Death of Christianity

What can one say to such points in a brief manner? They merit a long reply, and perhaps Jim won’t want it cluttering the site, which I would entirely understand. I’ll answer you here, but understand that Jim may not approve the post, or may delete it. C’est la vie.

As to “Pre-Augustinian” writings with Augustinian ideas, that would be difficult; and you are aware that he lived in the 4th-5th centuries, when many of the Church’s teachings were being thoroughly exposited (in public) for the first time in their fine points. That fact that explicit endorsements of his thought may not exist, does not preclude the fact that the principles in general were understood – and it would take a full-length paper to demonstrate all the witnesses to “Augustinian” ideas before this, common as they were. Certainly St. Ambrose, St. Hilary, St. Athanasius, St. Basil the Great, etc. all taught the doctrine before St. Augustine. Even more important, St. Cyprian of Carthage and a large synod of bishops condemned the heresy of the Pelagians, defending especially the idea that infants must be baptized so that the Original Sin of Adam be remitted to them, lest they suffer damnation or loss on account of dying before being baptized; this was a century before St. Augustine. The same line of thought motivated bishop Aurelius of Milan to anathematize the Pelagians some years before St. Augustine involved himself in the controversy, and near contemporaries of St. Augustine, such as popes Ss. Celestine, Innocent, Zosimas and Leo the Great, as well as St. Jerome, 126 bishops in Africa and even more in Italy, all condemned the heresy as soon as it showed up in their regions and hardly relied upon the thought of St. Augustine as an “authority” on the matter (since they lived before him, or shortly after him, and thus before a lone man’s innovations could become so swiftly accepted as the norm of orthodoxy, unless they were already considered traditional).

The only two synods that ever exonerated Pelagius were held in the East, and, though the Orthodox often latch onto this as proof that their doctrine was different from the Latins, the actual fact is that the man sent to represent the decisions already passed upon Pelagius, Orosius, was not capable of arguing in Greek at the first synod, and the Latins were detained from appearing at the second. But pope St. Zosimas was a Greek, and he condemned Pelagius. Also, the thought of St. Augustine was vigorously defended by later, Greek theologians, most especially St. Maximos the Confessor, but also St. Theodore the Studite, St. John Damascene, and even – shock of shocks! – Gregory Palamas, who quotes St. Augustine at length in some of his works specifically when dealing with Original Sin and related ideas. Rome had a network of Greek monks about at all times, usually including some of the most eminent personages of the age, such as Ss. Theodore the Studite and Theodore of Canterbury, St. Maximos the Confessor, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, etc., who translated and represented Rome’s position to the East (as St. Maximos did with the Filioque); during this time the East explicitly affirmed the teaching of St. Augustine and the condemnation of Pelagianism (an heresy having everything to do with the complete doctrine of Original Sin) at two Ecumenical Synods, with the West. The Ecumenical Synods also endorsed the Filioque (not its addition to the Creed, but its orthodoxy as a doctrine, by asserting that it followed Leo, Agatho, Augustine, Hilary, Basil, Jerome, etc., in all their teachings – all these men taught the Filioque very clearly.

The more usual terminology in the East, of the Ancestral Curse, makes a distinction between the “Natural Passions,” which are the merely natural (and therefore not intrinsically evil) effects of Original Sin upon our nature: death, hunger, thirst, etc., number amongst these passions. The unnatural (or “vitiated”) passions arise from the reign of “corruption” (concupiscence, in Latin terminology) producing ἡδονή (the term St. Maximos uses to abbreviate his thought of “pleasure not ruled by the nous and dianoia, which would become authoritative in the Greek Churches and which corresponds to “inordinate desire” in St. Augustine and the Latin Fathers). St. Maximos, following the other Fathers, explitily teaches that sexual procreation as man now knows it is always permeated with this principle of corruption, which in turn produces ἡδονή, which is now the predicating principle of human life, subjecting it to the same principles of corruption and death and sinful disorder, from which it arises. For St. Maximos and the Greek Fathers, just as much as St. Augustine, sexual procreation is always “sinful” insofar as it is shot through with a sinful and evil force of corruption, even though it is not “a sin” to procreate. This is one reason why the Fathers viewed sex for any purpose other than procreation as unacceptable for a Christian (hence the Patristic ban on contraception), and it is why the Church always recognized that only those who renounce sexual activity can attain to dispassion and deification while yet in the body (though, of course, those who sexually procreate may progress in virtues and sanctity). In fact, St. Maximos teaches explicitly that Christ was able to assume human nature without inheriting this sinful force of corruption and concupiscence precisely by having a Virgin Birth which did not involve sex and corruption (as you sing in the Axion Estin: “without corruption you gave birth to God the Word, True Theotokos, we magnify thee”), and he categorically states that the Christian life consists of being divorced from the sinful predication of one’s existence upon sexual procreation inherited from Adam, and being predicated rather upon the Virgin Birth of Christ, being incorporated into Christ through Baptism, and thus making the same translation of sin and death, changing it from a due penalty into an instrument for condemning the system of sin and death itself through shared innocence with Christ. Thus, the doctrine of Original Sin is intimately linked to the doctrine on the Incarnation, the Efficacy of the Cross, Baptism and the Christian life. One must not tinker with any part of it, for in destroying one part of the chain he damages essential elements of the Apostolic Faith in its vitals.

So many Orthodox folk are taking the phyletist, anti-Latin sentiment of modern-day Hellenists as the authentic “Orthodox view,” priding themselves on their more “holistic, organic, mystical, etc.” approach to theology, that they don’t realize they are throwing even the Greek Fathers, who agreed with St. Augustine, under the bus. Here’s a fun quote from Gregory Palamas: “the flesh’s impulse to reproduce is not subject to our intellects, which God has appointed to govern us, and so is not entirely without sin. That is why David said, ‘I was shapen in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me’” (from his homily on the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple). You couldn’t ask for a more “Augustinian” formulation of the doctrine of Original Sin! Even St. Augustine’s teachings on freedom of the will were affirmed in every aspect by St. Maximos the Confessor, whose teachings on gnomic vs. natural will exactly parallel St. Augustine’s teaching on “posse non peccare” vs. “non posse peccare.” St. Augustine’s teachings were endorsed by two Ecumenical Councils, and St. Maximos’ Greek re-iteration of his teaching on the will was endorsed as the official doctrine of the Church at the 6th Ecumenical Synod.

So, my advice would be not to wonder whether there are “pre-Augustinian Augustinian thinkers,” but to make a real investigation into the topic amongst all the Latin and Greek Fathers, and to see that the usually-ballyhooed elements of “Augustinianism,” are in fact an Apostolic Tradition of East and West, which modern Orthodox thinkers ignore and denigrate because it makes for a more groovy, mystical, “hipster” theology, and because it allows them to affirm people in their negative prejudices about Christianity’s less popular doctrines while allowing them to posture as pseudo-intellectual aesthetes and mystics amongst all the incense and iconography. Even the core elements of Immaculate Conception were developed in their most explicit and clear forms by Ss. John Damascene and Andrew of Crete, as well as by Gennadios Scholarios, Mark of Ephesus (mirabile dictu!), Gregory Palamas and Nicholas Cabasilas. These speak of the Virgin as sinless from “before her conception,” as “alone making her truce before the general reconciiliation, and, indeed, of needing no reconciliation, since she existed from the first as leader of the friends of God” of being a “return to the first formed state,” of having eaten “fruit of paradise in the temple, of which, if Adam had been granted a taste, he too would have been unable to fall as she was,” etc., etc. This is a woman confirmed in theosis to the point of impeccability, beyond the state of Adam and Even in paradise, while still a toddler in the Temple, before Christ was even conceived. The Immaculate Conception is, indeed, a preeminently Greek doctrine; the Greeks taught it more explicitly than the West, until the West defined it solemnly. So much of what passes for Orthodox “theology” now, is simply a quest to differentiate the East from the West at almost any price. If the price to be free of “Latin influence,” is to throw even the Greek Fathers under the bus, so be it. Read the Philokalia, too; the ascetic authors therein are Augustinian to the core.

Sorry that took so long; as to the other things you say, the authority of the Church exists to administer the Church, and to faithfully expound doctrine; however, it has always been held that the primary rule of faith is the Apostolic Tradition. When there is no reason to suspect a bishop of heresy or of apostasy, and when he is commanding nothing contrary to faith or morals, his authority should be respected and obeyed. When he seems to overthrow tradition, he may be scrutinized, to see if he is self-condemned as an heretic; when he commands something evil, he not only may be disobeyed, but very often must be disobeyed. The Church has always believed that, when the bishops are gathered in an Ecumenical Synod, the definitions proposed as definitive are infallibly true. The Church has also always believed that any true bishop of Rome (again, when no heresy or apostasy is suspected), after due consultation, has the charism and authority to issue such decrees, which are to be received as authoritative; it has always believed that such decrees would be free of heresy. A real wake-up call came for me, when I read the acts of the Ecumenical Synods in detail, and the letters before and after them; it is quite clear that the pope was perceived to be in charge, and that the council’s chief job was to receive and enact the decree of Rome and, if necessary, to provide deliberation before this decree was pronounced. In fact, this was the belief of St. Theodore the Studite and other saints of the East, who from time to time wrote the Emperor of Constantinople and told him that he should command a synod be gathered and the holy decree be received from the pope of elder Rome, even telling him that he could do this without the presence of the Eastern Patriarchs, if necessary.

The attempt to regard these acts of the Church’s highest authority as somehow ambiguous, is a late development in Orthodoxy, that only exists to give them an “out” from the disastrous implications for their communion. The fact is that the Church always considered both the solemn decree of an orthodox Roman Pontiff, and the Ecumenical Synod eliciting and enacting this, to be Infallible. In fact, pope Vigilius neither attended the 6th Ecumenical Council nor sent legates; he issued a separate decree on his papal authority, which the 6th Council took as confirmation of their deliberations. If the Orthodox want to say that “the whole Church” is the guardian of the truth, then we are forced to admit that 1) no council has been ecumenical and 2) in very many instances, we have no way of knowing what the real truth may be until centuries have passed and the “mind of the Church” has been settled; this certainly doesn’t help us in overcoming the East-West divide, since you could say that the Church has no official doctrine on which side is right or wrong until both sides agree! Every council but the 2nd and 7th involved huge numbers of dissenters, just as Florence and Lyons did. If Florence and Lyons are uncertain, then so are five of the seven early Ecumenical Synods. The fact is that a large synod presided over by the pope or his legates, and concurring with their judgment, has always been regarded as Infallible in its dogmatic pronouncements, and the Orthodox knew this and said as much up until the 1800s when, slowly but surely, things began to change. The new position has resulted in hopeless contradictions that not only disqualify the Orthodox Church from holding the Apostolic Faith, but even from having any mechanism for knowing what it is. Though I say all this, I freely grant that what passes for Catholicism since the pontificate of Paul VI, is not the Catholic Church: it is “the great delusion” of the Great Apostasy. Paul VI gave every indication of being an heretic by his words and deeds, and of being self-excommunicated by brazenly wearing Freemasonic insignia on his person (as he did in Yankee Stadium). When he changed the rites of the Church, he fell under the anathema of the Council of Trent and Pope St. Pius V. The subsequent “popes,” for concurring in this and promoting other heresies already condemned authoritatively, have been at worst antipopes, and at best feckless and inept men, whose insobriety merits firm resistance and not obedience. Because of the apostasy in the Church at large, the solemn recognition of this fact has not been forthcoming.

Finally, “Economy” is the other great heresy of Orthodoxy in modern times, and a major reason I came to see that she had departed from the Apostolic Tradition. “Oikonomia” is a principle of *Canon Law.* It leaves the application of the Church’s discretionary norms for prescribing penance, etc., in the hands of the proper authority. Most importantly, the purpose of oikonomia is to attain the same result that the Church’s canons aim to achieve – the saving of souls by neither trivializing their sins nor inducing the faithful to despair over them – by modifying the application of discretionary norms to best achieve this result in particular cases, using the norms as a guide.

Oikonomia thus has no power to actually negate morality or change the Church’s moral teaching on points. Our Lord and the Scriptures teach clearly and objectively: the man who divorces and remarries *is in adultery.* He is fornicating in an adulterous relationship with a woman who is not his wife, and cannot ever be his wife, unless his first wife dies. Only death breaks the sacramental bond of marriage. Fornication is a reason to separate, but is not a reason to remarry. Because the Church’s moral teaching on the nature of divorce and adultery are not mere matters of Canon Law, the principle of “oikonomia” can do nothing to permit them. You may as well say that the Church could permit “gay marriage” or sodomy, or even abortion, “by oikonomia.” The Church has no power to re-write morals via oikonomia.

The principle of oikonomia *would* allow the Church to lessen or eliminate the penance or canonical impediments that sodomites normally incur, if they repented and forsook their sins. It *would* allow the Church to lighten a woman’s penance from 10 years’ fasting and prostrations for running around on her husband and precipitating a divorce, if she were repentant and gave up her sin. But it cannot say that we “permit” sodomy, adultery or divorce “by oikonomia.” Most importantly, it means that if a woman has dared to “divorce ” and remarry while her husband is still living, then, because the Church has no power to simply legalize repeated, ongoing acts of adultery (it can only lighten or increase the penance when the person comes to confession and is prepared to forsake their sins), there is no way to “permit” the “re-marriage” on grounds of “economy.” And the early Greek Fathers taught the same. The abuse of economy comes late, and only expanded to such proportions after the Orthodox fell away from the Church.

I think I’ve droned on for long enough, now…

Jim, you’re arguing that the Church should actually serve earthly interests while rhetorically supporting spiritual interests. But the Biblical verse “And if Christ be not raised , your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” suggests that spiritual interests are the proper interests of the Church and that their overshadowing by earthly interests are a form of corruption.