I was pleased to receive two review copies of two resources for early church studied: The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition and Early Christian Thinkers: The Lives and Legacies of Twelve Key Figures. One is for the historical theological practitioner and the other for the person interested in biblical studies. I reviewed The African Memory of Mark last week and now I want to review Early Christian Thinkers. They are two fine resources for the person interested in issues surrounding the early church.

I am at the end of a Master of Theology in Historical Theology program (classwork finished, that bloody thesis left!), so I’m a sucker for any resource that’s historically theological. I’m especially interested in the Early Church era (post-Apostolic through Augustine) as many of the core doctrines that define the Christian faith arose out of this monumental, contentious era. The Trinity, deity of Jesus, Authority of Scripture and cannon, original sin—there’s a lot there! I believe a whole new generation needs to re-discover this era in order to redisover what has been central to the Christian faith. Thanks to a resource from IVP, called Early Christian Thinkers: The Lives and Legacies of Twelve Key Figures, anyone can encounter the key movers and shakers and their ideas that gave rise to the theology that is still central to the historic Christian faith. As Foster says, this book seeks to “describe the life, theology and contribution of each of the figures within the broader stream of the development and evolution of Christianity,” (xi) which this work does a fine job doing, while also missing the mark by omitting some key figures.

What I love about this book is that it presents the well-known and not-as-well-known figures that helped shape the Christian faith, at least some of those figures not as well known to me. Like one of the only early church Mothers: Perpetua. I’ve had this on going debate with my wife that there were no early church Mothers; I stand corrected! She was a contemporary of Tertullian who provides us in her diary the first example of Christian autobiography and a sketch of Christian identity that we won’t see again until Augustine. (100) Her Passion of Perpetua and Felicity is a prison diary she wrote after she and her fellow catechumens were arrested by Carthagian authorities. It also contains four revelatory, prophetic dreams and a practical theology that promotes a familial understanding regarding our relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and calling as a Christian.

Another less well-known thinker is Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr who wrote an apology and gospel harmony. His Oratio ad Graecos was a robust defense of the Christian faith against the superiority of Greek philosophy and culture, in which one argument suggests the superiority of the Christian tradition based on the antiquity of Moses and charge that the Greeks borrowed ideas from him. He also suggests the Christian ethical practices are much more superior to Greco ethics in light of Greek cultural practices. Tatian’s other famous work was a harmony of the four gospels, titled Diatessaron. (’through the four’). This project sought to resolve discrepancies in light of the so-called Synoptic Problem, deleted duplicate stories, and filled in the gaps found in each individual canonical gospel. His work was highly influential among Syrian Christians and later among Semitic and European gospel harmonies. As ECT argues, “His contribution makes one aware of the fluidity and creativity that existed in [the early Christian] movement during the second half of the second century.” (34)

Then, of course, you have a whole host of other more well-known early church thinkers: Justin, the 2nd century apologist, philosopher, and martyr opens the list as the one representing the first attempt “to place Christian thinking on an equal footing with the elite philosophies”(xii) of the Roman day; there is Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons who, out of deep pastoral concern, “set himself to refute what he considered to be distortions of the authentic gospel,” (36) while also crafting for the Church deep theological categories relating to the nature of Christ’s work through recapitulation and nature of Christ himself; Clement of Alexandria sought to synthesize the Bible and Greek philosophy—insisting that “all truth is God’s truth” long before Rob Bell ever did—and developed the notion of the Christian life as a pursuit of perfection, a “gradual ascent of the soul to the beatific vision” (81) influencing a long line of thinkers through Christian history (e.g. John Wesley); then there’s Origen, one of the most prolific writers of Antiquity who gave the church exegetical, theological, and pastoral works of reflection, developed an “optimistic cosmology of salvation through the incarnate word,” (111) and was later pronounced a heretic; and finally we have Eusebius, the ancient 4th century historian who no only gave us a historical reflection on the early Church and its writings, but also blessed the Church with little known or engaged Biblical commentaries and theological and apologetic treatises.

Despite the inclusion of these well-known and not-so-well known, I was left scratching my head at the omission of 5 more key figures from the 4th century: Arius and Athanasius, and the Cappadocian Fathers—Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. I get that the book wanted to guard against becoming bloated with every mover and shaker and focus on the “live and legacies of 12 key figures,” but why include Tatian, Hippolytus of Rome, and Gregory Thamaturgus at the expense of Arius and Athanasius and the Cappadocians? All five were incredibly important to developing the Church’s understanding of the Trinity and Christology. While I think the book is still a great primer for people interested in early Christian thinkers, failing to include these other 5 major Christian thinkers is a serious omission, me thinks.

Regardless of these curious omissions, these are among the ancient throngs who helped provide a sure foundation for the 21st century Church. But as Paul Foster reminds us, giving shape to that foundation wasn’t easy, neat, or tidy. While now we take for granted our Trinitarian understanding of God, full deity and full human status of Jesus, and deep reflections on the nature of the Cross, the period from the mid-2nd to 4th centuries “was a period of both theological creativity and challenge for this emergent religious movement. While a group of members shared a common devotion to the person of Jesus, the basis of such piety and worship required further definition.” (xi)

This “further definition” is what this book is about. It is a timely book that reminds us of the very real challenge that existed of “adjudicating between competing perspectives and interpretations concerning matters of faith” in order to remind us that there is a consensus around which the Church has expressed herself theologically. And this consensus can be perceived in even later expressions: “there is undoubtedly much continuity and many ideas can be identified in nuce…Therefore, while many beliefs found more precise expression in later centuries many can still be recognized in embryonic form in the first few centuries of Christianity.” (xii)

I am often amazed at the great effort put forward now by so-called “progressive” Christians who wish to re-imagine the Christian faith, as if the Church simply re-incarnates herself generation after generation into a more evolved, advanced organism, without any memory or mooring to her past. These so-called “New Kind of Christians” who are emerging into a “New Kind of Christianity” should sit down with Foster’s book and a stiff drink, and take in the grand, long memory that marks the Church. Student, pastor, and Joe/Josephine-blow Christian alike will benefit from this short reminder of the lives and ideas that have combined to craft the anchor to which our contemporary expression of the Church is in fact tethered.