In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia introduces key church fathers from the second and third centuries, men known as the second century apologists and polemical fathers. As Pastor Dave discusses these men and their legacies for the church, Pastor Dave asks us to consider a crucial question: what is the proper way for Christians to engage with an unbelieving culture and its ideas?
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okay well we are backstetting church history early church history uh many thanks to mark don’t see him in the room right now but uh thanks Mark for filling in last week by talking about the reformation and I didn’t get to announce this before but originally I said that this series would only be eight lessons but that was because I was thinking I would finish right before I went on vacation that didn’t happen but maybe that’s God’s good Providence surely it is God because Providence because that means I get to extend the church history series if I wanted to which is what I’m going to do we’re going to do at least two extra lessons we’ll do 10 whole lessons and maybe if we have trouble getting through the material uh we might do even more it won’t be more than 12 but at least two more lessons so that way we can meet more of the church fathers in the fourth and fifth centuries if you remember last time we were together we were meeting some of those key personalities those important teachers of the early church and we started with the apostolic fathers that is those who came right after the apostles at the end of the first and into the second century well now we’re picking up with the men after them we’re talking about those fathers who emerge in the second century going into the third century and these have certain titles based on what they focused on and that’s the title the lesson today lesson eight this is the second century apologist and the polemical fathers now why again are we meeting these men learning about these men well it’s kind of like what I prayed this is so that we can understand Origins where certain ideas and practices in the church came from so that we can receive encouragement and what God has done and the faithfulness of those who have taught and preached the gospel in the centuries before us but also to receive a warning because not everything that these men did was perfect but you know what like Mark mentioned last week that’s to be expected church history is not a record of perfect men and perfect women doing everything perfectly no it’s imperfect men and women who are just like us who are powerfully used by a perfect God and if God can do that in the past and he did that in the scriptures and he did that in church history he can do that with us and he does do that with us so we can take comfort and encouragement in that but we also want to become more useful to our Master which is why we’re studying about this and why we want to give attention to the scriptures now as we look at these two new groups of churchmen today we’re going to see a certain theme I’m not going to finish talking about this theme we’re going to pick it up again next week but a certain theme that very much intersects with one of the challenges that we face today as Christians in 21st century America there’s a certain Challenge and that challenge is how should we regard the knowledge and culture of the world in which we live does the world in its wisdom have anything good of which Christians can make use or does the world only offer poisonous gifts corruption and false knowledge that just harms Christians and harms the church this issue is not a new one it’s one that Christians have faced since the beginning of the church and it’s a one that especially comes into Focus as we look at these men from the second and third centuries I’m going to start by talking about the first group the second century apologists now if you remember I’ve already actually mentioned these guys in second century apologists um they were a group of teachers who emerged in the second century primarily to defend Christians in the midst of persecution remember the Romans even some Roman governors even some Roman emperors they were violently persecuting Christians or turning a blind eye as mobs were going after Christians and these men five of them in particular Justin martyr station the Assyrian athenagarus of Athens Theophilus of Antioch and molito of Sardis they used their skills as former rhetoricians and philosophers to publish public defenses of Christianity saying what you are saying about us is not true we’re actually good citizens there’s no reason to persecute us so we’ve looked at what these men have done before but I do want to introduce you further to two of the men of this group tell you a little bit more about them and their legacies and especially how they regarded culture the world’s culture and the first one that I want to tell you about is Justin Martyr so Justin Martyr martyr is not his last name that’s just a title that was applied to him because can you guess why he was martyred he was famously martyred by beheading after he had disputed with a cynic philosopher named cressens cressens didn’t like what Justin said reported him to the authorities and he and other Christians were put to death well Justin was born a gentile in Judea but he had traveled quite a bit and he ended up living and teaching in Rome from a young age he pursued learning and philosophy but he moved from philosophy to philosophy different schools of philosophy because each one proved dissatisfying to him couldn’t find the answers that he was looking for you ultimately ended up a platonist philosopher following the philosophy of Plato and he continued in that tradition until God arranged a important meeting with an old Christian whom Justin met walking along the seashore this Christian shared Jesus with Justin and showed that the writings of the prophets in the scriptures were more reliable than any worldly philosophy this simple witness combined with the testimonies that testimonies of Christians that Justin had seen elsewhere even Christians being martyred it caused Justin God used it to move Justin to renowned secular philosophy and begin teaching as he called it the new philosophy of Christ and he became a powerful witness of the Lord and an apologist now we have three surviving works from Justin Martyr today what’s called his first apology his second apology and then his dialogue with trifo which is a text depicting Justin using the Old Testament to share Christ with a Jew named trifo presented in dialogue form and you can find these Works online for free now incidentally Justin Martyr is one of the ancient Christians who tells us about early church services remember that one of the reasons why Romans persecuted Christians is because of all the outrageous rumors of what Christians did in their secret meetings in their Gatherings so one of the ways that Justin sought to defend Christians was to say hey guys do you want to know what we’re doing in our meetings this is what we do and so if you read his first apology it actually ends with a description of what a church service looks like from Justin’s account and from other from the account in the first apology from other things he’s written and from what other Christians wrote we can actually piece together with confidence what a typical church service looked like in the second century and this probably overlaps with what it looked like in the first century but this was pretty standard wherever you lived in the Roman Empire this is what Christians did when they gathered and I’ll present it to you in summary format this actually comes from Nick Needham’s 2000 years of Christ’s power he’s collected a number of historical sources what do Christians do when they gathered well they gathered every Sunday which they called the Lord’s day for about three hours and they stood the entire service there were some chairs or benches that were available on the side of the room but wouldn’t you know it sitting in church did not become a practice until the 14th century and that’s only in the West in the Eastern Orthodox Churches they still don’t sit in church it was normal to stand so three hours standing and the service was divided into two main portions you had the service of the word and you had the Eucharist the service of the word and you can see the details on the slide there the service of the word mainly consisted of a few scripture readings and songs culminating in a sermon from the presiding elder or Bishop who interestingly preached sitting down so everybody else is standing he sits down but remember this is the normal teaching posture at that time Jesus often taught sitting down so he preaches at the end of the sermon all unbaptized persons are dismissed and the Eucharist portion of the service begins this portion oh I should also mention you might be wondering apparently the early church was very cautious with new converts uh they certainly welcomed people who were interested in knowing Jesus and getting baptized but it didn’t happen right away baptism candidates often had to go through a full year of instruction before being baptized which I feel like is kind of hilarious because we Elders sometimes talk about how long our you know members were baptism classes are but at least we’re not as long as the earliest as the second century Church where it’s a whole year but you know they wanted to make sure that these people really understood what they were signing up for and baptisms usually took place on Easter anyways so the Eucharist portion you can see the details again on the slide but it mainly consisted of prayers the offering of bread and wine from all the members so actually the elements of communion are supplied by the members each Sunday and then they celebrate communion together in a service where the service concluded the Christians then gather for what they called an Agape Feast a love feast and it was a sober but celebratory meal of fellowship and it would also include prayer and singing Agape Feast would be a normal part of Sunday worship through the 5th Century and it would begin to tail off in the 6th century and they would pretty much disappear in the 8th Century so it’s actually part of church services or Sunday Sunday activities for a long time now if you look at those elements or you hear that summary you May notice their service is a little different than what we do but in many ways it’s the same the same elements are all there scripture reading singing preaching praying giving communion and fellowship we’re more than 1800 years later now why do you think we do the same things suggest tradition yes Steve not just acts 2 42 but basically these elements those seven elements are what we see both by example and by command in the scriptures it’s not as if we’re just like oh you know that’s what they did we’ll do the same thing these are the things that we see in the Bible so it should be encouraging to us as we interpret the scriptures and say well these are the things that we should do in our church service that our early brethren interpreted the Bible the same way they said well yeah we should do the same things in our service made it in a slightly different order in a slightly different way but it was the same things because that’s what the scripture teaches so that should be an encouragement to us now besides telling us about early church services Justin Martyr is also notable in his legacy regarding Christianity and culture how he saw Christians should engage with the culture as a former philosopher Justin saw secular philosophy and culture as useful in some regards for pointing to the truth of the Gospel he would especially argue that secular philosophers and their writings they are clearly able to recognize certain truths about God and the world but their understanding is incomplete Christians therefore can bring the gospel to complete the understanding of what philosophers and others in the world are grasping at but can’t quite get philosophy only begins what the gospel completes so Justin and his Evangelistic efforts he would sometimes use Greco-Roman philosophical Concepts to reach the people around him and let me give you an example from his first apology this is chapter 20.
Justin speaking therefore on some points we Christians teach the same things as The Poets and philosophers whom you honor and on other points are Fuller and more Divine in our teaching and if we alone afford proof of what we assert why are we unjustly hated more than others more than all others for while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato and while we say that there will be a burning up of all we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the stoics this is just a small excerpt here but notice how Justin is able to make two assertions in just these sentences first it makes no sense for you Rome is to persecute Christians for what we believe and teach why not we’re basically teaching the same things that different philosophers among you have taught you don’t persecute them but he persecute us you should stop doing that but second Justin is able to assert that Christians are superior their Christian message is superior to anything the philosophers and Poets have taught because what do Christians have that secular Writers Do not you know it’s the Christ and the truth but what does he specifically say it says we have something that’s Fuller and more Divine and we have proof what proof I mean certainly connects with the resurrection but this comes down to the word of God this is the proof of the scriptures Justin would later explain in another part of his apology that the Old Testament prophets are much older and more reliable than anything written by the Greeks look this message doesn’t just come out of nowhere and kind of sounds good it’s been proven again and again with God saying certain things would happen and they happen obviously culminating with the coming of Christ and his resurrection so this is Justin’s View oops secular wisdom and culture is sometimes useful so don’t feel like you just have to get rid of it all but the Bible is Fuller and more divine Christians don’t need knowledge outside the Bible to prove the Bible but where culture says the same thing as the Bible Justin would say use it use it as a tool for the gospel okay now this view of how to engage with secular culture Pagan culture is very different from one of Justin martyr’s fellow apologists his View and that apologist’s name is taishin the Assyrian Temptation was actually a student of Justin Martyr and like Justin he was a former philosopher who ultimately came came away dissatisfied from what the world offered in its philosophies we have two surviving text from rotation ditestron and his apology to the Greeks station spent a lot of time in Rome just like Justin but he returned to Syria near the end of his life sadly and one station went to Syria that’s when he actually kind of moved away from sound Doctrine fell into heresy he found that a legalistic sect of Christian gnosticism but the Lord’s salutation in a very beneficial way for the church is two legacies that are particularly important for us to identify and appreciate today the first is tations work the ditestron what is this it’s a Harmony of the gospels it’s the first one that was produced and this work is significant because first of all in this harmony station only used Matthew Mark Luke and John which affirms what that these are the gospels these are the canonical gospels there are no other gospel records other than these because otherwise they’d be included in the harmony so that’s significant it’s an affirmation to canonicity the unique canonicity of these books but also this work is significant because by creating this document showed that the gospel accounts which are different they can be harmonized they are not actually contradictory as some people claimed in the early centuries and some people still claim today hey Matthew contradicts John and Mark contradicts Luke not really these things can be harmonized interestingly the diet testron would be the version of the Gospel that people would read up until the 5th Century it’s not like they’ve just pick up Matthew or pick up Mark they usually picked up this harmony the ditestron so thank the Lord for that the attention ‘s other important Legacy is his view of how to engage with worldly knowledge and culture and despite being Justin’s student Tashan took the opposite view of his mentor listen to a few excerpts from Tatian in his apology to the Greeks chapter 2 oh this had been written 155 165 A.D what Noble thing have you Greeks produced by your pursuit of philosophy who of your most eminent men has been free from vain boasting chapter 3.
wherefore be not LED Away by the solemn Assemblies of philosophers who are no philosophers who dogmatize one against the other though each one vents but the crude fancies of the moment they have moreover many collisions among themselves each one hates the other they indulge in conflicting opinions and their arrogance makes them eager for the highest places it would better become them were over not to pay court to Kings unbidden nor to flatter men at the head of Affairs but to wait till the great ones come to them okay it’s got a number of critiques against philosophers and philosophy well why according to station should people not listen to philosophers yeah they’re just arrogant they’re just they’re just trying to make themselves look good they want High position why else where do they get their teachings it does essentially come from them but he says they’re arguing according to the fancy of the moment what does that mean what yeah they’re just arguing what’s trendy oh I’ve got this new teaching but really there’s no substance to it it’s just what everybody’s saying is popular they don’t really have anything new to say anything useful to say and moreover if philosophy is so um so reliable so trustworthy why is it that your philosophers can’t agree with each other they get into violent disputes with one another how useful is this kind of knowledge if nobody can actually agree on what’s true and then we have this from chapter 22 of his work Temptation again I have no mind to stand a gape at a number of singers nor do I desire to be affected in his sympathy with a man when he is winking and gesticulating in an unnatural manner what wonderful or extraordinary thing is performed in the theater among you Theodore ibaldry and affected tones and go through indecent movements your daughters and your sons behold them giving lessons and adultery on the stage admirable places for suits are your lecture rooms where every base action perpetrated by night is proclaimed aloud and the hearers are regaled with the utterance of Infamous discourses adorable too are your mendacious poets who by their fictions beguile their hearers from the truth you can hear a lot of zeal coming through here so not only does Tatian condemn Greco-Roman teaching and philosophy but also what theaters lecture rooms singing poetry what’s this on the stage yeah the Arts entertainment what would be considered culture it says this also has nothing to it it’s wicked essentially a patient’s message to the Pagan Romans Greco-Roman says look nothing good comes from your culture and knowledge your Society is bankrupt and you’re condemning Christians as being the wicked ones do we not act honorably and soberly before you you’re the ones that need to change you need the gospel you’re being deceived by the teaching and culture that is all around you and there’s a lot of Truth to what tayshen was teaching but it’s interesting when you see these kind of excerpts when you hear these kind of words from rotation what happens to them later it kind of makes more sense because he was so zealous Temptations fall into legalistic heresy becomes more understandable his Gnostic sect would forbid marriage eating meat drinking wine why do you think he taught these unbiblical practices in the end exactly I think Mike’s exactly right he was so zealous to get away from sin and worldliness it went too far to the other end there was a maybe a noble motivation but and went off the rails more we could say about Tatian but I have to do for now from just these two apologists we see two competing Legacies being set forth in the second century on the one hand we have Christians who want to affirm aspects of secular culture for the sake of the Gospel on the other hand we have Christians who want to reject and expose not just parts of secular culture but all of secular culture for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of holiness these competing legacies would have followers in the next group of fathers whom we call the polemical fathers now do any of you know what polemical means comes from the Greek word palemos meaning War and that’s what these men are all about they were church leaders engaged in a war of words a war for the truth that is they were upholding sound Doctrine against heresy and particularly concerned with fighting heresy and as we’ve already seen in previous lessons this is very much needed in the church because even before the apostles left serious heresies are emerging in different pockets of the church even denying the gospel oops yes okay I’ve got five polemical fathers to introduce to you we’ve mentioned the names of many of these men before the first one is Clement of Alexandria Clement of Alexandria don’t get your Clements confused we’ve already met a clement of Rome he’s an Apostolic father in the first century this is Clement of Alexandria he’s a polemical father in the second century now this Clement was a Christian leader in Egypt he was a teacher of what was called Alexandra’s catechetical school so he’s teaching new Believers sound Doctrine he’s teaching against heresy showing where the Heretics are wrong so we appreciate his faithfulness in that way though it doesn’t seem like he was actually a clergyman didn’t seem to be a bishop or have a official position in the church nevertheless he wasn’t he was a faithful Christian teacher in terms of background he came from Pagan parrots but he ultimately rejected Roman religion due to its moral corruption like some of the other men we’ve met he went traveling to go find the truth and in his travels he likely ran into some of the men that we’ve even mentioned the second century apologists lactation athenagaris and it was talking with these men or men who were similar to them that led to his conversion we have four surviving works from Clement of Alexandria today exhortation to the Heathen pedagogus which means the instructor stromata which means miscellaneous things and who is the rich man who shall be saved again these are available online we also have a few fragments of other writings now Clement of Alexandria was a faithful teacher of God’s truth but he does have two slightly problematic legacies that have affected the church first and that I’ll highlight for you first Tatian was an advocate of using Greek culture and philosophy in Christianity and even more so than Justin was Justin saw a pagan philosophy as a tool for the spread of the Gospel yeah you can sometimes affirm certain Concepts but show that hey it doesn’t really take you all the way Clement went much further he thought that Greco-Roman philosophy compliment to the gospel and should be taught alongside the gospel it should be integrated with the gospel Clement was a particular fan of Plato and his philosophy and he ended up teaching Clement ended up teaching a kind of Christian platonism now what is platonism that would be hard to explain briefly there are many facets to Plato’s philosophy Plato lived in 4th 5th Century BC but platonism at its core is the belief that this material world is not the real world it’s a shadow of some other perfect world that is real this perfect world is kind of like the intellectual world the spiritual world that’s the real world the material world is not the real world it’s like a sub world we have things in this world like chairs Kings love but these are imperfect versions of the ideal form that exists in this different world this perfect world Plato if you’ve ever heard about his teachings all about the forms the highest most important forms they are in this other world and the highest form according to Plato is the form of the good is all about the good the perfect form of the good which exists in that other world and we only have a like a Shadow and a derivation from that in our world the form of the girl the form of the good is what people should focus on because it is from this form Plato taught that everything else comes into being and comes into knowledge so that’s my best attempt at a summary from Plato don’t focus on the material world focus on the immaterial world and especially the form of the good now from my summary you may notice there are some overlaps some intersections between platonism and Christianity Clement saw this but he didn’t see this as mere like incidental overlaps but actually something that fits so well together that both should be taught as true he essentially would teach Christian platonism and this mixing of platonism with Christianity by Clement and by others it would actually affect Christianity in this in a substantial way all of Christianity even all of Western culture would be affected by Christian platonism for hundreds of years and I would argue Christianity is still being affected by this thinking today and one example of that is people who are very suspicious of material things enjoying the material world oh no that’s that’s wicked or that’s useless but of course books like Ecclesiastes would say no no you’ve gone too far yeah don’t worship the things of the world but these are men from these are meant by God for us to enjoy but that suspicion that um contempt from the material world it’s platonistic and it’s found its way into the church anyways so this is something that we have received somewhat problematically from Clement of Alexandria and a related Legacy is Clement’s promotion of the allegorical hermeneutic for interpreting the Bible now you may remember that a few weeks ago I told you about how Alexandra Egypt so that’s a city on the coast of Egypt very important city at that time Alexander Egypt became a Christian Center for allegorical interpretation making various parts of the scripture and interpreting them in a symbolic way Clement is one of the teachers who helped establish that tradition in Alexandria and in some ways this is not surprising if Clement admired Greek culture and philosophy as much as he appears to have done and makes sense that he would either knowingly or unknowingly adopt a popular Greek style of interpretation allegorical hermeneutic is very much tied up with Greek culture why were the Greeks so prone to allegorical interpretation well if you think about it in Greco-Roman culture and religion religion in particular their sacred texts the ones that are supposed to instruct them on on what reality is how you are to live in it how you are to worship and satisfy the gods if there’s sacred texts are full of the Gods committing rape incest murder cannibalism and other evil Acts how can a Greco Roman not admit that their religion is totally bankrupt this is what our gods are doing and they’re supposed to show us how we live well there is one way out how can you redeem those sacred texts that seem to present such evil acts from the gods you turn it all into symbolism it’s all an allegory no no no no Zeus is not teaching us evil ways to act um Poseidon and these other gods they’re not showing us evil things it’s a symbol there’s a deeper meaning there’s an allegory there this is what many Greeks did temptation to jump back over to him for a second he actually points out the Ridiculousness the Folly of the Greeks attempting to save their sacred text by allegory listen to something that he writes also in his apology to the Greeks this is Tatian not clementation for what reason is Hera who’s queen of the gods now never pregnant has she grown old or is there no one to give you information believe me now o Greeks and do not resolve your myths and gods in allegory if you attempt to do this the divine nature is held by you is overthrown by your own selves four if the demons that is the spiritual Powers with you are such as they are said to be they are worthless as the character if these things are literally true these gods are evil and you should have nothing to do with them or if regarded as symbols of the powers of nature they are not what they are called if you’re saying it’s all symbolic then you don’t know anything because what you tell me about your Gods is not true if it doesn’t mean what it says it doesn’t mean anything but if it means what it says you got to get away from those Gods so your Greeks don’t have any excuse and that was tations critique so this was the only real way that Greeks could defend their depraved Gods their sorry religion it’s by saying that it’s all allegory it’s all symbolic and this kind of interpretation was popular among the pagans in Alexandria and it became popular with some Jews as well they’ve ever heard of Philo of Alexandria he was a famous Jewish teacher towards the second century BC and he also taught allegorical interpretation of the of the Old Testament scriptures well Christians in Alexandria and other places places they also learned this style of interpretation and we saw it already in the Epistle of Barnabas which was produced in Alexandria in the late 1st century beginning of the second century and Clement of Alexandria he continued the promotion of the allegorical hermeneutic in his writings in fact if you look at the works of Clement that survived today you see this kind of interpretation all over the place and I’ll give you an example this comes from book two of his pedagogous in this section he’s trying to promote moderation when Christians drink wine and listen to how he teaches it little mind says the Apostle to Timothy who drank water for thy stomach’s sake most properly applying its Aid as a strengthening tonic suitable to a sickly body and feebled with watery humors and specifying a little less the remedy should on account of its quantity unobserved create the necessity of other treatment hey that makes sense Clement we are tracking together but wait there’s more the natural temperate and necessary beverage therefore for the Thirsty is water this was the simple drink of sobriety which flowing from the smitten Rock was supplied by the Lord to the ancient Hebrews it was most requisite that in their wanderings they should be temperate uh I think you’re reading a little too much into that climate afterwards the sacred Vine produced their prophetic cluster this was a sign to them when trained from wandering to their rest representing the great cluster the word bruised for us for the blood of the grape that is the word desired to be mixed with water as his blood is mingled with salvation okay wait a second what is this prophetic cluster of grapes that Clement is referring to well eventually it’s going to connect with Jesus but he’s starting with the Wilderness wandering and he said they had water smitten from Iraq and that was good because God wanted them to be temperate but then they got this great cluster where’d that come from uh yes so I think that’s what Steve was referring to the the big giant cluster of grapes that the spies brought back from the promised land he says that was prophetic and actually it was a sign it was a a sign of Jesus the word and is shedding his blood for him blood blood for his people and so when you mix water with wine which you should do because you want to be moderate what theological reality are you actually representing from the Bible according to Clement Jesus blood being mixed with our salvation okay um that sounds really impressive very spiritual but how do we know that that symbol really is meant by God in the Bible you don’t there’s no way you can point to various things in the text be like this proves that this was all a symbol that that Paul was actually trying to communicate to Timothy in uh in the letters to Timothy this is the problem with allegorical interpretation it was the problems with the Greeks which Tatian rightly pointed out and it’s the problem with Christian allegorical interpretation once you assert that the plane meeting in context is not the real meaning how does one determine the meaning the only answer is according to the whims and fancies and reason of The Interpreter and we have a name for that technical term it’s isagesis it’s when you read meaning into the text rather than draw the meaning out of the text that the author intended and many well-meaning Christians in history and today do this have done this in the name of spirituality in the name of the Gospel in the name of Jesus they will assert a symbolic interpretation to a passage and they end up making the Bible say what they wanted to say now sometimes this allegorical interpretation it doesn’t result in anything that’s terrible that’s heretical I mean when we look at this example promoting moderation and drinking alcohol that’s a fine thing that’s not heresy but other instances of allegorical interpretation be much more serious and certainly it obscures the original meaning of the text and what we’re going to see later on especially when we get with origin is that it makes the spiritual meaning the symbolic meaning the only one that you really care about suddenly the other meaning is that that’s for people who are not well initiated there is something attractive to allegorical interpretation if somebody tells you wait there’s a deeper meaning and I can show it to you like you say oh oh I want to know about that and then when you learn like oh I gotta find that in other places too but actually it’s it’s not really presenting something of value it did become popular in the early Church in certain sections of the early church especially in Alexandria and Clements is one of the people who promoted it and he would have a strong influence on another guy that I just mentioned origen who became a huge promoter of the allegorical hermeneutic and we’ll get to origin later so Clement faithful guy taught sound Doctrine but he did also promote allegorical interpretation and the integration of Greek philosophy with Christianity but just as with the other two apologists that we met there was another 2nd Century polemical father who took the opposite stance on culture and hermeneutics as Clement and that’s the man tertullian I’ve introduced him to you before when we’re talking about the Trinity tertullian of Carthage so think of that City in modern Tunisia North Africa don’t know too much about tirtonian we know that he was not a church leader officially but he was a very prominent Christian writer he was likely a trained order and perhaps a lawyer because he uses a lot of legal language in his writings and a lot of legal analogies he was prolific in his writing we have many works of his which survive too many for me to list on one slide he was the earliest Church Father to write in Latin and that became the dominant language in the western half of the Roman Empire I think I mentioned previously he coined many terms and phrases in Latin that have found their way into our own language like the word Trinity so he was one of those he did apologetic works like the second century apologist but he’s especially known for contending for sound Doctrine against heresy he especially wrote against marcianism if you remember Martian he’s that guy who said There are two gods in the Bible the the New Testament God’s trying to save us in the Old Testament God tertullian wrote a lot against Martian a lot against other heresies and he was very faithful in promoting sound Doctrine for many decades of his life but strangely tertorian himself joined her radical sect towards the end of his life he joined the monsonists with their new prophecy now the main Legacy I want to highlight for you from turtleian he did a lot of good things and we received a lot of benefit from him but the one thing I want to highlight for you today is his view on Greek culture and philosophy it took a very negative view if Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria saw Greek culture as a positive totolian aligned with Tatian and totally decrying the Pagan and secular culture that was around Christians at that time listen to part of tertullian’s work prescription against heresies this is chapter 7.
this appears right after a section where he argues that many of the recent heresies that have affected the church the marcianism and gnosticism and um monarchianism they’ve sprung from Greek philosophical ideas Greek philosophy provided the equipment tertullian says for Christian heresies and then look what else he says from philosophy Come Those fables and endless genealogies and fruitless questionings those words that creep like as doth a canker so it’s quoting the scripture there to hold us back from such things the Apostle testifies expressing his letter to the Colossians that we should be aware of philosophy take heed lest any man circumvent you through philosophy or vain deceit after the tradition of men against the Providence of the Holy Ghost he that’s the Apostle Paul had been at Athens where he had come to grips with the human wisdom which attacks and perverts truth being itself divided up into its own swarm of heresies by the variety of its mutually antagonistic sex so he’s saying something similar to tation what has Jerusalem to do with Athens the church with the academy the Christian with the heretic our principles come from the porch of Solomon who had himself taught that the Lord is to be sought in Simplicity of heart I have no use for a stoic or a platonic or a dialectic Christianity after Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation after the gospel no need of research when we come to believe we have no desire to believe anything else for We Begin by believing that there is nothing else which we have to believe and there’s a lot of Truth which are Italian wrote as well and we appreciate his zealous contending for the faith but you see we have these competing legacies from both the second century apologists and the polemical fathers some saying that worldly knowledge and culture can offer good for Christians and others warning against don’t look for good you’re just going to end up in heresy and ever but it’s interesting that the ones who are most strict about warning against World influence they fell into error themselves we solid citation solicitolian I think there’s something instructive about that but does that mean that the side of being more open to worldly culture even embracing worldly culture and knowledge is safer well wait till we talk about our last political father origin we’ll see where that led him we actually can’t talk about him today we’ll have to wait till next week sorry to give you that cliffhanger but I do have two other men that I want to talk to you about before we finish today but keep that in the back of your mind these early fathers they’re provoking us to think how should we engage as Christians with our Pagan secular non-Christian culture there’s certainly problems with just adopting what they say but there can also be problems with being so separatist as to fall into a unique heresy of your own anyways keep in the back of your mind the next political father I wanted to introduce to you is irenaeus you probably remember his name as well one of the hardest Church fathers to spell his name correctly consistently I always get those vowels mixed up irenaeus of Leon he was a disciple of polycarp and a bishop or presiding Elder in Gaul which is modern day France they called it Gaul at that time his surviving text consists of his five volume work against heresies and then we have other fragments so definitely you can see even from the surviving texts he’s a polemical father he’s contending for the truth holding up the gospel uh and showing where the Heretics have departed from the faith it’s possible irenaeus was also the writer of polycarp’s original martyrdom account we read through part of that before now against heresy is that work is primarily a defense against valentinian gnosticism if you remember that one that’s that like weird mythology mixed with Christianity they’re all these gods and there’s like uh an emanation that resulted in creation and all sorts of weird stuff but if you don’t recall all that that’s okay just remember that the gnostics are all about secret knowledge about God and the universe it’s kind of similar to Mormonism salvation is really about obtaining this secret knowledge and by that ascending into godhood in some way well defending against this strange heresy iranis leaves us an important Legacy about the exclusive canonicity of the New Testament listen to a few excerpts from irenaeus this is some things he says about the candidacy of the gospels this is from book three of his against heresies but it is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are since there are four zones of the world in which we live and four principal winds while the church has been scattered throughout the world and since the pillar and ground of the church is the gospel and the spirit is life and the spirit of life it is fitting that she should have four pillars breathing incorruption on every side and vivifying that is making alive human afresh from this fact it is evident that the logos the Fastener Demi ergos or craftsman of all he that sits on the cherubim and holds all things together when he was manifested to humanity gave us the gospel under four forms but bound together by one spirit okay so his justification for why there are four gospels exactly is a little bit maybe a stretch he says it’s because there are four winds and four corners of the world okay but get the main idea he affirms that we do in fact have four canonical Gospels and that this is fitting God wanted us to have a fully orbed witness that is different and yet harmonious about the logos about the Messiah about the Savior Jesus Christ and by the way if you’re wondering why does he use terms like logos and Demi ergos well those were terms that the gnostics were often used even the valentinians that he’s contending against so he’s he’s trying to set the record straight no this is who the logos is and this is who the demiurge is demiurich is just another term for the Creator the Craftsman so he says no we have four Gospels from God and notice also what irenae says about the origin of Revelation from God generally I’ve actually heard this quote before we have received the disposition of our salvation by no others but by Those whom the gospel but those by whom the gospel came to us which they then preached and afterwards by God’s will delivered to us in the scriptures to be the pillar and ground of our faith so just to check your understanding whom does irenaeus mean when he says those who brought the gospel who are the only source of Revelation about God outside the Old Testament to be the apostles we hold to the revelation of the Apostles and where do we find it what’d you say in the Bible in the scriptures so he says we don’t listen to anybody else we hold on to what the apostles gave us because they were the ones who God willed should deliver us the truth and we have and in the scriptures now let someone say well what about Unwritten Apostolic tradition yes behold to the teaching of the Apostles but what if there’s something the apostles taught that didn’t get written down perhaps there is where we can find the secret knowledge that leads us to Salvation well listen to something else that Uranus says and this specifically is his definition of what the Apostolic tradition is the ancient tradition of the Apostles is believing in one God the creator of Heaven and Earth and all things therein by means of Christ Jesus the son of God who because of his surpassing love towards his creation condescended to be born of the Virgin he himself uniting a man threw himself to God and having suffered under Pontius Pilate and Rising again and having been received up in splendor shall come in glory the savior of those who are saved and the judge of those who are judged and sending into Eternal fire those who transform the truth and despise his father and his Advent so this is irenaeus’s summary of the tradition of the of the Apostles you could say the UN or the the spoken tradition of the Apostles but what does this sound a lot like oh yeah it does sound like the Apostles Creed was there another answer this is basically a summary of what scripture teaches and this is significant what irenaeus is essentially saying is that the oral tradition of the Apostles is the same as the written tradition you say oh we have the oral tradition in addition to the written tradition well they are one and the same the old tradition is not going to be different from the written tradition it is the teaching of scripture the early church held the apostles with great esteem as we’ve seen if the apostles said it they wrote it down because they didn’t want to lose or forget what the apostles said the oral tradition it coincides with the written tradition and really it became the written tradition so when you hear Roman Catholics or others talk about some Revelation some tradition that they receive from the apostles but it’s not written down in the scriptures oh really you have irenaeus standing with you and testifying that there’s no other Revelation from God there’s no other authority from God other than that was written down from the apostles and their Associates in the Bible if it doesn’t agree with that it’s not from the apostles if it’s not contained in the scripture if it cannot be justly inferred from the scripture it’s not Apostolic really Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox and others who claim that there’s some extra tradition that’s authoritative they actually align themselves not with irenaeus but with the gnostics that he was writing against and many other Christian Cults who assert that there is some secret knowledge that you don’t have in the scriptures but that is authoritative even from the apostles but it’s only known by this secret group that’s not the tradition that we hold to we hold to the tradition of the Apostles that give unto us in the scriptures now the churches did articulate this tradition often in a Creed or a summary of Faith so Mike you mentioned it sounds like the Apostles Creed many churches at this time did have summary statements of Faith which they even called the Apostolic tradition but that’s just a summary of what’s the written tradition it’s really no different from it so when you think of irenaeus think of the affirmation of the apostolic writings of scripture as the only source of Revelation from God apart from the Old Testament so contending faithfully and we benefited today we still benefit from that finally and I’m going to have to kind of summarize this last father more than I would like we have cyprian of Carthage so moving into the third Century now who’s cyprian recipient was the bishop also in Carthage in North Africa during the middle of the third Century I heard a little bit about him before if you remember when we’re talking about the persecution of the church and people fleeing from persecution because that’s what cyprian did when persecution broke out in Odysseus in the mid 3rd Century cyprian fled he got criticized for that but he maintained that he wasn’t doing anything wrong while away from Carthage where persecution was most severe cyprian continued to minister to his flock through a faithful Deacon who served as a go between now Scorpion’s surviving writings they include a number of letters and works that have been collected into volume three and four of the patrollogia Latina that is a collection of Latin writings from a number of church fathers cyprian’s writings are included in that recipient’s most famous work is his text the unity of the church and maybe I’ll have time to give you one brief excerpt from that though he avoided persecution under decius recipient was ultimately martyred under Emperor Valerian who began an intense wave of persecution after the outbreak of a severe plague in the Roman Empire and you know the Roman motto if a natural disaster follows us where did it come from it’s because of the Christians the gods are mad at us because of the Christians now this plague which is probably smallpox it’s actually been named after cyprian today so if you ever look up cyprian’s plague that’s the plague we’re talking about he wasn’t the cause of the plague he just wrote a very Vivid account of it so it got named after him I don’t know how we feel about that but that’s the way it worked cyprian who was known as the bishop Carthage after this plague broke out he was arrested by the Romans confined to his house ultimately beheaded by the sword now sipian was a faithful teacher of God’s truth faithful Shepherd of the church there in Carthage he was martyred for his faith in the Lord I’ll just have to give this last point to you in summary fashion he’s notable for dealing with a novationist heresy during his lifetime maybe novationist Schism is a better way to define it I mentioned the novationist and donatus controversies in a previous lesson what this was and these are actually in different centuries the novationists are in the third Century donatus in the fourth Century what this was is that you had Christians who buckled under persecution and compromised either by offering the sacrifices or getting the sacrifice certificate or handing over the scriptures that the Romans were collecting but when persecution died down they wanted to come back into the church a lot of Christians felt like that’s not appropriate these guys proved to be false Brethren why are we allowing them back into our fellowship both of us were saying well look they’re repentant Jesus said forgive why are we not allowing them back into the church and this this was a difficult issue and you can imagine if we were faced with a situation like that that would not be an easy situation to deal with but cyprian has the bishop as the as the leading Elder as the leader at that church in Carthage articulated a moderate view he’s trying to Shepherd his church with a moderate View and he says we do want to allow the compromisers back but we want to see them demonstrate repentance so it’s not just hey no problem just come on back but if they demonstrate repentance let’s bring them back let’s have them as part of the fellowship let’s not keep away from them but there was a group that wouldn’t accept that there is a group under a man named Novation who thought that a stricter stance needed to be taken with these laps Brethren and he was so much in disagreement with cyprian’s shepherding that he left the church and he wanted to bring a whole bunch of people with him he wanted to establish a separate Church that would be faithful in all the other ways but just no we’re not going to allow any of these compromised Christians back into our fellowship incipient was very upset about this it could not tolerate this separatist movement he saw it as blatantly anti-scriptural as needlessly fracturing the unity of the church and he called them to repentance and that’s really what this work on the unity of the church is all about now I have a number of excerpts that you can read through when I send out the slides later but he wasn’t simply arguing hey we’re the official church and whatever we say go so you better come back no he says we do need to contend for the truth and he was calling them back to the truth first our Unity is not simply something that we just uh put everything under the rug and not worry about it anymore and just say hey we’re unified Jesus no it is Unity around the truth yet he says you can’t uh when when the church is standing for the truth when your leaders are being faithful you can’t just leave when you disagree with something that they say why are you going to go against the very thing that Jesus called his people to do which is to be unified around him cyprian has a famous line sometimes quoted in a way that’s not quite fair by the Roman Catholic Church let me see if it’s this excerpt or the one okay the third one here he says he that is the Christian cannot have God as father who does not have the church as a mother if whoever was outside the Ark of Noah was able to escape he too is outside the church escapes the Lord warns saying he who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me Scanners he who breaks the peace and Concord of Christ acts against Christ he who gathers somewhere outside the church scatters the Church of Christ and I’ll read one more thing real quick the Lord says I and the father are one and again of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is written and these three are one does anyone believe that this Unity which comes from Divine strength which is closely connected with the Divine sacraments can be broken asunder in the church and be separated by the divisions of colliding Wills he who does not hold this Unity does not hold the law of God does not hold the faith of the father and the son does not hold life and salvation that’s a pretty strong assertion and maybe we’re a little bit uncomfortable with it because of the situation of denominations in the church today we say well it’s totally normal to separate yeah you don’t like the churches go to a different Church oh a little different at that time remember there aren’t that many churches in one in a city there’s usually just one main Church and if that church is being faithful but you say I don’t quite agree with that decision they made on that particular issue you know to say well I’m just not going to be part of the church I’m not going to fellowship with those Believers anymore I’m going to go separate and have my own thing recipient would argue and I think there’s a lot of scriptural truth behind this that that is needlessly fracturing the Church of God there’s so many exhortations in the Bible towards Unity that’s the main thing that Jesus prays for in John 17 when he’s praying for the apostles and those who believe in their word he says let them be one let them be one even as we are one in Syrian quotes that it says if you don’t care about the unity of the church if you’re not striving for the unity of church you just say I’m just going to separate no recipient would say you’re not even a Christian because that’s not what Christians are all about now again as Mark brought out last week and as the reformers argued also there was a difference between needlessly causing schism and standing for the truth when the leaders have departed from it departed from the gospel there’s that even scripture that Mark brought out about um it’s not good to have divisions but it is necessary that there would be factions so that those who are approved would be made manifest so it’s not that there’s never a reason to separate but if we are not striving for the unity of the church and are we are uh two quick to separate not only do we harm ourselves not only do we harm the church but we go directly against what God commanded us to do what our Lord commanded us to do uh I am one verse I’m often thinking about these days is Proverbs 18 1. I’ve quoted it in a number of contexts recently but I bring it to your attention too Proverbs 18 1 says he who separates himself seeks his own desire he quarrels against all sound wisdom if you find yourself just separating from the church either individually or just saying I want to separate and find found my own church you better really check your motives because it might just be you have certain desires that are not actually scriptural but just say I want to I want to get my own desires fulfilled rather than fulfill the desires of my Lord much more we could say about that issue but recipient certainly is notable for his legacy in reminding us of the need of the church and the people in the church to be United around the truth now like I said we have one more polemical father to discuss the Brilliance but quite controversial origin we’ll get to him next time and we’ll talk about some other fathers in the 4th Century that’s it for today it’s closing prayer well God thank you for these Faithful Men teachers in the past it would help us to be faithful as they were faithful to learn from their mistakes Lord keep us in your truth and keep us United help us to know what is really an issue worth separating over contending for and what’s something to say you know I don’t quite agree with that but I’m going to submit because that’s not that’s not a key issue Lord we know that we should strive for the unity and we know that that often includes serving with our gifts pray that that would happen at this local body protect and build up your church just as you have been doing throughout the centuries our great God Amen