Friday, March 8, 2024

Lee Martin McDonald on the Broad Agreement of Early Christians on Various Doctrines

  

Among all of the diversity that existed in the early church, the broad parameters of the Christian proclamation was not in serious doubt. For example, though Christians debated the identity of Jesus, his humanity, and his relationship with God in the second century, there was still a core of teachings that had long been received in the churches. Most agreed by the end of the second century that Jesus was tempted, he tired, was hungry, ate, slept, and experiences suffering when he died—that is, he was human, but that he also was the Christ who died for sins and was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. On the other hand, some churches continued to debate whether Jesus should be identified as a spirit, the Spirit, an angel, or as a divinely empowered human being. The range of perspectives on this topic in the second and third centuries appears to have been quite broad. The identity of Jesus, however, continued to be debated much longer, even past the later Trinitarian formulations in the fourth century. (Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon, 2 vols. [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017], 2:74)

 

Athenagoras, of course, is an exception, but his conclusions are not representative of most Christologies in the second century. His Trinitarian-type of formulation is, however, anticipatory of the fourth century when the identity of Jesus and the relationship between God and Jesus the Christ are described in Greek philosophical categories, especially Platonic categories. Athenagoras comes close to the later position of the church when he says: “We speak of God of his Son, his Word, and of the Holy Spirit; and we say that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit was united in power. For the Son is in the intelligence, reason, and wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit is an effluence, as light from fire” (Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians, 23; Richardson, Early Christian Fathers, 326). It is debatable whether Athenagoras’ view of the Spirit was representative of the majority of views among the Ante-Nicene fathers. (Ibid., 74 n. 24)