Calvinist Abuse of the Church Fathers to Eisegete their Soteriology into Church History

     When faced with the veritable nonexistence of their soteriology within the first few hundred years of Christendom, Calvinists I’ve had exchanges with have frequently taken to google searches in an effort to justify the historicity of their faith tradition. There are a number of websites that reproduce the same couple of sources which quote-mine the Fathers, such as A Puritan’s Mind (https://www.apuritansmind.com/arminianism/calvinism-in-the-early-church-the-doctrines-of-grace-taught-by-the-early-church-fathers/). It can systematically be proven that each and every citation from the pre-Nicene Christians on such websites are brutal misrepresentations that have been taken out of context or even misquoted, and that is precisely why partial references, incorrect references, or even no references at all are given. Here’s a particularly egregious example to demonstrate the point, from the misquotation of Origen given under Total Depravity:

    “Our free will . . . or human nature is not sufficient to seek God in any manner.”

    Now here’s the context of the latter portion from a Protestant translation:

    “For ourselves, we maintain that human nature is in no way able to seek after God, or to attain a clear knowledge of Him without the help of Him whom it seeks. He makes Himself known to those who, after doing all that their powers will allow, confess that they need help from Him”1

    And so we see that far from teaching mongerism, Origen is instead teaching synergism here, and we see Origen reiterate this point in another of his writings:

    “For when we have done all that is within our power, God will make up whatever is lacking through our human weakness as he works together with those who love him for good in all things [Romans 8:28]”2

    And from earlier in the same writing, with an explanation of the relation of God’s foreknowledge to His predestination:

    “If, then, our free will is preserved, its future, with its numerous inclinations to virtue or to vice or toward what is fitting or toward what is improper, must, like other things, be known to God from the creation and foundation of the world. And in all that God prearranges in accordance with what he has seen with regard to each act of our free will it has been prearranged that what is fitting to each action under free will be met from his providence and in accordance with the succession of things to come. Yet the foreknowledge of God is not the cause of all things that are to come about, and of all the actions that are to be performed out of our desire and in our free will.”3

    And in case there’s still any lingering doubt that Origen taught synergism and libertarian free-will, this will end the matter:

    “Observe however how the prophet has said: ‘And now Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you?’ [Deuteronomy 10:12] These words are an embarrassment to those who deny that human free-will plays a part in salvation. For how could God make demands from humanity, unless man had something in his power that ought to be offered to God, who is demanding it? So then, there are things that are given by God, and there are things that are offered by man.”4

    And far from being unique to Origen, all of the pre-Nicene Christians universally believed in the same libertarian free-will and synergism, deceitful efforts to misquote and misrepresent them not withstanding. After giving this presentation some Calvinists insist that with the sheer number of instances in which the Fathers have been cherry-picked that some must surely reflect their soteriology, and yet when I offer to let them select any one other instance on these websites which they feel to cogently make their point so that I can refute the efforts to abuse it, I’ve yet to have anyone take me up on the challenge. No, the Apostolic Tradition which was once for all delivered to the saints makes clear how the Apostles intended the Scriptures to be understood on these matters, as per the universal teaching of the pre-Nicene Church.

Footnotes

1 Origen, Against Celsus 7:42, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 4:629

2 Origen, On Prayer 29:19, in Popular Patristics 29:204

3 Origen, On Prayer 6:3, in Popular Patristics 29:126

4 Origen, Homilies on Numbers 12:3:2, in Ancient Christian Texts 3:67-68

The Early Roman Church's Polyepiscopate unto the Third Century

    The central truth-claim of the Roman Catholic Church is that it is a continuation of the primitive Church of the New Testament on account of its geographical right to authority as exclusively possessing the keys of the Apostle Peter passed down from one bishop to the next in an unbroken line of succession to the Pope today. Among various issues with this claim is that the consensus of patristic scholars generally agrees that early Rome, like many other Christian communities, originally had a polyepiscopate with no centralized authority:

    “The first witness to monepiscopacy (only one bishop at the head of each local church) is found in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. . . . Ignatius’s reference to himself as ‘bishop of Syria’ (Rom. 2.2) probably means ‘from Syria,’ or it may be an indication that Antioch was the only church in Syria that had evolved a single bishop in his time. That monepiscopacy was a recent development is indicated by the tradition that he had only one predecessor at Antioch (Eusebius, H.E. 3.22). Furthermore, Ignatius may provide negative support for the evidence of Clement and Hermas (Vis. 2.4f.; 3.5.1) that monepiscopacy came somewhat later to Rome, for his letter to Rome makes no mention of church order, which is such a preoccupation of his other letters.”1     Nor should this scholar's status as a member of the Church of Christ be thought to have colored his perception of the matter; even modern Roman Catholic patristic scholars are inclined to agree on these points, and this despite the counterpoint of Roman Catholic apologists who appeal to the earliest bishop lists as indicative of a monepiscopate in early Rome:

    “At the time of the composition of the text titled Prima Clementis (i.e., the First Epistle of Clement—ca. 96), the communities of Rome and Corinth were directed by a college of presbyters, who were likewise called ‘bishops’ . . . .     “Birth of the monarchical episcopate. In the 2nd c[entury], the collegial form of government was disappearing; this phenomenon did not appear suddenly or simultaneously in every place. The type of organization that prevailed in the 2nd half of the 2nd c[entury] consisted of a community governed by one sole bishop, who was assisted by presbyters and helped by deacons. One of the first testimonies to the monarchial episcopate and the hierarchical gradation between bishops, presbyters and deacons are the letters of Ignatius of Antioch . . . The chronological list of bishops of Rome presented by Irenaeus of Lyons (Adv. haer. 3,3,3) around the year 185 is significant. Irenaeus traces the list of Roman bishops back to Linus, who was ordained as a bishop by the apostles Peter and Paul; the names that Irenaeus lists from Linus to Anicetus must correspond to noteworthy individuals of the presbyterial college that governed the Roman church in those years. The objective of this list was to demonstrate the authentic origin and the faithful transmission of the apostolic preaching in the church . . . .     “Strengthening of the monarchical episcopate. This institution reached its full formalization in the 3rd c[entury], as one learns from the Traditio Apostolica (Apostolic Tradition—ca. 215)”2

    This last point regarding the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus warrants deeper investigation. While many patristic scholars have previously hypothesized that Rome made the shift to a monepiscopate in the mid to late 2nd century, the theory alluded to here is that this didn't actually transpire until the early 3rd century. One of today's leading Hippolytean scholars elucidates on the current dialogue with his peers thusly:

    “The reconstruction of the growth of a monepiscopate at Rome has recently been undertaken by [Allen] Brent and [G. W. H.] Lampe; both chart a path within Roman Christianity which originates with a series of diverse Christian communities and ends with the unification of the Roman church under a single bishop, although they differ with regard to the date to be assigned to the final establishment of a monepiscopate. The reconstruction of Brent is of particular interest, as he correlates his reconstruction to the ordination rites to be found in Apostolic Tradition, which is for him a ‘crown witness’ in reconstructing the social setting and the history of the Hippolytean community. . . .     “That the origin of Christianity at Rome lay in a series of entirely independent communities is clear from the various greetings to different households to be found in Paul’s letter to the Roman churches. A similar picture of diversity is to be found in the frequent references which both Hermas and Clement make to the leaders of the church, and the constant appeals which Hermas makes that there should be unity among these leaders. The use of the plural, and the diversity of terms employed by both writers to refer to the leaders of the churches, indicate not only a variety of churches but a variety of understandings of the nature of office. Continued diversity is shown in the references made by Justin [Martyr] to the variety of different Christian communities to be found throughout the city, and in the diverse approaches to the keeping of Pascha at the time of Victor (on which see below). Roman Christianity thus consisted of a number of self-governed churches. Because the churches were self-governing individual communities, there was no single bishop with responsibility for a number of churches, but each church would have its own leader, probably known as an episkopos, a word generally translated as ‘bishop.’ . . .     “Brent suggests, the monepoiscopate at Rome cannot be said to be established until the time of Pontianus who, according to the Liberian catalogue, was martyred alongside Hippolytus, a presbyter, in 235. Brent points out that Pontianus is the first bishop in the Liberian catalogue whose dates are accurately given rather than simply being dated by consular years, which for him is decisive evidence in the settlement of a monepiscopate at Rome, and the common exile and martyrdom of these two figures, as well as the record of Hippolytus as a presbyter alongside the bishop Pontianus, is to be taken as evidence of reconciliation between the Hippolytean community and the wider Roman church under a single bishop. . . .     “If Brent's reconstruction is correct, then the dispute between the author of the Refutation and Callistus is to be understood as a dispute between two principal leaders, both bishops, in Roman congregations, and in no way a formal schism, which is the way in which it has been understood in the past. This has obvious consequence for any historian attempting to trace a life of Hippolytus or the life of the Hippolytean community. Thus Apostolic Tradition was dated by Dix with reference to this schism; indeed much of Dix's introduction is concerned to trace the schism between Hippolytus and the Roman church, to which we must reply that not only is the dating dependent on a schism which did not occur, but that such a schism could not have taken place because there was no single Roman bishop at this time from which 'Hippolytus' might secede. As [D. L.] Powell points out, there is nothing in the Refutation which points to a formal schism and, during the Novatian schism, which occurred in the third century, there is no reference to any precedent.     “What we can say positively is that the Hippolytean community at the time of Callistus was particularly opposed to the growth of monepiscopacy, and that this opposition is given voice in the Refutation. . . . According to this reconstruction, however, the author of the Refutation cannot be the same Hippolytus who was exiled alongside Pontianus. The former considered himself a bishop among others, the latter was a presbyter in communion with a single bishop in the city.”3

Footnotes

1: Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pp. 182-183

2: Albert Viciano, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:361-362

3: Alistair Stewart, Popular Patristics 54:16-20

Calvinist Eisegesis on Predestination in the Early Christian Writings

    In an effort to demonstrate the existence of a Calvinistic understanding of predestination among the pre-Nicene Christians many Calvinists resort to eisegesis for lack of a better option. Here’s a popular example:

    “Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fulness of God the Father, and predestinated before the beginning of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory, being united and elected through the true passion by the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God”1

    Notice that while Ignatius uses the words, “predestinated,” and, “elected,” he does not define these terms, nor does he apply them in a distinctively Calvinistic connotation. Consequently, there is nothing here that’s incompatible with the Arminian understanding of predestination which dictates that God predestines according to His foreknowledge of how each individual will use their libertarian free-will. This view is based on the following Scriptural statements:

    “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29)

    “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:” (1 Peter 1:1-2)

    Let us now review the early Christian understanding of predestination and God’s foreknowledge from those who actually defined and applied these concepts in their writings, beginning with Tatian in the mid 2nd century:

    “Now the Word before he made man created angels, and each of the two forms of creation has free will, but not the very nature of the good which is God’s alone (though man can achieve it through his own free choice). This was in order that the bad man might be justly punished, since he had become depraved through his own fault, and the good man deservedly praised for his good works, since in the exercise of his free will he had not contravened God’s purpose. This is how things stand in regard to men and angels. The power of the Word having in itself foreknowledge of the future, not according to fate but through the free decision of the choosers, used to foretell the outcome of future events, prevent wickedness by prohibitions, and commend those who remained steadfast in well-doing.”2

    A clear statement on God’s foreknowledge of how mankind will use their free-will. Next we see Tatian’s teacher, Justin Martyr, expound more on this principle:

    “The holy prophetic Spirit taught us these things, saying through Moses that God spoke thus to the first-formed man: ‘Behold before your face are good and evil, choose the good.’ [Deuteronomy 30:15,19] . . . So that what we say about things yet to happen being predicted, we do not say as if they took place by inevitable destiny; but God foreknows all that will be done by all people, since it is one of our tenets that each person will receive from Him according to his deeds. He foretells by the prophetic Spirit that God’s rewards will occur according to the merit of the deeds, always urging the human race to thought and recollection, showing that He cares for it and provides for men and women.”3

    Again, God predicts who will choose good and who will choose evil according to their own free-will based on His foreknowledge of all things to come. While Justin and Tatian wrote from Rome, Italy, let us now turn our attention to Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, in Gaul (which in part overlaps with modern France):

    “God, foreknowing all things, prepared fit habitations for both, kindly conferring that light which they desire on those who seek after the light of incorruption, and resort to it; but for the despisers and mockers who avoid and turn themselves away from this light, and who do, as it were, blind themselves, He has prepared darkness suitable to persons who oppose the light”4

    This echoes the Roman writers we just reviewed; God foreknows who will seek good and who will turn to evil according to their own free-will. Now let us look to Clement in Alexandria, Egypt, to see if the same understanding wasn’t held there:

    “by the will of the one God, through one Lord—those already ordained, whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous.”5

    Once again, God predestines according to His foreknowledge of who will choose righteousness. This Clement elsewhere applies to Christian martyrs:

    “even before his birth he was manifested to the Lord, who knew the martyr’s choice.”6

    Now let us look to Clement’s student, Origen, who expounds on this in no uncertain terms:

    “If, then, our free will is preserved, its future, with its numerous inclinations to virtue or to vice or toward what is fitting or toward what is improper, must, like other things, be known to God from the creation and foundation of the world. And in all that God prearranges in accordance with what he has seen with regard to each act of our free will it has been prearranged that what is fitting to each action under free will be met from his providence and in accordance with the succession of things to come. Yet the foreknowledge of God is not the cause of all things that are to come about, and of all the actions that are to be performed out of our desire and in our free will.”7

    The quotation speaks for itself. Finally, let us turn to Carthage, North Africa, to see a response to the teachings of a Gnostic sect:

    “Saul is chosen, but he is not yet the despiser of the prophet Samuel. Solomon is rejected; but he is now become a prey to foreign women, and a slave to the idols of Moab and Sidon. What must the Creator do, in order to escape the censure of the Marcionites? Must He prematurely condemn men, who are thus far correct in their conduct, because of future delinquencies? But it is not the mark of a good God to condemn beforehand persons who have not yet deserved condemnation.”8

    And thus it is historically indefensible to argue that any of the early Christians necessarily believed in the Calvinistic understanding of predestination as we see, rather, that the pre-Nicene Church ecumenically held that God predestines according to His foreknowledge of how each individual will use their libertarian free-will.

Footnotes

1 Ignatius, ca. 110, To the Ephesians 0, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:49

2 Tatian, ca. 160, Address to the Greeks 7:1-2, in Oxford Early Christian Texts 1:13

3 Justin Martyr, ca. 153, First Apology 44, Ancient Christian Writers 56:53-54

4 Irenaeus, ca. 180, Against Heresies 4:39:4, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:523

5 Clement of Alexandria, ca. 195, Miscellanies 7:2:17, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:555

6 Clement of Alexandria, ca. 195, Miscellanies 4:4, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:411

7 Origen, ca. 233, On Prayer 6:3, in Popular Patristics 29:126

8 Tertullian, ca. 207, Against Marcion 2:23, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:315

The Earliest Christian References to the Contents of the Communion Cup

    The earliest Christian work I’ve come across to make reference to this question is the Odes of Solomon. Dated by the translator to the, “Late First to Early Second Century A.D.,” it comes from, “a collection of very early Christian hymns.” Regarding the provenance, it is noted that, “If the Odes were composed around A.D. 100 in Syriac, are from the same community or region in which the Gospel of John was composed, and were familiar to Ignatius or contained the same Christian tone and ideas as those found in his letters, then the most probable provenance is Antioch or somewhere near that city.” And relevant to the question at hand is the significance that, “the Odes are a window through which we can occasionally glimpse the earliest Christians at worship”1:

    “For from the Most High the drink was given.
    “Blessed, therefore, are the ministers of that drink, who have been entrusted with his water.”2

    One scholarly commentator noted the following on these verses:

    “The fact that the Eucharist was also celebrated with water shows that the early Christians were mainly interested in the symbolism of the mysteries and not in the literal observance of the sacrament.”3

    Verse 18 went on to refer to those who received this water: “Everyone recognized them as the Lord’s, and lived by the living water of eternity,” the footnote to which refers us to the following passage from Ignatius of Antioch: “there is in me a Living Water, which is eloquent and within me says: ‘Come to the Father.’ I have no taste for corruptible food or for the delights of this life. Bread of God is what I desire; that is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for my drink I desire His Blood, that is, incorruptible love”4. Note the Eucharistic reference to water, which alludes to John 4:10, and to bread, which alludes to John 6:33.

    The next source in chronological order comes from Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century, writing from Rome, and at first glance seems to offer a different tradition:

    “Then there is brought to the president of the brothers bread and a cup of wine mixed with water,”5 etc.

    The commentary from the translators, however, reveals that the exact meaning here is not so straight forward as one might initially suppose and is debated by patristic scholars. Said commentary also provides us with a summation on the position on the matter as taken by Irenaeus and Hippolytus:

    “The MS has ‘a cup of water and mixture’. The phrase has worried editors and translators, since the word κράμα itself means ‘wine mixed with water’. Various solutions have been proposed; e.g. that the text originally spoke only of a cup of mixed wine ([Charles] Ashton) or only of a cup of water ([Adolf von] Harnack—in support of whom cf. D[ialogue With Trypho] 70:4), or of a cup of water and a cup of mixed wine ([Miroslav] Marcovich, [Leslie William] Barnard, etc.). The [Treatise on the] Apostolic Tradition [by Hippolytus] (Dix, 23) records the offering of a cup of water as well as cups of wine mixed with water, and of milk mingled with honey, in the post-baptismal mass. . . . A further reason behind Justin’s stress on the use of water could lie in the fact that that usage had theological significance for him, as it clearly would for Irenaeus a generation later. Irenaeus does not develop that significance, but it is implicit in his denunciation of the water-only eucharist of the Ebionites (A[gainst ]H[eresies] V.1.3). There wine represents the presence of the Spirit, and water corresponds to the ‘ancient formation of humankind’ (antiquam formationem hominis). Now, it would be a big jump to retroject that symbolism into Justin, but it is far from impossible that it is there. . . . These suggestions are, however, admittedly speculative, and the darkness enveloping mid-2nd-century practice is too thick for us to feel confidence in them. Accordingly, while we regard this reconstruction as not implausible, we have made the palaeographically simple emendation to ‘a cup mixed with water’, and have expanded this in the translation to indicate that the water was mixed with wine.”6

    The source by Hippolytus referenced above warrants further investigation:

    “And then let the oblation be brought at once by the deacons to the bishop, and let him give thanks over the bread as the antitype of the body of Christ; and the cup mixed with wine on account of the likeness of the blood which was shed for all who have put their faith in him. . . . And water is offered as a sign of the washing, so that the inner person, which is made up of the soul, should receive the same as the body.”7

    On which we are given this scholarly commentary from the translator which corresponds to the above:

    “Water was frequently used in eucharistic meals in the ancient church; most relevant as a parallel however is the use of a cup of water in the baptismal Eucharist described by Justin First Apology 65; the question of whether wine was also used on this occasion is controversial.”8

Footnotes:

1 James H. Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:725-728

2 Odes of Solomon 6:12-13, ibid., pg. 739

3 Carl Jung, ‘Transformation Symbolism in the Mass,’ in Joseph Campbell, ed., The Mysteries, pp. 280-281

4 Ignatius, ca. 105, To the Romans 7:2-3, in Ancient Christian Writers 1:83

5 Justin Martyr, ca. 153, First Apology 65:3 in Oxford Early Christian Texts 11:253

6 Denis Minns & Paul Parvis, ibid., pp. 253-254

7 Hippolytus, ca. 195/219, On the Apostolic Tradition 21:27, in Popular Patristics 54:135

8 Alistair C. Stewart, ibid., pg. 155