Theologian Thursday: Vincent on Finding the Real Thing

The straight stuff

Many, many people claim to follow Jesus or be part of the Christian Movement, even while disagreeing widely with each other. How do you know you're getting the real deal? Today's theological visitor, Vincent of Lérins, tells us that if you want to find the straight stuff you need to go old school.

In the universal or catholic Church itself, we must make sure that we hold the faith that has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For what is actually and strictly "catholic," or "universal," as the name itself and it's nature imply, is spread out universally.  And we will be following this rule if we follow these three things: universality, antiquity, consent. We follow antiquity if we do not depart in any way from the teachings and understandings that were obviously held widely by our holy ancestors and fathers. And we follow consent when we stick to the consensual definitions and determinations of all -- or almost all -- the priests and great teachers in antiquity 

...But someone might say, "Then, won't there be any progress in Christ's Church?" On the contrary, there will be as much progress as possible. Only someone who envies humans and hates God would try to stop it. But it must be real progress, not alteration, of the faith. In progress something grows within itself, but in alteration it is transformed into something else. So the intelligence, knowledge, wisdom of individuals and of everyone, of a single person just as much as the whole Church, should grow and make vast and vigorous progress over the ages and centuries. But this will happen within each type of thing, that is in the same teaching and in the same meaning.  

Vincent of Lérins (died AD 445)
Commonitory, chapters 2 & 23

Why Unpack?

As we were discussing in the last post, Jesus' original teaching to his disciples was slowly unpacked and developed over the following few centuries. Not changed or discarded, but filled out and explained.  But why should it be "unpacked" at all?

Why can't we just stick with "the pure word of the Bible" and ignore whatever happened after the last New Testament book was written? Or better yet (as some people say) why not go by Jesus' words alone. The Apostles never understood him anyway, you know.

One reason is this: People ask questions.

The appearance of a person like Jesus raised a lot of questions. Eventually they dawned on people and the early Christian Movement had basically two choices: either tell them to 'just believe' (which was tried), or come up with an answer. And not just any answer, not something off the top of your head. After all, you were handling a revelation from God, not just some good ideas devised by a philosopher. This required some serious thinking.

Just one example: here is a question asked by an early critic of Christianity named Celsus: If there is only one God, as Jesus himself taught, and you worship Jesus also as a God, how are the two related? "If," Celsus wrote, "these people worshipped one God alone, and no other, they would perhaps have some valid argument against the worship of others. But they pay excessive reverence to one who has but lately appeared among men, and they think it no offense against God if they worship also His servant," (Against Celsus, book 8 chapter 11 - 14)

It was this question, which Christians had already been asking themselves for awhile, that led 150 years later to the concept of the Trinity.

The Standard Model

Faithfully passing on the teaching

While talking yesterday about everybody's favorite segment, "Theologian Thursday," I said that the theologians Authentic Light gives a platform to are those who base their ideas on what was

"taught by Christ to his Apostles, passed on by them to the Christian Movement, and it's ramifications largely unfurled and explained by around AD 400... the consensus reached by the Christian Movement doing the hard work of theology during that time." 

In other places I've mentioned that this site essentially teaches the Apostle's Creed or a deposit of faith that was filled in as time went by.

Behind each of those descriptions is a bit of history that I'd like to spell out for you in case you've ever wondered. It's nothing very complex but is important to realize. In one sentence: You can trace a smooth, direct line through history from Jesus teaching in the1st century to what the Christian Movement was teaching in the 5th.

By "smooth" I don't mean easy; there was plenty of debate and controversy. But they are the same profound "doctrines" -- Jesus' doctrines -- once they have been unpacked.

Jesus, humanly speaking, was a 1st century Palestinian Jew whose deeds and words as Messiah have that fact as their background. He taught his Apostles who faithfully handed it on to the Christian Movement. We can see those same teachings being elaborated in the New Testament and on through the first several centuries until a consensus on most questions was reached.

This "Standard Model" Christianity is the authentic light that we teach here -- as will all the theologians who visit.

To put it differently

Here are the same points elaborated a bit for people who like elaborated points:

1. Jesus of Nazareth did not exist in a vacuum. Instead he lived in a specific time and situation (namely 2nd Temple Judaism in early 1st century Palestine) carrying out the role of Messiah of Israel. What this background was like has been nailed down to a high degree of detail by historical research, and in this atmosphere a good number of silly ideas about him could, frankly, never have happened. On the other hand, the general situation described in the Gospels fits that time like a glove. Therefore his life, death, resurrection, and teaching must be understood against that backdrop if you want to know how people originally took him.

2. Like any good rabbi, Jesus taught his way by word and deed to his students, the Apostles. Unlike most rabbis, he specifically ordered them to teach it to the rest of the world. History shows that the "Easter Event" (fancy scholar talk for his resurrection) brought the Christian Movement into being, and Jesus' teaching was faithfully passed on to them.

3. From there you can trace a smooth progress of those teachings being elaborated and explained. You can see this happen throughout the New Testament, out into the 2nd century after the first generation of Christians had died out, and through the following centuries until most of the big questions had been settled through prayer, discussion, debate, and peer review finally leading to a consensus.

Lost History?

 Some groups have the belief that somewhere along the way something awful happened that radically corrupted Christ's Movement into a "false church." I used to belong to one of those groups. We liked to quote a book whose name I forget to the effect that, "And so [after the last Apostle died, around AD 96] a curtain fell over church history for 100 years. When it rose again a very different church had taken its place."

But this is untrue. No curtain fell and we have at least as much information on what happened during the 2nd century as we do concerning the first, when the New Testament was being written. In fact, while writing this post I just the idea of putting up a list of all the Christian writings from AD 96 through AD 196.

My point is that the history of the 2nd century shows that same smooth progress of elaboration and explanation of Jesus' original teachings as had happened in the first. The only thing that had truly changed by AD 200, which was already changing when "the curtain came down," was how the church was governed now that the Apostles were gone. But then, that would make a good subject for another post!

Ignatius Deploys the Christian Revelation

Ignatius of Antioch is executed in Rome

I've been talking lately about the Christian revelation or the "deposit" of Faith given once and for all to Christ's people, and I've identified it to an extent with the words of that marvelous little poem, the Apostles' Creed. But if you're checking up on me you will know that the Apostles Creed didn't reach the form we're used to until the early AD 700's. Just like our understanding of what Jesus revealed, the words we use to describe and remember it also developed over time. And we can trace that development all the way back to the days of his Apostles.

As we discussed the other day, the Apostle's Creed doesn't lay down rules, it tells a story. After the last Apostle died, one of the earliest places we find that main middle part of the story about Jesus is in a letter by a man named Ignatius. He was the main leader of the Christian Movement in the large Syrian city of Antioch and now found himself in chains on the way to a gory execution in Rome.

Along the way, dedicated leader that he was, he wrote 7 letters to groups of Christians in the towns he passed through. This was in AD 107 or a little later -- about 10 years after John had passed on (To find out when John died, click on Irenaeus, Against Heresies book 2 chapter 22 section 5). He wasn't trying to teach these people the basics of their Faith (they were already Christians, after all), but was more concerned with a fake Christian teaching called "Docetism."  It claimed that Jesus hadn't really been human -- that he only pretended to eat, drink, sleep, and other human things.

So in his Letter to the Trallians he used part of the Christian revelation to show that the Messiah actually was quite a real human being. If you remember how the Apostles Creed goes, it might sound a little familiar:

"So pay no attention, if anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, who was truly raised from the dead. His Father raised him and in the same way will raise us too who believe on Him. His Father will raise us in Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not have true life."

(Letter to the Trallians chapter 9 verses 1 - 2)

For 'Meditation for a Sunday Morning' our guest blogger will be Irenaeus of Antioch. He will go into more detail on how the Christian Movement summed up Christ's revelation in his day.

"...Properly Applied..."

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

But the Helper will teach you everything and cause you to remember all that I told you. This Helper is the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name. 

(Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 14, ERV)

__________________________

Basil of Caesarea was one of the most important theologians the Christian Movement has ever had. Both Catholics and Orthodox consider him a "Doctor (in the sense of a great teacher) of the Church." Here Basil blogs one his many demonstrations that the Holy Spirit is God.

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all make holy, revive, enlighten, and comfort. No one would attribute a special, peculiar duty of making holy to the the Spirit after hearing the Savior ask the Father this about his disciples in the Gospel: "sanctify them in Your name, (Gospel of John chapter 17 verse 17, CEB). In the same way all other tasks are performed equally, for all those worthy of them, by the Father, by the Son, and by the Holy Spirit -- every grace and virtue, guidance, life, comfort, transformation into immortality, the passage into freedom and every other good thing that comes down to humanity...  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit performing one and the same duties clearly proves that they are of the same nature. It follows then that, even if the name of "Godhead" does signify God's nature, their common essence proves that this title is also quite properly applied to the Holy Spirit.

Basil of Caesarea, also known as Saint Basil the Great (AD 329 - 379)
Letter 189 chapter 7