Customer Reviews

Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 years

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Jenkins tells the history of the Christian Church before the first Council of Nicea (325 CE) when Antioch and Alexandria were the centres of the faith and takes us to the sixth century in a fascinating account of the time when the Christians were divided in their belief of the nature of Jesus Christ. Arius from Antioch led the culture of the two natures of Jesus - the divine and the human, with the latter being subordinate to the former. Athanasius the Bishop of Alexandria eventually won the early part of the "Jesus Wars" when his One Nature Christ doctrine became the orthodox view at the time. In 451 Council of Chalcedon decreed that Christ was of two natures, one fully human and the other fully divine, but the ideological battle did not end but continued for almost 200 years more before the roots of the modern doctrines became more firmly established. "The Jesus Wars" is an informative account, written in an accessible style in spite of the numerous events and names that had to be covered. That had to be done at the expense of the scholarly approach of a standard history book. Some of the inferences and comments as well as references (even Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" was cited) might attract criticism from serious history enthusiasts, but the book as a historical account seemed accurate. It tells a single continuous story in one of the most important 300-year history of Christianity and compels the reader to realise that the doctrines and liturgies that Christians take for granted today weren't quite like that at first. The Antiochean and Alexandrian divide was manifest in Calvinistic and Lutheran thinking. The Christian faith might well be quite different had the Monophysite culture prevailed. What was it like then, and what it might have been today are questions the answers to which can be found in this book.

I agree with much of the other reviewers in that this is a well-researched book on a very complicated subject, as the issues raised by early Christians would seem to have little resonance today. One truly does need a "scorecard" to keep track of the distinctions that caused such debate and even mayhem among Christian communities of the 5th-10th centuries and Jenkins went to the work to provide it for the modern reader. While it is a quite readable book, it does indeed have places where it drags as Jenkins tries his hardest to explain quite esoteric beliefs espoused by long-forgotten (and often unpronounceable) players that threatened to take Christianity in very different historical directions. Whether it was God's guiding hand or the personalities of those monks, bishops, popes and emperors (and sometimes their wives) involved in these conflicts that led to today's Christian church is a question Jenkins often poses at his reader.

I want to mention that Jenkins has performed a great service by helping disabuse many of the notion that the Christian church used to be a more unified body in antiquity. We in the West often wrongly assume that Rome dominated and shaped Christianity from St. Peter's time to the Reformation. Jenkins clearly shows that this wasn't the case as churches in Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople vied for supremacy and used their definition of orthodox doctrine to justify their oft-abhorrent actions. The Christian church from the beginning has argued over "Who is Jesus?" and little has changed in this regard over the past 2000 years. Jenkins concludes by comparing some of those early non-orthodox, non-accepted beliefs with today's understand of Christ and draws some fascinating paralells.

In the plethora of current works on non-orthodox early movements from the likes of excellent scholars such Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagel (plus the absurd novels of Dan Brown and his imitators, which I shudder to mention in the same sentence), there has been precious little recent consideration of the establishment of Christian orthodoxy from a historical perspective. Into that breach steps Philip Jenkins with his interesting and readable "Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians would Believe for 1,500 Years."

Jenkins illuminates often neglected history of the competing strains of Christianity, the charges of heresy and counter-heresy leveled over and over again as theologians and bishops sought to settle the apparent contradictions inherent in ideas like the Trinity and "The Divine Made Flesh." If some imagine these conflicts as intellectual, they were at the time considered deadly serious, and a deluge of blood was shed on both sides.

While on occasion one might grow confused about the various heresies, Jenkins does yeoman work helping the reader keep them straight, including excellent appendices following at the end of certain chapters. As for entertainment, he also offers a variety of interesting character sketches of the prime movers in the debate, neither beatifying nor overly vilifying them. No doubt some will take offense, but for those interested in learning of the battles that set the fault lines for a millennium and half of Christianity, this is a welcome read.

Jesus Wars is a thorough and fascinating study of the tumultuous fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, when Christianity had become the legal religion in the Roman Empire, but Christians had not yet figured out what they were supposed to believe about their religion and its founder, Jesus Christ. Philip Jenkins does an excellent job detailing the conflicts over doctrine that shook the Roman world during this period, making the differences between Nestorius and Cyril, for example, clear.

But most importantly, Jenkins sets the endless debates over theology in their proper context. The numerous councils in which Christians argued over whether Jesus had one or two natures, or whether the Virgin was the Mother of God or "merely" the Mother of Christ took place in an empire which was under constant attack from invaders. The western half of the Roman Empire had lost most of its political unity but possessed in Rome the most eminent center of Christianity, while the eastern half was still centralized but riven with discord between rival patriarchs in Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch. Jenkins points out that the religious fragmentation caused political weaknesses that eventually led to loss of parts of the eastern empire and allowed rival powers and faith like Islam to grow.

Jenkins' scholarship is impeccable, and the readability of Jesus Wars is enhanced by his occasional use of modern terms like "Don't Ask Don't Tell" or the "Gangster Council." I also enjoyed his counterfactual speculations on what might have happened had theological issues been decided in other ways.

Philip Jenkins has written a serious history of the Christological controversies that strongly marked the fifth to seventh centuries. It is an era whose strident tensions and bloody conflicts over the identity of Jesus were punctuated by ecclesiastical councils and driven by political powers. In this period one sees the forces in play that evidence the transition from classical times to the Medieval Period in the West and the strident disruptions which left many of the ancient churches, warred upon by Christian brethren of different persuasions, welcoming the tolerance of Islamic invaders. It is in fact the story of the collapse of Roman and Christian rule over Egypt and the East which in effect insulated the protagonists from each other, or, as the author puts it, "How the Church lost half the world."

The book brings back into focus that, compared to the Protestant Reformation and the Counter Reformation of Catholicism in the 16th and 17th centuries and the subsequent sectarian conflicts in the West, the period under study here was far more violent than the latter fragmentation has managed to become despite its well known atrocities. It seems incomprehensible today that debates over whether Jesus had one nature or two, one will or two, could he and did he really die, and the like, could have produced Bishops who could sic their hit teams of cudgel and knife wielding monks on their fellow bishops and their congregants. But they did, even with imperial and military support in many cases. Fist fights were not uncommon at meetings of bishops wrangling with concepts that would seem arcane and perhaps incomprehensible to most Christians today.

Do theological debates of this nature rage today? Probably with less overt physical violence between Christian groups, but Jenkins raises the question: "Do churches today fall into internecine conflict over issues of biblical authority and sexual regulations while millions of Christians starve?" Of course the issues of the identity of Jesus and of the Christian are in never ending reflection and development, and mental images of present day believers are affected both by the orthodoxy that was created in these earlier centuries. They frequently impact the cultures we are a part of on an everyday basis but, given the transparency that culture tends to assume and the reluctance of many who study culture to eschew religion as either irrelevant or as too conflictual, we are rarely in a position to accurately and comfortably knit religious realities into the cultural pictures we draw.

Despite the complex terminology involved, Jenkins, a frequent contributor of op-ed pieces to major media, has managed to tell the intricacies of the theological debates in simple, almost conversational language. He has managed clarifying lists of events and people where today's reader is unfamiliar with both the issues and the cast of characters. An appendix nicely summarizes the dramatis personae of the period and the footnotes are full and professional. It is a pleasant but not an easy read and, in a sense, emblematic of the present where, in understanding of the mental and emotional conflicts surrounding religious or theological controversies, it is nigh impossible to put ourselves in the shoes of the other in our families as well as in public fora.

Correcting the ridiculous but ever popular myth that the earliest Christians viewed Jesus as purely human until the power-mad bishops of Nicaea in 325 voted him into godhood (ala conspiracy authors such as Dan Brown and liberal scholars such as Ehrman and Pagels), and that by a supposedly close margin (in actuality, of the approx. 318 bishops at Nicaea only two voted against the full divinity of Jesus), Prof. Jenkins shows instead how Jesus' divinity was pretty much taken for granted (even the heretic Arius taught that Jesus was divine, just not equal with the Father), so that, what was really at stake was Jesus' humanity (which blows the Gnostic theory out of the water, because the last thing the Gnostics wanted was God incarnate, a truly human Jesus). Was Jesus equally God and equally human? Or did one of his two natures predominate? And if so, which one? Was he merely God in a human shell, or was he God in a human body and with a distinct human personality? Or was his humanity nothing but an illusion as Docetists and Gnostics said?

Jenkins excels in making otherwise complex subjects totally accessible and comprehensible to lay readers. In "Jesus Wars" Jenkins focuses upon an obscure (to most folks) ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon of 451, and sets out the momentous effect this council had on subsequent church teaching, and why that teaching matters.

Jenkins explores the all-too-human motives that unfortunately drove some of the participants in the debate, helping us to understand, if not agree with, why they acted as they did. Without question ego and a lust for power drove some, but a serious love of truth and doctrinal soundness drove many others.

Prof. Jenkins has done it again, overturning much that people thought they knew about the history of orthodox Christian doctrine, in the process overturning many incorrect assumptions, and does so in an easy-to-read, engaging style. In particular, he shows how similar many of the debated positions actually were, demonstrating that the earliest Christians actually agreed on far more than they disagreed, despite their often vocal protestations to the contrary. Finally, Jenkins shows us that what we think and teach about Jesus really does, or should, matter. One only wishes that many in the church today took such doctrinal issues as seriously as our ancestors in the faith did (though without the lynchings and fist-fights).

Jesus Wars goes a long way towards the understanding the history early church and its attempt to develop a common understanding of who is Jesus and the development of Christian theology. While I have had the opportunity to study church history at university and seminary, J. Philip Jenkins treatment of the the 3rd through the 7th century of the development of the Christian orthodoxy gave me an understanding and clarity to the period that I have never had before. I would recommend Jesus Wars to any one wishing a greater understanding of where we have come from as Christians and the development of traditional Christian theology.

Christians may be tempted at this time in world history to feel superior to the chaos and disruption to be found in other people's search for meaning and orthodoxy in other religious faiths like Muslims. It is important to understand that Christian history was rift with violence, self interest, manipulation, and more than one craven leader. There are many things that people might find that they have in common if we are not reluctant to examine our past.

If we think that the religious problems we are experiencing today are unique in history, reading this book will certainly squash that notion. Over 1500 years ago, when there was, basically, one Christian church, there was a tremendous amount of religious turmoil.

In an era where there were no newspapers or other types of media, it appears that what people talked, and argued, about the most were issues of religion. The biggest one that is covered by this book is the controversy about the exact nature of Christ: human or divine, or something in between.

Because of this controversy, which went on for centuries, throusands of people were killed, and patriarchs were expelled and returned, only to be expelled again. Of course, there was a monolithic Empire, and the rulers of it stuck their noses into this controversy constantly, either on one side of the fight, or the other. Was Christ wholly human, and then endowed with divinity at some time in his life (probably after his baptism in the Jordan), or was he always divine and merely took on the appearance of humanity? To we modern folks these disagreements seem silly, but when you realize that the Catholic and Orthodox churches split over the word "filioque" in the Creed, perhaps not so silly to the people at the time.

This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in early church history, or for someone merely wanting to learn more about how people lived and thoght almost 2 centuries ago. We'll find that they were not so different from us as we thought.

Philip Jenkins has a way of making 5th and 6th century read like a news magazine. He gives a detailed account of the struggles the Church had in its attempt to define orthodoxy. There is copious footnoting and by quoting from actual documents of the time makes for an engaging read. At issue was the nature of Jesus. Did the Christ only have a human nature or only a spiritual nature? Was the physical body of the Christ merely a phantom, giving the allusion of a physical body? Was the Christ both totally man and totally God, a God-man? The debates centered around those questions.

Some of the meetings held by various Councils were more than acrimonious; they often led to fisticuffs and even murder. The pot was stirred by political ambitions and situations. The political aspects of the meetings might seem strange to us since we could not conceive of an American president taking an active and often primary role in the decisions of councils, appointing bishops, and generally sticking a nose in the proceedings. Jenkins often quotes from the minutes of various councils and this makes everything real.

It was interesting to note that some of the arguments would not raise much of a fuss today since we are more accepting of alternate ideas. There was general agreement about the historicity of Jesus and his message and about the validity of the New Testament documents. Consequently, we can consider the various factions to be a form of Christian faith and practice. The Councils thought that without some agreement on the nature of Jesus there could be no real basis of fellowship within the larger body of Christendom. The resulting decisions produced creeds that determined correct belief and demanded adherence.

This book was tantalizing from the outset as the author framed the doctrinal disputes of church history into the total historical-politico context of doctrines decided for posterity by the various Ecumenical Councils at which they were deliberated and defined. The surpising roles of Barbarian wives of Emperors and Nobles in scheming and influencing politicians and clerics was fascinating. A prominent role of monks as "hit-men" and enforcers was surprising to me. A humorous picture of the stench at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, held in the humid Summer caused by the fact that it was unholy for a holy man to take a bath added flavor to the intrigue of the doctrinal deliberations. One becomes more sensitive to the convictions of the Nestorians who made Christ a little too human and were banished from the church for heresy; and for the Apollonarians who made too one-sidedly divine who likewise suffered the same indignity. This continuous struggle over the formation or orthodox doctrine was the result of trying to describe the person of Christ presented in the New Testament in terms of several technical philosophical terms in the Greek language which have variable meanings and were difficult to square with biblical statements. This was a good read and I would heartily recommend it to anyone interested in these matters.