The conquests of Alexander (two centuries after the Persian victory in
Babylonia) led to a further Jewish dispersal to places like Alexandria
in Egypt, Antioch, Rome and other cities of the Greco-Roman world.
Christ's doctrine was dressed up in an alien philosophy (2nd century)
Finding itself in the Greco-Roman civilisation, the early Christian
church had to decide whether its doctrine and practices should remain
within Judaism. The Jerusalem Christians regarded their faith as a
variant of Judaism but Paul, a Roman, argued against it. His view was
accepted and Christians were freed from the requirements of
circumcision, food laws and Sabbath observance.
In the Roman world, the Christians encountered Greek philosophy and were
not intellectually equipped to resist its influence. Their leaders (like
Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa) began to interpret
the gospel in the categories of Greek thought. In particular, there
strongly influenced by the Jewish philosopher, Philo Judaeus (20 BCE -
50 BC) who loved Plato's thought and argued that the same God spoke
through Greek philosophy and Jewish religion. For example, they
appropriated his notion of Logos, a concept alien to Jesus and planted
it into the very beginning of the Gospel of John (chap 1, verse 1).
[Ref 3]
Black US theologian, James Cone, The gospel of Jesus can never be
identified with the power of the state... This was the error of the
early church. By becoming the religion of the Roman state, Christianity
became the opposite of what Jesus intended." (from God of the Oppressed,
Seabury Press, NY 1975))
Asian Jesuit theologian, Aloysius Pieris, put it this way:
“Greek culture was so pervasive …(and) Christianity allowed itself to be
Hellenised…After the persecutions, links with Judaism were severed and
those with Greco-Roman culture were strengthened…The Church Fathers were
interested in non-Christian philosophy as intellectual equipment to
grasp revelation and formulate it in a manner intelligible to the
‘pagan’ culture in which they lived. Thus began the tradition in which
Christian ‘religion’ learned to use philosophy…there developed a sort of
academic tradition which revolved around the system of thought to the
exclusion of the experiential dimension…” (Ref 4, p 21-25).
Among the influential early Church Fathers were:
- St Irenaeus (c.130-200), a Greek theologian and later Bishop of Lyon
(178-200). He was the disciple of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna - himself
of John the Apostle. He attacked Gnosticism and helped define the Books
of the Bible (Digest 4.2).
- St Clement, head of a theology school at Alexandria and thoroughly
Greek in his outlook. He injected ideas from Greek philosophy into the
Christian faith.
- Tertullian (c. 160-240) of Carthage, a prominent Latin Father,
introduced the Roman legal idiom into Christian theology.
Appropriating Greek ideas - Logos, Mind & Spirit
Debate raged on the Logos concept and its identification with Christ.
Justin Martyr, influenced by Philo, held that the Logos was a kind of
second God incarnated in a historical person, Jesus for the salvation of
humans. Irenaeus, on the other hand, held that the Logos, incarnate in
Jesus, was the divine revelation. He said: "Jesus Christ was both man
and God, fully man and the incarnation of the Logos..."
Tertullian declared that although God in substance is one, God has three
persona, a trinity of manifestations. Logos or reason is in God and
expresses itself in word. Quoting the Gospel of John, he said the Word
became incarnate.
Clement held that God is knowable only through the Logos, the mind of
God. He was convinced that Jesus is the Logos, the guide to humanity.
His successor at the theology school, Origen, theorised that 1) there is
one God, the Father, creator of all things, 2) Jesus Christ, God-man,
was the incarnation of the Logos and co-eternal with the Father, and 3)
the uncreated Holy Spirit is associated with the Father and the Son.
The Council of Nicaea 325 CE
The Emperor Constantine claimed the sole right to convoke religious
assemblies. Though not a Christian, the bishops remained under his
jurisdiction while he called himself ‘Bishop of Bishops’. In 314, he
called the Council of Arles. and in 321, the First General Council of
the Church.
Sylvester I who was Pope at the time had no part in calling the Council.
The aim was to resolve the Arian heresy (that the Son was inferior to
the Father) raging at the time. The Council was held in 325 in Bithynia
at a place called Nicaea in today's Turkey. Some 300 bishops attended,
all but six from the East. The Pope did not even attend and sent two
representatives instead. Athanasius (c. 296-373) was a staunch opponent
of Arianism, itself derived from the neo-Platonist belief in the Logos,
a term which came to be used to designate Christ. Most of the bishops
were in favour of Arianism (named after Arius, a priest from
Alexandria.) It was Constantine who settled the matter. Rising from his
gold throne, he proposed that God’s Son was ‘of one substance with the
Father’, words found even today in the Nicene Creed, the expanded
version of the Apostles’ Creed. All dissident bishops meekly gave in
except two and these Constantine sent packing [Ref 1].
Council of Chalcedon and implications
Pope Leo I (440-461), called Leo the Great, is credited with
strengthening the primacy of the bishop of Rome over other bishops. In
455, Leo personally confronted Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to
invade Rome. He was less successful with the Vandals (another lot of
savage tribes) three years later. His greatest triumph was at the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 which declared that "Jesus of Nazareth is
unique - Christ had two natures, divine and human."
The Chalcedon formulation led to the Christian Church conceiving itself
as the one 'perfect society', identified with the kingdom of God.
Comments Coward (p14): "Being in full possession of all truth, the
church did not feel the need to listen to other religions... It is this
attitude that has obstructed any meaningful contact between Christianity
and other religions, except to convert non-Christians..."
Pieris (Ref 2 , p22) adds: "Contact with Greek culture in the first five
centuries of western Christianity led to the rise of Christianity as a
political power. Having become western through dialogue with Greece, it
now entered the rest of Europe through Rome, the seat of law and
government."
REFERENCES
1. Peter de Rosa, Vicars of Christ (Corgi Books 1989)
2. Raymond Davis, The Book of Pontiffs (Liverpool University Press
1989)
3. Harold Coward, Pluralism - challenge to world religions (Orbis Books
1985)
4. Aloysius Pieris, Love Meets Wisdom (Orbis Books 1988)
