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

On Origen’s Warning of a Potential Falling Away of the Corporate Church

 “If you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. . . . Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off.” (Romans 11:18,20-22)

Patristic scholars generally agree that the early Christians viewed the Second Advent of Christ to be an event looming just around the corner, possibly (if not likely) within a given writer’s own lifetime. One massively peer-reviewed source had this to say about the earliest extra-Biblical writings: “the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the homily known as 2 Clement speak of history’s final crisis as imminent (Barn. 4; Did. 16; 2 Clem. 5.5; 7.1; 8.1-3) and express a longing for Jesus’ coming (Did. 10.6; cf. Barn. 21.1).”1 Likewise, further into the second century, Tertullian spoke of, “two comings of Christ having been revealed to us . . . a second, which impends over the world, now near its close.”2 Even in the mid third century Cyprian, after a particularly vicious persecution, could state with confidence that, “already His second coming is drawing near to us.”3

Given this eschatological view of the perceived timing of Christ’s Second Advent, the concept of a potential falling away of the corporate Church wasn’t particularly in the early Christians’ purview. Had they known that well over a millennium later Christians would still be writing in anticipation of this event, they would certainly have had something different to say on the matter than what we reviewed above. We’ll not know in this life whether they would have had any consensus or majority view regarding a possible falling away had they known how history would prove to play out, but by the time the Church was some two hundred years removed from the First Advent we do find that Origen, commonly acknowledged as the most brilliant writer in this period of church history and well known for plumbing the depths of theological speculation, repeatedly made observations on the matter based on relative Scriptural statements, such as the following:

“‘Behold, the days will come,’ says the Lord, ‘that I shall send a famine across the land; not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but famine to hear the words of the Lord. The waters will be unsettled as far as the sea. And from the north to the east men will scurry about seeking to find the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.’” (Amos 8:11-12)

 While some today feel that this passage from Amos only had application to its direct historical context, Origen, true to the form of eastern thought in seeing foreshadowings and types in the Old Testament in addition to their immediate application (such as various Messianic prophecies, for instance), saw this passage as having potential application under the New Covenant as well: “whenever we become unjust, he will send forth ‘a famine upon the earth, not a famine of bread nor a thirsting of water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.’ [Amos 8:11]”4 Nor did he imagine this to be any less total in scale than the text itself indicates, as he expounded elsewhere:

“if ‘the people do evil in the sight of the Lord,’ [cf. Judges 4:1] to the church such a judge is given under whom the people suffer ‘hunger and thirst,’ ‘not hunger for bread or thirst for water, but hunger for hearing the word of God.’ [Amos 8:11] Therefore, let us so act and let us so pray lest divine indignation should ever condemn us to a ‘famine of the word’ and to ‘thirst for the word,’ lest he should ever be taken away from us who would instruct us in word and deed, who, in character and integrity, would offer himself as a perfect example of patience and gentleness to the people. For if ‘we were to do evil in the sight of the Lord,’ [cf. Judges 4:1] that is, if we were to live wickedly, if we do our will and not the will of God, ‘Ehud dies’ also for us, and Shamgar is taken away, and our glory will be rendered invisible, and ‘we will be handed over into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan.’ [Cf. Judges 4:2]”5

The greater part of Origen’s warning, however, actually comes from the New Testament. In order to understand his thought processes, however, it may first be necessary to review how the early Christians viewed fleshly Israel under the Old Covenant versus spiritual Israel under the New Covenant. Returning to Tertullian in the late second century, we have the succinct declaration that, “The Jews had formerly been in covenant with God; but being afterwards cast off on account of their sins, they began to be without God.”6 Going further back into church history, we find Irenaeus delivering the same teaching:

“For inasmuch as the former have rejected the Son of God, and cast Him out of the vineyard when they slew Him, God has justly rejected them, and given to the Gentiles outside the vineyard the fruits of its cultivation. This is in accordance with what Jeremiah says, ‘The Lord hath rejected and cast off the nation which does these things; for the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord.’ [Jeremiah 7:29-30]”7

This teaching, while not quite unique to the earliest period of the faith, certainly appears to have drastically diminished in today’s Christendom, either in part in some communities or in whole in others. Origen’s own teacher, Clement, likewise gives us the following:

“They were people gone astray, who did not know their Lord; they were uncircumcised in mind; [cf. Ezekiel 44:7; Acts 7:51] not recognizing God, they rejected their Lord and so lost the promise implied in their name Israel, [cf. Genesis 35:10] for they persecuted God and tried to bring disgrace to the Word.”8

And such is what the early Christians unanimously believed to have become of the corporate or fleshly Israel. Finally, how Origen himself expressed this belief:

“living apart as a ‘chosen nation and a royal priesthood,’ [1 Peter 2:9] and shunning intercourse with the many nations around them, in order that their morals might escape corruption, they enjoyed the protection of the divine power, neither coveting like the most of mankind the acquisition of other kingdoms, nor yet being abandoned so as to become, on account of their smallness, an easy object of attack to others, and thus be altogether destroyed; and this lasted so long as they were worthy of the divine protection. But when it became necessary for them, as a nation wholly given to sin, to be brought back by their sufferings to their God, they were abandoned (by Him), sometimes for a longer, sometimes for a shorter period, until in the time of the Romans, having committed the greatest of sins in putting Jesus to death, they were completely deserted.”9

Note that this is not an exhaustive set of examples; the above are representative of pre-Nicene orthodoxy as a whole with other witnesses including Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Melito, Marcus Menicius Felix, Hippolytus, Cyprian, and Lactantius.10 With this in mind, consider the implications this foundational teaching has on the following passage from the Apostle Paul:

“I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? Far from it! But by their wrongdoing salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their wrongdoing proves to be riches for the world, and their failure, riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Therefore insofar as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry if somehow I may move my own people to jealousy and save some of them. For if their rejection proves to be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are as well. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’ Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.” (Romans 11:11-32)

The implications of this passage for the corporate Church become clear when considered within the context of the original Christian perspective here presented. While the extant writings of other early figures do not often dwell on this passage, Origen follows its logical train of thought:

“As the nation of the Hebrews formerly attained mercy after they had been given up on by men and rejected by God, so also now, therefore, the people of the Gentiles, who were looked down upon and given up on by those who boast in circumcision, have attained mercy. But we need to examine what that means more critically, that they have also attained mercy and have been called the people of God and were loved by God, [Hosea 2:1] but since they were ignorant of how to preserve the grace they had received, it is said to them, ‘Because the dwelling place of Israel committed adultery, I sent her away and put a decree of divorce in her hands’; [Jeremiah 3:8] and again in another passage, ‘You have become loathsome to me, I will no longer forgive your sins.’ [Cf. Isaiah 1:14] And through Jeremiah the Lord says, ‘My inheritance has become to me like a jackal’s den,’ [Jeremiah 12:9] lest perhaps in our case too, we who were not God’s people, but through the riches of his glory he called us his own people, and who were not beloved, but have become beloved as sons of the living God, if we fail to walk as sons of the light [cf. Ephesians 5:8] and sons of God, if we do not behave as God’s people, ‘so that men who see our good works may glorify our Father in heaven,’ [Matthew 5:16] it has to be feared lest we fall upon that word of the Apostle when he says, ‘For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you.’ [Romans 11:21]”11

Just as the nation of the Hebrews comprising ancient Israel was not immune to corporate rejection, so, too, is the nation of the Gentiles comprising the Church not immune to corporate rejection. An insistence to the contrary would no doubt have been viewed by Origen as a dangerously delusional false sense of security potentially inviting laxity and corruption. On this point he gave further elucidation in the most recently rediscovered of his writings:

“‘Their kinship said together, ‘Come, and let us cause all God’s feasts to cease from the earth.’’ [Psalm 73:8] They say such things, but what they had said was produced for the Jews. Therefore, the people said: ‘We do not see our signs.’ [Psalm 73:9] When our Savior suffered, signs stopped for the people. There are no longer signs and wonders, [cf. Matthew 24:24; Mark 31:22; John 4:48] even though they had been produced then up to the Savior’s birth itself, when such signs were produced, for example, such as the vision of an angel that appeared to Zachariah, [Luke 1:11] such as the signs that were at the Savior’s passion. [Cf. Matthew 27:45,51-53; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:44-45] After these signs, signs were produced, but not to Jews or by Jews, but the signs went over from the people to the gentiles. Therefore, the people said: ‘We do not see our signs; there is no longer a prophet.’ [Psalm 73:9] For prophecy was stopped since ‘the law and the prophets’ prophesied ‘until John.’ [Luke 16:16] And when prophecy was stopped, the Holy Spirit, as a consequence, stopped from them, and the benefit went over to the gentiles, unless we also run riot, [cf. Revelation 18:7,9; 1 Timothy 5:11] unless we also are watered down, unless we become coarse and destroy the grace poured out [cf. Psalm 44:3] on us by God, so that the people would once more be speaking in our dispensation the truth concerning it: ‘We do not see our signs; there is no longer a prophet.’ [Psalm 73:9]”12

The translator summarized this passage while tying it back in with Origen’s treatment of the Epistle to the Romans:

“Israel’s estrangement from God will end when God’s plan is complete. The (temporary) estrangement of Israel from God is a warning that Christians should not presume on their status as God’s people. See Rom 11:25-32.”13

Footnotes

1 Brian E. Daley, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 383

2 Tertullian, ca. 197, Apology 21, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:35

3 Cyprian, ca. 254, Letters 63:18, in Fathers of the Church 51:215

4 Origen, ca. 239, Commentary on John 13:224, in Fathers of the Church 89:114

5 Origen, ca. 245, Homilies on Judges 4:3, Fathers of the Church 119:73-74

6 Tertullian, ca. 197, Prescription Against Heretics 8, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:247

7 Irenaeus, ca. 180, Against Heresies 4:36:2, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:515

8 Clement of Alexandria, ca. 195, Christ the Educator 2:8:73, in Fathers of the Church 23:157

9 Origen, ca. 248, Against Celsus 4:32, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 4:511

10 Cf. Epistle of Barnabas 4, Dialogue With Trypho 140, Discourse 5, Octavius 33, Fragments on Psalms 5, On the Lord’s Prayer 13, Divine Institutes 4:20, respectively.

11 Origen, Commentary on Romans 7:18:6, in Fathers of the Church 104:124

12 Origen, ca. 251, Homilies on Psalm 73 2:2, in Fathers of the Church 141:193-194

13 Joseph W. Trigg, Fathers of the Church 141:194-195