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Prayer, Politics and the Trinity: Vying Models of Authority in Third–Fourth-Century Debates on Prayer and ‘Orthodoxy’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Sarah Coakley
Sarah Coakley*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9BS, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article presents a theory about a distinctive, but still neglected, approach to trinitarianism in the early church which was founded explicitly in demanding practices of prayer and personal transformation. The central thesis of the article is that this approach (with its characteristic appeal to Romans 8, and its Spirit-initiated prayer of an elevated or ascetic sort) was set on a course of almost inevitable tension with certain kinds of episcopal authority, and particularly with post-Nicene renditions of ‘orthodoxy’ as propositional assent. The theory is not to be confused, however, with a rather tired sociological disjunction between institution and ‘charisma’; the matter is spiritually more subtle than that, and implies vying perceptions of theological power, ‘orthodoxy’, and the nature of the ecclesial body. In this article I opt for a focus on the relation between Origen's De oratione (one of the finest discussions of the implications of Romans 8 for Christian contemplation), the suggested influence of Origen on early Antonite monasticism, and the still-mysterious motivations for Theophilus’ first attack on Origenism and the monks of Nitria in 399. The picture that emerges, once this distinctive prayer-based approach to the Trinity is clarified, is one of a late fourth-century crisis of simultaneous rejection, domestication and attempted assimilation of this elite spirituality of intra-divine incorporation.

Keywords

authorityHoly SpiritOrigenprayerRomans 8Theophilus of AntiochTrinity
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , November 2013 , pp. 379 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2013 

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References

1 Originally given as an invited lecture at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, ‘Politics and Religion’ conference, July 2010; and then (in slightly revised form) as a plenary lecture at the XVIth International Patristics Conference, Oxford, Aug. 2011. My thanks to those who invited me and who gave critical and helpful response at both events; and especially to Norman Russell, Samuel Rubenson and Thomas Graumann for instructive guidance, and to Johannes Börjesson and Philip McCosker for vital research assistance.

2 ‘Prayer’, in Harvey, Susan Ashbrook and Hunter, David G. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford: OUP, 2008), p. 744CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Brown's, Peter earliest, and justly celebrated, articles on ‘the holy man’ appeared over forty years ago now: see esp. ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971), pp. 80–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Athanasius would be a classic example: see below.

5 See Coakley, Sarah, ‘Why Three? Some Further Reflections on the Origins of the Doctrine of the Trinity’, in Coakley, Sarah and Pailin, David A. (eds), The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 29–56Google Scholar; and in revised and expanded form, Coakley, Sarah, God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: CUP, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 3.

6 See Allenbach, J.et al. (eds), Biblia Patristica: Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la littérature patristique (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975Google Scholar–), vol. 1, pp. 435–8, vol. 2, pp. 469–72, vol. 3, pp. 367–71, vol. 4, pp. 288–9, vol. 5, pp. 339–41, vol. 6, pp. 290–3, vol. 7, pp. 187–8, for patristic deployment of Romans, and especially pp. for verses 26 ff.; for English trs. of brief selections from patristic commentary on Romans 8, see Gaca, Kathy L. and Welborn, L. L. (eds), Early Patristic Readings of Romans (New York: Continuum, 2005)Google Scholar, and Burns, J. Patout with Newman, Constantine (trs and eds), Romans: Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012)Google Scholar.

7 Note that even in Irenaeus the Romans 8 theme is carefully nuanced towards a certain hierarchical arrangement of the persons: see my more detailed discussion of this in God, Sexuality and the Self, pp. 122–4.

8 Justin Martyr, First Apology 6.1–2; discussed in God, Sexuality and the Self, pp. 120–1.

9 See God, Sexuality and the Self, pp. 115–35.

10 The only modern edition of the Greek remains Origenes Werke, ed. Paul Koetschau (GCS 3; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899–1955), vol. 2, pp. 297–403. In what follows I utilise the translation in Origen, tr. Rowan Greer, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 81–170. Ronald H. Heine's recent analysis of Origen's Caesarean period provides a useful contextualisation: see his Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (Oxford: OUP, 2010), esp. ch. 7. Perrone's, LorenzoLa preghiera secondo Origene: L'impossibilità donata (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2011)Google Scholar is now the magisterial treatment of the De oratione and its early reception, unfortunately becoming available only after the completion of this text, but rife with important contrapuntal insights.

11 This may be compared with Rufinus’ version of Origen's commentary on Romans, ad loc. (see Origen, Der Römerbriefkommentar des Origenes: Kritische Ausgabe der Übersetzung Rufins, ed. Caroline P. Hammond Bammel (Freiburg: Herder, 1990–8), vol. 3, pp. 578–92; Scheck, Thomas P. (tr.), Origen: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 6–10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), pp. 79–83Google Scholar: here the ‘groanings’ of the Spirit are simply interpreted as a sign of the ‘weakness of the flesh’.

12 Origen, Commentaire sur le Cantique des cantiques, ed. Luc Brésard and Henri Crouzel, SC 375–6 (Paris: Cerf, 1991–2); Origen, The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, tr. R. P. Lawson, ACW 26 (New York: Newman Press, 1956).

13 Described as ‘most religious and industrious’ (II. 1).

14 Origen, Contre Celse, ed. Marcel Borret (SC 132, 136, 147, 150; Paris: Cerf, 1967–9); Origen, Contra Celsum, tr. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: CUP, 1953).

15 Rowan Greer asserts strongly (Origen, 27), that ‘It is only in the fifth century with Evagrius Ponticus and the pseudo-Dionysius that the notion arises that the contemplative life is higher than the active’. Technically this is surely correct – if what is at stake is a whole life's vocation to contemplation; yet as we shall see Origen at least prepares the ground for this with his demanding account of stages of spiritual maturation.

16 Jenkins, Claude, ‘Origen on 1 Corinthians’ (surviving Greek fragments), Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1908), pp. 232–47Google Scholar, 353–72, 500–14, and Journal of Theological Studies 10 (1908), pp. 29–51.

17 See Kovacs, Judith L., ‘Servant of Christ and Steward of the Mysteries of God: The Purpose of a Pauline Letter according to Origen's Homilies on 1 Corinthians’, in Blowers, Paul M., Christmas, Angela Russell, Hunter, David G., and Young, Robin Darling (eds), In Dominico Eloquio, In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Robert Louis Wilken (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002)Google Scholar, p. 167.

18 Williams, Rowan D., ‘Origen: Between Orthodoxy and Heresy’, in Beinert, W. A. and Kühneweg, U. (eds), Origeniana Septima: Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), pp. 3–14Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., pp. 9, 8 (my emphases). Also relevant is Williams, Rowan, ‘Does it Make Sense to Speak of Pre-Modern Orthodoxy?’, in idem (ed.), The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Oxford: OUP, 1989), pp. 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 See Williams, Rowan D., Faith and Experience in Early Monasticism: New Perspectives on the Letters of Ammonas (Erlangen: Universitätsbibliothek, 2002)Google Scholar: see the opening allusions (p. 19) to Festugière's, A.-J.Les Moines d'Orient: Culture ou sainteté (Paris: Cerf, 1961)Google Scholar.

21 Life of Antony, §73: Athanasius, Vie d'Antoine, ed. G. J. M. Bartelink, SC 400 (Paris: Cerf, 1994), pp. 322–5; Athanasius, , The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, ed. C. Gregg, Robert, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 84Google Scholar.

22 Rubenson, Samuel, The Letters of St. Antony: Origenist Theology, Monastic Tradition and the Making of a Saint (Lund: Lund University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

23 See ibid., pp. 185–6.

24 Alongside Phil 2 and Isa 53, his favoured christological proof-texts. See the translation and introduction in Chitty, Derwas J., The Letters of St. Antony the Great (Oxford: SLG Press, 1975)Google Scholar. For allusions to Romans 8, see esp. letters II, III, IV; but a high pneumatology is evident throughout the letters.

25 Ibid., p. 7.

26 Rubenson, Samuel, ‘Origen in the Egyptian Monastic Tradition of the Fourth Century’, in Beinert, W. A. and Kühneweg, U. (eds), Origeniana Septima: Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), pp. 319–37Google Scholar.

27 Letters to Serapion, esp. 1.24, 1.28, with special appeal to Romans 8 and the cognate Galatians 4 as evidence for the divinity of the Spirit: Athanasius Werke, ed. Dietmar Wyrwa with Kyriakos Savvidis (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), vol. 1/1/4, pp. 510–12, 519–21; Athanasius, The Letters of Saint Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit, ed. C. R. B. Shapland (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951), pp. 125–8, 133–6. Athanasius does also briefly discuss Romans 8 and the adoption and ‘incorporation’ themes in Contra Arianos 2.59: Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, in Athanasius Werke, ed. Martin Tetz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1924–), vol. 1/1/2–3, pp. 109–381, here pp. 235–7.

28 ‘On Prayer’, p. 63: Philokalia tōn hierōn nēptikōn (Athens: A & E Papadēmētriou, 1957–76), vol. 1, p. 182; tr. and ed. Palmer, G. E. H., Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (London: Faber & Faber, 1979)Google Scholar, vol. 1, p. 63.

29 See Bunge, GabrielOSB, ‘The “Spiritual Prayer”: On the Trinitarian Monasticism of Evagrius Pontus’, Monastic Studies 17 (1986), pp. 191–208Google Scholar.

30 Compare Williams’ analysis in Faith and Experience in Early Monasticism, who argues suggestively that the Ammonas line represents a ‘charismatic-apocalytpic strain’ (ibid, p. 35) of monasticism which resists the taint of Origenist influence. Williams thus ultimately maintains the Platonist-Origenist-intellectualist versus ‘Jewish’-apocalytic-affective binary which I am implicitly questioning here. What seems more important to me in the face of the scattered evidence is what particular rendition of the (shared) Romans 8/Antonite theology was at stake.

31 Homily 11.1: Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies; and, The Great Letter, tr. George Maloney, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), pp. 90, is especially interesting for Romans 8 reception in the Macarian corpus.

32 Now published in Rubenson, Samuel, ‘Antony and Ammonas, Conflicting or Common Tradition in Early Egyptian Monasticism?’, in Bumazhnov, D., Grypeou, E., Sailors, T. B. and Toepel, A. (eds), Bibel, Byzanz und Christlicher Orient: Festschrift für Stephen Gerö zum 65. Geburtstag (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), pp. 185–201Google Scholar.

33 For the cited translations from Theophilus’ Second Synodal Letter, I am reliant on Russell, Norman, Theophilus of Alexandria (London, Routledge, 2007), here pp. 93–9Google Scholar. This letter is only fully preserved in Jerome, letter 92: Jerome, Epistulae, ed. Isidore Hilburg, CSEL 54–6 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1910–18), vol. 2, pp. 147–55.

34 Graumann, Thomas, ‘Reading de Oratione: Aspects of Religious Practice in the Condemnation of Origen’, in Heidl, G., Somos, R., with Németh, C. (eds), Origeniana Nona: Origen and the Religious Practice of his Time (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), pp. 159–77Google Scholar.

35 With which we need to compare the slightly earlier impetus from Epiphanius, on which see, inter alia, Dechow, Jon F., ‘The Heresy Charge Against Origen’, and ‘Origen's “Heresy”: From Eustathius to Epiphanius’, in Lies, Lothar (ed.), Origeniana Quarta (Innsbruck: Tyrolia Verlag, 1987), pp. 112–22Google Scholar and 405–9.

36 Clark, Elizabeth A., The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Russell, Norman utilises precisely this Weberian model in his ‘Bishops and Charismatics in Early Christian Egypt’, in Behr, John, Louth, Andrew and Conomos, Dmitri (eds), Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2003), pp. 99–110Google Scholar, but tells me he has now repented of it. Earlier, Trigg, Joseph W., playing on the same Weberian heritage, but preferring the earlier theorisation of Rudolf Sohm, had made an attempt to represent Origen as a ‘charismatic intellectual’ (in ‘The Charismatic Intellectual: Origen's Understanding of Religious Leadership’, Church History 50 (1981), pp. 5–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

38 See again Russell, Theophilus, pp. 93–5, 97–9.

39 Several other charges are also made against the De oratione: chiefly in relation to the resurrection body and Origen's teaching on angels (for critical comment, see Russell, Theophilus, pp. 25–7).

40 See also the ‘Homily on the Mystical Supper’, which repeatedly stresses sacerdotal obedience over against eremitical virtuosity: Russell, Theophilus, pp. 52–60.

41 Ibid., p. 27. The case of Synesius, as Norman Russell also highlights, shows that Theophilus was perfectly happy to have even a bishop as an Origenist, as long as he was not on his doorstep (in Libya), and thus not challenging his own patriarchal authority.

42 Ibid., p. 22.

43 Theophilus’ two sets of opponents thus doubtless had very different views on the vexed issue of what constituted the ‘image’ of God in the human; but my point here is that what ironically conjoined them in Theophilus’ eyes was what I have called the ‘Romans 8 nexus’.

44 Russell, Theophilus, p. 163.

45 I am grateful for a correspondence with Norman Russell on this point, relating to his translation of ‘The Homily on Repentence’ (retrieved from the Coptic), ibid., p. 76. There is no direct connection between this moment of Alexandrian discussion about the restoration of the ‘image’ and the later ‘Isochristoi’ debate, as far I can tell.

46 Consider, for instance: Brown, Peter, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Cameron, Averil, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Lim, Richard, Public Disputation, Power and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar, Caner, Daniel, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

47 In his Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (Cambridge: CUP, 1995), ch. 3, Peter Brown does in fact subject his own earlier theory to some considerable critique and clarification.

48 See Rapp, Claudia, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 For an astute discussion of this dimension of Athanasius’ career, see Brakke, David, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995)Google Scholar.

50 Cyril of Alexandria, letter 1: Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Eduard Schwarz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1927–30), vol. 1, pp. 10–23, here pp. 21–2; St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1–50, tr. John I. McEnerney (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1987), pp. 30–1. Relevant here also is Cyril's retroactive identification with Athanasius in his role as bishop: see Graumann, Thomas, ‘Kirchlicke Identität und bischöfliche Selbstinszenierung: Der Rückgriff auf “Athanasius” bei der Überwindung des nachephesinischen Schismas und in Kyrills Propoganda’, in Aland, Barbara, Hahn, Johannes and Ronning, Christian (eds), Literarische Konstituierung von Identifikationsfiguren in her Antike (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), pp. 195–213Google Scholar.

51 I spell out this argument in much more detail in Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self, ch. 3.

52 See esp. Russell, Norman, ‘Theophilus as a Forensic Practitioner’, Studia Patristica 50 (Leuven, Peeters, 2011), pp. 235–43Google Scholar.