Schools of Alexandria and Antioch
During the pre-Nicene period and that of the Ecumenical Councils, Christian theology centered in Antioch tended to emphasize the literal, historical facts of the life of Jesus Christ over philosophical or allegorical interpretations of Holy Scripture, contrasted with the more mystical and figurative theology coming from Alexandria: one believed that Gentile Christians should adhere to all Jewish observances such as circumcision; the other being more Hellenized did not insist on such matters, or the separation of circumcised and non-circumcised.
Antiochian theology, though stressing the "earthier" side of interpretation, nevertheless did not neglect the importance of insight into the deeper, spiritual meaning of the Scriptures.
These two view points came to be known respectively as the Antiochian school and the Alexandrian school, represented by major catechetical institutions at both places.
In about 180 CE Pantaenus (a former Stoic philosopher), founded the theological School of Alexandria in Egypt, called the Didascalia, and it was undoubtedly the earliest important institution of theological learning in Christian antiquity. But the school was not limited simply to the study of Christianity, nor was it limited to Christians. Hence many Greek and Roman students and scholars, who held to their own religions, attended the school. Science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and medicine were only a few of the other subjects taught. The Didascalia was open to everyone who wanted to learn. Catechumens (followers of Christianity who had not yet been baptized) studied alongside priests and students of Greek philosophy. The school became a leading center of the allegorical method of Scripture interpretation, as I said earlier, which was the same exegetical method practiced by Palestinian Rabbinical schools. Allegorical exegesis involves, as St. Augustine noted, understanding one passage of Scripture by virtue of example, concept, or another passage. Allegory differs from the parable method in its statement of doctrinal truths rather than practical advice. It also differs from the literal method of Scripture interpretation, in which the surface meaning of a passage is the passage, is meaning. An example of allegory in the Bible is that of “the vine,” found in Psalm 80:8–16 and Isaiah 5:1–6.
Under such leaders as Clement (c. 150–215) and Origen (c. 185–254), the theological school of Alexandria endorsed a reestablishment of relations between Christian faith and Greek culture (including the Platonic philosophical tradition), and attempted to preserve Orthodox Christianity in the face of heterodox theologies during periods of doctrinal transition. The Alexandrians typically found allegory in most every passage of Scripture. Moreover, in their accounts of the person of Christ, they tended to focus almost exclusively on His divinity.
Clement was the father of the Christian philosophy of Alexandria, and was well-versed in the Holy Scriptures as well as Greek philosophy. As he loved the true gnosis (knowledge) he desired every Christian to be a true Gnostic. Of course, the first step in Gnosticism is "to know thyself". His own writings concentrated on Christ who as the true Gnosis is the Redeemer of all. His Christology thus centered on the redeeming work of Christ as the Light, Who shines upon our minds, that they might be illuminated. That illumination is kindled in baptism. This teaching he manifested in the Protreptikos. "The Logos is not hidden from any one. He is the general Light, who shines upon all. Therefore there is no darkness in the world. May we hurry to attain our salvation? May we hurry to attain our renewal?"
Clement wrote extensively although much of his work has been lost. His most famous work is his Trilogy, a lengthy three-volume work in the style of similar works issued by the Greek philosophers. The first volume, the Protreptikos (Exhortation), was an invitation to conversion; the second was the Paidagogos (Tutor), a manual of Christian ethics and morals; and the third volume, the Stromateis (Miscellanies), was a long and rambling work on just about every subject Clement could think of. This trilogy unveiled Clements’s theological system for salvation. There are three steps: firstly, the Word of God, or the Logos invites mankind to abandon paganism through faith; secondly, He reforms their lives by moral precepts; thirdly, He elevates those who have undergone this moral purification to the perfect knowledge of divine things, which he calls "gnosis" (Knowledge). These writings were an invitation to the pagan to abandon idolatry and to consider Christ's redemptive work, which releases one from the power of sin and from all errors that makes a human being blind and helpless.
Thus in the time of Clement the Catechetical School adopted a three step program:
Conversion of pagans to Christianity;
Practicing the moral precepts;
Instructing Christians to attain perfect knowledge of doctrine.
Clement like his successor Origen believed that Christian theology and Greek philosophy could be combined and reconciled to yield a method of scholarship unmatched by the rest of the world. His ability to refute his critics with quotations and allusions to the classic poets and philosophers made him a powerful force for intellectual Christianity, as many of the pagans of his day saw Christians as a largely uncultured and unintelligent group. Clements’s writings also helped new converts feel at home in their new religion by showing that one could be learned and intelligent and be a Christian at the same time.
In his writings Clement (cited from memory from the Septuagint Scriptures, explains inaccuracies) often from his favorite passages that included Genesis 1(the creation-story), the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, John 1 (the coming of the Logos), the hymn to love in the letter to Corinth, and Ephesians 4. It was obvious that he loved the Psalms too and the epigrammatic wisdom of Proverbs but not so the historical books. The Major Prophets featured prominently also. With his use of the New Testament he neglected the gospel of Mark in comparison with the other evangelists.
At the end, some critics have noted that the Alexandrians, in trying to protect against an overemphasis on the humanity of Christ (which they felt led to such heresies as Nestorians’); they sometimes leaned toward tritheism, into which Origen is said to have drifted. Monophysitism (the view that virtually negates Christ’s humanity by claiming Him to be divine only) is thought to have been an extreme form of Alexandrian Christological thinking.
Origen (c.185 A.D - c.254 A.D), pupil of Clement followed his teacher as Head of the Didascalia when Clement fled to Caesarea at the tender age of seventeen or eighteen.
Origen saw Philosophy compatible to Christian teaching, but with three important differences:
in declaring that matter is co-eternal with God;
in confiding God's providence to the heavens;
in declaring that man's destiny was governed by the stars;
Undoubtedly Origen's mind took Christian doctrine into another realm. The deity is the source of all existence.
Origen also taught that there was life after death, followed of purification in “quodam eruditionis loco”, through a baptism of fire by degrees depending on how a man had lived. The less a man has to expiate the less will he suffer. The wicked will be punished by flames of fire, specially prepared to suit the sins of each individual. Yet this punishment will not be eternal except for the rebellious angels. Origen understood that in God's plan all creation will be reconciled to their Maker. However not all will enjoy the same degree of happiness.
I should mention that he wrote a number of ascetic works: The Exhortation to Martyrdom and On Prayer. He also wrote a treatise “Kata Kelsou” (Against Celsus), in which he defended Christianity from attacks by the second-century pagan philosopher Celsus. The latter had made himself familiar with Christian literature, and concluded that the Gospel message was absurd. How could a God make himself so obscure in a corner of the Roman Empire? Origen counter-argued. True. God did reveal Himself in lowly circumstances but He had been preparing for this for a long time, illustrated in the history of the Jews, the chosen race. Yes, it is true that God reveals Himself to the simple and poor because their hearts are not full of worldly things. To these people God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.
For us Orthodox, there are difficulties with some of Origen's teaching. His of interpretation of the relationship amongst the Three Persons of the Trinity is unclear. On the nature of Christ he taught that the human soul of Christ had previously existed, and had been united to the Divine nature before that incarnation of the Son of God which is related in the Gospels. Not only Christ's soul, but all souls pre-existed and their imprisonment in material bodies was a punishment for sin but these material bodies will be transformed into spiritual ones at the resurrection. Origen believed that all creation, even Satan and his devils will be finally restored the mediation of Christ. Nowhere though did Origen discuss the nature of the Church. Nevertheless until Augustine came along he had the greatest influence on the theologians, even those who sought his demise like Jerome owed a tremendous lot to this brilliant and faithful Christian. In many ways Origen was the most brilliant of all Christian theologians.
Opposing the School of Alexandria was the School of Antioch, which emphasized the literal interpretation of the Bible. Founded circa 200, the theological school of Antioch in Syria stressed Scriptural literalism and the completeness of Christ’s humanity. Thriving in the 4th-6th centuries, the School of Antioch gave rise to several significant theologians, including Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and St. John Chrysostom.
There were two distinct periods in the history of the school of Antioch. The first period, beginning in the late third century and continuing to the early fourth century, was marked by the contributions of Lucian, who conducted an important didascalion about 270 A.D.
Lucian's scholarly achievement was an edition of the Septuagint revised on the basis of the Hebrew Bible, a text that was accepted as authoritative both in Antioch and Constantinople. It seems likely that Lucian's work gave the theology of Antioch its Scriptural orientation toward historical and literal exegesis. In addition, Lucian, by defending his disciples Arius and Eusebious of Nicomedia, became embroiled in a controversy over the divine and human natures of Christ. Evidently his strictly theological perspectives were heterodox, for Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia and even calling themselves “Lucianists.” Henceforth, the great defenders of the humanity of Jesus were inextricably associated with the Antiochian school.
Concerning Arianism, it is important to remember that the Church in the 4th century was dominated by controversy over the propositions of an Alexandrian priest, Arius (c. 250–336), who held that the Son was not eternal but created by God as an instrument for creation of the earth. In other words, Christ, though higher than humanity, was inferior to God, non-eternal, and with a definite beginning. In 325 the Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism and affirmed to Nestorianism, the majority of his exegetical and theological writings were destroyed or lost.
Other major figures associated with the origin of the Antiochian school include writer such as Diodore of Tarsus, who developed a dualistic Christology that characterized the school of Antioch. His disciples: John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius etc., subscribed to his doctrines.
Diodore of Tarsus helped initiate this controversy in the last decades of the fourth century by speaking of Christ as simultaneously representing the "Son of God" and the "Son of Mary." Mary was viewed by this Antiochian scholar as the mother of a man, rather than a mother of God. The Word of God and the Son of Mary were both Sons of God; the one by nature, the other by grace. These formulations served as the basis for the doctrinal creeds and exegetical writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose expository writings served as the foundation and inspiration for the schools of Edessa and Nisibis, and particularly for Paul, the sixth century author of the manual of Scriptural exegesis, later to be known through the hand of Junillus as the “Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis”.
Theodore was born in Antioch (c.350), and was ordained a priest of the Church of Antioch in 381, he became, in 392, bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia. His life and writings are connected with Nestorius, who in 428, the year of Theodore's death, and rose to the office of bishop of Constantinople. Much of Theodore's literary and theological reputation was bestowed upon him posthumously. After the condemnation of Nestorius by the Council of Ephesus (431), charges of heterodoxy were raised against Theodore's teaching by several prominent bishops, and most particularly by Cyril of Alexander, who wrote “Contra Diodorum et Theodorum”, effectively cementing the association between these two Antiochian scholars. But Theodore's popularity depended upon the prevailing Church attitudes of the day. At the Council of Chalcedon (451), the Fathers accepted the epistle of Ibas of Edessa that praised Theodore as a "herald of truth and doctor of the Church". During Ibas's episcopate, many of Theodore's works were translated into Syrian, thus elevating his position in the Nestorian Church, which ultimately conferred upon the prolific commentator the title "the interpreter." Yet in 553, the Fathers assembled at the Second Council of Constantinople condemned his writings, and Theodore was anathematized as heretical.
Nearly all of Theodore's many commentaries are left to us in fragments; the only complete work in Greek is his Commentary on the Twelve Minor Prophets. There are Syrian versions of his Catechetical Homilies and his Controversy with the Macedonians. There is extant a Latin version of his Commentary on the Minor Epistles of St. Paul.
As noted above, the inspiration for Theodore's doctrines of exegesis may be derived from the school of Antioch, which insisted on the literal and historical sense of the text, as opposed to the allegorical approach advocated by the school of Alexandria. Theodore's typology is patent in his commentary on the book of Psalms, in which he subscribes to the following principles: David is the author of all the Psalms; each Psalm refers to a historical situation, to be determined in the light of the argument of the Psalm as a whole; this situation can be either in the life of David or future to him; in the latter case, David foresees the future event and speaks words appropriate to it. Of the 80 Psalms whose commentary has endured, Theodore places 50 in the history of Israel from the time of Solomon to that of the Maccabees, while assigning only 3 to Christ. His Commentary on the Minor Prophets demonstrates a similar concern by the author to promulgate the actual historical situation envisioned by each Prophet.
Theodore, in his theological considerations, insists on the human soul of Christ and on the significance of His free moral activity in the work of redemption. He replaces the phrase "Word and flesh" with the formula "Word and assumed man." Consonant with the Dyophysite position expressed by Diodore and later espoused by Nestorius and the bishops of the schools of Edessa and Nisibis, Theodore also asserts that the two natures of Jesus constitute "one Son" and "one Lord" because they are united in one person.
Nestorius, born in Euphratesian Syria 31 years after Theodore of Mopsuestia (c.381), was destined to have his name permanently linked with the great “chair of exegesis” because of his Dyophysite pronouncements and the adoption by the faculties of Edessa and Nisibis of his and Theodore's polemics and commentaries. Together, Theodore and Nestorius served as the wellsprings of the two Mesopotamian schools that carried the banner of Nestorians.
Nestorius used his position as bishop of Constantinople (428) to preach against the title Theotokos, "Mother of God," that was given to the Virgin Mary. He claimed a more authentic title should be the Mother of Christ. This doctrine was challenged by Cyril of Alexandria and, later, Pope Celestine, who anathematized Nestorius and condemned him as a heretic at the Council of Ephesus in 431.
Although much of Nestorius's sermons and teachings were ordered to be burned, the doctrine of Nestorian survived and served as the basis for Dyophysite teachings in the fifth and sixth centuries, particularly at Nisibis, which had inherited the mantle of Syrian scholarship from Edessa. Fragments of Nestorius's letters and sermons have been preserved in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, citations in the works of St. Cyril of Alexandria (Nestorius's creedal adversary), and through the interpolated Syrian text, The Bazaar of Heraclites, an apology, written near the end of his life (c. 436).
The Christological thought of Nestorius is dominated by Cappadocian theology and is influenced by Stoic philosophy. Although Nestorius never spoke of the human Jesus and the divine Jesus as "two sons," he did not consider him simply as a man. However, differing from Cyril of Alexandria, who posited one sole nature in Christ, Nestorius defined a nature in the sense of “substance," and distinguished precisely between the human nature and the divine nature, applying in his Christology the distinction between nature and person (hypostasis). Nestorius refused to attribute to the divine nature the human acts and sufferings of Jesus. This last statement underlines the ultimate difference between Nestorius and Cyril. Nestorius distinguished between the logos (the "divine nature") and Christ (the Son, the Lord), which he saw as a result of the union of the divine nature and the human nature. After the Council of Ephesus, a strong Nestorian party developed in eastern Syria that found its strength and intellectual support in the School of Edessa. After the theological peace achieved in the agreement of 433 between Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch, a number of dissenting bishops affiliated themselves with the Syrian Church of Persia, which officially adopted Nestorianism at the Synod of Seleucia in 486. The Nestorians were expelled from Edessa in 489 by the Emperor Zeno and immigrated to Persia. It was thus that the Nestorian Church broke away from the faith of the Church of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
The Nestorian spirit was redoubtable. Secured in the Persian Church, it continued to flourish in the seventh century despite persecution from the Sassanid’s, and after the invasions of the Turks and Mongols. Nowhere is its intellectual vibrancy and spirit more apparent than in its theological school, Nisibis, the successor to Edessa. It is here where our narrative leads, and the explication of the environment that produced Paul's Dyophysite text and “Junillus's Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis” begins.
Unlike Theodore, St. John Chrysostom was foremost a preacher, aptly earning the title “Chrysostomos”, or “Golden-Mouthed.” The vast majority of Chrysostom’s writings were expositions of the Bible, in which he demonstrated himself to be a rigid proponent of Antiochian literalism. His sermons are reflections of the ecclesiastical, cultural, and social status of Constantinople and Antioch in that day. Not hesitant to denounce and condemn heresy, Chrysostom’s legacy to Orthodoxy is that of an outstanding rhetorician, writer, homilist, and liturgist.
At times, this difference in emphasis caused conflicts within the Church as the tension between the two approaches came to a head, especially regarding the doctrinal disputes over Arianism and Nestorians’. Saints such as John Chrysostom are somewhat regarded as synthesizers of the Antiochian and Alexandrian approaches to theology, and the Antiochian school of theology, whose more deviant proponents produced Arianism and Nestorians’, also enabled the Orthodox fight against the Alexandrian school's deviances, namely Apollinarianism and Eutychianism.