4.5 – The Five Patriarchates, Origen and Tertullian (17 min video)

Transcript

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– Well, one thing I wanna do before we conclude this week’s lesson is talk about what’s known as the five patriarchates. These were five cities that really were centers of Christianity. It’s just worth noting them. A lot of them are gonna be recognizable. In fact, all of them will be recognizable to you. The first, of course, is Jerusalem. Jerusalem had the nickname of the Mother Church. It’s there the church begins. It’s there you have Pentecost. It’s there that the very first missions go out. It’s also there you have the first church council, probably sometime around the year 49 AD. Well, the second patriarchy was Rome. Rome sometimes had the nickname of first among equals. Rome early on took a leadership role in the history of the church. Not really one of authority over other churches, although we do see that developing over time in the role of the papacy, but mostly a role that served to help encourage other churches.

Third, we have Constantinople, which had the nickname of the Imperial See, meaning the imperial seat. Now, we haven’t talked about this city yet because we haven’t talked about Constantine yet. We’ll save that for the next lesson. But it’s one of the premier patriarchates or churches in this area of the world. Fourth, and one that you’ll recognize, of course, is Alexandria. Alexandria had a fascinating nickname. It was called the Safeguard of Truth. So in Alexandria, you have the Great Library from the reign of the Ptolemies. It’s there that you have the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, the Septuagint. It’s also there that you have a remarkable theological school, which we’ll talk about here in just a moment. Fifth and finally, we have Antioch, which was sometimes called the fountainhead of hope because it was the great mission sending church. It also had a theological school of sorts, which we’ll talk about here shortly as well. Let’s turn our attention though, first of all, to the school of Alexandria. According to some of the old histories, Alexandria had a school for catechumens, those who were new believers, shortly after the time of the Apostle Mark.

It eventually grew into a seminary where teachers regularly taught from their homes. This seminary was actually led by a guy named Patenus. We’ve already talked about him. He’s the one that goes off on a mission to India sometime around 190 AD. Well, it was in Alexandria that there was an incredible concern to show how Christianity satisfied many of the questions, many of the longings of the ancient philosophers.

It also was a school that when it read the scriptures, it tended to interpret them allegorically. So it had this incredible ability to see beautiful stories and symbolism throughout the scripture. Sometimes it took that interpretation a little bit too far, but it could actually be quite helpful. One of the most famous leaders of the school was Clement. He’s typically known as Clement of Alexandria. He himself was from Athens and became a convert through his travels and his discussions with various philosophers. And then, of course, with Christians in Alexandria, he served as a head of the church, actually as an elder, and then as a leader of the school there.

At one point, he had to flee the persecutions of Septimius Severus, but only survived them. As for Clement, he really was interested in showing how Christianity fulfilled the ideas of certain philosophers, especially Plato or even some of the Stoics.

He said that Jesus is the true Logos. In fact, he called Jesus the educator and said he, quote, “satisfies all the intellectual and moral wants of man.” He also wrote a hymn in praise of the Logos. Curiously, Clement argued it wasn’t just about knowledge. It wasn’t just about understanding, for he said, “No faith without knowledge, no knowledge without faith.” I mean, you have to have both. He also said, “Unless you believe, you will not understand.” This actually becomes one of the schools of thought throughout the history of the church. This whole idea that there must be right belief, there must be faith first, in order for you to have proper understanding. His most famous student is a man by the name of Origen. And I’ll give you his dates. They’re 185 to 254 AD. Origin was not just a student of Clement, he actually had grown up in Alexandria from a noble family. He had actually memorized entire sections of the scripture. When his father, Leonides, was imprisoned under one of the persecutions, he encouraged him to stay faithful in a letter, no matter what that meant.

He actually wanted to join his father and plan to go turn himself into the authority so he would be martyred with his father. But his mother stopped him. The way she stopped him was she hid his clothes. So he literally would have had to walk through the streets naked, which Origen was I guess just not going to do. Well, Origen, once he grows up, becomes the head of that Alexandrian school and really wanted to know the Old Testament well, so he learned Hebrew.

That shows you his intellectual curiosity. But one of the problems with Origen was that he was an extreme ascetic. By ascetic, I mean he was somebody who really thought the Christian must deny himself of as many things as possible. So Origen, for example, often went around poorly clothed or with no shoes to suffer in the midst of, say, cold. He often didn’t eat any meat or drink any wine, often sleeping on the floor for a bed. And to combat sexual temptation, he actually mutilated his own body, thinking that that would somehow stop him from such lust. He later, and thankfully, repented of this. One of the things that Origen is known for, though, and where his genius really shines, is he’s really excellent most of the time when he’s commentating on the Bible. He actually wrote commentaries on almost every single book of the Bible. And he was admired, but also just very helpful to the church in both this region, but also at this time, in explaining and expounding basic scriptures.

His work became huge influences for pastors of the empire and beyond. He sometimes, however, got off track. he had some kind of strange ideas. For example, he thought that all of our souls had existed long before time, and that sin had originally been committed outside of time. In fact, he looked at Genesis and didn’t really take it literally. He went too allegorical and saw Genesis as basically metaphors, not actually as history. He also argued that someday every soul, even the demons, even Satan himself would be saved. So he has some ideas that go well beyond biblical thinking and really were found more in the ideas of the philosophers. And you’ll see that throughout the early church fathers. They’re amazing in many ways, but they also go off the rails sometimes. Origen met his end under the reign of Decius around the year 250 AD. Decius was somebody who thought that the empire of Rome was suffering, well, was having invasions or rebellions or droughts and so forth, because it had lost the favor of the gods.

So, Decius ordered all citizens to offer a sacrifice to the gods, no matter who they were or what they worshiped. And then they also had to carry a certificate proving that they had done so. He actually issued some 250 orders against Christians, which is why his persecution was seen as the largest and the most thorough or systematic persecution yet.

It saw the deaths of bishops or church leaders in Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, as well as Toulouse in the South of France. Origen was one of those victims. Having been arrested, he was tortured. He was released because he died from the wounds of his torture, something most likely his executioners would be executioners knew. Well, the other school of thought we should talk about is the Antiochian school. Now, Antioch didn’t have a school like Alexandria. Rather, Antioch was more of a school of thought, a way of thinking that is typically traced to one of the fathers known as Lucian of Antioch.

It was Lucian of Antioch who argued not really for an allegorical interpretation of scripture, but a plain or literal or grammatical or historical reading of scripture.

It’s usually where the Protestants of more modern times typically go. He had a rather famous student who I’ll close with, and that was a character by the name of Tertullian. Tertullian of Carthage, who lived from 160 to 220 AD. He was born Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus. It’s a rather a mouthful, so you can just call him Tertullian. But as I mentioned to you earlier, he was born in Carthage, actually to a father who served as a pro consul or governor of Africa.

As a result, Tertullian was given a rather liberal arts-driven education. He was taught in the classical method. eventually moved to Rome, became married, and was faithful to his wife. In fact, as a Christian later on, he praises marriage. I read the passage to you of him praising marriage earlier. When he encountered the Christian martyrs, those who died with such an other worldly faith, it led him to read the scriptures. And it was there that he found the fulfillment of prophecies of the Old Testament in the new, in the work and person of Jesus, he found that astonishing and it was enough for him to believe.

It was also Tertullian who ended up defending Christians, much like Justin Martyr did. In fact, during one outbreak in Rome under a certain prefect named Plotianus, he wrote, “Do your worst and rack your inventions for tortures for Christians. This all too will have no purpose. You’d but attract the notice of the world and make it fall the more in love with our religion. The more you mow us down, the thicker we spring up. The Christian blood you spill is like the seed you sow. It springs from the earth again and it fructifies the more, meaning it becomes like fruit. For this reason it is that we thank you for condemning us because there is such a happy variance and disagreement between the divine and human judgment, that when you condemn us upon earth, God absolves us in heaven.

” Now, he’s got a lot of points in there, but his primary point is the more you attack the church, the more it grows. That’s why Tertullian, usually the quote is summarized as the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. It’s basically a summary of that quote I just read to you. What’s curious is the emperor at the time actually listened to him and actually gave a temporary relief to the persecutions, but that didn’t last. They were followed by the persecutions of Septimus Severus. Tertullian actually returned to Carthage where many of these persecutions were happening and decided he would live through them. It’s there he continues to write. He actually notices that Christians are blamed for everything. He said famously, “If the river Tiber reaches the walls, or if the river Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky does not move,” meaning it doesn’t rain, “or the earth does,” meaning an earthquake, “if there’s a famine, if there’s plague, the cry is always at once, ‘The Christians to the lion!'” And then sarcastically he adds, “What? All of them to just one lion?” Well, you kind of see his humor in the midst of, well, what could be sure death at this point. He was faithful to combat heresy, especially Gnosticism, writing a work called Prescriptions Against Heretics, basically trying to take apart their arguments by citing the New Testament.

But he often struggled with philosophy, unlike, say, the school of Alexandria. He famously said, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” Meaning, basically, philosophy is not something we should be paying attention to. He said, quote, “Philosophy is the theme of worldly wisdom. It’s the ration interpreter of the divine nature and order. Or wretched Aristotle, he gave us the art of dialectic.” Now, I’ve never really agreed with Tertullian on this. I actually think there is incredible worth in philosophy, so long as it’s treated as subservient to scripture. For Tertullian, he didn’t want to think rationally in that way, which is why he said, “Credo quia absurdum est.” Literally, I believe in the faith because it is absurd. Now, in a certain sense, he’s getting at the fact that our faith is remarkable and like no other story. And to that end, I can agree with him. But saying that the faith is irrational, I think he’s going too far off the rails there. This kind of thinking eventually led him to join the Montanists. He found an appeal in their asceticism, their denial of the flesh and so forth. However, he later realized just the incorrect nature of their thinking and left it to go and pastor Carthage faithfully till his death. He wrote famously, “The true doctrine must be old “and it cannot be new.” In fact, he would lay the groundwork for proper Orthodox thinking on the Trinity, as saying that God has one substientia, or one substance, and he is three persona, or three persons.

And like Justin Martyr, who understood the philosophers very well, Tertullian recognized that the soul can only find satisfaction, or what Tertullian called harmony, if it loves God.

Anything else is out of harmony. It’s out of tune. But perhaps most remarkably, Tertullian showed her a great love for his enemies. He once wrote, “We are forever making intercession for the emperors. We pray for them a long life, a secure rule, a safe home, brave armies, a faithful Senate, an honest people, a quiet world, and everything for which a man and a Caesar may pray.

When we pray, it’s for the postponement that we assist the continuance of Rome. I have a right to say, Caesar is more ours than yours, because he is appointed by our God.” Trulia understood that Christianity would be successful despite the persecutions. In fact, I’ll close with this quote. He said, “We are but of yesterday, and yet we have filled all the places that belong to you, cities, islands, forts, towns, exchanges, the military camps themselves, tribes, town councils, the palace, the senate, the marketplace.

We have left you nothing but your temples.” He understood that Christianity had spread because it was attractive to an unbelieving world, because it was so radically different. It was filled with faith, hope, and love.