This is the third of four posts looking to the way various Ante-Nicene Fathers engaged the image of God seen in the Old Testament, with a specific concern on how they dealt with the way God’s anger was represented within it. For the first part, click here, and for the second, click here.
Those who came from or were influenced by the Alexandrian Catechetical School were those most likely to consider what the philosophers taught and try to reconcile their wisdom with Christian theology. This was especially true in regards the philosophical position of the impassibility of God. Holding to the value of such a doctrine, they knew they had to provide an alternative reading of Scripture than the one given by St. Irenaeus or Tertullian. Thus, when Scripture was too anthropomorphic in its presentation of God, it had to be interpreted as metaphor. St. Clement of Alexandria suggested that God condescended to have Scripture written in a way which met the immediate needs and abilities of its audience, and so revelation, which came in and through human prophets, would be “enfleshed” by those same prophets:
Here again arise the cavillers, who say that joy and pain are passions of the soul: for they define joy as a rational elevation and exultation, as rejoicing on account of what is good; and pity as pain for one who suffers undeservedly; and that such affections are moods and passions of the soul. But we, as would appear, do not cease in such matters to understand the Scriptures carnally; and starting from our own affections, interpret the will of the impassible Deity similarly to our perturbations; and as we are capable of hearing; so, supposing the same to be the case with the Omnipotent, err impiously. For the Divine Being cannot be declared as it exists: but as we who are fettered in the flesh were able to listen, so the prophets spoke to us; the Lord savingly accommodating Himself to the weakness of men.[1]
In this manner, many agreed with the presupposition that God could not possess human passions because they agreed that God transcended the human condition. But they still supported and defended the Old Testament and its presentation of God, a presentation inspired by God to reach its intended audience and help them to come slowly to a better knowledge and understanding of God. Those who denied the Old Testament did not understand how God could and did condescend to human weakness, and so met people with what limited knowledge they had at the time and from there, slowly directed them to a better understanding of himself. Indeed, he had the text written so that once the letter of the text as understood as being but a casing for the real intended message, the text could then be read and the truths which were placed in it could be revealed. Moreover, those who desired the most pure representation of God, the most transcended understanding of God, failed to understand how and why human language could never be able to establish it and so all representations of the absolute would be but conventions that point beyond themselves and to the God which transcended the imperfections of human speech.
And now, if, on account of those expressions which occur in the Old Testament, as when God is said to be angry or to repent, or when any other human affection or passion is described, (our opponents) think that they are furnished with grounds for refuting us, who maintain that God is altogether impassible, and is to be regarded as wholly free from all affections of that kind, we have to show them that similar statements are found even in the parables of the Gospel; as when it is said, that he who planted a vineyard, and let it out to husbandmen, who slew the servants that were sent to them, and at last put to death even the son, is said in anger to have taken away the vineyard from them, and to have delivered over the wicked husbandmen to destruction, and to have handed over the vineyard to others, who would yield him the fruit in its season. And so also with regard to those citizens who, when the head of the household had set out to receive for himself a kingdom, sent messengers after him, saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us;” for the head of the household having obtained the kingdom, returned, and in anger commanded them to be put to death before him, and burned their city with fire. But when we read either in the Old Testament or in the New of the anger of God, we do not take such expressions literally, but seek in them a spiritual meaning, that we may think of God as He deserves to be thought of.[2]
The problem, then, was not with Scripture. Those believers who followed a simplistic reading of the text gave material support for its critics, for they affirm a poor reading of the text, the same reading its critics also want people to believe so they can justify their rejection of it. Origen, on the other hand, made it clear that Scripture is of value because it is revelation from God, but this could be affirmed insofar as it was read “spiritually,” that is, insofar as it was read according to the higher meaning hidden within the letter of the text:
Now the reason of the erroneous apprehension of all these points on the part of those whom we have mentioned above, is no other than this, that holy Scripture is not understood by them according to its spiritual, but according to its literal meaning. And therefore we shall endeavour, so far as our moderate capacity will permit, to point out to those who believe the holy Scriptures to be no human compositions, but to be written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and to be transmitted and entrusted to us by the will of God the Father, through His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, what appears to us, who observe things by a right way of understanding, to be the standard and discipline delivered to the apostles by Jesus Christ, and which they handed down in succession to their posterity, the teachers of the holy Church. Now, that there are certain mystical economies indicated in holy Scripture, is admitted by all, I think, even the simplest of believers.[3]
Origen engaged more than the question of God’s wrath, but all forms anthropomorphic representation of God in Scripture. He showed ways we could understand such representations so that they did not contradict what reason could come to know about God. Philosophers were right in talking about God’s impassibility; any authentic reading of Scripture must be read with a hermeneutical lens that was shaped by this fact. Origen suggested, more than possibly any other at his time, that we must develop proper exegetical tools if we want to understand Scripture. He wanted people to realize Scripture must not to be taken at face value, that it was written for those who seriously wanted to learn what God had to say to them. As for why God had the text written in this fashion, the reason was simple: human psychology. If everything was written out in as simplistic a form as possible, not only would it be unattractive and boring, what was readily given to us would be seen as relatively unimportant. That which we struggle to obtain we appreciate more; so to have within Scripture many levels of truths makes Scripture not only capable of attracting our attention, but will keep us actively engaging it. For as long as we keep finding new and greater truths hidden within it, we will be encouraged to go back and look for them and see how they can help us in our lives.
[1] St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata in ANF(2):363.
[2] Origen, On First Principles in ANF(4), 277-8.
[3] Origen, On First Principles, 357.
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