At 16:47 14/10/99 +0100, you wrote:
>Your request deserves an answer at some length, and may incite me to
>one of my "series". Briefly, Alexandria and Antioch were the two main
>intellectual centres of the ancient Church. Most theology - and hence
>most theological errors - derived from one or the other centre.
I'm most grateful to Bill for his reply to my enquiry.
>Most of the theological controversies of the early period were
>Christological in nature; that is to say, concerned with defining the
>person of Christ. Is he God? Is he Man? Is he either? Is he
>neither? Is he both? Is he a bit of each? These (to put the matter
>crudely) were the substance of the early controversies and heresies.
What first struck me several years ago on first encountering the fifth
century debates was the extent to which the participants picked up on the
perceptions of the fourth century debates. At one glance, the debate might
seem to be about Arius and Apollinarius, given the number of references to
them! To a very large extent, debates are fought out over predecessors,
e.g. Cyril and Theodoret's contrasting pieces on Diodore and Theodore. In
one sense, this indirect polemic is a convenient way of masking an attack
on a more serious contemporary, but in another sense, there is some measure
of continuity. The problems that Arius faces regarding the nature of God
are very much those faced by Cyril and his contemporaries. While the
debates to a certain extent are about Christ, they are in a broader sense
about God, and what experiences can be predicated of the divine being, as
they were for Arius.
Ian
Ian G Tompkins, MA, BD, DPhil
Administrative Assistant
Academic Registrar's Office
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Warden
Neuadd Penbryn - Penbryn Hall
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Prifysgol Cymru - The University of Wales
Aberystwyth
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Tel: (01970-62)2047(day); 2900(eve)
Web: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~igt
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