13. WESTERN THEOLOGY and ISOLATION: Walker, 3.14, 3.6-3.20, pp. 172-195

 [13.1] Some Western Characteristics  [13.2] Jerome  [13.3]. Augustine
[13.4] The Pelagian Controversy  [13.5] Semi-Pelagianism  [13.6] Gregory the Great

While East and West shared in the theological development already outlined, and Western influences contributed much to the official decisions in the Arian and Christological controversies, there was a very appreciable difference in the weight of theological interest in the two portions of the empire. The West produced no really conspicuous theological leader between Cyprian (d. 258) and Ambrose (340?-397). Even Hilary of Poitiers (300 ?-367) was not sufficiently eminent as an original thinker to make a real exception. Both Hilary and Ambrose were devoted students of the Greek Fathers—the latter especially of the great Cappadocians. Though Tertullian was personally discredited by his Montanism, his influence lived on in the greatly valued Cyprian. While, therefore, Greek elements entered largely into Western thinking, it developed its own peculiarities.

The western part of the empire was disposed, like Tertullian, to view Christianity under judicial rather than, like the East, under philosophical aspects. Its thought of the Gospel was that primarily of a new law. While the West did not deny the Eastern conception that salvation is a making divine and immortal of our sinful mortality, that conception was too abstract for it readily to grasp. Its own thought was that salvation is getting right with God. Hence, in Tertullian, Cyprian, and Ambrose there is a deeper sense of sin, and a clearer conception of grace than in the East. Religion in the West had a closer relation to the acts of every-day life than in the East. It was more a forgiveness of definitely recognized evil acts, and less an abstract transformation of nature, than in the East —more an overcoming of sin, and less a rescue from earthiness and death. In the West, through the teaching of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Ambrose, sin was traced to an inherited vitiation of human nature in a way that had no corresponding parallel in the East. There can be no doubt, also, that this Western estimate of sin and grace, imperfectly worked out though it yet was, combined with the firmer ecclesiastical organization of the West, gave the Western Church a stronger control of the daily life of the people than was achieved by that of the East. All these Western peculiarities were to come to their full fruition in the work of Augustine.

[13.] 2. JEROME

    Jerome was the ablest scholar that the ancient Western Church could boast. Born about 340 in Strido in Dalmatia, he studied in Rome, where he was baptized by Pope Liberius in 360. Aquileia he made his headquarters for a while, where he became the friend of Rufinus (?-410), the translator of 174 Origen, like Jerome to be a supporter of monasticism and a monk in Palestine, but with whom he was to quarrel over Origen’s orthodoxy. Jerome had a restless desire to know the scholarly and religious world. From 366 to 370 he visited the cities of Gaul. The next three years saw him again in Aquileia. Then came a journey through the Orient to Antioch, where he was overtaken with a severe illness in which he believed Christ Himself appeared and reproached him for devotion to the classics. He now turned to the Scriptures, studying Hebrew, and living as a hermit from 373 to 379, not far from Antioch. Ordained a presbyter in Antioch, in 379, he studied in Constantinople under Gregory Nazianzus. The year 382 saw him in Rome, where he won the hearty support of Pope Damasus (366-384), and preached in season and out of season the merits of the monastic life. Soon he had a large following, especially among Roman women of position; but also much enmity, even among the clergy, for monasticism was not as yet popular in the West, and Jerome himself was one of the most vindictive of disputants. The death of Damasus made Jerome’s position so uncomfortable in Rome that he retired, in 385, to Antioch, whither a number of his Roman converts to monastic celibacy, led by Paula and her daughter, Eustochium, soon followed him. With them he journeyed through Palestine and to the chief monastic establishments of Egypt, returning to Bethlehem in 386, where Paula built nunneries and a monastery for men. Here, as head of the monastery, Jerome made his headquarters till his death, in 420.

    Jerome’s best use of his unquestionable learning was as a translator of the Scriptures. The older Latin versions were crude, and had fallen into much corruption. Pope Damasus proposed to Jerome a revision. That he completed for the New Testament about 388. The Old Testament he then translated in Bethlehem, with the aid of Jewish friends. It is a proof of Jerome’s soundness of scholarship that, in spite even of the wishes of Augustine, he went back of the Septuagint to the Hebrew. The result of Jerome’s work was the Vulgate, still in use in the Roman Church. It is his best monument. Jerome had, also, no small deserts as a historian. He continued the Chronicle of Eusebius. His De Viris Inlustribus is a biographical dictionary of Christian writers to and including himself. He was an abundant commentator on the Scriptures.

    He urged by treatise and by letter the advantages of celibacy and of the monastic life. As a theologian he had little that was original to offer. He was an impassioned defender of tradition and of Western popular usage. A controversialist who loved disputation, he attacked opponents of asceticism like Jovinianus, critics of relic-reverence like Vigilantius, and those who, like Helvidius, held that Mary had other children than our Lord. He condemned Origen, whom he had once admired. He wrote in support of Augustine against the Pelagians. In these controversial writings Jerome’s [jealousy, spite, and] littleness of spirit is often painfully manifest. Though deserving to be reckoned, as he is by the Roman Church, one of its “Doctors,” by reason of the greatness of his learning and the use which he made of it, the title “saint” seems more a tribute to the scholar than to the man.

[13.3] AUGUSTINE

In Augustine the ancient church reached its highest religious attainment since apostolic times. Though his influence in the East was to be relatively slight, owing to the nature of the questions with which he was primarily concerned, all Western Christianity was to become his debtor. Such superiority as Western religious life came to possess over that of the East was primarily his bequest to it. He was to be the father of much that was most characteristic in mediaeval Roman Catholicism. He was to be the spiritual ancestor, no less, of much in the Reformation. His theology, though buttressed by the Scriptures, philosophy, and ecclesiastical tradition, was so largely rooted in his own experience as to render his story more than usually the interpretation of the man.

    Africa gave three great leaders to Latin Christianity, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine. Augustine was born in Tagaste, in Numidia, now Suk Ahras in the Department of Constantine in Algeria, on November 13, 354. His father, Patricius, was a heathen of good position but of small property, an easy-going, worldly character, who did not embrace Christianity till near the end of life. His mother, Monnica, was a Christian woman of high worth, eagerly ambitious for her son, though the full radiance of her Christian life was to be manifested in her later years, developed through Ambrose and Augustine himself. In Augustine there were two natures, one passionate and sensuous, the other eagerly high-minded and truth-seeking. It may not be wrong to say that father and mother were reflected in him. From Tagaste he was sent for the sake of schooling to the neighboring Madaura, and thence to Carthage, where he pursued the study of rhetoric. Here, when about seventeen, he took a concubine, to whom he was to hold for at least fourteen years, and to them a son, Adeodatus, whom he dearly loved, was born in 372. If the sensuous Augustine was thus early aroused, the truth-seeking Augustine was speedily awakened. When nineteen, the study of Cicero’s now almost completely lost Hortensius “changed my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord.” [1]This imperfect conversion caused Augustine to desire to seek truth as that alone of value. He began to study the Scriptures, “but they appeared to me unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Cicero.” [2]He now turned for spiritual and intellectual comfort to the syncretistic, dualistic system known as Manichseism (ante, p. 107). He was willing to pray “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” [3]

    For nine years Augustine remained a Manichæan, living partly in Carthage and partly in Tagaste, engaged in study and teaching. He was crowned at Carthage for a theatrical poem.[4] He gathered friends about him, of whom Alypius was to prove the closest. As he went on he began to doubt the intellectual and moral adequacy of Manichseism. His associates urged him to meet the highly respected Manichæan leader, Faustus. The inadequacy of Faustus’s expositions completed his mental disillusion. Though he remained outwardly a Manichæan, Augustine was now inwardly a sceptic. By the advice of Manichæan friends Augustine removed to Rome in 383, and by their aid, in 384, he obtained from the prefect, Symmachus, a government appointment as teacher of rhetoric in Milan—then the Western capital of the empire.

    Here in Milan, Augustine came under the powerful preaching of Ambrose, whom he heard as an illustration of pulpit eloquence rather than with approval of the message, since he was now under the sway of the sceptical philosophy of the New Academy. Here Monnica and Alypius joined him. At his mother’s wish he now became betrothed as befitted his station in life, though marriage was postponed on account of the youth of the woman. He dismissed regretfully his faithful concubine and entered on an even less creditable relation with another.[5] It was the lowest point of his moral life. At this juncture Augustine came in contact with Neo-Platonism, (ante, p. 106), through the translations of Victorinus. It was almost a revelation to him. Instead of the materialism and dualism of Manichæism, he now saw in the spiritual world the only real world, and in God the source not only of all good, but of all reality. Evil was no positive existence, as with the Manichæans. It was negative, a lack of good, an alienation of the will from God. To know God is the highest of blessings. This new philosophy, which always colored Augustine’s teachings, made it possible for him to accept Christianity. He was impressed by the authority of the church, as a hearer of Ambrose might well have been. As he said later, “I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.” [6]

    A crisis in Augustine’s experience was now at hand. He had never felt more painfully the cleft between his ideals and his conduct. He was impressed by learning of the Christian profession made in old age, some years before, by the Neo- Platonist Victorinus, whose writings had so recently influenced him.[7] A travelled African, Pontitianus, told him and Alypius of the monastic life of Egypt. He was filled with shame that ignorant men like these monks could put away temptations which he, a man of learning, felt powerless to resist.[8] Overcome with self-condemnation, he rushed into the garden and there heard the voice of a child from a neighboring house, saying : “Take up and read.” He reached for a copy of the epistles that he had been reading, and his eyes fell on the words: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.” [9]From that moment Augustine had the peace of mind and the sense of divine power to overcome his sins which he had thus far sought in vain. It may be that it was, as it has been called, a conversion to monasticism. If so, that was but its outward form. In its essence it was a fundamental Christian transformation of nature.

    Augustine’s conversion occurred in the late summer of 386. He resigned his professorship partly on account of illness, and now retired with his friends to the estate named Cassisiacum, to await baptism. He was far from being the master in theology as yet. His most characteristic tenets were undeveloped. He was still primarily a Christianized Neo-Platonist; but the type of his piety was already determined. At Cassisiacum the friends engaged in philosophical discussion, and Augustine wrote some of the earliest of his treatises. At the Easter season of 387 he was baptized, with Adeodatus and Alypius, by Ambrose in Milan. Augustine now left Milan for his birthplace. On the journey Monnica died in Ostia. The story of her death, as told by Augustine, is one of the noblest monuments of ancient Christian literature.[10] His plans thus changed, he lived for some months in Rome, but by the autumn of 388 was once more in Tagaste. Here he dwelt with a group of friends, busied in studies much as at Cassisiacum. During this period in Tagaste his brilliant son, Adeodatus, died. Augustine thought to found a monastery, and to further this project went to Hippo, near the modern Bona, in Algeria, early in 391. There he was ordained to the priesthood, almost forcibly. Four years later he was ordained colleague-bishop of Hippo. When his aged associate, Valerius, died is unknown, but Augustine probably soon had full episcopal charge. In Hippo he founded the first monastery in that portion of Africa, and made it also a training-school for the clergy. He died on August 28, 430, during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals.

    Almost from the time of his baptism Augustine wrote against the Manichæans. With his entrance on the ministry, and especially as bishop, he was brought into conflict with the Donatists (ante, p. 113), then wide-spread in northern Africa. This discussion led Augustine to a full consideration of the church, its nature and its authority. By the early years of his episcopate he had reached his characteristic opinions on sin and grace. They were not the product of the great Pelagian controversy which occupied much of his strength from 412 onward, though that struggle clarified their expression.

    The secret of much of Augustine’s influence lay in his mystical piety. Its fullest expression, though everywhere to be found in his works, is perhaps in the remarkable Confessions, written about 400, in which he gave an account of his experiences to his conversion. No other similar spiritual autobiography was written in the ancient church, and few at any period in church history. It has always stood a classic of religious experience. “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee” (1.1). “It is good, then, for me to cleave unto God, for if I remain not in Him, neither shall I in myself; but He, remaining in Himself, reneweth all things. And Thou art the Lord my God, since Thou standest not in need of my goodness” (7.11). “I sought a.way of acquiring strength sufficient to enjoy Thee; but I found it not until I embraced that ‘Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,’ ‘who is over all God blessed forever’ calling me” (7.18). “My whole hope is only in Thy exceeding great mercy. Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt” (10.29). “I will love Thee, O Lord, and thank Thee, and confess unto Thy name, because Thou hast put away from me these so wicked and nefarious acts of mine. To Thy grace I attribute it, and to Thy mercy, that Thou hast melted away my sin as it were ice” (2.7). Here is a deeper note of personal devotion than the church had heard since Paul, and the conception of religion as a vital relationship to the living God was one the influence of which was to be permanent, even if often but partially comprehended.

    Augustine’s first thought of God was thus always one of personal connection with a being in whom man’s only real satisfaction or good is to be found; but when he thought of God philosophically, it was in terms borrowed from Neo-Platonism. God is simple, absolute being, as distinguished from all created things which are manifold and variable. He is the basis and source of all that really exists. This conception led Augustine to emphasize the divine unity, even when treating of the Trinity. His doctrine he set forth in his great work On the Trinity. It became determinative henceforth of Western thinking. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, alone, great, omnipotent, good, just, merciful, creator of all things visible and invisible.” [11]“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of one and the same substance, God the creator, the omnipotent Trinity, work indivisibly” (421). “Neither three Gods, nor three goods, but one God, good, omnipotent, the Trinity itself.”[12] Tertullian, Origen, and Athanasius had taught the subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father. Augustine so emphasized the unity as to teach the full equality of the “persons.” “There is so great an equality in that Trinity, that not only the Father is not greater than the Son, as regards divinity, but neither are the Father and the Son together greater than the Holy Spirit.” [13]Augustine was not satisfied with the distinction “persons”; but it was consecrated by usage, and he could find nothing more fitting; “When it is asked, what are the three? human language labors under great poverty of speech. Yet we say, three ‘persons,’ not in order to express it, but in order not to be silent.” [14]It is evident that, though Augustine held firmly to the ecclesiastical tradition, his own inclinations, and his Neo-Platonic philosophy inclined toward the Modalistic Monarchian position. It would, however, be wholly unjust to call him a Modalist. He attempted to illustrate the Trinity by many comparisons, such as memory, understanding, will,[15] or the even more famous lover, loved, and love.[16]

    This sense of unity and equality made Augustine hold that “God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds. And therefore I have added the word principally, because we find that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also.”[17] Eastern remains of subordinationism and feeling that the Father is the sole source of all, taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, but Augustine had prepared the way for that filioque, which, acknowledged in Spain, at the Third Council of Toledo, in 589, as a part of the so-called Nicene creed, spread over the West, and remains to this day a dividing issue between the Greek and Latin Churches.

    In the incarnation Augustine emphasized the human as strongly as the divine. “Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is both God and man; God before all worlds; man in our world. . . . Wherefore, so far as He is God, He and the Father are one; so far as He is man, the Father is greater than He.” [18]He is the only mediator between God and man, through whom alone there is forgiveness of sins. “It [Adam’s sin] cannot be pardoned and blotted out except through the one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus.”[19] Christ’s death is the basis of that remission. As to the exact significance of that death, Augustine had not thought to consistent clearness. He viewed it sometimes as a sacrifice to God, sometimes as an endurance of our punishment in our stead, and sometimes as a ransom by which men are freed from the power of the devil. To a degree not to be found in the Greek theologians, Augustine laid stress on the significance of the humble life of Jesus. That humility was in vivid contrast to the pride which was the characteristic note in the sin of Adam. It is an example to men. “The true mediator, whom in Thy secret mercy Thou hast pointed out to the humble, and didst send, that by His example also they might learn the same humility.” [20]

   Man, according to Augustine, was created good and upright, possessed of free will, endowed with the possibility of not sinning and of immortality.[21] There was no discord in his nature. He was happy and in communion with God.[22]

 From this state Adam fell by sin, the essence of which was pride.

[23] Its consequence was the loss of good.[24]

God’s grace was forfeited, the soul died, since it was forsaken of God.[25] (City of God, 13.2)

The body, no longer controlled by the soul, came under the dominion of “concupiscence,” of which the worst and most characteristic manifestation is lust.

Adam fell into a state of total and hopeless ruin, of which the proper ending is eternal death.[26] (City of God, 14.15)

This sin and its consequences involved all the human race; “for we were all in that one man [Adam] when we were all that man who fell into sin.” [27]“The Apostle, however, has declared concerning the first man that ‘ in him all have sinned.’ [28]“Not only were all men sinners in Adam, but their sinful state is made worse since all are born of “concupiscence.” [29]The result is that the whole human race, even to the youngest infant is a “mass of perdition,”[30] and as such deserves the wrath of God. From this hopeless state of original sin “no one, no, not one, has been delivered, or is being delivered, or ever will be delivered, except by the grace of the Redeemer.” [31]  (Original Sin, 34)

    Salvation comes by God’s grace, which is wholly undeserved, and wholly free. “Wages is paid as a recompense for military service. It is not a gift; wherefore he says ‘the wages of sin is death,’ to show that death was not inflicted undeservedly, but as the due recompense of sin. But a gift, unless it is wholly unearned, is not a gift at all. We are to understand, then, that man’s good deserts are themselves the gift of God, so that when these obtain the recompense of eternal life, it is simply grace given for grace.” [32]This grace comes to those to whom God chooses to send it. He therefore predestinates whom He will, “to punishment and to salvation.” [33]The number of each class is fixed.[34] Augustine had held, in the period immediately following his conversion, that it is in man’s power to accept or reject grace, but even before the Pelagian controversy, he had come to the conclusion that grace is irresistible. The effect of this saving grace is twofold. Faith is instilled, and sins, both original and personal, are forgiven at baptism; “The faith by which we are Christians is the gift of God.” [35]As such it is immediate justification. But grace does much more. As with Tertullian (ante, p. 69), it is the infusion of love by the Holy Spirit. It frees the enslaved will to choose that which is pleasing to God, “not only in order that they may know, by the manifestation of that grace, what should be done, but moreover in order that, by its enabling, they may do with love what they know.”[36] It is a gradual transformation of nature, a sanctification. Through us, God does good works, which He rewards as if they were men’s own and to which He ascribes merit. No man can be sure of his salvation in this life. He may have grace now, but, unless God adds the gift of perseverance, he will not maintain it to the end.[37] It would seem that Augustine may have been led to this conclusion largely by the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. It is evident that if men receive grace at baptism, many do not keep it.

    This doctrine of grace was coupled in Augustine with a high valuation of the visible Catholic Church, as that only in which the true infusion of love by the Holy Spirit may be found. Replying to the Donatists, who were thoroughly “orthodox” in doctrine and organization, and yet rejected the Catholic Church as impure, because allowing the sacraments to be administered by men who may have been guilty of “deadly” sins, Augustine said; “Those are wanting in God’s love who do not care for the unity of the Church; and consequently we are right in understanding that the Holy Spirit may be said not to be received except in the Catholic Church . . . whatever, therefore, may be received by heretics and schismatics, the charity which covereth the multitude of sins is the especial gift of Catholic unity.” [38]Sacraments are the work of God, not of men. They do not, therefore, depend on the character of the administrator. Hence baptism or regular ordination need not be repeated on entering the Catholic Church. But while those outside have thus the true and valid form of the sacraments, it is only in the Catholic Church that the sacraments attain their appropriate fruition, for there only can that love be found to which they witness, and which is of the essence of the Christian life. Even in the Catholic Church, not all are in the way of salvation. That is a mixed company, of good and bad. “It is not by different baptisms, but by the same, that good Catholics are saved, and bad Catholics or heretics perish.” [39]To Augustine, sacraments include all the holy usages and rites of the church. They are the visible signs of the sacred things which they signify. Thus, he names as sacraments, exorcism, ordination, marriage, and even the salt given to catechumens. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are pre-eminently sacraments. By the sacraments the church is knit together. “There can be no religious society, whether the religion be true or false, without some sacrament or visible symbol to serve as a bond of union.”[40] Furthermore, the sacraments are necessary for salvation. “The churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent principle, that without baptism and partaking of the Supper of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life.”[41] Yet, by reason of his doctrines of grace and predestination, the sacraments for Augustine are signs of spiritual realities, rather than those realities themselves. They are essential; but the verities to which they witness are, whenever received, the work of divine grace. He who does not “obstruct faith “may expect, however, to receive the benefit of the sacrament.[42] The problem was not yet wrought out as it was to be in the Middle Ages; but Augustine may be called the father of the doctrine of the sacraments in the Western Church.

    Augustine’s greatest treatise was his City of God, begun in 412, in the dark days after the capture of Rome by Alaric, and finished about 426. It was his philosophy of history, and his defense of Christianity against the heathen charge that neglect of the old gods under whom Rome had grown great was the cause of its downfall. He showed that the worship of the old gods had neither given Rome strength, virtue, nor assurance of a happy future life. The loss of the old gods, that the worship of the one true God should come, was not a loss, but a great gain. Augustine then discusses the creation and the origin and consequences of evil. That brings him to his great theory of history. Since the first rebellion against God “two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.”[43] These had their representatives in Cain and Abel. Of the City of God, all have been members who have confessed themselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth. The Earthly City has as its highest representatives heathen Babylon and Rome, but all other civil states are its embodiment. It is a relative good. To it peace and civil order are due. In a world of sin, though having love of self as its principle, it represses disorder and secures to each his own. But it must pass away as the City of God grows. Those who make up the City of God are the elect whom God has chosen to salvation. These are now in the visible church, though not all in that church are elect. “Therefore the church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him, though otherwise than as they shall reign hereafter; and yet, though the tares grow in the church along with the wheat, they do not reign with Him.” [44]The visible, hierarchically organized church it is, therefore, that is the City of God, and must more and more rule the world. In this teaching of Augustine lay much of the philosophic basis of the theory of the mediaeval papacy.

    It is evident that, clear as was the system of Augustine in many respects, it contained profound contradictions, due to the intermingling of deep religious and Neo-Platonic thoughts and popular ecclesiastical traditionalism. Thus, he taught a predestination in which God sends grace to whom He will, yet he confined salvation to the visible church endowed with a sacramental ecclesiasticism. He approached the distinction made at the Reformation between the visible and the invisible church, without clearly reaching it. His heart piety, also, saw the Christian life as one of personal relation to God in faith and love, yet he taught no less positively a legalistic and monastic asceticism. The Middle Ages did not advance in these respects beyond Augustine. It did not reconcile his contradictions. It is by reason of them that most various later movements could draw inspiration from him.

[13.] 4. THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY

    Augustine’s most famous controversy, and that in which his teachings on sin and grace came to clearest expression, was with Pelagius and that teacher’s disciples. Pelagius was a British, or perhaps an Irish monk, of excellent repute, much learning, and great moral earnestness, who had settled in Rome about the year 400, when probably well on in years. He seems to have been shocked at the low tone of Roman morals and to have labored earnestly to secure more strenuous ethical standards. Instead of being an innovator, his teaching in many ways represented older views than those of Augustine. With the East generally, and in agreement with many in the West, he held to the freedom of the human will. “If I ought, I can,” well expresses his position. His attitude was that of the popular Stoic ethics. “As often as I have to speak of the principles of virtue and a holy life, I am accustomed first of all to call attention to the capacity and character of human nature and to show what it is able to accomplish; then from this to arouse the feelings of the hearer, that he may strive after different kinds of virtue.” [45]He, therefore, denied any original sin inherited from Adam, and affirmed that all men now have the power not to sin. Like the Stoics generally, he recognized that the mass of men are bad. Adam’s sin set them an ill example, which they have been quick to follow. Hence they almost all need to be set right. This is accomplished by justification by faith alone, through baptism, by reason of the work of Christ. No man between Paul and Luther so emphasized justification by faith alone. After baptism, man has full power and duty to keep the divine law.

Pelagius’ Techings

    Pelagius won a vigorous follower in the much younger Cœlestius, a lawyer, and possibly a Roman though he has been claimed as an Irishman. About 410, the two went to North Africa and called on Augustine in Hippo, without finding him. Pelagius then journeyed to the East, while Cœlestius remained in Carthage and sought to be ordained a presbyter by Bishop Aurelius. That bishop now received from Paulinus, a deacon of Milan, a letter charging Caelestius with six errors.

This was an unfriendly statement, but Coelestius did not reject it; and it probably represents his views, which may have been somewhat more radical than those of Pelagius. An advisory synod in Carthage, in 411, decided against his ordination. Coelestius then journeyed to Ephesus, where he apparently received the desired consecration.

Augustine Against Pelagius

    Augustine had not been present in Carthage, but he soon heard of the matter, and at once began his long-continued literary polemic against Pelagianism, which he found had many supporters. Augustine’s own religious experience was deeply wounded. He believed that he had been saved by irresistible divine grace from sins which he could never have overcome by his own strength. He held Pelagius in error as denying original sin, rejecting salvation by infused grace, and affirming human power to live without sin. Pelagius did not reject grace, but to him grace was remission of sins in baptism and general divine teaching. To Augustine the main work of grace was that infusion of love by which character is gradually transformed. Pelagius found support in the East. Early in 415, Augustine sent Orosius to Jerome, then in Palestine, to interest him for the Augustinian cause. By Jerome, Pelagius was accused before Bishop John of Jerusalem, but was approved by the bishop; and before the year was out, a synod held in Diospolis (Lydda in Palestine) declared Pelagius orthodox.

In this situation Augustine and his friends caused two North African synods to be held in 416, one for its local district in Carthage and the other for Numidia in Mileve. These condemned the Pelagian opinions and appealed to Pope Innocent I (402-417) for confirmation. Innocent was undoubtedly pleased at this recognition of papal authority, and did as the African synods wished. Innocent died shortly after, and was succeeded by Zosimus (417-418), a Greek, and therefore naturally no special sympathizer with the distinctive Augustinian positions. To Zosimus, Cœlestius now appealed in person. The new Pope declared that the African synods had been too hasty, and seems to have regarded CÅ lestius as orthodox. A new synod met in Carthage early in 418, but the Africans made a more effective move. In April, 418, at their instance the Western Emperor, Honorius, issued a rescript condemning Pelagianism and ordering the exile of its adherents. In May a large council was held in Carthage, which held that Adam became mortal by sin, that children should be baptized for the remission of original sin, that grace was necessary for right living, and that sinlessness is impossible in this life. Moved by these actions, Zosimus now issued a circular letter condemning Pelagius and Cœlestius.

Dissent From Augustine

    Pelagius now disappears. He probably died before 420. A new and able champion of his opinions now appeared in the person of Bishop Julian of Eclanum, in southern Italy. An edict of the Emperor Honorius, in 419, required the bishops of the West to subscribe a condemnation of Pelagius and Cœlestius. Julian and eighteen others in Italy refused. Several of them were driven into exile and sought refuge in the East. In Julian, Augustine found an able opponent, and Pelagianism its chief systematizer; but a defender who was much more of a rationalist than Pelagius. About 429 Julian and Coelestius found some support from Nestorius in Constantinople, though Nestorius was not a Pelagian. This favor worked to Nestorius’s disadvantage in his own troubles, and together with the wish of the Pope led to the condemnation of Pelagianism by the so-called Third General Council in Ephesus in 431 (ante, p. 148). Pelagianism, thus officially rejected in the West and the East, nevertheless lived on in less extreme forms, and has always represented a tendency in the thinking of the church.

[13.] 5. SEMI-PELAGIANISM

    Augustine’s fame as the great teacher of the Western Church was secure even before his death in 430. By no means all accepted, however, the more peculiar portions of his theology, even where Pelagianism was definitely rejected. Thus, Jerome ascribed to the human will a share in conversion, and had no thought of an irresistible divine grace, though deeming grace essential to salvation. Northern Africa, which had led the Western Church intellectually since the time of Tertullian, was now devastated by the Vandals. Its pre-eminence in leadership now passed to southern France, and it was there that the chief controversy over Augustinian principles arose. John Cassianus, probably from Gaul, but who had journeyed to the East, visited Egypt, and had served as deacon under Chrysostom, founded a monastery and a nunnery in Marseilles about 415, and died there about 435. Not far from 429 he wrote his Collationes, in the form of conversations with Egyptian monks. In his opinion “the will always remains free in man, and it can either neglect or delight in the grace of God.” [47]

In 434 Vincent, a monk of Lérins, wrote a Commonitorium, in which, without attacking Augustine by name, his design was to do so really, by representing Augustine’s teachings on grace and predestination as novelties without support in Catholic tradition. “Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself all possible care should be taken that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always and by all.” [48]These men and their associates were called in the sixteenth century “Semi-Pelagians,” though Semi-Augustinians would be more correct, since they agreed in most points with Augustine, though rejecting his essential doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace. These were earnest men who sincerely feared that Augustine’s doctrines would cut the nerve of all human effort after righteousness of life, especially that righteousness as sought in monasticism. Predestination and irresistible grace seemed to deny human responsibility.

    This dissent from Augustine appeared in still more positive form in the writings of Faustus, abbot of Lérins, and afterward bishop of Riez. In his treatise on Grace, of about 474, he recognized original sin, but held that men still have “the possibility of striving for salvation.” Grace is the divine promise and warning which inclines the weakened but still free will to choose the right rather than, as with Augustine, an inward transforming power. God foresees what men will do with the invitations of the Gospel. He does not predestinate them. Though Faustus rejected Pelagius, he really stood closer to him than to Augustine.

    A more Augustinian direction was given to the thought of southern France by the able and devoted Caesarius (469?-542), for a time a monk of Lérins, and from 502 onward bishop of Arles. In 529 he held a little synod in Orange, the canons of which received a much larger significance because approved by Pope Boniface II (530-532). They practically ended the Semi-Pelagian controversy, though Semi-Pelagian positions have always largely been maintained in the church.[49] It was affirmed by this synod that man is not only under original sin, but has lost all power to turn to God, so that “it is brought about by the infusion of the Holy Spirit and His operation in us that we wish to be set free.” It is “by the free gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,” that we have “the desire of believing” and “come to the birth of holy baptism.” All good in man is the work of God. Thus many of the main thoughts of Augustine were approved; but with a decided weakening of emphasis. The irresistibility of grace is nowhere affirmed. On the contrary, those in error are said to “resist that same Holy Spirit.” Predestination to evil is condemned. But, most marked of all, the reception of grace is so bound to baptism that the sacramental quality of grace and the merit of good works are put in the foreground. “We also believe this to be according to the Catholic faith, that grace having been received in baptism, all who have been baptized, can and ought, by the aid and support of Christ, to perform those things which belong to the salvation of the soul, if they labor faithfully.”[50] Augustinianism was approved, but with undoubted modification in the direction of popular “Catholic” religious conceptions. Its sharp points were blunted.

 [13.] 6. GREGORY THE GREAT

    The tendencies toward a simplified, ecclesiastically and sacramentally emphasized presentation of Augustinianism, which have already been noted, characterized the thinking of Gregory the Great, the interpreter of Augustine to the Middle Ages. A teacher who borrowed from revered sources, rather than speculating, he presented the theological system already developed in the West, in essential harmony with the popular Christianity of his age. His influence was thus far-reaching. He is reckoned with Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome one of the Doctors of the Latin Church. In administrative abilities and achievements Gregory was one of the greatest of the Popes, and Latin Christianity generally had in him a leader of broad vision and permanent accomplishment.

    Gregory was born in Rome of a senatorial Christian family about 540. Before 573 he was made prefect, or governor, of the city by the Emperor Justin II. The monastic life attracted him from civil distinctions, and by 574 he had devoted his wealth to the founding of monasteries and to the poor, and become a member of the monastery of St. Andrew in what had formerly been his own home on the Cælian hill. Gregory always retained his interest in monasticism, and did much for the regulation and extension of the monastic life. His own temperament was too active for the cloister, and in 579 Pope Pelagius II (579-590) sent him as papal ambassador to the court of Constantinople, where he served with ability, though, curiously, without acquiring a knowledge of Greek. About 586 he was once more in Rome as the abbot of St. Andrew. In 590 he was chosen Pope, being the first monk to attain that office. He died on March 12, 604.

    The time of Gregory’s papacy was propitious for an able Pope. The papacy, which had risen high under Innocent I (402-417) and Leo I (440-461), had sunk in power after Justinian had conquered the Ostrogoths and restored the imperial authority in Italy. Since 568, however, the control of the Emperors in Italy had more and more waned before the Lombards, who threatened Rome itself. Though nominally subject to the Emperor, Gregory was the real leader against Lombard aggression. He raised troops, defended Rome by force and by tribute, even made a peace with the Lombards on his own authority, and succeeded, after infinite effort and confused struggles both with the Lombards and the imperial representatives, in keeping Rome unconquered throughout his pontificate. He was the strongest man in Italy, and must have seemed to the Romans and to the Lombards alike far more a real sovereign than the distant and feeble Emperor.

    The support of the papacy as well as the source of much of the food of Rome was in its large estates, the Patrimony of Peter, in Sicily, Italy, and even in southern France and northern Africa. Of these Gregory showed himself an energetic but kindly landlord. Their management took much of his attention. Their revenues increased, and Gregory employed this income liberally not only in the maintenance of the clergy and public worship, and in the defense of Rome, but in charitable foundations and good works of all kinds.

Gregory’s Theology

    Gregory was convinced that “to all who know the Gospel it is apparent that by the Lord’s voice the care of the whole church was committed to the holy Apostle and prince of all the Apostles, Peter.” [51] He would exercise a jurisdiction over the church as Peter’s successor. As such, he protested against certain acts of ecclesiastical discipline inflicted by the patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster; and announced that he would receive an appeal. In the acts sent for his inspection Gregory found John described as “universal bishop.” Against this claim for Constantinople he raised vigorous protest. [52] His own practice was the employment of the title still borne by the Roman bishops, “servant of the servants of God.” He exercised judicial authority with greater or less success in the affairs of the churches of Ravenna and Illyria. He attempted to interfere in the almost independent life of the church of France, re-establishing the papal vicariate in Aries, in 595, coming into friendly relations with the Frankish court, and attempting to remove abuses in French ecclesiastical administration.[53] Here his success was small. With some good fortune he asserted the papal authority in Spain, where the Visigothic sovereign, Recared, had renounced Arianism in 587.

    Even more significant for the future was Gregory’s far-reaching missionary campaign for the conversion of England, inaugurated in 596, of which some account will be given (p. 198). It not only advanced markedly the cause of Christianity, but was the initiation of a closer relationship of England, and ultimately of Germany, with the papacy than had yet been achieved elsewhere. Nearer home, among the Arian Lombards, Gregory inaugurated ultimately successful efforts to turn them to the Catholic faith, especially through the aid of Theodelinda, who was successively the Queen of Kings Authari (584-591) and Agilulf (592-615).

    Tradition has ascribed to Gregory a great work in the reformation of church music—the “Gregorian chants”—and in the development of the Roman liturgy; but the absence of contemporary reference makes it probable that his services in both these respects were confined to establishing a schola (choir) and encouraging Church music. On the other hand, his abilities as a preacher were undoubted. As a writer three of his works maintained high popularity throughout the Middle Ages—his exposition of Job, or Moralia, his treatise on the character and duties of the pastoral office, the Regula Pastoralis, and his credulous Dialogues on the Life and Miracles of the Italian Fathers.

Purgatory

    Gregory’s theology is Augustinian, but with another emphasis than that of Augustine. He developed all of Augustine’s ecclesiastical tendencies, and elements from popular Christianity which Augustine took up into his system. Miracles, angels, and the devil have an even greater part in Gregory’s system than in that of Augustine. While Gregory held that the number of the elect is fixed, and depends upon God, he had no such interest in predestination as had Augustine. He often speaks as if predestination is simply divine foreknowledge. His interests were practical. Man is fettered in original sin, the evidence of which is his birth through lust. From this condition he is rescued by the work of Christ, received in baptism; but sins committed after baptism must be satisfied. Works of merit wrought by God’s assisting grace make satisfaction. “The good that we do is both of God and of ourselves; of God by prevenient grace, our own by good will following.” [54] Penance is the proper reparation for sins after baptism. It involves recognition of the evil of the sin, contrition, and satisfaction. The church has many helps for him who would seek merit or exercise penance. Of these the greatest is the Lord’s Supper, which Gregory viewed as a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, available for the living and the dead. There is also the aid of the saints. “Those who trust in no work of their own should run to the protection of the holy martyrs.” [55]For those who, while really disciples of Christ, make an insufficient use of these opportunities to achieve works of merit, fail to do penance, or avail themselves inadequately of the helps offered in the church, there remain the purifying fires of purgatory.

    The thought of purgatory was not new with Gregory. The first faint intimation may be found in Hermas of Rome. [56]With Cyprian it is more evident, and he cites in this connection Matt. 5.26. [57] Augustine, on the basis of 1 Cor. 3.11-15, argued that purgatory was not improbable, though he felt no absolute certainty regarding it.[58] Cæsarius of Arles held more definitely to the conception. To him it was a fact. Gregory now taught purgatory as a matter essential to the faith. “It is to be believed that there is a purgatorial fire before the judgment for certain light sins.” [59]Though the Eastern Church held that an intermediate state exists between death and the judgment, and souls can be helped therein by prayer and sacrifice, its conception of purgatory has always been vague compared with that of the West.

    Thus, in all departments of ecclesiastical activity Gregory stood forth the most conspicuous leader of his time. In him the Western Church of the Middle Ages already exhibited its characteristic traits, whether of doctrine, life, worship, or organization. Its growth was to be in the directions in which Gregory had moved.

    Contemporary with Gregory in part, and of significance as the transmitter of much of the theological leaning of the ancient church to the Middle Ages, was Isidore, the head of the Spanish church from about 600 to 636, as bishop of Seville. His Book of Sentences—brief statements of doctrine—was to be the theological text-book of the Western Church till the twelfth century. His Origins or Etymologies embraced well- nigh the round of learning of his age, ecclesiastical and secular, and was a main source of knowledge in the Middle Ages of the thought of antiquity. His value as a historian of the Goths and Vandals was great. In him, as the most learned man of his age, all the earlier Middle Ages were to find a teacher of little originality but of remarkable breadth of learning.

 PATRISTIC ERA

THE first historian of the Church, Eusebius of Caesarea early in the fourth century, saw the story of the emergent Christian society as one of successive conquests over obstacles and attacks — over government persecution, over heretical deviation, over paganism. He was tempted to see evidence of the power of Christianity in its social or worldly triumphs, expressed in the favour of sympathetic emperors, or in the construction of splendid church buildings, or in the adherence of distinguished intellectuals like Origen. Towards such triumphalist assumptions a twentieth-century Christian is likely to be cool and reserved. But Eusebius was no doubt right in seeing the successive controversies as making much of the stuff of church history, and most of the main issues then faced by the church in its formative period have remained virtually permanent questions in Christian history — questions which receive an answer but are then reiterated in a modified shape in each age.

The central questions of the apostolic age turned on the continuity or discontinuity of the church with Israel. Those who wanted to assert the continuing validity of the Mosaic Law, and Gentiles who, at the opposite extreme, urged the radical abandonment of the Old Testament were alike rejected. The accepted way became St Paul’s Via media. The Old Testament retained a permanent place in the Christian Bible as the history of a divine education of the race, a tutor to bring men to Christ, and a book to be interpreted in the light of Christ. In consequence the Church may never have felt completely at home with the Old Testament, but it has never been able to do without it.

With the sub-apostolic age (roughly 70—140) the Gentile mission, for whose liberty St Paul had fought successfully but painfully, passed through a vigorous expansion. The Roman siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the final destruction of the city as a Jewish capital in 135 ended the importance of the old Jewish Christian congregations, and the centre of gravity passed to the Gentile churches in the great cities, in Antioch, in Alexandria, and especially in Rome, where both St Peter and St Paul had died a martyr’s death under Nero. But the passing of the apostles left huge questions of authority to be determined : the second century was accordingly the age when the basic pattern of Christian doctrine began to be tersely summarized in embryonic creeds, when the ministry achieved its universal threefold shape of bishop, presbyter, and deacon, and when finally the canon of the New Testament came to be formed. Order and unity were urgently needed, especially because of the centrifugal tendency of Gnostic syncretism. The conquest of Gnosticism may be counted the hardest and most decisive battle in church history.

The way in which the second-century Church solved the questions of authority, however, produced its own problems. Emphasis on the local bishop as the fundamental principle of unity (Ignatius) and on the sacredness of the ‘tradition’ (Irenaeus) was necessary enough for survival, but had its by-product in a measure of clericalization of the Church. The part of the people in the sacraments began to become less important than the acts of the priest in the mystery; and the priest became rather more remote, especially after the fourth century, when the Greeks started to veil the altar from the congregation’s view. At least by the eighth century, probably earlier,[60] the canon of the Latin mass was commonly said in a low voice not audible to the congregation.

The Gnostic crisis was already beginning to pass its zenith when the debate with educated pagan critics began to be taken seriously. Justin Martyr and his successors who wrote in defence and vindication of the faith marked out the path for Clement of Alexandria and Origen in making common cause between Christianity and the highest aspirations of classical religious and ethical philosophy. To claim Socrates as a ‘Christian before Christ’, or to speak with Tertullian of man’s natural intuition for Christianity, was to see in the gospel a fulfilment of the moral potentiality of man as the creation of God.

In the next generation Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian at Carthage began the systematic and coherent statement of Christian doctrine, which they put forward in conscious opposition to heretical deviations. As the first Christian to write his theology in Latin, Tertullian played a part of epoch-making importance in working out a convenient vocabulary for the purpose.

By the middle of the third century (it is presupposed in both Cyprian and Origen) the church was living its life much more in the public eye, and Christianity was making deep penetration among the educated and governing causes. As the old paganism receded, its adherents were thrown on to the defensive and were made conscious of their need to think out a positive alternative in face of the Christian onslaught. The barbarian attacks of the middle years of the third century threatened the survival of the empire for a time, and for a few years persecution fell sharply upon the Christians. But the great persecution under Diocletian was long, unpleasant and much more thorough; it left an unhappy legacy of internal schism, above all in North Africa where the Donatists lived in bitter coexistence with their Catholic brethren until the Islamic invasions of the seventh century.

The conversion of Constantine did not make Christianity the formal religion of the empire. This was first established at the end of the century by Theodosius. The fourth century was the great age of the Greek churches, and later Eastern Christians looked back on Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom as teachers possessing a classical status and authority. In a preeminent degree these were ‘the Fathers’ – the acknowledged interpreters of an authoritative tradition. The episode ofJulian’s pagan revival was too individual and too short to mark a serious recession in progress. The Christians of the age were more disturbed by the storm of the long Arian controversy. But even the fourth century was not all tears. That the importance of the Arian controversy can be exaggerated is evident from the catechetical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem (350) whose pastoral instruction is almost wholly untouched by the factious slogans of the rival parties of the age. Ordinary church life went on in tranquillity, largely indifferent to the theologians and the schemes devised by church politicians.

The flood of new adherents to the church during the fourth century was an element in the withdrawal of the ascetics into separate communities, the relation of which to the regular life of the church was a problem not settled in a day. Without having any such intentions the world-renouncing monks became, in the West, important transmitters of culture and education through the chaotic disturbance of the barbarian invasions. The disintegration of the Western empire into separate barbarian kingdoms left the church, especially as represented by the leading Western bishop in Rome, the only effective instrument of European unity, while in the writings of Augustine of Hippo the West possessed an intellectually coherent system of thought with intense power.

Once the papacy in the person of Gregory the Great had recognized that its vocation lay more with the Western barbarians than with the old empire at Constantinople, the process of widening the gulf between Greek and Latin churches was accelerated. The sense of tension between East and West goes back to an early stage in church history, and understanding was not furthered by the fact that they spoke different languages and had different social and ecclesiastical customs. But relations were made particularly difficult by a succession of failures in mutual comprehension, such as the attitude of the West during the ecumenical council of Constantinople (381), or Pope Leo’s dealings with the council of Chalcedon (451), or the quiet assumption of virtually all Greek bishops that the dignity and jurisdiction of the bishops of Rome were simply analogous to those of an Eastern patriarch as at Antioch or Constantinople.

The popes turned their gaze westwards at just about the time when the Greek churches were to face the impact of the Islamic conquest and to be racked with internal controversy about the legitimate use of icons. The consequences of these events mark an epoch in the history of the church, and there is reason in the convention by which the age of the church fathers is commonly reckoned to conclude with Gregory the Great in the West and with John of Damascus in the East. For thereafter it is much more difficult to write the history of both Eastern and Western Christendom as if it were a single story.

Tension between Latin West and Greek East is pre-Christian. Divergent paths, ranging from the mystery of the Trinity to the date of Easter, took Eastern and Western Christians different ways, and the legacy of that remains. An initially conciliar understanding of synodical authority yielded in the West to a mounting concentration of jurisdiction at Rome in the see of Peter and Paul, especially when there ceased to be a Western Emperor uniting the provinces. Only the papacy represented universality and independence from a secular power. The Greek East continued to think of authority as synodical, under the leadership of the patriarchs, among whom Rome should preside in love. The orthodox emperor acted as a linchpin. The Augustinian Filioque  was and remains in Greek or Russian ears an irreverent addition to the ecumenical faith of the Council of 381, weakening the claim for Rome to be a touchstone of authenticity for the universal Church. At the political level, East–West relations became prickly as Rome and Constantinople competed for possession of the Balkan peninsula. The frontier of jurisdiction shifted in Constantinople’s favour, especially with the Slav immigration into Balkan lands. East of the Adriatic, Rome could keep its influence only with the help of medieval Venice, and Slav tribes, Croats and Serbs, were to find themselves on opposite sides of an uneasy ecclesiastical frontier, sharing the same interest only to the degree that both would resent the Islamic Turkish empire. Painful rivalries and unreconciled memories tend to produce exaggerated sensitivity to differences, obscuring the vast area of shared doctrine, institutional structure, and devotional practice common to sister Churches. Even at moments when relationships were to be most problematic, both East and West knew that, in the phrase of Anselm of Canterbury, despite differences they enjoyed ‘substantial agreement’.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING’

GENERAL GUIDES to EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE

J. Quasten, Patrology (1950-86, 4 vols.); B. Altaner, Patrology (ET 196o); E. J. Goodspeed and R. M. Grant, A History of Early Christian literature (1966); F. L. Cross, The Early Christian Fathers (196o); B. Ramsey, Beginning to Read the Fathers (1985); A. di Berardino, Encyclopedia of the Early Church (1992).

SELECT DOCUMENTS

J. Stevenson (revised by W. H. C. Frend), A New Euusebius (1987); Creeds, Councils, and Controversies (1989); E. Giles, Documents illustrat ing papal authority 96-454 A.D. (1952); P. R. Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church (3 vols. 1966).

GENERAL SURVEYS

L. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church (ET 1909-24, 3 vols.); H. Lietzmann, The Beginnings of the Christian Church; The Founding of the Church Universal; From Constantine to Julian; The Era of the Church Fathers (ET 1937-51); J. G. Davies, The Early Church (1965); W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (1984); H. von Campenhausen, The Fathers of the Greek Church (ET 1963); The Fathers of the Latin Church (ET 1964); H. St. L. B. Moss, The Birth of the Middle Ages 395-814 (1935); J. Daniélou and H. 1. Marrou, The Christian Centuries, I The First Six Hundred Years (ET 1964); A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-600 (1964); J. Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions (1989).

On the intellectual and doctrinal history see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (1958); J. Daniélou, A History of Early Christian doctrine before the Council of Nicaea (ET 1964); A. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (ET 2nd ed. 1975); D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch (1982); H. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (1866); W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (1962); R. M. Grant, The Early Christian Doctrine of God (1866); H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (1956); M. Wiles, The Christian Fathers (1966); R. A. Norris, God and World in Early Christian Theology (1965). J. J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition 1 (1971); Frances Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon (1983); R. A. Greer, Broken Lights and Mended Lives (1986); The Fear of Freedom (1989) .

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