The Catholic University of America Press continues their line, “The Fathers of the Church,” with a second volume dealing with St. Fulgentius of Ruspe. Fulgentius was a bishop in North Africa in the era after Augustine’s death. The selection of writings here regards the correspondence of Christology and grace in this crucial period of the Church’s history. Between the years AD 519 and 523, Fulgentius received and responded to letters from a group of monks from Scythia. Both sides of the correspondence, the monks’ inquiry and the bishop’s response, provide a robust glimpse at how the Church understood orthodoxy in this age. The bulk of the writings in this volume have been translated for the first time, allowing a broader audience to glean insights from this helpful dialogue.

What becomes clear in this volume is that grace and Christology were recognized as “two-sides of the same coin” and not independent theological issues. As the translators point out, both Christology and grace are concerned to properly relate the divine and human. Fulgentius, in his response to the monks and his treatise The Truth about Predestination and Grace (also included in this volume), explicitly links his understanding of grace and Christology, such that one cannot be understood without the other. This is particularly important for the translators, particularly Donald Fairbairn, whose earlier work, Grace and Christology in the Early Church (OUP, 2003), argues for an explicit connection between these two doctrines (focusing on how Cyril responds to heretical notions of Christology, and then tracing that trajectory to Cassian). For Fairbairn, rightly I believe, to understand the ancient debates on Christology necessitates a proper grasp of their doctrine of grace. Furthermore, equally imperative, is not simply to think about these debates as interesting history, but to allow their insights to help form our own conceptions of these crucial doctrines.

Included in this volume are translations of the “Letter from the Scythian Monks to the Bishops” (Ep. 16), “Fulgentius’s First Letter to the Scythian Monks” (Ep. 17), “Fulgentius’s Second Letter to the Scythian Monks” (Ep. 15), and “Fulgentius’s The Truth About Predestination and Grace. Included as appendices are, The Chapters of John Maxentius Compiled Against the Nestorians and the Pelagians for the Satisfaction of the Brothers, and A Very Brief Confession of the Catholic Faith by the Same Author (John Maxentius). John Maxentius was one of the Scythian monks, and his Twelve Chapters was the document that raised questions concerning the monks’ orthodoxy. Specifically, Maxentius claimed, “one of the Trinity was crucified in the flesh” (p. 17). As the translators point out in the introduction, the issues were probably more political than theological, and was unnecessarily confused because “in the flesh” was dropped from Maxentius’s claim when this dispute was reported to the Pope, making it look like the monks failed to distinguish between the Son’s suffering in his human nature compared to his divine nature (p. 17). Because of various attacks against the monks’ orthodoxy (and motivation), they wrote to Fulgentius to hear a response to their theology from the exiled bishops. Fulgentius affirms the monks’ belief in Christology and grace. While the monks did not convince the prevailing leadership that their view was the orthodox view, they won the day nonetheless at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II, 553).

The works themselves are very well translated and readable. The letters are not lengthy, but are tightly-packed doctrinal treatises nonetheless. In Maxentius’s two works at the end of the volume, and the monks’ original letter, the reader is given a glimpse of a tightly ordered affirmation of the faith. At times, as odd as it may sound, I had to remind myself I wasn’t reading Calvin! The introduction provides a helpful overview of the relevant theological disputes, as well as the actual texts translated, placing the works in a broad movement of political and theological issues. Overall, this is obviously an important work for patristic scholars to engage, but I think it would prove fruitful for seminary classes as well in historical and systematic theology. The readability of the texts, and their length, would allow for accessible historical material to supplement classes that primarily utilize secondary texts. Furthermore, the connection between Christology and grace, so central to the early Church’s theology, would prove fruitful in the training of pastors and future theologians.

---