God in Dispute: "Conversations" among Great Christian Thinkers

DISPUTE

GOD

IN DISPUTE

Conversations

among

Great Christian

Thinkers

ROGER E.OLSON

© 2009 by Roger E. Olson

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Olson, Roger E.

God in dispute : conversations among great Christian thinkers / Roger E. Olson.

      p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8010-3639-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Theology, Doctrinal—History. 2. Church history. I. Title.

BT21.3.O46 2009

230.09—dc22                                                                 2009016437

Most Scripture is loosely rendered; a few quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Dedicated to my students,

who have endured and enjoyed these

conversations as they were being written

and especially to those who volunteered to play roles

as they performed them in my historical theology classes.

Contents

Introduction

1. Second-Century Critic Celsus Queries Polycarp, Valentinus, and Montanus about the Christian Sect

2. Second-Century Critic Celsus Interviews Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Clement about Christianity

3. Second- and Third-Century Leaders Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement Discuss Beliefs Necessary to Be a True Christian

4. Second- and Third-Century Origen and Tertullian Debate Faith’s Relationship to Reason and the Nature of the Eternal Godhead

5. Third-Century Bishop Cyprian of Carthage Is Interviewed about the Church and Salvation

6. Fourth-Century Alexandrians Deacon Athanasius and Presbyter Arius Are Interviewed about the Council of Nicaea

7. The Fourth-Century Cappadocian Fathers Meet to Settle on the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity

8. Prominent Fifth-Century Thinkers Cyril, Apollinaris, Nestorius, and Eutyches Discuss the Humanity and Divinity of Jesus Christ

9. Fifth-Century Bishop Augustine of Hippo and British Monk Pelagius Argue about Sin and Salvation

10. Medieval Abbot-Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury and Monk-Philosopher Abelard Debate Faith, Reason, and Atonement

11. Medieval Scholastic Philosopher-Theologian Thomas Aquinas and Tree-Hugger Francis of Assisi Enthuse on How to Know God

12. Sixteenth-Century Bucer Convenes Luther, Karlstadt, Erasmus, Zwingli, Grebel, Calvin, and Servetus on Church Reform

13. Reformer Luther and Roman Catholic Theologian Eck Dispute the Nature of Salvation, Grace, Faith, and Justification

14. Reformers Luther, Hubmaier, Zwingli, and Calvin Debate the Lord’s Supper and Baptism

15. Sixteenth-Century Reformer Calvin and Seventeenth-Century Theologian Arminius Contest Divergent Views of Salvation

16. Eighteenth-Century Evangelical Revivalists-Theologians Wesley and Edwards Compare Differing Views of Salvation

17. Eighteenth-Century Irish Deist Toland and English Evangelist Wesley Debate Faith and Reason, God and Miracles

18. Enlightenment Philosophers Locke, Kant, and Hegel Deal with Issues Impinging on Christian Theology

19. Father of Modern Theology Schleiermacher and Philosophers Kant and Hegel Debate the Essence of Religion and Christianity

20. Theologians Liberal Rauschenbusch and Conservative Machen Argue about True Christianity, the Bible, Evolution, and Doctrine

21. Twentieth-Century Barth and Brunner Discuss Theological Method with Nineteenth-Century Liberal Schleiermacher

22. Barth and Brunner Contest Their Differences on Natural Theology and Whether All Will Be Saved

23. Twentieth-Century Theological Giants Barth and Tillich Discuss Crucial Issues, Christ and Culture

24. Twentieth-Century Ethicists Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, Gutiérrez, Yoder, and Olasky Dispute the Meaning of Justice

25. Twentieth-Century Theologians Bultmann and Pannenberg Debate Faith, Myth, and Jesus’s Resurrection

26. Twentieth-Century Theologians Henry and Ramm Dispute Evangelical Theology, Modernity, and the Enlightenment

27. Twentieth-Century Roman Catholic Theologian Rahner Is Interviewed about His Controversial but Influential Theories

28. Three Liberation Theologians Debate about Humanity’s Worst Oppression and How Liberation Should Happen

29. Two Postmodern Theologians Discuss the Meaning of Theology in Postmodern Culture

Conclusion

Introduction

This book rises out of my use of imaginary dialogues in various historical theology courses I have taught over the last three decades. Most of my students have found the practice to be helpful if not delightful. I usually ask one or more students (depending on how many roles are in a dialogue) to play the part of a theologian and use dramatic inflection for emphasis. I began to think that others might enjoy listening in and perhaps using such dialogues in their classes. Yet I’ve written them so that anyone can benefit from and enjoy them, not just theologians or teachers of theology.

I’ve carefully chosen the twenty-nine dialogues in this book to represent selected high points of the development of Christian thought over the centuries. Some important thinkers are necessarily neglected. Perhaps a sequel volume can include them.

Each dialogue is preceded by a section called Setting, which provides information about the thinkers in the conversation and where the imaginary dialogue is supposed to be taking place. Then comes the dialogue itself, followed by Analysis that discusses the dialogue and what happened there. Finally, each conversation/chapter ends with suggestions For Further Reading to assist readers interested in learning more.

I realize that I have taken fairly large poetic license with thinkers in some of these conversations. I put words into their mouths. When it comes to content, I try to be faithful to their ideas; but when it comes to style, I try to entertain the readers with jokes and jibes, snide remarks and warm, friendly comments. Hopefully the participants in the conversations will come alive and seem quite real.

I believe that a careful reading of this book will deliver a brief course in the history of Christian thought. In each conversation I have tried to include the participants’ most important contributions to Christian theology. If you’re intrigued, read further in the conversation partners’ own writings (mentioned in the text) and secondary sources about the thinker (mentioned in the sections For Further Reading).

1

Second-Century Critic Celsus Queries

Polycarp, Valentinus, and Montanus

about the Christian Sect

Setting

Little is known about the personal life of the Roman philosopher Celsus. He may have been a Christian early in life, but by the time he wrote his anti-Christian polemic commonly known as The True Doctrine in about 175 or 180, he was Christianity’s leading critic in the empire. His knowledge of Christianity was limited, but he seems to have gone to some trouble to find out what Christians believed even if he sometimes got it wrong. In his book he states quite unequivocally that Christians worship Jesus as God, which for him is a mark against them. Contemporary critics of orthodox Christology—belief that Jesus is fully God and fully human—often claim that this doctrine, known as the hypostatic union, was invented by fourth-century Christian bishops under the influence of the half-Christian, half-pagan emperor Constantine. They have obviously never read Celsus or the early church fathers.

It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that Celsus ever met the early Christian bishop and martyr Polycarp, who was burned at the stake and killed by a dagger in Smyrna in about 155. Nor would he have met or talked to the so-called heretics (considered so by leading Christian bishops of the Roman Empire) Valentinus and Montanus (second century, though their exact dates are unknown). Little is known about either man’s personal life or even their teachings, other than from what their more orthodox Christian opponents said about them. Valentinus lived in Rome and led a group of Gnostic Christians, who considered matter evil and denied both the true humanity of Jesus and his bodily resurrection.

Montanus lived in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and led a group of Christians who called their movement The New Prophecy. They were the extreme charismatics of the middle of the second century. The group believed not only in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit (like contemporary Pentecostals and charismatics) but also that the Holy Spirit spoke through Montanus, and his sayings were considered equal in authority with those of the apostles and their writings.

Scholars looking back at the infancy of the Christian movement often consider Valentinus and Montanus to be archheretics, who led many innocent Christians astray. Polycarp is usually held up as a great representative of orthodox Christianity, who gave up his life rather than bow to the emperor. Like other so-called Apostolic Fathers, he likely knew at least one of the original apostles—probably John.

In this imaginary conversation, Celsus encounters Polycarp, Valentinus, and Montanus on a ship sailing to Rome. He queries them about Christianity for his research, which will lead to the book he plans to write: The True Doctrine. The ensuing debate reflects the diversity of Christianity in the second century; Celsus’s three new Christian acquaintances agree about little.

In a way, Polycarp, Valentinus, and Montanus respectively represent three impulses within historic Christianity: the orthodox impulse for theological correctness, the Gnostic impulse for higher knowledge and wisdom, and the enthusiastic impulse for transformative experience.

The Conversation

CELSUS: How interesting to find us all together on this Rome-bound ship! You know, I’ve been preparing a new talk for the Rotary Clubs around the empire. It’s about you Christians and what I call the true doctrine. By that I mean the hybrid of Platonic and Stoic ideas that forms the consensual worldview of sophisticated, educated people throughout our great empire. Compared with that, what you Christians teach seems to be sheer superstition. It’s a wonder that anyone could or would believe it—except ignorant people, I suppose. I’m on my way to Rome now to deliver the first draft of my speech to an elite club that includes members of the Roman Senate. Eventually I plan to write a book about the Christian movement, showing that its beliefs are not only false but also pernicious: it leads people away from true philosophy, which forms the basis of our great culture.

POLYCARP: Roman senators, did you say? I hope you’ll encourage them to recognize Christianity as a legitimate religion separate from the Jewish religion and to stop persecuting us. I’m on my way to Rome to appeal to its leaders to lift the laws against practicing our faith. I also hope to meet some senators and members of the emperor’s household. Back home in Smyrna, where I am the bishop of the Christians and thus their leading minister, we are under tremendous pressure these days. And there’s no good reason for it. We’re good citizens, and we don’t harm anyone, contrary to rumors about eating babies and engaging in incestuous orgies. But it sounds as though you’re not going to be our ally, are you?

MONTANUS: Excuse me, Bishop Polycarp, but what do you mean by saying you don’t harm anyone? You bishops are constantly criticizing and even condemning our New Prophecy movement as if we weren’t authentically Christian, as you think you are. I am, after all, the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit, and you bishops have no right to persecute me or my followers—no more right than you say the empire has to persecute you and your followers. I’m on my way to Rome to establish a new church there—one that will follow what the Spirit is saying through me today. Our New Prophecy churches are going to spread throughout the empire and sweep away your dead, dry-as-dust bishops’ churches.

VALENTINUS: Celsus, don’t listen to either one of them! We Gnostics (as some call us) are the true Christians with the higher spiritual wisdom that is in many ways similar to what you call the true doctrine. We’re more philosophically minded than the bishop and his followers, and we’re certainly more intellectual than fanatics like Montanus and his ilk. Surely you’ve heard of us! We Gnostics are thriving in Egypt, especially in and around Alexandria, the great cultural capital of the empire. Many wealthy, educated, and highly cultured people attend our meetings. Please tell the Roman senators to regard us as the true Christians. Oh, by the way, I’m on my way to Rome to visit our group there. They meet in several villas around the city and engage in study of higher spiritual wisdom and in meditation.

CELSUS: Now this is a perfect example of what I’m intending to tell my audiences in Rome and around the empire. You Christians can’t even agree among yourselves about what you believe! You’re divided into many quarreling sects and factions. When you talk, you sound like a bunch of babbling animals fighting over scraps of food! But the glue that holds the empire together is the true doctrine: an ethical-spiritual philosophy based on nature and reason. It’s one true doctrine without variations, and it doesn’t approve of all kinds of weird, mystical beliefs or authoritative pronouncements of bishops.

POLYCARP: No, you’re wrong, Celsus—at least about Christian unity. And, I suspect, one could find many different versions of your precious true doctrine. After all, it is an unstable compound of the teachings of Plato and the Stoics! Tell your audiences that we Christians are united. We do believe the same things. We believe exactly what the apostles taught us. We bishops of the true Christian churches, which we call both catholic and orthodox, are all heirs of the apostles. They appointed us. For example, when I was a boy, I learned Christian truth from Christ’s youngest and most beloved disciple, John, who was very old at that time. He was the bishop of the Christians in Ephesus, where I grew up. From him I know exactly what Christ was all about.

These other so-called Christians can’t make such a claim of apostolic succession. John warned us against false prophets like Valentinus and Montanus. Valentinus is a false prophet and not a true Christian because he denies that God became flesh in Jesus Christ. Montanus is a false prophet because he claims to be the exclusive mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit and sets his authority over that of the apostles! The apostles left behind a tradition of truth, the rule of faith, which forms the foundation of what true Christians believe and teach. These others are interlopers and false brethren. Don’t even listen to them on the subject of Christianity.

MONTANUS: Wait! Listen! I feel the Holy Spirit moving over my vocal cords like a breeze over the strings of a harp. Be quiet. Yes . . . yes . . . listen. I am the Spirit of God, and I speak through this man. Listen to him. He is my chosen mouthpiece, . . . not the so-called bishops who have led my people astray by imprisoning my Spirit in writings. Here now is true counsel: Do not marry or engage in any lustful thoughts or relationships. Avoid strong drink, and spend most of your time in prayer and waiting for the Savior Jesus to return. Above all, listen to and obey my prophets . . . and prophetesses. Do not quench my Spirit among you. For I am the Lord your God!

Did you hear that? Celsus, tell the Roman senators that Christ is alive and well and speaks through me and that our New Prophecy movement is the true Christianity. And tell them that we mean no harm to the Roman government. We are just gathering in various places to praise God and wait for Jesus to return. If they do decide to extend peace to Christians, make sure that includes our congregations in Rome and throughout the empire.

VALENTINUS: Celsus, please pay no attention to these men. One is a pompous you-know-what, and the other is a raving religious fanatic. There’s no chance that the Roman Senate or the emperor is going to recognize them or their followers as legal and legitimate. Now we Gnostics are different. We’re not stuffy, dogmatic, hellfire-and-brimstone preachers like Polycarp and the other bishops. We’re not intolerant as they are. We welcome into our circles anyone with special spiritual insight and abilities. Our job as Gnostic teachers is merely to encourage spiritual seekers to search beyond the physical-material realm and find the pure cosmic Christ-spirit that dwells in the temple of the human.

We teach that Christ-wisdom and not some set of dogmas. And what we teach is not so different from what some of your own Greek philosophers teach. Matter is a prison of the soul-spirit. True wisdom comes from above the material realm. This wisdom is knowledge of the inner divinity of the soul-spirit; it is a spark of the divine light and fire from above. Seek that which is above, and you will find it within. Didn’t Plato say as much in his allegory of the cave?

CELSUS: Actually, I think you’re all nuts. You all agree on one thing that we philosophers find just stupid: that God appeared in a man in the most backwater region of the whole empire, suffered and died on a Roman cross, then rose again, and is the savior of the whole world. No matter how you polish it, that central Christian belief, what you call the gospel, conflicts with our true doctrine of Greek philosophy. It is simply absurd. God, you see, cannot enter flesh or appear within time or suffer, let alone die! And dead bodies do not rise. Who would want his body after death? All these things are not only mysteries; they’re also superstitions. That’s what I’ll tell my audiences.

POLYCARP: Well, then, Celsus, I don’t hold out much hope for changing your mind unless the Spirit of God works in your heart and mind. But I will say this: your true doctrine of Greek philosophy is partly right. God is pure spirit, eternal, true, and perfect in every way. But your doctrine goes wrong in thinking that he cannot also take on a human form in order to identify with his wretched human creatures and teach them how to obey God. Jesus Christ is God’s Son. I say is because Jesus still lives. But he’s not all of God that there is. You seem to think that if God became flesh, there would then be no God running the universe. But that’s not what we believe. The Logos was who became man in Jesus—God’s Word and God’s Son. The Father remained in heaven and cannot suffer or die.

VALENTINUS: Um, Celsus, may I say you’ve got us Gnostic Christians all wrong? We don’t believe that God entered into human flesh or suffered or died. And we don’t believe that Jesus Christ rose bodily from death. What we believe is what a few of Christ’s own disciples learned secretly from him and passed down to us. Christ is a spirit messenger sent from the high and heavenly God, whom Jesus called Father and who is pure Spirit and cannot come into direct contact with matter. After all, matter is not only corrupting; it is also evil.

This redeemer Christ-spirit took over the body of Jesus when he was about thirty years old. Through Jesus, this spirit taught wisdom and then left Jesus just before he died. On the cross Jesus uttered, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. That was when the Christ-spirit left Jesus to return to the Father. But the Christ-spirit came back to teach a few of the disciples the secret wisdom that most mortals cannot handle: that the human soul is a spark of God. It has lost its way in the universe and has fallen into bondage to matter. Through prayer, knowledge, and meditation, we can help people release the soul from matter and return to its heavenly home.

MONTANUS: That’s the biggest bunch of pseudo-intellectual, spiritual nonsense I’ve ever heard. Wait, wait . . . I feel something happening. Listen! I am the Spirit of God speaking through this man. Listen to him. The Spirit says that in these last days many false teachers will come and lead people astray from the truth. These Gnostics are the worst of them. Shun them and don’t listen to them. But the bishops aren’t much better. Listen only to my mouthpiece and his two prophetesses. Lo, I come quickly, says Christ. Leave all behind and move to Pepuza and await my coming with my people of the New Prophecy. Amen! You heard the Spirit. Valentinus and his followers are false teachers and learners. They do not know the truth.

POLYCARP: Oh, brother! What a bunch of heresy and fanaticism we have here parading as Christian. Listen, Celsus, you can see for yourself that these men are charlatans. They are not true teachers of Jesus Christ or mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit. The church of Jesus Christ believes exactly what the apostles taught and wrote. We have many of their writings, you see—

MONTANUS(interrupting Polycarp): Stop! The Spirit is about to speak again!

POLYCARP (to Montanus sharply): Be quiet! Before I smite thy spirit on the snout!

MONTANUS(to Polycarp sharply): Ah, Brother Polycarp, you seem to have the gift of quenching the Spirit, don’t you? I believe the apostle Paul warned against that. Would you chase the Holy Spirit back into the last century and into the writings of the apostles? Why won’t you accept that the Spirit still speaks today?

POLYCARP: The Spirit does still speak today, but only through the apostolic teachings as interpreted by the bishops appointed by the apostles or their successors. The true Christian church is where the bishop is.

MONTANUS: No, you’re wrong. The true Christian church is where the Spirit is!

VALENTINUS: You’re both ignorant of the truth. Christ remains above us in the Spirit world; our spirits, our souls, must ascend out of our bodies to unite with his. He returns every time one of us achieves a spiritual oneness with him through spiritual disciplines and knowledge. The Holy Spirit is the substance of the soul-spirit of humans and is the same in everyone. It doesn’t speak any more through you, Montanus, than through anyone else who seeks to become one with spirit apart from flesh. And that goes for you too, Polycarp.

(Polycarp and Montanus stand apart and both back away from Valentinus while muttering things like Nonsense! and Heresy! and How stupid! and Get behind me, Satan!)

CELSUS: Well, I’ve heard just about enough from all of you. When my book The True Doctrine comes out, everyone will know how ignorant you Chris- tians really are. You’d better get your act together and at least decide on what you believe, and it had better be something much closer to the true doctrine of Greek philosophy if you hope for it to catch on among the powerful elite of the empire.

Analysis

Keep in mind that this is an imaginary conversation; it did not take place nor would it have taken place exactly as it is written here. The purpose is to present a composite account of what we think these men believed and might have said to each other. It illustrates the diversity among second-century Christians and the attitude of many of the educated elite of the Roman Empire toward Christianity.

Celsus did not advocate persecution of Christians; he simply ridiculed Christianity as equal to superstition. We know what he wrote from the later church father Origen, who included virtually all of The True Doctrine in his book Contra Celsum (Against Celsus), written in the third century, fifty to seventy-five years after Celsus wrote. We have to trust that Origen quoted it correctly, and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise. Celsus probably had knowledge of Christianity about as accurate as most educated Romans who bothered to look into the matter. He might have had even more, because he took the time and trouble to do some research.

Perhaps as a result of Celsus’s negative comparisons between Christianity and Greek philosophy, some second- and third-century Christians tried to show that the two are compatible. Among these are the so-called Christian apologists (a category of early church writers) such as Justin Martyr, who was both a Christian teacher and a Greek philosopher. He wrote two Apologies (defenses of the faith) to Greek and Roman intellectuals. They are both strongly Hellenistic (influenced by Greek culture and thought). While Justin almost certainly did not know or read Celsus (Justin came somewhat before Celsus), other Christian apologists may have responded to Celsus. Origen certainly did. And Justin used some Greek philosophical concepts to reconcile Christianity with the best of Greek philosophy without merging the two.

Valentinus was one of the Gnostic leaders in the second century; there were many others around the empire. Much of what we know about him comes from the five books of Christian bishop Irenaeus’s Against Heresies. Irenaeus (ca. 130–ca. 202) studied Gnosticism and refuted it by using some of the arguments that Polycarp employed in our imaginary dialogue. According to Irenaeus, he studied under Polycarp as a boy and therefore was a direct link back to one of the apostles, John the Beloved. If Jesus had secretly passed down Gnostic teachings to a select group of disciples, Irenaeus would have known about it. He said that he never heard about it from Polycarp, who never heard of it from John.

Gnosticism is hard to pin down. In the second century it was like a jungle of ideas, and it spawned a whole library of writings, including Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas. These included alleged sayings of Jesus that supported Gnostic beliefs. The second-century Gnostics were like a shadow of Christianity, and they did not disappear. Under the rule of Emperor Constantine and later Christian political leaders, they simply went underground. Throughout Christian history, Gnostic-like sects secretly passed down what scholars call esoteric Christianity. Twentieth-century groups such as the Rosicrucians continue this tradition.

The key doctrine (or idea) of the Gnostics, which they all shared in spite of secondary differences, was and is that matter is either evil or somehow the cause of evil. The body, being material, is the seat of sin. Therefore the true God could not have created the material world; it was created by a demented or fallen demiurge, a lesser god. They identified this being with Yahweh and rejected every Jewish element in Christianity. Their antipathy toward matter led them to deny that the heavenly redeemer could have taken on a body or become truly and fully human. Rather, he appeared to be human or used the human body of Jesus as an instrument for teaching the higher wisdom to the chosen few, who were spiritually capable of receiving it. Finally, the Gnostics taught that the inner self or soul of each person is a spark of God that has forgotten its true divinity and needs to be reminded of its origin. Such is the nature of the gnosis, or wisdom, that the Gnostics taught.

Polycarp is generally considered to be one of the Apostolic Fathers; his claim to have known John the Beloved is rarely doubted. He was an important Christian leader in the middle of the second century, which is why he was arrested and executed by Roman officials in Smyrna in 155. Someone wrote about his martyrdom, and that document, known as the Martyrdom of Polycarp, is usually considered among the writings of the Apostolic Fathers even though no one knows who wrote it. Polycarp himself wrote little that survives. Only his Letter to the Philippians exists. Even though we know little about him, most Christian scholars consider him to be a second-century standard of orthodoxy.

Some scholarly readers of this imaginary conversation may object to its portrayal of Montanus. It’s true that later Montanism—the New Prophecy movement after Montanus—may not have been this extreme. But early Christian sources portray Montanus himself and the two prophetesses with him as extreme. Without doubt he considered himself to be an oracle, if not the oracle, of God and elevated his own utterances to a level of authority equal to that of the apostles. He does not seem to have taught any heresies about Christ or God; his bad reputation among Christians then and now rests on his claims to have authority and his rejection of the bishops’ authority. But apparently he also rejected marriage and advocated a strictly ascetic lifestyle while calling his followers to gather in Pepuza in Asia Minor to await the return of Christ.

Throughout the history of Christian theology, Montanism has been used to label Christian groups engaging in prophecy that adds to Scripture. Some have considered Mormonism to be a modern form of Montanism.

All this raises the question that Celsus must have considered: who were the true and authentic Christians of the second century? Obviously there were schisms and divisions among the Christians in the Roman Empire. There was no authority with power to decide which groups were orthodox (theologically correct) and which were heretical (theologically incorrect). There were simply competing claims of Christian authenticity. Every few years some author publishes a book claiming that there was no orthodox Christianity in the second century or until Constantine embraced Christianity and enforced a particular version of it as the only acceptable one in the early fourth century. According to these scholars, then, second-century Christianity was merely a blooming, buzzing confusion of radically divergent theologies.

The simple answer to this suggestion is that lack of an enforcing power does not equal relativism of truth. All the groups claiming Christian authenticity could not have been right, unless one is willing to reduce Christianity to folk religion and mere opinion. But if Christian faith is compatible with anything and everything, it is strictly nothing. Surely some were more right than others in this competition for the soul of Christianity. Conservative Christians have always acknowledged the bishops as orthodox to the exclusion of groups like Montanists and Gnostics. That is not to say that the Montanists and Gnostics were totally wrong about everything; it is only to say that their claims to be the holders of authentic Christianity were dubious at best. It’s hard to oppose Polycarp’s and Irenaeus’s arguments about carrying on the traditions taught to them by the apostles.

Perhaps, however, the churches of the bishops made a mistake by overreacting to Montanism. They tended to quench the spiritual fervor of second-century Christians; thus prophecy, speaking in tongues, and other supernatural gifts of the Spirit gradually disappeared. That’s unfortunate but understandable. Even the best modern Pentecostal and charismatic groups have trouble in striking a balance between spiritual enthusiasm and order. The early church chose order to the detriment of spiritual enthusiasm. We can only ask what we would have done differently.

After the setting of this imaginary conversation, Christian bishops such as Irenaeus in Gaul (modern France) worked hard to standardize Christian belief by proving that Gnostic claims were wrong. Bishops in the region around Pepuza excluded the New Prophecy movement. It spread far and wide anyway but was never fully accepted as part of the network of churches led by bishops. It gradually died out as a relatively organized movement.

One can hardly blame Celsus for being confused about Christianity, but we can only wish that he had listened carefully, long and hard, to Polycarp or someone like him. Or perhaps listened to Irenaeus. But Irenaeus was busy writing his five books Against Heresies way off in Gaul when Celsus was writing The True Doctrine in (probably) Alexandria, Egypt, or Rome.

For Further Reading

The Apostolic Fathers in English. Translated by Michael W. Holmes. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

Celsus. On the True Doctrine. Translated by R. Joseph Hoffmann. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion. 3rd ed. Boston: Beacon, 2001.

Osborn, Eric. Irenaeus of Lyons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

2

Second-Century Critic Celsus Interviews

Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Clement

about Christianity

Setting

This imaginary conversation takes place in Rome in about 200, in a room in the Senate House. Celsus (see conversation 1, above) has published his exposé of Christianity, titled The True Doctrine, in which he ridicules its adherents as superstitious and ignorant. There he implies that virtually no common ground exists between Christianity and the true doctrine, by which he means the generally accepted hybrid of Greek philosophy combining aspects of Platonism and Stoicism. After reading his book, one could hardly imagine an intellectual Christian. That would seem to be an oxymoron.

A committee of the Roman Senate has asked Celsus, a well-known author and speaker, to bring together some leading Christian writers to answer questions about their religious beliefs and especially about the relationship between Christianity and Greco-Roman culture. Remember that then, in about 200, most leaders of the Roman Empire considered something like Celsus’s philosophy, the so-called true doctrine, to be the ideological glue holding the empire together. Christianity was spreading so quickly that some Roman senators worried about it undermining the morals of society (by which they meant society’s common norms).

Such a meeting as this never actually took place. The church father Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215), the principal of the Christian catechetical school (somewhat like a Christian college or seminary today), is not known to have visited Rome. But he could have. He was well traveled. The school in Alexandria, the empire’s second-largest and wealthiest city, both economically and culturally, was gaining a reputation even among pagans as a great center of intellectual life. Clement wrote several books explaining Christianity, including his well-known Stromata (Miscellanies) and Paedagogus (The Instructor). His treatise Protrepticus is also known as Exhortation to the Greeks. Clement tried to reconcile the best of Greek philosophy with the best of Christian doctrine. Some argue that he went too far in accommodating Christian thought to Greek philosophy.

Irenaeus (d. ca. 202) was one of ancient Christianity’s most influential leaders and thinkers. This church father emigrated with a group of Christians from the western coast of Asia Minor to Gaul, in what today is France. There he became bishop of the churches in and around Lyons. He is sometimes called Irenaeus of Lugdunum (modern Lyons, France) but is best known as Irenaeus of Lyons. In the second half of the second century, he undertook a thorough investigation of the various Gnostic Christian sects. (See the first conversation above for information about Gnosticism. Valentinus, a participant in that conversation, was a leading Gnostic in Rome, and Irenaeus seems to be especially out to refute him and his followers.) Irenaeus published Against Heresies in five volumes in approximately 175–185. He died in a persecution of Christians in about 202.

One reason Irenaeus was so influential among Christians was his link to the apostles. During his lifetime there surely was not yet an agreed-upon Christian canon of Scriptures (what would come to be called the New Testament when it was finally compiled and accepted by all Christians). Irenaeus studied the faith under Polycarp (a participant in the first conversation above), who studied it under John the Beloved, Jesus’s youngest and longest-lived disciple. So Irenaeus could recall and recount apostolic Christianity as John taught it to Polycarp and as Polycarp taught it to Irenaeus. This was important at a time when Christianity was plagued by false rumors and accusations and by schisms and divisions over the meaning of the gospel.

Tertullian (ca. 160–ca. 225) was a Christian thinker and writer in Carthage, North Africa. He is often considered to be the greatest of the early Latin church fathers even though he was not an ordained clergyman of the church. He was a lawyer who undertook to explain Christianity, at least from his own perspective, to Romans and others. (Carthage was a large metropolitan area and considered as a suburb of Rome even though it lay across the Mediterranean Sea.) Tertullian died of unknown cause in about 225, leaving behind scores of writings on a wide variety of subjects related to Christian belief and living. He is sometimes counted as one of the early Christian apologists because some of his writings appealed to Roman leaders for correct understanding of Christianity. But he also wrote treatises against heretics such as Marcion and Praxeas, both of Rome.

As stated earlier, this conversation is completely imaginary. To the best of our knowledge, none of the participants ever met one another. Doubtless, however, they knew of each other, and if Celsus had tried to bring three great Christian leaders of his time to Rome, he might have chosen these three.

The Conversation

CELSUS: Gentlemen of the Senate, allow me to introduce to you three of the most important scholars of the upstart religion called Christianity, which is sweeping through our empire and causing so much consternation and trouble. I have searched far and wide throughout the empire and have found these three, who are reputed to be true scholars, genuine intellectuals, and also Christians. Yet as you know from my book The True Doctrine, that is improbable. How someone can be both an intellectual and a Christian is anyone’s guess. Until now I have not thought it possible. You asked me to bring before you the cream of the Christian crop to explain that religion’s beliefs and practices and especially how it is not a threat to the peace and unity of the empire. Here they are. I’ll ask them questions, and you may judge for yourselves whether their answers are convincing and bring any relief to our concerns.

Mr. Clement, or should I call you Dr. Clement or Dean Clement? I’d like to start the questioning with you. In your recent books The Instructor and Miscellanies, you argue that Christianity and Greek philosophy are actually in agreement. That seems counterintuitive at best. Could you please elaborate on that a bit? What do you mean?

CLEMENT: Thank you for inviting me to participate in this meeting, Mr. Celsus. And thanks to you, Roman senators, for granting all three of us safety from prosecution for coming here today. I trust that you’ll keep that promise.

I hope I can shed some light on the true nature of our Christian movement, which is so widely misunderstood in the empire. Like our beloved hero Justin Martyr, who was executed here in Rome for teaching the same things I teach—that Christianity is continuous with and yet superior to the best of Greek philosophy—I believe that Greek philosophy contains a significant portion of the truth. I see it as a preparation for the gospel of Christ, which we Christians believe in and teach and by which we are saved. Greek philosophy is a work of divine providence, preparing Greeks and Romans for Christianity. Just as God led the Jews to Christ by using Moses, so God is using Socrates and Plato to lead gentiles to Christ.

The Greek philosophers knew that the gods and goddesses of folk religion are not real; they taught their followers to think of the divine source as one, as spiritual, and as moral. They also taught about immortality and judgment after death for deeds done in the bodily life. So we find many excellent truths in Greek philosophy. Our motto in Alexandria is All truth is God’s truth, wherever it may be found. The universal Logos of which the philosophers spoke is known to us as the source of all truth; the Logos became man in Jesus Christ and fulfilled Greek philosophy just as Christ fulfilled Jewish religion.

So, you see, we Christians in Alexandria regard Greek philosophy as a useful tool for bringing men and women to Christ. (I mention women where others may ignore them because I consider them to be just as