Why was there so much diversity in ancient baptismal beliefs and practices?

Gavin Ortlund just posted a video about how the historical evidence favors credobaptism over paedobaptism. I agree with him, and I've written about the subject in other posts, like here.

What I want to focus on in this post is why we see so many differences, and often contradictions, among the ancient sources on baptismal issues if what critics of Protestantism tell us about the nature of the church and other relevant issues is true. If there was one church that all or a large percentage of these sources belonged to, with the sort of unity people like Romans Catholics and Eastern Orthodox often claim they had in the past, with their infallible church maintaining all apostolic teaching in every generation, providing guidance, scripture interpretation, the settling of controversies, and such in the way modern Catholics and modern Orthodox often claim their church provides, why do we see such diversity in the historical record on baptismal issues? Some of the differences went on for centuries, sometimes a millennium or more.

Hermas (who lived in Rome, a significant context in relation to Roman Catholicism) advocated postmortem baptism (The Shepherd Of Hermas, Book 3, Similitudes, 9:16; see, for further discussion, Anthony Lusvardi, Baptism Of Desire And Christian Salvation [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024], 15-18). As I discussed in a recent post, people like Cyprian thought John 3:5 refers to two sacraments, not just baptism. Cyprian, along with others, also disagreed with Roman Catholicism about the validity of heretical baptism. As I discussed in another recent post, the concept of baptism of desire was widely absent or contradicted early on and didn't become a majority view until well into church history. And there are many other baptismal views the early sources held that are wrong by the standards of modern Roman Catholicism and modern Eastern Orthodoxy. For a discussion of a lot of other examples, see here. The views we find in the early sources include credobaptism and justification apart from baptism.

Don't Forget About Josephus

There are some contexts in which Christians should be giving Josephus more attention than they typically do. Because Josephus was a non-Christian, he had no dog in some of the fights among the Christians of his day or later generations. And since he was writing so early (the late first century), his comments are more valuable accordingly.

As Steve Mason (a non-Christian scholar who specializes in the study of Josephus) noted, "He [Josephus] also confirms, in case there was any doubt, that James was distinguished by being Jesus' actual brother - a significant point in view of later Christian thinking about Mary's status as 'perpetual virgin' and speculation as to whether Jesus' 'brothers and sisters' were really only spiritual relatives or more distant physical relations." (Josephus And The New Testament [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005], 248) For more about how Josephus supports Mary's giving birth to other children after Jesus, and does so in multiple ways, see Eric Svendsen's Who Is My Mother? (Amityville, New York: Calvary Press, 2001).

On page 214 of his book cited above, Mason quotes Josephus' comments on how the baptism of John the Baptist was non-justificatory and non-regenerative: "They must not employ it [baptism] to gain pardon for whatever sins they had committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already cleansed by right behaviour." (Antiquities Of The Jews, 18:5:2) Given the close relationship between John and Jesus and John's baptism and Christian baptism (as illustrated by John 3:26-30 and Peter's comments in 1 Peter 3:21 that are similar to those of Josephus, for example), it makes more sense to think that there would be more rather than less continuity between the two baptisms. The New Testament evidence suggests that John's baptism was non-justificatory and non-regenerative, and Josephus gives us further reason to reach that conclusion.

Why I didn't become Orthodox

https://arturovasquez.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/why-i-didnt-become-orthodox/

Why do people believe in hell?

I'm going to comment on an article by David Bentley Hart:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/sunday/christianity-religion-hell-bible.html

He's an essayist and Eastern Orthodox theologian. One of those chic fashionable theologians like Miroslav Volf or Eugene Peterson with a following among those who view themselves as progressive Christian cognoscenti. This is their idea of intellectually respectable Christianity. The Protestant counterpart to Catholic Thomists. 

It raises a troubling question of social psychology. It's comforting to imagine that Christians generally accept the notion of a hell of eternal misery not because they're emotionally attached to it but because they see it as a small, inevitable zone of darkness peripheral to the larger spiritual landscape that–viewed in its totality–they find ravishingly lovely. And this is true of many. 

i) I don't have a precise idea regarding the scale of damnation, but I hardly think it's small. 

ii) And I regard eternal retributive justice as a necessary background for a moral universe. That's not peripheral. 

But not of all. For a good number of Christians, hell isn't just a tragic shadow cast across one of an otherwise ravishing vista's remoter corners; rather, it's one of the the landscape's most conspicuous and delectable details. 

"Delectable"? 

After all, the idea comes to us in such a ghastly gallery of images: late Augustinianism's unbaptized babes descending in their thrashing billions to perpetual and condign combustion; Dante's exquisitely psychotic dream of twisted, mutilated, broiling souls. St. Francis Xavier morosely informing his weeping Japanese converts that their deceased parents must suffer an eternity of agony.

Hart's tactic is to discredit hell by amalgamating an image of hell based on disparate literary and ecclesiastical traditions. But that's an exercise in misdirection. We can strip away the traditional accretions. The core doctrine goes back to the witness of Scripture. 

Surely it would be welcome news if it turned out that, on the matter of hell, something got garbled in transmission. And there really is room for doubt.

Welcome for whom? Welcome for the wicked? No doubt it would be welcome to the wicked to elude justice in the afterlife as well as this life. 

No truly accomplished NT scholar, for instance, believes that later Christianity's opulent mythology of God's eternal torture chamber is clearly present in the scriptural texts. 

The principle of hell isn't "torture" but retributive justice. In some cases that may involve torture. It would be poetic justice for someone who tortured (or ordered the torture of) the innocent in this life to be on the receiving end of the process. But that's not the essence of eschatological punishment. 

It's entirely absent from St. Paul's writings. The only eschatological fire he ever mentions brings salvation to those whom it tries (1 Cor 3:15). 

How did Hart miss this passage?

4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. 5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed (2 Thes 1:5-10).

He goes on to say:

There are a few terrible, surreal, allegorical images of judgment in the Book of Revelation, but nothing that, properly read, yields a clear doctrine of eternal torment. 

So he asserts. But that brushes aside exegetical arguments to the contrary 

Even the frightening language used by Jesus in the Gospels, when read in the original Greek, fails to deliver the infernal dogmas we casually assume to be there. 

He acts like he's the only person who can read the Gospels in the original Greek. 

On the other hand, many NT passages seem–and not metaphorically–to promise the eventual salvation of everyone.  

i) Arminians and universalists help themselves to the same prooftexts. As a Calvinist, the universalist prooftexts present no new or special challenge for me because I interpret them the same way I interpret Arminian prooftexts. I don't have to make any adjustments. I already have a counter-interpretation.

ii) But over above that, there's also the problem of arranging passages into a particular chronological sequence. Consider two eschatological sequences:

a) The dead pass into the intermediate state. On the day of judgment there's the general resurrection. They saints experience everlasting bliss while the wicked experience everlasting misery. 

b) Some of the dead experience postmortem remedial punishment, after which they go to heaven. They pass through a purgatorial hell on the way to heaven.

Biblical eschatology as a consistent (a) sequence. But the universalist sequence is nowhere found in Scripture. Indeed, it requires splicing and rearranging the standard sequence. 

Still, none of that accounts for the deep emotional need many modern Christians seem to have for an eternal hell. And I don't mean those who ruefully accept the idea out of religious allegiance, or whose sense of justice demands that Hitler and Pol Pot get their proper comeuppance, or who think they need the prospect of hell to keep themselves on the straight and narrow. Those aren't the ones who scream and foam in rage at the thought that hell might be only a stage along the way to a final universal reconciliation. 

i) Being the demagogue that he is, Hart has engineered a rhetorical dilemma. He imputes an untoward motive to many Christians who uphold hell. In one sense it's hard to defend yourself against the charge. If you really do harbor untoward motives, you'd deny it. So it's a maliciously circular allegation. 

ii) Then there's the false dichotomy of insinuating that if you believe something because you're supposed to believe it, you can only do so ruefully or grudgingly. If, however, something is true, it may also be morally, emotionally, and/or intellectually satisfying. We can believe something out of duty but also believe it to be good or admirable. In that event we don't even have to reach for duty. 

iii) I suspect that like many Christians, I have mixed feelings about hell. On the one hand I hope all my loved ones are saved. And natural human compassion extends that impulse to many (but not all) strangers.

On the other hand, injustice is galling. A world without ultimate justice mocks the good. Erases the difference between virtue and vice, good and evil. Ironically, universalism is casting the same shadow as atheism in that regard. Nothing you do ultimately makes any difference. Universalism has a nihilistic underbelly in that respect. Like Hinduism and Buddhism, where enlightened reality is beyond good and evil. Nihilism and fatalism go together. 

iv) While universalism has an undoubted element of appeal, there's a coercive quality to the universalist bargain. The offer is that God will save your murdered daughter for a price: only if God also saves the man who murdered her. Save both or damn both. Sophie's Choice transposed to the key of universalism. 

v) Compassion is the ability to care about the plight of those whose misfortunate you haven't personally experienced. Despite that, you imaginatively project yourself into their situation. What if that was me? Paradoxically, while it may be wrong to harbor vengeful feelings toward your personal enemies, if you have any, it can be commendable to wish the worst for someone else's enemies. That's a disinterested kind of vengeance. A longing that justice be done on behalf of others. 

Theological history can boast few ideas more chilling than the claim (of, among others, Thomas Aquinas) that the beatitude of the saved in heaven will be increased by their direct vision of the torments of the damned.

That's another trope that opponents of hell constantly trot out. Again, it's just an ecclesiastical tradition. 

But as long as he brings it up: while it would be wrong for the saints to derive glee from watching the damned suffer forever, there's nothing intrinsically wrong–indeed, there's something intrinsically right–about victims seeing assailants punished. That's not the same thing as hell mounted with cameras so that saints can voyeuristically tune into the miseries of the damned. But when victims see their assailants punished, that's a way to put the ordeal behind them and move on to better things.  

But as awful as that sounds, it may be more honest in its sheer cold impersonality than is the secret pleasure that many of us, at one time or another, hope to derive not from seeing but from being seen by those we leave behind. 

Well that depends. Suppose a Muslim woman converts to Christianity. As punishment she is gang-raped and beheaded. On the day of judgment, is there something wrong with her waving goodbye to her assailants? They watch her turn around and enter the everlasting light of paradise while they are left behind. It sinks in that they were blindly following a false prophet. They never once paused to ask whether there was any decent evidence for Muhammad's prophet pretensions? They used Islam as a pretext for sadism. They were the winners in this life but the losers in the next life. Their victim was the loser in this life but the winner in the next life.

How can we be winners, after all, if there are no losers? Where's the joy in getting into the gated community and the private academy if it turns out the gates are merely decorative and the academic has an inexhaustible scholarship program for the underprivileged? What success can there be that isn't validated by another's failure? What heaven can there be for us without an eternity in which to relish the impotent envy of those outside its walls. 

i) To begin with, the Bible does have a doctrine regarding the reversal of fortunes. 

ii) That said, Hart's imputed motive is twisted. Christian missionaries are like escapees who got out of the war zone but keep going back to rescue others. They don't say, "I made it! To hell with the rest of you!" No, having found the way out, they go back into the hellhole to lead as many of the lost as they can into the light. 

iii) Speaking for myself, when I look forward to the afterlife, it has nothing to do with keeping a tally of the losers. It has nothing to do with thinking about the damned at all. 

Parsing the Incarnation

A comment left on my EO post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-im-not-eastern-orthodox.html

I think you need to strengthen your notion of hypostatic union.

I wasn't offering a detailed view of my position. I've explicated my position in other posts. 

1. The humanity that the Logos took from Mary is a real and perfect humanity.

i) Humanity includes both body and soul. He did receive his soul from Mary?

ii) No doubt his humanity is real. I'm not sure what is meant by "perfect". Does that mean morally perfect? If so, yes. 

Does that mean Jesus had to have 20/20 vision? No. His humanity could be "imperfect" in the sense of, say, having a congenital heart defect, or allergies. He didn't need to be a specimen of physical perfection. 

2. The whole point of the incarnation is HE who is God has truly become Immanuel- God with us as man.

Is that the whole point? That's not even the primary point. The Incarnation was a necessary condition for him to make penal substitution for the elect. A means to an end. 

3. For HE to be truly man, he must truly make his own that humanity that is common to the elect.

i) True, but it may be worth expatiating on that point. A standard way of putting it is that human beings share a common nature. Every human being is a property instance or exemplification of human nature.

ii) Another way of putting it is that God has a constitutive idea of what makes humans human, as well as a constitutive idea for unique individual. God creates individual human beings according to his complete idea for each, with its distinctiveness as well as commonality. 

iii) When, however, the Son assumes or unites himself to a concrete human nature, that doesn't have a domino effect on other human beings. It's a self-contained instance, separate from other human beings. The Incarnation doesn't transmit something to human beings in general. He is related to other human beings at a natural level, but he assumes a particularized nature. The action doesn't change other human beings, as if the Incarnation is a circuit which relays a current to human beings generally. 

4. Therefore, the Logos neither displaces the human mind of Christ (Apollinarianism) nor is he separated from the mind of Christ (Nestorianism). Rather- The Logos, the second person of the trinity, has taken and made, as HIS OWN a full and complete humanity. So the flesh of Christ is the flesh of the Logos. The soul of Christ is the soul of the Logos. The mind of Christ is the mind of the Logos- not in a fusion of mixing, but in a unity of person. “The Logos became flesh.” 

i) As a matter of terminology, I prefer in this context to say the "Son" rather than the "Logos"–inasmuch as the Logos is an economic term for the Son in his contingent role as the Creator of the world, whereas the Son is a divine title, connoting his eternal, ontological identity.

Since, moreover, I don't think the Son and Spirit derive their existence from the Father, I avoid the "first/second/third person(s)" of the Trinity rubric. I side with the Trinitarian paradigm of theologians like Warfield, Frame, and Helm. 

ii) If the word "flesh" comes from Jn 1:14, then we need to define it in Johannine terms. 

iii) "Person" or hypostasis is a term of art in Cyrillian Christology. 

iv) I don't know what is intended by statements like "the mind of Christ is the mind of the Logos". Is that an allusion to the an/enhypostatic union? But that raises familar questions about whether such a nature is a defective, incomplete human nature. To be truly human, Jesus must have a rational human soul. 

5. Therefore, the human mind of Christ always had the infused vision of his divinity- the divinity proper to the Logos.

It's not a two-way conduit. The human mind doesn't have access to the divine mind unless the divine mind shares something with the human mind. 

Of course, from the time his human mind was old enough to understand, Jesus knew he was God Incarnate. There's a dual-consciousness, and the individual was aware of his complex identity, even in his human consciousness. 

6. If the Logos can hold two natures in connection, but not union- then the he who died on the cross cannot save us- for he dies solely as man, not God-made-man, and he rises solely as God, nor God-made-man.

I never said it was a connection rather than a union. Mind you, "union" is a just a generic, neutral verbal placeholder. It doesn't do much theological work. That depends, not on a particular word, but a philosophical model. 

7. Therefore, for the sake of the elect, it is necessary to proclaim that Immanuel is truly God, having made his OWN that humanity conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary from the first instant of its conception.

"His own" in the sense of a unique property instance of human nature uniquely and permanently coupled with the divine Son. 

You’re perilously close to Paul of Samosata and Nestorius. Tread carefully. 

There's nothing adoptionist about my position. The human nature of Christ only exists in virtue of the Incarnation. As for modalism, unitarian philosopher Dale Tuggy accuses me of Tritheism (on his tendentious characterization). "Nestorian" is a term of abuse rarely defined with precision, and routinely used as a lazy intellectual shortcut. In other posts I've provided models to illustrate the asymmetrical relation between the divine and human natures. 

My primary frame of reference is NT Christology. Beyond that we're left with philosophical theology. I'm not obliged to confine myself to the conceptual resources of Cyril of Alexandria. The ongoing history of ideas has provided us with additional analogies we can use to refine Christology. It's necessary to do full justice to what the NT says about the person of Christ. If that generates some tensions with Cyrillian Christology, so be it. 

Why I'm not Eastern Orthodox

1. Recently I was asked why I'm not Eastern Orthodox. I've studied Roman Catholicism in far more depth than EO, and I have a clear bead on what Catholicism represents. I find it harder to get inside the conceptual world of EO. That's in part because, in my reading, the exposition is often metaphorical. So the question is what the picture language stand for.

2. That said, even if I'm unclear on what something is, I can be fairly clear on what it's not. Whatever EO represents, it's not NT Christianity. When I compare the two, these are different and divergent paradigms. 

3. EO rejects the pervasive penal forensic concept of salvation in Scripture. That's not all there is to Biblical salvation. There's also sanctification. But EO rejects a key plank of biblical soteriology. This isn't confined to Pauline theology or sola fide. The sustained model of the atonement in the NT (presaged in the OT) is penal and sacrificial. Sin violates divine justice. Sin is culpable and blameworthy. That's not all sin is. Sin is moral corruption as well. But in my reading, EO blanks out the primary model of NT atonement.

4. The alternative is the EO concept of theosis. I'm not entirely sure what that means. As I understand it, EO salvation is a metaphysical category. Sin involves alienation from the life of God. Salvation involves participation in the life of God. We're delivered from sin when we are taken up into very life of God. We share, not in his essence, but in his energies. 

5. Now, there's a sense in which NT salvation also has an ontological dimension: sanctification and glorification. And there's a roundtable sense in which Christians participate in the life of God. But God and man don't range along a common metaphysical continuum. There's a qualitative, categorical difference between God's necessary, incomparable, transcendent mode of subsistence and the existence of contingent, finite, timebound, embodied agents. Our mode of subsistence never intersects with God's mode of subsistence. God shares his life with us in the sense that he's the source of our being and well-being. All the goodness flows from him. 

6. It's my impression that EO creates a buffer by positing the essence/energy dichotomy/distinction. That strikes me as an ad hoc, unstable distinction. Are the energies God or not God? Identical with God or something other than God? If other than God, then the energies are part of the world. They fall on the side of creation. 

7. In NT soteriology, the Incarnation is a necessary precondition of the atonement, but not atoning in its own right. It's the sacrificial death of Christ's that's redemptive. And the necessity of moral/psychological renewal is supplied by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

8. From what I've read, OE theologians sometimes speak as if the Incarnation is not only a relation confined a unique individual (Jesus), but that somehow the Incarnation unites God and man at a universal level. As if all humans are plugged into the life of God by virtue of the Incarnate Son.  

9. On the face of it, that stands in tension with the particularity of the sacraments. Presumably OE theologians have strategies to finesse that tension, but can it be squared? 

10. Apropos (9), 5. there's the smothering sacramentalism, where salvation is channelled through the sacraments. That, in turn, necessitates priestcraft. Like Catholicism, EO operates with a priest-sacrament paradigm whereas evangelical theology operates with a Word-Spirit paradigm. 

11. Then there's the superstitious role of icons, which seem to function as projections or extensions of the Incarnation. 

12. On top of that is the fiction of an infallible church. 

The whole system is far-removed from NT theology and piety. Of course, EO theologians try to prooftext their position from Scripture, but in my observation their exegesis is meager, strained, and circular as they appeal to the authority of the Greek fathers to leverage their interpretations of Scripture (e.g. the Tabor light as uncreated light). 

13. I have other objections, not unique to EO. I'm predestinarian whereas EO is libertarian.

14. I disagree with the EO doctrine of God. I reject its hierarchical concept of the Trinity, where the Father is the primary God and metaphysical source of the Son and Spirit.

It might be objected that traditionally, many Protestant denominations have inherited a hierarchical concept of the Trinity, so why is that a reason for me to reject EO but not Protestant counterparts? One reason is that you can't be EO in good faith unless you affirm EO dogmas. You can't be EO in good faith if you reject the EO doctrine of God.

By contrast, there's more freedom within evangelicalism. I can be a Protestant in good faith without reaffirming every reflexive carryover from Greek Orthodoxy or Latin theology 

15. Finally, I adhere to a two-minds Christology. Their interrelationship is asymmetrical. The Son is independent of the human soul whereas the soul is contingent. The Son controls the human soul. The Son has complete access to the human soul. The soul has no access to the mind of the Son except when the Son shares his knowledge with the human soul of Christ. I'm not sure that a two-minds Christology is compatible with Cyrillian Christology, and I don't really care since I'm not accountable to the Greek Fathers. 

Dracula on the move

L'Osservatore Romano

Dracula has been leaving a trail of exsanguinated victims in Poland, Spain, France, Italy and Ireland. Police are stymied by the fact that Dracula is a shapeshifter. In addition, he's invisible to security cameras. All of which make him exceedingly elusive. 

Church authorities have had more success tacking him down, but with demoralizing effects. The usual techniques have proven ineffectual, resulting in Dracula exsanguinating the church's best vampireslayers. 

The reason is that Catholic vampireslayers have nothing to use against Dracula since he's Romanian Orthodox. A Latin cross or crucifix is ineffectual. They need to use a Byzantine cross. Making the sign of the cross is ineffectual because Catholic vampireslayers cross themselves backwards: from left to right rather than right to left. Holy water is ineffectual because Catholic vampireslayers profess the Filioque, thereby invalidating the sacramental. The Vatican has been in negotiations with the Ecumenical Patriarch to dispatch Rumanian Orthodox vampireslayers to the West, but the Ecumenical Patriarch has demanded that the Pope come home to mother church before he authorizes such action. 

Hart failure

I don't think he does himself any favors with this riposte:

https://theopolisinstitute.com/leithart_post/good-god-a-response/

A classic disconnect between the self-image someone is attempting to project and what he actually reveals about himself.

Catholic camouflage

Recently I saw some interior shots of a modern Presbyterian church. It was studiously Spartan. Imagine the impact on someone used to that who goes inside a Gothic cathedral or Byzantine basilica for the first time. The contrast is overwhelming. 

They may feel cheated. This is what they've been missing all those years. That's one reason it's a mistake for evangelicals to be gratuitously Spartan when it comes to worship. That defiantly invites defection.

I myself basically have a high-church aesthetic along with a low-church ecclesiology and sacramentology. Mind you, I'm selective about high-church aesthetics. I don't care for ostentation. That's not even good art but bad taste masquerading as piety. 

But here's a different point: impressive art is a great way to camouflage vacuity. If you have nothing, you make it look like something through externals. If the wine is just wine, that's offset by using a fancy chalice. If the wafer is just a dry piece of bread, you conceal that by putting it inside a fancy tabernacle, on a fancy altar, with lots of other glittery trappings. If the priest doesn't actually have transformative powers, but is just a bloke like you and me, you mask that by swathing him with fancy vestments. The less you have, the more you compensate. 

The externals, the sensory overload, deflect attention away from the fact that there's nothing there. Layers upon layers to hide the vacuity at the core. Overpowering the senses is a savvy tactic to disarm the critical faculties. 

Or to put this in reverse, if there really was something there, something manifestly supernatural, then all the showy art, architecture, music, gilt and brocade, would be unnecessary. Indeed, if there really was something to it, all the wrappings would obscure it.  

Greco-patristic exegesis

I've discussed this before:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-greek-fathers.html

but I'd like to make some additional observations:

i) It's not like reading the Greek Fathers is a shortcut to NT exegesis. After all, you have to know Greek to read the Greek Fathers in the original no less than the NT. Indeed, some of the Greek Fathers write in more advanced Greek than the NT. 

ii) In addition, the NT contains a number of Greek words with Hebrew meanings. Greek words used as synonyms for OT theological jargon. In that situation, the words are Greek, but they have connotations that carry over from Hebrew usage. 

Not only is a native command of Greek not advantageous in that situation, but it's downright disadvantageous. It can blind church fathers to what the words mean because they're using the wrong conceptual and linguistic frame of reference. Using their knowledge of extrabiblical Greek. By contrast, even if Greek is a second language for a NT scholar, he may be more sensitive to the fact that the word is a translation of a technical term in the Hebrew OT, and retains the sense of the original Hebrew. 

When did marriage become a sacrament?

Divorce, Annulment & Communion
An Orthodox Theologian Weighs In
By David Bentley Hart

Neither, for several centuries after the Apostolic Age, did any Christian theological authority think of marriage as a sacrament in our sense. Augustine (354–430) thought it might be described as a sacramentum in the proper acceptation of the Latin word: a solemn and binding oath before God. But even then, although he took the term chiefly from Jerome’s rendering of Ephesians 5:32, he certainly did not number matrimony among the saving “mysteries” of the church, alongside baptism and the Eucharist. Neither did anyone else, for many, many years. Even the great Church Fathers tended to treat marriage as little more than a civil institution, no different in kind for Christians than for non-Christians. One need only look, for example, at John Chrysostom’s fifty-sixth homily (on the second chapter of Genesis) to see how unacquainted even a late-fourth-century theologian of the highest eminence was with any concept of “holy” matrimony. And, inasmuch as they thought of marriage chiefly as a natural fact rather than as a sacred vocation, the Christians of late antiquity did not treat it as a theological topic.

In his Commentary on Matthew, for example, Origen (ca. 184–253) notes that many of the bishops of his time permitted both divorce and remarriage among the faithful. Canon 11 of the Council of Arles (314) recommends that a divorced man not remarry so long as his former wife still lives, but also grants that, for healthy young men incapable of the continence this would require of them, remarriage may prove necessary. Basil the Great (ca. 330–379) instructed Amphilochius of Iconium to allow men abandoned by their wives to remarry without penalty...Even Augustine, while firmly convinced that marriage should as a rule be indissoluble, nonetheless confessed in his Retractiones that he had no final answer on the issue.

To be honest, many modern believers would be shocked to learn how late in Christian history a clear concept of marriage as a religious institution evolved, and how long it took for it to be absolutely distinguished from what would come to be thought of as common-law unions, or for the church to insist on its solemnization in all cases. They would be even more disturbed, I imagine (as much on democratic principles as religious), to discover that throughout much of the Middle Ages the whole issue of wedlock certified by the church concerned mostly the aristocracy, inasmuch as marriage was chiefly a matter of property, inheritance, and politics. As far as we can tell, among the peasantry of many lands, and for many centuries, marital union was a remarkably mercurial sort of arrangement, one that coalesced and dissolved with considerable informality, as circumstances dictated. And the clergy did not, for the most part, give a damn.

Really, when one looks at it closely, in light of both the empirical facts and the abstract principles of the matter, the distinction between divorce and annulment is specious all the way down. For one thing, as regards actual cases on the ground, anyone who has seen a sufficient number of annulments at close quarters (and I have witnessed quite a few) knows that they are not only fairly easy to obtain for those willing to make the effort, but that the terms governing them are applied with such plasticity that it is difficult to see how any marriage could fail to meet the standards. True, abusus non tollit usum (abuse does not do away with proper use); but, in fact, there really is no abuse involved. The very concept of annulment, as something ontologically distinct from divorce, is logically incoherent, and really can be taken seriously only by a mind so absolutely indoctrinated to believe that the Roman Catholic Church does not tolerate divorce and remarriage that no evidence to the contrary can alter that conviction.

The very premise that a marriage can be pronounced null and void, in effect retroactively (since that same marriage would be regarded as real and legitimate if suit for annulment had never been brought forward), on the grounds of some original defect of intention that means it was never a real marriage to begin with (though again, it would be considered a real marriage if that defect were never exposed), basically provides a license to regard every marriage as provisional only. After all, in what union of a man and a woman could one not detect some crucial defect of original intention if one were to seek it? Moreover, if one looks at the criteria customarily used to prove that a marriage was never really a marriage, they scarcely differ at all from the criteria that the Orthodox Church—in principle, at least—is supposed to accept as legitimate grounds for divorce. And what is a divorce, after all, other than a recognition that the original marriage was contracted in ignorance and without full mutual commitment to everything a true marriage is?

It might make Catholics feel better about their Eastern brethren if the Orthodox Church called these separations “annulments,” and issued formal absolutions from wedding vows under such terms. I have to say, however, that I am glad it does neither. To my mind, the concept of annulment is not only specious and logically contradictory, but also somewhat insidious—in fact, often rather cynical and cruel. It is terrible enough when a marriage—something on which a man and a woman, at what is usually a fairly innocent moment in their lives, have staked their futures and their hopes for happiness—falls apart. It is somehow all the more terrible when, solely for the sake of avoiding institutional embarrassment, we are asked to indulge in the fiction that it was never a real marriage to begin with.

I know of a woman whose well-connected husband managed to obtain an annulment without her consent, and on grounds that would have scarcely qualified him as a plaintiff before a secular divorce court. And I happen to know that, of the two, he was the far more culpable in the matter. What she found bitterest of all in the final settlement was that, according to her church, no one was obliged to admit that her life as a wife and mother of twenty-six years—in a union freely contracted, sacramentally solemnized, physically and fruitfully consummated—had broken apart. 

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/divorce-annulment-communion

"Protestantism is not a church"

I'm going to comment on something by an Eastern Orthodox apologist:

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxyandheterodoxy/2017/10/31/protestantism-not-united-not-catholic-not-church/

The EO/evangelical debate is underdeveloped on both sides compared to traditional debates like the Catholic/Protestant debate, the Calvinist/Arminian debate, &c., because evangelicalism wasn't a contender in the East while EO wasn't a contender in the west. So it's useful to engage EO arguments from time to since since that's the trail less taken. I won't comment on everything he says because some of his objections are identical to Catholic objections, and I've discussed those ad nauseam. 

He's interacting with a document called “Reforming Catholic Confession”. I might agree with some of his criticisms, but that just means I disagree with how the “Reforming Catholic Confession” frames certain issues. I can disagree with both of them: Eastern Orthodoxy and the “Reforming Catholic Confession” alike. 

Interpretive maximalism

A sequel to this post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/08/house-of-mirrors.html

1. It turns out that there are some influences feeding into the interpretation. One source is Mary Coloe's analysis of temple imagery in John's Gospel. Certainly the Fourth Gospel is interpretive history. And the new temple motif is significant. 

However, when she talks about the "artistry" of the narrator and "theology presented in narrative form", that's a very literary analysis of the text, where it shades into pious fiction. Where it owes as much to the creative imagination of the narrator as it does to a historical core. 

History no longer controls the development. As a consequence, it undergoes legendary embellishment. Like the Dracula mythos, which has a kernel of fact, but is far removed from the historical Dracula.

2. Another source is James Jordan's "interpretive maximalism". I remember it from Chilton's fanciful commentary on Revelation. I'm afraid it also reminds me of Harold Camping's ill-fated concordance-style hermeneutics.

I'd mention in passing that Jordan has had a major impact on Peter Leithart and Alastair Roberts–although not, perhaps, in quite the same ways. The hermeneutic is magnetic to high-churchy liturgical types.    

Is every deal in Scripture important? Sure. But that doesn't mean every detail has symbolic import? 

Ironically, that demeans the value of the ordinary, the mundane. But natural goods are genuine goods. They don't require a higher justification. 

Take wine. In some contexts, wine is a theological metaphor. But in general, wine was a staple in the Middle East due to the scarcity of safe clean drinking water. We devalue the good of creation when we insistent that ordinary things aren't good enough in their own right. That they must be signs, that they must point to something better than themselves to warrant their existence. That shows a certain disrespect for God's handiwork. But it's just wine–what a comedown!

Every lamb isn't the pascal lamb. Every cloud isn't the pillar of cloud. 

Even though the world is a "sacramental universe," many things, like the growth of plants, organic functions, human gestation, &c., are good in their own right, are what they are, and in most instances, have no referential dimension. They can be turned into metaphors–that's the stuff of poetry–but butterflies aren't flying poems.

House of mirrors

Recently I was asked to comment on a Facebook post by a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. The dilemma is that his post is not for public consumption. At the time I didn't know that. I read it and had some preliminary thoughts.

I'm a little too far along in the thought process to just drop it. In addition, I generally like to post my answers to theological questions. That's a better stewardship of my time. 

So I'll try to make my analysis as anonymous as possible, summarizing the argument. The original post attempts to link Mariology to the Eucharist (and the Trinity) in John's Gospel. 

1. The Beloved Disciple represents all Christians. All Christians are commanded to take Mary home. Mary is the mother of all Christians. 

2. The Gospel has a "dwelling" motif. The mutual indwelling of the Trinitarian persons. God dwelling in Christians. Dwellings in the Father's house for the saints. The Beloved Disciple taking Mary home.

3. In the marriage at Cana, Mary is the new Eve. The new "woman". The new bride. 

The wedding symbolizes Christ as the bridegroom. Likewise, the wine symbolizes the eucharist. Indeed, the transformation of water into wine symbolizes the real presence. 

4. The sour wine offered to Jesus on the cross is a eucharistic symbol. The hyssop is a eucharistic symbol. The Bread of Life discourse has a Passover setting, making it eucharistic.

5. The blood and water from the crucified Christ is a eucharistic symbol. It links to John 7, which is eucharistic. The river/water of life represents Christ's blood. Piercing Christ in the "side" evokes the creation of Eve from Adam. 

6. The True Vine parable is eucharistic. 

An Orthodox Perspective on Roman Catholicism

Unlike the stereotypical Catholic/Protestant debate, this attacks Catholicism from a different front:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6zXs_cUSjQ

Ironically, it reveals how legalistic Eastern Orthodoxy is, with its thicket of man-made rules and duties. The encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism is a spectacle in mutual destruction. 

Sink your feet in concrete

Around the 4-6 min. mark: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVdrtgo7Xw

Reformed convert to Eastern Orthodoxy Josiah Trenham gives this reason (one of two) for switching to Eastern Orthodoxy:

A deep sense that my tradition in which I had been raised was unstable, that the winds of the secular culture were blowing very hard and the church was not standing firm…That sense–that the Protestant Reformed movement and even evangelicalism in general did not have a stake, an immovable stake for the faith that was competent to resist the blowing of the winds of unbelief in our own culture deeply–affected me, and I was very impressed by holy orthodoxy that has a 2000-year track record of resisting the opposition of the world…I remember telling my wife…I can't imagine investing my life in a church and raising my children in that church, knowing that my children will not have that church when they become adults. And in fact all of this investment will be for naught.  

1. Before getting to the main issue, is it true that EO has a track record of resisting the opposition of the world?

i) What about the alliance between the Russian Orthodox church and Tsarism? What about the alliance between the Russian Orthodox church and Vladimir Putin?

ii) What about socially liberal politicians like Michael Dukakis, John Podesta, and Paul Tslongas, or anchorman George Stephanopoulos? Have they been excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox church? 

iii) What about prayers to the dead? Isn't that baptized polytheism? Replacing patron gods with patron saints, who are functionally equivalent? 

iv) Historically, issues like the LGBT agenda weren't on the radar. It remains to be seen if the Orthodox church will hold out. And from what I've read, St. Vladimir's Seminary has already capitulated on theistic evolution and the historical-critical method.

2. Regarding the main issue, his objection reflects divergent theological paradigms:

i) He fails to distinguish between denominations and faith-traditions. Protestant faith-traditions (e.g. Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Baptists, &c.) are quite stable. Denominations exemplify faith-traditions. Denominations are temporary vehicles, but the faith-traditions they embody endure from one generation to the next. Protestant faith-traditions are self-renewing in that respect. 

ii) It's fine for an individual to put down stakes in a denomination if that's a solid denomination. But he should also be prepared to pull up stakes and move on if the denomination loses fidelity to biblical revelation. Christians are pilgrims. We should keep our bags packed and travel light. Like Abraham, we live in tents. 

iii) It's bad parenting for a Christian parent to cultivate loyalty to the denomination he belongs to. Christian children should be taught that what was a good denomination for their parents may become a bad denomination for the next generation. Many professing believers are too attached to a particular denomination, and hang on when they ought to let go. The torch Christian parents are supposed to hand off to their kids is not a denomination but the Christian faith. 

iv) This involves a different ecclesiology than Eastern Orthodoxy. Like Roman Catholics, Trenham views the church as a single, historically continuous denomination (of course, he doesn't call his own sect a denomination). For him, there's a one-to-one relation between Christianity and "the church". Trenham ecclesiology is like sinking your feet in concrete until it dries. 

This stands in contrast to an evangelical model, where there's a one-to-many relation between Christianity and "the church". The church is multiply-exemplified in time and space, in a variety of different denominations. Christian denominations and independent churches are samples of the one church. The Spirit is present in different denominations and independent churches because the Spirit is present in Christians. The Spirit is present wherever Christians are present.

To take a comparison, there's a one-to-many relation between the color red and red objects. Two different roses may both be red. Or they made be different shades of red, where one is redder than the other, although both roses recognizably belong to the reddish band of the spectrum. 

There are, of course, heretical or apostate denominations and independent churches. The Spirit may be present in a denomination at one time, but like the glory departing the temple (Ezk 10), be absent at a later date. Without the Shekinah, the inner sanctum was a hollow shell. 

To take another comparison from Scripture, the spiritual menorah may be present in a church at one time and place, but be removed at a later date (Rev 1-2). The Spirit isn't chained to any particular denomination or local church.