The Early Church and the Afterlife

Post-death existence in Athenagoras, Tertullian, Origen and the Letter to Rheginos

David Rankin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351609180
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The resurrection of the dead was, as Tertullian says, 'the chief article of the whole Christian faith' ( De resurrectione 39.3) and one of those beliefs which most distinguished Christian thought from much other contemporary thinking. This book looks at the way in which post-death existence is represented in the work of the early Church Fathers - notably Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Origen - and the Letter to Rheginos, and how these representations compare with its treatment both in Scripture and in contemporary, modern theological reflection.

Examining these attitudes to life after death, and putting them into conversation with more modern interpretations, the book asks four main questions. Firstly, whether resurrection happens immediately after death. Secondly, if there is continuity or discontinuity of space and time between death and a resurrection life. Thirdly, it explores whether post-death existence was thought to be embodied or not, and if so how might it be embodied. Finally, it addresses the issue of continuity, or discontinuity, of personal identity after death.

This book sheds light on the formation of a key doctrine of Christian faith. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars and academics working in the History of Religion, Theology and Patristics.

1
Introduction

Jurgen Moltmann identifies a number of questions asked by people contemplating the matter of death: What remains of our lives when we die? Where are the dead? What he calls the ‘central question’: Where are we going? Do we await anything? What awaits us? Where is s/he now?¹

The question of post-death survival or existence, in some form of a so-called afterlife, is a complex one. It may be understood as a traditional Christian understanding of resurrection, of an interim, immediate survival of the soul, following the death of the body, followed at some later time² by a [re]joining of that soul with a renewed, transformed body. It may be understood as a reincarnation whereby the surviving soul or spirit is joined either immediately upon the death of the body, or at some later time, to another body. Or it may be understood as some other form of continuation of personal identity as depicted in many popular cinematic or other media representations, perhaps as an immaterial soul or mind.

The theme and purpose of this study

I propose in this study to see how the thought of Athenagoras, Tertullian, Origen and the author of the Gnostic Letter to Rheginos in particular – each of whom addresses in some detail the matter of post-death existence, particularly that of resurrection – compare with one another and how they each understand the scriptural witness to such existence and are influenced by such a witness. I propose also to include along the way some reflections of both Irenaeus and the so-called ps-Justin on the matter. The latter two writers reflect less extensively on the topic than did the other four, but their reflections are no less interesting or significant for understanding second- and third-century thought on the question.

The Church Fathers and patristic representations of post-death existence

I have chosen to deal with Athenagoras and Tertullian, both because I am familiar with their work and because they represent, as two of the earliest Church Fathers to have written whole treatises on the subject of the resurrection of the body, the fruits of second-century thinking on the subject. The second century was, of course, a period when this topic came particularly to the fore in presentations of early Christian doctrine, with contributions also from Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus and ps-Justin. I will also look, where appropriate, as indicated above, at the reflections of both the second century’s Irenaeus of Lyons from the fifth book of his Adversus Haereses and ps-Justin in his De Resurrectione. Irenaeus deals with only some of the issues addressed in this book, and his thinking is shaped primarily, and thereby limited somewhat, by the context of his struggles with the heretics, for the most part Valentinians and Basilidians, of his day. Ps-Justin, whoever he was, is by almost universal agreement from the later second century – his writings certainly reflects the language and the issues of that era – but whether the actual author is Athenagoras³ or Hippolytus of Rome⁴ is debatable. Athenagorean authorship is possible but unlikely, while an Hippolytan one, for which Whealey makes a very plausible case, is the more likely but by no means certain. Its late second- or even early third-century provenance is, however, almost certain, and its belongs thereby in our study.⁵ I chose Origen simply because he exercised a major influence on the direction on thinking on the matter of the resurrection, as on so many others, as the foremost Christian theologian of the pre-Nicene period. I have chosen the Letter to Rheginos because it is a second-century writing dealing exclusively with the matter of the resurrection and because, as one sitting part way along the continuum between orthodox and heterodox during the second and third centuries, it provides an interesting comparison with the other more orthodox writings.

I have limited myself to the pre-Nicene period for two reasons. First, this assists us in understanding, along with a consideration of the biblical witness, the direction of very early Christian thinking on the subject and, second, to go into the Nicene and post-Nicene periods would be to include such a large body of writings as to be unmanageable. I could also have included Methodius from the pre-Nicene period but have not done so for reasons primarily of space. As indicated above, both Athenagoras and Tertullian wrote full treatises on the question of post-death existence and resurrection. They both wrote about it in other works as well. Athenagoras did so with a brief mention of resurrection towards the very end of his Legatio and Tertullian in his Apologeticum, the de Anima and elsewhere. Origen wrote his own de Resurrectione which is now, however, largely lost, being available only in fragments. He also made significant mention on the subject in some of his biblical commentaries – like that on Matthew – and in de Principiis and in the Contra Celsum.

The approaches of Athenagoras and Tertullian to the question of post-death existence – to take them first as near contemporaries – are very different. At the very least Athenagoras, as I argued in my own book on him,⁶ places his arguments for the resurrection of the body in the context of a conversation within philosophical circles with very little reference to Holy Scripture. Indeed, his scriptural references, such as they are, are largely incidental. At best, scripture seems merely to confirm what, for Athenagoras, reason has already proven. Tertullian, on the other hand, situates his arguments in the context of what is, for better or worse, a scriptural commentary, with a particular focus on key biblical passages, the 15th chapter of the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians very much to the fore. This is so also for Origen and, as we shall see, for the author of the Letter to Rheginos.

A note on the authorship of the De Resurrectione

I addressed the matter of the authorship of the De Resurrectione at length in my 2009 book on Athenagoras⁷ – where I aligned myself with Bernard Pouderon⁸ and Lesley W. Barnard⁹ and the traditional position on authorship (and against the position which began to emerge in the 1950s and which has been, until recently, associated as much with Nicole Zeegers vander Vorst as with anyone,¹⁰ and whichhallenges this) – but it should, of course, be addressed afresh here. I said then that I believed that the latter case, beginning with Robert McQueen Grant in his 1954 paper ‘Athenagoras or Pseudo-Athenagoras’¹¹ – but whose own arguments I found ‘specious’ – that the late second-century Athenian and undisputed author of the Legatio, Athenagoras, was not the author of the De Resurrectione and that its author was an otherwise unknown person writing at any time from the early third to the mid-fourth century was, essentially, ‘not proven’; and that therefore the status quo position, begun with Arethas’ attribution of the treatise to Athenagoras in the tenth century, should, for the time being, prevail.¹² I took the view then that the burden of proof for moving away from the traditional ascription lay with those who wished to challenge it and not with its defenders as long as the latter could make out a reasonable prima facie case and not merely rely on Arethas’ attribution. While I conceded then, and concede still, that the different themes of the two works – the unchallenged Legatio and the disputed De Resurrectione – and their different styles and their consistently different use of particular words might point to another author for the latter writing, I still believed that the case for a different attribution had not been sufficiently made. I did, however, make the concession in 2009 that ‘my study of the thought of Athenagoras will be shaped, in part, by the niggling thought’ that the two treatises, Legation and De Resurrectione, might not be from the same hand!’.¹³

Recently, however, I have had the pleasure of reviewing, for the journal Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique,¹⁴ a 2016 German monograph by Nikolai Kiel¹⁵ on the matter of both the dating and the authorship of the treatise. Kiel argues, rather persuasively to my mind and rather better than has any other author to date (and I am thus inclined to accept his conclusions), that the work is not from the hand of Athenagoras but from an unknown author from the period after Tertullian but before Origen. Kiel places it somewhere in the first quarter of the third century. He dismisses, again very persuasively, any suggestion that it should be placed after Origen or after Methodius. His arguments for an early third-century dating for the treatise address the matter of audience, the challenges posed by second-century pagan author Celsus, the suggestion that it might be a response to particular and named late third- and fourth-century criticisms of Christian teaching, or to the so-called chain-consumption objection to the notion of a bodily resurrection, to teachings over time on divine providence as one of the arguments for resurrection, and to the relationships between the thought of (ps)Athenagoras (as he chooses to style the author) and that of both Origen and Methodius.

A summary of his most comprehensive set of arguments will look something like this. Our author’s clear responses to the objections of Celsus link him generally to the time of Origen. His repudiation of the chain-consumption objection places his work after the time of Tatian, Tertullian and Minucius Felix but before that of Origen. Likewise, his employment of the transformation notion of resurrection places him after the Letter to Rheginos and Tertullian but again, before Origen in the development of the use of the notion. This is so also with the manner in which he both reads and employs the thought of both Philo and Galen. His obvious influence on Methodius of Olympus (d. 311), rather than the other way around, means that we cannot assign a later, fourth-century date to our treatise. There can be little doubt, for Kiel, that our treatise belongs somewhere between 180 and 245, most probably in the first half of the third century. I find Kiel’s arguments most convincing. If he is right, and I believe that he is, then the author of the De Resurrectione is not Athenagoras of Athens but someone else writing perhaps half a century later. The writing can, however, remain under consideration in this present work as belonging to the general period under consideration. I will continue to call its author Athenagoras for the sake of convenience, but this must not suggest that he is necessarily the same person as the author of the Legatio.

Athenagoras begins his treatise on the resurrection with a treatment – as was common in philosophical writings of the time – of the nature of knowledge, of the epistemology employed by him, although as a Christian philosopher such knowledge is that which concerns God and, here particularly, misrepresentations about God. Some misrepresent from a despair of ever knowing the truth, he says. Some others distort [the truth] from what seems [likely] to themselves. And still others exercise themselves in doubting even the obvious (1.2). One engaged in such matters ought, he says, to adopt two lines of argument: one on behalf (ὑπὲρ) of the truth and directed to those who disbelieve or dispute that truth; and the other concerning (περὶ) the truth and directed to those who are well disposed to it and receive it happily (1.3). And while, he continues, it is normal to proceed first with the concerning and only then with the on behalf, in practical terms one ought, he suggests, to reverse that order. For like the farmer who removes wild growths before sowing and the physician who will first purge infections from the body before introducing heath-restoring medication, the one who seeks to teach the truth must first deal with false opinions (1.4). Thus in teaching on the resurrection, one confronts those who either simply do not believe or those who dispute it or those who accept ‘our basic [Christian] assumptions’ yet still doubt as much as those who dispute (1.5). And this is so even when those who disbelieve or doubt have no plausible grounds for doing so. Athenagoras then continues by declaring that every attitude of disbelief which someone may adopt, not rashly or unexamined but where there are good reasons and ‘out of the security provided by the truth (τῆϛτὴν ἀλήθειαν ἀσφαλείαϛ)’, remains a ‘probable account (τὸν εἰκότα λόγον)’ – Plato uses the phrase εἰκότι λόγω̣ at Timaeus 57D – when the matter challenged appears unworthy of belief (2.1); but to not believe something which has no such character suggests ‘unsound judgement’ concerning the truth (ibid.). He then applies this to unbelief in the resurrection. He suggests that those who do not believe in the resurrection or have doubts on the matter ought not to bring forward their opinion (τὴν γνώμην) on the issue if such opinion is what ‘merely seems likely’ to themselves ‘without critical judgement (ἀκρίτωϛ)’ or what might bring comfort to the immoral (2.2). They should then either accept that the creation of man is not dependent on any cause at all (which can be e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• PART 1 Moving from death to resurrection: stages and continuity?
• PART 2 Will I have a body, and is it still me?
• Subject index
• Citations from the Fathers
• Selected scripture passages