Here in the New Year, I’ve been thinking again about the themes that emerged in Paul Kingsnorth’s compelling lecture hosted by First Things. Provocatively titled “Against Christian Civilization,” the talk generated some stir. Peter Leithart responded to it, while Jake Meador also offered some extended reflections.
As I told the friend who sent me the lecture, Kingsnorth’s thesis pleased most of my priors, which is always intellectually dangerous. My other initial thought was that, for as effectively as Kingsnorth invoked the words of Jesus and James against civilizational syncretism, I would have also like to hear his thoughts on the rest of the NT. Because there, I think we get a better sense of how the “Kingdom of God is at hand” might actually play out in day-to-day Christian lives and communities. Alas, no one lecture can cover everything.
Meador articulated the same basic point well: “Does the renunciation of syncretistic attempts at civilization renewal also mean the renunciation of the pursuit of temporal, creaturely goods altogether?” In other words, is asceticism the only legitimate path? For all but the most extreme outliers in Christianity, the answer has been “no.” The problem, of course, is finding the proper mean, which sends us looking around for historical models. Where Meador was reminded of Martin Bucer, I’ve been thinking about how the earliest Christians handled the question.
Asceticism, after all, is really just one facet of the Nature-Grace dilemma, but it was perhaps the most pressing facet for ancient Christians. For instance, the whole Pelagian Affair was a dispute over asceticism masked as a debate about soteriology, in my reading. As Kingsnorth would anticipate, the Asceticism Question—should one drop out of “normal” society and how?—became much more pressing in the fourth century, during Christianity’s ascendency. In fact, I’d argue its gravitational pull began to distort other areas of theology.
Janus figure that he is, looking back on the first few centuries and looking ahead to an unrealized Roman Christendom, I’ve returned to Eusebius’ own thinking on asceticism, which has typically been understudied. On one hand, he is thoroughly acquainted with and influenced by earlier forms of Christianity before its political toleration in the empire, and on the other, many of his writings were composed with the figure of Constantine looming in the background.
In his excellent and fresh Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History, historian James Corke-Webster explicitly investigates Eusebius’ treatment of both askesis and Christian families. In both cases, he finds Eusebius deliberately backed away from modes of asceticism that would have alienated the Roman mainstream—even modes exemplified by Eusebius’ great hero, Origen.
Here is the most famous passage from Eusebius on askesis, Demonstratio Evangelica 1.8.1–4, quoted from Corke-Webster’s translation:
Therefore, two ways of life were ordained by Christ for his community. One transcends nature and is beyond public, human society (tēs koinēs kai anthrōpinēs politeias), and does not allow marriages, child-bearing, possessions, or wealth, and is wholly and permanently different from the common and habitual conduct of mankind, being dedicated only to the service of God (tēi tou theou therapeiai), as if through an excess of love of heaven . . .They are a kind of heavenly being who oversee the life of men, above the entire race, being priests (hierōmenoi) to the God of all, not by sacrifices or blood, not by libations and burnt offerings, and again not in smoke and ravenous fire and the ruin of flesh, but in the correct judgements of true piety (dogmasi de orthois alēthous eusebeias) and in the disposition of a cleansed soul, and moreover in virtuous words and deeds (tois kat’ aretēn ergois te kai logois). With these they appease the deity and perform their religious service (hierourgian) on behalf of themselves and of their race. So, then, was established the perfect way of life of Christian society (tēs kata ton Christianismon politeias).
Eusebius then turns to the second path:
The other lower and more human way is the sort that allows self-controlled (sōphrosin) marriages and child-bearing, and is engaged in house-hold management, and soldiering for just cause, and undertakes what must be done, and pays attention to farming and commerce and other more civic pursuits as well as the divine . . . And a second degree of piety (deuteros eusebeias) is assigned to these, giving appropriate help (ōpheleian) to such a life, so that no one might miss out on the coming of salvation, and every race of men, Greek and barbarian together, might have the benefit of the teaching (didaskalias) of the Gospel.[1]
On the surface, this passage anticipates the “moderate” Augustinian position that would characterize much of the Western Middle Ages. Further below, Eusebius will even say that “it is fitting” that married clerics quit having sex (the precise reasoning for which he does not explain).
But as Corke-Webster demonstrates, Eusebius also dramatically undercut asceticism in other places. If one reads through the entire Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius repeatedly goes out of his way to mention married apostles and clerics, so too does he elevate the goodness of the family. He also generally rejected the most askesis-enthusiastic Christian literature, the apocryphal apostolic acts, as heretical drivel. And as I’ve argued myself, Eusebius will even entertain the idea that the Virgin Mary was not abstinent her entire life, the mere suggestion of which typically sent later theologians howling (cf. the indignant rhetoric of Epiphanius or Jerome later in the century).
Suffice it to say, there are still some puzzles here. One partial solution proposed by Corke-Webster: Eusebius often judged askesis by whether it benefitted the larger Christian community or whether it merely was the effort of over-zealous individuals.
But circling back to Kingsnorth’s thesis about the present moment and Meador’s question—are syncretistic civilization and “normal,” temporal goods coterminous?—Eusebius would clearly say “no.” Devotion, discipline, and salvation are all possible for the “second grade,” which is to say, the vast majority of Christians who have ever lived.[2]
- James Corke-Webster, Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 126.
Some will say, “Well, of course, the infamous namesake of the ‘Eusebian’ social vision would think this way. After all, he needs Roman culture to be compatible with Christianity. Etc.” I suspect there is something to that, and many good scholars have worked in that paradigm. Corke-Webster, for instance, largely strikes me as in that camp. This method of reading Eusebius usually proceeds by assuming subtext of power (e.g., Eusebius loved Constantine’s patronage of the Church) and reads the Eusebian corpus back in light of those subtexts. But as I’ve argued repeatedly, Eusebius is often more nuanced than that. ↑