Ecumenism and Patristic Scholarship: A Survey of Recent Work

Abstract

Since our last report in these pages we have witnessed another successful International Patristic Conference at Oxford in September, 1963; the publication of the papers is earnestly awaited at this writing. Also, since the last bibliographical survey, we have observed two sessions of Vatican Council II, which boasts the largest attendance in the history of ecumenical councils, and perhaps the longest list of schemata or agenda. Here, among the innumerable questions which touched on the aggiornamento of the Church, so dear to the heart of the late Pope John XXIII, who first broached the subject of a council as early as 1959, there have been long discussions about the modernization and adaptation of the liturgy, and the clarification of the relationship between the various sources of Christian belief, that is, the Fathers, Scripture, and tradition, with a special eye to the modern communication of the Church's message. Both of these schemata should be of unparalleled interest to all scholars who concern themselves with the problems of the Christian tradition, and the completion of both of these doctrinal sections is eagerly awaited. Other problems of importance will of course be the relation of the Catholic to the non-Catholic groups, the role of the laity in the Church, the power of the bishops vis-à-vis the Roman Curia, the function of religious orders and congregations, and many more. The present Vatican Council is the twenty-first in a series which began with a small group of bishops who met for a few months in the year 325 under the emperor Constantine at the tiny Asiatic town of Nicaea. Of these twenty councils, however, some non-Catholic groups recognize merely the first four, Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon; whereas the Separated Eastern churches accept the first seven, that is, down to the second Council which met at Nicaea in 787. Actually, in the present administration of the Church, ecumenical councils are not strictly necessary; but a council, once invoked, becomes a testimony of faith and unity, and from this point of view, the determination of doctrine and discipline is sometimes secondary. Yet it is true to say that from the doctrinal point of view, the two most controversial councils were the two most recent ones, the nineteenth, the Council of Trent (1545-63), and the twentieth, Vatican Council I (1869-70). Without entering into controversy, I think it may be said that these two Councils set patristic scholars of different beliefs farther apart. In any case, the period between Trent and Vatican saw the rise of different schools of patristic scholarship, each attempting to find textual evidence for their own point of view. But, curiously enough, with the rise of the great schools of research in England, France, Germany, Holland and Belgium, the Scandinavian countries, and America, and with the insistence on well-grounded textual studies, the gap between the patristic scholars of different schools of thought has noticeably narrowed. This has been demonstrated not only by the publication of common research projects, but also by the success of such conferences as the International Patristic Conference at Oxford occurring every four years, with the results appearing in Texte und Untersuchungen. It is also shown, I think, in the vast bibliographical project Bibliographia Patristica (Berlin: de Gruyter) under the editorship of W Schneemelcher with the collaboration of an international group of scholars, and now in its fifth volume (publications for 1960-1962). This has been no small achievement. It is therefore all the more profoundly to be hoped that the original pastoral theme enunciated for the Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII in 1959 will remain dominant to the end, promoting a familial atmosphere among all men of good will, and (with special regard for our interests) encouraging a universality among all patristic scholars without prejudice to the quality of their own individual research.