www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Augustine Split the Church

Dear Forum,
Pax Christi!
Just like to hear yur views. Below is an article regarding Saint Augustine and I believe in traditionalist Orthodox circles, he is not regarded as Father of the Church. I think he is the most maligned Western Father. I have read the writings of Papadakis and Fr. Seraphim Rose but I knew some Orthodox who are wary about Augustine. They use him as "scape goat" for differenting the theology of East and West and pointing to him as the cause of the flaw of Western theology.


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2003.02.13 Telegraph:

Re: Augustine split the church

Date: 13 February 2003

Sir - In your interview of Dr Rowan Williams and your leading article (Leader, Feb 12 ), you show an enthusiasm for Augustine of Hippo that is not
shared by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

It was Augustine who first argued for the inclusion of the filioque clause
in the Nicene Creed - "the Holy Spirit who proceedeth from the Father and
the Son" - which was a major cause of the split between the Western and
Eastern churches. Almost as bad has been Augustine's influence on our
understanding of humanity, believing as he did in original guilt and,
therefore, the tacit denial of human freedom.

This teaching led ultimately to Calvinism and its pessimistic view of our
humanity, and other Protestant aberrations. The logic of Augustine's
position led him to the view that unbaptised babies, because they are
tainted with original guilt, are consigned to hell. These views of human
nature have always been rejected by the Orthodox Church.

From:
Rev Michael Harper Dean, British Antiochian, Orthodox Church, Cambridge

Dear Elexeie,

I think you asked a good question. It says something about our relations with our sister Orthodox churches.

I am not a theologian so I won't comment on the matter of St. Augustine. What I know about the Fathers and Doctors of the Church is this:

Because the Church declared a saint a Doctor or Father does not mean their writings are completely free of doctrinal error. Individuals can make mistakes, but the Church as a whole is protected by our Lord's promise, "He who hears you hears Me."

Sincerely yours,

Paul

Speaking from a historian's point of view, I do not like Augustine. His "City of God" is one of my primary documents for my dissertation, and I am finding it a real chore to read. The man is insufferable, boring and uninteresting. Sadly, I have to trudge through it. As I am writing this, I am undergoing a crisis as my deadline approaches, drinking too much coffee and going ga-ga. ah well.. Theologically I am not saying anything, as that is not my area of specialisation!

Anton

Dear Friends,

Certainly, St Augustine is not highly esteemed in Orthodoxy!

He was also not so esteemed in Western circles in his own time.

The bishops of Southern Gaul did not like his views on Original Sin and its impact on human nature and their opposition was led by St John Cassian who had returned to southern France following his famous sojourn in Coptic Egypt among the Desert Fathers there.

Cassian was later castigated by the Roman Church for his opposition to Augustine's views and is, to this day, not a saint in the Western Church, except for his local veneration as such in Marseilles alone.

However, the Greeks do call Augustine "St Augustine the Great." Seraphim Rose praised Augustine highly for his moral and spiritual struggles etc.

In fact, even the most traditionalist Orthodox who criticize Augustine's theology (blaming him, among other things, for the development of the "Filioque" in the Creed - something that Meyendorff emphatically denied) are open to his veneration because of the fact that Augustine himself admitted that he asked for forgiveness and correction wherever in his writings he did not reflect the teaching of the Fathers etc.

It was not so much his connection to the Filioque that got Augustine into hot water in the East, it was his Trinitarian theological context in which he discussed this Mystery of Faith that seemed to lay the groundwork for the West's later reduction of the Trinity to its inner relations - something that made the "Filioque," as Meyendorff said, "logical" from the stand point of Western theology.

The other major problem was, of course, Augustine's quite negative view on human nature and the tremendous way in which even free will was affected by Original Sin.

Augustine's views were recast and taken further by Martin Luther, himself an Augustinian monk, and Protestantism still looked upon Augustine as their Church Father - having discarded all others.

Extreme Augustinianism with respect to Original Sin is the true author of the Protestant doctrines of salvation by faith alone, that works cannot merit us anything, and that the forgiveness of Christ merely covers over our sins, and does not destroy the, reducing the Christian life as a form of "penal servitude" as the Evangelical Anglican author, John Stott, said.

Alex

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Augustine�s writings, and in particular the Civitas Dei, also form one of the primary bases of my dissertation -- the main thrust of which, incidentally, is an alternative, more textually faithful interpretation of Greek patristic political theology.

At any rate, I couldn't disagree more with Anton's assessment that he is "insufferable, boring, and uninteresting." Quite the contrary: Blessed Augustine was a remarkable man, at times a brilliant writer, and, undoubtedly, a strenuous thinker. His Confessions, in my humble opinion, contain some of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching, and brutally honest passages on the human condition (and especially the human psyche) I have ever read. The City of God likewise offers an imaginative defense of the Christian faith against those who sought to blame it for the fall of Rome and an equally valuable (if somewhat piecemeal) commentary on the relationship between classical culture and Christianity.

That said, Augustine�s thought was not fully orthodox/Orthodox. His greatest error seems to be his less than completely Christian conception of human nature. Owing to his pagan upbringing, flirtations with � and eventual rejection of � Neoplatonism and Manicheism, his �hatred� of the Greek language and lack of familiarity with the Greek Fathers, his zealousness as a convert (see his letters concerning Pelagius and the Donatist controversy) and � perhaps most importantly � his willingness to elevate his personal idiosyncrasies as universal characteristics of human nature, Augustine offered a picture of human beings that is, at best, partially accurate. There is great truth and great complexity in that picture. Who else describes so perfectly the ease with which we as fallen creatures sin (again, and again, and again)? Who is not tormented (at times) by feelings of incompleteness and limitedness, by a recognition of the enormous chasm between God and man?

Augustine, however, failed to appreciate the other side of human life: the fact that our human wills were never completely destroyed by the Fall (see St. John Cassian); that we have the restored power to do and be good; that Christ has conquered death and has overcome the separation between God and man; etc., etc.

Most of Augustine�s key errors � his understanding of �Original Sin� and its transmission (in quo v. eph�hoi), his less than complete comfort with the body, the idea of created grace, his doctrine of predestination � can be traced to his unfortunate emphasis on the idea that man�s nature is �wounded, hurt, damaged, DESTROYED� (from De Natura et Gratia). Is this the Calvinist doctrine of man�s total depravity? Yes, at least in embryo.

As for Augustine�s inability to differentiate between the economic and theological Trinity? I don�t entirely understand it myself (I suspect many have a difficult time with the distinction) � I hope that does not make me less than Orthodox or a heretic.

In the end, I am unsure whether Augustine�s writings were sufficiently in tune with the mind of the Fathers, given that his theology of fallen man is so crucial to the balance of his thought.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Dear Theophilos,

Actually, it is a wonder that St Augustine turned out as he did, with all the pagan and immoral influences that surrounded him!

A true miracle of Divine Grace!

Alex

Alex:

...and, ironically, of human effort!

In Christ,
Theophilos

Dear Theophilos,

As long as the two work in synergy, I've no problem with them, Lover of God!

Alex

Here is a nice summary of Orthodox views on Augustine.

http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article8153.asp

There certanly were aspects of Augustine's writings that were as erroneous in the East (and West, as discussed in detail as early as Photius, he has been until very recently held in esteem, as a Saint, in the East.

"O blessed Augustine, you have been proved to be a bright vessel of the divine Spirit and revealer of the city of God; you have also righteously served the Saviour as a wise hierarch who has received God. O righteous father, pray to Christ God that he may grant to us great mercy."
- dismissal Hymn chanted in the Orthodox Church on June 15, the Feast of Saint Augustine

In the writings of Frs. Romanides and Azkoul of the last half century, the perspective of Augustine's being responsible for the Western heresies and for the split of the Church is advanced. This is seems to be an innovative idea, and not part of Orthodoxy's longer-standing tradition on Augustine.

It is human nature to desire to understand causes. If one does not understand a cause of something - the mind manufactures conspiracy theories. We deny ourselves even the chance to have faith in the actions of Providence.

It is the hardest thing in the world for us (as humans) to admit and say �I dunno.�

If Rev Michael Harper Dean asks you, �Who split the church?� answer him �You did when you slandered Augustine with rumor because you did not understand him.�

-ray

You are looking at him from the wrong stance and out of context of his place in human history (as well as church history). Do not be offended... let me give you an example that will aide you in reading the thoughts of yeasterday.

I was trained to be an electrician. Part of my training is to learn how electricity works. I had to learn the theory.

The earliest working theory regarding electricity is that there is electron flow from the positive to the negative pole. And that there are two poles. The positive pole and the negative or neutral or �ground�. This electron flow is somewhat comparable to the flow of water in a pipe - plumbing. Electrical power is thought of as having pressure (volts) and volume (amps) similar to water pressure in a pipe. And by this theory the first electricians has sucess in wiring for electiral works. Even today - an electrician is taught electricity along these basic lines of theory.

In later years - electronics came into existence. And the working theory is that the electrons do not flow from the positive to the negative pole but rather from the negative to positive pole. And the negative pole is really in relation and may not be at the same potential as earth �ground�. The comparison with plumbing and water is still used but the appliance draws (pulls) from the pipe - there is no �pressure�. And this is the working theory that allows circuit boards to be built and your office wired for communications.

When one steps higher into electronic theory (the actual working of transistors and such) one learns that the cause of electron movement has nothing to do with �pressure� it is hole oriented. There is hole flow. A hole is a lack of electron and, in a sense, this hole sucks the electron into it. And this is the basic and simplified theory that allows and electronic tech to repair your TV and radio or computer. The working theory is electron flow as well as hole flow.

When one reaches the hight of electronic theory (quantum electronics) one learns that electrons do not move at all. They are either here - or there - and there is no physical movement of it - from here to there. Many years ago very acurate watches that do not use batteries as we would no it were manufactured and worked well. I wish I knew the name - I think you can buy them.

Now I have just given you three stages in the understanding, the deveolopment and evolution of working with electricity. The first stage, as it was first understood, the second stage as it was further understood decades later, and the last two stages also a further understanding as time went on. The interesting part is that all theories are still taught today according to what branch of electricity you train for. So which is right and which is wrong? The answer is - that each represents a level - a stage in development - that works for its intended purpose (house wiring, basic electronics, advanced electronics, experimental electronics). You do not let an electrician troubleshoot an electronic devise - because he will bring to it the wrong theory.

Man�s understanding of man�s own human nature - has certain developed and progressed. I can properly say the we can identify miles stones (such as Freud ). Augustine was such a mile stone. To read him one should become aware that, for his time, his culture etc.. his strides were huge.

Now if we criticize Augustine by measuring him by what we know today - we may be tempted to say �he was in error�� but once we put our opinion in writing and our correction - years from now when our understanding of human nature has progressed even further - someone will say about your work also �it was in error.� This supposed the discovery of a set of rules that we must dicover.

Origin, who was the man to bridge the cosmogony of the Orient into the philosophical terms of the Greeks - did so for Christianity and indeed laid the essential foundation of all Christian theology. He translated the images and theology of the Old Testament and the New - into Greek concepts. Thanks to Origin Christian theology began development and became a universal �language�. Yet after his death those who inherited the foundation he laid - and developed it further - looked back on him and read - error! In fact they now perceived heresy where they once perceived Christian genius. Do you see the dis-service they did to him?? There is no way Origin could have put himself into the terms and concepts that would only develope later from his own work.Origin was saturated with knowledge of biblical antiquities (the orginal meaning of difficult passages - Alexandria) and those who tried to condem him (well after his death) were in a time when biblical antiquites had been all but lost and the plotical football was being kicked between Rome and Constantinople.

To read Origin, to read Augustine - one must put himself into the historical and cultural shoes of the times and then you can recognize that these men were giants. One must become - the intended reader of that particulat time and culture. These were better than genius - these were men enlightened. They were genius only in the sense of thier having to work within the limits of the stage of development of the tools of the times.

Despite all that - it is a part of our own culture to imagine that the universe has set rules that it runs by - mechanics - physics - that produce inevitable results - as the falling of dominos does. And the most genius of men is he who has researched and come closest to recognizing and understanding these set rules. This is an un-Christian concept of fate and nessisary destiny for the world - that discounts Providence into mechanics that are self-working without God (or God set these into motion at the beginning and they tick across the face of the clock). As if the world runs along self-sufficiently and God only interrupts its operations, every now and then, to do a miracle that defies the rules. As I said, as many Christians who un-consciously live by this theory (because culture presents it to us for belief) it is not a Christian concept and one can not hold it (un-consciously) and understand Augustine at the same time. The City of God is all about the diffrence between a concept of nessesary fate-desinty and living Providence - forming history. The City of Man is viewing history and the world as developed by set rules - and the City of God is coming to the reallization that all events come into being via Providence and are guided at all times by the intlliegents (and person) of a God.

My hat is off to you for your research into such a great man but do not measure him by today�s knowledge which he did not yet posses - but realize that because of him - you have been bequeathed what further knowledge has developed from the foundation that he laid. He is one of the fathers, and mile stones, of what you have received.

Was Origin right or wrong? Was Agustine right or wrong? This is the wrong question to ask. Only God is "right" and all human understanding is a history of the evolution and further deveolopment of man's - tools (his knowledge).

Between Western culture and ancient Eastern - the Western culture tends to make a god of the man who is "a genius" (man's intellecual powers) while the Eastern tend to lean more towards man's intuitive side. Would that we could merge the two together and have a whole man.

I had no sucess in reading the Old Testament and understanding it - untill I realised that I must stand in the directly intended readers shoes - and spent many years learning about the culture and society within which the Old Testament was written.

This is the way I see it. My hat is off to you for reading Agustine.

RayK:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Thank you for your post. I especially appreciate your analogy to electronics and electronic theory, from which I learned quite a bit. Unfortunately, the analogy is entirely inapposite to anything I said or suggested.

I am not measuring Augustine by "today's standards," whatever those are -- if I were, I would consider the Bishop of Hippo closer to the truth than what we have learned from Hobbes, Rousseau, Freud, and modern biology. (If anything, the idea that there is such a thing as human nature has fallen well out of fashion in the postmodernist academy and, perhaps, the culture at large.) Instead, I am holding Augustine up to the standard of Sacred Scripture and the mind (phronema) of the Church Fathers, the consensus patrum.

Your point that we must read authors of yesteryear within their own historical context, and not subject them to the so-called �enlightened� standards of the present day, is certainly well-taken. If I were criticizing Augustine � based on (morally correct) modern assertions of equality � for his tacit acceptance of slavery, which he justified as a consequence of the Fall, then you would be right to chastise me. But I wasn�t � I was talking about his conception of human nature, which, though certainly informed by his own personal circumstances and the times in which he lived, was an attempt to offer a universal portrait of what man really is, of his essence � what characterizes us as human beings rather than, say, zebras or pear trees or God. In comparison to his contemporaries and predecessors in the Greek East (note that I, for the most part, accept their view as true, despite the fact that they lived 1,500 years ago!), Augustine offered a radically incomplete picture of human nature, one that emphasized the ubiquity of sin at the expense of the redeemed potential for virtue, one that considered the human will twisted, broken, even destroyed rather than repaired, reoriented, redeemed.

Augustine WAS wrong for pushing this partial view � which in turn controlled so much of his thinking about holiness, salvation, government, the Church � as THE COMPLETE VIEW. It was not, either in his time or in any time. I�m glad to be reminded that we all sin (nowadays, unfortunately, the idea of evil no longer seems to be part of our common vocabulary � Augustine is helpful in this regard). The story of mankind begins, but does not end, with the Fall. I sometimes wonder whether Augustine truly appreciated the fact that we are image-bearers and that Christ offers us renewed power to live up to this vocation.

Did Augustine love life? Did he think that man had the capacity for virtue? Yes, and there are many beautiful and thoughful passages in his letters, homilies, and treatises that demonstrate this. But, ultimately, given his view of man, he asserted the following (not in such inelegant terms, of course): that a genuine Christian love for this life and the ability to be virtuous have nothing to do with my ability to act or not act, but are consequences of God choosing me and bestowing upon me a purely gratuitous gift of grace, which I � given my utter weakness as a fallen, sinful human creature � have no ability either to resist or, in reality, to accept.

In addition, you wrote: �Despite all that - it is a part of our own culture to imagine that the universe has set rules that it runs by - mechanics - physics - that produce inevitable results - as the falling of dominos does. And the most genius of men is he who has researched and come closest to recognizing and understanding these set rules. This is an un-Christian concept of fate and necessary destiny for the world - that discounts Providence into mechanics that are self-working without God (or God set these into motion at the beginning and they tick across the face of the clock).�

This Newtonian understanding of universe has been flat-out rejected by most physicists and scientists, at least since the early 20th century. If anything, quantum mechanics and the new physics have made it a bit easier for us as Christians to reconcile our understanding of the physical world with the idea of divine providence (another topic entirely).

You go on to note: �As I said, as many Christians who un-consciously live by this theory (because culture presents it to us for belief) it is not a Christian concept and one can not hold it (un-consciously) and understand Augustine at the same time.�

I don�t understand your point. Our general culture, like the scientific community, less and less believes in anything like fate or necessity, although, in its place, they haven�t adopted the Christian view of history. All things are contingent, no? I can make myself into whatever I want to be, despite biology, morality, etc., no?

Why, precisely, can�t I understand Augustine if I believe in the existence of certain universal physical laws, such as fire burns in Athens as it does in Jerusalem? Can we go further and say that one cannot understand Augustine or believe in divine providence if he believes in universal moral laws? Certainly whatever is written or said should be understood in the context in which it is written or said. But doesn�t human language have the power to transcend time and space, to articulate that which is not contingent on particular historical circumstances?

It is you, my friend, who seem susceptible to the idea � a secular perversion of Christianity�s dominant historiography � that History always moves forward, that progress continues unabated, that I, born in the late 20th century, necessarily know more than Plato or Cicero or Aquinas or my great-grandfather. I would say that THIS is the quintessential modernist boast, from Kant to Mill to Marx to (inconsistently, given the collective move to purposelessness in science as in culture) our modern scientists with their alleged cures for the human condition. Augustine, like all the Fathers, reminds us that history is moving toward its end but that suffering and sin have not yet been completely eradicated from this earth, and will not be until we all repent and become members of His Body.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Theophilos wrote:
Fascinating. I cannot recall classical determinism as precipitating a crisis in faith, but quantum indetermininsm - notwithstanding its highly limited significance for macroscopic phenomena - certinaly did, in some sense. The idea of "God playing dice with the universe" was seen as a problem, as yet unresolved, of quantum theory. So I'm interested to hear more of your views on this other topic.

Theophilus, have you been reading Stanley Jaki? Just curious.

Dear RayK and Theophilos,

That St Augustine could have been the innocent author of later issues that affected church doctrine and unity - that is entirely possible.

Arianism was rooted in the theology of St Meletius of Antioch - but he is certainly not guilty of any Arianism.

We know today that Nestorius himself, although he used a questionable phrase, is hardly the author of the full-blown Nestorian heresy that takes its name from him.

And Eutyches was regarded as Orthodox in his lifetime by the Greek theologians who questioned him about his purported Monophysite views.

The fact is that Augustinian views on Original Sin, sexuality and some other issues have, quite rightly, gone the way of the dinosaur in the RC Church that no longer feels constrained by this Western Doctor's theology.

One could make the argument that the West deliberately emphasized Augustine in the aftermath of the Schism between East and West to try and assert a strong, "made-in-the-West" patrimony that tended to overlook the Eastern Fathers.

One evidence of this is how the West could have maintained veneration for Sts. Maximos the Confessor and John of Damascus while promoting its "Filioque" doctrine.

John of Damascus himself states in his Confession of the Orthodox Faith that "we do not say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son . . ."

The Orthodox Church does take Augustine into consideration among the Fathers, but when Augustine came up against the views of the Cappadocian and Alexandrian Fathers on a number of issues - there was no question but that Augustine's assertions had little bearing against the general, tried and true Patristic witness.

Alex