The Philosophy of the Church Fathers: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (1956 Wolfson), book

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The Philosophy of the Church Fathers: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (1956) is a book by Harry Austryn Wolfson.

Abstract

By employing evidence from Enochic literature, Wisdom Literature, Rabbinic Literature, and Philo in particular, Wolfson, a trained specialist in Hellenistic Judaism, strives to traces the origins and development of the Christian doctrines of Trinity and the Incarnation. With respect to the latter, he argues that Paul, John, and the early Church fathers are all dependant upon ideas from Philo in regards to how they articulated and expressed Jesus' identity. In Paul he sees the influence of Jewish apocalpytic literature, which envisions a preexistent Messiah, and Jewish wisdom literature, which depicts preexistent wisdom, converging together in Paul's articulation of who Jesus is. Likewise, in John, Wolfson illumines how this gospel writer borrowed language from Philo, yet did not fully articulate the implications of those connections. Rather than merely tracing a line of development from Paul to John, Wolfson instead demonstrates the convergences between the two as well as their frequent similarities to other literature from Second Temple Period Judaism. Suprisingly, Wolfson does not view the Gospel of John as doing something radically new with the Logos concept, even though he acknowledges that the gospel writer depicts the Logos becoming flesh. Instead, he sees more of a gradual continuum between ideas of preexistence found in Paul, Philo, and John when he writes, " Not exactly a departure from Philo but only an addition to him is the doctrine of the Incarnation, for in its ultimate formulation the Incarnation became a new stage in the history of the Philonic Logos - a Logos made immanent in man after its having been immanent in the world" (viii). For Wolfson, the incarnate Logos of Christianity and the immanent Logos of Philo are analogous to each other, philosophically speaking. "In the former," he writes, "the Logos is a man; in the latter, the Logos is in the world. This analogy, we shall find, continues in the detailed descriptions of the relation of the immanent Logos to the world as found in Philo and of the incarnate Logos to humanity as found in Christianity" (366). For Wolfson, it is only when we get to the early church Fathers that both a clear dependence upon Philo and more radical deviations from Philo's thought emerge. ~Deborah Forger

Editions

Published in Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1956 / 2nd ed. 1964 / 3rd ed. 1970.

Translations

Contents

  • Preface
  • Part I - Faith and Reason
    • Chapter 1 - "The Wisdom of God" and "The Wisdom of the World"
    • Chapter 2 - The Allegorical Method
      • Background of Paul's Allegorical Method
      • The Allegorical Interpretation in the Church Fathers
    • Chapter 3 - Scriptural Presuppositions
    • Chapter 4 - Handmaiden of Scripture
    • Chapter 5 - Single Faith Theories
      • Tertullian
      • Origen
    • Chapter 6 - Double Faith Theory
      • The Aristotelian "Faith" and Stoic "Assent
      • Clement of Alexandria
      • Augustine
  • Part II - The Trinity, The Logos, and the Platonic Ideas
    • Chapter 7 - Origin of the Trinitarian Formula
    • Chapter 8 - The Holy Spirit as the Preexistent Christ
    • Chapter 9 - The Holy Spirit as the Begetter of Jesus
    • Chapter 10 - The Logos as the Preexistent Christ
    • Chapter 11 - The Identification of the Logos and the Holy Spirit
    • Chapter 12 - The Differentiation of the Logos and the Holy Spirit
    • Chapter 13 - The Logos and Platonic Ideas
  • Part III - The Three Mysteries
    • Chapter 14 - The Mystery of the Generation
    • Chapter 15 - The Mystery of the Trinity
      • The Problem and Its Two Solutions
      • The Two Solutions in Origen and Tertullian
      • The Two Solutions in Basil
      • The Two Solutions in John of Damascus and Augustine
      • Sundry Apologies
    • Chapter 16 - The Mystery of the Incarnation
      • Two Natures in One Person
      • Five Types of Physical Union
      • Orthodox Use of the Analogies of Physical Union
      • Unorthodox Use of the Analogies of Physical Union
      • Duality of Wills and Operations
  • Part IV - The Anathematized
    • Chapter 17 - Gnosticism
    • Chapter 18 - Heresies

External links

  • [ Google Books]
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