.21, 37.6, 39.5, 40.1,6, 93.19, 101.1.2, 118.16.6, 140.3.

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ception through idolatry. Augustine affirmed the personal union of divine and human in the Savior, but he did not rely on the transmission of immortality to other humans through that union. He preferred not to risk compromising the integrity of the human operations—particularly the willing and affections— of Jesus so that he could function as the primary instance of gratuitous election and effective grace.75 His version of the transformation of humanity by its union with the Word was, instead, the assumption of human weakness and its destruction on the cross. The objective, however, was the symbolic emptying of the sin which was the core of the human problem. Once sin—the root of its mortality—had been addressed, Augustine ascribed the recreation of an immortal humanity to the divine power operative in the resurrection of Christ, and then the resurrection of those attached to him. Again, the Augustinian system depends upon the human innocence rather than the divine power of Christ to effect the destruction of sin through symbolic identification.

Conclusion The primacy of charity in Augustine’s theology made the third, persuasive theory central to his explanation of the redemption. The development of his understanding of divine operation in conversion, however, meant that his early reliance on persuasion for initiating and sustaining charity in the Christian could not be sustained. To establish a connection between the death of Jesus and the salvation of the Christian, therefore, Augustine had to rely on the theories focused on the rights of the devil and the destruction of sin. His realization of human impotence required that he modify the first theory so that it would justify the divine initiative in attaching the elect to Christ through the Spirit’s operation of both faith and charity. The death of Christ removed any impediment—from the divine justice or the legal claims of the devil—to the gratuitous and efficacious graces of conversion. The second theory established a more immediate connection between Christ and the faithful Christians who were engaged throughout their earthly life in the process of putting off sin and the old, sinful humanity which Christ had emptied in his death on the cross. Here the original persuasive power of the death of Christ found its proper role, since those endowed with charity did have the power to respond to that display of divine love. In this sense, both Anselm and Abelard are heirs of Augustine. 75. Praed. 15.30–31.

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11  Augustine Laughed De beata vita

In De beata vita 2.10 Augustine speaks with his companions at Cassiciacum about happiness, its quest and its attainment. His mother, Monica, plays an important role at this point in the dialogue: Then I [Augustine] spoke again: “We wish to be happy, do we not?” No sooner had I said this, than they agreed, with one voice. I asked: “In your opinion, is a person happy who does not possess what he wants?” They said: “By no means.” [I said:] “What? Everyone who possesses what he wants is happy?” At this point our mother [Monica] said: “If he wishes and possesses good things, he is happy; if he desires evil things—no matter if he possesses them—he is wretched.” I smiled at her and laughed [cui ego arridens atque gestiens]: “Mother, you have really gained the mastery of the very stronghold of philosophy. For, undoubtedly you were wanting the words to express yourself like Tullius, who has also dealt with this matter. In his Hortensius, a book written in the praise and defense of philosophy, he said: ‘Behold, not the philosophers, but only people who like to argue, state that all are happy who live according to their own will. This, of course, is not true, for, to wish what is not fitting is the worst of wretchedness. But it is not so deplorable to fail of attaining what we desire as it is to wish to attain what is not proper. For, greater evil is brought about through one’s wicked will than happiness through fortune.’”1

The verb arridere with the dative indicates that Augustine smiled approvingly at Monica. He did not laugh at her in the sense that she would have been 1. De beata vita 2.10 (CSEL 63; FC 1).

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the object of scorn, derision, or mockery. His was a gracious smile. Furthermore, the verb gestire indicates some sort of motion or joyous gesture. In other words, the text states that Augustine laughed. So I changed Ludwig Schopp’s translation from “I smiled at her and said cheerfully” to “I smiled at her and laughed.” Fittingly enough the dialogue is dealing with the subject of happiness. In this article I intend to trace the importance of happiness from its classical origins, particularly in Plato as interpreted by Cicero, ultimately to its Christian significance as found in Augustine.2 Christian writers before Augustine considered the human quest for happiness significant. Lactantius wrote his Divinae Institutiones book 7 on happiness. Ambrose wrote De Iacob et beata vita on the same subject. For Augustine happiness is central and occupies a major place in his dialogues at Cassiciacum. As we have just seen in the quotation above, in chapter 2 of De beata vita his mother intervenes in a rare participation in the dialogue, emphasizing the importance of happiness in its relationship to the good. Augustine explicitly connects her statement to Cicero’s Hortensius. In chapter 4 of the same work Augustine ultimately joins happiness with truth and faith in the Trinity, once again with his mother making a substantial contribution by citing a passage from Ambrose’s hymn Deus creator omnium. Thus, in his early philosophical writings we find the wisdom of philosophy joined with the authority of faith. At Cassiciacum the happy life is based on faith, hope, and love.

Terminology and Antiquity Eudaimonism refers to the central ethical principle regarding “human wellbeing” or “the happy life.” The term may be traced back to Immanuel Kant and is based on the Greek adjective eudaimon, which contains two parts, namely, eu meaning good and daimon meaning spiritual being or deity. One must remember that daimon in Greek does not necessarily refer to a malevolent demon like the devil but simply a spiritual entity or the soul. Also significant in this context is makarios, the Greek word meaning happy. We find this word in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, coming into Latin as beatus, which is often translated blessed or blest. An example of this is found in Matthew 5:3: “How blest are the poor in spirit.” The Latin expressions comparable to eudaimonia are beata vita, beatitudo, and felicitas, which equate to happiness in English, Glück in German, and felicità in Italian. Similar also is the human telos or end with which eudaimonia is often interchangeable.3 2. See Michael P. Foley, “Cicero, Augustine, and the Philosophical Roots of the Cassiciacum Dialogues,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 45 (1999): 51–71. 3. See chapter 8, “Stoic Eudaimonism,” of A. A. Long, Stoic Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 179–201.



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Eudaimonism finds expression in virtually all the major philosophical schools of antiquity. They all agree that there is an end “for the sake of which everything is done but which is not done for the sake of anything.” This end or telos is the “ultimate object of desire” or the summum bonum. For these philosophical systems the highest good is happiness or eudaimonia, which has both objective and subjective features. Objectively man seeks to attain the good, that is, the moral good, and subjectively he desires to be content in life, that is, happy. The word eudaimonia is never used in Greek as the English word happy may be used, to describe fleeting dispositions of gratification. Eudaimonia refers to a person whose life is flourishing. Another characteristic is that the desire for happiness is self-evident. It is obvious to all and need not be proven. One is reminded of the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (italics mine). As with the ancient Stoics it seems that here the pursuit of happiness is sufficient; happiness need not be achieved. I will briefly describe happiness as elucidated by Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans, and the Stoics. In this regard all schools of antiquity have two characteristics in common. First, happiness is a state as well as an activity of the soul. Second, happiness is generated by ethical virtue. According to Plato, the human being is happy when the soul is tranquil. In other words, all aspects of the human person—reason, spirit, desire—are in harmony with one another. The appetites and desires of the body are controlled by reason and proper judgment. And so the soul is at peace with itself. A word study of Plato further illustrates the characteristics of happiness.4 Happiness is what everyone desires. It comes from the acquisition of good things and the absence of bad things. It is possessed by the gods. It is profitable or beneficial. It involves the freedom to do what one wants to do. It involves living well or faring well. It is the people’s ultimate objective. There is no need to ask someone who wants to be happy why he wants this. Aristotle wrote two ethical treatises, the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics. Although Aristotle relies on Plato and his teaching is in many places similar to that of Plato, he offers a systematization that is absent from the Platonic dialogues. He also develops a more detailed and more sophisticated concept of virtue as an activity. The philosophy of Epicureanism states that the human being desires to be free from pain and seeks pleasure. Epicureanism is not to be confused with crass hedonism, which emphasizes physical pleasures. According to the Epicureans, the pleasure could be intellectual, such as reading a good book or listening to soothing music. Pleasure is a state of the soul. 4. See ibid., 182–83.

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The philosophical teaching of Stoicism insists that only virtue will lead one to happiness.5 The specifically Stoic contribution to the development of ethics takes place on three levels. First, virtue is not the highest good but the only good. Complete happiness may be achieved only by the possession of virtue. Furthermore, other so-called goods are extraneous and unnecessary. Second, there is a divine providence which directs the world. Happiness exists when man lives his life in conformity with the divine plan as expressed in nature. In other words, happiness is “living in agreement with nature.” Third, reason is the human faculty which enables one to understand nature and live according to the ethical principles which it reveals. Under the influence of Stoic philosophy, Cicero, Seneca, Lactantius, Ambrose, and Augustine have written on happiness. Now I will review their positions and trace the development from the classical to the Christian authors, most notably, the political virtue of Cicero, which evolves into the enjoyment of God in Augustine.

Cicero, Hortensius In 45 BC, just two years before his death, Cicero wrote a trilogy on philosophy: Hortensius, Catullus, and Lucullus. Then he revised his work and published the same material as Academici libri quattuor. In this process the Hortensius was rewritten to make it autonomous, while the Catullus became the basis for books 1–2 and the Lucullus for books 3–4 of the Academici libri quattuor. In most of today’s editions Academica book 1 (also called editio posterior) represents the fragmentary remains of Academici libri quattuor, while Academica book 2 (editio prior) is the Lucullus. The Catullus has been completely lost. The Hortensius is also lost but has been partially reconstructed utilizing references and citations both within the works of Cicero himself and also from other ancient authors, among whom Lactantius, Augustine, and the fourth-century Roman grammarian Nonius are the most important sources. On the basis of comparison to other works of Cicero, Laila StraumeZimmermann and her co-authors have described the characteristics and contents of the Hortensius.6 Also important for her description are the references and citations in classical and Christian authors. Since Cicero’s other dialogues in the philosophical trilogy, both Lucullus and Catullus, have introductions, 5. There are many studies of Stoicism; somewhat old but still valuable is the comprehensive intellectual history of Max Pohlenz, Die Stoa: Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung, 2 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970); a more recent study is Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1990). 6. See Laila Straume-Zimmermann et al., ed. and trans., Marcus Tullius Cicero: Hortensius, Lucullus, Academici libri (Zurich: Artemis und Winkler, 1997), 327–70.



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one may assume that Hortensius also had an introduction. The Hortensius was a protrepticus modeled after the Protrepticus of Aristotle, which was an exhortation to philosophy. At this point Cicero would have introduced the three characters: Hortensius, Catullus, and Lucullus. He probably began by explaining what philosophy actually is, beginning etymologically with the definition “love of wisdom.” More precisely, philosophy is the science of things divine and human as well as the science of the causes of things. Philosophy is not for everyone but only for an elite. Cicero explains in his Tusculan Disputations: “For philosophy is content with few judges, and of set purpose on her side avoids the multitude and is in her turn an object of suspicion and dislike to them, with the result that if anyone should be disposed to revile all philosophy he could count on popular support.”7 In his own dialogue on the happy life, Augustine states that he was converted to the ardent love of philosophy when he was eighteen years old by reading the Hortensius of Cicero. He repeats this in his Confessions. In the context of citing Hortensius Augustine presents an extended metaphor, which occupies the first four chapters of his De beata vita, to describe human beings and their relationship to philosophy. Three ships sail on the open sea, seeking the tranquil harbor of philosophy. The first finds its way to the harbor of philosophy without any problem. This represents a minority of men. The second hits a storm and through exertion overcomes adversity and is ultimately forced into the harbor of philosophy. The third remains at sea and continues to seek philosophy but lacks both intelligence and luck and has no success. The first group of men is successful and the third unsuccessful. The middle group can reach philosophy only through great effort. Augustine places himself in this group, as perhaps also did Cicero. The next issue had to be the relationship between politics and philosophy. Certainly Cicero would not have omitted public service and its connection to philosophy, although he would have been very cautious writing about politics during the dictatorship of Caesar. In one’s youth, one should study philosophy. However, once one stands in the service of the state, that must take precedence. In this introduction Cicero probably presented himself as representing philosophy in general, emphasizing no particular school in his arguments, although he may very well have revealed his position as an adherent of the New Academy. Hortensius, on the other hand, was an adherent of the Old Academy as represented by Antiochus of Ascalon, who rejected skepticism and embraced the traditional dogmatic Platonism. Cicero would have considered the historical Hortensius, as he was known, both an orator and a politician. In the 7. Tusculanae 2.4 (Loeb 141).

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dialogue there was a balance of parties. Lucullus and Hortensius were the dogmatists, and Catullus and Cicero himself the academics. In the summer of 62 BC, Hortensius and Catullus visited Cicero at his villa near Pompeii. Then all three visited Lucullus at his nearby villa. Catullus was especially pleased by the location. They would have thoroughly enjoyed sharing company, talking about common experiences and interests. Cicero and Hortensius had together successfully defended P. Cornelius Sulla. Hortensius enjoyed sculpture, Catullus poetry, Lucullus history. Hortensius begins by launching a vehement attack against philosophy, first challenging its usefulness. Lactantius records: “Cicero’s Hortensius gets caught in a shrewd argument in speaking against philosophy. He said that there was no need for it; but he appeared to be using it nevertheless, because it is a philosopher’s business to debate what should and should not be done in life.”8 What did man do before philosophy existed? Clearly his only guide was nature, which was sufficient and still remains an adequate guide, according to Hortensius. He obviously asserted the existence of one God, which prompted Cicero to ask him: “If god is one and only one, what happiness can he have in his solitude?”9 In discussing the Hortensius, Lactantius makes a distinction between philosophy and wisdom, that is, between the love of wisdom and wisdom itself: “All philosophy must therefore be discarded: what is needed is not the pursuit of wisdom, which lacks aim and limit, but wisdom itself, and soon, too: we have no second life allowed us so that we can look for wisdom in this one and be wise in the next; this life must suffice for both. The finding of wisdom must be quick, so that its adoption can be quick, in case we waste any part of our unknown span of life.”10 A debate between Hortensius and Cicero ensues. At this point there is little evidence, yet a citation from Nonius is helpful. Cicero addresses Hortensius, “It is your responsibility to arrive either at the topic itself, which you have not even touched, or at its parts as members of a body having been dissected” (aut tibi id ipsum pervertendum fuit, quod tu ne attigisti quidem, aut eius partes quasi membra quaedam caedenda).11 Cicero’s objection is that Hortensius arbitrarily selected themes from all of philosophy without systematically dealing with the individual parts of philosophy or philosophy as a whole. Hypothetically Cicero would have discussed physics, ethics, and logic. Especially regarding ethics Cicero would have indicated that nature alone is insufficient to guide us in our lives. Nature gives a foundation as well as indications. To proceed further one needs intelligence and philosophy. In the field of logic Cicero 8. Divinae Institutiones 3.16.9 (CSEL 19; Translated Texts for Historians 40). 9. Ibid., 2.7.4. 10. Ibid., 3.16.7–8. 11. Straume-Zimmermann, Marcus Tullius Cicero, no. 61 (my translation).



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would have accused Hortensius of exploiting the very philosophical discipline which he was rejecting. Using Aristotle as his model he would have added that anyone who asserts that one should not philosophize is himself philosophizing by making this statement. In his De Trinitate Augustine asserts: “Wishing to begin his dialogue Hortensius from an absolutely certain starting point that no one could hesitate about, he [Cicero] said: ‘We all certainly want to be happy’” (beati certe, inquit, omnes esse uolumus).12 Clearly the central theme of the Hortensius is eudaimonism or the happy life. Cicero would have enumerated various items which were thought to bring happiness, traditionally power, fame, and knowledge. Then he would have dealt with the possibility of desiring something which one should not desire. Augustine cites Cicero’s Hortensius on this question in his De beata vita: “Behold, not the philosophers, but only people who like to argue, state that all are happy who live according to their own will. This, of course, is not true, for, to wish what is not fitting is the worst of wretchedness. But it is not so deplorable to fail of attaining what we desire as it is to wish to attain what is not proper. For, greater evil is brought about through one’s wicked will than happiness through fortune.”13 Having proven that true happiness can be found neither in pleasure, nor in fame, nor in the freedom to do what one wishes, only one thing remains—the desire for wisdom. Cicero would have come to the conclusion that a life without philosophy is not only impossible but also not worth living. He would have spoken against desire, specifically sexual desire as the deadly enemy of philosophy. He also would have spoken about the greatness of the soul and insignificance of death. Since the search for truth does not depend upon rapport with other men, all those virtues which are necessary for success in daily life are not necessary in the search for truth. Philosophy has the highest role exactly because it does not serve the physical necessities of life. The dialogue would have ended as other dialogues with Cicero himself having the last word. These last words of Cicero’s dialogue are recorded by Augustine in his De Trinitate. I quote them in their entirety: This is the contemplative wisdom which in my view is specifically distinguished in the sacred writings from knowledge and is called precisely man’s wisdom, though indeed it only comes to him from the one whom the rational and intellectual mind must share in to become truly wise. Cicero commends it at the end of his dialogue Hortensius. He says: 12. De Trinitate 123.2(4).7 (CCSL 50/50A; WSA I/5). 13. De beata vita 2.10.

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“This is our great hope as we ponder night and day, and sharpen the understanding which is the fine point of the mind and take care it does not get blunt, that is to say, as we live in philosophy; either that we will have a cheerful sunset to our days when we have completed our tasks, and an untroublesome and quiet quenching of life, if this capacity of ours to perceive and to be wise is perishable and fleeting; or else, if we have eternal and divine souls, as the ancient philosophers agreed, and they the greatest and far away most brilliant, we must suppose that the more these souls keep always to their course, that is, to reason and to eager inquiry, and the less they mix themselves up in the tangled vices and errors of men, the easier will be their ascent and return to heaven.” Then he adds this phrase, and ends his discourse by a brief summary: “Therefore to bring my speech to an end, if we wish either to fade out peacefully when we have finished our lives in these bodies, or to move on from this house to another and infinitely better one without delay, we must devote all our care and energy to these studies.”14

In summation, there are several very important Augustinian teachings present in the Hortensius of Cicero. First, the soul is immortal. Second, evil is a result of the will. Third, what is most significant here is Cicero’s quest for happiness, which can be attained only by a life dedicated to the study of philosophy.

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations V Fortunately we do not have to rely exclusively upon a hypothetical reconstruction of the lost Hortensius to know something of Cicero’s teaching on happiness. He treats the same subject in De finibus and in the Tusculan Disputations, particularly in book 5 of the latter. Written in 45 BC, the Tusculan Disputations is addressed to Marcus Brutus, but is also directed toward a general audience. In this work, which deals exclusively with ethics, Cicero comes close to the philosophical position of the Stoics. Occasionally there is an exchange, that is, a dialogue, between M and A, probably representing Magister and Auditor. Book 1 of the Tusculan Disputations deals with the proposition that “death is an evil” and comes to the conclusion that death is not an evil. One reason for this conclusion is the fact that the soul is immortal. But even if the soul were not immortal, death would still not be an evil. Death is a departure or a deliverance, and in certain circumstances may even be a good. Book 2 deals with the proposition that “pain is the greatest of evils.” Cicero comes to the conclusion that pain, if it is an evil, is a slight one. Virtue makes pain in14. De Trinitate 14.5(19).26.



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significant, and death remains an always readily available escape. Book 3 deals with the proposition that “the wise man is susceptible to distress.” For Cicero distress is a disorder of the soul and thus an unsoundness of the mind. However, philosophy can remove the weaknesses of nature: “Now the cultivation of the soul is philosophy; this pulls out vices by the roots and makes souls fit for the reception of seed, and commits the soul and, as we may say, sows in it seed of a kind to bear the richest fruit when fully grown.”15 Distress is not natural but voluntary and due to mistaken opinion. Book 4 deals with the remaining emotions and disorders of the soul. Distress is the disease and philosophy is the cure. Let us surrender ourselves therefore to its treatment [that is, the treatment of distress] and suffer ourselves to be cured; for when these evils settle upon us, not merely is it impossible to be happy, but we cannot be in a sound state either. Let us then either deny that reason has its perfect work, although on the contrary the fact is that nothing can be done aright without reason, or inasmuch as philosophy consists in the collection of rational arguments, let us, if we wish to be both good and happy, seek to gain from it all aid and support for leading a good and happy life.16

Book 5 continues the Tusculan Disputations as an ongoing conversation with Marcus Brutus, who had written a book, now lost, entitled De virtute and had dedicated it to Cicero, where he asserts that “virtue is self-sufficient for a happy life.”17 Brutus was involved in the plot to assassinate Caesar. In book 4 Cicero had mentioned that Lucius Brutus, Brutus’s ancestor, expelled the tyrannical king Tarquinius Superbus and was influential in the establishment of the republic. There are political undertones throughout the work. In fact, Ingo Gildenhard presents a decidedly political reading of the Tusculan Disputations and in my opinion correctly so: “In the prefaces of Tusculans 1–4, Cicero exploited the differences between Roman sapientia and Greek philosophy to establish the superiority of Roman over Greek culture and define the appropriation of Greek learning as an act of ameliorating imperialism. In the preface to Tusculan 5, Cicero opts for a different approach: he outlines a universal conception of philosophy, which he places at the very center of individual happiness and communal life.”18 In a very real sense, the fifth and final book summarizes Cicero’s entire work.19 Cicero addresses again the issues of death, pain, and distress, indicating that these may be overcome by virtue. 15. Tusculanae 2.13. 16. Ibid., 4.84. 17. Ibid., 5.1. 18. Ingo Gildenhard, “Paideia Romana: Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations,” Cambridge Classical Journal, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, supplementary vol. 30 (2007): 203. 19. Emanuele Narducci, Cicerone e i suoi interpreti: Studi sull’Opera e la Fortuna (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2004), 125–28, emphasizes the unity of the work.

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Therefore as such [the previously mentioned] men are wretched, so on the contrary those are happy whom no fears alarm, no distresses corrode, no lusts inflame, no vain transports of delight dissolve in the melting lassitude of pleasure. Just therefore as the sea is understood to be calm when not even the lightest breath of air ruffles its waves; so a peaceful, still condition of the soul is discernible when there is no disturbance of strength enough to be able to ruffle it. Therefore, if there is a man able to regard the power of fortune, to regard all human vicissitudes that can possibly befall, as so far endurable that neither fear nor worry touch him, and if the same man should covet nothing, feel no transport of empty pleasure in his soul, what reason is there why he should not be happy? And if virtue makes this possible, what reason is there why virtue of its own power alone should not make men happy?20

After refuting Epicureanism and other philosophical schools, Cicero ponders nature. The soul of man which has come from the divine mind is comparable to nothing else but to God alone. When the soul lives according to reason, the soul is made perfect and reason leads above all to virtue. Cicero talks about the man who makes a threefold division of the good, and he asks whether or not this man can be happy. Although Cicero is not explicit, this threefold division appears to refer to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle divided the good into three categories: noble, useful, and pleasing. Cicero rejects this division, stating that virtue is the only good. A corollary to this is the affirmation that all transgressions are equal and all right actions are equal.21 Disturbances of the soul are removed by reason so that “the wise man therefore is always happy.”22 He then states that “what is right is the only good.”23 Cicero deals with the adiaphora, those “indifferent” things that are neither good nor bad for the Stoics but are called advantages or preferences. For the Peripatetics these are simply called goods. Cicero insists that the disposition of the soul makes one happy. Cicero mentions Socrates: “But he [Socrates] refers everything to the standard of living happily; therefore happy life is praiseworthy; and without virtue nothing is praiseworthy; happy life is therefore consummated by virtue.”24 Cicero continues to argue his case using other approaches as well as examples from Roman history. He continues to support the Stoics, and in the end he returns to Socrates and Plato and insists that the wise man has the power to lead a good life. All too often contemporary scholars limit Cicero’s philosophical contribu20. Tusculanae 5.16–17. 21. See Paradoxa Stoicorum 3.20–26 (Loeb 349); Lloyd Gerson, “Isa ta harmartemata: The Stoic Doctrine ‘all errors are equal,’” in Harmartia (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983), 119– 30. 22. Tusculanae 5.43; cf. Paradoxa Stoicorum 6.42–52. 23. Tusculanae 5.45. 24. Ibid., 5.48.



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tion to the transmission of Greek thought into Latin, namely, bringing Greek philosophy into the Roman world. Cicero was no mere translator but makes an original contribution to philosophy.25 For Cicero Rome itself with its glorious past supplies a very important social reality, which was absent from Greek philosophy. This social framework is also communal and political and finds its supreme expression in the Roman Republic. For Cicero theoretical Greek philosophy is inferior to practical Roman wisdom. The Roman commonwealth was so central to the thought of Cicero that politics is never absent from his philosophy.

Seneca, De vita beata Cicero essentially represents Stoicism in its third and final stage of development, where its teaching is above all moral or ethical. Examples of this also include Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, Seneca’s ethical writings greatly contributed to the popularity of Stoicism in ancient Rome. He firmly believed in divine providence and insisted that the virtuous man could never be unhappy. Seneca looked upon anger as the greatest vice, considering it temporary insanity. Death is not an evil and may even be a good. A collection of Latin apocryphal letters between Paul and Seneca, known to both Jerome and Augustine, were forged in the fourth century apparently for the purpose of linking Christianity to the classical literary tradition.26 One tenuous link between Seneca and Christianity is his elder brother Gallio, to whom both De ira and De vita beata are addressed. Gallio had a senatorial career and was governor of the province of Achaia. He was the Roman official to whom the Jews accused the apostle Paul in Acts 18:12–17. During the sixth century, Martin, bishop of Braga, used Seneca’s works extensively in writing his own De ira. Martin also wrote the widely circulated Formulae vitae honestae, which was published as a work of Seneca. Thus, Stoicism tended to be positively received within Christianity primarily because of its ethical content. At this point I would like to consider Seneca’s De vita beata, written in AD 58–59, as another example of this genre, which should shed light on the philosophical tenor of the times and dominance of Stoicism in ethical matters. Here also, as in Cicero, we find the triangular relationship among nature, wisdom, and virtue, which leads to happiness. Seneca first cautions against fol25. See J. C. Davies, “The Originality of Cicero’s Philosophical Works,” Latomus 30 (1971): 105–19. 26. CPL 191; Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 480–85.

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lowing the majority, stating: “Let the soul discover the good of the soul.”27 He refers to other philosophers without specifically naming them, insisting that it would be far too tedious to enumerate and refute them all. For Seneca “the happy life, therefore, is a life that is in harmony with its own nature.”28 Later he adds: “For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless, and steadfast—a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue [honestas] the only good, baseness [turpitudo] the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good [summum bonum], and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?”29 The freedom from fear and from desire, to which Seneca refers, is based on reason. After this positive presentation of Stoicism, Seneca deals with three objections. First, he refutes the philosophy of pleasure, namely Epicureanism. Second, he deals with those who criticize philosophy and philosophers. Third, he defends his own personal wealth, stating that the generosity of fortune is no reason either to blush or to boast.

Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones VII Pico della Mirandola, the Renaissance humanist, referred to Lactantius as the “Christian Cicero” because of his eloquent Latin. Lactantius’s major work is the Divinae Institutiones or Divine Instruction.30 In book 7 of this work, entitled De beata vita, Lactantius explains to his readers that this last book is the most important of the entire work. Everything that he has explained previously is insignificant without this final goal: “Good: the foundations are laid,” in the words of the great orator [Cic. Mur. 14]. We have not only laid the foundation, however, to be strong and fit for the work ahead; we have also advanced the whole building, of great and sturdy mass, nearly to its top. What remains, to roof it or to decorate it, is very easy by comparison; without it, however, our previous labour is wasted and goes unrewarded. What use is it, either to be liberated from bogus religions or to understand the true one? What use is it, either to see through the emptiness of bogus wisdom or to get to grips with the true wisdom? What use is it, I repeat, to defend the justice of heaven and to sustain one’s worship of God despite great difficulties—that is the supreme virtue— 27. De vita beata 2.3 (Loeb 254). 28. Ibid., 3.3. 29. Ibid., 4.3. 30. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), deals well with the various historical problems pertinent to the study of Lactantius.



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unless it is followed up by God’s reward of perpetual bliss? [quid, inquam, prodest caelestem illam iustitiam defendere? quid cum magnis difficultatibus cultum dei tenere, quae est summa uirtus, nisi eam diuinum praemium beatitudinis perpetue subsequatur?].31

Certain things are clear in this statement. First, Lactantius’s earlier six books are useless without this final ending. Second, worship of God is the highest virtue. Third, perpetual bliss (beatitudo perpetua) is the intended final end of the human person. His argument then turns from reason to authority. The philosophers have advanced a multitude of theories, but they will never arrive at the truth because they possess mere human wisdom and not divine wisdom. Various philosophical schools do not have the truth, because they were established by men and do not possess oracular pronouncements from God. Lactantius does not use the technical theological term “revelation,” which was used by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa contra gentiles and which continues to be used today in contrast with “reason.”32 But the concept of revelation is present. Truth may be identified from its source or authority. Teaching that has God as its source is more authoritative than teaching that comes from the philosophers. Lactantius then reviews the teaching of the philosophical schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism concerning creation and divine providence. He states that nothing has been made for its own sake and everything that has been made must have been made for some end. Then, Lactantius explains that the world was not made by God for the sake of the world itself. That would make no sense. Furthermore, God did not make the world for his own sake. God does not need the world. The world has been made for the sake of living things, supplying all that is necessary to sustain life. Living things, other than human beings, were created for man and given to him for his use and wellbeing. Lactantius then goes one step further and asks why God created man. The response comes quickly in Lactantius’s thought process. God created man for man’s own sake. God made the souls first and then he made man out of the earth itself. He wrapped the spirit in an earthly body. At this point Lactantius deals with the problem of theodicy: So why did [God] make man mortal and frail when he had made the world because of him? His first purpose was to have an infinite force of souls produced to fill the earth with its multitude; his second was to face man with virtue: that is, endurance of evil and toil as the path to the prize of immortality. Man is made of two stuffs, 31. Divinae Institutiones 7.1.1–3. 32. The Patrologia Latina database shows the word revelatio once in the corpus of Lactantius, specifically in his De opificio Dei 18 (PL 7: 72B). In arguing against Virgil he uses the word “revelation” to refer to a true dream sent by God.

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body and soul; one is earthly and the other is heavenly: so man has been granted two lives, one temporal and assigned to the body, the other eternal, related to the soul.33

There is a dynamic tension in the human person. Virtue is offered to man while the body and soul struggle against each other. Lactantius explains that the goods of the soul are evil for the body—the avoidance of wealth and pleasure as well as contempt for pain and death; while the goods for the body are evil for the soul—greed and lust and pleasure. He comes to the conclusion that “the one and supreme good is therefore immortality: we were formed in the beginning to acquire it and we were born so too.”34 Worship, the topic of book 6, the previous book, reenters at this point in terms of virtue: “Worship of God, which is based on abstention from desire and lust, endurance of pain and contempt for death, is pursued by the soul even in spite of the body. To think that soul does not die but is separated from the body thus makes sense, because body without soul can do nothing, whereas soul without body can do much, and much of note.”35 In summation, the ultimate goal of the human person is perpetual bliss. God created man for the sake of man himself. God created man with body and soul so that man may have the opportunity to exercise virtue, the greatest of which is worship. The practice of virtue emphasizes the life of the soul, which leads to immortality and eternal happiness.

Ambrose, De Iacob et beata vita Ambrose wrote four works dealing with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. These works should be read as a unity and, indeed, they are more ethical than exegetical. De Abraham was originally homilies directed to catechumens. De Isaac et anima describes the union of the Christ with the soul of the believer. De Ioseph offers Joseph as a model of chastity and an example of redemption through Christ. De Iacob et beata vita, written in AD 386, deals with the happy life. Besides the ethical characteristics of the treatises, which are often overtly philosophical, what is also remarkable is Ambrose’s ability to introduce specifically Christian teaching into the lives of the patriarchs and offer them as examples of living the Christian life. Here we will limit ourselves to the last work mentioned, on Jacob and the happy life. Stoicism seems to dominate although some scholars favor Neoplatonic or Aristotelian sources.36 Perhaps the Stoic teaching in the text came 33. Divinae Institutiones 7.5.15–16. 34. Ibid., 7.8.1. 35. Ibid., 7.11.8. 36. See Marcia L. Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005).



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to Ambrose through Plotinus. Philosophical systems in late antiquity were marked by eclecticism and fluidity. In book 1 Ambrose deals with the struggle against the passions. Ambrose wastes no time with formalities. The very first lines of this work indicate its purpose and goal: “Necessary for the training of all men is good discourse, full of prudence, while the mind given to reason excels in virtue and restrains its passions, for virtue is teachable. Further, one seeks it by study and learning and loses it by neglect” (Necessarius ad disciplinam bonus sermo omnibus, plenus prudentiae, et mens rationi intenta praecurrit uirtutibus, passiones coercet; docibilis enim uirtus. denique studio et discendo quaeritur, dissimulando amittitur).37 The Stoic tension between reason and passion is especially evident throughout the work: “And thus either our affections, which are free, draw us into error, or our will, following upon reason, calls us away. Now the most severe of the guilty passions is concupiscence, but reason mitigates and restrains it” (et ideo nos aut liber affectus ad errorem trahit aut uoluntas reuocat rationem secuta. passio autem grauissima culpae concupiscentia, quam ratio emollit et conprimit).38 Ambrose explains that some passions arise in the soul, others in the body, and yet others in the body and soul together. This is certainly a departure from the monism of the Stoics. Although Ambrose does not enumerate the four cardinal virtues as he does in De officiis, all four are particularly evident in De Iacob et beata vita. Ambrose emphasizes that all virtues may be taught and can be learned. This problem is also the subject of Plato’s Meno. Temperance emerges as the virtue of primary importance because temperance holds the passions in check. Prudence through right reason leads to temperance, while temperance requires the courage of fortitude to be carried out in the life of the individual. Justice in its Pauline sense is the final effect, as we find in Romans 6:17–18, where Paul explains that one who is set free from sin becomes a slave of justice. Although he is writing about a patriarch, Ambrose does not neglect the specifically Christian element of virtue: “Therefore the mind is good if it is directed toward reason, but not at all perfect unless it enjoys the rule of Christ. The Lord Jesus comes to fix our passions to His cross and to forgive our sins. In His death we have been justified, so that the whole world might be made clean by His blood. Indeed, in His death we have been baptized.”39 In fact, later in book 2 the necessarily Christian nature of virtue is highlighted. Finally, Ambrose comes to his explanation of happiness: “The happy life, then, does exist among men, but I mean only among those in whom life has 37. De Iacob et beata vita 1.1.1 (CSEL 32.2; FC 65). 38. Ibid., 1.1.1. 39. Ibid., 1.5.17.

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been made perfect. Now the perfect life is not that of the senses, but the life of reason, lived according to management exercised by the reason and natural vigor possessed by the mind. In this there is found, not a part of man, but his completion, which appears not so much in his status as in his actions, and these, after all, make a man happy.”40 Happiness is not a status but is rather the result of human action. In book 2 Ambrose offers the concrete examples of Jacob and, to a lesser degree, Eleazar and the Maccabean martyrs. Ambrose explains that Jacob was happy because he fulfilled the definition of what a happy man is as found in Psalm 1:1: “Happy is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked nor stood in the way of sinners nor sat in the chair of pestilence.”41 Ambrose takes the story of Jacob as recorded in the book of Genesis and uses it to demonstrate how Jacob fulfills the requirements for being happy which he had set out in book 1. Of special interest is the fact that Ambrose describes Jacob as anticipating Christ and his Church. In summation, the happy life is one in which reason has overcome passion. Temperance is learned through prudence while virtue comes to perfection in Christ. Of all this, Jacob is an example.

Ambrose, De officiis II

Ambrose also deals with the happy life in book 2 of his De officiis.42 Here he relates the happy life to eternal life: “In the previous book, we discussed the kinds of duty which we thought were appropriate to behaving in a way that is honourable. No one has ever doubted that that is where the happy life, or, as Scripture calls it, ‘eternal life’, is to be found. Such is the splendour of honourable conduct that peace of conscience and the assurance of innocence make for a happy life.”43 Ambrose further explains that “eternal life is obtained by faith, then, for faith acts as a good foundation. It is also obtained by good deeds, for a just man earns approval through what he says and does.”44 For Ambrose faith is the absolutely necessary basis which makes good works possible, because without faith there can be no good works. And as we had seen earlier, good deeds make one happy. Ambrose then relates happiness to free40. Ibid., 1.7.29. 41. Ibid., 2.1.2. 42. On the relationship of Ambrose to Cicero regarding the De officiis, see Klaus Zelzer, “Zur Berurteilung der Cicero-Imitatio bei Ambrosius’ De officiis,” Wiener Studien 90 (1977): 168–91; Klaus Zelzer, “Randbemerkungen zu Absicht und Arbeitsweise des Ambrosius in De officiis,” Wiener Studien 107/8 (1994–95): 481–93. 43. De officiis 2.1.1 (ed. and trans. Davidson, Oxford, 2001). 44. Ibid., 2.2.7.



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dom from sin: “Scripture also tells us that there can be no state so happy as the state of being free from sin, full of innocence, and filled with the grace of God.”45 Once again he cites Psalm 1:1, which he had cited three years earlier when writing De Iacob et beata vita. Ambrose continues: “It is quite certain that virtue is the only good, the supreme good, and that it and only it enjoys real wealth when it comes to earning the reward of eternal life. It is certain, too, that it is not in the possession of external or bodily advantages that life is rendered happy, but only in the display of virtue, through which eternal life is gained. A happy life is the reward that we have in the present; eternal life is the hope that we have for the future.”46 The practice of virtue brings happiness. In addition, this happiness exists now on earth in the daily life of the virtuous Christian and is also the promise of eternal life in the future. So there is continuity between the happiness of the present life and the happiness of eternity. Returning to the question of the relationship between the good and the useful, the actual purpose of the work, Ambrose concludes, as Cicero did before him, that there can be no real conflict between the two. In summation, De officiis adds an important element not found in De Iacob et beata vita: the explicit connection between the happy life and eternal life.

Augustine, De beata vita

Augustine’s De beata vita may be summarized in the following sentence: “Whoever attains the supreme measure, through the truth, is happy. This means, to have God within the soul, that is, to enjoy God.”47 I will now trace the development of Augustine’s presentation from the beginning of this work.48 At Cassiciacum Augustine went into his retreat after his conversion experience in Milan and before his baptism. He began writing Contra academicos, his first work, but halfway through he broke it off to write De beata vita. Obviously he realized that he needed to turn his attention to the happy life before dealing with skepticism and the certainty of knowledge in Contra academicos. De beata vita is the first work that he completed and as such it lays down a basic principle, namely that the quest for happiness drives the human being. The work is directed to a certain Manlius Theodorus. Augustine’s primary source for this work was Cicero’s Hortensius. Not withstanding the significance of Neoplatonism, Cicero was clearly a major influence upon Au45. Ibid., 2.3.8. 46. Ibid., 2.5.18. 47. De beata vita 4.34. 48. For a historical and literary overview, see Giovanni Catapano, Aurelio Agostino: Tutti i dialoghi (Milan: Bompiani, 2006), ix–cxcvii.

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gustine.49 Augustine begins chapter 1 with the seafaring metaphor taken from Cicero, which speaks of “the voyage to the port of philosophy.” We already dealt with the three classes of seafarers when we dealt with Cicero’s Hortensius. Augustine sees himself in a search for truth. He explains, as he also does in the Confessions, that he read the Hortensius at the age of eighteen and that it had a tremendous effect upon him: “I was inflamed by such a great love of philosophy that I considered devoting myself to it at once.”50 At the end of the first chapter he introduces his dialogue partners: his mother, who is unnamed in this dialogue, his brother Navigius, his pupils Trygetius and Licentius, his relatives Lastidianus and Rusticus, and finally his son Adeodatus. Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of the human person as composed of body and soul. Then, Augustine asks, “In your opinion, is a person happy who does not possess what he wants?”51 Several opinions are expressed. But his mother, Monica, states: “If he wishes and possesses good things, he is happy; if he desires evil things—no matter if he possess them—he is wretched.”52 Augustine laughs and declares that his mother has entered the fortress (arx) of philosophy.53 He further explains that she agrees with Cicero, who in his Hortensius states: “For, greater evil is brought about through one’s wicked will than happiness through fortune.”54 The key, then, is not having what you want but wishing to have what is appropriate and good. Licentius asks: “You must tell us what a person has to wish in order to be happy, and what kind of things he must desire.”55 The conversation continues on the subject of what makes a man happy. Augustine writes: “Therefore,” I concluded, “whoever possesses God is happy.” As they readily and joyfully agreed to this, I continued: “It seems to me, therefore, that we have only to inquire what man really possesses God, for he, certainly, will be happy. It is your opinion about this that I now ask.” Here Licentius remarked: “He who lives an upright life possesses God.” Trygetius continued: “He who does what God wills to be done possesses God.” Lastidianus also agreed to this opinion. 49. See Maurice Testard, Saint Augustin et Cicéron (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1958), vol. 1, 155–76; Harald Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 20: 2 (Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1967), vol. 2, 479–88. The Neoplatonism of Augustine has been the subject of extensive study; for a thorough review of the literature see Giovanni Catapano, L’ idea di filosofia in Agostino: Guida bibliografica, Subsidia Mediaevalia Patavina 1 (Padua: Il Poligrafo, 2000). The direction pursued by Aimé Solignac, “Il circolo neoplatonico milanese al tempo della conversione di Agostino,” in Agostino a Milano (Palermo: Edizioni Augustinus, 1988), 43–56, needs to be continued. 50. De beata vita 1.4. 51. Ibid., 2.10. 52. Ibid. 53. See Catapano, Tutti i dialoghi, cli–cliii. 54. De beata vita 2.10. 55. Ibid.



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The boy [Adeodatus], the youngest of all, said, however: “Whoever has a spirit free from uncleanness has God.”56

Chapter 3 recounts the discussions of the second day. They discuss the difference between seeking God and finding God. The problem revolves around the fact that one who is still seeking God by definition has not yet found him. This is more than a mere mental exercise but a serious issue. Since it is impossible to understand the meaning without the context, I present the whole discussion. Augustine speaks: “Now I intend to question you, rather briefly, about this point: whether God desires that man seek Him.” They said: “Yes.” I also asked: “Can we say that one who seeks God leads a bad life?” “By no means,” was their reply. “Answer me yet a third question: Is an impure spirit able to seek God?” They said: “No.” Navigius, still a little in doubt, at first, finally agreed with the others. “If, then,” I said, “one who seeks God obeys the will of God, he both lives righteously and is without an impure spirit. On the other hand, one who seeks God has not yet found God. Nothing, then, immediately compels our belief that whoever lives an upright life, or does what God wills, or has not an impure spirit, has God.” While the others laughed at the fact that they were misled through their own admissions, our mother, stunned for a while, requested that through an explanation I should loosen and untangle for her the logical knot I had been compelled to present. After this had been done, she said: “But nobody can attain God without first seeking Him.” “Very well,” I replied. “But one who is still seeking has not yet attained God, although he lives an upright life. Therefore, not everyone who lives a good life possesses God.” She then said: “I believe that everyone possesses God, but, if one lives righteously, he has God favorable to him, and, if wrongly, hostile.” “Incorrectly, then,” I said, “we conceded yesterday that the one who is happy possesses God, since every man possesses God and yet not every man is happy.” “Therefore, add the word ‘favorable,’” she said.57

Indeed, the reader is confronted by a logical knot. The problem, simply stated, is that the happy life is impossible, because one who is seeking it has not yet found it. Augustine continues by developing the argument, which his mother 56. Ibid., 2.11–12. 57. Ibid., 3.19.

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made available, that God looks favorably upon men who seek him. Thus, one who seeks God can be happy without having arrived at the goal, because God looks favorably upon him. Chapter 4 recounts the discussion of the third and last day. The resolution comes near the end of the work. Augustine speaks: “But, as long as we are still seeking, and not yet satiated by the fountain itself—to use our word—by fullness [plentitudo]—we must confess that we have not yet reached our measure; therefore, not withstanding the help of God, we are not yet wise and happy. This, then, is the full satisfaction of souls, this the happy life: to recognize piously and completely the One through whom you are led into the truth, the nature of the truth you enjoy, and the bond that connects you with the supreme measure.”58 His mother responds by citing a verse of Ambrose’s hymn Deus creator omnium: “Help, O Trinity, those that pray.”59 She states that the happy life is the perfect life founded in faith, hope, and charity. In summation, inspired by the Hortensius of Cicero, Augustine comes to the ultimate conclusion that happiness is the enjoyment of God.

Summary and Conclusion This study began with eudaimonism, which is present in all the major philosophical schools of antiquity. They all agree that there is an end “for the sake of which everything is done but which is not done for the sake of anything.” This end is “the ultimate object of desire” or the summum bonum. For these philosophical systems the highest good is happiness or eudaimonia. In the words of Cicero: “We all want to be happy.” For Cicero the happy life can be attained only by a life dedicated to the study of philosophy—the pursuit of wisdom and its practical application to social and political life. For Seneca “the happy life is a life that is in harmony with its own nature.” In spite of his fundamental Stoicism, Seneca also introduced self-serving elements into his treatise, which developed into a personal apology. Christian authors built upon the Stoic basis of nature, which can be understood through the cultivation of the virtue of wisdom. For Lactantius, man’s ultimate goal is eternal happiness. God created man for the sake of man himself. God created man with body and soul so that man may have the opportunity to exercise virtue, the greatest of which is worship. The practice of virtue leads to immortality. For Ambrose, the happy life is one in which reason has overcome passion. Temperance is learned through prudence while virtue 58. Ibid., 4.35. 59. Ibid.



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comes to perfection in Christ. In De officiis he clearly links the happy life with eternal life. For Augustine, the happy life is the quest for truth through the study of philosophy. He was taught this by Cicero’s Hortensius. Augustine laughed approvingly when his mother stated that happiness comes not from possessing what one wants but from possessing what is good. To possess what is good, one must seek what is good. Yet Augustine saw the limitations of the Hortensius. The philosophical quest itself is insufficient. A virtuous life dedicated to politics, as espoused by Cicero, is also insufficient. Ultimately happiness comes to man when he arrives at the end of this quest, namely the enjoyment of God. And this is not possible without divine assistance: “Help, O Trinity, those that pray.”

Ro n n i e J. Ro mbs

12  Unum Deum . . . Mundi Conditorem Implications of the Rule of Faith in Augustine’s Understanding of Time and History

“Believe that God is one, who made all things and perfected them, and made all things to be out of that which was not.”1

Expressions of the rule of faith such as this from Hermas begin with the profession of faith in the singularity of God and in his role as Creator. As Tertullian expresses it, “This is the rule of faith . . . that there is one God who is none other than the Creator of the world from nothing.”2 The effect of this anti-Marcionite confession was twofold: that the world was created ex nihilo meant that it was not divine, not some emanation or “offspring” (probolê) of God as the Gnostics had claimed; secondly, it was, nonetheless, good. Marcion had, in effect, compromised the dignity of creation—ironically, in the very attempt to account for its apparent lack of goodness—by dissociating God from I had the pleasure of studying under Joseph Lienhard at Fordham University. During those years Father Lienhard met weekly with a small group of his students to read the Fathers in Latin. It was in that group, with Father Lienhard at the head of the table and a text in front of us, that I learned how to read Augustine—line by line, word by word, in much the same pedagogical style as that of antiquity itself, with the exception that Father Lienhard’s demeanor was always kinder and gentler than Augustine recalls of his own magistri. It is an honor to dedicate to him the following essay on Augustine and the changes I have come to see in Augustine’s understanding of time and history. In the end, any merit the essay possesses derives from Joe’s pedagogy. 1. The Shepherd of Hermas, Mand. 1.1. 2. De praescriptione haereticorum 13.1–2: “Regula est autem fidei . . . unum omnino Deum esse nec alium praeter mundi conditorem qui uniuersa de nihilo produxerit.”

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the act of creation. Against him the Christian appeal to the rule of faith constituted a rejection of the claim that creation was the ambiguous or corrupted work of a capricious and wrathful demiurge. Since it was fundamental to the rule that the physical world was the creation of the good and transcendent God, it followed that finite being must possess a fundamental integrity, that it must itself be good in regard to each of its manifold elements—including temporality. From the beginning of his Christian life Augustine was never unclear: evil is not a substance; being and goodness, as the later scholastics would put it, are convertible. Rejecting the Manichaean doctrines of the substantiality of evil and the intrinsic corruption of the physical world, Augustine in his earliest writings showed himself well aware of the implications of the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo.3 All that is, insofar as it is, is good, including corporeal existence. “As long as they [that is, things in general, and hence everything] exist, they are good,” Augustine tells us in the Confessions.4 “As [God] did not make all things equal, all things are good in the sense that taken individually they are good,” he continues, alluding to his concept of ordo, “and all things taken together are very good.”5 His thought in this regard is well known.6 But from the Platonists, who provided him with the intellectual framework to be able to accept the Christian faith in this regard, Augustine also inherited a conception of time and temporality that was much less clearly a mark of the goodness of finite being—a conception fundamentally incompatible with the implications of the rule of faith. Temporality as distension, successiveness, change—these elements marked for Plotinus aspects of the fallenness of the soul as it experienced itself mired down in the corporeal world, “flowing away” into its “part.” Augustine’s early writings reflect this Plotinian conception of temporality, including the circularity of the soul’s lapse into time and return: Adam, according to Augustine’s earliest commentary on Genesis, was created and placed in Paradise, and the purpose or end of the Christian dispensation, given Adam’s fall and expulsion from Paradise, is the return to Paradise.7 The temporality of the soul is, according to the predominant line of 3. See, for example, De fide et symbolo 2.2; De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.2.4; and De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 1.3. 4. Confessions 7.12.18. 5. Ibid. 6. See, for example, Joseph Torchia, Creation ex nihilo and the Theology of St Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Polemic and Beyond (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 117; Simo Knuuttila, “Time and Creation in Augustine,” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 7. De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.8.10; 2.9.12.

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thinking in Augustine’s early texts, a post-lapsarian condition; and salvation, these texts will suggest, includes liberation from time. In his study of history in the theology of Augustine, Henri-Irénée Marrou distinguished between a “cosmic time” that begins with creation and the “time of history” since the fall.8 Roland Teske, commenting on Marrou’s distinction, recognizes the problem of the categories of time and history for Augustine, questioning the legitimacy of such a distinction.9 Given Augustine’s tendency to think about time according to a Plotinian model, that there is such a thing as a time apart from or prior to sin is hard to establish. As Teske puts it, “To the extent to which Augustine relies upon a Plotinian view of time and eternity—and he surely does rely upon such a view rather heavily—there seems to be less room for such a distinction,” that is, between time/history prior to the fall and afterward, precisely because there is no distention of the soul—no time— before the fall.10 “History in the full sense,” R. A. Markus says of Augustine’s thinking, “as the troubled past of the human race, is the consequence of a world plunged into the ambivalence of time; time as the vehicle of sin and tragedy.”11 According to the early Augustine, humanity—or perhaps better, the soul—becomes historical because of sin, and the resulting history is the temporal process of flowing away from God toward nothingness; history is the process and narrative of man’s ruin. Certainly, God has not abandoned humanity in its history: temporality becomes by God’s mercy and economy the medium of salvation; it becomes salvation history. As Markus goes on to point out, time is not only the vehicle of sin and tragedy, it is also for Augustine “the medium of redemption.”12 But it is important to note that from this perspective salvation history itself follows upon human sin.13 Time becomes “history,” I would suggest, where there is direction, in other words, when the movement of time possesses finality in the sense of purposefulness.14 The mere passage of time does not alone make history. And the im8. Henri-Irénée Marrou, L’ambivalence du temps de l’ histoire chez saint Augustin (Montreal: Institut d’Études Médiévales, 1950). 9. “‘Vocans temporales, faciens aeternos’: St Augustine on Liberation from Time,” Traditio 41 (1985): 37–38. 10. Ibid. 11. Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 10. 12. Ibid. 13. Even Henri Marrou considers time and history in Augustine only in its post-lapsarian sense. See his L’ambivalence du temps. 14. See Henri-Irénée Marrou’s thought-provoking remarks on history in his Time and Timeliness (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969); originally published as Théologie de l’ histoire, 1968.



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plication of Augustine’s early thinking on time is that humanity would not have been truly historical, that is to say, would not have existed within a temporal context that was characterized by movement, development, and finality, apart from sin. “But for man’s primal sin and fall from the conditions of grace,” Markus concludes, “there would have been no need for God’s saving work. Nor would man’s existence in that state, had he continued in it, have been fully historical. Both sacred history in particular and history itself as experienced by men arise from this primal tragedy.”15 Teske and Markus are entirely correct to see that at least as far as the early Augustine is concerned, time and history, like the designation homo, are postlapsarian phenomena. And if humanity were left to itself, in the wake of sin history could only be characterized as the instability of a flowing and fading away from God into dissolution and nothingness. This perspective is arguably dominant in the Confessions, where Augustine’s thought is epitomized by the declaration that, because of his sin, he flowed out and was scattered or dispersed in tempora, “into times.”16 To the extent that this conception of time and history constitutes Augustine’s early thinking on the subject, Augustine had failed to assimilate the implications of the rule of faith that follow upon the profession of faith in unum Deum mundi Conditorem. What I hope to show in the course of the present essay, however, is that this early perspective on time and history represents only one line of thinking for Augustine—and not the perspective that will characterize Augustine’s later theology. There is a basis, though arguably only implicit, in Augustine’s later theology for the distinction Marrou found, namely, between “cosmic time” and the “time of history.” In sum, time and history are elements of creation even before the fall. The theological grounds for this claim are based upon two changes or developments in Augustine’s thought. First, Augustine’s association of temporality with the very nature of finite being becomes more prominent than the Plotinian model of time as distentio animi. As he comes to think of time as a necessary dimension of created and mutable being,17 time or temporality, Augustine will recognize, must be judged to be intrinsically good. And it is the ontology derivative of the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo, in other words, of the rule of faith, that grounds this judgment. Secondly, the later Augustine will think of God’s creative activity in terms of a dynamic and temporal process in which the creature is perfected subsequent to its creation. This dynamic—creation, conversion, perfection—is discernable in Augustine’s early thought, but it is conceived in non-temporal 15. Saeculum, 12; italics mine. 17. See, for example, Ep. 18.2.

16. Confessions 11.29.39.

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terms. Where the young Augustine will see no place for history apart from sin, the later Augustine will see time as the medium through which this process of creation-conversion-perfection occurs for humanity. Adam was originally intended by God’s creative will to attain a perfection and beatitude subsequent to his creation and establishment in Paradise. The temporal course of Adam’s life was, in other words, directed toward an end: it was to have a history.

The End Is a Return to the Beginning Augustine’s earliest commentary on Genesis, the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, is characterized in regard to Augustine’s conception of time and history by two currents of thought that resist systematization. On the one hand he is very clear from the outset of the work (1.2.4): all things as the creation of God are intrinsically good. The passage is well worth noting, because Augustine surprisingly (in light of the dominant portrayal of time in the Confessions) goes beyond describing God’s creation generally as good to declare explicitly that time too is a work of God and hence intrinsically good.18 Nevertheless, Augustine interprets the “historical” movement of humanity in the commentary according to the circular terms of fall and return. According to this perspective, human history—apart from grace—is the narrative of humanity’s dissolution. Secondly, salvation history is the process of returning humanity to its original state. Time, temporality, and historicality, we may conclude, have no intrinsic place in the original condition of creation; it follows upon man’s fall. Augustine’s understanding of creation and in particular the creation of the human person is in the De Genesi contra Manichaeos set within a larger and typically Platonic exitus-reditus schema. Augustine implies that the emergence of humanity follows upon the sin and fall of a spiritual creature (creatura spiritualis). Put succinctly, in this early text Augustine understands “man” (homo) or “Adam” to represent a mode of existence that is derivative of a prior spiritual mode of existence.19 And the end of “man,” Augustine makes very clear, is to 18. De Gen. c. Man. 1.2.4. In response to the Manichaean question, what was God doing before he created the world, Augustine points out that there was no “before,” since God created time itself: “God, who is the maker of time, is before time. So too, all the things that God has made are very good.” See also Ep. 18.2, where Augustine likewise associates time with creatureliness—and thus implicitly as something good. 19. For a fuller account of the relationship between Adam and this original spiritual creation, see my Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul: Beyond O’Connell and His Critics (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006); Robert O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386–391 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969); and J. Patout Burns, “St. Augustine: The Original Condition of Humanity,” SP 22 (1989): 219–22.



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return to Paradise, that pristine mode of existence. The “dynamism” of Augustine’s thinking here is circular: God creates an initial spiritual creation; man emerges, who now labors on the earth, and whose end involves a return to the beginning, his origin. Augustine’s interest in the opening chapters of book 2 of the commentary lies in discerning the figurative meaning of the “green things of the field,” mentioned in Genesis 2:4 of the African version of the Vetus Latina Bible: “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when there was made the day on which God made heaven and earth, and all the green things of the field, before they were on earth, and every food of the field before it sprang up.”20 Why does the text make reference to such a thing, Augustine asks, when it is silent about so many other of the manifold things of creation? “It must want us to understand,” Augustine answers, “the green of the field as an invisible creature like the soul. . . . The green of the field means the spiritual and invisible creature.”21 And the addition, “before they were on the earth,” means for Augustine “before the soul sinned.”22 Augustine’s diction almost immediately shifts from “ invisibilis creatura,” which Augustine took to be “like the soul” (sicut anima), to anima. And the effect of that sin, according to Augustine, is its earthly existence.23 It is not my present intention to enter here into the “obscure question” of the origin and fall of the soul.24 Rather, I want only to point out the circular dynamism of Augustine’s conception of the creation and end or return of man. Despite the many ambiguities and points of tension in Augustine’s early commentary, what is clear is that Augustine understands the book of Genesis to present humanity as appearing only after the sin of “the green of the field,” and secondly, that it is humanity’s end to return to that pristine state. As Augustine puts it, “After sin, man began to labor on the earth. . . . But before sin, God had made the green of the field and food and we said that this expression signified the invisible creature.”25 Robert O’Connell has well pointed out that Augustine’s tendency in the early commentary is to use the term anima as the proper designation prior to sin and homo after sin.26 20. De Gen c. Man. 2.1.1. 21. Ibid., 2.3.4. 22. Ibid., 2.3.5. 23. Ibid.: “For soiled by earthly desires, it is correctly said to have come to be upon the earth or to be upon the earth.” 24. I have considered book 2 of De Genesi contra Manichaeos with a view to the question of the origin of the soul and the nature of its fall in Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul. Augustine refers to the issue as an obscura quaestio (De Trinitate 5.16.17). 25. De Gen. c. Man. 2.4.5. 26. O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Man, 158; see also R. Teske’s helpful notes in his translation, Saint Augustine on Genesis: Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 97.

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The text of Genesis continues, describing the fact that until this time God had not yet made it to rain upon the earth. Instead, this “green of the field” was watered by an interior spring. Again, Augustine interprets the rain and spring figuratively: the rain represents God’s Word “by which he makes souls become green again,”27 and the clouds represent the writings of the prophets and apostles. “Man,” who now after that primal sin labors on the earth, needs the clouds and rain, that is, needs the Word of God. Though Augustine does not here use the expression, the idea seems to be that it is humanity’s present situation that gives rise to the need of a historical mediation of God’s Word and the historical dispensation of the faith which figures so prominently in his De vera religione.28 It gives rise to the need for discursive thought and revelation, doctrina as Augustine puts it here. But before men labored on the earth and had need of that rain, Augustine tells us, the soul was nourished directly by an interior spring. That is, the soul enjoyed an immediate and intuitive perception of God, who “spoke to its intellect, so that it did not receive words from the outside. . . . Rather it was satisfied from its own spring, that is, by the truth flowing from its interior.”29 By contrast, after sin, those clouds and rain were necessary for man—and here we come to the heart of the circularity of Augustine’s schema—“so that he might in this way grow green again from that dryness and become the green of the field.”30 For the early Augustine the creation of humanity seems to entail two moments: an initial, pre-lapsarian creation and then a subsequent, properly human and fallen condition. With sin comes the need for doctrina and the salvific intervention of God; in other words, human existence becomes historical. Only after sin does time take on a significant role as the context or medium for God’s redemptive work. And only when the passage of time takes on movement or a teleological direction, as I suggested initially, can it be said to be history as opposed to the mere passing of days and hours. Secondly, Augustine interprets the end of that historical movement to be a return to the beginning, a return to existence as the “green of the field” or “soul.” Again, this circularity in Augustine’s conception of creation and redemption is apparent in his interpretation of Paradise. “Paradise,” Augustine tells us here in the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, represents the happiness of the soul.31 Though even at this early point in his thinking Augustine does not rule out the possibility that Paradise could also have been a place, his express 27. De Gen. c. Man. 2.5.6. 29. De Gen. c. Man. 2.4.5. 31. Ibid. 2.8.10.

28. See, for example, 7.13. 30. Ibid. 2.5.6.



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interest lies in understanding it as a condition or state of happiness in the presence of God to which it is humanity’s hope to return through Christ. Augustine explains: We see that man was dismissed into the labors of this life so that he might at some point stretch forth his hand to the tree of life and live forever. The stretching forth of the hand clearly signifies the cross by which eternal life is recovered. Hence, he is dismissed from the paradise of pleasure in order to work the earth from which he was taken, that is, in order that he work in this body and establish in it, if he can, the merit to return.32

As Augustine’s exegetical endeavor proceeds according to the text of Genesis, he shortly arrives at the puzzling description of Genesis 2:7: “And he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The point warrants careful consideration for Augustine, since he has already interpreted God’s creation of man up until this point to include a soul—in fact, as we have seen, it is the soul that Augustine understands to have been created first. And, given his concern to counter the Manichaeans, Augustine is careful to avoid the erroneous assumption that, since man becomes a living soul from God breathing upon him, the soul of man is a “part” of God or shares in God’s nature in any way. Augustine’s solution is to suggest that up until this point man’s creation was imperfect, incomplete, that he was still merely “animal.” His attention is naturally drawn to Paul’s remark in 1 Corinthians 15:46: “It is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.” But contrary to Paul’s immediate point that it is only subsequently and in Christ that humanity becomes properly spiritual, Augustine refers it to the initial process of the creation of man. He explains that man’s creation was completed (perfected) when he received the Word of God and was placed as a living spirit in paradise—in other words, initially. It is in this sense that Augustine interprets Paul’s claim that what is animal precedes what is spiritual. As Augustine puts it, man “was made spiritual when he was established in Paradise, that is, in the happy life, and received the commandment of perfection so that he might then be made perfect by the word of God.”33 Augustine inherits the distinction between an initial moment of creation and a subsequent perfection from the Platonic tradition. The schema of emanation-conversion-perfection typifies the metaphysics of Plotinus on each 32. Ibid. 2.22.34. 33. Ibid. 2.8.10: “Tunc enim spiritualis effectus est, cum in paradiso, hoc est in beata vita constitutus, praeceptum etiam perfectionis accepit, ut verbo Dei consummaretur.”

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level of being. Initially—though Plotinus is not thinking of a temporal process—that which emanates from the One is indefinite; it must then turn itself to the contemplation of its source (that is, conversion), the effect of which is its perfection, its formation as Nous.34 The movement is accurately designated as a return within Plotinus’s cosmogony, because the operative metaphysics is driven by the idea of emanation, literally, “a flowing out.” Hence, the movement of that which has emanated to its source is a return. But there is an underside to Plotinus’s emanation metaphysics: all beings share a fundamental culpability for their abandonment of the One and for their preference for a continued, separate existence. Such a culpability is altogether absent from the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo.35 There is a certain irony that Plotinus’s schema of emanation-conversionperfection, which in itself is inseparable from his theory of the soul’s fall into time, will be fundamental to Augustine’s later appreciation of the essential historicality of human life. But the operative metaphysics within which this dynamic process sits for the later Augustine will be derivative of the doctrine of creation, not emanation. As Augustine comes to think of temporality as an essential aspect of created being as such, the process he takes from Plotinus will unfold within a temporal context. Here in the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, however, both moments (namely, creation and perfection) precede and establish Adam’s original condition; perfection is not, in other words, temporally subsequent to creation.36 But we would also do well to appreciate the sophistication of Augustine’s thought even at such an early point: Augustine preserves the continuity of God’s creative and redemptive will (avoiding the extrinsicism of later, poorer theologies) insofar as he considers the principle of human perfection to lie within the Word of God. Before sin, it was to be the Word dwelling within that would perfect Adam;37 after sin, it is the Word made flesh according to the divine economy that perfects and redeems. In other words, the grace of creation and of redemption is marked by continuity. According to the creative will of God, then, Augustine understands man’s perfection to lie with becoming a living soul in Paradise. Apart from human sinfulness, it seems that Augustine sees no role or place for history as such: there is no dynamic or linear development from an original created state into a 34. See Ennead 5.1.5; 5.4.2. 35. See Gerhart Ladner, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 169. 36. See ibid., 167–85, for a penetrating examination of the non-temporal character of creation, conversion, and perfection in Augustine. 37. De Gen. c. Man. 2.8.10.



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blessed future in relation to which the events of time possess value and meaning. And even here, where Paul’s very linear notion is under consideration (1 Cor 15:46), Augustine interprets it circularly: the gift of becoming “spiritual” in Christ constitutes a return to paradise. The end looks like the beginning. As Augustine points out, this is the promise of Christ to the good thief: “Then, recreated and brought to life by him, we will be restored to paradise, where the thief merited to be with him on that very day on which he ended his life.”38 In this regard the early Augustine’s perspective is reminiscent of certain Greek patristic conceptions. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, had similarly thought according to a circular pattern. As Nyssa put it in his De hominis opificio, “The resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the first life, bringing back again to Paradise him who was cast out from it.”39

The Ambiguity of Temporality in the Confessions

”I am scattered in times,” Augustine writes in the Confessions, “whose order I do not understand. The storms of incoherent events tear to pieces my thoughts, the inmost entrails of my soul, until that day when, purified and molten by the fire of your love, I flow together to merge into you.”40 Time, according to this line of thinking, is conceived as a regrettable condition of the soul; it is the experience of successiveness, a distentio animi. In the following book of the Confessions, Augustine will contrast his own mode of existence within the “revolving vicissitudes of the temporal process” (vicissitudo spatiorum temporalium) with the eternality of the “heaven of heaven” (Ps 113:16) which experiences no lapse (“sine ullo lapsu”), no temporality or change.41 Time, successiveness, and the very mutability of the creature are for Augustine in the Confessions sources of anxiety. They are presented in terms that suggest them to be marks of the fallen nature of the soul, from which Augustine anticipates being freed in his ascent and adherence to God.42 In other words, time conceived as the distention of the soul is derivative of a Plotinian model of time, which ineluctably involves for Plotinus his theory of the fall of the soul. The clear implication from this line of thinking is that salvation includes escaping from temporality. Certainly the Augustinian concept of beatitude revolves around the idea of peace, an ever-present (that is, eternal and hence non38. Ibid. 39. De hominis opificio 17.2. 40. Confessions 11.29.39. 41. Ibid., 12.9.9. 42. See Roland Teske’s excellent discussion of time conceived as distentio animi in “‘Vocans Temporales, Faciens Aeternos,’” esp. 41–44.

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temporal) resting in the presence of God.43 As Augustine puts it in tractate 38 on the Gospel of John, “If you, too, want to be, you must transcend time” (ergo et tu sis, transcende tempus).44 The dichotomy between his own distentio animi and the “heaven of heaven” dominates Augustine’s discussion of time in the Confessions and colors the reader’s impression of Augustine’s understanding of human temporality. But Augustine’s thought is not so facile as merely to associate the human experience of time with the fall. I purposefully use the word “ambiguity” in the title of this section—nor am I the first to use the term in this context—since time is not only characterized as a mark of fallenness, it is also bound up with the mutability of finite, created being as such. Only God can rightly be said to be, because he is unchangeably or immutably. Everything else is—even if only potentially—mutable and hence exists in time or with an essential capacity for time.45 Precisely because the world was created ex nihilo—and not out of God’s very being—all things, according to Augustine, including the heaven of heaven, possess a certain mutability, “whether they are permanent like the eternal House of God [that is, the heaven of heaven] or if they suffer change, like the human soul and body.”46 Time conceived as a phenomenon related to mutability, however, or as the effect of change is not identical with the distentio model.47 Where Augustine’s descriptions of the latter are usually accompanied by descriptions of culpability or regret—so often contrasted with the heaven of heaven—the former line of thinking leads to the conception of time as a natural element of created existence. From this perspective on time Augustine can 43. Even here, though, we encounter a basic difference between Plotinus’s thinking and Augustine’s. For Plotinus, since the soul’s ascent constitutes a return from a prior blessedness, the intrinsic value of its temporal experience can be no greater than the experience it gains, learning better to appreciate the good by having abandoned it. For Augustine, whose thought is set within a metaphysics of creation, the movement of the soul to God is not, strictly speaking, a return. Hence, there is a fundamental value in its temporal mode of existence insofar as it is in the very course of its temporal life that it (albeit with grace) achieves union with God. 44. In Evang. Johan. tract. 38.10. See Ladner, The Idea of Reform, 211. 45. See Confessions 12.9.9. Even the “heaven of heaven,” though eternal, is only so by participation in God’s eternality: “From the sweet happiness of contemplating [God], it finds power to check its mutability.” 46. Ibid., 12.17.25. See also De Trinitate 4.18.24: “What we call temporal he [that is, Plato (Timaeus 29c)] described as that which has originated. We too belong to this category, and not only our bodies but also our changeable spirits; a thing cannot properly be called eternal if it undergoes change in any way. So insofar as we are changeable, to that extent we fall short of eternity.” 47. See Roland Teske, “The World-Soul and Time in Saint Augustine,” AS 14 (1983): 75–92. Teske argues that Augustine’s understanding of time is as distentio animi. Likewise, in his article “‘Vocans temporales, faciens aeternos,’” Teske argues that time is “bivalent”: good in one sense as part of God’s creation, bad as Augustine called it in the Confessions a “living death” (Conf. 1.6.7).



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describe both the mutability and temporality of created being as good. Commenting on the initial moments of creation, “the abyss” and “the waters” of Genesis 1:2, Augustine explains: From the invisible and unorganized earth, from this formlessness, from this nextto-nothing, you made all these things of which this mutable world consists, yet in a state of flux. Its mutability is apparent in the fact that passing time can be perceived and measured. For the changes of things make time as their forms undergo variation and change (dum variantur et vertuntur species).48

Augustine’s use of the term “variation” (the Latin verb is variare) is noteworthy, for it is precisely the fact that the heaven of heaven does not suffer “variation” that Augustine praises at 12.11.12: “It suffers no variation [nulla variatur] and experiences no distending in the successiveness of time.” In other words, variation, according to the Plotinian model of time, constitutes a negative, regrettable mark of the soul. By contrast, when Augustine is thinking of time as the measure and effect of change (and of both—time and change—as intrinsic elements of created being), variation itself will be included among those characteristics of creation that are good: All things are very good, whether they abide close to you or, in the graded hierarchy of being, stand further away from you in time and space [per tempora et locos], in beautiful modifications [pulchras variationes] which they either actively cause or passively receive.49

It remains true, nevertheless, that mutability represents for Augustine a weakness or a principle of instability in the creature. It marks a potentiality for movement away from God, but strictly speaking it is not in itself culpable.50 In the early De vera religione Augustine recognizes creation as good, but attributes the fact to providence: left to itself, created being tends toward nothingness because of its mutability: In all cases divine providence . . . recalls to its true and essential nature whatever manifests defect, that is, tends to nothingness, and so strengthens it. But you say, why do they become defective? Because they are mutable.51

48. Confessions 12.8.8. 49. Ibid., 12.28.38. 50. See, for example, Conf. 13.2.2: both spiritual and material things of their own weight drift toward chaos and toward dissimilarity to God. “It is only by that same Word [by whom they are created] that they are recalled to your Oneness and receive form. From you, the One, the supreme Good, they have being and are all ‘very good’ (Gn 1:31).” 51. De vera religione 17.34.

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Although Augustine sees the mutability of created beings as an intrinsic weakness, it is also one of the necessary conditions for the possibility for the perfecting of the creature, a process not unlike creation itself in that it is made possible only by grace. According to this line of reasoning the mutability of created being, and hence its temporality, constitutes a natural good, albeit a good entirely dependent upon grace. Augustine approaches this point from a different perspective in a passage from De Trinitate. He points out that whereas it is true that the soul is in one sense “good” (approbatur), because it is the creation of God, nevertheless it is better conceived of as initially indeterminate, for in order for it to become a good soul, it must turn itself toward God.52 “In order for it to be good, therefore, the soul turns [se animus convertit ut bonus sit] to this good to which it is also indebted for being a soul.” Creation as a finite being is good; it becomes good in a more profound sense when it is perfected by its conversion toward God. This subsequent perfection, or becoming good in a fuller sense, however, is possible only through grace, since considered in itself all created being is susceptible to and inclined to a flowing away from God.

Creation, Perfection, and the Place of History in the Later Augustine Augustine’s later thought as we find it in the City of God reflects two major developments, as I indicated initially—two developments that in consequence radically recast the meaning and place of history within human life. First, in contrast to a Plotinian model of time—and in contrast as well to the ambiguities inherent in the Confessions—Augustine describes time solely as a correlative of movement or change, in other words as a basic characteristic of created, finite existence. Secondly, and consequently, Augustine describes the process of the creation and perfection of the creature, and in particular of the human person, as being accomplished within a temporal context. Adam, according to the City of God, was created to move from an originally indeterminate state to a perfected condition of beatitude. The movement is not circular but linear: time is ordered to the future, to the perfection of the creature. In short, the end does not “look like the beginning” but surpasses it. These developments suggest an answer, albeit implicitly, to the question whether there is any place for history in Augustine’s theology apart from the fall. The answer, I would like to argue, is in the affirmative. Contrasting time and eternity, Augustine describes time now exclusively as the effect, as it were, of movement and change: 52. De Trinitate 8.3.5.



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if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by the fact that time does not exist without some movement and change, whereas in eternity there is no change, who does not see that there could have been no time had not some creature been made which, by some movement, could bring about change? For the different phases of movement and change cannot all occur at the same time. Rather, as one phase ends, another succeeds it, and time is what constitutes the longer and shorter intervals between these phases. . . . God . . . is the Creator and Ordainer of time.53

Though Augustine does not explicitly define time as the measure of change, he is, nevertheless, not far from such a definition. It is the effect of movement and therefore a necessary element in the development of the creature from its original state as created to its perfection. Though one could argue for the possibility of development or a “process” of creation and perfection that wasn’t temporal (for example, in terms of a spiritual being, something like Plotinus’s doctrine of the emanation and formation of Nous), Augustine’s very literal interpretation of Adam in the City of God as a corporeal creature necessitates the temporality of such a process. This model of time, moreover, as an element of created existence, derives from the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo, as opposed to any sort of Plotinian or Platonic metaphysics involving a lapse of the soul. The point is established not only by the immediate context of the foregoing text, but Augustine will also stress repeatedly, particularly in book 11 of the City of God, that the singular cause for the existence of all things is nothing other than the good, creative will of God. So Augustine explains: When this cause of a good creation—that is, the goodness of God—when this cause . . . which is so righteous and fitting is diligently considered and contemplated with piety, it brings to an end all the controversies of those who enquire into the origin of the world.54

In the following chapter Augustine repeats his starting point: what is the reason for the world’s creation? “That a good God might create good things,” Augustine answers, “which, because different from God, would be inferior to God, yet which would nonetheless be good precisely because created by a good God.”55 There is no cause to be looked for beyond the unfathomable goodness of God for creation; no sin, no lapse of the “green of the field,” we may presume. “There was no other cause of the world’s creation than that good things should be made by a good God. If no one in this world had sinned, the world would have been adorned and filled with natures wholly good.”56 In the case of Adam or the human person, the nature created by God was 53. City of God 11.6. 55. Ibid., 11.23.

54. Ibid., 11.22. 56. Ibid.

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to be “terrestrial” ab initio. Contrary to his thinking in the early De Genesi contra Manichaeos, Augustine interprets the creation of Adam in the City of God to have included a corporeal body. Criticizing Origen’s doctrine of the fall of souls, Augustine argues that man “received a body of clay even before he sinned.”57 The expression is striking in its vividness; that humanity possesses a corporeal body “of clay,” “ luteum corpus” (an allusion to Gn 2:7), as opposed to any sort of spiritual body is due not to sin but to the creative will of God. Where Augustine earlier implied that existence qua human represented a derivative mode of being subsequent to the sin of the “green of the field,” he is now clear: Rightly . . . does the true religion acknowledge and preach that the God who created the whole world [mundi universi . . . conditorem] also created all living beings: that is, souls as well as bodies. Chief among the terrestrial animals [in terrenis praecipuus], man was made by him in his own image.58

Augustine’s tendency in the earlier commentary was to speak of anima before sin. From that perspective, after sin humanity sits awkwardly as a resident alien, so to speak, among the other animals. Now Augustine’s primary designation is homo. And not only was Adam’s original condition marked by the composite of body and soul, but Augustine declares him to have been made “chief ” (praecipuus), as Dyson translates it, among the creatures of earth (“ in terrenis”). In other words, man, far from being a resident alien among the other animals, is by Augustine’s estimation created to be one of the creatures of the earth. Augustine’s description of Adam’s initial enjoyment of a provisional immortality only furthers the naturalness of the human person’s existence as an earthly creature. Accordingly, since Adam sinned, he lost the gift of a promised and subsequent preservation from death. He was, in other words, left in his sin to himself as an animal, and was forced to face death like every other animal. Adam’s initial immortality could be characterized by the possibility of not dying because of a subsequent translation, not as an original quality that followed upon his “nature,” as though he possessed an immortal nature fundamentally different from the natures of all the other animals.59 As Augustine puts it: 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid., 12.28. 59. So also City of God 13.20: “Though [Adam and Eve] were not to die unless they sinned, they nonetheless made use of food as men do now; for their bodies were not yet spiritual, but animal and earthly only. Their bodies did not decline into old age and they were, therefore, not led to the necessity of death; for this condition was granted them by the wondrous grace of God, by means of the tree of life which stood in the midst of Paradise along with the forbidden tree.”



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If he remained subject to his Creator as his true Lord, and if he kept his commandments with pious obedience, he should pass over [transiret] into the company of the angels and obtain, without suffering death, a blessed immortality without end. But if he offended the Lord his God by using his free will proudly and disobediently, he should live, as the beasts do, subject to death: the slave of his own lust, destined to suffer eternal punishment after death.60

Likewise, Augustine interprets the command to procreate and to be fertile literally—a command that he interpreted spiritually in the early commentary.61 In De Genesi contra Manichaeos Augustine not only interpreted the blessing of procreation spiritually, but he suggested that procreation became carnal as the result of sin.62 Augustine’s interpretation in the City of God marks significant development in his thought: here he conceives of procreation strictly in corporeal terms. And Augustine points out that it is the very first blessing God confers upon humanity: “the first blessing,” Augustine tells us, “is that which he pronounced before Adam sinned, saying, ‘Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth’ (Gn 1:28).”63 All of the foregoing reflects marked development in Augustine’s thought from the anthropology of the De Genesi contra Manichaeos: Adam, who before his sin reflects the human condition as willed to be by God, is a corporeal, terrestrial creature—and as such, also temporal. But “temporal,” as I initially argued, is not equivalent to “historical.” For that time must possess a basic, teleological dynamism, a movement toward an end. In the place of his early non-historical conception of Paradise and human life before the fall, Augustine will come to see the twofold process of creation and perfection to unfold within and throughout the context of a temporal life. On one level, even the full development merely of creation as such—Augustine has in mind here the development of species—considered apart from any subsequent perfection or end involves time. “If God were to remove the efficacy of [God’s] power from things,” Augustine continues, “they would not be able to go on and attain the kind of development assigned to them, or live out their allotted span; nor indeed, would they even remain in that condition in which they were created.”64 Likewise, in terms of the ultimate perfection of the human person, Augustine’s description in the City of God of Adam’s initial condition anticipates a 60. City of God 12.22. 61. De Gen c. Man. 1.19.30; 2.11.15. 62. Ibid., 1.19.30: “Should we understand it carnally or spiritually? For we are permitted to understand it spiritually and to believe that it was changed into carnal fecundity after sin.” 63. City of God 12.24. 64. Ibid.

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subsequent perfection: if Adam had continued in obedience to God, he would have, as we have seen, been perfected only subsequently—after a period of probation—in his beatitude, when he would have “passed over” into the company of the angels. Augustine makes the point again in terms of the freedom of the will: in his original state, Adam’s freedom of will included the capacity to abandon God; in his perfected state, the human person’s freedom of will will be greater, because it will exclude the possibility of abandoning God. In the divine gift of free will there was to be observed a gradation such that man should first receive a free will by which he was able not to sin, and finally a free will by which he was not able to sin: the former being given to man in a state of probation, and the latter to him in a state of reward.65

The temporal context of Adam’s life (and hence for humanity in general), then, is no longer conceived to be equivalent to the mere passage of time; instead, Augustine sees the creation of man to include a temporality which serves as the vehicle for the accomplishment of the promise of a future blessedness. This movement would have involved the conferral of immortality proper (an eternally stable immortality without the possibility of loss), because it would have entailed participation in God. In this sense time becomes ordered toward the future. With this development a genuine eschatology emerges within Augustine’s thought. To the extent that Augustine sees humanity to have been created as temporal beings with an orientation toward a beatific end that is not constituted by their original state, there is a basis, as Marrou suggested, for “history” before the fall. Humanity in its original condition, in contrast to the position we saw in the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, is arguably to have been historical according to the creative will of God itself. Such a position is ultimately a reflection of Augustine’s assimilation of the implications of the rule of faith in regard to the goodness and integrity of creation. But what most subtly indicates Augustine’s departure from his early, Neoplatonic, and circular movement of fall and return to a properly linear, historical, and hence eschatological perspective is his explanation of human unity. Where Augustine is initially considering the creation of man in the City of God, he is careful to include a description of human unity: It is not hard to see how much better it is that God multiplied the human race from the one man whom he created first, than it would have been had he originated it from several. . . . God therefore created only one single man: not, certainly that he 65. Ibid., 22.30.



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might be alone and bereft of human society, but that, by this means, the unity of society and the bond of concord might be commended to him more forcefully, mankind being bound together not only by similarity of nature, but by the affection of kinship.66

On the one hand, we see again here the implicit basis for time and history as elements of human life: Augustine now thinks of God’s creative act of humanity as a (temporal) process by which the human race would be multiplied and individuals come into actual existence. More subtly, however, Augustine has suggested that human unity is not given according to the Plotinian schema which revolves around the ultimate ontological identity of souls. Three times Augustine will repeat the significance of the fact that God chose to create all of humanity from one individual. Augustine will explain again that God’s reason was “for the very purpose of commending concord.” Again, Augustine declares that “there is nothing so social by nature as this race, no matter how discordant it has become through its fault. . . . For God chose to create one individual for the propagation of many, so that men should thus be admonished to preserve unity among their whole multitude.” Each time where Augustine could have used this as an opportunity to describe some sort of ontological derivation from Adam—especially given the complexities and difficulties Augustine was facing during this period with the Pelagians who denied the possibility of the inheritance of original sin from Adam precisely because Adam was other (alienus)—Augustine instead very explicitly limits the significance of our origin in Adam to the level of a sign. Derivation from Adam constitutes an indication of God’s will, an admonition (admonitio) or commendation to preserve fraternal concord (ad commendandum concordiam). Human life was to be social. The full significance of our social nature indicated by our common origin in Adam lies in its function as an indication of the bond of the Holy Spirit, who is given by Christ. Immediately after considering the initial creation of man, Augustine points out that Adam’s fall did not frustrate God’s creative will for humanity: “God knew,” Augustine explains, “that these mortals would progress to such enormities of sin that even the beasts, devoid of rational will . . . would live in greater security and peace with their own kind than men would. . . . God foresaw also, however, that a godly people would be called to adoption by his grace, and that, justified by the remission of sins, they would be united by the Holy Spirit with the holy angels in eternal peace” (City of God, 12.23). 66. Ibid., 12.22.

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The principle of unity among human persons was to be—prior to as well as after sin—the bond of peace (vinculum pacis), who is the Holy Spirit. In this sense, Augustine can be seen to anticipate Aquinas: gratia sanans and gratia elevans are one. Adam was originally created to be a progenitor of many, all of whom were called to participate in a blessedness that exceeded their origin. Such an end, a perfection, would require grace. After the fall, grace no less than before is requisite for the redemption and reconciliation of all who were “in Adam.” Sin does not undermine God’s creative will; salvation history, we might say, for Augustine does not constitute a radical departure from God’s original creative will, but rather constitutes “a more abundant gift” consistent with God’s originally promised gift. That man can and does have a history, we might conclude, is taken by Augustine to be part of the human condition not because of the fall, but in spite of it.67 67. Gerhart Ladner points out that it is precisely because of Augustine’s specific conception of creation and perfection that salvation history finds its archetype in the revocatio-conversio. See his The Idea of Reform, 169–70.

Pa rt F o u r

a The Traditio Patrum

J os ep h F. K elly

13  Traditio Patrum in Early Christian Ireland John Carroll University has an endowed chair, the Walter and Mary Tuohy Chair in Interreligious Studies, which brings to the campus distinguished scholars to give classes and public lectures on a topic of ecumenical or interreligious interest. The public lectures, which are usually six in number, are intended for a general audience and are open to all interested people in the Greater Cleveland area. The university arranges for publication of the lectures. In the 1994–95 academic year the holder of the Tuohy Chair was Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., who spoke about the formation of the New Testament canon. The lectures were published in book form as The Bible, the Church, and Authority.1 This essay in Joe’s honor will deal with how one particular group of Christians, the early medieval Irish, made use of the authority of the Fathers in their religious scholarship. Ireland, never being part of the Roman Empire, stood outside the Christian conversion of Western Europe during late antiquity. No scholar can pinpoint exactly when the faith arrived on the island or who brought it. Only when the end was in sight for the Western Empire did a formal Christian mission arrive in Ireland. Pope Celestine I (422–32) sent a bishop named Palladius to Ireland in 431 to deal with the nascent Christian community and very possibly to insulate that community from the Pelagian controversy troubling Britain. The sending of a bishop signified a community large enough to warrant one. At the end of the fifth century, the famous bishop Patrick, a Briton, arrived and significantly advanced the conversion of Ireland. Pagan Ireland had a strong learned tradition, and Christian Ireland contin1. The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995).

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ued it. Although there was always an episcopal church, monks played a great, possibly dominant role in Ireland’s intellectual life. All the learned figures whose names are familiar to scholars (Columcille, Columbanus, Donatus, Dicuil, Sedulius Scottus, John Scottus Eriugena) were monks. Thanks to Welsh resistance to the invading Saxons, the Germanic invasions of Europe stopped in Britain, and so the Irish monastic schools continued not just to exist but to flourish. For a long time this flourishing appeared to be a myth created by Irish Catholics as a boost to an oppressed people whose culture was patronized by their British rulers. That there were several great names, no one doubted, but where were all those other Irish scholars who should have existed between the coming of Christianity and the Viking depredations (c. 900)? That question was largely answered in 1954 when the German medievalist Bernhard Bischoff published a groundbreaking essay listing thirty-nine early medieval exegetical commentaries that he considered to be Irish.2 He explained his method so that future scholars could follow his lead. Bischoff had his critics,3 but a sizeable majority of scholars have accepted and supported his findings4 and have also discovered some new texts.5 Some commentaries originated in Ireland, but the manuscripts of these works survived in Irish monasteries on the continent and are now preserved in European libraries. Most of the commentaries were composed on the continent by Irish peregrini, who left home and went abroad in the pre-Carolingian period; additionally, most are anonymous. These commentaries will form the basis of our studies of the Irish use of the Fathers. Like all early medieval Christian peoples, the Irish knew that they arrived late to church history. They did not belong to the church of apostles and martyrs; intellectually they came after the great Fathers of the Church who created Christian theology, who routed the heretics, and who could read the Bible in the original tongues. Probably reflecting a feeling of inferiority, many early medieval Christians tried to link their churches with the ancient ones: Joseph of Arimathea was buried in Britain at the site of Glastonbury Abbey; the apostle James was buried in Spain at the popular pilgrimage site of Santiago de 2. Bernhard Bischoff, “Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Frühmittelatler,” Sacris Erudiri 6 (1954): 189–279; revised edition in Mittelalterliche Studien I (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966), 205–73. 3. Michael Gorman, “A Critique of Bischoff’s Theory of Irish Exegesis: The Commentary on Genesis in Munch Clm 6302 (‘Wendepunkte’ 2),” Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (1997): 178–233. 4. Daibhi Ó Cróinín, “Bischoff’s Wendepunkte Fifty Years On,” Revue Bénédictine 110 (2000): 204–37. 5. Joseph F. Kelly, “A Catalogue of Early Medieval Hiberno-Latin Biblical Commentaries, I,” Traditio 44 (1989): 537–71; “A Catalogue of Early Medieval Hiberno-Latin Biblical Commentaries, II,” Traditio 45 (1990): 393–434. Hereafter cited as “Catalogue” with numerical references to the individual commentaries.



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Compostela; no doubt to the surprise of the Egyptian Christians, the monks at the Swiss monastery of Reichenau discovered that the evangelist Mark had been buried in the monastery’s cemetery.6 The Irish did likewise, consciously modeling themselves after the monks of the desert. A Latin translation of Athanasius’s vita of Antony of the Desert is contained in a major Irish manuscript, the early ninth-century Book of Armagh, and Irish accounts of peregrini (religious wanderers) who set sail on the Atlantic without rudders routinely referred to the ocean as a desertum. When the Irish looked to the Fathers of the Church, they were looking not only at useful sources for their exegesis but also for wisdom gained in a unique period of church history and in, to them, exotic locales like North Africa and Egypt. To be sure, the Irish had difficulty getting copies of patristic works, and an occasional Father became homo unius libri, such as Ambrose via his commentary on Luke. (They were not alone in this predicament. Isidore of Seville’s remark that anyone claiming to have all the works of Augustine was a liar did not refer to the number of books the African had written but to the impossibility of accessing them all in the early Middle Ages.) But by the late seventh century, the Irish at home had access to a good patristic library, and the continental peregrini occasionally had access to sizeable patristic libraries. Because they knew they stood outside, chronologically, the great age of the early church, the Irish decided to follow the Fathers, albeit not slavishly. The Hiberno-Latin exegetes valued the historical interpretation of Scripture because, although most of the Fathers favored allegory or other forms of spiritual interpretation, they had also recommended historical interpretation. The Irish naturally accepted the notion of spiritual interpretation, which they did not think contrasted with a historical interpretation, although, following Gregory the Great inter alios, they accepted that the spiritual meaning had a higher value than the historical. But generally they preferred to look for both the historical and spiritual meaning of a verse. They followed Jerome in thinking that the biblical names had significance, especially those in Christ’s genealogy. There are a least a dozen Irish commentaries on Matthew, all of which deal heavily with the genealogy in chapter 1, and an important seventh-century scholar, Aileran the Wise (d. 664), wrote a joint commentary just on the genealogy, an Interpretatio Mystica and an Interpretatio Moralis.7 This is a good example of how the Irish used the Fathers— 6. Theodor Kuppel, Reichenauer Hagiographie zwischen Walahfried und Berno (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1980). 7. For the commentaries, cf. Joseph Kelly, “Frigulus: An Hiberno-Latin Commentator on Matthew,” Revue Bénédictine 91 (1981): 367, nn. 7–8; for Aileran, cf. Interpretatio Mystica et Moralis Progenitorum Domini Iesu Christi Aileranis Sapientis, ed. Aidan Breen (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995).

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a particular patristic interpretation appealed to them, and so they kept it and then expanded upon it as Aileran had. Sometimes the Irish merely added a word or two; for example, Jerome interprets Iacobus as supplantator vel supplantans (because Jacob had supplanted his brother, Esau), but John Cassian spoke of the name Jacob by which was understood carnalium vitiorum supplantator.8 Following Cassian but usually omitting carnalium, several Irish exegetes added vitium to give the name a moral interpretation, supplantator vitium.9 They did likewise for the name Andrew, which Jerome interpreted as virilis,10 to which the Irish added in fide or virilis actualis vitae,11 thus providing a practical interpretation. Why did the Irish feel a need to add spiritual or practical elements to a learned patristic exposition? The most distinguished American scholar of Hiberno-Latin exegesis, the late Robert E. McNally, like Joseph Lienhard a Jesuit at Fordham University, believed that the Irish, unlettered before the arrival of Christianity, linked faith and salvation with books.12 The biblical books, that is, the physical copies, had a sacredness to them because they contained words spoken by God Himself. In effect, God had written a book, and reading thus became a sacred act, related to one’s religious life. Saying that James supplanted vices and Andrew was virile in his faith preserved Jerome’s original, scholarly interpretation but simultaneously added a new dimension to it. The Irish, however, knew that they read the Bible in translation and that many of the great Fathers of the Church had read the text in the original tongues, or at least read the New Testament in Greek. For the Irish, Jerome was the vir trilinguis, the man of three languages, and the supreme authority on linguistic questions. But some few Irish scholars could read Greek; scholars are sure of Sedulius Scottus ( fl. c. 840–60) and John Scottus Eriugena (c. 815–77); other evidence survives to suggest an occasional, now anonymous scholar who knew Greek. No solid evidence survives of a Hiberno-Latin scholar who knew Hebrew. Yet, as McNally proved so long ago, this did not prevent the Irish from using what they called the tres linguae sacrae, that is, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the three languages of the inscription on Christ’s cross (Jn 19:20).13 Relying 8. For Jerome, cf. Liber Interpretationis, ed. P. LaGarde, CCSL 67, l. 19. For Cassian, Collationes, Praefatio 5, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 13, 4. 9. For the references, cf. Kelly, “Frigulus,” 367, nn. 6–8. 10. Liber Interpretationis, CCSL 72, 124, l. 15. 11. An eighth-century Commentarius in Mattheum, ed. Jean Rittmueller, CCSL 108F, 85; an eighth-century Commentarius in Lucam, ed. Joseph Kelly, Scriptores Hiberniae Minors, pars secunda, CCSL 108C, 49; Frigulus, Commentarius in Mattheum, PL 102, 511C (1121B). 12. “Old Ireland: Her Scribes and Scholars,” in Old Ireland, ed. Robert McNally (New York: Fordham University Press, 1965), 120–46. 13. “The ‘Tres Linguae Sacrae’ in Early Irish Biblical Exegesis,” Theological Studies 19 (1958): 395–403.



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on Latin sources, such as Jerome and also the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636), they affected a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, partly to add some erudition to their works (including copying out Greek words and phrases), but also because they truly believed a knowledge of the original biblical text would lead one closer to the one who inspired the text.14 The Irish acceptance of the Fathers relied most heavily upon their Christian faith, but recent scholarship has emphasized the continuity between pagan and Christian learning, not in the sense that pagan knowledge helped the Irish to understand a particular biblical passage, but in the sense that the Irish respected their pagan past. Pre-Christian Ireland had a flourishing religion, dominated by druids, the holy men, and also by the filid, variously translated as legal scholars and keepers of tradition. While the Irish accepted their new religion, they saw no reason to renounce what was good in their old one. Scholars have spoken of the Hellenization of Christianity in the patristic period and the Germanicization of Christianity in a later period, and scholars now take seriously a Celticization of early Irish Christianity.15 Catherine Thom, R.S.J., emphasizes that the clan dominance of monasteries in early medieval Ireland grew out of Celtic roots because “in the clan the person received and developed a sense of identity.”16 With the basic structure of the monastery, both the home and womb of early Irish Christian scholarship, deriving from a Celtic background, it is no surprise that their scholarship also had Celtic roots. Thom argues well that Irish monks had a passion for learning which came not only from the notion that God had, in effect, written a book but also from the druids and filid. So great was the monks’ passion for learning that some would actually withhold obedience “if a bishop [were] ignorant.”17 (No need here to consider the contemporary consequences of such an attitude.) This Irish reverence for a Celtic past was unusual in its day, but it went a long way to preserving a Celtic culture which largely disappeared under Romanizing pressure in Britain. Not until the twelfth century, with the introduction of foreign religious orders with Romanizing attitudes—the Cistercians in the twelfth century and then the Franciscans in the thirteenth century—did the Irish church abandon much of its Celtic heritage. Yet this respect for the past made the acceptance of the Fathers easier for the Irish. This attitude also helped the Irish to understand the Fathers in an uncommon way. Many early medieval writers treated the Fathers the way mod14. Comm. in Matt. CCSL 108F, 452; Frigulus, Comm. in Matt., PL 102, 223C. 15. James Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 16. Catherine Thom, R.S.J., Early Irish Monasticism: An Understanding of Its Cultural Roots (New York: Continuum, 2006), 20. 17. Ibid., 118.

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ern fundamentalists treat the Bible: the Fathers meant what they said, and we must follow them to the letter. Such an attitude turned the Fathers into sources for footnotes (which, in fact, did not exist in the Middle Ages) rather than as members of the communion of saints who made their contribution to the development of Christian learning. While the Irish had no sense of the development of doctrine as we understand it today, they did realize that tradition is not static and that every generation adds to it. Contrary to some patristic fundamentalists of the Carolingian period, the Irish saw themselves standing in the Christian tradition, and they believed that they should contribute to it as well. It must be emphasized that the Irish never saw themselves on the same level as the Fathers. They realized that they could not read Greek or Hebrew, and they also realized that the scholarly resources available to them could not match those ready to hand for the Fathers. Their reverence for their Christian forebears was both deep and genuine, and they believed that they could honor the Fathers by contributing to Christian tradition. But the Irish attitude did not always convince others. Most famously, at the Synod of Whitby in 664, which met to determine whether the nascent English church would follow the Roman or Celtic ways of determining the date of Easter, the Anglo-Saxon bishop Wilfrid cited a variety of Romanizing sources and challenged Colman, the Irish abbot of Iona, to match them. Colman did not back down and cited several Irish sources, including the great monastic founder Columcille, but to no avail. The English king decided for the Romanizing party.18 A less well-known but more relevant episode involved the itinerant Irish monk Columbanus and one of the last of the Latin Fathers, Gregory the Great (590–604). Living in France, Columbanus had defended the Irish reckoning of Easter against Frankish bishops who insisted on the Roman reckoning. Not trusting the Franks, Columbanus went above their heads and wrote directly to the pope. He proudly cited Irish authorities. He told Gregory, “You must know [scias] that Victorius [the author cited by the Frankish bishops] has not been accepted by our teachers, by the former scholars of Ireland [nostris magistris et Hibernicis antiquis philosophis], by the mathematicians most skilled in chronology, but instead has earned ridicule or indulgence rather than authority.”19 On another issue, he cited Vennianus, a Latin form of Finnian, a noted Irish abbot.20 We have no idea what Gregory thought of 18. The story is told in the Historia Ecclesiastica of the Venerable Bede, but an accessible modern account with appropriate citations is that of Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 103–13. 19. Epistula V, ed. G. S. M. Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 2 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1958), 2–13; references to sect. 4. 20. Ibid., sect. 7.



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this display of Hibernian scholarship, since he did not respond to the letter. Furthermore, Columbanus himself acknowledged that the Irish were the ultimi habitores mundi (inhabitants of the end of the world) and not likely to impress a scholarly pope. But he did warn Gregory that if his scholarship were deficient, he would not be taken seriously apud occidentis ecclesias, “among the churches of the West,” a confirmation of Thom’s contention that the Irish would not listen to a bishop they thought to be ignorant, not even a bishop of Rome.21 Yet these setbacks did not prevent the Irish from continuing to cite their own authorities, especially in areas where patristic learning was not evident. Surprising as it may sound, an anonymous Irish scholar produced the earliest Latin commentary on the seven Catholic epistles, which the text’s editor, Robert McNally, dated to the late seventh century.22 The anonymous author cited by name five Irish scholars of the seventh century along with an impressive array of patristic authors, such as Jerome, Augustine, Caesarius of Arles, Origen in a Latin translation, Orosius, Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, and Gregory the Great.23 The anonymous commentator believed that the ultimi habitores mundi had something of value to add to the understanding of the text. This commentary indicates something else about the Irish, a willingness to carry the tradition into new areas, such as producing the first Latin commentary on these epistles. Bischoff argued that another “first,” the earliest fulllength commentary in any language on the Gospel of Mark, was also Irish, an attribution challenged by other scholars.24 The text’s editor, Michael Cahill, was open to Irish provenance but considered it unproven.25 It is also worth noting that another insular (Irish or Anglo-Saxon) writer, the Venerable Bede (673–735), who was much influenced by the Irish, also wrote commentaries on biblical books and topics not directly commented upon by the Fathers, such as Ezra and Nehemiah. The early medieval Irish also furthered the patristic tradition in the most literal sense of “tradition,” that is, handing on. They did this by preserving the texts of some patristic works. The survival of the works of the Fathers, even 21. Columbanus, Epistula V, sect. 5; Thom, Early Irish Monasticism, 18; on the letter in general, cf. Joseph Kelly, “The Letter of Columbanus to Gregory the Great,” Gregorio Magno e il suo Tempo, I. Studi storici, Studia Ephemerisis Augustinianum 33 (1991): 213–23. 22. Commentarius in Epistolas catholicas Scotti Anonymi, ed. Robert McNally, Scriptores Hiberniae Minores, pars prima, CCSL 108B (1973). 23. McNally discusses the Irish scholars on pp. ix–x; the patristic references appear in the footnotes throughout the edition. 24. Bischoff, “Wendepunkte,” no. 37, 213–15. 25. Text edited in CCSL 82 (1997); for a discussion of the commentary, cf. The First Commentary on Mark: An Annotated Translation, trans. and ed. Michael Cahill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3–10, for a discussion of the scholarly debate.

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those of the famous and important ones, depended completely on manuscript transmission. Texts could be miscopied, passed on under the wrong name (the sizeable medieval corpus of texts pseudonymously attributed to Jerome or Augustine) or even lost completely. The Irish, like all early medieval scholars, knew the importance of preserving texts, and they correctly recognized it as a genuine contribution to the Christian learned tradition. However randomly, some patristic texts survived among the Irish. “In his commentary on Matthew Sedulius Scottus, writing circa 850, explicitly cites many authors, and clearly not from memory, but rather using a manuscript. For this reason the commentary can be used codicis instar by the editors of the Latin Fathers. Bengt Löfstedt has so used it for the textual criticism of the commentaries on Matthew by Jerome and Hilary of Poitiers, the Homiliae in Evangelia of Gregory the Great, Augustine’s De sermone Domini in monte, and the Gospel commentaries and sermons of Bede.”26 While some Irish scholars conserved better texts of the Fathers than those preserved elsewhere, others preserved texts unknown elsewhere. Apponius, either a Roman or a northern Italian, wrote a commentary on the Song of Songs sometime in the early fifth century, but the first unquestioned proof of its existence is its use by the Venerable Bede. “The manuscript evidence indicates that the work was transmitted in the early Middle Ages through insular sources, that is, British and Irish. . . . [Irish commentators] knew the complete work, but drew especially on [an] abbreviated form. . . . [The commentary] may have been in the monastery of Bobbio [a northern Italian house founded by the Irish scholar Columbanus].”27 Indeed, the abbreviated version may have been compiled in Ireland, since Irish scholars created abbreviated texts, including one for Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob done by Lathcen in the seventh century and for Jerome’s Commentarius in Isaiam by Josephus Scottus in the eighth century.28 The Irish preserved another important text. Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote a commentary on the Psalms which attributed Christological meaning to only four psalms. Not widely popular in Greek circles, it made an impact on the West via a Latin translation done by Julian of Eclanum. “After his expulsion from his see . . . in 417, Julian journeyed to the East and enjoyed the hospitality of Theodore’s brother. He translated Theodore’s commentary into Latin. An abbreviation of this Latin commentary was later made. What remains of 26. Martin McNamara, M.S.C., “Patristic Background to Medieval Irish Sources,” in Scriptural Interpretation in the Fathers, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey, 252–81, at 255 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995). 27. Ibid., 259–60. 28. For Lathcen, cf. Lathcen filius Baithm, Eclogae de moralibus Iob quas Gregorius fecit, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 145 (1969); for Josephus Scottus, cf. Kelly, “Catalogue, I,” no. 28, 560.



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the full Latin translation of Julian, as well as of the abbreviation of it, has been transmitted almost exclusively by Irish sources. . . . It is the principal text used in Irish exegesis of the Psalms.”29 The Irish also preserved texts of Old and New Testament Apocrypha. (They also created their own apocrypha; our interest here is on the ancient ones which they preserved.) This, however, represents more than just textual work. In an era when books were rare, difficult to borrow, and onerous to produce, scribes and scholars copied only books they intended to use with some frequency. But did early medieval writers really use the Apocrypha? For some time the scholars believed that early medieval writers eschewed use of the Apocrypha because they had been condemned by Pope Gelasius I (492–96) in a work known as the Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, literally, the “Gelasian Decree on books to be received and not received (in the Bible).” In fact, the work dates to the sixth century and emerged from either an Italian or Gallic circle.30 The work definitely had some influence, but many early medieval writers freely used, if not apocryphal books, then certainly apocryphal themes. But so did the Fathers; for example, despite the Gospel of Matthew’s unnumbered magi, Caesarius of Arles (d. 542) could speak to his congregation about the three kings.31 Not just writers but many ancient churches, including some in Rome itself, included apocryphal themes. A fourth-century fresco in the catacomb of Domitilla portrays St. Petronilla, the daughter of St. Peter. The Protoevangelium of James, a second-century Syrian work, claimed that the Virgin Mary’s parents were wealthy; a mosaic in Santa Maria Maggiore shows a well-dressed, bejeweled Mary receiving the annunciation. This same Syrian work first proclaimed that Mary remained a virgin for her entire life, a theme furthered by many orthodox writers and which eventually became part of church teaching.32 Irish use of the Apocrypha in no way questions their orthodoxy. Martin McNamara, M.S.C., the chief authority in this area, produced a catalogue of 108 apocryphal works known to the Irish (including those the Irish created).33 “Some of the Irish evidence is from a relatively early date, from the seventh century and possibly earlier. The Irish Infancy Gospel of Thomas 29. McNamara, “Patristic Background,” 261; text edited by L. de Coninck, CCSL 88A, 86– 397. The Irish also used this text to gloss the Psalms; cf. Kelly, “Catalogue, I,” 564. 30. Critical edition by Ernst von Dobschütz, Das Decretum Gelasianum, Texte und Untersuchungen 38/4 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912). 31. Sermo 139, PL 39, 2018. 32. A translation of the Protoevangelium of James can be found in New Testament Apocrypha I, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991), 421–39. 33. The Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975); see also his “Patristic Background,” 256–58 for more recent references.

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. . . is an important early witness for this work. . . . The hymn from the Gnostic and apocryphal Acts of Thomas, . . . found in [a] seventh-century Irish sacramentary, is the earliest known Latin rendering of any part of these apocryphal Acts.” But the Irish scholars preserved these texts for their spiritual or liturgical value, not for their exegesis. As McNally noted, “The Bible commentators used the Apocrypha mainly to supply inconsequential, imaginative details and almost never to displace the traditionally Christian sense of Scripture.”34 One example of the Irish use of an apocryphal interpretation would be taking the letters of Adam’s name and interpreting them as the four corners of the world, Anatole oriens, Dysis occidens, Arctos septentrio, and Mesembria meridies. “This . . . derivation is to be found in so many seventh- and eighthcentury Irish works that it has become almost a characteristic of Irish exegesis.”35 It derives from the Jewish apocryphon, First Enoch. If the Irish use of the Apocrypha is not problematic, their use of Pelagius is.36 Actually, many early medieval scholars used Pelagius’s works but did not know whose they were. His Commentary on Romans was passed along anonymously or often under the name of Cassiodorus. Ironically, a few manuscripts actually attributed the work to Pelagius’s great enemy Jerome. A few scholars did know whose work they were reading and were even willing to cite him by name. The Carolingian scholar and abbot Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (c. 760– c. 840) listed Pelagius as one of the sources for his Liber Comitis but did so de caute legendis (with a warning to the readers).37 Why did the Irish use Pelagius? Did this not put them at odds with the patristic tradition that they hoped to continue? No Irish scholar actually said, “We use Pelagius because . . . ,” but modern scholars have adduced some reasons. First, the Irish joined many other Christians in rejecting or at least being very uncomfortable with the views enunciated in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings. Gallic monks resisted his predestinationist views, especially as presented in De Praedestinatione Sanctorum and De Dono Perseverentiae, the African’s final two works on grace, free will, and salvation. The Gallic monks, 34. Robert E. McNally, S.J., The Bible in the Early Middle Ages, Woodstock Papers 4 (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1959), 26. 35. Ibid. 36. The most recent study of this topic is by Michael Herren and Shirley Ann Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century (Woodbridge, England: Boydell Press, 2002), 80–97, with full bibliography; a survey of Irish texts using Pelagius can be found in Joseph Kelly, “Pelagius, Pelagianism, and the Early Christian Irish,” Mediaevalia 4 (1978): 99–124. 37. Smaragdus, Liber Comitis, PL 103, 13C.



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whose numbers included John Cassian, criticized Augustine’s view for a century. Unfairly labeled semi-Pelagians, they eventually accepted defeat, yet the Augustinian Caesarius of Arles toned down radical predestinationism at the Second Council of Orange in 529.38 Even Augustine’s ascent to unimpeachable medieval orthodoxy did not eliminate critics, such as several late medieval scholastic theologians, mostly nominalists. In the twentieth century, the distinguished German patrologists Berthold Altaner and Alfred Stuiber said that Augustine’s teaching on grace is founded “on a frightening conception of God” (die von einem schauererregenden Gottesbegriff getragen ist).39 Second, Gallic Christianity influenced the Irish. Early on they knew Sulpicius Severus’s vita of Martin of Tours (the source of the popularity of that name for Irish boys); both John Cassian and Eucherius of Lyons were major sources for Irish scholars, not just as exegetes but also as spiritual writers.40 Third, the Irish used Pelagius primarily as an exegete. Not everything that Pelagius wrote was “Pelagian,” just as not everything that Augustine wrote was “Augustinian.” Irish scholars routinely cited Augustine and Pelagius in the same treatises. Nor were they alone in taking such an approach. Henri de Lubac’s magisterial Exégèse Médiévale repeatedly demonstrates the massive influence of the “heretic” Origen,41 whom Dom Jean Leclercq called one of “the two great masters of medieval exegesis,” along with Gregory the Great (understanding Origen to be read in Latin translations). Leclercq added, “It was especially in scholasticism that Augustine became dominant.”42 Fourth, pagan Celtic culture entered in. As we saw earlier, the Irish did not renounce their pagan ancestors. Augustine speaks of the pagan’s “magnificent vices” or of “the goods of the Egyptians,” meaning pagan culture which the Hebrews (= Christian scholars) could appropriate. But Michael Herren and Shirley Ann Brown, who understand Pelagius to have been a major factor in Irish theologizing, point to the Irish belief in the natural good, that is, an inherent goodness which did not depend upon doctrinal orthodoxy or even upon baptism. Muirchú, a late-seventh-century hagiographer of Patrick, spoke of a swineherd named Díchu who “was a man good by nature, although a pa38. The best study remains that of Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1996). 39. Berthold Altaner and Alfred Stuiber, Patrologie: Leben, Schriften und Lehre der Kirchenväter (Basel: Herder, 1966), 442. 40. Cf. Thomas O’Loughlin, “The Symbol Gives Life: Eucherius of Lyons’ Formula for Exegesis,” in Finan and Twomey, Scriptural Interpretation, 221–52. 41. Exégèse Médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Écriture, 4 vols. (Paris: Aubier, 1954–64). 42. “The Exposition and Exegesis of Scripture, 1: From Gregory the Great to Saint Bernard,” The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2: The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 195.

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gan,” cuiusdam viri natura boni licet gentilis.43 Adomnan, late-seventh-century abbot of Iona, wrote the vita of the monastery’s founder Columcille. In that work, he referred to two elderly pagan men, Artbranan and Emchath, who both “preserved natural goodness into old age.”44 Herren and Brown speculate, “It is remarkable that both Muirchú and Adomnan provide the names of their examples of naturale bonum in each case, as though it were necessary to support the claim of natural goodness and possibility of a sinless life against the skeptics.”45 Naturale bonum and variations of it appear in numerous Irish works. Although, like the Gauls, the Irish believed grace to be necessary for salvation—a belief also shared by Pelagius, albeit not in an Augustinian sense— they had little reason to reject Pelagius totally. Finally, simply to say that the Irish cited Pelagius by name can be misleading. In a series of glosses in both Latin and Old Irish on the Latin text of the Pauline epistles, now anonymous Irish exegetes cited Pelagius more than thirteen hundred times, often by name.46 In his commentary on the Pauline epistles, Sedulius Scottus cited Pelagius more than a hundred times and often by name.47 The Irish saw themselves in the patristic tradition, they wanted to contribute to it, and they relied upon the Fathers, but how? Patristic writings offer immense diversity, and the Irish knew this. The Fathers provided spiritual reading, moral guidance, authorities for composers of penitentials, occasional inspiration for poets, and even, as Jennifer O’Reilly so convincingly demonstrated, guides for the iconography of the most Irish work of art of the early medieval period, the magnificent Book of Kells.48 But, in an era when theology was virtually equivalent to exegesis, the Fathers were first and foremost exegetes. Outlining the Irish use of the Fathers cannot be done at this time because many Hiberno-Latin texts remain in manuscript while the edited ones have so many references that they defy easy listing. The most important Irish exegetical work is a massive commentary on all the biblical books, which Bischoff 43. Ludwig Bieler, ed., Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin: Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, 1979), 78. 44. Adomnan’s Life of Columba, 34 B, 114B, ed. A. O. and M. O. Anderson (London: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 274, 492. 45. Christ in Celtic Theology, 95. 46. John Strachan and Whitley Stokes, eds., Thesaurus Paleohibernicus I (London: Cambridge University Press, 1901). 47. Kelly, “Pelagius, Pelagianism,” 115. 48. “Exegesis and the Book of Kells: The Lucan Genealogy,” in Finan and Twomey, Scriptural Interpretation, 315–55.



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called das Bibelwerk, usually translated as “The Reference Bible.”49 It dates to the late eighth century and still awaits an editor. In 1987 studies were made which outlined its sources, but, generally, the study of sources is done primarily in introductions to critical editions.50 Yet it is possible to give the reader an idea of how many of the Fathers were known to the Irish by considering the sources listed in a brilliant edition of an important but anonymous eighth-century Irish commentary on Matthew, Liber Questionum in Euangeliis, done by Jean Rittmueller.51 Here is a list of the work’s patristic sources which Rittmueller discovered: Ambrose, Apponius, Augustine, Caesarius of Arles, Cassiodorus, Chromatius of Aquileia, Didymus the Blind and Eusebius of Caesarea in Latin translation, Eusebius Gallicanus, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Gennadius, Gregory the Great, Hilary of Poitiers, Irenaeus of Lyons, Isidore of Seville, Jerome, John Cassian, John Chrysostom (in Latin translation), Juvencus, Origen (in Latin translation), Orosius, Peter Chrysologus, Quodvultus, Rufinus, Sedulius, Sextus Julius Africanus, Tertullian, Theodore of Mopsuestia (in Julian of Eclanum’s translation), and Victor of Capua. This stunning list proves that those Irish exegetes, stubbornly determined to familiarize themselves with the tradition they hoped to join, over the decades somehow managed to access a remarkable patristic library. Exegesis also determined how the Irish knew the Fathers. Jerome’s exegesis was universally used but not his controversial works. Augustine was not the dogmatic theologian but the author of treatises on Genesis, Psalms, and John. Ambrose was represented by his commentary on Luke, and Hilary of Poitiers by his on Matthew. The Irish largely overlooked their other works. Many people honored Gregory the Great as a spiritual writer, but the Irish valued him as a commentator on Job and the Gospels. They rarely showed a preference for a particular author but rather an interest in which exegete could provide the best interpretation for a particular author. This is one reason why they could quote Augustine and Pelagius in the same text. Like the Fathers, they believed that fidelity to the text came first. Probably the best way to demonstrate how the Irish placed themselves within the Christian tradition inaugurated by the Fathers is to cite some examples of Hiberno-Latin exegesis that demonstrate how the Irish replicated the patristic approach to the biblical text. 49. “Wendepunkte,” no. 1A; Kelly, “Catalogue, I,” no. 15A, 552. 50. Martin McNamara, “Plan and Source Analysis of Das Bibelwerk, Old Testament,” and Joseph Kelly, “Das Bibelwerk: Organization and Quellenanalyse of the New Testament Section,” Irland und die Christenheit: Bibelstudien und Mission, ed. Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter, 82–112 and 113–23 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1987). 51. Liber Questionum in Evangeliis, Scriptores Celtigenae Pars V, CCSL 108F.

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As noted earlier, in the seventh century Aileran the Wise produced an Interpretatio Mystica et Moralis Progenitorum Domini Iesu Christi. Like Eusebius and Jerome, he believed that names had an intrinsic significance. Matthew’s Gospel opens with a genealogy of Christ (1:1–18); verse 1:4 mentions a son of Judah (Judas in Latin) named Zara. Jerome had interpreted the name to mean oriens sive ortus,52 which Aileran altered to orientalis.53 Here is how he developed the passage in his allegorizing interpretation: On Zara, “eastern” (orientalis), of whom the prophetic spirit: “Behold,” he says, “a man, the Orient is his name.” (Zec 6:12) And Zachariah said: “From on high, the Orient has visited us.” (cited in a Latin version dependent upon LXX Zec 3:8). And elsewhere: “To those who fear the Lord, the sun of justice shall arise and health (is) in his wings” (Mal 4:2), the dawning and setting of whose day Abraham desired to see, and saw it. For we ought to understand the dawn as the Lord’s birth, by which the Word was made flesh (Jn 1:14); and the setting as the death on the cross, which he suffered for us. For surely that eternal and ineffable day of the godhead, of which it is said: “This day I have begotten you” (Ps 2:7), is always a beginning yet has no origin, is always an end but has no closing. Thus is also derived the designation scarlet-coloured (coccinei), as applied to the Lord, for it signifies in him either the ruddy blood of suffering or the unquenchable flame of burning love, of which he was the image.54

Aileran employed a standard patristic exegetical tool, scriptura interpres scripturae (Scripture is the interpreter of Scripture). He relied upon Old Testament passages primarily, in keeping with a genealogy drawn from those books. He saw the imagery lying within the word orientalis, and he worked it well, seeing Jesus’ birth and death as the rising and setting of the sun. He also cites a common and popular early Christian image of Jesus, the sun of justice. He also knew how to use vivid physical similes, employing color imagery to describe Christ’s redemptive acts. He had a good sense of the biblical text. Aileran maintained the light and color imagery when he wrote his second, moralizing interpretation. On Zara, that the morning star may rise in our hearts and the sun of righteousness, which rises upon those who fear God and set upon those who despise him, may illumine us, that is the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world. Neither let it go down upon our anger or upon any mortal sin; that being bathed in the brilliance of this light, we too may shine like the stars for all eternity. And let us arise as lights for this world, holding firm to the word of life, that our light may 52. Liber Interpretationis, CCSL 72, 138, l. 13. 53. Aileran, Interpretatio mystica, ed. Breen, p. 18, l. 44. 54. Ibid., 46; trans. Breen.



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shine before men and our works glorify the father who is in heaven. Neither let it suffice for us only to believe in Christ, but if necessity compels, let us be ready even to shed our blood and to suffer the scarlet passion of martyrdom. Let our scarlet also be twice dyed, that is, let us be filled through the Holy Spirit with a burning love of God and our fellow man; of which it is said, “Many waters cannot quench love, for its lamps are the lamps of fire and flames.” (Song of Songs 8:7, 6 [sic])55

Aileran clearly developed this interpretation from the earlier one, since allegory was a form of scholarly exegesis, and thus any moral lessons to be gained from the biblical text must be grounded in scholarship, a lesson taught by the Fathers but not always taken seriously by spiritual writers, then or now. He worked the light imagery associated with the rising sun, and he retained the sun of justice but focused on Christ as the light of the world. Staying in the sky, he insisted that good people would “shine like the stars for all eternity.” For contrast, Aileran returned to the earth and proclaimed good people to be lights of the world, following—as moral teaching must—the example of Christ. Next he went from the bloody red passion of Christ to the possible martyrdom of his readers’ red blood, but, returning to a theme he used in the previous interpretation, he linked the red of blood to the red of flames. The previous interpretation dealt with the fire of Christ’s unquenchable love; this turns to the burning love of the Holy Spirit, closing by using the image of a fiery lamp to stress the link between love and light. This superb text represents genuine theology, done in the patristic tradition: the words of God must be studied and lived because without one the other is useless. Aileran had a contemporary whom scholars call Augustinus Hibernicus. Because his work, De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae, was attributed simply to an “Augustinus,” scholars initially called the author Pseudo-Augustine. More recent scholarship has concluded this text was not written to be passed off as a work of the African Father, and scholars now refer to its author as Augustinus Hibernicus. He wrote it in Ireland in 655.56 His main concern arose from a patristic tradition which dates to the earliest Father, Clement of Rome, and that is a “vision of nature as a harmonious whole whose integrity not even God will violate.”57 Here is a translation of Irish Augustine’s treatment of an important and puzzling miracle, the star of Bethlehem. He focuses on just exactly what the star was. 55. Ibid., 51. 56. For the specifics, see John Cary, King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), 275–76. 57. Ibid., 51.

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As to whether this star is to be taken simply as a star, or as an angel, or as the Holy Spirit: if none of these views is offensive to catholic opinion, our own limited intelligence will leave it open to more qualified judges to be decided between them. [These “more qualified judges” would have been those Western scholars whom Columbanus cited to Gregory the Great.] For if one chooses to view it simply as a star, how did it leave the company of the other stars in order to lead [the Magi]? For we know that the nature [of the stars] was set in the beginning and established in the firmament of heaven. . . . How could it be a guide to men walking between Jerusalem and Bethlehem? . . . Perhaps it was aerial fire which performed that office and was called a “star” on account of its appearance, as in many other cases which we have mentioned. If on the other hand it was an angel wearing the semblance of a star who performed this office, what would be the difficulty in that, seeing that angels transform themselves into many forms when they show themselves to men? [Next come multiple examples from Scripture of angels taking various appearances.] It would have been no wonder if on this occasion, when an angel was made the guide of the Magi, he should, for the benefit of those astrologers, have been transformed into the semblance of a star. . . . And, indeed, when John describes things seen in his vision in his Apocalypse, he does not go against this view, saying, “The seven stars are the angels of seven churches” (Rv 1:20). . . . Why should not an angel have been called a star here also? Or else, if it is determined that this star was neither an angel nor a star of the firmament nor any kind of fire, let it be granted that it was the Holy Spirit. . . . The astrologer Balaam spoke of this figuratively, saying “A star will arise from Jacob” (Nm 24:17), that is, the flaming spiritual light of Christ’s grace by which the night of pagan unbelief is illuminated. For even as the Holy Spirit later descended in fire upon the apostles in the upper room in Zion, so in the semblance of the star it led the Magi to the Lord.58

This is an almost exemplary passage. Augustine recognizes a problem, sets up the problem for the reader, looks for scriptural passages to solve it, provides and evaluates three possible explanations, enunciates the scientific difficulties of the biblical star’s being an actual star in the firmament, and then offers two scripturally based solutions. But his opening comment on the topic (“if none of these views is offensive to catholic opinion”) indicates his sense of tradition, and his reference to “more qualified judges” shows his respect for other schol58. Translation by Carey in ibid., 65–66. See also Robert E. McNally, “The Three Holy Kings in Early Irish Latin Writing,” in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten II, ed. Patrick Granfield and Josef Jungmann (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1970), 667–90, for a discussion of the Irish exegesis of the Magi and also of the patristic sources used by the Hiberno-Latin writers.



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ars as well as his personal humility. The Latin Fathers would have recognized him as one of their own. c This essay hardly exhausts the importance of the Irish for understanding the traditio partum as it developed in the early Middle Ages. For example, this piece said nothing about the Latin texts of Scripture used by the Irish, how they relate to patristic texts, and how the Irish approached a biblical passage when their own exemplars differed from patristic citations. But I hope this small tribute to Joseph Lienhard demonstrates that the tradition of the Fathers must be interpreted for every Christian generation, and the scholars who do that effectively join that tradition. The Irish did it; Joe has done it; and I believe that they would recognize themselves as brothers in scholarship and religious life.

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14  Interpretation, Assimilation, Appropriation Recent Commentators on Augustine and His Tradition

In an epilogue to the English edition of F.-W. von Herrmann’s Augustine and the Phenomenological Question of Time, Jeremiah Hackett expresses what he takes to be the proper relationship between contemporary philosophers and the tradition from which they come.1 In essence, the task of the contemporary philosopher is to appropriate the thought of the ancient world and accommodate it to our own time. By appropriation Hackett may mean either of two things—he is not clear: (1) an occasion to philosophize oneself in light of that ancient author, or (2) an accommodation of ancient authors to contemporary problems and contemporary thought. He may mean both. He may have additional proposals. One thing he does not mean, however—an elucidation of the ancient author himself. In his epilogue, Hackett has in mind Augustine on the one hand and Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida on the other. But he would certainly extend his views to include several other authors, not the least Thomas Aquinas. In a recent article in Augustin Handbuch, Robert Dodaro takes up a related topic. He is examining the relationship between Augustine on the one hand and Plotinus and Porphyry on the other. The topic at hand is the ascent of the soul to God. Dodaro posits continuity, but not identity between Augustine and Neoplatonism.2 The relation of Augustine to other authors and other top1. F.-W. von Herrmann, Augustine and the Phenomenological Question of Time, trans. and annotated with prologue and epilogue by F. Van Fleteren and J. Hackett (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), 207. 2. R. Dodaro, “‘Augustin’ Auseinandersetzung mit ‘Heidentum,’” in Augustin Handbuch, ed. V. Drecol (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 203–8.

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ics, Cicero and eudaemonism for example, could be considered under the same rubric. Almost contemporaneously, Norbert Fischer has introduced a third category for our consideration.3 According to Fischer, Augustine provides Heidegger with the occasion (Anstoss, literally impulse) to develop his own notions of eternity as everlasting time. What is true of Heidegger may well be true of other authors. These three relational categories are not new—they are to be found both implicitly and explicitly throughout history. Hackett and Fischer are dealing with the relationship between Augustine and twentieth-century authors. Dodaro deals with the relationship between Augustine and his sources. The topics vary, but the same theme is present, the relationship between authors, whether in the fourth and fifth century, contemporary times, or the intervening centuries. Truth to tell, the intentions of these three authors are quite noble. Hackett resists making the philosophical tradition into a “museum piece,” susceptible to interesting historical studies but having little or no impact on the contemporary situation. Dodaro wishes to move beyond Quellenforschung, methodologies of philology and thematic similarity, to understanding Augustine’s own synthesis. Fischer is attempting to overcome confessionalism, between Kant and Heidegger on the one hand and Catholic thinkers on the other.4 These three projects are admirable in aspiration.5

Interpretation and Assimilation in Augustine The Latin word interpretari is rendered in English “to translate,” quite appropriately so since every translation is in fact an interpretation. Translators attempt to render the thought of an author into appropriately similar words of another language—not an easy task. There is of course no one-to-one correspondence of words in one language to those in another. Assimilation, however, is not mere translation; it entails much more. An author assimilates the work of another when he reads the author, interprets his thought, makes it his own, and then imports it into his own synthesis. The difference between mere translation and assimilation can be seen in 3. N. Fischer, “Was ist Ewigkeit? Ein Denkanstoss Heideggers und eine Annährung der Antwort Augustins,” in Martin Heidegger’s Interpretations of Saint Augustine: Sein und Zeit und Ewigkeit, ed. F. Van Fleteren (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), 155–83. 4. See Kant und der Katholizismus, Stationen einer wechselhaftten Geschichte, ed. N. Fischer (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2005). 5. What is said here concerning Augustine, Cicero, and Neoplatonsim could also be said of Augustine’s biblical exegesis. Many contemporary Scripture scholars are generally dismissive of Augustine’s allegorical exegesis and often treat it at best as a museum piece.

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the disparity between Marius Victorinus’s and Augustine’s use of Porphyry. In 1967, Pierre Hadot scrutinized Marius Victorinus’s use of an author—Hadot thought it to be Porphyry from a lost commentary on Plato’s Parmenides—in his De Trinitate.6 Evidently Victorinus “lifted” passages directly from Porphyry, placed them in his own work, and used them verbatim in theorizing on the triune God. He had not assimilated Porphyry’s text into his own original synthesis, but left it as it was. The host author had taken the guest author, but had not assimilated him. At the time, Hadot’s work appeared to be a methodological breakthrough in Quellenforschung. Though a work of prodigious scholarship, it has not, at least as yet, been precedent-setting. Augustine assimilates Porphyry and Plotinus in quite a different fashion. In Confessiones Augustine presents the prologue of John’s Gospel to explain his own relationship to the libri platonicorum he had recently read. Augustine found in these books, “not in the same words but to the same effect” (et ibi legi, non quidem his uerbis, sed idem multis et multiplicibus suaderi rationibus), what is present in John 1:1–12.7 Augustine explains that the relationship between the Father and the Son, creation of the world, and a theory of knowledge are found in both. Immediately thereafter, Augustine informs us that he had discovered there divine eternity, a metaphysics of esse and non esse, a theory of union with God, a theory of evil as the privation of good, ontological truth, and divine providence.8 These texts inspired Augustine to ascend more than once to a momentary mystical vision of God. What he did not find there was a doctrine of salvation through the incarnation. What precise texts Augustine read has been treated in depth elsewhere and is touched on below. Augustine is talking—it is generally agreed today—of Plotinus and Porphyry and their relation in his eyes to biblical teaching. Within a few months, Augustine informs us more precisely of his project. No one doubts that we are impelled to learn by the twin weight of authority and reason. I will certainly never depart from the authority of Christ—I do not find a stronger. With regard to subtle reasoning I am already so affected that I impatiently desire to apprehend truth by belief and understanding. Meanwhile I am confident that I will find in the Platonists what is not contrary to our sacred books.9

Augustine’s adherence is to the Bible. Scripture provides the sole criterion of acceptance of Platonic teaching—an acceptance which is provisional. Obviously, Augustine has interpreted his sources. 6. P. Hadot, Porphyr et Victorin 2 vols. (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1968). 7. Confessiones 7.13. 8. Cf. Psalm 72:20. 9. Contra Academicos 3.42. All translations are my own.



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A few years later, Augustine writes De uera religione, promised at Cassiciacum but dedicated in Tagaste to Romanianus, toward the end of 390 or early in 391. His project of intellectus fidei has proceeded apace. In the preface to that work, Augustine spells out his position on assimilation of Greek philosophy. I would say this confidently, because of all those who stubbornly love their own books, what religion we must hold in Christian times and what way to truth and happiness. If Plato were to live today and would not spurn my questions, or rather if any of his disciples at the time were to have questioned him, those disciples would be persuaded that truth is seen not by corporeal eyes but by a pure mind; that any soul whatever united to it would be happy and perfect. Nothing prevents perception of this truth more than a life given to pleasure and false images of sensible things. These images are impressed upon us through the body and generate various opinions and errors. Thus the soul must be healed to gaze at the unchangeable form of things, and unchangeable beauty in every way similar to truth, not extended into place, nor varied according to time, but remaining one and the same in every part. Men ordinarily do not believe such a thing exists although it is truly the highest being. Other things are born, die, flow, and ebb; but nevertheless insofar as they are they remain created by the eternal God through his truth. It is given only to a rational and intellectual soul to enjoy contemplation of his eternity. The soul is affected and adorned from it and can merit eternal life. But as long as the soul is wounded by the love and pain of transitory things and is given over to the custom of this life and the sense of the body and disappears into empty images, this soul would laugh at those who say there is anything which is not seen by these eyes, nor conceived by any image, but can be discerned only by the mind and the intelligence. If their soul were to be persuaded of these matters by a teacher, if the disciple would seek from him whether any such great and divine man exists who would persuade the people at least that these things must be believed, if they cannot perceive them or, if they can perceive them, they can do so only if they do not place themselves in the depraved opinions of the many and cover themselves over with the errors of the masses, these disciples would judge him worthy of divine honors. These disciples would respond, I believe, that this can only come about perhaps from someone whom the power and wisdom of God, received from the nature of things, enlightened not by human teaching but enlightened by interior illumination from the cradle, legitimated by great grace, strengthened by great power, and finally carried by great majesty. By condemning all things which depraved men desire, by suffering all things by which men are horrified, and by doing what amazes men, he would convert the human race to a salubrious faith by the highest love of an authority. . . . With the change of few words and sentences, they would become Christians, just as several Platonists have done in recent times.10 10. De uera religione 3.3; 4.7.

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Here Augustine renders his opinion of Platonic teaching, as he has learned it from Plotinus and Porphyry and has assimilated it into his own synthesis. The passage has a tight trinitarian and triadic construction—analysis of this structure is a task unto itself.11 Some scholars have suggested that this passage shows Augustine accepting a tempora christiana on which he later changed his mind.12 Be that as it may. Augustine has interpreted Platonic philosophy and incorporated it into his own synthesis. The criterion for acceptance is biblical teaching.13 Christ, the power and wisdom of God (see 1 Cor 1:24), would be the only way to reach this end. His thinking is more complex, but the project is identical to Milan and Cassiciacum. Through the years, Augustine continues to build his original synthesis. Gradually he becomes less sanguine about the harmony between Neoplatonism and the Bible. For example he no longer believes man can attain the final vision of God in this life. But he still accepts many theses of ancient philosophy as revised by his reading of the Bible. The synthesis is Augustine’s own. Scripture is still his criterion of acceptance. An example from his more mature position can be found, for example, in a letter from around 410: Whoever seeks how he may easily arrive at happiness should seek nothing other than where the final good is, that is, where it is constituted, not by depraved and rash opinion but by certain and unshakeable truth, man’s highest good. It is constituted either in a body, a soul, or God, or in two, or in all three. But if it is learned that the highest good is not a body, nor any part of a body, then two remain, the soul and God. The ultimate good would be in one or both. But if you search and determine the same is true concerning the soul as concerning the body, what else is left except God in whom the highest good is constituted. No other true goods exist. This is called the highest good to which all other goods are referred. Man is happy by enjoying this on account of which he wishes to possess other things. This good alone is loved for itself. This good is called the true end—no other end exists to which it can be referred. Here is the peaceful end of our search, the security of our enjoyment and the tranquil joy our best will.14

A few paragraphs later, Augustine continues: Whence we can understand that the Platonic philosophers would find it necessary to submit their pious necks to the invincible king Jesus Christ, and to under11. See O. du Roy, L’Intelligence de la foi en la trinité selon saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966). 12. R. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 13. See De uera religione 4. 14. Ep. 118.13.



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stand that it is the Word of God having donned human nature who orders, with the change of but a few words with which Christian teaching disagrees. These Platonists would believe what they previously had feared to profess.15

This is a clear statement of Augustine’s own synthesis from his more mature period. God constitutes human happiness, the goal which all men seek. The incarnation is the sole means to that end. Augustine has accepted the eudaemonism of Cicero and the goal of the Platonists, and subjected it to biblical Christianity. Toward the end of his life, Augustine writes once again on the matter of ancient philosophy and Christianity. In De ciuitate dei 8–10, Augustine produces a summary history of ancient philosophy. The Platonists are of all philosophers the closest to the Christian, because they saw the highest good. They sought the true end for man. The Platonist philosopher in question is Porphyry, the most noble of them all. The theme is once again happiness and the means to attain it. Christianity is the fulfillment of the ancient aspirations of man. Echoes of De uera religione are present. This is the religion which contains the universal way of freeing a soul, since a soul cannot be freed except by this. In some manner this is the royal way, which leads to the kingdom not uncertain in temporal heights, but secure by the certainty of eternity. Porphyry says near the end of the first book of the De regressu animae that no sect had yet been discovered which contains the universal way of freeing a soul, not in the truest philosophy, not in the customs and discipline of the Asians, not in the path of the Chaldeans, nor in any other way. He says that the certain way had not yet come according to his knowledge of history. He professes that there is such a way, but it had not yet come to his attention. . . . But Christianity is the universal way of freeing a soul, conceded to every people by divine mercy. When knowledge of this comes or will come to anyone, he ought not say: Where? Why so late? The counsel of the sender is not penetrable by human ingenuity. . . . This is the universal way of salvation concerning which the faithful Abraham received this oracle: “In your seed all people will be blessed” [Gn 22:18].16

These excerpts could (and perhaps should) be studied in greater detail. What has been presented indicates that Augustine has assimilated Platonism into his own synthesis. The criterion of acceptance is biblical.

15. Ibid., 118.21. 16. De ciuitate dei 10.32.

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There can be no complete satisfaction in finding mere thematic similarity as presented here. Philology has rendered Augustine scholarship an incalculable service. Twentieth-century methods have rendered obvious the precise similarity between Augustine and his sources. Fonts for Augustine’s themes as well as his vocabulary have been ascertained in some detail. In his synthesis, however, terms and themes take on new, albeit related, meanings. Words do not possess precisely the same meaning as in the source author. Would anyone seriously claim that intellectus in Contra Academicos 3.42 and in De ordine 2.16 bears the same meaning as in Enneads 5.1 or De regressu animae? Would anyone seriously claim that animus means even in the early works precisely the same as what we find in Enneads 4.3? Do the terms lapsus, rediturus, exitus in Augustine contain the same metaphysical overtones as in Enneads 5.1? Is the ascent of the soul in Confessiones 7.16.23–20.26 precisely the same as found in Enneads 1.6 or De regressu animae? In the later Augustine, the difference in meaning between Augustine and his sources becomes even more evident. In essence, he uses similar vocabulary, while developing his own original synthesis. Augustine borrows some philosophical doctrines—others he leaves aside. He does not take on the metaphysics of the One beyond being, the basis for the ascent of the soul in Plotinus. Augustine’s synthesis does not include an undigested foreign metaphysic. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of Ciceronian eudaemonistic vocabulary. What renders Quellenforschung occasionally problematic is the existence of an informal philosophical koine. This koine is the beginning, so to speak, of philosophia perennis and was available to all professional rhetors. Augustine knew these theses and saw Scripture as providing correction and completion. Recent study has attempted to show Varro’s contribution to this koine.17 Varro’s writings are in large part not extant. Varro must have had an influence, but its extent and nature remain difficult to determine. Cicero and Seneca, for example, also played vital roles. The purpose of “philological and philosophical archaeology” is to determine the ancient text and consequently its meaning. Once these are accurately determined, their usefulness for another age and society can be sought. Do Augustine’s texts contain truths beyond their time and place? The answer lies of course in the particular text. “Spiritual being,” for example, goes well beyond Porphyry. Eternal ideas and unchangeable truths remain beyond Augus17. N. Cipriani, “L’influsso di Varrone sul piensiero antropologica e morale nel primi scritti de S. Agostino,” StEphAug 53 (1996): 369–400.



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tine. That the entire intellectual creation is divided into those who love God to indifference toward the secular and those who love the secular to indifference to God is a constant. Is not libido dominandi still the defining characteristic of the earthly city—cannot Augustine serve as a much needed corrective to Nietzsche’s Wille zur Macht? On the other hand, the science of Augustine’s time, important as it is for understanding, is for us only an interesting “museum piece.”

Assimilation of Augustine in the Middle Ages An unprecedented assimilation of Augustine himself took place throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.18 Anselm of Canterbury (1032–1109) provides an example. Anselm read some of Augustine’s works intensively and imbibed them thoroughly. By contemporary philological methods it is difficult to ascertain precisely which texts Anselm read. Certainly Monologion is a précis on some matters, and amplification on others, of De trinitate. The demonstration of God’s existence from degrees of goodness is a version of Augustine’s more literary version in De trinitate.19 Anselm is obviously aware of Augustine’s discussion of substance, nature and person in De trinitate 5–7. Confessiones (1.1–6) and Soliloquia (1:1–6) influence the prayers of Proslogion 1. De libero arbitrio (2:17–40) directly influences the unum argumentum in Proslogion 2–4. Both Monologion and Proslogion are ascents of the mind to God. Cur deus homo, Anselm’s discussion of salvation and the necessity of the incarnation, finds a basis in De trinitate (12; 13). De libero arbitrio and perhaps Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum stand behind De libertate arbitrii. This list is not exhaustive.20 Establishing a complete list of what Augustine Anselm read would be helpful. But Anselm is his own man. In Monologion, Anselm thinks man capable of reasoning to the triune nature of God, though how this is possible remains a mystery. His exegesis of per speculum et in aenigmate differs substantially from Augustine’s.21 Augustine refers the passage to a distant obscure image of God 18. Obviously, a complete listing would be beyond the scope of this short essay. Such a listing could be drawn up with the help of ATA and Drecol, ed. Augustin Handbuch. 19. Monologion 1. De trinitate 8.3. 20. For further texts on Augustine’s influence on Anselm, see F. Van Fleteren, “The Influence of Augustine’s De trinitate on Anselm’s Monologion,” in Saint Anselm: A Thinker for Yesterday and Today, ed. C. Viola and F. Van Fleteren (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), 411–45; “De trinitate XII–XIII and Cur deus homo,” in Cur deus homo, Atti del Congresso Anselmiano Internazionale, Roma Maggio 21–23, 1998, ed. P. Gilbert, H. Kohlenberger, E. Salmann (Rome: San Anselmo, 1999). 21. Cor 13:12. See F. Van Fleteren, “Per speculum et in aenigmate in Anselm and Augustine,”

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in man. Anselm refers it to how what he has reasoned to is possible. Anselm borrows his definition of God from Augustine, but the unum argumentum is his own.22 Augustine’s ascent is based on his own experience. Can the same be said for Anselm? Augustine, as does Paul, thinks a mediator between God and man is necessary for salvation. But that God is somehow necessitated to an incarnation remains Anselm’s. There is a direct line between Augustine’s ascent to eternal truth in De libero arbitrio 2 and Anselm’s unum argumentum in Proslogion 2–4. But they are not the same. Anselm has assimilated Augustine into his own synthesis. Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) thought Augustine preeminent in Christian teaching. He assimilated Augustine into his own original synthesis. The great Dominican thought Augustine’s illumination theory harmonious with his postulation of an intellectus agens. Augustine’s theory of interior master was consistent with his own theory of the human teacher. Thomas assimilates Augustine on grace and free will into his own synthesis of grace informing the will. Thomas’s notions of the just war theory refer to Contra Faustum. Thomas, it is often said, was in the pursuit of truth—the same may surely be said of Augustine. The Egyptian gold and silver taken by the Israelites (Exodus) symbolize the ancient pagan wisdom to be taken by the Christians. Who would doubt that Thomas knew Augustine well? But who would hesitate to say that Thomas is his own man?23 Bonaventure (1221–74) became the minister general of the Franciscan order. He was Thomas’s colleague in Paris. The debate as to the precise nature of Bonaventure’s Augustinianism continues into the present day.24 Nevertheless, Bonaventure’s works are suffused with Augustine, expressis et inexpressis uerbis. Breviloquium discusses the origin, the progress, and the fruit of Sacred Scripture (prologus 1). Augustine’s exegesis of the days of creation, its correspondence with the biblical ages of mankind and the individual man are found in De Genesi contra Manichaeos, with echoes in Augustine’s other works (prologus 2). De doctrina christiana influences Bonaventure’s notions of the kinds and methods of scriptural exegesis (prologus 4). De trinitate stands behind Bonaventure’s in Rationality from Saint Augustine to Saint Anselm: Proceedings of the International Anselm Conference (Piliscala, Hungary: Pázmány Péter Catholic University Press, 2005). 22. See, for example, De libero arbitrio 2.6.14; De doctrina christiana 1.7.7; De moribus eccle­ siae catholicae et de moribus manichaeorum 2.9.24; De diuersis quaetionibus LXXXIII 18. A similar definition occurs in Seneca, Quaestiones naturales 1.1, praefatio. See du Roy, L’Intelligence de la foi, 214, n. 6. 23. De veritate 10, q. 6, ad 3; ad 6. Ibid., 11, q. 1. ad 3; ad 6. Ibid., 11, q. 1, ad 8; ad 15; Summa theologiae I-II, q. 111, ad 2; q. 113, art. 2; art. 6. Ibid., II-II, q. 40, art. 2; Contra Faustum 22.74– 75. De doctrina christiana 2.61; Confessiones 7.15. 24. See U. Köpf, “Augustin an den Universitäten des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Augustin Hand­ buch, 596–97.



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theology of the one triune God (for example, Breviloquium 1.6). In Reductio artium ad theologiam we find references to De trinitate and De doctrina christiana. Who can doubt that the ascent of the soul in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum owes much to Augustine? The very notion of ascent and its triadic nature is itself Augustinian to the core. The ascent from numbers of De musica, the theory of enlightenment of De uera religione, the demonstration of God from degrees of goodness of De trinitate, God as the causa essendi, ratio intelligendi, et ordo uiuendi of De ciuitate dei, the entrance to the interior, the trinity of memoria, intelligentia, and amor, the soul as capax et particeps [dei], the tripartite division of philosophy, the eye of the mind—the list is far too long for complete consideration here.25 Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius, Boethius, Anselm, Alan ab insulis, and Francis are readily apparent. Bonaventure assimilates them together into his own original ascent of the mind to God.26

Appropriation and Misappropriation Throughout history, examples of appropriation of Augustine abound.27 Whether Descartes (1596–1650) appropriated Augustine’s si fallor, sum was contemporaneously debated by Arnaud.28 Descartes’s appropriation in this matter remains debated unto the present day.29 As a student under the Jesuits at La Flêche, he may well have become aware of Augustine’s si fallor, sum. Augustine however never sought to construct a rationalist system based upon this insight. Contra Academicos establishes man’s ability to attain truth, but does not presuppose skepticism. By si fallor, sum Augustine was pointing out the impossibility of complete skepticism. The seventeenth-century French Oblate Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) attempted to preserve the certitude of eternal truths known by the human intellect. His thinking, though much influenced by Descartes’s, is in many questions a reaction to it. According to Augustine, the human mind possesses knowledge under divine light. “God enlightens every man who comes into the world” (Jn 1:10). The precise meaning of the scriptural text is unclear. Augus25. See Itinerarium mentis in Deum 1–3. 26. See the notes from the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Obras de San Buenaventura (Madrid, 1945–49). The list of medieval philosophers influenced by Augustine could be lengthened to include John Peckham, Robert Kildwarby, and Henry of Ghent, among others. 27. Because of space, Augustine’s relation to the Renaissance is not treated here. The influence is primarily, though not exclusively, found in art. For information on this subject, see Augustine and Iconography: History and Legend, ed. J. Schnaubelt and F. Van Fleteren (New York: Peter Lang, 1999, repr. 2003); and M. Gill, Augustine in the Italian Renaissance: Art and Philosophy from Petrarch to Michelangelo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 28. R. Descartes, Discours sur Méthode; M. Arnaud, Objections. 29. S. Menn, Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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tine’s interpretation is likewise a matter of debate. Malebranche took Augustine’s opinion provisionally to be that every man possesses a direct vision of God in this life. Malebranche himself thought that the human intellect saw immutable and eternal truth in a mediate vision of the divine. Only a purified intellect could attain this intuition. This vision produced the certitude for which Malebranche was looking.30 Malebranche’s theory is in fact Augustine’s—and Malebranche was aware of this possibility. On a similar topic, Malebranche’s occasionalism is much more an appropriation of Descartes than a misappropriation of Augustine on providence. But this discussion would bring us too far afield. In matters theological, appropriation (or misappropriation) of Augustine has often occurred. Both Augustine and Luther (1483–1546) thought Paul’s Epistle to the Romans fundamental to Christian teaching. Augustine tried twice to write a commentary on Romans.31 He stopped because of the enormity of the task. Augustine’s views on the role of grace and will stem from Romans 7:7–25.32 His views on grace and predestination begin as a commentary on Romans 9:9–29.33 Luther’s Vorrede auf die Epistel S. Paul an die Römer (Preface to the Epistle to the Romans) shows the centrality of that epistle to his thoughts on law, sin, faith, and justification. Luther read some of Augustine’s works, De spiritu et littera (412), among others.34 According to Luther, postlapsarian man totally and irreparably lost the imago dei. In Retractationes, Augustine writes, commenting on De Genesi ad litteram, that imago dei in man was tarnished, but not completely extinguished.35 Augustine is many times pessimistic, but in the end there is no total depravation. No doubt Luther appropriated Augustine’s teaching on the interior master, but he did not appropriate the Plotinian-Porphyrian Nous. John Calvin (1509–64) was enamored of Augustine. He thought himself restoring Augustine’s teaching: “Augustinus . . . totus noster est.” 36 A recent study has analyzed the depth and extent of Calvin’s knowledge of Augustine.37 The vast majority of his citations of the Western Fathers come from Augustine. Calvin usually cites Augustine directly, though occasionally indirectly through Gratian and Peter Lombard. His citations span the length and breadth of Augustine’s works—a majority of them derive from the anti-Pelagian writings. 30. Recherche de la Vérité, book 3, part 2, chap. 6. 31. Epistolae ad Romanos inchoata expositio (394); Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistola Apostoli ad Romanos (394). 32. See F. Van Fleteren, “Augustine’s Evolving Exegesis of Romans 7:22–23 in its Pauline Context,” Augustinian Studies 32, no. 1 (2001): 89–114. 33. Ad Simplicianum 1.2. 34. Tisch Rede 244; 261. 35. Retractationes 2.24.2. 36. Institutiones 3:4:33; 4.17.28. 37. For a complete treatment of Augustine and Calvin, see A. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999).



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Calvin did not often intentionally misinterpret Augustine, but he does exploit him to his doctrinal purposes. For example, predestination to sin, though present in Calvin, is not found in Augustine. Occasionally Calvin disagreed with Augustine; effects of the baptism of Augustine’s comatose friend in Confessiones would be an example. According to Calvin, Augustine’s allegorical scriptural exegesis was a fanciful deviation from the literal meaning.38 Jansenius (1585–1638), bishop of Ypres, is another example of appropriating Augustine.39 He claimed to have read the entire corpus of Augustine ten times and his anti-Pelagian works thirty times.40 In his posthumously published Augustinus, he correctly taught as authentically Augustinian that there is but one end for man, the uisio dei. Likewise delectatio victrix is Augustinian—grace informs the will to make the good delightful. Salvation comes through divine, not human, initiative. There is a difference between auxilium sine quo non which Adam received and auxilio quo given post-lapsarian man. All of these teachings are derived from Augustine. But are they pertinent to seventeenth-century disputes over efficacious and sufficient grace? Do they not need further elucidation, qualification, and precision in light of later controversies? Traces of Jansenius are found in Louis Sebastiàn, le nain de Tillemont, in volume 13 of Memoires Ecclesiatique, throughout the discussion of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian periodé.41 Blaise Pascal (1623–62) immersed himself in Augustine, especially in a retreat prior to his conversion. Pascal appropriated Augustine’s philosophy of the cor— knowledge is more a matter of the heart than a property of the intellect.42 Deus absconditus est.43 But Pascal is not Augustine. The God of the philosophers is not so distinct from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as Pascal would have it. Credo ut intelligam. Augustine realized the limits of human knowledge—man can only know God per speculum et aenigmate. Si enim comprehendis, non est 38. Nor did Luther espouse allegorical exegeses. But he thought Augustine to have limited its use. Table Talks 762–71. Despite his reputation, Augustine used allegorical exegesis quite sparingly. See De doctrina christiana. See De Genesi ad litteram 8.1.1; 4; 11.2; Enarratio in Psalmum 103; Sermo 1.18; 2; De diuersis quaestionibus LXXXIII 80. 39. Baius also appropriated Augustine. Since Jansenius is a follower of Baius, we shall let this treatment suffice. 40. J. Forget, “Jansenius and Jansenism,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Charles George Herbermann et al. (New York: Robert Appleton, 1907–12). This anecdote of Jansenius is well known and often cited. It is not found in the newer edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Ysidro de Sevilla claimed that no one had sufficient time to read the entire corpus of Augustine (Etymologia 6.7.3). 41. L. Sebastiàn, Memoires pour server a l’Histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècle, vol. 13, La vie de saint Augustin (Venice, 1732). The work first appeared in 1695. 42. Enarratio in Psalmum 93.4; Pensées 277. In Scripture, the heart, not the head, is the seat of knowledge. 43. Pensées 242; Is 45:15. That the human mind has difficulty knowing God is a topos in Augustine. The phrase deus absconditus is found in Enarratio in Psalmum 30; Sermo 2.5 and 15; 3.8, Enarratio in Psalmum 68.

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deus.44 But man could know at a distance. The human intellect was not completely darkened. For Pascal in the final analysis only the wager remained.

Twentieth-Century Studies The twentieth century saw the rise of in-depth studies of Augustine’s texts —many from philologists. Their historical predecessor is the seventeenth-century Belgian historian Louis Sebastiàn, le nain de Tillemont. The purpose of these studies was to determine the precise data of Augustine’s life. Interpretation of Augustine against his own background as determined by Confessiones, his letters, and his sermons was paramount. Henri Marrou marked a break with the past by introducing the category of late antique man.45 Special interest was paid to the exact identification of the libri platonicorum. Scholars developed methods of philological parallelism to show especially the Plotinian influence on Augustine.46 Others developed methods to determine Porphyrian influence.47 The texts of Confessiones and other works were precisely determined. Computer analysis of Confessiones and the entire corpus helped bring Augustine’s own texts to bear on interpretation.48 A philological lexicon was developed;49 encyclopedias appeared on the scene.50 The limits of philological analysis, for good or for bad, have gradually been realized; philosophers and theologians took the philological evidence and attempted to determine Augustine’s own thought.51 Augustine’s development as a thinker was emphasized, perhaps overemphasized. Even the hermeneutic of suspicion was enlisted in interpretation.52 Historians have sought to tell Au44. Sermo 117.5. 45. H.-I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 2nd ed. (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1946), with Retractatio. 46. For example, P. Henri, Plotin et L’Occident (Louvain: Specilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1934); P. Courcelle, Lettres Grecques en L’Occident de Macrobe a Cassiodore (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1943), Recherche sur les Confessions (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1950, repr. 1968); A. Solignac, Les Confessiones, Bibliothèque Augustinienne 13 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1962), 682–83, n. 25. 47. W. Theiler, Porphyrios und Augustin (Halle: Niemeyer, 1933); J. O’Meara, The Young Augustine (London: Longman, 1954, repr. 1965); Philosophy from Oracles in Augustine (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1959). 48. CETEDOC (Centre de Traitement Electronique des Documents) Library of Christian Latin Texts (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991–2000); J. O’Donnell Confessions, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 49. Augustinius Lexikon, ed. C. Maier (Basel, 1986–). 50. See, e.g., ATA. 51. Du Roy, L’Intelligence de foi; K. Kienzler, Gott in der Zeit zu berühren (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1998); J. Brachtendorf, Augustins “Confessiones” (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005). 52. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: A New Biography (New York: Harper Collins, 2005). This study can be safely left aside. O’Donnell reveals more about himself than about Augustine.



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gustine’s life in intimate detail.53 In every case, scholars were attempting to determine precisely what Augustine thought.

Recent Appropriation Husserl’s lectures given in Göttingen in 1905 appeared under the title Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, published in 1928.54 Husserl finds in Augustine’s explication of time a precursor to his phenomenological consciousness of time.55 In fact Husserl demanded of any student who inquired concerning time that he read Confessiones. Husserl understands his interior time consciousness in terms of Augustine’s interiority of the mind understanding time. Time is distentio animi. Husserl thought that this distentio animi was the Urimpression of time. However, Augustine believed that objective world-time was the basis for the subjective understanding of time. Husserl “bracketed” world-time methodologically. Further, according to Husserl’s phenomenology, we need not posit an image as the means through which man senses outside reality. Both Aristotle and Augustine posited images as the means of retaining and projecting reality. We do not know the image, but the image is the means (obiectum quo of medieval philosophy) through which we sense. Evidently Husserl learned the image through Brentano—his real opponent is Brentano, not Augustine. In a lecture in 1930 in Beuron, Heidegger acknowledged three great treatments of time prior to his own: Aristotle, Augustine, and Kant.56 Heidegger differs from Husserl, but still acknowledges Augustine as a precursor of his version of the phenomenological-hermeneutical analysis of time. According to Heidegger, Augustine’s notion of time as distentio animi resulted from analysis of “now time.” Time is a succession of “now times.” This was similar to Husserl. But, pace Heidegger, neither Augustine’s nor Husserl’s examination of time was extensive enough. Augustine had an inadequate notion of the human being. Had Augustine possessed an adequate notion of Dasein, he would have come to “original time” as “the self stretching out of Dasein’s extatic horizontal tem53. S. Lancel, St. Augustine, trans. A. Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002); P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, repr. 2000). 54. In this section only twentieth-century German philosophy will be considered. Thus the Frenchman M. Blondel is omitted, though in fact Augustine influenced his thinking. See M. Kerlin, “Blondel,” in ATA, 103f. The treatment of Husserl and Heidegger here depends upon von Herrmann, Augustine and the Phenomenological Question of Time. 55. Confessiones 11.14–28. 56. M. Heidegger, “Des hl. Augustinus Betrachtung über die Zeit. Confessiones. lib. XI.” A copy of the manuscript from the Abbey of St. Martin in Beuron was turned into a lecture on October 26, 1930. It is published in volume 80 of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1964–).

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porality.” Dasein exists only in time. Further Heidegger finds in Confessiones 10 a precursor of his own phenomenological analysis, Faktizität des Lebens.57 Both Husserl and Heidegger tend to overlook the context of Augustine’s treatment of time in Confessiones 11. Time is studied only as a means of giving us an inkling, per speculum et in aenigmate, of divine eternity as nunc stans. In Confessiones Augustine’s essential motif is the ascent of the mind to God. Like Paul in Romans 1:20, Augustine thinks the human mind capable of rising from the creature to the creator. Not only does Heidegger deny this interpretation of Paul, he thinks the entire Christian tradition misunderstood this text.58 Can the moral dimension of life be excluded from consideration in interpretation of Confessiones 10?59 In Heidegger’s case, Augustine is used as an occasion for developing a distinct philosophy having little to do with Augustine himself. The same is true to a lesser extent of Husserl. A much more tortured sense of Anstoss is found in the late Jacques Derrida and his North American cronies.60 Much discussed is Derrida’s Circumfessiones and its relation to Augustine’s Confessiones. Derrida’s prayers and tears at the death of his mother are likened to Augustine’s tears for Monica at the end of her life. In reality, they bear little relation to one another. Derrida himself confesses little direct knowledge of Augustine. Indeed Derrida’s North American interpreters betray no great textual knowledge of Augustine either. Can we have Augustine without eternal truth? Does not Augustine himself equate denial of eternal truth with the denial of the existence of God? Is there Augustine without grace? Can there be prayer without God?

Conclusion What then to say? Obviously there are several tasks for the contemporary thinker if he takes the tradition seriously. The actual thought of a traditional figure himself, here Augustine, must be determined. This figure must be inter57. Augustine’s extensive influence on Sein und Zeit has been studied intensely by Karl Kardinal Lehmann in his Habilitiatinschrift. For recent commentary on Heidegger and the Christian tradition, see Heidegger und die christliche Tradition, ed. N. Fischer and F.-W. von Herrmann (Hamburg: Meiner, 2007) and my review article in The Thomist 72, no. 2 (April 2008): 340–44. 58. On this and other comparisons between Augustine and Heidegger, see C. Viola, “Deux manières de questioner: Saint Augustin et Heidegger. Un essai de confrontation,” in Van Fleteren, ed., Martin Heidegger’s Interpretations of Saint Augustine, 275–350. 59. The work of Hannah Arendt on love and Augustine is another case in point. Is there Augustinian love or freedom without grace? See H. Arendt, Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (Berlin: Philo, 2005). 60. See Augustine and Postmodernism, Confession and Circumfession, ed. J. Caputo and M. Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).



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preted within his own context. This work has been termed, sometimes in a pejorative sense, “philosophical archaeology.” This work is difficult, but increasingly necessary if we are to understand whence an author came and consequently whence we come. What we learn can be of direct interest to present-day problems. Does not the existence of eternal truth bear upon the present situation? Is not the division of mankind (not to mention the angels) into a divine society and an earthly one as valid today as in Augustine’s time? Is not libido dominandi still the chief characteristic of the city of man? Greed is a vice, not a virtue? A second task is assimilating the ancient thinker into a new synthesis which extends the tradition, but does not betray it. This task has been fulfilled in several twentieth-century thinkers—Henri de Lubac and Rowan Williams come immediately to mind. Ours is not to judge the success of these syntheses. Suffice it to note them and leave the judgment to others. Here I join myself to Dodaro, if I understand him correctly. Thirdly, texts from the tradition can legitimately be used as an occasion for entirely new thought. Philosophy and theology, though discursive by nature, in the final analysis are occupied with the intuition of wisdom. As such these sciences do not advance in the same manner as empirical sciences, by replacement of one theory with another. Geniuses of every age delve into the mystery of being. Tradition impels us to this task. Here I join myself to Fischer, again if I understand him correctly. What to say about appropriation? As we have sketched, history is replete with attempts, some successful and some not, to appropriate Augustine into a new problematic. History shows the danger in such endeavors. Is Luther a proper appropriation of Augustine on the interior master? On the nature of man? On the nature of salvation? Is Calvin a proper appropriation of Augustine on grace and predestination? Is Jansenius a proper appropriation of Augustine on grace and free will? Husserl and Heidegger by their own admission use Augustine as an occasion for their thinking. Is this appropriation? And all of these are light years distant from Derrida. By his own admission, he did not intend to understand Augustine, let alone follow him. Hackett needs to elucidate criteria by which appropriation may be distinguished from misappropriation. I would suggest the following principle as a beginning: only those questions should be asked of an ancient author which are on a continuum with what he himself has written. In any event, without such criteria the category of appropriation remains vague and unhelpful. Here I cannot join myself to Hackett, once again if I understand him correctly.

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15  (Re)defining the Boundaries of Orthodoxy The Rule of Faith and the Twentieth-Century Rehabilitation of Origen

Discerning and applying the “rule of faith” has never been an easy task, a reality, in large part, explained by the fact that in separating truth from error one is dealing not only with diverse understandings of the Christian mystery, but also with the men and women who hold these beliefs. Simply put, there is a very human element to this search for divine truth. For in separating orthodoxy from heresy one also separates “Fathers of the Church” from heresiarchs, whose fate (in this world and the next) is often determined by this designation. The Church Fathers become saints and privileged witnesses to the faith—their reputation for orthodoxy and sanctity guaranteeing the truth of their positions on a variety of subjects. Conversely, the repudiation of many early heresies (for example, Arianism, Nestorianism, Pelagianism) often earned their originators condemnation, exile, or worse—anathematized as “false teachers and prophets” (2 Pt 2:1) with “corrupt mind(s) and counterfeit faith” (2 Tm 3:8) to be avoided at all costs. The difficulty, of course, comes when the lines become blurred and one viewed as a Father of the Church puts forward a teaching regarded, either by It is a privilege to dedicate this paper to my Doktorvater, Father Joseph Lienhard, S.J., whose commitment to careful scholarship and theological reflection taught me a great deal during my time at Fordham. Twenty years ago Father Lienhard himself dedicated an article on Origen to Walter Burghardt, S.J., in a Festschrift honoring his fellow Jesuit. In that essay he called Origen “a father of the Church, . . . the first Christian biblical scholar, and one of the most significant Christian theologians of all time.”

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his contemporaries or by posterity, as false. This is nothing new—Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Antioch testifies that even the coryphaeus of the apostles occasionally required fraternal correction (Gal 2:11–14). Yet the church never worked out a unified approach to handling errors in the works of the Fathers, or where exactly the line was that distinguished a “father who erred” from a manifest heretic deserving of ecclesial condemnation.1 Photius of Constantinople defended the sanctity of Ambrose and Augustine, despite his belief that both had erred in advocating the Spirit’s procession from both the Father and the Son.2 At the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438, Mark Eugenicus of Ephesus admitted that Gregory of Nyssa had advocated a form of apocatastasis, yet insisted that this in no way disqualified him from being a great saint and Father of the Church.3 However, no theologian has generated as much debate as Origen of Alexandria, who throughout Christian history has occupied the “limbo” separating Church Father from heresiarch, at different times finding himself on both sides of the divide. Origen of Alexandria is, in the words of Henri Crouzel, “the most astonishing sign of contradiction in the history of Christian thought.”4 Gregory Nazianzus called him the “whetstone of us all,” and Gregory Thaumaturgus once claimed that leaving his side was akin to Adam’s expulsion from paradise. Hans Urs von Balthasar claimed that “to rank him [Origen] beside Augustine and Thomas simply accords him his rightful place in history . . . [for] there is no thinker in the church who is so invisibly all-present as Origen.”5 And yet even during his life Origen was not without detractors—his teachings on the pre-existence of souls and apocatastasis were attacked as theologically 1. A. Edward Siecienski, “Avoiding the Sin of Ham: Dealing with Errors in the Works of the Fathers,” SP (forthcoming). 2. According to Photius, this error on the part of Ambrose and Augustine may have occurred either “through ignorance or through negligence” or because “of necessity of attacking the madness of the pagans or of refuting another heretical opinion or of condescending to the weakness of their hearers.” Photius, Mystagogia 68,72; Photius of Constantinople, The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Astoria, N.Y.: Studion Publishers, 1983), 98, 100. 3. When the Latin delegation at Ferrara quoted Gregory of Nyssa’s teaching on a cleansing fire (De mortuis, PG 46, 524–25) to support their position on purgatory, Mark of Ephesus claimed that “there is nothing surprising in the fact that, being human, [he] erred in precision. . . . The same thing happened also with many before him, such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Dionysius of Alexandria and others.” Later Mark openly admitted Gregory’s error, but claimed, “It is possible for one to be a teacher and all the same not say everything absolutely correctly, for what need would the Fathers have had for ecumenical councils.” 4. Henri Crouzel, Origen, trans. A. S. Worrall (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), xi. 5. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings, trans. Robert Daly (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 1.

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unsound, and his exegetical method criticized for ignoring the literal meaning of the biblical texts. At the behest of Emperor Justinian he was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 along with such notorious heretics as Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, and Eutyches. Rumors about Origen’s alleged apostasy (as well as his “daring deed”) even caused later generations to doubt the possibility of his eternal salvation, and it is not uncommon to find him listed in medieval works (alongside Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate) among those whose damnation was all but assured.6 Since the late twentieth century there has been a discernable effort to “rehabilitate” Origen and to grant him, in von Balthasar’s words, “his rightful place” in the pantheon of great Christian teachers. Advocates of the socalled nouvelle théologie, such as Henri de Lubac, made the study of Origen’s exegetical writings a particular concern, dedicating many of the earliest volumes of the Sources Chrétiennes to his Old Testament commentaries and writing a book-length defense of Origen’s spiritual exegesis (Histoire et Esprit: L’ intelligence de l’Écriture d’après Origène). Along with Jean Daniélou, Henri Crouzel, and Hans Urs von Balthasar, de Lubac painted Origen as a true homo ecclesiae whose contributions to Christianity placed him alongside the greatest Fathers of antiquity. Dismissing the stories of his apostasy as spurious, and the condemnations of Justinian as unjust, through his efforts scholars and ecclesiastics have, to a great extent, reversed the judgment of history. In fact, “the godless Origen” was recently referred to as “a great maestro of the faith” by no less an authority than Pope Benedict XVI. This paper will examine the dynamics of this rehabilitation and the twentieth-century scholars who carried it out, focusing particularly on the writings of Henri de Lubac and the two issues that were of greatest interest to him— the legitimacy of Origen’s excommunication and the proper appreciation of his exegetical method. Of special concern will be Origen’s insistence that his work conform to the rule of faith as he understood it, and whether the intention to remain orthodox (which Origen certainly demonstrated) militates against his later ecclesial condemnation.7 The limited scope of the paper precludes a larg6. According to Pedro Garcia (1489), “The proposition ‘Whoever dies in mortal sin is damned in his soul’ is an article of faith; now this proposition: ‘Origen died in the mortal sin of heresy’ is an article of the piety of the faith . . . thus the conclusion ‘Origen is damned’ is an article of the piety of the faith. . . . The Church is in fact certain, with a certitude of probability and of right, that one who is anathematized and declared heretical after his death in the judgment of the Church . . . is damned, just like one who is canonized is saved.” Pedro Garcia, Determinationes magistrales, 217–18 (for the English translation: Henri de Lubac, “The Dispute in Modern Times about the Salvation of Origen,” in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996], 64). 7. According to Henry Chadwick, “If orthodoxy were a matter of intention, no theolo-



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er discussion of those issues usually associated with “Origenism” (for example, apocatastasis and the pre-existence of souls), although it will be necessary to begin with a brief look at Origen’s life and complicated theological legacy in order to contextualize his twentieth-century rehabilitation. After examining the efforts of de Lubac and others to salvage Origen’s posthumous reputation, we can conclude with a discussion of the boundaries of orthodoxy and Origen’s place (if any) among those considered Fathers of the Church.

Origen: Life and Controversies We know more about the life of Origen than about those of many other Church Fathers, thanks largely to the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea (who dedicates a generous portion of book 6 to Origen), the apology of Pamphilus, and the writings of Gregory the Wonder-worker. Born into a Christian family in 185/186, Eusebius tells us that his father (martyred in 202 under Severus) encouraged the young Origen to take up the Scriptures, discerning great talent and holiness in the young boy.8 Although Origen supported himself as a philologist, it was his love for Christ and the Scriptures that remained at the center of his life, and he displayed both an ascetic zeal and a desire for martyrdom that troubled those close to him. It was this zeal that would lead him, in his youthful enthusiasm, to commit what Eusebius called his “daring deed.” For he took the words, “there are eunuchs who had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” in too literal and extreme a sense and in order to fulfill the Savior’s word, and at the same time to take away from the unbelievers all opportunity for scandal, for, although young, he met for the study of divine things with women as well as men, he carried out in action the word of the Savior. He thought that this would not be known by many of his acquaintances. But it wasn’t possible for him, though desiring to do so, to keep such an action secret.9 gian could be more orthodox than Origen, none more devoted to the cause of Christian faith.” Chadwick, “Origen,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. 8. Eusebius records that Leonides (Origen’s father) would stand by the boy as he slept, and “uncovering his breast as if the Divine Spirit were enshrined within it, would kiss it reverently; considering himself blessed in his godly offspring.” Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.2 (NPNF, 2nd series, 1.250). 9. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.8 (NPNF, 2nd series, 1.254). Many scholarly articles have been written arguing for or against the veracity of this account. John McGuckin is among the growing number of scholars who argue that the story is false, probably invented by Pamphilius to “distract from the other reasons why Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, might have wanted to persecute him in ecclesiastical courts.” John McGuckin, Westminister Handbook to Origen (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 7. Arguing in favor

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Origen, while still a layman, became the chief teacher at the catechetical school of Alexandria at the request of his bishop, Demetrius, devoting most of his time to the Scriptures and to studying the works of those Neoplatonist philosophers (like Ammonius Saccas) who lectured in the area. His fame was such that he traveled the ancient world at the request of various hierarchs, refuting heresy and coming into contact with some of the greatest theological minds of the age (like Hippolytus of Rome). In Palestine and environs he was asked to preach, a fact that greatly displeased Demetrius, especially when it was learned that Origen, still a layman, was preaching to bishops. Returning to Alexandria sometime around 216, Origen began his prodigious literary output. Having learned Hebrew (at least to some degree) and having acquainted himself with many facets of Judaism, Origen began composition of the Hexapla, comparing the text of the Septuagint with the original Hebrew in an effort to create a “critical edition” of the Old Testament.10 Alongside this work Origen began composing various commentaries on the Old Testament (Genesis, Psalms, Lamentations), the first five books of a commentary on John (written at the request of his friend Ambrose) and his On First Principles (Peri archon) or (De Principiis), whose book 4 dealt with the proper interpretation of the Scriptures using the spiritual senses. Despite his growing fame, Origen remained a controversial figure. His ordination at the hands of Bishop Theotecnus of Caesarea (with the consent of Bishop Alexander of Jerusalem) became a cause for contention, because Origen’s own bishop, Demetrius, viewed the act as uncanonical. Demetrius convened a synod that forbade Origen from exercising his ministry in Alexandria, eventually excommunicating him altogether from the Alexandrian church.11 would be the fact that Origen (quoting Galen) writes about the problems associated with being a eunuch (Crouzel, Origen, 9, n. 32) and that Eusebius was himself an admirer of Origen and would not have slandered him without justification. This also explains why his ordination was so controversial—not only was it allegedly non-canonical (since he was not ordained by his own bishop, Demetrius) but also in violation of the custom that “mutilated” men not be admitted to orders (a prohibition that would later be included in the canons of Nicea: “If anyone in good health has castrated himself, if he is enrolled among the clergy he should be suspended, and in future no such man should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this refers to those who are responsible for the condition and presume to castrate themselves, so too if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians or by their masters, but have been found worthy, the canon admits such man to the clergy.”) Norman Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 6. 10. Crouzel notes that Origen continued to rely on the Septuagint for his commentaries on Scriptures, even when it differed in some way from the text of the Hexapla. This he attributes to the fact that the Septuagint was the “text that the apostles had given to the Church, the official text that Christians had to follow.” Thus for Crouzel Origen’s concern for ecclesiastical tradition weighed heavier than the demands of academic rigor. Crouzel, Origen, 12. 11. Of this event Jerome would write: “So, you see, the labors of this one man have surpassed



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Forced from Alexandria, Origen went to Caesarea where he spent the remainder of his adult life.12 Under the protection of the local bishop, Origen continued to write and preach, with many of his homilies copied down by stenographers particularly employed for this purpose.13 Considered a pillar of orthodoxy by the bishops of the area (despite the condemnations of Rome and Alexandria), Origen was entrusted with the task of settling theological disputes and bringing back suspected heretics (for example, Beryllus of Arabian Bostra) to the true faith. Among the students who flocked to Caesarea to hear him was Gregory Thaumaturgus (“the wonder-worker”), the spiritual father of Macrina the Elder. It is from Gregory’s Oration and Panegyric Addressed to Origen that we can see something of the scope of Origen’s method and influence. And he became the interpreter of the prophets to us, and explained whatsoever was dark or enigmatical in them . . . and set them in the light, as being himself a skilled and most discerning hearer of God, who alone of all men of the present time with whom I have myself been acquainted, or of whom I have heard by the report of others, has so deeply studied the clear and luminous oracles of God, as to be able at once to receive their meaning into his own mind, and to convey it to others. . . . To speak in brief, he was truly a paradise to us after the similitude of the paradise of God.14

those of all previous writers, Greek and Latin. . . . Yet what reward have his exertions brought him? He stands condemned by his bishop, Demetrius, only the bishops of Palestine, Arabia, Phenicia, and Achaia dissenting. Imperial Rome consents to his condemnation, and even convenes a senate to censure him, not—as the rabid hounds who now pursue him cry—because of the novelty or heterodoxy of his doctrines, but because men could not tolerate the incomparable eloquence and knowledge which, when once he opened his lips, made others seem dumb.” Jerome, Letter 33 to Paula (NPNF, 2nd series, 6.46). 12. Origen makes a rare personal reference to the new state of affairs at the beginning of book 6 of his Commentary on John: “Although the storm at Alexandria seemed to oppose us . . . we were rescued from the land of Egypt, when the God who led his people from Egypt delivered us. . . . At that time, when the enemy had overrun us most bitterly . . . and stirred up all the perverse winds against us, reason summoned me to take a stand in the struggle. . . . Now, however, that the many fiery darts against us have been blunted, for God extinguishes them, and our soul has grown accustomed to what has happened because of the heavenly word, I am compelled to bear more easily the treacheries which have occurred. It is as though we have received a great calm, and, no longer deferring, wish to dictate the subsequent books.” Origen, Commentary on John 6.8–10 (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to John 1–10, trans. Ronald Heine, FC 80, 170). 13. According to Eusebius, this was something Origen had previously objected to. Scholars now date most (if not all) of Origen’s extant homilies after 245. See Joseph Lienhard, “Origen as Homilist,” in Preaching in the Patristic Age: Studies in Honor of Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., ed. David Hunter, 40 (New York: Paulist Press, 1989). 14. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Panegyric Addressed to Origen 15 (ANF 6.36).

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The persecutions that occurred sporadically during the early centuries of Christianity, and which had claimed Origen’s father, finally became a universal phenomenon under Emperor Decius in 247. Origen, who had earlier written an Exhortation to Martyrdom for his friends Ambrose and Protoctetus during the persecution of Maximin Thrax, was now himself called to make the supreme sacrifice for his faith. According to Eusebius, How many things he endured for the word of Christ, bonds and bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks he bore patiently the threats of fire and whatever other things were inflicted by his enemies.15

He died, after two years of such treatment, a confessor for the faith, during his sixty-ninth year (254/255) in Tyre, where his tomb (allegedly) remained visible until the thirteenth century.16

Origen’s Legacy Having achieved such acclaim as a churchman during his life, Origen was to be subject to one of the most famous posthumous “hatchet jobs” in all of Christian history.17 According to G. L. Prestige, “Origen is the greatest of that happily small company of saints who, having lived and died in grace, suffered sentence of expulsion from the Church on earth after they had already entered into the joy of their Lord.”18 Not only would later generations call his orthodoxy into question, but the very possibility of his eternal salvation would be debated, based largely on legends about his final apostasy in the face of persecution. Among the first to attack Origen’s legacy was Methodius of Olympus at the end of the third century. Like his contemporary, Eustathius of Antioch, he believed Origen demonstrated Gnostic tendencies, making his views (especially about the resurrection) suspect.19 These criticisms later influenced the editors 15. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 6.39 (NPNF, 2nd series, 1.281). 16. B. F. Westcott, “Origenes,” in Dictionary of Christian Biography 4, ed. W. Smith and H. Wace, 103, (London: J. Murray, 1887). 17. See Rowan Williams, “Origen: Between Orthodoxy and Heresy,” in Origeniana Septima: Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts, ed. W. A. Bienert and U. Kühneweg, 3–14 (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1999). 18. G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics: Six Studies in Dogmatic Faith with Prologue and Epilogue (London: SPCK, 1968), 43. 19. For a fuller discussion of their views, see Emmanuela Prinzivalli, “The Controversy about Origen before Epiphanius” in Origeniana Septima: Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts, ed. W. A. Bienert and U. Kühneweg, 195–214 (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1999).



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of the Philocalia, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzus, who deliberately left Origen’s “views on creation and eschatology out of their anthology,” instead portraying him as a “scriptural interpreter and defender of free-will.”20 In Antioch, it was Origen’s exegesis that came under fire from Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrus, both of whom took issue with his sometimes elaborate use of allegory.21 Among Theodore’s lost works is a book, De allegoria et historia (cited by Quasten as Against the Allegorists), that was written as a direct attack on Origen’s method, and is cited briefly in a work by Facundus.22 However, it was not until the fourth and fifth centuries that there occurred what scholars have called the “first Origenist crisis.” Epiphanius of Salamis, who had come to a genuine hatred of the man and his teachings, painted Origen as a proto-Arian and the originator of all the errors besieging the church. It was from him that we hear the first mention of Origen’s alleged apostasy during the Decian persecution. Epiphanius even managed to convince the great Jerome (who had once described the man of adamantium as “second only to the apostles as a teacher of the church in knowledge and in wisdom,”) of Origen’s culpability. Of Origen Jerome now wrote: I have made a collection of his books, I admit; but because I know everything that he has written I do not follow his errors. I speak as a Christian to Christians: believe one who has tried him. His doctrines are poisonous, they are unknown to the Holy Scriptures, nay more, they do them violence.23

Despite Rufinus’s ardent defense, Origen’s alleged heresies were anathematized at a synod called by Theophilus of Alexandria (the same man who convened the Synod of the Oak, which deposed John Chrysostom) in 400.24 “Origenism” quickly became a dirty word in ecclesiastical circles, although the reputation of the man himself remained (largely) intact.25 20. Joseph Trigg, Origen (New York: Routledge, 1990), 65. 21. Interestingly enough, Theodore of Mopsuestia suffered the same fate as Origen—he was posthumously condemned in 553 despite the reputation for orthodoxy he enjoyed during his life. 22. Henri Crouzel, Bibliographie Critique D’Origèn (Belgium: Typis Cultura, 1971), 62. 23. Jerome, Letter 84 to Pammachius and Oceanus (NPNF, 2nd series, 6.177). 24. The charges leveled against him in Epiphanius’s Panarian included subordinationism, advocating the pre-existence of souls and the loss of the divine image in Adam, his use of “garments of skin” to refer to the human body, and the allegorical interpretation of Genesis. For a further discussion see Jon Dechow, “The Heresy Charges against Origen” in Origeniana Quarta: Referate des 4. Internationalen Origenskongress, ed. Lothar Lies, 136–45 (Innsbruck: TyroliaVerlag, 1987). 25. Even while rubbishing Origen’s theology, Jerome was bound to say about the man, “Let us not imitate the faults of one whose virtues we cannot equal.” Jerome, Letter 84 to Pammachius and Oceanus (NPNF, 2nd series, 6.180).

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This would change with the so-called second Origenist crisis, which occurred in the sixth century under the Emperor Justinian.26 By this time “Origenism” had become, under the influence of Evagrius Pontius and others, a system of beliefs embracing a number of “doctrines” including that of apocatastasis and the pre-existence of souls.27 Whatever modern scholars might hold about Origen’s responsibility for these teachings, Justinian was clear that Origen himself was their ultimate source. At the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 (originally convened to deal with the “Three Chapters” of Pope Vigilus), Origenism, and Origen himself, were condemned.28 Its canons stated: If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, as well as their impious writings . . . and all those who . . . in their impiety persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those heretics just mentioned: let him be anathema. Anathema to Origen and to that Adamantius, who set forth these opinions together with his nefarious and execrable and wicked doctrine and to whomsoever there is who thinks thus, or defends these opinions.29

As a result of the council most of Origen’s works were destroyed, leaving, in many cases, only the Latin translations of Jerome and Rufinus.30 Origen and his teachings, when they could be found at all, were now “tainted goods.” This is not to say that Origen was without his defenders or admirers—Eusebius, Pamphilus, and Rufinus all took up the pen to protect the reputation of the “man of adamantium.” However, in the Greek-speaking world (where Origen’s work had been all but destroyed) he was chiefly remembered as “the godless Origen,” whose work was a “foul disease” to be diligently avoided.31 In the 26. For a full treatment of this period see Elizabeth Clark, The Origenist Controversy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); Daniël Hombergen, The Second Origenist Controversy: A New Perspective on Cyril of Scythopolis’ Monastic Biographies as a Historical Source for Sixth-Century Origenism (Rome: Herder-Editrice e Liberia, 2001). 27. John Sachs, “Apocatastasis in Patristic Theology,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 617–40. 28. The council incorporated many of the charges against Origenism made at an earlier synod in 543. The condemnation of Origen by name may not have been part of the council’s original acts, although they soon became part of the Christian consciousness. 29. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1, 6. 30. There has been much written about the accuracy of these translations and their use for understanding Origen’s thought. The weight of scholarly opinion today maintains that despite their limitations, Rufinus’s and Jerome’s translations are the best source we have for understanding the writings of the great Alexandrian and cannot simply be written off. For more see the introduction to Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. R. E. Heine, FC 71, 25–39; Crouzel, Origen, 37–49. 31. John Climicus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 131.



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West, Pico della Mirandola caused a stir in 1486 when he published nine hundred theological conclusions, including the statement, “It is more reasonable to believe Origen saved than to believe him damned.” Although (as de Lubac demonstrated) pivotal in the development of medieval exegesis, Origen nevertheless remained a lonely figure—Luther claimed he had “banned” Origen, although his famous contemporary Erasmus did issue a new edition of his works in 1536.32 As the modern era approached, even those who were unwilling to accept the damnation of Origen could not forget his ecclesial condemnation or forgive the errors he had allegedly brought into the church. John Henry Newman, for example, would write in 1836: I love, for instance, the name of Origen: I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost; but I am quite sure that, in the contest between his doctrine and followers and the ecclesiastical power, his opponents were right, and he was wrong.33

In his History of Dogma, Adolf von Harnack granted Origen a prominent place among those who ultimately tainted Christianity by marrying it too closely to Greek philosophy.34 Influenced in large part by von Harnack’s judgment, by the 1930s (when de Lubac began writing) Origen was primarily seen as a Neoplatonist whose writings, while brilliant, were a product more of philosophical speculation than of ecclesial reflection. Origen the churchman and the great Christian exegete seemed all but forgotten.

De Lubac, the Rule of Faith, and the Rehabilitation of Origen Led by Henri Crouzel, considered by many the “patriarch” of Origenian studies, interest in the great Alexandrian intensified in the period immediately preceding the Second World War.35 While some scholars (for example, Hans von Campenhausen, Hal Koch) were initially influenced by von Harnack’s view, within a few years the weight of scholarly opinion clearly shifted in favor of the rehabilitation (or at least reexamination) of Origen.36 Why did this shift occur? Certainly one reason is the twentieth-century study of the 32. Crouzel, Bibliographie Critique D’Origèn, 88. 33. John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (New York: Image Books, 1956), 333–34. 34. Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma 2, trans. Neil Buchanan (New York: Dover Press, 1961), 319–80. 35. Robert Daly, “Origen Studies and Pierre Nautin’s Origène,” Theological Studies 39, no. 3 (September 1978): 513. 36. Herbert Musurillo, “The Recent Revival of Origen Studies,” Theological Studies 24, no. 2 (June 1963): 252.

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Evagrian corpus, which led a number of scholars to increasingly differentiate the writings of Origen from the tenets of “Origenism” later developed by his followers. Another reason was that the publication of a number of Origen’s exegetical works in the Sources Chrétiennes series enabled people to see beyond von Harnack’s caricature of Origen as a Christian Platonist. According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, it was in the biblical commentaries, rather than the (better-known) dogmatic works like Contra Celsus and the Peri archon, that one “finds the living spirit of his thought.”37 This is not to say that Daniélou, Crouzel, and von Balthasar were not interested in examining Origen’s other contributions to theology. Von Balthasar himself was later charged with advocating a brand of apocatastasis, forcing him to clarify his position.38 However, de Lubac largely stayed away from the debates surrounding Origenism (socalled). For de Lubac the focus remained Origen the man and the exegetical method with which he became linked. Henri de Lubac came to the study of Origen late in life, sometime after 1928, when he began making a more systematic study of the Greek Fathers. In this de Lubac was aided by the fact that most of Origen’s work survived only in Latin translation, for, by his own admission he: never had a firm grasp of this [that is, the Greek] language. I could never read at one go a page of Greek without the aid of a dictionary. For Origen, whose greatness increasingly compelled my attention, I made an effort; but, if the part of his work that escaped the destruction ordered by Justinian (a crime for which the construction of Santa Sophia does not compensate) had survived entirely in Greek, I would have undoubtedly given up.39

De Lubac’s love of the Fathers spurred both himself and Daniélou to begin work on the Sources Chrétiennes series, which published critical editions of patristic texts with French translations.40 It was not surprising that among the first volumes to be issued, with introductions by de Lubac himself, were Origen’s Homélies sur L’Exode and the Homélies sur la Genèse. This would be followed in 1950 with his magisterial Histoire et Esprit: L’ intelligence de l’Écriture d’après Origène, a detailed study of Origen’s exegetical method and a refuta37. Von Balthasar, Origen Spirit and Fire, 4. 38. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved, trans. David Kipp and Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988). 39. Henri de Lubac, At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances That Occasioned His Writings, trans. Anne Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 66. 40. The idea had originally been conceived by the Rev. Victor Fontoynont before the Second World War as, “an instrument of rapprochement with the Orthodox Churches”; ibid., 94.



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tion of the charges (made since the time of Theodore of Mopsuestia) of his over-allegorizing tendencies.41 De Lubac was at pains to emphasize, against those (like von Campenhausen and Koch, who saw Origen as the “first clear example of rivalry between the unofficial teacher and the ecclesiastical authority”)42 that Origen was, and had always intended to be, a man of the church, bound by the rule of faith (ὁ ἐκκλησιαστικὸς κανών).43 The second chapter of Histoire et Esprit (entitled “Origen, Man of the Church”) is a spirited defense of that claim, emphasizing that Origen’s life was characterized by a piety and orthodoxy where “the cross is the absolute symbol.”44 In several of de Lubac’s works he cited the words of Origen himself to emphasize this fact. As for myself, my wish is to be truly a man of the Church, to be called by the name of Christ and not that of any heresiarch, to have this name which is blessed all over the earth; I desire to be, and to be called, a Christian, in my works as in my thoughts.45

De Lubac culled Origen’s work and found reference upon reference to “the rule of the Scriptures,” “the preaching of the Church,” “the rule of the Church,” and “the mind and teaching of the Church” against which he constantly measured his theological writings.46 R. P. C. Hanson, in his study of Origen’s doctrine of tradition, described Origen’s understanding of the rule of faith as “the Christian faith as it was preached and taught in his day, and as it had been preached and taught ever since the time of the apostles.”47 Although, 41. English translation: Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007). 42. Musurillo, “The Recent Revival of Origen Studies,” 252. 43. Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his Theology of Henri de Lubac, hints that de Lubac’s concern for Origen’s orthodoxy parallels that of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was spared condemnation by Rome because of de Lubac’s work on his behalf. Theology of Henri de Lubac, trans. Joseph Fessio and Michael Waldstein (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 31. 44. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 102. 45. Origen, Homilies on Luke 16 (Origen, Homilies on Luke: Fragments on Luke, trans. Joseph Lienhard, FC 94). De Lubac quotes this passage in both History and Spirit (p. 68) and in his introduction to the Peri Archon (On First Principles, intro. by Henri de Lubac [Glouchester: Peter Smith, 1973], xiii). 46. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 68–76. 47. R. P. C. Hanson, Origen’s Doctrine of Tradition (London: SPCK, 1954), 113. Hanson, more than de Lubac and Daniélou, sees Origen as willing to go beyond the tradition, claiming, “Origen on several occasions puts forward opinions which he knows perfectly well are not those of the Church, but this does not prevent him from teaching them quite confidently. He did not want of course to abandon the Church’s rule of faith, but he was perfectly willing to improve upon it”; ibid., 111. See also G. Bardy, “La Règle de Foi d’Origène,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 9 (1919): 162–96; Albert C. Outler, “Origen and the Regulae Fidei,” Church History 8 (1939): 212–21.

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in content, identical to the Scriptures and “proved and demonstrated from the Bible,” the rule of faith was not for Origen identified with the Bible.48 The Bible must be properly read and understood, which is why the rule of faith is found in the church’s interpretation of Scripture, not in the heretics’ allegedly more enlightened reading, despite their claims to the contrary. It was this love for the church and her teachings, de Lubac noted, that marked Origen’s whole theological project. According to de Lubac, Origen’s “sense of the Church was in fact as warm as his sense of Christ. He had a habit of calling her [that is, the church] ‘Mother’ and in Christians he saw her ‘children.’”49 For Origen, to leave the “house” of the church, preferring instead one’s own invented doctrines, was to become a counterfeiter, a false prophet, and a liar—kissing Christ “with the kiss of Judas.”50 Even in his more speculative moments, de Lubac argued, Origen never intended to leave the church and tradition behind. It was de Lubac’s collaborator, Jean Daniélou, who recognized that “where the traditional teaching of the church was clearly defined he [that is, Origen] simply echoes it. . . . [On other points] Tradition had no clear teaching to offer, [and so] Origen . . . suggested a possible explanation where there was not traditional teaching to follow.”51 Where the rule of faith was defined, it could not be contradicted. This strong desire to constantly observe the rule of faith, to follow the tradition, and be an obedient child of the church, was not, according to de Lubac, the mark of an arch-heretic. For this reason he argued that Origen’s name could not justly be put alongside those who had made a conscious break with the church—intention did count for something. And yet de Lubac was aware that Origen’s deep concern for theological orthodoxy had long been overshadowed by the charges leveled against him and the legends that developed around his person. For this reason de Lubac tackled these legends head on, including the most damaging—Origen’s alleged apostasy and fall.

De Lubac and the Legend of the Fall In several of his works de Lubac addressed the legend, first popularized by Epiphanius of Salamis, that Origen had died an apostate.52 According to the story, Origen was asked to offer palm branches to idols, and although he re48. Hanson, Origen’s Doctrine of Tradition, 113. 49. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 71–72. 50. Ibid. 51. Jean Daniélou, Origen (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 313. 52. See J. Rebecca Lyman, “The Making of a Heretic: The Life of Origen in Epiphanius’ Panarion 64,” in Elizabeth Livingstone, ed., SP 21.7 (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 445–51.



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mained (at first) steadfast, he ultimately submitted when the authorities threatened that “he would be forced to submit to the violent fury of an Ethiopian.”53 Following his apostasy, Origen allegedly became a notorious heretic (because of his pride and vainglory), abandoning the teachings of the church of his own volition. Despite the many inconsistencies in the account, especially Epiphanius’s claim that Origen lived for many years after the Decian persecution (a fact that cannot be reconciled with the chronology of his life), for centuries its historicity was accepted without question. That this occurred can be explained, to some degree, by the fact that later generations often compared his case to that of Tertullian, who had written so brilliantly about the faith only to become a Montanist later in life. As early as Vincent of Lerins, Origen’s and Tertullian’s stories were paralleled, their “initial glory” contrasted with their “defection” in such a way that “an explicit link between the African and the Alexandrian” was made.54 The fact that Origen had been anathematized made it easy to believe that while he lived he had done something to deserve this kind of ecclesial condemnation. Even as late as St. Frances de Sales (d. 1622) the legend, and the comparison to Tertullian, remained very much alive: Origen, certainly, and Tertullian loved the purity of chastity so much that they violated its greatest rules of charity: the one having chosen to commit idolatry rather than suffer the horribly vile deed with which the tyrants wanted to defile his body; the other by separating himself from the most chaste Catholic Church, his mother, in order better to establish, as he wished, the chastity of his wife.55

De Lubac went to great lengths to show the absurdity of these legends, bringing forth not only the witness of admirers like Rufinus, but also later historians like Cesare Baronius, who believed the story of Epiphanius to be “only a fable, interpolated belatedly.”56 Some chose to accept the authenticity of the Paenitentia, a document allegedly written by Origen repenting his apostasy and asking for the forgiveness of the church. These scholars were willing to grant that Origen’s apostasy was temporary and committed only to protect his chastity, but de Lubac maintained that their acceptance of the Paenitentia merely “confirm(ed) a legend which malice or stupidity had given rise to in the first place.”57 53. Epiphanius, Panarion 64 (quoted in Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis 1, trans. Mark Sebanc [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998], 185). The (alleged) fact that Origen castrated himself added force to the argument that he would have preferred an act of apostasy to that of unchastity. 54. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis 1, 187–88. 55. De Lubac, “The Dispute in Modern Times,” 75. 56. Ibid., 76. 57. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis 1, 198.

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If Origen was neither an apostate nor a notorious heretic, and if he was (as he always claimed to be) a man of the church, then what of the case of Pico della Mirandola and the debate about Origen’s ultimate salvation? In 1486 della Mirandola had proposed nine hundred theses for debate, including the proposition that “it is more reasonable to believe Origen saved than to believe him damned.” The following year Pope Innocent VIII labeled this belief a heresy, including Origen (with the likes of Trajan, Pilate, and Judas Iscariot) among those whose damnation was all but assured.58 Although della Mirandola later renounced his “indiscreet opinions” under ecclesiastical pressure, he continued to reject the tale of Epiphanius, arguing that Origen ultimately died in communion with the church.59 As for the anathemas of 553, and the belief that these condemnations affected not only Origen’s teachings but the state of his eternal soul (that is, something akin to canonization in reverse), della Mirandola was clearly of the opinion that the church did not have the power “to damn and save souls,” this being “solely the affair of the One who is judge of the living and the dead.”60 De Lubac concurred, maintaining that Origen’s posthumous excommunication at the Council of Constantinople was (to say the least) problematic, and should have rightly restricted itself to condemning the teachings of “Origenism” rather than extending its wrath to their alleged creator. In the end, only God could determine Origen’s eternal fate, and de Lubac was among those who hoped that he would receive better treatment from the Deity than he received from posterity. Thus while de Lubac was not ready to speak (as M. Cottibi did as early as 1660) of “Saint Origen,” he was certainly willing to place him among the most important, and genuinely orthodox, writers of the Christian era. The witness of his life, once fact has been separated from legend, testified to the spiritual brilliance of the “man of adamantium” who lived and died as a son of the church.

De Lubac and Origen’s Spiritual Reading of the Scriptures Although genuinely concerned with Origen’s life and legacy, it was Origen’s exegetical method (“spiritual exegesis”) that became the focus of de Lubac’s study of the great Alexandrian. Of particular concern was to rescue Origen from the charge of “over allegorizing” the Scriptures, seeing in his spiritual 58. See Avery Dulles, Princeps Concordiae: Pico della Mirandola and the Scholastic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941). 59. Ibid., 62. The fact that he received burial at the cathedral in Tyre adds additional strength to this belief. 60. Ibid., 63.



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exegesis a corrective to modern biblical scholarship’s exclusive use of the historical critical method.61 Exegesis should be more than merely an intellectual exercise to be carried out within the confines of the academy. For de Lubac true exegesis “objectively, leads us to the realities of the spiritual life and . . . subjectively, can only be [its] fruit.”62 This is why Origen was a model for de Lubac, for as Andrew Louth has written, “Understanding scripture was not for Origen simply an academic exercise but a religious experience.”63 The working assumption for this spiritual reading of the Scriptures is that the Bible, as the Word of God, contains several levels of meanings (or “senses”) whereby one comes to understand not only the literal sense of a given passage, but its place in salvation history and its significance for the modern reader.64 The key, or hermeneutical principle, for coming to understand the Scriptures in this way is Christ himself, who is both the revealer and the revealed. And since the church is the place where Christ reveals himself, all exegesis (if it is to be validated) must take place within her. As Origen argued centuries ago, “To seek the ‘spiritual meaning’ of Scripture in order to draw nourishment from it is to use the Scripture in catholic fashion (verbum Dei catholice tractari). It is to receive the Word from Jesus’ hands and to have him read it to you. It is to act as ‘a son of the church.’”65 According to Susan Wood, de Lubac ultimately came to believe that Origen’s exegesis was the model of what good biblical scholarship should be—“always in fide catholica tractata, that is, interpreted within the Catholic faith . . . avoid[ing] both extrincicism and historicism . . . affirm[ing] the unity of theology and spirituality . . . [and] inseparable from the liturgy which is constructed to comment on the mysteries of Christ . . . who is both the object and mediator of revelation.”66 Once again, the rule of faith comes into play for Origen, demonstrating again that even in his allegedly fanciful allegorizing there was a grounding in the teaching and tradition of the church. 61. Charles Scalise, “Allegorical Flights of Fancy: Origen’s Exegesis,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 32, no. 1 (1987): 86. 62. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 446. 63. Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 64. 64. For de Lubac the tripartite and the quadripartite division of the senses differed only in number, not in content. While Origen relied on the tripartite distinction (history, tropology, allegory), Augustine and the Western fathers divided the senses into four (history/letter, allegory, tropology, anagogy), from which the famous distich was derived: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia. Henri de Lubac, “On the Old Distich: The Doctrine of the ‘Fourfold Sense’ in Scripture,” in Theological Fragments, trans. Rebecca Howell Balinski (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 110. 65. De Lubac, On First Principles, xv. 66. Susan Wood, Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 18–23.

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De Lubac was, however, very much aware of the historical claim that Origen exhibited a “loss of hermeneutical control” stemming from the “forced allegorization” of certain biblical texts.67 He was among the first to recognize that Origen may have, on occasion, gone too far in the search for spiritual meaning through the use of allegory, claiming that “a certain fervor of soul joined to an impetuous spirit launch[ed] him at times onto reckless paths.”68 Yet for de Lubac these occasional lapses did not invalidate his method as a whole, nor did it imply that Origen had ever forgotten the importance of the literal meaning of the Scriptures as his detractors had claimed. To some degree Origen opened himself up to this charge, writing in De principiis that “there are certain passages of Scripture in which this that we call the body, that is, the logical and literal meaning, is not found . . . and there are places where those meanings which we have called the soul and the spirit are alone to be looked for.”69 Yet to argue that Origen therefore neglects the literal meaning is simply untrue. Nothing is farther from the truth! “Who can doubt,” Origen himself remarked, “the reality of the account concerning Hagar and Sarah? The Apostle tells us, however, that these things are told allegorically and he presents them as figures of the two Testaments.”70

On the contrary, de Lubac reminded his readers that Origen himself wrote that “we defend both the letter and the spirit,” and that “the truth of history remains first.”71 In fact, de Lubac points out that Origen would have accepted the historicity of more of Scripture than most modern exegetes would ever be willing to grant.72 If, at times, he was willing to bypass the historicity of a statement because he believed the passage could only be understood figuratively, this was only to avoid placing obstacles to faith in the minds of his listeners.73 The entire third chapter of de Lubac’s Histoire et Esprit deals exclusively with the issue of the literal sense and its importance to Origen. According to de Lubac, Origen recognized that, essentially, “everything that occurred in sa67. Scalise, “Allegorical Flights of Fancy,” 86. 68. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 380. 69. Origen, Peri Archon 4.2 (Origen, On First Principles, 277–78). 70. Henri de Lubac, “Typology and Allegorization,” in Theological Fragments, 145. 71. Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis 2, trans. E. M. Macierowski (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), 45. 72. Henri de Lubac, “Hellenistic Allegory and Christian Allegory,” in Theological Fragments, 180. 73. To demonstrate this point Origen used the story of God walking in the Garden of Eden, the anthropomorphism of the passage seemingly at odds with the Christian understanding of divine transcendence. Origen, Peri Archon 4.3 (Origen, On First Principles, 288).



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cred history is, in a sense, a mystery” but that “this mysterious character of the Bible is not affirmed to the detriment of its historical character.”74 Rather than oppose the literal and the spiritual, de Lubac made the claim that, for Origen, history and spirit, far from being opposed in some sterilizing antagonism, are, on the contrary, essentially ordered to each other in an integral exegesis in which the search for the literal sense is the basis of the argumentative value of the sacred text while the spiritual sense develops the innumerable potentialities of the Word of God.75

De Lubac knew that, at times, Origen stressed the importance of the spiritual over the literal, but reminded his readers that this was largely because of Origen’s polemic against Judaism, which refused (in his opinion) to see anything but the literal sense therefore ignoring the (seemingly obvious) Christological intent of the Old Testament. What then of the charge, leveled by the Antiochenes and echoed throughout the centuries, that Origen’s use of allegory was forced, and that it moved from the more grounded typology used by Paul into the realm of the fantastic? To address this charge, de Lubac first distinguished allegory from the modern understanding of typology, and then Christian allegory from its pagan counterpart. He agreed with Daniélou’s claim that what set the Alexandrians apart “was not their typology but their allegorization,” although he maintained that this distinction was somewhat artificial.76 For example, while de Lubac found the category of typology (“a neologism, in use for scarcely a century”) to be “fortuitous,” he did not think it could be used constructively to distinguish (as many had done) the biblically grounded typology of Paul from the allegory favored by Origen.77 In fact, de Lubac points out that for Origen, “Saint Paul was . . . in the very practice of exegesis, the model.”78 As von Balthasar, summarizing de Lubac’s work on the subject, says: For Origen and the entire Middle Ages following him the guarantee for the fundamental distinction—between the literal and spiritual (or allegorical) sense is Paul. Hence however strongly pagan extra-biblical or Jewish philosophical influences may have played a part for Origen . . . the elements that originate here remain secondary. They are clearly subordinated to the biblical understanding and substantially Christianized.79 74. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 104. 75. De Lubac, At the Service of the Church, 287–88. 76. De Lubac, “Typology and Allegorization,” 129. 77. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 441. 78. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis 2, 7. 79. Von Balthasar, Theology of Henri de Lubac, 77.

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It is this “Christianizing” of allegory that de Lubac regarded as paramount for understanding Origen, because he never failed (unlike his pagan counterparts) to ground his interpretation in reality. For Origen that reality was Christ himself, who remained the hermeneutical key and the reference point for the allegorical understanding of the Scriptures. As de Lubac states: Origen’s intention was not just to contrast philosophy with philosophy, system with system. He was not presenting—against immaterial and impersonal doctrines which have their own appropriate method . . . another doctrine or another teaching of the same character with different contents. . . . It was a fact: the fact of Christ; it was this marvelous event whose reality inspired history and whose influence transfigured it.80

It is this faith in Christ, experienced through the church, that ultimately measured the validity of all biblical interpretation and kept it from drifting too far afield.81 While “many among Greeks and barbarians alike promise truth . . . that alone is to be believed as the truth which in no way conflicts with the tradition of the Church and the apostles.”82 This is why Christian exegesis required that its practitioner be a homo ecclesiae willing to view the Scripture from within the tradition and discern its deeper truths through the lens of the cross. According to de Lubac, this concern for the church’s rule of faith not only kept Origen from doing violence to Scripture’s meaning, but also explained why he felt the need to resort to allegory in the first place. He wrote: Concern for orthodoxy and devotion to the faith, love for the “dogmas of the truth” are precisely among the reasons for Origen’s allegorism. One of his goals is to shut Pharaoh’s mouth with an explication of Scriptures that “conforms to sound doctrine.”83

Now if Origen’s allegorical interpretation did, on occasion, go too far (as de Lubac himself recognized) this did not mean that he had forsaken tradition in order to follow the example of the pagans. Rather, when we encounter interpretations that seem to us (as they did to de Lubac) “arbitrary” or “strange,” we 80. De Lubac, “Hellenistic Allegory and Christian Allegory,” 191. 81. Some, like Hanson, have taken issue with de Lubac’s claim that Origen and the fathers had a “sort of natural sympathy with the Scriptures which our faith can only recover with difficulty.” Thus their “principle of faith” used to judge the validity of certain allegories can (and often does) fall into error. R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origen’s Interpretation of Scripture (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 257. 82. Origen, Peri Archon 1.Preface (Origen, On First Principles, 2). 83. De Lubac, On First Principles, xiv.



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should be more ready to “emphasize their arbitrariness rather than denounce their inspiration.”84 For in the end it was not a failure of “spiritual exegesis” as a method that is demonstrated by these exaggerations, or even the failure of Origen the theologian, but the growing pains of Christian theology in the making. As de Lubac wrote: For Origen professes to be above all a faithful interpreter of the Scriptures, such as the Christian tradition, to which he adheres with all his being, understands them. The success of this undertaking can only be mixed. The synthesis obtained is not perfect; it is not difficult to note errors, incoherencies, awkwardness, views that are still confused, as well as brief beginnings of long developments to come. But these faults themselves, as manifest as they may be, as serious as one judges them, can be well understood only if one perceives, in its clarity and in its vigor, the dominant thought of this extraordinary genius.85

Conclusion The twentieth-century rehabilitation of Origen undertaken by de Lubac was, by most standards, a remarkable success. At the present time few (if any) still give credence to the legend of his fall, or to the belief that Origen (like Tertullian) made a conscious break with the universal church. In April 2007 Pope Benedict XVI dedicated one of his Wednesday audiences to the life and legacy of Origen, calling him “one of the most remarkable of . . . the great figures of the early Church,” “a true maestro,” “a brilliant theologian,” “a great master of faith,” and “an exemplary witness of the doctrine he passed on.”86 Even in the Orthodox world, where the condemnations of 553 have always carried more weight, reevaluation of Origen’s many contributions to Eastern theology have given some (albeit few) theologians and hierarchs reason to consider the rehabilitation of his legacy.87 Concerning Origen’s reading of Scripture, many scholars, despairing what they call the “atheistic methodology” of modern biblical studies, have echoed de Lubac’s call for a renewed appreciation of spiritual exegesis as practiced by Origen and the Fathers.88 In the last decade alone two separate series (Ancient 84. De Lubac, “Typology and Allegorization,” 159. 85. Henri de Lubac, “Origenian Transposition,” in Theology in History, 35. 86. Pope Benedict XVI, The Fathers (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 2008), 35. 87. Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev was particularly influenced by Origen, and more recently Edward Moore offered a spirited call for Origen’s rehabilitation in the Orthodox world (“Evagrius Ponticus and the Condemnation of Origen” Theandros, 2, no. 3 [2005]: www .theandros.com/evagrius.html). 88. Brian Daley, “Is Patristic Exegesis Still Usable?: Reflections on the Early Christian

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Christian Commentary on Scripture, and The Church’s Bible) have appeared, each dedicated to offering patristic commentaries on the biblical texts. English translations of Origen’s works, especially his exegetical texts, have proliferated in recent years, with his writings appearing in a number of series dedicated to patristic authors (Popular Patristics, Early Church Fathers, Ancient Christian Writers, and Fathers of the Church).89 However, even while recognizing his great intellect, sanctity, and desire to remain a man of the church, it must be admitted that there are elements in Origen’s writings that are clearly unorthodox by post-Nicene standards. John Meyendorff, who acknowledged Origen as the “real founder of Greek Christian theology,”90 nevertheless argued that the condemnations of Origenism did indeed engulf the Alexandrian master himself.91 The question, asked throughout the centuries, and often answered quite differently, is whether these errors outweigh Origen’s many contributions, pushing him beyond that invisible line that separates a “father who erred” from a manifest heretic. How seriously should the church consider intention—that is, does Origen’s desire to remain a man of the church mean anything in how we approach his life and legacy today? If Origen never consciously violated the rule of faith, and used that rule to guide everything he did, should he be excluded from the company of the saints because the church later judged some of his positions to be at odds with the faith? If he stands condemned for teaching apocatastasis, why not Gregory of Nyssa? If Origen was a heretic, why are so many of his admirers (Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus) ranked among the church’s greatest teachers and saints?92 It seems that the final word on Origen’s place among the Fathers (if any) has yet to be written, testament to the fact that the boundaries of orthodoxy are constantly in need of revision and (occasionally) redefinition. The rule of faith may be set, but, as was said at the beginning, applying this rule to indiInterpretation of the Psalms,” Communio 29 (Spring 2002): 185–216. Reprinted in Ellen Davis and Richard Hays, eds., The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 69–88. 89. For a list of Origen’s work in English translation, see McGuckin, Westminister Handbook, 43–44. 90. John Meyendorff, Catholicity and the Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983), 34. 91. “If Origen as exegete and mystic is not implicated in the sixth century condemnations, the same is not true of Origen as theologian.” John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), 49. 92. Eileen McGuckin has written an icon entitled “Origen Teaching the Saints,” which shows Origen (conspicuously without a halo, but raised high on the pulpit) surrounded by dozens of his “students,” including Gregory Thaumaturgus, Macrina, Gregory Nazianzus, and Maximus the Confessor.



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viduals has not always been so easy. More than a few saints have required posthumous rehabilitation—John Chrysostom and Maximus the Confessor both died in exile, each (coincidentally) having been accused at their trials of being an Origenist.93 While it may have taken more time for Origen’s reputation to overcome the condemnations of 553 and the legends surrounding his apostasy, as Jaroslav Pelikan noted, “For the past two centuries or so the polemic of the heresiologists has been giving way.” The day may never come when Christians invoke the prayers of St. Origen of Alexandria, but thanks in large part to the work of Henri de Lubac and others, “it would not be going too far to say that for many in the twentieth century he has (already) become, more so even than Jerome, the patron saint of Christian theological scholarship.”94 93. Although the Syriac Life called him a “wicked Origenist” and some have spoken about an “Origenist crisis” in Maximus’s theology, Maximus responded to the accusation of Origenism at his first trial by hurling his own private anathema at the long-dead Alexandrian. See Maximus the Confessor, Relatio Motionis 5 (Pauline Allen, ed., Maximus the Confessor and His Companions: Documents from Exile [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002], 58). As for Chrysostom, his alleged advocacy of Origenism stemmed from his involvement in “the Affair of the Long Brothers.” See J. N. D. Kelly, Goldenmouth (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 191–202. 94. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Melody of Theology: A Philosophical Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), 182.

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16  Erasmus’s Edition of Origen It is an honor for me to contribute to the Festschrift for Father Joseph Lienhard. Although I am not an alumnus of Fordham University, I am personally grateful to him for the mentoring he has provided to me at my own request. I first became acquainted with him through the North American Patristics Society. Father Lienhard has given me incisive scholarly criticism and feedback both on my dissertation and on my translation projects and introductions. His advice has included memorable one-liners that have significantly affected my approach. I cherish this man as a Christian gentleman and a scholar who combines erudition and wit with orthodoxy and piety. This essay will be a dry run of what hopefully will become the introduction to my new translation of this prefatory material in a forthcoming volume of the Collected Works of Erasmus, volume 62. I will endeavor to describe Erasmus’s Edition of Origen (1536).1 Along the way I will try to relate the content of Erasmus’s edition of Origen to the theme of this Festschrift, namely “tradition and the rule of faith.” I believe that these precise motifs are embedded in the documents in question. Before I proceed to Erasmus’s edition, however, I want to articulate some of the ways in which it appears to me Joseph Lienhard resembles Erasmus of Rotterdam. Both men were faithful priests who were endowed with admirable literary, theological, and philological gifts. Both scholars maintained strong connections to Oxford University. Both Lienhard and Erasmus spent their lives deeply engaged in patristic scholarship. They passed the torch of their learning to their students, who carried that legacy into the next generation and made significant advancements. Both men were translators and editors of both the Greek and Latin writings of the Church Fathers. Both were admirers in particular of Origen’s hermeneutical and homiletical 1. (Basel: Froben, 1536); LB (= Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omnia, ed. J. Leclerc [Leiden, 1703–6], repr. Hildesheim, 1961–62, 10 vols.) 8: 425–40.

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method and published written defenses of the ancient Alexandrian theologian as an outstanding teacher of the Catholic Church who made a significant contribution to the Church’s exegetical tradition; yet neither Erasmus nor Lienhard were uncritical of the excesses and inadequacies found in Origen’s work. In parallel fashion both Lienhard and Erasmus were acutely interested in actualizing the Church’s ancient exegetical tradition and in giving it a voice in the contemporary Church by enabling students to read and engage it. And both men were characterized by holiness and a firm adherence to the Church’s rule of faith. Last but not least, both men were rather well known for their wry and satirical sense of humor! Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) was a very important Roman Catholic spiritual writer, theologian, and scriptural exegete in the sixteenth century whose skills as a patristic scholar were perhaps five centuries ahead of his time. J. O’Malley, in the introduction to his new translation of Erasmus’s Enchiridion, wrote of Erasmus’s expertise in the writings of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers: “His knowledge of them staggers us even today, and his editions of their works represent a watershed in the history of patristic studies.”2 In spite of this commendation, to my knowledge Erasmus’s editions of the Fathers have never been the subject of a modern dissertation in the English language.3 Ordained a priest in 1492, Erasmus received his doctorate in theology from the University of Turin (Italy) in 1507.4 Through his scholarly writings Erasmus energetically advocated a coherent program for renewing and purifying the Catholic Church and the academic discipline of theology.5 Erasmus 2. CWE 66: xxvii. 3. The prefaces to Erasmus’s edition of St. Jerome’s works have been translated in a modern edition by John C. Olin and J. Brady, CWE 61: The Edition of St. Jerome. See also the helpful article by W. Lackner, “Erasmus von Rotterdam als Editor und Übersetzer des Johannes Chrysostomos,” Jahrbuch der Oesterreichischen Byzantinistik 37 (1987): 293–311. 4. The best general modern biography of Erasmus is by L. Halkin, Erasmus: A Critical Biography, trans. John Tonkin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). Halkin, however, gives little attention to Erasmus’s patristic editions or to his anti-Protestant works (Hyperaspistes), both of which Erasmus himself understood as fundamental aspects of his life work. J. Olin, ed., Erasmus: Christian Humanism and the Reformation (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987) is an excellent brief introduction to Erasmus, as is R. DeMolen, The Spirituality of Erasmus of Rotterdam (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1978). Also valuable and accurate is J. K. McConica, Erasmus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Still indispensable are the older studies by H. de Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale: Les Quatre Sense de L’Ecriture, Second Part (Paris: Aubier, 1964), vol. 4, 427–87, and L. Bouyer, Erasmus and His Times, trans. Francis X. Murphy (London: Newman Press, 1959), both of which emphasize the importance of Erasmus’s patristic scholarship for any adequate assessment of him. 5. The most concise statement of that program is articulated in his Ratio verae theologiae (1518), which is available in English translation in D. M. Conroy, “The Ecumenical Theology

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firmly believed that theology could only be built on the basis of a philologicohistorical study of the New Testament. Thus his approach to theology set him in opposition to the schools of theology in his age in which logic was taken as the foundation of theology. He opposed the strongly intellectualist character of the contemporary schools and endeavored to make theology more historically and philologically grounded.6 To this end Erasmus promoted the intensive study of Scripture in its original languages, along with the extensive engagement of the writings of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers. From his early youth until the day of his death, Erasmus was accompanied by the writings of the canonized doctors and revered teachers of the ancient Church, works which Church authority recognized as erudite and orthodox, and men whose lives had been characterized by sanctity. The learning and holiness of the Church Fathers and the superiority of their writings over those of the medieval period were so obvious to Erasmus that he was deeply tormented by the loss of so many of their works. He wrote, “I can scarcely refrain from tears as I read the lists of ancient authors and see what wealth we have lost. My grief increases when I compare the quality of our losses with what we now commonly read.”7 Proof of the sincerity and seriousness of Erasmus’s devotion to the Church Fathers is seen in what is perhaps his most staggering scholarly achievement: twelve published critical editions of the writings of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers. With the assistance of a team of collaborators, Erasmus published editions of the writings of Jerome (1516), Cyprian (1520), Arnobius (1522), Hilary (1523), John Chrysostom (1525), Irenaeus (1526), Athanasius (1527), Ambrose (1527), Augustine (1529), Gregory of Nazianzus (1531), Basil (1532), and Origen (1536).8 All these editions contained scholarly prefaces, written in elegant Latin, in which the subject’s life and works were thoroughly introduced and the spurious writings were identified. The editions of the Greek Fathers contained Erasmus’s own lengthy original Latin translations of selected works, or translations done by his colleagues. Volume 8 of Erasmus’s Opera Omnia (LB) comprises his translations (into Latin) of the writings of the Greek Fathers Origen, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and of Erasmus of Rotterdam: A Study of the Ratio Verae Theologiae,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1974). Bouyer, Erasmus and His Times, is focused on analyzing this work of Erasmus. 6. Cf. C. J. De Vogel, “Erasmus and Church Dogma,” in Scrinium Erasmianum, ed. J. Coppens, vol. 2, 101–32 (103) (Leiden: Brill, 1969). 7. Ep. 676.32–35 (CWE); Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterdami, 11 vols., ed. P. S. Allen, H. M. Allen, and H. W. Garrod (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1906–47), 3.99. 8. For a brief discussion of each see Jan den Boeft, “Erasmus and the Church Fathers,” in The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists, 2 vols., ed. I. Backus, 537–72 (Leiden: Brill, 1997).



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Basil of Caesarea. By means of these editions, Erasmus and his fellow reformminded Catholic theologians were endeavoring to help the Catholic Church breathe with both its lungs, so to speak, both the East and the West, and to repristinate theology by returning it to its sources. The magnitude of Erasmus’s pioneering achievement has scarcely been measured or adequately appreciated even to the present day. Whole books on Erasmus have been written without any mention of this central aspect of his life work.9 On the other hand, others have quite accurately described Erasmus as “the great patrologist of the age.”10 Before I introduce Erasmus’s edition of Origen’s writings, I want to address two common misconceptions about Erasmus’s program for theological renewal. First, Erasmus’s theological program did not entail the complete rejection of scholastic theology or disdain for its great figures. This idea was a false inference drawn by his enemies from the fact that he criticized abuses.11 When accused by a hostile critic of being an opponent of scholasticism, Erasmus replied: No devout person disparages scholastic theology. Rather the personalities of certain people and their meddlesome questions are held up for criticism. One hundred years ago John Gerson complained that theology had been reduced to sophistry. What would he say if he were alive now?12

Far from repudiating the great figures of the scholastic period, Erasmus criticized the excesses into which contemporary (fifteenth–sixteenth century) practitioners of scholastic theology had fallen. In his Methodus, or Ratio verae theologiae, he clarifies this:

9. J. Olin, Six Essays on Erasmus (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 35, was right to criticize the way major Protestant biographers of Erasmus, P. Smith and A. Huizinga, virtually bypass any discussion of Erasmus’s patristic editions. The Catholic church historian Joseph Lortz is even more unjust to Erasmus in Joseph Lortz, The Reformation in Germany, 2 vols., trans. Ronald Walls (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968) 1: 144–51. His slanderous portrait of Erasmus is largely derived from Huizinga and has been forcefully refuted by C. J. De Vogel, “Erasmus and Church Dogma.” On Lortz’s dubious career and character, see Robert Krieg, Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany (New York: Continuum, 2004), 56–82; M. B. Lukens, “Joseph Lortz and a Catholic Accommodation with National Socialism,” in Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust, ed. R. P. Ericksen and S. Heschel, 149–68 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999). 10. M. Schulze, “Martin Luther and the Church Fathers,” in Backus, ed., The Reception of the Church Fathers, 2: 625. 11. J. W. O’Malley, Four Cultures of the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 26, claims that Erasmus “despised Scholastic learning.” This is not true. He criticized excesses and abuses in the use of the method. 12. Apology against Alberto Pio, 375 (CWE 84).

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Indeed, let no one interpret what we have said as intending by this to condemn entirely those who have left us nothing except questions or to disapprove of scholastic disputations from which the truth is quite often elicited not differently than when fire is produced from the collision of flintstones. Rather we only request moderation and discretion in these debates. Moderation will cause one not to inquire into everything; discretion will cause one not to investigate anything he may choose. On the other hand, much worthwhile reading is also contained in the books of the modern authors, but these should be dipped into moderately, according to one’s age, and dealt with soberly and chastely.13

Erasmus goes on to say that scholastic theological methods were completely unknown among theologians at one time. These methods were gradually introduced and grew in size. But at the present time (1518) they have already begun in some academies to be considered more sparingly and moderately, as, for instance, among the Britons at Cambridge and among the Brabants at Louvain. The reform of theology at Cambridge University alluded to here was the work of its chancellor, John Fisher.14 Erasmus adds: “These studies do not, for that reason, flourish in a lesser degree; rather, they flourish more authentically.” To assist all theologians to flourish more authentically, including practitioners of scholastic methods, was Erasmus’s aim. Erasmus wrote elsewhere of his general standpoint: I exhorted the theologians that, leaving aside their little questions which have more of ostentation than of piety, they should betake themselves to the very sources [ fontes] of the Scriptures and to the ancient Fathers of the Church. Moreover, I did not wish that scholastic theology should be abolished, but that it should be purer and more serious. That, unless I am mistaken, is to support, not to hurt it.15

Notice how Erasmus’s criticism of scholasticism is directed against the immoderation of some contemporary practitioners of scholastic method, and not against the originators of the method themselves. In his New Testament Annotations, Erasmus praised St. Thomas Aquinas as “a man whose greatness has stood the test of time: unrivaled for carefulness, sane wisdom, wide learning, sanctity—and the skilful use of the resources available to him in his day.”16 13. Erasmus’s Ratio verae theologiae, in Conroy, “The Ecumenical Theology of Erasmus,” 361–62. 14. Cf. R. Rex, The Theology of John Fisher (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 13–29. 15. Ep. 2136 to L. Baer, 30 March 1529 (Allen 8.120–21). 16. Cited in H. C. Porter, “Fisher and Erasmus,” in Humanism, Reform and the Reformation: The Career of Bishop John Fisher, ed. B. Bradshaw and E. Duffy, 81–101, esp. 91 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).



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Erasmus cites Aquinas far more frequently than John Fisher did in any of his published writings. To cite a writer frequently in one’s own works is a way of showing respect and even reverence. The second common misconception is that Erasmus was an isolated and aloof figure, a Catholic sui generis, who held radical views respecting Origen. Melanchthon polemically described Erasmus as a “sworn adherent of Origen’s philosophy”; and Melanchthon’s modern apologist T. Wengert claims that Erasmus was Origen’s “most avid 16th century supporter.”17 The truth is that Erasmus was moderate in his support of Origen; he was by no means an isolated figure, nor was he himself the initiator of the program of patristic resourcement. Instead he was an active member of a small group of men who advanced the cause of learning in the German world, taking Italy as their model.18 The rebirth of ancient literary culture and patristic scholarship was in full stride when Erasmus was reaching his intellectual maturity. To illustrate this it will be helpful to review some of the peak moments of the “Origen renaissance” of this epoch. The first printed edition of a work of Origen appeared in 1481, a Latin translation of Origen’s Contra Celsum by Cristoforo Persona (1416– 85). This was the first Latin translation of a Greek work of Origen since antiquity and was dedicated to Pope Sixtus IV.19 It made accessible to the Latinspeaking West one of the most important Christian apologetic texts from antiquity. Persona’s translation was reprinted in Venice in 1514 and became established in the north through the Merlin (Paris, 1512) and Erasmus (Basel, 1536) editions. Origen’s virtues had been praised in a famous defense of him by the Italian philosopher Pico della Mirandola (1433–99).20 In 1503 the Italian printer Aldus Manutius (1452–1515) published an edition of Origen’s Homilies on the Heptateuch in Venice. This edition was dedicated to Giles of Viterbo (d. 1532), who later became a cardinal. It contained a preface that is lavish in its praise of Origen, written by the future cardinal Jerome Aleander (d. 1542).21 In 1506 a monk named Theophilus Salodianus published an edition of Origen’s lengthy Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Venice). These Italian editions of Origen’s writings paved the way for the complete four-volume edition of Ori17. Cf. T. Wengert, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness: Philip Melanchthon’s Exegetical Dispute with Erasmus of Rotterdam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 59. 18. See Istvan Bejczy, Erasmus and the Middle Ages: The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 19. See T. Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 159. 20. See ibid., 159–61. 21. See ibid., 162–63.

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gen’s Latin works published in Paris in 1512 by Jacques Merlin (1470?–1541). Merlin, who was assisted by Josse Bade and John Parvus, dedicated his edition to Bishop Michael Boudet. Its prefatory material contained a spirited apology for Origen in which the young doctor of theology Merlin vigorously defended the orthodoxy of Origen against all detractors.22 Erasmus’s edition of Origen’s writings owed a great deal to the work of these important predecessors. This publication was not merely Erasmus’s last edition of a Church Father but his very last work.23 It was published posthumously in September 1536 by the Froben Press, two months after Erasmus’s death in Basel on 12 July 1536. The edition comprised two volumes and was entitled: All the extant works of Origen Adamantius, the outstanding interpreter of the Scriptures, works which have been partly translated and partly diligently examined for authenticity by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, with a preface covering his life, style of speaking, manner of teaching, and his works, with the addition of a dedicatory epistle by Beatus Rhenanus, the greater part of which contains information concerning what is known about the life and death of Erasmus himself, and a very detailed index.24

The 1536 edition incorporates Erasmus’s previously published translation of the substantial fragments that survive from Origen’s Commentary on Matthew, which in their entirety comprise Origen’s fourth longest extant work (PG 13: 835–1600).25 Erasmus’s translation, however, covers only the material found in PG 13: 835–1015.26 That earlier translation was accompanied by a dedicatory letter addressed to Nicholas of Diesbach and dated 6 July 1527.27 Erasmus withdrew this dedication from the 1536 edition, almost certainly because he disapproved Diesbach’s sympathetic attitude toward the Reformation.28 22. See ibid., 165–68. 23. The Latin text of Erasmus’s edition is available in LB 8: 425–40. 24. Origenis Adamantii eximii scriptuarum interpretis opera, quae quidem extant omnia, per Des. Erasmum Roterodamum, partim versa, partim vigilanter recognita, cum praefatione de Vita, Phrasi, Docendi ratione, et Operibus illius, adiectis epistola Beati Rhenani nuncupatoria, quae pleraque de vita obituque ipsius Erasmi cognitu dicta continet, et indice copiosissimo. 25. See the chart showing the length of Origen’s extant works in Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification, 1–2. 26. LB 8: 439–84, which corresponds to ANF 10.414–59. Origen’s commentary on Mt 13:36–22:33 survives in Greek. From 12.9 (Mt 16:13) onwards a Latin translation presumably made in the sixth century, has also been transmitted which continues to almost the end of 25 (Mt 27:63). See McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook to Origen (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004), 30. 27. Allen, Ep. 1844. 28. Cf. Allen, Ep. 1844.



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For the text of Origen’s writings Erasmus’s 1536 edition incorporates the Latin texts of his predecessors, above all the Aldine (Aldus Manutius) edition of Origen’s Homilies on the Heptateuch (Venice, 1503) and Jacques Merlin’s four-volume edition of Origen’s complete Latin works (Paris, 1512).29 Erasmus’s prefaces differ, however, from those found in these editions in many important respects. For example, Erasmus mercilessly and unjustly censures Origen’s translator Rufinus of Aquileia, whereas Merlin had spoken respectfully of him. Moreover Erasmus does not attempt to present Origen as totally orthodox, as did Merlin, who even appended what became a controversial apology for Origen to his edition. Nor does Erasmus even discuss the question of Origen’s orthodoxy in his prefaces. Erasmus assumes that his readers are familiar with Origen’s errors, which were well known and are discussed in St. Augustine’s City of God 11.23, 21.17, and De haeresibus 42–43. According to Erasmus, Origen’s errors trace to his Platonic philosophy.30 Instead of an apology for Origen or a discussion of Origen’s errors, Erasmus includes a “Life of Origen” and essays on Origen’s education, written works, style of preaching and teaching, and a section in which he assesses the authenticity of certain works. Erasmus limits his discussion of Origen’s works to those which survive in Latin translation. He is particularly concerned to discuss the matter of their authenticity and of the correct identity of the Latin translator, whenever these issues are in dispute.31 To be sure, Erasmus’s essays about Origen, like Aleander’s and Merlin’s, display a deep sympathy for the man, as a pious churchman and an “outstanding doctor of the Catholic Church,” whose life, scholarship, and service to the Church are worthy of emulation. In Origen, Erasmus observes the same combination of literary erudition and sanctity of life that he also found in the other Fathers of the Church.32 He found these same qualities in a few of the great men of his generation, such as John Reuchlin, Thomas More, John Colet, John Fisher, and above all Jean Vitrier, and he uses similar language to describe them all.33

29. For a discussion of these editions, see Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification, 165–68; J. den Boeft, “Erasmus and the Church Fathers,” 567–70; M. Schär, Das Nachleben des Origenes im Zeitalter des Humanismus (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1979), 191–207. 30. Cf. Erasmus, In psalmum 38, LB 5: 432B–435B. 31. For example, Erasmus does not treat Origen’s De Principiis, Homilies on Ezekiel and Homilies on Numbers in this section. There was no controversy about the identity of the Latin translators of these works: De Principiis and the Homilies on Numbers are by Rufinus, and the Homilies on Ezekiel are by Jerome. 32. Cf. Boeft, “Erasmus and the Church Fathers,” 537. 33. Cf. Godin, Erasme lecteur d’Origène (Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1982), 667–74.

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Erasmus understood his own life work to be centered upon the task of writing about holiness and holy men and women. In 1489, at the age of twentythree, while he was still in the monastery at Steyn, Erasmus decided for the future “to write nothing which does not breathe the atmosphere either of praise of holy men or of holiness itself.”34 Forty years later, in the Ciceronianus (1529), he reiterated this ambition and declared that “the purpose of studying the basic disciplines, of studying philosophy, of studying eloquence, is to know Christ, to celebrate the glory of Christ. This is the goal of all learning and all eloquence.”35 To write about and praise holiness and holy men and women is to celebrate Christ’s glory, since Christ is the source of grace. Erasmus’s Life of Origen is an example of this kind of writing.36 Erasmus’s account of Origen’s life is based chiefly on Rufinus of Aquileia’s Latin translation of Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica (HE) 6. Boeft suggests that in all probability Erasmus used the edition of Rufinus’s Latin translation of Eusebius’s HE that had been incorporated in Beatus Rhenanus’s edition of the Auctores historiae ecclesiasticae (Basel: Froben, 1523).37 Godin confirms that Erasmus’s Life and Rufinus’s translation of Eusebius’s HE have so many lexical and stylistic points of contact that the possibility of Erasmus’s direct utilization of Eusebius’s original Greek is formally excluded.38 To base his life of Origen on this source was a wise move, for Eusebius’s work is in fact the best primary source for Origen. This owes in part to Eusebius’s basic skills as a historian.39 Eusebius (260–339), bishop of Caesarea, was born only a few years af34. Cf. Ep. 28. 35. CWE 28.447. 36. See R. DeMolen, “The Interior Erasmus,” in Leaders of the Reformation, ed. Richard L. DeMolen, 11–42 (London: Associated University Press, 1984). 37. Boeft, “Erasmus and the Church Fathers,” 569. See also John F. Amico, “Beatus Rhenanus, Tertullian and the Reformation: A Humanist’s Critique of Scholasticism,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 71 (1980): 37–60. 38. Godin, Erasme lecteur d’Origène, 632. 39. P. Nautin, Origène, sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), has challenged the historical reliability of Eusebius on a massive scale. He attempts first to deconstruct Eusebius by identifying and evaluating his sources, and then to reconstruct Origen’s life based upon the new conjectures, rather than on Eusebius’s account. Nautin’s work has been favorably received by some scholars including J. Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the ThirdCentury Church (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983), 23, who describes it as epoch-making, a breakthrough parallel with the “advance” made over previous New Testament scholars by Bultmann and Dibelius when they applied form criticism to the gospels. On the other hand, Crouzel, Origen (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), 1–2, is far more cautious and argues that Nautin’s criticisms of Eusebius and his alternative reconstructions would be better if their hypothetical and debatable character were acknowledged.



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ter Origen’s death in 254 and was the warden of Origen’s then extant library in Caesarea. He had access to over a hundred letters of Origen comprising nine volumes, all but two of which have subsequently perished.40 Additionally, Eusebius knew men who had known Origen, and he interviewed them personally. He states: “The facts here set forth are drawn from some of his letters and from the recollections of those of his friends who have lived on till my own time.”41 In spite of Nautin’s attempt to debunk this statement, Eusebius’s testimony speaks for itself.42 It is true that Eusebius was by his own admission an ardent admirer and defender of Origen. He had collaborated with the martyr Pamphilus in writing an Apology for Origen.43 His defensiveness undoubtedly taints his objectivity in some respects, and HE 6 does at times read like hagiography. Indeed everything Eusebius has preserved deserves to be weighed carefully and read with a critical eye. Yet the fact that Eusebius openly acknowledges his admiration of Origen and does not refrain from recording discreditable facts about Origen, such as his self-castration, is to his credit. At the least we can say that Erasmus’s decision to depend as closely as possible on Eusebius’s account for his Life of Origen was a fortunate one and adds to the value of this biography as a historical narrative.

Rufinus’s Latin Translation of Eusebius Rufinus’s Latin translation of Eusebius’s HE contains expansions and clarifications that have been added by Rufinus’s hand into the body of his translation. For the most part they were drawn from his own firsthand knowledge of Origen’s works and other trustworthy documents.44 Rufinus supplied this additional material especially in HE 6, which is the chapter that concerns Origen. Significantly, in almost every instance he has added accurate and illuminating historical information that can be confirmed from outside sources. Rufinus knew Origen’s writings well, including his now-lost Epistles, to which Eusebius had also had full access. He was also acquainted with the complete text of the Apology of Origen, written by Eusebius and Pamphilus, of which his 40. Cf. Eusebius, HE 6.36.3. The surviving letters are those to Julius Africanus and to Gregory Thaumaturgus (PG 11: 47–92). 41. HE 6.2.1, tr. Williamson. 42. Nautin, Origène, sa vie et son oeuvre, 20–21. 43. Cf. Eusebius, HE 6.36.4. See my forthcoming translation, Pamphilus: Apology for Origen, Fathers of the Church 120 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press). 44. Cf. J. Oulton, “Rufinus’s Translation of the Church History of Eusebius,” JTS 30 (1929): 150–74.

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Latin translation preserves for us only the first book. A priori we should expect that Rufinus had independent knowledge of some of the facts that Eusebius recounts concerning Origen, especially since he had lived for many years in Egypt and Palestine. Some modern scholars have made severely negative judgments about Rufinus’s methods as a translator. While his general reliability is granted, Rufinus is often judged according to the criteria of modern literary criticism. This is not completely fair to Rufinus, who was an ancient, not modern, translator, and who was not attempting to supplant the original Greek text of Eusebius’s HE, but to make a translation of it that would be edifying and easily comprehensible to his readers.45 In order to do this, he regarded it as essential to fill in details and clear up obscurities, wherever they were found, by means of additional information derived from his own knowledge of the events and sources. The following are some examples of Rufinus’s translation procedure. Eusebius’s HE contains Greek translations from Tertullian’s (Latin) Apology. When rendering these into Latin, Rufinus supplies Tertullian’s original Latin text directly. He does not back-translate Eusebius’s Greek rendering of Tertullian. Similarly, Rufinus renders Eusebius’s biblical citations according to the Old Latin version (the Latin translation of the LXX), which was the version of the Bible in use in Rufinus’s churches. (He follows this same procedure in his translation of Origen’s Commentary on Romans as well). He does not create a new Latin translation of Eusebius’s biblical quotations. Such decisions were made, obviously, to save work for the translator. These particular instances are difficult to reprehend when judged by either ancient or modern standards. Of greater moment, however, was Rufinus’s decision to interpolate material into his author for the sake of clarification and to make additions that are not found in the original Greek text. Even in this, however, Rufinus’s method did not necessarily violate the literary canons of antiquity, especially since he clearly announced his procedure in his prefaces.46 His translation procedure was scarcely different from that which Jerome employed in his translation of Eusebius’s Chronicle.47 Yet Rufinus’s methods frustrate modern textual critics who are attempting to reconstruct the original Greek text of Eusebius. For that task, Rufinus’s translation is not very helpful. Hence, Mommsen states 45. For a recent reassessment of Rufinus’s aims, see M. Humphries, “Rufinus’s Eusebius: Translation, Continuation, and Edition in the Latin Ecclesiastical History,” JECS 16, no. 2 (2008): 143–64. 46. Cf. F. X. Murphy, Rufinus of Aquileia (345–411): His Life and Works (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1945); M. M. Wagner, Rufinus the Translator (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1945). 47. Cf. M. Humphries, “Rufinus’s Eusebius,” 163–64.



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that the value of Rufinus’s translation is low.48 Both he and Oulton accused Rufinus of arbitrariness.49 In the particular case of translating Eusebius’s HE, Rufinus informs us that he had been asked by Chromatius, bishop of Aquileia, to translate this work as a means of providing comfort and encouragement to Italian Christians when in 401 the armies of Alaric, commander of the Goths, broke into Italy and were wreaking havoc up and down the Italian countryside. Chromatius hoped that human minds would find relief and comfort in the stories of the sufferings of the early Christians.50 Rufinus’s stated translation aim was thus the edification and comfort of believers. To reach that goal he deemed it necessary to supply additional material from reliable sources that would clarify and supplement Eusebius’s narrative. Whereas modern translators tend to use footnotes to introduce such clarifications, in antiquity it was not uncommon to introduce such material directly into the translation. Oulton has shown that, in some cases, Rufinus had knowledge of facts that enabled him to distinguish and clarify what Eusebius had confused; in others, he had recourse to original documents; and not seldom Rufinus draws upon firsthand sources of knowledge of the subject in question. Oulton asserts that Rufinus’s additions deserve more weight and consideration than they have hitherto received, even in cases when he is the sole witness to something.51 Erasmus’s dependence on Rufinus’s translation explains why his Life of Origen is not always explicable on the basis of Eusebius’s Greek text alone. Erasmus appears not to have consulted Eusebius’s Greek original, and therefore he was not aware of the times when he was relying upon Rufinus’s modifications and additions.

Themes of Erasmus’s Life of Origen Erasmus’s Life of Origen is in some respects a self-portrait. He calls attention to those aspects of Origen’s life and career that he thinks are most worthy of emulation by his contemporaries. He presents Origen as a heroic and learned saint and the embodiment of his own Catholic reform ideals. Erasmus singles out qualities of Origen that he had praised in other Fathers as well. Thus his brief biography of Origen reflects his own experiences and idiosyncrasies. What Brady and Olin have said of Erasmus’s Life of Jerome can also be applied to his Life of Origen:

48. GCS Eusebius 2.3, part 3, p. ccli. 50. Preface, NPNF II, 3.565.

49. See M. Humphries, “Rufinus’s Eusebius.” 51. Oulton, “Rufinus’s Translation,” 153.

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It is above all a plea on behalf of the ideas and reforms Erasmus held most dear. Jerome is an exemplar, a model to be followed: he is the ideal Christian scholar, the right kind of monk, the true theologian. To tell his authentic story and defend him against his critics is to argue the case for the reforms in theology and religious life that Erasmus sought. Indeed Erasmus identified with Jerome, and the life in many respects is his own justification and defense, an apologia pro vita sua. We love those in whom we see our own resemblance, Erasmus realized. But even as a personal projection—an aspect that should not be overemphasized—Jerome is a historic model, and Erasmus’s portrait of him embodies a program and a plea for humanist reform.52

Of course the comparison of these two lives is made more complex by the fact that Jerome was a canonized saint and one of the four Doctors of the Latin Church (alongside Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great), whereas Origen, while recognized as a teacher of the Church, was simultaneously accused of various heretical views. But there are still undoubtedly vast similarities between the portraits that reveal the extent to which Erasmus includes Origen among the Church’s outstanding teachers. In some cases it seems clear that Erasmus has projected contemporary events and conflicts into the writing of Origen’s biography. He has actualized Origen’s story by making it relevant to the contemporary Church. While these caveats are valid, to point them out is really to say nothing more or less than that Erasmus is the author of this biography. For many biographies, including modern ones, to some extent reflect the private interests, preoccupations, prejudices, and projections of the author. And religious biographies in particular are notorious for betraying the author’s theological background, interests, and even biases. Erasmus’s sympathy for Origen can actually be a strength of his biography, not a weakness, provided that he utilizes sound historical methods, which he has largely done. Godin divides Erasmus’s Life of Origen into eight parts, which are set forth in accordance with the chronological succession of the ideas reflected as essential by Eusebius in HE 6.53 Following this outline, I will briefly discuss each of these themes from Erasmus’s Life and reflect upon their particular significance for Erasmus himself.

Origen’s double name and virtues Erasmus thinks that both names, Origen and Adamantius, were assigned to him from the very beginning of his life, in the same manner that some men of the Bible bear more than one name. In Origen’s case, the names are wonderfully suited to this “outstanding doctor of the Catholic Church,” for they con52. CWE 61: 16–17. 53. Erasme lecteur d’Origène, 633.

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tain auspicious prophecies of his future service. Erasmus discusses and makes conjectures about the meaning of both names. In Greek Origenes sounds like “mountain-born.” This is fitting, since “Origen thought nothing lowly but directed his attention to the perfection of the Gospel, which the Lord taught while sitting on the mountain” (cf. Mt 5:1). When Origen explains the mysteries of the Scriptures, he does not crawl on the ground or remain ensconced in the earthly sense of the letter, “but through allegories raises the hearer to the things above and nearer to heaven.” On the other hand, adamant is something as hard as steel, and Origen’s mind was more than adamantine. Erasmus writes: “Neither the harshness of life nor perpetual labors, nor hard poverty, nor the perversity of rivals, nor fear of punishments, nor any form of death could distract him in the least from his holy purpose.”

His homeland and parents Erasmus admits that he does not know for certain Origen’s native country but says it is possible he was an Alexandrian. He then adds a significant gloss to the effect that it does not so much matter where you are born or from whom you descend, but rather by whom you receive your education from infancy. This reflects one of the important theses of Erasmus’s most important educational writing, De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis declamatio (1529), “A Declamation on the Subject of Early Liberal Education for Children.”54 In this work Erasmus offers a Christian reformulation of the classical ideal of liberal education. Erasmus also points out that Origen’s saintly father was a martyr of the Catholic Church, Leonidas of Alexandria, whom he describes as a man “who was as pious as he was learned.” He was beheaded under the persecution instigated by Alexander Severus. Erasmus is rightly distrustful of later accounts that report that Leonidas was a bishop. Leonidas’s death left Origen behind with six younger brothers and a widowed mother. Erasmus praises Leonidas’s prudence and farsightedness in instilling the seeds of virtue into the heart of his son and in cultivating Origen’s zeal for divine things, a natural capacity that was present even when Origen was a small child. Thus Leonidas is shown as a prototypical educator according to the Erasmian ideals. It is difficult to refrain from considering a possible connection to the educational vision of Erasmus’s friend and colleague John Colet (1466–1519), dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, who, after his father’s death, in his farsightedness founded a school in London to educate boys. In Erasmus’s judgment, Colet would surely qualify as a modern counterpart to both Leonidas of Alexandria and his son Origen. 54. CWE 26.

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His burning desire for martyrdom Erasmus expresses deep admiration for Origen’s burning aspiration to be a martyr for Christ. He also notices that in his extant works Origen speaks with enthusiasm whenever he has the occasion to discourse on martyrdom. To illustrate this more fully and shed light on Erasmus’s feeling, we can cite a famous passage from Origen’s Hom in Jer 4.3, where Origen speaks of the burning faith of the martyrs in days gone by. And if we truly judge the matters in truth and not by numbers, if we judge the matters by intention and not from the spectacle of many gathered, we will see that we are not now faithful. But when noble martyrdom arose, when we came to the gathering after conducting the martyrs to their graves and the entire church, unafflicted, was present, and the catechumens were taught by the martyrdoms and by the deaths of those who confessed the truth unto death [cf. Rv 2:10], neither frightened nor troubled by the living God, then there were faithful. Then also we knew those who had seen strange and marvelous signs, then the faithful were few but truly faithful, who traveled a way narrow and hard which leads to life [cf. Mt 7:14]. But now, when we have become many, since there cannot be many elect—for Jesus did not speak falsely when he said: “Many are called but few are chosen” [Mt 20:16]—out of the mass of those who profess religion, there are very few who attain to the selection of God and blessedness.55

Such passages, which are indeed abundant in Origen’s writings, obviously moved Erasmus deeply. There is no doubt that Erasmus has identified a basic theme of Origen’s theology and spirituality: the prime importance of martyrdom. For Origen martyrdom is the highest form of being faithful to Christ in all circumstances, of uniting oneself with the passion of Christ in the present and the presence of Christ after death, and of participating in Christ’s work of redemption through the routing of the devil’s power. And since the martyr shows himself impervious to suffering in particular, he experiences by the grace of God a sort of foretaste of the resurrection in this life and thus continues the work of redemption in this world. Crouzel observes: “Origen always desired martyrdom and constantly made clear, in his Exhortation to Martyrdom as well as in his homilies, the esteem in which he held this crowning testimony to our belonging to Christ.”56 Erasmus had long since assimilated the theme of the supreme importance 55. Origen, Hom 4.3 on Jeremiah, trans. J. C. Smith, FC 97, 34. 56. H. Crouzel, Origen: The Life and Thought of the First Great Theologian, trans. A. S. Worrall (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), 52; cf. 136. Cf. J. Daniélou, Origen (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 7.



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of martyrdom into his own spirituality and theology. It is pervasive in the Enchiridion, which is a work that is simultaneously infused with citations from Origen.57 His biography of Jean Vitrier emphasizes his subject’s burning desire for martyrdom (cf. Ep. 1211 to Justus Jonas). At the literal level, upholding martyrdom as the highest ideal means that Christians must be ready to face death for their beliefs. But for Erasmus the aspiration for martyrdom is achieved above all on the spiritual level by dying to sin and by the selfless dedication of one’s life to serving and celebrating the glory of Christ. It is noteworthy that Erasmus omits from his biography of Origen any mention of the final outcome of Origen’s aspirations, when Origen was imprisoned and tortured during the Decian persecution and died shortly after his release as a result of the physical brutality inflicted upon him. Though technically Origen never became a martyr, he did endure prison and physical torture for the sake of Christ, and all of this is recounted in gruesome detail by Erasmus’s principal source, Eusebius. Erasmus’s omission of this final episode of Origen’s life seems surprising. Yet it also perhaps reveals Erasmus’s deepest aims in writing this biography, which are not primarily hagiographical. For in Erasmus’s judgment the greatest benefit that the Church has derived from Origen is from his learned writings, not from his imprisonment and torture during the Decian persecution, however inspiring that episode may be to us. In his very early work the Antibarbari, Erasmus discussed this theme in greater depth in the persona of one of his dramatic characters. He speaks of the incomparable benefit that has come to the Church from the fact that the learned writings of the Church Fathers have been handed down to posterity. It is not merely their holiness of life or brutal deaths that have brought benefit, but their decision to write books. For worthiness of life or even a martyr’s death will die with its possessor, unless it be commended to posterity in written works. But where there is learned scholarship, Erasmus’s dramatic character says, “nothing stops it from spreading out to all humanity, neither land nor sea nor the long succession of the centuries.” Erasmus’s dramatic character then makes what he himself recognizes as an “invidious comparison”: I am not disparaging the glory of the martyrs, which a man could not attain to even by unlimited eloquence; but to speak simply of usefulness to us, we owe more to some heretics than to some martyrs. There was indeed a plentiful supply of martyrs, but very few doctors. The martyrs died, and so diminished the number of Christians; the scholars persuaded others and so increased it. In short, the martyrs would have shed their blood in vain for the teaching of Christ unless the others 57. Cf. Godin, “The Enchiridion Militis Christiani: The Modes of an Origenian Appropriation,” trans. H. Gibaud, Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 2 (1982): 47–79.

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had defended it against the heretics by their writings. The Christian religion found good letters a valuable safeguard in times of stress, and it will not be so ungrateful now, when it has peace and prosperity, as to thrust them off into exile—for it was through them that it attained peace and happiness.58

Obviously there is no disparagement of the glory of the martyrs in this passage. Erasmus, by means of the dramatic character of his dialogue, simply observes that the Fathers who, provoked by the heretics, wrote learned works for posterity have done a great service to the Church, and we continue to reap the benefit.

Origen as a consummate grammarian and soldier of Christ Erasmus expresses admiration for Origen’s decision to become a professional teacher of literature. The profession itself required a nearly perfect knowledge of all the liberal subjects. Its secular nature indicates that Origen wanted to provide a living for himself and his family by his own labor rather than turn to begging. This gloss amounts to an implicit criticism of abuses that were occurring among the all-too-numerous mendicant orders. Origen is depicted as a foil to the latter, and as an imitator of the apostle Paul, who earned his own keep by tent-making (Acts 18:3). And yet, Erasmus stresses, there was no question of covetousness on Origen’s part, for his income was below the subsistence level. Erasmus also highlights that Origen combined in his teaching evangelical doctrine, perfect piety, and sanctity of life. Clear proof of this is the fact that some of his disciples became important Church leaders; others, both men and women, became martyrs. Origen’s outstanding virtue and learning even earned for him the respect of pagans, some of whom were so impressed that they undertook to imitate Origen’s life by conversion to Christianity. Origen as the master of catechesis in Alexandria Erasmus highlights Origen’s function as a catechist in the church of Alexandria. He instructed pagans in the rudiments of the Christian religion. “He not only taught them the first principles of Gospel teaching, but also raised up many to the heights of perfect piety.” Many of his pupils were crowned with martyrdom. “Adamantius fathered many adamant ones for the Church, all the while chastening his body and subjecting it to slavery, lest perhaps when he had preached to others, he himself should become a reprobate” (cf. 1 Cor 9:27). Erasmus also admires the way Origen hardened his flesh to the point of total endurance by means of vigils, fasts, sleeping on the hard ground, nakedness, and labors. 58. Antibarbari, CWE 23: 83.



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By this wonderful purity of life and by continual services toward everyone and especially to those who were at risk from the brutality of the persecutions, although he himself despised glory no less than money, he still created for himself a name, both famous and beloved, not only among Christians but also among pagans. For outstanding virtue seizes even the impious to admiration and love of itself, and so it came about that very many undertook to imitate Origen.

Erasmus goes on to note the contrast between the admirable emphasis on catechesis in the early Church and the comparative neglect of it in Erasmus’s day. In Erasmus’s judgment catechesis was in fact one of the most important responsibilities of Catholic priests. In his great work on preaching, Ecclesiastes (1535), he wrote: The most important function of the priest is teaching the Lord’s flock, by which he may instruct them in sound doctrine, admonish, rebuke, console, and convict those he is offering up to the truth of the Gospel. A layman can baptize. The people can pray in their turn for the priest. The administration of the rest of the sacraments is not difficult, but the duty of teaching is both an extremely difficult and a very beautiful duty, since its advantage is clear for all to see. The priest does not always baptize, he does not always anoint, he does not always absolve, but the task of teaching is constant. Without it his other duties are unprofitable. For what good is it for adults to be baptized, if they have not been instructed by a catechist what force baptism has, what one must believe, how one should establish his life according to the Christian profession? What good comes from consuming the body and blood of the Lord if the people have not learned how this sacrament was instituted, what it effects in us, with what faith and purity it ought to be consumed?59

Erasmus himself accomplished a great deal in the field of Roman Catholic catechetics in the sixteenth century.60 His most important work in this regard was his Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed.61 Thus in highlighting catechesis as a matter of crucial importance to Origen and to Origen’s bishop, Demetrius, Erasmus is both recording historical fact and simultaneously challenging his contemporaries, whether priests, bishops, or popes, to make catechesis a central concern of their apostolates, as it was of Erasmus’s own. 59. Ecclesiastes, LB 5: 831C–D. Many bishops at the Council of Trent insisted that Ecclesiastes be placed in every rectory library. Cf. S. Ehses, Concilium Tridentinum (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1911), 5:147–48; noted by J. Dolan, The Essential Erasmus (New York: Mentor Books, 1964), 223. For a study of this work, see R. Kleinhans, Erasmus’s Doctrine of Preaching: A Study of Ecclesiastes, sive de ratione concionandi (Ph. D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1968). 60. Cf. R. Padberg, Erasmus als Katechet (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1956). 61. CWE 70.

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Origen the priest, his journeys and crisis with his bishop Erasmus describes Origen’s conflict with his ecclesiastical superior, Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria. He follows Rufinus’s version of Eusebius as well as St. Jerome’s On Illustrious Men closely, which explains why he fails to point out that doctrinal issues were also involved in the conflict, in addition to the human issues of envy and jealousy, the disciplinary matters of Origen’s self-mutilation, and his ordination by a foreign bishop. Erasmus transmits the additional material supplied by Rufinus according to which Origen’s purity of life had been universally acknowledged to the point that he was deemed worthy of the highest episcopal office (bishop). Erasmus sees evidence of human weakness in Origen’s bishop, Demetrius, in that this same man who was now accusing Origen had initially praised the devotion shown by Origen’s youthful act of self-castration. Origen’s physical mutilation, spiritual castration Erasmus transmits two ancient traditions regarding Origen’s self-inflicted injury. Epiphanius had reported that Origen deprived himself of incitements to lust by means of medicines applied to the genital area. In contrast Eusebius makes clear that a physical act of self-mutilation was involved. Erasmus follows Eusebius, but leaves the decision about this matter to the reader. Again Erasmus, relying on his sources, fails to acknowledge that anything but personal, canonical, and disciplinary matters were involved in Origen’s conflict with Demetrius and does not mention doctrinal issues. Erasmus appends a brief excursus on the lack of vigilance in the contemporary Church, which in order to prevent dishonor to the Church excludes the physically mutilated from the priesthood; and yet this same Church tolerates priests who are spiritually mutilated and castrated by their being blind and lame in respect to the knowledge of Sacred Scripture and the gospel teaching. The point is not to challenge the validity of ecclesiastical law respecting the physically mutilated, but to call attention to the importance of spiritual integrity. Origen’s influence and productivity as a teacher in Caesarea of Palestine Erasmus concludes his Life of Origen by calling attention to Origen’s churchman-like spirit and behavior, which kept him in the bosom of the Catholic Church all his life in spite of his being mistreated by his ecclesiastical superiors. Erasmus sees this as exemplary behavior and a notable contrast with Tertullian, who left the Catholic Church and joined a sect; and with Arius, who tore the Church asunder by schism. There is plenty of evidence in Origen’s extant writings that indicates that



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Origen viewed himself, from first to last, as a man of the Church. According to Eusebius, HE 6.2.14, Origen had such a deep feeling for the unity of the Church that he refused even to pray with heretics, for schism and heresy made him feel sick. In Hom in Jos 7.6, Origen said: “If I should do anything against the teaching of the Church and the rule of the Gospel, so that I create a stumbling block for you the Church, may the whole Church in one accord, acting in concert, cut me off and fling me, their right hand, away.” Another well known text is Hom in Lk 16.6: Although the heretics seek to expound it, they will be unable to succeed. But I hope to be a man of the Church. I hope to be addressed not by the name of some heresiarch, but by the name of Christ. I hope to have his name, which is blessed upon the earth. I desire, both in deed and in thought, both to be and to be called a Christian.62

The following passage from Origen’s Hom in Ezek 10.1 is famous and would have been particularly relevant to churchmen of the sixteenth century. It shows how Origen repudiated the tactics of those who created schisms in the Church, even in cases when their own original deposition had been unjust. It is an infamy to be separated from the people of God and from the church. It is a disgrace in the church to leave the congress of the priesthood or be expelled from the rank of deacon. And indeed, of those who are thrown out, some cause dissensions, but others accept with all humility the judgment made against them. Whosoever, then, out of indignation over their deposition, are incited to gather people together in order to make a schism, and who stir up a multitude of evils are not “bearing their disgrace” [cf. Ez 16:52] in the present. On the contrary they are “storing up for themselves a treasure of wrath” [cf. Rom 2:5.]. But those who with all humility, whether they have been rightly or wrongly deposed, leave the judgment to God and patiently bear the judgment made about them, will gain mercy from God. And frequently men even call them back to their earlier office and to the honor they had lost. The lesson is excellent, then, both what is said: “And you, be ashamed,” and that which follows: “And bear your dishonor.”

Erasmus was deeply impressed by Origen’s repudiation of heresy and schism in principle, and by his lifelong adherence to the Catholic Church. Indeed, according to Godin, when Erasmus points out the contrast between Origen on one hand and Tertullian and Arius on the other, he seems to be subtly alluding to the Protestants and even to his own departure from Basel when the city turned Protestant in 1529.63 This is why Erasmus’s patristic editions are si62. Trans. Lienhard. 63. Godin, Erasme lecteur d’Origène, 653.

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multaneously works of Catholic apologetics. Just as Erasmus’s biography of the Franciscan priest Jean Vitrier was preserved in a letter addressed to one of Luther’s top colleagues, Justus Jonas, and served to offer Luther’s adherents a contemporary model of true Catholic reform ideals, in contrast with Luther’s schismatic methods, so here Erasmus seems to be alluding to the Protestant Reformers, above all to Martin Luther, as the sixteenth century counterpart to Tertullian and Arius. For by this time Luther and his disciples had separated themselves from the Catholic Church into diverse sects (like Tertullian) and thrown the world into a horrendous schism (like Arius). And this was accomplished by increasingly embittered writings. In Hyperaspistes 1 (1526) Erasmus used the same word he uses here of Tertullian, that is, “sect,” to describe the divisions Luther had caused: You [Luther] are indignant if we do not immediately abandon the teaching embraced and held by the Catholic Church for so many centuries in the past and swear allegiance to you. I never had any inclination to join your conspiracy. But still, if I were growing weary of this church, as I wavered in perplexity, tell me, I beg you in the name of the gospel, where would you have me go? To that disintegrated congregation of yours, that totally dissected sect? Karlstadt has raged against you, and you in turn against him. And the dispute was not simply a tempest in a teapot but concerned a very serious matter. Zwingli and Oecolampadius have opposed your opinion in many volumes. And some of the leaders of your congregation agree with them, among whom is Capito. Then too what an all-out battle was fought by Balthazar and Zwingli! I am not even sure that there in that tiny little town you agree among yourselves very well.64

Thus for Erasmus the lesson to be learned from Origen’s churchman-like and peaceable behavior ran very deep indeed. If the principle of schism from the Catholic Church is accepted as valid, where does it end? Erasmus’s concluding statement about Origen is another remarkable autobiographical reflection: “He lived on amidst his most holy labors until the sixty-ninth year of his life.” When he wrote these words Erasmus himself was almost certainly sixty-nine years old.65 He was engaged in his most holy studies of this “outstanding doctor of the Catholic Church.” And in fulfillment of his own desire to die amidst such labors, he died thus engaged. In his depiction of Origen’s life and death, he has truly created a self-portrait.

64. Hyperaspistes I, CWE 76.142–43. 65. The standard study of Erasmus’s birth year is H. Vredeveld, “The Ages of Erasmus and the Year of his Birth,” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 754–809.



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“Concerning the Education and Writings of Origen” The second part of Erasmus’s Edition of Origen is an essay on Origen’s education and writings. Erasmus follows Eusebius and Jerome in finding in Origen a most versatile scholar who was extremely learned in many areas. He observes that Origen’s entire life was devoted to studies. He compares Origen’s erudition with that of Rome’s greatest scholar, Marcus Varro, whose achievements in scholarship laid the foundation for the achievements of the Augustans (Livy, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, etc.). The comparison is deliberate, since Erasmus is fully aware of Origen’s massive influence on the Catholic Church’s exegetical tradition. Erasmus contrasts Origen’s lifelong immersion in a Christian education, which began in early childhood, with that of St. Augustine, who was a stranger to the Catholic religion until his thirty-sixth year, and with that of St. Ambrose, who likewise came to baptism and priesthood from secular work as an adult. Erasmus mentions how Origen had learned everything so thoroughly that he was even admired and mentioned honorably in the works of pagan philosophers, estranged from Christ. He expresses regret that it is now impossible to know even the titles of all of Origen’s works because of the zeal of those who destroyed them. On the other hand maybe this is fortunate, he reflects, for our ignorance of these lost works keeps us from bewailing the loss all the more. Erasmus said similar things about the loss of the works of other Church Fathers. It is noteworthy that Erasmus mentions the loss and destruction of Origen’s writings without anywhere having discussed the cause of this, which lay in the official condemnation of Origenism at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553. Of course Erasmus is quite familiar with this event, since information about Origen’s condemnation was common knowledge, and both Pico della Mirandola’s Apology and Jacques Merlin’s edition of Origen’s writings in particular had discussed it in detail.66 Moreover there was the verdict on Origen’s errors by St. Augustine in De haeresibus, chapters 42–43, and City of God 11.23; 21.17. Erasmus apparently did not feel the need to go over such familiar ground. Next Erasmus discusses the divisions of Origen’s works, following Jerome’s description of the same in the preface to Jerome’s translation of Origen’s Homilies on Ezekiel.67 There Jerome described to his dedicatee, the priest Vincentius, the threefold division of Origen’s works on Scripture. 66. See Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification, 159–68. 67. M. Borret, Origène Homélies sur Ézéchiel, SC 352 (Paris: Cerf, 1989). Cf. Jerome’s In Ep ad Gal, prol., where Jerome gives the same division of Origen’s works in inverse order: volumina, tractatus et excerpta. See also Jerome’s In Is, prol.

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The first are his Selections [Excerpta] which in Greek are called σχόλια [scholia]. In these in a brief and summary fashion, he lightly touched on things that seemed obscure or that contained some difficulty. The second kind of work is homiletical in nature. The present translation is one of these. The third kind are those that he inscribed as τόμοι. We can call them commentaries. Here he lowered all the sails of his genius to the blowing winds, withdrawing from the land and going out to middle of the ocean.68

Erasmus reflects the wording of this passage from St. Jerome several times in his own survey of the life, education, and writings of Origen. In the present essay, Erasmus’s survey of Origen’s writings is not exhaustive but focuses on the works for which the authenticity of the work itself or of its Latin translator is in dispute. Erasmus mentions with admiration Origen’s endeavor to learn the Hebrew language. “For it is from these sources that the sacred books first came down to us, particularly those of the Old Testament.” His description of Origen’s efforts in this connection reflects that used by Jerome in Ep. 125.12, where Jerome describes his own labors in learning Hebrew. Study of the original biblical languages was an important Erasmian ideal. Erasmus also calls attention to Origen’s massive project of textual criticism, the Hexapla, in which Origen displayed the Hebrew text of the Old Testament alongside several of the ancient Greek translations of the same, in separate columns. Interestingly, Erasmus believes that the true title of this work should be ἐξαπλά, with smooth breathing on the initial vowel. He found this spelling consistently in the manuscripts. Erasmus believes that this word derives from ἐξαπλόω and means “to display, to unfold.” Erasmus does not endorse the standard derivation from ἑξαπλά (with rough breathing), meaning “sixfold” and referring to the six columns of text, even though this was the understanding found in Rufinus’s translation of Eusebius’s HE. Immediately after making this suggestion, Erasmus pleads for tolerance of his opinion. He says that he should be allowed to convey his opinion to the public without becoming the subject of accusations. For this is in keeping with the Pauline injunction, “Let each be content with his own judgment” (Rom 14:5). In Rufinus’s version of Eusebius, HE 6.16.3–4 is found an important independent account of Origen’s Hexapla that is much clearer and more accurate than Eusebius’s description.69 Rufinus clarifies the arrangement of the columns in this order: 1) Hebrew, 2) Hebrew transliterated into Greek, 3) Aquila, 4) Symmachus, 5) LXX, 6) Theodotian. This arrangement is far from clear in Eusebius’s account. Also, Rufinus makes plain that Origen had discovered 68. “Commentaries”: lit. “volumes” or “books.” 69. GCS Eusebius, 2.2, pt. 2, p. 555.



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more than two additional Greek translations (in addition to Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian), whereas Eusebius had reported only two additional versions. Moreover, Rufinus says that Origen used these additional versions not merely in the Psalter, as Eusebius claims, but elsewhere in the Hexapla. With respect to the Hexapla, Rufinus’s account is more detailed and precise than Eusebius’s and was based on independent knowledge of the work.70 On the one hand Rufinus’s additions and clarifications make it rather surprising that Erasmus does not support the traditional derivation of the word Hexapla from the “sixfold” arrangement of the work, since Rufinus explicitly assigns such a meaning to the word and clarifies the arrangement and contents of each of the six columns. On the other hand Rufinus’s additions to Eusebius may partly explain why Erasmus was confused about this derivation of Hexapla from “sixfold,” since Rufinus clarified that the work in fact had more than six columns throughout.

“Assessments” [Censurae] The next section of Erasmus’s Edition of Origen offers the reader his own scholarly assessment of the identity of the Latin translator of Origen’s works and of the authenticity of certain works. Many of Origen’s works had been wrongly attributed to St. Jerome as the Latin translator. Erasmus correctly ascribes the Homilies on Genesis to Rufinus, not Jerome, whose name had been gratuitously inserted into the earlier printed additions. He praises their style as pure and fluent, but he nevertheless attacks Rufinus as an incompetent translator. Erasmus correctly attributes the Homilies on Leviticus and Joshua to Rufinus. The latter had been previously published in Jerome’s name. Also, Erasmus was the first of his contemporaries to identify Rufinus, not Jerome, as the translator of Origen’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. He discusses this in a lengthy “assessment.” Moreover, he correctly surmises that Rufinus was the translator of Origen’s Homilies on Psalms 36–38. The longest assessment is devoted to the Commentary on Job (Anonymus in Job) which previously had been attributed to Origen in Merlin’s edition (Paris, 1512). Erasmus’s evaluation of this work is his longest “assessment,” which indicates that the Origenian attribution was firmly anchored in the minds of Erasmus’s contemporaries.71 In what may be his most spectacular critical breakthrough, Erasmus correctly identifies the author as an Arian.72 He sus70. Cf. Oulton, “Rufinus’s Translation,” 162–63. 71. Cf. Godin, Erasme lecteur d’Origène, 608. 72. Anonymus in Iob is now available in a critical edition: K. B. Steinhauser, ed., Anonymi in Iob Commentarius, CSEL 96. It was reprinted among the spurious works of Origen in PG 17, 371–522. For a discussion of the work, see Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. (Allen, Tex.: Christian

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pects that the author was Maximinus whose disputations with St. Augustine are extant.73 In modern times Erasmus’s conjecture was defended by Meslin, but firmly rejected by Steinhauser.74

“Concerning Origen’s Method of Teaching and Speaking” The next section of Erasmus’s Edition of Origen is entitled De ratione docendi et phrasi Origenis. Its theme is Origen’s outstanding abilities as a preacher of the word of God. In Erasmus’s judgment, Origen was a model homiletician and he gave Origen the first place in this regard in his Ecclesiastes (1535).75 Erasmus introduces Origen with an adaptation of Horace’s famous lines in praise of the eloquence of the Greeks, substituting “the Spirit” for Horace’s “Muse,” and “Christ” for “praise.” Horace had written: To the Greeks the Muse gave genius, to the Greeks the Muse gave the ability to speak with a well-turned phrase, desirous of nothing but praise.76

Erasmus adapts this to Origen as: To Origen the Spirit gave genius, to Origen He gave the ability to speak with a well-turned phrase, desirous of nothing but Christ.

Erasmus praises in Origen the absence of contrived effects, of artificial rhetoric, and of formalism. He notices with admiration Origen’s evident concern for the idea alone and his clarity of diction—a clarity that applies even in obscure matters! Erasmus considers meritorious the absence of numbers and subClassics, 1975), 4.101–5; Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), 201–26; and now Steinhauser. Anonymus was written in Latin and interprets Job’s text to 3:19 in three books. Steinhauser, 48, writes: “[Erasmus] certainly did not mince words in expressing his disdain for the unknown author of the prologue.” He agrees with Erasmus’s judgment that the author of the prologue is someone other than the author of the commentary. 73. Maximinus the Arian is the one Latin Arian author whose personality can be partly reconstructed. He was born c. 360 in Rome and became bishop of an Arian community possibly in Illyricum. He debated publicly with Augustine at Hippo in 427 or 428. A stenographic account of the debate survives (Collatio Augustini cum Maximino, PL 42, 743–814). 74. Cf. M. Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident, 226. Meslin’s argument is based on a comparison of these works with Maximinus’s disputation with Augustine. Meslin finds the following parallels: the same theology, identical Scriptural versions, analogous style, the same acquaintance with ancient Arian sources, a taste for a very developed biblical erudition, the same moralizing vision of economic problems and an analogous prolixity. On the other hand, Steinhauser, 42, rejects the attribution of Anonymous in Iob to Maximinus as “clearly false” and attributes the work to Auxentius of Durostorum; pp. 42, 45. 75. LB 5: 1029. 76. Ars Poet 323–24.



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clauses in Origen’s sermons. He contrasts Origen’s simplicity with the grandiloquence and affectation of many of the Latin Fathers. He praises the natural way in which scriptural quotations are introduced, sometimes by simple allusion, and contrasts this with the style of some of the scholastics, who cite Aristotle every third sentence but never cite Scripture, and when they do, they do not do it successfully. But all the words of Origen are distinguished everywhere by thoughts from the sacred volumes. These are inserted like jewels in a mosaic, and so appropriately and at the right spot that the oration runs on no less well. You might say that they are not foreign but originate there. They are not sought from elsewhere, but they are his own, spontaneous, ready at hand.

Erasmus also admires the liveliness and vigor of Origen’s diction, the intimacy, moderation, and gentleness of his homilies. In his previous essay on Origen’s education, Erasmus had observed that Origen’s homilies were more like intimate conversations with the people than the thunderings of a censorious preacher. Godin has analyzed Erasmus’s essay and has shown remarkable resemblances between the picture Erasmus paints of Origen and his depiction of Jean Vitrier in his Ep. 1211 to Jonas.77 Both men, according to Erasmus, were in possession of an extraordinary memory; neither of them misused the homily to demonstrate their own knowledge by means of innumerable citations. Rather they allowed the Scriptures to speak without interruption. Both Vitrier and Origen preached with a spirit of mercy and did not revile their audiences like censorious judges of morals. Both were characterized by Christian moderation and were estranged from insincere passion. Both preferred frequency to length in their preaching. Finally, of both men Erasmus makes the statement: “He loved what he was speaking about” (Amabat, quod [quae] loquebatur); that is, they both loved Christ, the divine Word. Godin has drawn the conclusion that Erasmus has melted Origen into the form of the Franciscan warden Vitrier. In Vitrier Erasmus saw Origenes redivivus, Origen come to life again. There are also noteworthy parallels between Erasmus’s description of Origen here and his picture of John Chrysostom, as Erasmus depicts the latter in Ep. 1800 (1527), his dedicatory epistle to some of Chrysostom’s writings. Erasmus seems to regard Origen’s epoch as a sort of Golden Age, in that the people heard the Scriptures proclaimed in their original language (Greek). Back then, Erasmus says, even weavers “had the sacred codices at home and held them in their hands.” This sentence is reminiscent of Erasmus’s words in 77. Godin, Erasme lecteur d’Origène, 667–74.

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the Paraclesis, where he expressed the wish that the Scriptures be translated into vernacular languages so that they could be read and understood by everyone. Christ wishes his mysteries published as openly as possible. I would that even the lowliest women read the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles. . . . Would that, as a result, the farmer sing some portion of them at the plow, the weaver hum some parts of them to the movement of his shuttle, the traveler lighten the weariness of the journey with stories from this source.78

The implication seems to be that in respect to knowledge of the original languages of Scripture and to the individual possession of the Sacred Scriptures in the mother tongue, Origen’s epoch was idyllic. In his description of Origen’s spiritual exegesis, Erasmus displays a profound and accurate understanding of Origen’s hermeneutical principles.79 Erasmus recognizes, first of all, that Origen assumes the literal/historical truth of (almost all) biblical passages, which he explains “very clearly and briefly.” Next, he incites the hearer to the more hidden allegory. But his allegories are not arbitrary but rooted in the literal meaning. Lastly he treats moral topics. Erasmus points out that Origen’s movement toward the deeper allegorical meaning is inspired principally by the exegetical method of the apostle Paul (cf. Gal 4:21–31; 1 Cor 10:1–11) and not by Hellenistic or Jewish methods of interpretation or by arbitrary choice. Erasmus contrasts Origen’s method specifically with that found in the Talmud of the Hebrews and the Cabala. Erasmus realizes that the principal aim of the allegorical interpretation is the spiritual and moral edification of the hearer. The allegories should be received more as homiletical applications than as rigorous exegesis. On the other hand, Erasmus was capable of offering sound criticism of Origen’s allegories and those who imitate them excessively. He does not do so in this preface to Origen’s writings, but in his Methodus (1518) Erasmus writes with respect to allegorical exegesis: In fact, I must in general warn the reader, here, that in this matter Origen, Ambrose, Hilary and others who freely imitate Origen are frequently mistaken. Indeed, they sometimes remove the grammatical meaning in their zeal to teach an allegory, when it is not necessary. Therefore, whoever wishes to deal with Sacred Literature in a serious manner should observe moderation in all things.80

78. Cf. Olin, Christian Humanism, 101. 79. For a classic study of the principles of Origen’s exegesis, see H. de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen, tran. Anne Englund Nash with Greek and Latin translation by Juvenal Merriell of the Oratory (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007). 80. Conroy, “The Ecumenical Theology of Erasmus of Rotterdam,” 309.



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This quote should serve to remind the reader that Erasmus was by no means completely uncritical of Origen’s hermeneutics. However, in his preface to Origen’s writings he emphasizes the good aspects of Origen’s homilies. L. Bouyer speaks very highly of Erasmus’s grasp of patristic hermeneutical principles. Referring to Erasmus’s summary in his Method of Theology, Bouyer writes: The most developed of these counsels in itself constitutes a whole dissertation on the literal meaning and the spiritual allegorical meaning. In it Erasmus reveals so profoundly penetrating a knowledge of the Fathers that it anticipates the best of the most modern works, such as those of Père de Lubac on Origen. His views are far removed from the abstract views systematized by Thomas Aquinas, on the literal meaning and the various figurative meanings.81

A remarkable commentary on Erasmus’s concluding words in this essay is found in a letter to Erasmus from his close friend John Colet, in Ep. 593 (June 1517). Colet has recently been learning Greek himself, inspired by the publication of Erasmus’s Greek-Latin edition of the New Testament. He expresses regret that Erasmus had sent Reuchlin’s De arte caballista to Bishop John Fisher but not to his friend Colet. Colet admits that he is in any case ignorant of this recondite subject which aims to show the mysteries of the Hebrew language. The letter concludes with Colet’s confession as to where he believes the heart of theological studies lies: My dear Erasmus, of books and knowledge there is no end. Nothing can be better, in view of this brief life of ours, than that we should live a holy and pure life and use our best endeavors every day to become pure and enlightened and perfected. These things are promised us by Reuchlin’s Pythagorical and Cabalistic philosophy; but in my opinion we shall achieve them in no way but this, by the fervent love and imitation of Jesus. Let us therefore leave all these complications behind us, and take the short road to the truth. I mean to do this as far as in me lies.82

Erasmus may have had this thought in the back of his mind when he describes Origen’s expositions of Scripture, which are not drawn from the Talmud or Cabala of the Hebrews but from the Bible itself. In Erasmus’s judgment, for all his great learning Origen was above all a man who had taken the short road to the truth and had attained to the spiritual ideals articulated here by John Co81. Cf. L. Bouyer, “Erasmus in Relation to the Medieval Biblical Tradition,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2: The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. Lampe, 492–505 (503–4) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). 82. Ep. 593 (CWE 4). John Reuchlin (1455–1522) of Pfortzheim was the champion of Hebrew learning of his day.

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let, namely to a holy and pure life. Origen’s homilies are really familiar conversations with people whom he longs to see fervently loving and imitating Jesus, and through grace transformed into the image of Christ, along with himself. Unless I am completely mistaken, Father Joseph Lienhard, a translator of Origen’s homilies himself, represents these very same ideals. As an Erasmus redivivus, he has done much already in the field of patristics. We eagerly await the works of scholarship he has now in preparation, just as we are grateful for his past achievements.

Joseph T. Lienhard Significant Dates and Bibliography

Significant Dates Born 7 May 1940 in New York City Entered Society of Jesus in 1958 Ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1971

Degrees A.B., classics, Fordham University, 1964 Ph.L., magna cum laude, Woodstock College, 1965 M.A., classics, Fordham University, 1966 B.D., with highest distinction, Woodstock College, 1971 S.T.M., Woodstock College, 1971 Dr. theol., University of Freiburg, 1975; dissertation summa cum laude, degree granted summa cum laude Dr. theol. habil., University of Freiburg, 1986 Professional Positions 1965–68: teacher of Latin and religion, Regis High School, New York City 1972–74: research assistant, Mainz 1974–75: research associate, Freiburg 1975–80: assistant professor of theology, Marquette University, Milwaukee 1980–87: associate professor of theology, Marquette University 1987–90: professor of theology, Marquette University 1990– : professor of theology, Fordham University Fall 1992: Walter and Mary Tuohy Chair of Interreligious Studies, John Carroll University, Cleveland 337

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1992–95: chairman, Department of Theology, Fordham University, New York City 1996–99: associate chairman for graduate studies, Department of Theology, Fordham University 1999–2000: Joseph Gregory McCarthy Visiting Professor of Theology, Boston College Spring 2001: visiting scholar, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, N.Y. Fall 2001– : adjunct professor, St. Joseph’s Seminary Spring 2006: associate chairman for graduate studies, Department of Theology, Fordham University Spring 2007: visiting professor, Pontificio Istituto Biblico and Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome

Other Positions, Academic Honors 1981–91: editorial consultant, Theological Studies 1987– : elected council member, International Association of Patristic Studies 1988–94: trustee, John Carroll University 1989– : advisory board, Augustinian Studies 1990: Lawrence G. Haggerty Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, Marquette University 1991–92: editorial consultant, Thought 1993–2001: editor, Patristic Monograph Series, North American Patristics Society 1997– : managing editor, Traditio 1997– : editorial board, Fathers of the Church book series, The Catholic University of America Press 1998–99: vice-president, North American Patristics Society 1999: Teacher of the Year Award, Graduate Students’ Association, Fordham University 2000–2001: president, North American Patristics Society 2004– : distinguished fellow, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology 2005– : board of advisors, Catholic Scripture Study International

Bibliography Books, Translations, and Monographs Paulinus of Nola and Early Western Monasticism: With a Study of the Chronology of His Works and an Annotated Bibliography, 1879–1976. Theophaneia. Beiträge



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zur Religions- und Kirchengeschichte des Altertums, vol. 28. Cologne: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1977. Ministry. Edited and translated by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. Message of the Fathers of the Church, 8. Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983. Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum. Edited by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., Earl C. Muller, S.J., and Roland J. Teske, S.J. Collectanea Augustiniana, 2. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. Raniero Cantalamessa. Easter in the Early Church: An Anthology of Jewish and Early Christian Texts. Newly translated and edited with further annotations by James M. Quigley, S.J. and Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1993. Karl Suso Frank. With Greater Liberty: A Short History of Christian Monasticism and Religious Orders. Translated by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. Cistercian Studies Series, 144. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1993. The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995. Origen: Homilies on Luke; Fragments on Luke. Translated by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. Fathers of the Church, 94. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999. St. Joseph in Early Christianity: Devotion and Theology. A Study and an Anthology of Patristic Texts. Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 1999. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians. Edited by Patrick W. Carey and Joseph T. Lienhard. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. (Paperbound edition: Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2002.) Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Edited and translated by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., in collaboration with Ronnie J. Rombs. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001. Italian edition: Rome, 2003; Spanish edition: Madrid, 2003. (CD-ROM: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, 1 [2005].)

Articles “Blanchet, François.” Catholic Encyclopedia for School and Home (1965), 1: 729. “A Note on the Meaning of πίστις in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.” American Journal of Philology 87 (1966): 446–54. Reprinted in Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric, edited by Keith V. Erickson, 169–75. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974. “The Prooemia of De rerum natura.” Classical Journal 64 (1969): 346–53. “The Christology of the Epistle to Diognetus.” VC 24 (1970): 280–89. “The New York Review and Modernism in America.” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 82 (1971): 67–82. “Acts 6:1–6: A Redactional View.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37 (1975): 228–36. “Sanius consilium: Recent Work on the Election of the Abbot in the Rule of St. Benedict.” American Benedictine Review 26 (1975): 1–15. “Paulinus of Nola in the Literary Tradition.” In Paradosis: Studies in Memory of Ed-

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win A. Quain, ed. H. G. Fletcher, 35–45. New York: Fordham University Press, 1976. “The Earliest Florilegia of Augustine.” AS 8 (1977): 21–31. “Patristic Sermons on Eusebius of Vercelli and Their Relation to His Monasticism.” RB 87 (1977): 164–72. “Some Fragments of Paulinus of Nola.” Latomus: Revue d’ études latines 36 (1977): 438–39. “Textual Notes on Paulinus of Nola, carm. 6, 256–330.” VC 31 (1977): 53–54. “Index of Reported Patristic and Classical Citations, Allusions and Parallels in the ‘Regula Benedicti.’” RB 89 (1979): 230–70. “On ‘Discernment of Spirits’ in the Early Church.” Theological Studies 41 (1980): 505–29. “Paolino, di Nola, santo.” Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione 6 (Rome, 1980): 1099–1101. “A Response to Fr. Dulles.” In Theology and Discovery: Essays in Honor of Karl Rahner, S.J., edited by William J. Kelly, 30–33. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1980. “St. Basil’s Asceticon Parvum and the Regula Benedicti.” Studia Monastica 22 (1980): 231–42. “The Study of the Sources of the Regula Benedicti: History and Method.” American Benedictine Review 31 (1980): 20–38. “‘Discernment of Spirits’ in the Early Church.” SP 17 (1982): 519–22. “Marcellus of Ancyra in Modern Research.” Theological Studies 43 (1982): 486–503. “Recent Studies in Arianism.” Religious Studies Review 8 (1982): 330–37. “The Exegesis of 1 Cor 15, 24–28 from Marcellus of Ancyra to Theodoret of Cyrus.” VC 37 (1983): 340–59. “Manichaeism”; “Regula Fidei”; “Rules.” Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983. “Paulin de Nole (saint), évêque et moine, vers 355–431.” Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique 12 (Paris, 1983): 592–602. “The Epistle of the Synod of Ancyra, 358: A Reconsideration.” In Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments, edited by Robert C. Gregg, 313–19. Patristic Monograph Series, 11. Cambridge, Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1985. “Paulinus of Nola and Monasticism.” SP 16 (1985): 29–31. “Ps-Athanasius, Contra Sabellianos, and Basil of Caesarea, Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos: Analysis and Comparison.” VC 40 (1986): 365–89. “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered.” Theological Studies 48 (1987): 415–37. (Reprinted in Studies in Early Christianity, IX: Doctrines of God and Christ in the Early Church, edited by Everett Ferguson, 87–109. New York: Garland, 1993.) “Acacius of Caesarea: Contra Marcellum. Historical and Theological Considerations.” Cristianesimo nella Storia 10 (1989): 1–22. “Acacius of Caesarea’s Contra Marcellum: Its Place in Theology and Controversy.” SP 19 (1989): 85–88. “Basil of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra, and ‘Sabellius.’” Church History 58 (1989): 157–67. “Origen as Homilist.” In Preaching in the Patristic Age: Studies in Honor of Walter



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J. Burghardt, S.J., edited by David G. Hunter, 36–52. New York: Paulist Press, 1989. “Clergy”; “Eusebius of Vercelli”; “Homily”; “Paulinus of Nola”; “Poetry.” Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. New York: Garland, 1990, 1997. “Friendship in Paulinus of Nola and Augustine.” In Collectanea Augustiniana: Mélanges T. J. van Bavel I: Augustiniana 40 (1990): 279–96. Louvain: Institut Historique Augustinien, 1990. “Origen’s Speculation on John the Baptist, or, Was John the Baptist the Holy Spirit?” Origeniana Quinta. Papers of the 5th International Origen Congress, Boston College, 14–18 August 1989. edited by Robert J. Daly, 449–53. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 105. Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1992. “Christology in Origen’s Homilies on the Infancy Narrative in Luke.” SP 26 (1993): 287–91. “Did Athanasius Reject Marcellus?” In Arianism after Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts, edited by Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams, 65–80. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993. “‘The Glue Itself Is Charity’: Ps 62:9 in Augustine’s Thought.” In Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum, edited by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. et al., 375–84. Collectanea Augustiniana, 2. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. “Paulinus v. Nola.” Lexikon des Mittelalters 6 (1993): 1816. “Augustine on Grace: The Early Years.” In Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays, edited by Fannie LeMoine and Christopher Kleinhenz, 189–91. Garland Medieval Casebooks, 9. New York: Garland, 1994. “Friendship with God, Friendship in God: Traces in St. Augustine.” In Augustine: Mystic and Mystagogue, edited by Frederick Van Fleteren et al., 207–29. Collectanea Augustiniana, 3. New York: Peter Lang, 1994. “Delphinus, hl.”; “Felix von Nola, hl.” Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 3 (1995): 77–78, 1217–18. “Origen and Augustine: Preaching on John the Baptist.” AS 26 (1995): 37–46. “Reading the Bible and Learning to Read: The Influence of Education on St. Augustine’s Exegesis.” AS 27 (1996): 7–25. (The 1995 St. Augustine Lecture, Villanova University.) “Augustine on Dialectic: Defender and Defensive.” SP 33 (1997): 162–66. Spanish translation: Augustinus (1999). “Historical Theology in the Curriculum.” In Theological Education in the Catholic Tradition: Contemporary Challenges, edited by Patrick W. Carey and Earl C. Muller, 266–79. New York: Crossroad, 1997. “Recent Research on Marcellus of Ancyra.” Distributed by Theological Research Exchange Network, Portland, Oregon (1997). “A Trinity Summit.” America, May 16, 1998, 6–8. “Canon of Sacred Scripture, Septuagint”; “Creed, Symbolum”; “Florilegia”; “Friendship, Friends”; “Ministry”; “Paulinus of Nola.” In Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999. “Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of ‘One Hypostasis.’” In The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, edited

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by S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins, 99–121. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. “Apostles’ Creed”; “Apostolic Fathers”; “Athanasian Creed.” In Dictionary of Historical Theology, edited by Trevor A. Hart, 21–22, 22–25, 40–41. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000. “Bede the Venerable”; “Clement of Rome”; “Henry (Heinrich) Heimbuche of Langenstein”; “Hermas”; “Hincmar of Rheims”; “Hippolytus of Rome”; “Humbert of Romans”; “John of Brevicoxa”; “Justin Martyr”; “Stephen Langton”; “Marcellus of Ancyra”; “Marcion”; “Novatian”; “Rabanus Maurus”; “Stephen of Tournai”; “Theodore of Studios”; “Ubertino of Casale.” In Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians, edited by Patrick W. Carey and Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000. “In Memory of Robert John O’Connell, S.J.: 1925–1999.” With Roland J. Teske and Ronnie J. Rombs. AS 31 (2000): 41–58. “Origen and the Crisis of the Old Testament in the Early Church.” Pro Ecclesia 9 (2000): 355–66. (Reprinted in Best Christian Writing 2001, edited by John Wilson, 167–85. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.) “Augustine against Maximinus: Towards a Critical Edition.” SP 36 (2001): 23–26. “The Authority of Scripture.” Dunwoodie Review 24 (2001): 161–75. “John the Baptist in Augustine’s Exegesis.” In Augustine: Biblical Exegete, edited by Frederick Van Fleteren and Joseph C. Schnaubelt, 197–213. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. “Augustine, Sermon 51: St. Joseph in Early Christianity.” In Dominico eloquio: Essays in Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert L. Wilken, edited by Paul M. Blowers, 336–47. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002. “The Christian Reception of the Pentateuch: Patristic Commentaries on the Books of Moses.” 2001 North American Patristics Society Presidential Address. JECS 10 (2002): 373–88. “The Books of Moses in the Christian Church: Early Christian Commentaries on the Pentateuch.” Dunwoodie Review 26 (2003): 98–108. “The First Battle for the Bible.” Christian History 22 (2003): 12–15. “Lumen gentium: Christian Spiritual Life during Reformations—Late Ancient Christianity.” Dunwoodie Review 27 (2004): 32–51. “Two Friends of Athanasius: Marcellus of Ancyra and Apollinaris of Laodicea.” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity 10 (2006): 56–66. “Ousia, Hypostasis, and the Cappadocians: Why Do They Matter?” Dunwoodie Review 30 (2007): 163–73. “Acacius of Caesarea”; “Asterius the Sophist”; “Authority in the Early Church”; “Basil of Ancyra”; “Epiphanius of Salamis”; “Eusebius of Vercelli”; “Jerome”; “Lucian of Antioch”; “Lucifer of Cagliari”; “Marcellus of Ancyra”; “Pamphilus of Caesarea”; “Vulgate.” In New Westminster Dictionary of Church History, I: The Early, Medieval, and Reformation Eras, edited by Robert Benedetto. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2008. “Augustine of Hippo, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory Nazianzen.” In Orthodox Readings of Augustine, edited by George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, 81–99. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008.



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Book in Press Pope Benedict XVI. The Fathers of the Church: From Clement of Rome to Augustine of Hippo, edited and annotated by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009. Articles in Press “Augustine and the Filioque.” To be published in a Festschrift in honor of Roland J. Teske, S.J. (Typescript: 20 pp.) To be published in Spanish in Revista Avgvstinvs. “Benedict XVI and the Interpretation of the Bible.” To be published in a volume of essays on the thought of Pope Benedict XVI. (Typescript: 30 pp.) “From Gwatkin Onwards: A Century of Studies on Arianism.” To be published in a volume of essays on Arianism edited by Lewis Ayres and Michel Barnes. (Typescript: 27 pp.) “Ioseph sponsus Mariae.” To be published in the Augustinus-Lexikon. (Typescript: 4 pp.) “Mary in the Patristic Era.” To be published in the proceedings of the meeting of the Academy of Catholic Theology, May 2008. (Typescript: 18 pp.) “Maximinum Arrianum (Contra —),” “Maximinus Arrianus.” To be published in the Augustinus-Lexikon. (Typescript 2 pp., 6 pp.) “The Plagues of Egypt, Spiritual Interpretation, and the Old Testament in the Church.” To be published in Eastern Churches Quarterly. (Typescript: 21 pp.)

Books in Progress Theology in the Age of the Fathers, with Kenneth B. Steinhauser and Robin Darling Young. To be published by The Catholic University of America Press. A translation of St. Augustine, Locutiones in Heptateuchum, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, and other works on the Old Testament. To be published in the series Augustine for the Twenty-First Century, by New City Press. A volume on the preaching and exegesis of John Chrysostom, to be published by Brazos Press.

Contributors Jonat h a n J. A r mst rong, a former student of Joseph Lienhard, is an adjunct professor at Trinity Evangelical Seminary in Deerfield, Illinois. D. J e f f r e y Bi ngh a m is the department chair and professor of theological studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. J. Patou t Bu r ns is the Edward A. Malloy Professor of Catholic Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and a former president of the North American Patristics Society (1992–93). Br i a n E . Da l e y, S.J. , is the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and a former president of the North American Patristics Society (1997–98). E v e r et t F e rguson is professor emeritus of Bible and distinguished scholar-in-residence at Abilene Christian University, and a former president of the North American Patristics Society (1990–92). F r e de r ick Va n F l et e r e n is professor of philosophy at LaSalle University. A l e x a n de r Y. H wa ng, a former student of Joseph Lienhard, is assistant professor of historical theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Jose ph F. K e l ly is professor of religious studies at John Carroll University and a former president of the North American Patristics Society (1994–96). T hom a s F. M a rt i n, O. S. A . , was professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, where he was also director of the Augustinian Institute. Fr. Martin died in 2009.

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Sa r a Pa rv is is lecturer in patristics (ecclesiastical history) at the University of Edinburgh. Ron n i e J. Rom bs , a former student of Joseph Lienhard, is assistant professor of theology at the University of Dallas. T hom a s Sch ec k is assistant professor in classics and theology at Ave Maria University. A . E dwa r d Si eci e nsk i , a former student of Joseph Lienhard, is assistant professor of religion at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. K e l l e y McC a rt h y Spoe r l is associate professor and chairman of the theology department of Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire. K e n n et h B. St e i n h ause r is professor of patristics and early church history in the department of theological studies at Saint Louis University. Rol a n d J. T e sk e , S.J. , is professor of philosophy emeritus at Marquette University.

Index Acacius of Caesarea, 89n1, 91–92, 116, 127, 132, 133n17, 134, 140 Aëtius, 131, 141, 149n64 Aileran the Wise, 255–56, 266–67 Altaner, Berthold, 263 Ambrose, 140n37, 165–67, 169, 186–91, 212, 214, 224–27, 230, 255, 265, 287, 310, 320 Ammundsen, Valdemar, 40–41 Ancyra, synod, 93n14, 104–105, 120n49 Anomoeans, 121, 125, 131 Anselm of Canterbury, 193, 203n71, 210, 277–79 apocatastasis, 287, 289, 294n27, 296, 306 Apocrypha, 8, 221, 261–62 Apolinarius (the anti-Montanist), 25 Apollinarius, 91–92, 103, 109–112, 114–27, 134, 137, 148, 150 Apologists, 8, 10, 177 Apostolic Constitutions, 140–42, 145, 147–48 Apostolic Fathers, 8, 141n40, 143n47, 144n51 apostolic teaching, 36, 54 apostolic tradition, 12–14, 17–19, 21–22, 25–27, 34, 57, 67, 142–43, 154, 161– 62 Apponius, 260, 265 Apuleius, 6 Aquinas, Thomas, 223, 250, 270, 278, 312–13, 335 Aristotle, 4, 213, 215, 217, 220, 279, 283 Arius, 103, 110–13, 116, 120, 124, 126n68, 127, 130–31, 133, 134n20, 143, 149, 288, 294, 326–28 Arles, Synod of, 105

Athanasius, 26–27, 44n55, 89–96, 103n50, 104–105, 111–18, 120–27, 130, 133–34, 136–38, 140n37, 209, 255, 306, 310 Augustinus Hibernicus, 267 Aullus Gellius, 6 Bacq, Philippe, 53, 59 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, 287–88, 296–97, 303, 328 baptism, 20, 26, 36, 40, 81–82, 143, 149, 153, 160–62, 164–65, 167–68, 171, 190, 227, 263, 281, 329: infant, 16, 172; rebaptism, 22–23, 25, 28 baptismal confession, 32–39, 41, 43 Bardy, Gustave, 29, 41–43, 297n47 Basil of Ancyra, 92, 103, 120n49, 133–34, 140 Basil of Caesarea, 27, 29, 46, 89n2, 90–92, 103–104, 116n31, 128–29, 136–38, 142,149n60–61, 168–69, 186, 191, 293, 306, 310–11 Basilides, 11 Bavaud, G., 162, 172 Becker, Svend Aage, 40 Bede the Venerable, 258n18, 259–60 Behr, John, 32, 130n10 Bischoff, Bernhard, 254, 259, 264 Bonaventure, 278–79 Boniface, 74, 77 Bouyer, L., 309n4, 310n5, 335 Brennecke, Hanns-Christof, 93n14, 130n9, 131, 133n16 Brown, Shirley Ann, 262n36, 263–64 Caesarius of Arles, 259, 261, 263, 265 Cahill, Michael, 259

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348

Index

Calvin, John, 280–81, 285 Caspari, C. P., 35–36 Cassiciacum, 211–12, 227, 274 Cassiodorus, 259, 262, 265 Catullus, 214–16 Celestine, 70, 73–81, 253 Cicero, 212, 214–22, 226n42, 227–28, 230–31, 271, 275–76 Clement of Alexandria, 6n15, 11, 13–15, 18, 24, 45n56, 61n66 Clement of Rome, 9, 12, 45n56, 267, Campenhausen, Hans von, 30, 295, 297 Carthage, Council of, 74, 81 Celestine I, 70, 73–81, 253 Chromatius of Aquileia, 265, 319 Colet, John, 315, 321, 335 Columbanus, 254, 258–60 Columcille, 254, 258, 264 Constantinople: Council of 117, 110n5, 133, 139, 150; Second Council of, 122n53, 288, 300. See also Fifth Ecumenical Council Constantius, 124, 133, 148 Cornelius, 21–22 Crouzel, Henri, 287–88, 290n10, 294–96, 322 Cyprian, 21–23, 25, 28, 159–62, 164, 169, 186–87, 189, 191, 310 Cyril of Alexandria, 77–78, 209 Cyril of Jerusalem, 46, 91, 142–43 Daley, Brian, 110, 305n88 Damasus of Rome, 104, 109, 136, 139n37 Daniélou, Jean, 13n47, 15, 288, 296–98, 303, 322n56 “Dated Creed” of Sirmium, 130 “Dedication” synod of Antioch, 27, 102, 114n18, 120 Deferrari, Roy, 129, 138n30 Demetrius (of Alexandria), 290, 325–26 Derrida, Jacques, 284–85 Descartes, René, 279–80 Desert Fathers, 72–73, 75 Didache, 141 Didascalia of the Apostles, 141 Diodore of Tarsus, 111, 128, 137 Dionysius of Alexandria, 24, 80, 287n3

Diospolis, synod of, 74, 76,169 doctores Gallicani, 68–71, 74, 78, 83 Dodaro, Robert, 270–71, 285 dominical sayings, 40, 53. See also sayings of the Lord; sayings of Jesus Donatus, 180–81, 254 Donatists, 61, 159, 164, 172, 175, 180–84 Ephesus, Council, 77–78 Epicureanism, 213, 220, 222–23 Epiphanius of Salamis, 10n31, 27, 92, 95, 96, 115, 120n49, 127–28, 131–32, 135n22, 136, 292n19, 293, 298–300, 326 Epistle of Peter to James, 18 Epistle to Diognetus, 9 Erasmus, 295, 308–317, 319–330 Eriugena, John Scottus, 254, 256 Eucharist, 21–22, 129 eudaimoneia, 212–13, 230 eudaimonism , 212–13, 217, 230 Eunomius, 131 Eusebius of Caesarea, 7n18, 7n21, 9, 11nn43–44, 16, 24–26, 38n27, 41n47, 44n55, 49n4, 65n90, 90–91, 93, 97n29, 101, 105–6, 109, 112m11, 113, 115, 117, 119–20, 122, 124, 127, 143, 145, 146n56, 265, 289, 291n13, 292, 316–20, 323, 326–27, 329, 330–31 Eusebius of Emesa, 91, 114 Eusebius of Nicomedia, 90, 122n52 Eustathius of Antioch, 91, 110–15, 117–20, 122, 124–27, 129, 147, 292 Euzoïus, 133–34 Evagrius of Pontus, 294, 305n87 Faustus (of Riez), 84 Faustus (the Manichee), 47,154–57, 176, 178–79 Ferrara-Florence, Council of, 287 Fifth Ecumenical Council, 288 Fischer, Norbert, 271, 284n57, 285 Fisher, John 312–13, 315, 325 Gelasius I, 261 George of Laodicea, 113–14, 117–19, 121, 124–25, 133 gnosis, 15



Index

Gnosticism, 11n34, 31n5, 34 Gnostics, 10, 12, 40, 49, 51, 149n60, 232 Godin, 315n33, 316, 320, 323n57, 327, 330n71, 333 grace, 9, 15, 55–56, 58, 65–79, 81–85, 135, 164, 168, 171, 176–78, 187, 203, 208–10, 227, 235–36, 240–42, 244, 246n59, 249–50, 262–64, 268, 273, 278, 280–81, 284–85, 292, 316, 322, 327, 336 Gregory of Nazianzus, 128n3, 139, 148–50, 168–69, 186, 191, 287, 293, 306 Gregory of Nyssa, 128n3, 140, 143, 241, 287, 306 Gregory the Great, 255, 258–60, 263, 265, 268, 320 Hackett, Jeremiah, 270–71, 285 Hadot, Pierre, 272 Hagedorn, Dieter, 141n41, 145, 146n57 Hanson, R. P. C., 3n1, 9n32, 15n56, 16, 93n16, 297, 298n48, 304n81 Harnack, Adolf von, 34–37, 40, 49n3, 295–96 Hegesippus, 24–25 Heidegger, Martin, 270–71, 283–85 Hermas, 44n55, 232 Herren, Michael, 262n36, 263–64 Herrmann, F. W. von, 270, 283n54, 284n57 Hexapla, 290, 330–31 Hilary of Marseilles, 69 Hilary of Poitiers, 186 Hippolytus, 11, 17, 141, 290 Holy Spirit, 20, 23, 27, 57, 95, 98–101, 125, 129, 133n17, 135–39, 142, 144–46, 148–49, 153, 156, 166, 207–8, 249–50, 267–68, 287 Homer, 4, 63 Homoeans (Homoians), 121, 131, 134, 138n30 Homoiousians 90–91, 120–21, 125, 131, 138n30, 139–40, 147 Hortensius, 211, 212, 214–18, 227–28, 230, 233 Husserl, Edmund, 270, 283–85

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Ignatius of Antioch, 25, 140n37, 141, 143–44, 147 Iliberris, synod (Elvira), 105 Innocent, 74, 76, 81, 167–69, 191, 300 Irenaeus, 8n22, 9–13, 15, 18, 24, 26, 31n5, 32–36, 38, 40–41, 43–45, 58–67, 163–64, 167, 172, 191, 265, 287n3, 310 Isidore of Pelusium, 39 Isidore of Seville, 255, 257, 259, 265 Isocrates, 4 Jansenius, 281, 285 Jerome, 46n67, 110n5, 111, 191, 197, 221, 255–57, 259–60, 262, 265–66, 290n11, 293–94, 307, 309n3, 310, 313, 316n30, 318, 320, 326, 329–31 John Cassian, 68–77, 85 John Chrysostom, 28, 133n18, 134, 169–71, 191, 265, 293, 307, 310, 333 John of Antioch, 77 Josephus, 7–9, 24, 260 Julius of Rome, 94, 106 Justin Martyr, 10, 49, 140n37 Justinian, 288, 294, 296 Kalvesmaki, Joel, 51–52 Kattenbusch, Ferdinand, 35–36, 40 Koch, Hal, 295, 297 Kunze, Johannes, 36–39 Lactantius, 23, 212, 214, 216, 222–24, 230 Leclercq, Jean, 263 Leer, Ellen Flesseman-van, 3n1, 11nn 37 and 40, 12n42, 18n63, 19n70, 19n70, 19n73, 36 Leontius, 69 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 35 Lienhard, Joseph T., 31, 48, 89–92, 94n22, 99n34, 100, 104n52, 107, 109, 114, 117, 118n39, 120nn48–49, 122n53, 154, 173, 192, 232, 253, 256, 269, 286, 291n13, 297n45, 308–9, 327n62, 336 Lietzmann, Hans, 30, 111n10, 123nn57–58 Lightfoot, J. B., 141n40, 144–45 Livy, 5, 329 Löfstedt, Bengt, 260 Louth, Andrew, 65n90, 301

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Logos, 16, 40, 126n67, 142, 146 Lubac, Henri de, 42, 263, 285, 288–307, 309n4, 334n79, 335 Lucidus, 84 Lucifer of Cagliari, 133 Luther, Martin, 280, 285, 295, 328 Malebranche, Nicolas, 279–80 Mani, 155n6, 156, 172, 175, 178–80 Manichaeans (or, Manichees), 47, 149n60, 154, 156–59, 168, 172, 176, 178–80, 188–89, 201, 239 Marcellus of Ancyra, 89–111, 113nn14 and 15, 117–19, 122, 125–27, 143, 145–46, 149nn62–63 Marcion, 38n27, 45, 232 Mark Eugenicus, 287 Markschies, Christoph, 30n1, 43–45, 47 Markus, R. A., 76n43, 234–35, 274n12 Marrou, Henri-Irénée, 234–35, 248, 282 Martin of Braga, 221 Maximus the Confessor, 306n92, 307 McNally, Robert E., 256, 259, 262, 268n58 McNamara, Martin, 260n26, 261, 265n50 Melanchthon, 313 Meletius of Antioch, 91, 116n31, 127–29, 132–41, 147–50 Methodius of Olympus, 292 Meyendorff, John, 306 Minucius Felix, 10 Mirandola, Pico della, 222, 295, 300, 313, 329 Modalism, 135, 238, 140, 143, 150 Montanus, 25, 149 Montanism, 101 Nag Hammadi, 50 Narcissus of Neronias, 112n11, 113 Nautin, Pierre, 316n39, 317 Neo-Arians, 128, 130–31, 138n30, 140, 145, 147–49 Nestorius, 77, 288 Newman, John Henry, 295 Nicaea, 26, 105, 112–14, 117, 121, 123–31, 133–36, 138–40, 142, 150 Nicene party (pro-Nicenes, Nicenes), 122, 124

Nock, A. D., 28 Novatian, 21, 23, 38, 149 O’Connell, Robert, 236n19, 237 Ohme, Heinz, 42, 44n56, 54n56 O’Malley, J., 309, 311n11 Origen, 15–17, 24, 41–42, 45, 141, 143–45, 246, 259, 263, 265 286–336 Orange, Second Council, 84, 263 O’Reilly, Jennifer, 264 Orosius, 259, 265 Palladius, 74, 253 Pamphilus, 289, 294, 317 Papias, 9, 24 Paraclete, 19–20, 142–44. See also Holy Spirit Parmenianus, 181–82, 184 Pascal, Blaise, 281–82 Patrick, St., 253, 263 Paulinus of Antioch, 91, 112n11, 126–27, 134, 136n24, 137–39, 147, 148n58 Pelagius, 74, 75n37, 81, 169, 189–90, 207n68, 262–65 Pelagius of Laodicea, 116 Pelikan, Jaroslav, 307 Perkins, Pheme, 48n2, 50, 52, 54n31, 60n63 Persona, Cristoforo, 313 Philo, 6 Philostorgius, 129, 333n17 Photinus, 91, 103 Plato, 4, 212–13, 220, 225, 272, 273 Plotinus, 207, 225, 233, 239–42, 245, 270, 272, 274, 276 Plutarch, 5 Polybius, 4 Polycarp, 12, 54n30, 140n37 Polycrates of Ephesus, 25, 41 Porphyry, 270, 272, 274–76 Prestige, G. L. 3n1, 292 Prosper of Aquitaine, 68–85, 162 Pseudo Plutarch, 5 Ptolemy (the Valentinian), 10 Raven, Charles, 115 Reticius of Autun, 164, 191



Index 

Reynders, D. B., 8n22, 9n27, 11, 12n42, 13nn45 and 46 Rittmueller, Jean, 256n11, 265 Rufinus, 294, 318n46 Sabellianism, 91, 114, 117–18, 127 sayings of Jesus, 53, 54–56, 59, 62, 64–67. See also dominical sayings; sayings of the Lord sayings of the Lord, 48, 57–61, 64–67 Schoedel, William, 48, 55n36 Scottus, Sedulius, 254, 256, 260, 264–65 Sebastiàn, Louis, 281–82 Seneca, 6, 214, 221–22, 230, 276, 278n22 Septuagint, 6, 97, 290 Sixtus, 73–75, 77–78, 313 Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel, 262 Socrates, 113n15, 114–15, 116n29, 120n49, 125n65, 129, 130n9, 132n14, 133nn17– 19, 134n20, 139, 140n36 Sozomen, 112n11, 113n15, 115–16, 120, 122, 123n65, 126n66, 128, 129n6, 132n14, 133nn17–19, 134n20, 135, 139 Straume-Zimmermann, Laila, 214, 217n11 Stoicism 214, 221–24, 230 Stuiber, Alfred, 263 Synod of the Oak, 293 Tatian, 10 Tertullian, 18–21, 25, 32–33, 36–38, 40, 42n51, 45, 299, 305, 318, 326–28

351

Teske, Roland, 175, 234–35, 237n26, 241n42, 242n47 Theodore of Mopsuestia, 209, 260, 265, 293, 297 Theodoret of Cyrus, 113, 115n27, 116n29, 128n3, 129n7, 132n14, 133n17, 137n28, 138, 139n32, 140n37, 293 Theodosius, 138 Theodotus of Laodicea, 113–21, 125 Theophilus of Alexandria, 293, 313 Thom, Catherine, 257 Thomassen, Einar, 51 Thucydides, 4 Tripp, David H., 50–51 Valentinus, 11, 51, 59 Varro, Marcus, 276, 329 Victorinus, Marius, 272 Victorinus of Pettau, 38 Vincent of Lerins, 68–85, 162, 297 Vitalis, 116, 126–27 Vitrier, Jean, 315, 323, 328, 333 Wengert, T., 313 Whitby, synod of, 258 Wisse, Frederick, 48–50, 56n38, 67n95 Wood, Susan, 301 Zahn, Theodor, 30, 32–41, 43 Zosimus, 74, 75n37, 76, 81, 168

a Tradition & the Rule of Faith in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., was designed in Garamond by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 60-pound Natures Book Natural and bound by Thomson-Shore of Dexter, Michigan.