Sometimes a disagreement is more obvious, such as the comments of a later church father who explicitly refers to his disagreement with the premillennialism of Papias or Irenaeus. Other times, the disagreement is more subtle.
For example, I've written before about how Irenaeus compares Mary's virginity to the virginity of soil that was "as yet" virgin, but would later lose its virginity. Contrast his comments with those of Maximus of Turin, who wrote more than two centuries later, after the perpetual virginity of Mary had become more popular. I'll quote Irenaeus, then quote Maximus with emphasis added to highlight a difference:
"And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil ('for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground'), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for 'all things were made by Him,' and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:21:10)
"For Adam was born of the virgin earth and Christ was begotten of the virgin Mary; the maternal soil of the one had not yet been broken by hoes, while the hidden place of the other's maternity was never violated by desire." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 50A:2, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 122)
Where Irenaeus sees a parallel, Maximus goes out of his way to describe a contrast. (And you can read my post on Irenaeus linked above for further evidence that he didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin. For more about the larger historical context surrounding Irenaeus, in which we see other opponents of the perpetual virginity of Mary in many places for hundreds of years, see here, here, and here, for example.)
Is there a 'Church Fathers DIsagree' factory out there!
ReplyDeleteOrthodox Christians don't deny the Church Fathers disagreed on some things - the date of pascha, the rebaptism of heretics and the right of monasteries/monks to own property come to mind.
When you refer to "Orthodox", you seem to mean Eastern Orthodox. If so, the disagreements among the fathers that I'm referring to include contradictions of Eastern Orthodoxy, both in terms of individual fathers disagreeing with Eastern Orthodox belief and in terms of the views of the fathers more broadly suggesting that certain Eastern Orthodox beliefs are wrong.
DeleteI live in Australia and 'Eastern Orthodox' is an exonym. There are 500,000 of us here. Orthodox is a more accurate term to describe us.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read on your blog most of the time you quote non-Fathers like Tertullian or Origen or Eusebius and then try to pass them off as Church Fathers to those who don't know better. Not every early Christian writers is a Church Father.
Other times you quote a prooftext and pretend it sounds Protestant but doesn't actually if you look into it. Other times the disagreements are over issues long since settled.
But as I said, we don't think the Fathers agree on everything. We look for a consensus and the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils.
Since you are knowledgeable in the Church Fathers could you please answer a few questions.
1. Were there any Church Fathers who rejected the use of Creeds? (Not rejecting heretical Creeds but the idea of writing and using creedal statements)
2. Which Church Fathers rejected the idea that each Sunday service was a Eucharist?
3. Which Church Father rejected wine and advocated grape juice?
4. Which Church Fathers advocate drums, guitars and keyboards for worship?
5. Which Church Fathers disagreed about the ascetical movement?
I know Protestants try to claim there were divergent views over the Eucharist or free will or the atonement or justification or sola scriptura but most of those are just prooftexting that only convinces the ignorant.
You keep making claims you should be supporting with arguments and evidence, but you don't offer that support, and you expect other people to operate within the framework you've set up. I'm under no obligation to go along with that. Since history and Christian history in particular consist of far more than church fathers, sources other than the fathers give us information relevant to the fathers, and we have no reason to accept your standard of who's a father and who isn't, I don't have to only cite the sources you consider church fathers. As many posts on this blog and a lot of evidence elsewhere have demonstrated, Eastern Orthodox frequently appeal to sources like Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius. They also frequently appeal to anonymous sources, apocryphal documents, heretical documents, etc. See here, here, here, here, and so on. I've appealed to many church fathers other than Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius, including when arguing against Eastern Orthodox beliefs. My first post in this thread discusses Papias, Irenaeus, and Maximus of Turin, not the three people you mentioned. Or see my discussion of sources like Justin Martyr and Gregory Nazianzen on infant baptism here, many patristic sources on prayer to saints and angels here, many patristic and other sources on the canon of scripture here, etc. That sort of material is more relevant than questions about rejecting the use of creeds (I don't reject it), rejecting wine in the eucharist (I don't reject it), and so on.
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