July 31, 2025 • 28 mins
This is the 278th episode of Anabaptist Perspectives, a podcast, blog, and YouTube channel that examines various aspects of conservative Anabaptist life and thought.
Anabaptist Perspectives has done a number of episodes on the early church and how their writings can inform and instruct us today. Kyle Stolzfus addresses some of the points previously discussed that drew pushback from listeners regarding topics like infant baptism and apostolic succession. What is the proper way to engage with early church writings? What do we do when we find disagreements between ourselves and the teachings of early church fathers?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Yeah, to recognize that these are men who face
challenges that required heroic amounts
of faithfulness and fidelity and just hard work,
but at the same time not to elevate
them up, especially over the one who they're
giving their testimony to, that's Jesus Christ,
not to elevate them over the written witness,
(00:21):
that'd be words of Scripture, particularly
the New Testament.
And I think that's the best honor that we can
show them, just kind of keep them in their
place beneath the lordship of Jesus and to find
inspiration from them to structure our
thinking following their footsteps.
But if we really honor a church
father, I think we honor Jesus.
(00:49):
So Kyle, you spent a lot of
time studying church history.
You use that to inform some of the classes you
teach here at Faith Builders.
You did some work on Irenaeus specifically, and
over the years we've done a number of
various episodes on the early church writers and
things that they taught and so forth.
(01:10):
But we've also received a lot of feedback from
listeners in comments and things about
some of the things we've said about the early
church fathers and some of it positive, some
of it saying, "Oh, you're misrepresenting this.
That's wrong.
They didn't actually teach
this or that or whatever."
So let's start broad and then
we'll pull it in a little closer.
But starting broad, how should we go about
(01:31):
engaging with the writings of the early church?
Like really broad stroke, give us some
foundational guidelines.
While we're talking reading early church
writings, I'm thinking the
first few hundred years after
the time of Christ, you know, the ante-Nicene
fathers, the patristics.
What are some things we
should be keeping in mind?
Because it feels like we could pretty easily skew
this different directions based on our
(01:52):
own opinions and belief systems.
So talk to me about that.
Yeah.
I'd start by saying I'm excited if anybody's
interested in church history.
That makes me excited.
We need more people who are
interested in church history, I think.
And the church fathers
specifically, we're looking at them.
(02:12):
It's an era of church history in which some of
the structures hadn't been quite so formalized yet,
especially as they are
later on in the Roman Catholic tradition.
But there's still a need for people to guide, to
clarify, to kind of offer themselves in
ways that help the early church, especially
(02:33):
through some really difficult times when there
was leadership needed.
So these are men, the early church fathers, who
were working and struggling and believing
(02:54):
in a time when the church was just beginning.
So that may be a first thing to appreciate about
them as a guideline, is that they had
a historical context.
That is to say that their thinking, their
(03:17):
thinking was emerging and
reflecting on historical
challenges that they were facing, historical
opportunities that they had.
So it can be easy to misrepresent an author or a
church father when we've only partially
understood them or when we failed to appreciate
(03:39):
their historical context.
Another dimension of that is their literary
context, we'd say, where,
let's say for Irenaeus,
he's most known for his, you know, Against the
Heresies, but he also wrote some other
things too.
We've got some letters from him.
But it's important to read
as much of it as you can.
(04:01):
We've got this tendency to proof text where if
you've already arrived at a conclusion,
they go, "Well, who can I find to support that?"
Let's say a church father,
they seem kind of important.
We search for a quote from them which seems to
support our position, and you can kind
of trot that out, failing to appreciate the
(04:22):
entirety of the work of that author.
That's a quick way to kind of misinterpret or
misconstrue what they had in mind.
So these are men, they're responding to and
reflecting on with the very best of their
resources and the aid of the Holy Spirit
frequently, the challenges,
(04:43):
the opportunities that they
have.
I'd also, and this may identify me as an
Anabaptist, they are men.
So even though they deserve a level of authority
in our interpretation, they deserve a level
(05:04):
of authority in our theological reflection, not
everything about them is whole or complete,
and even their theological reflection reflects
some of their personality, their biases, their
subjects, sometimes even their hang-ups and
quirks and idiosyncrasies.
(05:26):
So for me reading them, you can get to know them
as men who've had a significant shaping
force on the history of the
church, and they need to be respected.
They are the big men in the room.
You approach a big man in the room, you don't do
so cavalierly or indifferently, it's worth
respecting them, but you do recognize after a
while they got limitations too.
(05:48):
I think that might be one of the pieces here
because it is really easy to just say, "Oh,
what early church father wrote about this and put
it in an AI search engine or something,
and it'll pull up, oh, okay, great, that was
exactly what I'm looking for," and then fail
to look into the context that they were writing
(06:09):
within, as a whole, within the church, within
the culture maybe that they
were coming from and so forth.
Yeah, right.
I think it can be helpful in addition to reading,
which I would encourage you, read
the church fathers, but also
get to know what their context is.
And for them, they didn't need to talk about that
because sometimes they're writing epistles,
(06:31):
sometimes they're writing treatises.
They understood what the context was and they
assumed that those receiving their writing
also understood what that context was.
We don't because we're
removed from that historically.
So taking some time and using some secondary
materials, in addition to your primary work,
taking some secondary materials and saying,
(06:53):
"Okay, what was the situation here?
What might have prompted him to write this?
What were the issues that were afloat that which
could help me understand more clearly
why it is he's writing these things?"
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so we're going to zoom way in now.
Okay.
So we're going to zoom way in.
(07:13):
We did some pieces on infant baptism.
Not much, just a little bit there.
And we got a lot of comments about that.
And different comments, I don't think I'll read the
whole thing, but basically, they're using
the case within the New Testament.
We see everyone converting.
And so then they get baptized, but when it comes
to a household, it says they were all
baptized together.
Okay, well, that would mean children, infants,
(07:36):
whatever would be baptized as well.
He goes on to say John Chrysostom says a lot
about this, and he very much agreed with it
talking about infant baptism.
And he says Irenaeus as well, and so forth.
And there's more to the quote.
What do you say to that, to give a specific
example there of those two church fathers
(07:56):
that would disagree with what we
had said in that previous episode?
The first thing I would say is I think it's okay
to acknowledge differences.
I think Chrysostom being an example there, that
he did promote infant baptism.
He did.
So there are some differences there.
(08:17):
I think the case could be made for Irenaeus.
I don't think it's quite as strong.
But to acknowledge that, again, these are humans.
They're reflecting as best they know how.
And in contexts which require
them, of them certain things.
That's another part that I would
also suggest if you run across this.
(08:40):
Frequently these men are
writing with intent, okay?
That is to say that they usually write to
accomplish something, okay?
And they frequently write not
just to like describe things.
They're trying to accomplish something.
So just as important as asking why did Chrysostom
(09:00):
seem to condone infant baptism, ask why.
Why is he doing that?
Another factor I think I'd put in there, and this
is just acknowledging a cultural difference,
is that in their times, in their times, societies
were much more collectivist.
(09:21):
So to make an argument based on saying, and
forgive me for being a little bit cheeky in
saying their times are a little bit different,
but I think for the fathers it can apply.
It was a more collectivist culture.
You're going to expect baptism to be applied in
(09:44):
ways that may not be exactly the same as
what we'd expect in our culture.
So be careful of the hasty equivocation because
"in Chrysostom's day he said that, therefore..."
boom, one to one equivalent,
that's how things ought to be.
He might have been being permissive in ways that
we think he's being declarative.
(10:06):
You have to be careful of his intent.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think it's easy to forget the span of time that
stands between these writers and us and
the difference of the world that they lived in.
It's a cross-cultural experience almost when
(10:28):
you're reading these guys, because it's a
different world.
But isn't it the tendency to say, "Oh, all these
church fathers agree with our position,
and so that's great, so
that verifies what we believe."
Isn't that the really easy thing to do?
It's kind of like proof texting, I guess.
Importantly there, the impulse there that's what
(10:50):
feels good about that is you are looking
for consensus among them.
And when you have a number of human witnesses
like these church fathers who are offering
their best testimony and they're saying, "I think
this is what's right and good.
This is what we want to embrace," when you see a
lot of them agreeing about something,
chances are it's going to be very important.
(11:11):
Hang on to that.
Because that's a good way to read, is to look for
the patterns of consensus.
And where you find consensus, chances are it's a
pretty significant issue.
Same way.
We say the church fathers as if they're a unified
voice, they don't all see eye to eye.
(11:36):
So yeah, you could reach back and say, "I found
one person who agrees with me, and that
adds credibility to my position."
Well, that's possible.
That's good.
You also have to be
looking at the collective voice.
Another thing that I enjoy or appreciate about
the church fathers and why I think there's
(11:59):
enthusiasm for them right now, there's a lot of
interest in them, is they have a sense
of scale.
Okay.
So sure, yes, they may talk about baptism in ways
which suggest infant baptism, but
they're probably talking about
other things, about formation.
(12:22):
They're going to care about perhaps
discipline formats of church life.
They're going to care about the new creation in
ways that if you're not sensitive, if you're
not aware of everything they write, you say, "Oh
look, he agreed with me on that point."
Okay.
But we have to be willing to also sit down and
listen long enough to say, "But what's
his broader project?"
(12:43):
And have we appreciated the whole?
So for my need, say, to defend infant baptism, I
could say, "I'm going to rally some church
fathers, find places where they agree, ignore the
rest of the scale of their argument, and
I've got it now."
Have we really?
Or are we just being dogmatic and preoccupied
(13:07):
with our own need to be right while actually
silencing them on the matter?
So another example here, just to continue on that
thread, someone else said, "Irenaeus
clearly talks about ordination when he says the
list from this apostle has come to this
person.
He gives a specific apostolic succession, and if
(13:27):
you can't figure that out, I'll pray
for you." Says this person
in their comment, because we had said some
things about, or one of the guests had said
some things about apostolic succession.
Maybe tap on that one a little bit too.
Is this another case study where we
can pull some helpful pieces from?
Well, apostolic succession, it's not an unambiguous
term, meaning that it's freighted with a lot
(13:50):
of different meanings, and depending on what that
commenter means, things would take a
different direction.
So they don't have to
favor of being involved here.
For Irenaeus, it is significant for him that
there's a connection of testimony, of witness,
you might say, back to that original stream.
(14:10):
It's in a lot of ways, and this
is what the apostles recommended.
When John and his communities are facing
challenges, he appeals to
what you've heard, what's been
given to you.
With Paul, it's the tradition to Timothy.
It's staying in continuity with this chain of
(14:32):
witnesses, and that's how the faith is
passed.
So that is an important issue, what it can tend
to mean, apostolic succession.
Later on, after Irenaeus comes to be associated
with a more formalized structure of bishops
(14:54):
and authority, and eventually cardinals, and
eventually a pope, and popes, that kind of
chain down and hand down this authority.
I don't think that that's what Irenaeus is
referring to, because there was no pope.
There was a bishop of Rome.
He seemed to be on pretty good terms with him.
(15:17):
In his career, he had to make some appeals to the
bishop of Rome, because the bishop
of Rome was mistreating some
people from his regions, he felt.
In some ways, it seems like Irenaeus castigates
him a little bit and says, "You're getting
a little high here.
Taking a little bit too
much authority to yourself."
He makes it his mission to set
(15:38):
things right, to act on justice.
Something Irenaeus was known for was his
temperance and his sense of justice.
I don't think that's what he's referring to, is
what it comes to mean later on.
It was kind of Roman Catholic idea of apostolic
succession, starting with Peter, and then
there's popes coming after that
(15:58):
line, because it didn't exist for him.
This is a case of saying, when you read this
early church writer, really pay attention
to the context that they're coming from.
Maybe they're using words that we recognize, but
they meant something different 1,800 years
ago than they do in the context we have now.Yes.
(16:21):
You're making a real strong
argument here for context, is a big deal.
Context and also our own thirst for anachronism.
We can take our context.
Define anachronism.
Yeah, I'll do that.
It's a great word.
Everybody should know anachronism.
It's partly just fun to say.
Anachronism is this kind of undisciplined
(16:42):
approach to history where we just take our
context as being determining what a word or a
phrase means in all contexts.
For that example of apostolic succession, it's
saying, "Well, apostolic succession
meant for Irenaeus what it
means for the Roman Catholic Church."
(17:05):
Whereas in fact, in the Roman Catholic Church,
they've established and they've refined what
that's meant through the years and carried it
forward in a way that may or may not be
recognizable or intended by Irenaeus.
But when you read it back on to him, we're kind
of saddling with him with that and saying,
"This is what you meant."
(17:26):
In fact, it might be
something somewhat different.
It would be easy to load
meaning into a word that's used.
That meaning wasn't even there originally.
It wasn't even present.
Sometimes we'll say things like, "When Paul says,
"Dunamis," what he meant was dynamite."
Well, no.
(17:47):
He meant power.
More generally, but probably not the explosive
because he didn't have that.
Yeah, that's a great point.
So a thing to keep in mind here then, maybe the
temptation is to label some church fathers
as a bad influence because they
disagree with our beliefs or practice.
That would be, I guess, the same thing you're
(18:09):
saying, just going the other direction.
It's like, "Oh, well, we don't like that church
father because they disagree with what I say."
I'd agree that certain church fathers on certain
points, they lose that sense of scale.
They get out of touch with the consensus that's
emerging, and where they do that, they
should be called out.
(18:31):
Again, some of their limitations as humans and
sometimes their sinfulness has come out.
Would it be worthwhile to perhaps not consult
certain fathers on certain...
Absolutely.
Maybe a bad idea.
I think also we might be just acknowledging here
that the tendency of humans and of these
(18:56):
men too, as great of leaders as they were, is
tremendous pressure they were under.
The human possibility of capitulating, of
surrendering, really important things sometimes
when they're faced with alternatives.
That's also a possibility for some of these men.
(19:18):
Sometimes they do have a history of
capitulation on important points.
We have to be aware of that too, but to be a
church father means that to take the average,
they were faithful men.
And hear me right, commendable in a way that we
can only aspire to measure up to.
(19:39):
Okay.
So clearly there are lots of different groups and
denominations and so forth that point
to the early church fathers to help, as reference
points say, for their belief system.
And things that all of this starts getting really
complicated and confusing because
you have really diverse groups pointing back to,
"Oh, it's in the patristics, the early
church writings that this and this and this, and
(20:01):
then a different group that says the opposite
thing says the same," points back.
It gets really confusing.
So the question is, is it still
worth reading the early church writings?
And if so, why should we care?
And where should we start if we
want to start reading this stuff?
Because I've started to
and it's really overwhelming.
I mean, there's so much there.
(20:22):
Where do I start?
And it's easy for the stuff to get hijacked by
different denominations and schools of
thought and so forth.
Anyway, speak in to that.
The main point there being if I'm hearing you
right, that if you're hoping to make a
unified church out of reading the fathers, that
may not be the best solution.
It can actually be divisive.
(20:45):
Well, yeah, or maybe just confusing is the word
that comes to my mind because I see it
and use, I mean, you're seeing this in the
comments that we're getting, right?
You know, "Oh, well, clearly you should believe
in infant baptism if you read the early church."
Whereas the next person that I might talk to
says, "Oh, no, clearly not if you read
the early church writings."
It starts getting really confusing.
And so then it's just like, I
(21:05):
don't even know where to start.
I'm not even going to read these because it's
just too much to untangle.
And that can discourage people from ever engaging
with these writings to begin with.
So I guess what I'm saying is make a case for
like, why should we care about these writings
and why you think people should read them?
Yeah.
Well, I hope in saying this that I don't diminish
them too much, the fathers.
(21:29):
But I could have first maybe
see this in terms of encounter.
And in my work with Irenaeus, it started off, I
just wanted to engage his ideas because
I had a project.
But toward the end of it, I got to know him a bit
more as a person, as a man who turned
(21:50):
himself in to some really challenging times in
church history, especially with his work
with the Valentinian Gnostics.
And I began to appreciate him and admire him and
hope to learn from him in the same way
that I would from somebody that I appreciate
because of the kind of life that they have
(22:13):
lived out.
So maybe that's a starting point to move through
that confusion, say, "Who were these men?
How did they respond?"
Because all of them had a story to tell.
All of them had a life for the fathers.
It included adversity and difficulty.
And there's usually something
there that's worth imitating.
(22:33):
Now, the second thing I might just suggest is,
yeah, watch for their intent.
Part of why they're recognized as a church father
frequently isn't just because they
are really sharp, which they were,
are really capable and competent.
They tended to be.
It's also because they loved
(22:54):
the church and they loved Jesus.
So our response to them, our response to them, if
we're going to be willing to cherry pick
just to add a little padding to our argument,
that might be exactly violating their intention.
You've got to look past, not just mine them for
(23:16):
my own historicist project, but also to
see toward their heart a little
bit, which again, is not unmixed.
These men lived lives of repentance frequently.
But to ask the question, how is it, like Paul
would suggest for us, how is this expedient
for the building of Christ's body?
(23:39):
And that becomes the primary question.
So practically speaking, if someone wants to
start, do you have a recommendation of
where in the church fathers
they should start reading?
Oh, wow.
There's a lot of options to choose from.Yeah.
I think you should all start with Irenaeus.
(24:04):
He still won my heart in some ways.
But there's a lot to appreciate.
There's some that are more
philosophically or dogmatically inclined.
They tend to be harder read and a real slog.
Gregory of Nyssa, a Origen, some
of them, a lot of appreciation.
(24:25):
But I wouldn't recommend starting there
necessarily unless that's your gut.
Some like Clement, Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Rome,
Irenaeus, I'm just drawing from memory.
In my experience, have been a little bit more
approachable and maybe don't need quite so
much explaining either.
(24:47):
But do start.
Yeah, I think that's the one piece.
If people take something away from this podcast,
is to actually go and engage with these writings
themselves instead of the, like you've been
saying, the cherry picking, not paying attention
to the context of what these men were facing as
they were writing these things.
What were the issues that
(25:08):
they were having to wrestle with?
What was the context of the society and culture
and language and all of
these things that, I mean,
these works were not written in a vacuum,
obviously, and keeping all of that in mind.
I think that's some important
principles to leave people with.
And I hope, I should say here too,
as we wrap up, by emphasizing history,
(25:31):
by emphasizing the humanity of these men, it
could feel like I'm diminishing them.
That's not my intention.
That can frequently happen where as soon as you
start to look at context,
you start to historicize.
That is to say, oh, you belittle them and then
you can just kind of do more cherry picking.
(25:51):
He didn't really understand what he was doing
here, but here are some things that I feel
mattered as a historian.
No, I don't think that's quite right.
The invitation here is to look at them as men, as
limited and sometimes as broken as they were,
who added leadership and who added thoughtful
(26:12):
ways of looking at the world to the church,
but neither to elevate them too highly,
especially not to give them priority, say, over
the New Testament or over Jesus.
And I think that's one of the things, not lift
these writings more highly than they are,
(26:32):
but yet also give them the due respect and honor
that they do deserve, you know, for sure.
Yeah, to recognize that these are men who faced
challenges that required heroic amounts of
faithfulness and fidelity and just hard work,
but at the same time, not to elevate them up,
(26:53):
especially over the one who they're giving their
testimony to, that's Jesus Christ,
not to elevate them over the written witness,
that'd be words of Scripture,
particularly the New Testament.
And I think that's the best honor that we can
show them, just kind of keep them in their place
beneath the lordship of Jesus
and to find inspiration from them, to structure
(27:15):
our thinking, following their footsteps.
But if we really honor a church
father, I think we honor Jesus.
Yeah, that's an important piece.
Well, thanks for describing this. Hopefully, some
of the people who had these comments and feedback
for us can listen to this,
(27:36):
and maybe you'll give them some more pieces to
work with. I think that's important.
And in the end, so that people listening to this
will say, "Oh, maybe I should
pick up some of these early church writings
and give them a read." I think that's the one
piece that I hope comes out of this.
Yeah. I'm so glad for the questions, too.
Yeah.
Wow.
Thanks for sharing, Kyle. We appreciate it.
(27:59):
Thanks for listening to this episode with Kyle.
If you found this interesting, you may want to
check out our other project
called "Anabaptist Origins,"
which is a documentary series about the
beginnings of the Anabaptist movement.
You can find more information on the other
website we have called AnabaptistOrigins.org.
It's also its own YouTube channel,
which you can find linked down below.
Thanks again for listening, and
(28:19):
we'll catch you in the next episode.
Yeah, to recognize that these are men who face
challenges that required heroic amounts
of faithfulness and fidelity and just hard work,
but at the same time not to elevate
them up, especially over the one who they're
giving their testimony to, that's Jesus Christ,
not to elevate them over the written witness,
(00:21):
that'd be words of Scripture, particularly
the New Testament.
And I think that's the best honor that we can
show them, just kind of keep them in their
place beneath the lordship of Jesus and to find
inspiration from them to structure our
thinking following their footsteps.
But if we really honor a church
father, I think we honor Jesus.
(00:49):
So Kyle, you spent a lot of
time studying church history.
You use that to inform some of the classes you
teach here at Faith Builders.
You did some work on Irenaeus specifically, and
over the years we've done a number of
various episodes on the early church writers and
things that they taught and so forth.
(01:10):
But we've also received a lot of feedback from
listeners in comments and things about
some of the things we've said about the early
church fathers and some of it positive, some
of it saying, "Oh, you're misrepresenting this.
That's wrong.
They didn't actually teach
this or that or whatever."
So let's start broad and then
we'll pull it in a little closer.
But starting broad, how should we go about
(01:31):
engaging with the writings of the early church?
Like really broad stroke, give us some
foundational guidelines.
While we're talking reading early church
writings, I'm thinking the
first few hundred years after
the time of Christ, you know, the ante-Nicene
fathers, the patristics.
What are some things we
should be keeping in mind?
Because it feels like we could pretty easily skew
this different directions based on our
(01:52):
own opinions and belief systems.
So talk to me about that.
Yeah.
I'd start by saying I'm excited if anybody's
interested in church history.
That makes me excited.
We need more people who are
interested in church history, I think.
And the church fathers
specifically, we're looking at them.
(02:12):
It's an era of church history in which some of
the structures hadn't been quite so formalized yet,
especially as they are
later on in the Roman Catholic tradition.
But there's still a need for people to guide, to
clarify, to kind of offer themselves in
ways that help the early church, especially
(02:33):
through some really difficult times when there
was leadership needed.
So these are men, the early church fathers, who
were working and struggling and believing
(02:54):
in a time when the church was just beginning.
So that may be a first thing to appreciate about
them as a guideline, is that they had
a historical context.
That is to say that their thinking, their
(03:17):
thinking was emerging and
reflecting on historical
challenges that they were facing, historical
opportunities that they had.
So it can be easy to misrepresent an author or a
church father when we've only partially
understood them or when we failed to appreciate
(03:39):
their historical context.
Another dimension of that is their literary
context, we'd say, where,
let's say for Irenaeus,
he's most known for his, you know, Against the
Heresies, but he also wrote some other
things too.
We've got some letters from him.
But it's important to read
as much of it as you can.
(04:01):
We've got this tendency to proof text where if
you've already arrived at a conclusion,
they go, "Well, who can I find to support that?"
Let's say a church father,
they seem kind of important.
We search for a quote from them which seems to
support our position, and you can kind
of trot that out, failing to appreciate the
(04:22):
entirety of the work of that author.
That's a quick way to kind of misinterpret or
misconstrue what they had in mind.
So these are men, they're responding to and
reflecting on with the very best of their
resources and the aid of the Holy Spirit
frequently, the challenges,
(04:43):
the opportunities that they
have.
I'd also, and this may identify me as an
Anabaptist, they are men.
So even though they deserve a level of authority
in our interpretation, they deserve a level
(05:04):
of authority in our theological reflection, not
everything about them is whole or complete,
and even their theological reflection reflects
some of their personality, their biases, their
subjects, sometimes even their hang-ups and
quirks and idiosyncrasies.
(05:26):
So for me reading them, you can get to know them
as men who've had a significant shaping
force on the history of the
church, and they need to be respected.
They are the big men in the room.
You approach a big man in the room, you don't do
so cavalierly or indifferently, it's worth
respecting them, but you do recognize after a
while they got limitations too.
(05:48):
I think that might be one of the pieces here
because it is really easy to just say, "Oh,
what early church father wrote about this and put
it in an AI search engine or something,
and it'll pull up, oh, okay, great, that was
exactly what I'm looking for," and then fail
to look into the context that they were writing
(06:09):
within, as a whole, within the church, within
the culture maybe that they
were coming from and so forth.
Yeah, right.
I think it can be helpful in addition to reading,
which I would encourage you, read
the church fathers, but also
get to know what their context is.
And for them, they didn't need to talk about that
because sometimes they're writing epistles,
(06:31):
sometimes they're writing treatises.
They understood what the context was and they
assumed that those receiving their writing
also understood what that context was.
We don't because we're
removed from that historically.
So taking some time and using some secondary
materials, in addition to your primary work,
taking some secondary materials and saying,
(06:53):
"Okay, what was the situation here?
What might have prompted him to write this?
What were the issues that were afloat that which
could help me understand more clearly
why it is he's writing these things?"
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so we're going to zoom way in now.
Okay.
So we're going to zoom way in.
(07:13):
We did some pieces on infant baptism.
Not much, just a little bit there.
And we got a lot of comments about that.
And different comments, I don't think I'll read the
whole thing, but basically, they're using
the case within the New Testament.
We see everyone converting.
And so then they get baptized, but when it comes
to a household, it says they were all
baptized together.
Okay, well, that would mean children, infants,
(07:36):
whatever would be baptized as well.
He goes on to say John Chrysostom says a lot
about this, and he very much agreed with it
talking about infant baptism.
And he says Irenaeus as well, and so forth.
And there's more to the quote.
What do you say to that, to give a specific
example there of those two church fathers
(07:56):
that would disagree with what we
had said in that previous episode?
The first thing I would say is I think it's okay
to acknowledge differences.
I think Chrysostom being an example there, that
he did promote infant baptism.
He did.
So there are some differences there.
(08:17):
I think the case could be made for Irenaeus.
I don't think it's quite as strong.
But to acknowledge that, again, these are humans.
They're reflecting as best they know how.
And in contexts which require
them, of them certain things.
That's another part that I would
also suggest if you run across this.
(08:40):
Frequently these men are
writing with intent, okay?
That is to say that they usually write to
accomplish something, okay?
And they frequently write not
just to like describe things.
They're trying to accomplish something.
So just as important as asking why did Chrysostom
(09:00):
seem to condone infant baptism, ask why.
Why is he doing that?
Another factor I think I'd put in there, and this
is just acknowledging a cultural difference,
is that in their times, in their times, societies
were much more collectivist.
(09:21):
So to make an argument based on saying, and
forgive me for being a little bit cheeky in
saying their times are a little bit different,
but I think for the fathers it can apply.
It was a more collectivist culture.
You're going to expect baptism to be applied in
(09:44):
ways that may not be exactly the same as
what we'd expect in our culture.
So be careful of the hasty equivocation because
"in Chrysostom's day he said that, therefore..."
boom, one to one equivalent,
that's how things ought to be.
He might have been being permissive in ways that
we think he's being declarative.
(10:06):
You have to be careful of his intent.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think it's easy to forget the span of time that
stands between these writers and us and
the difference of the world that they lived in.
It's a cross-cultural experience almost when
(10:28):
you're reading these guys, because it's a
different world.
But isn't it the tendency to say, "Oh, all these
church fathers agree with our position,
and so that's great, so
that verifies what we believe."
Isn't that the really easy thing to do?
It's kind of like proof texting, I guess.
Importantly there, the impulse there that's what
(10:50):
feels good about that is you are looking
for consensus among them.
And when you have a number of human witnesses
like these church fathers who are offering
their best testimony and they're saying, "I think
this is what's right and good.
This is what we want to embrace," when you see a
lot of them agreeing about something,
chances are it's going to be very important.
(11:11):
Hang on to that.
Because that's a good way to read, is to look for
the patterns of consensus.
And where you find consensus, chances are it's a
pretty significant issue.
Same way.
We say the church fathers as if they're a unified
voice, they don't all see eye to eye.
(11:36):
So yeah, you could reach back and say, "I found
one person who agrees with me, and that
adds credibility to my position."
Well, that's possible.
That's good.
You also have to be
looking at the collective voice.
Another thing that I enjoy or appreciate about
the church fathers and why I think there's
(11:59):
enthusiasm for them right now, there's a lot of
interest in them, is they have a sense
of scale.
Okay.
So sure, yes, they may talk about baptism in ways
which suggest infant baptism, but
they're probably talking about
other things, about formation.
(12:22):
They're going to care about perhaps
discipline formats of church life.
They're going to care about the new creation in
ways that if you're not sensitive, if you're
not aware of everything they write, you say, "Oh
look, he agreed with me on that point."
Okay.
But we have to be willing to also sit down and
listen long enough to say, "But what's
his broader project?"
(12:43):
And have we appreciated the whole?
So for my need, say, to defend infant baptism, I
could say, "I'm going to rally some church
fathers, find places where they agree, ignore the
rest of the scale of their argument, and
I've got it now."
Have we really?
Or are we just being dogmatic and preoccupied
(13:07):
with our own need to be right while actually
silencing them on the matter?
So another example here, just to continue on that
thread, someone else said, "Irenaeus
clearly talks about ordination when he says the
list from this apostle has come to this
person.
He gives a specific apostolic succession, and if
(13:27):
you can't figure that out, I'll pray
for you." Says this person
in their comment, because we had said some
things about, or one of the guests had said
some things about apostolic succession.
Maybe tap on that one a little bit too.
Is this another case study where we
can pull some helpful pieces from?
Well, apostolic succession, it's not an unambiguous
term, meaning that it's freighted with a lot
(13:50):
of different meanings, and depending on what that
commenter means, things would take a
different direction.
So they don't have to
favor of being involved here.
For Irenaeus, it is significant for him that
there's a connection of testimony, of witness,
you might say, back to that original stream.
(14:10):
It's in a lot of ways, and this
is what the apostles recommended.
When John and his communities are facing
challenges, he appeals to
what you've heard, what's been
given to you.
With Paul, it's the tradition to Timothy.
It's staying in continuity with this chain of
(14:32):
witnesses, and that's how the faith is
passed.
So that is an important issue, what it can tend
to mean, apostolic succession.
Later on, after Irenaeus comes to be associated
with a more formalized structure of bishops
(14:54):
and authority, and eventually cardinals, and
eventually a pope, and popes, that kind of
chain down and hand down this authority.
I don't think that that's what Irenaeus is
referring to, because there was no pope.
There was a bishop of Rome.
He seemed to be on pretty good terms with him.
(15:17):
In his career, he had to make some appeals to the
bishop of Rome, because the bishop
of Rome was mistreating some
people from his regions, he felt.
In some ways, it seems like Irenaeus castigates
him a little bit and says, "You're getting
a little high here.
Taking a little bit too
much authority to yourself."
He makes it his mission to set
(15:38):
things right, to act on justice.
Something Irenaeus was known for was his
temperance and his sense of justice.
I don't think that's what he's referring to, is
what it comes to mean later on.
It was kind of Roman Catholic idea of apostolic
succession, starting with Peter, and then
there's popes coming after that
(15:58):
line, because it didn't exist for him.
This is a case of saying, when you read this
early church writer, really pay attention
to the context that they're coming from.
Maybe they're using words that we recognize, but
they meant something different 1,800 years
ago than they do in the context we have now.Yes.
(16:21):
You're making a real strong
argument here for context, is a big deal.
Context and also our own thirst for anachronism.
We can take our context.
Define anachronism.
Yeah, I'll do that.
It's a great word.
Everybody should know anachronism.
It's partly just fun to say.
Anachronism is this kind of undisciplined
(16:42):
approach to history where we just take our
context as being determining what a word or a
phrase means in all contexts.
For that example of apostolic succession, it's
saying, "Well, apostolic succession
meant for Irenaeus what it
means for the Roman Catholic Church."
(17:05):
Whereas in fact, in the Roman Catholic Church,
they've established and they've refined what
that's meant through the years and carried it
forward in a way that may or may not be
recognizable or intended by Irenaeus.
But when you read it back on to him, we're kind
of saddling with him with that and saying,
"This is what you meant."
(17:26):
In fact, it might be
something somewhat different.
It would be easy to load
meaning into a word that's used.
That meaning wasn't even there originally.
It wasn't even present.
Sometimes we'll say things like, "When Paul says,
"Dunamis," what he meant was dynamite."
Well, no.
(17:47):
He meant power.
More generally, but probably not the explosive
because he didn't have that.
Yeah, that's a great point.
So a thing to keep in mind here then, maybe the
temptation is to label some church fathers
as a bad influence because they
disagree with our beliefs or practice.
That would be, I guess, the same thing you're
(18:09):
saying, just going the other direction.
It's like, "Oh, well, we don't like that church
father because they disagree with what I say."
I'd agree that certain church fathers on certain
points, they lose that sense of scale.
They get out of touch with the consensus that's
emerging, and where they do that, they
should be called out.
(18:31):
Again, some of their limitations as humans and
sometimes their sinfulness has come out.
Would it be worthwhile to perhaps not consult
certain fathers on certain...
Absolutely.
Maybe a bad idea.
I think also we might be just acknowledging here
that the tendency of humans and of these
(18:56):
men too, as great of leaders as they were, is
tremendous pressure they were under.
The human possibility of capitulating, of
surrendering, really important things sometimes
when they're faced with alternatives.
That's also a possibility for some of these men.
(19:18):
Sometimes they do have a history of
capitulation on important points.
We have to be aware of that too, but to be a
church father means that to take the average,
they were faithful men.
And hear me right, commendable in a way that we
can only aspire to measure up to.
(19:39):
Okay.
So clearly there are lots of different groups and
denominations and so forth that point
to the early church fathers to help, as reference
points say, for their belief system.
And things that all of this starts getting really
complicated and confusing because
you have really diverse groups pointing back to,
"Oh, it's in the patristics, the early
church writings that this and this and this, and
(20:01):
then a different group that says the opposite
thing says the same," points back.
It gets really confusing.
So the question is, is it still
worth reading the early church writings?
And if so, why should we care?
And where should we start if we
want to start reading this stuff?
Because I've started to
and it's really overwhelming.
I mean, there's so much there.
(20:22):
Where do I start?
And it's easy for the stuff to get hijacked by
different denominations and schools of
thought and so forth.
Anyway, speak in to that.
The main point there being if I'm hearing you
right, that if you're hoping to make a
unified church out of reading the fathers, that
may not be the best solution.
It can actually be divisive.
(20:45):
Well, yeah, or maybe just confusing is the word
that comes to my mind because I see it
and use, I mean, you're seeing this in the
comments that we're getting, right?
You know, "Oh, well, clearly you should believe
in infant baptism if you read the early church."
Whereas the next person that I might talk to
says, "Oh, no, clearly not if you read
the early church writings."
It starts getting really confusing.
And so then it's just like, I
(21:05):
don't even know where to start.
I'm not even going to read these because it's
just too much to untangle.
And that can discourage people from ever engaging
with these writings to begin with.
So I guess what I'm saying is make a case for
like, why should we care about these writings
and why you think people should read them?
Yeah.
Well, I hope in saying this that I don't diminish
them too much, the fathers.
(21:29):
But I could have first maybe
see this in terms of encounter.
And in my work with Irenaeus, it started off, I
just wanted to engage his ideas because
I had a project.
But toward the end of it, I got to know him a bit
more as a person, as a man who turned
(21:50):
himself in to some really challenging times in
church history, especially with his work
with the Valentinian Gnostics.
And I began to appreciate him and admire him and
hope to learn from him in the same way
that I would from somebody that I appreciate
because of the kind of life that they have
(22:13):
lived out.
So maybe that's a starting point to move through
that confusion, say, "Who were these men?
How did they respond?"
Because all of them had a story to tell.
All of them had a life for the fathers.
It included adversity and difficulty.
And there's usually something
there that's worth imitating.
(22:33):
Now, the second thing I might just suggest is,
yeah, watch for their intent.
Part of why they're recognized as a church father
frequently isn't just because they
are really sharp, which they were,
are really capable and competent.
They tended to be.
It's also because they loved
(22:54):
the church and they loved Jesus.
So our response to them, our response to them, if
we're going to be willing to cherry pick
just to add a little padding to our argument,
that might be exactly violating their intention.
You've got to look past, not just mine them for
(23:16):
my own historicist project, but also to
see toward their heart a little
bit, which again, is not unmixed.
These men lived lives of repentance frequently.
But to ask the question, how is it, like Paul
would suggest for us, how is this expedient
for the building of Christ's body?
(23:39):
And that becomes the primary question.
So practically speaking, if someone wants to
start, do you have a recommendation of
where in the church fathers
they should start reading?
Oh, wow.
There's a lot of options to choose from.Yeah.
I think you should all start with Irenaeus.
(24:04):
He still won my heart in some ways.
But there's a lot to appreciate.
There's some that are more
philosophically or dogmatically inclined.
They tend to be harder read and a real slog.
Gregory of Nyssa, a Origen, some
of them, a lot of appreciation.
(24:25):
But I wouldn't recommend starting there
necessarily unless that's your gut.
Some like Clement, Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Rome,
Irenaeus, I'm just drawing from memory.
In my experience, have been a little bit more
approachable and maybe don't need quite so
much explaining either.
(24:47):
But do start.
Yeah, I think that's the one piece.
If people take something away from this podcast,
is to actually go and engage with these writings
themselves instead of the, like you've been
saying, the cherry picking, not paying attention
to the context of what these men were facing as
they were writing these things.
What were the issues that
(25:08):
they were having to wrestle with?
What was the context of the society and culture
and language and all of
these things that, I mean,
these works were not written in a vacuum,
obviously, and keeping all of that in mind.
I think that's some important
principles to leave people with.
And I hope, I should say here too,
as we wrap up, by emphasizing history,
(25:31):
by emphasizing the humanity of these men, it
could feel like I'm diminishing them.
That's not my intention.
That can frequently happen where as soon as you
start to look at context,
you start to historicize.
That is to say, oh, you belittle them and then
you can just kind of do more cherry picking.
(25:51):
He didn't really understand what he was doing
here, but here are some things that I feel
mattered as a historian.
No, I don't think that's quite right.
The invitation here is to look at them as men, as
limited and sometimes as broken as they were,
who added leadership and who added thoughtful
(26:12):
ways of looking at the world to the church,
but neither to elevate them too highly,
especially not to give them priority, say, over
the New Testament or over Jesus.
And I think that's one of the things, not lift
these writings more highly than they are,
(26:32):
but yet also give them the due respect and honor
that they do deserve, you know, for sure.
Yeah, to recognize that these are men who faced
challenges that required heroic amounts of
faithfulness and fidelity and just hard work,
but at the same time, not to elevate them up,
(26:53):
especially over the one who they're giving their
testimony to, that's Jesus Christ,
not to elevate them over the written witness,
that'd be words of Scripture,
particularly the New Testament.
And I think that's the best honor that we can
show them, just kind of keep them in their place
beneath the lordship of Jesus
and to find inspiration from them, to structure
(27:15):
our thinking, following their footsteps.
But if we really honor a church
father, I think we honor Jesus.
Yeah, that's an important piece.
Well, thanks for describing this. Hopefully, some
of the people who had these comments and feedback
for us can listen to this,
(27:36):
and maybe you'll give them some more pieces to
work with. I think that's important.
And in the end, so that people listening to this
will say, "Oh, maybe I should
pick up some of these early church writings
and give them a read." I think that's the one
piece that I hope comes out of this.
Yeah. I'm so glad for the questions, too.
Yeah.
Wow.
Thanks for sharing, Kyle. We appreciate it.
(27:59):
Thanks for listening to this episode with Kyle.
If you found this interesting, you may want to
check out our other project
called "Anabaptist Origins,"
which is a documentary series about the
beginnings of the Anabaptist movement.
You can find more information on the other
website we have called AnabaptistOrigins.org.
It's also its own YouTube channel,
which you can find linked down below.
Thanks again for listening, and
(28:19):
we'll catch you in the next episode.
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