"I have just cited seven instances in which significant transfers of intellectual strength and creativity is evidenced from Africa to Europe: academia, exegesis, dogmatics, ecumenics, monastic communities, philosophy and dialectics. All await further explication by generation of balanced scholarship, but the direction of the argument is clear.
"The list could go on and it should. It could show in more detail how Western penitential practice was profoundly shaped by Optatus of Milevis , and the teaching of justification by Marius Victorinus. It could track the influence of Africans like Minucius Felix on apologetics, of Lactantius on universal history, of Primacius on apocalyptic interpretation , of Athanasius on civil disobedience, of Cyprian on ecclesiology , of Terrullian on theological method, of African women saints like Perpetua and Felicitas on eschatological courage, and of Augustine on practically everything that would later be considered quintessentially European. The biographies of Evagrius, Cassian, Athanasius , Augustine, Origen, Pachomius, and Benedict are part of the south-to-north transmission of tradition. African Christian biography is a field in itself that is only partially explored. It will take dozens of expertly trained scholars and linguists to accomplish the tasks....
"The apex of African influence on Roman civil authority was around 193-211, when African-born Septimius Severus was emperor of Rome. He was born in Leptis Magna of Libyan Tripolitania. During Severus's reign, the pope was also an African (Victor I, 186-197), at a time when diocesan policy was being crystallized in the person of its bishop with regard to matters of ecumenical discipline , especially on such matters as the celebration of Easter, excommunication, and adoptionist Christology.
"These things happened one hundred years before Diocletian and Constantine. During this time African Christianity was serving as an intellectual powerhouse for early Christian thinking. During the formation of early ecumenical Christianity, Africa was more like a creative intellectual dynamo than a submissive sycophant."
P.59-61, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
AFRICAN'S ABORIGINAL STAIN ON MODERN CHRISTIANITY
"I have just cited seven instances in which significant transfers of intellectual strength and creativity is evidenced from Africa to Europe: academia, exegesis, dogmatics, ecumenics, monastic communities, philosophy and dialectics. All await further explication by generation of balanced scholarship, but the direction of the argument is clear.
"The list could go on and it should. It could show in more detail how Western penitential practice was profoundly shaped by Optatus of Milevis , and the teaching of justification by Marius Victorinus. It could track the influence of Africans like Minucius Felix on apologetics, of Lactantius on universal history, of Primacius on apocalyptic interpretation , of Athanasius on civil disobedience, of Cyprian on ecclesiology , of Terrullian on theological method, of African women saints like Perpetua and Felicitas on eschatological courage, and of Augustine on practically everything that would later be considered quintessentially European. The biographies of Evagrius, Cassian, Athanasius , Augustine, Origen, Pachomius, and Benedict are part of the south-to-north transmission of tradition. African Christian biography is a field in itself that is only partially explored. It will take dozens of expertly trained scholars and linguists to accomplish the tasks....
"The apex of African influence on Roman civil authority was around 193-211, when African-born Septimius Severus was emperor of Rome. He was born in Leptis Magna of Libyan Tripolitania. During Severus's reign, the pope was also an African (Victor I, 186-197), at a time when diocesan policy was being crystallized in the person of its bishop with regard to matters of ecumenical discipline , especially on such matters as the celebration of Easter, excommunication, and adoptionist Christology.
"These things happened one hundred years before Diocletian and Constantine. During this time African Christianity was serving as an intellectual powerhouse for early Christian thinking. During the formation of early ecumenical Christianity, Africa was more like a creative intellectual dynamo than a submissive sycophant."
P.59-61, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)