Patristics carnival

I’m a bit late mentioning this, and still have to find time to read at least some of the posts mentioned, but for anyone interested who hasn’t yet seen it, this month’s Patristics carnival has been put together by Tim Troutman at The God Fearin’ Forum. He has done a great job bringing together a wealth of patristic related reading matter.

 

Florovsky on theology

“Theology” is not an end in itself. It is always but a way. Theology, and even the “dogmas,” presents no more than an “intellectual contour” of the revealed truth, and a “noetic” testimony to it. Only in the act of faith is this “contour” filled with content. Christological formulas are fully meaningful only for those who have encountered the Living Christ, and have received and acknowledged Him as God and Saviour, and are dwelling by faith in Him, in His body, the Church. In this sense, theology is never a self-explanatory discipline. It is constantly appealing to the vision of faith. “What we have seen and heard we announce to you.” Without this “announcement” theological formulas are empty and of no consequence. For the same reason these formulas can never be taken “abstractly,” that is, out of total context of belief. It is misleading to single out particular statements of the Fathers and to detach them from the total perspective in which they have been actually uttered, just as it is misleading to manipulate with detached quotations from the Scripture. A dangerous habit “to quote” the Fathers; is, to quote their isolated sayings and phrases outside of that concrete setting in which only they have their full and proper meaning and are truly alive. “To follow” does not mean just “to quote” the Fathers. “To follow” the Fathers means to acquire their “mind,” their phronema.

Fr. Georges Florovsky, The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century, chapter 3, which is available online here, together with other very worthwhile works of Father Florovsky.

 

Our alienation from the past: a patristic postscript

Since the previous post I have been reflecting a bit on how Father Louth’s discussion of the gulf that opens up between a discipline and its history applies to theology and, more specifically, to patristics. This also helps to explain my own experience in seeking to get in touch with the Fathers. As someone with a theological background in which the Fathers were largely missing, my immediate inclination was to look for some sort of an academic programme. But, apart from the fact that western theological faculties do not generally go in for such things, and some other complicating factors, I was also uncomfortable with this because of the way the Fathers often appear to be dealt with in western academic circles. And this connects for me with Louth’s distinction, for patristics appears to be viewed largely in historical terms - if it appears in academic programmes then this is often together with Church History. Now I certainly have nothing against Church History. But my own interest in the Fathers is not simply to understand them in their historical context, important as this is. My interest in the Fathers is theological, but this is not simply an abstract interest in which they can be used as source material for building elaborate theological artifices or an armoury for defending particular positions. It is rather concerned with their life-giving role in passing on a living Tradition which is able to feed and sustain, but also challenge and transform.

Now this does not mean that we don’t need historical knowledge, nor does it deny that the Fathers are indeed a rich resource into which we can tap. And it also doesn’t exclude critical study, an appreciation of different traditions and our posing of awkward questions. But when such a critical approach loses its rootedness in the Fathers’ own commitment to ascesis, conversion and prayer, to being taken up in and transfigured into the Mystery of Christ, then it doesn’t seem to have much point. 

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A postscript to a postscript: Shortly after writing this I came across Phil’s post at Hyperekperissou on Prayer and Patristics - Origen on How to Pray, in which he points to the Fathers’ importance in going beyond intellectual abstractions. It is also the first post in a series on Origen’s On Prayer, which looks very promising.