REGENT COLLEGE

THE PATIENT DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN WITNESS: AN EXPLORATION

OF THE TREATISES OF TERTULLIAN, CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTINE

AN ESSAY PREPARED FOR

THE RCSA ACADEMIC SYMPOSIUM 2020

BY

CHRIS AGNEW

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

6 MARCH 2020

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“We do not speak great things, but we live them.”1

Patience is a , but it was not always so. The ancient world’s cardinal were , , and fortitude; so, when Tertullian wrote On Patience, he departed from ancient tradition and ushered in a new genre of Christian writing.2 Cyprian and

Augustine wrote further treatises on patience; however, whilst Cyprian wrote with similar convictions, Augustine demonstrates departure from his North African counterparts. This paper will explore the key developments in this “patient tradition,”3 suggest that Augustine’s contribution is a representative of key shifts in the Christian landscape in post-Constantinian

Romanitas and briefly reflect on missiological insight gained.

Tertullian writes counter-culturally. and Seneca had written admiringly of endurance, of perseverance in adversity;4 however, more often in Latin writing, patience had the connotation of subordinates or victims who did not have any other choice, “patience was a response of slaves for whom it was an inevitability, not a virtue.”5 Contrastingly, Tertullian lauds patience as the “highest virtue”, the “moving force” behind all other virtues.6 He suggests he is “utterly unfit” to write on patience, and remarks that “no one can fulfil any precept or perform any work pleasing to the Lord without patience.”7 This is rooted in God himself being patient, as the greatest example (enduring the rebellion of humanity) and in incarnation (entering into an impatient world).8 In short, patience is the basis for all good,

1 Saint Cyprian, On the Good of Patience, 3, in Treatises, ed. Roy Deferrari, trans. Sister George Edward Conway, The Fathers of the Church 36 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1958), 265. 2 Robert Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 279. 3 A phrase I borrowed from Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of in the Roman Empire (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2016), 284. 4 Wilken, Early Christian Thought, 283. 5 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 20. 6 Tertullian, On Patience, 1.7, in Disciplinary, Moral and Ascetical Works, ed. Roy Deferrari, trans. Sister Emily Joseph Daly, The Fathers of the Church 40 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1959), 194. 7 Tertullian, Patience, 1.1, 1.6 (Daly, 193-4). 8 Ibid., 2.1, 3.2 (Daly, 195).

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including humble obedience and love.9 Contrastingly, impatience comes from the devil, is the root of all evil10 and is “paradigmatic of the human condition.”11 Finally, patience demonstrates in the resurrection of Christ,12 and has a missiological edge, “attracting the heathen.”13 His discourse is replete with Scripture, mostly the Gospels, but also multiple references to Genesis, Exodus and the prophets, blaming impatience as barring Israel from receiving the good things of God.14 Evocatively, he likely wrote this in 204AD from

Carthage, with the Severan amphitheatre martyrdoms of Perpetua and Felicitas ringing in his ears. It is an essay that implores Christians to live lives of patience, acknowledging that God is at work and that this slow yet transformative trajectory has redemptive consequences with

“exceedingly attractive” witness.15

Cyprian, following in the footsteps of his Carthaginian senior, wrote On the Good of

Patience approximately fifty years later. It was probably written in response to the wave of

Decian persecution that had ripped through the Roman Empire, or in response to a pestilence that had killed huge numbers, in an effort to renew conviction.16 Like Tertullian, whom he draws on consistently, Cyprian begins with an emphatic call to patience, as the basis for all

“listening and learning.”17 He similarly anchors it in God, who gives patience its “splendour and dignity”, and contests that patience spoken of aside from that which is God-given is false boasting (pointedly aimed at the philosophers of the day).18 His paradigm for patience is based on following and imitating Christ, “[Jesus’] every act right from the outset is marked

9 Tertullian, Patience, 5.5, 12.9 (Daly, 199, 215). 10 Ibid., 5.7 (Daly, 200). 11 M.C. Steenburg, “Impatience and Humanity’s Sinful State in Tertullian of Carthage,” Vigiliae Christianae 62 (2008): 107–32, https://doi.org/10.1163/157007208X247674, 115. 12 Tertullian, Patience, 9 (Daly, 209). 13 Ibid., 15.3 (Daly, 220). 14 Ibid., 5 (Daly, 200-3). 15 Ibid., 15.3 (Daly, 220). 16 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 26. 17 Cyprian, Patience, 1 (Conway, 263). 18 Ibid., 2-3 (Conway, 264-5).

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by an accompanying patience.”19 This is exemplified in the epigraph to this paper, showing emphasis on actions as well as words. In this he builds on Tertullian; there is more emphasis on the example of Christ, “following Christ is the heart of Cyprian’s .”20 In the face of persecution , Cyprian offers patience as their “helper and companion,”21 and cements it as the foundation for faith, hope and love.22 In the closing chapters, Cyprian burns with eschatological intensity different from Tertullian. He urges them not simply to live with patient, hopeful expectation, but to live patiently because the consequences of not doing so are terrifying.23 He too bemoans the evil of impatience, cataloguing the failures of Adam,

Cain, Esau and the Israelites, though he does not do so as exhaustively as Tertullian.24

Alongside these references, his treatise is similarly filled with Scripture (as Tertullian), with an even greater representation from the Gospels as his sources. Finally, in chapter twenty there is rich imagery of patience as commending and saving, powerful and fortifying, anchored in imitation of the patience of Christ and foundational for missional expansion.25

Tertullian and Cyprian both argue persuasively for patience as fundamental for

Christian living, and Justin Martyr noted in the previous century that his friends turned to

Christianity “observing the consistent lives of their [Christian] neighbours, or noting their strange patience….”26 This patience was practical as well as philosophised; it was not just spoken, it was lived; it garnered curious attention and catalysed growth.

In 417AD, wrote a third treatise on patience. Whilst Augustine similarly attributes patience to God and suggests that God calls forth such a virtue in

19 Cyprian, Patience, 6 (Conway, 268). He charts Jesus’ incarnation, baptism, conflict with the devil, foot washing, receiving the kiss of Judas and his passion as patient. 20 Simone Deléani, quoted in Kreider, Patient Ferment, 28, emphasis mine. 21 Cyprian, Patience, 12 (Conway, 275). 22 Ibid., 15 (Conway, 277-8). 23 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 30. 24 Cyprian, Patience, 19 (Conway, 281-2). 25 Ibid., 20 (Conway, 282-3). 26 Justin Martyr, 1 Apology, 16.4, in Early Christian Fathers, ed. C.C. Richardson, trans. E.R. Hardy, LCC I (London, 1963), 252, emphasis mine.

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humans,27 the emphases are markedly different from Cyprian and Tertullian. Early on he explores “true patience, recognised only through its cause,”28 rather than extolling its inherent goodness. Augustine’s preoccupation with cause is notable, subtly dismissing the schismatic

Donatists29 and rejecting the “false patience” of the heretical Pelagians.30 True patience pertains to those with true inner motivation, not simply outward behaviour (even in the face of suffering or persecution). From chapter twenty-three onward, Augustine reverses the direction of his ‘patient’ spiritual fathers, saying patience comes from love; “without

[], there can be no true patience in us…hence, our patience is from Him from whom our charity comes.”31 Strikingly, he qualifies the negative of blind patience; “whenever the of the world patiently sustains the burdens of any calamity, it glories in the strength of its own will…it is not patience but madness.”32 This insight acknowledges how the vulnerable could be “uncreatively servile” in patience,33 and he instead points to love as the starting point and the lens through which patience must be lived out. Contrary to Tertullian and

Cyprian, Augustine spends considerably less on impatience, suggesting it more as a pathway to evil, rather than an absolute evil in itself.34 It is also no surprise, given

Augustine’s propensity to focus on the interior, that the emphasis on practical imitation of

Christ is similarly lacking. This is reflected in the Scripture cited; Cyprian cites the Gospel of

Matthew twenty-four , Augustine only cites it three times, instead preferring Paul’s more cerebral Romans (twenty-two citations).35 Fascinatingly, in Augustine’s sermon there is no allusion to the witness of patience, nor is there quotation from the patient tradition (yet

27 Saint Augustine, On Patience, 1-2, in Treatises on Various Subjects, ed. Roy Deferrari, trans. Sister Luanne Meagher, The Fathers of the Church 16 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1952), 237-8. 28 Augustine, Patience, 6.5 (Meagher, 240), emphasis mine. 29 Ibid., 13.10 (Meagher, 246). 30 Ibid., 15.12 (Meagher, 249). 31 Ibid., 23 (Meagher, 258). 32 Ibid. 33 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 283. 34 Augustine, Patience, 2 (Meagher, 238). 35 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 284.

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there is evidence of his love of Cyprian’s treatise);36 it is more concerned with inner motivation than outward behaviour, sets forth love as the key determinant of living and ultimately represents a significant departure from his predecessors.

Why is there this departure in Augustine? Kreider hypothesises that Augustine was cognizant of the patient tradition, yet his discourse intentionally allowed more “elastic” practice in a new era.37 He suggests that suppression of the Donatists, condemnation of the

Pelagians, forced conversion and leveraging state machinery to accomplish missional expansion would have appeared “impatient” to Cyprian or Tertullian whereas for Augustine represented pragmatic love.38 This may be because “Augustine dared to think the unthinkable…that Christianity could be the faith of an entire society.”39 Therefore, it is conceivable that Augustine viewed the patient witness of Cyprian as irrelevant, “out of touch with a world in which emperors served the Lord.”40 It is striking that although Augustine cites three times, he never once cites ‘love is patient’ in his dialogue.

Kreider suggests that this would have “infused his [elastic] love with Cyprianic patience,” impeding his goals.41 He concludes that Augustine capitulated to the expansive goal of

Christendom and left an ‘impatient’ legacy; “he gave to monarchs the vision…of doing what they did naturally, using top-down methods for Christian ends…destroying pagan religions and achieving Christian unity and orthodoxy.”42 It is thus possible that Augustine’s position reflected a vision of Christianity expanding across the whole known world and that patience was a hindrance to growth rather than the catalyst for it.

36 Saint Augustine, On Baptism 5.17-22 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. J. R. King Reprint, vol. 4, 14 vols., First (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 471. Here he notes the treatise at the end of a comment on Cyprian’s Epistle 73. 37 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 285. 38 Ibid., 285-7. 39 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Revised ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 461. 40 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 283. 41 Ibid., 285. 42 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 295.

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However, James K.A. Smith disagrees, instead postulating that Kreider is trying to squeeze Augustine into his “explaining Christendom project” rather than examining him fairly.43 Brown interestingly says that “Augustine appears as a man in a hurry” in the context of describing him leaving the “divine patience” of a grander cosmic perspective and instead focusing on how God saves mankind at the level of the heart.44 Perhaps his discursive departure is not part of an intentional ‘Christendom project’, but the logical corollary of concern for inner motivation and conviction that “all virtue comes from the love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit,” rather than visible patient practice.45

Moreover, Augustine writes in a context of greater freedom for Christians; questions concerning orthodoxy were becoming more prominent and could explain his shift. Kreider himself notes that post-Constantinian “teaching concentrated, not on how to live the teachings of Jesus, but how to avoid heresy.”46 Definitive departure from Cyprian could similarly be reluctance to place emphasis on outward practice (contra Pelagianism), and to distance himself from the Donatists, as “both sides appealed to the authority of Cyprian.”47 It is additionally possible due to ambient pastoral need. For Christians facing the Severan or

Decian persecution, patient resistance was the cornerstone of Christian living, whereas in the new Constantinian order, patience could be deviant, something neither Tertullian nor Cyprian acknowledge; “[patience] could be bad—if not directed to a just cause—or good, if it was.”48

Lastly, it could represent theological development, reflecting healthy subordination of patience to love. Thus, the possible reasons for Augustine’s departure are manifold.

43 A private conversation at Regent College, 1st November, 2019, where I asked Dr Smith his perspective on Kreider's hypothesis. 44 Brown, Augustine, 505. 45 Wilken, Early Christian Thought, 288, emphasis mine. 46 Alan Kreider, “Beyond Bosch: The Early Church and the Christendom Shift,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29, no. 2 (April 2005): 59–68, https://doi.org/10.1177/239693930502900201, 64. 47 Brown, 209. 48 Brent Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 608.

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Kreider cannot help suspecting “additional motives” and suggests that, for Augustine, the threat to orthodoxy from Pelagianism justified intentional impatient praxis.49

Nevertheless, it is more likely that his departure is a natural consequence of ambient cultural change, greater Christian freedom, envisioned empire-wide Christian expansion and

Augustine’s own emphasis on the heart of man. For Tertullian and Cyprian, patience was the highest virtue, paradigmatic for distinct witness in a challenging time; for Augustine, reorientation of love took priority, and explosive expansion required rigorous wrestling over orthodoxy and church unity, perhaps resulting in perceived ‘impatient’ action.

Patience is a virtue, but to suggest it is the ‘highest virtue’ is perhaps beyond the bounds of biblical faith. Nevertheless, integrating the three treatises, loving patience anchored in the character of God, oriented towards God and practiced unto God demonstrates trust in the slow workings of the Almighty, hope in the eschatological of the new creation, and curious missiological distinctiveness to a watching world. Augustine swung the pendulum healthily towards love; however, in an effort to refute any Pelagian leanings, he forfeited the emphasised exterior of patient Christian practice and possibly unwittingly capitulated to impatient Constantinian compulsion as the modus operandi for mission. In the pre-

Constantinian age of intermittent persecution, Christocentric patience was potent, producing slow but steady growth, where ‘great things’ lived were fascinating to outsiders. In today’s impatient post-Christian society, conversation with the likes of Cyprian and Tertullian as well as Augustine could point us to new perspectives on patient witness, and we too might not just speak great things, but live them.

49 Kreider, Patient Ferment, 283.

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