In the first
class I took in seminary, the professor made an almost casual suggestion that
remains perhaps the single most important piece of advice I received in my
theological education. For every semester of seminary, he said, we should read
the works of one Church Father
to become grounded in the great tradition. At the time, I was a 23-year-old kid
with a calling to ministry, but little else. I assumed the only text I needed
in seminary was the Bible and, to that point, my theological reading had
consisted of the writings of a couple of guys named Joshua. I had no idea who
these Fathers were.
Now a
professor of theology myself, I have come to see that my experience as a young
seminarian is anything but unique. Most Protestants I meet, whether in the
classroom or in the local church, are unacquainted with the writings of the
Church Fathers. Piously, we might say this ignorance stems from a sola
scriptura methodological principle that remains a part of the Protestant DNA . However, the Protestants I know who are
intentional about discipleship read voraciously from the best seller list of
their local Christian bookstore and rarely interpret Scripture without
reference to their Bible’s footnotes. It seems we read plenty of things to help
us understand the meaning of Scripture. Unfortunately, however, most Protestants
do not look behind the twenty-first century, much less the sixteenth, for their
interpretive guides. Thankfully, I had a professor who led me elsewhere, and,
taking his advice, I began to explore this foreign and exotic world.
Ironically, the name to which I first turned, Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130 C .E. – 200 C .E.i), is best known
precisely for his insight that Scripture demands an interpretive guide.
A late
second century bishop of modern day Lyons in France, Irenaeus was faced with
the considerable challenge posed to the infant Church by the various
theological traditions known to history as “Gnostics.” These groups claimed to
possess a secret, salvific knowledge taught to a select few by Jesus Christ
which entailed the distinction between the good God whom Jesus revealed and the
evil creator known to Israel, the dismissal of material creation as evil, and
the rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures as authoritative revelation. While this
secret knowledge was contained in the Scriptures, the Gnostics claimed that a
special, allegorical lens was needed to unlock it.
As a bishop,
familiar with the teachings and traditions of churches in several different
geographical locations, Irenaeus was able to discern the vacuity of the
Gnostics’ theological claims. Surprisingly, however, he agreed with their
methodological assumption that the Scriptures required a lens—the ancient word
is regula (rule)—through which to be understood. Without such a regula, or, in
the case of the Gnostics, with the wrong regula, Scripture would inevitably be
misunderstood and misappropriated. Put another way, we need to read things to
understand Scripture, but we need to read
the right things.
Unfortunately,
such a hermeneutical principle risks obscuring Scripture by making the
interpretive regula, as opposed to Scripture, the true authority. Nevertheless,
in Irenaeus’ work, the opposite occurs. Indeed, to read Irenaeus is to read
nothing more than a masterful retelling of Scripture. In his able hands, we see
the blossoming of Scripture as a coherent narrative revealing the one God who
works in all things, both in creation and redemption, both in Israel and the
Church, both in the Old and New Covenants, both in the Son and the Spirit. We
thus find God’s original creation not destroyed, but restored in the work of
Jesus Christ who reveals not a previously unknown God, but the physical face of
a previously unseen God. As Irenaeus puts it, “Thus [Christ] showed that the
God who made the earth and commanded it to bear fruit, and who established the
waters and produced the springs, this same [God] bestows upon the human race
the blessing of food and the favor of drink through His Son in these last
times—the incomprehensible through the comprehensible, and the invisible
through the visible, since He does not exist outside of the Father, but in His
bosom” (Adv. Haer. 3.11.5).
Thus,
Irenaeus shows us that the Church’s regula, unlike the Gnostics’ secretive,
allegorical key, is not foreign to Scripture but arises from it, in concert
with it, revealing its inner logic and beauty. Indeed, the nature of the
Church’s regula is precisely to point beyond itself, to place the focus on
Scripture.
Twenty-first
century Christians are in no less need of a regula than were second century
Christians. But like those persuaded by the Gnostics, we often reach for the
wrong things. In reality, the best regula we have are the writings that
many have never heard of, the writings of the Church Fathers. To read their
writings is to witness Scripture shining forth its brilliance. To know their
lives is to see Scripture performed in the manner intended, a manner that
produces holiness.
Of course,
for the Fathers to serve as our regula, we need first to spend time in their
company. Therefore, in a series of forthcoming blogposts at Seedbed,
I will introduce readers to these early figures. My hope is that these posts
will merely serve as a primer, leading to a greater engagement and reading of
their works, where the true wisdom can be gained. What I suspect is that in
being led to the Fathers, we will always be led to Scripture.
