Voting about God

I noted this book on here many years ago when it first came out, but this year we have a papaerback edition of Ramsay MacMullen's Voting about God in Early Church Councils (Yale University Press, 2020), 182pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

In this study, Ramsay MacMullen steps aside from the well-worn path that previous scholars have trod to explore exactly how early Christian doctrines became official. Drawing on extensive verbatim stenographic records, he analyzes the ecumenical councils from A.D. 325 to 553, in which participants gave authority to doctrinal choices by majority vote.

The author investigates the sometimes astonishing bloodshed and violence that marked the background to church council proceedings, and from there goes on to describe the planning and staging of councils, the emperors' role, the routines of debate, the participants’ understanding of the issues, and their views on God’s intervention in their activities. He concludes with a look at the significance of the councils and their doctrinal decisions within the history of Christendom. 

Against Marcellus

Set for release early in the new year, Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology, trans. Kelly McCarthy Spoerl and Markus Vinzent (Catholic University of America Press, 2018) will appear in the ongoing and prestigious Fathers of the Church series from CUA Press.

About this collection we are told:

This is the first English translation of the last two theological works of Eusebius of Caesarea, Against Marcellus and On Ecclesiastical Theology. The first text was composed after the deposition of Marcellus of Ancyra in 336 to justify the action of the council fathers in ordering the deposition on the grounds of heresy, contending that Marcellus was "Sabellian" (or modalist) on the Trinity and a follower of Paul of Samosata (hence adoptionist) in Christology. Relying heavily upon extensive quotations from a treatise Marcellus wrote against Asterius the Sophist, this text provides important information about ecclesiastical politics in the period before and just after the Council of Nicea, and endeavors to demonstrate Marcellus's erroneous interpretation of several key biblical passages that had been under discussion since before the council. In doing so, Eusebius criticizes Marcellus's inadequate account of the distinction between the persons of the Trinity, eschatology, and the Church's teaching about the divine and human identities of Christ.

On Ecclesiastical Theology, composed circa 338/339 just before Eusebius's death, and perhaps in response to the amnesty for deposed bishops enacted by Constantius after the death of Constantine in 377 and the possibility of Marcellus's return to his see, continues to lay out the criticisms initially put forward in Against Marcellus, again utilizing quotations from Marcellus's book against Asterius. However, we see in this text a much more systematic explanation of Eusebius's objections to the various elements of Marcellus's theology and what he sees as the proper orthodox articulation of those elements.

Long overlooked for statements at odds with later orthodoxy, even written off as heretical because allegedly "semi-Arian," recent scholarship has demonstrated the tremendous influence these texts had on the Greek theological tradition in the fourth century, especially on the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. In addition to their influence, they are some of the few complete texts that we have from Greek theologians in the immediate period following the Council of Nicea in 325, thus filling a gap in the materials available for research and teaching in this critical phase of theological development.

The Bible and the Trinity

The Catholic University of America Press sent me their newest catalogue, which contains several books of interest, including one set for release early in 2018: The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, eds. Christopher A Beeley and Mark E Weedman.

A number of prominent scholars are featured in the book, including the Orthodox priest and scholar Bogdan G. Bucur of Duquesne University.

About this scholarly collection we are told:

The past thirty years have seen an unprecedented level of interest in early Christian biblical interpretation, from major scholarly initiatives to more popular resources aimed at pastors and general readers. The fields of Biblical Studies and Patristics/Early Christian Studies each arrived at the study of early Christian biblical interpretation largely from their own standpoints, and they tend to operate in relative isolation from one another. This books aims to bring the two fields into closer conversation, in order to suggest new avenues into the study of the deeply biblical dimension of patristic theology as well as the contribution that patristic exegesis can make to contemporary views of how best to interpret the Bible.

Based on a multi-year consultation in the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology features leading scholars from both fields, who bring new insights to the relationship between patristic exegesis and current strategies of biblical interpretation, specifically with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. Following an account of how each field came to study patristic exegesis, the book offers new studies of Trinitarian theology in Old Testament, Johannine, and Pauline biblical texts and the patristic interpretation of them, combining the insights of modern historical criticism with classical historical theology. It promises to make a valuable contribution to both fields, suggesting several new avenue into the study of early biblical literature and the development of Trinitarian theology.

On the Development of Doctrine

With all the controversy swirling around the shambolic and sprawling Amoris Laetitia, even to the point of drawing a rare commentary from the Ecumenical Patriarch, my students in the spring semester are in the happy position of being able to examine that vexed document and its apologists' claims for it to be an instance of the development of doctrine. We will do so in a course devoted to the topic of doctrinal development, and naturally enough we will, inter alia, be reading John Henry Cardinal Newman's landmark treatment, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

To understand the context of that work in Newman's life, we will begin with the wonderful work of Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography. That is a richly detailed and compelling scholarly biography by the world's leading Newman scholar.

The concept of the development of doctrine is sometimes sneered at in the Christian East. Even so sober and venerable a scholar as Andrew Louth pours cold water on the notion in his essay in the 2006 Festschrift, Orthodoxy And Western Culture: A Collection of Essays Honoring Jaroslav Pelikan on His Eightieth Birthday.

Others, however, dispute that the East rejects development. Daniel Lattier, e.g., in his essay in Pro Ecclesia in the fall of 2011, "The Orthodox Rejection of Doctrinal Development," has unearthed compelling evidence to suggest that (as in so many things) the East rejects a caricature of what it takes the West to believe. (Cf. Lattier's essay, "Orthodox Theological Receptions of Newman" in the new collection, Receptions of Newman.)

The literature on doctrinal development is, as I discovered more than a decade ago now, when I was working on a draft proposal for the dissertation that became the book Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy, vast indeed. The best place to begin--as with so many things in Christian history--is with one of the Chadwick brothers: in this case, with Owen's invaluable From Bossuet to Newman: the Idea of Doctrinal Development.

My early drafts looked extensively at Newman and the concept of development. (These were later excised for the book.) It was fascinating to me that, as the Greek Orthodox scholar George Dragas demonstrated, Newman was the only 19th-century Catholic figure to be translated into Greek and studied by Greek scholars during his own day.

Regardless of what one thinks of development--as I always say to people when asked--one should read Newman for the sheer loveliness of his prose. Rightly regarded as the master stylist of 19th-century letters, Newman--whether in his Essay on Development, or perhaps even more his Apologia Pro Vita Sua--is a delight to read.