In the diatribe he launched against Christianity, Celsus had complained of the ignorance and credulity of Christians, and by the late second century it was a charge that educated Christians began to take seriously. Already Christians had had to defend themselves against Gnosticism, a movement that reached its height in the second century. The Gnostics taught that the souls of human beings were imprisoned in their earthly bodies but could be liberated through the acquisition of ‘knowledge’ (gnosis in Greek). Christ, who the Gnostics believed had had no earthly existence, was one of the mediators between man and the divine. So this was a much more other-worldly approach but, interesting though the Gnostics’ texts are, they became lost in extravagant imagery and exotic myth. Gnostics would never have formed a church; their ideas were simply too esoteric to form any kind of coherent theology or support an institutional structure. (See, in a subject awash with speculative surveys, the balanced account by Karen King, What is Gnosticism?, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2003.) Another second-century movement, Montanism, which arose in Anatolia, relied on charismatic prophecy, with its main adherents, Montanus and two women, Prisca and Maximilla, claiming their utterances were the words of the Holy Spirit. This too was rejected by more educated converts who were beginning to seek a more rational basis for doctrine. So, in the Greek world, in particular, Christians began adapting Greek philosophy for their needs.
The first century ad had seen a revival of Platonism. (Platonic philosophy of the first to third centuries ad is normally known as Middle Platonism to distinguish it from the later Neoplatonism of Plotinus and his followers (see below, p. 598).) Plato’s ‘the good’ (see p. 284) was for the Middle Platonists a supreme reality, whose existence transcended human thought. It was possible to grasp the nature of ‘the good’ but only through a rigorous intellectual quest, an intense and penetrating meditation on what ‘the good’ might be. An understanding of ‘the good’ helped, however, give the physical world meaning and value, especially as ‘the good’ intervened to give order to the universe and foster its continued progress. Middle Platonism gave the name theos to ‘the good’ and this can be translated as ‘God’. Plato’s Forms were seen by these philosophers as ‘the thoughts of God’. (From now on ‘the Good’ will be given a capital, to suggest its elevation to a supreme spiritual force.)
One of the dialogues of Plato that began to permeate Christian thought was the Timaeus that dealt with the problem of the creation of the world. Plato had talked of the creation as essentially a bringing into order that which was formless. The first verses of the Book of Genesis could be interpreted in the same way, as they were, for instance, by Justin Martyr. ‘God in his goodness created everything from formless matter’ (First Apology; 10: 2). Yet this early acceptance of a bringing to order of chaos was rejected in the second century by Christian thinkers such as Basilides of Alexandria who argued that such a limited role diminished the grandeur of God. So emerged the idea that creation had been ex nihilo, ‘out of nothing, thus giving God an appropriate status as Creator. It gradually became the dominant Christian belief on the matter and it remains so.
Even if Plato was rejected in this instance, Middle Platonism began to permeate the writings of Christians. Clement of Alexandria, writing around 190-200, was determined to show would-be converts that Christians were well able to hold their own intellectually with pagans and had no fear of Greek philosophy. Plato and the Platonists, argued Clement, had grasped the nature of God (possibly, he said, through reading the Hebrew scriptures) and had shown that his existence could be defended through the use of reason. In this sense the philosophers acted as schoolmasters bringing pagans to Christ. Yet Clement also recognized the importance of faith as a means of providing a bedrock from which further spiritual growth could take place. This combination of faith and reason was a sophisticated answer to the likes of Celsus who argued that Christianity was based on no more than woolly emotion and credulity. (See further the postscript to this chapter on Plotinus.)
The Platonists did not, however, mention Christ. The idea that ‘the Good/God’ could influence human history through the activity of a human being, whether divine or not, born in one specific place and at one point of time, was, in fact, alien to Platonism. Christians had therefore to find their own method of integrating Christ into the Platonist principles they had absorbed. One view first articulated in John’s Gospel, but later taken up by the church in Alexandria, was that Jesus represented the logos. Logos was a concept developed by Greek philosophers (Stoics as well as Platonists) to describe the force of reason that, they argued, had come into being as part of creation. Logos is a complex term, used in many different contexts, and it was precisely the range of these that provided flexibility for the theologians. (The conventional English translation as ‘the Word’ conceals the wealth of its original meanings in Greek.) Logos, for instance, was described as the intellectual power with which human beings were able to understand the divine world so, in this sense, logos created an overlap between the physical world and the divine. Christ could be portrayed as logos created by God in human form and sent by him into the world to act as an intermediary between God and man (‘an ambassador’ as one account suggested). This still left aspects of Christ’s relationship with God unclear. Those who followed John in accepting Christ as logos had then to determine whether he was an indivisible part of God, of the same substance with the Father, or a separate entity distinct from the Father as in an earthly father-son relationship. Justin Martyr had argued for the second option. Jesus may have been God from the beginning of time but separate from the Father in the same way that one torch lit from another is separate. Tertullian (C.160-C.240) followed him in arguing Jesus as logos was only part of God and subordinate to him.
In Carthage, the second city of the western, Latin-speaking, empire, the truculent Tertullian showed a less welcoming approach to Greek philosophy. Tertullian revelled in being outspoken and his colourful rhetoric seems to have been used largely for effect. (An analysis of his writings suggests a background as a lawyer.) Christianity should be believed, he proclaimed, because its claims were so ridiculous. The resurrection was certain just because it was impossible. Rather than illuminating the path towards Christ, he went on, the philosophers had been the inspiration for heretics: Plato had inspired the Gnostics, for instance. Tertullian was particularly harsh on Aristotle whom he accused of spreading contention. Dialectical argument was no more than a fruitless method ‘of building up and pulling down. In a famous peroration, Tertullian challenges his listeners: ‘What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between [Plato’s] Academy and the Church?’ Tertullian therefore represented another strand in the complex and diverse theologies of early Christianity, the elevation of faith above reason, an approach that might be traced back to Paul’s rejection of ‘the wisdom of the wise’.
The most intellectually brilliant of these early theologians was Origen (184-254). Origen was an austere figure, deeply affected, it was said, by the martyrdom of his Christian father. His life’s work lay in biblical scholarship, bringing together and commenting on different versions of the Old Testament, which he placed alongside each other for comparison. The resulting treatise, the Hexapla, remained the most sophisticated research tool for biblical criticism for centuries to come. (Only a few fragments now remain.) Origen also made important contributions to the concept of Christ as logos. For Origen God had originally created all souls as equal parts of his goodness but gradually all failed to worship him and they fell from union with him into the material world. From here they had to be redeemed and restored to union with God in the original state of goodness. How was this to be done? Luckily, argued Origen, there was one soul which had never fallen away from God and which remained bound to him in adoration. It was this soul united to the logos which became incarnated in the body of the Virgin Mary and was born as Jesus. He was the instrument of redemption. Those souls who had fallen downwards into human bodies could use him as inspiration for the long climb back to God.
Origen was also important for following Plato in distinguishing the few (those whom Plato had called ‘Guardians’) who could grasp the reality of ‘the Good’ and the masses who were diverted by their sensual natures and lack of commitment from being able to do so. For them it was vital to stress the importance of faith. As Origen, in a passage deeply influenced by Plato, put it, ‘As this matter of faith is so much talked of, I have to reply that we accept it as useful for the multitude, and that we admittedly teach those who cannot abandon everything and pursue a study of rational argument to believe without thinking out their reasons.’ In proposing a rationale for the imposition of beliefs by an elite onto the majority, this would prove an unhappy precedent.
Origen’s views that Christ as logos was distinct from God the Father were among those that were rejected by the Council of Nicaea and this made him a marked man (see the Arian controversy, p. 604 below). Origen had also argued that no one, even Satan, was beyond the redeeming power of God’s love. There was, therefore, no need for a hell to contain the irredeemably evil. By the late fourth century, when scholars such as Jerome and Augustine were arguing for the reality of hell as a place of everlasting torment for those who had not received the favour of God, the less forbidding views of Origen and his followers had been superseded. In 553 Origen was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constantinople. (See below, p. 666, for the context.)
The adoption of Platonism by Christian theologians was thus of immense importance. Plato had always argued that a minority could, through reason, grasp the eternal truths, which were ultimately more ‘real’ than any truth in this transient world, and impose them on the rest of society. This provided a rationale for church authority if the Platonic minority could be equated with the church hierarchy or the bishops meeting in council. Moreover Plato’s denigration of those who let their souls be ruled by sensual pleasure also fitted well with the ascetic impulses of many Christians. Later Plato’s view that things of beauty or grandeur on this earth could provide an imitation of heaven was used to justify opulent church buildings. In short it is impossible to imagine Christian theology without its Platonic backbone but while Plato’s original teachings had never been enforced, eventually they would be, in their absorbed form, through the institutional church as it was established by the state in the fourth century (see further below, chapter 33).
Cohesion was also being established between the Christian communities although it was a slow and often painful development. The creed affirmed by all seeking baptism included acceptance of God as the Father, Jesus Christ as the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Resurrection. (The Holy Spirit refers to the activity of God shown in the world, typically as the power of healing, casting out devils, or prophesying through the medium of ordinary human beings, but also as the instrument through which Mary conceived Jesus.) Gradually the sacred writings of the church were gathered into a Bible of selected books of the Old and New Testament (the Greek word biblia means ‘the books’), although the disputes over which early Christian writings should or should not be included took some time to resolve. It is only in the middle of the fourth century that there is a final New Testament in the form it is read today. Those texts not accepted were gradually discarded or in some cases declared heretical. Most have now disappeared.
There was still, however, no supreme human leader of the church. The bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria had gained some prominence in their local areas with the right to consecrate the bishops of smaller cities, although they still vigorously refused any submission to each other. An ideal was set out by Cyprian the bishop of the important city of Carthage (grandly rebuilt by the Romans following its destruction in 146 Bc). Cyprian is typical of the new class of bishops in that he came from a prosperous background and consciously rejected the honours his status would have earned him in pagan society. He was acclaimed bishop by the
Christian population in 248 or 249, only three years after his conversion. He defined his authority as if he were a Roman provincial governor with heretics being described as if they were rebels. In his treatise De Unitate, ‘On the unity of the Catholic Church’ (251), Cyprian argued that all bishops should act in consensus with no one bishop supreme over others. For Cyprian the church was the only body capable of authoritative Christian teaching and no true Christian could exist outside it. ‘He no longer has God for his father, who does not have the Church for his mother.’ This definition of a church claiming exclusive authority over all Christians had immense implications for the future of Christianity and was, of course, a radical break with any concept of religious authority hitherto known in the Greek and Roman world.
However much Cyprian might talk of authority, he had no means of ensuring that it was obeyed. The practical problems were shown when persecution broke out. Cyprian argued that anyone who lapsed from the church had rendered void their original baptism and must show complete repentance if it was to be renewed. He seemed to have broad support for his stance until a new bishop of Rome, Stephen, was elected in 253. Stephen was one of the first popes to claim his supreme authority as heir to Peter. He argued that the original baptism remained valid and his assertion of authority set the two men on a collision course. Could Rome impose doctrine on provincial bishops? The matter was unresolved because Stephen died in 257 and Cyprian himself was executed for his faith the following year, but the dispute showed that this was still a church where ultimate authority remained unresolved.
World History
