Showing posts with label Predestination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Predestination. Show all posts

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Pope Celestine I

The earliest mention of the man who became Pope Celestine I was a reference to "Celestine the Deacon" in a 416 document by Pope Innocent I. We don't really know anything else factually except that he became the Bishop of Rome in 422, either on 10 September or 3 November. (Currently the Vatican dates the start of his pontificate as 10 September. The Liber Pontificalis ("Book of Pontiffs"), started in the early Middle Ages and occasionally updated, starts him on 3 November of 422.)

His election involved an "antipope situation." An archdeacon named Eulalius was recognized as pope by the emperor prior to Celestine's election, but once the proper election took place, no arguments ensued. 

In the decade while he sat the Throne of Peter, he had to deal with various questions of proper doctrine and fighting heresy. Fighting Pelagianism was an ongoing concern. He sent Palladius to the Scots of Ireland to deal with heresy, according to Prosper of Aquitaine. He may also have been the reason for St. Patrick's mission. Four letters from Celestine, all dated 15 March 431, went to African bishops urging them to fight against Nestorianism. Closer to home, the Roman Novatians denied the opportunity for any lapsed Christians to be re-welcomed into the faith. Celestine confiscated Novatian churches, arguing that reconciliation should never be refused to one who truly wants it.

The Gallic monk St. Vincent of Lerins in 434 explained Celestine's policy as a strict adherence to the tradition of his predecessors:

Holy Pope Celestine also expresses himself in like manner and to the same effect. For in the Epistle which he wrote to the priests of Gaul, charging them with connivance with error, in that by their silence they failed in their duty to the ancient faith, and allowed profane novelties to spring up, he says: "We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence. Therefore rebuke these people. Restrain their liberty of preaching."

He had a long-distance relationship with Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Augustine was aware of him prior to his election, calling him "My Venerable Lord and Highly Esteemed and Holy Brother" in a letter of 418. Augustine wrote to him again shortly after he became pope with an unusual problem: his own mistake:

I am so racked with anxiety and grief that I think of retiring from the responsibilities of the episcopal office, and abandoning myself to demonstrations of sorrow corresponding to the greatness of my error.

What was the error? Augustine had recommended Antony of Fessula to become the bishop of that town, and now recognized that Antony was corrupt. Augustine wanted the new pope to help him deal with the problem.

Augustine's was one of the strongest voices against Pelagianism, and sent Prosper of Aquitaine (one of his most fervent disciples) to Rome to deliver his arguments to Celestine in a way that they could not easily be done by letters. This changed Prosper's career, since he stayed in Rome working for the papacy as Augustine's "man on the inside" to make sure the anti-Pelagian stance stayed foremost in papal policy. When Augustine died during the Siege of Hippo Regius by the Vandals, Celestine forbade attacks on Augustine's memory that were being made by the Semipelagians, who stated that humans could reach salvation through the choice of Free Will, as opposed to Augustine's teaching that God's Grace was necessary and predestination meant the conclusion was foregone. Semipelagianism was on the rise due to the works of John Cassian.

The early Church generated a lot of different ideas about how salvation was to be achieved and how the relationship between Good and Evil worked. For future reference, let's take a look at the major "heresies" (quotation marks because they simply failed to become official doctrine, but who knows what might have happened?) next time, and we'll talk about Vincent of Lerins who did his best to distinguish between Catholic doctrine and heresy.

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Gottschalk of Orbais

I believe and confess that omnipotent and unchangeable God foreknew and predestined saint angels and elect men to eternal life gratis and that He equally predestined devil, head of all demons, with all of his apostates, and also reprobate men, namely his members, on account of their own most certainly foreknown evil merits, through the most right judgment to deserved eternal death; for thus says the Lord himself in His Gospel: “The prince of this world is already judged”

So wrote Gottschalk of Orbais (c.808 - 30 October 868 CE). He studied at Fulda Monastery in Germany where he became friends with Strabo and studied under Hrabanus Maurus. His first act of "rebellion" was being ordained in France (where he joined the Abbey at Corbie) not by his bishop, but by the local choriepiscopus of Rheims, a lesser functionary in the bishop's. By 840 he had left France for Italy where he preached his views on predestination, before being driven out by Hrabanus Maurus who at that time had become Archbishop of Mainz.

He preached and gained followers in Germany until the Synod of Mainz in 848. It was presided over by Hrabanus Maurus with King Louis the German present. Gottschalk was declared heretical, beaten, and for hidden to return to the Kingdom of Francia under Louis the German. He was sent to Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims to be kept under confinement, but he continued to preach his double predestination.

Six months after the Synod of Mainz was the Council of Quierzy—with Archbishop Hincmar and King Charles the Bald—at which Gottschalk's preachings were questioned again; this time, however, there was no calm theological debate. When Gottschalk refused to accept that is interpretation of Augustine was wrong, he turned to verbal abuse of his opponents. He was defrocked (both in the sacerdotal and sartorial sense), beaten, and imprisoned in a monastery at Hautvillers for the next 20 years, until his death.

Hautvillers; now there's a place worth talking about. Next time.






Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Predestination

Ephesians 1:11 says "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." The Old and New Testaments as well have other passages that declare God's will as the driving force behind all actions and events.

Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 CE) was fine with this. He maintained that God had foreknowledge of whether individuals would deserve heaven or hell. If God is omniscient, and omniscience includes knowledge of what is to come, then God knows what people will do. He also explained the sin of Pride as thinking that we are the ones who choose God rather than God's grace that empowers the initial act of faith. Some scholars claim that Augustine believed in "double predestination," the term that is used to explain that God chooses those who will be saved and those who will be damned.

(This seems to argue against the doctrine of Free Will, that human beings choose to do good or do bad, and hence are responsible for the ultimate fate of their souls. In my (Roman Catholic) youth, we were taught that God's knowledge does not "lock us in" to a certain path. It was explained as foreordination: God simply knows ahead of time the choices we will make.)

Of the three main Jewish sects in the 1st century CE, the Romano-Jewish historian Josephus (c.37 - c.100) wrote that the Sadducees did not have any thoughts on predestination, but the Essenes and Pharisees felt God's providence ordered all human events. The Pharisees still believed that man could choose between right and wrong. We don't know how scholarly an interpretation this was by Josephus.

Pope Clement I (d.99 CE) wrote a letter to the Corinthians in which he appeared to express a predestinarian view of salvation.

Valentinus (c.100 - c.180 CE) believed it depended on what kind of nature you were born with, either good or bad or a mix of the two. A person born with good nature will be saved, with a bad nature will never be saved, with a mixture can go either way.

St. Irenaeus believed Valentinus' view was unfair, and that humans were free to choose salvation or not.

After Augustine, most arguments for or against predestination were based on agreeing with or refuting his explanations.

When the Middle Ages got well and truly underway, people like Gottschalk of Orbais (c.808 - 868) believed in the above mentioned double predestination. (I will say more about him tomorrow.)

Thomas Aquinas believed in free will, but also taught that God predestines certain people to a special closeness to God (called the beatific vision) based solely on God's own goodness.

William of Ockham (c.1287 - 1347) taught free will, but God predestines based on people's good works that He foresees.

The Cathars denied free will.

This is a subject on which there is likely never to be universal agreement.

That Gottschalk of Orbais really stirred things up when he weighed in. Stay tuned.