1. Gender and Nag Hammadi (Chairs: Katherine Veach and Nathan Bennett)
2. The Reception and Interpretation of Sacred Texts in Early Christianity: The Transfiguration (Chairs: Jeffrey Bingham and Bogdan G. Bucur)
3. Religion and Society in Syrian Antioch (Chair: Wendy Mayer)
4. The Rhetoric of Heaven (Chairs: Candida R. Moss and Taylor Petrey)
5. Ambrosiaster (or “De-mystifying the ‘Mysterious Ambrosiaster’”) (Chairs: David G. Hunter)
6. Syriac Homiletic Biblical Exegesis (Chairs: Robert A. Kitchen and Kristian S. Heal)
7. Love, the Mind, and Books: exegetical pedagogy and noetic exegesis (Chairs: Blossom Stefaniw and Michael V. Niculescu)
8. The Reception of Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Predestination and Divine Sovereignty (Chairs: George Kalantzis and Patout Burns)
9. The Reception of Gregory the Great in the Middle Ages (Chair: Ann Kuzdale)
10. Touching Religion in Late Antiquity (Chair: Douglas Boin)
11. The “Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy” Research Project (Chair: Charles A. Bobertz)

HT: Vita Brevis.

In a previous post, I made some general notes about the Ancient Christian Doctrine (ACD) series from IVP. In this post I will now give attention to the first volume in the series, which covers the first article of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

The author and editor, Gerald L. Bray, is a reserach professor at the Beeson Divinity School, the director of research at the Latimer Trust, and is an ordained priest in the Church of England. In addition to this volume, he co-edits and contributes to the Ancient Christian Texts series and contributes to the Ancient Christian Commentary series, both of which are also published InterVarsity Press.

The major topics that Bray highlights are drawn from the section of the Creed cited above; he discusses faith and scripture, the nature of God, God as Father, God as almighty, God as creator, creation itself, and things seen and unseen. It’s hard to imagine that all those topics and their respective sub-topics fit within 150 pages, but somehow Bray was able to do it. In the introduction, Bray reminds us that the first article is the only section of the Creed that is faithful to both testaments, and even a practicing Jew can assent to it with only a few reservations about wording (xxvii). The first article is the shortest and most likely the oldest article of the Creed. With that being the case, Bray traces much of the theology from this section back to the earliest Christian writers. Of course, since the later patristic authors tended develop their theology more thoroughly, they are often cited as well.

Bray briefly tackles the subject of how well the church fathers represented the broader Christian community. He argues that H. E. W. Turner refuted Walter Bauer’s claim that the so-called heretical branches of early Christianity were the mainstream. For Bray, Turner’s word should have been the end of the story, but instead there has been a renewal of interest in this subject. He writes:

“[I]t is now necessary to defend the classical fathers of the early church against the charge that they were a small and underrepresented minority who happened to take control of the church at a key moment in its development and who were thus able to obscure the historical truth in their own interests. Fortunately, the best refutation of such ideas is the reading of the Fathers themselves. (xxxviii)

In the end, Bray argues that the “Gnostics” or “people with syncretistic doctrines” were not very influential or numerous, and so the classical church fathers and the Nicene Creed both represent authentic Christianity. This, of course, has bearing on which texts are included in the patristic commentary itself, and we shouldn’t expect non-Nicene forms of Christianity to be represented here given that it’s a work on Nicene Creed. I only make reference to this feature of the commentary because the title of the series, “Ancient Christian Doctrine,” could be understood in a number of ways.

While selecting sources for the patristic commentary, Bray sought to choose texts that not only represented the early Christian doctrine, but ones that were also valuable to spiritual formation of the modern reader. The main goal of the book is to “foster the edification of Christian believers” (xli), although Bray also notes that the book should prove helpful to scholars and others less interested with that goal.

The sampling of texts used in the commentary are easy to navigate and the selections are generally very relevant. The selections are also nicely footnoted with pointers to source material, cross references, and explanatory notes. Unfortunately, there aren’t notes on the translation of the Greek and Latin texts themselves, and those interested in the original languages will have to consult other editions. The commentary functions as a hybrid between a concordance of topics pertaining to the Nicene Creed and an anthology of primary sources of patristic authors. It’s definitely a useful volume to locate sources on the theology of the writers known as the Church Fathers. I see this this book as a helpful starting place for further inquiry.

References

• Walter Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 1934; ET: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity; London: SCM, 1972).
• H. E. W. Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study in the Relations Between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church (London: Mowbray, 1954).

The series is edited by Thomas C. Oden, who is also the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. There are five volumes in this series and each one deals with a different topic related to the creed:

1. Gerald L. Bray, We Believe in One God
2. John Anthony McGuckin, We Believe in One Lord Jesus Christ
3. Mark J. Edwards, We Believe in the Crucified and Risen Lord
4. Joel C. Elowsky, We Believe in the Holy Spirit
5. Angelo Di Berardino, We Believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

The format is very helpful. At the beginning of each section, the passage of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is given in three parallel columns in Greek, Latin, and English. Then the editor contributes a few paragraphs on the historical context of the section, and includes an overview of the following patristic commentary. The bulk of the book is the patristic commentary itself which entails English translations of numerous patristic quotations, each a paragraph or two in length. The quotations are selected based on their relevance to the cited passage of the creed. Unlike the commentaries on the Bible, the patristic authors were not necessarily commenting on the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in their original context, but what they said was deemed relevant by the respective editors.

This series should be useful to anyone hoping to learn more about the history of interpretation of orthodox Christianity. Not only does it comment on the text, but it also functions—in a way—as a detailed theological concordance of these authors. IVP has put together a page for this series, which includes additional information for those curious about these books. Here’s the series blurb from that page:

This exciting five-volume series follows up on the acclaimed Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture to provide patristic commentary on the Nicene Creed. The series renders primary Greek, Latin, Coptic and Syriac source material from the church fathers in lucid English translation (some here for the first time) and gives readers unparalleled insight into the history and substance of what the early church believed. Including biographical sketches, a timeline of ancient Christian sources, indexes, bibliographies and keys to original language sources as well as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in Greek, Latin and English (ICET version), this series illuminates key theological essentials in the light of classic and consensual Christian faith and makes an excellent resource for preaching and teaching.

No one would disagree that the number of scholarly articles, monographs, and commentaries on the New Testament is so exhaustive that it is difficult to survey even the significant contributions on any given pericope or passage. I have often complained about the over-saturation of NT scholarship when trying to research a topic. What contributions am I supposed to ignore? Is there a cut-off date? Obviously these are dynamic factors given the circumstances, but we have long ago passed the point of being able to know all the various views. In some ways the survival-of-the-fittest principle is in play because scholarly assertions that failed to transcend their generation often go unnoticed to later interpreters. But the over-saturation of NT scholarship is not necessarily a negative thing. Interpreters not only have a plethora of contributions to consult on a topic or text, but they can easily find their place in various streams of tradition and appeal to the research of others. By revisiting the same texts we are hopefully making more nuanced interpretations that take into consideration the problems and solutions posed by earlier scholars. Is this the case or is it just a romanticized view of the discipline?

While working on my PhD applications last year I thought about how the over-saturation of the New Testament would affect my own research and ultimately my dissertation topic. I’ve always wanted to focus on the NT, but have seriously considered extracanonical writings for a dissertation topic because of the more spacious elbow-room. However, one of the factors of a dissertation topic is the location where one is doing their graduate work. I applied to various PhD programs, some whose emphasis were in Mediterranean religion, history, or biblical theology—not New Testament specifically. But, given the fact that I ended up in a New Testament program, my thesis will likely deal with the canonical texts primarily—most likely something on Luke-Acts. This doesn’t mean my fascination with the apostolic fathers and NT apocrypha will be stifled, but my primary focus for now will be on the New Testament.

In a way, this sort of gets at part of the generalist-versus-specialist debate that recently has been floating around on the blogosphere [see here]. Rather than trying to be a jack of all trades or the absolute authority on a single topic, is it feasible to be an expert on a few subjects and do them very well? Ideally, I would like to have a decent grasp of the entire field, but primarily publish in only a few areas, one of which would be a subject that is not already saturated with scholarship. Of course, I’m still thinking these through. Does this sound like the ramblings of a naive student, or a useful way to approach scholarship? Either way, I still think that the over-saturation of NT scholarship is both useful and discouraging, depending on the way one views it. It’s useful as long as we continue to take advantage of all the years of previous scholarship, but we should also pursue subject matter that generally doesn’t get as much press.