Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1 - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: Tatian, Theophilus and Melito—Continue Conditionalist Witness

    I. Tatian—The Soul Is “Not Immortal” but “Mortal”

    TATIAN (c. A.D. 110-172), likewise a Christian apologist, was born in Assyria. He mastered the classical Graeco-Roman culture of the day. In his writings he quoted from ninety-three classic authors, making use of the knowledge gained from his extensive travels and wide reading. As a strolling philosopher (Aristotelian) he came to Rome, the center of the intelligentsia of the time. At first he was an eager student of heathen literature and devoted himself to the study of philosophy. But he found no satisfaction in the bewildering maze of Greek speculation. So he became a pupil of Justin Martyr, and was won to Christianity, soon becoming a teacher and an apologist for the Christian faith. And Justin, as we have seen, was a Conditionalist.CFF1 834.1

    The facts of Tatian’s personal life are scant, but after the death of Justin (c. A.D. 165) he returned to Syria. And for some two hundred years his writings were highly regarded in the Syrian Church. As an apologist he exhibited a marked “abhorrence of pagan abominations,” recognizing no truth in heathen philosophy. He was a prolific writer, his Diatessaron being the earliest harmony of the Gospels to be produced. It was used in the Syrian Church until the fifth century.CFF1 834.2

    It was, however, Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks)—an unsparing exposure of the enormities of paganism, probably written after Tatian’s association with Justin Martyr, and largely sharing his teacher’s views—that brought him fame. In this treatise Tatian urgently invites his contemporaries to examine and accept the light of Christianity in contrast with the darkness of heathenism. 11) See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Shape of Death (1962), chapter on Tatian. He stresses belief in one God, the Creator and First Cause, with the Logos as the Creator of the world. Man was made that he might have a part with God and attain to immortality.CFF1 834.3

    God lives in man now through the operation of the Holy Spirit, for the fall of man necessitated renewal by the Divine Spirit. Longings for God remain in the soul, and man may turn back to God through the exercise of the God-given freedom of the will. But by the same will he can also turn away from God. Tatian was strongly against the materialistic pantheism of the Stoics.CFF1 835.1

    Regrettably, in his old age he adopted peculiar views and fell into certain sad extravagances. The luster created by his Apology was tarnished as he became entangled in the toils of Gnosticism. At the same time Montanism was elsewhere “rising like a fog in the marshes,” as someone has aptly phrased it. But Tatian invented some of the terminology that Tertullian developed. He adopted a stern asceticism and a depreciation of marriage, which became established in the Latin Church. He founded the ascetic sect known as the Tatianists, or Encratites (The Self-Controlled), practicing many austerities and holding to a rigid morality.CFF1 835.2

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents