From Persecution to Empire
His gracious love saves us still beyond the hope and expectation of others, and even of ourselves, and liberally imparts to us the abundance of His Father’s blessings.
- Eusebius
A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today, edited by James R. Payton, Jr.
The Enemy
It is easy enough to be on one’s guard when the danger is obvious… There is more need to fear and beware of the enemy when he creeps up secretly…those hidden approaches…have earned him the name “Serpent.”
- Cyprian
[The enemy uses] … the Christian name itself to mislead the unwary. He invented heresies and schisms so as to undermine the faith, to corrupt the truth, to sunder our unity.
- Cyprian
Satan snatches away people from within the Church herself…thought walking in darkness, they think they still enjoy the light.
- Cyprian
The one who soothes the sinner with comforting flatteries only encourages the sinful appetite… The wound must be cut open, the infected parts cut out, and the wound treated with stringent remedies.
- Cyprian
The devil was defeated precisely through being detected and unmasked.
- Cyprian
This was true then; it is true now. In the name of the church and of Jesus Christ, sin is soothed: “He Gets Us” isn’t the entirety of the gospel – at least not in the way the promoters of such sentiments believe. Hidden in the belly of the Church, Satan has his apostles in place to mislead those who do not see the danger.
Matthew 7: 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
In his commentary on this passage from the Sermon on the Mount, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones offers:
These, surely, are in many ways the most solemn and solemnizing words ever uttered in this world… How often, I wonder, have we considered them, or heard a sermon on them?
Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev adds:
Jesus’ warning against false prophets has retained its relevance in all times.
Money & Wealth
[The wealthy] think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves.
- Cyprian
If we have wealth, if we have resources at hand, let them be used, not for the pleasure of one, but for the welfare of many.
- Lactantius
We can take nothing with us except a life well spent, lived without any harm.
- Lactantius
Christ Jesus
The Jews use the Old, we the New. They are not opposed, however, because the New is the fulfillment of the Old, and in both the testator is Christ…
- Lactantius
This touches on one of my earlier posts; considering to read the whole of the Bible through a lens that is Jesus Christ.
…He did not deliver His teaching merely by verbal precepts, nor did He try to prove the soul’s immortality by persuasive and probable argument; but He displayed to them in His own person a real victory over death. … He was the victim offered to the supreme sovereign of the universe for the whole human race…
- Eusebius
Why did the incorporeal Word of God assume this mortal body as a way to interact with humanity? … So, as fitting means to communicate with humankind, He assumed a mortal body, something with which they were familiar….
- Eusebius
Now, touching on a subject that I have commented on before:
No language is sufficient to express the origin, the dignity, even the substance and nature of Christ … For who but the Father has thoroughly understood that light which existed before the world was…
- Eusebius
The split after Chalcedon. To split over the nuances on a topic of which humans cannot, in any case, comprehend: just how is it that God and man are joined in the person of Jesus Christ? It is truly incomprehensible to us, beyond accepting on faith that it is true.
The (Institutional) Church
If one does not hold fast to this oneness of the Church, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? … You cannot have God for your father if you do not have the Church for your mother.
- Cyprian
For this, Cyprian cites the apostle Paul:
Ephesians 4: 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Yes, but Paul also writes:
1 Corinthians 1: 12 Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
And this:
1 Corinthians 9: 19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; 20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; 21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; 22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.
And to those who conform to one manner of worship…. You get the idea.
My point isn’t to argue with Cyprian. I haven’t read everything he has written on this matter; further, he lived in a different context – time, place, circumstance. But this idea that one institution has a monopoly of being the true Church must be rejected. Besides being divisive, and demonstrating arrogance by those who make such claims, there is too much in Scripture to refute this notion.
Let God be hallowed by us, not in temples, but in our hearts…
- Lactantius
Mark 9: 40 For the one who is not against us is for us.
The Christian Life
It is our duty to stand upon His [Christ’s] words, to learn and do all the He taught and did. How can anyone profess faith in Christ without doing what Christ commanded?
- Cyprian
The first step of righteousness is to refrain from evil deeds; the second from evil words; and the third, from consideration or thinking of evil things.
- Lactantius
This is the first step of wisdom, to know who our true Father is, that we may honor Him alone with due piety, that we may obey Him and must devoutly serve Him, that all our acts and care and attention be focused on doing so.
- Lactantius
The same Lord and most indulgent Father, therefore, promises that He will remit the sins of those repenting of them, and that He will wipe away all the iniquities of the one who will begin at length to do righteousness.
- Lactantius
God warns that the worker of righteousness should not be boastful, lest he seems to have performed the work of mercy, not so much from a desire of obeying the heavenly commands as from one of pleasing other people…
- Lactantius
We are to know God, worship Him, and do as He commands. This is the Christian life.
Other
Religion ought to be defended, not by killing but by dying, not by fury but by patience, not by crime but by faith. … If you wish, indeed, to defend religion by blood, if by torments, if by evil, then it will not be defended; it will be polluted and violated.
- Lactantius
Just as it is being polluted by blood, torment, and evil today.
Without religion…we are leveled to either the inhumanness of beasts or the stupidity of cattle; for in religion alone – that is, in the acknowledging of the supreme God – is wisdom.
- Lactantius
The thought of God especially slips out of human memory, when, enjoying His benefits, they ought to give divine indulgence. But whenever serious necessity falls upon them, then they remember God.
- Lactantius
Biographies / Sources
Cyprian (195 – 258) served as bishop of Carthage. He was converted largely by reading Tertullian. During his time as bishop, persecution was renewed; some would renounce their faith, resulting in a question of what to do with these when the persecutions ended. The most rigorous group was eventually deemed schismatic.
Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 320) lived through the last great persecutions, those under Diocletian – and then into the reign of the first Christian emperor, Constantine. He was a tutor to one of Constantine’s sons. He defended the Christina faith, not through Scripture but by appeal through rhetoric against the works of the current culture.
Eusebius (c. 260 – c. 340) served as bishop of Caesarea from about 315 until his death. During his life, the Church went through the best and worst of what the empire had to offer. Eusebius enjoyed Constantine’s favor, even recording the address the emperor gave to the Council of Nicea in 325.