Texts of power: Prescription, description, and the rhetoric of early Christianity
Photograph by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova via Unsplash
Rev. Jonah Bissell
As a practicing Baptist minister and a budding scholar of early Christianity, I was thrilled to recently lead my church in a twelve-week study of the apostolic fathers. While the subject is valuable in its own right, introducing it to my church at this particular moment allowed us to reflect upon the relationship between power and rhetoric throughout Christian history.
Specialists working on early Christianity have a wealth of literary sources at their disposal. It is remarkable that we even have in our possession copies of texts written from this period. The fact that we can access these documents makes for an exhilarating experience in the writing of Christian history. Some scholars in their reconstruction of these centuries, however, rely (almost) exclusively on such sources.
The problem is: the literary sources from this period (especially the fourth-sixth centuries) largely present the perspectives of elite authors who held a significant degree of social, economic, and political power. Not only do these sources – written by Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, and others – represent a slender slice of the ancient Christian movement, they reflect the interests and perspectives of those in power, whose rhetoric was not always innocent.
Those who had the capacity and resources to produce texts that were disseminated, used, copied, and passed down, represent a very slim portion of the total population of ancient Christians. Documents penned almost exclusively by elite Christians, and sometimes sponsored by imperial officials or the emperor himself, almost always present a prescriptive rather than descriptive view of religious reality.[i]
Given this fact, one of the most rewarding features of this class consisted in our discussion of description versus prescription in early Christianity. This was one of the primary lessons gleaned from our study of this period. And it’s a point that remains unacknowledged in far too many congregations today.
To describe (Latin: de + scribere) is to “write down”: to depict a given phenomenon in words, including all available details, qualities, or characteristics. To prescribe (Latin: prae + scribere) is to “write before”: to advise how something ought to be.
Studying ancient Christian texts reveals that Christians then and now need discernment, to deconstruct the written (and spoken) messages of the powerful and well-positioned in society.
While some may argue with this point, the literature traditionally designated “patristic” (having to do with the Apostolic Fathers) can be characterized as largely prescriptive, not descriptive.
What this means is that the documents often thought to describe what ancient Christians were really like (i.e., texts written by Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.), were written rather to tell ancient Christians what their Christianity should be like.
That these writings even exist from a period in which access to parchment, ink, and scribal labor was not universal, is itself evidence of a prescriptive impulse: the authors wrote not merely to record but to shape how readers would think and act.
Where this lesson hits the ground for an American Baptist congregation seeking Christ’s guidance today, is in the relationship between popular rhetoric and lived reality. In our current technological moment, which affords vast, instantaneous information transfer, the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive rhetoric is vitally important. Media pundits, political officials, Christian leaders, and others, take to social media, online news platforms, and other digital forums, espousing viewpoints in the guise of description which are really just attempts to prescribe.
Throughout our congregation’s study of this period, we engaged rhetoric from the Christian past critically, setting their apparent descriptions against ancient on-the-ground realities suggested by other disciplines, including archaeology, papyrology, epigraphy, and material culture studies. At various points, we saw the Apostolic Fathers deploy rhetoric, which they claim describes the ancient church, but which, upon further analysis, prescribed a certain vision of church, for distinct ideological and political purposes.
Through this journey, we came to see how power can be wielded through written media, and how with enough privilege, influence, and resources, one’s prescriptions can become reality. Over the course of our study, it became clear that Christians then and now need discernment, to deconstruct the written (and spoken) messages of the powerful and well-positioned in society. Messaging from Christian leaders, political pundits, and other national personalities may purport to describe reality, but functions instead to prescribe a certain vision of the world. Rather than trusting all rhetoric or resisting it as empty propaganda, we must practice critical discernment in community, grasping the reality which often lies close at hand.
Rev. Jonah Bissell serves as teaching pastor at First Baptist Church of Freeport, Maine (ABC-USA). He is also a Ph.D. student in Religion at Boston University, specializing in Religions of the ancient Mediterranean world.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).
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