Lecture 19: Theological Crisis and Council—Christology
spirit of Jesus within the community is understood as the spirit
of the living God. But to what degree and how immediately did
the mutual shaping of theology and piety occur among Christians
during these centuries?• There is some slight evidence that others than the experts were
passionately involved in the disputes.
o Gregory of Nazianzus suggests that theology was argued on
the street and at parties. Speaking of the disputants, he says,
“every marketplace must buzz with their talking, and every
dinner party be worried to death with silly talk and boredom.”o Gregory of Nyssa notes: “Everywhere ... people would stop
you and discourse at random about the Trinity. If you asked
something of a moneychanger, he would begin discussing the
question of the Begotten and Unbegotten. If you questioned a
baker about the price of bread, he would answer that the Father
is greater and the Son is subordinate to him....”o Cyril of Alexandria rallied monks to exercise pressure in
support of his theological positions through marches in the
streets and even riots.o For the most part, however, the everyday Christian existence
of the nonspecialists was probably little affected. The life
of worship and popular piety sketched earlier undoubtedly
continued to develop, reflected more in architecture, art, and
sermons than in polemical treatises.• Such reminders of the historian’s captivity to available sources
are valuable as a caution against reducing history to a “history of
ideas.” Nevertheless, these disputes, precisely because they had a
permanent effect on subsequent developments, deserve the attention
they receive.