The Foundations of Early Latin Christian Teachers’ Worldview

This article explores the conceptual foundations of the worldview of the earliest Latin Christian teachers of the 2nd–3rd centuries. The author highlights that their perception of the world was based on a consistently materialistic – or, in Tertullian’s words, “corporeal” – model, which had its roots in the prevalent views of the Peripatetic and Stoic religious-philosophical schools in the Latin West. The very birth of Latin theology in the second half of the 2nd century coincided with the period of the Second Sophistic, characterized by a fascination with rhetoric, the blending of different philosophical traditions, and the dominance of a conditionally materialistic view of reality as the prevailing “scientific picture of the world.” Around this worldview, a distinctive form of Christian paideia emerged, emphasizing the inseparable connection between the material soul and body and, consequently, the indivisibility of sin from the Christian’s behavior. Several key consequences of this perspective are reflected in the ecclesiastical teachings of the Latin Christian thinkers. Firstly, practical aspects of Christian life received primary emphasis, requiring believers to carefully observe not only their daily piety but also the distant consequences of their actions. Secondly, heresies that spread in the Latin West were predominantly disciplinary in nature. The well-known indifference of the leading figures of the Latin Church toward the Trinitarian and Christological disputes of the 4th–5th centuries was not merely a result of the general crisis affecting the western provinces of the Roman Empire but also stemmed from their initial focus on the practical dimensions of Christian existence. Finally, thirdly, the particular veneration of martyrdom, understood as a second baptism, was also shaped by the belief in the importance of a proper physical completion of earthly life. This, in turn, was thought to bring tangible, corporeal heavenly rewards to the material soul in paradise.