Historically Situated

Part of my stay-at-home reading has been some old church histories. These have included Athanasius’s Life of Antony, Eusebius’s The Church History, and Bede’s A History of the English Church and People (normally titled Ecclesiastical History of the English People). In their own ways, each of these books have significantly shaped subsequent church history.

Eusebius is called the Father of church history based on his works, and The Church History is his most significant. Written in the early fourth century, this work chronicles the early church from the time of Christ through the time of Constantine’s consolidation of the Eastern and Western Empires. As you read through this book, a few things stand out: (1) The church survived truly terrible political leaders. (2) Those “who confessed unto death” were geographically widespread, were well-represented by all age groups, and were truly massive in numbers. These stories are not for the squeamish, but they are for all Christians. As Tertullian said, their blood was the seed of the church. (3) Devastating famines and plagues were regular. (4) The faithful were always ready to combat the heresies that were always close at hand. And (5) Eusebius is a careful historian who understood and utilized proper sources. These themes, his careful work, combined with his “triumphalist” attitude have made this an enduring work.

The Life of Antony is a very different read. Athanasius’s book is the archetypical Christian hagiography. This late-fourth century work was the first Christian work to lay out what a faithful life looks like from beginning to end. Antony was raised a Christian but looked for a deeper spiritual life. This book walks through his journey to find this deeper relationship with God. For Antony, the answer was living as a hermit and withstanding the incessant onslaught of demons by learning complete and total dependance on Christ and his resources. He sold all he had, denied all comforts and most food, recited Scripture (perhaps memorized all of it), knocked out Satan by the sign of the cross, and prayed constantly. He not only succeeded through these trials but he also helped others in their growth. The Life of Antony inspired countless Christians to take up the monastic life, which has proved to be one of the most important institutions in world history.

Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede is yet another kind of history. This fast-paced, eighth-century book is not only the earliest church history of England, it is the earliest history of England that exists. It chronicles the growth and development of Christianity in England from the first century up to the eighth as the local Celtic Christianity clashed with Celtic Paganism and with the Catholic Church. Names such as Alban, Aidan, Sigbert, Caedmon, and Cuthbert are all introduced here. As you read about the early inhabitants of “Albion,” the coming of the Romans and the Angles, the founding of churches, monasteries, cities, and kingships, recurrent plagues, and the struggle for Christianity as it fought paganism and syncretistic heresy it is easy to be drawn into the forests, mountains, and islands of a disunited Britain.

All three of these works are worth reading on their own merit, but together perhaps a few helpful thoughts can be drawn out. This brings me to a more recent book, Retrieving History, by Stefana Dan Laing. These older Christian histories, and others after them, were much more than simple presentation of facts and timelines, though they did that in highly accurate ways. According to Laing, these histories served two primary purposes. There was “a pedagogical intent to instruct the audience through the narrative by providing examples, and a providential purpose, as writers attempted to answer questions about what drives the action in historical events” (20). Laing then argues this was “accomplished via four characteristic features: narrative (narratio or historia), remembrance (memoria or anamnesis), imitation (imitatio or mimesis), and causation (aitia).” These old histories were written to help Christians in a tangible way. They were written in a lively manner (narration) meant to create a culture of remembrance leading to imitation of the good and learning from the bad. They were not afraid to explain what caused what, which could be natural or supernatural. God was not only in control, but also actively bringing about his purposes in the world.

Two things from these old Christian histories stand out: (1) the presence of the communion of saints that came before us and (2) the sovereignty of the God we worship. We don’t study history just so that we can claim that we know our history. These types of history are meant as examples to train us for future circumstances, be that everyday discipleship, plague, heresy, or even martyrdom. And, the God that proved himself faithful and made his church great through the ages is the same God we follow and worship. All things do work providentially toward his prescribed telos. Christian history is an essential. We must preserve this collective memory so that it will continue to carry forward our Christian identity. “As we remember our forebears, we ought always to look to their God, the God of history, of whom they bore witness, our great God who accomplished his work through women and men in every era to build up the church” (199). Amen.