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Palladius of Galatia (368? - 431?)

"Palladius was a disciple of Evagrius and was ordained bishop by John Chrysostom. He was also one of the earliest historians of Christian monasticism. This work is a set of vignettes of leading Desert Fathers and Mothers."...William Harmless
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John Chrysostom (347 – 407)

  • Eastern Monasticism Before Chalcedon (A.D. 451)
    Antioch, when St. John Chrysostom was a young man, was full of ascetics and the neighbouring mountains were peopled with hermits. So great was the impulse driving men to the solitary life that at one time there was an outcry, amounting almost to a persecution, among Christians as well as pagans against those who embraced it. This was the occasion of St. Chrysostom's treatise against the opponents of monasticism: in the first book he dwelt upon the guilt incurred by them; the second and third were addressed respectively to a pagan and a Christian father who were opposing the wish of their sons to embrace the monastic state. The pathetic scene between the saint and his mother, which he describes in the beginning of the "De Sacertio", must be typical of what took place in many Christian homes. He himself so far yielded to his mother's entreaties that he contented himself with the ascetic life at home till her death. Palestine and Antioch must suffice as examples of the rapid spread of monasticism outside of Egypt. There is abundant evidence of the phenomenon in all the countries between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia; and Mesopotamia, according to St Jerome, whose testimony is amply borne out by other writers, rivalled Egypt itself in the number and holiness of its monks...
  • John Chrysostom (Wikipedia)

Controversies in Early Christianity: "Pagan" influences on Early Christian Philosophy

  • Origins of Christianity (Wikipedia)
    Both early Christianity and early Rabbinical Judaism were also significantly influenced by Hellenistic religion.
  • Gnosticism (Wikipedia)
    Gnosticism was primarily defined in Christian context, or as "the acute Hellenization of Christianity...."
  • Hellenistic philosophy and Christianity (Wikipedia)
    Over time, however, as Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek Philosophy. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world at the time were Stoicism, Platonism, and Epicureanism. Of these, Stoicism and particularly Platonism were readily incorporated into Christian ethics and theology.

    Christian assimilation of Hellenic philosophy was anticipated by Philo and other Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jews. Philo's blend of Judaism, Platonism, and Stoicism strongly influenced Christian Alexandrian writers like Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as well as, in the Latin world, Ambrose of Milan.
  • The Nag Hammadi Scrolls: A Surprising Mix of Early Christianity with Buddhism, Manichaeism and Gnosticism
  • Neoplatonism and Christianity (Wikipedia)
  • Neoplatonism and Christianity: Alexandrine Teaching
  • Educating Early Monks...The Alexandrian Schools and the Beginnings of Christian Philosophy
  • Educating Early Monks...Notes on Alexandrine Teaching
  • The Gospel of John and the Hellenization of Jesus...by James Still
    "We see in John a desire to use Greek pagan concepts and philosophies as a tool for communicating Jesus as the Logos to a Christianized Gentile audience. John's Logos would not be understood by Jews and his book would only be familiar to someone practiced in the pagan mystery cults that flourished in the Hellenistic world. Heraclitus of Ephesus used the word Logos around 500 BCE to describe his concept of the regularity with which the universe seemed to operate. The universe was a divine machine and Heraclitus credited the Logos (literally the reason) as the ultimate rationale which secretly operated the universe and the heavens above."
  • Origen and the Incorporation of Platonic/Apophatic Theology into the Christian System...by Bren Hughes
    "It has long been recognized that the theological formulations of the early church fathers were influenced by their external philosophical milieu. In fact, the earliest post-biblical Christian writers were apologists who, like the Jewish theologian Philo of Alexandria, sought explicitly to reframe their religion in terms that would be acceptable to Pagan intellectuals (with the aim of convincing them that Christianity was superior to the Pagan systems). This was not only an evangelistic maneuver, but also an appeal to avoid persecution by the Roman authorities."
  • Origins of Christianity (Wikipedia)
    Both early Christianity and early Rabbinical Judaism were also significantly influenced by Hellenistic religion. Christianity in particular inherited many features of Greco-Roman paganism in its structure, its terminology, its cult and its theology. Titles such as Pontifex Maximus, Sol Invictus were taken directly from Roman religion. The influence of Neoplatonism on Christian theology is significant, visible e.g. in Augustine of Hippo's identification of God as summum bonum and of evil as privatio boni. Striking parallels between the New Testament account of Jesus and classical gods or demi-gods such as Bacchus, Bellerophon or Perseus were recognized by the Church Fathers themselves, and discussed in terms of "demonic imitation" of Christ by Justin Martyr in the 2nd century.
  • Did Constantine Invent Christianity?
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Controversies in Early Christianity: The Nature of Christ and the Trinity

"The traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity is commonly expressed as the claim that the one God “exists as” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or as the claim that there are three divine persons “in” God, or as the claim that God “exists in three Persons”. In theological contexts, there are two central formulas. The first is that the Father, Son, and Spirit are consubstantial (i.e., the same in substance or essence, Greek: homoousios). The second is that the Christian God is three “persons” (Greek: hypostaseis or prosopa, Latin: personae) in one “essence” or “being” (Greek: ousia, Latin: substantia or essentia). Both formulas have been understood in many ways.

After their formulation in the fourth century, the above formulas reigned unchallenged, and were widely assumed as basis for Christian theorizing about God. From the Reformation through the 19th century, the origin, meaning, and justification of the trinitarian doctrine were repeatedly disputed. These debates are discussed in detail in supplementary documents to the present entry. Since the revival of analytic philosophy of religion in the 1960s, many Christian philosophers have pursued philosophical theology, in which central Christian doctrines are given precise (and, it is hoped, defensible) formulations. This article surveys these formulations and the recent scholarly disputes concerning them. The fundamental issue is what is distinctive in the Christian conception of God, as opposed to the gods of other monotheistic religions."...Trinity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The Nature of the Christ and the Trinity

  • THE CHRISTOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES
    With the Council of Constantinople (381) the Trinitarian controversy was settled. However, questions regarding the nature of Christ remained; what was the relationship between his human and divine natures: These issues were discussed and debated for years and the decision reached at Chalcedon (451) ultimately split the empire into two religious groups which have never been reconciled.
  • The Arian Controversy
    ""Early in the fourth century, while Bishop Alexander of Alexandria was expounding on the Trinity to his flock, a theological tsunami was born.

    A Libyan priest named Arius stood up and posed the following simple question: "If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence." In other words, if the Father is the parent of the Son, then didn't the Son have a beginning?

    And the nitpicking over the precise nature of the Trinity began. An issue that continues to this day."
  • THE FORMATION OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE...by Professor Keith Ward
    "The church did not, however, accept that Jesus was the omnipotent and omniscient God who only appeared to be a man. In what became a definitive statement, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE promulgated the view that Jesus was ‘fully man’ as well as ‘fully God’, without claiming to explain how this could be. It is important to note that most Christians insisted that Jesus was a real man, not some sort of illusion or apparition of a man.

    "In what, then, did such a union of divine and human consist? It was Tertullian, writing in Latin in the second century CE, who invented the terms that have since become standard in Christian theology. He said that Jesus was two substances (substantia) in one person (persona). Jesus is both God and man, having a divine nature and a human nature united in one person (the word ‘nature’ was later adopted by the council of Chalcedon as a clearer term than ‘substance’, so that Jesus was said to be two natures in one person).

    "Tertullian was also the first writer to use the term ‘Trinity’ of God, saying that God was three persons – Father, Son and Spirit – in one substance. From this it follows that the one person of Christ is identical with the second person of the Trinity. It is easy then to conclude that Christ is a divine person who adds a human nature to his properly divine nature, or ‘assumes’ a human nature to the divine person, without really being a human person.

    "In other words, Jesus has a human nature, but is not strictly speaking a human person. He is a divine person with a human nature. And that divine person is one of three who together constitute the substance, the being, of God.

    "This is a major change from the Jesus of the synoptic gospels, who is presented as a human person with unique and divinely given authority and powers, but who is expressly said to be limited in knowledge and power, and who insists, with orthodox Judaism, that ‘the Lord your God is one Lord’. It is not a change in the sense of renouncing or contradicting what Mark’s gospel says. But what it says about God and Jesus would have been quite unknown to Mark – and, if Mark is right, to Jesus also."
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Controversies in Early Christianity: The Nature of God

"The subsequent history of the monastic communities in the Desert of Scetis shows internal and external difficulties. Internally, a variety of doctrinal developments threatened the spiritual harmony of the desert experience. Even during the days of St. Macarius there were heterodox tendencies. Hierax, a monk, asserted that the institution of marriage belonged to the devil and that there was no resurrection of the body, but only of the spirit. Other controversies were more lasting. The Origenist heresy (which preferred allegorical to literal interpretations of the Scriptures) troubled the fathers of Scetis, since the views of Origen were studied and accepted by some of the monks at the mount of Nitria and in Cellia. Another heresy, that of the anthropomorphites, made an even greater impression upon many of the illiterate monks. Their doctrine asserted, in contradiction to Origen's views, that "the sacred Scripture testifies that God has eyes, ears, hands, and feet, as men have." Though denounced by an episcopal letter from Theophilus, the doctrines of the anthropomorphites were not extinguished. The anthropomorphite heresy was so widespread that the anthropomorphists appear to have outnumbered the liberal party by at least three to one."...Otto F.A. Meinardus, MONKS AND MONASTERIES OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERTS, revised edition, Chapter 5.

The Nature of God

  • Anthropomorphic controversy
    • Origen and Origenism...Coptic Orthodox Church Network
    • Origen and Origenism by Daniel J. Castellano
      "The Origenist controversy began in the monasteries of Palestine, where Origen's work was interpreted in a radically Platonic sense, exalting the incorporeal while disparaging the flesh, and veering off into manifest heresy on several points, particularly regarding the Incarnation and Resurrection. In reaction to this denial of God Incarnate, other monks adopted an equally heretical notion called Anthropomorphism, ascribing a human form to God as God."
    • History of the Christian church, Volume 1 by John Fletcher Hurst...pages 451-452
      "Origen was in general favor at first with the great body of the Church, whose creed was expressed in the Nicene formula. But the followers of Arius claimed to find in Origen support for their denial of the divinity of Christ and landed his opinions in their writings.' This gave great offense to the monks of the Scotia and Nitrian deserts, who went so far as to pronounce Origen a heretic, on the ground of his mysticism. Pachomius, of the Scotia desert, represented the opposition to the mystical speculations of Origen, while a monastic order of the Nitrian desert was as vigorous in defense of him. In Palestine the most vigorous supporter of Origen was John, Bishop of Jerusalem, while Epiphanius, took ground against Origen's views. Jerome, originally in sympathy with the Origenistic views, had now declared against them, and thrust himself with all zeal into the controversy. Rufinus was equally fervent in support of Origen. Between these two men the contest was bitter. The Roman bishop, Siricius, favored Rufinus, but his successor opposed him, and in a letter to the Bishop of Jerusalem condemned the opinions of Origen.

      In Alexandria and Constantinople the controversy was violent in the extreme. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, had publicly sympathized with the Origenistic monks of the Nitrian desert, but afterward took ground against them. This incensed them to such a degree that they assailed him with clubs and compelled him to oppose the Origenistic views. In a synod at Alexandria, A. D. 399, Origen was condemned."
    • The divide between Origenists and anti-Origenists, anti-Anthropomorphites and Anthropomorphites...Excerpts from the COPTIC PALLADIANA I: THE LIFE OF PAMBO (LAUSIAC HISTORY 9-10)...translated from Coptic by Tim Vivian...p. 72 +
      "Scholars have seen two monastic camps: “Hellenic or Hellenized monks whose theology was more intellectual and more speculative than the naïve and literal beliefs of their Egyptian brethren.”23 While this demarcation is suspiciously tidy and accepts the anti-Anthropomorphite biases of the ancient sources, it probably presents a reasonably, though not entirely, accurate picture.24 The divide between Origenists and anti-Origenists, anti-Anthropomorphites and Anthropomorphites, was not entirely ethnic but also involved social networks, particularly among the Origenists.25 In Conference 10.3, Cassian speaks highly of Paphnutius, a Copt, who opposed Anthropomorphism in Scetis. It is not a coincidence that in that same Conference, Paphnutius calls on a foreigner, “a certain deacon named Photinus” from Cappadocia, who informs the monks that “the Catholic churches throughout the East” interpreted Genesis “spiritually,” not in a “lowly” way like the Anthropomorphites." "According to Socrates (despite his politicizing tendencies), the question was theological in origin: Does God have corporeal existence and human form, or is God incorporeal, without human or any other bodily form? The Anthropomorphites, following descriptions of God in scripture and the affirmation that human beings are made in God’s image and likeness, believed that God did in fact have anthropomorphite, human, form and characteristics. Those opposed to them, following Platonic—and Origenist—thought, believed that God was incorporeal. Theophilus agreed with them and in his Paschal or Festal Letter of 399 (no longer extant) apparently condemned Anthroporphism; most of the monks, however (as Cassian reports), “very bitterly” received this letter. They went en masse to Alexandria, threatened Theophilus, and convinced him of the error of his ways. The archbishop, an astute politician, did an abrupt about-face: he now anathematized Origenism and convened a synod in 400 to effect the condemnation and excommunicate the Origenist monks the Tall Brothers; in the spring of 400, with soldiers and “a drunken rabble,” he attacked Nitria at night and drove the followers of Origen, perhaps three hundred monks, out of Egypt.47"
    • COMMENTARY ON THE PHILOKALIA:THE CONDEMNATION OF EVAGRIOS PONTICOS...by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo
  • Manichaeism (Wikipedia)
  • Marcionism (Wikipedia)
  • Monarchianism (Wikipedia)
  • Patripassianism (Wikipedia)
  • Sabellianism (Wikipedia)
  • Philosophical Views of God...by Jan Garrett
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Controversies in Early Christianity: Reincarnation

Reincarnation

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