Patrology Dispense English

A. M. D. G.
Introduction to
Patrology
and Christian
Archeology
TP 1011
Dispensa
for Internal Use
PNAC 3rd English Edition (2013)

for Accompaniment to the Italian
Undicesima Edizione
INTRODUCTION TO PATROLOGY 2
R. P. PROF. JOSEPH CAROLA, S.J.
2012-2012
TP1011 INTRODUCTION TO PATROLOGY AND CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
Section 1: Patrology, Patristics and Ancient Christian Literature; the Study of

the Fathers in Theology: significance and method.
Section 2: The Bible: Canonization of the New Testament, apocryphal gospels
and the Proto-gospel of James.
Section 3: The Letters of the Apostolic Fathers: 1 Clement to the Corinthians,
The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Letter to Diognetus and The
Shepherd of Hermas
Section 4: Ignatius of Antioch and his letters.
Section 5: The Greek Apologists and Justin Martyr
Section 6: Irenaeus of Lyons: Christology, Mariology, Anthropology, the Rule of
Faith, the
Apostolic Tradition and anti-Gnosticism.
Section 7: Gnosticism: The Threat of Gnosticism, Marcion and Valentinus.
Section 8: The Atmosphere of Alexandria between the 2nd and 3rd Centuries:
Clement and Origen. The main terms for the search of Origenist theology
(Trinitarian
reflection, Anthropology). Alexandria in the 4th century and Athanasius.
Section 9: Patristic Exegesis: The approach to the word of God, the spiritual
exegesis of Origen,
allegory and typology
Section 10: Reflection of the Cappadocian Fathers in the Christological and
Trinitarian
Controversies of the Fourth Century: Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of
Nyssa Section 11: The development of Theology in North Africa from the 2nd
and 3rd Centuries:
Tertullian and Cyprian.
Section 12: Augustine: Theological Elaboration Meets Pastoral Service
Section 13. The School of Antioch
Section 14. The Council of Chalcedon: Nestorius, Cyril of Alexandria and Leo
the Great.
Bibliography:
1. Recommended Texts for Study: G. BOSIO, E. DAL COVOLO, M. MARITANO,
Introduzione ai Padri della Chiesa, 5 voll., SEI Torino 1990-1996; H. DROBNER,
Patrologia (German, French, Italian, English, Korean, Portuguese), Piemme,
Casale Monferrato 1998; J. QUASTEN, Patrologia (English, Spanish, Italian).
The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. F. YOUNG, L. AYRES &
A. LOUTH, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. The Oxford
Handbook of Early Christian Studies, S. A. HARVEY D. G. HUNTER, edd.,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
2. Working Resource for Consultation:

Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichita Cristiane, A. DI BERARDINO, ed., 3 v.,
Milano 2006-2008.
3. Church History: HENRY CHADWICK, The Church in Ancient Society: From

Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); JEAN
DANIELOU & HENRI MARROU, The First Six Hundred Years, The Christian
Centuries vol. 1 (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964) (Original
Language: French).
Section 1: Patrology, Patristics and Ancient

Christian Literature; the study of the Fathers
in Theology: significance and method.
I. 1) Patrology
pat = father
l = communication, scientia, teaching
2) Patristics
3) Ancient Christian Literature
II. The presentation of the Fathers (Congregation for Catholic

Education: Lo studio dei padri della chiesa nella formazione
sacerdotale)
3) How the Fathers can help (or are relevant for) us today:
1) Guidance and light to overcome certain difficulties in
that can be found in theology.
[The return to scripture should be accompanied by
a return to the attested Tradition of the patristic
writings, if one would want to produce the fruit that
one hoped for (Instr. 29)]
2) They are safe, useful tools for discernment,
doctrinally and morally, as one experiences
transformations in culture and society.
3) A form of sustenance for the various
types/movements of spiritualities that are emerging
amongst the laity and animating pastoral life.
III. The 4 Characteristics of the Fathers [Petrus Annatus 1638-

1715]
1) Antiquity
From the letter of Clement to the Corinthians (ca. 96
A.D.)
Pope Gregory the Great (604)/ West
Emperor Justinian (527)/ East
or a bit later
Isidore of Seville (ca. 636)/ West
John Damascene (ca. 750)/ East
2) Orthodoxy
3) Sanctity
4) Ecclesiastical approval
IV. Church Writers and Doctors

1) The Latin Fathers:
(1) Ambrose
(2) Jerome
(3) Augustine
(4) Gregory the Great
2) The Greek Fathers:

(1) Athanasius
(2) Basil the Great
(3) Gregory of Nazianzus
(4) John Chrysostom
V. Patristic Theological Method

1) Sacred Scripture
2) Enculturation
3) Defense of the Faith
4) The sense of the Mystery and the experience of the
divine
5) The Unitive Reality of Theology
VI. St. Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises
Texts:
1.1 The Second Vatican Council
Dogmatic theology should be so arranged that these biblical

themes are proposed first of all. Next there should be opened up to
the students what the Fathers of the Eastern and Western Church
have contributed to the faithful transmission and development of
the individual truths of revelation. The further history of dogma
should also be presented, account being taken of its relation to the
general history of the Church (Optatam Totius 16).
1.2 Something of a Singularity in the Fathers
In the Fathers there is something of a singularity, something

unrepeatable and perpetually valid, that continues to thrive and
resist the pressures of time (Congregation for Catholic Education,
Istruzione sullo Studio dei Padri della Chiesa nella formazione
sacerdotale, 2).
1.3 Separation of Ecclesial Tradition
The days following the council, the confrontation between/of

the Fathers created/provided a tepid climate of little
interest...Regarding the tendencies, sometimes too risqu, which

they favored a separation from ecclesiastical tradition
(Congregation for Catholic Education, Istruzione sullo Studio dei
Padri della Chiesa nella formazione sacerdotale, 2).
1.4 Paolo VI and the Study of the Fathers
The study of the Fathers, useful for all, is of great necessity

to all who, in their heart, wish to renew that which is theological,
pastoral or spiritual. They should cooperate with and promote that
which is contained in their counsel. In the Fathers one can find the
base for all authentic renewals (Letter to Michele Cardinal
Pellegrino on the centenary of the death of J. P. Migne (5/10/1975):
AAS 67 (1975) 471).
1.5 St. Vincent of Lerins definition
The Fathers are those wise men who lived saintly lives,
taught, and remain steadfast in their faith and in catholic
communion, and died faithfully for Christ or suffered martyrdom
with great joy for the same Christ (Il Commonitorio 28.6).
1.6 Joseph Ratzinger and the Patristic Age
We would have to say, then, that the patristic age ended with
the changed intellectual climate marked by the Migrations and by
the hostile spread of Islam; as an outward sign of the latter, we can
point to the popes turning to the Carolinian Empire, by which the
old ecumenism was finally destroyed andtogether with the
creation of the church-statethe new self-understanding of the
West, the fundamental constellation of the Middle Ages, was
created (Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building
Stones for a Fundamental Theology, 146).
1.7 The Testimony from Irenaeus about Polycarp
1.7.1 But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and
conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by
apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom
I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long
time, and, when a very old man, glorious and most nobly suffering
martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things
which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has
handed down, and which alone are true (Adversus Haereses
3.3.4).
1.7.2 EUSEBIUS cites a letter from IRENAEUS to Florinus: I

remember the events of that time more clearly than those of recent
years. For what boys learn,
growing with their mind, becomes joined with it; so that I am able
to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he
discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and the manner
of his life, and his physical appearance, and his discourses to the
people, and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with
John and with the others who had seen the Lord. And as he
remembered their words, and what he heard from them concerning
the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having
received them from eyewitnesses of the Word of life, 1 John 1:1
Polycarp related all things in harmony with the Scriptures
(Historia Ecclesiastica 5.20.5-6).
1.8 The Patristic Theological Method and Sacred Scripture
The Fathers have given, in such a way, the first conscious

and reflective response to Sacred Scripture, developing it not only
in an abstract theory, but as an everyday pastoral praxis of hope
and of a teaching, which speaks to the heart of the liturgical
assembly united to profess the faith and to celebrate the belief in
the resurrected Lord (Congregation for Catholic Education,
Istruzione sullo Studio dei Padri della Chiesa nella formazione
sacerdotale, 20).
1.9 Defense of the Faith: Deepening the Understanding of

the Content of Revelation
St. Augustines response to the increase of heretics: God has

allowed their diffusion, so that we do not just feed on milk alone
and so that we dont remain in an infantile state (Io. eu. tr. 36.6), as
many questions regarding the faith when, with sly restlessness,
they come to be examined very diligently, understood quite clearly,
continue to preach adamantly in such a way that the questions
from the adversaries become occasions of learning (ciu. 16.2.1)
(Congregation for Catholic Education, Istruzione sullo Studio dei
Padri della Chiesa nella formazione sacerdotale, 33).
1.10 The Ineffability of God
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: It is difficult to conceive God but to

define Him in words is an impossibility, as one of the Greek
teachers of Divinity taught, not unskillfully, as it appears to me;
with the intention that he might be thought to have apprehended
Him; in that he says it is a hard thing to do; and yet may escape
being convicted of ignorance because of the impossibility of giving
expression to the apprehension. But in my opinion it is impossible
to express Him, and yet more impossible to conceive Him. For that
which may be conceived may perhaps be made clear by language,
if not fairly well, at any rate imperfectly, to anyone who is not quite
deprived of his hearing, or slothful of understanding. But to
comprehend the whole of so great a Subject as this is quite
impossible and impracticable, not merely to the utterly careless
and ignorant, but even to those who are highly exalted, and who
love God, and in like manner to every created nature; seeing that
the darkness of this world and the thick covering of the flesh is an
obstacle
to the full understanding of the truth (Oration 28.4).
1.11 The Theologians
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Not to everyone, my friends, does

it belong to philosophize about God; not to everyone; the Subject is
not so cheap and low; and I will add, not before every audience,
nor at all times, nor on all points; but on certain occasions, and
before certain persons, and within certain limits. Not to all men,
because it is permitted only to those who have been examined, and
are passed masters in meditation, and who have been previously
purified in soul and body, or at the very least are being purified
(Oration 27.3).
1.12 The Need for Prayer
FIRST, with your permission, let us examine the all-perfect

Name of Goodness, which is indicative of the whole progressions of
Almighty God, having invoked the supremely good, and super-good
Triadthe Name which indicates Its whole best Providences. For,
we must first be raised up to It, as Source of good, by our prayers;
and by a nearer approach to It, be initiated as to the all good gifts
which are established around It (Dionysius of Areopagite, Divine
Names 3.1).
1.13 Being Purified from Sin
If then I am asked, in what manner either words or sensible

forms and appearances were wrought before the incarnation of the
Word of God, which should prefigure it as about to come, I reply
that God wrought those things by the angels; and this I have also
shown sufficiently, as I think, by testimonies of the Holy Scriptures.
And if I am asked how the incarnation itself was brought to pass, I
reply that the Word of God itself was made flesh, that is, was made
man, yet not turned and changed into that which was made; but so
made, that there should be there not only the Word of God and the
flesh of man, but also the rational soul of man, and that this whole
should both be called God on account of God, and man on account
of man. And if this is understood with difficulty, the mind must be
purged by faith, by more and more abstaining from sins, and by
doing good works, and by praying with the groaning of holy
desires; that by profiting through the divine help, it may both
understand and love (Augustine, De Trinitate 4.21.31).
1.14 The Study of the Fathers and the Grace from

Contemplation (Contemplatio) of the Spiritual Exercises
1.14.1 11.a rule. Eleventh. To praise positive and scholastic

learning. Because, as it is more proper to the Positive Doctors, as
St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory, etc., to move the heart
to love and serve God our Lord in everything; so it is more proper
to the Scholastics, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and to the
Master of the Sentences, etc., to define or explain for our times the
things necessary for eternal salvation; and to combat and explain
better all errors and all fallacies.
b. For the Scholastic Doctors, as they are more modern, not
only help themselves with the true understanding of the Sacred
Scripture and of the Positive and holy Doctors, but also, they being
enlightened and clarified by the Divine virtue, help themselves by
the Councils, Canons and Constitutions of our holy Mother the
Church (Eleventh Rule from, The Rules To Have the True
Sentiment Which We Ought to Have in the Church Militant: The
Spiritual Exercises 363).
1.14.2 The Grace of Contemplation: ...because I...in everything

can love and serve your divine majesty (The Spiritual Exercises
233).
1.15 The Whole Tradition
The study of the fathers facilitates a solid understanding of

the history of the Church that makes it possible to have a unitary
vision of many problems; of events, of experiences, of doctrinal
development, spirituality, pastoral and social in various ages. In
this way one realizes the fact that Christian thought, if it begins
with the fathers, does not end with the fathers. It follows that the
study of patristics and of patrology cannot be left behind from the
posterior tradition, including the scholastic tradition, particularly
those traditions that reference the fathers. Only in this way can we
see the unity and the development that has come from it and also
understand the sense of recourse to the past. It will in fact appear,
not like a useless archaeology, but like a creative study that helps
to understand better the present day and prepare us for the
future (Congregation for Catholic Education, Istruzione sullo
Studio dei Padri della Chiesa nella formazione sacerdotale, 60).
Section 2: The Apocryphal Books: Canonization

of the New Testament, the apocryphal gospels
and the Proto-gospel of James.
THE CANONIZATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
1. Canonical Writings
(1) Letters
(2) Gospels
(3) Acts
(4) The Apocalypse
2. Writings of the Apostolic Fathers read as Scripture:

(1) I & II Clement
(2) The Didach
(3) The Shepherd of Hermas
(4) The Letter of Barnabas
3. Gnostic Writings
* Marcion
* = measure, criterion
4. The three operating criteria in the canonization of the NT:

(1) Apostolic Origin
(2) The role of local churches in receiving and welcoming the
book
(3) Regula Fidei = the norm for deciding what is and what is
not Christian truth
5. Testimony Documentation concerning the Canon

(1) The Muratorian Canon (ca. 200 A.D.) lacking only:
Hebrews, I & II Peter, James & a letter of John
(2) Complete List

East: The Paschal Letter of Athanasius of Alexandria (Ep.
39) 367 A.D. West: Decretum Gelasianum de libris
recipiendis et non recipiendis (chapters 1-3) 382 A.D.
THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS
1. = secret
2. The Apocryphal Gospels of the Infancy

Derived from these:
(1) The names of the parents of Mary
(2) The presentation of Mary in the Temple
(3) The cave/grotto at Bethlehem
(4) The bull and the ass near the crib of Jesus
(5) The number and the names of the Magi
THE PROTOGOSPEL OF JAMES

P. Guillaume Postel, S.J. ca. 1549-1550
The Birth of Mary and the Apocalypse of James
Texts:
2.1 The Canonicity of Letter to the Hebrews
Although the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews is

doubted by some, nevertheless, as I find it sometimes thought by
persons, who oppose our opinion touching the baptism of infants,
to contain evidence in favor of their own views, we shall notice the
pointed testimony it bears in our behalf; and I quote it the more
confidently, because of the authority of the Eastern Churches,
which expressly place it among the canonical Scriptures
(Augustine, De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo
parvulorum 1.27.50).
2.2 Hebrews 6:4-6
For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been

enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy
Spirit and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age
to come, and then have fallen away, to bring them to repentance
again, since they are re-crucifying the Son of God for themselves
and holding him up to contempt.
2.3 Hebrews 10:26-31
If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth,

there no longer remains sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of
judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the
adversaries. Anyone who rejects the law of Moses is put to death
without pity on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Do you not think that a much worse punishment is due the one who
has contempt for the Son of God, considers unclean the covenant-
blood by which he was consecrated, and insults the spirit of grace?
We know the one who said: Vengeance is mine; I will repay, and
again: The Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.
2.4 The Regula Fidei and the Symbols
It must be recognized that many of the consulted writers

give great importance to the orthodox creed, and all of them are
convinced that in the Catholic Church exists a unique system of
doctrine, universally accepted, called also the rule of faith. But this
is never connected without uncertainties to a stable verbal
formula, not even by theologians such as Saint Irenaeus and
Tertullian. Although, they frequently cite the rule of faith, it is clear
that their citations are not in themselves of the formulas, and not
even presuppose under intended formulas. If their summaries of
faith present a concrete structure and a distinctive note, that is
ought to the fact that these give expression to a corpus of common
doctrine clearly articulated, and to the inevitable tendency to adopt
conventional forms of language. At the beginning of the 3rd century,
this tendency was naturally well developed; but even if the
summaries in use in the Church, especially the shorter ones, were
closed to the creed, is important to be wary in the comparisons of a
too quick application to those of such terms (J. N. D. Kelly, The
Symbols of Faith in the Ancient Church: Birth, Evolution, and use
in the Creed, 94-95).
2.5 Origen: The apocrypha & the canonical scriptures
It would be toilsome and irrelevant to the matter in hand for

us to enquire how many books are mentioned in the Divine
Scriptures, of which nothing whatever has been handed down to us
to read. Nor do we find that the Jews made use of lections of this
kind; for either the Holy Spirit saw fit to remove them from our
midst, because they contained some matters beyond human
understanding; or else in the case of those scriptures that are
called apocrypha because many things were found in them that
were corrupt and contrary to the true faith, our predecessors did
not see fit for them to be given a place, or admitted among those
reckoned as authoritative. It is beyond us to pass judgment on such
matters. But it is common knowledge that the apostles and
evangelists borrowed and put into the New Testament many things
that we read nowhere in the Scriptures that we account canonical,
but that are found nonetheless in the apocryphal writings, and are
quite obviously taken from them. Not that apocryphal writings are
to be given a place in this way: we must not overpass the
everlasting limits which our fathers have set. But it may be that the
apostles and evangelists, being filled with the Holy Spirit, knew
what was to be taken out of those writings and what must be
rejected;
whereas we, who have not such abundance of the Spirit, cannot
without danger presume so to select (Origen, Commentary on the
Song of Songs, preface).
2.6 The Letter of Jude (Canonical) vv. 14-15 cites Enoch 1:9
(Apocryphal book)
It was with them in mind that Enoch, the seventh patriarch

from Adam, made his prophecy when he said, I tell you, the Lord
will come with his saints in their tens of thousands, to pronounce
judgment on all mankind and to sentence the wicked for all the
wicked things they have done, and for all the defiant things said
against him by irreligious sinners.
2.7 The Proto-gospel of James
2.7.1 The presentation of Mary at the temple: VII. But the girl
grew, and when she was two years old, Joachim said to Anna, Let
us lead her to the temple of the Lord, that we may perform our
vow, which we have vowed to the Lord God, for fear that he should
be angry with us, and our offering be unacceptable. But Anna
said: Lets wait until the third year, so that she will not seek her
father or mother. And Joachim said, Let us then wait.
And when the child was three years old, Joachim said, Let us
invite the daughters of the Hebrews, who are undefiled, and let
them take each a lamp, and let them be lighted, that the child may
not turn back again, and her mind be set against the temple of the
Lord. And they did thus till they ascended into the temple of the
Lord. And the high priest received her, and said, Mary, the Lord
God has magnified your name to all generations, and to the very
end of time the Lord will show by you his redemption to the
children of Israel. And he placed her upon the third step of the
altar, and the Lord gave grace to her, and she danced, and all the
house of Israel loved.
2.7.2 The miraculous birth of Jesus: XIX. And the midwife went
away with him [Joseph]. And they stood in the place of the cave,
and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the
midwife said: My soul has been magnified this day (cf. Lk1, 46),
because mine eyes have seen strange things -- because salvation
has been brought forth to Israel (cf. Lk 2, 30. And immediately the
cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the
cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light
gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took
the breast from His mother Mary. And the midwife cried out, and
said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange
sight. And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met
her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to
relate to thee: a virgin has brought forth -- a thing which her
nature admits not of. Then said Salome:
As the Lord my God liveth, unless I thrust in my finger, and search

the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.
2.8 The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
2.8.1 He dwelt in the body in the city of Nazareth, going in the fifth
year of His age. On one of the days, there being a rainstorm, He
went out of the house where His mother was, and played on the
ground where the waters were flowing. And He made pools, and
brought in the waters, and the pools were filled with water. Then
He says: It is my will that you become clear and excellent waters.
And they became so directly. And a certain boy, the son of Annas
the scribe, came past, and with a willow branch which he was
carrying threw down the pools, and the water flowed out. And
Jesus turning, said to him: O impious and wicked, how have the
pools wronged thee, that thou hast emptied them? Thou shall not
go on thy way, and thou shalt be dried up like the branch which
thou art carrying. And as he went along, in a short time he fell
down and died. And when the children that were playing with him
saw this, they wondered, and went away and told the father of the
dead boy. And he ran and found his child dead, and he went away
and reproached Joseph. And Jesus made of that clay twelve
sparrows, and it was the Sabbath. And a child ran and told Joseph,
saying: Behold, thy child is playing about the stream, and of the
clay he has made sparrows, which is not lawful. And when he
heard this, he went, and said to the child: Why dost thou do this,
profaning the Sabbath? But Jesus gave him no answer, but looked
upon the sparrows, and said: Go away, fly, and live, and remember
me. And at this word they flew, and went up into the air. And when
Joseph saw it, he wondered.
2.8.2 After that again he went through the village, and a child ran
and dashed against his shoulder. And Jesus was provoked and said
unto him: Thou shall not finish thy course (lit. go all thy way).
And immediately he fell down and died. But certain when they saw
what was done said: Whence was this young child born, for that
every word of his is an accomplished work? And the parents of
him that was dead came unto Joseph, and blamed him, saying:
Thou that hast such a child canst not dwell with us in the village:
or do thou teach him to bless and not to curse: for he is killing our
children.
And Joseph called the young child apart and admonished him,
saying: Wherefore doest thou such things, that these suffer and
hate us and persecute us? But Jesus said: I know that these thy
words are not thine: nevertheless for thy sake I will hold my peace:
but they shall bear their punishment. And straightway they that
accused him were smitten with blindness.
2.9 The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus
Jesus lay down in his crib and said to Mary: I am Jesus, the Son of
God, and The Word to which you have given the light.
Section 3: The Letters of the Apostolic Fathers:

1 Clement to the Corinthians, The Didache,
The Epistle of Barnabas, The Letter to
Diognetus and The Shepherd of Hermas
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS: EARLY CHURCH WRITINGS (90-
160 A.D.)
1. Jean-Baptiste Cotelier in Paris published the first edition of
these Fathers in
1672: Patres aevi apostolic
2. The Literature
(1) The Epistle of Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Ignatius
of Antioch,
Polycarp of Smyrna and the Shepherd of Hermas
(2) Fragments of Papias of Hierapolis and The Letter to
Diognetus
(3) The Didache (rediscovered in the 19th century)
3. Various characteristics of Early Church Writings

(1) Ecclesiastical Obedience
(2) Against Heresies and Schisms
(3) Eschatological Meaning
(4) A Vivid Memory of Christ
(5) A more or less uniform Christology
(6) It is not a Scientific Exposition of the Faith
THE LETTER OF CLEMENT TO THE CORINTHIANS
1. The most ancient letter next to biblical writings

2. He was attested in the letter of Dionysius of Corinth to
Pope Soter (116-175):
We passed this holy Lords day, in which we read your letter,
from the constant reading of which we shall be able to draw
admonition, even as from the reading of the former one you
sent us written through Clement. (Ch. 2)
3. ca. 96 A.D.
4. Author = Clement
Who was he?
* According to Irenaeus, the third successor of
Peter
* A Collaborator of Paul? Philippians 4:3: Yes,
and I ask you also, my true yokemate, to help
them, for they have struggled at my side in
promoting the gospel, along with Clement and
my other co-workers, whose names are in the
book of life.
* Any family relationship with the Consul Flavius
Clemens, cousin of Domitian?
* The authoritative and authorized spokesman of
the council
5. Various points on the content and on the significance of the

Letter of Clement
(1) Testimony in the presence of Peter and Paul in Rome
(2) The order and harmony of the cosmos
(3) Apostolic Succession
(4) Intervention of Rome: testimony to the supremacy?
* Rome = informed of the situation in Corinth;
he feels involved.
* Was this only an expression of fraternal
solidarity, or the primacy of Rome in
jurisdiction?
Texts:
3.1 Address and Greeting of the Letter (of St. Clement of
Rome) to the Corinthians
The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church

of God which sojourneth in Corinth, to them which are called and
sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace
to you and peace from Almighty God through Jesus Christ be
multiplied (I Clement).
3.2 The Apostolic Succession in Rome according to Saint

Irenaeus
Then, having founded and built up the Church, committed

into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus,
Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded
Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles,
Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the
blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be
said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears],
and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for
there were many still remaining who had received instructions
from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension
having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in
Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians,
exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the
tradition which it had lately received from the apostles,
proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and
earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called
Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spoke with
Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared
fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever
chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand
the apostolic tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older
date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who
conjure into existence another god beyond
the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement
there succeeded Evaristus (Adversus Haereses 3.3.3).
3.3 The Identity of Clement according to Eusebius
In the twelfth year of the same reign Clement succeeded

Anacletus after the latter had been bishop of the Church of Rome
for twelve years. The apostle in his Epistle to the Philippians
informs us that this Clement was his fellow-worker. His words are
as follows: With Clement and the rest of my fellow-laborers whose
names are in the book of life (Historia Ecclesiastica 3.15).
3.4 Clement in the Shepherd of Hermas
You will write therefore two books, and you will send the one
to Clemens and the other to Grapte. And Clemens will send his to
foreign countries, for permission has been granted to him to do so.
And Grapte will admonish the widows and the orphans. But you
will read the words in this city, along with the presbyters who
preside over the Church (Shepherd of Hermas Vis 2.4.3).
3.5 Praise of the Corinthians
Owing, dear brethren, to the sudden and successive

calamitous events which have happened to ourselves, we feel that
we have been somewhat tardy in turning our attention to the
points respecting which you consulted us; and especially to that
shameful and detestable sedition, utterly abhorrent to the elect of
God, which a few rash and self-confident persons have kindled to
such a pitch of frenzy, that your venerable and illustrious name,
worthy to be universally loved, has suffered grievous injury. 2. For
who ever dwelt even for a short time among you, and did not find
your faith to be as fruitful of virtue as it was firmly established?
Who did not admire the sobriety and moderation of your godliness
in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificence of your habitual
hospitality? And who did not rejoice over your perfect and well-
grounded knowledge? 3.For ye did all things without respect of
persons, and walked in the commandments of God, being obedient
to those who had the rule over you, and giving all fitting honor to
the presbyters among you. You enjoined young men to be of a
sober and serious mind; ye instructed your wives to do all things
with a blameless, becoming, and pure conscience, loving their
husbands as in duty bound; and you taught them that, living in the
rule of obedience, they should manage their household affairs
becomingly, and be in every respect marked by discretion (I
Clement 1.1).
3.6 Testimony to the Presence the Martyrdom of Peter and

Paul in Rome
But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the

most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples
furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy the
greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been
persecuted and put to death.
Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through
unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors;
and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the
place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the
reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into
captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the
east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith,
having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the
extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the
prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the
holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience (I
Clement 5.1-7).
3.7 The Fixed Times

1.These things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look
into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to do all
things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to
perform at stated times. 2.He has enjoined offerings [to be
presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not
thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours.
3.Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He
Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things
being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be
acceptable unto Him. 4.Those, therefore, who present their
offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for
inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. 5.For his
own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their
own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special
ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the
laws that pertain to laymen (I Clement 40.1-5) [cf. 3.11].
3.8 Pleasing to God
Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own
order, living in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and not
going beyond the rule of the ministry prescribed to him (I
Clement 41.1).
3.9 Apostolic Succession
3.9.1 The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord
Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore
was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these
appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the
will of God. Having therefore received their orders, and being fully
assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy
Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at
hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they
appointed the first fruits [of their labors], having first proved them
by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should
afterwards believe. Nor was this any new thing, since indeed many
ages before it was written concerning bishops and deacons. For
thus says the Scripture in a certain place, I will appoint their
bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith (Is 60:7) (I
Clement 42.1-5).
3.9.2 Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that
there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For
this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect
foreknowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already
mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these
should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in
their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by
them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the
whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ,
in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a
long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly
dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we
eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily
fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those presbyters who, having
finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and
perfect departure [from this world]; for they have no fear lest
anyone deprive them of the place now appointed them. But we see
that you have removed some men of excellent behavior from the
ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honor (I
Clement 44.1-6).
3.10 The Dispute
1.Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. 2.What did

he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be
preached? 3.Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to
you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even
then parties had been formed among you. 4.But that inclination for
one above another entailed less guilt upon you, inasmuch as your
partialities were then shown towards apostles, already of high
reputation, and towards a man whom they had approved. 5.But
now reflect who those are that have perverted you, and lessened
the renown of your far-famed brotherly love. 6.It is disgraceful,
beloved, yea, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of your Christian
profession, that such a thing should be heard of as that the most
steadfast and ancient Church of the Corinthians should, on account
of one or two persons, engage in sedition against its presbyters.
7.And this rumor has reached not only us, but those also who are
unconnected with us; so that, through your infatuation, the name
of the Lord is blasphemed, while danger is also brought upon
yourselves (I Clement 47:1-7).
3.11 Laicus (J. CAROLA, S.J., Augustinus-Lexikon Fasc. 3, 5/6 (Basel,

2008), pp. 897 901.)
1. Origins of the laity 2. L. according to A. 3. Seniores laici 4.

The laitys
sacerdotal-regal mission
1. Origins of the laity. In his Letter to the Corinthians,

Clement of Rome employs the word (from meaning
people) for the first time in Christian literature. Clement
distinguishes between the cultic roles proper to and 1
harmoniously arranged in the 2. While acknowledging
ministerial functions hierarchically ordered within the Church,

Christian literature of the first two centuries especially indicates
the fundamental Christian identity of all the baptized as full
members of the one ecclesial body under Christs headship 3. Only
at the turn of the 3rd century do the laity emerge as a distinct
ecclesial category. Tertullian acknowledges the distinction between
ordo and plebs, insisting polemically upon its ecclesiastical rather
than divine origin4. While generally distinguishing clerus from
plebs5, Cyprian employs the latter term to indicate not only the
laity but also the clergy of a local diocese under the rule of a
bishop6. Nonetheless, explicitly seeking the laitys consent in
decisions of greater import affecting the community, Cyprian
attests to the laitys distinct identity within the Church 7. In the
Christian centuries prior to A., l. came to define the baptized
Christian who performed no function in the ecclesiastical
hierarchy8. In such terms does A. himself report the Donatist
Cresconius lay status: quamuis nulla functione clericatui
astrictus9.
1 Clem. ad Cor. 40.5

2 ib. 41.1
3 SINISCALCO 91-94, GROSSI Rilettura 284-288, DAL COVOLO 30-33 4 Tert.
castit. 7,2; bapt. 17,2; praescr. 41,8; fug. 11,1; monog. 11.4
5 Cypr. epp. 45.2; 52,1
6 DUVAL plebs 1, 278-280
7 Cypr. epp. 5,1; 14,4; 16,4; 19,2; 28,3
8 SPINELLI 1891.
9 Cresc. 2.5.7
3.12 Peter in Rome

Rome was evangelized between 43-49 A.D.
3.12.1 Acts 12:17 He [Peter] motioned to them with his hand to

be quiet and explained (to them) how the Lord had led him out of
the prison, and said, Report this to James and the brothers. Then
he left and went to another place.
3.12.2 Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, V.25 The

Emperor Claudius expels the Jews from Rome for continuous
tumultuous instigations of Christ [Iudaeos impulsore Chresto
assiduae tumultuantis Roma expulit.]
N.B. Claudius (10 B.C. 54 A.D.) was the emperor from 41 to

54 A.D.
His second wife, Agrippina, was the mother of Nero.
3.12.3 Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History
Chapter Fourteen
The Preaching of the Apostle Peter in Rome
[1] The evil power, who hates all that is good and plots against
the salvation of men, constituted Simon at that time the father and
author of such wickedness, as if to make him a mighty antagonist
of the great, inspired apostles of our Savior. [2] For that divine and
celestial grace which co-operates with its ministers, by their
appearance and presence, quickly extinguished the kindled flame
of evil, and humbled and cast down through them every high thing
that exalted itself against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 10:5). [3]
Wherefore neither the conspiracy of Simon nor that of any of the
others who arose at that period could accomplish anything in those
apostolic times. For everything was conquered and subdued by the
splendors of the truth and by the divine word itself which had but
lately begun to shine from heaven upon men, and which was then
flourishing upon earth, and dwelling in the apostles themselves.
[4] Immediately the above-mentioned impostor was smitten in
the eyes of his mind by a divine and miraculous flash, and after the
evil deeds done by him had been first detected by the apostle Peter
in Judea (cf At 8:18-23), he fled and made a great journey across
the sea from the East to the West, thinking that only thus could he
live according to his mind. [5] And coming to the city of Rome, by
the mighty co-operation of that power which was lying in wait
there, he was in a short time so successful in his undertaking that
those who dwelt there honored him as a god by the erection of a
statue. [6] But this did not last long. For immediately, during the
reign of Claudius, the all-good and gracious Providence, which
watches over all things, led Peter, that strongest and greatest of
the apostles, and the one who on account of his virtue was the
speaker for all the others, to Rome against this great corrupter of
life. He like a noble commander of God, clad in divine armor (cf Ef
6:14-17; 1 Ts 5:8), carried the costly merchandise of the light of the
understanding from the East to those who dwelt in the West,
proclaiming the light itself, and the word which brings salvation to
souls (cf Jn 1:9), and preaching the kingdom of heaven.
Chapter Fifteen
The Gospel according to Mark
[1] And thus when the divine word had made its home among
them, the power of Simon was quenched and immediately
destroyed, together with the man himself. And so greatly did the
splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peters hearers that they
were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content
with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts
of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one
whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written
monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to
them.
Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had
thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the
name of Mark.
THE DIDACHE
1. The Doctrine (Teaching) of the Twelve Apostles:

ca. 50150 A.D.; probably of the last decade of the

first century
In 1873, in Constantinople, rediscovered by
Philoteos Bryennios
2. Teaching of the community in regards to:

Morals (Chapters 1 6)
Liturgy (Chapters 7 10)
The Relationship between itinerant prophets and
travelling Christians (Chapters 11-13)
Community Life(Chapters 1415)
Eschatology (Chapter 16)
Texts:
3.13 The Two Ways
I. 1 There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great
difference between the two ways. 2 The way of life, then, is this:
First, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbor as
yourself; and all things whatsoever you would should not occur to
you, do not also do to another. 3 And of these sayings the teaching
is this: Bless them that curse you, and pray for your enemies, and
fast for them that persecute you. For what thank is there, if you
love them that love you? Do not also the Gentiles do the same? But
do ye love them that hate you;
and you shall not have an enemy. 4 Abstain from fleshly and
worldly lusts. If one give you a blow upon your right cheek, turn to
him the other also; and you shall be perfect. If one impress you for
one mile, go with him two. If one take away your cloak, give him
also your coat. If one take from you your own, ask it not back, for
indeed you are not able. 5 Give to every one that asks you, and ask
it not back; for the Father wills that to all should be given of our
own blessings (free gifts). Happy is he that gives according to the
commandment; for he is guiltless. Woe to him that receives; for if
one having need receives, he is guiltless; but he that receives not
having need, shall pay the penalty, why he received and for what,
and, coming into straits (confinement), he shall be examined
concerning the things which he has done, and he shall not escape
thence until he pay back the last farthing. Matthew 5:26 6 But also
now concerning this, it has been said, Let your alms sweat in your
hands, until you know to whom you should give.
II. 1 And the second commandment of the Teaching; 2 You shall

not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, Exodus20:13-14
you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication,
you shall not steal, Exodus 20:15 you shall not practice magic, you
shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by
abortion nor kill that which is begotten. You shall not covet the
things of your neighbor, Exodus 20:17 3 you shall not forswear
yourself, Matthew 5:34 you shall not bear false witness, Exodus
20:16 you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge. 4 You
shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued; for to be double-
tongued is a snare of death. 5 Your speech shall not be false, nor
empty, but fulfilled by deed. 6 You shall not be covetous, nor
rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor evil disposed, nor haughty. You shall
not take evil counsel against your neighbor. 7 You shall not hate
any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you
shall pray, and some
you shall love more than your own life.
V. 1 And the way of death is this: First of all it is evil and full of
curse: murders, adulteries, lusts, fornications, thefts, idolatries,
magic arts, witchcrafts, rapines, false witnessings, hypocrisies,
double-heartedness, deceit, haughtiness, depravity, self-will,
greediness, filthy talking, jealousy, over-confidence, loftiness,
boastfulness; 2 persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving a lie,
not knowing a reward for righteousness, not cleaving to good nor
to righteous judgment, watching not for that which is good, but for
that which is evil; from whom meekness and endurance are far,
loving vanities, pursuing requital, not pitying a poor man, not
laboring for the afflicted, not knowing Him that made them,
murderers of children, destroyers of the handiwork of God, turning
away from him that is in want, afflicting him that is distressed,
advocates of the rich, lawless judges of the poor, utter sinners. Be
delivered, children, from all these.
3.14 The Stable Hierarchy
Appoint, therefore, for yourselves [that is for the celebration

of the Eucharist, of which was said in the preceding chapter],
bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers
of money, and truthful and proved; for they also render to you the
service of prophets and teachers. 2 Despise them not therefore, for
they are your honored ones, together with the prophets and
teachers (Didache 15.1-2).
3.15 Eucharistic Ecclesiology: Catholicity
Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and
was gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be
gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom;
for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever
(Didache 9.4).
THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS
Date: 130132 A.D. before the Bar-Kochba revolt.

Origin = Egypt (Alexandria) or Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine.
A pseudepigraphic writing (one of those which places itself
under the
name of an Apostle)
Often included within the canonical books of the NT in the
Early
Church
Texts:
3.16 The Perfect Knowledge
Considering this, therefore, that if I should take the trouble
to communicate to you some portion of what I have myself
received, it will prove to me a sufficient reward that I minister to
such spirits, I have hastened briefly to write unto you, in order
that, along with your faith, you might have perfect knowledge
(Epistle of Barnabas 1.5).
3.17 The Final Exhortation
And may God, who ruleth over all the world, give to you
wisdom, intelligence, understanding, knowledge of His judgments,
with patience. 6.And be docile students of God, inquiring diligently
what the Lord asks from you; and do it that you maybe safe in the
day of judgment (Epistle of Barnabas 21.5).
3.18 The two ways, of light and of darkness

3.19 The Two Ways
The two ways (Chapter 18)
But let us now pass to another sort of knowledge and doctrine.

There are two ways of doctrine and authority, the one of light, and
the other of darkness. But there is a great difference between
these two ways. For over one are stationed the light-bringing
angels of God, but over the other the angels of Satan. And He
indeed (i.e., God) is Lord forever and ever, but he (i.e., Satan) is
prince of the time of iniquity.
The way of light (Chapter 19)
The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to

the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The
knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of
walking in this way, is the following. You shall love Him that
created you: you shall glorify Him that redeemed you from death.
You shall be simple in heart, and rich in spirit. You shall not join
yourself to those who walk in the way of death. You shall hate
doing what is unpleasing to God: you shall hate all hypocrisy. You
shall not forsake the commandments of the Lord. You shall not
exalt yourself, but shall be of a lowly mind. You shall not take glory
to yourself. You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor.
You shall not allow over-boldness to enter into your soul. You shall
not commit fornication: you shall not commit adultery: you shall
not be a corrupter of youth. You shall not let the word of God issue
from your lips with any kind of impurity. You shall not accept
persons when you reprove any one for transgression. You shall be
meek: you shall be peaceable. You shall tremble at the words which
you hear. You shall not be mindful of evil against your brother. You
shall not be of doubtful mind (Jas 1:8) as to whether a thing shall
be or not. You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. You shall
love your neighbor more than your own soul. You shall not slay the
child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shall you destroy it after it
is born. You shall not withdraw your hand from your son, or from
your daughter, but from their infancy you shall teach them the fear
of the Lord. You shall not covet what is your neighbors, nor shall
you be avaricious. You shall not be joined in soul with the haughty,
but you shall be reckoned with the righteous and lowly. Receive as
good things the trials which come upon you. You shall not be of
double mind or of double tongue, for a double tongue is a snare of
death. You shall be subject to the Lord and to [other] masters as
the image of God, with modesty and fear. You shall not issue orders
with bitterness to your maidservant or your man- servant, who
trust in the same [God ], lest you should not reverence that God
who is above both; for He came to call men not according to their
outward appearance (Ep 6:9)
but according as the Spirit had prepared them (Rom 8:29-30). You
shall communicate in all things with your neighbor; you shall not
call things your own; for if you are partakers in common of things
which are incorruptible, how much more [should you be] of those
things which are corruptible! You shall not be hasty with your
tongue, for the mouth is a snare of death. As far as possible, you
shall be pure in your soul. Do not be ready to stretch forth your
hands to take, while you contract them to give. You shall love, as
the apple of your eye, every one that speaks to you the word of the
Lord. You shall remember the Day of Judgment, night and day. You
shall seek out every day the faces of the saints, either by word
examining them, and going to exhort them, and meditating how to
save a soul by the word or by your hands you shall labor for the
redemption of your sins. You shall not hesitate to give, nor murmur
when you give. Give to everyone that asks you, and you shall know
who is the good Recompenser of the reward. You shall preserve
what you have received [in charge], neither adding to it nor taking
from it. To the last you shall hate the wicked [one]. You shall judge
righteously. You shall not make a schism, but you shall pacify those
that contend by bringing them together. You shall confess your
sins. You shall not go to prayer with an evil conscience.
The way of darkness (Chapter 20)
But the way of darkness is crooked, and full of cursing; for it is the
way of eternal death with punishment, in which way are the things
that destroy the soul, viz., idolatry, over-confidence, the arrogance
of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, rapine,
haughtiness, transgression, deceit, malice, self-sufficiency,
poisoning, magic, avarice, want of the fear of God. [In this way,
too,] are those who persecute the good, those who hate truth,
those who love falsehood, those who know not the reward of
righteousness, those who cleave not to that which is good, those
who attend not with just judgment to the widow and orphan, those
who watch not to the fear of God, [but incline] to wickedness, from
whom meekness and patience are far off; persons who love vanity,
follow after a reward, pity not the needy, labor not in aid of him
who is overcome with toil; who are prone to evil-speaking, who
know not Him that made them, who are murderers of children,
destroyers of the workmanship of God; who turn away him that is
in want, who oppress the afflicted, who are advocates of the rich,
who are unjust judges of the poor, and who are in every respect
transgressors.
THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS
1. An apocalyptic apocryphal work

2. Written in Rome between 130140 A.D.
3. Hermas=
(1) Freed slave
(2) Married with children
3) Brother of Pope Pius I?
4. Two Celestial Figures
(1) An old woman (the symbolic incarnation of the
Church) that
begs for penitence

(2) An angel in the form of a shepherd, so it is the name
of the work,
that is the patron and director of the penitential mission
5. A vast examination of conscience of the Roman church
6. According to repentance after Baptism
(1) Universal Character: nobody and no ones sins are
excluded
(2) The one limit to the pardoning of God is the refusal of
the sinner to
repentance.
(3)
Texts:
3.20 The Shepherd of Hermas: The Second Penance
And I said to him, I should like to continue my questions.
Speak on, said he. And I said, I heard, sir, some teachers
maintain that there is no other repentance than that which takes
place, when we descended into the water and received remission
of our former sins. He said to me, That was sound doctrine which
you heard; for that is really the case. For he who has received
remission of his sins ought not to sin any more, but to live in purity.
Since, however, you inquire diligently into all things, I will point
this also out to you, not as giving occasion for error to those who
are to believe, or have lately believed, in the Lord. For those who
have now believed, and those who are to believe, have not
repentance for their sins; but they have remission of their previous
sins. For to those who have been called before these days, the Lord
has set repentance. For the Lord, knowing the heart, and
foreknowing all things, knew the weakness of men and the
manifold wiles of the devil, that he would inflict some evil on the
servants of God, and would act wickedly towards them. The Lord,
therefore, being merciful, has had mercy on the work of His hand,
and has set repentance for them; and He has entrusted to me
power over this repentance. And therefore I say to you, that if any
one is tempted by the devil, and sins after that great and holy
calling in which the Lord has called His people to everlasting life,
he has opportunity to repent but once. But if he should sin
frequently after this, and then repent, to such a man his
repentance will be of no avail; for with difficulty will he live. And I
said, Sir, I feel that life has come back to me in listening
attentively to these commandments; for I know that I shall be
saved, if in future I sin no more. And he said, You will be saved,
you and all who keep these commandments (The Shepherd of
Hermas Commandments 4.3.1-7).
3.21 The need of repentance
But those which fell into the fire and were burned are those
who have departed for ever from the living God; nor does the
thought of repentance ever come into their hearts (Shepherd Vis.
3.7.2).
THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS
The period around 200 or before the Marcionist controversy
around 140
Place of origin = Alexandria
Many points in common with Aristides, but without direct
dependence
Utilizes the works of Irenaeus and Hippolytus
Texts:
3.22 Observation of J. Quasten
The epistle merits to be collected amongst the most brilliant

and the most beautiful of Greek Christian literature. The writer is a
master of rhetoric. The rhythm of his sentences is very pleasant,
and well balanced, a clear style. The content reveals a man of
ardent faith, extensive knowledge, a spirit completely imbued in
the principles of Christianity, that express themes selves with
vivacity and warmth (Quasten, p. 222).
3.23 The Paradox of the Life of the Christians
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither

by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For
they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form
of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity.
The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by
any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like
some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human
doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities,
according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following
the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest
of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and
confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own
countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all
things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every
foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of
their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others];
they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They
have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh,
but they do not live after the flesh. They pass
their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the
prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their
lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are
unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to
life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all
things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their
very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are
justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay
the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers.
When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are
assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the
Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason
for their hatred (Epistle to Diognetus 5.1 17).
Section 4: Ignatius of Antioch and his letters.

1. Person and Work
* Second successor of Peter at Antioch
(1) Peter
(2) Evodius
(3) Ignatius
* He wrote 7 letters
* Written from Smyrna
(1) to the Ephesians
(bishop = Onesimus)
(2) to the Magnesians
(bishop = Damas)
(3) to the Trallians
(bishop = Polybius)
(4) to the Romans
* Written from Troas

(5) to the Philadelphians
(a bishop, whose name is not
mentioned)
(6) to the Smyrnaeans
(bishop = Polycarp)
(7) to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna
2. Three Principal Themes

(1) On his guard against heretical doctrines
* Against Jewish tendencies
* Against Docetism
= to seem, to appear
(2) Theological unity and ecclesiology
* Mono-episcopate
*
(Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8.2)
(3) Theology and the longing for martyrdom
* The following of Christ
* Eucharistic connotation
3. Rome
(1) that/which in Rome presides

Literally = that/which presides in the place of the
region of the
Romans.
(2) that/which presides in charity

Texts:
4.1 The Old Testament Theophanies according to Leo the
Great
But it is of no avail to say that our LORD, the Son of the blessed
Virgin Mary, was true and perfect man, if He is not believed to be
Man of that stock which is attributed to Him in the Gospel. For
Matthew says, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son
of David, the son of Abraham (Mt 1:1): and follows the order of
His human origin, so as to bring the lines of His ancestry down to
Joseph to whom the LORDS mother was espoused. Whereas Luke
going backwards step by step traces His succession to the first of
the human race himself, to show that the first Adam and the last
Adam were of the same nature. No doubt the Almighty Son of GOD
could have appeared for the purpose of teaching, and justifying
men in exactly the same way that He appeared both to patriarchs
and prophets in the semblance of flesh; for instance, when He
engaged in a struggle, and entered into conversation (with Jacob),
or when He refused not hospitable entertainment, and even
partook of the food set before Him. But these appearances were
indications of that Man whose reality it was announced by mystic
predictions would be assumed from the stock of preceding
patriarchs. And the fulfillment of the mystery of our atonement,
which was ordained from all eternity, was not assisted by any
figures because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon the Virgin,
and the power of the Most High had not over-shadowed her: so
that Wisdom building herself a houses within her undefiled body,
the Word became flesh; and the form of GOD and the form of a
slave coming together into one person, the Creator of times was
born in time; and He Himself through whom all things were made,
was brought forth in the midst of all things. For if the New Man
had not been made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and taken on Him
our old nature, and being consubstantial with the Father, had
deigned to be consubstantial with His mother also, and being alone
free from sin, had united our nature to Him the whole human race
would be held in bondage beneath the Devils yoke, and we should
not be able to make use of the Conquerors victory, if it had been
won outside our nature (Leo the Great, ep. 31.2).
4.2 Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
4.2.1 As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being
united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do
ye anything without the bishop and presbyters (Letter to the
Magnesians 7).
4.2.2 Study, therefore, to make use of the Eucharist itself, because

one is the flesh of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and one is the Chalice in
the union of His Blood, one alone is the altar, as one alone is the
bishop with the college of priests and deacons. And do all of this in
this order; do it according to God (Letter to the Magnesians 13).
4.2.3 Since therefore I have, in the persons before mentioned,

beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love, I exhort you to
study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop
presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of
the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are
most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus
Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and
in the end was revealed. Do ye all then, imitating the same divine
conduct, pay respect to one another, and let no one look upon his
neighbor after the flesh, but do ye continually love each other in
Jesus Christ. Let nothing exist among you that may divide you; but
be ye united with your bishop, and those that preside over you, as
a type and evidence of your immortality (Letter to the Magnesians
6).
4.3 Ecclesiology and the Eucharist
Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is

one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the
unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the
presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye
do, ye may do it according to God (Letter to the Philadelphians 4).
4.4 Martyrdom and the True Disciple
For, I hope, trusting through your prayers to be permitted to

fight with beasts at Rome, that so by martyrdom I may indeed
become a true disciple of Him (Letter to the Ephesians 1).
4.5 Martyrdom and the Eucharist
Leave me to become [the prey of] the beasts, that by their

means I may be accounted worthy of God. I am the wheat of God,
and by the teeth of the beasts I shall be ground, that I may be
found the pure bread of Christ (Letter to the Romans 4.1).
4.6 The Letter to the Romans: Address and Salutation
Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church which has

received grace through the greatness of the Father Most High;
to her who presideth [] in the place of the region of the

Romans, who is worthy of God, and worthy of life, and happiness,
and praise, and remembrance, and is worthy of prosperity, and
presideth in love [ ], and is perfected in the law
of Christ unblameable: [wishes] abundance of peace (Letter to the
Romans praef.).
4.7 To Preside [] as an Exercise of Oversight
Since therefore I have, in the persons before mentioned,

beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love, I exhort you to
study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop
presides in the place of God [ ]
and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles,
along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are
entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the
Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed
(Letter to the Magnesians 6.1).
In Plato: to preside in the city, thus, to
govern.
Ignatius salutation highlighting Romes presidency in love is well

known. But what exactly does it mean (1) to preside and (2) in love? Firstly,
the Greek verb to preside, , has a juridical meaning. Plato uses
the verb to identify the activities of the sovereign municipal body which
convokes and dissolves institutional assembles (cf. Plato, Laws, VI.758d).
Found in Aristotles Politics (VI.1322b14) the verb refers to the
administrative oversight of municipal goods. This municipal supervision is
exercised by a body which convenes the supreme authority in the State;
its members hold the chief political offices (Aristotle, Politics VI.1322b15-
17). Writing to the Magnesians, Ignatius employs this same Greek verb to
describe the role of the bishop who presides in the place of God over the
local church (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians, 6.1). As for the
Greek word , that is, love, it denotes in ancient Christian usage much
more than mere affection or charitable giving. It stands as a synonym for
the Eucharist and the ecclesial communion which the Sacrament effects
(cf. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, 7.3). Hence, the Church of
Rome solicitously oversees or governs the ecclesial communion which
unites all the Christian faithful together in love. (JOSEPH CAROLA, S.J.,
Sermon for the Second Monday of Lent 2010, La Chiesa di San Clemente di
Roma, 1 March 2010.)
4.8 Rome and its teaching
4.8.1 Concerning Martyrdom: Ye have never envied any man. Ye

have taught others (Rom. 3.1).
4.8.2 I do not, like Peter and Paul, issue orders unto you. They are
apostles, but I am one condemned; they indeed are free, but I am a
slave, even until now (Rom. 4.3).
4.9 The ignorance of the Prince of this world
There was concealed from the ruler of this world the

virginity of Mary and the birth of our Lord, and the three renowned
mysteries which were done in the tranquility of God from the star.
And here, at the manifestation of the Son, magic began to be
destroyed, and all bonds were loosed; and the ancient kingdom and
the error of evil was destroyed. Henceforward all things were
moved together, and the destruction of death was devised, and
there was the commencement of that which was perfected in God
(Letter to the Ephesians 19).
4.10 The Virginal Conception of Mary in the CCC
People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St. Marks

Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus virginal
conception. Some might wonder if we were merely dealing with
legends or theological constructs not claiming to be history. To this
we must respond: Faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with
the lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension of non-believers,
Jews and pagans alike; so it could hardly have been motivated by
pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age.
The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which
understands in it the connection of these mysteries with one
another in the totality of Christs mysteries, from his Incarnation
to his Passover. St. Ignatius of Antioch already bears witness to this
connection: Marys virginity and giving birth, and even the Lords
death escaped the notice of the prince of this world: these three
mysteries worthy of proclamation were accomplished in Gods
silence (Catechism of the Catholic Church 498).
4.11 Discourse on the Lord 3-4, 9 of St. Ephrem the Deacon

(ca.306-373)
For in that very thing by which Death had slain Him [i.e., the
body], in that as armor He bore off the victory over Death. But the
Godhead concealed itself in the manhood and fought against
Death, Death slew and was slain. Death slew the natural life; and
the supernatural life slew Him. And because Death was not able to
devour Him without the body, nor Sheol to swallow Him up without
the flesh, He came unto the Virgin, that from thence He might
obtain that which should bear Him to Sheol; as from beside the ass
they brought for Him the colt whereon He entered Jerusalem, and
proclaimed concealing her overthrow and the destruction of her
children. With the body then that [was] from the Virgin, He entered
Sheol and plundered its storehouses and emptied its treasures.
Christ then came to Eve the Mother of all living. She is the
vineyard whose
fence was opened to Death by her own hands and tasted of fruits of
Death.
So Eve the Mother of all living became the source of death to

all living.
But Mary budded forth, a new shoot from Eve the ancient
vine; and new life dwelt in her (Christ), that when Death should
come confidently after his custom to feed upon mortal fruits, the
life that is slayer of death might be stored up [therein] against him;
that when Death should have swallowed [the fruits] without fear,
he might free them and with them many (Ephraim, Discourse on
the Lord 3-4, 9).
4.12 The Letter to the Smyrnaeans 1.1 - 9.2
Address and Salutation

Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church of God
the Father, and of the beloved Jesus Christ, which has through
mercy obtained every kind of gift, which is filled with faith and
love, and is deficient in no gift, most worthy of God, and adorned
with holiness: the Church which is at Smyrna, in Asia, wishes
abundance of happiness, through the immaculate Spirit and word
of God.
I give glory to Jesus Christ for your unshakable faith

1.1 I glorify God, even Jesus Christ, who has given you such
wisdom. For I have observed that ye are perfected in an
immoveable faith, as if ye were nailed to the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established
in love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded with
respect to our Lord, that He was truly of the seed of David
according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the will and
power of God; that He was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by
John, in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him; 2.
and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed
[to the cross] for us in His flesh. Of this fruit we are by His
divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard for all
ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and faithful
[followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His
Church.
Christ really suffered, not only in appearance

2. Now, He suffered all these things for our sakes, that we
might be saved. And He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised
up Himself, not, as certain unbelievers maintain, that He only
seemed to suffer, as they themselves only seem to be [Christians].
And as they believe, so shall it happen unto them, when they shall
be divested of their bodies, and be mere evil spirits.
Christ after the resurrection was also really in the flesh

3.1 For I know that after His resurrection also He was still
possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. 2. When, for
instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them,
Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.
And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced
both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised
death, and were found its conquerors. 3. And after his resurrection
He did eat and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh,
although spiritually He was united to the Father.
If Christ had not suffered, why should I confront death?

4.1 I give you these instructions, beloved, assured that ye also
hold the same opinions [as I do]. But I guard you beforehand from
those beasts in the shape of men, whom you must not only not
receive,
but, if it be possible, not even meet with; only you must pray to
God for them, if by any means they may be brought to repentance,
which, however, will be very difficult. Yet Jesus Christ, who is our
true life, has the power of [effecting] this. 2. But if these things
were done by our Lord only in appearance, then am I also only in
appearance bound. And why have I also surrendered myself to
death, to fire, to the sword, to the wild beasts? But, [in fact,] he
who is near to the sword is near to God; he that is among the wild
beasts is in company with God; provided only he be so in the name
of Jesus Christ. I undergo all these things that I may suffer
together with Him, He who became a perfect man inwardly
strengthening me.
The Dangerous Errors of the Docetists

5. 1. Some ignorantly deny Him, or rather have been denied
by Him, being the advocates of death rather than of the truth.
These persons neither have the prophets persuaded, nor the law of
Moses, nor the Gospel even to this day, nor the sufferings we have
individually endured. 2. For they think also the same thing
regarding us. For what does anyone profit me, if he commends me,
but blasphemes my Lord, not confessing that He was [truly]
possessed of a body? But he who does not acknowledge this, has in
fact altogether denied Him, being enveloped in death. 3. I have
not, however, thought good to write the names of such persons,
inasmuch as they are unbelievers. Yea, far be it from me to make
any mention of them, until they repent and return to [a true belief
in] Christs passion, which is our resurrection.
Unbelievers in the blood of Christ shall be condemned

6.1. Let no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in
heaven, and the glorious angels, and rulers, both visible and
invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in
consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let
him receive it! Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which
is worth all is faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. 2.
But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to
the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are
to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the
widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free;
of the hungry, or of the thirsty.
These heretics do not participate in the Eucharist,

because they say it is not the flesh of Jesus Christ. Stay
away from them.
7.1. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer,
because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior
Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of
His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against
this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it
were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might
rise again. 2. It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep aloof from
such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in
public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the
Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us,
and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions,
as the beginning of
evils.
Let nothing be done without the bishop

8.1 See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does
the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and
reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man
do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let
that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either
by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. 2. Wherever
the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also
be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate
a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also
pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and
valid.
Honor the Bishop.

9.1 Moreover, it is in accordance with reason that we should
return to soberness [of conduct], and, while yet we have
opportunity, exercise repentance towards God. It is well to
reverence both God and the bishop. He who honors the bishop has
been honored by God; he who does anything without the
knowledge of the bishop, does [in reality] serve the devil. 2. Let all
things, then, abound to you through grace, for ye are worthy. Ye
have refreshed me in all things, and Jesus Christ [shall refresh]
you. Ye have loved me when absent as well as when present. May
God recompense you, for whose sake, while ye endure all things,
ye shall attain unto him.
Section 5: Apologetic Literature and Justin

Martyr: an experience of encounter between
Christianity and Greek Philosophy; the Logos
spermatikos.
APOLOGETIC LITERATURE
1. = to defend
2. Two adversaries:
(1) the Jews
(2) the Pagans: for example, Celsus, Il Discorso Vero (178
A.D.)
3. The three-fold task of Apologists

(1) Confront Accusations
(2) Debate Pagan Religion and Philosophy
(3) Explain the Christian Doctrine
4. Apologetics = the beginning of theology
5. Christianity and philosophy: Two attitudes

(1) Opposed (e.g., Tertullian)
(2) Conciliatory
dialectical tension, a love-hate relationship
ST. JUSTIN MARTYR
1. Born in Flavia Neapoli (of antiquity Sichem, today Nablus)
2. Philosophical Road
The Stoics
The Peripatetic
The Pythagoreans
Neo-Platonic Philosophy
3. Conversion around 130 A.D., perhaps in Ephesus

4. Rome:
Arrived ca. 140 when the Emperor was Antoninus Pius
Debated with Crescenzo
Beheaded ca. 165 when the Emperor was Marcus Aurelius
5. Three Existing Works

(1) First Apology ca. 153 A.D.
(2) Second Apology between 155 and 160
(3) Dialogue with Tryphon ca. 160 A.D.
6. Points of contact between Greek philosophy and Christianity:

three approaches or theories
1. The Theory of the Logos spermatikos ( )
a. (seed of the Logos) in all men
b. =/=
c. (capacity) (grace)
d. Matthew 13: 3-23. Behold, the sower went out to sow....the
word of the Kingdom...This is the one on whom seed was
sown beside the road.
2. Borrowing (Plagiarism) from Philosophy
a. The immortality of the soul
b. Punishment after death
c. Contemplation of the Heavenly Things
3. The demons
7. Other Important Themes

(1) Parallel between Eve-Mary
(2) Baptism
o illumination and regeneration
(3) Eucharist
o the Body and Blood of Christ
o a spiritual sacrifice ( )
Texts:
THE GREEK APOLOGISTS
5.1 Description
The apologists were pagans, generally, who when comparing
the different
systems of philosophy with the doctrine of Christianity, found the

superiority of Christianity and converted to Christianity and now
felt the need to explain their religious experience to others to clear
up the ideas of the authority (about Christians) and of the Christian
people, to communicate the dazzling light that shone in their eyes,
and to defend a society of men, many admirable and many with a
bad reputation. Their writings are full of life and enthusiasm, often
they were written of battle (Bosio-Dal Covolo-Maritano,
Introduzione, vol. I, p. 157).
SAINT JUSTIN MARTYR
5.2 Reason, Justice, Truth and Martyrdom
Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to

honor and love only what is true, declining to follow traditional
opinions, if these be worthless. For not only does sound reason
direct us to refuse the guidance of those who did or taught
anything wrong, but it is incumbent on the lover of truth, by all
means, and if death be threatened, even before his own life, to
choose to do and say what is right (1 Apologia 2.1).
5.3 The heroic attitude of the Martyrs
For I myself, too, when I was delighting in the doctrines of

Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, and saw them fearless
of death, and of all other things which are counted fearful,
perceived that it was impossible that they could be living in
wickedness and pleasure. For what sensual or intemperate man, or
who that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could welcome
death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments, and would not
rather continue always the present life, and attempt to escape the
observation of the rulers; and much less would he denounce
himself when the consequence would be death? (2 Apologia 12.1-
2).
5.4 Christians among the Pagans
We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and

we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of
men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are
Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as,
among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them;
and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias,
and Mishael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names
we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious.
So that even they who lived before Christ, did not live according to
the Logos, were anti-Christs (= improbi), and slew those who lived
reasonably. But who, through the power of the Word, according to
the will of God the Father and Lord of all, He was born of a virgin
as a man, and was named Jesus, and was crucified, and died, and
rose again, and ascended into heaven, an intelligent man will be
able to comprehend from what has been already so largely said.
And we, since the proof of this subject is less needful now,
will pass for the present to the proof of those things which are
urgent (1 Apologia 46. 2-4).
5.5 The Seed of the Logos born in Every Man
And those of the Stoic schoolsince, so far as their moral

teaching went, they were admirable, as were also the poets in
some particulars, on account of the seed of Logos implanted in
every race of menwere, we know, hated and put to death
(Heraclitus for instance, and, among those of our own time,
Musonius and others). For, as we intimated, the devils have always
effected, that all those who anyhow live the Logos and shun vice,
be hated. And it is nothing wonderful; if the devils are proved to
cause those to be much worse hated who live not according to a
part only of the seminal Logos [ ], but by
the knowledge and contemplation of the whole Logos, which is
Christ [ , ] (2 Apologia 8.1-3).
5.6 The Truth Belongs to the Christians
Whatever things were rightly said among all men, belong to

us Christians. For next to God, we worship and love the Logos who
is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became
man for our sakes, that, becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He
might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see
realities darkly through the sowing of the implanted Logos that
was in them. For the seed and imitation imparted according to
capacity [] is one thing, and quite another is the thing itself
[= the Logos], of which there is the participation and imitation
according to the grace [] which is from Him (2 Apologia 13. 4-
6).
5.7 The Christians Posses the Entire Truth and the Example
of Socrates
Our doctrines, then, appear to be greater than all human

teaching; because Christ, who appeared for our sakes, became the
whole rational being, both body, and reason, and soul. For
whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they
elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word.
But since they did not know the whole of the Word, which is Christ,
they often contradicted themselves. And those who by human birth
were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to consider
and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as
impious persons and busybodies. And Socrates, who was more
zealous in this direction than all of them, was accused of the very
same crimes as ourselves. For they said that he was introducing
new divinities, and did not consider those to be gods whom the
state recognized.
But he cast out from the state both Homer and the rest of the
poets, and taught men to reject the wicked demons and those who
did the things which the poets related; and he exhorted them to
become acquainted with the God who was to them unknown, by
means of the investigation of reason, saying, That it is neither easy
to find the Father and Maker of all, nor, having found Him, is it
safe to declare Him to all. But these things our Christ did through
His own power. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this
doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates
(for He was and is the Word who is in every man, and who foretold
the things that were to come to pass both through the prophets
and in His own person when He was made of like passions, and
taught these things), not only philosophers and scholars believed,
but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising both
glory, and fear, and death; since He is a power of the ineffable
Father, and not the mere instrument of human nature (2 Apologia
10. 1-8).
5.8 The Prophets Prior to the Greek Writers
And whatever both philosophers and poets have said

concerning the immortality of the soul, or punishments after death,
or contemplation of things heavenly, or doctrines of the like kind,
they have received such suggestions from the prophets as have
enabled them to understand and interpret these things. And hence
there seem to be seeds of truth among all men; but they are
charged with not accurately understanding [the truth] when they
assert contradictories (1 Apologia 44.9).
5.9 Parallel of Eve and Mary
He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience

which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in
the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a
virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent,
brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary
received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good
tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and
the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also
the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied,
Be it unto me according to thy word. And by her has He been
born, to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, and by
whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men
who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who
repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him (Dialogue with
Tryphon 100. 4- 5).
5.10 Eucharist
And this food is called among us Eucharist of which no one

is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things
which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the
washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration,
and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common
bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner
as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of
God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have
we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His
word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are
nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.
For the apostles, in the Memoirs composed by them, which are
called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined
upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks,
said, This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body; and that,
after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He
said, This is My blood (1 Apologia 66 1-3).
Section 6: Irenaeus of Lyons: Christology,

Mariology, anthropology, the Rule of Faith, the
apostolic tradition and anti-Gnosticism.
SAINT IRENAEUS OF LYONS
1. Born ca. 135 140 in Asia Minor

2. Polycarp of Smyrna
3. He arrives in Gaul
4. Pope Eleutherius (ca. 174 189)
5. The martyrdom of bishop Pontine
6. Peacemaker (): The Letter to Pope Victor
7. The Quartodeciman Controversy
8. Died ca. 200
9. Two principle works:
De detectione et eversione falso cognominatae
agnitionis
The Detection and Overthrow of Knowledge Called
or
Adversus haereses, libri quinque
Demonstratio apostolicae praedicationis

10. Apostolic Work: a triple direction
(1) works for the spread of Christianity along the Rhone
(2) opposes Gnosticism
(3) resolves the paschal question with Pope Victor (189
199)
THE THEOLOGY OF SAINT IRENAEUS
1. The Trinity
The Creator = the Father of the Logos
Son and Holy Spirit = the hands of the Father in the
work of creation
2. Christology/Recapitulation
3. Mariology
Advocata Evae
Causa salutis
4. Eucharist
5. Anthropology
Salus carnis
Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio
Dei. AH. 4.20.7
6. Soteriology
Partecipare gloriae Dei
From imago Dei to similitudo Dei
Christological Divinization
7. Regula Fidei
Canon veritatis, regula fidei
(1) The message contained in the Scriptures
(2) The baptismal faith
(3) Profession of faith in communion with the
Church of Rome
NT =
The living Magisterium of the Church
The successors of the Apostles
the sure gift of truth
8. Rome
Texts:
SAINT IRENAEUS OF LYONS
6.1 Mary: the new Eve
6.1.1 Immediately after he has spoken of the Pauline Adam-Christ

parallelism, Irenaeus continues: In accordance with this design,
Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, Behold the handmaid of
the Lord; be it unto me according to your word. But Eve was
disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And
even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being
nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked,
and were not ashamed, inasmuch as they, having been created a
short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of
children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult
age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become
disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to
the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed
[to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience,
become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole
human race. And on this account does the law term a woman
betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her,
although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-
reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could
not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by
which these bonds of union had arisen; so that the former ties be
cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at
liberty. And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses
from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of
the first....
And thus also it was that the knot of Eves disobedience was loosed
by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast
through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith
(Adversus haereses 3.22.4).
6.1.2 That the Lord then was manifestly coming to His own things,
and was sustaining them by means of that creation which is
supported by Himself, and was making a recapitulation of that
disobedience which had occurred in connection with a tree,
through the obedience which was [exhibited by Himself when He
hung] upon a tree, [the effects] also of that deception being done
away with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to
a man, was unhappily misledwas happily announced, through
means of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who
was [also espoused] to a man. For just as the former was led astray
by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had
transgressed His word; so did the latter, by an angelic
communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain
God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did disobey
God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order
that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness of the virgin Eve.
And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of
a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having
been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience
6.1.3 Christ is a pure being that opens with purity that pure womb
which regenerates men into God ( Adversus haereses 4.33.11).
6.2 The Eucharist and the resurrection of the body
But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire
dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and
treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not
capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation,
then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup
of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which
we break the communion of His body. For blood can only come
from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance
of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own
blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, In whom we
have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins.
And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the
creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes
His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills). He has
acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own
blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part
of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He
gives increase to our bodies.
When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured
bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and
the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our
flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh
is incapable
of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is

nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of
Him? even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the
Ephesians, that we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of
His bones. He does not speak these words of some spiritual and
invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; but [he refers to]
that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man,
consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bonesthat [flesh] which is
nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase
from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the
vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a corn of
wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with
manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and
then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and
having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is
the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished
by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition
there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting
them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely
gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible
incorruption, because the strength of God is made perfect in
weakness, in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we
had life from ourselves, and exalted against God, our minds
becoming ungrateful; but learning by experience that we possess
eternal duration from the excelling power of this Being, not from
our own nature, we may neither undervalue that glory which
surrounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own nature, but
that we may know what God can effect, and what benefits man
receives, and thus never wander from the true comprehension of
things as they are, that is, both with regard to God and with regard
to man. And might it not be the case, perhaps, as I have already
observed, that for this purpose God permitted our resolution into
the common dust of mortality, that we, being instructed by every
mode, may be accurate in all things for the future, being ignorant
neither of God nor of ourselves? (Adversus haereses 5.2.2-3)
6.3 The sure charism of truth
Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in

the Church those who, as I have shown, possess the succession
from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the
episcopate, have received the sure charism of truth, according to
the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold
in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and
assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, [looking
upon them] either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics
puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for
the sake of lucre and vainglory (Adversus haereses 4.26.2).
6.4 The gospel comes from the Apostles
We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation,

than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us,
which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later
period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to
be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert
that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge, as
some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of
the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles]
were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came
down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect
knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the
glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and
proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally
and individually possess the Gospel of God (Adversus haereses
3.1.1).
6.5 The Apostolic Tradition of the Church
It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who

may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of
the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in
a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted
bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of
these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of
anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles
had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of
imparting to the perfect apart and privily from the rest, they would
have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also
committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that
these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things,
whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering
up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they
discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the
Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity
6.6 Rome: the principle witness of apostolic tradition
6.6.1 Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume

as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put
to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil
self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion,
assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by
indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very
great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and
organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and
Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which
comes down to our time by means of the successions of the
bishops. In fact, with this Church, by reason of its more excellent
origin, every Church must necessarily be in accord, that is the
faithful who come from every partinasmuch as the apostolic
tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men]
who exist everywhere (Adversus haereses 3.3.2).
6.6.2 Sed quoniam ualde longum est in hoc tali uolumine omnium
Ecclesiarum enumerare successione, maximae et antiquissimae et
omnibus cognitae, a gloriosissimis duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo
Romae fundatae et constitutae
Ecclesiae, eam quam habet ab apostolis traditionem et

adnuntiatam hominibus fidem per successiones episcoporum
peruenientem usque ad nos indicantes, confundimus omnes eos qui
quoquo modo, uel per sibiplacentiam uel uanam gloriam uel per
caecitatem et sententiam malam, praeterquam oportet colligunt:
ad hanc enim ecclesiam, propter potentiorem principalitatem,
necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam, hoc est eos qui sunt
undique fideles, in qua sempre, ab his qui sunt undique,
conseruata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio (Sources
Chrtiennes 211).
6.7 The Succession at Rome
The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the

Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the
episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to
Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third
place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This
man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant
with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still
echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was
he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had
received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this
Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren
at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter
to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith,
and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the
apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of
heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge,
and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt,
spoke with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who
has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document,
whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also
understand the apostolic tradition of the Church, since this Epistle
is of older date than these men who are now propagating
falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the
Creator and the Maker of all existing things.
To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander
followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was
appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred;
then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter
having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth
place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In
this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from
the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us.
And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same
vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the
apostles until now, and handed down in truth (Adversus haereses
3.3.3).
6.8 The Apostolic Mother-Churches
For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute

relative to some important question among us, should we not have
recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles
held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and
clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the
apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be
necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which
they handed down to those to whom they did commit the
Churches? (Adversus haereses 3.4.1).
6.9 The Oral Tradition
To which course many nations of those barbarians who

believe in Christ do assent, having salvation written in their hearts
by the Spirit, without paper or ink, and, carefully preserving the
ancient tradition, believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and
earth... (Adversus haereses 3.4.2).
6.10 Universality of the Tradition
The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world,

even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and
their disciples this faith in one God .... As I have already observed,
the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although
scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one
house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of
doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same
heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them
down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.
For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the
import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches
which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down
anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor
those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those
which have been established in the central regions of the world
[=the churches of Rome and Italy]. But as the sun, that creature of
God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the
preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men
that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. Nor will any
one of the rulers in the Churches, however highly gifted he may be
in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these (for no
one is greater than the Master); nor, on the other hand, will he who
is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition.
For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is
able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to
it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it (Adversus
haereses 1.10.1 2).
6.11 The See of Rome: The Historical Development until

Chalcedon
Ecclesiological research has always put more emphasis on the Communio
(koinonia) between the Churches than on the function of the Petrine service in such a
context. The expansion of Christianity led to the creation and founding of a new
community. This established a felt and vital relationship between mother churches
and son churches. Apostolicity was transmitted through generations of the faith and
made all the churches to be apostolic and catholic. Those churches that conserved a
stronger memory of their foundation by an apostle, also for their strategic situation in
the roman political system, enjoyed the greater authority. Thus there developed the
great sedes apostolicae, with esteem and mutual respect for each other.
The Council of Nicaea did not intend to establish a precise order of rank, but it did
recognize Rome, Alexandria and Antioch (can. 6). Their rank was recognized also in
the civil order. Such a decision gave place to the theory of the three apostolic Petrine
sees; Peter was the founder of the Church of Antioch and of Rome, and in his name
Mark, called discipulus or filius Petri, founded the Church of Alexandria (cf. PL 13,
374D - 376A; PL 54, 1007). In other words, the preeminence of the three sees came
from the importance of Peter and therefore they were important for apostolic and not
political reasons.
In the Council of Constantinople of 381 there was inserted into the Petrine
Triarchy the imperial see, because such a city is the New Rome (can. 3). The
Council brought the organization up to date to the new political and ecclesiastical
situation. From now on, in the hierarchical ordering of these sees, Rome was always
placed in the first spot; thus was constituted for the first time the Pentarchy, which
was concretely affirmed in the Council of Chalcedon. The bishop of Rome, from this
point of view, if even the first, was nonetheless one of the five patriarchs, (cf.
Gregorio Magno, Ep. II, 50, Registrum Ep., MGH vol. I, p. 154; in CCL 140, p. 136 e
la II, 44), the patriarch of the west: praesidens occidentalis Ecclesiae (Augustine, C.
M. VI, 1,4, 13: PL 44, 648). The conviction of the ancient church assigned a
preeminent place to the criterion of historical apostolicity, as an indispensible and
necessary criterion for the unity and ecclesial communion of the one Church of
Christ. All the Churches had to apostolic, but the mother churches had the greater
responsibility, for their organization, to be and to appear [apostolic] in a way more
evident than the other apostolic thrones. Apostolicity was a historical phenomenon
and could be demonstrated by the episcopal succession list of an individual Church.
Such lists were a trustworthy chain of transmission of the original deposit and
permitted the verification of the given churchs authenticity.
The preceding paragraph introduces us to the historical role of mediation and
ecclesial unity that had devolved upon the bishop of Rome even from the first
centuries. This role had developed in the first decades of the Christian expansion of
the mother community in Jerusalem. But then the Jerusalem community went into
decline. The first Jewish war in AD 70 was partly responsible for this. But also, the
Jerusalem community defended too rigidly the Jewish tradition. Many among the
Jerusalem community accused Peter of too much openness to the pagan world and of
laxity with regards to the Jewish Law. Thus Peters position within the early Church
changed. He came to be presented along with Paul as the representative of the
mission to the Jews of the Diaspora of the Greek language. Then the disappearance of
the pillars and of the other great missionaries brought the danger of the fracturing
of the Christian community, also because in the greater cities there perhaps were a
multiplicity of groups which would tend towards causing division. With the mother
church gone, the apostles and the places of their missions came to be the points of
reference, Rome in particular, that received the inheritance of Peter and Paul and
also of Jerusalem. Apostolic, political, commercial, economic and social reasons
conferred upon the Church of Rome, center of the world, a privileged position. Rome
was a place of meeting and contact among the communities (cf. the salutations in Rm
16; 1 Pt 5:13; Col 4:16). Thus the Roman community developed a recognized and
accepted role of unity and mediation; the Churches communicated amongst
themselves already from the second century via the action of Rome (cf. Eusebius,
Stor. Ecc. 5, 25; 6, 43, 3). The Roman Church enjoyed a great prestige from the
beginning of Christianity; Paul writes to it a letter full of respect, though not being a
community founded by him, and praises its faith that has spread throughout all the
world (Rm 1: 8). The first letter of Peter, directed to some Christians of the
provinces of Asia Minor, comes from the Roman Church. In continuity with this, at
the end of the first century 1 Clement is an authoritative intervention of the Roman
community on the occasion of the discord that had broken out at Corinth; it is written
in a mood of solidarity to offer help to a sister Church in a difficulty. Also around AD
170 Rome writes again to the Corinthians (Eusebius, Stor. Ecc. 4, 23, 11). In the
letter of Clement the reference to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul (cap. 5) and to the
apostolic succession as guarantee of the order of the community already anticipates
the doctrine of the Roman solicitude for all the Churches. The prologue of the letter
of Ignatius to the Romans and the mention of Peter and Paul (cap. 4) sets in relief the
Roman Churchs primacy in faith and charity. He also refers to the Church of Romes
habit of writing letters: You taught others (3, 1). Irenaeus of Lyons, already cited,
affirmed the need to be in harmony with the doctrine of the Roman Church; Tertullian
(De praescr. 32 e 36:If you reach Italy, there you will find Rome from which also to
us comes authority) and Origen (Eusebius, Stor. Ecc. 6,14,10) indirectly speak of the
same thing. To have close relationship with the Roman Church, even from the eastern
provinces of the Roman Empire, testifies to her great authority; to inform it of what
was happening elsewhere was an act of trust. Her authoritative doctrinal
interventions in different directions, to the east as well as to the west, came
unsolicited. The influx of Christians from everywhere was making Rome a center of
good information on what was happening elsewhere and in what way intervention
should take place in the distant communities. The Roman sollicitudo was realized
also in the area of welfare.
In the following centuries the Roman Church considers as its prerogative the
guarding fidei et disciplinae (cf. Leone Magno, Ep. 115, 1). With Pope Damasus (366-
384) the Roman See reinforces its idea of centralization also with the use of the text
of Matthew 16:18 ff.; Pope Siricius (384 - 399) considers the sollicitudo omnium
ecclesiarum (2 Cor 11:28) a prerogative of the Roman See. From the end of the
fourth century, the term sollicitudo becomes usual in the Pontifical Chancellery. She
came to exercise influence over Latin countries also through the decretals,
authoritative pontifical letters which were inserted into canon law, for the causae
maiores. Leo the Great, who affirmed with vigor the primatial role of the sedes
apostolica in the service of the faith of all the Churches, respected the decisions of
the local synods, the constitutions and the laws of the other bishops who constituted
together with him the collegium caritatis (Epp. 5, 2; 6, 1; 12, 2). In any case, the
primacy and the influence of the Roman Church varied from Church to Church, from
region to region and according to the times.
In antiquity, every bishop in some way felt involved in the sollicitudo omnium
ecclesiarum. If on the one hand, this brought about mutual help and reciprocal
support, on the other, it was the cause of transgressions and interferences in other
episcopal sees. The decisions of the ecumenical councils on the extent of the
Churches governmental jurisdiction, had the aim of preserving the jurisdiction of
each Church. The historian Socrates affirmed that the decisions of the Counsel of
Constantinople of 381 were laid down to the end that interferences in other dioceses
and eparchies might be avoided (Storia ecc. V, 8). These were made independent of
posterior theological reflection, but were born from the consciousness that the unity
of the one Church also involved collegiality. Any such role of mediation that Rome
had came almost exclusively between the East and West, direct contact between the
Eastern and Western Churches were decreasing in late antiquity and the early
Middle Ages, both as a result of political separation and language difficulties. Only
Rome, in the high Middle Ages was able to conduct this mediation through placing a
permanent Roman delegate in Constantinople (apocrisarius) from the time of Leo the
Great, and had resulted in the presence of the Greek monastic community in Rome.
Several apocrisarius became bishop of Rome, and thus were able to understand the
Church in Constantinople. The eastern regions beyond the borders of the empire had
more autonomy with respect to the patriarchs, which slowly became split after the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 (Angelo di Bernardino, the Development of Patristic
Studies, La Teologia del XX Secolo: un bilancio, vol. I, 335- 338).
Section 7: Gnosticism: The Threat of

Gnosticism, Marcion and Valentinus.
GNOSTICISM
1. General Elements
(1) A product of subsequent Hellenistic syncretism from the
conquest of
Alexander the Great.
(2) Parasitic
(3) A mythology created as a result of foreign influence.
(4) A confirmation of primordial revelation.
2. Sources
(1) Anti-heretical writings of the Fathers
(2) The library of Nag Hammadi (discovered in 1945)
3. A salvific understanding that is unifying
(1) The object of understanding/knowing (the divine nature).
(2) The means of understanding/knowing (the salvific gnosis).
(3) The one himself is the one that knows.
4. The basic summation of Gnosticism
(1) A divine spark in man
(2) Proceeds from the divine world
(3) Guided by destiny, birth and death
(4) You should be re-awakened
(5) Therefore, a downward development from the divine
(6) Sophia should strive to recover the divine spark
5. Anti-cosmic
6. Freedom comes from self-knowledge/awareness
7. The Gnostic figures of the redeemer
8. Docetism
(1) Basil
(2) Cerinthus
MARCION
1. He comes from Sinope in Asia Minor
2. Repudiated at Rome in 144
3. Antithesis between the Creator God of the Law and the God of
Salvation
4. The first New Testament canon
VALENTINUS
Texts:
GNOSTICISM
7.1 Salvific Knowledge
7.1.1 These hold that the knowledge of the unspeakable Greatness

is itself perfect redemption. For since both defect and passion
flowed from ignorance, the whole substance of what was thus
formed is destroyed by knowledge; and therefore knowledge is the
redemption of the inner man. This, however, is not of a corporeal
nature, for the body is corruptible; nor is it animal, since the
animal soul is the fruit of a defect, and is, as it were, the abode of
the spirit. The redemption must therefore be of a spiritual nature;
for they affirm that the inner and spiritual man is redeemed by
means of knowledge, and that they, having acquired the knowledge
of all things, stand thenceforth in need of nothing else. This, then,
is the true redemption (Adversus Haereses 1.12.4).
7.1.2 When man comes to know himself, he also comes to know

that it is God who is behind the truth; he will be saved, and he will
be crowned with the crown of incorruptibility (Nag Hammadi IX,
3: The Testimony of Truth 45).
7.2 The Passion of Christ According to Basilides
But the father without birth and without name, perceiving

that they would be destroyed, sent his own first-begotten Nous (he
it is who is called Christ) to bestow deliverance on them that
believe in him, from the power of those who made the world. He
appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers,
and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer death,
but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the
cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that
he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance
and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and,
standing by, laughed at them. For since he was an incorporeal
power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured
himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him,
deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was
invisible to all. Those, then, who know these things have been
freed from the principalities who formed the world; so that it is not
incumbent on us to confess him who was crucified, but him who
came in the form of a man, and was thought to be crucified, and
was called Jesus, and was sent by the father, that by this
dispensation he might destroy the works of the makers of the
world. If anyone, therefore, he declares, confesses the crucified,
that man is still a slave, and under the power of those who formed
our bodies; but he who denies him has been freed from these
beings,
and is acquainted with the dispensation of the ingenerated father
(Adversus Haereses 1.24.4).
7.3 The Christology of Cerinthus
Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of

the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary
God, but by a certain Power far separated from him, and at a
distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe,
and ignorant of him who is above all. He represented Jesus as
having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph
and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation,
while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than
other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon
him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he
proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at
last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and
rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was
a spiritual being (Adversus Haereses 1.26.1).
7.4 A Positive Gnostic Exegesis of the Serpent in Eden: The

Testimony of Truth from the Nag Hammadi Library
It is written in the Law concerning this, when God gave [a

command] to Adam, From every [tree] you may eat, [but] from the
tree which is in the midst of Paradise do not eat, for on the day that
you eat from it, you will surely die. But the serpent was wiser 46
than all the animals that were in Paradise, and he persuaded Eve,
saying, On the day when you eat from the tree which is in the
midst of Paradise, the eyes of your mind will be opened. And Eve
obeyed, and she stretched forth her hand; she took from the tree
and ate; she also gave to her husband with her. And immediately
they knew that they were naked, and they took some fig-leaves and
put them on as girdles.
But [God] came at the time of evening, walking in the midst of
Paradise. When Adam saw him, he hid himself. And he said, Adam,
where are you? He answered [and] said, I have come under the
fig tree. And at that very moment, God knew that he had eaten
from the tree of which he had commanded him, Do not eat of it.
And he said to him, Who is it 47 who has instructed you? And
Adam answered, The woman whom you have given me. And the
woman said, It is the serpent who instructed me. And he cursed
the serpent, and called him devil. And he said, Behold, Adam
has become like one of us, knowing evil and good. Then he said,
Let us cast him out of paradise, lest he take from the tree of life,
and eat, and live forever.
But what sort is this God? First he maliciously refused Adam
from eating of the tree of knowledge, and, secondly, he said Adam,
where are you? God does not have foreknowledge? Would he not
know from the beginning? [And] afterwards, he said, Let us cast
him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life
and live forever. Surely, he has shown himself to be a malicious

grudger! And 48 what kind of God is this? For great is the
blindness of those who read, and they did not know him. And he
said, I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon
the children until three (and) four generations. And he said, I will
make their heart thick, and I will cause their mind to become blind,
that they might not know nor comprehend the things that are
said. But these things he has said to those who believe in him and
serve him!
And in one place, Moses writes, [He] made the devil a
serpent for [those]
whom he has in his generation. Also, in the book which is called
Exodus, it is written thus: He contended against [magicians],
when the place was full [of serpents] according to their [iniquity;
and the rod] which was in the hand of Moses became a serpent,
(and) it swallowed the serpents of the magicians.
Again it is written (Nm 21:9), He made a serpent of bronze
(and) hung it upon a pole 49 [...] that [...] in such a manner that
[for the one who might gaze upon this serpent] of bronze, nobody
[would have been able to destroy it], and the one who [will believe
in] this bronze serpent [will be saved].
For this is Christ; [those who] believe in him [will have
received life]. Those who do not believe [will die] (Nag Hammadi
IX, 3: The Testimony of Truth 45-49).
7.5 A Summation of Valentinus Gnosticism by J. N. D. Kelly
According to Valentino, above and beyond the universe

dwells the supreme Father, Bythos, the unbegotten Monad and
perfect Aeon, and by His side Sige (Silence), who is His Ennoia
(Thought). From these proceed, by successive emanations, three
pairs of aeons, Nous (or Monogenes) and Aletheia (Truth), Logos
and Zoe (Life), Anthropos (Man) and Ecclesia (Church), thus
completing the Ogdoad. From Logos and Zoe proceed five (the
Decad), and from Anthropos and Ecclesia six (the Dodecad),
further pairs of aeons. These thirty form the Pleroma, or fullness of
the Godhead, but the only-begotten Nous alone possesses the
possibility of knowing and revealing the Father. The lowest of the
thirty aeons, however, Sophia, yielded to an ungovernable desire to
apprehend His nature. She travailed with the guilty yearning she
had conceived (Enthymesis), and would have been dissolved into
the All had not Horos (Limit: also called Stauros, or Cross),
appointed as guardian of the Pleroma, convinced her that the
Father is incomprehensible. So Sophia cast away her passion and
was allowed to remain within the Pleroma. Nous and Aletheia
meanwhile, at the Fathers behest, produce a new pair of aeons,
Christ and the Holy Spirit, to instruct the aeons in their true
relation to Him. Order having been thus restored, they sing the
praises of the Father and produce the Savior Jesus as the perfect
fruit of the Pleroma.
But what of Sophias monstrous birth, Enthymesis, exiled from
the Pleroma and now known as a lower Sophia, or Achamoth?
As she wanders about the still lifeless void, her anguish brings
matter to birth, while out of her yearning for Christ she produces
the psychic () or soul-element. Then Christ has pity on her
formlessness. As a result of this she gives birth to spiritual, or
pneumatic, substance. Out of these three elements - matter,
psyche and pneuma - the world then came into being. First, Sophia
formed a Creator, or Demiurge, out of psychic substance as an
image of the supreme Father. The Demiurge, who is in fact the God
of the Old Testament, then create heaven and earth and the
creatures inhabiting it. When he made man, he first made the
earthy man, and then breathed his own psychic substance into
him; but without his knowledge Achamoth planted pneuma, or
spirit, born from herself, in the souls of certain men. This spiritual
element yearns for God, and salvation consists in its liberation
from the lower elements with which it is united. This is the task
which the Savior Jesus accomplishes. According to their
constitution, there are three classes of men the carnal or
material, the psychic and the pneumatic. Those who are carnal
cannot in any case be saved, while in order to attain redemption
the pneumatic only need to apprehend the teaching of Jesus. The
psychic class can be saved, though with difficulty, through the
knowledge and imitation of Jesus (J. N. D.
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 23-24; Revised Edition).
7.6 The Gnostic Schema of Valentinus

The Pleroma (30 aeons in 15 pairs)
The Father Supreme [Bythos] Silence [Sige] / Thought [Ennoia]
Monogenes [Nous] Truth [Aletheia] ( Christ and the Holy Spirit)
Word [Logos] Life [Zoe] The Decad (5 pairs of successive
aeons)
Man [Anthropos] Ecclesia [Church] The Dodecad (6 pairs of
successive aeons)
__________________________________________________________ The last aeon = Sophia
The Ogdoad
Jesus = the perfect creation of the Pleroma
____________________Horos (the limit of the

Pleroma)_________________________________________________
Inferior Sophia/ Achamoth
[Enthymesis] give birth to
matter
The Material World_____________________________________________________Demiurge/The God

of the OT
(Ignorance and arrogance: I am the
only God!)
Earthy and psychic

man
1) Created in the image of the Anthropos, therefore they are superior to
their creator
2) In the soul of some men Achamoth has placed the pneuma that clings
to God
Section 8: The atmosphere of Alexandria

between the 2nd and 3rd centuries: Clement
and Origen. Principle themes for the search
of Origenist theology (Trinitarian reflection,
anthropology). Alexandria in the 4th century
and Athanasius.
THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL
1. Alexandria founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the great

2. Jewish Tradition
(1) Philo the Jew (20 B.C.-50 A.D)
(2) Septuagint (LXX)
(3) Allegorical method
3. The Alexandrian School
(1) For more cultured converts
(2) Researching the metaphysics of the faith
(3) (Middle)Neo Platonic Philosophy
(4) Allegorical exegesis
(5) The first leaders of the so called school
1. Pantaenus = the founder
2. Clement of Alexandria
3. Origen
Heraclas = disciple of Origen
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
1. Titus Flavius Clemens = born between 140 and 150 in Athens
(or Alexandria)
2. Pagan parents; he himself = convert
3. An itinerate philosopher
Greater Greece
Middle East
Egypt
AlexandriaPantaenus
4. 20 years in Alexandria during the reign of Comodus and
Septimus Severus
5. The anti-Christian persecution of Septimus Severus (202/203)
6. Death in Palestine or Cappadocia in 215/216
7. The true gnostic = Christian perfection
8. Greek philosophy = Introduction for Christianity

o Stromata VI.5.42.3: = a divine emanation
o Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum I.48
o Protreptico VI.71.1: = inspiration
o Cf. Justin, Apologia I.60.3
o Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata I.21.135.3
9. Three principle works

a. The Protreptico
b. The Pedagogo
c. The Stromati
Texts:
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
THE STROMATA
8.1 Greek Philosophy (cf. 8.26)
Accordingly, before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was

necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes
conducive to piety; being a kind of preparatory training to those
who attain to faith through demonstration. For your foot, it is said,
will not stumble, if you refer what is good, whether belonging to
the Greeks or to us, to Providence. For God is the cause of all good
things; but of some primarily, as of the Old and the New Testament;
and of others by consequence, as philosophy. Perchance, too,
philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the
Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring
the Hellenic mind, as the law, the Hebrews, to Christ. Philosophy,
therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is
perfected in Christ (Stromata I.5.28.1-3).
8.2 The Superiority of the Christian Faith (cf. 8.18,19)
And if philosophy contributes remotely to the discovery of

truth, by reaching, by diverse essays, after the knowledge which
touches close on the truth, the knowledge possessed by us, it aids
him who aims at
grasping the gnosis. But the Hellenic truth is distinct from that
held by us, although it has got the same name, both in respect of
[our] extent of knowledge, certainly of demonstration, divine
power, and the like. For we are taught of God, being instructed in
the truly sacred letters by the Son of God: Whence [the Greeks], to
whom we refer, influence souls not in the way we do, but by
different teaching (Stromata I.20.98.3-4). [Cf. 8.18, 8.26, 8.38-40,
8.43]
8.3 Biblical Wisdom
And is not the demonstration, which we possess, that alone

which is true, as being supplied out of the divine Scriptures, the
sacred writings, and out of the God- taught wisdom, according to
the apostle? Learning, then, is also obedience to the
commandments, which is faith in God. And faith is a power of God,
being the strength of the truth (Stromata II.11.48.3-4).
8.4 The Spiritual Gifts of the gnosis
Faith, therefore, and the gnosis of the truth, render the

soul, which makes them its choice, always uniform and equable.
For congenial to the man of falsehood is shifting, and change, and
turning away, as to the Gnostic are calmness, and rest, and
peace (Stromata II.11.52.3-4).
8.5 Imago Dei
8.5.1: He is the Gnostic, who is after the image and likeness of

God, who imitates God as far as possible, deficient in none of the
things which contribute to the likeness as far as compatible,
practicing self-restraint and endurance, living righteously, reigning
over the passions, bestowing of what he has as far as possible, and
doing good both by word and deed (Stromata II.19.97.1).
8.5.2: For conformity with the image and likeness is not meant of
the body (for it were wrong for what is mortal to be made like what
is immortal), but in mind and reason (Stromata II.19.102.6).
8.6 The Filial adoption

And assimilation as far as possible in accordance with right
Logos is the end, and restoration to perfect adoption by the Son
(Stromata II.22.134.2).
8.7 The Task of man (cf. 8.16)
For if there is one function belonging to the peculiar nature

of each creature, alike of the ox, and horse, and dog, what shall we
say is the peculiar function of man? He is like, it appears to me, the
Centaur, a Thessalian figment, compounded of a rational and
irrational part, of soul and body. Well, the body tills the ground,
and hastens to it; but the soul is raised to God: trained in the true
philosophy, it speeds to its kindred above, turning away from the
lusts of the body, and besides these, from toil and fear, although we
have shown that patience and fear belong to the good man
(Stromata IV.3.9.4-5).
8.8 The Martyr
I say martyrdom perfection, not because [the martyr] comes

to the end of his life as others, but because he has exhibited the
perfect work of love (Stromata IV .4.14.3).
8.9 The gnosis
In fact, the knowledge of the name [of Christ] and the

understanding of the Gospel point out the gnosis and not the bare
appellation [of God], so as to leave his worldly kindred, and wealth,
and every possession, in order to lead a life free from passion
(Stromata IV.4.15.5).
8.10 To know oneself
He therefore, who, in accordance with the word of

repentance, knows his life to be sinful will lose it -- losing it from
sin, from which it is wrenched; but losing it, will find it, according
to the obedience which lives again to faith, but dies to sin. This,
then, is what it is to find ones life: to know oneself (Stromata
IV.6.27.3).
8.11 Contemplation
When, therefore, he who lives in contemplation, in the pure

communing with the divine, he who participates in a gnostic way
to the holy quality [of such life] enters more nearly into the Identity
without passions, so as no longer to have science, no longer to
possess gnosis, but is science and gnosis (Stromata IV.6.40.1).
8.12 The justice of the gnostic
And how much more does one, behaving with justice, become
gnostic,
much nearer to him is that luminous spirit (Stromata IV.17.107.6).
8.13 The gnostic and the simple believer
For the gnostic [the Lord] has prepared what eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, while
to the simple believer He has promised a hundredfold in return for
what he has left: a promise that can be understood by human
intelligence (Stromata IV.18.114.1).
8.14 The gnostic life
The man of understanding and perspicacity [of the meaning

of Scriptures] is, then, a gnostic. And his business is not
abstinence from what is evil (for this is a step to the highest
perfection), or the doing of good out of fear....Nor any more [will
the gnostic do the good] for the hope of promised
recompense....Only the doing of good out of love, that which one
does for the good in se and per se, must be the choice of the
gnostic (Stromata IV.22.135.1-4).
8.15 The contemplative life

In conclusion, in the contemplative life, one in worshipping
God attends to himself, and through his own spotless purification,
he holily contemplates God, who is holy (Stromata IV.23.152.3).
8.16 The moral life of the gnostic
Therefore the good actions, as better, attach to the better

and ruling spirit; and voluptuous and sinful actions are attributed
to the worse, the sinful one. Now the soul of the wise man and
gnostic, as sojourning in the body, conducts itself towards it
gravely and respectfully, not with inordinate affections....
(Stromata IV.26.165.2).
8.17 To the knowledge of the Father
For from faith to gnosis by the Son is the Father: and the
gnosis of the Son and of the Father, which is according to the
gnostic canonthat which truly is gnosticis the attainment and
comprehension of the truth by the truth (Stromata V.1.1.4).
8.18 The partial comprehension of the Greeks
Some [of the Greeks] have borrowed, and others they have
misunderstood. And in the case of others, what they have spoken,
in consequence of being moved, they have not yet perfectly worked
out; and others by human conjecture and reasoning, in which also
they stumble. And they think that they have hit the truth perfectly;
but as we understand them, only partially (Stromata VI.7.55.4).
8.19 The Scriptures and the true philosophy
But those of them who believed the Lords advent and the
plain teaching of the Scriptures, attain to the knowledge of the
law; as also those addicted to philosophy, by the teaching of the
Lord, are introduced into the knowledge of the true philosophy
(Stromata VI.7.59.3).
8.20 The purification of the soul and the body
...the doctrine which has been proved, and is wise, is to be

praised and received, whenever it is amply tried by the earth: that
is, when the gnostic soul is in manifold ways sanctified, through
withdrawal from earthy fires. And the body in which it dwells is
purified, being appropriated to the pureness of a holy temple. But
the first purification which takes place in the body, the soul being
first, is abstinence from evil things, which some consider
perfection, and is, in truth, the perfection of the common believer --
Jew and Greek. But in the case of the gnostic, after that which is
reckoned perfection in others, his righteousness advances to
activity in well-doing. And in whomsoever the increased force of
righteousness advances to the doing of good, in his case perfection
abides in the fixed habit of well-doing after the likeness of God. For
those who are the seed of Abraham, and besides servants of God,
are the called; and the sons of Jacob are the elect -- they who
have tripped up the energy of wickedness. If; then, we assert that
Christ Himself is Wisdom, and that it was His working which
showed itself in the prophets, by which the gnostic tradition may
be learned, as He Himself taught the apostles during His presence;
then it follows that the grinds, which is the knowledge and
apprehension of things present, future, and past, which is sure and
reliable, as being imparted and revealed by the Son of God, is
wisdom. And if, too, the end of the wise man is contemplation, that
of those who are still philosophers aims at it, but never attains it,
unless by the process of learning it receives the prophetic
utterance which has been made known, by which it grasps both the
present, the future, and the past -- how they are, were, and shall
be. And the gnosis itself is that which has descended by
transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the
apostles. Hence, then, knowledge or wisdom ought to be exercised
up to the eternal and unchangeable habit of contemplation
(Stromata VI.7.60.161.3).
8.21 The true Christian

...the gnostic alone is truly religious...is the true
Christian... (Stromata VII.1.1.1).
8.22 Worship of God
Worship of God, then, for the gnostic, is his souls continual

study and occupation, bestowed on the Deity in ceaseless love
(Stromata VII.1.3.1-2).
8.23 The life of devotion
This is the function of the gnostic, who has been perfected,

to have convene with God through the great High Priest, being
made like the Lord, up to the measure of his capacity, in the whole
service of God, which tends to the salvation of men, through care
of the beneficence which has us for its object; and on the other side
through worship, through teaching and through beneficence in
deeds. The gnostic even forms and creates himself; and besides
also, he, like to God, adorns those who hear him; assimilating as
far as possible the moderation which, arising from practice, tends
to impossibility, to Him who by nature possesses impossibility: and
this one [attains] to the uniting of himself and the feasting with the
Lord without distractions. Mildness, philanthropy, and
magnanimous piety are the rules of gnostic assimilation
(Stromata VII.3.13.2-3).
8.24 Study
...the gnostic becomes superior, as if to conquer the wild

beasts [that is, the passions] through study (Stromata VII.3.16.3).
8.25 Comprehension of the divine science
Ruling, then, over himself and what belongs to him, and

possessing a sure grasp, of divine science, [the gnostic] makes a
genuine approach to the truth (Stromata VII.3.17.1).
8.26 Greek philosophy: a preparation towards gnosis
...Greek philosophy, as it were, purges the soul, and prepares

it beforehand
for the reception of faith, on which the Truth builds up the edifice
of gnosis (Stromata VII.3.20.2).
8.27 The prayer of the gnostic
But if, by nature needing nothing, he delights to be honored,

it is not without reason that we honor God in prayer; and thus the
best and holiest sacrifice with righteousness we bring, presenting
it as an offering to the most righteous Word, by whom we receive
knowledge, giving glory by Him for what we have learned. The
altar, then, that is with us here, the terrestrial one, is the
congregation of those who devote themselves to prayers, having as
it were one common voice and one mind (Stromata VII.6.31.7-8).
8.28 Seriousness and joy
The gnostic, then, is very closely allied to God, being at

once grave and cheerful in all things, -- grave on account of the
bent of his soul towards the Divinity, and cheerful on account of his
consideration of the blessings of humanity which God hath given
us (Stromata VII.7.35.7).
8.29 Prayer: Communication with God
Prayer is, then, to speak more boldly, converse with God.

Though whispering, consequently, and not opening the lips, we
speak in silence, yet we cry inwardly. For God hears continually all
the inward converse. So also we raise the head and lift the hands
to heaven, and set the feet in motion at the closing utterance of the
prayer, following the eagerness of the spirit directed towards the
intellectual essence; and endeavoring to abstract the body from the
earth, along with the discourse, raising the soul aloft, winged with
longing for better things, we compel it to advance to the region of
holiness, magnanimously despising the chain of the flesh. For we
know right well, that the Gnostic willingly passes over the whole
world, as the Jews certainly did over Egypt, showing clearly, above
all, that he will be as near as possible to God. Now, if some assign
definite hours for prayer -- as, for example, the third, and sixth, and
ninth -- yet the Gnostic prays throughout his whole life,
endeavoring by prayer to have fellowship with God. And, briefly,
having reached to this, he leaves behind him all that is of no
service, as having now received the perfection of the man that acts
by love (Stromata VII.7.39.640.1-4).
8.30 Prayer towards the East
And since the East is an image of the day of birth, and from
that point the light which has shone forth at first from the
shadows increases, there has also dawned on those involved in
darkness a day of the true gnosis of truth, like the sun, prayers
are made towards the East at dawn (Stromata VII.7.43.6).
8.31 The life of prayer
Wherefore also he who holds converse with God must have

his soul immaculate uncontaminated, and clean, it being essential
to have made himself perfectly good. But also it becomes him to
make all his prayers gently with the good. For it is a dangerous
thing to take part in others sins. Accordingly the gnostic will pray
along with those who have more recently believed, for those things
in respect of which it is their duty to act together. And his whole
life is a holy festival. His sacrifices are prayers, and praises, and
readings in the Scriptures before meals, and psalms and hymns
during meals and before bed, and prayers also again during night.
By these he unites himself to the divine choir, from continual
recollection, engaged in contemplation which has everlasting
remembrance. And what? Does he not also know the other kind of
sacrifice, which consists in the giving both of doctrines and of
money to those who need? Assuredly. But he does not use wordy
prayer by his mouth; having learned to ask of the Lord what is
requisite. In every place, therefore, but not ostensibly and visibly
to the multitude, he will pray. But while engaged in walking, in
conversation, while in silence, while engaged in reading and in
works according to reason, he in every mood prays. If he but form
the thought in the secret chamber of his soul, and call on the
Father with unspoken groanings, behold, He is near and while
still speaking is already present (Stromata VII.7.49.1-7).
8.32 The Catholic Church
Those, then, that adhere to impious words, and dictate them

to others, inasmuch as they do not make a right but a perverse use
of the divine words, neither themselves enter into the kingdom of
heaven, nor permit those whom they have deluded to attain the
truth. But not having the key of entrance, but a false (and as the
common phrase expresses it), a counterfeit key, by which they do
not enter in as we enter in, through the tradition of the Lord, by
drawing aside the curtain; but bursting through the side-door, and
digging clandestinely through the wall of the Church, and stepping
over the truth, they constitute themselves the Mystagogues of the
soul of the impious.
For that the human assemblies which they held were posterior to
the Catholic Church requires not many words to show. For the
teaching of our Lord at His advent, beginning with Augustus and
Tiberius, was completed in the middle of the times of Tiberius. And
that of the apostles, embracing the ministry of Paul, ends with
Nero. It was later, in the times of Adrian the king, that those who
invented the heresies arose; and they extended to the age of
Antoninus the elder, as, for instance, Basilides, though he claims
(as they boast) for his master, Glaucias, the interpreter of Peter.
Likewise they allege that Valentinus was a hearer of Theudas. And
he was the pupil of Paul. For Marcion, who arose in the same age
with them, lived as an old man with the younger [heretics]. And
after him Simon heard for a little the preaching of Peter. Such
being the case, it is evident, from the high antiquity and perfect
truth of the Church, that these later heresies, and those yet
subsequent to them in time, were new inventions falsified [from the
truth]. From what has been said, then, it is my opinion that the
true Church, that which is really ancient, is one, and that in it
those who according to Gods purpose are just, are enrolled. For
from the very reason that God is one, and the Lord one, that which
is in the highest degree honorable is lauded in consequence of its
singleness, being an imitation of the one first principle. In the
nature of the One, then, is associated in a joint heritage the one
Church, which they strive to cut asunder into many sects.
Therefore in substance and idea, in origin, in pre-eminence, we say
that the ancient and Catholic Church is alone, collecting as it does
into the unity of the one faith which results from the peculiar
Testaments, or rather the one Testament in different times by the
will of the one God, through one Lord those already ordained,
whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the
world that they would be righteous. But the pre-eminence of the
Church, as the principle of union, is, in its oneness, in this
surpassing all things else, and having nothing like or equal to itself.
But of this afterwards. Of the heresies, some receive their
appellation from a [persons] name, as that which is called after
Valentinus, and that after Marcion, and that after Basilides,
although they boast of adducing the opinion of Matthew [without
truth]; for as the teaching, so also the tradition of the apostles was
one. Some take their designation from a place, as the Peratici;
some from a nation, as the [heresy] of the Phrygians; some from an
action, as that of the Encratites; and some from peculiar dogmas,
as that of the Docetists;, and that of the Hrmatites; and some
from suppositions, and from individuals they have honored, as
those called Cainists, and the Ophians; and some from nefarious
practices and enormities, as those of the Simonians called
Entychites (Stromata VII.17).
THE PROTREPTICO
8.33 A spark of wisdom from the Greeks
For if they did not arrive at the knowledge of the truth, they
certainly suspected the error of the common opinion; which
suspicion is no insignificant seed, and becomes the germ of true
wisdom (II.24.2).
8.34 The innate ancient communion of man with heaven
There was an innate original communion between men and

heaven, obscured through ignorance, but which now at length has
leapt forth instantaneously from the darkness, and shines
resplendent; as has been expressed by one in the following lines:
Seest thou this lofty, this boundless ether, Holding the earth in the
embrace of its humid arms? [attributed to Euripides] and in these:
or Thou, who makest the earth Thy chariot, and in the earth hast
Thy seat, Whoever Thou be, baffling our efforts to behold Thee
[Euripides, Troad., 884] (II.25.3).
8.35 To adore the Creator God
How great is the power of God! His bare volition was the
creation of the universe. For God alone made it, because He alone
is truly God. By the bare exercise of volition He creates; His mere
willing was followed by the springing into being of what He willed.
Consequently the choir of philosophers are in error, who indeed
most nobly confess that man was made for the contemplation of
the heavens, but who worship the objects that appear in the
heavens and are apprehended by sight. For if the heavenly bodies
are not the works of men, they were certainly created for man. Let
none of you worship the sun, but set his desires on the Maker of
the sun; nor deify the universe, but seek after the Creator of the
universe. The only refuge, then, which remains for him who would
reach the portals of salvation is divine wisdom. From this, as from
a sacred asylum, the man who presses after salvation, can be
dragged by no demon (IV.63.2-5).
8.36 Worshipers of material things
Atheists surely these are to be reckoned, who through an

unwise wisdom worshipped matter, who did not indeed pay
religious honor to stocks and stones, but deified earth, the mother
of these, who did not make an image of Poseidon, but revered
water itself (V.64.3).
8.37 The better philosophers
And of the rest of the philosophers who, passing over the

elements, have eagerly sought after something higher and nobler,
some have discoursed on the Infinite, of whom were Anaximander
of Miletus,
Anaxagoras of Clazomen, and the Athenian Archelaus (V.66.1).
8.38 The superiority of Plato
It is the Lord of the spirits, the Lord of the fire, the Maker of
the universe, Him who lighted up the sun, that I long for. I seek
after God, not the works of God. Whom shall I take as a helper in
my inquiry? We do not, if you have no objection, wholly disown
Plato. How, then, is God to be searched out, O Plato? For both to
find the Father and Maker of this universe is a work of difficulty;
and having found Him, to declare Him fully, is impossible. Why so?
by Himself, I beseech you! For He can by no means be expressed.
Well done, Plato! You have touched on the truth. But do not flag.
Undertake with me the inquiry respecting the Good. For into all
men whatever, especially those who are occupied with intellectual
pursuits, a certain divine effluence [] has been instilled;
wherefore, though reluctantly, they confess that God is one,
indestructible, unbegotten, and that somewhere above in the tracts
of heaven, in His own peculiar appropriate eminence, whence He
surveys all things, He has an existence true and eternal (VI.67.2-
68.3).
8.39 Not only Plato
And let it not be this one man alone Plato, still hasten to
produce many others also [Antisthenes...in virtue of his being a
disciple of Socrates, the Athenian Xenophon, Cleanthes Pisadeus]
who declare the only true God that they knew as such through His
inspiration [ ], if in any measure they have grasped
the truth (VI.71.1).
8.40 Regarding the poets
For if, at the most, the Greeks, having received certain

scintillations of the divine word, have given forth some utterances
of truth, they bear indeed witness that the force of truth is not
hidden, and at the same time expose their own weakness in not
having arrived at the end (VII.74.7).
8.41 Divinization
But piety, that makes man as far as can be like God,

designates God as our suitable teacher, who alone can worthily
assimilate man to God (IX.86.2).
8.42 Theological Anthropology
For the image of God is His Word (the genuine Son of Mind,
the archetypal light of light), image of the Word is the true man,
the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have been made
in the image and likeness of God, assimilated to the Divine Word
in the affections of the soul, and therefore rational; but effigies
sculptured in human form, the earthly image of that part of man
which is visible and earth-born, are but a perishable impress of
humanity, manifestly wide of the truth.
...man has been otherwise constituted by nature, so as to
have fellowship with God. As, then, we do not compel the horse to
plough, or the bull to hunt, but set each animal to that for which it
is by nature fitted; so, placing our finger on what is mans peculiar
and distinguishing characteristic above other creatures, we invite
him born, as he is, for the contemplation of heaven, and being, as
he is, a truly heavenly plant to the knowledge of God, counseling
him to furnish himself with what is his sufficient provision for
eternity, namely piety (X.98.4, 100.2-3).
8.43 The Christians and true wisdom
...we [Christians] who have become the disciples of God have

received the only true wisdom; and that which the chiefs of
philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of Christ have both
apprehended and proclaimed (XI.111.2).
ORIGEN
1. Born in 185 in Alexandria
2. His father = Leonides
3. The persecution of Septimus Severus
4. The Bishop Demetrius and the catechumens
5. Ammonius Saccas = the founder of Neo-Platonism; teacher of
Plotinus and
Origen
6. Heraclas = the student of Origen and director of the
secondary school
7. Travels
Rome: Pope Zephyrinus; Hippolytus
Jordan
Caesarea of Palestine
Antioch: Julia Mamaea = mother of the emperor
Alexander Severus (222-235).
8. In 231 ordained by Theoctistus of Caesarea with the blessing
of Alexander of Jerusalem
9. New school at Caesarea of Palestine: Saint Gregory the

Wonderworker = student
10. Persecution of Decius (250-251)
11. Dies ca. 254 in Caesarea
WORKS OF ORIGEN
1. Hexapla
(1) Original Hebrew text
(2) The same text transliterated into Greek characters
(3) The Greek translation of Aquila
(4) The Greek translation of Symmachus
(5) The version of the Septuagint
(6) The Greek translation of Theodotion
2. De Principis /
(1) A theology in search
(2) The Latin translation of Rufinus
3. Contra Celsus (ca. 245-248): a rebuttal of the True Discourse

by Celsus
THEOLOGY OF ORIGEN
1. A theology in search
2. Anthropology and exegesis (three senses of Scripture)
Spirit () Mystical/spiritual
Soul () Moral/psychical
Nous ()
Flesh ()
Body () Literal/physical
(1 Thessalonians 5:23)
3. Man = image of the Image of God
4. Preexistence of souls
Overabundance cooled in love
Fall
Second creation
5. Eschatological purification
6. Apocatastasis = the restoration at the end of time
1 Corinthians 15:23-28 God will be all in all
Unity and initial harmony
7. Devil redeemed? No!

C.f. the Letter to the Friends of Alexandria
8. Universal Salvation = a great hope
However, hope =/= certainty
9. The Trinity and Christology
10.Prayer towards the East
11. Elements of Origenism
Subordinationism of the Trinity
Preexistence of souls
Apocatastasis (understanding the demon)
Excessive allegories
12. Intervention of Justinian in the 5th ecumenical council of the
553
Origenist Isochristi
Evagrius Ponticus (ca. 345-399)
Kephalaia Gnostica of Evagrius Ponticus
Texts:
ORIGEN
8.44 De Principiis: The ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition
Since many, however, of those who profess to believe in

Christ differ from each other, not only in small and trifling matters,
but also on subjects of the highest importance, as, e.g., regarding
God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit; and not only
regarding these, but also regarding others which are created
existences, viz., the powers and the holy virtues; it seems on that
account necessary first of all to fix a definite limit and to lay down
an unmistakable rule regarding each one of these, and then to pass
to the investigation of other points. For as we ceased to seek for
truth (notwithstanding the professions of many among Greeks and
Barbarians to make it known) among all who claimed it for
erroneous opinions, after we had come to believe that Christ was
the Son of God, and we were
convinced that we must learn it from Himself; so, seeing there are
many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of
these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching
of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles,
and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still
preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no
respect from ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition (preface, 2).
8.45 Saint Augustine on the preexistence of the soul

according to Origen
Why should we return to the error which has already been

won and repudiated: the soul, after having sinned in their heavenly
dwelling, gradually and slowly descended into bodies which were
merited and were afflicted more or less by corporeal pain
according to the life lived before? (De peccatorum meritis et
remissione et de baptismo parvulorum 1.22.31-33).
8.46 The Impossibility of Salvation for the Demon
It is to be noted, however, that Paul cites to stumble and

to commit an offence as one thing, but to fall as another. And
he records a remedy for stumbling or offending, but he does not
promise this for those who have fallen, as if this be some hopeless
situation in this. For he says, Have they stumbled so as to fall? By
no means! But by their offence salvation has come to the Gentiles.
...But in the present section, as if the Apostle knows that if they
would have fallen, they would not be able to rise again at all, he
thus denies that they had fallen and he vigorously excuses in that
by which he says, Have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means!
lest then the Apostle, looking back on the another fall, should
excuse Israel and deny that they have fallen, possibly that [fall] of
which our Lord and Savior was speaking, For I saw that Satan had
fallen like lightning from heaven; and that fall of which Isaiah
says, How has Lucifer fallen from heaven, who was rising in the
morning? He is denying, then, that Israel had fallen by this kind of
fall. For indeed there will be a conversion for them at the end of
the age, at that time when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in,
and all Israel will be saved; but for that one who is said to have
fallen from heaven, there will not be any conversion at the end of
the age (Commentary on Romans, VIII.9).
8.47 The soul of Christ
This substance of a soul, then, being intermediate between

God and the flesh it being impossible for the nature of God to
intermingle with a body without an intermediate instrument the
God-man [] is born, as we have said, that substance
being the intermediary to whose nature it was not contrary to
assume a body. But neither, on the other hand,
was it opposed to the nature of that soul, as a rational existence, to

receive God, into whom, as stated above, as into the Word, and the
Wisdom, and the Truth, it had already wholly entered. And
therefore deservedly is it also called, along with the flesh which it
had assumed, the Son of God, and the Power of God, the Christ,
and the Wisdom of God, either because it was wholly in the Son of
God, or because it received the Son of God wholly into itself (De
principiis 2.6.3).
8.48 Prayer to God alone
If we understand what prayer really is, we shall know that

we may never pray to anything generated-not even to Christ- but
only to God and the Father of all, to whom even Our Savior Himself
prayed, as we have already said, and teaches us to pray. For when
He is asked, Teach us to pray, he does not teach how to pray to
Himself, but to the Father, and to say: Our Father, who art in
heaven etc. (Prayer 15.1).
8.49 Prayer towards the East

8.49.1 And now I must add a few remarks on the direction in
which we should face while praying. There are four cardinal points-
north, south, east, and west. It should be immediately clear that
the direction of the ring sun obviously indicates that we ought to
pray inclining in that direction, and act which symbolizes the soul
looking towards where the true light rises. But a man may prefer to
offer his petitions while facing in the direction in which his house
faces, whichever way the doors of the house open. He argues that
where the house does not happen to have an opening to the east,
the view to the sky is something far more inviting to prayer than to
see blank walls. We reply that the direction in which mens houses
face is a mater of convention, while it is by nature that he east
takes precedence over the other cardinal points, and that one
should choose nature before convention. Moreover, following this
argument why should a man who wishes to pray in the open face
the east rather than the west? And if in that case it is in accord
with reason to prefer the east, should we not do so everywhere? So
much, then, for this subject (Prayer 32).
8.49.2 Therefore, the divine declaration says, And he will place

the incense upon the fire in the sight of the Lord, and the smoke of
the incense will cover the mercy seat which is upon the [ark of the]
covenant and he will not die. And he will take from the blood of the
calf and will sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat to the
East (cf. Lev 16:13-14) .
Indeed, how the rite of atonement for men, which was done to
God, should be celebrated was taught among the ancients. But you
who came to Christ, the true high priest, who made atonement for
you to God
by his blood and reconciled you to the Father, do not hold fast to
the blood of the flesh. Learn rather the blood of the Word and hear
him saying to you, This is my blood which will be poured out for
you for the forgiveness of sins. He who is inspired by the
mysteries knows both the flesh and the blood of the Word of God.
Therefore, let us not remain in these which are known to the wise
and cannot be laid open to the ignorant.
But do not take the statement that he sprinkles to the East as
superfluous. From the East came atonement for you; for from there
is the man whose name is East, who became a mediator between
God and man. Therefore, you are invited by this to look always to
the East whence the Sun of Righteousness arises for you, whence a
light is born for you; that you never walk in darkness and that the
last day does not seize you in darkness; that the night and fog of
ignorance not come upon you unawares, but that you always be
found in the light of knowledge, always have the day of faith, and
always preserve the light of love and peace (Homily on Leviticus
9.10).
8.49.3 Moreover, in the ecclesiastical observances there are some

things of this sort, which everyone is obliged to do, and yet not
everyone understands the reason for them. For the fact that we
kneel to pray, for instance, and that of all the quarters of the
heavens, the east is the only direction we turn to when we pour out
prayer, the reasons for this, I think, are not easily discovered by
anyone. Moreover, who would readily explain the reasons for the
way we receive the Eucharist, or for the rite of explanation by
which it is celebrated, or for the things that are done in Baptism,
the words, actions, sequences, questions and answers? (Homily
on Numbers 5.1).
8.50 Council of Constantinople II (533)
8.50.1 Condemnations against the Three Capitals

Canon 11: If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius,
Macedonius,
Apollinarius, Nestorius, Eutyches, and Origen, as well as their
heretical books, and also all other heretics who have already been
condemned and anathematized by the holy, catholic, and apostolic
church and by the four holy synods which have already been
mentioned, and also all those who have thought or now think in the
same way as the aforesaid heretics and who persist in their error
even to death: let him be anathema (DS 433)
8.50.2 Anathemas against Origen: Edict from the Emperor

Justinian to the Patriarch Menas of Constantinople, published at
the Synod of Constantinople, a. 543
1. Whoever says or thinks that human souls pre-existed, i.e.,

that they had previously been spirits and holy powers, but that,
satiated with the vision of God, they had turned to evil, and in this
way the divine love in them had died out () and they had
therefore become souls () and had been condemned to
punishment in bodies, shall be anathema.
2. If anyone says or thinks that the soul of the Lord pre-

existed and was united with God the Word before the Incarnation
and Conception of the Virgin, let him be anathema.
3. If anyone says or thinks that the body of our Lord Jesus
Christ was first formed in the womb of the holy Virgin and that
afterwards there was united with it God the Word and the pre-
existing soul, let him be anathema.
4. If anyone says or thinks that the Word of God has become
like to all heavenly orders, so that for the cherubim he was a
cherub, for the seraphim a seraph: in short, like all the superior
powers, let him be anathema.
5. If anyone says or thinks that, at the resurrection, human
bodies will rise
spherical in form and unlike our present form, let him be
anathema.
6. If anyone says that the heaven, the sun, the moon, the
stars, and the waters
that are above heavens, have souls, and are reasonable beings, let
him be anathema.
7. If anyone says or thinks that Christ the Lord in a future
time will be
crucified for demons as he was for men, let him be anathema.
8. If anyone says or thinks that the power of God is limited,
and that he
created as much as could with his hand and to think that creatures
are coeternal to God [-!], let him be anathema.
9. If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and
of impious
men is only temporary, and will one day have an end, and that a
restoration (apocatastasis) will take place of demons and of
impious men, let him be anathema.
These directly affect the Isochristi and only indirectly

Origen, insofar as he is believed to be the inspiration BCM, vol. 2,
p. 391.
Reproduced excerpts from the Kephalaia Gnostica of
Evagrius Ponticus ibid.
ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA
1. Born in Alexandria in ca. 295

2. Deacon of Alexandria at Nicaea
3. Consecrated bishop 8 June 328
4. Difficulty with the Meletian schism and the Arians
5. Constantine and Arius
6. Five (5) exiles: More than 17 years in exile
1st 7 November 33523 November 337 to Trier
Emperor Constantine
2 18 March 33921 October 346 to Rome
nd
Upon returning, emperor = Constans
3rd 8 February 35624 February 362from the monks

Emperor = Constantius
4 24 October 362ca. 26 June 363
th
Emperor = Julian the Apostate

After, Jovian
5 5 October 3651 February 366
th
Emperor = Valens
7. Died (age of 78) 2 May 373
WORKS OF SAINT ATHANASIUS
1. For the defense of the faith of Nicaea

2. Paschal Letter # 39 (367 A.D.)
3. Vita Antonii (357 A.D.)
Saint Anthony died in 356
THEOLOGY OF SAINT ATHANASIUS

1. Traditional Christianity against Hellenization
2. Trinity
=/=
The Holy Spirit =
3. Soteriology divinization (): The Son must be
God!
4. Christology:
Arius and Apollinarius
Athanasius
Origen
5. Mariology: Mary =
Texts:
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS
ca. 330after 390
Came from Antioch
Pagan
Last great historian of the ancient world
8.51 Emperor Julian the Apostate
Although Julian from the earliest days of his childhood had

been more inclined towards the worship of the pagan gods, and as
he gradually grew up burned with longing to practice it, yet
because of his many reasons for anxiety he observed certain of its
rites with the greatest possible secrecy. But when his fears were
ended, and he saw that the time had come when he could do as he
wished, he revealed the secrets of his heart and by plain and
formal decrees ordered the temples to be opened, victims brought
to the altars, and the worship of the gods restored. And in order to
add to the effectiveness of these ordinances, he summoned to the
palace the bishops of the Christians, who were of conflicting
opinions, and the people, who were also at variance, and politely
advised them to lay aside their differences, and each fearlessly and
without opposition to observe his own beliefs. On this he took a
firm stand, to the end that, as this freedom increased their
dissension, he might afterwards have no fear of a united populace,
knowing as he did from experience that no wild beasts are such
enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly
hatred of one another (Res Gestae XXII.5.1-4).
ATHANASIUS
8.52 The Lord fights in Anthony against the devil
8.52.1 For the Lord was working with Anthony the Lord who
for our sake took flesh and gave the body victory over the devil, so
that all who truly fight can say not I but the grace of God which
was with me (Life of Anthony 5.7).
8.52.2 This was Anthonys first struggle against the devil, or

rather this victory was the Saviors work in Anthony (Life of
Anthony 7.1).
8.53 The diabolical beasts
And the place was on a sudden filled with the forms of lions,
bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves (Life
of Anthony 9.6).
8.54 Asceticism and ideal humanity
8.54.1 And so for nearly twenty years he continued training

himself in asceticism, never going forth, and but seldom seen by
any. After this, when many were eager and wishful to imitate his
ascetic life
and his acquaintances came and began to cast down and wrench
off the door by force, Anthony, as from a shrine, came forth
initiated in the mysteries and filled with the Spirit of God. Then for
the first time he was seen outside the fort by those who came to
see him. And they, when they saw him, wondered at the sight, for
he had the same habit of body as before, and was neither fat, like a
man without exercise, nor lean from fasting and striving with the
demons, but he was just the same as they had known him before
his retirement (Life of Anthony 14.1-3).
8.55 The angel of light
Again they are treacherous, and are ready to change

themselves into all forms and assume all appearances. Very often
also without appearing they imitate the music of harp and voice,
and recall the words of Scripture. Sometimes, too, while we are
reading they immediately repeat many times, like an echo, what is
read. They arouse us from our sleep to prayers; and this constantly,
hardly allowing us to sleep at all. At another time they assume the
appearance of monks and feign the speech of holy men, that by
their similarity they may deceive and thus drag their victims where
they will. But no heed must be paid them even if they arouse to
prayer, even if they counsel us not to eat at all, even though they
seem to accuse and cast shame upon us for those things which
once they allowed. For they do this not for the sake of piety or
truth, but that they may carry off the simple to despair; and that
they may say the discipline is useless, and make men loathe the
solitary life as a trouble and burden, and hinder those who in spite
of them walk in it (Life of Anthony 25.1-5).
8.56 Discernment of spirits
For the presence either of the good or evil by the help of God
can easily be distinguished (Life of Anthony 35.4).
8.57 The minister of consolation
And it was as if a physician had been given by God to Egypt.

For who in grief met Anthony and did not return rejoicing? Who
came mourning for his dead and did not forthwith put off his
sorrow? Who came in anger and was not converted to friendship?
What poor and low-spirited man met him who, hearing him and
looking upon him, did not despise wealth and console himself in his
poverty? What monk, having being neglectful, came to him and
became not all the stronger? What young man having come to the
mountain and seen Anthony, did not forthwith deny himself
pleasure and love temperance? Who when tempted by a demon,
came to him and did not find rest? And who came troubled with
doubts and did not get quietness of mind? (Life of Anthony 87.3-
6).
De Incarnatione
8.58 The Son became man
Accordingly, when inspired writers on this matter speak of Him as

eating and being born, understand that the body (), as body,
was born, and sustained with food corresponding to its nature,
while God, the Word Himself, Who was united with the body, while
ordering all things (
), also by the works He did in the body showed Himself to
be not man, but God the Word. But these things are said of Him,
because the actual body which ate, was born, and suffered,
belonged to none other but to the Lord: and because, having
become man ( ), it was proper for these
things to be predicated of Him as man ( ), to show
Him to have a body in truth, and not in seeming. But just as from
these things He was known to be bodily present, so from the works
He did in the body He made Himself known to be Son of God (
, ).
Whence also He cried to the unbelieving Jews; If I do not the works
of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though you believe
not Me, believe My works; that you may know and understand that
the Father is in Me, and I in the Father. For just as, though
invisible, He is known through the works of creation; so, having
become man ( ), and being in the body
unseen, it may be known from His works that He Who can do these
is not man, but the Power and Word of God (De Incarnatione 18.1-
3).
8.59 The Only-Begotten Incarnate Son
We have, then, now stated in part, as far as it was possible, and as

ourselves had been able to understand, the reason of His bodily
appearing; that it was in the power of none other to turn the
corruptible to incorruption, except the Savior Himself, that had at
the beginning also made all things out of nought and that none
other could create anew the likeness of Gods image for men, save
the Image of the Father; and that none other could render the
mortal immortal, save our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Very Life;
and that none other could teach men of the Father, and destroy the
worship of idols, save the Word, that orders all things and is alone
the true Only-begotten Son of the Father (De Incarnatione 20.1).
Contra Arianos
8.60 Divinization
But this would not have come to pass, had the Word been a
creature; for with a creature, the devil, himself a creature, would
have ever continued the battle, and man, being between the two,
had been ever in peril of death, having none in whom and through
whom he might be joined to God and delivered from all fear.
Whence the truth shows us that the Word is not of things originate,
but rather Himself their Framer. For therefore did He assume the
body originate and human, that having renewed it as its Framer,
He might deify it in Himself, and thus might introduce us all into
the kingdom of heaven after His likeness. For man had not been
deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son were very God; nor
had man been brought into the Fathers presence, unless He had
been His natural and true Word who had put on the body ().
And as we had not been delivered from sin and the curse, unless it
had been by nature human flesh, which the Word put on (for we
should have had nothing common with what was foreign), so also
the man had not been deified, unless the Word who became flesh
had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to Him.
For therefore the union was of this kind, that He might unite what
is man () by nature to Him who is in the nature of the
Godhead, and his salvation and deification might be sure.
Therefore let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by
nature and proper to His Essence, deny also that He took true
human flesh ( ) of Mary Ever-Virgin; for in neither case
had it been of profit to us men, whether the Word were not true
and naturally Son of God, or not the true flesh ( )
which He assumed. But surely He took true flesh, though
Valentinus rave; yea the Word was by nature Very God, though
Ario-maniacs rave; and in that flesh has come to pass the
beginning of our new creation, He being created man () for
our sake, and having made for us that new way, as has been said
(Contra Arianos 2.70.1-3).
8.61 The Logos made man
The reader then of divine Scripture may acquaint himself with

these passages from the ancient books; and from the Gospels on
the other hand he will perceive that the Lord became man
(); for the Logos he says, became flesh (), and dwelt
among us. And He became man ( ), and did not
come into man; for this it is necessary to know, lest perchance
these irreligious men fall into this notion also, and beguile any into
thinking, that, as in former times the Logos was used to come into
each of the Saints, so now He sojourned in a man,
hallowing him also, and manifesting Himself as in the others. For if

it were so, and He only appeared in a man, it were nothing strange,
nor had those who saw Him been startled, saying, Whence is He?
And wherefore do You, being a man, make Yourself God? For they
were familiar with the idea, from the words, And the Logos of the
Lord came to this or that of the Prophets. But now, since the Logos
of God, by whom all things came to be, endured to become also
Son of man, and humbled Himself, taking a servants form,
therefore to the Jews the Cross of Christ is a scandal, but to us
Christ is Gods power and Gods wisdom; for the Logos, as John
says, became flesh (it being the custom of Scripture to call man by
the name of flesh ( ), as it says by Joel the
Prophet, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and as Daniel said
to Astyages, I do not worship idols made with hands, but the Living
God, who has created the heaven and the earth, and has
sovereignty over all flesh; for both he and Joel call mankind flesh)
8.62 The Son of God suffers in His flesh
Of old time He was wont to come to the Saints individually, and to

hallow those who rightly received Him; but neither, when they
were begotten was it said that He had become man, nor, when they
suffered, was it said that He Himself suffered. But when He came
among us from Mary once at the end of the ages for the abolition
of sin (for so it was pleasing to the Father, to send His own Son
made of a woman, made under the Law), then it is said, that He
took flesh and became man ( ), and
in that flesh He suffered for us (as Peter says, Christ therefore
having suffered for us in the flesh, that it might be shown, and that
all might believe, that whereas He was ever God, and hallowed
those to whom He came, and ordered all things according to the
Fathers will , afterwards for our sakes He became man (
), and bodily ()as the Apostle says, the Godhead
dwelt in the flesh ( ); as much as to say, Being God, He had
His own body (), and using this as an instrument (), He
became man () for our sakes. And on account of this, the
properties of the flesh () are said to be His, since He was in it,
such as to hunger, to thirst, to suffer, to weary, and the like, of
which the flesh is capable; while on the other hand the works
proper to the Logos Himself, such as to raise the dead, to restore
sight to the blind, and to cure the woman with an issue of blood,
He did through His own body ( ). And the
Logos bore the infirmities of the flesh, as His own, for His was the
flesh; and the flesh ministered to the works of the Godhead,
because the divinity was in it,
for the body was Gods. And well has the Prophet said carried and
has not said, He remedied our infirmities, lest, as being external
to the body, and only healing it, as He has always done, He should
leave men subject still to death; but He carries our infirmities, and
He Himself bears our sins, that it might be shown that He has
become man for us, and that the body which in Him bore them,
was His own body; and, while He received no hurt Himself by
bearing our sins in His body on the tree, as Peter speaks, we men
were redeemed from our own affections , and were filled with the
righteousness of the Logos (Contra Arianos 3.31.1-4).
8.63 The ignorance of human nature
Now why it was that, though He knew, He did not tell His
disciples plainly at that time, no one may be curious where He has
been silent; for Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has
been His counselor? but why, though He knew, He said, no, not the
Son knows, this I think none of the faithful is ignorant, viz. that He
made this as those other declarations as man by reason of the flesh
( ). For this as before is not the Logos
deficiency, but of that human nature ( ) whose
property it is to be ignorant. And this again will be well seen by
honestly examining into the occasion, when and to whom the
Savior spoke thus. Not then when the heaven was made by Him,
nor when He was with the Father Himself, the Logos disposing all
things, nor before He became man did He say it, but when the
Logos became flesh. On this account it is reasonable to ascribe to
His humanity () everything which, after He became man,
He speaks humanly (). For it is proper to the Logos to
know what was made, nor be ignorant either of the beginning or of
the end of these (for the works are His), and He knows how many
things He wrought, and the limit of their consistence. And knowing
of each the beginning and the end, He knows surely the general
and common end of all. Certainly when He says in the Gospel
concerning Himself in His human character, Father, the hour has
come, glorify Your Son, it is plain that He knows also the hour of
the end of all things, as the Logos, though as man He is ignorant of
it, for ignorance is proper to man ( ,
), and especially ignorance of these things.
Moreover this is proper to the Saviors love of man; for since He
was made man, He is not ashamed, because of the flesh which is
ignorant, to say I know not, that He may show that knowing as
God, He is but ignorant according to the flesh ( ).
And therefore He said not, no, not the Son of God knows, lest the
Godhead should seem ignorant, but simply, no, not the Son, that
the ignorance might be the Sons as born from among men
8.64 To suffer is proper to the flesh
But they ought, when they hear I and the Father are one, to see in
Him the oneness of the Godhead and the propriety of the Fathers
Essence; and again when they hear, He wept and the like, to say
that these are proper to the body; especially since on each side
they have an intelligible ground, viz. that this is written as of God
and that with reference to His human body (
). For in the incorporeal, the properties of body had not been,
unless He had taken a body corruptible and mortal; for mortal was
Holy Mary, from whom was His body. Wherefore of necessity when
He was in a body suffering, and weeping, and toiling, these things
which are proper to the flesh, are ascribed to Him together with
the body. If then He wept and was troubled, it was not the Logos,
considered as the Logos, who wept and was troubled, but it was
proper to the flesh ( ); and if too He besought that
the cup might pass away, it was not the Godhead that was in terror,
but this affection too was proper to the manhood. And that the
words Why have You forsaken Me? are His, according to the
foregoing explanations (though He suffered nothing, for the Logos
was impassible), is notwithstanding declared by the Evangelists;
since the Lord became man, and these things are done and said as
from a man, that He might Himself lighten these very sufferings of
the flesh, and free it from them. Whence neither can the Lord be
forsaken by the Father, who is ever in the Father, both before He
spoke, and when He uttered this cry. Nor is it lawful to say that the
Lord was in terror, at whom the keepers of hells gates shuddered
and set open hell, and the graves did gape, and many bodies of the
saints arose and appeared to their own people. Therefore be every
heretic dumb, nor dare to ascribe terror to the Lord whom death,
as a serpent, flees, at whom demons tremble, and the sea is in
alarm; for whom the heavens are rent and all the powers are
shaken. For behold when He says, Why have You forsaken Me? the
Father showed that He was ever and even then in Him; for the
earth knowing its Lord who spoke, straightway trembled, and the
veil was rent, and the sun was hidden, and the rocks were torn
asunder, and the graves, as I have said, did gape, and the dead in
them arose; and, what is wonderful, they who were then present
and had before denied Him, then seeing these signs, confessed that
truly He was the Son of God (Contra Arianos 3.56.1-6).
Tomus ad Antiochenos
8.65 A true incarnation
But since also certain seemed to be contending together

concerning the fleshly Economy of the Savior, we enquired of both
parties. And what the one confessed, the others also agreed to,
that the word did not, as it came to the prophets, so dwell in a holy
man at the consummation of the ages, but that the Logos was
made flesh, and being in the Form of God, took the form of a
servant, and from Mary after the flesh became man for us (
), and that thus in Him the
human race is perfectly and wholly delivered from sin and
quickened from the dead, and given access to the kingdom of the
heavens. For they confessed also that the Savior had not a body
without a soul, nor without sense or intelligence (
); for it was not possible, when
the Lord had become man for us, that His body should be without
intelligence: nor was the salvation effected in the Logos Himself a
salvation of body only, but of soul also (
). And being Son of God in truth, He became also Son
of Man, and being Gods Only-begotten Son, He became also at the
same time firstborn among many brethren. Wherefore neither
was there one Son of God before Abraham, another after Abraham:
nor was there one that raised up Lazarus, another that asked
concerning him; but the same it was that said as man, Where does
Lazarus lie? and as God raised him up: the same that as man and
in the body spat, but divinely as Son of God opened the eyes of the
man blind from his birth; and while, as Peter says, in the flesh He
suffered, as God opened the tomb and raised the dead. For which
reasons, thus understanding all that is said in the Gospel, they
assured us that they held the same truth about the Logos
Incarnation and becoming Man (Tomus ad Antiochenos 7.1-3).
Section 9: Patristic Exegesis: The approach to

the word of God, the spiritual exegesis of
Origen, allegory and typology
PATRISTIC EXEGESIS
1. Patristic theology arises the Fathers reading of the Bible.
2. Two so-called schools2 approaches to exegesis
a. Alexandrian School allegorical approach
i. Representatives: Didymus the Blind and Cyril of
Alexandria
1. Cyril of Alexandria: All the Scriptures are one
book and are
delivered by the same Holy Spirit. (Comm In Isa.
29:11-12 PG
70.655a.)
b. Antiochene Schoolhistorical approach
i. Representatives: Diodore of Tarsus (founder?) and
Theodore of
Mopsuestia (the most significant representative), John
Chrysostom, and
Theodoret of Cyrus.
1. Theodore of Mopsuestia: emphasis on the break
between the OT
and NT as opposed to the continuity.
3. Allegory
a. Pre-Christian
i. Pagan Greek Allegory
ii. Philo
1. Abraham, Sara, Hagar
b. Christian use of Allegory
i. A reading of the OT using the Christological key
ii. The fathers of the Church follow the example of the
authors of the N.T.
1. Acts 8:32-33 (Is 53.7-8) Philip and the Ethiopian
Eunuch
2. Lk 24:27 Emmaus
3. Heb 1:5-14: 7 citations from the psalms and other
books of the OT applied directly to Christ.
4. 1. Cor 10:1-11 The events of the OT = for our
instruction and our admonition/warning. Types
for us they anticipate the deeds of Christ.
(1 Cor 10:6)
iii. Origen, Homily on Exodus 5.1
iv. Augustine: the Pauline rule of 1 Cor 10:1-11 = the key
to interpreting the OT
v. Gal 4:21-24: St. Paul introduces the word allegory for

the first in Christian context.
4. Typology
a. A technique to establish the correspondence between the 2
testaments: Adam
Christ (Rom 5:14)
b. The Hebrews crossing the Red Sea Baptism
c. The Manna and the water from the rock the Eucharist (1
Cor 10:1ff)
d. The bronze serpent [Num 21:9]/ the paschal lamb [Ex
12:1ff] the
Crucifixion (Jn 3:14) and the death of Christ (Jn 19:36)
e. Even Gal 4:24 the descendants of Hagar (Jews) and Sara
(the Christians) = a
typological interpretation, although St. Paul calls it allegory
5. Cappadocian Fathers
6. Jerome
7. Augustine: In Veteri Testamento est occultatio Novi, in Novo
Testamento est
manifestatio Veteris (de catechizandis rudibus, 8)
8. Cassian and the 4 senses
a. Historical
b. Tropological (i.e., moral)
c. Allegorical
d. Anagogical (i.e., eschatological)
9. Nicholas of Lyra (ca. 1330)
Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.
Postscript on Gal 4:3 PL 113:28 CD
Texts:
9.1 School of Antioch
As for the Antiochenes, the great exegetes of the fourth and

fifth centuries like Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus
rejected an allegorical interpretation of Scripture and stressed the
literal or historical without at the same time denying a spiritual
sense. As a rule, however, they were very sparing in their use of
this sense, and they were convinced that it could only be found in
close conjunction with the historical. The spiritual meaning, which
they called theoria (insight), existed in such a way as not to destroy
the historical, and thus it was very similar to typology. Diodore
explains the Antiochene position in his Commentary on the Psalms:
Our exegesis [of the Psalms] will be historical and strictly
literal. We shall
not rule out a higher meaning or theoria; on the contrary,
it is the basis and substructure of higher insights. But
one must be aware lest theoria appear to do away with
the subject: this would no longer be theoria but allegory,
for where it is necessary to search out another sense
alongside the text there is no longer theoria but allegory.
In fact the Apostle by no means did away with history
[presumably in Galatians 4:22-27] by introducing theoria
and calling this theoria allegory. He was not ignorant of
the terminology, but he wished to teach us that it is
necessary to understand even the term allegory, if it is
determined by the context, according to the rules of
theoria, without doing any damage to history. But the
innovators in Holy Scripture, who think themselves so
intelligent, whether because they are incapable of
historical exegesis or after they have intentionally
traduced it, introduced allegory, not according to the
Apostles concept but according to their own vain
opinion, thus forcing the reader to understand things as
the same that are completely foreign to one another. For
example, instead of abyss they understand demons:
instead of serpent they understand the devil; and so
forth.
Diodore goes on to say that he can in fact accept, for example, Cain
and Abel as symbols of the Synagogue and the Church respectively,
and the paschal lamb as a symbol of Christ, for in so doing he at
once maintains the historical and finds a higher sense (Boniface
Ramsey, O.P., Beginning to Read the Fathers, 33-34).
HENRI CARDINAL DE LUBAC, S.J.
9.2 The schools of Alexandria and Antioch

Here we cannot distinguish, as it is sometimes done
excessively, between the Greek Fathers and Latin Fathers, between
the school of Alexandria and Antioch or Augustine. For example, it
is from the school of Antioch, with Diodore of Tarsus, and Theodore
of Mopsuestia, who call things, with a wordless traditional and
more platonic, , but isnt that the same thing that Origen,
faithful to the idea of the language of St. Paul, calls, ?
Everyone wants to understand the spirit of history, without
upsetting the real history [cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomius,
book 12]. In factit is a Greek, and one of less historicity that
said thatthere exists a spiritual force of history [Maximus the
Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium, q. 17]; through their end
the same facts have one soul; that is, in the time of eternity. And in
changing the reality in which the Old Testament-- and the New--
contains the qualities, not only spiritual, but incarnate; not only
eternal, but historical as well. Since the Word became flesh, and
dwelt among us. The spiritual sense is scattered everywhere, not
only, above all in a book, but primarily and essentially in reality
itself:
in ipso facto, non solum in dicto, mysterium requirere debemus

(Henri De Lubac, S.J., Cattolicesimo, 145-146).
ORIGEN
9.3 Saint. Paul and Spiritual Intelligence
The apostle Paul, teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth,

taught the Church which he gathered from the Gentiles how it
ought to interpret the books of the Law. These books were received
from others and were formerly unknown to the Gentiles and were
very strange. He feared that the Church, receiving foreign
instructions and not knowing the principle of the instructions,
would be in a state of confusion about the foreign document.
For that reason he gives some examples of interpretation
that we also might note similar things in other passages, lest we
believe that by imitation of the text and document of the Jews we
be made disciples.
He wishes, therefore, to distinguish disciples of Christ from
disciples of the Synagogue by the way they understand the Law.
The Jews, by misunderstanding it, rejected Christ. We, by
understanding the Law spiritually, show that it was justly given for
the instruction of the Church.
The Jews, therefore, understand only this, that the children
of Israel departed from Egypt and their first departure was from
Ramses and they departed from there and came to Succoth and
they departed from Succoth and come to Etham, at Epauleus next
to the sea. Then, next, they understand that there the cloud
preceded them and the rock from which they drank water followed;
and furthermore, they crossed the Red Sea and came into the
desert of Sinai.
Let us see, however, what sort of rule of interpretation the
apostle Paul taught us about these matters.
Writing to the Corinthians he says in a certain passage: For
we know that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all were
baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same
spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. And they
drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was
Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4).
Do you see how much Pauls teaching differs from literal
meaning? What the Jews supposed to be crossing of the sea, Paul
calls baptism; what they supposed to be a cloud, Paul asserts is the
Holy Spirit. He wishes that to be understood in a similar manner to
this which the Lord taught in the Gospels. Unless a man be born
again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
heaven.
And again, the manna which the Jews supposed to be food for
the stomach and the satiation of the appetite, Paul calls spiritual
food.
And not only Paul, but the Lord also says on the same subject
in the Gospel: Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died. He
however, who eats the bread which give him
will not die eternally. And after this he says, I am the bread which
came down from heaven.
Then again Paul declares plainly of the rock which followed
them: The rock was Christ.
What then are we to do who received such instructions about
interpretation from Paul, a teacher of the Church? Does it not seem
right that we apply this kind of rule which was delivered to us in a
similar way in other passages? Or as some wish, forsaking these
things which such a great Apostle taught, should we turn again to
Jewish fables?
It seems to me that if I differ from Paul in these matters I aid
the enemies of Christ and this is what the prophet says: Woe to
him who causes his neighbor to drink by foul subversion.
Let us cultivate, therefore, the seeds of spiritual
understanding received from the blessed apostle Paul, in so far as
the Lord shall see fit to illuminate us by your prayers (Origen,
Homily on Exodus 5.1).
9.4 Against only a one literal interpretation

Now the reason of the erroneous apprehension of all these
points on the part of those whom we have mentioned above, is no
other than this, that holy Scripture is not understood by them
according to its spiritual, but according to its literal meaning. And
therefore we shall endeavor, so far as our moderate capacity will
permit, to point out to those who believe the holy Scriptures to be
no human compositions, but to be written by inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, and to be transmitted and entrusted to us by the will of
God the Father, through His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, what
appears to us, who observe things by a right way of understanding,
to be the standard and discipline delivered to the apostles by Jesus
Christ, and which they handed down in succession to their
posterity, the teachers of the holy Church (De principiis 4.2.2).
9.5 In defense of the literal sense
Let no one, however, entertain the suspicion that we do not

believe any history in Scripture to be real, because we suspect
certain events related in it not to have taken place; or that no
precepts of the law are to be taken literally, because we consider
certain of them, in which either the nature or possibility of the case
so requires, incapable of being observed; or that we do not believe
those predictions which were written of the Savior to have been
fulfilled in a manner palpable to the senses; or that His
commandments are not to be literally obeyed. We have therefore to
state in answer, since we are manifestly so of opinion, that the
truth of the history may and ought to be preserved in the majority
of instances (De principiis 4.3.4).
9.6 When spiritual exegesis is applied
The careful reader, however, will be in doubt as to certain

points, being unable to show without long investigation whether
this history so deemed literally occurred or not, and whether the
literal meaning of this law is to be observed or not. And therefore
the exact reader must, in obedience to the Saviors injunction to
search the Scriptures, carefully ascertain in how far the literal
meaning is true, and in how far impossible; and so far as he can,
trace out, by means of similar statements, the meaning everywhere
scattered through Scripture of that which cannot be understood in
a literal signification. 20. Since, therefore, as will be clear to those
who read, the connection taken literally is impossible, while the
sense preferred is not impossible, but even the true one, it must be
our object to grasp the whole meaning, which connects the account
of what is literally impossible in an intelligible manner with what is
not only not impossible, but also historically true, and which is
allegorically understood, in respect of its not having literally
occurred. For, with respect to holy Scripture, our opinion is that
the whole of it has a spiritual, but not the whole a bodily
meaning, because the bodily meaning is in many places proved to
be impossible. And therefore great attention must be bestowed by
the cautious reader on the divine books, as being divine writings
(De principiis 4.3.5).
9.7 Worthy of God
That the prophet [Jeremiah] is appointed to talk for God

ought to be worthy of God, but it appears that it is not worthy of
God when we rely on the letter: these texts are foolish. But the
unspiritual man will say this, for the unspiritual man does not
receive what is of the spirit of God. For it is folly to him (Hom. In
Ierem. 12.1).
9.8 Isaac and the ram: figure of Christ
6. After this the text says, Abraham took the wood for the
holocaust and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his
own hands and a sword, and they went off together. That Isaac
himself carries on himself the wood for the holocaust is a figure,
because Christ also himself carried his own cross and yet to carry
the wood for the holocaust is the duty of a priest. He himself,
therefore becomes both victim and priest. But what is added also is
related to this: And they both went off together. For when Abraham
carries the fire and knife as if to sacrifice, Isaac does not go behind
him, but with him, that he might be shown to contribute equally
with the priesthood itself. What happens after this? Isaac, the text
says, said to Abraham, his father: Father. And in this moment the
word of testing is uttered by the son. For how do you suppose the
son to be killed struck the fathers heart with this word?
And although Abraham was very rigid by virtue of his faith,

nevertheless he also returned an expression of affection and
responded: What is it, son? And Isaac says, Behold the fire and the
wood. Where is the sheep for the holocaust? Abraham responded
to these words: God himself will provide himself a sheep for the
holocaust, son. Abrahams response, sufficiently accurate and
cautious, moves me. I know not what he saw in his spirit, for he
speaks not about the present, but about the future: God himself
will provide himself a sheep. He responded to his sons inquiry
about present things with future things. For the Lord himself will
provide himself a sheep in Christ because also, Wisdom herself has
built herself a house and, He himself humbled himself unto death.
And you will discover that everything you happen to read about
Christ is done not by necessity, but freely.
9. And looking back with his eyes, the text says, Abraham
saw, and behold
a ram was held by its horns in a bush. We said above, I think, that
Isaac represented Christ. But this ram no less also seems to
represent Christ. Now it is Isaac who is not slain and the ram
which is slain. Christ is the Word of God, but the Word was made
flesh. Once aspect of Christ, therefore, is from above; the other is
received from human nature and the womb of the virgin. Christ
suffered, therefore, but in the flesh; and he endured death, but it
was the flesh, of which the ram is a type, as also John said: Behold
the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world.
But the Word continued in incorruption, which is Christ according
to the sprit, of which Isaac is the image. For this reason he himself
is both victim to the Father, but according to the flesh he himself is
offered on the altar of the cross, because, as it is said of him
Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the
world so it is said of him: You are a priest forever according to the
order of Melchizedek. A ram, therefore, was held by its horns in a
bush (Homily on Genesis, 8.6, 9).
AMBROSE
9.9 Christ in the psalms
What shall I say as regards the miraculous power of

prophecy? Others foretold things in riddles, but the psalmist alone
is allowed to see plainly and openly the Promised One. He saw that
the Lord Jesus would be descended from him. The Lord had said to
him: I will place your own son upon your throne. In the psalms
Jesus is born to us. Not only that, but he also undergoes in his body
the torment of the Passion to save us; he dies; rises again; ascends
into heaven, and sits at the right hand of his Father. This prophet
alone among all others foretold what the Lord himself preached
(Explanatio Psalmorum XII 1.8).
9.10 The fattened calf as a symbol of the Lamb of God
It is, too appropriate that the Son describes the father in the
parable hurrying along with the flesh of the calf, for this is a
sacrificial offering that is made for sin. He wanted to show us that
the feast provided by the heavenly Father is our salvation; and that
the joy of the Father is our redemption from sin Here, if you
attribute to the Father the fact that the Son became a victim for
our sins, you can see that the Father find His joy in recovering the
lost sheep. From this it is apparent that Father and Son share one
and the same joy, and share one and the same activity in fond the
Church (Exp. eu. sec. Lucam 7.232-233).
GREGORY OF NAREK
9.11 The fattened calf and the Son of God
You sacrifice the fatted calf of heaven, your only begotten

Son, out of
your Love for mankind. Your blessed Son who is always offered and
yet remains whole, who is sacrificed continuously upon
innumerable altars without being consumed, who is all in everyone
and complete in all things, who is in essence of heaven and in
reality of earth, who is lacking nothing in humanness and without
defect in divinity, who is broken and distributed in individual parts,
that all may be collected in the same body with him as head (Le
Livre des Prires, 47me prire, SC 78, pp. 257-259)
AUGUSTINE
9.12 Noahs Ark according to Philo and Augustine
The Jews themselves, who scoff at the crucified Savior in

whom we believe, and who consequently will not allow that Christ
is predicted in the sayings and actions recorded in the Old
Testament, are compelled to come to us for an explanation of those
things which, if not explained, must appear trifling and ridiculous.
This led Philo, a Jew of great learning, whom the Greeks speak of
as rivaling Plato in eloquence, to attempt to explain some things
without any reference to Christ, in whom he did not believe. His
attempt only shows the inferiority of all ingenious speculations,
when made without keeping Christ in view, to whom all the
predictions really point. So true is that saying of the Apostle: When
they shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. For
instance, Noahs ark is, according to Philo, a type of the human
body, member by member: with this view, he shows that the
numerical proportions agree perfectly.
For there is no reason why a type of Christ should not be a type of

the human body, too, since the Savior of mankind appeared in a
human body, though what is typical of a human body is not
necessarily typical of Christ. Philos explanation fails, however, as
regards the door in the side of the ark. He actually, for the sake of
saying something, makes this door represent the lower apertures
of the body. He has the hardihood to put this in words, and on
paper. Indeed, he knew not the door and could not understand the
symbol. Had he turned to Christ the veil would have been taken
away, and he would have found the sacraments of the Church
flowing from the side of Christs human body. For, according to the
announcement, They two shall be one flesh, some things in the ark
which is a type of Christ, refer to Christ, and some to the Church.
This contrast between the explanations which keep Christ in view,
and all other ingenious perversions, is the same in every particular
of all the figures in Scripture (Contra Faustum 14.39).
Section 10: Reflection of the Cappadocian

Fathers in the Christological and Trinitarian
Controversies of the Fourth Century: Basil,
Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa
THE CAPPADOCIAN FATHERS
1. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus

2. Macrina the Elder = disciple of Gregory the Wonderworker
BASIL THE GREAT

1. Born in 329 / 330 A.D.
2. Studied in Constantinople and Athens
3. Monastic withdrawal at Arnesi, on the banks of the river Iris,
province of Pontus
4. The Two Rules (monastic)
5. The Philokalia
6. In 364, ordained to the priesthood
7. In 370, became the bishop of Caesarea and metropolitan of
the ecclesiastical province of Cappadocia
8. Difficulties with the Emperor Valens
9. In 372, division of the province
10. Died 1 January 379
11. Friendship with Saint Athanasius
12. ,
13. The Holy Spirit =/= explicitly God. A certain oikonomia
14. In De Spirito Sancto 29.71-75, Argumentum Patristicum
(the proof of the Fathers)
Texts:
BASIL THE GREAT
10.1 Notions on the Holy Spirit

Let us now investigate what are our common conceptions
concerning the Spirit, as well those which have been gathered by
us from Holy Scripture concerning It as those which we have
received from the unwritten tradition of the Fathers. First of all we
ask, who on hearing the titles of the Spirit
is not lifted up in soul, who does not raise his conception to the
supreme nature? It is called Spirit of God, Spirit of truth which
proceeds from the Father, right Spirit, a leading Spirit. Its proper
and peculiar title is Holy Spirit; which is a name specially
appropriate to everything that is incorporeal, purely immaterial,
and indivisible. So our Lord, when teaching the woman who
thought God to be an object of local worship that the incorporeal is
incomprehensible, said God is spirit (Jn 4:24). On our hearing,
then, of a spirit, it is impossible to form the idea of a nature
circumscribed, subject to change and variation, or at all like the
creature. We are compelled to advance in our conceptions to the
highest, and to think of an intelligent essence, in power infinite, in
magnitude unlimited, unmeasured by times or ages, generous of Its
good gifts.
To Him turn all things needing sanctification, after whom
reach all things that live in virtue, as being watered by Its
inspiration and helped on toward their natural and proper end;
perfecting all other things, but Itself in nothing lacking; living not
as needing restoration, but as Supplier of life; not growing by
additions; but straightway full, self-established, omnipresent,
origin of sanctification, light perceptible to the mind, supplying, as
it were, through Itself, illumination to every faculty in the search
for truth; by nature unapproachable, apprehended by reason of
goodness, filling all things with Its power, but communicated only
to the worthy; not shared in one measure, but distributing Its
energy according to the proportion of faith; (Romans 12:6) in
essence simple, in powers various, wholly present in each and
being wholly everywhere; impassively divided, shared without loss
of ceasing to be entire, after the likeness of the sunbeam, whose
kindly light falls on him who enjoys it as though it shone for him
alone, yet illumines land and sea and mingles with the air. So, too,
is the Spirit to everyone who receives it, as though given to him
alone, and yet It sends forth grace sufficient and full for all
mankind, and is enjoyed by all who share It, according to the
capacity, not of Its power, but of their nature (De Spiritu Sancto
9.22).
GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS
10.2 The Orthodox Reservation of Basil concerning the Holy

Spirit
That he, no less than any other, acknowledged that the Spirit
is God, is plain from his often having publicly preached this truth,
whenever opportunity offered, and eagerly confessed it when
questioned in private. But he made it more clear in his
conversations with me, from whom he concealed nothing during
our conferences upon this subject. Not content with simply
asserting it, he proceeded, as he had but very seldom done before,
to imprecate upon himself that most terrible fate
of separation from the Spirit, if he did not adore the Spirit as

consubstantial and coequal with the Father and the Son. And if
anyone would accept me as having been his fellow laborer in this
cause, I will set forth one point hitherto unknown to most men.
Under the pressure of the difficulties of the period, he himself
undertook the economy, while allowing freedom of speech to me,
whom no one was likely to drag from obscurity to trial or
banishment, in order that by our united efforts our Gospel might be
firmly established.
I mention this, not to defend his reputation, for the man is
stronger than his assailants, if there are any such; but to prevent
men from thinking that the terms found in his writings are the
utmost limit of the truth, and so have their faith weakened, and
consider that their own error is supported by his theology, which
was the joint result of the influences of the time and of the Spirit,
instead of considering the sense of his writings, and the object with
which they were written, so as to be brought closer to the truth,
and enabled to silence the partisans of impiety. At any rate let his
theology be mine, and that of all dear to me! And so confident am I
of his spotlessness in this respect, that I take him for my partner in
this, as in all else: and may what is mine be attributed to him, what
is his to me, both at the hands of God, and of the wisest of men!
For we would not say that the Evangelists are at variance with one
another, because some are more occupied with the human side of
the Christ, and others pay attention to His Divinity; some having
commenced their history with what is within our own experience,
others with what is above us; and by thus sharing the substance of
their message, they have procured the advantage of those who
receive it, and followed the impressions of the Spirit Who was
within them (Elogio funebre di Basilio, 69).
ARGUMENTUM PATRISTICUM
10.3.1 Basil and the word with in the doxology: Testimonies

of the Fathers
In answer to the objection that the doxology in the form with

the Spirit has no written authority, we maintain that if there is no
other instance of that which is unwritten, then this must not be
received. But if the greater number of our mysteries are admitted
into our constitution without written authority, then, in company
with the many others, let us receive this one. For I hold it apostolic
to abide also by the unwritten traditions. I praise you, it is said,
that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I
delivered them to you; and Hold fast the traditions which you
have been taught whether by word, or our Epistle.
One of these traditions is the practice which is now before
us,
which they who ordained from the beginning, rooted firmly in the
churches, delivering it to their successors, and its use through long
custom advances pace by pace with time. If, as in a Court of Law,
we were at a loss for documentary evidence, but were able to bring
before you a large number of witnesses, would you not give your
vote for our acquittal?
I believe that every word at the mouth of two or three
witnesses shall the matter be established. And if we could prove
clearly to you that a long period of time was in our favor, should we
not have seemed to you to urge with reason that this suit ought not
to be brought into court against us? For ancient dogmas inspire a
certain sense of awe, venerable as they are with a hoary antiquity. I
will therefore give you a list of the supporters of the word with
(and the time too must be taken into account in relation to what
passes unquestioned). For it did not originate with us. How could
it? We, in comparison with the time during which this word has
been in vogue, are, to use the words of Job, but of yesterday.
I myself, if I must speak of what concerns me individually,
cherish this phrase as a legacy left me by my fathers. It was
delivered to me by one who spent a long life in the service of God,
and by him I was both baptized, and admitted to the ministry of the
Church [Basil mentions Dianius, bishop of Caesarea].
While examining, so far as I could, if any of the blessed men
of old used the words to which objection is now made, I found
many worthy of credit both on account of their early date, and also
a characteristic in which they are unlike the men of today
because of the exactness of their knowledge. Of these some
coupled the word in the doxology by the preposition, others by the
conjunction, but were in no case supposed to be acting divergently,
at least so far as the right sense of true piety is concerned (De
Spiritu Sancto 29.71).
10.3.2 Vincent of Lerins: Legitimacy of the Recourse to the

Fathers
This being the case, it is now time that we should

recapitulate, at the close of this second Commonitory, what was
said in that and in the preceding. We said above, that it has always
been the custom of Catholics, and still is, to prove the true faith in
these two ways; first by the authority of the Divine Canon, and next
by the tradition of the Catholic Church. Not that the Canon alone
does not of itself suffice for every question, but seeing that the
more part, interpreting the divine words according to their own
persuasion, take up various erroneous opinions, it is therefore
necessary that the interpretation of divine Scripture should be
ruled according to the one standard of the Churchs belief,
especially in those articles on which the foundations of all Catholic
doctrine rest.
I said likewise, that in the Church itself regard must be had
to the consentient voice of universality equally with that of
antiquity, lest we either be torn from the integrity of unity and
carried away to schism, or be precipitated from the religion of
antiquity into heretical novelties.
I said, further, that in this same ecclesiastical antiquity two

points are very carefully and earnestly to be held in view by those
who would keep clear of heresy: first, they should ascertain
whether any decision has been given in ancient times as to the
matter in question by the whole priesthood of the Catholic Church,
with the authority of a General Council: and, secondly, if some new
question should arise on which no such decision has been given,
they should then have recourse to the opinions of the holy Fathers,
of those at least, who, each in his own time and place, remaining in
the unity of communion and of the faith, were accepted as
approved masters; and whatsoever these may be found to have
held, with one mind and with one consent, this ought to be
accounted the true and Catholic doctrine of the Church, without
any doubt or scruple (Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorio 29).
GREGORY OF NYSSA
1. Born between 335-340

2. Married: wife = Theosebia?
3. In 371, was made bishop of Nyssa
4. In exile from 375/376 to 378 (death of Emperor Valens)
5. In 380, elected bishop of Sebaste
6. Council of Constantinople (381 A.D.)
7. Theodosius, Pulcheria, and Flaccilla
8. Died after 394
9. Oratio catechetica magna
10. De vita Moysis
11. Eschatology:
Texts:
GREGORY OF NYSSA
10.4 The Universal Restoration

10.4.1 For it is now as with those who for their cure are subjected
to the knife and the cautery; they are angry with the doctors, and
wince with the pain of the incision; but if recovery of health be the
result of this treatment, and the pain of the cautery passes away,
they will feel grateful to those who have wrought this cure upon
them. In like manner, when, after long periods of time, the evil of
our nature, which now is mixed up with it and has grown with its
growth, has been expelled, and when there has been a restoration
of those who are now lying in Sin to their primal state, a harmony
of thanksgiving will arise from all creation, as well from those who
in the process of the purgation have suffered chastisement,
as from those who needed not any purgation at all.

These and the like benefits the great mystery of the Divine
incarnation bestows. For in those points in which He was mingled
with humanity, passing as He did through all the accidents proper
to human nature, such as birth, rearing, growing up, and
advancing even to the taste of death, He accomplished all the
results before mentioned, freeing both man from evil, and healing
even the introducer of evil himself. For the chastisement, however
painful, of moral disease is a healing of its weakness (Oratio
catechetica magna 26.8-9).
10.4.2 Perhaps someone, taking his departure from the fact that
after three days of distress in darkness the Egyptians did share in
the light, might be led to perceive the final restoration which is
expected to take place later in the kingdom of heaven of those who
have suffered condemnation in Gehenna. For that darkness that
could be felt, as the history says, has a great affinity both in its
name and in its actual meaning to the exterior darkness. Both are
dispelled when Moses, as we have perceived before, stretched
forth his hands on behalf of those in darkness (The Life of Moses
II.82).
10.5 The Perpetual Virginity of Mary: in partu
From this we learn also the mystery of the Virgin: The light
of divinity which through birth shone from her into human life did
not consume the burning bush, even as the flower of her virginity
was not withered by giving birth (The Life of Moses II.21).
10.6 Philosophy and revelation
For example, pagan philosophy says that the soul is

immortal. This is a pious offspring. But it also says that souls pass
from bodies to bodies and are changed from a rational to an
irrational nature. This is a fleshly and alien foreskin. And there are
many other such examples. It says there is a God, but it thinks of
him as material. It acknowledges him as Creator, but says he
needed matter for creation. It affirms that he is both good and
powerful, but that in all things he submits to the necessity of fate
(The Life of Moses II.40).
GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS
1. Born 329/330
2. His father was the bishop of Nazianzus
3. Studied in Caesarea of Palestine, Alexandria, and Athens

4. Baptized ca. 358
5. With Basil to Arnesi on the Iris in the province of Pontus
6. In 361/362, ordained to the priesthood
7. In 371, consecrated bishop of Sasima
8. Fled to Selucia in Isauria
9. With the Nicene community to Constantinople; the
10. Bishop of Constantinople
11. Death of Meletius of Antioch
12. Death of Arius in 390
13. Five Theological Discourses

14. Christology:
Applied Trinitarian language
15. Mariology:
Texts:
GREGORY NAZIANZUS
10.7 The Holy Spirit in the Trinity
What then, say they, is there lacking to the Spirit which

prevents His being a Son, for if there were not something lacking
He would be a Son? We assert that there is nothing lackingfor
God has no deficiency. But the difference of manifestation, if I may
so express myself, or rather of their mutual relations one to
another, has caused the difference of their Names. For indeed it is
not some deficiency in the Son which prevents His being Father
(for Sonship is not a deficiency), and yet He is not Father.
According to this line of argument there must be some deficiency
in the Father, in respect of His not being Son. For the Father is not
Son, and yet this is not due to either deficiency or subjection of
Essence, while the terms was not generated and was generated
and proceed indicate the Father to the First, the Son to the
Second, and the Third, Him of Whom we are speaking, of the Holy
Ghost that the distinction of the Three Persons may be preserved
in the one nature and dignity of the Godhead. For neither is the
Son Father, for the Father is One, but He is what the Father is; nor
is the Spirit Son because He is of God, for the Only-begotten is
One, but He is what the Son is. The Three are One in divine nature,
and the only being
Three in properties; so that neither is the Unity a Sabellian one,

nor does the Trinity countenance the present evil distinction.
What then? Is the Spirit God? Certainly! Well then, is He
homoousion? Yes, if He is truly God (Oratio 31.9-10).
10.8 Soteriology
If anyone assert that His flesh came down from heaven, and
is not from hence, nor of us though above us, let him be anathema.
(...) If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a human
mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation.
For that which He (Christ) has not assumed He has not healed; but
that which is united to his divinity is also saved (Ep. to Cledonius
101.30,32).
10.9 Christological and Trinitarian Language
And, if I am to speak concisely, the Savior is made of

elements which are distinct one from the other ( ),
for the invisible is not the same for the visible, nor the timeless
with which is subject to time but there are not one and another (
): God forbid! For both natures are one by the
combination ( ), the Deity being made
Man, and the Manhood Deified or however one should express it. I
say one substance and another ( ) because it is the
reverse of what is the case in the Trinity; for There we
acknowledge different persons so as not to confound the persons;
but different elements, for the Three are One and the same in
divine nature ( ,
, ) (Ep. to Cledonius
101.30,32).
Section 11: The development of Theology in

North Africa from the 2nd to the 3rd century.
Tertullian and Cyprian.
TERTULLIAN
1. Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus
2. Born around 160 in Carthage
3. Converted to Christianity in 197
4. Blood is the seed of Christians Apologeticum 50.13
5. From 207 drawn towards Montanism
6. In 213 he broke with the Church
7. Montanism
a. Montanus, Priscilla e Maximilla
b. New prophecy; charismatic
8. Three Major issues
a. The rejection of Roman society and culture
b. The rejection of philosophy
c. Contribution to the Latin Christian
9. Cyprian Da magistrum!
THE THEOLOGY OF TERTULLIAN
1. Trinity
substantia, status, potestas unity
gradus, formae species distinction
2. Christology
videmus duplicem statum, non confusum sed coniunctum
in una persona, deum et
hominem Iesum (Adversus Praxean 27.11)
3. Philosophy
Philosophers = The patriarchs of the heretics
Thieves!
Athens and Jerusalem
4. The Second Penance
De paenitentia (Catholic work)

De pudicitia (Montanist work)
Ecclesia Christus vs. Ecclesia Spiritus
Texts:
TERTULLIAN
11.1 The authority of the apostolic churches
Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you

would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the
apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the apostles are
still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic
writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of
each of them severally. Achaia is very near you, (in which) you find
Corinth. Since you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi;
(and there too) you have the Thessalonians. Since you are able to
cross to Asia, you get Ephesus. Since, moreover, you are close
upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our
own hands the very authority (of apostles themselves). How happy
is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine
along with their blood! where Peter endures a passion like his
Lords! where Paul wins his crown in a death like Johns where the
Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence
remitted to his island-exile! See what she has learned, what taught,
what fellowship has had with even (our) churches in Africa! One
Lord God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the universe, and
Christ Jesus... (De praescritione haereticorum 36.1-3).
11.2 Athens and Jerusalem
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord

is there between the Academy and the Church? What between
heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from the porch of
Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in
simplicity of heart. Wisdom 1:1 Away with all attempts to produce
a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition!
We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no
inquisition after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no
further belief. For this is our palmary faith, hat there is nothing
which we ought to believe besides (De praescritione haereticorum
7.9-10)
11.3 The persecution of the Christians
On the contrary, they deserve the name of faction who

conspire to bring odium on good men and virtuous, who cry out
against innocent blood, offering as the justification of their enmity
the baseless plea, that they think the Christians the cause of every
public disaster, of every affliction with which the people are visited.
If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send
its waters up over the fields,
if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is

famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, Away with the
Christians to the lion! So many people to a single lion?
(Apologeticum 40.1-2).
11.4 Against Abortion
How many of us... A maturer age has always preferred death

by the sword. In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we
may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the
human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its
sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor
does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy
one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be
one; you have the fruit already in its seed (Apologeticum 9.8).
11.5 The second penitence
The narrower, then, the sphere of action of this second and

only (remaining) repentance, the more laborious is its probation; in
order that it may not be exhibited in the conscience alone, but may
likewise be carried out in some (external) act. This act, which is
more usually expressed and commonly spoken of under a Greek
name, is [confession]: whereby we confess our sins to
the Lord, not indeed as if He were ignorant of them, but inasmuch
as by confession satisfaction is settled, of confession repentance is
born; by repentance God is appeased. And thus exomologesis is a
discipline for mans prostration and humiliation, enjoining a
demeanor calculated to move mercy. With regard also to the very
dress and food, it commands (the penitent) to lie in sackcloth and
ashes, to cover his body in mourning, to lay his spirit low in
sorrows, to exchange for severe treatment the sins which he has
committed; moreover, to know no food and drink but such as is
plainnot for the stomachs sake, to wit, but the souls; for the
most part, however, to feed prayers on fastings, to groan, to weep
and make outcries unto the Lord your God; to bow before the feet
of the presbyters, and kneel to Gods dear ones [widows]; to enjoin
on all the brethren to be ambassadors to bear his deprecatory
supplication before God (De paenitentia 9.1-4).
11.6 Ecclesia Christus
Ecclesia Christus; ergo cum te ad fratrum genua protendis

Christum contrectas, Christum exoras; aeque illi cum super te
lacrimas agunt Christus patitur, Christus patrem deprecatur (De
paenitentia 10.6).
11.7 Montanist reflections against the ecclesiastical

remission of sins
I now inquire into your opinion, to see from what source you
usurp
this right to the Church. If, because the Lord has said to Peter,
Upon this rock will I build My Church, to you have I given the keys
of the heavenly kingdom; or, Whatsoever you shall have bound or
loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens, you
therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has
derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of
man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest
intention of the Lord, conferring as that intention did this gift
personally upon Peter? On you, He says, will I build My Church; I
will give to you the keys, not to the Church. Whatsoever you shall
have loosed or bound, not what they shall have loosed or bound.
(...) What, now, has this to do with the Church, and your (church),
indeed, Psychic? For, in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to
spiritual men that this power will correspondently appertain, either
to an apostle or else to a prophet. For the very Church itself is,
properly and principally, the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity
of the One Divinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He combines
that Church which the Lord has made to consist in three. And thus,
from that time forward, every number (of persons) who may have
combined together into this faith is accounted a Church, from the
Author and Consecrator (of the Church). And accordingly the
Church, it is true, will forgive sins: but (it will be) the Church of the
Spirit, by means of a spiritual man; not the Church which consists
of a number of bishops. For the right and arbitrament is the Lords,
not the servants;
Gods Himself, not the priests (De pudicitia 21.9-10,16-17).
CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE
1. Caecilius Cyprianus Thascius

2. Born ca. 210 at Carthage
3. Converted around 245
4. Priest; later bishop in 249
5. The persecution of Decius in 250
6. His flight
When they persecute you in one city, flee to another.
Mathew
10:23.
7. Diverse levels during the persecution
a. Lapsi: sacrificati or thurificati
b. Libellatici
c. Stantes
d. Confessores
e. Martyres
8. Libelli pacis and the schism of Felicissimus
9. At Rome, Pope Cornelius and Novatian
10. The Baptismal controversy
a. Pope Stephen: the effective sanctification of the sacrament
b. Cyprian: the subjective holiness of the minister

11. During the persecution of Valerian
a. Stephen died 2 August 257
b. Cyprian died 14 September 258
12. De catholicae ecclesiae unitate
Texts:
CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE
11.8 The laity and the Church
The Church is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the
Church is controlled by these same rulers. Since this, then, is
founded on the divine law, I marvel that some, with daring
temerity, have chosen to write to me as if they wrote in the name of
the Church; when the Church is established in the bishop and the
clergy, and all who stand fast in the faith (stantes). For far be it
from the mercy of God and His uncontrolled might to suffer the
number of the lapsed to be called the Church; since it is written,
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Epistula 33.1).
11.9 The uniqueness of the Church founded on Peter
11.9.1 If anyone considers and examines these things, there is no

need of a lengthy discussion and arguments. Proof for faith is easy
in a brief statement of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter: I say to
thee, He says, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will
give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.
Upon him, being one, He builds His Church, and although
after His resurrection He bestows equal power upon all the
Apostles, and says: As the Father has sent me, I also send you.
Receive ye the Holy Spirit: if you forgive the sins of anyone, they
will be forgiven him; if you retain the sins of anyone, they will be
retained, yet that He might display unity, He established by His
authority the origin of the same unity as beginning from one.
Surely the rest of the Apostles also were that which Peter was,
endowed with an equal partnership of office and of power, but the
beginning proceeds from unity, that the Church of Christ may be
shown to be one.
This one Church, also, the Holy Spirit in the Canticle of
Canticles designates in the person of the Lord and says: One is my
dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother,
the chosen one of her that bore her. Does he who does not hold
this unity think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against
the Church
and resists her think that he is in the Church, when too the blessed
Apostle Paul teaches this same thing and sets forth the sacrament
of unity saying: One body and one Spirit, one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God (De catholicae
ecclesiae unitate 4: Textus receptus).
11.9.2 And again He [Jesus] says to him [Peter] after His

resurrection: Feed my sheep. On him He builds the Church, and to
him He gives the command to feed the sheep; and although He
assigns a like power to all the Apostles, yet He founded a single
chair, and He established by His own authority a source and an
intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also
which Peter was; but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is
made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all
our shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the
Apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to
this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he
desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he
still be confident that his is in the Church? (De catholicae
ecclesiae unitate 4: Textus primato)
11.10 Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
11.10.1 Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam non habet
matrem (De cath. eccl. unit. 6).
11.10.2 Salus extra ecclesiam non est (Ep. 73.21).
11.11 The bishop and the Church

Scire debes episcopum in ecclesia esse et ecclesiam in
episcopo, et si quis in episcopo non sit in ecclesia non esse (Ep.
66.8).
Section 12: Augustine: theological elaboration

meets pastoral service
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
1. Born 13 November 354 in Tagaste in the North African

province of Numidia
2. Father = Patricius; mother = Saint Monica
3. Studied in Madauros and Carthage
4. The Hortensius of Cicero
5. Manichaeism
Rationality that excludes faith
Pure Christianity that excludes the Old Testament
Radical solution to the problem of evil: a materialistic
dualism.
6. His son = Adeodatus
7. The great Manichaean Faustus
8. In Rome in 383
9. Sent by Symmachus to Milan
10. Encounter with Saint Ambrose
11. Platonism
12. Tolle, lege; tolle, lege!
13. Retreat in Cassiciacum
14. Baptism in Milan with Adeodatus and Alypius at the Easter
Vigil (24 April 387)
15. Monica died in 387 at Ostia
16. Monastic community in Tagaste
17. In 391, ordained a priest
18. In 396, consecrated coadjutor bishop
19. In 397, made bishop of Hippo
20. Controversies
a. Manichaeism
b. Donatism
c. Pelagianism
d. Arianism
e. Leporino: a case of pre-Nestorianism
21. Augustine died 28 August 430
22. Buried in the Basilica Pacis
later Sardinia;
later Pavia San Pietro in Ciel dOro
THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE

1. Confessiones (397-400)
2. De civitate Dei (after 410)
THE THEOLOGY OF AUGUSTINE

1. Christology: Christus una persona in utraque natura
2. Man
a. Capax Dei
b. Indigens Deo
3. Evil =/= a substance
4. Mariology
a. Perpetual virginity
b. The Immaculate Conception
5. Original sin and justification
a. Ignorantia et infirmitas
b. Libertas minor (posse non peccare)
c. Libertas maior (non posse peccare)
6. The Church
a. Societas permixta
b. Communio sacramentorum
c. Communio sanctorum
d. Numerus praedestinatorum
e. Christus totus
f. Sine macula et ruga
7. The prayer of the Church = Christocentric
8. Contemplation (caritas veritatis)
9. Action (necessitas caritatis)
Texts:
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
12.1 The episcopal activity of Augustine according to P.

Agostino Trap, O.S.A.
Among the ordinary activities that must be numbered: the

Ministry of the Word (preached continuously twice a week
Saturday and Sunday often for several consecutive days or twice
a day); the audientia episcopi to listen and judge causes, which
frequently occupied him the entire day; the care of the poor and of
orphans; the formation of clergy, with whom he was fatherly, but
also strict;
the organization of male and female monasteries; visits to the sick;

intervention in favor of the faithful with the civil authorities (apud
saeculi potestates), which he did not love to do, but, when
considered appropriate, he did; the administration of ecclesiastical
goods, which he would gladly have given up, but he found no lay
person that wanted to take care of it.
Even more extraordinary activities: the many and long trips
to be present at the frequent African councils or to meet the
demands of colleagues; the dictations of letters to respond to
those, from every part and of every class, who addressed him; the
explanation and defense of the faith. This last need led him to
intervene non-stop against the Manicheans, the Donatists, the
Pelagians, the Arians, and the pagans (Patrologia III, 331-332).
12.2 The Personality of Augustine according to Agostino

Trap, O.S.A
A noble character, generous and strong; an insatiable search

of wisdom; a deep need of friendship; having a vibrant love of
Christ, the Church and the faithful; an application and a surprising
resistance to work; a moderate and even austere asceticism; a
sincere humility that is not afraid to acknowledge their mistakes;
and a constant dedication to the study of Scripture, to prayer, to
interior ascension, to contemplation (Patrologia III, 334).
12.3 The restless heart
12.3.1 Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua

et sapientiae tuae non est numerus. Et laudare te vult homo, aliqua
portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitatem suam,
circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium, quia
superbis resistis: et tamen laudari te vult homo, aliqua portio
creaturae tuae. Tu excitas, ut laudari te delectet, quia fecisti nos
ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te (Conf.
1.1.1).
12.3.2 Great are you, Lord, and worthy of the sum of praise: great
is your power and your wisdom cannot be measured. And man,
being a part of your creation, desires to praise you; man, who
carries about with him his mortality, who carries about with him
the proof of his sin and the proof that you resist the haughty. Yet
man, this part of your creation, desires to praise you. You push him
to find joy in your praises, for you have made us for yourself and
our heart is restless until it rests in you (Conf. 1.1.1).
12.4 Late have I loved you!

12.4.1 Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te
amavi! Et
ecce intus eras et ego foris et ibi te quaerebam et in ista formosa,
quae fecisti, deformis inruebam. Mecum eras, et tecum non eram.
Ea me tenebant longe a te, quae si in te non essent, non essent.
Vocasti et calmasti et rupisti surditatem meam, coruscasti,
splenduisti et fugasti caecitatem meam, fraglasti et duxi spiritum
et anhelo tibi, gustavi et esurio et sitio, tetigisti me et exarsi in
pacem tuam (Conf. 10.27.38).
12.4.2 Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new,
late have I loved you! And behold, you were in me and I was
outside, and I searched there for you, and in my ugliness, I plunged
myself in the beauties you created. You were with me, but I was not
with you. Created things kept me far from you, yet if they had not
been in you, they would not have been. You shouted and called and
you broke through my deafness, you flashed, you shone and you
dispelled my blindness, you sent forth your fragrance and I
breathed of it and now I yearn for you, I tasted of it and now I
hungered and thirst for you, you touched me, and I burned for your
peace (Conf. 10.27.38).
12.5 Homo Mediator
12.5.1 Inde et mediator Dei et hominum, quia Deus cum Patre,

quia homo
cum hominibus. Non mediator homo praeter deitatem; non
mediator Deus praeter humanitatem. Ecce mediator. Divinitas sine
humanitate non est mediatrix, humanitas sine divinitate non est
mediatrix. Sed inter divinitatem solam et humanitatem solam,
mediatrix est humana divinitas et divina humanitas Christi (s.
47.21).
12.5.2 Qui, si tantum homo esset, mediator non esset; si tantum

deus esset, mediator non esset. Si autem mediator non esset, non
reconciliaret hominem deo, qui per iniquitatem longe fuerat
separatus (s. Dobleau 26.36).
12.5.3 He [the Lord] however appeared to men prepared also to

send them the bread sent down from heaven: he gave to men his
own Son equal to himself, or better still, of the same essence. He
became man and let himself be killed for the good of humanity. In
this way, beginning with what you are yourself, you come to enjoy
that which you are not. It was unprecedented for you to taste the
sweetness of God, this being a reality far from you and sublime out
of all proportion, while you were a vile creature and lay in
profound misery. To fill this great abyss was sent a Mediator. Being
man, you were not able to approach God; and then God became
man and you who being man were incapable of going to God while
you were able to approach man, through man you are able now to
reach God. This because there is one who was made mediator
between God and men: the man Jesus Christ. If he had been only
man, you, though following him, would never have come to God, as
he would have been
the same as you. If on the other hand he was only God, being
unable to identify you from different entities you would have been
equally unsuccessful at coming to God. But behold that God has
become man, and thus you, walking in the footsteps of manwhich
is possible for youyou can come to Godwhich [otherwise] is
impossible for you. He is the mediator, thus able to fill you with
sweetness. For indeed what is sweeter than the bread of angels?
And will it not be the sweet Lord, if man was able to eat [of him
who is] the bread of angels? (en. Ps. 134.5).
12.6 The search for God
Do not go out, but turn into yourself, for in the interior of

man lives the truth; and if you find that your nature is changeable,
you transcend yourself. But remember, when you transcend
yourself, you transcend as a soul that reasons. Stretch out then to
wherever you ignite the light of reason (vera rel. 39.72).
12.7 Mariology: The Immaculate Conception
12.7.1 We except then the holy virgin Mary, in regard to whom out
of honor for the Lord I do not want to raise questions concerning
sin. Indeed, from him we know of how much more grace, to
conquer sin under every aspect, was conferred on the Woman that
merited to conceive and bear him who most certainly had no sin.
So, other than this Virgin, if we only were able to gather all those
holy men and women and ask them if they had been without sin
during their earthly life, what do we think their answer would be?
(De natura et gratia 36.42).
12.7.2 I am not saying that men are not released even by means of
grace... But we say what you do not wish to: that men were not
freed if not by means of grace, not only because their debts were
forgiven of them, but also because they were not led into
temptation. We do not assign Mary to the devil for the condition of
being born, but for this: because the same condition of being born
is solved by the grace of rebirth (C.. Iul. op. imp. 4.122).
12.7.3 Are not teaching you something of which you are ignorant
but reminding you what you know already. Our Lord and savior
Jesus Christ is the head of the body. He, the one mediator between
God and humanity, the human Jesus, was born of a virgin in a
solitary place, as we learn from the Book of Revelation. I think this
mention of solitude is a way of saying that he alone was born of a
virgin. The woman bore him
to rule his people with an iron rod. But this woman is the ancient
city of God, of which a psalm sings: Glorious things are spoken of
you, city of God. This city originates from Abel, as the wicked city
derives from Cain. This city of God is therefore very ancient.
Tolerating the earth, it hope is fixed on heaven. It is called both
Jerusalem and Zion. A psalm says of him who was born in Zion yet
is also Zions founder: Zion, my mother, a man will say. Who is this
man? He who was made man in her; the Most High himself
established her. He was indeed made man in Zion. As man he was
made lowly, yet all the while he was the Most High who established
the city in which he was himself made man. This is why the woman
who bore him is said to have been clothed with the sun, the very
sun of righteousness unknown to the godless, who will lament at
the end: No doubt of it, we strayed from the path of truth. On us
the light of righteousness did not shine, nor did the sun rise for us.
Evidently there is a sun of righteousness that does not dawn upon
the godless, though scripture also tells us that [God] makes his sun
rise over good and evil alike. This woman who was clothed with the
sun was pregnant with a male child and about to give birth. Her
child was he who had founded Zion, and the woman was the city of
God, [revise the following section] protected by the light of the one
of whom was mother bodily. In this way one understands because
the moon was under his feet: because she, with her strength, threw
the condition of mortal flesh that grows and shrinks. (Exposition on
the Psalms 142.3).
12.7.4 Rursus autem ad hoc intentam facimus Caritatem vestram,

non docendo quod ignoratis, sed admonendo quod nostis;
Dominum et Salvatorem nostrum Iesum Christum caput esse
corporis sui, illum unum mediatorem esse Dei et hominum,
hominem Iesum, natum ex virgine, tamquam in solitudine, sicut in
Apocalypsi audivimus. Per solitudinem quippe arbitror, quod solus
ita natus est. Hunc enim illa mulier peperit, recturum populum in
virga ferrea. Haec autem mulier, antiqua est civitas Dei, de qua in
psalmo dicitur: Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, civitas Dei . Haec civitas
initium habet ab ipso Abel, sicut mala civitas a Cain. Antiqua ergo
ista civitas Dei, semper tolerans terram, sperans coelum, quae
etiam Ierusalem vocatur et Sion. Utique de nato quodam in Sion, et
conditore ipsius Sion, psalmus quidam dicit: Mater Sion, dicet
homo. Quis homo? Et homo factus est in ea; et ipse fundavit eam
Altissimus. Denique ipse in Sion factus est homo, sed humilis
factus est homo; et idem ipse Altissimus fundavit eam civitatem in
qua factus est homo. Itaque et illa mulier sole cooperiebatur, sole
ipso iustitiae quem non cognoscunt impii; qui dicturi sunt in fine:
Ergo erravimus a via veritatis, et iustitiae lumen non luxit nobis, et
sol non ortus est nobis. Est ergo quidam sol iustitiae qui non oritur
impiis. Caeterum istum solem facit oriri super bonos et malos. Ergo
et amicta erat sole, et gestabat visceribus masculum paritura. Idem
ipse erat condens Sion, et nascens in Sion: et illa mulier civitas
Dei, eius luce protegebatur,
cuius carne gravidabatur. Merito et lunam sub pedibus habebat,

quia mortalitatem crescentis et decrescentis carnis virtute
calcabat (Enarratio in Psalmo 142.3).
12.8 Original Sin (P. Agostino Trap, O.S.A.)
Original sin is concupiscence joined to the offense (De nupt.

et conc.1,25,28-26,29), meaning for concupiscence the inclination
of the soul to prefer temporal goods to eternal ones (De mend. 7,
10) and for the offense the state of enmity with God and the
privation of the divine life (De pecc. mer. et rem. 1, 11, 13-39,70;
2,28,45) (Patrologia III, 412).
Appetite Concupiscence
(a good) (an evil, if disordered)
Ordered Disordered
(Subject to the reason) without offense
forgiven in baptism
without personal consent
thus, in itself =/= sin, even if it
is an evil
12.9 Vis sentiendi (appetite) vs. vitium concupiscenti

(concupiscence)
12.9.1 Alia est vis sentiendi, aliud vitium concupiscendi; discerne

duo ista diligenter, noli errare deformiter. Alia est, inquam, vis
sentiendi, aliud vitium concupiscendi. Lege Evangelium: Qui
viderit, inquit, mulierem ad concupiscendum eam, iam moechatus
est eam in corde suo. Non dixit: Qui viderit, quod est sentire per
eum sensum corporis qui dicitur visus; sed: qui viderit, inquit, ad
concupiscendum, quod est videre ad malum. Visus ergo sensus
carnis est bonus: concupiscentia vero carnis motus est malus (c.
Iul. imp. 4.29).
12.9.2 The faculty of sensation is one thing, and the vice of lusting
after is different. Distinguish these two realities and do not mean
to be mistaken by deformity. I repeat: different is the faculty of
sensation from the vice of lusting after. Read the gospel: He who
looks, it declares, upon a woman to desire her, has already
committed adultery with her in his heart. It did not say: He who
looks, which is the perception by means of that sense of the body
which is called sight, but it said: He who looks to desire, that is
looking to do evil. Sight therefore is a good sense of the flesh,
concupiscence is instead a bad movement of the flesh (c. Iul. imp.
4.29).
12.10 Ignorantia et infirmitas
12.10.1 Nolunt homines facere quod iustum est, sive quia latet an
iustum sit
sive
quia non delectat. Tanto enim quidque vehementius volumes,

quanto certius quam bonum sit novimus eoque delectamur
ardentius. Ignorantia igitur et infirmitas vitia sunt, quae impediunt
voluntatem, ne moveatur ad faciendum opus bonum vel ab opere
malo abstinendum. Ut autem innotescat quod latebat et suave fiat
quod non delectabat, gratiae Dei est, qua hominum adiuvat
voluntates (pecc. mer. 2.17.26).
12.10.2 Men do not want to do what is right for two reasons:

because it remains hidden if it is right and because it is not
delightful. In fact even more strongly we want something when we
know better the size of its goodness and as much as it most
ardently delights us. So ignorance and weakness are the vices that
prevent the will from being determined to do a good work or to
abstain from a bad work. But the gift of Gods grace makes known
that which was hidden and sweet that which was not delightful,
which [i.e. the grace] helps the wills of men (pecc. mer. 2.17.26).
12.11 Justification
12.11.1 He who created you without you did not justify you
without you: he created one who did not know it, but he does not
justify one who does not wish it (s. 169.11.13).
12.11.2 When God crowns our merits, he crowns nothing other

than his gifts (ep. 186.10)
12.12 The prayer of the Body of Christ
12.12.1 Nullum maius donum prestare posset Deus hominibus,

quam ut
Verbum suum per quod condidit omnia, faceret illis caput, et illos
ei tamquam membra coaptaret, ut esset Filius Dei et filius hominis,
unus Deus cum Patre, unus homo cum hominibus, ut et quando
loquimur ad Deum deprecantes, non inde Filius separemus, et
quando precatur corpus Filii, non a se separet caput suum, sitque
ipse unus salvator corporis sui Dominus noster Iesus Christus
Filius Dei, qui et oret pro nobis, et oret in nobis, et oretur a nobis.
Orat pro nobis, ut sacerdos noster; orat in nobis, ut caput nostrum,
oratur a nobis, ut Deus noster. Agnoscamus ergo et in illo voces
nostras, et voces eius in nobis (en. Ps. 85.1).
12.12.2 God could not have handed out to men a gift greater than
making their head his same Word, through whose means he had
created the universe the same that which is their head, the same
as his Word through whom uniting them to himself as members, in
this way he was the son of God and son of man, one God together
with the Father, one man together with men. From there it follows
that, when we speak to God and pray, we must not separate
the Son from him, and when the body of the Son prays, it has not
considered itself separate from its; for the same person, the one
savior of the mystical body, our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, is he
that prays for us, that prays in us and is prayed to by us. He prays
for us as our priest; he prays in us as our head; he is prayed to by
us as our God. So let us recognize in him our voice and in us his
voice (en. Ps. 85.1).
12.13 The life of contemplation in action
12.13.1 No one should be so contemplative to forget in the course

of his contemplations that he must make himself helpful to his
neighbor, and no one must be so active to not seek contemplation
of God. In contemplation, one does not seek inactive rest, but the
discovery of truth, in order to progress in it without requiring that
others join in what has been found. In action, then, it is not honor
nor power of this life that should be sought, since all is vanity
under the sun, but goodness of the same work. Therefore the
love of truth seeks the quiets of contemplation (otium sanctum),
the necessity of love accepts the activity of the apostolate
(negotium iustum). If none impose this burden on us, we apply
ourselves to the study and to the contemplation of truth; but if it is
imposed on us we must accept it for the necessity of charity. Yet,
even in this case, we must not give up completely the joys of the
truth so that it may not happen that, deprived of that sweetness,
we are left oppressed by this necessity (De civitate Dei 19.19).
12.13.2 And so they that prefer the calm meditation of divine

thinks and are averse to the toil and the difficulty of action, not
believing themselves capable of exercising the active ministry in an
irreproachable way, might like, if it were possible, that the holy
Apostles and the ancient preachers of truth rose up to confront
again the spreading iniquity, because of which the fervor of charity
is cooled. But, on behalf of those that already have left the body
and are stripped of the tunic of flesh (though not separated from it
forever), the Church responds: I have removed the tunic, how can I
put it back on? One day it will regain this tunic, and, in those that
are now stripped of it, the Church will get dressed again in flesh;
but not now, now what is needed is to rewarm those that are cold;
which will happen only when the dead rise again. Finding it
therefore in difficulty by the lack of preachers, and remembering
its members, sound in doctrine and holy in habit but by now
stripped of their body, the Church groans and says: I have removed
the tunic, how can I put it back on? How can we now dress again in
flesh of them that were stripped of it, those of my members that
announcing the fervently the Gospel succeeded in opening the door
to Christ? (Io. eu. tr. 57.5).
Section 13: The Theological School of Antioch

DIODORUS OF TARSUS
1. Born in Antioch or Tarsus

2. Contemporary of Ambrose
3. After the death of Valens (378), was consecrated bishop of
Tarsus
4. Died before 394
5. Precursor to the Christology of Nestorius?
6. Exegesis
1. Antiochene Method literal
2. instead of
3. Historical value
4. Exegesis of the persons
THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA
1. Born around 350

2. Fellow Student of John Chrysostom at the school of Libanius
3. To the asketerion of Diodore of Tarsus with John Chrysostom
4. In 383, ordained a priest
5. In 392, consecrated bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia
6. Died in 428
7. Condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 553 with Iba
of Edessa and
Theodoret of Ciro: The Three Chapters
8. Exegesis
a. Literal, few types in the Old Testament
b. Old Testament/paganism New Testament
9. Christology
a. Homo assumptus
b.
c. Human autonomy
d. Against Apollinarius
e. Danger = doctrine of the two Sons
f. Union = one sole
g. Metaphor of indwelling
Section 14: The Council of Chalcedon:

Nestorius, Cyril of Alexandria and Leo
NESTORIUS
1. Born in 381 in Germanicia
2. Probably a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia
3. 10 October 428 consecrated bishop of Constantinople
4. Against

(Mother of the Man)
5. In favor of

(She who has welcomed God)

6. Council of Ephesus and Cyril of Alexandria (his uncle =
Theophilus)
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA
1. Born between 370 and 380 in Alexandria

2. The Synod of Oak
3. Patriarch of Alexandria 17 October 412
4. Died 27 June 444
5. Apollinarian formula!
6.
7.
LEO THE GREAT

1. Born at the end of the fourth century
2. Elected Bishop of Rome 19 August 440
3. Judicial Primate
4. Eutyches
a. Archimandrite in Constantinople
b. His Christology
i. Before the union from 2natures
ii. After only one nature

iii. ...
5. Tomus ad Flavianum 13 June 449
a. A double birth of Christ
b. A double consubstantiality
c. A double movement of approximation
d. Una persona in utraque natura
e. The two natures of the Person
i. Without confusion
ii. Immutable
iii. Indivisible
iv . Inseparable
f. Communicatio idiomatum
THE THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE
INTRODUCED AT THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON
(from H. Drobner, Patrologia 578580)
1. Antiochene Theology (first in Theodore of Mopsuestia)

a. = natura in the sense of an effective and concrete
reality
b. = the sum and subject of all the manifestations of
the same nature
c. The two natures have their own . Thus in Christ

d. Through their unification into a single subject,
only one
e. N.B. An equivocal use of the word
f. Union = (connection/conjoining
according to the will); thus there is full and perfect
autonomy of the two natures in Christ
g. So, Nestorius was not speaking of two Sons
h. The Alexandrians were saying, however, that the
vocabulary of Nestorius was insufficient, or even false, for
the solution of the same problem.
2. Alexandrian Theology
a. A vocabulary not significantly different from the
Antiochenes!
b. = indicates the nature

c. = their manifestations
d. However, the formula of union of Nestorius,

i. Too weak for the intimate union of the two natures in
Christ
ii. Gives the impression of two Sons
e. Thus, the union is at the level of nature
i. =
ii. The unity =
iii. Not exactly the hypostatic union of Chalcedon
1. has the same meaning as persona
2. The Alexandrians were not accepting this change
of meaning
3. The Latin representatives in the tradition of Saint Augustine

a. cannot be translated by substance (substantia)
because of the doctrine of the Trinity
b. Therefore, =persona
i. The exterior manifestation
ii. The subject of action. Behold, Augustinian
Christology: una persona
in utraque natura!
c. In the end, the Latins preferred Cyril
= una persona = one subject
d. The Latins refute Nestorius
= una persona = one manifestation
e. However, for Nestorius, can also mean subject!
In this sense, the same term came to be adopted by
Antiochene Theology (Drobner 580). The Romans did not
account for this.
4. In conclusion: Has Nestorius therefore been unjustly
condemned as a heretic? If one begins with the assumption of
what he intended by his statements, he was orthodox. Yet the
crucial point of a dogmatic-historical development is that at a
crossroads it has to choose a directionin this case, a
formulation and reject the other as wrong and hence as
heretical. In this sense, Nestorius was rightly expelled as a
heretic because his solution was not accepted by the church
despite the fact that, according to current understanding, it
was also able to express what the church intended to express
and because Nestorius did not adhere to the churchs
decision (Drobner, Patrologia 580).

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A. M. D. G.

PNAC 3rd English Edition (2013)

TP1011 INTRODUCTION TO PATROLOGY AND CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

Section 1: Patrology, Patristics and Ancient Christian Literature; the Study of

2. Working Resource for Consultation:

3. Church History: HENRY CHADWICK, The Church in Ancient Society: From

Section 1: Patrology, Patristics and Ancient

II. The presentation of the Fathers (Congregation for Catholic

III. The 4 Characteristics of the Fathers [Petrus Annatus 1638-

IV. Church Writers and Doctors

2) The Greek Fathers:

V. Patristic Theological Method

VI. St. Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises

1.1 The Second Vatican Council

Dogmatic theology should be so arranged that these biblical

1.2 Something of a Singularity in the Fathers

In the Fathers there is something of a singularity, something

1.3 Separation of Ecclesial Tradition

The days following the council, the confrontation between/of

interest...Regarding the tendencies, sometimes too risqu, which

1.4 Paolo VI and the Study of the Fathers

The study of the Fathers, useful for all, is of great necessity

1.5 St. Vincent of Lerins definition

1.6 Joseph Ratzinger and the Patristic Age

1.7 The Testimony from Irenaeus about Polycarp

1.7.2 EUSEBIUS cites a letter from IRENAEUS to Florinus: I

1.8 The Patristic Theological Method and Sacred Scripture

The Fathers have given, in such a way, the first conscious

1.9 Defense of the Faith: Deepening the Understanding of

St. Augustines response to the increase of heretics: God has

1.10 The Ineffability of God

St. Gregory of Nazianzus: It is difficult to conceive God but to

to the full understanding of the truth (Oration 28.4).

1.11 The Theologians

St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Not to everyone, my friends, does

1.12 The Need for Prayer

FIRST, with your permission, let us examine the all-perfect

1.13 Being Purified from Sin

If then I am asked, in what manner either words or sensible

1.14 The Study of the Fathers and the Grace from

1.14.1 11.a rule. Eleventh. To praise positive and scholastic

1.14.2 The Grace of Contemplation: ...because I...in everything

1.15 The Whole Tradition

The study of the fathers facilitates a solid understanding of

Section 2: The Apocryphal Books: Canonization

2. Writings of the Apostolic Fathers read as Scripture:

4. The three operating criteria in the canonization of the NT:

5. Testimony Documentation concerning the Canon

(2) Complete List

THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS

2. The Apocryphal Gospels of the Infancy

THE PROTOGOSPEL OF JAMES

Although the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews is

2.2 Hebrews 6:4-6

For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been

2.3 Hebrews 10:26-31

If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth,

2.4 The Regula Fidei and the Symbols

It must be recognized that many of the consulted writers

2.5 Origen: The apocrypha & the canonical scriptures

It would be toilsome and irrelevant to the matter in hand for

It was with them in mind that Enoch, the seventh patriarch

2.7 The Proto-gospel of James