African Christian Mothers and Fathers

Why They Matter for the Church Today

Ellingsen

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781498273633
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

After almost a millennium and a half, scholars are rediscovering the theological roots of Christianity in ancient North Africa! But we still have a long way to go in bringing these insights to the Church's consciousness. What has been needed is a careful but accessible analysis of what the great theologians of the region prior to and contemporary with Augustine actually taught about the faith, and why what they said still matters today.African Christian Mothers and Fathers is precisely the book we have needed, an explanation of the theology of these great, though in some cases forgotten, early church leaders for scholars, seminarians, pastors, and laity. Mark Ellingsen, author of an acclaimed book on the thought and life of Augustine, takes readers on an insightful tour of the theological landscape of North Africa and its thought from the late first through the early fifth centuries, and brings us back to the present enriched with ancient but fresh ideas for living the faith.

1

Anthony and Other Desert Fathers

The Establishment of Christianity led to a serious backlash in Africa. The days of martyrdom were over! And the Church was no longer comprised only of committed members. The energy and commitment previously devoted to martyrdom focused in new directions. For some giants of the faith of ancient North Africa, talents were directed to theological reflection. Others directed their high levels of commitment instead to monasticism, which functioned as a kind of substitute martyrdom. As a result, hundreds of faithful men and women flocked to the desert.

The Constantinian establishment also led the Church to accommodate itself to Roman culture. This often manifested itself in new attitudes to wealth, including the desire to build elaborate churches after the fashion of Roman architecture. Monasticism, then, was also a kind of reaction to the wealth of the Church and its new well-being. As a result, for many monks, exile to the desert was a way of renouncing this wealth-seeking way of life along with a protest against lax membership standards of the new imperial church. The protest was not isolated. Hundreds of Christians fled to the African desert both in protest and out of commitment to finding a way to a closer walk with God. Roman tax policy may have been a contributing factor. There was no income tax or tax on urban property. But a “head tax” was imposed, especially impacting the agricultural sector, mandating that everyone in rural areas needed to engage in public works projects or send a worker to take his place. Sometimes the fiscal burden was so high that there were incentives to flee, and so fleeing the world for monastic life had further incentives.1

There were pre-Constantinian roots to the movement and its associated lifestyle. There were biblical precedents in Paul’s references to the freedom of the single life (1 Cor 7:32f.) coupled with Jesus’s claim that in the kingdom “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matt 22:30). Jesus’s directive to “go and sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor” in order to achieve perfection (Matt 19:21) was also a shaping precedent for the movement.

The intellectual ethos of the day also contributed to the emergence of monasticism. Stoic doctrine had held that passions were the true enemy of wisdom. Greek philosophy generally regarded the self as imprisoned in the body. Several religions in the Mediterranean basin included sacred virgins and celibate priests.2 Some scholarly speculation exists now that Gnosticism may have been related to the monastic movement, especially in a connection between the Gnostic Nag Hammadi library and Pachomius’s Cenobitic community, which we will soon consider.3

Though monasticism emerged in several regions of the Roman Empire, the greatest growth of monasticism was in the Egyptian desert. Paul and Anthony (both of whose lives were depicted in works by Jerome and Athanasius, respectively) are said to be the first monks (not perhaps chronologically, but the first of the famed monks). The word monk derives from the Greek word monachos, meaning “solitary.” Early monks like Paul and Anthony sought solitude, away from the distractions of society that made it difficult to practice Christian life. Solitary monks were called “Anchorites.”

The Life and Impact of Anthony

Though not the very first monk, he is reported to have received instruction in the monastic life from an older man who had lived such a lifestyle since hi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Ancient African Christianity and Why It Matters
• Chapter 1: Anthony and Other Desert Fathers
• Chapter 2: Mothers of the Desert
• Chapter 3: Clement of Alexandria
• Chapter 4: Tertullian
• Chapter 5: Origen
• Chapter 6: Commodianus
• Chapter 7: Cyprian of Carthage
• Chapter 8: Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria
• Chapter 9: Anatolius of Alexandria and Minor Writers
• Chapter 10: Lactantius
• Chapter 11: Alexander of Lycopolis
• Chapter 12: Peter of Alexandria
• Chapter 13: Alexander of Alexandria
• Chapter 14: Arnobius
• Chapter 15: Athanasius
• Chapter 16: Macarius the Egyptian
• Chapter 17: Caius Marius Victorinus
• Chapter 18: Didymus the Blind
• Chapter 19: Contemporaries of Augustine
• Chapter 20: After Augustine
• Conclusion: Using Early African Theology Today
• Secondary Source Bibliography