The History of Christian Thought

Jonathan Hill

• Publisher: Lion Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780745950938
• eBook ISBN: 9780745957630
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

A society with no grasp of its history is like a person without a memory. This is particularly true of the history of ideas.

This book is an ideal introduction to the thinkers who have shaped Christian history and the culture of much of the world.

Writing in a lively, accessible style, Jonathan Hill takes us on an enlightening journey from the first to the twenty first centuries. He shows us the key Christian thinkers through the ages - ranging from Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine and Aquinas through to Luther, Wesley, Kierkegaard and Barth - placing them in their historical context and assessing their contribution to the development of Christianity.

Part

1

The Church Fathers

Our story begins at the height of the Roman empire. By the middle of the 2nd century ad, the mighty empire stretched from Britain to Palestine, from Germany to North Africa. Millions bowed to the seemingly eternal power of Rome. Yet the empire was more fragile than it seemed. After the 2nd century, its borders were no longer expanding. They were contracting, pushed back by wave after wave of invaders from the north and east: the barbarians. Racked by internal division, feuding emperors and a general sense of malaise, the Roman empire was about to enter a long but terminal decline.

Yet for the Church, this was a time of incredible growth. Jesus himself had lived at the time of the great Caesar Augustus, the man who, more than any other, established the might of the Roman empire. By the end of the 1st century ad, most of the New Testament had been written, and the basic beliefs of Christians had been more or less established: they believed in God, followed Jesus and looked forward to some kind of resurrection. But beyond that there was an awful lot of room for disagreement, and there was still a huge amount to be done before everyone could agree on exactly what Christians did believe, and why. This is why the age of the Church Fathers – the earliest theologians, who tried to establish the basic doctrines of Christianity – is so exciting. It was a time of intellectual and spiritual discovery, when the lines were yet to be drawn, the precedents yet to be established. The great figures of this time may sometimes have lacked the sophistication and powers of sober reflection of their spiritual descendants, but they certainly had vitality.

Greek Philosophy

Christianity first appeared as a development within Judaism. The first issues that the early Christians had to deal with were those concerning the new faith’s relations to its parent religion – the most famous example being the circumcision controversy described in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

As Christianity grew, however, it had to come to terms with religious and intellectual movements in the wider world – something it has been doing ever since. During those first centuries, theologians had to evaluate these rival movements and try to establish the place of their own faith in relation to them. Should they bitterly oppose anything non-Christian, or try to take over the best ideas of their rivals?

The philosophers

The movements that had most influence on early Christianity were the schools of Greek philosophy. Today, philosophy is an academic discipline understood only by specialists. In ancient times, however, it was much broader. Philosophy dealt with issues we would normally associate today with science: the nature of the world, what it is made of, where it came from. It also dealt with what we would consider religious issues: the existence and nature of God, the nature of the soul, life after death, suffering and salvation. ‘Philosophy’ had the sense we still use today when we talk about someone’s personal ‘philosophy’, meaning their moral and spiritual outlook on life as a whole. It was not just intellectual exercises. It was a way of life.

In fact, the life of ‘philosophy’ was thought – by philosophers, at any rate – to be the most worthy life one could lead; it was a life of enlightenment and contemplation, of virtue and striving after the divine – much like the life of a monk would be in later ages. It is little wonder that Christians came to regard their faith as a rival philosophical school, and took on the philosophers at their own game.

So what were these movements?

Platonism

Perhaps the most significant to Christianity was Platonism. Platonism was a development from the thought of Plato, the great philosopher who lived in the 4th century BC. Plato believed that the physical world, which is always changing and perishable, cannot be the true, perfect reality. It is instead a reflection of a higher realm – a non-physical, ideal world. Physical objects are pale, fleeting shadows of their eternal, unchanging counterparts – the ‘Forms’ – in the higher world. The purpose of philosophy, for Plato, is to learn to look away from the material world and come to contemplate the eternal, spiritual beauty of the ideal world.

Plato’s works, which are highly readable and enjoyable literary classics quite apart from their philosophical importance, are all dialogues in which different characters discuss various issues and try to reach a conclusion. Although it is often clear which character in the dialogue Plato himself agrees with, sometimes it is hard to tell; and often no clear conclusion is reached. It is the questioning that is important, not the final answer. After Plato’s death, however, his followers ignored this questioning approach and created a more dogmatic system around the often fragmentary ideas in Plato’s dialogues. In particular, they developed the idea, found in some dialogues, of a ‘World Soul’ that existed in the ideal world together with the Forms, and which shaped and sustained the physical realm. The World Soul, then, was a sort of god; but the Platonists also believed in a higher God, existing above the world of Forms and the World Soul. This higher God was the ultimate cause of the universe. This idea of the two gods, one higher and one lower, would prove very influential on Christianity.

Stoicism

A more widespread school of philosophy was Stoicism. This was founded by Zeno, who lived shortly after Plato and taught at the Stoa, a large portico in the centre of Athens. His followers were known for their extremely rigorous and well-developed ethical system. They believed that the only true happiness comes through virtue, and the virtuous person can never be made unhappy by his external circumstances, because things like money, health and physical pleasure are not really important. This is why a ‘Stoic’ still means someone who can put up with hardship, and why we still describe someone who is not unduly upset by the loss of material things as ‘philosophical’. The truly happy, virtuous life is one ruled by reason, not by emotion or passion; and the Stoics sought to achieve a ‘passionless’ state of mind.

In contrast to the Platonists, the Stoics denied that anything existed that was not material. However, they did believe in something like the Platonic ‘World Soul’, which they called the ‘Logos’ – a word meaning ‘reason’, ‘word’ or ‘principle’. The Logos is material, consisting of a fiery substance spread throughout the universe, but it sustains and animates the world just as the World Soul does.

Philosophy and early Christianity

This idea of the Logos, or World Soul, influenced Jewish descriptions of God’s Wisdom. In later parts of the Old Testament and in the literature written between the two Testaments, the divine Wisdom was thought of as a semi-independent entity, responsible for creating and sustaining the world – just as the Platonic World Soul was a separate being from the High God, although connected to it. Some early Christians used this idea, together with those of the World Soul and the Logos, to describe the relation of Jesus to God. The famous opening of John’s Gospel, where Jesus is described as the ‘Logos’, who was with God in the beginning, and through whom all things were made, is the earliest example. And it was in the 2nd century that Christian theologians first appeared who were willing to discuss these ideas with pagan philosophers on their own terms – who first pioneered the concept of Christianity itself as a rival school of philosophy. Their leader, and the first real theologian to appear after the writing of the New Testament, was Justin Martyr.

Justin Martyr

The life and work of Justin Martyr, the first true Church Father, heralds a new and immensely fruitful departure for Christian thought. Virtually single-handedly, he kick-started the Christian dialogue with rival philosophies and set the Church on the road to an intellectually coherent account of its faith.

Life

Justin was born a pagan, probably around the year AD 100, in Palestine. He must have been well educated, since, as a young man, he decided on a life of philosophy – although it took him a while to work out which philosophy he was interested in. In the second chapter of his Dialogue with Trypho, he describes his search for the right kind of philosophy, and his unfortunate experiences with several philosophers. First, he studied under a Stoic teacher, but abandoned him when he found that the Stoics couldn’t teach him anything about God. He then tried a follower of Aristotle, but when his teacher demanded early payment Justin concluded that he was ‘no philosopher at all’ and quickly left. He had even less luck with a Pythagorean philosopher, who expected him to study music, geometry and astronomy, about which Justin knew nothing and was not prepared to spend time studying. Almost despairing of finding a suitable philosophy, he turned to a famous Platonist, and finally found a philosophy he liked. In fact, he believed that Platonism had shown him the way to God:

The vision of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of the Forms gave wings to my mind, so that after a short time I thought that I had become wise; and I was so stupid that I expected to be able to see God quite soon, for this is the goal of Plato’s philosophy.

Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 2

But Justin’s search for truth was not yet at an end. One day, walking by the sea and contemplating the eternal Forms, he happened to meet a mysterious old man. After a discussion about God and philosophy, the old man told him that modern philosophers knew less of God than certain ancient prophets, whose works could still be studied. Intrigued, Justin went away and read them:

Immediately a flame was lit in my soul; and I was seized by a love of the prophets, and those men who are friends of Christ. And whilst turning over his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and worthwhile. So that is why I am a philosopher.

Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 4

Justin’s tale of the mysterious old man sounds a little improbable; it may be that he hoped to show his readers that he was converted to Christianity through sound, logical reasoning rather than some crazy whim. What is important is the fact that he regarded Christianity as a kind of philosophy, just like Stoicism, Platonism and the rest; and that he became a Christian because he was convinced it was the best of these competing options. Almost as important is the fact that, of the other options available to him, Justin thought Platonism the best. As we shall see, his account of Christianity draws heavily on his Platonic past.

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Rome

Rome was the greatest city of the Roman empire, its ancient capital, its seat of government. Even in later years, when the government moved elsewhere and other cities came to eclipse it, Rome remained the symbolic centre of civilization. Christianity, the empire’s most enduring creation, has also always had a special place in its heart for the Eternal City.

Rome is supposed to have been founded in 753 BC by a suspicious character named Romulus, who together with his brother Remus had been abandoned as a baby and raised by a wolf. Romulus killed his brother, thereby saving the new city from being called Reme, but also establishing a precedent for its violent future.

It was in the 3rd century BC that Rome, now a republic, began the systematic conquest of its neighbours, including Carthage, Macedonia and Syria, and established itself as the dominant power in the Mediterranean world. In 27 BC, following his conquest of Cleopatra’s Egypt, Caesar Augustus had himself proclaimed ‘emperor’, co-ruler with the Senate. The Roman empire was born, and its power stretched from Britain in the West to Palestine in the East. The metropolis at its centre was the greatest city in the West, with up to a million inhabitants and 85 kilometres of narrow, maze-like streets. In AD 64, much of this burned down in a fire supposedly started by Emperor Nero, who is said to have been so unconcerned by the disaster that he practised the violin while the city burned. However, the fire cleared the way for urban regeneration on a massive scale, and the city was extensively replanned and rebuilt.

Unlike Athens, its equivalent in Greece, Rome was not noted for its intellectual or cultural achievements. And, unlike Alexandria, it did not produce any great theologians.

But it was a central location for the development of Christianity from the earliest times. Paul’s letter to the Romans, unlike his other surviving letters, adopts an almost deferential attitude to its recipients. Ignatius of Antioch, a famous bishop who was taken to Rome to be executed in 107 – a fate he looked forward to eagerly – praised the church there in fulsome language.

Rome was the only city in the western half of the Roman empire that could claim that its church had been founded by an apostle – and by no less an apostle than Peter. This was one of the reasons why, as the centuries passed, the bishop of Rome became increasingly powerful in the West: as we shall see, early theologians placed a great deal of importance on the apostolic foundation of churches as a guarantee of their doctrinal correctness. The East, by contrast, had several bishops who traced their predecessors back to the apostles, and so they did not develop such a centralized organizational structure.

Nevertheless, Rome’s status in the early Church was more symbolic than real. Major theologians, including Justin Martyr and Tertullian, lived there – but they were imports. Even in the Middle Ages, when Rome would be the undisputed centre of European Christendom, it would never be a centre for theological activity. Rome was always a seat of power, never of research.

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As a Christian, Justin still wore the distinctive cloak common to all philosophers, and became a teacher in his own right, expounding Christian philosophy to those who would listen. More importantly, he set out his beliefs in writing. He sought to defend Christianity from its many and varied opponents.

Christians, at this time, were greatly discriminated against. Intellectuals regarded this ‘barbarian philosophy’ with contempt; in particular, Platonists found it laughable that Christians appeared to worship a mere human being, instead of an immaterial God. They considered the Christian doctrine of the end times, when all believers would be physically resurrected, to be a garbled and ridiculous travesty of their own doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Worse, the religion was not recognized by the State and some emperors sought to stamp it out by persecuting its followers. Christians were notorious for refusing to honour the traditional gods of Rome, which even philosophers paid lip service to, and they were called atheists. Dark rumours about what Christians got up to were widespread; it was popularly believed that they indulged in incestuous orgies and child sacrifice. To many, including many in positions of authority, simply to call oneself a Christian was to admit to such practices.

Justin therefore set out to defend Christianity against these charges, both moral and intellectual. In about AD 155 he addressed a book to Emperor Antoninus, called The First Apology (‘apology’ here means ‘defence’). In it, Justin complains bitterly about the injustices meted out to Christians simply because of their name, and argues – not unreasonably – that a person should be judged on how they have behaved, not on ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: The Church Fathers
• Part 2: The Byzantine Empire
• Part 3: The Middle Ages
• Part 4: The Reformation
• Part 5: The Modern Era
• Part 6: The 20th Century
• Asian Christianity
• Epilogue
• Glossary
• Further Reading