Introduction
This article series teaches about how St. Augustine’s Christology (the study of Jesus Christ) influenced Martin Luther’s understanding of Jesus.
In Part 1 we studied a brief overview of the lives of Augustine and Luther. Part 2 considered Augustine’s early years which set the stage for his later theology and written works about Jesus Christ, all of which would influence Luther.
In this lesson we’re going to learn more about Augustine’s specific literary contributions to the field of Christology. Let’s jump in!
The Scope of Augustine’s Literary Works
Augustine wrote one-hundred and thirteen books and treatises; two-hundred and fifty letters; and, more than five-hundred sermons.
These represent what has been preserved for the last sixteen-hundred years and does not preclude the possibility that he could have written more.[1]
His three best known works, Confessions, On the Holy Trinity, and Christian Doctrine represent the best in theological and apologetic work from the fourth and fifth century church.“Augustine wrote one-hundred and thirteen books and treatises; two-hundred and fifty letters; and, more than five-hundred sermons.”
Tractates on the Gospel of John, in addition to the three above, demonstrate Augustine’s clear Christological understanding within his biblical exegesis and commentary.
These selections also show how Augustine’s clear and vast teaching influenced the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD even though it met decades after Augustine’s death.
The Chalcedonian Definition later officially stated Jesus was one person made up of two natures: one whole divine nature and one whole human nature inseparable and indistinguishable.
This was clearly articulated in a sermon he gave in 419 AD of which Moser wrote,
There he argued that Christ can be understood and named in three ways in Scripture. The first way is according to his divine nature, in which he is coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The second way is post-Incarnation, according to which he is both God and a human being. The third way is insofar as he is the Head of the Church, to whom he is united.[2]
While Augustine never wrote a work devoted to pure Christology, Creuss stated that he never made a work solely about it because it was the departure point for all his theological and philosophical endeavors.[3]“Augustine believed and publicly taught the total humanity and total divinity of the Son of God at least three decades before the Council of Chalcedon further codified such a theology for the Church.”
In other words, Augustine’s presupposition for all theology was Proto-Chalcedonian in nature. This is important because during Augustine’s lifetime there was not a fully agreed upon language for Christological orthodoxy.
To be sure, the Council of Nicaea and the Councils in Constantinople made progress towards firm, orthodox understanding, but before Chalcedon there were still heresies rampant across the known world causing confusion in the local churches, such as Subordinationism, Subhumanism, Dyoprosopitism, Monophysitism, Manicheanism, Pelagianism, and Donatism; all of which were refuted by the Chalcedonian Definition to varying degrees.[4]
Christology in Tractates on the Gospel of John
Augustine wrote his Tractates on the Gospel of John from 406 to 420 AD[5].
Speaking of how Christ is the Word of God in John 1, how all things were created through Him, and how Christians must work to understand the deeper parts of the faith, he wrote,“Augustine used his work on the Gospel of John to examine and explain Christ’s nature and redemptive work in the first century.”
Let him not leave Christ born through the flesh till he arrive at Christ born of the Father alone, the God-Word with God, through whom all things were made; for that is life, which in Him is the light of men.[6]
Augustine further supported his view by commenting on John 1:5,
If He came hither, where was He? He was in this world. He was both here and came hither; He was here according to His divinity, and He came hither according to the flesh…”[7]
He believed and publicly taught the total humanity and total divinity of the Son of God at least three decades before the Council of Chalcedon further codified such a theology for the Church.
While Augustine never specifically wrote to make the case for orthodox Christological thought, Creuss wrote,
Augustine’s interpretation of John focuses primarily upon the personal unity of Christ as the mediator who is both God and man and who therefore reveals himself as such in the entire narrative of the Gospel.[8]
As such, Augustine used his work on the Gospel of John to examine and explain Christ’s nature and redemptive work in the first century.
Wellum’s case for modern Christology agrees with Augustine’s view in 406 AD, “…that Christ is the God-man, the divine person of the Son with two natures, one divine and one human.”[9]
Christian Doctrine
Augustine wrote Christian Doctrine to provide a firm procedure for proper biblical exegesis.
He noticed other theologians of his day fabricating their interpretations without basis or claiming divinely imparted words and abilities outside of the canon.
About this important work Crawford explained, “This hermeneutic does not simply offer a way of interpretation apart from the Christian life, but also seeks to see the interpreter transformed into someone who can preach the whole Gospel with the whole person, as that which best communicates the Gospel that is both lived and taught.”[10]“Augustine wrote Christian Doctrine to provide a firm procedure for proper biblical exegesis.”
Therefore, without insulting those whom he disagreed, Augustine provided both procedure and basic theology for his readers to become capable of becoming proper exegetes.
Within this work, Augustine affirmed the orthodox explanation of the Trinity provided by the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD.
For it is not easy to find a name that will suitably express so great excellence, unless it is better to speak in this way: The Trinity, one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. [Romans 11:36]
Thus the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and each of these by Himself, is God, and at the same time they are all one God; and each of them by Himself is a complete substance, and yet they are all one substance.
The Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son: but the Father is only Father, the Son is only Son, and the Holy Spirit is only Holy Spirit.
To all three belong the same eternity, the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, the same power. In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality; and these three attributes are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all harmonious because of the Holy Spirit.[11]
Further, he wrote,
And though He is everywhere present…He appeared to mortal men in the form of mortal flesh…the Divine Word, though suffering no change of nature, yet became flesh, that He might dwell among us.[12]
From these two quotes from Christian Doctrine, it is clear Augustine was against Apollinarianism, the view that Christ had one blended nature of human and divine.[13]
Instead, Augustine proposed to his readers Christ had a wholly divine nature unperturbed by adding to Himself human flesh (i.e., human nature).
On the Holy Spirit
Augustine wrote On the Holy Spirit over the course of his entire ministry as Bishop of Hippo.
In the prologue, he wrote about men who stole early manuscripts from him and distributed them before he had finished the work.“On the Holy Spirit is a comprehensive resource on describing the nature and importance of the Trinity.”
Fortunately, Augustine had other copies of it and was encouraged by other church leaders to finish the work.
On the Holy Spirit is a comprehensive resource on describing the nature and importance of the Trinity.
Within this work, Augustine described his Christological views on the nature and mission of Christ. He wrote against Apollinaris’s stated view,
…the Trinity is the one and only and true God, and also how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are rightly said, believed, understood, to be of one and the same substance or essence.[14]
He affirmed the fullness of the Godhead, the separate functions of each divine person, and the added human nature of Christ,“Augustine’s clear stances on Jesus’s two natures in one person and full part in the Trinity were developed to help students of theology to have confidence in the textual evidence for orthodoxy.”
…the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father has begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. Yet not that this Trinity was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, but only the Son.[15]
Augustine, to strengthen his argument, then pointed out the problematic views of those who deny the full deity of Jesus,
“Augustine’s work must be understood considering the whole corpus rather than taking each passage on its own due to the various heresies he wrote against.”They who have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, or not very God, or not with the Father the One and only God, or not truly immortal because changeable, are proved wrong by the most plain and unanimous voice of divine testimonies…[16]
Finally, to argue for the full humanity of Jesus, Augustine stated,
For in the form of a servant which He took He is less than the Father; but in the form of God, in which also He was before He took the form of a servant, He is equal to the Father…For neither by that taking is the one of them turned and changed into the other: the Divinity is not changed into the creature, so as to cease to be Divinity; nor the creature into Divinity, so as to cease to be creature.[17]
Augustine’s clear stances on Jesus’s two natures in one person and full part in the Trinity were developed to help students of theology to have confidence in the textual evidence for orthodoxy.
Ayers explained Augustine’s interpretation of Sonship within the Trinity this way,
Scripture itself sets out a regula or rule for our reading, speaking sometimes of Christ insofar as he was a human being, sometimes with reference to his substantia, to his status as eternal. The division, it should be noted, is not simply between the two ‘natures’ of Christ, but relies on an understanding of Christ as one subject who may be spoken of as he is eternally and as he is having assumed flesh.[18]
As Ayers understood it, Augustine agreed with the Nicaean Creed and further expounded upon it and defined it per his audience.
At times, modern scholars believe Augustine was confused or contradictory in his statements.
However, Ayers made a case for Augustine instead being guilty of apologetical arguments built for the audience he had in mind within each work.
Instead, Ayers suggested Augustine’s work must be understood considering the whole corpus rather than taking each passage on its own due to the various heresies he wrote against; different theological details were necessary to bring out and expound upon.
Writings Against Manicheanism
Augustine wrote six documents against the religious thought he favored in his younger life; On the Morals of Manichaeans, On Two Souls, Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichaean, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, Disputation to Faustus the Manichaean, and Concerning the Nature of Good. “Augustine wrote six documents against the religious thought he favored in his younger life.”
The Manichaeans believed in dualism: the Kingdom of Light ruled by a totally good God and the Kingdom of Darkness ruled by a totally evil God who were eternally opposed to one another.
Many of them claimed to be Christians, but Augustine, having once belonged to their number, counted them as heretics.[19]
In his dispute with Fortunatus, a Manichean elder, Fortunatus supported subordinatism when he said this to Augustine, “But that He sent forth a Savior like Himself; that the Word born from the foundation of the world, when He had formed the world, after the formation of the world came among men.”[20] “Augustine’s Christological arguments were required to be apologetically clear and informed to intelligently refute anti-biblical understandings of Christ.”
Faustus’s argument about the nature of Christ required Jesus to be like God, created by God, and not of equal worth and function to God the Father.
This is in opposition to Augustine’s view of three co-equal, co-eternal persons of one essence as one God.[21]
Hence, Fortunatus thought of Christ as the ultimate human-divine warrior of light but not truly one with God.
Further, Fortunatus ended his argument on the first day by asserting Jesus as not truly being human,
You assert that according to the flesh Christ was of the seed of David, when it should be asserted that he was born of a virgin, [Isaiah 7:14] and should be magnified as Son of God. For this cannot be, unless as what is from spirit may be held to be spirit, so also what is from flesh may be known to be flesh.[22]“Augustine wrote clearly within his various works about the fullness of Jesus as co-equal person of same essence in the Trinitarian Godhead as God the Son with God the Father and God the Spirit as laid out in the Nicaean Creed and, after Augustine’s time, in the Chalcedonian Definition.”
What is apparent from this statement and by others within the document, Augustine’s Christological arguments were required to be apologetically clear and informed to intelligently refute anti-biblical understandings of Christ.
Concerning the Manicheans, Augustine was well-equipped to counter their heresy because he had been involved in it at one time.
Fortunatus believed in a Jesus that was neither truly God, like God but not co-equal with God, nor truly human because being born of the Spirit denied Jesus His humanity which was necessary to relate to mankind and be able to atone for sin.
Augustine wrote clearly within his various works about the fullness of Jesus as co-equal person of same essence in the Trinitarian Godhead as God the Son with God the Father and God the Spirit as laid out in the Nicaean Creed and, after Augustine’s time, in the Chalcedonian Definition.
While Augustine did not write a document for the sole purpose of describing his Christological understanding, it governed his writings as the foundational point from which his theological understandings were derived.
Conclusion
Throughout this series we’ve learned how St. Augustine’s Christology (the study of Jesus Christ) influenced Martin Luther’s understanding of Jesus.
In Part 1 we studied a brief overview of the lives of Augustine and Luther. Part 2 considered Augustine’s early years which set the stage for his later theology and written works about Jesus Christ, all of which would influence Luther.
And this lesson looked at Augustine’s specific literary contributions to the field of Christology.
In our next and final lesson, we’re going to bring everything we’ve discussed thus far together, and will see how Augustinian Christology, and Augustine’s life, specifically influenced Martin Luther’s life and his Christology.
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Image Credit
Portret van Martin Luther, Cornelis Koning (?-1671), c. 1608 – c. 1671. RP-P-1908-1644. Heilige Augustinus met brandend hart doorboord met pijl, Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert, after Peter Paul Rubens, 1596 – 1678. RP-P-1886-A-11212. The Rijksmuseum
Sources
[1] Ferguson, Christian History, (2005), 271-274. [2] J. David Moser, “Totus Christus: A Proposal for Protestant Christology and Ecclesiology,” Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology 29, no. 1 (May 2019): pp. 3-30, https://doi.org/10.1177/1063851219891630, 6. [3] Gregory Michael Cruess, “Augustine’s Biblical Christology: A Study of the in Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus Cxxiv” (dissertation, ProQuest LLC, 2019), 16-18. [4] David E. Wilhite, The Gospel According to the Heretics, 105-169. [5] Cruess, “Augustine’s Biblical Christology”, (2019), 3. [6] Augustine. Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 1, 17. [7] Ibid., 2, 8. [8] Cruess, “Augustine’s Biblical Christology”, (2019), 362. [9] Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ, ed. John S. Feinberg, Foundations of Evangelical Theology Series (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 423. [10] Nathan Crawford, “Pursuing an Ontology of Attunement through St Augustine’s Christology,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (April 2010): pp. 179-196, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001776920&site=ehost-live, 187. [11] Augustine, Christian Doctrine, 5. [12] Augustine, Christian Doctrine, 12-13. [13] Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ, ed. John S. Feinberg, Foundations of Evangelical Theology Series (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 297. [14] Augustine, On the Holy Spirit, 2.4. [15] Ibid., 4.7 [16] Ibid., 6.9 [17] Ibid., 7.14. [18] Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 161. [19] Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichaeans, 19.68. [20] Augustine, Disputation to Faustus the Manichaean, 3. [21] Joseph C. Quy, “Revelation, Christology and Grace in Augustine’s Anti-Manichean and Anti-Pelagian Controversies,” Phronema 28, no. 2 (2013): pp. 131-139, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001962486&site=ehost-live, 133. [22] Augustine, Disputation to Faustus the Manichaean, 19.