Let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest me: let me know Thee, as I am known.
(St. Augustine of Hippo: Confessions X, 1)
I have ever been a Christian; to speak precisely, a Presbyterian, for more than ten years. However, I cannot help but confess that I have never believed in Christian creeds completely, and for a long time my religious inclination was near to Deism, a theological system of natural religion, opposed to s the orthodox dogmata, i.e., creeds of all revealed religions, and therefore condemned by both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches as heresy, or more radically as Atheism. In fact, Deism, as David Hume attacked in his Dialogue, has several philosophical defects, and more dangerously may reduce Providence into being predicable. Faced with this dilemma, what I ought to do is to make certain what religion is at bottom not through scriptural investigate, but through historical. I, albeit no longer a Christian, believe that examining the development of Christendom is tantamount to studying what religion is, because the Christian theological issues reveals the nature of religion profoundly. For the sake, I chose this book ‘The End of Ancient Christianity’ to study.
‘The End of Ancient Christianity’, written by R. A. Markus, is a research of shifts in Western Christendom from 4th through 6th centuries, wherein Christians experienced a monumental event. Emperor Constantine converted into Christianity; scilicet, Christianity ceased to be the religion of a persecuted minority, and was regarded as the official religion of Roman Empire. For Christians cogitating who would be redeemed in the Last Judgment, nonetheless, this change is not an event to be worth commemorating. Martyrs were considered to be distinguished from others when Christians was persecuted and slain by the Roman government. Once Roman Emperor converted into Christianity, however, who would be persecuted? Ironically enough, Christian governors now began to persecute paganism and heresy. Whereupon, in this period, Christians must think more and more about what the boundary between Christianity and paganism is, and what the doctrines of Christianity are.
This book can also be considered as an essay concerning Latin Fathers’ theology, in particular Augustine’s. In the following paragraph, then, I would like to discuss about some theological debates that attract my attention vastly. First of all, as mentioned above, the so-called ‘Constantine Revolution’ made quite an impact upon Christians; consequently, they were forced to find new ways of distinguishing themselves. For instance, as Augustine put it, a converted rhetorician replied to his Christian friend who did not believe he was a Christian until he came to the church, by asking him whether the walls of the church made Christians. From some aspects at least, Christianity, though claiming that God is love, is essentially elitism. The French word ‘elite’, in fact, is originally taken from ‘to elect’; that is to say, the noblest amidst men, and women, are the chosen people. If so, what to be noble is for God becomes the problem. The Fathers in this period did not find the answer at all, nor did their followers. Methinks, the problem in Christians’ minds would be the permanent, probably also the paramount, question for ever.
Furthermore, another debate amidst late 4th century Fathers which interests me, and meanwhile forces me to consider more, is whether or not a Christian should be an ascetic. Some leading Christian thinkers, e.g. St. Jerome and Pelagius, maintained that to be a pious Christian must be an ascetic, denying one's own desire for anything except divine grace. On the other hand, unlike Jerome, Augustine, although placing high value on virginity, made room for marriage. Thus he said that good was marriage, but virginity better. According to the interpretation of Fathers, our sexual desire originates from the original sin; therefore, to preserve virginity is the way in which we can pursuit the spiritual perfection. However, we cannot ignore the fact that human lust after sexual acts is an unavoidable situation, also a state of eagerly wanting, for human beings. When I reflect on this question, as Augustine, faced with the perplexity, I wonder whether to satisfy one’s lust would be sinful. For this, I conclude as below. Man is doomed to want, and thus to err, but, as Alexander Pope put it, to err is human, to forgive divine. We, even though destined to be mistaken, can do good deeds to make expiation for our guilty; on the other hand, to avoid erring, we may lose opportunity to do our best, and exactly it is also guilt. We cannot forget that human being is born to be defective and never be perfect, but to overcome his plights, he, even failed, can preserve his nobility and dignity. This is my reflection.
In the era, some people, pretending to own a ‘scientific’ or ‘positivist’ mind, do not have any interest and belief in religious considerations or ideas about Deity and immortality, namely future life, yet once they begin to reflect as to whether or not human life has meaning, they cannot avoid raising some essential questions seriously. For instance, if there were no Deity as the absolute principle, what would be the criterion we should follow? If there were no criterion we should follow, could we do anything we desire to do, however evil? Therefore, we cannot help but conclude that if we deny religion, we will be mistaken greatly. As mentioned above, on the other hand, to study the development of Christianity, for my part, is to inquire into what religion is, because Christianity is concerned with significant theologian questions, e.g. the problem of free will, much more than other two main revealed religions, Judaism and Islamism. The epoch between the convert of Constantine and early medieval time, i.e. so-called Late Antique, is the crucial period shaping medieval Christianity, and even what it appears today, as far as I am concerned, and thus I recommend this book ‘The End of Ancient Christianity’ for the study of the area. Now, to put a coda to this essay, I would like to say, the more we study about the period following the convert of Constantine, the less unreasonable and unassailable it seems to us; the more we investigate what theologian issues the Fathers did controvert, the more profoundly we, albeit not everyone is a Christian, become aware of strong anxiety in the hearts of foresighted Christians.
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