Truth Unites - Which Issues Divided the Church? With Ed Siecienski

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

In this interview Dr. Ed Siecienski chronicles the history of various  issues that have divided the Western and Eastern churches. We address  the filioque, the papacy, unleavened vs. leavened bread in the  Eucharist, bearded clergy, and purgatory.    See Dr. Siecienski's book on the filioque: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199971862/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3  See Dr. Siecienski's book on the papacy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAQ3RAY/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

I like to regard the office as ecumenical. It's got a picture of me and the Pope sitting next to a picture of Luther. So I figure, and a Time magazine with Carl Bart on the cover. Oh, man. 65 U.S. tour. So we're making progress. Hey, everyone. Truth Unites is a place for theology and apologetics done in an ironic way.

The word ironic means aiming for peace. And I'm really honored to be talking with a scholar that I've, learned a great deal from. We'll talk about his books in just a second. Dr. Ed Sachinsky, who is, and I will try to get the title right here. Correct me if I don't get this right. The Clement and Helen Pappas, Professor of Byzantine Civilization and Religion at Stockton University. I did it. You have the title. I'm just trying to say the title. But you've written a number of books that have really helped me learn about the history of various. points of division between the east and the west. And so I'm really honored to talk with you and we'll

just work through a lot of these different issues. And I'm really excited for our viewers to just learn about the history of what has happened that's gotten us to the present moment. So maybe to start off with, how did you get interested in issues that are points of division between the east and the west? Well, first, Gavin, thank you for having me on the show. It's really a pleasure to be here. You know, like, I think there's a part of me that, of course, found these historical issues interesting. So I was studying medieval theology, and you learned about the medieval reunion councils of Lyon and Florence. And I found it kind of fascinating that there were these attempts to bring East and West close together. But, of course, figuring out what had separated them in the first place was also a matter of some historical interest.

but I also think there's a certain existential element. I am an Orthodox Christian. I have many friends and family who are Roman Catholic and many friends who are Protestant Christians. And there's this idea that I cannot approach the Eucharistic table with them because of these historical differences. And that is a source of pain, I think, for many Christians, not just myself, but for for Christians around the world. And there's kind of this way that part of me believes that my job as a historian of dogma is to shed some light on what separated us, perhaps as a way of helping to bring us back together. Yeah, that is so helpful. Do you find that, because this has been my experience,

when you look at the issues just at a systematic level, they look one way. And then as you get back into the history that has gotten us to the systematic differences, you get a fuller understanding. Like, for example, with the 1054 split, when I first hear about that, I'm just studying about the filiocque. But then as you look back in history, you see, wow, there's actually a lot going on. And there were politics to it. And there's other issues that didn't even know about that were points of division. Do you find that studying the history kind of enhances your understanding of the points of division like that? Oh, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I wrote is, is that although what I try to do is properly theological dogmatic history, all of these

debates are in a certain historical context. There are things going on in the world that have to be kept in mind in order to really understand them. And so when you read something, for example, about 1054, and the disagreements over unleavened bread and the filialque and other issues, yeah, they're coming up, but they're also coming up at a time when there's a lot of conflict in southern Italy between the Byzantines and the Normans. There's a renewed papacy that has kind of a belief in itself as this universal power. And so all of these things kind of come together, so it helps you understand why this or that writer might say this or that. One of the things that I really value is having dialogue across these different traditions, and I know that some people see it as a compromise even to talk.

But for me, just being able to dialogue and explore and explain, you know, here is how I see it. Tell me how you see it and then patiently trying to work through and understand one another. To me, that is a positive because it's not a compromise. We're not saying that the differences don't matter. we're just trying to dialogue and understand these differences. So do you want to say anything about the importance of having patient dialogue and cordial dialogue about across the different traditions? Absolutely. I mean, in terms of history, one of the things that separates, or at least has separated us as Christians, is how we understand our history, our shared history.

and, you know, very often our readings of history were denominationally biased. And, you know, this is true on Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant across the board. And I think one of the real graces of the 20th century in terms of ecumenical dialogue is the ability of historians across these confessional divides to begin to read history together. And so you have figures, for example, in the Catholic or. Orthodox dialogue, people like Francis DeVornyk and John Mayendorf and who have been able to kind of move beyond the kind of very rigid polemical categories of understanding history in order to kind of view history more objectively. And I think this has brought us more, it has enabled us to better understand our common history. And not necessarily to,

say, well, all disagreements were either simply linguistic or they really shouldn't have happened in the first place, that there are going to be disagreements, dogmatic disagreements, but at the same time to perhaps contextualize them and say, okay, but perhaps, you know, if we had only had this ability several centuries ago, we might have been able to avoid the kind of acrimony that that has been caused by this debate. I think you can say that about, you know, the Filiocque papacy or any of the other debates. Yeah.

I like that, avoiding the acrimony. That's good. So let me, before we get into, we'll work through your three books and we'll work through the different issues and just try to get a historical understanding. That'll be the main purpose of our time together is just exploring the history.

Before that, though, I'm curious to ask you which of the issues that divide the east and the west do you think are the greatest issues that are the most sort of insurmountable? I think it would be hard to deny that the papacy remains the sticking point between the east and the west, especially the definitions of the Pope's universal jurisdiction and personal availability at Vatican One. This is the one thing the Orthodox have clearly said, listen, we have never accepted these teachings and we don't seem able to accept them now. There's been a lot of dialogue, especially in the late 20th century over the role of primacy in the church. And I think that both sides have come to better understand the role of primacy in the first

millennium. And that has moved, I think, Catholics and Orthodox closer than they've been in centuries. But that being said, it's hard for the Orthodox to swallow Vatican one, especially since the idea that the Pope has kind of immediate episcopal jurisdiction across the church is a concept the Orthodox had never accepted. It's not something historically that they could say, well, this was true in the first millennium, and therefore we can accept it. There are a lot of things about the primacy that were true in the first millennium. And I think many Orthodox are willing to say, for example, that the Pope should have or could have some sort of appellate jurisdiction in the church. You know, the Council of Sardica granted him that in the fourth century. Even some

powers in terms of convening councils, maybe, since there's no longer an emperor to do those kinds of things, but universal jurisdiction, that's a non-starter. Well, let's come back to the papacy in just a second. First, maybe we can start with your 2010 book on the fili-oque, and I have some questions just for people, and I don't want to assume any prior background knowledge for our viewers.

So why don't we start by just defining what is the fili-o-quay, and how did that become a dividing issue? So the filialque refers to the procession of the Holy Spirit. In the Nicene-Constantan-Napolitic creed that was composed, it said that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. The language there is taken from the Gospel of John. However, for a variety of theological reasons in the West,

they came to believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the father and the son, that the Holy Spirit, this is largely from Augustine's thinking, that the Holy Spirit is the bond of love joining the father and the son, and thus proceeds from both. By the 7th and 8th centuries, this belief begins to find itself incorporated in several creeds in the Western Church. and we already have evidence that by the 7th century, it may actually have been professed by the popes in Rome, at least in their private correspondence, if not liturgically. And when the East gets wind of this,

they obviously have the question, well, where did you get this word, right? Because Filiocque literally, and the son. So instead of proceeding just from the father, he's now proceeding from the father Filiocque, and the sun. And they want to know, one, why, it seems to be theologically objectionable to them, but also, like, where did you get the authority to start adding words to a creed that was composed by an ecumenical council? And this first seems to appear as a problem during the time of Pope Theodore and Maximus

the confessor and emerge as a serious problem during the so-called foshian-sism in the ninth century. Okay, so you mentioned Augustine, and then the emergence of the term in the creeds in the seventh and eighth centuries. How far back would you say the under, maybe not the term in creeds, but the understanding and the differences on this point go. I mean, this is one of the questions that's really interesting to me

is to go back into the church fathers. Do you, how clearly do you say, start to see a difference emerging here, not in the creeds, but just in the understanding of the question between the east and the west. That's a really good question. I mean, there's obviously differences of emphasis by the time you hit Augustine. I mean, the Cappadocian fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory, the the theologian and Gregory Nissa. They see the Trinity chiefly in terms of these interpersonal relationships.

And they want to avoid the belief that there's, like they, they want to defend the individuality of the persons. And I used the term individuality. It's a bad term, but the distinctiveness maybe of the persons by saying that each one has certain kind of hypostatic characteristics that the others can't share. And so the one characteristic of the father that he can't. can't share is that he alone is the cause within the godhead. And Augustine, once you say that the father and son as the lover and beloved create the bond of love,

the Holy Spirit, you seem to, and this does not seem to be Augustine's intent, but it seems to create the son as a cause of the spirits coming into being. And to the degree that it does that, it becomes objectionable to the Eastern model. And so I would say that the two coexist for a long time before they become aware of each other. And once they become aware of each other, it's already in an environment during the so-called focinicism, when especially in the East, there's not a lot of kind of charity toward the Latins. and so they're willing to already kind of attribute to the Latins a certain heretical nature by believing this and adding it to the creed. One of the things I benefited from in reading your book and looking at the history prior to 1054 and even prior to when things start to get dicey in the centuries leading up to that is just there seems a little more diversity at times.

you know, when I was reading in the book about Maximus the confessor, I was struck by how he sought to defend the orthodoxy of the Latin view. And then I'm reading about Gregory the Great, and I'm kind of surprised by the diversity of different statements I'm finding in Gregory. And that Gregory is really interesting to me because he has more points of contact with the East, because he lives in a Latin district of Constantine, Constantine, Constitinople, for seven years or something like that. So it kind of raises a separate question for me of, okay, you're looking back into that world and you're seeing possible points where it's not at least this absolute thick distinction, you know, or there's at least points of overlap or possible understanding. And so I'm just curious, do you think the differences between the East and the West today on this question can be mitigated at all? Do you think there are points of common understanding and overlap that we can achieve? Yeah, and I think that, you know, the figure you mentioned, Maximus, the confessor is kind of the model here, right? So in the 7th century, there are these Constantinopolitans who say, listen, we got the letter from the Pope, and he's saying apparently that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father and the son.

What's with that? And Maximus says, well, let me explain to you what they mean, you know, that he does not receive his hypostatic coming into being from the father and the son, but that he does. does flow forth from him. And there is this distinction in the Greek between these two verbs, Ek Perwisai and Proenai, that he says the Latin simply can't communicate in their language. And he says, you shouldn't expect them to, right? They cannot communicate theological subtleties in their own language the way we can.

So he's urging them to charity and says, listen, try to understand what they're saying. Don't immediately attribute the worst motives to them. as long as they do not make the father a cause their orthodox in this belief. And so I would make the argument. And I've made it for a while that, provided that both East and West can buy into this statement of Maximus, and I go in the Phileoqui book on efforts to do this,

like if you can both buy into the belief of Maximus, that the procession of the Holy Spirit does not in any way violate this idea that the father alone is cause, I think you have a solid patristic basis for solving the filialque debate. fascinating well let's talk about your book on the papacy next because I want to get to in just a moment the forthcoming book that people will be really interested to learn about so this is a 2017 book I believe the papacy and the orthodox all three of these books we're going to talk about are in the same series the Oxford Studies and historical theology and again I'll put a link to these in the video description people can check them out they're great pieces of scholarship so for people again not assuming any background knowledge for the viewers, maybe you could just give kind of a brief snapshot of when we talk about the primacy of Rome, and could you just give a description of kind of how that's understood differently in the West versus the East? And when in the East, you hear this language of a primacy of honor. What does that mean? So one of the things that both the Orthodox and Catholics have kind of always agreed on is that

Rome has a certain primacy, a firstness in the church, and that this was recognized by the early councils. What they have not agreed upon is one why it has this firstness, right? So is it because Rome was the capital of the empire, and as such, it deserved to be first, just as Rome was first? is it or was it granted to Rome because the two greatest apostles Peter and Paul met their fates there? So you have what's called the principle of accommodation simply that the church recognizes the importance of certain cities in the empire, or the principle of apostolicity, that it is this foundation, this very strong foundation, because not only do you have an apostle founding the Church of Rome, but the two greatest. So that's debate one. Debate two is what kind of powers go along with this primacy?

Is this kind of, you know, the language that's used is primacy of honor, but what's never really been too clear, at least there has been a lot of debate about it, is whether it's an honorary primacy, like you would, you know, you get to go last in the procession because you're the, or is there real authority granted to the primate? And this is, I think, where a lot of the 20th, 21st century dialogue has focused on what, in fact, are the levels of primacy in the church and what kind of powers does a primate have. So, and then, of course, how the East has accepted primacy and the authority of the primate, that's kind of been a long debate. and I've made the argument that there really are, I think, three distinct stages so that in the first few centuries, the East is willing to recognize a certain authority when it suits it. So when there's a big debate and Rome takes the right side, very often the Easterers will say, see, even Rome agrees with us and we must agree with Rome. but of course when Rome doesn't agree with it they're very happy to kind of ignore them I think that you start seeing in probably the 9th century some pushback on Rome's eagerness to impose its authority outside the jurisdiction of its patriarchate so when for example

during the so-called foshanicism the Pope wants to get involved in the election of a patriarch, the Constantinopolitan Church says, we got this, right? This is an internal matter, and this is not really your concern. So there's a recognition of authority, but a pushback against the exercise of that authority outside certain geographical limits. And then I think there's a third stage after the Gregorian reform in the 11th century, when the Pope starts claiming this kind of universal power over the church, that the East is more willing to say, well, frankly, we don't even recognize any kind of primitial power of Rome. And they start coming up with arguments why the primacy doesn't reside in Rome anymore. They've lost it because they're heretics or they lost it

because Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople. So they start making these arguments why there shouldn't be a primacy in Rome. And I think that's where the East was stuck for several centuries until the 20th, when they started recognizing, again, the proper kind of an understanding of the primacy, but at the same time denying that primacy, the universal jurisdiction that Vatican won't seem called for. Interesting. Okay, so that those three stages are helpful there. Unfortunately, in a short interview we can't do justice to your book which has so much in it that that is helpful and goes into so much detail but let me ask you this one of the things that comes up for me is the complexity of the of these disagreements and i receive a lot of comments or hear a lot of comments from people saying look if you just

read the church fathers or if you just study church history on this you will become protestant or you will become catholic or you will become orthodox would you agree that um the evidence that you just study for how we understand these various distinctions of what kind of primacy are we talking about with Rome, that it is complicated and that there's enough space for intelligent people to come to different conclusions about it? Or would you say, no, if you really are looking clearly at the history, it really does kind of manifestly favor this one particular view? Yeah, I mean, that's the view that you can kind of prove a position by proof texting has kind of been what ecumenical dialogue kind of was for many centuries, right? So if I'll throw enough text

at you so that you will eventually see the rightness of my position. And, you know, Catholics have done that, Protestants have done that, Orthodox have done that for centuries. And, you know, if you go online, you'll still see people doing exactly that, right? And I don't know why. I mean, it hasn't worked for several hundred years. I don't think if you just keep doing it. You're doing it, it's going to bring us any closer. But I think if you, as you said, if you can look at these texts, recognize there are good faith kind of understandings of these texts that don't exactly go together, right? So that you could say, all right, what is, for example, Maximus's view of the Church of Rome?

You know, Catholics for centuries says, well, obviously he has a view of Rome's universal jurisdiction and the Orthodox have said, well, obviously Maximus has a view that is clearly not in keeping with the Catholic view. But, you know, there are passages in Maximus that are capable of various interpretations. And I've had discussions with scholars, Catholic, Orthodox, who have different good faith interpretations of those texts. And that's what we do. We sit there, we examine them together, we dialogue together in an effort to come to truth, right? That that dialogue engenders hopefully truth. Yes.

Are there any episodes throughout church history that you think really do rise up higher as, as helpful episodes for understanding how the role of the Roman bishop was understood? So I think of Cyprian, the episode with Cyprian and Stephen that you cover in the book, for example. Are there any, as you look back at 2,000 years of church history, are there any things that rise immediately up to the surface as, particularly relevant or interesting or important for determining this question? The two moments I can think of right off the top of my head.

First, I think is Pope Leo the Great and the canon 28 of Calcedon, where Calcedon gives an interpretation of Rome's primacy that seems to base it on Rome's political importance. And Leo, there's a lot of pushback from Leo, who wants to make the argument. argument that Rome's primacy and the unique mission of the Pope as Peter's successor has nothing to do with Rome status as the capital of the empire. That Jesus gave power and authority over the church to Peter and Peter alone. And that as the successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome, the Pope enjoys every power that Christ gave to Peter. And so there's clearly for Leo this power, but it's also a responsibility for Leo, right?

It's a pastoral responsibility. He has to be the good shepherd, just as Jesus said to Peter, feed my sheep. You know, now Leo, as Peter's successor, has to do that. And he can't ignore sheep just because they happen to be in the East. So there's this two very different understandings of why there's a primacy and also the limits of that primacy. I think the second big one has to be the Gregorian reform during the reigns of Pope Leo the 9th and Gregory the 7th. When the Pope, in order to clean up the Western Church, has to claim this authority over the emperor and kings because they need the power to appoint bishops who are going to be good administrators and good pastors. And so they begin emphasizing the Pope's universal mission. And the more of this gets emphasized, the more the East tends to reject it. And of course, after the Fourth Crusade, when the Pope actually tries to exercise that authority in the East, this is when you really see the East come to reject the understanding of Roman primacy as Rome has come to understand it.

The more Rome demands obedience. And you see that word obedience in the correspondence of Innocent the third, that the more the East feels kind of responsible to deny that obedience. Yeah, fascinating. Well, we could probably talk about just that book for the whole time. So there's so much to explore there. But I do want to take a few minutes here to talk about the forthcoming book, Beards, Asimes, and Pergatory,

the other issues that divided east and west. Maybe you could situate this book in relation to these first two books. So when I finished the Filiocque book, I kind of had an idea of what I'd like to do next. I'd like to write a book on the other issues that divided east and west and put them all together in one book.

But I soon realized that I couldn't do that, that there was so much, especially with the papacy, that it required its own own book. But then I had these other issues like the issue of unleavened bread, the issue of purgatory and the issue of whether or not pre should have beards. And so I decided to split them up. So this was kind of the third volume in a trilogy, right? This is, I often tell people my return of the king in my Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is the third volume. Hopefully, I don't know if I have a fourth in me, so I'm hoping this is it. Okay, yeah, I'm excited for it to come out.

Do you have any sense of the time frame of when it will be out so that people can be looking for it? So the hope would be that it's going to be out at some point in mid to late 2022. It's at the publisher, it's undergoing, but like everybody else, they have staffing issues. So the pandemic is, affected even kind of the publishing industry. Interesting, okay, all right, well, we'll keep our ears peeled about that. So let's talk through each of these issues real briefly as we finish off the interview here.

So first, the issue of Beards for Clergy. Now, you mentioned in the preface that, you know, initially you were taking a more lighthearted view of this. And as you kept going, you came to appreciate this really was a serious dividing issue that kind of merits a serious response in a way. maybe talk us through why has this issue been an important dividing issue so i i did i i had you know as i was plowing through the filiocque and the papacy stuff i did have a tendency to kind of write off

the beards as kind of a it's so silly and even when i tell of my students you know that one of the reasons the east and west broke off communion was because one half wanted a bearded clergy and the other half wanted to shave um but i i came to the conclusion i was probably wrong to do that for a couple reasons. First of all, because in the minds that the people involved, this was a serious issue, right? For the Byzantines, for example, it regarded, you know, there were issues of masculinity, but also Judaizing, right, the idea of, they accused the Latins of undergoing Judaic purificatory kind of rituals. There were other issues like the understanding of the role of the Old Testament, right? So one of the supports that the Byzantines used were the rules for priests in the

Old Testament that they should not put a razor to their, to the sides of their heads. And, but it also showed the importance of ironicism, right? Because as the relations between East and West deteriorated, and there really was every effort to see every difference between them as nefarious, there were people like Peter III of Antioch and Theophlach of Orid, who are able to say, you know, that's just silly, right? There are important differences between we Byzantines and the Latins, and we should work on them. But let's not try to turn beards into a church-dividing issue. It isn't. And, you know, by the 15th century, the beard issue seems to have largely been forgotten.

It's not an accident. That's when you started seeing even Latin priests have beards. Reformers tended to be bearded. So it kind of went away. But the fact that it was once so central and that when you look at the reasons given by Cardinal Humberg for the excommunications of 1054, among them is the idea of beards, right? they they yell at us because we shave our beards and they will not commune with us because of this. Fascinating. It is, it is helpful to look back at the history and already as I'm hearing your answer, it's forming my thoughts in terms of how do we approach differences today. And it, you know,

you mentioned the word ironicism, which is a word I like to use a lot, but just the importance of, gosh, there are, there are those issues where they become more explosive than they need to be, you know, times but um but let's talk about the issue of leaven versus unleavened bread in the eucharist and maybe you could define the word asyms or i've heard also people say asimes i don't know how to pronounce you hear both of those but in some some people say this is the presenting issue and this is the chief initial point but how did what is that issue how did that become a dividing issue so it seems to be at least our best historical understanding is that the church used leavened or regular bread for the Eucharist for roughly the first 900 years, east and west, and that people

would bake bread and bring it to the priest who would then consecrate it. At some point, probably in the 10th century, we begin to see a change of practice in the West, where they start using unleavened bread. Now, this is shrouded in some degree of mystery. Why? I mean, there's unleaven bread tends to keep longer. There's less crumbs. So, you know, some believe that as more attention is paid to the eucharistic species outside of the mass, there's more of a concern for its sacredness and not kind of getting bits about or it going stale. But when the when the Byzantines get wind of this, that the Latins are using azimes or unleavened bread for the Eucharist, a few things come to the first that the only people

they know who use unleavened bread are the Armenians who are heretics. And so there's kind of this equivalence, right? If the Armenians are bad people and they do this. and the Latins also do this, and hence, you know, algebraically, the Latins must also be bad people. There's accusations of Judaizing, right? So that instead of keeping the life-giving liturgy of the Greeks,

they're now kind of imitating the dead rituals of the Jews. There's this other, you know, belief that the leaven equals life and so that by using lifeless bread that the latins are denying the resurrection and there's simply this idea that the latins have changed their practice right we all used to do it this way why have you now done it differently that this in and of itself must be a sign that you've kind of taken a turn for the worst so this is actually what what precipitates the events of 1054. I mean, the reason Cardinal Humbert goes to Constantinople is because there have been these

tracks written against unleavened bread coming out of Byzantium. And the Pope sends Humbart there to kind of smooth things over. And it just goes haywire from there. I mean, the insults start flying. And when you look at all the writings, From both sides, for the next, say, 200 years, both would make the argument that the schism is really about the use of unleavened bread, that the papacy and the filialque are also important issues, but this was a schism about asimes long before it became a schism about the primacy of the Pope. Interesting. Okay. Well, let's talk about the third issue that you mentioned that you cover in this book, and that's Purgatory. How did the issue of Purgatory? How did the issue of Purgatory? become a dividing issue between the East and the West?

So both East and West developed beliefs about the state of the soul after death. They had some very number of shared beliefs. For example, they both believed that prayer for the dead was efficacious. They believed in kind of this idea of heaven and hell and reward and punishment. But there were also differences in emphasis. One of them was in Byzantium, there was a lot of hesitancy to ascribe one's eternal fate, to determine one's eternal fate at the moment of death. The Byzantines talked about a sleep state or a middle state where people could explain. experience pain or pleasure, but not the final pain or pleasure of heaven and hell.

This was reserved for the last judgment when the body would join the soul. Until that time, there was this idea that if they were, you know, if good people, they would enjoy kind of a restful state and that if they were sinful people, they would perhaps have a not so restful state before receiving their final reward and punishment. In the West, the idea that one received one's eternal reward immediately upon death becomes more pronounced. And the question, I think, arose then more clearly, well, what about those people who maybe were good but not perfect, right?

So the martyrs and the saints, they obviously could go immediately. to their heavenly reward and the, you know, the wicked would go immediately to hell. But what about those who were not entirely good or maybe not entirely evil? And so the idea that they would require some sort of cleansing before entering their eternal reward becomes a part of the Latin kind of theological world. And eventually that this cleansing would be. take place in a particular place called purgatory, and by a particular means, fire becomes by the scholastic period in the 12th century kind of established. But the big difference between them

has to do with the category of expiation. That when the Byzantines talked about purification, taking place after death. They allow that people who had begun the process of purifying themselves could continue this after death. They see it much more in terms of a cleansing, of a medicinal kind of element. Whereas in the Latin church, this idea that sin brings with it a certain debt of punishment. So that even if one has been cleansed of the sin through the sacrament of reconciliation, the debt of punishment still had to be paid.

And so purgatory in the Latin mind becomes much more tied up with the place where one pays these debts, as opposed to the place where one undergoes cleansing and some sort of medicinal process. You mentioned in the book that the issue of purgatory is the first issue covered at the Council of Ferrar-Florrence, where they're working through these various issues that divide east and the west, this one comes up first. Why was that covered first? Honestly, simply because the emperor was too worried to bring up anything else. The emperor, John the 8th Pellio Logos, really wanted this union to take place.

He needed Latin help against the Turks. And he knew that the filiocque was going to engender a lot of hostility, which it eventually did. and that, you know, starting off with the primacy of the Pope could be potentially scupper the whole deal. And so he says, well, if you need to talk about something, bring up purgatory. And so this just becomes the first issue discussed. And it gives the Byzantines, who's thinking on the state after death, was still kind of in formation. There's, it's in process and there are a lot of different elements to it. But it gives them the opportunity not only to tell the Latins what they don't believe,

but to kind of put forward a kind of a positive spin on what they do believe. And this, I think it's, you know, when you look at the current Orthodox view of the afterlife, a lot of it does come from the writings of Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Florence. right he he he kind of establishes the semi-official stance of the orthodox church on the state of souls after death one of the parts as i've been doing my own research on this question that the parts of the eastern thought that has been so interesting to me is the toll house tradition just just for fun here maybe you can explain what what is this idea of toll houses people i think will find this interesting So very early on, and we see this especially in the writings of many of the desert figures, the idea that they have these visions.

And in these visions, they see people undergoing a series of examinations on their journey to heaven, where sometimes it's angels, sometimes it's demons, sometimes a combination of both, are examining the soul to see how. much it has been affected by certain sins. And if it's been affected by these sins, it has to undergo certain and purificatory punishments before moving on to the next station along the way. And this becomes a part of the Orthodox tradition. Now, it's interesting that Mark of Ephesus was clearly aware of this tradition, but he never mentions it at Florence. Today, there is a debate in orthodoxy about the status of the toll house tradition. There are many Orthodox who see it as part of their faith, and they say, well, we have the toll house tradition, but that's nothing like purgatory.

There are many, however, who would say the toll house tradition is too close to purgatory, the idea of undergoing punishments for certain sins. that it becomes kind of like purgatory light. And so they have this, they're keen to reject the Toll House tradition on those grounds. So that there's, if you ask an Orthodox theologian, whether or not the Toll House tradition is Orthodox, you might get different responses depending on who you ask. What about, so two more questions. One is about universalism.

This is something that was reinforced in my thinking as I was reading through your book is the significance of origin and Gregor of Nisa and a few others. When you have this idea of universalism, there's a lot of people who want to move against that. And so this kind of factors out in how things are playing out. How would you describe the influence of universalism on the church's development of her understanding of the afterlife? So you have these figures very early on like origin and then Gregory of Nissa who find it very hard to understand how an all loving and all good God could punish without purpose. They look at the Old Testament and the idea that when God chastises someone, it's done out of love, right? He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he chastises is because he wants to improve. And they see all punishments as essentially pedagogical.

And so, when origin and Gregory of Nissa combined this with the idea that in the end, God will be all and all, they come to the conclusion that while people may be punished after death, eventually those punishments will end and they will, in sense, come to God. and thus this idea of universal salvation. The church actually frames its, at least the Western Church, frames its belief in purgatory in opposition to that, because it makes a very clear distinction very early on that only these kind of light sins can be cleansed in purgatory. Serious sins, mortal sins result in hell. That hell is in fact an eternal.

eternal state and that notorious sinners will stay there forever. But purgatory is where that kind of pedagogical punishment takes place. And when the East gets wind of purgatory in the 13th century, and it sniffs out, it believes, the heresy of origin. If everybody can be purified, then everybody will be saved. And thus the Latins are truly originous. The Latins come back and say, not. We are not origin because we affirm the eternity of hell and we affirm that those with mortal sins go there. Yeah, okay. Let me ask a final question about methodology. One of the things that I regularly experience and perhaps others do even listening to this is the complexity of church history and the fact that when you're waiting in, there'll be lots that you find that can,

I think people can feel threatened at times because maybe they're going back, looking, one expectation of what they're going to find, and this happens to me all the time, and to me, this is part of the fun of historical theology and why it's so edifying is that it often challenges you and surprises you what you find. How do you, as a historian, how do you try to remain objective in doing your research? Because I think the temptation could be sometimes we just want to, you know, go for, look for ammunition for our current views or whatever it is. Could you speak to the, how do you try to remain objective in your historical research? I mean, what I do or what I try to do is simply to present this information, say,

okay, here, this is what Cyprian wrote. Here's what some scholars today say about Cyprian. And kind of let the reader make up his or her mind about that as much as possible. Now, every once in a while, I do wade into some of these debates. and say, well, the evidence does seem to support this or that conclusion. But those conclusions are based not on my denominational identity, but on my belief as a scholar. One of the things I must admit I had a lot of fun doing was after the filialque book was released. There were these debates online.

Is Setschensky a Catholic? Oh, he must be because he seems to support the filialque here. now Setschensky must be Orthodox because he denies the Catholic teaching here and people didn't know where I stood and the fact that they couldn't figure it out from what I had written to me was that's exactly what I wanted right I did not want this to be an Orthodox theologian looks at the filial quay or you know or an Orthodox theologian looks at the papacy and it has been you know one of the things I have appreciated is that in reviews since since the filialque book and I don't know the papacy book, I've had scholars, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant say, you know, this is, this is what you want. This is, this is objective. So I don't know, you know, I'm just trying to tell the story. And, you know, I try to do that as much as possible without bias. And to the degree that, you know, people see that, I'm bird happy. That that's the case. Now, you know, there are, an Orthodox Christian, obviously I have certain opinions about some of these matters,

but they are not necessarily for the books, right? That's something else. That's a, you know, I go to church and when I say the creed, I say it a certain way without certain words, but that's not for, you know, the book on the filling oak way wasn't there to prove the Orthodox position correct. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Ed. I think this has been, and really helpful for people just getting a kind of a survey, kind of a drive-by. Let's see what these different issues are. And any one of them, hopefully it will inspire people to pick them and drill down more deeply because there's just an ocean to explore with all of these.

So thank you very much. Where can people learn more about, I'll put links to the first two books in the video description. Where can people learn more about the forthcoming book? So at some point, and I'm sure it'll be up on the Oxford University Press website and Amazon. And if they want to follow my Amazon page and when it does appear, it'll pop up. But, you know, I just want to say before we say goodbye, how much I appreciate the kind of work that you're doing here, the kind of ironicism, you know, that you see. because online we both know sometimes the conversations aren't necessarily very charitable and so when you have a forum like the one you have here where you can talk to scholars and you know exhibit that charity

I think you know seeking the truth and love is what we as Christians are told to do and I think you know that's what I see you doing and I'm really appreciative of it well thank you very much as I'm so glad that it comes across that way because that's definitely the intention so thank you and thank you for the chance to talk today. Thank you.