Before I continue the series beyond the biblical canon, I’ll just take a brief moment to try to lay out my perspective on the usefulness of the ante-Nicene Christian writings. First, I take the teachings of the so-called “fathers” (they probably would have objected to that appellation on the ground that the Apostles are the only Church Fathers) with two-parts reverence, two-parts historical interest, and three-parts caution, which totals seven parts in all, corresponding to the number of limbs Jesus had in his pre-incarnate form. Knowing what I know about church history, I tend to want to give a lot of credit to a theologian the closer he is in time to the apostolic era. I would trust Polycarp more than Ambrose if they disagreed, and Origen more than Luther. That does not mean I would ultimately side with the earlier over the later simply on account of chronology. The criterion is their compatibility with the New Testament. But I tend to lean more in the direction of the earlier than the later as a sort of initial stance.
That said, I certainly have a lot of disagreement with the ante-Nicene authorities, even with many of the pacifists regarding certain qualities of their pacifism. Some of these theologians are rather legalistic, some are too pro-Roman based on what I argue are some misreadings of key NT texts, but others still hold a comprehensive view very close to that of my own. While the varieties of pacifism in the ante-Nicene church differ from region to region, decade to decade, what remains constant and universal is a commitment to nonviolence underwritten at every turn by the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the evidence will show, the question is not whether the ante-Nicene church was pacifist. The question is when did that begin to change, and for what reason/s? Were those reasons faithful to the gospels, or unfaithful? Were they derivations from the NT, or from extrabiblical ethical models? As Yoder says, the choice is not between the Bible only or the Bible plus tradition. All “Bible-only” readings of the Bible are informed by this or that tradition. The question is not whether we can do without tradition but whether the particular tradition under scrutiny is faithful to the gospel, or unfaithful to it. In order to be able to say that a tradition is faithful to the gospel, we must also be able to say that a tradition is unfaithful to the gospel.
The burden of this series will be to display that the evidence is incontrovertible that the ante-Nicene ecclesiastical traditions (both East and West) were pacifist traditions. (To what extent these pacifist traditions are faithful to the NT is not the principal concern of this series.) After Constantine, pacifism in the church was not extinguished immediately, but was nevertheless rapidly overcome. That is not to lay all the blame (or praise, depending on one’s perspective) at Constantine’s feet alone. Constantine is often used by historians as a kind of historical marker. We can speak of an “age of Constantine” which far outlived Constantine and in several cases actually preceded Constantine by some decades. This age was remarkably different from the pacifistic age which preceded it, and not just on the issue of the Christians’ use of violence. Another of many significant changes ushered in by the “age of Constantine” was a change in the nature and processes of conversion. This of course brought a great deal to bear upon the issue of the acceptability of violence for Christians.
Labels: Early Christians, Nonviolence, Pacifism
5 Comments:
Helpful at this point--though written by a non-pacifist--is F. F. Bruce's "Traditions Old and New."
Bruce was from the Plymouth Brethren which was, like the Stone-Campbell movement, a Restorationist movement. Not everyone in his non-denomination appreciated being told by their most famous biblical scholar that in throwing out old traditions they simply created new ones! :-)
Interestingly your chronological preference (which I share) is an essential underpinning of humanism which is much criticized nowadays. I wonder if we would think the same were it not for Erasmus and company.
Aric,
Would you mind elaborating a little on what you mean here? I'd like to respond, but I'm not sure I follow. I know that the Enlightenment is generally committed to the notion of "progress," but it seems you're saying that humanism is committed to the opposite.
Ah, I see my comment was overly vague. What I meant to say that we see the preference for earlier texts over later ones in terms of their reliability coming to the fore in humanism. It's not that humanism is committed to the opposite of progress, but just that this one principal - that things are more reliable the closer to the hypothetical source - is a tenet of humanism.
Thanks for clarifying that.
It may be a tenet of humanism, but the idea certainly wasn't original with Erasmus &Co. For instance, when Jesus was asked about divorce, his opponents' appeal was to Moses, while Jesus took it back to Adam. The point was that Jesus' position had more authority because its roots were earlier than Moses. There are dozens of biblical examples of chronology arguments. It's also a part of the logic of Rabbinic hermeneutics in general, and Buddhism, which both predates and circumvents humanism believes that the older a tradition is, the more value it has.
When you say that it is "much criticized these days," are you referring to humanism in general, or this particular tenet in question?
Interesting discussion.
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