Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

Page 24

The 'Apostolic fathers' are not theological in their aim or method. The earliest seat of theological reflexion in the primitive Church appears to have been Asia Minor, or rather Western Asia from Antioch to the Aegean. From this region proceed the Ignatian letters, which stand alone among the literature of their day in theological depth and reflexion. Their theology 'is wonderfully mature in spite of its immaturity, full of reflexions, and yet at the same time full of intuitive originality' (Loofs, p. 61). The central idea is that of the renovation of man (Eph. 20), now under the power of Satan and Death (ib. 3, 19), which are undone (katalusis) in Christ, the risen Saviour (Smyrn. 3), who is 'our true Life,' and endows us with immortality (Smyrn. 4, Magn. 6, Eph. 17). This is by virtue of His Divinity (Eph. 19, Smyrn. 4) in union with His perfect Manhood. He is the only utterance of God (logos apo siges proelthon, Magn. 8), the 'unlying mouth by which the Father spake' (Rom. 8.) 'God come (genomenos) in the flesh,' 'our God' (Eph. 7, 18). His flesh partaken mystically in the Eucharist unites our nature to His, is the 'medicine of incorruption' (Eph. 20, Smyrn. 7, cf. Trall. 1). Ignatius does not distinguish the relation of the divine to the human in Christ: he is content to insist on both: 'one Physician, of flesh and of spirit, begotten and unbegotten' (Eph. 7). Nor does he clearly conceive the relation of the Eternal Son to the Father. He is unbegotten (as God) and begotten (as man): from eternity with the Father (Magn. 6): through Him the One God manifested himself. The theological depth of Ignatius was perhaps in part called forth by the danger to the churches from the Docetic heretics, representative of a Judaic (Philad. 5, Magn. 8-10) syncretism which had long had a hold in Asia Minor (1 John and Lightfoot Coloss., p. 73, 81 sqq.). To this he opposes what is evidently a creed (Trall. 9), with emphasis on the reality (alethos) of all the facts of Redemption comprised in it.

It was in fact the controversies of the second century that produced a theology in the Catholic Church,--that in a sense produced the Catholic Church itself. The idea of the Church as distinct from and embracing the Churches is a New Testament idea (Eph. v. 25, cf. 1 Cor. xv. 9, &c.), and the name 'Catholic' occurs at the beginning of the second century (Lightfoot's note on Ign. Smyrn. 8); but the Gnostic and Montanist controversies compelled the Churches which held fast to the paradosis of the Apostles to close their ranks (episcopal federation) and to reflect upon their creed. The Baptismal Creed (Rom. x. 9, Acts viii. 37, Text. Rec., cf. 1 Cor. xv. 3-4) began to serve as a tessera or passport of right belief, and as a regulative standard, a 'rule of faith.' The 'limits of the Christian Church' began to be more clearly defined (Stanton, ubi supr. p. 167).

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