The Schools of Antioch

Though today scarcely even a shell of its former self, the city of Antioch in Christian antiquity was once a great and prominent centre, an intellectual rival to Alexandria, and a "Petrine" rival to Rome. Even in its "pagan" days, its leading scholars trained some of the most prominent Church fathers in the rhetorical arts, as a recent study illustrates.

First published in hardback in 2007, and again this year in paperback, is Raffaella Cribiore's The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton UP, 2016), 376pp.

About this book we are told:

This book is a study of the fourth-century sophist Libanius, a major intellectual figure who ran one of the most prestigious schools of rhetoric in the later Roman Empire. He was a tenacious adherent of pagan religion and a friend of the emperor Julian, but also taught leaders of the early Christian church like St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great. Raffaella Cribiore examines Libanius's training and personality, showing him to be a vibrant educator, though somewhat gloomy and anxious by nature. She traces how he cultivated a wide network of friends and former pupils and courted powerful officials to recruit top students. Cribiore describes his school in Antioch--how students applied, how they were evaluated and trained, and how Libanius reported progress to their families. She details the professional opportunities that a thorough training in rhetoric opened up for young men of the day. Also included here are translations of 200 of Libanius's most important letters on education, almost none of which have appeared in English before.

Cribiore casts into striking relief the importance of rhetoric in late antiquity and its influence not only on pagan intellectuals but also on prominent Christian figures. She gives a balanced view of Libanius and his circle against the far-flung panorama of the Greek East.

Antioch vs. Alexandria, Round #19824307

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Christian East, or patristic and exegetical history, has invariably and frequently encountered the famed, if not hackneyed, Antioch-Alexandria "divide" when it comes to hermeneutics and exegesis as well as Christology. Any nostrum that is repeated as often as this one deserves to come in for fresh re-examination, and it appears we have it in a recent study by Richard Perhai, Antiochene Theoria in the Writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrus (Fortress, 2015).

About this book the publisher tells us:

Biblical scholars have often contrasted the exegesis of the early church fathers from the eastern region and “school” of Syrian Antioch against that of the school of Alexandria. The Antiochenes have often been described as strictly historical-literal exegetes in contrast to the allegorical exegesis of the Alexandrians. Patristic scholars now challenge those stereotypes, some even arguing that few differences existed between the two groups.

This work agrees that both schools were concerned with a literal and spiritual reading. But, it also tries to show, through analysis of Theodore and Theodoret’s exegesis and use of the term theoria, that how they integrated the literal-theological readings often remained quite distinct from the Alexandrians. For the Antiochenes, the term theoria did not mean allegory, but instead stood for a range of perceptions—prophetic, christological, and contemporary. It is in these insights that we find the deep wisdom to help modern readers interpret Scripture theologically.

Canon Law and Episcopal Authority

I recently attended a colloquium with Judge Michael Talbot, chief justice of the Michigan Court of Appeals and also the chairman of the Review Board for the Archdiocese of Detroit. He gave utterly fascinating insights into how, as a civil lawyer in private practice and then a judge in Michigan for decades, he had to learn a radically different legal culture when he entered the world of canon law and began dealing with ecclesiastical organs and tribunals attempting to root out clerical sexual abuse. The differences he discussed were very considerable--sometimes a cause for wonder, sometimes a cause for despair. But fascinating nonetheless.

In our discussion, I raised with him some of the early canons about clerical abuses, and their complete intolerance for any of this activity (even consensual activity). He noted that unlike Anglo-American law, canon law does not have a healthy doctrine of stare decesis and thus legal precedent does not carry the same weight. As a result, earlier canons can safely be ignored. As I was reflecting on this, it occurred to me that this may well be because canon law is concerned above all with the salvation of souls, and thus there are substantial theological reasons behind this different legal culture.

But this is not to say that precedent is irrelevant, or past canons carry no weight. No Eastern Christian would say that. But what weight should they have? Which canons are still important today, and which can safely be left behind? A new book, set for release this summer, will help us grapple anew with old canons still of enormous relevance to Orthodox-Catholic relations and the vexed question of the papacy. Did the papacy ever function as an "appellate court" as it were in the early Church, hearing cases from patriarchates and dioceses unable to resolve them independently? That question has long needed more consideration, and in Christopher Stephens, Canon Law and Episcopal Authority: The Canons of Antioch and Serdica (Oxford, 2015) it should at long last get it. 

About this book we are told:

Christopher Stephens focuses on canon law as the starting point for a new interpretation of divisions between East and West in the Church after the death of Constantine the Great. He challenges the common assumption that bishops split between "Nicenes" and "non-Nicenes," "Arians" or "Eusebians." Instead, he argues that questions of doctrine took second place to disputes about the status of individual bishops and broader issues of the role of ecclesiastical councils, the nature of episcopal authority, and in particular the supremacy of the bishop of Rome.

Canon law allows the author to offer a fresh understanding of the purposes of councils in the East after 337, particularly the famed Dedication Council of 341 and the western meeting of the council of Serdica and the canon law written there, which elevated the bishop of Rome to an authority above all other bishops. Investigating the laws they wrote, the author describes the power struggles taking place in the years following 337 as bishops sought to elevate their status and grasp the opportunity for the absolute form of leadership Constantine had embodied.

Combining a close study of the laws and events of this period with broader reflections on the nature of power and authority in the Church and the increasingly important role of canon law, the book offers a fresh narrative of one of the most significant periods in the development of the Church as an institution and of the bishop as a leader.

Introduction
Part One: The Canons of Antioch
1. The Canons of Antioch and the Dedication Council
2. The Canons of Antioch in Context
Part Two: Antioch and Serdica
3. The Dedication Council
4. Serdica, Rome, and the Response to Antioch

Part Three: Canon Law and Episcopal Authority
5. Law, Authority, and Power
6. Constantine, Control and Canon Law

Steward of the Mysteries of God

One of the myriad reasons I do not think I should make a good bishop is that the burdens of the office seem so crushing as to leave little time for systematic writing. To not be able to write regularly at length is for me to be unable to breathe. Most bishops, forced to run hither and yon with too many responsibilities, seem to be essayists, specializing in ad hoc talks, short columns (often travelogues) for diocesan papers, and after-dinner remarks at parish praznyks or similar events. How far we are from the model--as my friend, the Orthodox priest and pastoral theologian Bill Mills has lamented--from the patristic era when pastors were bishops who were theologians writing numerous, lengthy, learned works we still profit from today. Where today is the equivalent of, say, Augustine of Hippo, Gregory of Nyssa, or John Chrysostom? 

One recent collection of talks and short reflections came into my hand earlier this month: Bishop Nicholas Samra, Steward of The Mysteries (Sophia Press, 2010), 267pp. 

Samra, to those who know him, is an interesting figure among Melkite Catholics, and has already been undertaking some encouraging initiatives in the diocese to which he was recently elected. 

In this book we have a collection of talks and essays on matters Mariological, ecclesiological, liturgical, pastoral, evangelical, and of course ecumenical, focusing on Melkite-Orthodox relations, which have for some time been extremely close, especially--until the recent unpleasantness--in Syria where for obvious reasons Christians have tended (if I may be forgiven for paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin) to hang together rather than risk being hanged separately. 

Of especial interest is his short narration of Melkite history, especially leading up to and since the schism in 1724 in the Patriarchate of Antioch, and of Roman interference and bungling thereafter. He quotes at length the speech of Patriarch Gregory II Yousuf at the First Vatican Council, imploring it not to go down a path that would deepen and harden relations with Orthodoxy. 

In the 1960s, the Melkite Church was led by the famed Patriarch Maximos IV, who not only advanced ecumenical relations and focused on de-Latinizing his church, but was also so influential at Vatican II as to lead the Ecumenical Patriarch to say of Maximos, "You  are our spokesman, the voice of Orthodoxy at the council!"

Samra spends understandable time detailing the history of the so-called Zoghby initiative, whose roots go back to the early 1970s, and were featured in such books of his as Tous Schismatiques? which was published in 1981. The actual "initiative" came out in 1995 and garnered great attention. It would be studied by the Orthodox and Melkite synods the following year as each assumed greater leadership for ecumenical dialogue without being hamstrung by leaders in Rome or Constantinople. This dialogue, as he later notes, lead to such local initiatives as a new church being built in the Damascus suburbs, a church that would belong equally and be used equally by Orthodox and Melkites. 

Zoghby's proposal led to an eight-point plan, "Reunification of the Antiochian Patriarchate" that was taken up for synodal discussion in 1996, basing itself in part on various agreed statements of the international Orthodox-Catholic dialogue and in part on the 1995 encyclical on Christian unity by Pope John Paul II, treated at length in Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity. One part of the reunification plan openly permitted what was a de facto reality anyway: communicatio in sacris. Samra does not speak in any detail of how the Zoghby initiative and subsequent plans were received in wider "official" Catholicism and Orthodoxy, except to allude once and vaguely to a lack of good reception based largely on fear.