Bones of the Blessed: Cult of the Saints in the Church of the East

The Church of the East is worthy of serious consideration from all Christians. For a long while, the Church of the East was the numerically largest in the world (surpassing European Christendom for a time), ranging from east Syria to China, from the Turkic steppes down into India. It survived and thrived without a Constantine and was not wedded to a Christian empire (surviving under Zoroastrian Persians, Islam, and the Mongol khanate). The Syriac-speaking Church of the East offers an alternative paradigm, a lively history that expands beyond typical accounts of Church history which focus on the Roman empire and its descendants.

 Anyway, the following section is from Matthew Dal Santo's  Debating the Saints' Cult in the Age of Gregory the Great (Oxford University Press, 2015). While the book is mainly focused on Gregory the Great as a Byzantine theologian (against attempts to treat Italy as "the West" after 476 when western Roman empire collapses), it also treats the Church of the East's "cult" of saints and their relics. As you'll see, the Church of the East did not follow the same chain of thought that Roman Christians (Greek and Latin) did. Rather, there was an open-space for conflict, where Gregory (and his Byzantine allies further east) contended with skeptics. Not all agreed the saints operated as divinized patrons who, freed from the limits of the body, could aid their supplicants in the name of God. Drawing on Aristotelian philosophy about human beings and the natural world, skeptics (both pagan and perhaps Christian) rejected these claims and their subsequent justification for several rites of the church. However, these debates opened up interesting questions: what is the nature of the soul? how did the soul relate to the body? how could the soul do things without the body? These questions opened up further questions, such as what happened to the souls of the imperfect (thus presaging, for some, a belief in purgatory).

In the section of the chapter below, Dal Santo examines similar controversies in the Persian Church of the East. Unlike the Roman world, the paradigm that won out unhooked divinized patronage (something that was rejected in the main) from the cult of the saints (which was preserved). In other words, to honor saints with dedicated churches didn't imply a belief in the patronage of those saints over said site. Similarly, to recognize miracles from the bones of saints didn't imply it was the saint who did the miracle (rather it was strictly God through the physical object). Dal Santo shows how the Church of the East's paradigm did not depend upon Aristotle (or other Hellenic philosophers), but emerged from an older Syriac (dare I say biblical) tradition. Dal Santo's work shows that, despite any account of "Hellenizing" during the Second Temple period, Jewish distinctives remained and flowed naturally into Christianity:

Ishai then addressed the meaning of the cult that was paid to the martyrs, emphasizing that it was, as the Syriac term itself indicated, above all a ‘commemoration’ of the martyrs’ glorious deeds. Like Ephrem in this regard, Ishai appears to have conceived of the role of the saints’ cult in the church as primarily moral inasmuch as the remembrance of the saints’ deeds provided a model for imitation for the East Syrian faithful in the present. Ishai thus affirmed that:

The word ‘commemoration’ signifies ‘memory’. And, in fact, the memory of the sufferings of the blessed martyrs strengthens the hope of the truly faithful. It is thus in order to excite us to imitate the virtues of the confessors of the Christian faith, through the recollection of the memory of their victory, and in order to spur us to receive with them the same crown, through the painting of an image of their glories on the (p.282) canvas of our spirits, that the holy fathers have commanded us to celebrate their commemoration.161

As Ishai further put it, ‘[t]o commemorate the martyrs is thus to recall the memory of their glorious deeds.’162 To a very large extent, therefore, the East Syrian cult of the saints was justified on the grounds of the moral edification of the faithful in the present. In itself this would be an unremarkable explanation of an important aspect of the saints’ cult in all times and places. Unlike Eustratius’s apology for the saints at Constantinople at the end of the century and Gregory the Great’s at Rome, however, Ishai’s account of the cult of the saints was ambivalent about the active assistance from beyond the grave which the saints obtained from God on behalf of the living.163 Although, as we shall see, Ishai acknowledged the miracles and healings that occurred at the saints’ shrines (which were important as the divine favour which such miracles proclaimed that the saints enjoyed aided his argument that the honours which the church paid to the saints were not idolatrous), he seemed to deny that the saints were themselves the agents of these miracles.

[...]

Despite initial appearances to the contrary, in fact, Ishai strongly upheld the completeness of the barrier which, as we have seen in earlier writers like Narsai, was commonly understood in East Syrian tradition to separate the living from the dead. Thus, Ishai asserted that:

whenever we celebrate the memory of the saints and their feasts, they [the saints] derive no more benefit from the honours we render them than they would be harmed from any neglect to honour them sufficiently on our part. But the veneration which we show them makes us worthy of esteem, is useful to us and will lend us assistance.165

Yet the assistance which Ishai supposed to be the fruit of the saints’ veneration by the faithful was overwhelmingly conceived of as consisting in moral instruction and a source of ethical inspiration: ‘By recalling the memory of their dazzling glory and their great patience in the struggle, we shall burn with the same love of Christ with which they themselves burned, and as if at the sound of the trumpet, we shall gather to celebrate the solemnity of the triumphs.’166 We have already seen that, for both Eustratius and Gregory, a view of the role of the saints in the church that remained limited to the moral edification to be derived from the recollection of their righteous deeds, would insufficiently account for the sacramental role which their miracles were perceived to have played as an ongoing consequence of the transformation of matter through the Incarnation, one that was comparable in some way to the priest’s consecration of the host in the Eucharist. But Ishai’s presentation of the saints’ cult as a kind of ethical mimesis can perhaps be compared to the fundamentally different view of the sacraments and their role in the sanctification of the church that was part of the East Syrian inheritance from the ‘Antiochene’ (p.284) tradition conveyed in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the primary theological authority in the Church of the East, where he was known as ‘the Exegete’.167

In the fourth chapter of his treatise, Ishai reached the liturgical Feast of the Martyrs that was celebrated in the Church of the East on Easter Friday. Ishai naturally pointed out that this feast fell precisely one week after the commemoration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, and explained its presence in the calendar of the church at this point as reflecting the fact that, like Jesus, the martyrs had been executed for having preached the true faith of righteousness. Moreover, the truth of the Lord’s subsequent resurrection was proved by the willingness of the martyrs to go to their deaths in the hope of their own resurrection. For both of these reasons, Ishai affirmed, ‘[t]he holy fathers […] established this feast and regulated that it be celebrated immediately after the glorious resurrection of our Redeemer, Christ, so that their [the martyrs’] memory would proclaim their sufferings and make known that they remained attached to their Master even unto death.’168 Although different accounts of the origins of this feast later circulated in the Church of the East, Ishai directed his audience to a further reason why the feast of the martyrs and confessors should be celebrated so near to that of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, one that reflected the current abode of the saints.169 Thus, the holy fathers decreed that the Feast of the Martyrs should occur when it did ‘so that’, Ishai affirmed, ‘the proximity of the commemoration of the saints’ sufferings should help us to understand that, just as the solemnity of their commemoration is close to the glorious resurrection of our Saviour, so they themselves are also close to Christ (p.285) and participate in his benefits: “My desire”, it is written, “is to leave this world and be with Christ” (Phil. 1.23)’.170

[...]

As we have seen earlier in the treatise, Ishai presented the martyrs’ willing self-sacrifice as evidence of the reality of the life beyond the grave which Christ himself preached, not least through his own Resurrection. We have also observed that, from the perspective of an existing tradition of soul sleep as expressed in the writings of Ephrem and Narsai, Ishai laid remarkable stress on the ongoing activity, before the Resurrection, of the disembodied souls of the saints in Paradise. With his demonstration above of the abundant miracles which the relics of the saints performed at their shrines, Ishai would seem here to confirm his view that, pace the fathers of the early Syriac tradition, the souls of the saints did in fact retain a significant degree of activity beyond the grave. Yet even as he defended the veneration which the church paid to the wonder-working bones of the martyrs, Ishai denied that their cult was idolatrous. In the process, he substantially reduced the scope of the saints’ posthumous activity and their engagement with the world here below. ‘So, we honour the bones of the martyrs’, he explained:

but heaven forbid that we mean by that the adoration that belongs only to God. It would be sacreligious to worship in an idolatrous way [lit. adore with a cult of latreia] the relics of these illustrious men. For, these bones of the blessed are not themselves aware of the miracles that flow from them.193

(p.293) Ishai’s distinction between the legitimate veneration, or honours, that the church paid to the saints and the worship, or latreia, that was reserved for God alone, foreshadowed the distinction that the defenders of images would make in eighth-century Byzantium.194 But in marked contrast to the Greek and Latin writers of the same period as Ishai, the East Syrian doctor appeared to deny that the disembodied souls of the saints, despite their triumphant entry into Paradise, retained any knowledge of the world here below or were directly involved in its affairs.195 How their relics performed miracles, if not through the sentient oversight of the saints’ souls from heaven, Ishai did not specify.196 It may be that he imagined that it was God himself who performed the miracles that took place through the saints’ relics, or through the in-dwelling Holy Spirit that remained with them.197

What is clear is that with this doctrine of the saints’ posthumous ‘unconsciousness’ (at least of worldly events) Ishai steered the East Syrian cult of the saints down a path that led it far from the somewhat unsettling representations of the saints’ activity post mortem and their vigorous, and as we have seen contested, intervention in the world of the living, whether at Constantinople, Thessalonica, Alexandria, or (p.294) Rome.198 It also explains why nowhere in his On the Martyrs, before his final exhortation of the end of the elta, did Ishai advert to the direct supplication of the saints as advocates of the living before God, or, significantly, refer to the importance of their intercessions, as contemporary Byzantine writers did so zealously.199

By thus limiting the saints’ awareness of the miracles which their bodies (or God through their bodies) performed, Ishai doubtless sought to maintain the strength of that barrier between the living and the dead which, in his eyes at least, seems to have played a significant part in protecting the saints’ cult from the danger of transmogrifying into an odious form of idolatry. Despite appearing earlier on in his treatise to depart some distance from Ephrem and Narsai in the degree of activity he was willing to ascribe to the saints’ disembodied souls before the Resurrection (at no point, for instance, did he describe them as ‘asleep’), Ishai remained within the traditional current of East Syrian teaching on the afterlife by emphasizing the effective inactivity of the souls of the saints after death, at least in the world here below. This is true even if he was not willing to impose complete inactivity upon the saints’ souls in Paradise. Rather than perceiving the souls of the saints as powerful agents in the historical present from their vital abode in heaven, Ishai, like other East Syrian writers, appears to have preferred to view the saints safely from the perspective of the historical past. Thus, when he came in a final flourish to justify once more before his audience the propriety of the veneration paid to the martyrs, Ishai again resorted to the ethical function of the recollection of their past deeds for the imitation by the living. With the considerably reduced ambit for independent activity which the East Syrian understanding of the afterlife left for the souls of the saints relative to contemporary Greek and Latin representations of their miracles, the cult of the saints in Persian Christianity appears largely to have lacked, or consciously avoided, the direct (p.295) supplication of deceased saints in the manner we have seen in the East Roman world, west of the Euphrates. Such supplication of the saints did not even appear in Ishai’s parting description, in this chapter, of the contours of the East Syrian saints’ cult as seen from the school room at Seleucia:

Not only do we render unto the saints the veneration that is due to them by recounting the story [of their deeds], but we furthermore erect shrines and build churches in their honour, where we offer our love in tribute by occasionally gathering at the altar for their commemoration. In this way, we show that we belong to the same family as them [the martyrs] and we also exhort many persons to persevere genuinely in imitating these victorious saints […]. The honour which we pay to the holy confessors is thus just and reasonable.200

At the end of the eighth century, Catholicos Timothy would invest a vision of the saints’ cult very similar to that which Ishai articulated in his On the Martyrs with the canonical authority of an ecclesiastical synod and the support of his own letters.

[...]

This picture of the benefits of the church’s liturgy of the dead deferred until the Resurrection justifies a solution offered earlier in this chapter to a further ostensible aporia in the East Syrian cult of the saints. Ephrem, as we have seen, minimized the activity of the disembodied human soul, but nevertheless expressed, at a number of points in his Hymns on Paradise, his hope in the prayers and intercessions of the saints beyond the grave. This hope, it was suggested, should properly be understood as a desire to benefit from the prayers of the saints, not so much in the ‘here and now’ of Ephrem’s life here below, but on the day of judgement that followed the Resurrection, when uniquely the saints’ reunited souls and bodies would be able to offer them. Of course, this deferral until the Resurrection of the saints’ role as patrons of the living contrasts sharply with the perception of (p.318) the saints’ present immanence found so widely in representations of the saints’ miracles in early Byzantium. Yet it would seem to be justified not only in the light of Timothy’s teaching on the nature of the East Syrian office of the dead, but also, implicitly, in the almost total absence of reference to the saints’ role as present intercessors before God on behalf of the living in Ishai’s On the Martyrs. Only at the end of this treatise, it was observed, did the doctor of Seleucia express any hope in the prayers of the saints. Crucially, it, too, was in the context of the final judgement that followed upon the Resurrection. We may conclude, therefore, that it was not that the Church of the East did not conceive of a patronal role for the saints on behalf of the faithul, but that, consistent with the wider geography of the East Syrian afterlife and especially the elevated significance it accorded to a view of man as an organic union of body and soul, the church of the East largely deferred that role to an eschatological future.274

[...]

(161) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 24: ‘Le mot commémoraison signifie souvenir. Et de fait le souvenir des souffrances des bienheureux martyrs affermit l’espérance des vrais fidèles; et c’est justement pour nous exciter à imiter les vertus des confesseurs de la foi chrétienne en nous faisant rappeler le souvenir de leur victoire et pour nous pousser à recevoir avec eux la même couronne en peignant l’image de leurs gloires sur le tableau de notre esprit, que les saints Pères nous ont commandé de célébrer leur commémoraison.’

(162) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 24: ‘Faire la commémoraison des martyrs, c’est donc rappeler le souvenir de leurs gloires’.

(163) This may be compared to Ephrem’s Hymns to St Saba above, 253–4.

[...]

(165) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 25: ‘toutes les fois que nous célébrerons la mémoire des saints et que nous célébrerons leur fête, ils ne retireront, eux, aucun profit du respect que nous leur rendrons, pas plus que notre manque d’honneur ne leur fera tort, tandis que le respect que nous leur rendrons, nous rendra dignes de considértation, nous sera utile et nous prêtera secours.’

(166) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 25: ‘En nous rappelant le souvenir de leur gloire éclatante et de leur grande patience dans les combats, nous brûlerons de l’amour du Christ, dont ils brûlaient eux-mêmes, et comme au son de la trompette, nous nous réunirons pour célébrer la solennité de leur triomphe.’

(167) On Theodore’s view of the sacraments, see now McLeod (2002). For the ‘general Antiochene ethical focus on freewill and the imitation of Christ in order to restore the prelapsarian man, as opposed to the Alexandrian emphasis on Eucharistic communion’, see Becker (2008) 91; and Wallace-Hadrill (1982) 117–50. See Williams (1999) on the relationship between these different views of the Eucharist in the cult of the saints.

(168) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 28–9: ‘Les saints Pères […] ont établi cette fête, ordonnant qu’elle fût célébrée immédiatement après la glorieuse résurrection de notre rédempteur le Christ, afin que leur souvenir proclamât leurs souffrances et (fit connaître) qu’ils sont toujours restés attachés jusqu’à la mort à leur Maître’.

(169) All found in texts later than Ishai’s, these explanations often focused on an apparently legendary order of Persian King Shapur II (309–79) in AD 344 for the execution of all the Christians in his empire. When he saw how many thousands confessed the faith, he rescinded his command. See Scher (ed.), Traités, 29 n. 2.

(170) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 29: ‘afin que ce voisinage de la commémoration des souffrances des saints nous fît comprendre que, de même que la solennité de leur commémoraison est à proximité de la résurrection glorieuse de notre Sauveur, de même eux aussi sont près du Christ et participent à ses bienfaits: “Mon désir”, est-il dit, “est de partir de ce monde pour être avec le Christ.”’

[...]

(193) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 41: ‘Nous honorons donc les ossements des martyrs. Mais à Dieu ne plaise que nous entendions par là l’adoration, qui appartient qu’à Dieu. Ce serait un sacrilège d’adorer d’un culte de latrie les ossements de ces hommes illustres; car ces os des bienheureux ne sentent pas les miracles qui en découlent.’

(194) See Déroche (1994) 94–5. On the apparently aniconic nature of East Syrian Christianity in the Sasanian period, see Hauser (2007) 114–15. Ishai twice refers to ‘images’: Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 24, 41. For the first, see above p. 281. The second reference was to the ‘statues and images’ commonly set up to honour those who died in battle on behalf of the Persian king of kings, to which he compared the shrines which Persian Christians erected in honour of the saints. See also Barhadbeshabba, Life of Narsai in Becker (2008) 47–9, which speaks perhaps more conventionally of the written Lives of the saints as an ‘image’. On similar metaphors in Greek and Latin authors, see further Cameron (1991a) 226–8; and esp. Frank (2000), 171–81.

(195) See esp. Chapter Two of this book above, 126–9. But note also Gregory the Great’s affirmation in his Moralia above 21–2.

(196) On tomb and relic miracles in Persian martyrs’ acts, see Bruns (2006) 202–9. Compare also the tomb miracles performed by the relics of St Febronia in Brock and Ashbrook Harvey (1987) 175–6, where the author presented the deceased martyr as actively resisting the attempt to translate her body to an alternative shrine. Despite being set in the early fourth century, the text may have been composed during the sixth, when Febronia’s cult became popular. Febronia was commemorated in the East Syrian church, but the earliest manuscripts are West Syrian in provenance.

(197) See, for example, the West Syrian Philoxenus of Mabbug, On the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, ed. Tanghe, Le Museon 73 (1960), 53. I thank an anonymous reader for this reference.

(198) Cf. Constas (2001) 94: ‘[t]he continuity of the [a saint’s] earthly and eschatological body was matched by the continuity of memory and consciousness, producing a powerful living presence that was made available to the Byzantine faithful from within the transcendent time and sacred space of the liturgy.’

(199) In this sense, the previously observed ‘anomaly’ between Narsai’s even stronger insistence on the soul’s pre-resurrection inactivity (as in On the Nature of the Soul and On the Rich Man and Lazarus) and his optimistic expectation of assistance through the post-mortem intercession of the saints (as in his On the Martyrs) remained unresolved.

(200) Ishai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, On the Martyrs, in Scher (ed.), Traités, 42: ‘Non seulement nous leur rendons le respect qui leur est dû, en racontant leur histoire, mais nous érigeons encore et nous bâtissons en leur honneur des temples, où nous offrons en tribut notre amour en nous réunissant quelquefois à la table de leur commémoraison. Ainsi, par ces choses nous montrons que nous appartenons à la même famille qu’eux et nous exhortons bien des personnes à s’encourager réellement à imiter ces saints victorieux […]. L’honneur que nous rendons aux saints confesseurs est donc juste et raisonnable.’

 [...]

274) Of course, this still leaves unexplained the reference in Narsai’s memra On the Martyrs to the prayers of the saints as a superior form of urban defence than the city walls themselves, for surely that was one of the saints’ posthumous benefactions that could not be deferred until the final judgement. 

He Dwelt Among Us: Christology, Nature, and a Review of George Bevan's 'The New Judas'

For George Bevan (The New Judas) Nestorius really was the bad guy. In contrast to the trend in the 20th c., that read Nestorius' autobiography (Liber Heraclides) sympathetically and (according to Bevan) uncritically, Bevan argues Nestorius was consistently an instigator. In a very attentive, blow by blow history of events in the life of Nestorius, Cyril comes out (surprisingly) as someone who desperately sought peace (even compromising where, Bevan thinks, he should not have). While Nestorius was hardly a radical, he backed some of his subordinates who advanced provocative theological positions (namely the rejection of Theotokos as nomenclature for the Virgin Mary). Rather than responding charitably to critics (Alexandria and Rome), Nestorius doubled-down. It was Nestorius who bullied his opponents with his authority. It was Nestorius who called the council and used his proximity to the emperor to put down those who, Nestorius believed, were borderline heretics. Bevan doesn't make Cyril out to be a spotless hero, yet it was Nestorius who almost always had the upper hand, including support from imperial magistrates, a close friendship with the emperor, and deep pockets. It was only when Nestorius overplayed his hand, unable to effectively subordinate Cyril (Alexandria) and his allies, that the emperor turned against him. Such was not a major victory for Cyril's party (the bishop almost lost his see), but Nestorius' arrogance made him too radioactive to handle. For these reasons Nestorius finds himself exiled, penning his autobiographical (and self-serving) screed against "the Pharaoh" (a slur for the Alexandrian patriarch) and his minions.

Bevan continues the narrative past Ephesus, where Cyril's irenicism (though steadfast in his dogma) surprises the reader. According to Bevan, Cyril was very willing to compromise with his erstwhile opponent John of Antioch in 433 (who had, at this point, throne Nestorius to the dogs). Cyril willingly conceded to the concept of "two-natures" (though Bevan faults him for it), in the encyclical "Let the Heavens Rejoice". Eventually, Cyril realized that this agreement basically let Nestorius off the hook, since the more substantive Christological issue remained unsolve (it's helpful to note Theotokos is more about Christ than it is about Mary). In other words, the single subject of Christ was not adequately defended, and this opened the door to Paul of Samosata's two-sons Christology (where Christ had two identities, the Logos and the man Jesus, which seemed to make Jesus simply into a prophet, not the Word made flesh). It was such that Cyril saw in Nestorius, and his Antiochene teachers Diodore and Theodore, which undermined the faith revealed in scripture.

Eventually, Cyril backed away from this formula later, but it was too late. While the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorius and his "heresy" (it only applied to some of his subordinates, if even them), it did not ratify Cyril's theological platform, written out in his "Twelve Anathemas". Actually, the council's results had condemned both Cyril and Nestorius (a charge Cyril avoided by bribing guards and escaping back to Egypt). Councils were for social stability as much as defending true dogma, and thus the emperor (Theodosius II) had a tough choice. Constantinople was under his grasp, but the situation in Egypt was volatile. If the emperor tried to force Cyril's removal, or arrest the popular patriarch, he might have riots on his hands. In these terms, Cyril remained far more adept at navigating imperial politics from a more parochial situation (something Nestorius was unable to do). So, while Cyril backed away from the 433 concord, that remained the effective peace brokered between the two factions. However, Bevan thinks Cyril was far less astute when it came to philosophy than Nestorius was. It's for this reason why Cyril was willing to compromise, only to realize his mistake later. In moral terms, if true, this state of affairs makes Cyril look much better, a defender of popular piety against a bureaucrat dabbling in metaphysical speculation.

And yet Cyril died, and his disciples pressed his rejection of 433 forward with vigor. After receiving a setback in the condemnation of Eutyches (a Cyrillian archimandrite in Constantinople), the emperor balances their anger with a council of their own. Under Cyril's successor Dioscorus, Ephesus II (as Oriental Orthodox remember it) condemned Nestorius once more, and all those who resembled him (namely Flavian, archbishop of Constantinople, who was trampled to death after the council). Not unlike the politique of John, Dioscorus throws Eutyches under the bus as equally heretical (which Bevan, in a supplemental article, argued was nothing more than a show trial to advance imperial control over the situation). However, Theodosius II died suddenly (falling from his horse and breaking his neck). His sister, Pulcheria (a committed virgin and someone far more favorable to the Antiochene position), takes control of hte situation. She marries Marcion (a powerful general) to garner support, and together they assemble another council to put things right.

Bevan argues that Chalcedon, in one important sense, was a vindication of Nestorius. The council adopts Leo's Tome, a dogmatic statement about Christology from Rome. This work stirred up the Egyptians (who condemned it at Ephesus II), but was well received by Nestorius. The imperial couple invited Nestorius to Chalcedon, but he dies on his way from exile. Bevan argues that if Nestorius made it to the council, it may have reversed its condemnation of him. Instead, a dead heretic is hard to vindicate, and so Chalcedon reasserted Nestorius' condemnation. Leo's Tome, however, becomes the keystone of the council's declaration of faith: one person/hypostasis in two natures (basically what the 433 concord had stated). Moderate allies of Nestorius, such as Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, ratify the council and renounce prior affiliations with Nestorius. Proclaimed as a second Nicaea, Chalcedon was supposed to settle the matters once and for all.

Surprising to me, Bevan documents that Chalcedon was wildly unpopular for the next generation, then rapidly becoming the touchstone of orthodoxy by the sixth century. The council was seen as an imperially imposed compromise, one that many accepted with ambivalence. Cyrillians in Egypt and elsewhere repudiated the council as Nestorius redivivus. Most former allies of Nestorius fell in line, though perhaps some holding their noses. Yet the council failed, in its intent, to settle the matter. The next century would see several other imperial concordats to bring the factions together.

Bevan's work makes sense of subsequent centuries. The Henotikon (482 under emperor Zeno) was seen as a middling way, which found lukewarm support outside of direct imperial underlings. Chalcedon's minutes and debates were the first to be published in extent, with the intent to create a somewhat popular interest through transparency. But, ironically, it only made the terms of debate clearer, which provoked Cyrillians against the imperial party (Melkites, "king's men", as they become known in western Syria). It was not until Constantinople II (553), where Justinian pushed through a substantial revision of Chalcedon, creating, effectively, a conciliar compromise that was Chalcedon-plus-Cyril. The result was rather dirty; not only was Nestorius condemned, but several revered Antiochene figures fell under the ban (Diodore, Theodore of Mopsuestia, et al). The gulf between the Cyrillians (some had become increasingly radical) and imperial orthodoxy remained until the Arab invasion made separation almost impossible to correct. Further east in Persia, the Church of the East (who revered Diodore and Theodore) rejected Justinian's council, and instead ratified Nestorius (though knowing little to nothing about his work) as a saint. The Roman church was split into two, and the Persian church sought greater distance from the west.

As a work of history, Bevan puts up top notch scholarship. It is very attentive to detail and pays close attention to the source material, even making tangents to establish sub-arguments (such as supporting the claim that Nestorius baptized an imperial child who died in infancy, making Nestorius' condemnation a very challenging situation for the emperor to make). Rather than relying on well-worn, and increasingly useless, tropes (such as Alexandria vs. Antioch in terms of sweeping theological concepts), Bevan focuses on the actual historical agents and the networks they operated in. He seemlessly blends a rich understanding of theology with a close attention to imperial politics, geo-social networks, and archaelogical data. Overall, it's a fantastic example of what historical scholarship should be.

From this point on, I want to transition into a reflection on Christology and the question of "nature" that put Cyril and Nestorius at odds.

One thing I've come to like about Cyril, after reading this book, is his straightforward emphasis on practical theology and popular piety. Dogma, it seems for Cyril, is grounded in the life of the Church. As the truth sets free, the truth is proclaimed through liturgical practice and spiritual formation. Cyril wanted no compromise over whether it was the Logos who had taken flesh. There was no other man, which would not only deny the uniqueness of the incarnation (wasn't a close union with the Logos what the prophets experienced?) but it undermined the economy of salvation. If it wasn't God who assumed our failures and faults, then how could we take refuge in God's promise to save? Without compromising the distinction between the divine and the human (a distinction that Cyril is not highly metaphysical about), the bishop wants it to be clear that the one who rose Lazarus from the dead was the same one who wept when he saw his friend's tomb. Again, Cyril did not deny that Christ had a human mind and human soul (which was what the Apollinarians rejected), but he distinguished the 'hypostasis' of Christ, the acting subject, the "I", as single and divine. In this way, Cyril was simply repeating what Athnasius (the great defender of Nicaea) taught:

Whence by the good pleasure of the Father, being true God, and Word and Wisdom of the Father by nature, He became man in the body for our salvation, in order that having somewhat to offer for us He might save us all, ‘as many as through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage. ‘ For it was not some man that gave Himself up for us; since every man is under sentence of death, according to what was said to all in Adam, ‘earth you are and unto earth you shall return. ‘ Nor yet was it any other of the creatures, since every creature is liable to change. But the Word Himself offered His own Body on our behalf that our faith and hope might not be in man, but that we might have our faith in God the Word Himself. Why, even now that He is become man we behold His Glory, ‘glory as of one only-begotten of His Father— full of grace and truth. ‘ For what He endured by means of the Body, He magnified as God. And while He hungered in the flesh, as God He fed the hungry. And if anyone is offended by reason of the bodily conditions, let him believe by reason of what God works. For humanly He enquires where Lazarus is laid, but raises him up divinely. Let none then laugh, calling Him a child, and citing His age, His growth, His eating, drinking and suffering, lest while denying what is proper for the body, he deny utterly also His sojourn among us. And just as He has not become Man in consequence of His nature, in like manner it was consistent that when He had taken a body He should exhibit what was proper to it, lest the imaginary theory of Manichæus should prevail. Again it was consistent that when He went about in the body, He should not hide what belonged to the Godhead, lest he of Samosata should find an excuse to call Him man, as distinct in person from God the Word. (Letter 61, To Maximus)

Yet, this approach raises certain questions about nature (physis, where we get the term 'physics'). What exactly is a 'hypostasis'? By rejecting the Apollinarian path (identifying it with our consciousness and higher mental functions, the nous), the question still remains. Cyril's method reflects scriptural emphases, which spends less time on whatness (which usually depends upon function; something Cyril also follows) than on 'who'. The 'hypsostasis' is a question of identity, the subject of any given state. Thus to ask 'what' a 'who' is made out of is a category error. And yet what constitutes a who? And if the Christian dies, what does it mean for there to be a continuous 'I' besides an assertion of divine power to make it so?

Additionally, returning to the original point, what is a physis? Is nature a platonic form or something? How does one sketch out what is distinctly human and what is simply an "accident", a superficial difference that doesn't change the "nature". An example would be that whether someone had brown hair or black hair, swarthy or fair complexion, the individual in question is still a human. One answer may simply be DNA, and yet the same questions arrise (Human DNA varies between individuals and is almost nearly exact to other primates). And is nature unchanging? St. Paul, unlike many who talk of 'nature', puts social praxis and culture on the same spectrum. Hence, any hard and fast definition of nature runs up against this:

We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16)

Here, St. Paul equates Torah obedience (lineage, but also circumcision and being under Torah), a cult and culture in a way of life, with "nature". It's for this reason that he can also say, elsewhere, that some Gentiles follow Torah by nature (Romans 2:14-16). This verse has been used as a prop for "natural law" for centuries, but it doesn't really follow if nature is malleable as in the above. Most proponents of "natural law" wouldn't talk about Jew-nature or Gentile-nature, which predisposes them to certain things. For as much grief as some Christians (particularly Roman and Orthodox) give Evangelicals for talk of a "sin nature", such language coheres far better with the Apostles than their static metaphysics.

Thus, it's not for nothing that Christians like Cyril were ambivalent about the language of "nature" when debating whether Christ had one or two. Again, Cyril is quite clear that there's no fusion or mixture. He puts forward a pretty simple definition of humanity (a rational animal composed of body and soul) to contrast with the divine (which has no category). The point Cyril wants to make is that the Word taking flesh has a oneness in subject, even if in assuming a body He assumes (without confusion) the faculties of the human being. Subsequent theology was about trying to understand what this meant (which, ultimately and fruitfully, resulted in a focus on the question of "energies"). However, lest these questions be scuppered as strictly metaphysical, I would contend that metaphysics and physis are ultimately bound up in each other. The retreat of metaphysics from the dynamics of the world is more of a failure of metaphysics. The fact that Aristotle is no longer the great philosopher of nature (which was one reason he was prized in the Middle Ages) is due to many of his systems being debunked. So, if we're to fruitfully engage in questions of Christology one must not ignore the "science" of physics to clarify our categories. Mindlessly intoning ancient concepts does nothing to help people know what you're talking about. The value of these questions diminishes if ancient systems of thought can't make sense of modern advances in knowledge. Mathematicians and physicists have found the value of neo-platonic metaphysics, translating or adopting their concepts into a contemporary context. Christological inquiries should do the same.

The importance of Cyril over Nestorius is over how the former's "metaphysics" was far more flexible and functional. While Nestorius was concerned about confusing the Creator and the created, in the categories of high philosophy, Cyril was concerned with dogmas that either supported or undermined the creedal statement of scripture. I would argue this led Cyril to be far more flexible in his philosophy than Nestorius, which makes the former more useful than the latter. Why? Because Cyril's faith was more closely tied to scriptural paradigms of function determining form. The unlikeness of God, in scripture, has more to do with His supreme sovereignty and that He alone was Creator. These were primarily relational categories, which distinguished one thing from another. Human nature too was defined in less strict terms, reflecting divinely given vocation and certain powers required of their role. Part of a Christian's investigation of anthropology, the study of what man is (not the academic discipline), requires a far more functional approach. Cyril's talk of "one nature" has to do with the fact that the single Christ, out of His own will and power (His own divine "energies), acted as a single agent. Cyril's support for "two natures" was an acknowledgement of purely mental distinctions. We understand God and man are not the same thing, but in the concrete history of Christ, one has assumed the other. We may not (as scripture does not) speak of God doing x, and the man doing y, in the life of Christ.

And yet, Cyril's approach can sound mythological if not firmly moored in scriptural imagery. An emphasis on flesh can sound like Apollinarian "space suit Christology", where God (imagined as a celestial cloud or something) suits up in a human flesh, where He (like an astronaut) is empirically identified only through the suit. It was precisely this issue that got Antiochenes up in arms. While Cyril (and Athanasius before him) reject an equation of hypostasis with nous, the question of what it means for the divine Word (who is naturally, meaning eternally, so) to be born as a man.

Scripture actually provides the categories to understand. In St. John's gospel, the prologue announces that the Word "was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). The term translated "dwelt" (skenein) is the same word translated for God's presence in the Tabernacle. To be made "flesh" involves God "tabernacling", where His body is the imperfect transport that will, eventually, be glorified in the glorious Temple in Jerusalem. God's presence in the Temple is precisely what defines it as Temple, otherwise it would be a building made up of wood and stones. In functional terms, buildings are defined through a series of relationships. A house is distinctly a house because someone is supposed to live there, and a shop is a shop because goods are sold there, even if the architect designed the buildings identically and made them out of the same "stuff". Ontological questions about "stuff" only seem to matter when it impacts the function of the thing or its history (thus also determining the function through form).

For example: a heart is a heart not so much by the stuff it's made out of, but what the organ does for the body. This approach has sometimes been crudely mechanized, as if the heart is simply a pump (it is that) which could be replaced with a man-made pump. The problem is that the heart also has integral relation with various other organs, it's made out of "stuff" that accomplishes its various operations and maintain the integrity of its relation with other organs and bodily systems. On top of that, if the heart was replaced with, say, a cloned heart or another human heart, the history of this other heart's origin might impact its form (it's not the original, and thus it is something else by its later arrival). It might also raise up ethical questions because the origin of this other heart (perhaps stolen from someone, perhaps cloned through unsavory means) would then dictate how the heart is then related to the individual known as a body. History and composition flow together as part of a single way to identify a thing's "nature". And yet that individuated nature, who then has its own history as a subject, is the 'who' in any subject. Thus, the Temple can be placed in a larger category of 'temple' (which may also be brought together with 'palace' to form a wider concept), while its hypostasis, its individual subjecthood, is defined through its occupant. It is not simply a big home, but the very location of the Creator God and Father of Israel.

Through Temple Christology, some of the questions become clearer. In fact, the Cyrillian emphasis on the Word taking flesh, and the Antiochene emphasis of the Word taking a body, cohere well. Similarly, one may appreciate (but reject as too ambiguous) Theodore of Mopsuestia's formula that the Word assumed a man. What Theodore wants to defend is the wholeness of the Temple (the man) that God dwells in. But "man" sounds like a full person, as if there can be any disjunction between the human being and the Word who dwelt there. Hence Cyril's vigorous opposition: it sounds more like a union between two than the one assuming another. A Temple has no meaning as such until the divine presence arrives; it's only a Temple afterwards. Thus the man is only such when the Logos takes upon Himself body and soul. It's in that way the Word is made flesh. Perhaps the Church of the East could appreciate Theodore's grammar in Syriac, because they tended to promote a similar Temple Christology before Theodore was considered a godly teacher (c.f. the poetry of Ephraim the Syrian). Perhaps they simply didn't come across such ambiguous statements. But the Church of the East, against later monophysite Cyrillians, professed the two natures strongly. They feared any collapse of God, as if God simply was the Temple and could not be distinguished apart from wood and stone (which, in effect, sounded like God was an idol). Some monophysites perhaps sounded like this, though such would be a departure from Cyril himself.

Additionally, an emphasis on the Temple to define our Christology (something not so much foreign to patristics, but to their modern successors) would help solve some Christological impasses. Lutherans mocked the Reformed extra Calvinisticum, the idea that Christ was wholly identified with Christ but exceeded His human body. It derived from the Reformed statement, basically a tautology: finitum non capax infiniti (the finite cannot exhaust the infinite). Lutherans considered this a rejection of Hebrews 1:3 ("in Him [Christ] the fullness of God dwelt bodily"). But the point the Reformed were making was simply that the Logos, being infinite, did not cease to be everywhere even as He was locally present as Jesus, body and soul. The concept of Temple helps cut through this debate, when we look at Solom's dedicatory prayer. Solomon recognized that even as God was totally present in the Temple, that being the Creator God, neither the Earth nor the heavens could fully contain Him (1 Kings 8:27). Thus there was no contradiction in the infinite God being present here (which is more a statement of relation, as most spatial metaphors in the Bible are), even as He was not totally exhausted there. The Reformed were correct, and the Lutherans advancing a bizarre piety (or perhaps not understanding what the Reformed were saying, to be charitable).

Cyrillian emphasis on the one dwelling makes most sense in terms of the Temple, and helps ground the metaphysical grammar we use when talking about Christology. Rather than simply harping about ancient categories, which becomes almost esoteric in how it drives most "uninitiated" out from the conversation, it gets back to the source material. It doesn't deny the ancient debates, but reformats (which involves adopting terms as much as it means translating ancient concepts) within contemporary knowledge. Bevan's history help us know the stakes, but theology must be more than simply history of past events. If theology is to mean anything, it is explaining what it means that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

Conciliar Fundamentalism: Richard Price on the Authority of Councils

Something that is quite common among some corners of American Eastern Orthodox is the heavy emphasis on counciliar decisions. Ecumenical councils, defined as decisions made by and embraced by the "whole" church, constitute doctrinal standards for the Christian faith. There are, and have been, a variety of Christians who have embraced such a view. They will focus on a strong links of commonality, stretching from diocese to diocese, to forge standards that reflect the mind of the church. And there's some part of this idea that I like, and it reflects how, exactly, the church is catholic.

But that's not how they are understood. Rather than a process of integration, dialog, and participation, through which bishops accept these standards, they are considered finished products, reflecting a conclusive end to a certain controversy. Thus, Nicaea ended Arius, Constantinople I ended Apollonaris and the Pneumatomachoi, Ephesus ended Nestorius, etc. etc. But that's hardly the case. To draw out the irony, here's a quote from emperor Justinian in his On the Orthodox Faith about councils:

"Often at councils some things are said by some of those found at them out of partiality or disagreement or ignorance, but no one attends to what is said individually by a few, but only to what is decreed by all by common consent; for if one were to choose to attend to such disagreement in the way they do, each council will be found refuting itself"

The point of this statement is to explain why Constantinople II was being called. It was, in essence, a repudiation of a strict Chalcedonian position, reincorporating a larger Cyrillian corpus. Thus, not only was Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius considered orthodox, but now his Twelve Anathemas were as well. In addition, Constantinople II decided against Ibas of Edessa and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, whose Chalcedonian theology was sympathetic towards Nestorius (and informed by the "school" of Diodore). However, this decision was itself disputed from those who had formed a new concept of councils in light of Chalcedon. It was what Richard Price dubbed "conciliar fundamentalism": the idea that ecumenical councils were not merely benchmarks, even if highly revered like Nicaea, but pieces of inspired and canonical scripture.

I think there's a real danger in this position. It requires a leap of logic to go from the NT's claim about the Apostolic tradition (or the handing-on of the faith) to particular ecumenical decisions which, in aggregate, become infallible. The process saw pieces of church broken off. The Persian Church of the East was sufficiently detached that it was unaware of the scale of the debate. With fair judgement,  they recoiled from the fact that the Roman churches had condemned their teachers Diodore and Theodore (who had become revered as textual analysts), centuries after their death. A system, imposed by a foreign church and reified through a claimed authority, made reconciliation impossible and a kind of join-or-die opposition inevitable. 

Councils claimed to be faithful articulations of the faith once received through the Apostles. But by adding to a sacred corpus, beyond the NT scriptures, goal-posts shifted. What was once acceptable became anathema. Whether intended or not, this certainly opens the door to doctrinal development, collapsing conceptual paradigms with the very words of God. For some Orthodox, this is faithful to the idea that the Spirit of God would continue to lead the church. But such is to blur the concept of canon with the idea of inspiration. Early Christians could both claim that the divine scripture was known and closed, while also authoritatively citing works considered to be inspired. But in the turn to councils (which are not as easy to identify as one might think) one reifies their authority and depreciates church councils as on par with irrevocable canon.

 "Conciliar fundamentalism" reflected the new norm within Roman Christianity, as councils were given a near scriptural level of authority. Thus, like scripture, the hermeneutic of how to read citations or quotations became important. In the following, from Price's article "The Council of Chalcedon: A Narrative", the conflict over "adding" to Chalcedon involved on how best to read the council. Justinian and deacon Ferrandus both offered approaches that engaged the rules, if not a literal spirit, of conciliar fundamentalism:

This new conciliar fundamentalism, where all the acts and not just the decrees were treated with exaggerated respect, not only developed after Chalcedon, but was closely connected to the dissemination of its acts, since no such acts survived from the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Constantinople I, and only partial acts from Ephesus I. It found eloquent expression in a letter written by Deacon Ferrandus of Carthage in the mid-540s in protest at Justinian’s First Edict against the Three Chapters (which seemed to reverse some of the decisions of Chalcedon):

If there is disapproval of any part of the Council of Chalcedon, the approval of the whole is in danger of becoming disapproval… But the whole Council of Chalcedon, since the whole of it is the Council of Chalcedon, is true; no part of it is open to criticism. Whatever we know to have been uttered, transacted, decreed and confirmed there was worked by the ineffable and secret power of the Holy Spirit.59 

Whence came this failure to make appropriate distinction between the decrees of the councils and their debates? The explanation lies, I would suggest, in the likening of conciliar acts to the books of Holy Scripture. As Ferrandus wrote in the same letter, ‘General councils, particularly those that have gained the assent of the Roman church, hold a place of authority second only to the canonical books.’60 Of course not everything in conciliar acts was accorded equal weight, and they manifestly contained utterances by heretics, such as Nestorius and Eutyches;61 but after all not everything in Scripture was of equal weight, and Scripture likewise contained the utterances of the ungodly, such as Jezebel and Caiaphas. Perhaps a still more apt comparison would be with the writings of the Church Fathers: not all of the Fathers were equally venerated, and some of the writings of each one were more central in the tradition than others, but all of them had to be treated with respect and had prima facie authority. 

The Council of Chalcedon was the first ecumenical council of which complete and full acts were published, and the emperor Marcian in authorizing their publication must have calculated that their honest disclosure of tensions and disagreements would prove the thoroughness and the freedom of the council’s work. For a modern reader they show the human side of what was brought about ‘by the ineffable and secret power of the Holy Spirit’. But by the sixth century the Acts of Chalcedon had come to be read by Chalcedonians as an authoritative text, and the story of the Council of Chalcedon, as revealed in the acts, was viewed as akin to sacred history.

It's possible that Price, in the following, is reading someone like Ferrandus a bit too literally. What if this sanctifying of Chalcedon was not so much a true-belief, or even a conciliar fundamentalism, but a stick to beat Justinian with? Not only did Justinian's policies leave Roman Africa a mess (pulling out to focus on Italian campaign, when Africa's various peoples were not reintegrated into empire), but here was someone who many contemporaries found annoying for playing politics with faith. Theodora, the empress (not consort), was openly miaphysite, and many believed the imperial couple intentionally took up different sides to play them off against each other. This came to an end with the plague, and coming down hard was paramount. Thus Justinian's neo-Chalcedonianism might be a tip of what he truly believed all along, a truly modified Chalcedon, stripped of what he thought seemed like Nestorian baggage. It's hard to say how Justinian's beliefs changed over time, because he died an aphthartodocetae (i.e. someone who believed Jesus' human flesh was heavenly and incorruptible before the resurrection). Anyway, it's quite possible deacon Ferrandus saw through Justinian's nonsense, and would hit him with the now sacrosanct council to push back the emperor's church policies. It didn't work. The result was the reification of conciliar authority as scriptural history. 

 

It is "conciliar fundamentalism", as it's still utilized, that is a fundamental gulf between Eastern Orthodoxy and Reformed. The latter, in the main, did not reject the authority of tradition. Rather, they never imbued the council's minutes with the same infallible authority. It was for this reason that the Reformed would ratify the dogmatic conclusions of the councils, without their canon laws. It wasn't that the Reformed rejected canon law (at least, not all of them), but it had a limited and provisional nature. But if the very proceedings of the council were sacred, then one could not reject a single line. If Orthodox reject "conciliar fundamentalism" (which is a question of authority, not epistemology), then it would not only allow closer ties with certain groups of Protestants (which was, perhaps, how Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox became as close as they did in the early 20th c.) but a means to further refine their own theology. New councils could be more quickly called, with some level of tentative authority, to address new issues of the day.

 

An additional problem with conciliarism, as much as biblicism, is how one knows what sacred councils really are. The idea of the seven ecumenical councils is a later invention, as some Eastern Orthodox will count later councils (including the Photian council of the 9th c. and the series of Palamite councils in the 13th/14th c.) as well. The issues of canon law have made many changes, or even recognition of ongoing changes, impossible to recognize. The jurisdictional mess of the Eastern Orthodox in the US, and the basic inability to reform, is a case in point. If ecumenical councils are understood rightly as ecumenical, meaning that they're according to the oikumene of Rome, then further ecumenical councils are impossible. They would need a Roman emperor, which could only be possible if there was renewed Byzantium or Russia resumed its status as Third Rome. Even if the latter happened (extremely improbable), then it would splinter the Orthodox churches even further, as churches linked to the Phanar would resist any further empowerment of Moscow. It's basically an impossible bind, a theory of authority that could not conceptualize a world post-1453.

The Sting of the Law is Sin: William Law and Covenantal Mysticism

Here is a section from William Law's work Of Justification by Faith and Works: A Dialogue Between a Methodist and a Churchman (1760). The work is a dialogue between "Churchman" (a stand-in for Law or a faithful Anglican) and "Methodist" (a stand-in for George Whitfield, theWesleys, and their disciples). The end, as one might expect, is the victorious Churchman refuting Methodist. The below is Churchman explaining why Methodist's focus on sola fide misconstrues the biblical evidence. Here's the text:

[Just-81] Gospel-salvation, is on God's part, a covenant of free grace and mercy, and cannot possibly be anything else; on man's part, it is wholly a covenant of works, and cannot possibly be anything else. For the sake of works, man was that which he was by his creation: for the sake of works, he is all that is, by his redemption. Works are the life of the creature, and he can have no life better or worse than his works that which he does, that he is.

[Just-82] THIS DO AND THOU SHALT LIVE, is the Law of Works, which was from the beginning, is now, and always will be, the one Law of Life. And whether you consider the Adamical, patriarchal, legal, prophetic, or gospel-state of the church, DOING is ALL. Nothing makes any change in this. Nay, it is not only the one law of all men on earth, but of all angels in heaven. And this as certainly, as our best and highest prayer is this, "thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

[Just-83] "This do, and thou shalt live," was the only Law of Life given to Adam in paradise. Adam could not have been capable of this law, but because the divine nature, or a birth of Christ within him, was his first created state. No law of doing God's will could have been given to, or received by any of his posterity, but because a seed of the first divine life, or Christ in man, was by God's free grace and mercy, preserved and continued in Adam, and secured to all his posterity, as a redeeming seed of the woman, which through all ages of the church, should continue bruising the head of the serpent, till this first seed of life became a God incarnate, with all power in heaven and on earth, to restore original righteousness, and to raise again in fallen man, that first birth of himself, which was in Adam before he fell; this was the one power that he gave them to become sons of God.

Now let's explore the peculiarity of Law's explication. He had begun to read, and became fascinated with, the German mystic Jacob Boehme. Law was not a slavish devote, and modified the use of Behmen terms and phrases. In a parallel way, Law's use of Boehme is like Luther's use of Johannes Tauler and the Theologica Germanica. Both creatively synthesized mystical theology into their contemporary theological project. Law's project was to promote a rigorous and devout faith within the severely compromised Church of England. But in mystical theology, Law found a way to talk about the cosmic joy of living a life of conviction and commitment. Thus, Law makes a mystical communion with Christ both the source of justification and the source of life-giving works. In Christ, the justifying faith and sanctifying works both participate in the divine redemption. Thus, the focus should be on communion with Christ, not pitting works against faith (both of which are useless if not from God).

When Law talks about Christ in man, he is again utilizing the mystic tradition, but in a way that has avoided the pantheistic implication that crowd around Boehme's visions. Like early philosophic Christians engaged in apologetics (Justin Martyr, Origen), Law claims all saints, before and after the incarnation of Jesus Christ, were holy by virtue of communion with the Word of God. There was no separate righteousness available to the Jews before the Messiah's appearance. Whether we understand this point as a retroactive effect of Christ's work, stretching forward and backwards in time, or we understand that Christ had always been forming a people around Himself, saving them through communion and conformity in different episodes of covenantal history, it still highlights that Christ is the protagonist in all of Scripture, who make and break the whole cast of characters through their encounters with Him.

Having said all of that, I still have reservations about Law's way of approaching this issue. His attack on the Methodists was targeting what he saw as cheap-grace and a reductionist approach to faith. I'm not saying his method is the easiest to communicate without a whole load of confusing baggage. However, Law's approach in this text is an interesting way of approaching the distinction between the Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace within Reformed theology.

I've not spent much time on this issue, but I've always found the Covenant of Works concept a bit eisegetical, building a lot on a little. I have a hard time understanding how God's command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a full-blown covenant, let alone a distinctly separate issue from what comes after. While Romans 5 shows the significance of the Adam-Christ typology, and the importance of the first three chapters for Scripture, Adam is a rare (and mostly implicit) character through scripture. To call the Mosaic Covenant a republication seems odd, when the first Covenant of Works is not really published. For God's commands to Adam do not seem self-evident to suppose a works-principle that is somehow at odds, or distinct, from the grace of Adam's inheritance of paradise. And the Mosaic Covenant is not all works: it includes gracious provisions that look away from obedience. To me, it seems that every covenant is a wing or an unfolding of the Abrahamic covenant, which only was put in opposition to Moses when the Law, which is spiritual, was handled by carnal men. The war against flesh that the Mosaic covenant pursued (dependent on the gracious fellowship through Abraham) turned in on itself and became a corrupt means to sanctify the very flesh it sought to transform into Spirit. The corrupt form is what, falsely, creates the opposition between Abraham and Moses that St. Paul overcomes. In Christ, the Mosaic covenant comes to fruition and brings about the promises of Abraham.

And yet there are rotten approaches to monocovenantalism. Some obfuscate any disjunction between Old and New testament. Flattening out salvation history, monocovenantalism becomes a bulwark of theonomy and postmillenialism. What Law's approach does, in contrast, is to highlight the theology of St. Paul in his own mystical grammar. The promise of a Coming One throughout Scripture was always a gestures towards the inability, the backsliding, and failure of Israel. While it is true that God's passing through twice in His covenant with Abraham signified that He would take upon the responsibilities for both parties, it was still a covenant. Abraham was still the party, even if he was merely promised a kind of failure. He will die, and his children will be in exile, but then, in the second stage, they are promised victory over all the evil nations inhabiting the Land. When the sign of the Seed arrives, Isaac's circumcision comes with a promised command that Abraham shall obey the covenant, him and his children, circumcising their children. Here is a conjunction of the division apparent in Moses: there is a path of life and death. But for Abraham, who sets the stage, it is a promised "death", the going down into shadowy Egypt, that will precede the rising up of "life", victory over the nations. In circumcision, the scarring of male reproductive organ symbolizes the process.

Without the Spirit, and thus being unspiritual, the Torah becomes fleshly and false. But in the Spirit, the same Spirit who raised Christ and is promised to us for the same, the Law becomes what it was intended to be. Hence, Christ takes upon the role of the Prophet, bringing about a new covenant, sealed in His blood, and a new Torah. The ever newness of the New Covenant is the original vision of God's relationship with man, stretching into eternity, bringing the Old and historical to its proper end. The Messiah did not come to abolish Torah, but to fulfill it. The Torah is transfigured, where the lesser lights of Moses and Elijah are swallowed up in the greater light, a scene that St. Peter bears witness to on Mt. Tabor.

The principle of works is what is clear when we have yet to receive the fullness. We are called to do this and live, even though our process of doing is marred and ineffective. The Messiah fulfills the Torah in not only keeping it completely, but completing it, in such a full and effective manner that St. Paul can say that the Torah was nailed to the cross, the condemnation of sin in the flesh, and its ultimate nullification. Law's conceptualization of the problem may sound legalistic, synergistic, and replacing Christ with self-help. But like Origen, and even Luther in some of his writings, he does no such thing. Rather, he grounds the Christian need to work, even to be justified by work, in the prior communion with (and accomplished work of) Christ. None of these works are our own efforts, but Christ working in us, in the power of the Spirit, to grow fruit in our own lives. Without the Spirit, God's Law stands over and against us, our sin justly meriting His wrath. And yet, the problem is not to get rid of God's wrath, but go through it in One who is able to take up sin and bring down destruction upon it. For Christ was not punished, but received the punishment due for sin. He was guiltless, but, like the goats on the atonement, both bore the sin away from the people, and also died in the flesh and rose in the Spirit.

Outside of Christ, the Covenant, even as gracious arrangements, leave us condemned. And that's the point. For they not only showed up Israel's failures, but the problem of flesh in a sinful world. Cut off from eternal life, it turns even God's gifts into vicious weapons of destruction. And yet, at the same time, these covenants contain stipulated promises, setting up a riddle for the future. Who, indeed, will walk the path of life? Who is the Prophet who will come after, and be greater, than Moses? Who will be able to uphold Israel's side of the Covenant? I don't know how significant it is, but in Hebrew all imperatives are future-tense second person verbs. "You will not lie" can be construed as both a daunting command, showing up our failures, but also as a promised future state. Even as Israel is mired in sin, God does not give up, but retains His remnant for His purposes.

William Law may not be the most gracious figure. He was rather austere and exacting. Yet, he did not spiral into the kind of despair that constantly afflicted John Wesley, who had read and respected Law (for a time). Wesley's perfectionism really does smack of legalism and a kind of Pelagian effort, consistently unable to be sure he was a Christian at times. Law, as far as I know, never suffered with these anxieties, and I don't think it's because he thought he arrived. Rather, I'd wager it's because Law saw this otherwise merciless command as something promised, and working itself out in his life, through Christ in Him, the hope of glory. Boehme's mysticism, in Law's use, offered a check from anxiety to find salvation in his works, something that often afflicted devout Calvinists about their faith. In Christ, the command "Do This and Live!" is a cause of joy; for with Christ, the Torah becomes a possible impossibility and actualized in the flesh, despite our sins. 

Christ will fulfill the Torah in us, because He has in His own work and we partake of Him, the branches drawing from the root. Since Christ removed the sting of the sin, the Torah ceases to be a curse, but becomes a means of blessing as pilgrims head towards the heavenly Zion. It is the road we must walk, lest we fall away and perish (as both st. Jude and Hebrews forewarn). But we may do so, in the throng of the faithful, as the Jerusalem beckons us on.

Inventing Iconoclasm: Notes from Brubaker and Haldane's 'Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm'

I just read through Brubaker's Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm (2012), which is a brief, and popularly accessible, summary of work she (and John Haldane) had done on the Roman Empire through its two iconoclastic controversies. The following are notes and interesting points I wrote down, for your consideration:

-From debate between Patriarch Germanos and the local bishop Konstantinos in early 8th century, concern for and against images began before the Isaurians enacted any policies; Germanos cited both Leo III and Konstantinos V (father-son co-emperors) as image adoring, when reprimanding bishop Konstantinos

-Leo was a reformer, implementing OT-based laws to reflect New Rome's status as the New Israel, as well as empire's need for reform; Leo's legal reforms reinforced a political theology of emperor as special divine representative and having special relationship with God [I'm not sure how well Brubaker assesses this evidence, as it's not clear how much the ruling political theology reflected the actual opinions of rulers and their courts/administrators/generals]

-Unclear of Leo's actual iconoclasm: account of removing icon from Chalke gate in the Liber Pontificalis was later interpolation, and the accounts from Life of Stephen the Younger and Theophanes' history were written 80 years after Leo, with differing accounts of how this attempted removal went down; both had focus to blacked Konstantinos V [If it's a total fabrication, it's odd that the details of which icon, and where, were the same; Brubaker's skepticism about the event itself seems a little too strong, even if it was not a pitched battle between concerned citizens (Theophanes) or women (Stephen the Deacon) against the emperor's troops]

-Council of Hiereia (754) was a product of Konstantinos V's theology, with the council's president, Theodosios (metropolitan of Ephesus), as a lackey of the emperor; resultant horos (definition) banned future icon production, but left alone all icons that were on liturgical instruments, which were to specifically remain unmolested unless given a direct order from emperor or patriarch, lest God was blasphemed; in contrast to iconic real presence, Konstantinos elevated eucharist as only legitimate real presence of Christ

-Hiereia didn't attack/reduce cult of the saints, or of Mary Theotokos; also, cross was highly venerated as a sacred symbol to placed everywhere

-Unintended results of council: increased focus on symbol of the cross, unease with material in relation to bearing the spiritual, unease with presence of relics of saints at altars where God Himself was to be present in the eucharist, and a shift of focus to top-down mediating presence of God through the hierarchy rather than the bottom-up mediation of God through icons that could exists outside of official ecclesiastic channels

-Post-Hiereia, there was little icon destruction, with few examples of icons replaced by crosses (two), one was lightly white-washed, and another was covered over, only to be later uncovered without any damage; in contrast, Konstantinos V's reign was marked by investment in the arts and a building campaign

-Konstantinos V's attacks on certain monks or monastic institutions had more to do with imperial politics and court intrigues, not likely persecution of iconodules; the emperor executed Stephen the Younger likely out of his association with a court faction plotting a coup (which even Theophanes notes); Konstantinos endowed monasteries and promoted monks, from which came the power to plot and scheme against him

-Eirene's (the wife, turned regent-empress during Konstantinos VI, of Leo IV, son of Konstantinos V) turn to iconodulia, and calling for a council (Nicaea II, 787) was to reunify the church between East and West (Rome had rejected Hiereia); Eirene sought to undo Rome's growing reliance/partnership with the Franks and their Carolingian overlords

-Like Hiereia, Carolingian theologians rejected "real presence" of icons, but unlike Hiereia did not proscribe making icons, seeing in all art a means for contemplation and a book for the illiterate

-Eirene's coinage continued to show prior Isaurian dynasty; her iconodulia did not cut her off from the perceived legitimacy of Leo III/Konstantinos V

-Leo V's (formerly Leo the Armenian, military-governor of Anatolia who seized the throne) return to iconoclasm was less dogmatic than before: icons were simply false, not idols; living Christians were the "real presence" of God, not painted objects; Michael II (who overthrew Leo) continued this policy, but due to increased threats from Arabs and Bulgars spent even less time bothered about ecclesiastical practice; result was unofficial toleration for icons

-The second Iconoclasm was intentionally modeling the imperial policies of Leo III and Konstantinos V, who were seen as model emperors/generals/administrators, not out of dogmatic attachments; while Theophilos (who succeeded Michael II) was more ardently iconoclastic, his policy enforcement was intermittent (he exiled, and then recalled, iconodule Methodios)

-Theology of icons followed popular practice in the 7th c., tidying it up into more refined theological dogma; the practice of iconodulia, not the theology, was what Konstantinos V's iconoclasm responded to; it was never highly dogmatic theology in itself that was at issue

At the end of the day, I find Brubaker a generally reliable guide. She's not the most insightful or penetrating mind when it comes to the theology of icons, but she has a solid and capable grasp of the issues. This defect might not even be her fault, as this work was designed for popular consumption. High octane theological distinctions (which she doesn't shy away from) is not something a "lay-reader" will easily grasp.

One result of this read was a general distaste for intellectual posturing that one sees very commonly in inter-confessional debates among Christians. Styled as dealing with strong positions, not strawmen, confessional titans will haul their apparatus with them, detailing the glories of their theology. But if one peers a little bit behind it, most of the time one will find a complete mess. It turns out few, not even professional theologians, fully understand or adhere to the confessional position that marks their faction out as a single bloc. But the fact is that accessible dogma only really ever comes through practice. Tangible changes are the only ways forward. Simply trying to add a gloss to a popular practice does little. Accordingly Brubaker notes that dogmatic iconodulia never quite matched the popular practice, which was wilder and more unhinged than many wanted to admit. But this didn't preclude from dogmaticians from joining in. After recounting Anastasios of Sinai's story of the bleeding icon that slayed two dozen Arabs, Brubaker writes:

"as soon as we leave the rarefied atmosphere of learned theological treatises, the properties of the sacred portrait so carefully distinguished by Byzantine churchmen collapse. This is true not only of 'popular' literature such as saints' lives and miracle accounts, but also of non-theological texts written by the same elevated churchmen"

She goes on to cite Theodore the Studite's letter, where he commends his friend for using an icon of St. Demetrios as a god-father. God-parenthood was important in Byzantium, and thus replacing a living (and perhaps far less holy) man for the saint, even though the saint was present as a wooden painting, was not simply valid, but commendable. Truly, the icon was not simply a window into heaven, but a living presence of a holy one.

I'm not sure of Brubaker's personal beliefs, but her account of "inventing" iconoclasm is not wholly hostile. She appears to find the easily produced icons as a sign of popular power, where common people are able to claim the presence of the holy without it having to be filtered through a top-down, imperially appointed, hierarchy. The victory of icons was not designed to be a popular victory, but it functioned like it. Bishops and emperors had to cow before popular devotional practices. While Brubaker notes that Konstantinos V had the tradition on his side, this doesn't really influence her positive account of iconodulia.

All in all, none of this answers the question of biblical normativity (though her remarks about tradition would suggest an answer), but it does show a history that does not fit most positions taken today.

Become a Good Painter: Symbols and Art in Ante-Nicaean Theology

I've found at this art history blog on icons (here) that distinguishes between art (or maybe symbols) and icons. He has a few posts on the history of iconography in Christianity. In short, he distinguishes between images/art which was symbolic and episodic, engaging the mind in teaching and icons, with subsequent veneration. The former had roots in Greco-Roman culture, utilizing symbolic tropes for the purposes of conveying biblical stories. Thus the church and synagogue in Duros Europos had various art pieces depicting scenes of David, Moses, and Christ. Even Clement of Alexandria is quoted in saying Christians who use wax-seals should adopt images that connect to Christian themes (e.g. fish, boats, etc.), forbidding use of pagan themes or vanities. Icons, however, involved veneration and linkage, and were condemned as pagan ("gentile") rites. Of course condemnation meant that there were people who practiced these things. Irenaeus mentions that the Carpocratians utilized these "gentile" practices, and Alexander Severus (who was reputed to be favorable to Christians) had a portrait of Jesus, set aside portraits to Abraham, Orpheus, and Appollonius of Tyre. It was not until the seventh century when icons (in contrast to symbolic or episodic images/art) began to have apologists.

But what's most interesting is how, from a very early period, there was a clear-cut discomfort with the practice of icons. The following is from the Acts of John, an apocryphal collection of narratives about the St. John the Elder from the middle of the second century. It's worth consideration, especially when engaged with Orthodox apologetics for their theology of icons:

There came together therefore a gathering of a great multitude on John’s account; and as he discoursed to them that were there, Lycomedes, who had a friend who was a skillful painter, went hastily to him and said to him: You see me in a great hurry to come to you: come quickly to my house and paint the man whom I show you without his knowing it. And the painter, giving some one the necessary implements and colors, said to Lycomedes: Show him to me, and for the rest have no anxiety. And Lycomedes pointed out John to the painter, and brought him near him, and shut him up in a room from which the apostle of Christ could be seen. And Lycomedes was with the blessed man, feasting on the faith and the knowledge of our God, and rejoiced yet more in the thought that he should possess him in a portrait. 

And he took it and set it up in his own bedchamber and hung it with garlands: so that later John, when he perceived it, said to him: My beloved child, what is it that you always do when you come in from the bath into your bedchamber alone? do not I pray with you and the rest of the brethren? or is there something you are hiding from us? And as he said this and talked jestingly with him, he went into the bedchamber, and saw the portrait of an old man crowned with garlands, and lamps and altars set before it. And he called him and said: Lycomedes, what do you mean by this matter of the portrait? can it be one of your gods that is painted here? for I see that you are still living in heathen fashion. And Lycomedes answered him: My only God is he who raised me up from death with my wife: but if, next to that God, it be right that the men who have benefited us should be called gods -it is you, father, whom I have had painted in that portrait, whom I crown and love and reverence as having become my good guide. 

And John who had never at any time seen his own face said to him: You mock me, child: am I like that in form, [excelling] your Lord? how can you persuade me that the portrait is like me? And Lycomedes brought him a mirror. And when he had seen himself in the mirror and looked earnestly at the portrait, he said: As the Lord Jesus Christ lives, the portrait is like me: yet not like me, child, but like my fleshly image; for if this painter, who has imitated this my face, desires to draw me in a portrait, he will be at a loss, [needing more than] the colors that are now given to you, and boards and plaster (?) and glue (?), and the position of my shape, and old age and youth and all things that are seen with the eye. 

But do you become for me a good painter, Lycomedes. You have colors which he gives you through me, who paints all of us for himself, even Jesus, who knows the shapes and appearances and postures and dispositions and types of our souls. And the colors wherewith I bid you paint are these: faith in God, knowledge, godly fear, friendship, communion, meekness, kindness, brotherly love, purity, simplicity, tranquillity, fearlessness, grieflessness, sobriety, and the whole band of colors that paint the likeness of your soul, and even now raise up your members that were cast down, and levels them that were lifted up, and tends your bruises, and heals your wounds, and orders your hair that was disarranged, and washes your face, and chastens your eyes, and purges your bowels, and empties your belly, and cuts off that which is beneath it*; and in a word, when the whole company and mingling of such colors is come together, into your soul, it shall present it to our Lord Jesus Christ undaunted, whole (unsmoothed), and firm of shape. But this that you have now done is childish and imperfect: you have drawn a dead likeness of the dead.

This passage is quite clear that the living image of the human person has much more to commend than the dead image of a painting. Now, it's important to note what this painting is and is not. It is not a symbolic image, conveying a textual/word-based meaning through color and shape. Rather, it's very much in the vein of votive offering. St. John isn't even dead, but the portrait is commissioned to honor the revered apostle. But, as John makes clear, the best way to honor John as a father in the faith is to follow him in a life of devotion. A life of godliness is so powerful that it will physically transform you from the inside-out. Thus, contrary to the theology of many unreformed churches, devotion to art or icon is "childish" and a false substitute to live piety. A living image honors God far more than a dead one (no matter how many glittery gems or gold leaf is used).

Now, as the above summaries of various early Christians show, Christianity isn't radically averse to art. It simply depends what that art does. If the art is part of kerygmatic proclamation, if it directs the "hearer" to "saving knowledge of the truth", then it is valid. Clement sees the image on the signet ring as a way to reassure the user of his faith. Every time he sees the symbol, he knows where he stands. Similarly, early synagogues and churches used decorative images that would direct the mind through the central event of reading/teaching God's word. Tombs were decorated with art, showing passerbys the sleeper's faith in Christ and the resurrection. If such is the case, then Christians using art find common faith with the first centuries of the church. Prohibiting such arts is perhaps necessary for pastoral economy (meaning, if people are misusing the art, then it is better to take it away). But blanket prohibitions, based on superficial readings of the second commandment and a kind of rationalist aesthetic, is superstitious or worse. Similarly, devotion to art as a substitute for piety courts idolatry and infantile faith. The living colors of virtue degenerates into chipped paint and murky rocks. Rather, visual representation of God's symbols is only an aid to "hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest".

The better position, concurrent through all the ages of the church, is nicely summarized in the following from Luther:

"I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible. . . . But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in the Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see ; this would indeed be a Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God's will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it is not sinful for me to have Christ's picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes"

*This text is clearly anti-gnostic, as its John connects virtues in the soul to the effects one sees in the flesh. The point is not that the soul is important, forget about the body, but only the soul can shine forth through our flesh.

When the Devil is God: Proudhon's Critique of Liberal Christianity

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is one of the architects of both socialism and anarchism. Writing in the 19th century as a deputy of the French assembly, Proudhon stirred up a lot of public anger with what was deemed, and has been quoted as, an atheist manifesto. I quote the notorious section in full:

“If God did not exist” — it is Voltaire, the enemy of religions, who says so, — “it would be necessary to invent him.” Why? “Because,” adds the same Voltaire, “if I were dealing with an atheist prince whose interest it might be to have me pounded in a mortar, I am very sure that I should be pounded.” Strange aberration of a great mind! And if you were dealing with a pious prince, whose confessor, speaking in the name of God, should command that you be burned alive, would you not be very sure of being burned also? Do you forget, then, anti-Christ, the Inquisition, and the Saint Bartholomew, and the stakes of Vanini and Bruno, and the tortures of Galileo, and the martyrdom of so many free thinkers? Do not try to distinguish here between use and abuse: for I should reply to you that from a mystical and supernatural principle, from a principle which embraces everything, which explains everything, which justifies everything, such as the idea of God, all consequences are legitimate, and that the zeal of the believer is the sole judge of their propriety. 

“I once believed,” says Rousseau, “that it was possible to be an honest man and dispense with God; but I have recovered from that error.” Fundamentally the same argument as that. of Voltaire, the same justification of intolerance: Man does good and abstains from evil only through consideration of a Providence which watches over him; a curse on those who deny its existence! And, to cap the climax of absurdity, the man who thus seeks for our virtue the sanction of a Divinity who rewards and punishes is the same man who teaches the native goodness of man as a religious dogma. 

And for my part I say: The first duty of man, on becoming intelligent and free, is to continually hunt the idea of God out of his mind and conscience. For God, if he exists, is essentially hostile to our nature, and we do not depend at all upon his authority. We arrive at knowledge in spite of him, at comfort in spite of him, at society in spite of him; every step we take in advance is a victory in which we crush Divinity. 

Let it no longer be said that the ways of God are impenetrable. We have penetrated these ways, and there we have read in letters of blood the proofs of God’s impotence, if not of his malevolence. My reason, long humiliated, is gradually rising to a level with the infinite; with time it will discover all that its inexperience hides from it; with time I shall be less and less a worker of misfortune, and by the light that I shall have acquired, by the perfection of my liberty, I shall purify myself, idealize my being, and become the chief of creation, the equal of God. A single moment of disorder which the Omnipotent might have prevented and did not prevent accuses his Providence and shows him lacking in wisdom; the slightest progress which man, ignorant, abandoned, and betrayed, makes towards good honors him immeasurably. By what right should God still say to me: Be holy, for I am holy? Lying spirit, I will answer him, imbecile God, your reign is over; look to the beasts for other victims. I know that I am not holy and never can become so; and how could you be holy, if I resemble you? Eternal father, Jupiter or Jehovah, we have learned to know you; you are, you were, you ever will be, the jealous rival of Adam, the tyrant of Prometheus. 

So I do not fall into the sophism refuted by St. Paul, when he forbids the vase to say to the potter: Why hast thou made me thus? I do not blame the author of things for having made me an inharmonious creature, an incoherent assemblage; I could exist only in such a condition. I content myself with crying out to him: Why do you deceive me? Why, by your silence, have you unchained egoism within me? Why have you submitted me to the torture of universal doubt by the bitter illusion of the antagonistic ideas which you have put in my mind? Doubt of truth, doubt of justice, doubt of my conscience and my liberty, doubt of yourself, O God! and, as a result of this doubt, necessity of war with myself and with my neighbor! That, supreme Father, is what you have done for our happiness and your glory; such, from the beginning, have been your will and your government; such the bread, kneaded in blood and tears, upon which you have fed us. The sins which we ask you to forgive, you caused us to commit; the traps from which we implore you to deliver us, you set for us; and the Satan who besets us is yourself. 

You triumphed, and no one dared to contradict you, when, after having tormented in his body and in his soul the righteous Job, a type of our humanity, you insulted his candid piety, his prudent and respectful ignorance. We were as naught before your invisible majesty, to whom we gave the sky for a canopy and the earth for a footstool. And now here you are dethroned and broken. Your name, so long the last word of the savant, the sanction of the judge, the force of the prince, the hope of the poor, the refuge of the repentant sinner, — this incommunicable name, I say, henceforth an object of contempt and curses, shall be a hissing among men. For God is stupidity and cowardice; God is hypocrisy and falsehood; God is tyranny and misery; God is evil. As long as humanity shall bend before an altar, humanity, the slave of kings and priests, will be condemned; as long as one man, in the name of God, shall receive the oath of another man, society will be founded on perjury; peace and love will be banished from among mortals. God, take yourself away! for, from this day forth, cured of your fear and become wise, I swear, with hand extended to heaven, that you are only the tormentor of my reason, the spectre of my conscience.

 Some hostile (and favorable) commentators see the above as a kind of Promethean, anthropocentric, Satanism of the Miltonian kind. And that is generally correct, though the sentiment is often misunderstood. Usually the fact that the established church (in this case the Roman Catholic church of France) had committed vile crimes is ignored. Thus, to call upon Satan was, many times, a tongue-in-cheek challenge to the Ancien Regime of princely bishops surrounding the sacred body of the king. This regime participated in murder, rape, theft, perjury, slavery, hypocrisy, and brutality towards critics. If such a regime was as God on Earth, than it'd be better to side with the devil.

After the initial furor, Proudhon wrote a follow up piece God is Evil, Man is Free, which explains his position. According to Proudhon, the accusation that he is an atheist is false. It is in fact France which is atheist:

It is as true today to say that the world does not know God, as it was at the birth of Jesus Christ.

Bossuet, in his Discours sur l’histoire universelle, where he glorifies the creator to the detriment of humanity, attributing everything to God, and making man the passive instrument of his designs, Bossuet, without wanting or knowing it, is an atheist.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an atheist, when, after having misanthropically denied civilization, that is, the participation of humanity in the government of the universe, he prostrates himself before nature and returns civilized society to the savage state. The philosopher of Geneva has not seen that the knowledge of God is progressive like society, that it is really because of the progress of that society.

And as in every state of civilization the political form has for point of departure the theological or metaphysical idea, — as in society government is produced according to the example of religion, — we constantly see the varieties of atheism become so many varieties of despotism.

Thus Bossuet, after having made the theory of divine absolutism in his Discours sur l’histoire universelle, has been carried by the force of his principle to make the theory of monarchical absolutism in his Politique tirée de l’Écriture sainte. Thus Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the theoretician of deism, a kind of compromise between reason and faith, can be considered as the father of constitutionalism, an arbitrary transaction between monarchy and democracy. Rousseau is the predecessor of M. Guizot: besides, the Social Contract is only a contradiction on the part of the philosopher of Geneva. And as deism is the worst of hypocrisies, constitutionalism is the worst of governments.

The present society, finally, a society without energy, without philosophy, without an idea of God or of itself, living from day to day on some extinct traditions, rejecting every intervention of free will in its industrial economy, awaiting its salvation only from the fatality of nature, as it awaits the sun and rain, is profoundly atheist.

And the most detestable of atheists, although they do not cease to claim to follow God and Church, are those who envy the people liberty and knowledge; who make them march at the points of their bayonets, who preach resignation and renunciation to them, the respect of parasitism and submission to the foreigner. — It is those who say to them: Make love but do not make children, because you cannot feed them; labor, but save, because you are not certain that you can always work.

It is time that we knew them, these detractors of divine and human Providence, who pose as defenders of religion, and who always deny one of the faces of the infinite; who award themselves the title of party of order, but who have never organized anything but conspiracies...

He is targeting the Liberals and French Constitutionalists of the July Monarchy, which, by the mid-19th century, the Roman church overwhelmingly supported. They rarely invoke God in public life, they explain away or shrug off the horrors of life as mere providence, though such a concept only describes what-is-as-what-is. This fatalism is nothing else but collapsing God into the status quo. And not only that, but Proudhon counters the lame justification that God is vindicated from all evil if there is some utilitarian good that emerges from it, that God must allow things to proceed this way because. Proudhon condemns this "Malthusian economy" as nothing but atheism. Ultimately, it is the Roman Catholics, namely the Jesuits, and the Deists who are the true unbelievers. Referring himself in the third-person, Proudhon makes his rhetorical gesture clear:

Under the names of God and Providence, it is Catholicism and deism, principles of Malthusian economy and of the constitutional theory, that the writer attacks. The catholic papers are not mistaken. The lines that follow, and which are the paraphrase of the Sunday oration, could not in that regard leave them in doubt.

That, supreme Father, is what you have done for our happiness and your glory (Ad majorent Dei gloriam!); such, from the beginning, have been your will and your government; such the bread, kneaded in blood and tears, upon which you have fed us. The sins which we ask you to forgive, you caused us to commit; the traps from which we implore you to deliver us, you set for us; and the Satan who besets us is yourself.

On the one hand, capital, authority, wealth, science; on the other, poverty, obedience, ignorance: that is the fatal antagonism that it is a question of bringing to an end; that is Malthusian fatalism, that is Catholicism! That is all that socialism has sworn to lay waste.

Proudhon's major point is not that God does not exist, in a metaphysical way, but that the god which exists within French society, in its capitalist marketeering and liberal political economy, looks exactly like Satan. In contrast, he argues that socialism is the true divine order, to which Christianity prophetically witnesses:

The absolute is a conception necessary for the reason, not without reality. In other terms, God, considered as the synthesis of the faculties of the finite and infinite, does not exist. From yet another point of view, man is not the weakened image, but the reversed image of God.

The equality of relations between God and man; the distinction and the antagonism of their natures; the obligatory convergence of their wills; the progress of their agreement, are the fundamental dogmas of the democratic and social philosophy.

Christianity has been the prophecy, and socialism is the realization.

Man's freedom, and thus the true meaning of the kingdom of God, is realized in the abolition of monarchy and priestcraft, the withering away of a state apparatus, corporate wealth through private property, and all sacral political orders.

I'm not saying Proudhon is right, but he is a sharp critic of the theologians of his own day. Liberalism had become the new religion under the mask of Christianity. Political economy was the new theology. The invisible hand of the market replaced God's providence. To this brutal nightmare Proudhon shakes his angry fist. He denounced liberalism, with its "Jehovah or Jupiter", as a brutal order that justified grinding peasants and laborers into dust. Supported by both Jesuits and Deists, the liberal order had built a new sacral kingship under a laissez-faire Leviathan.

While I, as a Christian, would reject Proudhon's turn towards Promethean humanism, his critiqe applies well to the contemporary neoliberal world order. The alternative is to embrace the cruciform providence of the victorious Lamb whose "kingdom is not of This world", where mutual service is perfect freedom. Instead, liberalism is a cancerous ideology that developed from the failures of Christendom and apostasy from within several churches. It was another symptom of the disastrous papalism of the West. Petr Chelcick offers a similar condemnation of a sacral order that baptized bloodshed in the 15th c. He too condemned the perversion of the gospel through the net of faith parable:

It was then and there that the net became greatly torn, when the two great whales had entered it, that is, the Supreme Priest wielding royal power with honor superior to the Emperor, and the second whale being the Emperor who, with his rule and offices, smuggled pagan power and violence beneath the skin of faith. And when these two monstrous whales began to turn about in the net, they rent it to such an extent that very little of it has remained intact. From these two whales so destructive of Peter’s net there were spawned many scheming schools by which that net is also so greatly torn that nothing but tatters and false names remain. 

They were first of all the hordes of monks in all manner of costumes and diversified colors; these were followed by hordes of university students and hordes of pastors; after them came the unlearned hordes with multiform coats-of -arms, and with them those of the wicked burghers. 

The whole world and its wretchedness have entered Peter's net of faith with these evil hordes. And the multitude of these wretched hordes arrogate to themselves pagan and worldly rule, every one of them endeavoring to have dominion over the others. They try to embrace as much of the earth as they are able, using every means and every ruse or violence to get hold of the territory of the weaker, sometimes by money and at other times by inheritance, but always desiring to rule and extend their realm as far as they can.

Faithful Christians must never lose sign of the apocalypse of Christ. It is only way not only to see through ideological prisons, but prevent the church from creating its own pagan compromise with the forces of darkness.