How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity

205 Pages·2010·2.17 MB·English

by  Thomas C. Oden

How Africa Shaped.fm Page 2 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 3 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
H A S
OW FRICA HAPED
C M
THE HRISTIAN IND
Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity
THOMAS C. ODEN
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 4 Friday, April 24, 2015 2:04 PM
InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com
E-mail: [email protected]
©2007 by Thomas C. Oden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity
Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of
students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States
of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about
local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder
Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>.
Design: Cindy Kiple
Images: © Mkistryn/Dreamstime.com
ISBN 978-0-8308-7556-6 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-3705-2 (print)
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 5 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
CONTENTS
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Toward a Half Billion African Christians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
An Epic Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Out of Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Pivotal Place of Africa on the Ancient Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Two Rivers: The Nile and the Medjerda—Seedbed of
Early Christian Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Affirming Oral and Written Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Self-Effacement and the Recovery of Dignity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Missing Link: The Early African Written Intellectual
Tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Why Africa Has Seemed to the West to Lack Intellectual History . . . 30
Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
PART ONE: THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY . . . . . 33
1 A Forgotten Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Who Can Tell It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Pilgrimage Sites Neglected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Under Sands: The Burial of Ancient Christian Texts and Basilicas . . . 39
2 Seven Ways Africa Shaped the Christian Mind . . . . . . . . . . . 42
How the Western Idea of a University
Was Born in the Crucible of Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
How Christian Exegesis of Scripture First Matured in Africa. . . . . . 45
How African Sources Shaped Early Christian Dogma . . . . . . . . . 46
How Early Ecumenical Decision Making
Followed African Conciliar Patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
How the African Desert Gave Birth to Worldwide Monasticism . . . . 52
How Christian Neoplatonism Emerged in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . 55
How Rhetorical and Dialectical Skills Were Honed
in Africa for Europe’s Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 6 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
Interlude: Harnack’s Folly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3 Defining Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Establishing the Indigenous Depth of Early African Christianity. . . . 62
The Stereotyping of African Hellenism as Non-African. . . . . . . . . 66
Scientific Inquiry into the Ethnicity of
Early African Christian Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
The Purveyors of Myopia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
The African Seedbed Hypothesis Requires Textual Demonstration. . . 72
A Case in Point: The Circuitous Path from Africa to Ireland
to Europe and Then Back to Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A Caveat Against Afrocentric Exaggeration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4 One Faith, Two Africas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Hazards of Bridge Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Challenge of Reconciliation of Black Africa and North Africa . . . 79
The Roots of the Term Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Overcoming the Ingrained Lack of Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Excommunicating the North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Arguing for African Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Defining “Early African Christianity” as a
Descriptive Category of a Period of History. . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
How African Is the Nile Valley?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5 Temptations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Tilted Historical Predispositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
The Catholic Limits of Afrocentrism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Ignoring African Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
The Cost of Forgetfulness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Overlooking African Voices in Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
How Protestants Can Celebrate the Apostolic Charisma
of the Copts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
The Christian Ancestry of Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 7 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
PART TWO: AFRICAN ORTHODOX RECOVERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6 The Opportunity for Retrieval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Surviving Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
The Steadiness of African Orthodoxy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
The New African Ecumenism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Pruning Undisciplined Excesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Burning Away the Acids of Moral Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Orthodoxy: Global and African. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Historic Christian Multiculturalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Reframing Modern Ecumenics Within Classic Ecumenics . . . . . . . 115
7 How the Blood of African Martyrs Became the Seed
of European Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Whether Classic Christian Teaching Is Defined by Power . . . . . . . 118
How the History of African Martyrdom Shaped
Christian Views of Universal History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Recalling the Exodus as an African Event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Amassing the Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
The Challenge of Young Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8 Right Remembering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Remembering the Scripture Rightly Through the Spirit . . . . . . . . 127
The Heart of African Orthodoxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Transcending Material Worldliness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Avoiding Racial Definitions of Apostolic Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
9 Seeking the Reconciliation of Christianity and Islam
Through Historical Insight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
The Risks Scholars Take . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Conjointly Studying the History of Islam and Christianity. . . . . . . 137
The Rigorous Language Requirements of African Research. . . . . . . 138
Learning from Primary Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
A Personal Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 8 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
Appendix: The Challenges of Early African Research . . . . . . . . . 143
Three Aims of Future Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
The Precedent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
The Scope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
The African Center of the International Consortium . . . . . . . . . . 147
The Consortium of Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Assembling the Pieces of the Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Academic Leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Maximizing Digital Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Publishing Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Literary Chronology of Christianity in Africa
in the First Millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 9 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
INTRODUCTION
T
he thesis of this book can be stated simply: Africa played a deci-
sive role in the formation of Christian culture. Decisive intellectual
achievements of Christianity were explored and understood first in
Africa before they were recognized in Europe, and a millennium be-
fore they found their way to North America.
Christianity has a much longer history than its Western or Euro-
pean expressions. The profound ways African teachers have shaped
world Christianity have never been adequately studied or acknowl-
edged, either in the Global North or South.
My question: How did the African mind shape the Christian mind in
the earliest centuries of Christianity?
The challenge that lies ahead for young Africans is to rediscover
the textual riches of ancient African Christianity. This will call for a
generation of African scholars to reevaluate prejudicial assumptions
that ignore or demean African intellectual history.
Christianity would not have its present vitality in the Two-Thirds
World without the intellectual understandings that developed in Af-
rica between 50 and 500 C.E. The pretense of studying church history
How Africa Shaped.fm Page 10 Monday, June 21, 2010 12:47 PM
10 HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND
while ignoring African church history is implausible. Yet this as-
sumption has been common in the last five centuries in a way that
would have seemed odd during the first five centuries, when the Af-
rican mind was highly honored and emulated.
The evidence is yet to be presented. The search for balance in
Western history is warped with ugly distortions until this happens.
My task is to show that the classic Christian mind is significantly
shaped by the African imagination spawned on African soil. It bears
the stamp of philosophical analyses, moral insight, discipline and
scriptural interpretations that bloomed first in Africa before any-
where else. The seeds spread from Africa north.
The term Christian mind points to Christian intellectual history.
This includes the history of literature, philosophy, physics and psy-
chological analysis. The term African mind points to ideas and literary
products produced specifically on the continent of Africa during the
first millennium of the common era.
TOWARD A HALF BILLION AFRICAN CHRISTIANS
There soon may be almost a half billion Christians in Africa. Now esti-
mated at over four hundred million (46 percent of the total African
population of 890,000,000 according to the Pew Forum), and rapidly
growing, a significant proportion of global Christian believers at this
time are residents of the continent of Africa. David Barrett projects the
continuing growth rate to 2025 as 633 million Christians in Africa.
The Christian population of Africa is burgeoning. It is to their fu-
ture that this effort is dedicated. Debates in the West will appear triv-
ial in relation to what lies ahead in the Global South.
The world Christian population is predominantly located in the
Southern Hemisphere. That is amply demonstrated already by the
careful demographic and sociological writings of David Barrett, Rod-