Language for God in Patristic Tradition

Wrestling with Biblical Anthropomorphism

Mark Sheridan

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830897001
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Kirchengeschichte

Criticism of myth in the Bible is not a modern problem. Its roots go back to the earliest Christian theologians, and before them, to ancient Greek and Jewish thinkers. The dilemma posed by texts that ascribe human characteristics and emotions to the divine is a perennial problem, and we have much to learn from the ancient attempts to address it. Mark Sheridan provides a theological and historical analysis of the patristic interpretation of Scripture?s anthropomorphic and anthropopathic language for God. Rather than reject the Bible as mere stories, ancient Jewish and Christian theologians read these texts allegorically or theologically in order to discover the truth contained within them. They recognized that an edifying and appropriate interpretation of these stories required that one start from the understanding that "God is not a human being" (Num 23: 19). Sheridan brings the patristic tradition into conversation with modern interpreters to show the abiding significance of its theological interpretation for today. Language for God in Patristic Tradition is a landmark resource for students of ancient Christian theology. Wide-ranging in scope and accessible in its analysis, it demonstrates that those engaged in theological interpretation of Scripture have much to gain from studying their forebears in the faith.

1

God Is Not Like Humans

God is not as man to be deceived nor as the son of man to be threatened.

Numbers 23:191

As a man he takes on the manners of his son.

Deuteronomy 1:312

Ancient Christian interpreters used the two quotations cited above in order to explain how biblical texts should be read, as will be explained in this chapter. These two texts were understood to refer to the distinction between theologia (who God is) and oikonomia (what God does). Origen of Alexandria used the word theologia (“theology”) to refer to the nature of God as he is in himself in distinction from his plan for human salvation (oikonomia). In his Homilies on Jeremiah he distinguishes between when “the Scriptures speak theologically about God in relation to himself” and when they “involve his plan for human matters.”3 In his work refuting the pagan philosopher Celsus, referring to the seraphim and the cherubim in the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, he says, “But, as these things are expressed in a very obscure form because of the unworthy and irreligious who are not able to understand the deep meaning and sacred­ness of the doctrine of God [theologia], I have not thought it right to discuss these matters in this book.”4 Origen is referring here obliquely to the triune nature of God, which was revealed explicitly only with the coming of Jesus Christ; but in his understanding of Scripture, it lies hidden also beneath the letter of the Old Testament writings and can be discovered there by those who know how to interpret them correctly.5 The triune nature of God is a matter of “theology” (in the sense in which Origen uses this word), even though it is only revealed in the course of the development of the divine plan (oikonomia). In his Commentary on John, he states: “And it may be that the prophetic testimonies not only proclaim the Christ who will come, nor teach us this and nothing else, but that they teach much theology. It may be possible to learn about the relationship of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father through the things which the prophets announce about him, no less than from the apostles who describe the greatness of the Son of God.”6 Here we see the distinction between proclaiming “the Christ who will come,” which refers to “the plan for human matters,” and “much theology” (theologia), which includes the doctrine of the Trinity.

Origen was not alone in making this distinction. In the next century, the first historian of the church, Eusebius, a great admirer of Origen, also used this distinction. At the beginning of his Ecclesiastical History, he states: “My work will begin, as I have said, with the dispensation [oikonomia] of the Savior Christ,—which is loftier and greater than human conception,—and with a discussion of his divinity [theologia].”7 Many other early Christian writers made this distinction and used the word “theology” in a restricted sense (compared to later use) to refer to the nature of God.8

Rather than discussing this subject in the abstract, it is best to introduce some examples of how this was done. In the history of Christian biblical interpretation it is not an exaggeration to say that all roads lead to or from the figure of Origen of Alexandria, whose imposing corpus of biblical commentaries left an indelible mark on all later patristic exegesis. It is useful, therefore, to begin with a passage from Origen’s homilies on the book of Jeremiah to illustrate the nature of this “theological” interpretation. After citing Jeremiah 18:7-10, a speech attributed to God, which ends with the phrase “I will repent about the good which I decreed to do to them,” Origen observes that “to repent seems to be culpable and unworthy not only of God but also of the wise man” and he adds: “But God, a foreknower of what happens in the future, is unable not to have decided to be good and to repent for this.”9

At this point Origen decides to broaden the discussion from a particular verse to a wider discussion of the divine nature. He states: “But see what we are generally taught about God. Where ‘God is not as man to be deceived nor as the son of man to be threatened’ (Num 23:19), we learn through this text that God is not as man, but through another text that God is as a man, when it says, ‘For the Lord your God has taught you as a man teaches his son’ (Deut 8:5), and again, ‘As a man he takes on the manners of his son’ (Deut 1:31).”10 The two contrasting statements that God “is not as man” and that he “is as a man,” drawn from Numbers 23:19 and Deuteronomy 1:31 serve to introduce a programmatic affirmation about the nature of Sacred Scripture: “whenever the Scriptures speak theologically [theologōsi] about God in relation to himself and do not involve his plan for human matters [oikonomia], they say that he is not as a man.”11 On the other hand, “whenever the divine plan involves human matters, it carries the human intellect and manners and way of speaking.” It is, says Origen, “just as we, if we are talking with a two-year-old child, speak inarticulately because of the child—for it is impossible, if we observe what is fitting for the age of a full-grown man, and when talking to children, to understand the children without condescending to their mode of speech—something of this sort also seems to me the case with God whenever he manages the race of men and especially those still infants (1 Cor 3:1).”12 Origen describes how mature adults even change the names of things for small children. This does not mean that the adults are immature, but that in order to converse with children they speak in a childlike language. The Greek word translated here as “condescending” (synkatabasis) is used also by other early Christian authors, notably John Chrysostom, to describe what God is doing in Scripture.

The same holds true for God. He speaks to us as children, as it is said: “Behold, I and the children which God has given me” (Is 8:18; Heb 2:13). In other words, the Scriptures contain, from a theological point of view, infantile language, and Origen underscores this point, saying, “to speak more dramatically, as a baby.”13 This then is the meaning of the statement in Deuteronomy, when it says that “the Lord your God took on your manners as a man would take on the manners of his son” (Deut 1:31). The reader looking at a modern translation from the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy may be confused, for the Hebrew text is different. But Origen was reading the Greek version known as the Septuagint in which there are found two variant readings for this verse. One contains the Greek verb trophophorein, which allows the translation of the verse: “as someone would nurse [literally “provide food for”] his son”; and the other variant, the one in Origen’s manuscript, has the Greek verb tropophorein, which can be translated: “as someone would take on the manners of his son.” It is a difference of one letter, but Origen’s version allows him to develop a whole theory about the nature of the Old Testament Scriptures. To insist on this word (tropophorein), he suggests that “those who have translated from the Hebrew, failing to find a suitable Greek term, seem to have represented it as, ‘The Lord your God took on your manners,’ (that is, he has taken on your manners) as if some man would take on the manners of (in light of this example which I have mentioned) his son.”14 Origen may in fact be correct in saying that the translators coined the word, because it cannot be found in all of the Greek literature available to us prior to the time of the Septuagint.

Armed with this idea, that God like a father takes on the manners of a son, that is, adapts himself to the limited human perspective, Origen can explain the original question that was the point of departure; namely, how is it possible that God can be said to repent? “Since we really do repent, when he talks with us who repent, God says, ‘I repent,’ and when he threatens us, he does not pretend to be a foreknower, but he threatens us as one speaking to babes. He does not pretend that he foreknows all things before their generation (Dan 1(13):42), but as one who, so to speak, plays the part of a babe, he pretends not to know the future.”15 He also threatens the nation on account of its sins, just as a father might threaten a child.

Only children would read the text literally. In short, God is not really like a man, and according to Origen, one can find numerous other passages that correspond to this phrase: on the one hand, “whenever the Scriptures speak theologically about God in relation to himself and do not involve his plan for human matters, they say that he is not as a man.”16 On the other hand, when the divine plan involves human matters, it assumes a human mode (tropos) and accommodates itself to human language. The word “accommodate” corresponds (in a theological-etymological sense) to the Greek word tropophoreo. Thus, by means of a supposed etymology or play on words, Origen has created a general theory to explain (or neutralize) all the scriptural texts that are not in accord with the true nature of God. They may be explained in virtue of the divine condescension (synkatabasis) and accommodation (tropophorein).

Origen observes that many similar anthropomorphisms (anthropika) are to be found in the Scriptures; for example, “Speak to the sons of Israel. Perhaps they will hear and repent (cf. Jer 33:2-3).”17 He explains that God has said, “Perhaps they will hear” not as one who doubts; rather, “He pretends then that he does not see your future so that he may preserve your self-determination by not foretelling or foreknowing you will repent or not, and he says to the Prophet, ‘Speak, perhaps they will repent.’”18 This is an example of the numerous scriptural passages that talk about God’s “taking on the manners of man” (tropophorein).19 Origen then singles out an important case of this: “If you hear of the anger of God and his wrath (cf. Dt 29:23, 24-27), do not suppose that anger and wrath are passions of God.” The Greek word translated as passion, pathē, always has a negative connotation and is not the equivalent of “emotion.” That is why one must not imagine that anger and wrath are passions of God. These are ways of speaking (dispensations of language) that are useful for converting and bettering the children, “since we also use a fearful expression with children, not from an actual state of mind but because of a purpose to cause fear.”20 Likewise, “God is also said to be angry and wrathful in order that you can convert and become better.”21

In homily 20 on Jeremiah Origen expands on the notion that in the Scriptures God acts as a father with children and offers some general principles concerning the interpretation of the Scriptures. A basic principle is that “everything recorded about God, even if it may be immediately unsuitable, must be understood worthy of a good God.”22 Origen then mentions as “unsuitable” on the part of God anger, wrath, regret, sleeping. These things must be understood as “obscure” sayings in the sense of Proverbs 1:6, “to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.” The word “figure” here translates the word ainigmata in Greek (from which comes enigma in English), which could more literally be translated as: “dark or obscure sayings.” In other words, talk about God’s anger, regret and so on constitutes obscure sayings that need to be properly interpreted to give them a sense that is “worthy of God,” that is, suitable to the divine dignity. Origen explains that the word of God is not like that of all others.

For of no one else is the word a living being, of no one else is the word God, for of no one else was the word in the beginning with that one of whom it was the word, even if it was only . . . from a certain beginning. So indeed the anger of God is an anger . . . of no one else, an anger of none whatever, and just as the word of God has something of a nature alien beyond every word of anyone else—and what is God and what is a living being while being a word, what subsists in itself and what is subject to the Father, has an alien nature—so too, since once it was named as being of God, what is called anger has something alien and different from all the anger of him who is angry, so too his wrath has something individual. For it is the wrath of the purpose of the One who reproves by wrath, who wishes to convert the one reproved through the reproof.23

Having made clear that the word of God is not like human words nor to be interpreted in terms of human passions, Origen is able to speak of wrath, anger and regret as part of the “reproving work of God” and the “educative work of God.”24 All of this explanation has been, as Origen himself says, “a preface” to commenting on the saying of Jeremiah: “You deceived me, and I was deceived” (Jer 20:7). After offering many other examples of the “educative work of God,” Origen returns to the image of a father correcting his son: “Perhaps then, as a father wishes to deceive a son in his own interest while he is still a boy, since he cannot be helped any other way unless the boy is deceived, as a healer makes it his business to deceive the patient who cannot be cured unless he receives words of deceit, so it is also for the God of the universe, since what is prescribed has to help the race of men.”25 With such remedies, Origen observes, “the whole divine Scripture is filled.”26 The comparison of God with a father and son and that of the physician and the patient allows him to formulate a general principle about what at first sight seem to be “unsuitable” passages in the Scriptures: “By analogy to the father and the healer, such is something of what God does.”27

A few years later Origen returned to this subject in his works Against Celsus and his Commentary on Matthew. In Against Celsus, he responds in a detailed way to the derision of the pagan philosopher Celsus (an o...