Early Christian Studies

New Books on Eschatology & the Theology of Grace in Christian History

January 1, 2018 by Frank Leave a Comment

Happy New Year! In this post I want to inform our readers of some new books on eschatology and the theology of grace in early and medieval Christian history. On eschatology, they are:

T.C. Schmidt, transl., Hippolytus of Rome: Commentary on Daniel and ‘Chronicon’ (Georgias Press, 2017).

Peter of John Olivi, Commentary on the Apocalypse. Translation, Notes, and Introduction by Warren Lewis (Franciscan Institute Publications, 2017). This is a large commentary written in the year 1298.

On the theology of grace, most of which relate to the ninth-century controversy over divine predestination, are the following books:

Matthew Bryan Gillis, Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Rachel Stone and Charles West, eds., Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work (Manchester University Press, 2015).

Jared G. Wielfaert, Prudentius of Troyes (d. 861) and the Reception of the Patristic Tradition in the Carolingian Era (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2015). Available from ProQuest.

Guido Stucco, The Doctrine of Predestination in Catholic Scholasticism (2017).

Also, the following articles on the Gottschalk controversy may be of interest:

Brian Matz, “Augustine in the Predestination Controversy of the Ninth Century, Part 1: The Double Predestinarians Gottschalk of Orbais and Ratramnus of Corbie,” Augustinian Studies 46:2 (2015):155-184.

Jenny Smith, “As if Augustine Had Said: Textual Interpretation and Augustinian Ambiguity in a Medieval Debate on Predestination,” Past Imperfect 19 (2016)

Jenny Smith, “The Rebellious Monk Gottschalk of Orbais: Defining Heresy in a Medieval Debate on Predestination.” Both of Ms. Smith’s articles can be found on line.

Happy reading and wishing all of our readers a blessed 2018.

Frank

Tyconius, Exposition of the Apocalypse

June 20, 2017 by Frank Leave a Comment

My English translation of Tyconius’s Exposition of the Apocalypse has been published. It is in Volume 134 of the Fathers of the Church series. I hope you get a copy and enjoy reading his explanations of the Book of Revelation.

Tyconius wrote this Exposition about 380 AD. It is useful in many ways. He interpreted John’s visions to make them relevant for the church of all times, similar to modern “idealist” interpretations. He also believed that some passages in Revelation were symbolic of the future persecution of Antichrist, the Second Coming, and the Last Judgment.

He believed that the Book of Revelation is recapitulatory, rather than visions of events that reflect chronological order. On some familiar passages and themes, Tyconius saw the 144,000 as a symbol of the whole church. Likewise, the two witnesses are symbolic of the church prophesying in both testaments. Those sitting on thrones and reigning for a thousand years represent the present reign of the saints; and the first resurrection “is in this life through forgiveness of sins.”

The introduction and notes to the translation of Tyconius were written by David Charles Robinson of Toronto.

For a review of our book in Augustinian Studies 50:2 (2019), click here.

To order Tyconius of Carthage, Exposition of the Apocalypse from Amazon, click here.

I leave you with an encouragement from a Syriac commentator: “Let us spiritually refresh ourselves in the Apocalypse of the Son of God which is very dear and wonderful.”

Chromatius of Aquileia on John 21:22 and Rev 10:11

December 31, 2015 by Frank Leave a Comment

An essay entitled “Chromatius of Aquileia on John 21:22 and Rev 10:11 against a Legend about the Apostle John” by Francis X. Gumerlock was recently published as Chapter Two in The Book of Revelation and Its Interpreters: Short Studies and an Annotated Bibliography, Ian Boxall and Richard Tresley, eds. (New York: Rowan & Littlefield, 2016).

In early Christianity there was a legend that the apostle John never died, but was alive in Paradise with Enoch and Elijah. It continued that when the Antichrist comes upon the world scene, John will return to earth and preach again. Believers in this legend used John 21:22 and Rev 10:11 for support. This essay shows how Chromatius (d. 408) interpreted these passages of Scripture to show that John really died and that he prophesied again (Rev 10:11) after his release from the island of Patmos, by returning to Ephesus and writing the Gospel of John. The essay provides the first English translation of Chromatius’ Sermon 21 and also a translation of a preface to the Book of Revelation from the sixth century.

Other chapters in the book are about John of Patmos in Christian history, the reception of the Book of Revelation, Tyconius’ exegesis, and the Book of Revelation in visual art. Half of the book is an extensive bibliography of commentaries that were written on the Apocalypse up to the year 1700.

Besides Boxall, Tresley, and myself, other contributors include Christopher Rowland, Sean Michael Ryan, and Natasha O’Hear.

For those interested in the Book of Revelation, its reception and interpretation in Christian history, commentaries on Revelation, Tyconius, and visual representations of the Apocalypse, I trust you will find The Book of Revelation and Its Interpreters to be a great read and a useful resource. To purchase a copy from Amazon, click here.

New Books on the Theology of Grace

December 12, 2015 by Frank Leave a Comment

For our readers who are interested in the theology of grace in church history, this entry directs you to some new books and studies on the topic. First, there is a doctoral dissertation by Thomas L. Humphries, Jr. entitled “That They May Learn What They Desire: Latin Pneumatology from Cassian to Gregory the Great” (Emory University, 2011). Most dissertations are available for purchase by Proquest. This dissertation contains the most comprehensive study to date on the authorship of an ancient text which was used in the formation of the canons of the Council of Orange (529) called Chapters from Saint Augustine Transmitted Into the City of Rome. On pages 88-92 and 123-135 Humphries shows that this text was written by the Scythian monks led by John Maxentius.

On Gottschalk of Orbais and the controversy over predestination in the ninth-century, Jenny C. Smith, now studying at the University of Notre Dame, wrote a master’s thesis on Gottschalk when she was attending Valdosta State University in Georgia. It can be read on line at https://vtext.valdosta.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10428/1929/smith-jenny_thesis.pdf?sequence+1&isAllowed=y Jonathan Dixon at the Queen’s University in Belfast has been working on a dissertation on John Scottus Eriugena’s Treatise on Divine Predestination. I am not sure if his has been completed. Connie L. Meyer’s Gottschalk: Servant of God (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2015) was recently published. It provides English translations of two of Gottschalk’s poems that have not before appeared in publication.

On predestination in the late medieval and early modern periods, I recently came upon James L. Halverson’s Peter Aureol on Predestination, although it was published by Brill in 1998. Guido Stucco’s The Catholic Doctrine of Predestination from Luther to Jansenius (Xlibris, 2014) presents the thoughts of obscure figures like Agostino Mainardi (c 1532) and Domingo Banez. The book also provides a 35-page English translation of the table of contents of Cornelius Jansen’s massive treatise Augustinus. William of Auvergne’s Selected Spiritual Writings translated by the late Roland Teske and published by Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto contains his treatise “On Grace.” It was written to “destroy the error of Pelagius who said…that the powers of our nature and our free choice were sufficient.” (p.63)

Several ancient and medieval Commentaries on Romans have recently appeared in English translations. They include that of Origen translated by Thomas P. Scheck in Fathers of the Church Volume 103 & 104. A two-volume English translation of Theodoret of Cyrus’s Commentary on the Letters of St. Paul was published in 2001 by Holy Cross Orthodox Press. The translator was the late Robert Charles Hill. Peter Abelard’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans was published in 2011 in the Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation series. That same year Michael Scott Woodward’s translation of The Glossa Ordinaria on Romans was published in the TEAMS Commentary Series. I was pleasantly surprised by the commentary on Romans 8 & 9 by Abelard and the Ordinary Gloss.

My hope is that in these you will find insights regarding the history of the theology of grace and hopefully also some food for the soul.

Merry Christmas 2015

Frank

Grace for Grace, a new book on the Semi-Pelagian debate

August 21, 2014 by Frank Leave a Comment

The debates in Christian history on the theology of grace have intrigued me for many years. I was recently asked to contribute a chapter in a new book about the debates that happened after Augustine over his theology of grace. The book is entitled Grace for Grace: The Debates After Augustine and Pelagius and was published by Catholic University of America Press.
The Semi-Pelagian debates were a series of discussions on the dynamics of salvation between the years 426 and 529. They include many issues and many players. My chapter is on one episode in the early sixth century which involved bishops including Possessor, John Maxentius, and Fulgentius of Ruspe and of which even the emperor Justinian was well aware.

Around 518 John Maxentius and his Scythian monks found that some in Constantinople, led by Possessor, were teaching that personal faith and a good will have their origin in humans, and that when people exercise faith and a choice for Christ, God then rewards them with grace. They had a slogan, “It is of us to choose, but of God to help.” Maxentius believed that they had the cart before the horse. Faith, he taught, is a divine gift (Phil 1:29). Concerning the choice to come to Christ, that too is done only because God’s grace precedes, enabling the person to choose rightly; for as the Apostle said, “It is God who works in you to do and to will of His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).

Possessor, to support his view of how individual salvation works, used 1 Timothy 2:4 which says that God “wills that all men be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Through letters, Maxentius appealed to Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe in North Africa; and Fulgentius responded at length, supporting Maxentius’ view. This is the subject of my chapter entitled “Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God.”

Those interested in patristics, North African exegesis, the employment of classical rhetoric in early Christianity, church-state relations, Justinian, the Semi-Pelagian controversy, the extent of God’s saving will, and the doctrine of salvation, will find Grace for Grace a helpful tool containing the latest scholarship from a variety of experts in the field of early Christian studies.

See the Table of Contents.

To order a copy from Amazon, click here.

The Rapture in the Apocalypse of Elijah

August 13, 2014 by Frank 1 Comment

Some people claim that the teaching of a pre-tribulation rapture is a recent construction of John Nelson Darby, and has only been taught in the Christian Church for the past two hundred years. In other
words, it is a novel doctrine whose historicity is questionable. However, I came across an early Christian text, the Apocalypse of Elijah, which appears to have teaching similar to modern pretribulationism.

The Apocalypse of Elijah is a third century text from a group of millennarian Christians in Egypt. Their document claims that when the Antichrist is persecuting the saints, Christ will have compassion on his people and send angels to carry them to the “holy land” where they will eat from the tree of life, wear white robes, and be safe from Antichrist’s wrath. After that transport occurs, all sorts of catastrophes happen on earth, including the murder of the two witnesses. Later, says the text, Christ returns with his saints and they reign on earth for a thousand years.
Rapture in the Apocalypse of Elijah, Gumerlock 1

In an article published by the journal Bibliotheca Sacra, I explain the provenance of the Apocalypse of Elijah, discuss its rapture passage, and compare and contrast its views with those of modern pretribulationists. Regardless of your position on when those “who are alive…will be caught up… to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess 4:16-17), I hope you enjoy reading about this text, which, in my opinion, deserves a place in the discussion over the history of the pre-tribulation rapture teaching.

To read the article, click here.