Classical Christian Doctrine

Introducing the Essentials of the Ancient Faith

Heine, Ronald E.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441240477
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

This clear and concise text helps readers grasp the doctrines of the Christian faith considered basic from the earliest days of Christianity. Ronald Heine, an internationally known expert on early Christian theology, developed this book from a course he teaches that has been refined through many years of classroom experience. Heine primarily uses the classical Christian doctrines of the Nicene Creed to guide students into the essentials of the faith. This broadly ecumenical work will interest students of church history or theology as well as adult Christian education classes in church settings. Sidebars identify major personalities and concepts, and each chapter concludes with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading.

1
What Is Classical Christian Doctrine?

Let that which you heard from the beginning remain in you.

1 John 2:24

Identifying the Major Personalities

Irenaeus: A Christian bishop in Lyons, France, in the last quarter of the second century; he was raised in the ancient Christian center of Smyrna (see Rev. 1:11 and 2:8) on the coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), where he knew Polycarp.

Polycarp: Bishop of Smyrna from the early to the mid-second century; may have known the apostle John; recipient of a letter from Ignatius; martyred at age eighty-six in the mid-second century.

Ignatius: Bishop of Antioch in Syria in the early second century; martyred in Rome, probably in the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117); authored seven letters as he was being taken to Rome to be executed.

“Doctrine” is a term that is often misunderstood. It is sometimes connected with particular views of the end of the world or with complicated views about who can receive salvation. Some Christians think that they hold no doctrines. They just believe in Jesus. But when one claims to believe in Jesus, that implies that one believes certain things about Jesus, such as who he was or is and why believing in him is important. All Christians have always held doctrines about Jesus and other topics related to Jesus. It is important, therefore, to understand what these doctrines are and why they came to be. This book introduces the most basic doctrines of the Christian faith that have been held by a majority of Christians since the earliest centuries of the faith. I have called them classical Christian doctrines. But because the terms “classical” and “doctrine” can both be ambiguous, let’s begin by offering definitions for what these terms will mean in this book.

A Definition of “Classical”

The word “classical” is somewhat elastic in its uses. We speak, for example, of classical music, classical architecture, and classical literature. I did my doctoral work in classical philology. In each of these uses the word “classical” has differing implications. “Classical music” may refer to a particular style of music, particular composers, a particular period of time in which the music was composed or, as is more usually the case, to a combination of some or all of these factors. “Classical architecture” usually refers to the architecture of the ancient Greeks and Romans stretching from perhaps the sixth century BC through the second century AD. “Classical literature” is usually the literature specific to a culture and may be delineated differently in the various cultures. In English-speaking culture “classical literature” certainly includes the works of authors like Chaucer and Shakespeare, but it is by no means limited to them. “Classical philology,” on the other hand, in the Western academic world refers specifically to the study of the language and literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The classical period of the Greek language and literature is considered to begin with the Homeric epics called The Iliad and The Odyssey and to end with the writings of the great tragic and comic poets, the Athenian orators, and the philosophical writings of Plato. When I was a university student, one of the professors in the classics department frequently referred to all Greek literature written after about the end of the fifth century BC as composed in the period of the decadence of the language. Unfortunately, he was on the examination committee for my dissertation, and I had written on a treatise of one of the church fathers who lived in the fourth century AD. He commented that I had done a good job on my dissertation, but that it should probably never have been written!

What might “classical Christian doctrine” mean? One of the implications of the adjective “classical” in all the examples considered in the preceding paragraph is that for something to be called classical, it must have endured. If Shakespeare’s plays had not been read and performed after their first performance in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, they would not be considered classical. There is also an appeal factor in things that are labeled classical. They have a quality that appeals to and is recognized by a large number of people. Many people find them pleasing or, in the case of doctrines, correct.

What I mean by “classical Christian doctrine” in this book is those doctrines that were accepted as true by most Christians before the end of the first four centuries of the Christian era. The classical expression of these doctrines is found in summary format in the Nicene Creed.[1] This creed was drawn up by the first ecumenical council of the church, at Nicaea in AD 325, and was supplemented with a slight addition a few years later at the second ecumenical council, at Constantinople in AD 381. It has been, and continues to be, the most widely used expression of the Christian faith in the world. It is still today recited regularly in the worship services of Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches around the world.

This book is not a study of the Nicene Creed as such, but the creed provides the general doctrines that are considered in this book. Some of the chapters, however, are about doctrines that were proposed as ways of understanding a particular topic but were ultimately rejected as inadequate by the larger group of Christians. Looking at some of the rejected viewpoints helps us better understand why Christians expressed a particular doctrine as they did, or why it was important to discuss a particular topic at all. A few of the doctrines discussed reached their final form of expression several years after the drawing up of the creed by the Council of Nicaea. Some were added at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381.

It was during the first four centuries of the Christian era that all the major doctrines of the church were set forth. These doctrines continue to be foundational for all later thought about what it means to be Christian. The importance of this period of time for Christian doctrine gives it the right to be considered the classical period of the Christian faith, and those doctrines defined in this period, classical Christian doctrines.

A Definition of “Doctrine”

The other term that needs to be defined is “doctrine.” Christians often talk about doctrine. It is a regular part of the Christian vocabulary, so much so that it is sometimes thought to be a concept that belongs to church language alone. The English word “doctrine” is derived from the Latin word doctrina, which means “teaching” or “instruction.” Every field of knowledge has a body of teachings that make up its doctrine. These teachings constitute the core of that discipline’s self-understanding. Every person who practices that discipline shares these teachings and, in more or less completeness, follows them. If one is an analytical philosopher, for example, he or she will share with other analytical philosophers a particular view of reality, language, ways of speaking about reality, and ways of approaching and solving problems. The same could be said of nuclear physicists, biologists, ecologists, or any others who participate in a branch of learning or belief system. Each branch of learning has a body of doctrine. Those doctrines involve how people who share that discipline understand their discipline, and what they communicate about it, both in discussions with others who share the discipline and to those outside the discipline.

When we speak of “Christian doctrine,” then, we are speaking of the Christian system of belief or the common core of Christian teaching that determines Christian self-understanding—that is, what it means to be a Christian. This represents what Christians believe in common and what they communicate to others. Christian doctrines have been defined by George Lindbeck as “communally authoritative teachings regarding beliefs and practices that are considered essential to the identity . . . of the group in question.” “[T]hey indicate,” he continues, “what constitutes faithful adherence to a community.”[2] This last statement points to something very important about doctrines. They set boundaries.

Doctrines and Boundaries

Doctrines define acceptable and unacceptable views.[3] Christian doctrines are definitive by nature; that is, they define what it means to be Christian. The Christian writers of the classical period of Christian doctrine spoke often of heresies. A heretic was someone who believed and taught a doctrine that was not accepted by the larger body of Christian believers.

Irenaeus wrote a large treatise at the end of the second century AD that he called An Examination and Overthrow of What Is Falsely Called Knowledge. (This work is usually referred to simply as Against Heresies, which is the title that will be used throughout this book.)

The treatise is almost completely devoted to the heresy known as gnosticism. There were groups other than the gnostics who also held views that the larger body of Christians did not accept, but the issues raised by the gnostics were the subject of most discussions of heresy in the second century. Gnostics believed and taught a number of things about Jesus that the larger body of Christians did not accept as true. Some gnostics, for example, did not believe that Jesus had a real body of flesh. They thought he only appeared to have such a body. Without a body of flesh, he could not, of course, suffer and die. This view contradicted some core beliefs that the majority of Christians held about Jesus and what he had done for them.

Some gnostics seem to have denied that Jesus had a real body as early as the first century, for a few of the later writings of the New Testament allude to the issue. The author of 2 John, for example, warns his readers that “many deceivers have gone out into the world, who do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ came in flesh” (v. 7). John asserts in the prologue of his Gospel that “the Logos [Word] became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). Both 2 John and the Gospel of John were probably written in the last decade of the first century. In the early second century Ignatius warned against such views when he wrote to the Christians at Tralles in Asia Minor, “Do not listen whenever anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus descended from David’s family, born of Mary. He truly was born, and ate, and drank. He was truly persecuted by Pontius Pilate, truly crucified and died, . . . and he was truly raised from the dead” (Ign. Trall. 9.1–2). Everything Ignatius mentions has to do with the physical nature of Jesus. It is a doctrinal statement defining one of the important boundaries about belief in Jesus Christ. He lived on this earth in a real body of flesh.

Polycarp, whom Irenaeus knew as a young man in Smyrna, raises the same issue in his letter To the Philippians:

Whoever does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in flesh is an antichrist, and whoever does not acknowledge the testimony of the cross belongs to the devil, and whoever crafts the sayings of the Lord to meet his own desires and says there is no resurrection or judgment is Satan’s firstborn child. Therefore, let us forsake the folly of the many and their false teachings and return to the doctrine that was handed down to us from the beginning. (Pol. Phil. 7.1–2)

Irenaeus on the Universal Belief of the Church

The church, although scattered throughout the whole world, . . . has received from the apostles and their disciples the faith in one God the Father Almighty, “who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them [Acts 4:24],” and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the ways of salvation and the coming of our beloved Christ Jesus the Lord and his birth from the virgin and his suffering and resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven in the flesh, and his return from heaven in the glory of the Father to “sum up all things” [Eph. 1:10] and to raise all human flesh so that “every knee might bow of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess” [Phil. 2:10–11] to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Savior and King according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father. . . . The church, although scattered in the whole world, as we said previously, has received the message and this faith and carefully preserves it as if it lived in one house. . . . The churches situated in Germany have not believed or handed on anything different, nor those in Spain or France, or those in the East, or in Egypt or Libya, or those situated in the mid-part of the world. . . . Like the sun . . . which is one and the same in the whole world, so too the light, the message of the truth, shines everywhere and enlightens all people who want to come to knowledge of the truth.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.10.1, 2

The doctrines of the early Christians stated what they considered to be the truth about Jesus Christ. They marked the boundaries of what was acceptable and what was unacceptable to believe about him. It was not acceptable to believe that he was a divine being that lacked a real human body and, therefore, did not participate fully in the humanity that we humans know. As we will see in later chapters, it was also not acceptable to believe that his status was anything less than that of God himself.

By the end of the second century these doctrines about Jesus and God were being summarized in creed-like statements sometimes called the rule of faith, and sometimes called a baptismal confession because it would be repeated by a person about to be baptized. The doctrines contained in these statements of faith were considered to go back to the teachings of the apostles and to represent what Jesus Christ himself had taught them. They were believed to be found in the writings of the apostles in the Scriptures. It was this connection with Christ through the teachings of the apostles found in the Scriptures that gave authority to the doctrines accepted by the earliest Christians.

Classical Christian doctrine, as the phrase is used in this book, refers to those doctrines the church accepted in the first four centuries of its existence and gave expression to primarily in the Nicene Creed. These classical doctrines, which have defined the belief of the church from its most ancient days, are the doctrines surveyed in this book.

Points for Discussion

1. Define the term “doctrine” from your own understanding of the concept.
2. Do you think doctrine is important to the church? Why?
3. Do you think doc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Endorsements
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. What Is Classical Christian Doctrine?
• 2. Christian Scripture
• 3. “The Lord Our God Is One”
• 4. “And the Word Was God”
• 5. “He Who Has Seen Me Has Seen the Father”
• 6. “Today I Have Begotten You”
• 7. “One God the Father” and “One Lord Jesus Christ”
• 8. Truly God and Truly Man
• 9. “And in the Holy Spirit”
• 10. God the Father
• 11. Binding the Strong Man
• 12. “I Will Build My Church”
• 13. “The Washing of Regeneration”
• 14. The Christian Eschatological Hope
• 15. “And They Came to Life and Reigned with Christ a Thousand Years”
• Notes
• Index
• Back Cover