August 7, 2025 • 28 mins
On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast (08/07/25), we pick up where we ended on our previous broadcast and present more of an episode of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hank is talking with Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio, author of When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers. Hank and Dr. D’Ambrosio discuss D’Ambrosio’s presentation of the chaff mixed in with the wheat of Origen of Alexandria’s genius in his book, Tertullian and the term Trinity, Cyprian of Carthage on the unity of the church and the concept of having God the Father along with the Church as the mother, the Edict of Milan, the Council of Nicea, why heresy arises when people become impatient with the paradoxical mysteries of the Christian faith, and one of the biggest problems facing the church today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. This
is the Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank Canigraph. We're
on the air because truth matters and life matters. More
on today's special edition of The Bible answer Man, we
pick up where we ended on our previous broadcast and
present more of the pre recorded episode of the Hank
(00:29):
Unplugged podcast. Hank is talking with doctor Marcellino de Ambrosio,
author of When the Church Was Young Voices of the
Early Fathers. Let's now rejoin Hank Cannigraph and doctor Dembrosio
in their conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You present Origin as a genius on the one hand,
but you also point out that there was chaff mixed
with the wheat of Origin's genius.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah. In fact, people in the history of the church
so aware of the chaff that they dismissed the wheat.
And so what we got to do is go back
and recover that wheat and not discard it because there's chaff.
There are some allegories that get kind of wild with Origin,
and there are also some doctrines. Now we just have
to keep in mind there were no ecumenical councils yet
we didn't have the Nicene Creed yet in the time
(01:20):
of Origin. So we had the scriptures, we had the liturgy,
we had the absolute tradition, but lots of things hadn't
been explained yet. And Origin was a pioneer. He was
really an explorer, and that was part of his role.
And explorers and pioneers sometimes get off on the wrong track.
In Origin did, and so there are some things that
he thought. One of the things to just keep in mind,
(01:42):
he always said, I'm in complete submission, of course to
the Lord, but also to the Church. I'm a man
of the Church. And if there's anything I ever say
that the Church says is wrong, don't listen to me,
listen to the church. So he has some beautiful quotes
along those lines. He's very humble man. But in that
time when he was doing exploration, he went in places
that the Church later said, no, that's not really the
(02:03):
right place to go like that. At the end, all
will be saved, including the demons, you know. So there's
certain kinds of things that we don't follow Origin on.
But what the Church has retained of Origins thought is priceless,
and you can find it in the Eastern Fathers you
can find it in the Western Fathers. Just before recording
this podcast, it went through Holy Week and the water
(02:25):
and the blood that flowed from Christ's side. You see
in that all the fathers, like Chris Systems say, you
know that we see there Eucharist and baptism from which
the church is born and takes nourishment. Well, the first
one that we have who sees that and writes that
in the tradition is Origin. He could have received that
(02:46):
from Apostolic tradition, or it could have been an insight
that he had that Everyone said after him, Yes, absolutely,
that's right. We're not sure, but he's a very important
influencer of all the fathers East and West. Augustine, Chris
system Nis. Just so many of the great fathers owe
so much to Origin, and therefore we owe so much
to him as well.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Another great apologist in the early Church was Tertullian. Whenever
I say Tertullian, I think about trinity, because he is
the one who coined that Latin term trinity, term we
use over and over again in modern vernacular within the Church.
And yet this is a term that qudifies what is
taught in scripture, not a term that we find in
(03:29):
scripture exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
And that's part of what the folows of the church
do is they pass on the Apostolic tradition, but they
also help clarify it. They also helped give us structure, concepts,
words to express it better. And so we get this
word trinitas that explains three persons in one God, and
(03:52):
that classic definition we find in Tertullian. And in the
same way we find the beautiful expression that Christ is
one person and in two nature's human and divine. These
two formula become classic in Christian orthodoxy both east and
west of the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church and
(04:12):
Protestants who are trinitarian. You know, all we have this
in common, and we have Tertullian in large part to
thank for expressing it with this kind of conciseness and clarity.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
What do you make of Tertullian's fall from grace as it.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Were, Well, you talked about not sugarcoating the story, you know,
and Totalian is a good example of genius, you know.
I think that there are gifts called charisms that the
Holy Spirit gives to people, and that doesn't necessarily mean
there's no faults when it comes to holiness, you know,
and I think the problem with Tourtullian he is a
(04:49):
bit arrogant, and he's a bit proud, and he ends
up getting involved with a rigorous sect called the Montanists.
And part of what they were about, they're very critical
of church authority for being too soft on people, too
soft on sinners. And unfortunately, this is the direction that
Totellian goes in in the later years of his life,
(05:11):
very rigorous about sin, about forgiveness, about many things having
to do with pleasure and sexuality. He just goes off
with this movement that was popular in the latter part
of the second century. So that's kind of sad, but
it doesn't invalidate the great contributions that he makes through
his earlier writings, and even actually after he starts veering
(05:32):
off in some of these other areas, still his christology
and his trinitarian theology is very important, very good. So again,
I love the fact that we are not obliged. We
are Christians, as Catholics, as Orthodox, as Protestant Christians, as
Evangelical Christians. We are not beholden to one person except
to Jesus Christ. And so you know, even though in
(05:54):
the Orthodox and Catholic Church we have and the processors
as well. We have heroes and saints. You know, we
don't follow any person completely other than Jesus. And I
would say in the Fathers of the Church, it's what
they agree on together that witnesses of the Apostolic tradition,
and there there seemed to be authoritative and infallible. But
you know, individually they can go off a little bit
(06:16):
here and there, and most of them did, other than
Gregory of nazianzis the Gregory the theologian. He's one that
never seems to have really gone off in any of
his writing, but others do. But the problem is, you know,
in many cases, a lot of times when they do
go off, it's only later that the church clarifies the position. Unfortunately,
with Urtullian, unlike Origin, he didn't have the humility that
(06:37):
Origin had or the holiness. In my opinion, Tertullian was
an imperfect character, but a great one.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Nonetheless, as we all are. Cyprian of Carthage, you can't
fail to mention cyprin I have quoted him over and
over again through the course of my minister because he
was famous for on the unity of the Church. And
in that volume he talks about the fact that you
(07:03):
can't have God for your father if you don't have
the Church for your mother, that outside the church there
is no salvation because salvation is the Church. And in
talking about the unity of the Church, he uses the
illustration the seamless Tunic of Jesus Christ as a symbol
for unity.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Absolutely, and I think it's important, you know, this idea
of the Church as mother. For some folks, that's kind
of a different idea. I don't think you find lots
of Christians thinking of the church that way. I think
a lot of times people think of the church rather
as an institution. And you know, Cyprian is very clear
on the importance of the bishop as the local sign
(07:47):
and focal point and instrument of unity, and so he's
very strong on the importance of the authority of the bishop.
But for him, the church is not primarily an institution.
It's primarily a mother, and the baptismal fond is the
mother's womb through which new children come. I love this,
and I think all we need to kind of think
about our own model of the church and how we
(08:08):
think about the church. But the church is really an
organic reality. There's lots of different metaphors for the Church,
but the primary ones are things like family, mother, and
Body of Christ, and not so much institution. So we
see yet the institutional dimension is very important to preserve
the unity of that family and the connect it to
(08:28):
its apostolic foundation. So I think Cyprian is really an
important figure. The Church of North Africa is a very
important church. Tertullian was one of the thinkers of that,
and you know, it's fascinating. Even though Tritullian seems to
have died out of full communion with the Church, and
the Bishop of Carthage, the successor to that Bishop of Tertullian, Cyprian,
(08:53):
still calls Tertullian a master and reads Totalian regularly. And
I love this that the church is able to look
past the faults of its sons and daughters and you know,
eat the meat and spit out the bones. And that's
that's what Cyprian did when it came to the legacy
of Tertullian.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And ultimately Saint Cyprian beheaded for the faith once for
all delivered to the saints. And the story is poignant,
it's profound, and you know, we see modern day beheadings
taking place in the Levant, and we think about so
many who were beheaded, bead having their head cut off,
(09:32):
like John the Baptist in the early Church.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It is amazing. Yeah, and you know that was a
merciful way to die, by the way, you know, crucifixion
was the shameful way to put a slave to death
or provincial so a citizen who committed a capital crime
would be beheaded, and that's how Justin died. That's how
Cyprian died. I think it's beautiful that. You know, the
Romans wanted to go after the heads of the church.
(09:59):
They thought they they could get rid of the leaders,
that the whole movement would die. So they went after
the clergy around the year two fifty, and that's how
Cyprian died, and so did at that time the Bishop
of Rome. The pope also died in that same persecution.
But you know that did not destroy the church, and
in fact, that emperor fell into divine judgment. He went
(10:20):
into battle in the east against the Parthians and was
the only Roman emperor ever to be captured and never
be returned by the Parthians. We don't know what happened
to him to this day for sure. But we know
that his son decided to change his tune and stop persecution.
So there was a period of peace under his son
(10:41):
that lasted about forty years.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
For the church, don't go away, We'll be right back
and rejoined Hank Hanigraft's conversation with doctor Marcolino dem Brosio.
Long before the schism between East and West, long before
the words Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical referred to communities and
separated from each other, the fathers of the Church gloried
(11:04):
in the one faith of the United Body of Christ,
which can be none other than Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox.
It's time to rediscover our common inheritance. Marcellino Dembrosio wrote,
When the Church was Young, to take modern Christians on
a journey to the days when the Church was young.
(11:24):
By exploring our roots together, we will experience new growth
that will produce new fruit, new unity, and great joy.
To receive your copy of When the Church was Young,
Voices of the Early Fathers, call eight eight eight seven
thousand curi and make a gift to support the Christian
Research Institute's life changing outreaches. Eight eight eight seven thousand
(11:49):
CURI or visit us at equip dot org. The Complete
Bible answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive collection of
the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has received throughout
his four decades as host of the Bible answer Man broadcast.
(12:13):
With more than half a million copies already in print,
this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition helped seekers and
skeptics alike sort through the truth on topics such as
reliability of the Bible, religions and cults, the resurrection and afterlife,
and many more issues vital to a better understanding of
God in Christ and our relationship to Him. To receive
(12:37):
your copy of the Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition,
Revised and Expanded, call eight eight eight seven thousand CRII
and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institute's
life changing outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRII or
visit us at equip dot org. The number of wolves
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more than docile's sheep, utterly incapable of defending themselves from
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Once again, that's equip dot org.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Do you ever wonder what the early Church was like
in when the Church was young? Doctor Marcellino Dembrosio dusts
off dry theology and brings to life the lives of
early Church heroes Augustine, Athanasius, Chrs. System and many more.
Long before the words Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical referred to
distinct and separated communities, the fathers of the Church gloried
(14:25):
in one faith, the United Body of Christ, which can
be none other than evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox. It's time
to rediscover our common inheritance and return to the days
when the Church was young, to experience new growth that
will produce new fruit, new unity and joy. To receive
your copy of When the Church was Young Voices of
(14:45):
the Early Fathers. Call eight eight eight seven thousand CRI
and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institutes
Life Changing Outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRII or
visit equip dot org.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Let's rejoin Hank Hanagraph and doctor Marcillino Dembrosio as they
continue their conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And you talk about the great persecution that begins in
AD three to h three with an edict that prescribed
that all Christian buildings were to be destroyed, and that
sacred scriptures and liturgical vessels should be seized and meetings
were forbidden. And then you had a year later all
Christian clergy being imprisoned. And yet this was one of
(15:37):
those persecutions as great as it was that ended with
the Edict of Milan in three thirteen, where you have
Christianity actually becoming the faith of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, it's a pretty amazing story. It just kind of
goes to show the blood of the martyrs really is
the seat of the church. When the world persecutes the church,
church becomes more itself and its witness becomes more compelling
and more powerful. And I think, you know, the sacrifice
of the martyrs has great indecessory power calling down the
Lord's blessing upon the evangelization efforts of the church, so
(16:15):
that the irony is the more the Roman government prescuted church,
the more the church grew. And at the time of Constantine,
you know, probably ten percent of the empire was Christian
at that point in time, probably about six million people.
Constantine himself had an experience of some kind of vision
that led him to trust in Christ's protection in a
(16:36):
battle that was decisive and made him the emperor. So
the next year, after his great victory in Rome at
the Milvin Bridge, he declared religious liberty and religious toleration
in the Empire. And he realized that the government owed
the church a lot because it had destroyed its people's lives,
it destroyed property, sees property sees the sacred books. So
(16:59):
actually the first churches that were built by the government
were built in restitution for the injustice of that persecution
and that's where the latter in Basilica and Rome comes from,
for example, which was the first church in the West
and to this day is you know, kind of the
mother church of the Western churches. In Christianity.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
We've talked about the Ampostolic fathers and the Apologists. Probably
time to move on to the Nicene fathers, and in
that context, perhaps we ought to talk about the Council
of Nicea and three twenty five AD. This was one
of the most important of the seven Ecumenical councils. In fact,
(17:39):
along with the Council of Constantinople, it codified the singular,
chrystological and trinitarian truths that we hold to be so
dear within the authentic body of Christ today.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Absolutely, it was called to settle a problem because as
the Church emerged from persecution, unfortunately, there were some folks
who were teaching something new that was unsettling the church,
and that is that Jesus was incarnate of the Word,
but the word that became flesh, and Jesus was not
(18:17):
equal to the Father. Instead, it was a creature, God's
first creature through which he creates the rest of the universe.
And there was a priest named Arius who taught that,
and he was a very clever dude. He's from Alexandria,
very wealthy parish, had a lot of followers. He taught
the dock hands along the Nile there in Alexandria, as
(18:38):
the Nile meets the sea. He taught them his theology
in song, and they carried it all over the Empire
to various ports, so it became a real issue. Constantine
is now confronted with a problem. He thought the church
would help renew Roman society and unify it, and he
sees disunity. So he calls the council and bishops come
from all over the East, and representative of the Bishop
(19:01):
of Rome shows up and they listen to Arius, and
they listen to a deacon from Alexander named Athanasius, and
they say, no, this is wrong. We need to emphasize
this is absolutely wrong. And they basically take a creed
that was prayed at baptism at a local church and
they expand it and clarify that Jesus, that the Word
(19:21):
is God from God, light from light. He's true God,
from true God, and he's begotten. Yes, he's the only
begotten son of the Father. But not at a moment
in time. He's not made, he's begotten, which means he
comes from the Father eternally. And so this is very clear,
and everyone signs it except Arius and two others and
their exiles. So that's really what happens in the Council
(19:43):
of Nicea. It's the first time that all the bishops
or representatives of all the bishops of the world meet
together to deal with a very serious problem that impacts everyone.
So it's called an ecumenical council, a council of the
whole world, or a council of the whole household, literally
the church being the household of the faith. So it's
(20:03):
really really important that creed. It's a beautiful gifts that
is bequeathed to us that many of us recite very
frequently in our worship services.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And so important to us even today because you think
that arianism would have disappeared, but it hasn't. That Jehovah's
witnesses are the Aryans of today. So they believe that
God creates Jesus Christ, and then Jesus Christ becomes a
junior partner in the creation of all other things. So
again these counsels, they hammer out these important trinitarian and
(20:34):
christological truths which still have incredible import for us in
the present.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Absolutely, if Christianity is a love relationship between us and God,
then we really need to know who God is, and
to get that wrong really is very, very serious. So
it's important you know the dogmas of who Jesus is,
true God and true man, that God is one God
in three persons. You know, this is really central to
(21:04):
understanding who it is we love and who we're called
to be. Who we are since we're made in the
image and likeness of God, it's pretty important to know
who God is. So this is critical, and it's a
great gift that we've received so much clarity from our
ancestors and the faith, these fathers of the Church.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And the clarity of your book is absolutely stunning. One
of the things that you point out, and it's sort
of parenthetical, but so critical, is how heresy arises when
people seek to take the mystery or paradox out of
the Christian faith. So people become impatient with mystery, and
(21:43):
heresy seeks to domesticate paradox or mystery, and I think
that's one of the critical errors of the Church. We
have to live with tension. There's so many things that
we can't explain. How do we explain fully how Christ
can be one person with two natures one percent human
(22:04):
one hundred percent divine, or how God can be one
in essence and three in person or subject. There's explanations
that we give, but ultimately, if we try to rip
the paradox or the mystery out of the Christian faith,
we denude it. We domesticated.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yes, God is not like a crossword puzzle that we
can solve and one solved, just put in our back
pocket and move on. If we could master God with
our intellect, we'd be God. You so got it? Kind
of stands a reason that what you understand fully, what
you can master, cannot possibly be God. And heresy always
(22:44):
tries to master God and simplify in a certain way. Domesticate.
I love that word that you used. I love C. S.
Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Aslin, who's a figure of Christ.
Aslin is not a tame lion. You can't domesticate God.
Put them in your little categories. So mystery doesn't mean
that you can't understand anything about God. It means there's
(23:06):
so much to understand. That you can never get it
completely and fully in your brain, and there's always more
to explore. That's part of the good news in mystery,
that the tension the paradox means that we can sit
before God forever in wonder and we'll never get bored.
And I love that about the Fathers when they talk
(23:28):
about the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of Christmas,
they just a rebel in the paradox. They celebrate it,
they ponder it, and that is so energizing in life giving.
That is really the way to go.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I love what you just said, because even an eternity
will never come to an end of exploring God. He's inefficle,
so there'd be no boredo in the new heavens and
the New Earth. A homewark of heresiest to cling to
private opinion as opposed to seeing the Church is the
ground and pillar of truth. And you know, I think
this is one of the big problems in the modern
(24:01):
Church today. If you look at the broad swath of
the church, there's so much private opinion. And you know,
I have to confess that over the years I've fallen
prior to that because I have been studying the word
of God for such a long period of time, and
I think that I can come to a corner of
the truth, but I really can't. I have to test
what I believe in the light of what the Church
(24:23):
is always taught.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's an issue again of humility.
That's part of holiness. I mean, honestly, the whole mystery
of redemption is a mystery of the humility of God,
who leaps from the glory at the right hand of
the Father, the Word, leaps into this collar of a
stable and then humbles himself, as it says in Philippians too,
to not only die, but die the death of a slave,
(24:47):
the most shameful death of all. I mean, the Lord
humbles himself. And actually, I think this is a mystery
of what holiness is about. Arrogance is the antithesis of holiness.
And there's a certain arrogance to think I know better
than two thousand years of the Church's heritage, that I
have an insight that's brand new, that is better than
the insights of the fathers and the councils, And you know,
(25:09):
I mean, there's a certain kind of submission to Christ
that expresses itself through submission to Christ's body. And I
think that just just the way it works, so any theologian,
and that's what I loved about Origin. Origin was always
in submission to the Lord and through the Church to
the Lord, to the Church, because it's it's Christ's body.
(25:31):
And I think that's the posture that all of us
should have. And if we have that posture, we're good.
I mean, I think we're in good shape. And once
we lose that posture, then division happens, and pride takes over,
and lots of bad things happen.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Thank you for listening to this special edition of the
Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank. Anagraph. To hear this
Hank Unplugged podcast interview with doctor Marcolino Dembrosio in its entirety,
go to equip dot org, iTunes, or wherever you listen
to your favorite podcasts. An appreciation for your vital gift
(26:06):
to help strengthen and expand the life changing outreaches of
the Christian Research Institute, Hank would like to send you
doctor Dembrosio's book, When the Church Was Young Voices of
the Early Fathers. Simply call eight eight eight seven thousand
CRI and make a gift to support Crii's life changing
outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CROI or visit equip
(26:31):
dot org. You can also write to CRII at Post
Office Box eighty five hundred, Charlotte, North Carolina, two eight
two seven one. The preceding program was pre recorded. The
Bible answer Man Broadcast is funded solely by listeners like you.
We're on the air because truth matters and life matters more.
(27:00):
The Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive
collection of the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has
received throughout his four decades as host of the Bible
answer Man Broadcast. With more than half a million copies
already in print, this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition
helped seekers and skeptics alike sort through the truth on
(27:23):
topics such as reliability of the Bible, religions and cults,
the resurrection and afterlife, and many more issues vital to
a better understanding of God in Christ and our relationship
to Him. To receive your copy of the Complete Bible
answer Book Collector's Edition, Revised and Expanded, call eight eight
(27:43):
eight seven thousand, CRII and make a gift to support
the Christian Research Institute's life changing outreaches eight eight eight
seven thousand CRII or visit us at EQUIP dot org.
From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. This
is the Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank Canigraph. We're
on the air because truth matters and life matters. More
on today's special edition of The Bible answer Man, we
pick up where we ended on our previous broadcast and
present more of the pre recorded episode of the Hank
(00:29):
Unplugged podcast. Hank is talking with doctor Marcellino de Ambrosio,
author of When the Church Was Young Voices of the
Early Fathers. Let's now rejoin Hank Cannigraph and doctor Dembrosio
in their conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You present Origin as a genius on the one hand,
but you also point out that there was chaff mixed
with the wheat of Origin's genius.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah. In fact, people in the history of the church
so aware of the chaff that they dismissed the wheat.
And so what we got to do is go back
and recover that wheat and not discard it because there's chaff.
There are some allegories that get kind of wild with Origin,
and there are also some doctrines. Now we just have
to keep in mind there were no ecumenical councils yet
we didn't have the Nicene Creed yet in the time
(01:20):
of Origin. So we had the scriptures, we had the liturgy,
we had the absolute tradition, but lots of things hadn't
been explained yet. And Origin was a pioneer. He was
really an explorer, and that was part of his role.
And explorers and pioneers sometimes get off on the wrong track.
In Origin did, and so there are some things that
he thought. One of the things to just keep in mind,
(01:42):
he always said, I'm in complete submission, of course to
the Lord, but also to the Church. I'm a man
of the Church. And if there's anything I ever say
that the Church says is wrong, don't listen to me,
listen to the church. So he has some beautiful quotes
along those lines. He's very humble man. But in that
time when he was doing exploration, he went in places
that the Church later said, no, that's not really the
(02:03):
right place to go like that. At the end, all
will be saved, including the demons, you know. So there's
certain kinds of things that we don't follow Origin on.
But what the Church has retained of Origins thought is priceless,
and you can find it in the Eastern Fathers you
can find it in the Western Fathers. Just before recording
this podcast, it went through Holy Week and the water
(02:25):
and the blood that flowed from Christ's side. You see
in that all the fathers, like Chris Systems say, you
know that we see there Eucharist and baptism from which
the church is born and takes nourishment. Well, the first
one that we have who sees that and writes that
in the tradition is Origin. He could have received that
(02:46):
from Apostolic tradition, or it could have been an insight
that he had that Everyone said after him, Yes, absolutely,
that's right. We're not sure, but he's a very important
influencer of all the fathers East and West. Augustine, Chris
system Nis. Just so many of the great fathers owe
so much to Origin, and therefore we owe so much
to him as well.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Another great apologist in the early Church was Tertullian. Whenever
I say Tertullian, I think about trinity, because he is
the one who coined that Latin term trinity, term we
use over and over again in modern vernacular within the Church.
And yet this is a term that qudifies what is
taught in scripture, not a term that we find in
(03:29):
scripture exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
And that's part of what the folows of the church
do is they pass on the Apostolic tradition, but they
also help clarify it. They also helped give us structure, concepts,
words to express it better. And so we get this
word trinitas that explains three persons in one God, and
(03:52):
that classic definition we find in Tertullian. And in the
same way we find the beautiful expression that Christ is
one person and in two nature's human and divine. These
two formula become classic in Christian orthodoxy both east and
west of the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church and
(04:12):
Protestants who are trinitarian. You know, all we have this
in common, and we have Tertullian in large part to
thank for expressing it with this kind of conciseness and clarity.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
What do you make of Tertullian's fall from grace as it.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Were, Well, you talked about not sugarcoating the story, you know,
and Totalian is a good example of genius, you know.
I think that there are gifts called charisms that the
Holy Spirit gives to people, and that doesn't necessarily mean
there's no faults when it comes to holiness, you know,
and I think the problem with Tourtullian he is a
(04:49):
bit arrogant, and he's a bit proud, and he ends
up getting involved with a rigorous sect called the Montanists.
And part of what they were about, they're very critical
of church authority for being too soft on people, too
soft on sinners. And unfortunately, this is the direction that
Totellian goes in in the later years of his life,
(05:11):
very rigorous about sin, about forgiveness, about many things having
to do with pleasure and sexuality. He just goes off
with this movement that was popular in the latter part
of the second century. So that's kind of sad, but
it doesn't invalidate the great contributions that he makes through
his earlier writings, and even actually after he starts veering
(05:32):
off in some of these other areas, still his christology
and his trinitarian theology is very important, very good. So again,
I love the fact that we are not obliged. We
are Christians, as Catholics, as Orthodox, as Protestant Christians, as
Evangelical Christians. We are not beholden to one person except
to Jesus Christ. And so you know, even though in
(05:54):
the Orthodox and Catholic Church we have and the processors
as well. We have heroes and saints. You know, we
don't follow any person completely other than Jesus. And I
would say in the Fathers of the Church, it's what
they agree on together that witnesses of the Apostolic tradition,
and there there seemed to be authoritative and infallible. But
you know, individually they can go off a little bit
(06:16):
here and there, and most of them did, other than
Gregory of nazianzis the Gregory the theologian. He's one that
never seems to have really gone off in any of
his writing, but others do. But the problem is, you know,
in many cases, a lot of times when they do
go off, it's only later that the church clarifies the position. Unfortunately,
with Urtullian, unlike Origin, he didn't have the humility that
(06:37):
Origin had or the holiness. In my opinion, Tertullian was
an imperfect character, but a great one.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Nonetheless, as we all are. Cyprian of Carthage, you can't
fail to mention cyprin I have quoted him over and
over again through the course of my minister because he
was famous for on the unity of the Church. And
in that volume he talks about the fact that you
(07:03):
can't have God for your father if you don't have
the Church for your mother, that outside the church there
is no salvation because salvation is the Church. And in
talking about the unity of the Church, he uses the
illustration the seamless Tunic of Jesus Christ as a symbol
for unity.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Absolutely, and I think it's important, you know, this idea
of the Church as mother. For some folks, that's kind
of a different idea. I don't think you find lots
of Christians thinking of the church that way. I think
a lot of times people think of the church rather
as an institution. And you know, Cyprian is very clear
on the importance of the bishop as the local sign
(07:47):
and focal point and instrument of unity, and so he's
very strong on the importance of the authority of the bishop.
But for him, the church is not primarily an institution.
It's primarily a mother, and the baptismal fond is the
mother's womb through which new children come. I love this,
and I think all we need to kind of think
about our own model of the church and how we
(08:08):
think about the church. But the church is really an
organic reality. There's lots of different metaphors for the Church,
but the primary ones are things like family, mother, and
Body of Christ, and not so much institution. So we
see yet the institutional dimension is very important to preserve
the unity of that family and the connect it to
(08:28):
its apostolic foundation. So I think Cyprian is really an
important figure. The Church of North Africa is a very
important church. Tertullian was one of the thinkers of that,
and you know, it's fascinating. Even though Tritullian seems to
have died out of full communion with the Church, and
the Bishop of Carthage, the successor to that Bishop of Tertullian, Cyprian,
(08:53):
still calls Tertullian a master and reads Totalian regularly. And
I love this that the church is able to look
past the faults of its sons and daughters and you know,
eat the meat and spit out the bones. And that's
that's what Cyprian did when it came to the legacy
of Tertullian.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And ultimately Saint Cyprian beheaded for the faith once for
all delivered to the saints. And the story is poignant,
it's profound, and you know, we see modern day beheadings
taking place in the Levant, and we think about so
many who were beheaded, bead having their head cut off,
(09:32):
like John the Baptist in the early Church.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It is amazing. Yeah, and you know that was a
merciful way to die, by the way, you know, crucifixion
was the shameful way to put a slave to death
or provincial so a citizen who committed a capital crime
would be beheaded, and that's how Justin died. That's how
Cyprian died. I think it's beautiful that. You know, the
Romans wanted to go after the heads of the church.
(09:59):
They thought they they could get rid of the leaders,
that the whole movement would die. So they went after
the clergy around the year two fifty, and that's how
Cyprian died, and so did at that time the Bishop
of Rome. The pope also died in that same persecution.
But you know that did not destroy the church, and
in fact, that emperor fell into divine judgment. He went
(10:20):
into battle in the east against the Parthians and was
the only Roman emperor ever to be captured and never
be returned by the Parthians. We don't know what happened
to him to this day for sure. But we know
that his son decided to change his tune and stop persecution.
So there was a period of peace under his son
(10:41):
that lasted about forty years.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
For the church, don't go away, We'll be right back
and rejoined Hank Hanigraft's conversation with doctor Marcolino dem Brosio.
Long before the schism between East and West, long before
the words Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical referred to communities and
separated from each other, the fathers of the Church gloried
(11:04):
in the one faith of the United Body of Christ,
which can be none other than Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox.
It's time to rediscover our common inheritance. Marcellino Dembrosio wrote,
When the Church was Young, to take modern Christians on
a journey to the days when the Church was young.
(11:24):
By exploring our roots together, we will experience new growth
that will produce new fruit, new unity, and great joy.
To receive your copy of When the Church was Young,
Voices of the Early Fathers, call eight eight eight seven
thousand curi and make a gift to support the Christian
Research Institute's life changing outreaches. Eight eight eight seven thousand
(11:49):
CURI or visit us at equip dot org. The Complete
Bible answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive collection of
the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has received throughout
his four decades as host of the Bible answer Man broadcast.
(12:13):
With more than half a million copies already in print,
this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition helped seekers and
skeptics alike sort through the truth on topics such as
reliability of the Bible, religions and cults, the resurrection and afterlife,
and many more issues vital to a better understanding of
God in Christ and our relationship to Him. To receive
(12:37):
your copy of the Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition,
Revised and Expanded, call eight eight eight seven thousand CRII
and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institute's
life changing outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRII or
visit us at equip dot org. The number of wolves
(13:02):
surrounding the Christian flock is growing, and they relish nothing
more than docile's sheep, utterly incapable of defending themselves from
militant secularists at home to militant Islamists abroad. The assaults
on biblical Christianity are growing dangerously, but Christian Research Institutes
support Team members aren't in favor of feeding these wolves. Instead,
(13:24):
each day they're making possible an array of outreaches that
defang these wolfpacks with solid arguments and evidence that have
stood the test of time. What's more, support Team members
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of the best apologetics tools around. Your selection of resources
(13:45):
are just our way of saying thanks. To learn more
about the benefits of membership, simply visit equip dot org.
Once again, that's equip dot org.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Do you ever wonder what the early Church was like
in when the Church was young? Doctor Marcellino Dembrosio dusts
off dry theology and brings to life the lives of
early Church heroes Augustine, Athanasius, Chrs. System and many more.
Long before the words Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical referred to
distinct and separated communities, the fathers of the Church gloried
(14:25):
in one faith, the United Body of Christ, which can
be none other than evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox. It's time
to rediscover our common inheritance and return to the days
when the Church was young, to experience new growth that
will produce new fruit, new unity and joy. To receive
your copy of When the Church was Young Voices of
(14:45):
the Early Fathers. Call eight eight eight seven thousand CRI
and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institutes
Life Changing Outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CRII or
visit equip dot org.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Let's rejoin Hank Hanagraph and doctor Marcillino Dembrosio as they
continue their conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And you talk about the great persecution that begins in
AD three to h three with an edict that prescribed
that all Christian buildings were to be destroyed, and that
sacred scriptures and liturgical vessels should be seized and meetings
were forbidden. And then you had a year later all
Christian clergy being imprisoned. And yet this was one of
(15:37):
those persecutions as great as it was that ended with
the Edict of Milan in three thirteen, where you have
Christianity actually becoming the faith of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, it's a pretty amazing story. It just kind of
goes to show the blood of the martyrs really is
the seat of the church. When the world persecutes the church,
church becomes more itself and its witness becomes more compelling
and more powerful. And I think, you know, the sacrifice
of the martyrs has great indecessory power calling down the
Lord's blessing upon the evangelization efforts of the church, so
(16:15):
that the irony is the more the Roman government prescuted church,
the more the church grew. And at the time of Constantine,
you know, probably ten percent of the empire was Christian
at that point in time, probably about six million people.
Constantine himself had an experience of some kind of vision
that led him to trust in Christ's protection in a
(16:36):
battle that was decisive and made him the emperor. So
the next year, after his great victory in Rome at
the Milvin Bridge, he declared religious liberty and religious toleration
in the Empire. And he realized that the government owed
the church a lot because it had destroyed its people's lives,
it destroyed property, sees property sees the sacred books. So
(16:59):
actually the first churches that were built by the government
were built in restitution for the injustice of that persecution
and that's where the latter in Basilica and Rome comes from,
for example, which was the first church in the West
and to this day is you know, kind of the
mother church of the Western churches. In Christianity.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
We've talked about the Ampostolic fathers and the Apologists. Probably
time to move on to the Nicene fathers, and in
that context, perhaps we ought to talk about the Council
of Nicea and three twenty five AD. This was one
of the most important of the seven Ecumenical councils. In fact,
(17:39):
along with the Council of Constantinople, it codified the singular,
chrystological and trinitarian truths that we hold to be so
dear within the authentic body of Christ today.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Absolutely, it was called to settle a problem because as
the Church emerged from persecution, unfortunately, there were some folks
who were teaching something new that was unsettling the church,
and that is that Jesus was incarnate of the Word,
but the word that became flesh, and Jesus was not
(18:17):
equal to the Father. Instead, it was a creature, God's
first creature through which he creates the rest of the universe.
And there was a priest named Arius who taught that,
and he was a very clever dude. He's from Alexandria,
very wealthy parish, had a lot of followers. He taught
the dock hands along the Nile there in Alexandria, as
(18:38):
the Nile meets the sea. He taught them his theology
in song, and they carried it all over the Empire
to various ports, so it became a real issue. Constantine
is now confronted with a problem. He thought the church
would help renew Roman society and unify it, and he
sees disunity. So he calls the council and bishops come
from all over the East, and representative of the Bishop
(19:01):
of Rome shows up and they listen to Arius, and
they listen to a deacon from Alexander named Athanasius, and
they say, no, this is wrong. We need to emphasize
this is absolutely wrong. And they basically take a creed
that was prayed at baptism at a local church and
they expand it and clarify that Jesus, that the Word
(19:21):
is God from God, light from light. He's true God,
from true God, and he's begotten. Yes, he's the only
begotten son of the Father. But not at a moment
in time. He's not made, he's begotten, which means he
comes from the Father eternally. And so this is very clear,
and everyone signs it except Arius and two others and
their exiles. So that's really what happens in the Council
(19:43):
of Nicea. It's the first time that all the bishops
or representatives of all the bishops of the world meet
together to deal with a very serious problem that impacts everyone.
So it's called an ecumenical council, a council of the
whole world, or a council of the whole household, literally
the church being the household of the faith. So it's
(20:03):
really really important that creed. It's a beautiful gifts that
is bequeathed to us that many of us recite very
frequently in our worship services.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And so important to us even today because you think
that arianism would have disappeared, but it hasn't. That Jehovah's
witnesses are the Aryans of today. So they believe that
God creates Jesus Christ, and then Jesus Christ becomes a
junior partner in the creation of all other things. So
again these counsels, they hammer out these important trinitarian and
(20:34):
christological truths which still have incredible import for us in
the present.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Absolutely, if Christianity is a love relationship between us and God,
then we really need to know who God is, and
to get that wrong really is very, very serious. So
it's important you know the dogmas of who Jesus is,
true God and true man, that God is one God
in three persons. You know, this is really central to
(21:04):
understanding who it is we love and who we're called
to be. Who we are since we're made in the
image and likeness of God, it's pretty important to know
who God is. So this is critical, and it's a
great gift that we've received so much clarity from our
ancestors and the faith, these fathers of the Church.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And the clarity of your book is absolutely stunning. One
of the things that you point out, and it's sort
of parenthetical, but so critical, is how heresy arises when
people seek to take the mystery or paradox out of
the Christian faith. So people become impatient with mystery, and
(21:43):
heresy seeks to domesticate paradox or mystery, and I think
that's one of the critical errors of the Church. We
have to live with tension. There's so many things that
we can't explain. How do we explain fully how Christ
can be one person with two natures one percent human
(22:04):
one hundred percent divine, or how God can be one
in essence and three in person or subject. There's explanations
that we give, but ultimately, if we try to rip
the paradox or the mystery out of the Christian faith,
we denude it. We domesticated.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yes, God is not like a crossword puzzle that we
can solve and one solved, just put in our back
pocket and move on. If we could master God with
our intellect, we'd be God. You so got it? Kind
of stands a reason that what you understand fully, what
you can master, cannot possibly be God. And heresy always
(22:44):
tries to master God and simplify in a certain way. Domesticate.
I love that word that you used. I love C. S.
Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Aslin, who's a figure of Christ.
Aslin is not a tame lion. You can't domesticate God.
Put them in your little categories. So mystery doesn't mean
that you can't understand anything about God. It means there's
(23:06):
so much to understand. That you can never get it
completely and fully in your brain, and there's always more
to explore. That's part of the good news in mystery,
that the tension the paradox means that we can sit
before God forever in wonder and we'll never get bored.
And I love that about the Fathers when they talk
(23:28):
about the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of Christmas,
they just a rebel in the paradox. They celebrate it,
they ponder it, and that is so energizing in life giving.
That is really the way to go.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I love what you just said, because even an eternity
will never come to an end of exploring God. He's inefficle,
so there'd be no boredo in the new heavens and
the New Earth. A homewark of heresiest to cling to
private opinion as opposed to seeing the Church is the
ground and pillar of truth. And you know, I think
this is one of the big problems in the modern
(24:01):
Church today. If you look at the broad swath of
the church, there's so much private opinion. And you know,
I have to confess that over the years I've fallen
prior to that because I have been studying the word
of God for such a long period of time, and
I think that I can come to a corner of
the truth, but I really can't. I have to test
what I believe in the light of what the Church
(24:23):
is always taught.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's an issue again of humility.
That's part of holiness. I mean, honestly, the whole mystery
of redemption is a mystery of the humility of God,
who leaps from the glory at the right hand of
the Father, the Word, leaps into this collar of a
stable and then humbles himself, as it says in Philippians too,
to not only die, but die the death of a slave,
(24:47):
the most shameful death of all. I mean, the Lord
humbles himself. And actually, I think this is a mystery
of what holiness is about. Arrogance is the antithesis of holiness.
And there's a certain arrogance to think I know better
than two thousand years of the Church's heritage, that I
have an insight that's brand new, that is better than
the insights of the fathers and the councils, And you know,
(25:09):
I mean, there's a certain kind of submission to Christ
that expresses itself through submission to Christ's body. And I
think that just just the way it works, so any theologian,
and that's what I loved about Origin. Origin was always
in submission to the Lord and through the Church to
the Lord, to the Church, because it's it's Christ's body.
(25:31):
And I think that's the posture that all of us
should have. And if we have that posture, we're good.
I mean, I think we're in good shape. And once
we lose that posture, then division happens, and pride takes over,
and lots of bad things happen.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Thank you for listening to this special edition of the
Bible answer Man Broadcast with Hank. Anagraph. To hear this
Hank Unplugged podcast interview with doctor Marcolino Dembrosio in its entirety,
go to equip dot org, iTunes, or wherever you listen
to your favorite podcasts. An appreciation for your vital gift
(26:06):
to help strengthen and expand the life changing outreaches of
the Christian Research Institute, Hank would like to send you
doctor Dembrosio's book, When the Church Was Young Voices of
the Early Fathers. Simply call eight eight eight seven thousand
CRI and make a gift to support Crii's life changing
outreaches eight eight eight seven thousand CROI or visit equip
(26:31):
dot org. You can also write to CRII at Post
Office Box eighty five hundred, Charlotte, North Carolina, two eight
two seven one. The preceding program was pre recorded. The
Bible answer Man Broadcast is funded solely by listeners like you.
We're on the air because truth matters and life matters more.
(27:00):
The Complete Bible answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive
collection of the most often asked questions Hank Hannigraph has
received throughout his four decades as host of the Bible
answer Man Broadcast. With more than half a million copies
already in print, this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition
helped seekers and skeptics alike sort through the truth on
(27:23):
topics such as reliability of the Bible, religions and cults,
the resurrection and afterlife, and many more issues vital to
a better understanding of God in Christ and our relationship
to Him. To receive your copy of the Complete Bible
answer Book Collector's Edition, Revised and Expanded, call eight eight
(27:43):
eight seven thousand, CRII and make a gift to support
the Christian Research Institute's life changing outreaches eight eight eight
seven thousand CRII or visit us at EQUIP dot org.
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