Every February, we come collectively to replicate on and have a good time the numerous contributions African Individuals have made to society by Black Historical past Month.
Simply as communities rightfully honor those that have formed their historical past, God’s folks have a profound alternative to acknowledge and have a good time the people who’ve been instrumental in growing and preserving our religion. Their contributions will not be simply vital—they’re the very basis of the beliefs we uphold as we speak.
With that very same spirit of reverence and gratitude, this text seeks to honor the early figures who established the theological foundations that proceed to information the church. We are going to have a look at three instrumental church fathers—all North Africans:
Why research church historical past?
However first, why ought to we even care about church historical past?
In 2019, as a pastoral intern and seminary pupil, I had the privilege of instructing a church historical past class at my church. As I ready, two books helped floor my perspective: Mark Noll’s Turning Factors and Thomas C. Oden’s How Africa Formed the Christian Thoughts. These works supplied precious historic context that deeply formed my religion—notably in understanding why the fathers I discussed above had been so essential to church historical past and Christian doctrine.
In his Olivet Discourse (see Matt 24:1; Mark 13:1; Luke 21:5), Jesus predicts the autumn of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the hands of Emperor Vespasian and his son, Titus. In response to Noll, this occasion marked the primary main turning level in church historical past. This monumental occasion separated Christianity from Judaism geographically. Many Jews and Christians fled Palestine, scattering throughout numerous nations. A major quantity settling in Africa. As Christianity expanded, it needed to set up itself, free from attachment to Judaism—at the least regionally.
This shift positioned Africa as a vital seedbed of affect in Christian historical past. This leads us to the African fathers, Tertullian, Athanasius, and Augustine.
1. Tertullian of Carthage, defender of the Trinity
Tertullian stands for instance of how God raises up people to articulate and defend orthodoxy. A talented lawyer, author, and thinker, Tertullian used his items to champion the reality.
Within the third century, a trainer from Asia Minor named Praxeas started to unfold an concept that later turned generally known as Modalism. This perception states that the Godhead has manifested himself in three alternative ways all through redemptive historical past. First, God the Creator shaped heaven and earth. Then, to attain humanity’s salvation, he took the type of Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer. Lastly, after the resurrection and ascension, he ceased to be the Son and have become the Holy Spirit.
Stepping in to defend orthodoxy was Tertullian, a frontrunner in Carthage (160–240), whom many name the “Father of Latin Christianity”—as he’s the earliest Christian to put in writing in Latin. Difficult Praxeas, he wrote,
He maintains that there’s one solely Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, so that out of this doctrine of the unity he might fabricate a heresy. He says that the Father Himself got here down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, certainly was Himself Jesus Christ. … For he [Praxeas] was the primary to import into Rome from Asia this type of heretical depravity. … By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the satan at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he introduced in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father.
In distinction, Scripture presents the Godhead as consisting of three distinct individuals. As an example, the Father reigns on his throne, not made by human palms (Acts 17:24), the Son sits on the Father’s proper hand (Ps 110:1; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20), interceding for us day and night time (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25), and the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin (John 16:8–11), attracts folks to salvation in Christ (John 6:44), seals believers as God’s youngsters (Rom 8:1–17; Eph 1:13–14), and equips them for ministry (1 Cor 12:1–11).
As Tertullian rebukes Praxeas, he additionally exposes the religious warfare behind this instructing. He writes that “In numerous methods has the satan rivaled and resisted the reality.” Ought to we be stunned? Our Lord himself revealed that Devil is “the daddy of lies” (John 8:44) and has been deceiving because the starting (Gen 3:1). Is it any surprise that he would use false academics to distort the reality concerning the Godhead?
In his grace, God used Tertullian not solely to defend the reality but additionally to introduce a brand new time period to explain the connection inside the Godhead: the Trinity. Tertullian would go on to put in writing:
All are of 1, by unity … of substance; whereas the thriller of the financial system continues to be guarded, which distributes the unity right into a Trinity, inserting of their order the three individuals—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Tertullian coined the time period that the church has now used for hundreds of years to explain the thriller of God’s triune nature—three distinct individuals, but one God (Deut 6:4; Rom 3:30; 1 Cor 8:6).
2. Athanasius of Alexandria, champion for Jesus’s divinity
The fourth century proved monumental for the church. Underneath Emperor Constantine’s rule, the persecution and martyrdom of earlier generations got here to an finish. For the primary time, Christianity turned intertwined with the state, shaping the course of church historical past.
Amid these modifications, a priest named Arius (from modern-day Libya) emerged in 318. He asserted, “God might by no means share his glory with anybody.” From this presupposition, he claimed that the Son was created by God, since God created every little thing. Arius turned recognized for his well-known motto, “There was a time when he [Jesus] was not.” He would go on to put in writing,
He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten. We’re persecuted, as a result of we are saying that the Son has a starting, however that God is with out starting.
Athanasius and the doctrine of Christ
The dispute over Jesus’s divinity was one of many predominant causes Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea in 325, looking for to unify the empire. The church was divided over Arius’s teachings, so he known as the primary ecumenical council to settle the controversy. Was Jesus God? Was he man? Was he each?
On the heart of this debate stood two males: Arius and Athanasius of Alexandria (AD 296–373). Athanasius served alongside Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and have become one of many loudest voices defending Jesus’s full divinity and humanity. He refuted Arius’s view, declaring that Jesus was each absolutely God and absolutely man. He wrote,
Being God, he turned man, after which as God he raised the lifeless, healed all by a phrase and adjusted the water into wine. These weren’t human acts. However as sporting a physique he felt thirst and weariness and suffered ache. These experiences will not be acceptable to deity. … And but these will not be occasions occurring disconnectedly, distinguished in line with their high quality, in order that one class could also be ascribed to the physique, other than the divinity, the opposite to the divinity, other than the physique. All of them occurred inseparably conjoined, and the Lord who marvelously carried out these acts by his grace was one.
From their dispute got here the well-known phrase homoousios, that means “similar substance.” The church affirmed that Jesus was of the identical substance because the Father (John 1:1; 10:30; Col 1:15–17; Heb 1:1–3)—not merely comparable.
Students discuss with the connection between Jesus’s humanity and divinity because the hypostatic union—two natures unified in a single particular person. Athanasius’s work at Nicaea was foundational in growing the Creed of Nicaea, which affirms the true nature of Christ:
We imagine in a single God, the Father the almighty, the maker of all issues seen and unseen. And in a single Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God; begotten from the Father; solely begotten—that’s, from the substance of the Father; God from God gentle from gentle; true God from true God; begotten not made, being of 1 substance with the Father; by whom all issues in heaven earth got here into being; who on account of us human beings and our salvation got here down and took flesh, turning into a human being; he suffered and rose once more on the third day, ascended into the heavens; and can come once more to evaluate the dwelling and the lifeless. And within the Holy Spirit.
As for individuals who say that, “there was when he was not,” and “earlier than being born he was not,” and “he got here into existence out of nothing,” or who declare that the Son of God is of a distinct substance or nature, or is topic to alteration or change—the catholic and apostolic church condemns these.
Athanasius and the canon of Scripture
Athanasius additionally performed a big function in shaping the New Testomony canon. In 367, he turned the primary particular person to checklist all twenty-seven books of the New Testomony. In his Easter Letter 39, he wrote that these books are the “fountains of salvation … the doctrine of godliness.” Moreover, he condemned heretical writings just like the Gospel of Thomas, stating,
they’re an invention of heretics, who write them after they select, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, utilizing them as historic writings, they might discover an event to steer astray the straightforward.
We acknowledge Athanasius’s enduring legacy in defending the true nature of Jesus and preserving constancy to the Holy Scriptures. Like Tertullian’s, Athanasius’s contributions proceed to form the church as we speak.
3. Augustine of Hippo, contender for man’s sin and God’s grace
Our ultimate historic determine is commonly thought-about the third most influential particular person in Christian historical past, after Jesus and Paul. Whereas Tertullian is known as the “Father of Latin Christianity,” this man is thought to be the “Father of Western Christianity.” God remodeled a promiscuous, pagan, single father right into a theologian for the ages. His identify is Augustine of Hippo.
Within the fifth century, as Augustine was writing a few of his most esteemed and influential works, he caught the eye of a British monk named Pelagius. Distressed by the societal evil round him, Pelagius wrestled with theological issues. He discovered himself troubled by Augustine’s views on sin and charm. Pelagius agreed with Augustine that God created humanity with free will and that evil originates in human will. Nevertheless, he strongly disagreed with the concept humanity has a sinful nature.
In his Letter to Demetrias, a Roman noblewoman, Pelagius argued that God, being righteous, wouldn’t command something of humanity that it was not absolutely able to attaining: “It’s subsequently [unconscionable] that God would ask something of humanity [being righteous], until humanity already had the capability to attain it.”
Augustine vehemently refuted Pelagius’s claims. Rooted in Scripture (Rom 3:23; 5:12–14; 7:15–25; Eph 2:3; 1 John 1:8), he argued that humanity is inherently sinful and in determined want of God’s grace:
Human nature was definitely created innocent and with none fault [vitium]; however the human nature by which every one among us is now born of Adam requires a doctor, as a result of it’s not well being. … Because of this, our responsible nature is liable to a simply penalty. For if we’re not a brand new creature in Christ, we had been nonetheless youngsters of wrath by nature, like everybody else. However God, who’s wealthy in mercy, on account of his nice love with which he cherished us, even once we had been lifeless by our sins, raised us as much as life with Christ, by whose grace we’re saved. However this grace of Christ … isn’t bestowed as a reward for deserves, however is given freely [gratis] which is why it’s known as grace [gratia].”
Augustine’s theological work performed a pivotal function in shaping the church’s response to Pelagius. Consequently, on the Council of Carthage in 418 and the Synod of Orange in 529, the church formally condemned Pelagianism as heresy. Nevertheless, regardless of these rulings, Pelagian views persevered in some influential circles. Augustine died figuring out that his protection of orthodoxy didn’t result in a common victory.
Though Pelagianism lingered, Augustine’s theological influence far outlived him. As new generations of Christian leaders and theologians emerged, many adopted in his footsteps. By the point of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin discovered inspiration and zeal within the phrases of Augustine, shaping the course of Western Christianity for hundreds of years to come back.
God’s work in historical past
As we replicate on the pioneers of our doctrine and religion, we’d be remiss to not acknowledge God’s sovereign hand all through historical past. The Historic of Days has all the time guided historical past towards his meant goal. All the things bows earlier than our God and Savior. He’s at work within the nuances, debates, disagreements, and controversies that come up in all ages. Even within the darkest moments of historical past, he brings about his functions. He did it then, and he’s doing it as we speak.
The previous reminds us that God is devoted—and that in each era, he raises up women and men to champion the gospel, defend the reality, and go away a legacy that conjures up those that come after them. God is guiding historical past. He’s nonetheless directing our steps. As he does, might he proceed to attract you nearer to himself.
Associated assets for additional research
