The Patristic Period
Sunday, September 9, 2018
As I shared last week, the desert fathers and mothers focused more on the how than the what. Their spirituality was very practical: virtue and prayer-based. Now we turn to its parallel, the Patristic Period, which emphasized the what—the rational, philosophical, and theological foundations for the young Christian religion. This period stretches from around 100 CE (the end of the Apostolic Age) to either 451 CE (with the Council of Chalcedon) or as late as the eighth century (Second Council of Nicaea in 787 CE).
The word patristic comes from the Latin and Greek pater, father. The fathers of the early Church were primarily “Eastern” in that they lived in the Middle East and Asia, which are East relative to Europe. We must admit that because women were often not allowed education or formal authority in this patriarchal period of history and religion, the majority of documented leadership is by men. (I am sorry to say, much of today’s Church and culture is still not congruent with Jesus’ and Paul’s attitudes toward women, who were both far ahead of their cultural stage and training.)
Alexandria in Egyptian Africa was a primary center for learning and culture across many fields—philosophy, art, medicine, literature, and science—during the Hellenistic and Roman periods (310 BCE–330 CE). The library in Alexandria was probably the largest in the ancient world. Greek, Eastern, Jewish, and Christian thought intersected in this environment, bringing together diverse perspectives and many saints and scholars.
One of the key teachers of the Alexandrian school, Origen (184–254), is considered by some to be the first Christian theologian. Many of his ideas, particularly apocatastasis (“universal restoration”), were largely misunderstood and thus declared heretical in the sixth century. The Alexandrian interactive/dynamic/mystical understanding of Jesus’ human and divine natures (developed by Athanasius, Cyril, and Bishop Dioscorus) became dominant for a while but was later rejected at the Council of Chalcedon, which insisted that Jesus had two very distinct natures. These then became hard to reconnect on any practical level—in Jesus and in us!
Building on the work of the Alexandrian school, the Cappadocian Fathers (in what is now Turkey) further advanced early Christian theology with their doctrine on the Trinity. The three theologian saints Basil the Great (330–379), his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (c. 332–395), and Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389) sought to give Christianity a solid scholarly status, on par with Greek philosophy of the time. They developed an intellectual rationale for Christianity’s central goal: humanity’s healing and loving union with God.
We’ll explore these early Eastern theologians’ views on Christ, Trinity, theosis, universal salvation, and hesychasm (prayer of rest) throughout this week’s meditations.
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Christ is Everyman and Everywoman
Monday, September 10, 2018
Many passages in the New Testament give a cosmic meaning to Jesus as the Eternal Christ (Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, John 1), but the Eastern fathers of the Church were the first (and last) to make this into a full theology until Bonaventure and Duns Scotus in the thirteenth century and Teilhard de Chardin in the twentieth century. This theology of Christ was never developed in the West, which is why it seems like a new idea to most Catholics and Protestants.
Many of the Alexandrian school in Egypt saw Jesus as a dynamic or interactive union of human and divine in one person. They saw Christ as the living icon of the eternal union of matter and Spirit in all of creation. Jesus was fully human, just as he was fully divine at the same time, but dualistic thinkers find that impossible to process, so they usually choose one or the other. For example, many Christians believe Jesus is divine and we are human, missing the major point of putting the two together! Matter and Spirit must be found to be inseparable in Christ before we have the courage and insight to acknowledge and honor the same in ourselves and in the entire universe. Christ is the Archetype of Everything.
One of my favorite Orthodox scholars, Olivier Clément (1921-2009), helps explain the Eastern fathers’ understanding of Christ:
How could humanity on earth, enslaved by death, recover its wholeness? It was necessary to give to dead flesh the ability to share in the life-giving power of God. He, though he is Life by nature, took a body subject to decay in order to destroy in it the power of death and transform it into life. As iron when it is brought in contact with fire immediately begins to share its colour, so the flesh when it has received the life-giving Word into itself is set free from corruption. Thus he put on our flesh to set it free from death. [1]
The whole of humanity, “forms, so to speak, a single living being.” In Christ we form a single body, we are all “members of one another.” For the one flesh of humanity and of the earth “brought into contact” in Christ “with the fire” of his divinity, is henceforward secretly and sacramentally deified. [2]
Unfortunately, at the Council of Chalcedon, this view—the single, unified nature of Christ—was rejected for the “orthodox” belief, held to this day by most Christian denominations, which emphasizes two distinct natures in Jesus instead of a synthesis. Sometimes what seems like orthodoxy is, in fact, a well-hidden heresy!
Even science confirms that there is no clear division between matter and spirit. Everything is interpenetrating. As Franciscan scientist and theologian Ilia Delio often says, “We are in the universe and the universe is in us.” Christ’s very nature mirrors this universal reality, that we are all one, just as he is one within himself.
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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling
September 10, 2018
AM ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO YOU. Once you have trusted Me as your Savior, I never distance Myself from you. Sometimes you may feel distant from Me. Recognize that as feeling; do not confuse it with reality. The Bible is full of My promises to be with you always. As I assured Jacob, when he was journeying away from home into unknown places, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. My last recorded promise to My followers was: Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Let these assurances of My continual Presence fill you with Joy and Peace. No matter what you may lose in this life, you can never lose your relationship with Me.
ISAIAH 54: 10; Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
GENESIS 28: 15; 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
MATTHEW 28: 19– 20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
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