In three weeks it will be Trinity Sunday. A lot of clergy are wary of Trinity Sunday. There is an idea that preaching on the Trinity is impossible, or irrelevant, or dangerous. It may be the first and last of these; certainly not the second. It is also a risk we should take — precisely because it is not irrelevant. Since I’ve blogged about the doctrine of the Trinity here a few times, I thought I’d make a convenient one-stop shop for clergy looking ahead to that Feast and trying to think of how to go about their duty.
My varied musings on the Trinity in anti-chronological order, usually inspired by reading something ancient or medieval (but also, one time, The Shack!):
Late 14th century icon illustrating the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” under the Byzantine Empress Theodora and her son Michael III over iconoclasm in 843. (National Icon Collection 18, British Museum)
Eastern and Western Easter are very far apart this year — we just observed Palm Sunday by the Western calendar, while our brothers and sisters in the Eastern churches* just celebrated the First Sunday of Great Lent, the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. When I did my series of presentations on Ancient Christianity for the Greek Evangelical Chuch in Nicosia, Cyprus, one of the gentlemen present was very concerned with the Triumph of Orthodoxy and the Orthodox use of icons. The Triumph of Orthodoxy, you see, is a feast celebrating the reaffirmation in 843 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second of Nicaea, that took place in 787, and approved the use of icons in Christian worship. My focus today is on 787 as the triumph, even if we had to wait until 843 for its full acceptance in the East.
His concern was that the Orthodox are so obsessed with icons that they see the settling of the icon question as central to their identity, and call it the ‘triumph’ of Orthodoxy. The Greek Evangelical Church of Cyprus, like its relative (but structurally distinct) in Greece, is a Presbyterian denomination. The Reformed are always cautious of images. And for Protestants in Orthodox countries, the ubiquity of icons becomes a stumbling block between the different Christian communities. This fellow felt that Orthodox iconodulism (veneration of icons) obscures the Gospel. I don’t recall everything he expressed to me, so I cannot say how close he feels it comes to idolatry.
John Calvin certainly felt that images were by nature impious.
Now, I am not Eastern Orthodox, so I may accidentally misrepresent something here. My apologies.
Nevertheless, the question arises: Why celebrate Second Nicaea, in 787, and its affirmation in 843, every year as the Triumph of Orthodoxy?
The answer is not simply that Orthodox Christians loves them some icons. I mean, they do — this Saturday, Father Raphael was explaining some of the icons in the chapel in Edinburgh to my wife and me. But when Father Raphael discusses the theology of icons and iconology, it becomes apparent that the images are to be venerated as signs and signifiers of greater wonders, theological truths, mysteries of faith, historical encounters with God.
But that is not why the Seventh Ecumenical Council is the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
The great controversies of the Seven Ecumenical Councils are all Christological:
At Nicaea in 325, the question was debated as to whether ‘there was when Christ was not’ and if Christ is to be called homoousios (no to the former, yes to the latter). The resulting Creed was much debated until
At Ephesus in 431, the apparent teaching of Nestorius was rejected that divided Christ to such a degree that He was two persons; the epithet Theotokos, God-bearer, was approved for the BVM because it affirms that the Person born of her was, indeed, fully God from the moment of conception.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council, at Chalcedon in 451, affirmed that the single Person of Christ has two natures, one human and one divine, drafting a definition of faith to that effect.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Second of Constantinople, in 553, tried to reconcile Chalcedon to the conservative Cyrillians (Mono-/Miaphysites) by giving it a more Cyrillian interpretation and anathematising certain persons and teachings.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council, the Third of Constantinople, of 681, rejected the teachings of Monothelitism and upheld the teachings of St Maximus the Confessor that maintain that if Christ has two natures, he must have two wills.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second of Nicaea, in 787, upheld the production and use of icons in Christian worship.
Seventh ecumenical council, Icon, 17th century, Novodevichy Convent, Moscow
Put this way, it is obvious how the first six are Christological, but less so regarding the Seventh, unless you look at what the Council Fathers affirm. After affirming their rootedness in tradition, the Council Fathers declare that representational art:
is quite in harmony with the history of the spread of the gospel, as it provides confirmation that the becoming man of the Word of God was real and not just imaginary, and as it brings us a similar benefit. For, things that mutually illustrate one another undoubtedly possess one another’s message.
The more frequently they are seen in representational art, the more are those who see them drawn to remember and long for those who serve as models, and to pay these images the tribute of salutation and respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration {latria} in accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of the gospels and to other sacred cult objects. Further, people are drawn to honour these images with the offering of incense and lights, as was piously established by ancient custom. Indeed, the honour paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model, and he who venerates the image, venerates the person represented in that image.
The logic of icons of Our Lord is simple. God the Word became Incarnate as a real, flesh and blood human being, possessing a true human nature and existing as a real, single person. This He did for our salvation. The Apostles saw him and touched him. If they had wanted to, they could have painted him. If there had been cameras, they could have photographed him. Jesus was real, not fake. There is no space for docetism in orthodox Christianity. Therefore, the teaching of Deuteronomy 4, that the Israelites could not make images of God because they had not seen him, no longer holds for God the Word Incarnate, although it still counts for God the Father and the Trinity as a whole, as I have discussed.
The Reformed are free to dispute and argue with this, so long as they stand within the bounds of logic and Scripture. However, what they cannot dispute is that images of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, are approved by the ancient churches on the grounds of the Incarnation, on the grounds of the Gospel truth that God became man in order to save us.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council is the final council of the united church. None of the General Councils of the western church from the Middle Ages to Vatican II can truly be ecumenical without Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. This council affirms the teaching of the ‘last’ of the Eastern Fathers, that iconodule St John of Damascus, the most famous supporter of icons, who was my introduction to the Iconoclast Controversy through the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
East and West both affirm the full divinity and humanity of Christ the Word Incarnate. Centuries of debate went into our orthodox understanding of Christ to produce teachings that are the most biblically faithful and philosophical coherent ones out there. Their culmination was in the Seventh Ecumenical Council. The foundations for subsequent Christian theology were thus laid, and in just under three centuries, East and West would part ways. This was also a great moment of unity for us.
How could this not be the triumph of orthodoxy?
*I make this plural not because I am confused about whether or not Greek, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Antiochian, etc, Churches are all the same thing but because Eastern Orthodox and Eastern/Greek/Byzantine Rite Catholic (“Uniate” in some circles) follow the same calendar; Oriental Orthodox Churches, I believe, have the same Easter, but I am not certain of their other feasts, since they do not recognise all Seven Ecumenical Councils.
An important question arose in Cyprus during session on ‘The Bible in the Ancient Church.’ I had just quoted John Chrysostom on Romans 4:5 — to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness:
For reflect how great a thing it is to be persuaded and have full confidence that God is able on a sudden not to free a man who has lived in impiety from punishment only, but even to make him just, and to count him worthy of those immortal honors. Do not then suppose that this one [the one who works] is lowered in that it is not reckoned unto the former of grace. For this is the very thing that makes the believer glorious; the fact of his enjoying so great grace, of his displaying so great faith. And note too that the recompense is greater. For to the former [the one who works] a reward is given, to the latter [the one with faith] righteousness. Now righteousness is much greater than a reward. For righteousness is a recompense which most fully comprehends several rewards. (ANF trans.)
I said that I was not quoting Chrysostom out of a naive belief that the Fathers believed in justification by faith alone the same way we do; no one articulated that part of the faith in that way until Martin Luther. This raised a reasonable concern from one of the people present — if God’s truth doesn’t change, how can orthodoxy? (Sort of. It was more nuanced than that.)
The great concern is: if we are not saved by works, yet we trace so much of our heritage to Fathers, and the Fathers seem, at times, to teach that we are saved by works, what does that mean about the faith of the Fathers? Since justification by faith seems to be taught in the Scriptures, why would no one have articulated it until the Reformation?
These are vitally important questions for those of us who wish to have an orthodoxy in line with the majority, consensual teaching that flows from the patristic (and medieval/Byzantine and Reformation) meditation upon, reflection over, and wrestling with Scripture and life in this broken world. It is a vitally important question for those of us whose theology is daily informed by historical theology. I believe it is a vitally important question for all Christians, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.
C. Michael Patton has this useful thought on the development of theology, especially in reference to the development of penal substitutionary atonement with St Anselm in the turn of the 11th/12th centuries, as well as to the question of justification by faith alone. The TRUTH about who God is, explains Patton, does not change. From our finite perspective, at that level, orthodoxy is ‘static’ (read book 11 of Augustine’s Confessions if you want to bend your mind thinking about the concept of time and how it relates to God).
Our understanding of God, however, has developed over time, through the direct revelation of the events and writings of Scripture, with their culmination in Christ, there was a gradual unveiling of the character of God and our relation towards him as fallen creatures. And, through Spirit-led meditation upon and grappling with Scripture, the interpretation of the TRUTH has led to a greater precision of what we know.
Yet still we see as in a glass darkly.
So what do we do about things that seem to have developed over history, and those who lived before their development? Patton says:
1. I could say that before these doctrines were understood and articulated according to my current Protestant understanding, no one was truly saved or, at the very least, orthodox. (Radical Restorationism)
2. I could say that these doctrines did exist before, just in unarticulated form. (Oden?)
3. I could say that these doctrines did exist in the earliest church, but the church became corrupted and lost them. (Reformers)
4. I could say that their immature state was sufficient for the time, but is now insufficient. (Conservative Progressives)
5. I could say that these developments, while true, don’t really matter with regards to defining orthodoxy. (Emerging)
The only option Patton is willing to completely ignore is number 1. I am uneasy with number 5, myself. I probably tend towards a blend of 2 and 4 most of the time — what we believe does matter, but there is a difference between ignorance and denial (as my friend Tim. If you had asked St Mark if Jesus was God, he likely will not have said, ‘Yes.’ But for me, with 2000 more years of thoughtful reflection on the Christ-event — if I reject the divinity of Jesus, I am no longer orthodox.
This is helpful as we all wrestle with the fact that our understanding of the things of God has changed over time.
Yet, with that in mind, we must always be humble. Can any of us, even with the doctrine of the Trinity and penal substitutionary atonement really say that we know God any better than Moses or Isaiah or John the Baptist or Paul?
Greek Majuscule Bible, ‘Codex Vaticanus’ (aka ‘B’); probably from Egypt during Athanasius’ lifetime (4th c)
My final talk on Ancient Christianity in Cyprus was ‘The Bible in the Ancient Church.’ Most of what I had to say I have said here before. I discussed allegory and typology, bringing up Melito of Sardis and Ephraim the Syrian. I also discussed the literal meaning of Scripture, and read out a passage from John Chrysostom’s commentary on Romans.
But what was new territory for me, really, was to discuss humility before Scripture and Christocentric interpretation.
What do the ancients say about humility?
The general attitude is embodied in a few sayings as follows:
Antony of Egypt once said, ‘I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, “What can get through from such snares?” Then I heard a voice saying to me, “Humility.”’[1]
Abba Poemen said, “As the breath which comes out of his nostrils, so does a man need humility and the fear of God.”
Isaac the Syrian, although a bit later than we are looking this week, once said, ‘No one has understanding if he is not humble, and he who lacks humility lacks understanding.’
Another story out of Egypt tells of a group of believers discussing a passage of Scripture. Everyone gave his own interpretation, speaking his opinion and mind as it came to him. The eldest believer there remained silent, however. One of the others said to him, ‘What about you? What do you think?’ He replied that he did not know, for he was not wise enough to discern the meanings of the Holy Scriptures.
I do not know that we should be so humble as that, but I do think the idea of approaching the Bible with humility is important. When we look at our many fractured denominations, not just between Protestant, Catholic, and various Eastern churches, but within evangelical Protestantism, each claiming that it has the one, true interpretation of Scripture, we should realise that perhaps some humility is in order.
Christocentric interpretation is probably even more important than humility in the face of Scripture. In his book On the Incarnation of the Word of God, Athanasios of Alexandria, Egypt, writes:
And so following the guidance of the sacred word we may now say fearlessly and unhesitatingly that the Son of man came down from heaven, and that the Lord of Glory was crucified: because in virtue of the mystery of the Incarnation, the Son of God became Son of man, and the Lord of Glory was crucified in (the nature of) the Son of man. What more is there need of? It would take too long to go into details: for time would fail me, were I to try to examine and explain everything which could be brought to bear on this subject. For one who wished to do this would have to study and read the whole Bible. For what is there which does not bear on this, when all Scripture was written with reference to this? (ch. 8)
As far as Athanasios is concerned, the whole point of Scripture is to point towards Christ, either as shadow, type, prophecy in the Old Testament or as fulfilment, proclamation, expectation in the New. This is the general paradigm for reading Scripture.
So we read Irenaios of Lyons, a man born in Izmir, writing in the late 100s about Christ as the second Adam and then going so far as to make parallels between Eve and Mary; he argues that just as sin entered through the disobedience of one woman, so did redemption begin through the obedience of another. When we read this, we don’t have to agree with him. But I, for one, applaud his desire to apply the Old Testament to the Gospel.
If the Bible does not have supernatural significance, if the events of the Old Testament, the bloody, violent purging of the Promised Land and the bloody, violent worship in the Tabernacle, hold only historical value about the beliefs of the people of Israel, I have no business with the Old Testament; I would rather read Homer or Vergil. But if they are part of something bigger, part of the grand narrative of God’s cosmic outworking of redemption and salvation for all of humankind, from Adam to Christ’s Second Coming, and if I can see Christ’s fulfilment of all things in the Old Testament—that’s a Scripture worth knowing.
Furthermore, it’s an approach to the Old Testament that is approved by the New: Christ is the Passover Lamb, Matthew references Christ fulfilling OT prophecies, Christ refers to himself fulfilling statements in the Psalms, Paul refers to an allegorical or typological meaning of Hagar and Sarah, Hebrews sees the Tabernacle and Temple worship as shadows and figures of what has come in Christ, 1 Peter sees Noah’s Ark as a prefigurement of baptism.
These are the ones that sprang to mind immediately while writing my first draft. There are no doubt more. With this attitude and this nexus of thinking in hand, I think we can come up with better exegesis and better preaching and deeper ethics than we often do. And maybe we’ll even smooth over some disputes.
[1]The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. B. Ward. Kalamazoo: 1975, Antony 7. See also Abraham of Nathpar, On Prayer 3, in Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer. Kalamazoo: 1987, 193; Martyrius (Sahdona), The Book of Perfection, ‘On the Office,’ 10, in Brock 1987, 206.
Forgive my slowness in posting these Cyprus discussions. After the cautions about saints and such accretions in tradition, I called my evangelical brothers and sisters of Cyprus to read the theological hymnody of the ancients. The singing of theology is one of the gems of ancient Christianity.
The practice of theological hymnody goes back to Philippians 2:5-11, where Paul is likely quoting a song from church. Our earliest non-biblical hymn is the ‘Phos Hilaron’, of the second century:
O Light gladsome of the holy glory of the Immortal Father,
the Heavenly, the Holy, the Blessed, O Jesus Christ,
having come upon the setting of the sun, having seen the light of the evening,
we praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: God.
Worthy it is at all times to praise Thee in joyful voices,
O Son of God, Giver of Life, for which the world glorifies Thee. (trans. from Wikipedia)
I gave the example of Ambrose — inevitably! As readers of this blog know, I am fond of his hymnody. It was a way to help the Milanese worship God as well as to catechise them in the truths of the Nicene faith in an age of ‘Semi-Arianism’. I presented them with my translation of ‘Splendour of the Father’s Glory‘, but I also heartily recommend ‘Intende, Qui Regis Israel‘.
I have no desire right now to enter worship wars when I recommend an increased helping of theological hymns in our adoration diet. I was at the Vineyard church in Glasgow a few weeks ago, and I appreciated the emotional impact that sort of music can have in helping stir our hearts to worship God — I am no Neo-Platonist. Emotions exist to serve and worship the Lord.
However, if modern choruses of superficial content are all that you are employing to worship our Great King, I recommend adding sung poetic theology that goes deeper. Not necessarily Ambrose — although if you have to hand the OLD blue Anglican Church of Canada hymn book, you can find several under his name. But think perhaps of adding the Wesleys. Or hymns like ‘Man of Sorrows’ or newer songs, even, such as ‘How Deep the Father’s Love for Us’, or ‘In Christ Alone’ or things by Graham Kendrick that are not ‘Shine, Jesus Shine’ (I beg you!).
Imagine worship that stretches every part of our being — our emotions and our minds. Even our bodies. Worship that causes us to actually be filled with awe of our Creator. This is the trajectory of ancient worship — people who sang theology and stood facing east to pray, palms and eyes upward as they addressed the incomprehensible Triune God. It is no surprise that over time genuflections and prostrations and incense and pictures and stained glass and organs and polyphony developed. The people in charge wanted to bring to God their whole selves, their very best.
I am glad to live in a post-Reformational world where we, the people, are active in worship. Let us become active with our whole selves — theological hymnody is one way to get our minds into the act of adoration of our mighty God.
Last Saturday morning, with the able help of a volunteer from the Greek Evangelical Church, I gave a seminar on ‘Evangelicals and Tradition.’ What I hope from this seminar is for evangelicals to be less … wary? afraid? of tradition but to develop the necessary skills of discernment to judge which parts of it are good, which are bad, and which are … adiaphora. Marginal. Not worth fussing over every time you meet an Orthodox or Roman Catholic Christian.
Following D H Williams’ lead in the very good book Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influences of the Early Church, I started us off with a discussion of the history and usefulness of the Canon of the Faith, beginning briefly with the Apostles’ Creed as a summary of the Gospel that we, as evangelicals, claim to be attached to so fiercely. Then I gave a wee history of such things, starting with Justin’s proclamation at his martyrdom in the mid-100s and Irenaios’ ‘Rule of Faith’ of the late 100s, then moving on to baptismal creeds such as the Dêr Balyzeh Papyrus of the early 100s and Hippolytos of the early 200s:
When each of them to be baptized has gone down into the water, the one baptizing shall lay hands on each of them, asking, “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?” 13And the one being baptized shall answer, “I believe.” 14He shall then baptize each of them once, laying his hand upon each of their heads. 15Then he shall ask, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose on the third day living from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, the one coming to judge the living and the dead?” 16When each has answered, “I believe,” he shall baptize a second time.
17Then he shall ask, “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Church and the resurrection of the flesh?” 18Then each being baptized shall answer, “I believe.” And thus let him baptize the third time. 19Afterward, when they have come up out of the water, they shall be anointed by the elder with the Oil of Thanksgiving, saying, “I anoint you with holy oil in the name of Jesus Christ.” 20Then, drying themselves, they shall dress and afterwards gather in the church. (From an online translation of Hippolytos.)
This led to a fruitful, I believe, discussion of how similar Hippolytos’ baptismal ceremony is the Orthodox ceremony — triple immersion and anointing with oil! I said that the Orthodox got this from the ancient days; it is a tradition that they have maintained since the earliest days of the Church. Perhaps one evangelical-Orthodox wall was weakened by that realisation.
From there, I brought forth the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds of 325 and 381. The complaint could be made that the statements of 325 and 381 use non-biblical language, and that the Bible already teaches all of these things. However, as with Irenaios vs Gnostics who used Christian Scripture, so also in the battle against those who denied the divinity of Jesus. The argument was not over what was Scripture but how we understand it; so the Church came up with an interpretative lens, almost as old as the apostles themselves, drawn from Scriptural ideas and truths but using the language of Greek philosophy, to state unequivocally what the Scriptural and Traditional teachings about Jesus are.
And at the complaint that the Eastern Orthodox believe these creeds more than the Bible, I must protest. These creeds are but summaries of Gospel truth, created to meet a need that the Church had at that time. It is impossible to believe them more than the Bible. Ioannis Kassianos, a Romanian monk who lived for a time in Bethlehem then Egypt before settling in Marseilles, wrote this in the early 400s:
There is nothing wanting then in the Creed; because it was formed from the Scriptures of God by the apostles of God, it has in it all the authority it can possibly have, whether of men or of God. (De Inc. 6.4, NPNF trans.)
Another complaint I know of is that encapsulating the Gospel in such statements takes the life from it. This is a possibility—but it is a possibility even with the writings of Scripture, depending on how we use them. I prefer to view these statements of the centre of Christian tradition as fences or the boundaries of a playing field. We can say things they do not say, but if we say things that are counter to them, we find ourselves standing outside of the biblical, apostolic tradition that the Church has handed down to us as encapsulated in these creeds.
The purpose of all of this was to show how unchanging the central core of Christian tradition was throughout the ancient church, and how it is important for us today. Furthermore, when we go back to Irenaios, we see the importance of a central, unwritten Apostolic tradition that exists in tandem with the Scriptures, because the Gnostics, using the same Scriptures, claimed that their interpretation was the right one, and their unwritten tradition the true one. So what are we to do? Recourse to the Scriptures alone cannot save us when they, too, are using the Scriptures.
When most evangelicals think of tradition, we think of these ‘unwritten’ aspects of Christianity, we think of accretions adding up over time, we think of bishops, priests, and deacons, we think of saints and theologians, we think of stained glass, of Gothic architecture and Byzantine domes. In a very large, encompassing vision of tradition, these things are all part of tradition.
But what I hope to have shown here today is a core of tradition that remains very little modified over the centuries—that creed of 381 just discussed and on your handout is believed and affirmed by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian, and Syrian Orthodox, the Church of the East from Iran to China and India, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, the Dutch Christian Reformed, and the Nicosia International Church. Here is an aspect of tradition that we affirm today which was affirmed long ago by the Christians of the later Roman Empire.
If we want to get involved with ancient Christians, we must take the long view of Christian history. And in taking this long view, the question that arises is whether any given development is faithful to Gospel belief and Gospel living—to the Tradition as discussed above and enshrined in the Bible, as we’ll see in my next talk.
The Christians before the year 500 determined that Gnosticism, Monarchianism, Arianism in its various forms, Pneumatomachianism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Manichaeism, Eutychianism, certain strains of Origen’s thought, and many others were deviations from the truth handed down from the apostles, the paradosis, tradition in its truest sense. And we today owe much to this ancient tradition.
Last Thursday, I gave a seminar on ‘Trinity and Mission’ at the Greek Evangelical Church. It began with a run-through of the history of Christology — this is something I blog about often, so I’m not going to repeat everything here; just follow the links around my blog. I started with Irenaeus’ Rule of Faith and recapitulation, moved on to Athanasius, then the Kappadokians, before sliding into Cyril and Chalcedon. I closed with the Trinitarian exegesis of Matthew 28, as found in the blog post Trinity and Mission.
Not really discussed here before, however, is the following that flows from the Cappadocians — this is consciously following Zizioulas’ reading of them in Being As Communion, which I have heard has some problems; I’ll have to read all of what they say as well as the criticisms some day. Until then, here we go.
The result of this Trinitarian theology, whether expressed by Greek theologians such as the Kappadokians or Latin theologians such as Ambrosios and Augustinos, or even the Syriac theologians Aphrahat and Ephraim, has important implications. As expressed classically by the Kappadokians, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct prosopa or hypostaseis who are all homoousios — they share an ousia. And, following the logic of causation in classical philosophy, God is the principle at work behind all things and the Creator of all things, the unmoved mover — as in the magnificent image of Gregorios’, that Jesus is ‘the founder of the universe who steers its course’.
Therefore, this give-and-take of ousia in fullness of koinonia between the Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lies at the heart of the created order. The universe is run by a koinonia. And here I mention our first ethical implication of classical Trinitarian doctrine — we are all made in the image of God (Gen 1:26). God is a Trinity of Persons in complete harmony, homonoia.
When we look at our fractured churches in Protestantism, churches that splinter every time you turn around, when we look at our families who sometimes never talk at all or are never willing to discuss things of substance, when we look at our broken relationships all around us, when we observe a fracturing world at our doorstep — Turks in the North, Israel vs. Palestine, internal unrest in Syria — we realise that we are not living as God, the Trinity who exists as self-giving love in perfect communion, intends us to.
If we are to live in accordance with the theology of ancient Christianity, we should be peacemakers, in our homes, our workplaces, our churches — even our nations if the possibility presents itself. All humans are made in God’s image, and all of us were meant to live in loving communion with one another. I imagine that this union of selfless love is what instilled God to inspire our Lord to pray for unity, St Paul to exhort the Corinthians to unity, and for the early Christian writers of the late first and early second centuries, such as Clement of Rome and Ignatios of Antioch, to strive for unity so forcefully in their letters.
Time and again, Ignatios, who was martyred by the Romans around 117, calls his readers to homonoia, to harmony, to a cessation of dissensions and loving accord. Koinonia is a divine attribute; let us live in it. As the Psalm says, ‘How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.’ (Ps 133:1)
As far as mission goes, the koinonia of the Trinity should encourage us to work together; Christians of different sorts who work together provide a united face for the Gospel to an unbelieving world. I have seen this in Lefkosia in the Nicosia Community Church using your building, in the Nicosia International Church using the Anglican church — and I understand that Rick at NIC works together with the pastor at NCC in preparing their sermons.
When I worked for IFES here, we ran the Place at the Anglican church hall jointly with the Anglicans, NIC, and New Life International Church, reaching out to the Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims who come to study in this beautiful city. This sort of gospel partnership should be the lifeblood of mission in post-Christian Europe.
Epiphanios was born in Palestine in the year 310 and died in Cyprus in 403. He thus lived through one of the most famous theological controversies of all time, living long enough to see it come to an end within the borders of the Roman Empire — the Arian Controversy. We shall look at the so-called ‘Arians’ tomorrow night, but in short, the main lines of demarcation were between those who affirmed the full, complete divinity of Jesus Christ as well as the divinity of the Holy Spirit, including Athanasios of Alexandria and Epiphanios, and, on the ‘Arian’ side, those who denied the divinity of Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit in varying degrees and ways of expression.
Epiphanios is one of the cohort of the earliest monastic practitioners—men and women who chose to devote their lives solely to prayer, acts of charity, and life in the desert, whether alone or in community. He spent many years living amongst the monks of Egypt, who are traditionally considered the first monks (something I, personally, question). Whilst there, his status as a ‘heresy-hunter’ already emerged, for he found himself being tempted by a group of Gnostics at one occasion, and later on had a monk driven out for heresy.
This attitude of battle against the heretics would persist throughout the rest of his life, as a monk in Palestine, and then as a bishop in Cyprus, whither he was invited by the local church to take up the episcopacy of Salamis in 367. As a bishop, he continued to lead a life of spiritual discipline and prayer as well as engaging in the role of heresy-hunter and protector of orthodoxy even more rigorously. He undoubtedly gained himself enemies for his polemic regarding heresy, but the holiness of his life and orthodoxy of his teaching made him a well-honoured figure amongst those who agreed with him, and even the Arian emperor Valens dared not interfere with Epiphanios’ activity.
If we are to believe Epiphanios’ biographer, when he came to this island where he became Metropolitan, or head bishop, he found Gnostic Valentinians as well as Ophites, Sabellians or Modalists, Nicolaitans, followers of Simon Magus, Basilidians, and Carpocratians.[1] Whether these groups were all actually represented or not, who can say?
Certainly by 403 when Epiphanios died, they were not, due to his efforts both as a bishop as well a concerned citizen requesting the Emperor’s aid against these heretics; this extermination of heresy in Cyprus during this period would also have been due to the various rulings against them in the Roman Empire of which we know during the reign of Theodosios I in 380, 381, and 386.[2]
Epiphanios’ most famous work is the Panarion, a heresiology of 80 heresies where he describes and refutes them, including extracts from their own adherents. An earlier yet important work is his Ankoratos, an English translation of which is to be published by Young Kim, who is here tonight. This work is important because it shows that Epiphanios was not simply concerned with tearing down his opponents, the more popular portrayal of the man, but also with building up fellow-believers, answering their requests for teaching and help, and providing them with his own explanations of the biblical understanding the Church had of the Trinity.
Given his positioning as an author after the death of the great theologian Athanasios, Epiphanios is one of our important writers for the later stages of the Arian controversy. And he lived here in Cyprus.
The lessons from the life of Epiphanios are that there is something to be said for stick-to-itiveness. It is highly unpopular to be a heresy hunter today, and possibly with good reason. Yet is there not something to be said for standing up against the false teachings of the age, whether they are new ideas altogether, or re-inventions of old falsehoods?
I do not say that we should go and hunt the heretics and false teachers. But we should not fear them, either. We should we willing to stand up against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons or the prosperity gospel of Joel Osteen and say that this is not the biblical Christianity handed down to us from the Apostles. This, combined with a holy life, is what made Epiphanios famous.
The final Ancient Cypriot Christian I discussed last week was St. Hilarion, and the gist of what I said I have already said on this blog a couple of years ago. Enjoy!
Saint Spyridon — You can tell him from his beehive hat (My photo from St Sozomenos’ Church, Galata, Cyprus). Also, he is my WordPress avatar.
After Barnabas, the Church of Cyprus slips into the mists of unreliability. Cyprus re-enters reliable history in 325 at the Council of Nikaia. In different records for this council, 12 or 14 bishops from Cyprus are recorded as having been present. They all seem to have supported the teaching that Jesus is fully God, homoousios with the Father—a debate we will look at more closely tomorrow.
Two of them were singled out by fourth-century historians as being men of special holiness: Spyridon (two posts on him here and here) and Paphnutios. I want to focus on Spyridon. You will have undoubtedly seen his name on various churches on the island. You may probably have even heard the story how, at the Council of Nikaia he stood up and performed a miracle with a tile to prove that three things could be one. This miracle is not attested in any of our early sources for the events of the council, and I am disinclined to believe it.
Our two earliest records for the life of Spyridon are two ecclesiastical historians, Socrates and Sozomenos. They were both active in the first half of the 400s, so over 75 years after Nikaia. Socrates gives us the more sober account of this man’s life:
With respect to Spyridon, so great was his sanctity while a shepherd, that he was thought worthy of being made a Pastor of men: and having been assigned the bishopric of one of the cities in Cyprus named Trimithus, on account of his extreme humility he continued to feed his sheep during his incumbency of the bishopric. Many extraordinary things are related of him: I shall however record but one or two, lest I should seem to wander from my subject. Once about midnight, thieves having clandestinely entered his sheepfold attempted to carry off some of the sheep. But God who protected the shepherd preserved his sheep also; for the thieves were by an invisible power bound to the folds. At daybreak, when he came to the sheep and found the men with their hands tied behind them, he understood what was done: and after having prayed he liberated the thieves, earnestly admonishing and exhorting them to support themselves by honest labor, and not to take anything unjustly. He then gave them a ram, and sent them away, humorously adding, ‘that ye may not appear to have watched all night in vain.’ This is one of the miracles in connection with Spyridon.
Another was of this kind. He had a virgin daughter named Irene, who was a partaker of her father’s piety. An acquaintance entrusted to her keeping an ornament of considerable value: she, to guard it more securely, hid what had been deposited with her in the ground, and not long afterwards died. Subsequently the owner of the property came to claim it; and not finding the virgin, he began an excited conversation with the father, at times accusing him of an attempt to defraud him, and then again beseeching him to restore the deposit. The old man, regarding this person’s loss as his own misfortune, went to the tomb of his daughter, and called upon God to show him before its proper season the promised resurrection. Nor was he disappointed in his hope: for the virgin again reviving appeared to her father, and having pointed out to him the spot where she had hidden the ornament, she once more departed.
Such characters as these adorned the churches in the time of the emperor Constantine. These details I obtained from many inhabitants of Cyprus. I have also found a treatise composed in Latin by the presbyter Rufinus, from which I have collected these and some other things which will be hereafter adduced.[1]
There is no necessity for us to believe these miracles. However, since we do believe in a mighty God who can do anything, I see no real reason as a Christian to doubt them. I have read a lot of church histories and saints’ lives, and when I combine these with the stories I have heard from today’s missionaries — whether in the jungles of South America or the jungles of London — I am inclined to accept that, whether these particular miracles are true, God was at work in these sorts of ways in the ancient Church.
Besides these miracles and others, Sozomenos gives us some other indicators of the character of Spyridon. For example:
It was a custom with this Spyridon to give a certain portion of his fruits to the poor, and to lend another portion to those who wished it as a gratuity; but neither in giving nor taking back did he ever himself distribute or receive: he merely pointed out the storehouse, and told those who resorted to him to take as much as they needed, or to restore what they had borrowed.[2]
Sozomenos also tells us that Spyridon was hospitable to strangers and travellers and careful in administering his role as a bishop. What I find most encouraging about the story of Spyridon is its reminder that personal holiness and wisdom from God are what matter most in our ministers.
I am working on a PhD in church history. No doubt some people think this will make me uniquely qualified to be a pastor. I disagree—it will make uniquely qualified to be a university lecturer, but what have those skills to do with leading God’s people in the face of wisdom and strong character? Thus, our last glimpses of the Cypriot church before Konstantinos are of a hierarchy that is open to any believing Christian who has wisdom and good character.
[1] Socrates, Ecclesiastical History Book 1.12, NPNF2, Vol. 2.
[2] Sozomenos, Ecclesiastical History Book 1, Chapter 11, NPNF Vol 2.
Today I give you an extract from Wednesday evening’s talk ‘Ancient Christians of Cyprus’. Enjoy!
My photo of Barnabas’ tomb
Although little is known about Cypriot Christians in the early years of the church, we do know that the apostles Paul and Barnabas visited the island. The book of Acts tells us as follows:
13 1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
4 The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.
6 They travelled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 7 who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10 ‘You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11 Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.’
Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for was amazed at the teaching about the Lord. (Acts 13:1-12, NIV)
Barnabas, we have already learned earlier in Acts 4, was a Jewish man from Cyprus who was part of the Jerusalem church. His ‘real’ name was Joseph, but his fellow-believers called him Barnabas—‘Son of Encouragement.’ We see him performing his acts of encouragement in Acts 9 when he convinces the apostles that Paul is no longer a persecutor but has become a believer like them.
In Acts 11, he moves from Jerusalem to Antioch at the apostles’ bidding to help out with the church that is growing there as a result of the persecution at Jerusalem. In the same chapter, we also learn that Christians from Jerusalem have moved to Cyprus; so the story above about Paul and Barnabas is not the first time the people of Cyprus have encountered the Gospel. The Lord was making ready the soil for the arrival of his great preachers.
Barnabas accompanies Paul in his many missionary journeys throughout the eastern Mediterranean until they part ways in a dispute over Barnabas’ kinsman Mark, whom Paul does not wish to take with them because of some earlier abandonment of the mission, it seems. From here, Barnabas disappears from historically reliable sources.
Nonetheless, what we are told in the Acts of Barnabas which date to before 478 when his alleged tomb near Salamis was discovered, is not unlikely in terms of broad detail.
I would like to make a brief note about apocryphal acts before moving on. Documents such as the Acts of Barnabas often turn out to be our only sources for some information on earliest Christianity. They are often reliant upon oral traditions, and some of them, such as the Protoevangelion of James, include complete fabrications.
Nonetheless, they can still contain reliable information and sometimes examples to live by, even if they are not entirely historically precise. We evangelicals often scoff at them, but I have difficulty doing so. One reason is the fact that I studied Classics as an undergraduate and master’s student.
There I learned that our earliest history for Alexander the Great, who died in 323 BC, is by Quintus Curtius Rufus, who wrote it during the first century AD — over three hundred, possibly four hundred, years later! Yet as an ancient historian, I rely on this document and others like it, such as Arrian or Plutarch who wrote about Alexander even later, trusting where it is not contrary to other, more secure documents, or where it does not run counter to reason, that it is a reliable account of the deeds of Alexander the Great.
There exists the very real possibility that, although the Acts of Barnabas represent a later sensibility than that of the apostolic age, texts such as this maintain the germ of truth throughout history.
According to the Acts of Barnabas, Barnabas and Mark brought the Christian mission back to Cyprus. It depicts them travelling all about the island, preaching to the pagan inhabitants, helping stop pagan festivals, and converting them to Christianity. Barnabas eventually settles himself down in Salamis as his base of operations. At the time, Salamis was one of the great cities of Cyprus, and you can still see the magnificent Roman ruins today.
Eventually, his teaching provoke the ire of the local Jewish population who got him arrested and then, under cover of nightfall, dragged him from the city and burned him to death at the stake.
Whether these details are all correct, I cannot say. But that Barnabas was martyred for his faith is surely certain—every apostle save John was martyred either by local authorities or in mob violence, and this state of affairs would carry on within the Roman Empire until AD 312, but in many places beyond the Empire it never stopped.
Classically Christian 