Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume 1, Revised Edition

From Its Beginnings to the Eve of the Reformation

William C. Placher, Derek R. Nelson

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781611646139
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie chrétienne

William C. Placher and Derek Nelson compile significant passages written by the most important Christian thinkers, from the early church through the Middle Ages, and up to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Illustrating the major theologians, controversies, and schools of thought, Readings in the History of Christian Theology is an essential companion to the study of church history and historical theology. Excerpts are preceded by the editors' introductions, allowing the book to stand alone as a coherent history. This revised edition expands the work's scope with the addition of many new texts, especially those from the voices of women and others who have been marginalized from the theological tradition. This valuable resource brings together the writings of major theologians from the church's history for a new generation of students.

1

Gnosticism and Its Opponents

The New Testament records the beginnings of Christian theology. Paul and the author of the Gospel of John were the first great Christian theologians; the debates between Jewish and Gentile Christians recorded in Acts and in Paul’s letters produced Christianity’s first major theological controversies. Since those first Christian texts are as accessible as the nearest Bible, however, this collection begins with the earliest surviving Christian writings from outside the New Testament—the first of them probably written about the same time as the latest New Testament texts.

There were many very different strands in earliest Christianity, and these first theologians struggled to define what was “orthodox” and what was “heresy.” The answers emerged only gradually. Perhaps the most important early debate concerned Gnosticism. “Gnosis” means “wisdom,” and the Gnostics claimed to teach secret wisdom concerning how the world and evil emerged from disorder among the divine powers and how, by understanding our true natures, we can free our souls from our bodies and return to our true origins. Gnosticism began independent of Christianity, but many Gnostics soon identified Christ with the Savior figure common to Gnostic myths. But they denied that Christ had had a real physical body, for they were convinced of the evil of physical things. Some New Testament passages (Colossians 2 and Johannine emphases on Christ’s human body, for instance) seem already directed against Gnostic Christians, but the conflict reached its height in the second century.

Other controversies took shape about the same time. Around 150 in Rome a Christian named Marcion advocated a radical break with Jewish traditions. The God of the Old Testament, he said, was the imperfect creator of an imperfect world and quite different from the unqualifiedly good Father of Jesus Christ, who sent his Son to rescue us from this creation. Jews and Christians simply worship two different Gods, and the Father of Christ is not responsible for the evil in a world he did not make. In Asia Minor, about the same time, Montanus and his followers proclaimed that the Holy Spirit spoke directly through them in their prophecies, with an authority that could supersede the writings of the apostles or the teachings of church officials.

In the face of Gnostics, Marcionites, and Montanists, their opponents had to defend the church’s beliefs and patterns of authority more clearly. Gradually they defined a “canon” of official New Testament texts. The authority of bishops provided a way of overruling Gnostic teachers and Montanist prophets. Christian theologians began to define more clearly what they believed about Christ—emphasizing his full humanity and how he saves us. A clearer definition of “orthodox” Christian faith was emerging.

From The Gospel of Thomas

Beginning in 1945 a collection of Gnostic texts was discovered near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi. Earlier students of Gnosticism had been largely dependent on reports from the Gnostics’ opponents. To a much greater extent, we can now hear the Gnostics speak for themselves. The Gospel of Thomas, written in Syria, Palestine, or Mesopotamia sometime in the second century, is one of the most interesting of the Nag Hammadi documents. Many of the sayings of Jesus it presents closely parallel passages from the New Testament Gospels, but others illustrate the Gnostic emphasis on a secret tradition known only to the elect—and hint at the complex Gnostic attitudes toward women.

These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.

(1) And he said, “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.”

(2) Jesus said, “Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.”

(3) Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty”....

(13) Jesus said to His disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like.”

Simon Peter said to Him, “You are like a righteous angel.”

Matthew said to Him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”

Thomas said to Him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like.”

Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”

And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”

Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”...

(50) Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’ say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established [itself] and became manifest through their image.’ If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we are the elect of the Living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is movement and repose’”....

(108) Jesus said, “He who will drink from My mouth will become like Me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.”

(109) Jesus said, “The Kingdom is like a man who had [hidden] treasure in his field without knowing it. And [after] he died, he left it to his son. The son did not know (about the treasure). He inherited the field and sold [it]. And the one who bought it went plowing and found the treasure. He began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished.”

(110) Jesus said, “Whoever finds the world and becomes rich, let him renounce the world.”

(111) Jesus said, “The heavens and the earth will be rolled up in your presence. And the one who lives from the Living One will not see death.” Does not Jesus say, “Whoever finds himself is superior to the world”?

(112) Jesus said, “Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe to the soul that depends on the flesh.”

(113) His disciples said to Him, “When will the Kingdom come?”

[Jesus said,] “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.”

(114) Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life.”

Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Translated by Helmut Koester and Thomas O. Lambdin. From The Nag Hammadi Library, 3rd edition, edited by James M. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pages 118–19, 123, 129–30. Copyright © 1978 by E. J. Brill. Reprinted by permission of E. J. Brill and Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

From The Second Treatise of the Great Seth

When and where this Nag Hammadi text was written remain unclear, but it certainly presents Gnostic ideas, including Docetism—the denial of Christ’s real humanity. According to this selection, the Savior entered a human body but remained somehow quite distinct from that body, and Simon of Cyrene not only carried Jesus’ cross (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26) but also died on it in Jesus’ place. The text also refers to a number of the spiritual powers common in the complex Gnostic systems.

I visited a bodily dwelling. I cast out the one who was in it first, and I went in. And the whole multitude of the archons became troubled. And all the matter of the archons as well as all the begotten powers of the earth were shaken when it saw the likeness of the Image, since it was mixed. And I am the one who was in it, not resembling him who was in it first. For he was an earthly man, but I, I am from above the heavens. I did not refuse them even to become a Christ, but I did not reveal myself to them in the love which was coming forth from me. I revealed that I am a stranger to the regions below....

And there came about a disturbance and a fight around the Seraphim and Cherubim since their glory will fade, and the confusion around Adonaios on both sides and their dwelling—to the Cosmocrator and him who said, “Let us seize him”; others again, “The plan will certainly not materialize.” For Adonaios knows me because of hope. And I was in the mouths of lions. And the plan which they devised about me to release their error and their senselessness—I did not succumb to them as they had planned. But I was not afflicted at all. Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance, lest I be put to shame by them because these are my kinsfolk.

I removed the shame from me and I did not become fainthearted in the face of what happened to me at their hands. I was about to succumb to fear, and I <suffered> according to their sight and thought, in order that they may never find any word to speak about them. For my death which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance.

Translated by Joseph A. Gibbons, Roger A. Bullard, and Frederik Wisse. From The Nag Hammadi Library, 3rd edition, edited by James M. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pages 330–32. Copyright © 1978 by E. J. Brill. Reprinted by permission of E.J. Brill and Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (D. CA. 110)

From Letter to the Trallians

Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in Syria and a great opponent of the Gnostics, was arrested for his Christian faith and led off to his death in Rome about 110. On the way from Syria to Rome, under arrest and facing death, he wrote several letters to Christian churches in the regions through which he traveled, urging faithfulness to their bishops and belief in Christ’s real humanity.

1. Well do I realize what a character you have—above reproach and steady under strain. It is not just affected, but it comes naturally to you, as I gathered from Polybius, your bishop. By God’s will and that of Jesus Christ, he came to me in Smyrna, and so heartily congratulated me on being a prisoner for Jesus Christ that in him I saw your whole congregation. I welcomed, then, your good will, which reached me by him, and I gave thanks that I found you, as I heard, to be following God.

2. For when you obey the bishop as if he were Jesus Christ, you are (as I see it) living not in a merely human fashion but in Jesus Christ’s way, who for our sakes suffered death that you might believe in his death and so escape dying yourselves. It is essential, therefore, to act in no way without the bishop, just as you are doing. Rather submit even to the presbytery as to the apostles of Jesus Christ. He is our Hope [cf. 1 Tim. 1:1], and if we live in union with him now, we shall gain eternal life....

6. I urge you, therefore—not I, but Jesus Christ’s love—use only Christian food. Keep off foreign fare, by which I mean heresy. For those people mingle Jesus Christ with their teachings just to gain your confidence under false pretenses. It is as if they were giving a deadly poison mixed with honey and wine, with the result that the unsuspecting victim gladly accepts it and drinks down death with fatal pleasure.

7. Be on your guard, then, against such people. This you will do by not being puffed up and by keeping very close to [our] God, Jesus Christ, and the bishop and the apostles’ precepts. Inside the sanctuary a man is pure; outside he is impure. That means: whoever does anything without the bishop, presbytery, and deacons does not have a clear conscience.

8. It is not because I have heard of any such thing in your case that I write thus. No, in my love for you I am warning you ahead, since I foresee the devil’s wiles. Recapture, then, your gentleness, and by faith (that’s the Lord’s flesh) and by love (that’s Jesus Christ’s blood) make yourselves new creatures. Let none of you hold anything against his neighbor. Do not give the heathen opportunities whereby God’s people should be scoffed at through the stupidity of a few. For, “Woe to him by whose folly my name is scoffed at before any” [Isa. 52:5].

9. Be deaf, then, to any talk that ignores Jesus Christ, of David’s lineage, of Mary; who was really born, ate, and drank; was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate; was really crucified and died, in the sight of heaven and earth and the underworld. He was really raised from the dead, for his Father raised him, just as his Father will raise us, who believe on him, through Christ Jesus, apart from whom we have no genuine life.

10. And if, as some atheists (I mean unbelievers) say, his suffering was a sham (it’s really they who are a sham!), why, then, am I a prisoner? Why do I want to fight with wild beasts? In that case I shall die to no purpose. Yes, and I am maligning the Lord too!

From Early Christian Fathers, edited and translated by Cyril C. Richardson (Volume 1: The Library of Christian Classics) (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953), pages 98–100. First published in MCMLVII by the SCM Press Ltd., London, and The Westminster Press, Philadelphia. Used by permission of the publishers.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH

From Letter to the Romans

Ignatius feared that Christians in Rome might try to arrange his escape; he wrote ahead to assure them of his willingness to die for his faith.

4. I am corresponding with all the churches and bidding them all realize that I am voluntarily dying for God—if, that is, you do not interfere. I plead with you, do not do me an unseasonable kindness. Let me be fodder for wild beasts—that is how I can get to God. I am God’s wheat and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts to make a pure loaf for Christ. I would rather that you fawn on the beasts so that they may be my tomb and no scrap of my body be left. Thus, when I have fallen asleep, I shall be a burden to no one. Then I shall be a real disciple of Jesus Christ when the world sees my body no more. Pray Christ for me that by these means I may become God’s sacrifice. I do not give orders like Peter and Paul. They were apostles: I am a convict. They were at liberty: I am still a slave [Cf. 1 Cor. 7:22]. But if I suffer, I shall be emancipated by Jesus Christ; and united to him, I shall rise to freedom.

5. Even now as a prisoner, I am learning to forego my own wishes. All the way from Syria to Rome I am fighting with wild b...