Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fall 2009 Presence and Voice: Understanding the Tensions over the American Church's Relationship to Its Culture through the Writings of Origen, Chrysostom and Augustine Henry Curtis McDaniel Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation McDaniel, H. (2009). Presence and Voice: Understanding the Tensions over the American Church's Relationship to Its Culture through the Writings of Origen, Chrysostom and Augustine (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/904 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PRESENCE AND VOICE: UNDERSTANDING THE TENSIONS OVER THE AMERICAN CHURCH‟S RELATIONSHIP TO ITS CULTURE THROUGH THE WRITINGS OF ORIGEN, CHRYSOSTOM AND AUGUSTINE A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By H. Curtis McDaniel December 2009 Copyright by H. Curtis McDaniel 2009 PRESENCE AND VOICE: UNDERSTANDING THE TENSIONS OVER THE AMERICAN CHURCH‟S RELATIONSHIP TO ITS CULTURE THROUGH THE WRITINGS OF ORIGEN, CHRYSOSTOM AND AUGUSTINE By H. Curtis McDaniel Approved November 19, 2009 ________________________________ ________________________________ Richard H. Thames, Ph.D., Director Ronald C. Arnett, Ph.D., Chair Department of Communication & Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies Rhetorical Studies ________________________________ ________________________________ Calvin L. Troup, Ph.D., Reader Janie Harden Fritz, Ph.D., Reader Department of Communication & Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies Rhetorical Studies ________________________________ Christopher M. Duncan, Ph.D., Dean McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts ABSTRACT PRESENCE AND VOICE: UNDERSTANDING THE TENSIONS OVER THE AMERICAN CHURCH‟S RELATIONSHIP TO ITS CULTURE THROUGH THE WRITINGS OF ORIGEN, CHRYSOSTOM AND AUGUSTINE By H. Curtis McDaniel December 2009 Dissertation supervised by Richard H. Thames, Ph.D. In light of the perceived and demonstrable decline of the church‟s presence and voice in American culture, this dissertation proposes to examine and to discuss the dynamic viewpoints and tensions within the church over her presence and voice in the American culture by examining the various interpretations over the rhetoric of Christianization in the Roman Empire and how those viewpoints surface in the positions of Origen, Chrysostom and Augustine. The objective of this approach is to review and to continue the discussion first articulated by H. Richard Niebuhr‟s 1951 work, Christ and Culture, by showing that the way one understands the rhetoric of Christianization in the first five centuries as crystallized in the writings of Origen, Chrysostom and Augustine will reveal not only one‟s position concerning the church‟s place and presence in the American culture, but also the inner tensions that exist within many American churches today over the role she plays in a pluralistic society. In light of this perceived and demonstrable decline, some church leaders are suggesting a fresh examination of the Christianization within the Roman Empire (the first five centuries) in order to learn pertinent principles in rhetorical presence and voice that can find application today. Chapter one discusses and addresses some of the criticisms and misreadings from Niebuhr‟s discussion of “the enduring problem” as it pertains to his presentation of typology in Christ and Culture. Chapter two takes Niebuhr‟s understanding of “viewpoints” (also stated as “motifs”) and applies fresh scholarship to the study of Christianization in the first five centuries, producing five prominent views in explaining Christianity‟s success and cultural advancement. Chapters three, four and five discuss and align these viewpoints as they appear in the writings of Origen, Chrysostom and Augustine, arguably the three greatest church fathers/rhetors in the first five centuries of the church. The epilogue summarizes the discussion and presents preliminary considerations for a new hermeneutical prism needed for understanding the rhetorical presence and voice of the church in America today—the understanding and praxis application of the principles surrounding the knowledge and presence of the Kingdom of God. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT For Karen and all the sacrifices she made to make this a reality. Thank you. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................. vi Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Towards a Clearer Understanding of Niebuhr‟s Discussion of the “Enduring Problem” ................................................................................................................22 Chapter 2: Differing Viewpoints over the Christianization within the Roman Empire ....41 Chapter 3: Origen‟s Dominoes that Triggered the Church‟s Relationship to Culture .....121 Chapter 4: Chrysostom's Homiletic Articulation of Christian Identity and its City- Transforming Objective .......................................................................................163 Chapter 5: Augustine's Ambivalent Triangle over the Church's Presence and Voice in Culture..................................................................................................................226 Epilogue: Summaries, Conclusions and the Need for a New Hermeneutical Prism .......271 Works Cited .....................................................................................................................288 Introduction But the God who sent Jesus dissipated all the conspiracies of the demons, and made the Gospel of Jesus to prevail throughout the whole world for the conversion and reformation of men, and caused Churches to be everywhere established in opposition to those of superstitious and licentious and wicked men…Whereas the Churches of God which are instructed by Christ, when carefully contrasted with the assemblies of the districts in which they are situated, are as beacons in the world. (Origen Against Celsus III.29) For the church is no barber‟s or perfumer‟s shop, nor any other merchant‟s warehouse in the market-place, but a place of angels, a place of archangels, a palace of God, heaven itself. As therefore if one had parted the heaven and had brought thee in thither, though thou shouldest see thy father or thy brother, thou wouldest not venture to speak; so neither here ought one to utter any other sound but these which are spiritual. For, in truth, the things in this place are also a heaven. (Chrysostom Homily on First Corinthians XXXVI.8) For the supreme task, in this world, of the pilgrim City of God, its whole task during this mortal life, is to call upon God; and this fact is commended to us in the person of the one man who was certainly „the son of the resurrection‟ of Abel, who was slain. In this one man, indeed, is signified the unity of the whole Supernal City: a unity which is not yet completed, but whose completion in time to come is prefigured by this prophetic foreshadowing. (Augustine City of God XV.21) These statements from three of the most prominent late antiquity rhetoricians/church fathers depict noticeable differences in the understanding of the 1 presence and the voice of the church1 in society. Origen (185-254), the Alexandrian rhetorician and Christian philosopher viewed Christianity as the “true paideia” (Brown The World of Late Antiquity 82, Jaeger 60-4) that moved an untrained society into cultivated sophistication. Chrysostom (349-407), surnamed the “Golden Mouth” (Palladius 151, Baur 206, Brändle xi, Vandenburghe 2, Brown The Body and Society 306, Attwater 11, Kennedy Classical Rhetoric165, Schaff “Prolegomena” IX:5, Maxwell “Lay Piety” 19, Cameron The Later Roman Empire 72, Quasten III:429, Lawrenz 1, Hartney 2, Walter 2, Allies 2, D'Alton 1) archbishop and preacher from Antioch and Constantinople longed for the church to be a “new civic community” (Brown The Body and Society 306) so that her practice of holiness through self-denial, devoted marriages and almsgiving to the poor would shine in stark contrast to the practices of a dark culture. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) saw two lines or cities of humanity with the people who compose the City of God on this earth living as pilgrims until the fullness and fulfillment of God‟s kingdom (City of God XV.1). In City of God, pilgrim life is marked by grace (XV.2), faith (XIX.4), endurance (II.20) and prayer XV.21). Why do these leaders fluctuate at times dynamically on the church‟s presence and voice in culture? Why does Origen suggest an opposition (dominion) mentality, Chrysostom a separatist (removal) mentality and Augustine an enduring (tolerant) mentality?2 These tensions from late antiquity find fertile ground in current discussion 1 “Church” is viewed in this study primarily as the Protestant American Mainline Church and the American