In Episode 78, St. Ambrose & Sacramental Political Theology, Part 1, we look at not St. Ambrose, but instead those saints who inluenced his own thinking. Much of what we can garner from St. Ambrose is foudn already in these two near contemporary fathers (St. Hilary reposed in 367, St. Athanasius in 373, the year before St. Ambrose’s consecration to the episcopacy). What did they have to say about the relationship of the sacrament to the world, and more explicitly, the relationship of the sacrament of the Church to the empire?
Below are some of their thoughts, but to flesh it all out a bit more, to both of our fathers among the saints the Church was the extension of that one Sacrament (see episode 77), namely Christ Incarnate, the Sacrament of the Father, through Whom the Holy Spirit communicates life to us. The Church is His body, He the Church’s Head. Within the Church the ministers of Christ, His emissaries, His stewards, His vicars, and His own hands, give Christ to the faithful. While in his exposition of the sacraments, St. Ambrose only names three (baptism, chrismation, and the Eucharist) underneath all of them is Christ in the priesthood, the foundation of the Church.
Because the Church is the source of healing and life, a sacramental community that exists for the basis of the healing of the world, but the empire, though performing a divine function, is not fundamental to reality, as other polities could serve this function, had served that function, and had come and gone in the process of redemptive history, the empire stood secondary at best in the divine economy.
But for the Arians, for whom the divine reality has no presence in history, as Christ is not Incarnate God, the most visible aspect of God’s power will be in the imperial authority, and not in the priesthood, since the priesthood is not an extension of the life of God in Christ.
What follows are texts from Episode 78 that cover these issues, and lay the foundation for how we should think about the relationship of Church and temporal government.
St. Athanasius on the Primacy of Christ through the Eucharist.
For here [John 6: 62-64] also He has used both terms of Himself, flesh and spirit; and He distinguished the spirit from what is of the flesh in order that they might believe not only in what was visible in Him, but in what was invisible, and so understand that what He says is not fleshly, but spiritual. For how many would the body suf- fice as food, for it is to become meat even for the whole world? But this is why He mentioned the ascending of the Son of Man into Heaven; namely, to draw them off from their corporeal idea and that from henceforth they might understand that the aforesaid flesh was heavenly from above and spiritual meat, to be given at His hands. For “what I have said unto you,” He says, “is spirit and life;” as much as to say, “what is manifested and to be given for the salvation of the world is the flesh which I wear. But this and the blood from it shall be given to you spiritually at My hands as meat, so as to be imparted spiritually in each one, and to become for all a preservative to resurrection of life eternal.”
St. Athanasius, Epistola ad Serapionem
St. Hilary on the Mystery of the Trinity
But the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfill the commandments, worshiping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost, but we must strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words. The error of others compels us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.
St. Hilary De Trinitate
St. Athanasius on the Deification of the faithful in this life through Christ
The curse of sin being removed, because of Him who is in us, and who has become a curse for us. And with reason; for as we are all from earth and die in Adam, so being regenerated from above of water and Spirit, in the Christ we are all quickened; the flesh being no longer earthly, but being henceforth made Word by reason of God’s Word who for our sake “became flesh”
St. Athanasius. Oratio contra Arianos
St. Athanasius on the same
The Word was made flesh in order to offer up this body for all, and that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be deified, a gift which we could not otherwise have gained than by His clothing Himself in our created body, for hence we derive our name, “men of God” and “men in Christ.” But as we, by receiving the Spirit, do not lose our own proper substance, so the Lord, when made man for us, and bearing a body, was no less God; for He was not lessened by the envelopment of the body, but rather deified it and rendered it immortal.
St. Athanasius, Epistola de Nicaenis decretis
St. Hilary on the same, with especial regard to our triumph over the demonic
These were the mysteries of the secret counsels of heaven, determined before the world was made. The Only- begotten God was to become man of His own will, and man was to abide eternally in God. God was to suffer of His own will, that the malice of the devil, working in the weak- ness of human infirmity, might not confirm the law of sin in us, since God has assumed our weakness. God was to die of His own will, that no power, after that the immortal God had constrained Himself within the law of death, might raise up its head against Him or put forth the natural strength which He had created in it. Thus God was born to take us into Himself, suffered to justify us, and died to avenge us; for our manhood abides forever in Him, the weakness of our infirmity is united with His strength, and the spiritual powers of iniquity and wickedness are subdued in the triumph of our flesh, since God died through the flesh.
St. Hilary De Trinitate
St. Hosius of Cordova on the limits of imperial power
“Intrude not yourself into ecclesiastical matters, neither give commands to us concerning them; but learn them from us. God has put into your hands the kingdom; to us He has entrusted the affairs of His Church. And as he who would steal the empire from you would resist the ordinance of God, so likewise fear on your part lest by taking upon yourself the government of the Church, you become guilty of a great offence. It is written, ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’ Neither therefore is it permitted to us to exercise an earthly rule, nor have you, Lord, any authority to burn incense.” Hosias of Codova to Constantine in Athanasius Historia Arianorum
St. Athanasius on Constantius’ presumption, and the nature of Arian Political Theology
{The Bishops} were astonished at this novel procedure and said that there was no ecclesiastical canon to this effect. He {Constantius} immediately said, “Whatever I will, be that considered a canon; the bishops of Syria let me thus speak. Either obey, or go into banishment.” When the bishops heard this, they were utterly amazed and stretching forth their hands to God, they used great boldness of speech against him, teaching him that the kingdom was not his, but God’s who had given it to him, whom also they bade him fear, lest He should suddenly take it away from him. And they threatened him with the day of judgment, and warned him against infringing ecclesiastical order and mingling Roman sovereignty with the constitution of the Church and against introducing the Arian heresy into the Church of God.”
St. Athanasius, Historia Arianorum
The same on the same
He, being without arguments of reason, forces all men by his power, that it may be shown to all, that their wisdom is not according to God, but merely human, and that they who favor the Arian doctrines have indeed no king but Caesar; for by his means these enemies of Christ accomplish whatever they wish to do.
St. Athanasios, Historia Arianorum
St. Hilary on the dangers of worldly authority
Now the third condition for gaining happiness is not to sit in the seat of pestilence. The Pharisees sat as teachers in Moses’s seat, and Pilate sat in the seat of judgment: of what seat then are we to consider the occupation pestilential? Not surely that of Moses, for it is the occupants of the seat and not the occupation of the seat that the Lord condemns. . . That then must be really pestilential the infection of which Pilate sought to avoid by washing his hands. For many, even God-fearing men, are led astray by the canvassing for worldly honors; and desire to administer the law of the courts, though they are bound by those of the Church. But although they bring to the discharge of their duties a religious intention, as is shown by their merciful and upright demeanor, still they cannot escape a certain contagious infection arising from the business in which their life is spent. For the conduct of civil cases does not suffer them to be true to the holy principles of the Church’s law, even though they wish it.
St. Hilary, Homily on Psalm 1.
Lux Christi 