Key early thinkers

We’ve now looked at some of the challenges the church faced, by way of culture, law, religion and heresy. We’ve also looked at some of the earliest Christian writers – the Apostolic Fathers. But now we need to look at some of the first writers who deserve the title ‘theologian’ outside of the New Testament.

Irenaeus becomes bishop of Lyon. His writings are mainly against heresies, and in particular, Gnosticism. Although we know he wrote a number of books, only two complete ones survive. Against Heresies (often cited with its Latin title, Adversus Haereses) and The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.

Tertullian was a native of Carthage, a convert to Christianity. At some point he converted to Montanism (see earlier lecture).

A lot of Tertullian’s writings survive. They take various forms: apologetics, polemic against Judaism, pastoral, eschatology, moralism, anti-heretical (especially against Marcion and Gnosticism).

Anti-gnostic writings. Baptism. Women.

Like Irenaeus, Tertullian defends apostolic tradition as a key to distinguishing the true gospel taught in the true Church, from false belief taught by heretics. He also, like Irenaeus, is able to cite another version of the Rule of Faith, again probably associated with catechesis.

His most well-known anti-heretical work is known as De Praescriptione Haereticorum (‘How to put the heretics out of court’).

A good sample of Tertullian’s writings can be found in A New Eusebius (2013 edition), pp.175 – 197).

Fell out with a series of bishops over doctrine and church discipline. Eventually set himself up as anti-Pope (ie. A bishop in schism).

Though he wrote in Greek, Hippolytus has some similarities to Tertullian. In personality, they were both rigorists and fierce critics of heresy. Hippolytus’ major work is his Refutation of All Heresies (sometimes cited by its Latin title, Refutatio). Against Modalism: a form of heresy where the distinction between Father and Son is confused in the interests of maintaining the unity of God. This can lead to absurdities such as patripassianism. This heresy was a stepping-stone on the journey to formulating the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Council of Nicea just over a century later.

There are many other works by Hippolytus still existing. These embrace biblical exegesis, apologetics and church order.

Hippolytus’ work, The Apostolic Tradition: including an early Eucharistic prayer, which begins with ‘The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Lift up your hearts … etc.’ as do our current eucharistic prayers. This find influenced a lot of the liturgical revision of churches in the 20th century and elements of it are to be found in Common Worship today. Unfortunately, the dating of that text – has now been challenged. It’s possible that element of the material are as old as Hippolytus’ time, but other parts may come from several centuries later.

For samples of Hippolytus’ writing, see A New Eusebius (2013 Edition) pp. 154–171 and pp. 81–84.

Alexandria in Egypt, featured a library/museum, large Jewish community, besides being a trading port. Birthplace of the Septuagint and of Philo.

The Church in Alexandria had developed an influential catechetical school which was able to engage apologetically in the defence of the Christian faith in this highly intellectual climate.

Influence of Gnosticism in Egypt. Nag Hammadi is in Egypt. Basilides, one of the most famous early Gnostics, taught in Alexandria from 117 to 138.

Clement was a convert to Christianity from a pagan family. He had clearly been well educated and displays an extensive knowledge of pagan philosophy, literature and of mystery religions. Clement studied at the catechetical school in Alexandria and was ordained around 189. The key writings we have from Clement come from 195–203. He left Alexandria during a time of persecution around 203. He may have moved to Cappadocia, but we lose sight of him and it’s unclear when and where he died.

Clement integrates pagan speculative philosophy with Christian theology. It goes almost to the limit of orthodoxy, some would say beyond, but unlike the Gnostics, it does not lose sight of the Bible, or the classic themes of the Christian tradition.

Like the Gnostics, however, Clement makes a distinction between the faith in its basic form, as taught to ordinary people, and a more complex, philosophical gnosis, or knowledge, available to a more intellectual and philosophical Christian thinker.

Three main works have survived from Clement:

The Stromata probably reflect his most mature thinking.

Clement had certain things in common with Gnostic teaching:

For samples of Clement’s writings, see A New Eusebius (2013 Edition) pp. 201 – 212

Origen is regarded as the greatest Christian thinker between St Paul and St Augustine (4/5 century). He was born of Christian parents in Alexandria. His father was martyred in 202 and the young Origen was imprisoned. Studied at the Catechetical School at Alexandria and was placed at its helm after the persecution. He had a great love of the Bible and, unusually for Christians of the time, he learned Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament in its original language, rather than in a Greek translation. Origen wrote extensively on the scriptures.

Relationship between OT and NT had been challenged by Gnostics and Marcion. For Origen, the key to understand the relationship lay in the principle of interpretation (hermeneutics). He distinguished in his method the ‘surface meaning’ (literal meaning) of scripture from its ‘spiritual meaning’. This led to a system of allegory, where the text could yield another, more philosophically speculative meaning lying ‘under the surface’. Origen divided his studies of the Bible between textual work and exegetical work. He produced a critical edition of the Septuagint, referring to the Hebrew original – correcting the Greek translations as necessary.

Origen was active in arguing against Gnosticism and engaged with other heresies too.

Apologetics: addressing the criticisms of Christianity the pagan intellectual Celsus. Origen’s Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) is one of the most thorough pieces of apologetics for centuries. Origen had to become an authority in pagan philosophy in order to address criticism at this level.

Origen was very speculative in his thinking, which his allegorical method supported. This helped and hindered development towards the doctrine of the Trinity later on. Themes include: the eternal generation of the Word (helpful); the subordination of the Word within the divine nature (not helpful).

Another problem was how the Word could be co-joined with human flesh without compromising

the divine nature of God. Clement (see above) had struggled with this issue.

Origin believed, along with other platonists, in the eternal nature of the soul. However, he also believed that our souls, though eternal, had partaken in a cosmic ‘fall’ which was spoken of in surface terms by the story of Eden. Like Clement, and Philo before him, Origin also looked to the doctrine of the Word, or Logos, to help understand the origin of Christ.

For Origen, the Logos was ‘eternally begotten’ by the Father, which explains the use of Father-Son language. This means that, in principle at least, there was never a time when the Word did not exist alongside the Father.

The doctrine of humanity: a soul enfleshed in a body. Souls are eternal (before and after).

Key work ‘On first things’ (Latin: De Principiis) is the best introduction to his doctrinal thought. However, the only full version is a Latin translation by Rufinus (date: 397) who freely admits that on occasions he has adjusted Origen’s original.

For representative texts of Origen’s, see A New Eusebius (2013 Edition) pp. 213–238 and 147–151 (where Origen quotes Celsus’ criticisms).