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Naked or Clothed? Eschatology and the Doctrine of Creation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Frances Young
Frances Young*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

A Paper on life after death in the early church should probably begin with the underworld: Sheol in the Hebrew Bible, Hades, in Greek mythology, with parallels in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia. It should reflect on the universally connected theme of judgment and its importance for theodicy, and address the wide variety of beliefs discernible in the New Testament and its background, especially in the apocalyptic literature. It should consider the so-called intermediate state, and the supposed distinction between the Greek concept of the immortality of the soul and the Hebrew idea of resurrection: which takes us full circle, since the latter notion assumes the picture of shades in the underworld brought back to full-bodied living – as indeed the traditional Anastasis icon of the Eastern Orthodox tradition makes dramatically clear, Christ springing up from the grave and hauling Adam up with one hand and, often though not invariably, Eve with the other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 45: The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul , 2009 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2009

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References

1 Bauckham, Richard, The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 93 (Leiden, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 This paper is a sequel to the one entitled ‘Creation and Human Being: the forging of a distinct Christian discourse’, forthcoming in Studia Patristica. There I traced the impact of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo on the anthropology of those key fourth-century Fathers who are generally regarded as somewhat Platonist, concentrating particularly on Augustine, and referring across to the Cappadocians. In that paper I also set out reasons for the now commonly accepted view that the notion of creatio ex nihilo emerged in the second century in debate with Platonism and Gnosticism.

3 I refer to Origen, misunderstandings of Origen and reactions against views taken to be Origenist; see further Daley, Brian E., The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 5.

4 Gregory of Nyssa, De opificio hominis 16.10, 12 [hereafter: Op. hom.]; Greek text in PG 44: 123–256. Paragraph numbers are from the ET in NPNF II, 5: 387–427.

5 Gregory of Nyssa, Op. hom. 23.5; 25ff.

6 E.g. Mühlenberg, E., Die Unendlichkeit Gottes bei Gregor von Nyssa (Göttingen, 1966)Google Scholar; Heine, R. E., Perfection in the Virtuous Life (Philadelphia, PA, 1975).Google Scholar

7 The above paragraph is borrowed, with abbreviations, from ‘Creation and Human Being’.

8 Gregory of Nyssa, Op. hom. 21.

9 Ibid. 22.

10 Ibid. 22.6.

11 Ibid. 23–24.

12 Ibid. 25.

13 Ibid. 26.

14 Ibid. 27.9.

15 Ibid. 29.

16 Ibid. 30.

17 e.g. Basil, Hexaemeron 1.11; 3.10; 7; 8; 9.

18 Ibid. 2.

19 Ibid. 1.3.

20 Ibid. 1.6.

21 Ibid. 1.2. This paragraph is drawn from ‘Creation and Human Being’.

22 Limberis, Vasiliki, ‘Resurrected Body and Immortal Flesh in Gregory of Nyssa’, in Moutsoulas, E. D., ed., Jesus Christ in St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Theology. Minutes of the Ninth International Conference on St. Gregory of Nyssa, Athens 7–12 September 2000 (Athens, 2005), 515–28 Google Scholar. I am indebted to this article for the quotations from In sanctum pascha which appear in this paragraph.

23 Gregory of Nyssa, Op. hom. 27.9.

24 Idem, In sanctum pascha.

25 Greek text in PG 46: 11–160; ET in NPNF II, 5: 430–68.

26 NPNFII, 5: 433 (PG 46: 29B). The following paragraphs summarize Gregory’s lengthy reasoning and there is no attempt to provide detailed references to a text which does not have convenient standard subdivisions.

27 All biblical quotations in this paper are taken from the NRSV.

28 This paragraph repeats points made in ‘Creation and Human Being’.

29 For Athenagoras, see Legatio 15.2; cf. 4.1-2, which is more ambiguous.

30 Schoedel, W. R. takes it to be an anti-Origenist work of the third century in his introduction to the text and translation quoted here: Athenagoras: Legatio and De Resurrectione (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar [hereafter: De res.], following R. M. Grant, ‘Athenagoras or Pseudo Athenagoras?’, HThR 47 (1954) 121–29. The case against authenticity has been subjected to vigorous critiques by Barnard, L. W., Athenagoras: A Study in Second Century Christian Apologetic (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar, and others. See further Daley, , Hope of the Early Church, 230 n. 4.Google Scholar

31 Athenagoras, De res. 2. 2–3.

32 Ibid. 3.1.

33 Ibid. 10.6. Note the form of argument, often referred to as Qal wahomer, or ‘from light to heavy’, and regarded as a particularly Jewish form of reasoning.

34 The title of this paper was taken from this passage.

35 Cf Athenagoras, De res. 15.2, 5.

36 Ibid. 12.5-7.

37 Ibid. 13.2.

38 Ibid. 14.6.

39 Ibid. 18.1.

40 For example, Tertullian’s (fl. 200) treatise On the Resurrection of the Flesh (De resumctione carnis) and the fourteenth Catechetical Lecture of Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) cover much the same ground.

41 Tatian, , Oration to the Greeks 5, 6 Google Scholar [hereafter: Orat.]; Tatian, Oratio ad Craecos and fragments, ed. and trans. Molly Whittaker, OECT (Oxford, 1982).

42 Tatian, , Orat. 13.Google Scholar

43 Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Shape of Death (London, 1962), 17–18.Google Scholar

44 The second-century writer Theophilus of Antioch made similar moves: see Ad Autotycum 2.4, where he argues that creation out of pre-existent matter makes God no better than a human craftsman; cf ibid. 1.4.7 for the connection between creation and resurrection.

45 Trans. Peel, Malcolm L., in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. Robinson, James (Leiden, 1977), 50–53.Google Scholar

46 Peel’s introduction: ibid. 50.

47 Tertullian, ’s Treatise on the Resurrection, ed. and trans. Evans, Ernest (London, 1960).Google Scholar

48 Tertullian, , On the Resurrection 4.Google Scholar

49 Ibid. 2; here I have used and corrected Evans’s translation and inserted explanations from the context.

50 Tertullian, Against Hermogenes.

51 A similar argument could be adduced from the works of Irenaeus, who was also, of course, opposing Gnostic heresies.

52 Latin text in CChr.SL 47–48 (Turnhout, 1955); ET in Concerning the City of God, trans. Bettenson, Henry, intro. Knowles, David, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth, 1972).Google Scholar

53 Augustine, City of God 10.29.

54 Ibid. 22.1-3.

55 Ibid. 22.5, 7–9.

56 e.g. ibid. 22.4, 24.

57 Ibid. 11.24.

58 Ibid. 20.6, 16.

59 Ibid. 22.4.

60 Ibid. 22.11.

61 Ibid. 22.12-14, 19–20.

62 Ibid. 22.12.

63 Ibid. 22.15.

64 Ibid. 22.17.

65 Ibid. 22.18.

66 Ibid. 22.30.

67 Daley, , Hope of the Early Church, 142 Google Scholar. See also Daley, Brian E., ‘Resurrection’, in Fitzgerald, Allan D., ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI, 1999)Google Scholar; other entries on ‘Soul’, ‘Body’ and ‘Anthropology’ helpfully trace Augustine’s developing views.

68 Augustine, City of Cod 22.21.

69 In ‘Creation and Human Being’, I argued that this was the key to the Confessions and the much-debated question of its unity.

70 I am indebted to the work of a graduate student, Rowena Pailing, for demonstrating the exceptional character of the City of God in this respect.

71 Augustine, City of God 22.29.