I have been wondering how to report on last week’s congress on Saint Cyprian of Carthage. To be honest, I have neither the time nor the inclination to provide a detailed description of what was presented and, although I did take notes, they tend to be rather fragmentary. There were ten fairly short papers presented. A lot was said, and … well, I suppose that I learnt a bit. Those that I found most valuable were one by Paul van Geest on Cyprian’s reception by Augustine, particularly in his conflict with the Donatists, and one by Hans van Loon on Cyprian’s Christology, in which he highlighted the soteriological aspects of Cyprian’s thought, that “what Christ is, we will also become”. There was also a paper by Arnold Smeets on a semiotic reading of De Unitate which, despite the fact that I was by this stage in a rather reactionary mode against anything smacking of post-modern theory, I actually found rather tantalising.

There was also a paper on Cyprian’s reception by Calvin and his followers that I must confess I found rather puzzling. Apparently they valued Cyprian because of his refusal to acknowledge an episcopal hierarchy. Now I could understand it that the Orthodox value this, but Calvin? I mean, Cyprian did have some rather strong things to say about bishops – or am I expressing my total ignorance of Calvinist theology in thinking that they don’t have bishops? I wanted to ask a question but didn’t quite dare to as 1/ I was scared that I would get tied up in knots trying to express myself in Dutch (which I still find intimidating in an academic context) and 2/ I was in habit which made me a bit more self-conscious, especially as there had just been a Catholic asking some rather embarrassing questions! Anyway, I found it rather puzzling.

Perhaps it was valuable as an exposure to a Dutch academic context, or simply as a reminder of the state of so much Western academic theological discourse. And it made me realise that these things play themselves out in a particular way in a Calvinist context which I do not properly understand – despite coming from a fairly broadly ecumenical theological context, my exposure to Calvinists has been limited due to the peculiarities of South African history. But, given that this is a new patristic initiative, I had hoped that it would be, well, life-giving. After all, the whole point of the Church Fathers is that theology is not abstracted from life, that it cannot be done without a commitment to our ongoing transformation in Christ, as I keep insisting to those whom I teach, and as anyone who has read my posts on Father Louth knows only too well. But there were points last Friday when I felt as if I could just as well have been attending a conference on nuclear physics and I felt like asking: “Why are you doing this?”

Now none of this is meant to suggest that there should not be a place for rigorous academic patristic research. But if such research is abstracted from the life of faith and from the life of the Church, if it is simply viewed as history and as something outside of us, then, quite frankly, I am not interested in it. So perhaps, in the end I ended up learning more about myself than about anything else, for I found myself being immensely grateful that I had not sought to pursue any formal academic patristic study in a Western European context.

And, if anyone reading this happens to come from a Dutch or Flemish context, I would much rather recommend this initiative, even though it is at a rather different level.

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For some related points, see here.