Mimesis, Typology, and Allegory

Posted on August 5, 2014 by krhughes14

Unknown-1What do scholars mean by the words typology and allegory? Incredibly, though these two terms describing non-literal interpretation are crucial for understanding how scripture was read in early Christianity, there is very little consensus on what exactly they mean, or even if there is any difference between them! Below is a brief presentation of one influential way of understanding typology and allegory. But before we can do that, two points by way of introduction:

First, we must note that the distinction between the English words “typology” and “allegory” is a modern one, not an ancient one, as it was first introduced in the twentieth century. To compound matters, the Fathers used the Greek antecedents of these words in ways that don’t easily conform to any of the modern definitions. Small wonder some scholars want to throw out the terms altogether.

Second, we should observe that, when we are distinguishing typology and allegory from “literal” interpretation, the term “literal” is itself problematic. By “literal” (that is, “according to the letter/wording”), the Fathers did not have in mind modern historical-grammatical exegesis, much less some notion of historical precision. Generally speaking, in contrast to the figural modes of interpretation we will soon discuss, the Fathers’ notion of the “literal” meaning indicated a straightforward correspondence between the wording and the intended reference, whatever that may be. Attention is placed upon the surface, “plain sense” of the words.

What follows is a brief presentation of the argument of Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1997). While not all scholars agree with Young’s perspective, I’ve found it particularly helpful for thinking about these issues, and so that’s what I’ve chosen to present here.

Early Christian Mimēsis

For Young, both typology and allegory are part of a larger strategy of reading which Young terms “mimēsis,” or figural representation. Insofar as Christian readers want to enter into the world of the biblical text, this requires some degree of imitation or representation between the figures or events in the text and those in the present (or future) day. After all, if the Bible is read merely on the level of “things that happened in the past,” it ceases to have much applicational value for the believer in the present! Thus, early Christians read the Bible mimetically. As Young writes (209):

“Mimēsis was a key concept in ancient understanding of literature. The performance of epic or drama created a ‘representation’ of life from which the audience learnt. In the ancient Church mimēsis or ‘representation’ was important. It underlay the enactment of the saving events in the sacraments, as well as the ‘exemplary’ use of scripture: great heroes were listed to illustrate a particular virtue, so a character like Job came to embody patience, and Christ’s life and death were set forth as a way to be imitated. […] ‘Mimetic exegesis’ assumes the replay of a drama – an act or plot – and so had a place in forming ethics, lifestyle and liturgy.” 

Both typology and allegory were used in mimetic exegesis, serving the broader goal of “forming ethics, lifestyle, and liturgy” (often referred to as paraenesis). The difference, then, lies in the nature of the mimēsis. Young distinguishes between two kinds of mimēsis: iconic and symbolic, and associates these with typology and allegory.

Typology, Young argues, makes use of ikonic mimēsis: that is, “representation (mimēsis) through genuine likeness, an analogy, ‘ikon’ or image” (210). This “requires a mirroring of the supposed deeper meaning in the text taken as a coherent whole” (162). This form of nonliteral reading is generally associated with early Christian exegetes in Antioch.

Allegory, on the other hand, makes use of symbolic mimēsis: that is, representation “by a symbol, something unlike which stands for the reality” (210). This “involves using other words as symbols or tokens, arbitrarily referring to other realities by application of a code, and so destroying the narrative, or surface, coherence of the text” (162). This form of nonliteral reading is generally associated with early Christian exegetes in Alexandria (including, most famously, Origen).

In other words, whereas allegory sees an overall coherence in the deeper meanings behind the biblical text, typology insists on the coherence of the text or narrative itself. The question to be asked, therefore, is: Does a given nonliteral interpretation preserve or break the surface-level narrative meaning of the text? This, Young argues, was what was at stake in the debate between Alexandria and Antioch: the Antiochenes criticized the arbitrariness of Alexandrian allegorical interpretation, and instead sought “to find a genuine connection between what the text said and the spiritual meaning discerned through contemplation of the text” (210), which we are here calling “ikonic” mimēsis or typology. Thus, to summarize (212):

“The debate [between Alexandria and Antioch] was about the connections between different exegetical processes, about the coherence of different levels of reading, about the appropriate way of focussing on the text and its ‘mimetic’ relationship to reality. Both Origen and the Antiochenes believed scripture was about heavenly realities, but for Origen scripture was a veil, a shadow, which might obscure as much as reveal; for the reality behind the ‘tokens’ was not self-evident. The Antiochenes found this arbitrary and insisted on attending to what we might call the internal clues to the way the text or narrative ‘mirrored’ the truth. Both presupposed that every literary text clothed the ‘mind’ in its ‘wording’, and the issue was how the two related to one another.”

An Example of Typology

Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha (“On the Passover”) is a second-century homily known for its typological use of Scripture. In the selection below (66–69; trans. Kerux), note the connection Melito makes between Jesus’ atoning death on the cross and the story of the Passover in Exodus:

When this one came from heaven to earth for the sake of the one who suffers, and had clothed himself with that very one through the womb of a virgin, and having come forth as man, he accepted the sufferings of the sufferer through his body which was capable of suffering. And he destroyed those human sufferings by his spirit which was incapable of dying. He killed death which had put man to death.

tumblr_lwtq96oU641qa0m3lo1_500-1For this one, who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, by himself delivered us from servitude to the world as from the land of Egypt, and released us from bondage to the devil as from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls by his own spirit and the members of our bodies by his own blood.

This is the one who covered death with shame and who plunged the devil into mourning as Moses did Pharaoh. This is the one who smote lawlessness and deprived injustice of its offspring, as Moses deprived Egypt. This is the one who delivered us from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from death into life, from tyranny into an eternal kingdom, and who made us a new priesthood, and a special people forever.

This one is the passover of our salvation. This is the one who patiently endured many things in many people: This is the one who was murdered in Abel, and bound as a sacrifice in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and sacrificed in the lamb, and hunted down in David, and dishonored in the prophets.

Melito, therefore, clearly sees the Paschal lamb as a “type” of Christ, and finds other connections between Christ’s suffering and people or events in the Old Testament. As Young points out (193-96), this is an example of “iconic mimēsis,” as Melito’s homily does not in any way disrupt the actual narrative of the Exodus account. Instead, the language of the Exodus is used to illuminate and give depth and significance to our understanding of the crucifixion. Passover, in Melito’s interpretation, points forward to, prefigures, and mirrors Jesus’ death, which we might, therefore, speak of as a “Paschal mystery.”

Here it’s worth noting that, in Young’s opinion, the traditional scholarly take on typology, namely that it is “historical” while allegory is not, is wrong. Using this text as an example,  she notes, “The historicity of the event behind the text is not at issue for Melito—in fact, Melito graphically retells the story according to rhetorical conventions, allusion and quotation ‘mimicking’ the scriptural narrative by creatively reminting it” (194); in other words, “the ‘reality’ lies in the fulfilment [of scripture], not in an event whose occurrence in the past is its principal feature” (195). Typology in this sense, then, is essentially prophetic, with emphasis on the event’s mimetic fulfillment.

An Example of Allegory

In contrast, look at how the Epistle of Barnabas, an anti-Jewish polemic dating from the late first or early second century, uses the Old Testament. With respect to the commands of the Mosaic Law which prohibited the people of Israel from eating certain animals, Ps.-Barnabas says the following (Barn. 10.1-9; trans. Holmes):

Now when Moses said, “You shall not eat a pig, or an eagle or a hawk or a crow, or any fish that has no scales,” he received, according to the correct understanding, three precepts. 

Furthermore, he says to them in Deuteronomy, “I will set forth as a covenant to this people my righteous requirements.” Therefore it is not God’s commandment that they should not eat; rather Moses spoke spiritually. 

Accordingly he mentioned the pig for this reason: you must not associate, he means, with such people, who are like pigs. That is, when they are well off, they forget the Lord, but when they are in need, they acknowledge the Lord, just as the pig ignores its owner when it is feeding, but when it is hungry it starts to squeal and falls silent only after being fed again. 

“Neither shall you eat the eagle or the hawk or the kite or the crow.” You must not, he means, associate with or even resemble such people, who do not know how to provide food for themselves by labor and sweat but lawlessly plunder other people’s property; indeed, though they walk about with the appearance of innocence, they are carefully watching and looking around for someone to rob in their greed, just as these birds alone do not provide food for themselves but sit idle and look for ways to eat the flesh of others—they are nothing more than pests in their wickedness. 

“And you shall not eat,” he says, “sea eel or octopus or cuttlefish.” You must not, he means, even resemble such people, who are utterly wicked and are already condemned to death, just as these fish alone are cursed and swim in the depths, not swimming about like the rest but living in the mud beneath the depths. 

Furthermore, “You shall not eat the hare.” Why? Do not become, he means, one who corrupts children, or even resemble such people, because the hare grows another opening every year, and thus has as many orifices as it is years old.

Again, “Neither shall you eat the hyena.” Do not become, he means, an adulterer or a seducer, or even resemble such people. Why? Because this animal changes its nature from year to year, and becomes male one time and female another. 

But he also hated the weasel, and with good reason. Do not become, he means, like those men who, we hear, with immoral intent do things with the mouth that are forbidden, and do not associate with those immoral women who do things with the mouth that are forbidden. For this animal conceives through its mouth. 

Concerning food, then, Moses received three precepts to this effect and spoke in a spiritual sense, but because of their fleshly desires the people accepted them as though they referred to actual food. 

For Ps.-Barnabas, the Jews misunderstood the dietary laws: they were never about refraining from certain foods; instead, they were really about certain kinds of people whom one should avoid. This clearly falls under Young’s category of “symbolic mimēsis,” as the words of the text (viz., the different animals) are in fact symbols speaking of something entirely different (viz., different people). The narrative or surface meaning of the text—that the Jews were not to eat certain foods—has been destroyed, replaced with an entirely meaning. This kind of extreme allegory (see, for instance, the example of the hare above) was criticized, by both the Antiochenes as well as many today, as being arbitrary. But you can see the appeal to Ps.-Barnabas of making this move (which he inherited from the Jewish exegete Philo): on the Christian assumption that the Mosaic food laws are no longer binding in this dispensation, in what sense can these verses of Scripture be thought of as “useful” and “profitable” for teaching or discipleship? Nevertheless, later Christian tradition, even among later Christian allegorists, did not follow Ps.-Barnabas in this particular line of interpretation. So much for the sex-changing hyenas!

An Example with Shades of Both Typology and Allegory

Finally, we’ll consider Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses, a text dating from the late fourth century. In this text, Gregory presents Moses as a paradigmatic Christian, with various elements in Moses’ life serving as models for how the virtuous Christian should live. For example, with respect to the scene in which Moses kills an Egyptian and flees to Midian (Exod 2:11-21), Gregory comments (Life of Moses 15–18; trans. Malherbe & Ferguson):

Moses teaches us by his own example to take our stand with virtue as with a kinsman and to kill virtue’s adversary. The victory of true religion is the death and destruction of idolatry. So also injustice is killed by righteousness and arrogance is slain by humility.

The dispute of the two Israelites with each other occurs also in us. There would be no occasion for wicked, heretical opinions to arise unless erroneous reasonings withstood the truth. If, therefore, we by ourselves are too weak to give the victory to what is righteous, since the bad is stronger in its attacks and rejects the rule of truth, we must flee as quickly as possible (in accordance with the historical example) from the conflict to the greater and higher teaching of the mysteries.St._Gregory_of_Nyssa

And if we must again live with a foreigner, that is to say, if need requires us to associate with profane wisdom, let us with determination scatter the wicked shepherds from their unjust use of the wells—which means let us reprove the teachers of evil for their wicked use of instruction.

In the same way we shall live a solitary life, no longer entangled with adversaries or mediating between them, but we shall live among those of like disposition and mind who are fed by us while all the movements of our soul are shepherded, like sheep, by the will of guiding reason.

What do we make of a text like this? Clearly, it is a figurative, mimetic reading of this account in Moses’ life, but would we categorize it as typology or allegory? For here, “the allegorical element is undeniable, interwoven with the kind of figurality which often goes by the name typology” (Young, 259). Here the labels cease to be effective descriptions of what is going on. Though she labels this “essentially paraenetic” form of interpretation (that is, “its purpose was to provide patterns on which people could model their lives”; 263), it  is clear that both typology and allegory are here “woven together in developing a figural reading which can map the journey which constitutes the life of faith” (264). Here, in conclusion, we have a reminder that, while our modern labels of “typology” and “allegory” may be helpful to some extent as terms for helping us understand how the Antiochenes conceived of “good” and “bad” figural interpretation, we must be careful not to be dogmatic in our application of them.

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“Children in Paradise”: Gregory of Nazianzus on Gen 2-3

Posted on July 23, 2014 by krhughes14

UnknownIf there’s one thing I know about the early chapters of Genesis, it’s that they often raise far more questions than they do answers; not surprisingly, modern interpreters still struggle to make even the most basic of decisions, such as how we should categorize these chapters with respect to genre. The ancients, it seems, were no less puzzled by some of the unexplained details of Gen 1-11. To take just one example: what’s up with God planting a tree smack in the middle of the garden from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat? Why bother creating such a temptation? Gregory Nazianzen proposes a creative and thought-provoking solution (Oration 38.12; trans. N. V. Harrison):

[Adam] was placed in paradise, whatever that paradise was then, honored with self-determination so that the good would belong to the one who chose it no less than to the one who provided its seeds.

In other words, it was necessary for God to create humans with free will, that they might themselves be sources of good (perhaps this is part of what it means to be created in the imago Dei). But the tree of knowledge was not meant to always be a mere test:

God gave [Adam] a law as material on which his self-determination could work, and the law was a commandment indicating which plants he could possess and which one he was not to touch. And that was the tree of knowledge, which was neither planted from the beginning through envy—let the enemies of God not wag their tongues in that direction, nor imitate the serpent—but would be good if possessed at the right time. For the tree is contemplation, according to my own contemplation, which is only safe for those of mature disposition to undertake; but it is not good for those who are still simpler and those greedy in their desire, just as adult food is not useful for those who are tender and still in need of milk. 

Note how, for Nazianzen, the garden is not simply a really nice arboretum but a symbol of thinking God’s own thoughts (two ideas linked by their common use of the word “cultivation”). But whereas contemplation of the divine is reserved for those who are spiritually adults, Adam and Eve were merely “children in paradise.” The tree of knowledge could have been theirs, had they just waited until they grew up.

As N. V. Harrison summarizes (Festal Orations, p. 50), “God’s plan was to educate their freedom by letting them practice not eating from the tree of knowledge. In this way, they would have grown to adulthood and been prepared to eat from it, just as an ascetic grows through the practice of the virtues and resistance to temptations, so as to be ready for the contemplation for which humankind was indeed created. Adam and Eve’s sin was grasping at contemplation too soon, like a young, overly zealous monk who, like them, is headed for a fall.”

I wonder, though: in our day and age, are we not so much overly zealous in our desire for divine contemplation as we are dismissive of our very ability to do so? Perhaps we need to spend some time cultivating the garden.

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Book Review: Books and Readers in the Early Church

Posted on July 11, 2014 by krhughes14

In honor of Professor Gamble’s recent retirement, I give you this recap of his best-known work, a must-read for anyone interested in textual criticism, material culture, and the use of Scripture in early Christianity:

Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. Pp. xii + 337.

While the contents of early Christian documents have been carefully studied for centuries by textual critics and theologians alike, very little attention has been given to the physical characteristics of these documents themselves, much less the broader questions of how and why early Christian literature was produced, transmitted, and read. Harry Gamble’s Books and Readers in the Early Church sets out to answer all of these questions and more.

The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the topics of literacy and literary culture in early Christianity. Beginning with the topic of literacy, Gamble employs comparative analysis of literacy in the ancient world to demonstrate that Christian literacy, on the assumption that it parallels that of the Greco-Roman world at large, was likely no more than about 10 percent in any given setting. Gamble is quick to note, however, that even if most Christians were illiterate, they nevertheless had frequent contact with Christian texts, through the liturgical reading of Scripture and the process of catechesis. Those Christians with a high level of education were likely quickly put forward as leaders in the church. On the subject of literary culture, Gamble is particularly concerned to refute the view of form critics who maintained that Christianity was a nonliterary phenomenon which played oral tradition against the production of texts. Gamble, however, uses parallels from Qumran and the existence of written documents from even the earliest years of Christianity (e.g., Q and early testimonia collections), to argue that oral and written tradition in fact stood alongside one another from the beginning. By and large, the early Christian texts, although not of a high-class literary character, were not therefore vulgar; rather, they occupied an intermediate level of style, utilizing established rhetorical conventions. Thus, early Christian literature can be viewed against the backdrop of the literary culture of the early Roman empire.

Chapter 2 focuses on the physical form of the Christian book. After describing how papyrus and parchment rolls were made in the Greco-Roman world, Gamble focuses on the transition from the roll to the codex. Against those who argue that early Christianity “invented” the codex form, Gamble takes the more moderate position that Christians were merely the first to consistently use the codex as not just a notebook but a medium of literature. Gamble deconstructs many others’ views of why the early Christians favored the codex, before advancing his own argument, which holds that the earliest edition of the Pauline letter collection must have been a codex, and it was the authority of this collection which led to subsequent Christian adoption of the codex. Gamble then turns to a discussion of the quality of the inscriptional features and scribal hands of these early Christian books, which he locates, like the language of the Greek New Testament, as somewhere between the vulgar and high-literary registers.

Chapter 3 takes up the subject of the publication and circulation of early Christian books. Again starting with a discussion of this practice in the Greco-Roman world more broadly within which Christian practice can be situated, Gamble argues that most early Christian literature was privately copied and circulated by Christians themselves. Gamble also suggests that there was little difference in how scriptural and non-scriptural texts were produced and circulated on account of the flexibility of the canon in the earliest centuries. This pattern of “publication” continued in the subsequent centuries; rather than imagining a commercial booktrade, we are to think of Christians privately making their works available to be copied through personal contacts. Despite these parallels with the pagan world, early Christian literature was unique in that it was disseminated more rapidly and more broadly than almost any pagan work, which is not surprising given the essential role that books played in Christian life and worship across the empire.

Chapter 4 takes us inside the world of Christian libraries, which could take many different forms and sizes. On the smallest scale, congregational libraries were merely the small collections of books that individual congregations had accumulated for their liturgical, catechetical, and archival purposes. Often the books were housed not at the church itself but in the homes of the congregation’s readers. On a bigger scale, the first large-scale library was founded in Jerusalem in the early third century, though this was quickly eclipsed by the research library at Caesarea, which benefited from the patronage of Origen. The Caesarean library was involved with collating and revising scriptural texts, which likely required a scriptorium, and therefore had an enormous influence on the textual history of the Bible. The best-known library in the West, though, was in Hippo, owing to the presence of Augustine. Perhaps the most important legacy of these early Christian libraries, however, was their preservation of classical literature and scholarship into the modern era.

Chapter 5 concludes the book with a survey of the various uses to which Christian books could be put. Gamble focuses on the public reading of Christian books, primarily the reading of scripture in liturgical contexts, and argues for the early and enduring role of scriptural reading in Christian worship. Gamble makes the interesting claim that this liturgical reading of Scripture was, from the beginning, in fact chanted or sung, suggesting that a cantillated style was necessary in the absence of word division and punctuation. As such, we can think of the early lectores as not just readers but interpreters of the biblical text. After a brief discussion of the extent of private reading among early Christians, Gamble concludes with a discussion of the “magical” uses of Christian books. Gamble not only highlights the well-known use of scriptural texts in amulets, but also discusses how even great theologians such as Augustine and John Chrysostom attributed special powers to the written word.

Harry Gamble’s Books and Readers in the Early Church is a true tour de force, filling a major lacuna in early Christian scholarship and drawing on a seemingly endless parade of both primary and secondary sources. Gamble’s writing style is always clear and well-organized, if not always particularly colorful. By answering questions that most scholars would not have even thought to ask, Gamble shines a unique and exceedingly important light on the history of early Christianity. His explanation for the rise of the codex in early Christianity is particularly persuasive and memorable. Gamble’s comments on the scriptorium at Caesarea and the evidence for its text-critical work are also most interesting in light of recent scholarly trends to dismiss the existence of any kind of Caesarean redaction or text-type; I wish Gamble would have gone on about this in more detail.

Still, this book is not without a few shortcomings. Gamble occasionally makes assumptions that more recent research appears to be overturning (e.g., his correlation between documentary hands and careless transmission) or are simply speculative (e.g., that the Gospels received their titles so they could be more easily located in a library). Perhaps the biggest improvement in a second edition would be the inclusion of a postscript or conclusion; as it currently stands, the book simply ends after Gamble’s discussion of the magical uses of Christian books. Gamble thus does not make any attempt at synthesis, nor does he suggest further avenues of study, and I cannot help but feel the book suffers from this overly abrupt ending. Finally, it must be said that Yale University Press did Gamble a disservice with the cover’s garish color scheme and use of transliteration for all Greek quotations. Nevertheless, in sum, Gamble’s “book on books” is endlessly thought-provoking and worthy of careful consideration, and I wish him a very happy retirement!

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Chrysostom on the Good of Marriage, Part 2

Posted on July 4, 2014 by krhughes14

51VwMu+rXkLIn my final post on this subject, we encounter some truly beautiful words concerning marriage and family life as we arrive at the heart of Chrysostom’s positive view on marriage, which, I believe, stems from a principle found in his Homily 19 on 1 Corinthians. In this sermon, Chrysostom articulates the foundational point that all Christians, regardless of their marital status, are called to the same goal: holiness.

According to Chrysostom: “St Paul tells us to seek peace and the sanctification without which it is impossible to see the Lord. So whether we presently live in virginity, in our first marriage, or in our second, let us pursue holiness, that we may be counted worthy to see Him and to attain the Kingdom of Heaven, through the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ…“[1]

Thus, Chrysostom is not so much concerned with one’s marital status as he is with how one uses that status to pursue holiness. Virginity is indeed, for Chrysostom, an excellent state of being, but it is most certainly not commanded, nor is virginity necessary to live a holy life; while there are heavenly rewards for virginity, there is surely no punishment for those who choose to live a married life.[2] In fact, as we will now go on to explore, there are ways in which marriage can bring training for holiness and blessing that are unique to the marriage relationship, and that are in no way inferior to those of virginity.

For the way in which Chrysostom envisioned marriage as a means to promoting virtue, we must turn to his Homily 20 on Ephesians, which takes up the famous passage on marriage in Ephesians 5:22-33. First, Chrysostom discusses the means by which marriage promotes virtue in society at large. “The love of husband and wife,” Chrysostom argues, “is the force that welds society together.”[3] Why is this the case? As Chrysostom goes on, “Because when harmony prevails [that is, within a marriage], the children are raised well, the household is kept in order, and neighbors, friends and relatives praise the result. Great benefits, for both families and states, are thus produced. When it is otherwise, however, everything is thrown into confusion and turned upside-down.”[4]

Marriage, therefore, functions as a leaven in society, and it does so in a way that appears to go beyond that of Augustine and the earlier Chrysostom (which had more to do with ordering society by means of regulating sex) to encompass the entire household, producing benefits for the entire community, presumably from the effects of the family being united in piety and harmony.

But not only does marriage produce virtue in society as a whole, Chrysostom goes on to argue, it produces spiritual growth and holiness in the individual. Proceeding from the Pauline notion that a well-ordered household is a necessary qualification for a church leader, Chrysostom makes a remarkable move, linking the household with the church: “If we regulate our households in this way, we will also be fit to oversee the Church, for indeed the household is a little Church [καί ἡ οἰκία γὰρ Ἐκκλησία ἐστὶ μικρά]. Therefore it is possible for us to surpass [ὑπερβαλέσθαι] all others in virtue by becoming good husbands and wives.“[5]

This statement is extraordinary: the household, which proceeds from the union of man and woman in sexual intercourse, is in fact a “little Church.” That the home could be called a “little church” in the late fourth century, in an age of great basilicas and large congregations, is quite surprising; even in the earliest phase of the Christian movement, when small house churches were the norm, the literature of that time exhibits no collocation of ἐκκλησία and μικρά, nor is a single family unit ever itself referred to as an ἐκκλησία of any sort.[6] Just as the church is a place where sanctification and growth in holiness is to occur (at least ideally), so too within the home of believers. We should not miss the striking claim that “it is possible to surpass[7] all others in virtue by becoming good husbands and wives.” Implicit in this statement is that notion that a married person can pursue holiness just as well as a monk, a priest, or a virgin. In fact, Chrysostom continues, the household can be a uniquely helpful training ground for holiness. For, as Chrysostom illustrates, marriage offers, on a day-to-day basis, opportunities for spiritual growth, which occurs in the practice of the husband’s headship, the wife’s submission, and in the temptations to jealousy, quarreling, and nagging that are common to every marriage.[8]

Lest we miss Chrysostom’s point, he goes on to make a further comparison to illuminate the potential for the promotion of virtue within marriage: “If your marriage is like this, your perfection will rival the holiest of monks.”[9] By “this,” Chrysostom refers to his lengthy preceding description of the pursuit of holiness within the mundane business of married life, including esteeming one’s wife in the presence of her friends and children and furnishing one’s house neatly and soberly, the latter of which feeds into the broader theme of the couple’s renunciation of wealth, which is a major theme in this homily.[10] Here we have yet another extraordinary claim: the daily chores of married life and the couple’s approach to the finances of the household can be utilized for the purposes of sanctification just as much as the monk’s practices of chanting the psalter or keeping an ascetic lifestyle of physical and sexual renunciation.

Indeed, at the conclusion of this homily, Chrysostom further underscores the nature of the blessings that will follow from pursuing holiness within marriage. Summarizing his instructions for husbands, Chrysostom makes the following claim: “Teach her to fear God, and all other good things will flow from this one lesson as from a fountain and your house will be filled with ten thousand blessings. […] In this way we will be able to please God, and to pass through the course of this life in virtue and to gain the blessings which He has promised to those who love Him.”[11]

In marriage, Chrysostom is arguing, virtue and therefore blessing are available to those who are willing to work at growing in holiness. For learning “the fear of the Lord” is something that is available to all believers, whatever their circumstances. And thus we are back to the key principle from his Homily 19 on 1 Corinthians which we examined previously: that all Christians, regardless of their marital status, are called to the same goal of holiness. While virginity may bring extra rewards, marriage offers unique opportunities for growing in holiness; either way, what matters is that each Christian make the most of his or her station for spiritual growth.

Finally, Chrysostom argues for the good of marriage on the basis of marital love, which transcends this life. As Chrysostom writes, “Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that in the world to come you will be united in perfect love. Say to her, “Our time here is brief and fleeting, but if we are pleasing to God, we can exchange this life for the Kingdom to come. Then we will be perfectly one with Christ and each other, and our pleasure will know no bounds [μετὰ πλείονος τῆς ἡδονῆς].”[12]

Here Chrysostom speaks of how the love between husband and wife will, in the age to come, result in them being “united in perfect love,” in which they will be “perfectly one with Christ and each other.” Marriage, therefore, is not merely a temporary good (that is, for reproduction and chastity), but the basis for a relationship that will continue into eternity. Here we should also note the reappearance of “pleasure” [ἡδονή], which will likewise transcend any present-day notions of pleasure.

In conclusion, we should not be surprised when, in another of Chrysostom’s homilies, we hear him state that “there is nothing in the world sweeter for a man than having children and a wife.”[13] Though not himself married, Chrysostom had come to articulate a positive vision of marriage that would remain influential in the East. We are left wondering, however, what caused Chrysostom’s paradigm shift concerning marriage. Somewhat unfulfilling is Roth’s suggestion that, in contrast to his earlier lack of “fully appreciating the potential for grace in married life,” Chrysostom’s “experience as a pastor at Antioch and at Constantinople corrected this imbalance in his understanding.”[14] While this may well be the case, it is surely significant that many other Christian pastors and bishops of this time – Augustine comes to mind –did not change their views on marriage as Chrysostom did, despite what we may presume were similar pastoral circumstances. Thus, we are left with the intriguing question on what prompted Chrysostom’s expansive view of the “good” of marriage, but our sources do not appear to give us any firm guidance on this matter, and we will therefore have to leave this intriguing question unanswered.

To conclude: we have now examined two different accounts of the good of marriage from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, and concluded that while Augustine provides a measured, mediating perspective on the good of marriage, Chrysostom offers an expansive vision of the good of marriage centered around its ability to promote virtue. How then do we account for this difference? No doubt both Augustine and Chrysostom were shaped by their own personal experiences as well as the theological controversies of their day, some of which we have explored above. That being said, my sense is that these different accounts of the good of marriage roughly correspond to the tensions within the Pauline corpus itself (that is, between 1 Corinthians 7 and Ephesians 5). Scholars have long recognized differences in the approach to marriage in these two texts,[15] and indeed, read on their own, they appear to give somewhat different perspectives on marriage, with the latter granting something of a “higher” station to the joining of husband and wife. It should not be any surprise, then, that Augustine’s On the Good of Marriage is essentially an exposition of 1 Corinthians 7, whereas Chrysostom seems to draw on Ephesians 5 to illuminate both his view of marriage as a whole as well as his reading of 1 Corinthians 7 in particular.

In other words, this debate on the good of marriage, one in which Augustine and Chrysostom were neither the first nor the last Christians to engage in, can be traced back to a very real tension within the New Testament itself. Especially as questions of the good of marriage are inevitably bound up with divergent views on the nature of the body and of sexuality, we should not be the least bit surprised that consensus on the “biblical” or the “Christian” understanding of marriage was just as vexed in their day as it is in ours.

 

[1] In 1 Cor. hom. 19.168.

[2] Baur, John Chrysostom, 376.

[3] In Eph. hom. 20.143.

[4] In Eph. hom. 20.143.

[5] In Eph. hom. 20.151.

[6] Eph 5:22-33 compares husband and wife to Christ and the church, but this is nevertheless different from identifying household as church.

[7] Given the context of Ephesians, the choice of this verb ὑποβάλλω might be significant in light of the fact that 3 of the 5 NT usages of this verb are found in this book (1:19; 2:7; 3:19), though the references here are always in relation to the “surpassing” qualities of Christ.

[8] In Eph. hom. 20.153.

[9] In Eph. hom. 20.156.

[10] Cf. Hunter, Marriage in the Early Church, 20.

[11] In Eph. hom. 20.157-8.

[12] In Eph. hom. 20.155.

[13] In Matt. hom. 37.7, quoted in Kelly, Golden Mouth, 96.

[14] Roth, “Introduction,” 8.

[15] E.g., the emphasis on the subjection of the wife in Eph 5.24, an idea that is difficult to reconcile with certain texts from the undisputed Paulines; these differences, of course, are part of why some scholars dispute the Pauline authorship of Ephesians.

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Chrysostom on the Good of Marriage, Part 1

Posted on June 27, 2014 by krhughes14

51VwMu+rXkLThis week, we turn from Augustine in the West to a contemporaneous, and equally influential, figure in the East: John, who would later come to be known as “Chrysostom” (Golden Mouth) was born in Antioch around the middle of the fourth century, but his early life and writings held few clues that he was destined to become “the greatest apologist for Christian marriage.”[1] After receiving a pagan education, he was baptized in 367/368, and shortly thereafter embarked on a life of extreme asceticism, first within a semi-communal monastery and then as a completely isolated hermit, until ill health forced him to return to Antioch in 378.[2] His service in the diaconate at Antioch, however, initially did little to temper his ascetic zeal. In his treatise On Virginity, likely written during the early years of his diaconate, Chrysostom “goes out of his way to make an attack on marriage, not, of course, as an institution but in its actualities.”[3] Though marriage was not sinful, according to Chrysostom, it was far inferior to virginity, and its good was little more than to keep men from fornication.[4] Marriage is therefore, at best, a “haven of chastity, preventing human nature from relapsing into bestiality.”[5] Chrysostom even goes so far as to make a catalogue of all of the negative features of marriage, such as jealousy and the pain of childbirth.[6] As Catherine Roth observes, “His early life as the son of a widow and as a young monk perhaps failed to give him the opportunity of fully appreciating the potential for grace in married life.”[7]

Chrysostom, we should here note, was swept up in a larger ascetic movement that reached its peak in the late fourth century; in other words, his writings on marriage and virginity at this point reflect the times.[8] Similar ideas are found in other writers in the East around this time. For example, in Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise On Virginity, which was likely written in the 370s, Gregory had similarly outlined all of the dangers and disappointments of marriage. In both cases, marriage is described in bleak terms for the purpose of comparing it to the much loftier, more noble state of virginity.[9]

But Chrysostom’s views on marriage would evolve over the course of his time in Antioch. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 386, he assumed preaching duties. Chrysostom’s talents as a preacher were and continue to be well-recognized; “Chrysostom was born to be an orator and a preacher.”[10] And it is precisely in his powerful sermons that we find a new, even poignant vision of the good of Christian marriage, one in which “he no longer represents marriage to be the inevitably miserable affair he wrote of in the treatise On Virginity,” but instead “sets forth the practicable ideal of marriage very beautifully.”[11]

As an entry point into Chrysostom’s new views on marriage, we can note that he echoes the three-fold purpose of marriage set out by Augustine, albeit with a radically different view of marital sexuality undergirding his argument at each turn. We see this most clearly in his Homily 12 on Colossians, likely preached during his time as bishop of Constantinople in the 390s. Commenting on Colossians 4:18, in which the Apostle calls on the church at Colossae to “remember my bonds,” so Chrysostom compares marriage to a bond [δεσμός], “a bond ordained by God.”[12] This marriage bond, Chrysostom preaches, is “for the procreation of children and for moderation of life.”[13] Here we have a rough equivalent of Augustine’s proles and fides. Sharpening the parallel to Augustine, Chrysostom then goes on to give a third positive aspect of marriage, namely, the “mystery” (μυστήριον, corresponding to the Latin sacramentum) by which the marriage between husband and wife symbolizes the relationship between Christ and his church.[14] This much one could imagine coming from the pen of the bishop of Hippo.

But Chrysostom in this very sermon begins to reveal that he’s operating under a very different paradigm than Augustine when it comes to precisely how marital sexual relations figure into this scheme. For Chrysostom, sex is viewed positively within the bonds of marriage. As such, whereas Augustine’s sacramentum focused more on the non-sexual fides between husband and wife, Chrysostom’s μυστήριον identifies the union of the two as occurring first and foremost in the sexual act. In sexual intercourse, Chrysostom argues, two become one, as if each person were finally becoming complete.[15] The language which Chrysostom uses to describe the act of intercourse is positive, even lyrical:

“How do they become one flesh? As if she were gold receiving the purest of gold, the woman receives the man’s seed with rich pleasure, and within her it is nourished, cherished, and refined. It is mingled with her own substance and she then returns it as a child! […] But suppose there is no child; do they remain two and not one? No; their intercourse effects the joining of their bodies, and they are made one, just as when perfume is mixed with ointment.”[16]

This is quite a colorful endorsement of sexual intercourse, and Chrysostom recognizes that his words are causing his listeners some discomfort and embarrassment.[17] It is worth noting that Chrysostom describes the wife as receiving her husband’s semen “with rich pleasure [τῆς ἡδονῆς χωνευούμενος],” allowing for the sexual act required for reproduction to also be one of physical enjoyment.[18] But, Chrysostom has a hypothetical objector interject, is this kind of sexual pleasure only limited to acts which produce a child? By no means, answers Chrysostom! For when husband and wife engage in sexual intercourse (there is no indication that any other kind of sexual activity is in view here), it is a beautiful thing, as the imagery of scent and sensation makes clear.

That sexual intercourse within the confines of marriage is a positive thing, Chrysostom goes on to argue, is evident on account of the fact that “the Church is made from the side of Christ, and He united Himself to her in a spiritual intercourse.”[19] In other words, the physical union of man and wife is a good thing because it parallels (that is, it signifies as a sacramentum or μυστήριον) the spiritual union of Christ and his church. Thus, in his homilies, we find “little of the mistrust of human sexuality that characterizes so much of the Christian literature of this period.”[20] Here we have an evident parting of the ways with thinkers like Augustine (and even the earlier Chrysostom) on account of the nature of the sacramental view of marriage; it is hard to imagine, therefore, a call to sexual continence on such a view, and indeed Chrysostom does not hold out, as does Augustine, an ideal of marriage in which sexual relations have ceased.

But we have not yet gotten to the heart of Chrysostom’s positive view of marriage, which we will take up next time to conclude this series.

 

[1] Catherine P. Roth, “Introduction,” in St. John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life (PPS 7; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986), 8.

[2] On these early years of Chrysostom’s life, see J.N.D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom–Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London: Duckworth, 1995), 1-35.

[3] Donald Attwater, St John Chrysostom: Pastor and Preacher (London: Harvill Press, 1959), 34.

[4] Attwater, St John Chrysostom, 35.

[5] Kelly, Golden Mouth, 45, quoting from his translation of De virginitate.

[6] Kelly, Golden Mouth, 46.

[7] Roth, “Introduction,” 8.

[8] Kelly, Golden Mouth, 45.

[9] On Gregory of Nyssa’s views on marriage and virginity, see Otten, “Augustine on Marriage,” 389-90. For a recent, more nuanced perspective on Gregory, see Valerie A. Karras, “A Re-evaluation of Marriage, Celibacy, and Irony in Gregory of Nyssa’s On Virginity,” JECS 13 (2005): 111-121.

[10] Chrysostomus Baur, John Chrysostom and His Time, Vol. 1: Antioch; trans. M. Gonzaga (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1959), 207.

[11] Attwater, St John Chrysostom, 60.

[12] In Col. hom. 12.418. All English translations of Chrysostom’s homilies taken from St. John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life (PPS 7; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986). It is interesting that Chrysostom takes what is exclusively a negative image in the NT (δεσμός) and uses it as his foundation for developing a positive vision of marriage.

[13] In Col. hom. 12.418.

[14] In Col. hom. 12.419. Μυστήριον is, of course, the word the apostle Paul uses to describe marriage in Ephesians 5.32.

[15] In Col. hom. 12.419.

[16] In Col. hom. 12.420.

[17] In Col. hom. 12.420.

[18] Interestingly, all 5 NT usages of ἡδονή are decidedly negative (Luke 8.14; Titus 3.3; James 4.1; 4.3; 2 Pet 2.13), in contrast to Chrysostom’s usage positive here.

[19] In Col. hom. 12.420.

[20] David G. Hunter, Marriage in the Early Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 19-20.

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Augustine on the Good of Marriage

Posted on June 20, 2014 by krhughes14

Marriage is a contested issue in today’s society, but what many don’t recognize is that it’s always been an issue that has caused sharp debate, particularly within Christian communities. While the instructions of the apostle Paul concerning marriage, as most thoroughly set out in 1 Corinthians 7 and Ephesians 5, were no doubt intended to provide clear, practical guidance on this difficult issue for these early Christian communities, subsequent generations of Christians struggled to interpret and apply the apostle’s teaching to their contexts. Particularly as the “triumph” of Christianity under Constantine largely ended the days of martyrdom as a means of proving the character of one’s faith, many Christians increasingly looked to virginity and other ascetic practices as a means of distinguishing themselves from the flood of new converts entering the church. As Christianity spread across the empire in the fourth century, penetrating deeper into the countryside and into new levels of society, the issues of marriage and virginity took on increasing importance.

A full account of early Christian attitudes toward marriage is, of course, beyond the scope of these blog posts. Thus, over this and the next post I will limit my focus to two key theologians of the late fourth and early fifth centuries: Augustine of Hippo in the West and John Chrysostom in the East, with the aim of comparing their views on the specific issue of the “good” of marriage. My aim is to briefly place the views of Augustine and John Chrysostom on marriage within their broader historical context, and then examine some of their key writings for detail on how they constructed, to different extents, a positive view of marriage.

Augustine, perhaps more than any other early Christian writer (no doubt on account of his Confessions), gives us striking insight into his own feelings regarding women, sex, and marriage. The young Augustine had a concubine for 15 years, with whom he had a son, but this appears to have been less than an entirely fulfilling experience.[1] His views on marriage, though, would be shaped not only from the forge of his apparently intense sexual desires, but from the furnace of the theological controversies of his day, and in particular that known as the Jovinianist controversy.

The 380s had been marked by an intensification of asceticism within Western Christianity, with the result that virgins were increasingly exalted as an elite class of believers.[2] But in the following decade, the Roman church was confronted by the views of Jovinian, who claimed that virgins, widows, and married women were all worthy of equal merit, and, moreover, would receive equal reward in heaven. As a result, many Roman ascetics began to abandon celibacy and marry.[3] Jovinian’s views drew a sharp response from Ambrose and Jerome, the latter of whom so fiercely defended asceticism that “he completely demolished marriage in the process.”[4] For Jerome, marriage was merely the lesser of two evils rather than something positive in its own right.

It was into this battle between the two camps represented by Jovinian and Jerome that Augustine “tried to stake a middle ground between the claims of resolutely ascetic writers who hinted that marriage and reproduction were unworthy experiences for Christians, and those, in contrast, who made out that no preference was to be given to ascetic living.”[5] Augustine shared with Ambrose and Jerome the belief that virginity was superior to marriage, but nevertheless insisted, contra Jerome, that marriage was in fact good. Drawing on many of the same biblical texts that animated the arguments of the Jovinianist controversy, Augustine set forth his mediating view on Christian marriage in 401 with his treatise De bono conjugali (On the Good of Marriage). Marriage, Augustine makes clear at the outset of this treatise, is an unequivocally good thing, having been instituted by God as “the first natural bond of human society.”[6] Over the course of this treatise, and as summarized towards its end (where he finds scriptural justification for each in 1 Corinthians 7), Augustine carefully outlines what he believed to be the three “goods” of marriage: proles, fides, and sacramentum.[7]

Concerning the first of these, the good of proles refers to the begetting of children, which Augustine believes to be “the one worthy fruit” of sexual intercourse.[8] This, for Augustine, is the first and most significant end of marriage. Augustine’s second good, fides, appears to refer to both sexual fidelity (with marriage providing “a mutual service of sustaining one another’s weaknesses” so as to not engage in “unlawful intercourse”) and the loyal companionship between husband and wife.[9] Augustine’s conception of proles and fides are linked to his broader perspective on sexual relations within marriage. For Augustine, “sexual desire experienced even by married couples was sinful to some lesser degree–a sinfulness that would be excused by God if the couple did not engage in any contraceptive practices or “unnatural” sexual acts, and remained good Catholic Christians in other respects.”[10] Particularly in his old age, in his writings against Julian of Eclanum, Augustine came to articulate a view of sexual intercourse “as an element of evil encapsulated in every marriage.”[11] Therefore, for Augustine, an ideal Christian marriage was one characterized by sexual continence, and this view of sexuality will form a sharp contrast with what we will find in the homilies of John Chrysostom.

But while proles and fides are common are the gracious gifts of God for every marriage, the third good of marriage, sacramentum, is exclusive to Christianity. By sacramentum, Augustine means that marriage is, like baptism or the Eucharist, a sign of spiritual things; in this case, marriage is a sign of the spiritual union of Christ and the church, as discussed in Ephesians 5:22-33. Given Augustine’s preference for continence within marriage, the sacramental “union” of husband and wife is based on their loyal companionship, their fides, and not on the basis of the act of sexual intercourse.[12] This good, Augustine claims, is the reason for which the marriage bond cannot be broken unless one spouse dies, for the sacred nature of the marriage union continues to join man and woman together even after the marriage has been legally dissolved through divorce.[13] The practical result of this belief is the teaching that a divorced person must not remarry, and therefore engage in sexual relations, with a person besides his or her original spouse.[14]

This understanding of sacramentum leads us to consider Augustine’s view of the good of marriage outside of the sexual sphere, which otherwise appears to be the dominant focus of his writings on marriage. Particularly given Augustine’s aforementioned desire for continence within marriage (and given his interesting view that procreation is no longer needed in the current age[15]), Augustine is indeed interested in the non-sexual aspects of marriage. For instance, in his De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia (On Marriage and Concupiscence), Augustine gives the example of Mary and Joseph as husband and wife who, though they did not have sexual relations with one another, nevertheless enjoyed “the entire good” of marriage.[16] In this sense, Augustine “pointed the way to an understanding of marriage that rested less on physical relationship and more on the acts of mind and will that brought the couple together.”[17]

Still, it nevertheless remains the case that Augustine’s writings on marriage are more often than not fixed on the issue of the intersection of marriage and sexuality. As Elizabeth Clark notes, “Augustine did not, however, elaborate much on these non-sexual aspects of his understanding of marriage; especially in his later battles with Pelagian opponents, the sexual dimension of the married relationship took center stage in the discussion.”[18] In other words, what we have in Augustine is a measured defense of the institution of marriage against the more ascetic views of someone like Jerome, yet his positive argument for marriage goes little beyond issues of reproduction and sexuality. As Peter Brown puts it, “While his defence of married life was conscientious, his treatise on virginity was quite lyrical.”[19] Augustine’s embrace of marriage, we might therefore conclude, did not receive the kind of lofty praise that we will see below with Chrysostom. We certainly see little, if any, of the emphasis we will discover in Chrysostom on how the marriage relationship can contribute to one’s growth in holiness.

It is hard to overstate the importance of Augustine’s conception of marriage, which “became decisive for all later teaching in the Christian West on issues of marriage and sexuality.”[20] But while Augustine’s views came to reign supreme in the West, in the East a much more substantial argument for the good of marriage was emerging from the voice of a “golden-tongued” preacher, to whom we’ll turn next time.

 

[1] Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 27.

[2] Elizabeth A. Clark, ed. St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 42.

[3] On the views of Jovinian in more detail, see David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 30-43; on the larger debate concerning Christian asceticism in late antiquity, see idem, 51-53, 74-83.

[4] Willemien Otten, “Augustine on Marriage, Monasticism, and the Community of the Church,” TS 59 (1998): 395.

[5] Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 8.

[6] De bono conjugali 1. (Trans. NPNF)

[7] De bono conjugali 32.

[8] De bono conjugali 1.

[9] De bono conjugali 6.

[10] Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 6.

[11] Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 393.

[12] Cf. Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 7.

[13] De bono conjugali 32.

[14] De bono conjugali 7.

[15] De bono conjugali 10.

[16] De nuptiis et concup. 1.13. (Trans. NPNF)

[17] Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 7.

[18] Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 7.

[19] Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 245.

[20] Clark, St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 4.

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“The Spirit Speaks” in San Diego

Posted on April 6, 2014 by krhughes14

Just got word that I’ll be reading my paper “The Spirit Speaks: Prosopological Exegesis and the Johannine Testimony Motif” at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting this fall in San Diego (Development of Early Christian Theology program unit). My goal in this paper is to examine the nature of OT citations assigned to the “person” of the Spirit in early Christian writers (especially Justin and Tertullian), and how certain Johannine ideas (cf. 1 John 5) were influential in this process by which Christianity came to take on a distinctively Trinitarian, and not just binitarian, view of God.

Hope to see some of you there! At least the weather in San Diego will be far better than what we had last year in Baltimore.

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The “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16.7)

Posted on March 31, 2014 by krhughes14

holy-spirit-mark-jenningsOne of my more perceptive students this week called my attention to the curious phrase “the Spirit of Jesus” (τὸ πνεῦμα Ἰησοῦ) in Acts 16.7. The only other usage of this construction in the NT is found in Phil 1.19, in which Paul implores the help of τοῦ πνεύματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. So what are we to make of this?

We must, of course, remember that a fully-fledged Trinitarian schema did not develop for quite some time even after the writing of the New Testament; in particular, the distinction between the Son and the Spirit lagged considerably behind efforts to distinguish the Father from the Son. To take just one example, Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, more or less entirely fails to distinguish between the identities and activities of the Word (that is, the Son) and the Spirit (cf. Anthony Briggman, “Measuring Justin’s Approach to the Spirit: Trinitarian Conviction and Binitarian Orientation,” VC 63 (2009): 107–137). Given that it is not until the fourth century that we find the Son and Spirit clearly distinguished, we should not be surprised to find some confusion concerning the unique identity of the Spirit as distinct from the person of the Son in a first-century text like Acts.

However, this may not, upon further reflection, be the best way to tackle this text. Following F. F. Bruce (Acts NICNT, 327), I take it as more probable that, given the reference to the “Holy Spirit” in the previous verse (16.6), this must be Luke’s way of indicating a different method of communicating the will of the Spirit. Given the close link with Jesus, I suspect that 16.7 more likely refers to some kind of charismatic prophecy in which the speaker is understood to be speaking in the name of Jesus and under the possession of the Spirit. Given that we have to imagine some kind of process by which “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them (to go into Bithynia),” this mechanism seems plausible and it also makes sense of the unique expression.

As for Phil 1.19, this brings us into a broader discussion of the relationship between Christ and the Spirit in Paul, and we again need to recall that, for Paul, the Spirit “is identical with the exalted Lord once this Lord is considered, not in Himself, but in His work towards the community” (so Schweizer, TDNT 6.433). Trying to go deeper, however, we are confronted with the problem of whether “Spirit of Jesus Christ” should be taken as an objective or subjective genitive, but it seems to almost certainly be objective (cf. Gal 4.6). Perhaps, as Fee (Philippians NICNT, 134-5) suggests, the unusual designation can only be explained by the context: “Paul knows that Christ will be glorified in his life or death only as he is filled with the Spirit of Christ himself. That is, it is Christ resident in him by the Spirit who will be the cause of Paul’s–and therefore the gospel’s–not being brought to shame and of Christ’s being magnified through him.” Fair enough, but I’d still like more clarification on why Paul uses “Spirit of Jesus Christ” instead of his much more common “Spirit of God.” Alas, it remains to me a bit of a mystery…

 

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A Useful Exercise: Mapping Early Trajectories

Posted on February 8, 2014 by krhughes14

This week, the adult Sunday School class I teach has started our reading of Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction by Bryan M. Litfin (Brazos, 2007). Apart from the book’s content and readability, I couldn’t help but be attracted to a book on the early fathers by the one other person (to my knowledge) to do the DTS-UVA double-dip!

One thing to which I want to introduce my class is the issue of the extent of theological diversity in early Christianity. Pious Bible readers often read Scripture at a historically “flat” level, meaning that Matthew’s Gospel must be understood to be saying the exact same thing or to use the same terms in the same way as, say, the Fourth Gospel or the Pauline Epistles. Without denying a real unity among the NT canon, I do believe, quite strongly, that attention to the differences among the various biblical writers can actually enrich our understanding of the biblical text. After all, even a quick glance at early non-canonical Christian texts reveals an enormous theological diversity among those who characterized themselves as Christians as early as the second century, and we find roots of this diversity, I suggest, in the NT itself.

To help make this issue of diversity come alive, one activity that I will suggest to my class (after furnishing my own example) is to print out a blank map of the Roman Empire and then locate different NT and early Christian writings to different cities or areas (they can find this information, for instance, in their study Bible notes). As with dating, issues of provenance are often debated, but for the purpose of this exercise we need not insist on exactitude. Why is this useful? To give just one example: we’re starting off with a study of Ignatius of Antioch. At first blush, Antioch might not hold much meaning for many of my students. But when we note that Matthew’s Gospel, presumed to have been written by and for Jewish Christians, is generally held to have originated in the vicinity of Antioch — as well as the early Christian writing the Didache (another heavily Jewish document which often makes reference to Matthean tradition) — we can identify the existence of a Christian community with strong Jewish roots in that city, which corroborates the references we find in Acts (e.g., 11:26, 13:2). Tensions about the role of the Law within the Antiochene Jewish-Christian community appear not only in the writings of Ignatius (e.g., Magn. 10) but in the NT itself (e.g., Gal 2.1-10). Not only does this background about these tensions illuminate our reading of Ignatius, but it sheds light on the unique perspective of certain NT documents (in this case, Matthew), helping us to understand them as locally contextual texts (though they come to mean much more than that, they certainly do not mean less). And, in so doing, we are on our way to being more observant, more careful students of Scripture.

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Book Review: Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism

Posted on January 31, 2014 by krhughes14

From my own personal experience, as well as my observation of others, it seems to me that there are two types of responses when conservative Christian students encounter higher criticism for the first time: either to disregard it all as the irrelevant machinations of godless scholars hoping to destroy the faith, or to uncritically accept everything and abandon their faith (usually in light of what my Dallas mentor Dan Wallace calls the “domino view of doctrine,” in which a brittle bibliology is the foundation of one’s faith; when that goes, so does the whole house of cards). Entering my second semester as a public university TA for biblical studies courses that teach the historical-critical method, I see my students from conservative Christian backgrounds really struggling with this material on a daily basis. If only there were a resource, I’ve often thought, that would help them to constructively engage with biblical criticism, and recognize that the two extremes I have described are not the only ways forward.

Enter, then, a wonderful new book edited by Christopher Hays and Christopher Ansberry. Their Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism (Baker Academic, 2013) is just the sort of book I can recommend to my students, and just the sort of book I wish I had as an undergraduate wrestling with higher criticism for the first time. The explicit aim of the book is nothing less than “a call for conservative interpreters of the Bible to be both critical and evangelical” (17). In other words, the book “aims to stimulate evangelicals to engage seriously with the historical-critical method by demonstrating that the very fact of such engagement does not jeopardize one’s Christian confessions” (18). The unique contribution of this book is to ask What’s really at stake? in terms of theological consequences if we were to accept the scholarly consensus on different historical-critical issues.

To take just one of their case studies, the chapter on pseudepigraphy and the canon (by Ansberry, Strine, Klink, and Lincicum). The scholarly consensus that certain biblical books were not authored by who the books claim to be the author poses a huge problem for many conservative students. If, for instance, the pastoral epistles were not written by Paul, how can we take them seriously as Scripture if they start with a bald-faced lie? In this chapter’s section on the Pauline epistles, the authors walk through criteria by which scholars detect epistolary pseudepigraphy before explaining why scholars have assigned different epistles to various categories (“undisputed,” “spurious,” and “disputed”). This kind of explanation is especially helpful for beginning students that may need to hear the critical argument presented in more detail. Following the overall format of the book, the authors decline to evaluate the evidence for this view, and instead dive into the much more interesting question of the theological implications if this position were to be adopted. As the authors conclude, “To claim that pseudepigraphy is irreconcilable with infallibility can arguably only result in subjecting Scripture to our own autonomous standard of perfection, instead of seeking the perfection Scripture has in a historically a posteriori act of discipleship” (155). Instead, “if ancient perceptions of authorship and the realities of text production were more fluid than are modern conceptions, then historical criticism opens new horizons for thinking about the way in which God worked through the Holy Spirit to compose and codify the biblical text” (156). In other words, while accepting pseudepigraphy in the canon may force us to reformulate our notions of authorship, authority, and inspiration, they in no way undermines Christian faith or orthodoxy. And there might even be a positive benefit, in that it “refines our understanding of the nature of Scripture, reorients our focus in the human author’s work to God’s work and reinforces our trust in the Spirit’s activity through the production of Scripture” (157). Ultimately, our trust in the authority of Scripture comes from God, who oversaw its writing and place in the canon, and not on the basis of human authorship.

I don’t expect that this, or any of the other “solutions” in this book, will be satisfying to all, but at the least, the contributors to this volume should be heartily commended for encouraging conservatives to engage with historical criticism in a constructive manner and to realize that, in many cases, much less is actually at stake than one might originally assume. It is a resource that I will heartily recommend to students struggling with negotiating faith and scholarship.

This book was provided courtesy of Baker Academic without the expectation or requirement of a positive review.

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