15 March 2011

Athanasius & Chrysostom on Cry of Dereliction

To counter the suggestion that at the cross when Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" we have the idea of a split Trinity, I have written in a couple of posts on the matter, which you can read here and here. I heard someone mention this idea being spoken today so I thought I'd revisit a couple of Church Fathers on the matter to see if they had a concept of a split Trinity on their radar...what I found was far from it.

Athanasius: For behold when He says, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" the Father shewed that He was ever and even then in Him; for the earth knowing its Lord who spoke, straightway trembled, and the vail was rent...then seeing these signs, [the centurion] confessed that "truly He was the Son of God."

The confession from a Roman centurion, no less, that recognizes the closeness between Jesus and God to such a degree that he proclaims that Jesus was God's Son is far from any notion that the Son and the Father were split at the cross.

Chrysostom: That darkness [at the cross] was a token of the Father's anger at their [the crowd's] crime...He saith, "Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?" that unto His last breath they might see that He honors His Father, and is no adversary of God...and by all things, He shows how He is of one mind with Him that begat Him.

Can we please, especially when speaking from a place of authority, like a pulpit, stop promulgating this idea that the union between the Father and the Son was split or broken at the cross? Bad hermeneutics leads to bad theology...and vice versa perhaps.
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Addendum: Since I originally posted this, Isaac Hopper and Matt O'Reilly have posted responses that voice similar concerns as I raised above to the statement that was made. They also offer the context in which the statement was made (by the same person) recently on more than one occasion. You can read Isaac's here and Matt's here.

Also: in case there was any confusion, the quotations from Athanasius & Chrysostom are in blue. The black font is my input. I also followed up this post with a tweet stating that I don't think that the writings of such Fathers as St. Chrysostom and St. Athanasius to be infallible. Still, since they are highly esteemed throughout the history of the Church, specifically in regards to the theology of the Trinity and of the atonement, then I think if something we say today runs counter to their idea(s) then the burden of proof is upon us to show where, how, and maybe even why they were mistaken on a particular issue. Given their MUCH closer proximity to the age in which the Scriptures were written, they have an advantage over us in getting nearer to the heart of the message of the Bible than the western world in the 21st century, and thereby we should defer to their judgment more often than not. That's not to say that they said everything that needs to be said nor that we cannot build upon their tremendous insights; just that stating something in stark contrast to their agreed opinion should give us pause in assessing the validity of a novel contemporary statement.

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