Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology

Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully HISTORICAL THEOLOGY Aim and Methodology The literature of early Christianity has always been read for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways.1 Some scholars read early Christian theological texts in order to bolster contemporary confessional convictions or to inform the confessional debates of our day. While confessional commitments are not in themselves detrimental, reading early Christian theology in order to find support for particular confessional commitments often results in the neglect—and occasionally the distortion—of important aspects of the early Christian tradition. Some mine early Christian theology for nuggets they can use to forge today’s constructive and systematic theologies. While the theological accounts of early Christians are a wellspring for contemporary thinking 1. In this introduction—and in the title of this volume—we refer to the study of early Christianity, early Christian literature, and early Christian theology rather than to the fathers of the church, patristics, or patrology (for a concise discussion of this latter set of terms, see Michel Fédou, The Fathers of the Church in Christian Theology, trans. P. M. Meyer [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019], 11–16). Our use of “early Christian” rather than “fathers of the church” or “patristics” signals our recognition that scholars, and readers more generally, regard the normativity and authority of this period and its literature differently. Our approach has much in common with the use of “patrology” to refer to the history of early Christian literature, but that term is not as common as it once was. Our use of “early Christian,” finally, does not signal that we accept the aims and methods typically associated with “early Christian studies” (see, e.g., Elizabeth Clark, “From Patristics to Early Christian Studies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 7–41, esp. 14–41). Indeed, this introduction enumerates several ways in which those aims and methods are at odds with the aims and methods of historical theology. 1 Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 1 2/24/22 1:34 PM 2 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully about God and God’s work in the world, some constructive and systematic theologians appropriate ideas abstracted from their historical and literary contexts and, thus, produce overly simplistic or errant representations of early Christian thought. Still others study early Christian literature in order to gain insight into the social and cultural structures of the ancient world. While we can learn much from early Christianity about ancient—and even contemporary—social and cultural structures, those who study early Christianity for these reasons are typically more interested in the historical conditions surrounding the production of early Christian literature than in that literature itself and its ostensible meanings. Moreover, sociocultural approaches to early Christianity often operate out of methodological assumptions about the nature of human motives and the goals of human discourse that undermine attempts to regard ancient belief as genuine and take its study seriously. In contrast to these confessional, constructive or systematic, and sociocultural approaches to the early Christian tradition, historical theology as a discipline aims to understand and elucidate the Christian theological tradition in both its historical and theological dimensions.2 The method of historical theology—the broader category to which the historical method of reading early Christian theology belongs—supports this aim. In contrast to confessional, constructive, and systematic methods, the method of historical theology is essentially historical, defined by a commitment to consider and elucidate the Christian tradition in all of its variety and complexity and in light of its full historical context. In contrast to sociocultural methods, the method of historical theology is essentially theological, defined by a commitment to consider and understand the full complexity of the abstract thought world that stands behind the textual tradition of early Christianity. To be sure, the method of some historical theologians is more historical and the method of others more theological, but—as the upcoming pages explain—it is this methodological combination of historical and theological attentiveness that makes historical theology the discipline most interested in, and most able to attain, an accurate understanding of early Christian literature and the theological commitments articulated therein. Conferences and professional societies have grown up around and encour2. This has much in common with Charles Kannengiesser’s statement: “Patristic studies reach their essential goal in offering an access to ancient Christian literature.” “Fifty Years of Patristics,” TS 50, no. 4 (1989): 633–56, here 640. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 2 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 3 aged the historical method of studying early Christian theology, such as the International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford, the International Association of Patristic Studies (Association internationale d’études patristiques), the North American Patristics Society (NAPS), and the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies. Prominent book series feature volumes using the historical method of studying early Christian theology, for instance, Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, and, of course, CUA Studies in Early Christianity. Yet, no volume has ever been dedicated to the definition and demonstration of the method undergirding historical theology. This volume looks to address that oversight. But before discussing the essays that do this work of definition and demonstration, a few remarks introducing the essays tasked with the work of definition are necessary. The task of definition is complicated. This is certainly the case when it comes to defining a scholarly method of a particular discipline. Knotty matters concerning purpose and practice—aims and methods—must be recognized, considered, unraveled. The task is also momentous. For, once determined, definitions inform and influence conceptions of purpose and practice. As stated in the opening paragraphs, historical theology as a discipline aims to understand and elucidate the Christian theological tradition. This aim requires a methodological commitment to critically study both the historical and the intellectual, including the theological, dimensions of the Christian tradition. To speak more strongly still, the method of historical theology avers that any attempt to study the Christian tradition that addresses either one of these dimensions without considering the significance of the other allows scholarly interests to diminish the complexity of the figures and texts of early Christianity.3 While the interests and especially the rigors of scholarship do demand a certain selectivity, a casual historiographical survey shows that scholarly approaches that fail to sufficiently consider both of these dimensions result in one-sided caricatures of early Christianity. Such distorted portrayals may appear, on the one hand, as the flattening of our conception of the histor3. This being the case, Averil Cameron’s recent question, “is the historical approach inimical by its very nature to the discipline of patristics?” should be answered with a resounding, “no”—provided, of course, that historical theologians do not succumb to the pitfall, which Cameron herself mentions in connection with biblical scholarship, of believing that history requires an intentional neglect of the ostensible religious dimension of theology. See Cameron, “Patristics and Late Antiquity: Partners or Rivals?,” JECS 28, no. 2 (2020): 283–302, here 301. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 3 2/24/22 1:34 PM 4 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully ical character of the tradition by failing to fully take into account the causative power of ideas (including theological beliefs), or, on the other, as the essentialization of the theological commitments of the tradition by abstracting an idea from its historical context. We may gain further insight into the reasons for this insistence that the historical and theological dimensions must never be divorced from each other in the study of the Christian tradition—and especially its literature—by considering the goals and methods, the purposes and practices, that historical theology does and does not share with related disciplines. Some years ago Charles Kannengiesser observed that the goal of historical theology intersects with the goals of many other disciplines.4 Alongside archaeologists and historians of material culture, historical theologians are interested in reconstructing cultural landscapes and long-lost ways of life. Alongside classicists, historical theologians are interested in ancient Greek and Roman literature, traditions, customs, and languages. Alongside literary critics, historical theologians are interested in ancient literary and rhetorical theory. Alongside historians of philosophy, historical theologians are interested in ancient philosophical conceptions of God, nature, science, medicine, knowing, and logic, amongst many other subjects. Alongside analytic philosophers, historical theologians are interested in precision of terms and concepts, as well as the validity and soundness of argument. Alongside scholars of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, historical theologians are interested in textual criticism of scripture, the history of interpretation, and the process of canonization. This list could easily go on, for historical theology is necessarily pluridisciplinary in character.5 If it were not, if it did not share the interests of so many other disciplines, historical theologians would fail to grasp the Christian tradition in all of its historical variety and complexity. But while the goals of historical theology intersect with many disciplines, the relationships of historical theology with confessional apologetics, constructive and systematic theology, and sociocultural history merit more sustained discussions. 4. Kannengiesser, “Fifty Years of Patristics,” 640–41. As David Brakke has noted, moreover, “much of the renewed energy in ancient church history has come from academic areas traditionally seen as distinct from it.” “The Early Church in North America: Late Antiquity, Theory, and the History of Christianity,” CH 71, no. 3 (2002): 473–91, here 475. 5. This description is essentially Kannengiesser’s. He wrote, “patristics is intrinsically pluridisciplinary.” “Fifty Years of Patristics,” 640. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 4 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 5 Historical Theology vis-à-vis Confessional Apologetics From its beginning the modern critical study of early Christian theology—a branch of historical theology as we know it today—has been closely related to confessional apologetics. The reasons for this relationship are both historical and ideological. Historically, the modern critical study of early Christian thought experienced defining growth during a time of heightened confessional apologetics. The study of earlier Christian theology was central to the curricula in many medieval universities, but essential advances toward a proper academic discipline took place during the Reformation era. During those years, universities and the theological training that was one of their curricular offerings became increasingly independent from the religious orders and dioceses that had previously exerted a large role in their functioning.6 Theology began to establish itself as an academic business apart from the church.7 Moreover, the philological work of editing and publishing ancient manuscripts flourished during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, providing essential tools for the critical study of early Christianity. But the ties between the study of early Christian theology and confessional apologetics are not confined to the defining growth of the one in an era marked by the other.8 Indeed, their relationship during the period of the Reformation as well as times since has primarily been defined by the way in which confessional apologists have used historical theology to support various confessional claims. This use entails particular conceptions of how the early church is related to the contemporary church—that is to say, it entails ideological reasons for the use of historical theology in confessional apologetics. Here, the history of the Church of England is telling. 6. Paul Grendler, “The Universities of the Renaissance and Reformation,” Renaissance Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2004): 1–42. 7. Kannengiesser, “Fifty Years of Patristics,” 654. 8. Nor is it correct to think that moments of growth that defined the modern critical study of early Christian theology took place only during the Reformation. In fact, important contributions have been made in every century since those years. E. Clark, for instance, identifies the nineteenth century as the moment when the discipline properly began because of the important institutional arrangements and scholarly apparatuses that came to exist during that century. For her helpful discussion of how early Christianity, what she calls “patristics,” came into existence, see her “From Patristics to Early Christian Studies,” 8–14, here 8. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 5 2/24/22 1:34 PM 6 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully H. B. Swete explained more than a century ago that “the Fathers have an especial claim” on English clergy because in England the Reformation “rested largely on an appeal to Christian antiquity.”9 Thomas Cranmer, for example, sought to compose an order of service “agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old Fathers”10 and, when he visited the cathedral church of Canterbury, made it a point of inquiry to know whether its library contained volumes of Augustine, Basil, Ambrose, and Gregory of Nazianzus, amongst others.11 As Maurice Wiles points out, the theologians of the English Church found an ally in the early Christian tradition, which they used to repudiate certain Roman Catholic beliefs and practices that owed much to later Christian tradition.12 So, Cranmer’s younger contemporary John Jewel—known for his Apology of the Church of England, which argued the English Reformation did not establish a new church but one in continuity with the early church—called Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, and a host of others as witnesses in support of his approach to holy communion. Not content with naming particular witnesses in support of his positions, Jewel, a few paragraphs later, offered to submit to his Roman Catholic adversaries if any of their learned men were “able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old catholic doctor, or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the holy scriptures of God, or out of any one example of the primitive church” in support of a religious practice.13 The faith and practice of the early church was essential to the early moments of the English Reformation, but the significance of early Christianity to the English Church was not confined to those early days. Hooker, Andrewes, Pearson, and Bull were each “steeped in the thought and language of the Fathers.”14 Indeed, the bonds between the Anglican Church and the early Christian tradition that were forged in the early days of the Reformation continued over time. They can be seen in the pull that early Christian theology exerted on the members of the Oxford movement in the nineteenth century and even in the prominence 9. H. B. Swete, Patristic Study, Handbooks for the Clergy (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909), 3. 10. As seen in the preface to the first Prayerbook of Edward VI (Swete, Patristic Study, 3). 11. J. Edmund Cox, ed., The Works of Thomas Cranmer, edited for the Parker Society (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1846), 2:161. See also, Swete, Patristic Study, 3. 12. Maurice Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship in the Twentieth Century,” in A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain, ed. E. Nicholson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 153. 13. J. Ayre, ed., The Works of John Jewel, edited for the Parker Society (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1845), 1:20. See also, Swete, Patristic Study, 3. 14. Swete, Patristic Study, 4. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 6 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 7 of Anglican patristic scholars in the most prestigious professorships of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge over the past hundred years. The fundamental idea at the root of the English Reformers’ appeal to the faith and practice of the early church is that the Christian past bears upon confessional theologies, practices, and identities. How exactly the Christian past should influence, guide, or define contemporary Christianity is a matter of considerable debate. Questions of historical continuity and discontinuity, philosophical relativism, the authority of tradition, amongst others, are all points of discussion. Opinions about these matters, as well as many others, lead to the range of positions about how exactly the Christian past is related to confessional debates of the day. For our purposes, this range of positions can be partially captured by the differing levels of authority or weight given to “the fathers of the Church.”15 Over a century ago, in his handbook for clergy entitled Patristic Study, H. B. Swete differentiated two different senses of the technical term “fathers of the Church.” In the first, the general sense, early Christian theologians are said to be fathers “in the sense of being spiritual parents and guides.”16 In the second, what he calls the stricter sense, “fathers of the Church” comes to have a more demanding authoritative weight: “the Fathers . . . are the great champions of orthodox belief, whose writings became the standard of Catholic truth.”17 The way that some Christian traditions view the confessional utility of historical theology is in line with the first general definition: early Christian theology, insofar as it reveals the understanding of the faith held by our spiritual progenitors, serves as a trusted guide for contemporary theology and practice. As one example of this approach, Christopher Hall, in his invitation to read scripture with the fathers, seems to think of them as such trusted guides.18 However, the way other Christian traditions view the 15. Here, we are setting to the side those traditions of the faith that deny early Christian theology a place in contemporary discussions of faith and practice. 16. Swete, Patristic Study, 5. For a more comprehensive discussion of the term “fathers of the church,” see Fédou, The Fathers of the Church in Christian Theology, 11–15. 17. Swete, Patristic Study, 6. 18. Christopher Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998). Hall writes on p. 191: “The tradition of patristic exegesis provides us with a number of hermeneutical principles modern readers would do well to contemplate.” And on p. 200: “And so I invite you to read Scripture with the fathers—not to the neglect of the exegetical riches your own tradition offers, nor to the denigration of the resources much modern biblical interpretation provides. I invite you to read the fathers because they are part of your family, relatives perhaps long forgotten who long to be remembered as part of the family tree.” Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 7 2/24/22 1:34 PM 8 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully confessional utility of historical theology is in line with the stricter definition: early Christian theology provides an authoritative and binding standard for contemporary theology and practice. Understandings of the basis for and the extent of this authority have varied considerably, and will continue to do so. One example from many comes from the pen of John Henry Newman, who argued that insofar as the creeds of the early councils preserve and manifest the unwritten tradition, the disciplina arcani, of the earliest church, they have “in some sense . . . apostolic authority still.”19 The close relationship that has existed between historical theology and confessional apologetics for both historical and ideological reasons means that the voices from the Christian past continue to be invited to speak in the conversations of the church today. Indeed, as Wiles once observed, “intense contemporary debate” of a subject “is sure to prove a stimulus to serious and concentrated study” of moments in the Christian past that address that subject. But, Wiles cautions, this turn to our forebears to find answers to contemporary debates comes with a risk: “the contemporary importance of the outcome of such study is also almost equally certain to skew the way in which the historical evidence is read and interpreted.”20 As an example of the challenge faced in the apologetic use of historical theology, Wiles holds up Newman’s The Arians of the Fourth Century, just mentioned above. Wiles notes that while Rowan Williams calls the work the beginning of modern historical study of Arianism, Newman turned to the study in preparation for a contemporary Anglican debate on the Thirty-nine Articles and sees visages of contemporary theologians in the faces of ancient Arians.21 Newman was too good a scholar to allow contemporary concerns to warp his reading of early Christianity, but the challenge of keeping his historical analysis free from the pull of confessional apologetics is evident on page after page. Many historical theologians today still share with confessional apologists the conviction that the voices from the Christian past should occupy a prominent place in the conversations of today. But in the years since Newman the growth of the critical historical study of early Christian theology has tilted the 19. John Henry Newman, The Arians of the Fourth Century, 3rd ed. (London: E. Lumley, 1871), 57. Most today would see the continuity between first- and fourth-century Christianity to be more complicated than Newman here suggests. 20. For these quotations, see Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship,” 153. 21. Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship,” 153–54. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 8 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 9 field of historical theology away from the confessional study of early Christianity and toward the critical historical study of the subject.22 This field-wide shift toward greater critical historical engagement entails two fundamental methodological differences between today’s practice of historical theology and practice of confessional apologetics. First, while confessional apologists often circumscribe their interest in early Christian literature to that which suits their confessional beliefs, interests, or agendas, historical theologians are, by and large, now committed to studying the full range of ancient Christian literature—including, and especially, those texts that were earlier deemed heterodox and of no use to confessional argumentation.23 Several complementary desires undergird this commitment, including: the desire for the fullest possible understanding of the Christian tradition, a reluctance to delimit the study of ancient Christianity in accordance with anachronistic standards of orthodoxy, and the conviction that no piece of literature can be understood apart from its historical context (including, and especially, its intellectual context). This final conviction emerges out of the recognition that the more circumscribed our understanding of a literary context is, the more circumscribed is our understanding of the literature written in that context. Second, while confessional apologetics often minimizes the historical distance that separates early from contemporary Christianity, historical theology regards careful attention to historical distance as essential to the historical study of early Christianity. The minimization of historical distance allows confessional apologists to emphasize the continuity of tradition in order to make authoritative claims. Historical theologians, on the other hand, insist on careful attention to historical distance in order to keep contemporary concerns and perspectives from delimiting, occluding, and distorting the historical record.24 Kannengiesser once lamented that the study of patristics in America was “overladen by confessional ideologies” and longed for a time when the field would be sustained by an “interconfessional collaboration of critics.”25 Thirty years later, Kannengiesser’s dream has become reality. The methodological 22. Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship,” 154. 23. So, for example, the recent multivolume series “The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings” is committed to publishing selections that represent the breadth of early Christian literature. 24. As will soon be mentioned, this recognition of historical distance has not only the positive outcomes noted above, but the negative outcome of calling into question the relevance of historical theology to contemporary conversations. 25. Kannengiesser, “Fifty Years of Patristics,” 635–36. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 9 2/24/22 1:34 PM 10 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully commitments to study the full range of early Christian literature and to attend to matters of historical distance, as well as others to be mentioned in the next sections of this introduction, form the basis for the interconfessional collaboration that characterizes the discipline of historical theology today (as this volume illustrates) and sets it apart from confessional apologetics. Historical Theology vis-à-vis Constructive Theology From its relationship with confessional apologetics we turn to the relationship of historical theology with constructive theology. There is, of course, considerable overlap between confessional apologetics and constructive theology. Both, for example, are concerned with fathoming fundamental questions about God, God’s work in our world, the human experience of God, and the human ability to comprehend each of these. The two may be distinguished, however, by noting that an essential concern of confessional apologetics, not always shared by constructive theology, is the articulation of the theological convictions and religious identity of a particular community of faith, often vis-à-vis another. For many years the relationship between constructive and historical theology was intimate. The best-known example of this intimacy, perhaps, is the centrality of historical theology to the ressourcement movement of the nouvelle théologie that flourished in the second and third quarters of the twentieth century.26 For example, Henri de Lubac in his introduction to his Catholicisme: Les aspects sociaux du dogme first apologized for the numerous quotations from patristic sources but then explained why he felt it necessary to [draw] especially on the treasures, so little utilized, in the patristic writings. This is not to overlook in a frenzy of archaism the precisions and developments in theology which have been made since their time, nor do I take over in their entirety all the ideas they offer us: I seek only to understand them, and listen to what they have to tell us, since they are our Fathers in the faith and since they received from their Church of their time the means to nourish the Church of our times as well.27 26. For a recent discussion of this relationship, see Fédou, The Fathers of the Church in Christian Theology, 30–83. 27. Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1950), xiii. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 10 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 11 This conviction that the Christian past is the wellspring of the Christian present, bolstered by a shared interest in many theological questions, fostered a deep and close connection between historical and constructive theology.28 Indeed, the appeal to early Christianity by the nouvelle théologie was designed to counter neo-Thomist theologies of the day, which were themselves constructive appropriations of historical theology. The relationship between historical and constructive theology is intimate indeed. In more recent times, however, the two disciplines have grown apart. This divergence has a number of causes stemming from changes in the disciplines of historical and constructive theology; a few merit mention here. First, changes in the discipline of historical theology have contributed to the growing divide. As Maurice Wiles has observed, one of the problems that attends the modern critical approach to the history of the Christian tradition is “that it tends to make the relevance of the patristic age to our own religious understanding appear increasingly distant and indirect. The more we come to understand early Christian belief and practice in terms of the thought-forms and culture of their own time, the less directly do they seem to bear on the religion and theology of our own day.”29 That is to say, historical theology’s increasing methodological commitment to historical accuracy reveals the distance, even divide, between early and contemporary Christianity, such that the way in which the ideas of an earlier time should bear upon the ideas of today is anything but clear. Second, changes in the discipline of constructive theology have also contributed to the growing divide. In the article that opened the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology, some twenty years ago, Colin Gunton noted that courses in “Christian doctrine” had become courses in “systematic theology.”30 Among the possible reasons for this change, Gunton posited the shift in British theological priorities “from biblical and patristic studies . . . to a greater preoccupation with modern questions.”31 Integral to these modern 28. The language of “wellspring” comes from Hans Urs von Balthasar: “Let us read history, our history, as a living account of what we once were, with the double-edge consciousness that all of this has gone forever and that, in spite of everything, that period of youth and every moment of our lives remain mysteriously present at the wellsprings of our soul in a kind of delectable eternity” (Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa, trans. M. Sebanc [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995], 13). 29. Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship,” 168. 30. Colin Gunton, “A Rose by Any Other Name? From ‘Christian Doctrine’ to ‘Systematic Theology,’” International Journal of Systematic Theology 1, no. 1 (1999): 4–23, here 4. 31. Gunton, “A Rose by Any Other Name?,” 4. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 11 2/24/22 1:34 PM 12 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully questions and their address is a commitment to certain methods and foundational theses that have contributed to the growing distance between the disciplines of historical and systematic theology.32 The method used by systematic theologians to appropriate ideas from the Christian tradition frequently stands at odds with fundamental methodological commitments of historical theology. Unlike the method of historical theology that emphasizes the centrality of historical and literary contexts to the proper determination of meaning, the method often used by systematic theology to appropriate ideas from the Christian past involves the abstraction of those ideas from the historical and literary contexts that gave them meaning. For instance, Stephen Holmes has shown that many contemporary trinitarian theologies are founded upon fundamental misunderstandings of early Christian theology—especially the early Christian notion of ὑπόστασις or persona.33 This method of appropriating ideas abstracted from their contexts often produces overly simplistic or errant representations of early Christian thought, which in turn results in misconstruals of the tradition, of the support the tradition offers to contemporary theological accounts, and of the extent to which contemporary theologies stand within the tradition. As a consequence, an increasing divide has grown between systematic theologians, who maintain the tradition says one thing, and historical theologians, who insist it says another. The distance between systematic and historical theology has also been growing because of fundamental differences in foundational theses.34 In sys32. For a brief discussion of these methods and foundational theses, see: Gunton, “A Rose by Any Other Name?,” 5. See also pp. 7–9. 33. Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History, and Modernity (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), esp. chapter 1. 34. For the place of foundational theses in an organization of knowledge—a system—see Nicholas Rescher, Cognitive Systematization: A Systems-Theoretic Approach to a Coherentist Theory of Knowledge (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield/Blackwell, 1979), 40–43. Of course, not all theological systems— or systems of knowledge, more broadly—are foundationalist. Foundationalist systems are hierarchical, shaped like an inverted pyramid, in which subsequent theses are built upon—expanding up from—the foundational thesis (or theses) at the bottom tip of the pyramid. Think, for instance, of the number of theses built upon the foundational theological postulate, “God is the Creator of all things.” However, as Rescher explains, not all systems need to—or should—be hierarchical in structure. Indeed, a system of knowledge could be constructed of interrelated theses connected in an interlacing manner. Think, for instance, of the knowledge built upon the interpretation of a text, which involves the spiral-like process of constantly interpreting old theses in light of new ones (pp. 43–52). Rescher calls a model of knowledge built on interlacing theses a “network model” of knowledge. In Rescher’s mind, foundationalist models of knowledge suit correspondence theories of truth (in which a statement is true if it corresponds to reality), while network models of knowledge suit coherence theories of truth (in which a statement is true if it Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 12 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 13 tems of knowledge, Nicholas Rescher explains, foundational theses are “used to justify other theses without themselves needing or receiving any intrasystematic justification.”35 Foundational theses are the basic axioms that are presupposed by every other thesis in a system and, thus, are the foundation stones upon which a system of knowledge—e.g., a theological system—is built. Gunton, building on Rescher’s explanation, further observes that foundational theses may be intrinsic, coming from within the system of knowledge (such as a theological system), or extrinsic, coming from outside the system of knowledge.36 Given these understandings, differences in foundational theses may be divisive for at least two reasons. First, the propositional content of foundational theses may differ to such an extent that theological systems founded upon different theses are incompatible. So, for instance, when premodern and modern theologies hold different epistemological convictions—beliefs about what can be known about God and how it can be known—the purpose of a theological system, the subject of that system, and the end of that system may all differ.37 These differences may be large enough to render premodern and modern theological accounts incoheres with other accepted statements in that system of knowledge) (p. 52; cf. Gunton, “A Rose by Any Other Name?,” 18). Strictly speaking, then, the statement above pertains only to systematic and historical theologies that are foundationalist in nature. This is an important point, for while the theological accounts of the premodern Christian tradition assume correspondence theories of truth, some systematic theologies today use coherence theories of truth. This epistemological difference itself contributes to the incompatibility of certain historical and systematic theologies, as discussed in the next paragraph above. 35. Rescher, Cognitive Systematisation, 40. Aside from foundational theses, every other thesis in a system should be justified. 36. Gunton, “A Rose by Any Other Name?,” 8. Gunton illustrates the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic foundationalism by comparing the approach evident in Origen’s system to that present in many modern systems since Descartes and Locke. Origen’s theological system is built upon intrinsic foundations inasmuch as they are the teachings of the deposit of the faith—the doctrines interpreting biblical truth that were passed down within the tradition. Many modern theological systems are built upon extrinsic foundations inasmuch as they require religious beliefs to be justified by other beliefs. Here, Gunton notes Nicholas Wolterstorff ’s observation that today religious people are widely challenged to “have evidence for their religious beliefs—evidence consisting of other beliefs. It was insisted that at bottom a person might not reason from his or her religious beliefs but had to reason to them from other beliefs”— beliefs outside of, or extrinsic to, that religious system. So, for instance, a religious belief in creation is justified if it accords with accepted scientific opinions about the origin of the world, or a religious conviction about sexuality is justified if it accords with sociocultural standards of justice. In both cases when said scientific opinion or sociocultural standard is not intrinsic to the religious tradition, it may function as an extrinsic foundational thesis. For Wolterstorff, see John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), x. 37. Cf. Gunton, “A Rose by Any Other Name?,” 8, see also pp. 16–21. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 13 2/24/22 1:34 PM 14 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully compatible, and such differences have the potential to distance the disciplines devoted to the study and construction of those accounts. Second, theological systems may be incompatible if one of the systems is built upon a foundational thesis—or theses—that adherents of the other system judge to be extrinsic to the tradition. Such an extrinsic foundation could be a fundamental postulate that is, for example, epistemological, sociocultural, anthropological, religious, or scientific in nature. In this case, the nature or propositional content of said thesis does not matter so much as the judgment that it is not proper to the tradition and, thus, the theological system built upon it is considered in some way incompatible with theological systems founded on theses intrinsic to the tradition. The foundation of a contemporary theological account on a thesis judged by historical theologians to be extrinsic to the Christian tradition has, again, the potential to distance the disciplines devoted to the construction and study of those theological accounts. Despite the distance that has been growing between the disciplines of historical and systematic theology, systematic theologians often agree with historical theologians that the Christian past is essential to the Christian present, in terms of theology, practice, and identity. Karl Rahner, for instance, long ago averred that historical texts have the ability to say to us something about the theological “question itself, something about what we up till the present have not yet or not with sufficient accuracy reflected upon . . . one visits an ancient thinker, in the end not simply to know his opinion, but to grasp something of the question itself.”38 Nonetheless, historical and systematic theology are drifting apart, propelled not simply by winds of change in time and place but by methodological developments that have generated a stronger sense of historical distance, as well as the differences in method and foundational theses just discussed. 38. Karl Rahner, “Essai d’une esquisse de dogmatique,” in Écrits théologiques (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), 4:20. The sheer number of contemporary theologians drawing on historical theology in order to articulate their trinitarian theologies—as shown by Holmes’s Quest for the Trinity, noted above—also demonstrates the continuing value of historical theology to contemporary systematics. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 14 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 15 Historical Theology vis-à-vis Sociocultural History If historical theology long enjoyed a close relationship with constructive theology, its relationship with sociocultural history is recent and often fraught. The previous pages have noted several shifts in the historical study of early Christianity—especially, early Christian theology—that have taken place over the past hundred years. But no shift is more significant than the move toward the sociocultural study of early Christianity that began a little more than fifty years ago. Prior to this move a divide existed between the ecclesial and secular study of late antiquity. The study of early Christianity was primarily concerned with investigating and clarifying central Christian doctrines of the third through fifth centuries, with a substantial secondary interest in the institutional history of the early church. At the same time, classicists and ancient historians focused on the earlier “classical” period and had little interest in ancient Christianity or religious questions more generally.39 Change came in the 1960s and 1970s. During those years classicists and ancient historians began to display an increasing interest in the later centuries of the ancient world, and correspondingly, in Christianity itself, which flourished in those centuries.40 These scholars, such as A. H. M. Jones, Moses Finley, Ramsey MacMullen, Arnaldo Momigliano, and M. I. Rostovtzeff, brought the methods and concerns of social history to bear upon the study of early Christianity, considering issues such as education, politics, economics, and class structures, amongst many others.41 As classicists and historians began studying Christianity, so also several scholars studying early Christianity, such as Elizabeth Clark, began to pay increasing attention to the historical and literary aspects of the field.42 But the 39. Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship,” 163. See also, A. Cameron, “Patristics and Late Antiquity,” esp. 283–85. 40. For a brief discussion of the divide and subsequent bridge between the ecclesiastical and secular study of the later periods of the ancient world, see Alexander Murray, “Peter Brown and the Shadow of Constantine,” JRS 73 (1983): 191–203, here 191; Wiles follows Murray in “British Patristic Scholarship,” 163–65. 41. Murray, “Peter Brown and the Shadow of Constantine,” 191; Wiles, “British Patristic Scholarship,” 163–68; Dale B. Martin, introduction to The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography, ed. Dale B. Martin and Patricia Cox Miller (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 1–21, here 1–4; Clark, “From Patristics to Early Christian Studies,” 16–18. 42. The placement of many of these scholars in secular institutional settings was an important factor in this shift, see Martin, introduction to The Cultural Turn, esp. 3; and Clark, “From Patristics to Early Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 15 2/24/22 1:34 PM 16 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully scholar who more than any other bridged the divide between the ecclesial and secular was Peter Brown.43 It is almost impossible to overstate Brown’s sociohistorical contributions to the study of Christianity in the period he termed “late antiquity,” but his introduction of cultural anthropology to the study of late antique Christianity had an even more profound influence upon the field.44 In his 1972 essay “Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages” Brown spoke of his desire to incorporate cultural anthropology into the study of late antique Christianity: My concern, in this paper, is to re-examine a small facet of the religious history of the Late Antique period, and to show how the historian may be helped by an extensive literature by social anthropologists on the problems of sorcery and spirit-possession. The need to link disciplines is frequently expressed among us. Discussion of this need takes place in an atmosphere, however, that suggests the observation of an African chieftain on a neighbouring tribe: “They are our enemies. We marry them.”. . . To look again, with an insight schooled on other human disciplines, at the religious history of the Late Antique world is one of the most urgent tasks facing the ancient and the medieval historian. We have long possessed an overwhelming erudition on the religious ideas of the period from A.D. 200 to 600. We have begun to refine our views on the structure and functioning of Late Roman society. Yet, somehow, the nexus between the religious and the social evolution of Late Antiquity escapes us: worse still, it is a gap papered over, in most accounts, by textbook rhetoric.45 Over the course of Brown’s career cultural anthropology became “the branch of social science most frequently appropriated by scholars of early Christianity and late antiquity.”46 Today an increasing number of scholars use the methods of cultural anthropology in their study of early Christianity to address questions pertaining to women, sexuality, gender, power, ritual, language, family structures, and many others. Christian Studies,” 14–16. For discussions of additional factors that contributed to this shift, see Martin, pp. 1–11, and Clark, pp. 14–23. 43. Brown “virtually . . . destroyed [the boundary between secular and ecclesiastical in the study of the Late Empire], passing this way and that until the marks are gone,” according to Murray (“Peter Brown and the Shadow of Constantine,” 191). 44. According to Clark, “Peter Brown pioneered the introduction of anthropology to studies of late ancient Christianity” (“From Patristics to Early Christian Studies,” 18). 45. Brown, “Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages,” in Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 119. 46. Clark, “From Patristics to Early Christian Studies,” 18. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 16 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 17 It would be a mistake to think that patristic scholars paid no attention to the social and cultural history of early Christianity before the developments of the 1960s and 1970s; at the same time there is no question that the years following those developments “have seen a more perceptive and more penetrating attention” to “the church’s setting within the wider life of the empire.”47 As a result of this attention, the historical dimension of the study of early Christianity has been bolstered in new and significant ways. Here we see the point at which the aims of historical theology and sociocultural history converge. Both have interests in the societal and cultural conditions and structures that permit, foster, influence, sustain, and complicate religious beliefs and customs. But this is also the point at which their aims typically diverge. Historical theologians use sociocultural structures and perspectives to understand and elucidate the thought articulated in ancient Christian literature, which is their primary subject of study. Sociocultural historians, on the other hand, use ancient Christian literature to identify latent sociocultural structures and perspectives, which are their primary subjects of study. In this way, as Dale Martin explains, sociocultural approaches to early Christian literature shift the object of study from “the intentions and conscious thinking of the ancient author” to “the unspoken, unreflected assumptions of the author” that go unnamed and, thus, “must be garnered from the broader culture.”48 This shift of the object of study from the consciousness and intentions of the author to the assumptions that lie behind the text draws upon an understanding of culture as a formative influence upon an author, as well as theories about communication borrowed from post-structuralism.49 These post-structuralist presuppositions and the methodological approach attending them largely constitute the grounds for the fraught relationship, when it exists, between the disciplines of historical theology and sociocultural history. Three of these presuppositions are worth mentioning: (1) the assumption that texts 47. So Wiles concluded when assessing the transformation of early Christianity since the 1960s in his “British Patristic Scholarship,” 165, see also 164. 48. Martin, introduction to The Cultural Turn, 17. 49. Martin, introduction to The Cultural Turn, 7–9, 12; Clark, “From Patristics to Early Christian Studies,” 25–27. Martin’s explanation of how the “cultural turn” bears upon the study of early Christian literature (pp. 16–7) draws upon Kathryn Tanner’s explanation of the modern use of the term “culture”: “Culture in an anthropological sense is an originary formative influence on individual persons and as such must be exercised primarily through unconscious means” (Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, Guides to Theological Inquiry [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997], 13). Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 17 2/24/22 1:34 PM 18 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully have latent meanings unknown to their authors and original readers and that those latent meanings are the primary object of interpretation because they are more significant than the ostensible meanings of texts;50 (2) the belief, following Roland Barthes, that the meaning of a text is not primarily a function of authorial consciousness and intent but rather a function of the circumstances surrounding the writing of a text and the multiple readers who encounter that text in their own circumstances;51 (3) and the conviction, following Foucault, that the power of a discourse lies not in the persuasive ability of the text itself but in the network of strategies and relations that organizes societies, cultures, and institutions from which the discourse emerges and to which it speaks.52 These presuppositions lead to the methodological approach of sociocultural history, which aims not to understand a particular individual, event, or text but rather to use these as material to understand the structures, ideas, and relationships—especially the power relationships—of the entire system.53 The discipline of historical theology resists this shift of the objective of study from the ostensible meaning of a text to the latent meanings originating in the sociocultural context of the author for several reasons. First, the attribution of primary significance to latent meanings of texts and the belief that meaning is not primarily a function of authorial consciousness and intent flout the historical record. According to that record the ostensible meanings of early Christian texts played central roles in the communication and establishment 50. Cf. Leszek Kolakowski’s analysis of the epistemological grounds for the academic study of religious myth, in which he argues that such studies have two presuppositions: “First, it is assumed that myths, as they are explicitly told and believed, have a latent meaning behind the ostensible one and that this meaning not only is not in fact perceived by those sharing a given creed, but that of necessity it cannot be perceived. Secondly, it is implied that this latent meaning, which is accessible only to the outsider-anthropologist, is the meaning par excellence, whereas the ostensible one, i.e., the myth as understood by the believers, has the function of concealing the former” (Kolakowski, Religion: If There Is No God . . . On God, the Devil, Sin, and Other Worries of the So-Called Philosophy of Religion [New York: Oxford University Press, 1982], 15). See also N. A. Crick, “Post-Structuralism,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, published October 26, 2016, accessed May 7, 2020, https://oxfordre.com/ communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-49, 9–13. Crick offers a concise discussion—with a lengthy bibliography—of how post-structuralist theories bear upon communication. 51. Crick, “Post-Structuralism,” 9–10. 52. Crick, “Post-Structuralism,” 11. For a concise discussion of how power is exercised, see Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–84, ed. P. Rabinow and N. Rose (New York: New Press, 2003), 126–44, esp. 134–37. 53. Cf. Crick, “Post-Structuralism,” 13. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 18 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 19 of meaning in matters of doctrine and practice.54 Second, the conviction that the power of a discourse lies not in the ostensible meaning of a text but in sociocultural realities—especially relationships of power—that lie behind the text does not sufficiently account for the complexity of the abstract thought world nor the range of motives that undergird ancient Christian literature. In this way, to adapt a line from Robert Wilken’s presidential address to the AAR in 1989, sociocultural studies of ancient Christianity risk ignoring the very things that ancient Christians cared about most deeply—religious beliefs, practices, and identity.55 Finally, if the ostensible meanings of ancient Christian texts are taken hostage by a search for latent meanings, then the thinkers who wrote those texts, and the thoughts they articulated, will be consigned to footnotes, transformed “into historical sources invoked for the purpose of documenting an idea or illustrating a theory.”56 When we assign importance to things not given importance by the individuals and writings we study, and fail to assign importance to things given importance by the individuals and writings we study, the risk of creating false narratives rises proportionally. Defining the Method of Historical Theology As the title of this volume indicates, a goal of historical theology—and, thus, a fundamental concern of the method undergirding historical theology—is the production of narratives that elucidate the Christian tradition. For a narrative to be sound, it must give consideration to the ostensible meanings of Christian literature and strive to consider the totality of the abstract thought world that stands behind a textual tradition. This does not mean that texts should not be plumbed for latent meanings, nor does it mean that sociocul54. This is not to deny that latent meanings exist in ancient Christian literature—indeed, historical theology has long studied this aspect of texts. 55. Wilken wrote, in the context of a similar discussion, “The study of religion, it seems, can ignore the very things that religious people care about most deeply” (“1989 Presidential Address: Who Will Speak for the Religious Traditions?,” JAAR 57, no. 4 [1989]: 689–717, here 705). Most recently, when noting some problems that attend the cultural-historical study of early Christianity, A. Cameron wrote: “The claim to be a cultural historian acts as a demarcation marker; in particular, it is meant to exclude Christian theology. Yet nearly all the voluminous amount of writing by Christians in late antiquity had an agenda of religious persuasion, and no amount of analysis of its rhetorical or literary techniques or recognition of the multiple agendas of the writers can alter the fact that it was actually designed to produce religious change” (“Patristics and Late Antiquity,” 293). 56. Wilken, “1989 Presidential Address,” 707. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 19 2/24/22 1:34 PM 20 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully tural realities that influenced the formation of a text should be discounted. Studies of these facets of ancient literature, when done well, are valuable indeed. But it does mean that when a narrative gives short shrift to the ostensible meaning of a text or authorial agency while in pursuit of latent meanings, or reduces the abstract thought world behind a textual tradition to certain sociocultural structures, ideas, and relationships at play in a historical context, then the historical accuracy and contemporary value of said narrative is limited. Ultimately, of course, the historical accuracy and contemporary value of every narrative falls short of perfection because no one narrative perfectly captures the full meaning (ostensible and latent) of ancient Christian thought or practice. Perfection, nevertheless, must remain the goal if we are to be as true as possible to the historical figures and realities we seek to describe and illuminate. To this end, the aim of historical theology to understand and elucidate the Christian tradition requires a commitment to critically study both the historical and intellectual dimensions of the tradition in all of their variety and complexity. It is, thus, incumbent upon the discipline of historical theology to articulate a method that sustains this commitment. The essays in this volume look to meet this obligation. Before we introduce the essays, however, one task remains. For though this introduction has identified the fundamental aims and methodological commitments of historical theology vis-à-vis other related disciplines, it has yet to offer positive practical instruction in methodology. Moreover, the practical instruction offered in the essays to come is primarily inductive rather than deductive. So, it seems prudent—and altogether fitting in a volume so dedicated—to present the mini practicum on historical method that Michel Barnes offered in an essay challenging unsound readings of Augustine. He wrote: Let me offer, then, a few methodological observations which I believe reflect necessary prerequisites for any credible reading of Augustine. I cannot claim that these comments are earth-shaking; indeed, I provide (and require) such prerequisites of work by my graduate students, so they can hardly be new to present readers. Nonetheless, it is the question of what a historically credible reading of Augustine’s trinitarian theology might be that is at the heart of my essay here, and my methodological presuppositions are best made explicit. These criteria may also, I hope, make more clear what I intend to do in this essay. There are, I propose, seven different criteria by which one judges a historical read- Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 20 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 21 ing (or interpretation) of a text. A given reading is more credible as a work of scholarship in direct proportion to its degree of success in fulfilling these criteria. First, the reading must locate the text (or topic) in its original context, and use that context to “unpack” the meaning or sense of the text. Second, the reading must identify the presence and hence, effect of tradition in the text (or topic), and use that presence to identify the meaning or sense of the text. Third, the reading must identify and place the content of the text in a larger “external” narrative which supports the reading(s) derived from the previous steps by making such a content possible (or even, happy day, likely). Fourth, the reading must utilize a knowledge of scholarship on the author, text, and topic; the broader and more detailed the engagement with scholarship the more sophisticated the reading. Fifth, there must be close reading or exegesis of the text which uncovers the key steps in the author’s logic or expression. Sixth, the reading must identify, and show a fluency with, those conceptual idioms that are the key building blocks of the author’s logic or expression. Seventh and finally, judgements on the sense of any part (a sentence, a phrase) of the text must relate that sense to the text as a whole (and test that proposed sense against the whole text). Such a relating of the part to the whole is necessary to avoid the danger of a “historical fundamentalism” (akin to “biblical fundamentalism”) in which sentences or phrases are interpreted apart from the text within which the words stand. Steps such as these (and there is nothing definitive about this list or the order) are, I would argue, necessary for a credible reading of any theological (or philosophical) text, but it is enough for now to identify with such criteria the credibility of the reading of a text which falls under the rubric of “historical theology.”57 The methodological steps that Michel offers in this note align with many of the methodological commitments outlined in the prior paragraphs of this introduction. His initial declaration that a text must be read in its original context and that said context should be used to unpack the meaning of a text acknowledges the importance of historical context to the interpretation of an ancient text. The use of the original context to unpack the meaning of a text also provides a standard that scholars may use to identify the ostensible meaning of a text and evaluate potential latent meanings. The importance of historical context is reemphasized in his call to identify the traditions at play in a text, whether theological, exegetical, philosophical, or any other. The call to recognize such traditions—it should not go unnoticed—requires scholars to attend to the full complexity of the abstract thought world that lies behind a text. His recognition that scholarly readings are not certain but “possible” and, 57. Michel René Barnes, “Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity,” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 145–76, here 150–1. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 21 2/24/22 1:34 PM 22 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully on occasion, “even, happy day, likely,” acknowledges the historical distance that separates us from our subjects and calls for humility in any contemporary use of early texts. Authorial agency and the ostensible meaning of a text are given due regard in the fifth and sixth criteria. While Michel’s cautionary note that, in order to avoid “historical fundamentalism,” parts of a text should be read in light of the whole, puts into practice the methodological commitment to not abstract a text from the context that gave it meaning. Perhaps the only methodological commitment identified in this introduction that does not find a place in Michel’s instructions is the commitment to explore the full range of early Christian literature, regardless of its perceived orthodoxy. The importance of that commitment, however, is made clear elsewhere in his work.58 In the pages to come the essays in this volume build upon the work of Michel, and others who have stressed the need for sound method, by first defining and then demonstrating the method of historical theology. The task of definition is undertaken by two opening essays, by Lewis Ayres and John Rist, that address what is and what is not sound historical theology.59 The task of demonstrating the method of historical theology is undertaken by sixteen subsequent essays that cover a period stretching from the first century to the dawn of the seventh century. These essays demonstrating method show the need for a thoroughgoing historical analysis of Christian literature by addressing numerous and varied facets of the historical context of the early tradition. The authors of these essays consider, for instance, Second Temple Judaism, ancient philosophy, ancient scientific theory, Roman political ideology, ancient reading practices and strategies, polemics and polemical contexts, and development within theological traditions. Moreover, the readings offered by these authors require rigorous engagement with previous scholarship on their subjects. In this way these essays show that the historical method of studying early Christian theology offers a twofold contribution wherein the first contribution of a better understanding of historical texts and their contexts entails the second contribution of a reorientation of scholarly narratives concerning those texts. 58. As one could readily gather from the title of the volume Barnes co-edited with Daniel H. Williams: Arianism after Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). Thomas Kopeček’s review of the volume located it within the “more sympathetic approaches to the ‘Arians’ or, more accurately, non-nicenes” that had gained ground since the Ninth Oxford Conference on Patristic Studies in 1983 (JTS 46, no. 1 [1995], 333–47, here 333). 59. It should be noted that Ayres intends for his comments to bear not just on what is called “historical theology” here but upon any and every theological account. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 22 2/24/22 1:34 PM Historical Theology: Aim and Methodology 23 The demonstrative essays in this volume are organized according to their primary contribution to this scholarly reorientation: (1) reassessing early Christian theological interpretation of scripture; (2) reexamining sources and influences; (3) redefining polemical opponents and strategies; (4) revising scholarly narratives. The new narratives offered by our contributors—in each of these four sections—instantiate Michel’s fourth step: “old narratives” need to be read as critically as the original sources. The essays in the first section demonstrate the importance of strategies and traditions of scriptural exegesis to the construction of early Christian theologies. For example, DelCogliano shows how pro-Nicene theologians of the fourth century dismantled the scriptural readings of their opponents by appealing to Greco-Roman grammatical categories, while Orlov argues that synoptic accounts of the divine revelation at Jesus’s baptism are influenced by Kavod traditions. These, and the other essays, establish that strategies and traditions of scriptural interpretation constituted, themselves, an essential historical context for early Christian theology. The essays in the second section manifest the benefit of a rigorous—and open-minded—engagement with the historical context of early Christian literature, especially the ancient traditions influencing a thinker. For example, Briggman argues that Stoic scientific mixture theories, condemned by Chalcedon, were nevertheless determinative of Tertullian’s Christology. Golitzin suggests that Gregory the Great’s hagiographical description of Benedict’s vision of divine glory is not comfortably dependent on the neo-Platonic tradition but instead derives from the wisdom tradition of the ancient Near East and Syria. The contributors in this section demonstrate that careful consideration of historical context often leads a scholar to conclusions that defy longstanding narratives or predilections, whether scholarly or confessional. The essays in the third section demonstrate an aspect of contextual embedding that was a particular specialty of Michel: recognizing early Christian theological arguments as particular and targeted responses to contemporaneous polemical opponents and texts. So, for example, Weedman argues that Hilary’s pneumatology should not be understood as a universally valid or even universally intended statement about the Holy Spirit, but rather as a particular tool employed in his polemical engagement with Homoian theology of the Father and Son. The contributors in this section demonstrate the importance of remembering that theological development did not happen in a vacuum but rather was a series of Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 23 2/24/22 1:34 PM 24 Anthony Briggman and Ellen Scully targeted engagements against real polemical opponents and texts. Lastly, the essays in the fourth section explicitly aim to bring to the fore the contribution of new research to the revision of scholarly narratives. Bucur highlights both the Christian practice of exegeting the Old Testament theophanies christologically, and the pervasive scholarly blindness to this practice, while Mueller demonstrates that the early Christian application of the title “priest” to Christian leaders and ministers is not dependent on an identification of priesthood with sacrifice as is commonly argued. These essays reiterate the theme found over and over again in this book, both in statement and in practice: historical theology charts a path toward greater understanding of the past through a rigorous reading of texts within their full historical and intellectual contexts. The large number of essays in this volume affords to readers the opportunity to ascertain both where consensus in method exists and where differences remain. Inasmuch as these essays arrive at a more accurate understanding of early Christian theology, they demonstrate the contribution that the method of historical theology makes to the field of early Christianity. And insofar as they augment or correct current scholarly accounts of early Christianity, they constitute new narratives for old. Briggman_Scully prel first pages_rev2.indd 24 2/24/22 1:34 PM