We are Latins: why Athanasius is not in the 1662 Kalendar

A turning point in my formation was, in the first year of theological college, reading Saint Athanasius's On the Incarnation. As C.S. Lewis noted in the foreword of the translation I read (and still own):

He stood for the Trinitarian doctrine, "whole and undefiled," when it looked as if all the civilised world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius - into one of those "sensible" synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivate clergymen.

Now, yes, it does push matters more than somewhat to suggest that Athanasius taught the fulness of Trinitarian doctrine which would be expounded by the conciliar tradition in the centuries to come. Lewis's foreword is certainly no substitute for reading Williams's Arius: Heresy and Tradition. That said, I cannot forget the delight in reading Athanasius, the power it gave to the words of the Nicene Creed:

For whereas human things cease and the fact of Christ remains, it is clear to all that the things which cease are temporary, but that He Who remains is God and very Son of God, the sole-begotten Word.

Despite my joy and delight in the witness and teaching of Athanasius, I am not disappointed by the fact that while today - 2nd May - many contemporary Anglican calendars today commemorate him, his name is not to be found amongst the Black Letter Days of the 1662 Kalendar.

Why am I not be disappointed?

The 1662 Kalendar commemorates the Four Latin Doctors of the Church - Ambrose (4th April), Jerome (30th September), Gregory the Great (12th March), and Augustine (28th August). It was through the teaching and witness of the Four Latin Doctors that the Latin West was shaped by Nicene orthodoxy, the faith for which Athanasius contended: or, to be more precise, by the Chalcedonian orthodoxy which rightly interpreted Athanasius.

This draws our attention to the near-complete absence of Greek figures from the 1662 Kalendar. "S. Denys, Areopagite" is commemorated on 9th October (a conflation of the Dionysius figure and the martyr of Paris). What is striking about this absence is the fact that the teaching of the Greek Fathers loomed large in the thought of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana. Chrysostom, famously, appears in the daily prayer of the BCP, and is quoted throughout the Book of Homilies. The Cappadocians are also quoted in the Homilies, while, for example, Jewel's A Treatise of the Sacraments, alongside liberal use of Chrysostom, also quotes Nazianzen and Nyssa.

What, then, is the significance of the absence of the Greek Fathers from the 1662 Kalendar? It quite clearly cannot be taken to mean either ignorance of or rejection of their teaching. What is does do, however, is situate the theological tradition of the reformed ecclesia Anglican firmly within the great Latin tradition of the West. As Diarmaid MacCulloch puts it, referring to the Latin Doctors in a different context, it points to a "delineation of the tradition of the previous fifteen hundred years that calls itself Catholic".

It was, is, a tradition deeply Chalcedonian and deeply Augustinian (which are the categories which most profoundly shaped the eucharistic doctrine of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana). And it is this which the 1662 Kalendar celebrates and promotes with its commemoration of the Four Latin Doctors. That the different tradition of the Greek East can yet enrich the reformed ecclesia Anglicana, and the wider Latin West, is without question. But it is the Latin tradition which is our home. It is the voices of the Latin Fathers which, in a way quite distinct from the Greek Fathers, shape us.

The absence of Greek Fathers from the 1662 Kalendar, then, speaks not about them, but of us and who we are: the inheritors of the Latin tradition, seen in Quicunque Vult, Filioque and Article V, in the Words of Institution rather than epiclesis, in the "as Hierome saith" and "as Saint Augustine saith" of the Articles.

As with the best of the Latins, however, we also heed the Greeks, to be enriched by their teaching: not a native voice, to be sure, but one also bearing light and truth. Amongst their number shines Athanasius, described by the Book of Homilies as "a very ancient, holy, and learned bishop and doctor".

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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