It has become very typical to attack people, not merely for their own beliefs and practices, but the beliefs and practices of their friends, the people they have studied under, or the people they have taught. Of course, such relationships are important. Indeed, it is difficult to deny that a teacher can have an influence on their pupil, but it is an over-simplification to suggest that a student’s thoughts are going to be exactly the same as their mentor. Even though guilt by association is a fallacy, it is routinely used in rhetorical debates, and it appears to have a great deal of success because people do not know why such arguments are in error. Thus, it has become very common for some to call President Obama a socialist, and it is done along these lines of thought.[1]
If Christians took this line of argument seriously, we would find ourselves in a serious mess. The history of Christian thought would surprise many readers. Figures such as Evagrius Ponticus, who were to be condemned as heretics at ecumenical councils, were themselves authors who have had tremendous influence in the development of and defense of theological orthodoxy.[2] For the sake of example, however, we will stick with Evagrius and some of his associations.
Evagrius was elevated as a deacon by St Gregory the Theologian, and was active at I Constantinople — indeed, St Gregory the Theologian had nothing but praise for Evagrius. Through Nazianzus, he would become friends with, and even influenced by, St Gregory of Nyssa (who method of Scriptural interpretation clearly inspired Evagrius). As St Gregory the Theologian’s secretary, it appears he worked upon and edited St Gregory’s own writings while he was learning from and appreciating the wisdom of the Cappadocians. “Evagrius proved his worth in fighting at close quarters. As is evident from On the faith, Evagrius thoroughly assimilated the Cappadocian perspective on Nicene theology — so thoroughly, in fact, that he was all in probability involved in the drafting and editing of the great orations that earned for Gregory the sobriquet ‘the Theologian’ (an exceedingly rare honour among the Greek fathers).”[3] Although he would suffer a breakdown in the imperial city, causing him to flee the city and eventually renounce honors and become a monk of the desert, Evagrius remained an influential writer. His excursus in monastic theology was to become the systematic foundation for spiritual thought for years to come. His fore into the desert would itself lead to the first Origenist crisis. Soon Evagrius’ death, Theophilus would be forced to condemn Origenism and Origenist leaning monks who had lived with and learned from Evagrius, such as the Tall Brethren — these same Tall Brethren would then seek asylum by St John Chrysostom, and receive it. St John Chrysostom’s bitter battle and exile would come, in part, as a result of his defense of the Tall Brethren.
Evagrius was approved by greats, he was welcomed by greats, and he was read by greats. And yet, he was to be condemned because of his cosmologies, when the second Origenist crisis was seen as a problem by St Justinian. Evagrius, despite being declared a heretic, is recognized as being an important defender of Nicene orthodoxy, of being an important and influential figure in the development of monastic spiritual discipline, and indeed, in the development of moral theology with his development of the notion of the seven (or eight) deadly sins. One could trace Evagrius’ influence in orthodoxy and note that many of his works were often preserved because someone attributed them to orthodox writers like St Gregory of Nyssa (or they were preserved in Syriac, and in Syriac-speaking lands, Evagrius was not to be seen as unorthodox), so that his ideas continued to be reflected upon and treated by subsequent generations.
Now, if we took the typical rhetorical appeal used in politics and aimed it at the Cappadocians and St John Chrysostom, we would have to condemn them, and Nicene orthodoxy, for being heretical. For, if we followed such tactics, this is what we would have to ask and proclaim: Why were the Cappadocians so approving of Evagrius? Why did St John Chrysostom defend Evagrius’ heirs and fellow Origenists? Were they all secret Origenists? Didn’t St. Athanasius declare himself in agreement with Origen?[4] Didn’t St Gregory of Nyssa follow Origen’s universalism? Didn’t St Basil and St Gregory the Theologian make an abridged edition of the writings of Origen to help promote Origen’s thought? Is Nicene orthodoxy itself really an Origenist heresy?
It is clear that Origen and later Origenists like Evagrius were to be held in esteem, even if such esteem led to a critical examination of their thoughts and an adaptation of them when their speculations were seen as incompatible with Christian orthodox theology. By reading and learning from them, as by reading and learning from the philosophers, Christians certainly believed they were able to gain a better theological understanding. Certainly there is a real profound influence of Origen and Origenism on subsequent theology, but it would be wrong to therefore accuse the whole of theology and Nicene orthodoxy as being the same thing as Origenism. In the same way, those who study and adapt socialist thinkers are not necessarily going to be socialists themselves. Pope Benedict does not end up being a socialist because he writes of the endless fascination one can have with Marx and Marxist thought:
With great precision, albeit with a certain onesided bias, Marx described the situation of his time, and with great analytical skill he spelled out the paths leading to revolution—and not only theoretically: by means of the Communist Party that came into being from the Communist Manifesto of 1848, he set it in motion. His promise, owing to the acuteness of his analysis and his clear indication of the means for radical change, was and still remains an endless source of fascination.[5]
Benedict, after all, suggested that despite the genius and importance of Marx, he was in error, desiring a materialistic utopia without an explanation for how that would actually work:
Together with the victory of the revolution, though, Marx’s fundamental error also became evident. He showed precisely how to overthrow the existing order, but he did not say how matters should proceed thereafter. He simply presumed that with the expropriation of the ruling class, with the fall of political power and the socialization of means of production, the new Jerusalem would be realized. Then, indeed, all contradictions would be resolved, man and the world would finally sort themselves out. Then everything would be able to proceed by itself along the right path, because everything would belong to everyone and all would desire the best for one another. [6]
The point is not that Pope Benedict agrees with Marx, but that Pope Benedict supports an appreciation and understanding of Marx, evident not only in Spe Salvi but in his other analyses of the work of Marx. Benedict understood the truth contained in Marx is important and is not to be neglected. Truth is important, and it is to be found in the midst of error — indeed, as is often the case, error is really the incomplete, imperfect presentation of a truth, and what is needed is not the rejection of that truth, but its proper placement with those truths which were neglected by such error. This leads us back to the start of our piece. Ideologues think truth is simple, and easily ascertained. They are unwilling to learn from others, to seek out the truths contained in theories contrary to their own. They resort to over-simplifications because their own version of truth is such a simplification. When ad hominem labels are placed upon people based upon their studies and associations, we can know that it is not truth, but an ideology, which is being defended.
[1] Sometimes, he is denounced for direct associations with a “known socialist,” other times it is because of his association with someone who has praised an aspect of a socialist’s writing. Of course, one does not have to be a socialist to praise ideas created by socialists; indeed, it is important to understand that much good and truth is being proclaimed by socialists, as Pope Benedict has himself done in his examinations on Marx.
[2] There are many correspondences which we could bring up, where a teacher and their star pupil, or close friends who shared a common understanding, ended up being declared on opposite sides on the scale of orthodoxy, such as St Justin Martyr with Tatian, Tertullian with St Cyprian, Origen with St Gregory the Wonderworker, Apollinaris with St Athanasius, Dioscorus with St Cyril of Alexandria, Theodore of Mopsuestia with St John Chrysostom, et. al.
[3] A.M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006), 8.
[4] See St Athanasius, De Decretis VI.27.
[5] Pope Benedict, Spe Salvi 20.
[6] ibid., 21.
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